I was getting pretty bored: Eroak was piloting a walker, and he was just standing still, not shooting, for the last 30 seconds. I was in the gunner seat, unstimulated, and ready to bail. Just then, Eroak stepped forward, and *barely* missed an EMP/OS combo. Right after, a maniacal giggle escaped from him, and he explained that he was baiting the enemy CO. Eroak was standing still, waiting, and looking in external views for the tell-tale sign of the EMP strike -- shimmering ground. Then, he simply walked forward, missed the EMP/Orbital, and was free for the next two minutes or so.

The first time I'd seen him do that, I thought it was the most clever thing ever. It just made me smile.

So, I meant to write a thread about clever armor tricks like that, but the more I thought about the whole thing, the more it became clear to me that what I really wanted to speak about was clever things in general. I think it's absolutely *fascinating* how clever and intelligent some of these tricks are. And I thought about it some more, and what it really came down to was simple: all these clever tricks simply counter a pattern.

A few months ago, I assaulted STC on Cerbere with a jeep. Usual start-of-round stuff: grab a jeep, drive like a madman to South Town, bail before the mines, and let your squad spawn in. I'd done that a lot of times, and it worked just fine.

So, I spawn in, grab a jeep, grab anoher TG SL (ho ho! this is going to be great!), gun the gas, and blast off up the hill toward South Town. I'm aware, looking for mines, EMP mines, live rorsches and I see nothing. I'm on the hill climbing toward STC, no mines in sight, but I'm ready to bail when -- BAM!
There goes Zhohar, flying through the air, there goes the other SL, there goes our buggy ...
|TG| Lyramion [RDX] |TG| Zhohar

I never felt that infuriated before. I was so ready to make an awesome round-start, and it all turned to rubble because Lyra had to be a jerk and put RDX on the road. After I had calmed down a little, I realized that the RDX is exactly what I had deserved. I was running a pattern, I was predictable, and I was stale: it served me right to botch the initial assault on Cerbere if I was doing stupid things like that.

That's just it there: clever things counter a pattern.

What happens at every start of round on Suez PAC? A smart TG SL takes a jeep, goes north of Oil, and spawns his people in on Trash Dump or Outter Bridge.
That's a pattern

So, a few weeks ago, at round-start, I grab a jeep myself off Trash dump, get two SMs to spawn in, one with PDS in F3 (to repair), and the other support with IDS on the Jeep. I gun it straight toward north of Trash -- toward those sniper towers -- and sure enough, a jeep with a TG SL is zooming by. We give chase, and we shoot down their jeep. SL bails, but we shoot him down too. There goes their round-start push That felt better than killing 20 pubbies. Because you know you've bested, fair and square, someone very smart. That's the greatest feeling ever.

So, this is a thread for sharing:
a) patterns, and
b) clever things to counter those patterns.

You'll notice that all of those stories had a TGer in it. Pubbies are often more concerned with firefights than they are about doing clever things, patterns and such. This is why I like playing on TG so much: there are smart people, they're willing to do smart things, and this opens the opportunity for besting those smart people. It's so much more satisfying to outsmart someone than to simply point a mouse and click more accurately than them.

So, about these patterns.
1. Patterns are ran because they are succesful.
2. If we here create smart counters, pattern-runners will be forced to adapt.
3. This leads to more cerebral game-play, more interesting patterns, evolution, adaptation, fun fun fun!

Here we go:

Pattern: PAC tanks standing still, far away from flags, shelling.
Counter: Recon kit with cloak and RDX -- it's easy to sneak up on them because they are focusing far away. (Mr. Jengles on me)

Pattern: PAC Squad Leader capturing Command on Cerbere orders his SMs to capture the flag, while he's safe in the back as a spawn point.
Counter: Let one person throw grenades in the back, to kill the SL first. Use grenades to camp his body and prevent a revive.

Pattern: When Titan consoles are blown quickly, almost all of the team quickly rushes back to their Titan.
Counter: If you find resistance on the enemy titan, get off it and capture silos.

Pattern: PAC APC is used for SL rushes on Berlin.
Counter: Cloak behind it, and Pillum it with two spawning SMs at round-start.

Pattern: EU APC on Berlin stops a lot of PAC infantry pushes at round start.
Counter: EMP/OS the EU APC on Outpost as soon as the round starts. This buys the PAC additional 60 seconds until EU gets the APC again.

Now, these are all things I just came up with off the top of my head. They're simple, basic, and everyone knows about them. Let's get some variation in here!
Think about it:

1. As a squad leader, what do you always do in a certain situation? What do you do at round-start on Cerbere? What do you always do in a certain set of circumstances?
2. How can you best counter that? When is it the execution of that pattern most vulnerable? When can you best nip it in the bud?
3. Are there things that you couldn't counter, no matter how far in advance you knew about them? What kinds of things are those? Why are you a dirty, defeatist communist?

Force smart people to evolve. Exploit people who take the safe route of "this has worked before" instead of being constantly aware and constantly adapting.