CAUTION: This is a lot of information!
First and foremost, going into escalation you need to have awareness. Awareness is THE key to winning escalation. i dont know if escalation can be played immediately or only after a certain level but it should be the latter. the minimum for this game mode should be at least level 20. I know thats high and slightly unreasonable but seriously, this game mode requires awareness of the battle field that new players don't have and can't compensate for until they reach about that level.
Definition of Awareness for the sake of the thread:
Awareness- the ability to survey the battlefield and establish several things, sometimes simultaneously.
These things include but are not limited to:
- Enemy spawn points - Where are they coming from
- Enemy weapons - Snipers? Grenade Launchers?
- Enemy positions - Are they attacking directly from the front or sweeping different directions
- Weak links in the attacking unit - Are there really low level players on your team? Players that aren't listening?
- Objectives needed to be taken - Are we taking A? B? or C?
- Who the Platoon Leader is. - This person is incredibly important because they can speak to you all directly.
Awareness is important in every game mode but in escalation, the chaos of 3 factions being on a single map increases it's importance tenfold.
YOUR PLATOON LEADER (PL)
- The PL, 9 times out of 10, should be listened to. Be aware of who the PL is or if you ARE the PL. If you are the PL, announce it over TEAM BROADCAST. Establish your authority in the match (preferably without being a complete jackass about it). The PL should have their orders (underlined for emphasis) carried out to the best of your ability provided they adhere to further information below.
- Orders PL should not give, when, and why:
"Go to letter " : Letter x is not a priority of your pmc. If your PMC is attacking letters B and C, your PL should not tryto get your PMC to attack letter A. It's counter productive to winning which is the overall goal here. Basically, threefactions trying to take 1 letter makes that letter a clusterf*ck that isn't in your team's favor. It's across the map and whileyou are fighting for it, another PMC will easily take and hold a letter you were SUPPOSED to be attaining.
"Everybody go to D" : the match just started. You don't get points for taking D away from the enemy unless you've already had it. While this can play into a tricky scheme to win the game, i'd advise against using it.
"Cut off 's path to D" : X is the faction that didn't open objective D. The other faction trying to take D back are temporarily on your side as they are trying to achieve the same goal as you. Once D is locked again feel free to kill them then if you want.
"Okay everybody to D now!" : This one is actually a bit tricky. While you want to immediately get to D once the letter has been opened to get the advantage, if an enemy faction is immediately taking the room as soon as you opened it, assume that the room is overrun. Leaving the letters would be counterproductive as it only takes 2 people with sensor jammers to take 2 rooms for the faction holding the room to D. If you ran to D in the hopes of clearing everyone out so that you can hold the room, you are no longer in a position to take them back should you fail and they will have the room pretty much locked down.
OFFENSIVE TACTICS
You as a player have to understand three things at the same time.
- Which faction is attacking your objective
- Is the matchup even or not. An uneven matchup can mean you are losing badly or you are dominating
- Does the faction you are fighting hold another objective?
If the matchup is even or you are losing and the enemy holds another objective, ask for the SL to call for help from another side (*NOTE this is only possible if the other side HAS their objective and they are not in the same situation as you) . It is important to do this immediately to avoid the dominant team from taking D. Also, if you're team is dominating a letter but the other letter you are responsible for is falling/has fell, send some troops to take it and unlock D.
DEFENSIVE TACTICS
This is the most difficult part.
This info is for taking letters back from dominating factions. We will refer to this faction as the faction holding D (FHD). When a FHD is dominating the game, it is important that you try to do 2 things.
- Stop firing at the team not holding the objective. I said it before, they are temporarily on your side because they also want to take D back from the FHD.
- Cut off the path the FHD is taking to get into D. This can be a collaborative effort with your pmc and the other attacking pmc, or your pmc can do it and the other pmc takes D and vice versa. It is advised that your faction be the one outside the control room however.
If you are doing the latter plan, make sure that once the other attacking squad takes D, immediately go back to the letters. the temporary truce is over unless the FHD miraculously takes D back from the other faction who should have now filled the room up. If that happens, wait for them to come back and try again. this time hold the FHD back for a little longer before running back to the letters.
As for methods on how to take the initial letters, that is up to your team for the match (or PL if they are going to establish that kind of command).
Mischief N mayheM
