How To Improve as a Team, From MLGpro
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Just for the record i did not write this but i found it and thought that it should most definitely be posted here on xiled gaming
Evolving as a Team
This is quite a lengthy article that I am sure will span numerous posts as I write it - thus, I feel that few will take the time to read it. Thus, I shall address these people with a quote from Aldous Huxley "Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted." His quote applies here simply because few will read this article, and even fewer will learn from it. Those who do are the ones who triumph and shall beat out those who dwell in indolence. Should this article help but one individual, then I feel my time spent writing it is well worth it. With that said, I appologize if it seems like I am jumping around, or if some things are not addressed in as much detail as they deserve. I shall amend this as time goes on and as I receive constructive comments.
Directed towards fools who think this is an "elaborate ruse to get +rep" (not mentioning any names... MEATWAD!):
Do you think I care about "+rep" when I wrote it:
a) In January (check the date by following the link to "The MLG PwnCast")
b) On a site that does not USE the rep system
Well?
Before I begin this article I would like to address a question that many of you will undoubtedly have. Who am I, and why am I qualified to write this guide? If I were in your shoes I would be asking the exact same question.
Its a simple answer - I'm a nobody. I've never attended an MLG event (yet) and I don't come in first when it comes to the individual skill department. What qualifies me to write this is my mentality. I look at competitive Halo as a game of chess. It takes a strong mind to win.
That's what I have - a strong mind. When I play I think. Sure, sometimes it gets me killed, but it almost always helps my team. If thats not enough for you, keep reading and then use your head. Does what I say make sense? Yes?
The Beginnings of a Team
The moment you go to the classifieds section of MLGPro you're treated to dozens of people looking for a team. You have to sort out who you want. Even if you already have a few guys you want to play with you need to eye them up. Determine if they have what it takes.
All too often this means a 1v1 when it comes to tryouts. Maybe, if you're lucky, a FFA. Then, they'll throw one or two team games into the mix to see how you react. Very rarely will you see a team that plays with you for a week or two and analyzes everything you do. Very rarely do you see a team that looks at how you've performed in the past, how you've improved, and where you're going. Why? Because it takes time and thought and most kids are too brain-dead to do so. With that said I've created a list of what I feel makes a strong team. I've made this by looking at the top teams and the top players.
The personalities of the people on your team are what make your team. They are the foundation over which everything else is built. However, this foundation is often neglected. Its like they just throw the house down on the side of the hill and hope for the best. Teams like this crumble the same way that house will.
If the personalities are the foundation, then their minds are most definitely the walls. Learning how someone uses their mind is tricky - you have to see how they react in situations. Do they stick to strategy? Do they break that strategy when its necessary? Do they try and formulate the strategies mid-game if one thats agreed upon in the beginning does not work? This is a judgement issue for you and the rest of your team to consider. A person that one team feels is weak mentally may be strong to another or vice versa.
Communication serves as the first floor. It is extremely important in the fact that a house without a floor isn't going anywhere in life. A team without communication will *never* succeed. It will fail. I've written up a comprehensive communication guide in a later page, but here's a quick prime anyhow. A good communicator realizes what is necessary and what is not. He knows what to say. For instance, where the enemy is, what they're doing, and where they're going. Precisely. In as few words as possible. KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid!).
Backing each other up is something that I consider extremely important. Its like the insulation of a house - keeping it nice and livable inside. However, different teams have different views on this. Some, like Team 3D will almost always have at least two BR's on one guy so that the chances are they'll trade 1 for 1 or, more likely, kill the other guy without a loss. While other teams, such as iGS use a more individual technique. They go for straight up 1v1 battles a lot of the time. On some maps this is what sets them apart from other teams in an unimaginable way.
However, on other maps, like Warlock, it shoots them in the foot. It stabs them in the back. Against teams like 3D, where they'll always have numerous BR's on anyone, iGS can easily get destroyed. They're amazing, but one man is no match for multiple BRs.
Individual skill. Its the roof for Halo 2. Its what closes a house, and thus a team, in from the cold. Its the icing on the cake. While a team can certainly fair well with excellent teamwork, but poor individual skill, it will get utterly raped by teams with amazing teamwork AND individual skill.
You shouldn't pickup that MM noob who gets destroyed in team training every game, but you certainly shouldn't just count them out based on that alone. There are other factors. All to often people are measurebators, or kids who do nothing but stare at stats in games. If your ratio isn't x.xx, then you suck. If you don't have x assists, you suck.
Grow up - don't be measurebators! In MLG LAN tournaments, many a times a top player will go negative, but what the stats don't show is their contribution. Sure, maybe you went -12 in a Ball game, or maybe even worse. But what that ratio doesn't show are the clutch moves you made in game. Maybe you were able to kill the guys on the alley and in the window during a game, thus helping your team get over there and completely shift map control to your team. Stats don't show that and all too often people are judged poorly based on that alone. Use other criteria kids!
As you can see there are numerous factors that contribute to a person being good for a team. I've given broad examples and broad definitions. Its up to you, and your teammates, to determine what is acceptable for you and what is not, as well as defining things for your team further. After doing so you can start on the next thing - getting started together.
Discussion and the great round table
After you manage to get your "final four," you start playing together. As you realize what each person's strengths and weaknesses are, you should have each person pegged pretty well. You'll start to realize what they do in a given situation. As time goes on, this is developed even further. You realize that Player X is an awesome sniper but cannot be an objective guy at all. As you realize this, it is time to start evolved.
Start out by charting out the strengths and weaknesses for everyone on your team. Find out what each person sucks with and what he is good at. Then sit down at a "round table discussion" and get the issues out there. Once someone realizes their mistakes and things they should improve upon, they will start to do just that - improve. If I were to tell you that you were afraid of an objective item every single time we played, that its hurting the team, and that you should work on working with the objective when the opportunity presents itself (for instance - even with the entire team dead you won't pick up the ball), what would you do?
At first, if you weren't open-minded and willing to improve, you'd pout. You'd call me a bastard and wish me to hell. You'd quit the team. Okay - it seems a little far fetched, but in all honesty it is not. I've been teamed with people who later quit all because I'd point out their flaws (and they didn't realize that I was doing them a favor, nor did they point out mine). They'd sit there and deflect them saying that the rest of the team wasn't doing what we were supposed to do or that we weren't backing this moron up. Then, when a bunch of kids willing to ride his **** came along, he left us high and dry, thus screwing us over. I tell this story only because its the truth - sometimes people won't be open to constructive criticism. They will take it as an insult.
Its something you have to watch out for and remedy whenever you can. Its not easy to do, but it is something that you HAVE to do. With that said, what constitutes constructive criticism? What should you talk about at your "round table" discussions?
Talk about numerous things, however, I like to consider these things to be important stepping stones:
Individual Skill - I'm not going to say that it makes everything, but its something you have to work on as a team. If someone has a glaring flaw, work with him to correct it. Problems sniping under pressure? Give him a SR and pin him down with BR's during practice in real-game situations to get him used to it.
Communication - This is a big one! Help each other out by streamlining and improving each person's communication - it will help you in more ways than you can imagine. Do you yell of dumb things like "88.333 percent charge remaining in my plasma rifle remaining, Captain" or "Doode! My thingamabobber's in trouble"? Or does your teammate? If so TELL them here! Point out those dumb things. Point out what they need to work on! Read the "Communication" page for more information.
Support - Are you the kind of kid that doesn't like to help your teammate out? To double up BR's? Or is your teammate? If so get it out on the table! Talk about it and read the "Support" page
These are just three things you have to talk about. There are many, many others, but they almost always come back to these. If you think I've missed a big one don't hesitate to tell me so in the comments and I'll take care of it!
Remember - the round table discussions (which rock weekly) are times where your team can get better. Another nice thing to have is a common forum to talk about these things at. My team has a hidden one here (and you can't see it).
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Leadership
Wow. Lots of stuff to talk about here - so little space.
Leaders are everywhere. Nearly all teams have a "leader" of some sort. However, they differ in what that leader does. Can you name a leader for TmG? Sure - most likely Zyos - he's a natural-born leader. How about 3D? What - no answer yet? Why?
The answer is simple. Different teams have different thoughts of what a leader should be. Some prefer a dictatorship, where one person is like God for that team. Everything is about him and his(or her) will. Nothing matters but that. While others prefer to have a democracy where the team members make decisions on the fly and the rest of the team acknowledges them and does their best to support hem in whatever way possible.
Hail the one!
Welcome to 1984 - our very own dictatorship (although I'm really twisting the book here as it was more of a socialistic society).
You've got one leader. He makes the decisions. He says "Player x go left! Player y go right!" He cannot be over-ruled - his orders are must be obeyed! However, this has its own set of problems.
While going to one person makes things easier to a point, it also creates problems. When he dies you're a good 10 seconds without leadership, and another 5-10 without it as he gets back into the game. This leads to leadership roles shifting, and a power struggle can ensue from there. The "new" dictator might not want to give up his role, and the two can be guaranteed to disagree on something. When this happens confusion can occur. One leader might want to go all out on offense while the other wants to settle in and make them come to a cute little trap.
These conflicts will confuse team members. What if two go on offense, while the others stay back. Or all go out, while only one stays back? Bingo! Its a problem!
The Republic
Wow - rare. Imagine a team where anyone can make a decision and the team will realize it and adjust accordingly. Where they'll back you up. Where no one has definite power, but instead it lies with all within it? It exists! Look at Team 3D!
I myself am at a loss of words to find an easy way to explain it. Its very, very hard to do because so few teams have this.
Say you're grabbing the bomb on Midship. One of your teammates is in trouble - combo from above . What do you do? Forget the bomb and help him, or get the bomb to the enemy base to arm it since there is only one guy there and you've a few teammates to help you out?
In a republic format, you can leave him alone and risk his death since its for the good of the team and he won't hold a grudge. He'll understand that it was for the GOOD of the team (something my late teammate would never have understood) and thus accept it. However, in a dictatorship you'd have been over there to help him even if it meant forgetting about the bomb. Why? Because you were ordered and you always follow orders! You also knew that your team was good enough so that the guy in trouble would have help - he'd have at least another BR on the combo guy. That way they can trade one for one, or even one for none!
Its so hard to explain that I'm not going to but I will say this - Team 3D is the greatest example out there. Each player can work on their own, but if they need help they've got it. Immediately. However, they also realize when that help is not needed or not worth the price. Like I said - hard to explain. Maybe Team 3D will explain it for us someday soon .
Individual Roles
Whenever you start playing you'll notice that in games you'll take certain roles. Some of these are:
Offense - Offensive players like to take the game to the other team. They'll try and flock to the power weapons/objective item and take the other team by surprise. They'll grab the flags, the weapons, the camo etc. They put up a strong defense by using a strong offense. They try to keep the enemy away from the defense and make the game go faster instead of drawing it out.
Defense - You stay back and protect the flag/items of interest. Whenever you die, a hole is made. All too often people give this to a weak player when they shouldn't - its not to be thought of as something weak. Its an important role and must be treated as such. Another thing I have noticed is that a defender is a lot like a soccer goalie. The best goalies will sometimes come out of the net when worth it in order to defend the goal by doing so(does that make sense). Not all just sit back there and talk to themselves. A defender must act like a soccer goalkeeper! Pick at the enemy as well.
Slayer - The holy grail of roles. Its what everyone wants to do. Kill the other team and keep them on the respawn.
Support - You're weak in the minds of many. You don't have the best ratio or the most kills according to the measurbators, but you're there when people need you. Teammate in trouble? You've already landed a few shots on them. In a game you just really try and force the other team to hide to refresh their shields. Its an important role - if the other team is waiting for their shields to go back up, they won't be attacking your defense!
Objective - You have one goal in life. The ball. The flag. The hill, etc. Its what you want to do!
Objective Support - You're always with the objective guy making sure he lives. If you die, his chances of survival are drastically reduced.
Keep in mind that you can have more than one "role." Mix and match them to find where you're comfortable.
Once you find where you are comfortable, the fun begins. You have to learn that even though you are really comfortable as a slayer, but not nearly as much when it comes to being an objective player, you have to be willing to revolve your roles as the game progresses. If one of the offensive players die on Warlock for instance, what will you do if you're a defender? The answer is simple - wait a couple seconds and head out! When you're pretty much there your teammate will have respawned and taken over your role as a defender. Its the constant revolving of roles that sets a great team apart from a good team. No one "role" is ever without someone in it for long.
This begs the question for many newer teams "well how do we assign roles?" The answer is simple - you don't. You can't. It has always seemed to me that whenever you have roles picked out in advance (Player x gets sword, player y gets sniper etc.) that the game will do everything in its power to prevent you from succeeding. It will spawn you on the opposite side of your base from where you need to be. It will spawn half the enemy team right where you want to go. It wants you to fail. Sure, some might say "Well, that only happens a couple of times. The trade-off is totally worth it!" I ask you - is it? If you're playing in the MLG New York 2005 Season finals, is it? When there is money on the line?
Or even on XBL is it worth it? Worth the tradeoff? I'd say no - no way in hell! Even if there is no money on the line, if you want to be a good team you can't assign roles that are concrete. They are meant to be fluid! They are meant to be changeable! That is why Team 3D and other teams like them are at the pinnacle of competitive Halo!
They don't sit there in the pregame lobby and say "Dan get your butt to snipe tower" or "Dave get that sword." They don't say "hey Tom go do this." Sadly, many other teams do. In the time it takes for someone who spawned down underneath Midship's earth base to get to the sword, 3D will already have map control, thus the sword as well. Especially when there was a guy on your team at Carb 3 who needed to go grab the plasma pistol. This creates a problem - no one is EVER where they want to be when they spawn, and so they start off on a goose chase. Instead, each person knows what their goal is and what to do at each different spawn and it is second nature to them. They know what to do. It really is something rare - too rare.
However, they also realize that there are outside influences. They realize the game isn't perfect. If the sword ..... is at P3 do you really think Saiyan is going to charge up there to go to grab the sword? No! Why? Because they knew that the other team has control of the sword and pink, and they KNOW this almost immediately (which ties into their teamwork). This saves Saiyan's *** as he isn't getting a glowing blade shoved up it. Makes life easier, no?
Its the type of team you want to strive for. But in order to get there you have a LOT of work ahead of you. Literally. Experience is what makes it so that your teammates know what to do no matter what spawn they get. After playing countless games, and ANALYZING them afterwards for a few minutes, you get to realize what you did wrong (off the spawn for instance) and correct it. You also get to learn the tendencies of your other teammates. If you and your team know exactly what each person is going to do in almost any given situation, and can help them by knowing so, you will go far. Very far. However, thats not to say that communication isn't important, because it is.
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Communication
As your life goes on you interact with the people around you with your voice. It is perhaps the single most powerful method of communication that the human race has. Voice has the power to shift people and their opinions. It has more power than anything else could ever even hope to achieve. When Brutus permitted Marcus Antony to speak at Julius Caesar's funeral ceremony, he had no idea what the power of Antony's voice could achieve. In fact, that speech would ultimately lead to the downfall of Brutus.
We are here to teach you how you can take this power and apply it towards video games. More specifically, in Halo 2. So sit back, pull up a glass of milk, and learn about the power of your voice.
Why Communicate?
In MLG team games your survive by one thing. Teamwork. In order to initiate that teamwork, you need to communicate. The benefits of that teamwork are astounding. In fact, a team that communicates efficiently and acts on that information can beat a team that is better individually, but does not communicate. There are a few reasons why you would want to communicate. Let's go through them.
When you communicate the location of an enemy, you and your teammates can combine fire to take them out faster, or at the very least supress them. While your teammates could tell where they are by looking at where you are shooting, it is a much less effective means of finding out where the enemy is.
No matter what gametype (whether it is TS, KoTH, or Sanctuary snipes), you must make sure that your team has a "mental picture" of the map and where the enemies are. This also helps give you an idea as to where the enemies who are dead will spawn.
When you know where every one of your teammates, and enemies, are you are able to attack the enemy stronghold. When you need to attack a fortified position, you have to hit it from many angles all at the same time, while trying to knock down a little section of the wall. For instance, when Team 3D was playing TmG in MLG Philly on Gemini, TmG held the back. They had a sniper on top of the teleporter, one person covering each door (I'm pretty sure each had a combo), and Zyos had the sword in front of the teleporter, literally slashing at the teleporter for nearly five minutes. An impossible situation to beat. However, they still tried. Team 3D took Brute Shots to the doors(of course the doors helped contribute greatly to how impossible this setup was to break) and concentrated on *one* enemy at a time. They tried to punch a hole in the castle walls. While unsuccessful for 3D, this match took great communication on both sides. They had to know everything about each other, and the enemy to be successful. That is what you have to do. Communicate your attacks so that everything happens at the same moment.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of communication is that when one player starts communicating heavily, others will follow. You have the ability to turn your team into a formidable force, even if they are randoms. For instance, in Team Hardcore you have 10 seconds to get some information out to your teammates. I once had a game on Beaver Creek were in 10 seconds my friend and I managed to get our team into shape. We won 3-0 while being completely out-slain. It just goes to show the power of communication.
What should I communicate?
This is a great question to ask. I've made a dandy little list. These are just examples, as there are other things you can communicate as well. What you communicate and how depends on your team. After you become more experience you'll have a set "communication" strategy (and I do consider it a strategy) cooked up. Medium well with some A-1 on the side! Anyhow, here's my awesome list:
The Enemy Here's a big one. You have to communicate where the enemies are, where they're going, and what kinds of weapons they have.
Your Objective I personally consider this extremely important. You need to communicate what kind of status it is (home, away), where it is if its away, if its in imminent danger, how many of your teammates are around it, etc.
Enemy Objective Another important thing. Call out where it is, who is around it (enemy), and communicate a plan of attack to grab it. Do you guys want to spawn lock 'em to carb and run it pink? Then say so!
Power Weapons Even though the game doesn't consider it one, I group the plasma pistol into this category. Call out when they'll respawn, what your ammo counter is, who has what, etc. These are important.
Teammates in Distress Communicate as you move through the map and always have someone who can get their BR onto a guy attacking you. Saying 'help at _location_' is mighty helpful too as you'll get your team's attention. Have your team there to back you up. Can you play the individual game, like iGS for instance? Yes - but the odds aren't in your favor. Especially since you're probably no where near as skilled as them.
Now, once you've gotten an idea of WHAT you can communicate, you have to work on streamlining it. Say someone has the bomb on Midship at Pink 2 and is coming to your base. What would you say? Well, let's say that your team has a combo and a sword.
"Bomb guy coming pink 3 with one other"
Now, what happens next? You've got a combo at Pink 3, while he *should* be able to kill at least one of them, you have to be ready for their push in.
Combo: "I'm waiting for him to pop out pink 2"
Its simple and your team realizes it.
Sword: "Watching our base, shifting carb side"
BR 1: "At Carb 3, two coming this way - BR's"
BR 2: "Coming to help at Carb"
You know know we're they're coming and what kind of weapons they have (all BR's). You also know how many, as well as where your teammates are. This is the kind of communciation you need. Remember, speak into your mic and don't yell. Say it once. Keep it simple. That is how you win. Through communication - do Shakespeare proud.
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Early Team Practices
Someone said to me on AIM that this article was too "philosophical." I say tough. Its that philosophical "crap" that will evolve your team. Anyhow, we're done with that .
The greatest teams practice. Even the new, inexperienced, and young, teams practice. Many times these practices are daily. However, they are sometimes to long. To quote Fonzi in our interview with him "I usually don’t play any more than three hours a night and some nights I don’t even play Halo 2." Why? Because more often than not teams play their 8 hour days and are burnt out every single day! Take breaks (and read our Fonzi interview here).
However, you're a young team. You're new. Fresh. These are 'early' practices. Some of you might be wondering "well what the heck does that mean?" while others are thinking "you're in for one of Bluestrike2's things(you are)." Whenever I look at a young team I'm on our early practices aren't necessarily to build strategy. They're to understand each other. Just talking to my teammates lets me learn a LOT about them - something I enjoy dearly, and so my early practices involve a LOT of talking. Then, we just play Team Hardcore to further learn how we play. We don't really have any strategies, and just want to see how far we can get on raw skill/teamwork without strategy.
Once I've learned my answer we take it to the next level - strategy talk.
Strategy
This is my favorite thing. I'm a strategist in my heart. I enjoy working out strategies and analyzing how different teams react to my strategies.
After you've got each other pegged really well and understood, you can start talking about strategy. I start off by choosing a gametype (one per day) and talking about how we play it. Then we play it in a scrim. Afterwards we analyze our tendencies and start to setup a multiple strategies based on those tendencies.
However, we don't assign roles, weapons, or spots for the most part. Our strategies are meant to be successful with, or without, power weapons for the most part (except maybe Lockout TS). Our strategies also have numerous backups. If we're playing Lockout ball and have just the ball (maybe a combo if we're lucky), we'll setup in a way that minimizes the threat to my teammates from the sniper rifle for instance.
Strategy isn't easy. It's a lot of trial and error. Then, when you think you've got an amazing strategy you turn around and realize that there is a hole. You evolve it.
One thing that not many teams do when they talk about strategy is analyze its weaknesses and learn how to break it. Its something that you have to do so that you don't have a kid shove his BR's stock across your back.
However, I'm not going to tell you how to formulate your own strategies. Its very much an individual thing. The way I do it is hard to explain. TmG might do it differently than me, 3D could do it the same. I don't know. Like I said - its all up to the individual team (maybe you should buy a gaming lesson to help out). I'm not going to tell you how - I'm just going to give you some ideas. That's what strategy talk is all about!
Later Practices
Ah, you've done a lot of strategy talk, eh? What now? Practice! Get scrims (we have a scrim finder here, there is one at MLGPro, and there are some at other sites as well). This is the best way to get better. By playing a better team you can see how they react in a situation and evolve from there.
You can see what they do, and then analyze it. For these kinds of practices we'll mostly just scrim a team or two in a few random gametypes (Vader has an excellent program that I've hosted here that will randomize your gametypes with zero bias or weighting). Then, we'll analyze what we did if while playing and look at how they reacted. I'll write these things down. I also record nearly all of my scrims onto my computer and then render them to smaller Quicktime files that I'll send to the rest of my teammates. Some of my teammates do the same thing (of course I have nearly a terabyte of storage so I can do these things).
Practices mean that you should work to get better. However, by analyzing them at the end and having round-table discussions at the practices you can learn from your mistakes and correct them - all of them.
Please read the great guide to scrimmaging by sdG for a great insight to running a decent, and proper, scrim.
The End
This was a very long article I've touched a lot of subjects, and I plan on going through and making some of them more in-depth as I gather feedback from this article and real life comments. Please, comment below so that I can improve this guide!
To those that thank me: Thank you for reading it - it is most appreciated!
Once again - if but one individual is helped by this, then I have in fact succeeded in my goal.
IF a mod could sticky this.. that would be GREAT!
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Just for the record i did not write this but i found it and thought that it should most definitely be posted here on xiled gaming
Evolving as a Team
This is quite a lengthy article that I am sure will span numerous posts as I write it - thus, I feel that few will take the time to read it. Thus, I shall address these people with a quote from Aldous Huxley "Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted." His quote applies here simply because few will read this article, and even fewer will learn from it. Those who do are the ones who triumph and shall beat out those who dwell in indolence. Should this article help but one individual, then I feel my time spent writing it is well worth it. With that said, I appologize if it seems like I am jumping around, or if some things are not addressed in as much detail as they deserve. I shall amend this as time goes on and as I receive constructive comments.
Directed towards fools who think this is an "elaborate ruse to get +rep" (not mentioning any names... MEATWAD!):
Do you think I care about "+rep" when I wrote it:
a) In January (check the date by following the link to "The MLG PwnCast")
b) On a site that does not USE the rep system
Well?
Before I begin this article I would like to address a question that many of you will undoubtedly have. Who am I, and why am I qualified to write this guide? If I were in your shoes I would be asking the exact same question.
Its a simple answer - I'm a nobody. I've never attended an MLG event (yet) and I don't come in first when it comes to the individual skill department. What qualifies me to write this is my mentality. I look at competitive Halo as a game of chess. It takes a strong mind to win.
That's what I have - a strong mind. When I play I think. Sure, sometimes it gets me killed, but it almost always helps my team. If thats not enough for you, keep reading and then use your head. Does what I say make sense? Yes?
The Beginnings of a Team
The moment you go to the classifieds section of MLGPro you're treated to dozens of people looking for a team. You have to sort out who you want. Even if you already have a few guys you want to play with you need to eye them up. Determine if they have what it takes.
All too often this means a 1v1 when it comes to tryouts. Maybe, if you're lucky, a FFA. Then, they'll throw one or two team games into the mix to see how you react. Very rarely will you see a team that plays with you for a week or two and analyzes everything you do. Very rarely do you see a team that looks at how you've performed in the past, how you've improved, and where you're going. Why? Because it takes time and thought and most kids are too brain-dead to do so. With that said I've created a list of what I feel makes a strong team. I've made this by looking at the top teams and the top players.
The personalities of the people on your team are what make your team. They are the foundation over which everything else is built. However, this foundation is often neglected. Its like they just throw the house down on the side of the hill and hope for the best. Teams like this crumble the same way that house will.
If the personalities are the foundation, then their minds are most definitely the walls. Learning how someone uses their mind is tricky - you have to see how they react in situations. Do they stick to strategy? Do they break that strategy when its necessary? Do they try and formulate the strategies mid-game if one thats agreed upon in the beginning does not work? This is a judgement issue for you and the rest of your team to consider. A person that one team feels is weak mentally may be strong to another or vice versa.
Communication serves as the first floor. It is extremely important in the fact that a house without a floor isn't going anywhere in life. A team without communication will *never* succeed. It will fail. I've written up a comprehensive communication guide in a later page, but here's a quick prime anyhow. A good communicator realizes what is necessary and what is not. He knows what to say. For instance, where the enemy is, what they're doing, and where they're going. Precisely. In as few words as possible. KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid!).
Backing each other up is something that I consider extremely important. Its like the insulation of a house - keeping it nice and livable inside. However, different teams have different views on this. Some, like Team 3D will almost always have at least two BR's on one guy so that the chances are they'll trade 1 for 1 or, more likely, kill the other guy without a loss. While other teams, such as iGS use a more individual technique. They go for straight up 1v1 battles a lot of the time. On some maps this is what sets them apart from other teams in an unimaginable way.
However, on other maps, like Warlock, it shoots them in the foot. It stabs them in the back. Against teams like 3D, where they'll always have numerous BR's on anyone, iGS can easily get destroyed. They're amazing, but one man is no match for multiple BRs.
Individual skill. Its the roof for Halo 2. Its what closes a house, and thus a team, in from the cold. Its the icing on the cake. While a team can certainly fair well with excellent teamwork, but poor individual skill, it will get utterly raped by teams with amazing teamwork AND individual skill.
You shouldn't pickup that MM noob who gets destroyed in team training every game, but you certainly shouldn't just count them out based on that alone. There are other factors. All to often people are measurebators, or kids who do nothing but stare at stats in games. If your ratio isn't x.xx, then you suck. If you don't have x assists, you suck.
Grow up - don't be measurebators! In MLG LAN tournaments, many a times a top player will go negative, but what the stats don't show is their contribution. Sure, maybe you went -12 in a Ball game, or maybe even worse. But what that ratio doesn't show are the clutch moves you made in game. Maybe you were able to kill the guys on the alley and in the window during a game, thus helping your team get over there and completely shift map control to your team. Stats don't show that and all too often people are judged poorly based on that alone. Use other criteria kids!
As you can see there are numerous factors that contribute to a person being good for a team. I've given broad examples and broad definitions. Its up to you, and your teammates, to determine what is acceptable for you and what is not, as well as defining things for your team further. After doing so you can start on the next thing - getting started together.
Discussion and the great round table
After you manage to get your "final four," you start playing together. As you realize what each person's strengths and weaknesses are, you should have each person pegged pretty well. You'll start to realize what they do in a given situation. As time goes on, this is developed even further. You realize that Player X is an awesome sniper but cannot be an objective guy at all. As you realize this, it is time to start evolved.
Start out by charting out the strengths and weaknesses for everyone on your team. Find out what each person sucks with and what he is good at. Then sit down at a "round table discussion" and get the issues out there. Once someone realizes their mistakes and things they should improve upon, they will start to do just that - improve. If I were to tell you that you were afraid of an objective item every single time we played, that its hurting the team, and that you should work on working with the objective when the opportunity presents itself (for instance - even with the entire team dead you won't pick up the ball), what would you do?
At first, if you weren't open-minded and willing to improve, you'd pout. You'd call me a bastard and wish me to hell. You'd quit the team. Okay - it seems a little far fetched, but in all honesty it is not. I've been teamed with people who later quit all because I'd point out their flaws (and they didn't realize that I was doing them a favor, nor did they point out mine). They'd sit there and deflect them saying that the rest of the team wasn't doing what we were supposed to do or that we weren't backing this moron up. Then, when a bunch of kids willing to ride his **** came along, he left us high and dry, thus screwing us over. I tell this story only because its the truth - sometimes people won't be open to constructive criticism. They will take it as an insult.
Its something you have to watch out for and remedy whenever you can. Its not easy to do, but it is something that you HAVE to do. With that said, what constitutes constructive criticism? What should you talk about at your "round table" discussions?
Talk about numerous things, however, I like to consider these things to be important stepping stones:
Individual Skill - I'm not going to say that it makes everything, but its something you have to work on as a team. If someone has a glaring flaw, work with him to correct it. Problems sniping under pressure? Give him a SR and pin him down with BR's during practice in real-game situations to get him used to it.
Communication - This is a big one! Help each other out by streamlining and improving each person's communication - it will help you in more ways than you can imagine. Do you yell of dumb things like "88.333 percent charge remaining in my plasma rifle remaining, Captain" or "Doode! My thingamabobber's in trouble"? Or does your teammate? If so TELL them here! Point out those dumb things. Point out what they need to work on! Read the "Communication" page for more information.
Support - Are you the kind of kid that doesn't like to help your teammate out? To double up BR's? Or is your teammate? If so get it out on the table! Talk about it and read the "Support" page
These are just three things you have to talk about. There are many, many others, but they almost always come back to these. If you think I've missed a big one don't hesitate to tell me so in the comments and I'll take care of it!
Remember - the round table discussions (which rock weekly) are times where your team can get better. Another nice thing to have is a common forum to talk about these things at. My team has a hidden one here (and you can't see it).
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Leadership
Wow. Lots of stuff to talk about here - so little space.
Leaders are everywhere. Nearly all teams have a "leader" of some sort. However, they differ in what that leader does. Can you name a leader for TmG? Sure - most likely Zyos - he's a natural-born leader. How about 3D? What - no answer yet? Why?
The answer is simple. Different teams have different thoughts of what a leader should be. Some prefer a dictatorship, where one person is like God for that team. Everything is about him and his(or her) will. Nothing matters but that. While others prefer to have a democracy where the team members make decisions on the fly and the rest of the team acknowledges them and does their best to support hem in whatever way possible.
Hail the one!
Welcome to 1984 - our very own dictatorship (although I'm really twisting the book here as it was more of a socialistic society).
You've got one leader. He makes the decisions. He says "Player x go left! Player y go right!" He cannot be over-ruled - his orders are must be obeyed! However, this has its own set of problems.
While going to one person makes things easier to a point, it also creates problems. When he dies you're a good 10 seconds without leadership, and another 5-10 without it as he gets back into the game. This leads to leadership roles shifting, and a power struggle can ensue from there. The "new" dictator might not want to give up his role, and the two can be guaranteed to disagree on something. When this happens confusion can occur. One leader might want to go all out on offense while the other wants to settle in and make them come to a cute little trap.
These conflicts will confuse team members. What if two go on offense, while the others stay back. Or all go out, while only one stays back? Bingo! Its a problem!
The Republic
Wow - rare. Imagine a team where anyone can make a decision and the team will realize it and adjust accordingly. Where they'll back you up. Where no one has definite power, but instead it lies with all within it? It exists! Look at Team 3D!
I myself am at a loss of words to find an easy way to explain it. Its very, very hard to do because so few teams have this.
Say you're grabbing the bomb on Midship. One of your teammates is in trouble - combo from above . What do you do? Forget the bomb and help him, or get the bomb to the enemy base to arm it since there is only one guy there and you've a few teammates to help you out?
In a republic format, you can leave him alone and risk his death since its for the good of the team and he won't hold a grudge. He'll understand that it was for the GOOD of the team (something my late teammate would never have understood) and thus accept it. However, in a dictatorship you'd have been over there to help him even if it meant forgetting about the bomb. Why? Because you were ordered and you always follow orders! You also knew that your team was good enough so that the guy in trouble would have help - he'd have at least another BR on the combo guy. That way they can trade one for one, or even one for none!
Its so hard to explain that I'm not going to but I will say this - Team 3D is the greatest example out there. Each player can work on their own, but if they need help they've got it. Immediately. However, they also realize when that help is not needed or not worth the price. Like I said - hard to explain. Maybe Team 3D will explain it for us someday soon .
Individual Roles
Whenever you start playing you'll notice that in games you'll take certain roles. Some of these are:
Offense - Offensive players like to take the game to the other team. They'll try and flock to the power weapons/objective item and take the other team by surprise. They'll grab the flags, the weapons, the camo etc. They put up a strong defense by using a strong offense. They try to keep the enemy away from the defense and make the game go faster instead of drawing it out.
Defense - You stay back and protect the flag/items of interest. Whenever you die, a hole is made. All too often people give this to a weak player when they shouldn't - its not to be thought of as something weak. Its an important role and must be treated as such. Another thing I have noticed is that a defender is a lot like a soccer goalie. The best goalies will sometimes come out of the net when worth it in order to defend the goal by doing so(does that make sense). Not all just sit back there and talk to themselves. A defender must act like a soccer goalkeeper! Pick at the enemy as well.
Slayer - The holy grail of roles. Its what everyone wants to do. Kill the other team and keep them on the respawn.
Support - You're weak in the minds of many. You don't have the best ratio or the most kills according to the measurbators, but you're there when people need you. Teammate in trouble? You've already landed a few shots on them. In a game you just really try and force the other team to hide to refresh their shields. Its an important role - if the other team is waiting for their shields to go back up, they won't be attacking your defense!
Objective - You have one goal in life. The ball. The flag. The hill, etc. Its what you want to do!
Objective Support - You're always with the objective guy making sure he lives. If you die, his chances of survival are drastically reduced.
Keep in mind that you can have more than one "role." Mix and match them to find where you're comfortable.
Once you find where you are comfortable, the fun begins. You have to learn that even though you are really comfortable as a slayer, but not nearly as much when it comes to being an objective player, you have to be willing to revolve your roles as the game progresses. If one of the offensive players die on Warlock for instance, what will you do if you're a defender? The answer is simple - wait a couple seconds and head out! When you're pretty much there your teammate will have respawned and taken over your role as a defender. Its the constant revolving of roles that sets a great team apart from a good team. No one "role" is ever without someone in it for long.
This begs the question for many newer teams "well how do we assign roles?" The answer is simple - you don't. You can't. It has always seemed to me that whenever you have roles picked out in advance (Player x gets sword, player y gets sniper etc.) that the game will do everything in its power to prevent you from succeeding. It will spawn you on the opposite side of your base from where you need to be. It will spawn half the enemy team right where you want to go. It wants you to fail. Sure, some might say "Well, that only happens a couple of times. The trade-off is totally worth it!" I ask you - is it? If you're playing in the MLG New York 2005 Season finals, is it? When there is money on the line?
Or even on XBL is it worth it? Worth the tradeoff? I'd say no - no way in hell! Even if there is no money on the line, if you want to be a good team you can't assign roles that are concrete. They are meant to be fluid! They are meant to be changeable! That is why Team 3D and other teams like them are at the pinnacle of competitive Halo!
They don't sit there in the pregame lobby and say "Dan get your butt to snipe tower" or "Dave get that sword." They don't say "hey Tom go do this." Sadly, many other teams do. In the time it takes for someone who spawned down underneath Midship's earth base to get to the sword, 3D will already have map control, thus the sword as well. Especially when there was a guy on your team at Carb 3 who needed to go grab the plasma pistol. This creates a problem - no one is EVER where they want to be when they spawn, and so they start off on a goose chase. Instead, each person knows what their goal is and what to do at each different spawn and it is second nature to them. They know what to do. It really is something rare - too rare.
However, they also realize that there are outside influences. They realize the game isn't perfect. If the sword ..... is at P3 do you really think Saiyan is going to charge up there to go to grab the sword? No! Why? Because they knew that the other team has control of the sword and pink, and they KNOW this almost immediately (which ties into their teamwork). This saves Saiyan's *** as he isn't getting a glowing blade shoved up it. Makes life easier, no?
Its the type of team you want to strive for. But in order to get there you have a LOT of work ahead of you. Literally. Experience is what makes it so that your teammates know what to do no matter what spawn they get. After playing countless games, and ANALYZING them afterwards for a few minutes, you get to realize what you did wrong (off the spawn for instance) and correct it. You also get to learn the tendencies of your other teammates. If you and your team know exactly what each person is going to do in almost any given situation, and can help them by knowing so, you will go far. Very far. However, thats not to say that communication isn't important, because it is.
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Communication
As your life goes on you interact with the people around you with your voice. It is perhaps the single most powerful method of communication that the human race has. Voice has the power to shift people and their opinions. It has more power than anything else could ever even hope to achieve. When Brutus permitted Marcus Antony to speak at Julius Caesar's funeral ceremony, he had no idea what the power of Antony's voice could achieve. In fact, that speech would ultimately lead to the downfall of Brutus.
We are here to teach you how you can take this power and apply it towards video games. More specifically, in Halo 2. So sit back, pull up a glass of milk, and learn about the power of your voice.
Why Communicate?
In MLG team games your survive by one thing. Teamwork. In order to initiate that teamwork, you need to communicate. The benefits of that teamwork are astounding. In fact, a team that communicates efficiently and acts on that information can beat a team that is better individually, but does not communicate. There are a few reasons why you would want to communicate. Let's go through them.
When you communicate the location of an enemy, you and your teammates can combine fire to take them out faster, or at the very least supress them. While your teammates could tell where they are by looking at where you are shooting, it is a much less effective means of finding out where the enemy is.
No matter what gametype (whether it is TS, KoTH, or Sanctuary snipes), you must make sure that your team has a "mental picture" of the map and where the enemies are. This also helps give you an idea as to where the enemies who are dead will spawn.
When you know where every one of your teammates, and enemies, are you are able to attack the enemy stronghold. When you need to attack a fortified position, you have to hit it from many angles all at the same time, while trying to knock down a little section of the wall. For instance, when Team 3D was playing TmG in MLG Philly on Gemini, TmG held the back. They had a sniper on top of the teleporter, one person covering each door (I'm pretty sure each had a combo), and Zyos had the sword in front of the teleporter, literally slashing at the teleporter for nearly five minutes. An impossible situation to beat. However, they still tried. Team 3D took Brute Shots to the doors(of course the doors helped contribute greatly to how impossible this setup was to break) and concentrated on *one* enemy at a time. They tried to punch a hole in the castle walls. While unsuccessful for 3D, this match took great communication on both sides. They had to know everything about each other, and the enemy to be successful. That is what you have to do. Communicate your attacks so that everything happens at the same moment.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of communication is that when one player starts communicating heavily, others will follow. You have the ability to turn your team into a formidable force, even if they are randoms. For instance, in Team Hardcore you have 10 seconds to get some information out to your teammates. I once had a game on Beaver Creek were in 10 seconds my friend and I managed to get our team into shape. We won 3-0 while being completely out-slain. It just goes to show the power of communication.
What should I communicate?
This is a great question to ask. I've made a dandy little list. These are just examples, as there are other things you can communicate as well. What you communicate and how depends on your team. After you become more experience you'll have a set "communication" strategy (and I do consider it a strategy) cooked up. Medium well with some A-1 on the side! Anyhow, here's my awesome list:
The Enemy Here's a big one. You have to communicate where the enemies are, where they're going, and what kinds of weapons they have.
Your Objective I personally consider this extremely important. You need to communicate what kind of status it is (home, away), where it is if its away, if its in imminent danger, how many of your teammates are around it, etc.
Enemy Objective Another important thing. Call out where it is, who is around it (enemy), and communicate a plan of attack to grab it. Do you guys want to spawn lock 'em to carb and run it pink? Then say so!
Power Weapons Even though the game doesn't consider it one, I group the plasma pistol into this category. Call out when they'll respawn, what your ammo counter is, who has what, etc. These are important.
Teammates in Distress Communicate as you move through the map and always have someone who can get their BR onto a guy attacking you. Saying 'help at _location_' is mighty helpful too as you'll get your team's attention. Have your team there to back you up. Can you play the individual game, like iGS for instance? Yes - but the odds aren't in your favor. Especially since you're probably no where near as skilled as them.
Now, once you've gotten an idea of WHAT you can communicate, you have to work on streamlining it. Say someone has the bomb on Midship at Pink 2 and is coming to your base. What would you say? Well, let's say that your team has a combo and a sword.
"Bomb guy coming pink 3 with one other"
Now, what happens next? You've got a combo at Pink 3, while he *should* be able to kill at least one of them, you have to be ready for their push in.
Combo: "I'm waiting for him to pop out pink 2"
Its simple and your team realizes it.
Sword: "Watching our base, shifting carb side"
BR 1: "At Carb 3, two coming this way - BR's"
BR 2: "Coming to help at Carb"
You know know we're they're coming and what kind of weapons they have (all BR's). You also know how many, as well as where your teammates are. This is the kind of communciation you need. Remember, speak into your mic and don't yell. Say it once. Keep it simple. That is how you win. Through communication - do Shakespeare proud.
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Early Team Practices
Someone said to me on AIM that this article was too "philosophical." I say tough. Its that philosophical "crap" that will evolve your team. Anyhow, we're done with that .
The greatest teams practice. Even the new, inexperienced, and young, teams practice. Many times these practices are daily. However, they are sometimes to long. To quote Fonzi in our interview with him "I usually don’t play any more than three hours a night and some nights I don’t even play Halo 2." Why? Because more often than not teams play their 8 hour days and are burnt out every single day! Take breaks (and read our Fonzi interview here).
However, you're a young team. You're new. Fresh. These are 'early' practices. Some of you might be wondering "well what the heck does that mean?" while others are thinking "you're in for one of Bluestrike2's things(you are)." Whenever I look at a young team I'm on our early practices aren't necessarily to build strategy. They're to understand each other. Just talking to my teammates lets me learn a LOT about them - something I enjoy dearly, and so my early practices involve a LOT of talking. Then, we just play Team Hardcore to further learn how we play. We don't really have any strategies, and just want to see how far we can get on raw skill/teamwork without strategy.
Once I've learned my answer we take it to the next level - strategy talk.
Strategy
This is my favorite thing. I'm a strategist in my heart. I enjoy working out strategies and analyzing how different teams react to my strategies.
After you've got each other pegged really well and understood, you can start talking about strategy. I start off by choosing a gametype (one per day) and talking about how we play it. Then we play it in a scrim. Afterwards we analyze our tendencies and start to setup a multiple strategies based on those tendencies.
However, we don't assign roles, weapons, or spots for the most part. Our strategies are meant to be successful with, or without, power weapons for the most part (except maybe Lockout TS). Our strategies also have numerous backups. If we're playing Lockout ball and have just the ball (maybe a combo if we're lucky), we'll setup in a way that minimizes the threat to my teammates from the sniper rifle for instance.
Strategy isn't easy. It's a lot of trial and error. Then, when you think you've got an amazing strategy you turn around and realize that there is a hole. You evolve it.
One thing that not many teams do when they talk about strategy is analyze its weaknesses and learn how to break it. Its something that you have to do so that you don't have a kid shove his BR's stock across your back.
However, I'm not going to tell you how to formulate your own strategies. Its very much an individual thing. The way I do it is hard to explain. TmG might do it differently than me, 3D could do it the same. I don't know. Like I said - its all up to the individual team (maybe you should buy a gaming lesson to help out). I'm not going to tell you how - I'm just going to give you some ideas. That's what strategy talk is all about!
Later Practices
Ah, you've done a lot of strategy talk, eh? What now? Practice! Get scrims (we have a scrim finder here, there is one at MLGPro, and there are some at other sites as well). This is the best way to get better. By playing a better team you can see how they react in a situation and evolve from there.
You can see what they do, and then analyze it. For these kinds of practices we'll mostly just scrim a team or two in a few random gametypes (Vader has an excellent program that I've hosted here that will randomize your gametypes with zero bias or weighting). Then, we'll analyze what we did if while playing and look at how they reacted. I'll write these things down. I also record nearly all of my scrims onto my computer and then render them to smaller Quicktime files that I'll send to the rest of my teammates. Some of my teammates do the same thing (of course I have nearly a terabyte of storage so I can do these things).
Practices mean that you should work to get better. However, by analyzing them at the end and having round-table discussions at the practices you can learn from your mistakes and correct them - all of them.
Please read the great guide to scrimmaging by sdG for a great insight to running a decent, and proper, scrim.
The End
This was a very long article I've touched a lot of subjects, and I plan on going through and making some of them more in-depth as I gather feedback from this article and real life comments. Please, comment below so that I can improve this guide!
To those that thank me: Thank you for reading it - it is most appreciated!
Once again - if but one individual is helped by this, then I have in fact succeeded in my goal.
IF a mod could sticky this.. that would be GREAT!
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