You may have new gizmos, gadgets and toys to play with but the map SF Sandstorm has come out stating, "I don't care if it's the holiday season. I am up next on the Open League schedule and I plan to take up plenty of team's free time!" Sandstorm declined to comment further while simply mumbling "Bah Humbug." To this end I caught up with Blu1ce from team Project X (pX) to discuss the ins and outs of taking Sandstorm to town for getting in the way of the holidays.
This was one of the harder interviews I have had to do as I had to get Blu to give me some of pX's wisdom without giving away too much. It's not surprising that they may want to keep things a bit tight given pX's current performance. As well as being one of the 3 undefeated teams in their division, they are also undefeated in the 2 ladders that they are currently participating in (although they face Red Dawn, an Invite team, next so this may change.) Blu himself is one of pX's three team leaders (along with Bender and Nico) as well as having spent the last month as a Match Observer (MO) for TWL. This is what he had to say about SF Sandstorm:
Imp|TWL: Surely you remember when you first played on Sandstorm right? Probably died a lot and learned as you played. I know I did. What is the one thing you wish you had known about the map when you were still green on it?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: I wish I knew that Bravo is the key to the entire map. It is like Mountain Pass. You take CP and you control the map basically.
Imp|TWL: I have always found East to be a bit easier. Why do you think that is?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: East is considered Defense by Twl's standards and is easier because coming in from the West, your trapped and do not have the option to go straight to the roofs at Bravo. With the 2 of 3 objectives [rule], you can't South camp on West so your basically forced to assault.
This is what West sees when assaulting Bravo, the center objective. Little cover to the back providing poor retreat options as well as fairly risky entrances to the objective. Sandstorm is a unique map in that it is considered an indoors map due to the fierce CQB where most of the fighting takes place but forces players to fight in open dirt fields with sparse cover. Furthermore players in the open fields are not given any range advantage with the sandstorm reducing visibility. Given that West usually takes and holds south as their "home base" and East usually takes and holds north as theirs, the setup at Bravo gives east a significant advantage.
Imp|TWL: But there are roofs on west to climb, 3 of em to be exact. Single seperate buildings actually.
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Yes thats true. But you can't cover the objectives from those roofs. Their pretty useless unless you plan on using them as random camp points. But if you want to secure Bravo or Charlie [north], your forced to take on East's Bravo roofs. And as a rule of thumb, whoever has the high ground usually has the advantage. In an all out rush west will reach this point in the doorway just a few seconds after east will. This poses a problem for the assaulting team given the number of different places an opfor may already be. However if you look at the two pictures below you will see that east in a similar rush will not only be easily able to see any west rusher silhouetted in one of the few entry points but will also able to use the roofs as a point to further increase the number of directions from which to cover the obj. The largest advantage of this is that East has viable safe fallback routes from almost every position. This is not to mention the advantage of the a joined central room. Blu was kind enough to explain the work arounds on this.
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Well in Sandstorm, your sound is tested to its utmost potential. With the sand blowing so loudly, it makes it almost impossible to hear footsteps unless their within a short range of you. You can still hear gunfire pretty well, but most well organized teams do not give away their positions unless they intend to kill. Execution in our eyes is timing. When to assault, in what positions to assault, and who is covering who as you assault.
These views are from east low and high respectively. They have plenty of time to get to a point and set up for the opfor. The question is, why is Bravo so important. Why is Bravo usually the key to controlling the map when only 2 of 3 objectives are needed in League play? In pX's opinion, the Objective rule actually enhances Bravo's importance.
Imp|TWL: What about the Objective rule? How do you feel the need to only take 2 of 3 affects league play as opposed to other competition?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Its a great idea. It forces movement among both sides. It doesn't focus on having just a camp on one objective as West would obviously be able to do on south. Because they can not just camp out South or Camp out Central, it forces teams to know the map alot better then just 1 or 2 camp spots. Anyone can practice camping 1 spot for days. But it takes a lot of dedication to get timing and execution down on an entire map. pX's assault is based on timing and execution
Imp|TWL: When you rush center, you will reach the objective wall about 2 seconds slower than they will reach their side. This is the same for the center cairn just to the south and central room just to the north. Usually a firefight through the windows ensue. They have the height advantage, cover advantage, and back wall retreat advantage. How does pX usually plan for this?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Flashes can be your new best friend when you need to rush central. Attempting to use your flashes depends on you, the player, but they are essential if you want to overtake central. If it does not blind them, it at least handicaps their sound further where you can afford to move out without being followed.
With Bravo being the key to the map and west being at such a disadvantage when attempting to take the central objective, it would appear that a match of like skilled teams would always result in a defensive win short of a rare lucky event. Blu, however, says that Sandstorm is no where near as easy to predict as, say, Bridge.
Imp|TWL: Obviously you have to hit south and dig in immediately but what about center/north. How much flexibility do you think a team has for deciding which of those two to hit and where? How much flexibility is there in method?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Well it all depends on the other team. Exactly how much pressure they seem to give on a specific objective. If there is a great amount of pressure on central, give them central and place emphasis on north. And in terms of emphasis on south, yes you want to guard south because that is your "base." But once again, it all depends on how the other team approaches it. This is a very difficult and complex question, but the short of it is, if the other team is aggressive, you attempt to explore their weakness. Whether it would be to camp it out or wait for them to make a mistake. This game is all about mistakes. Whoever capatilizes on the most mistakes usually comes out on top.
Imp|TWL: But can you really afford to camp it out when they can get to 2 of the obj's faster?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Depends on how many guys you have left and so forth. Because the rule states you need 2 of 3, *generally* no. But there needs to be taken into account the number of players you have left, how much time you have and how aggressive have they have been...we like to feel out the other team and respond to how they approach the situation.
Imp|TWL: Give em enough rope to hang themselves with eh?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Pretty much.
North (Charlie) is often considered East's home base and provides a good view of west's buildings for easy defense. Charlie's blind side is also covered by Bravo which if East loses control of, ends the match due to the Objective rule so a blind flank is not much of an issue. While West has a height advantage, their second floor provides little cover and silhouettes them to East. It also does not allow for advancement toward the objective itself. While assaulting North would seem to be a last minute ditch effort, as Blu mentioned, pressure on Charlie is an option for West and something East should not take lightly.
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: In the case of the North question, yes they get to north quicker, and yes they do have a lot of open ground to cover. But thats not necessarily a good thing. North has multiple entrances that you can take against it. You don't need to necessarily use the access point from spawn to assault it. You can back door the team comming from eastern spawn, you can use smokes to throw off their camp. You can do a number of things. So just because they get there first, and have a lot of space to roam, does not necessarily mean its a good thing. It just means they have a lot more to cover and can be hit from multiple angles.
As we can see from this overhead of West's point of view, the blind side (upper right corner of the map) is walled by bravo. There is also plenty of open ground with little cover between the two buildings or the wall crevice and the building. However with proper timing North can be taken with an open side flank (thats the far north sand dunes that are left of the picture here.) Earlier Blu mentioned that pX was all about proper execution. I asked him to elaborate on the extent of this.
Imp|TWL: You meantioned correct communication before. Obviously a brief bit of chatter is desired so as not to affect game sounds. Exactly how brief do you guys make it? And do you guys ever use radio commands or hand signals?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: Well we try keeping communication to a minimal usage of words. Our rule is 3 words or less. I understand that in some cases and maps, that is impossible but that is the general rule that we attempt to incorporate. And a majority of the time, the players adhere to it so it seems to work pretty well. And no we do not use written commands or radio commands for the obvious reason that every time you message or give a radio message, your player emits a sound thus giving away your position. No, thats what we have comms for...It is difficult using the proper commands for them [hand signals], and if you bind them to specific actions, it may get misread.
Imp|TWL: You mentioned earlier at how much your sound was tested, is this another aspect of compensation?
[TWL-MO]Blu1ce20: (Yes) You compensate by having great communication. Everyone misses details from time to time. But if you have someone giving you support through communication and it is the right type of communication, it acts as a heavy compensation for the loss of a sense. And the right type of communication involves only stating the necessary messages that would assist your teammates. Unnecessary coms such as chatting and so forth about you dieing will not aid anyone.
In this situation, proper communication between a teammate in the West Charlie building and a teammate far to the north flanking Charlie from the dunes can allow the perpendicular lines of fire to draw out and eliminate entranced Charlie defenders. Timing, of course has to be in sync with Bravo's actions so as to prevent reinforcement. This merely scratches the surface of a map that many players erroneously label "predictable." With such a troublesome map scheduled, many teams are going to have to take a break from their Christmas goodies and log in some good skirmish time to be prepared.
I would like to just state to the rest of the teams that Open is meant to be fun. A lot of new teams and a lot of veteran players with new teams. Regardless of the outcome, in terms of record, do not forget to keep in mind that it's all about fun...of course, come prepared or don't come at all -- [TWL-MO]Blu1ce20
Post edited by Imp! at 1/4/2006 4:32:12 PM
Imp!|TWL
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