As a corollary to notas's great basic guide to ffa (
https://www.sauerworld.org/ffa-guide-by-notas/)...I felt like I had learnt some things that weren't part of his amazing introductory article. As I am someone who likes to make things difficult for himself, here's some things that I consider to be slightly advanced ffa strategies. These work great when you have the basics down and
can help players like master, fixerrr, tay-z, rotti, benz, alluro, galaxy, 1989, shakey, raffael etc. reach the next level. here are some slight theory crafting that might give you an advantage...:
1. always do damage after YA (Yellow Armour) is taken: there is no point in taking a fight when YA is coming up, unless you are sure that you will win the fight
if it is a risky fight, then it is better to let the enemy take the YA and do damage after he has taken it...just with some mg,,,you can reduce YA to nothing and lose only 1 frag in doing so
otherwise, if you take fight before YA, even if you do a lot of damage but lose the fight....enemy will stack back up with full YA...and you will have to sacrifice more frags to come back.....
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2. time quad: HB is not that important....but thing is..in pro games people usually take HB as soon as it spawns....
now quad comes 10 secs after HB....so one easy way to time quad is.....just know that it will be soon after HB.
atleast in the first 5 mins,,,,unless there is a huge delay in taking the first few HB's/quad's....quad will always be around 10-15 secs after HB spawn
knowing the timing of the quad helps a lot in setting up early for it with some weapons....and if you are the one in control....don't kill the enemy before quad spawn...he will be able to stack back up and attack it
it is better in such case to keep the enemy low and not kill him
just land some rifle and/or some mg,,,,,then the enemy has to decide whether to suicide or run around collecting health...either way he will be too distracted to attack quad properly...
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3. knowing when to take fights: this is the most important skill! it is better to pick and choose your fights depending on what items are coming up....
for example, if YA is coming up in 10 secs....take a fight but don't kill the enemy (you can die in the process)....just keep him low...so he can't attack YA with good stack, making him easy to kill if he does...pretty much all my advice revolves around when to take fights as I consider it the most important ffa skill.
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4. holding on to your stack: sometimes your stack makes you lazy... but notas, redon, honzik, lokio and most others can also deal decent amounts of damage...so it's important to hold on to your stack of Armour and weapons...i mean.....if you have YA and some weapons, then it's very difficult to kill you...so a very simple strategy would be to take YA , collect weapons and just avoid fights till the next YA or quad. It's not always possible to do so but when it is, it gives you a brief 20 secs of respite to think about what you want to do next..
they may even get impatient and rush...90% of times they will......and you can create a lead then....it ties back up to picking and choosing your fights
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5. player specific strategies: if you want to beat the best then definitely need to know what maps the top players like and what are their basic strategies on it.....nothing will prepare you for an out of control frosty or notas or lokio...they are way too unpredictable and always have something to pick out of the hat.....redon is on another level anyways....but still here's some things I noticed:
lokio: if he is out of control...like really out of control...he will trade items...he doesn't put much faith in his aim as some of the other players....so he does that. He is weak in late-game ffa...his decision making late game in a close game is iffy...he tends to rush a lot or panic a bit in my opinion...don't get me wrong, lokio is one of the top tier ffa players and I will readily admit to him helping me improve my game more than anyone else.
frosty: frosty is a dick. he knows I have high ping so he will just rush on the item and jump on it...most likely getting the item. just expect something unpredictable from him. everything from absurd triple rifles from inside grates or nade jumps rushing is possible with him...
notas: notas is also a dick. he will do everything perfectly except a few of the very intelligent things that redon does......he has trust in his aim and will take fights with accurate pistols or rifles...either way, he will make life hard even when out of control...he has impeccable timing too....much better than lokio or frosty...so he will make a good attack on YA right on time regardless of the situation..
(NB: calling someone a dick in ffa is a compliment
)
redon: firstly, you will never be in control vs redon in a tournament game...even if he just plays casually he destroys most of his opponents....it all comes down knowing when to fight...his aim isn't too bad either...his pistol is surprisingly lethal so you always have to be on your toes against him. Still out of control I imagine he'll take intelligent fights,,,,just before some item is coming up like quad or YA so he can keep you low and win the next fight....he just plays on a very high level and even if you know what he is going to do,,,,the positioning, stack and weapons will align in such a way that you will never have a considerable advantage against him.
raffael/honzik: these are players I am able to beat on a good day with some luck....I even managed to tie with honzik on metl3 for a while. they have little respect for you no matter who you are....and sort of have a one dimensional "you see, you kill...if nothing to do camp YA" strategy...there are hidden depths too though but they are not always accessible to them because of lack of active practice...
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6. start of the game: Your goal at the start of the game would be to secure the first YA. It also depends on the spawns as to what you can do. If you have shit aim like mine, there's no point contesting for anything with an equal stack. That's why many times I just avoid contesting for the first Green Armour and am more than happy to keep at a distance and do some damage after enemy has taken GA. What this means is that in 10 secs when YA is up, enemy will be at 50/50 or so...giving me a minor advantage.
7. end of the game: end of the game you want to get the quad. To do so, you want to position yourself around quad with as much stack as possible. weapons, Armour, health etc. There's a lot of decision making that you need to do as well. So while the end of the game is probably the most difficult time, it's also the time when you need to stay the calmest. Infact there isn't a meta strategy for the last few mins of an ffa game, it depends on the scores, stacks and a many other things. Ideally though, if the game is close, you want to think about the quad more than anything else.
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8. experience: no one I've seen is a natural at ffa, it's much too complicated for it to be so. Experience and practice is what made me one of the decent semi-skilled players. If everyone practiced, I'd be as shit in ffa as I am in effic. Having said that, because I've played more ffa than anyone else in that last couple of years...I've become good at predicting the ebbs and flows of the game...and that helps immensely and it's something that will come to you with experience and time.
9. your own style: If you read between the lines you will notice that a lot of my advice revolves around avoiding bad fights. FFA is too intense with a atleast a couple of important items coming up every minute, which makes it hard to stay calm. Also, the shit spawns on many maps make it hard to not get tilted. To maintain my sanity, I just run away from the enemy till I'm calm enough to decide what I want to do next. But that's very specific to me and my style. Some players might like the constant action, as notas would call it, an "Active" playing style while mine is more "passive". I'm also a bit older than most sauer players and hence not very competitive, I'm more happy to make cute plays and shoot people from behind than winning, again, very specific to me.
In the end, everything I've added in this thread could be considered specific to my very cowardly weak-aim high-ping play-style, but it's still a good starting point to think about your own game and ffa in general.-----------------------------
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If you combine my advice with the one notas provided, you'll turn into a semi-skilled ffa player for sure. The good thing is that ffa is not always about aim, it rewards foresight as well among other things. Most importantly, once you are able to apply these things, you will begin to have fun. Even if you are losing, you'll be able to make cute plays and annoy your opponent. Nothing gives me more pleasure than stealing YA or quad against top-tier opponents just by having better timing and foresight. It used to be nigh impossible before (still is against redon) but I can manage that against some of the other players.
Feel free to post this on sauerworld blog with some edits.
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