The Value of Fighting and Killing in PvP.

[Februs]

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about the significance of actually fighting in PvP, and I figured I should put out a thread for discussion. I apologize for the wall of text, but I wanna kick this off with some solid footing that explains my position.

*What I'm about to say makes certain assumptions:

1. "Defense" as I'm using it here refers to node camping, as I've rarely seen a "defensive tactic" employed in this game that does anything other.

2. We’re talking about an "ideal team." That is not to say a "perfect" team that only wins. “Ideal” refers to a team that is capable of communicating and acting as a unit. This means attacking things as a unit, focusing your dps, burning down targets as a mob, not individuals. Obviously none of this works if you have a bunch of quacking ducks as your teammates, but, then, nothing works for such teams.

And 3. You want to win. I never settle for second place. To me, there is no second or third. There is only victory and defeat.

When it comes to fighting in PvP, I side with "aggressive tactics" for 3 reasons:

1. Point multiplication. Embrace the gamble.

People underestimate the point difference gained from simply having a node (no combat) to having a node that you had to bleed someone else for. This is a double edged sword, obviously, as you stand to lose as much as you gain. However, it is rarely advantageous to simply maintain the status quo, or, worse yet, bleed slowly over a series of small “defense” skirmishes. It’s better to take the initiative.

In warfare, Momentum and Maneuver are extremely important. The army which exploits both (not simply sitting in place and waiting for the enemy to come to them) wins. That is not to say that Defense is not important; however defense does not have to mean sitting and waiting for an inevitable attack. This is particularly true in a game like FFXIV.

53% of the jobs in this game are built for offense, NOT defense. Further, the defensive capabilities of the remaining 47% are extremely limited. You cannot, for example, build trenches, set up cannons, form a defensive line, etc. There’s no real way to physically stop an enemy advance … besides outright killing them. So, again, #Kill Kill Kill.

2. Supressing the enemy is often more important that winning a node.

If you leave a team to farm node points without any opposition they’ll accumulate. If you let them get into combat in which they are "farming kills," that accumulation gets multiplied. If you let this continue for too long and they get battle highs/fevers, than there’s almost no stopping them. Attacking the leading GC might not seem like the best idea, but not attacking them is substantially worse in the long run.

This is why sometimes attacking a node is not about actually attacking the node. It’s about bleeding your enemy. Often, it’s better to focus on the kills than it is to focus on trying to actually get the capture. You might not walk away from the fight with a massive point boost, but the benefit is that you stopped them from getting too far ahead.

3. It’s simply more fun to fight.

PvP is about fighting, and killing, your fellow man. Yet a lot of players are content to avoid combat as much as possible. This is mind blowing to me. If you want to play the game, than play the game. You have your whole real life to act the coward and do the boring things that we’re all expected to do. In the digital world, strut your stuff and go ham. It’s not like your gambling with your real life anyway.

Worse, the more reckless players that like to fight get restless with a defensive team. This leads to people running off and doing their own thing… and dying… a lot. It's a team game. You need the team to fight. People have a lot of pent up aggression. Might as well let them have their fun by directing it rather than trying to convince them to sit on their thumbs until they inevitably get overrun playing "defense."

Again, defense does not have to be passive. The further the fight is away from the node the more buffer space you have and the less likely it is that someone will cap it (save for those sneaky ninjas).

I realize that a lot of people will disagree with the things I've written, and rightfully so (nothing is black and white), but we don't really have a thread to discuss or argue about it. So, here it is:

Discuss. Disagree. Agree. Talk tactics. Get into fights. What side are you on and why?

[Beckett]

I don't think Offense or Defense is always right. You have to be able to read the map and react accordingly. I had two back to back matches (one 24, one 72) where the other two GCs fought each other the entire time while we sat on 2-3 nodes completely uncontested. Yeah, it was kind of boring to just sit there doing nothing the whole time, but I'll not say no to free victories.

Now, in those matches the other two GCs were evenly matched, so they both hovered around the same low score while our score just got higher and higher. I've also seen many matches where we've held two or more nodes and the other two GCs are fighting each other, but one of them is utterly dominating the other. In those cases, even if the dominating GC isn't catching up to us in points, they're still building Battle High/Fevers, and later in the match when we have to face them we will get our asses kicked. If you're in a defensive situation and one of your rival GCs is dominating the other, the only smart play is to help the losing GC sandwich the dominating GC. Yes, you risk losing the nodes you currently have, but if you let the dominating GC build up their kills, it will spell disaster for you late match.

[Februs]

Snip.

Oh, it's definitely not a "one size fits all" kind of issue; however, I do find that the way most people play tends to overwhelmingly favour a passive defense over aggressive tactics, and almost everyone I see in matches severely discounts the value of kill credits.

You're right about the time to defend. I'd say that the only time I've been totally okay with camping on a node is in a situation like the one you described, where your team has the majority of nodes in their possession, but the other two GC's are too focused on one another to pay attention. Meaning, you're uncontested...

The problem is that, that is a super RARE occurrence. Especially in Flames. This is probably just positional bias (as it likely seems the exact same way for both Adders and Mael), but it seems like every time we get a positional advantage we have to keep our eyes open for an inevitable sandwich. It doesn't matter how intent Adders and Mael are on killing one another, as soon as Flames take the lead, they're both heading our way. So, why wait for them to get to us? The logical solution would be to charge out and meet them in the field, a safe distance away from our nodes, so we can keep the fighting elsewhere. It might leave our backs exposed to back caps, but I'd rather lose a node to a back cap than get totally obliterated by fighting on two fronts. Especially because the amount of points we stand to lose is severely lessened if we can successfully snipe kills off of another GC. The odds of us winning a 2 on 1 fight are slim, but the odds of us winning in a fight that we started and caught only 1 enemy by surprise are a lot higher.

You're still gonna lose points in a sandwich, obviously, but the amount you stand to lose is much lower. It's about damage control at that point.

[Beckett]

snip

I'll definitely agree with you on that one. People have definitely learned that starting the match with 2 nodes or the only A or S means you're guaranteed to get sandwiched by the other two GCs, but they haven't yet learned that just sitting there and waiting for it to happen isn't the best solution. Probably the best option in that case would be to swing around one of the enemy armies and cap their point from behind, then catch them in the pincer instead, but convincing an entire alliance to abandon two points is like pulling teeth.

[Februs]

I'll definitely agree with you on that one. People have definitely learned that starting the match with 2 nodes or the only A or S means you're guaranteed to get sandwiched by the other two GCs, but they haven't yet learned that just sitting there and waiting for it to happen isn't the best solution. Probably the best option in that case would be to swing around one of the enemy armies and cap their point from behind, then catch them in the pincer instead, but convincing an entire alliance to abandon two points is like pulling teeth.

Definitely. It's not about waiting for the inevitable. It's only inevitable if you sit and wait for it.

This is one of the reasons I almost prefer 24 man Seize over 72 man seize. It's a lot easier to convince a small group of people that waiting is a bad call. If you're in a situation that is unfavorable, act. Even if you make the wrong call when you act, you're still in a better position than being dead.

[Houston009]

"The best defense is a good offense" - anything competitive

[Februs]

"The best defense is a good offense" - anything competitive

Agreed. Emphasis on the "good" part.

A lot of the problem is that people tend to lose focus in PvP. The combined dmg of multiple Dps murdering one opponent is a force to be reckoned with, but too many people run off and play Rambo.

[Stupiduglytaru]

Rekt them all and bath in enemy blood, firework their corpses and make em never q again.

[Iagainsti]

I am in aggreance to all the above, the one problem I find with seize strat is the lack of communication. Due to our LS, we tend to have a full party in queue, rarely an alliance, so even though 8 are on board for strat and objectives, there is 16 others to communicate with. A good discussion in this thread would be developing a set of good shorthand commands, something easily macro or typed and very articulate to get a point across....

[Iagainsti]

<iPhone contd> in the 2 minutes we have before the match starts. All the greatest ideas are moot if they cannot be relayed well.