What Makes a Good FF Leader?

DeletedUser

Defending is too easy, attacks are where the real challenges lie. :D
And yes, a math problem. As previously stated, reduce areas of exposure and it's possible to manage various defensive counter-tactics quite easily. Also, this is why a good leader can predict what the opposition will do.
ps: 126k views means there are a lot of people waiting for me to say that the precise pepper gun is the best gun in the game :p
 

DeletedUser

rice farmer said:
Strategy is integral to leadership. If that "something different" is objectively shown to be superior to the "same old, same old", only a fool would choose the same old, same old. Respect is irrelevant.
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A "same old" plan has gotten to be that only if it's worked. If people don't trust in that "something different", it's not gonna work as well as something they're used to. Fort fighting isn't just cold hard logic, there are humans involved.

You could be world's best leader with the ultimate team but that's irrelevant. A perfect team doesn't exist. And if it did, anyone could do well leading it. You gotta work with what you have and if your plan is something that has to be executed perfectly to work, it's probably just a bad plan. A good leader can adjust their plans and leading style according to the situation.

Based on what you've said it's not surprising that you'd prefer attacks, since planning and strategy play a bigger part there than in defense. I don't think defending is that easy though. Defense is more about instincts and reacting than an attack where you can have a previously thought out plan to support your choices.
 

DeletedUser

Trust is a subjective term and I'm encouraging people to come forth with a rational mindset about fort fighting. Anyways, NR won lots of med battles against A-Team on w15 by starting in the SE corner and slamming WT. None of them were led by me. And no, they weren't executed perfectly, but the main idea was present. Perfection may be impossible but that doesn't mean it's something to strive for.

I've led quite a few defenses myself and while it is more reactionary, there are still things you can do, like offload enemy fire onto 2 tanks rather than waste all your tanks on point.
 

DeletedUser16008

LOL im sorry but trying to turn a game and element of fun into a math problem or textbook steps is ridiculous.

Everything about forts are random to a large extent, its like herding cats and always has been, its also the fun part. I agree with chuck perfection does not exist and you gotta work with what you have.

A lot here know what happens in battles, it seems to me that your not that familiar with how it really goes but rather wish to sanitize the only part of the game thats not already. To heck with that kind of battle leadership, I cant imagine anything more boring to either lead or be part of. Let alone when you have to adapt or deal with offliners as a majority in a battle.

Did you ever notice how random this game is intentionally made for forts ? As joulais says I also never work to a detailed plan, most of the time leading means nothing more than winging it. Flexibility and respect isnt a requirement my ass.

You have a very strange idea of what leading a battle means or requires let alone being consistently good at it my friend.
 

DeletedUser

I've led and won many battles, so just because I advocate a style of leadership that emphasizes on order and mass synchronization, that somehow means I'm inexperienced? Thanks bro, that makes perfect sense. :laugh:

Anyways, it seems people would be interested in what goes on in the mind of the ff leader and various winning tactics, so let's talk about successes and failures, or rather, how to avoid failures.
 

DeletedUser

Rebow said:
Well said.

My personal experience is that if the leader is confident, the team gets confident. A confident team is a united team and are more prone to work together for the greater good, instead of individual achievements, and looking after their own backs.
Being a good strategist and micro manager is important as well, but it's no good if people won't follow your orders.

One of my best examples to this is Zobel on W11. One of my favorite FF leaders if I may add. She will from the first round go like this:
"We got this. Do as I say and we will win this easy".
Did we always win? Nah, but looking back at the few losses we've had with her leading, it's mostly been due to minor unpredictable events. But it's always been fun, and id follow any maniac orders she'd give, because if she believes in it, its good enough for me.

So, what makes a bad leader? What makes people less willing to follow your orders?

The first thing that comes to mind is when an attack has failed. For instance, the defenders has a 8k advent tank on the flag, and its 10 rounds left. Then the leader orders everyone to rush, no matter what HP or level.
Everyone knows its pointless, and that they are just gonna die for nothing. But the leader insists and starts naming the players that don't rush.
Orders like that will cost you respect. It's better to just admit defeat, thank your minions for their great attempt and let them get some final exp.

Another thing is blaming players, or even worse, the whole team. Even if your team really did a crappy job, don't tell them that!
That has never ever in FF history helped any leader win anything, and the respect you loose as a leader is a heavy price to pay for a boost to your ego.
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/thread! :)

Agreed with every single word written above.
 

DeletedUser16008

Did I say you were inexperienced ? I said to me you ideas are strange and overall limited without flexibility or respect. All battles require order,good team movement and respect, you are suggesting they are not like that already when in fact many are, especially with big numbers online.

I thought this thread was what makes a good fort battle leader not what free tips on strategy can be gleaned.

Each battle strategy develops and changes during the course of 55 rds, with onliners there can be many changes and options.

To see many of the best battle strategies and executions id suggest http://www.westforts.com/ there are some good ones on there, unfortunately some of the best happened long before replay feature.
 

DeletedUser

That wasn't directed at you specifically, though I wasn't clear about that. ;)
Anyways, good leaders should be open to new ideas and contribute to the broadening of the field of knowledge of fort fighting.

edit: more about the whole respect thing: I believe everyone is capable of being a good ff leader, you just have to put in the work and think critically. It's not 'good ff leaders aret these people who seem to have supernatural winning abilities and you are just a foot-soldier with no skills, therefore you should just pipe down and follow orders.' Rather, it's 'from my study of fort fighting, I can see why the leader issues certain orders and they make sense. Since I know how it works, I am capable of being a leader.' It's kind of like if your friend told you to jump off a cliff for no reason, would you do so?
 
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DeletedUser

This is a Look-At-My-Idea thread :p
On an abstract level, fort fighting is just you shooting at someone until their hp gets low, then they swap, you shoot at the new guy, and then the process continues on and on. To cut down on their numbers, you have to have so many people shooting at the new guy that he's dead before he can swap someone else. That will break the cycle and give you a greater advantage. Otherwise, they can all have low hp, hide behind a tank, continue to inflict damage, and you lose. Disrupt their supply chain and your enemy is that much weaker.
 

DeletedUser

rice farmer said:
This is a Look-At-My-Idea thread :p
On an abstract level, fort fighting is just you shooting at someone until their hp gets low, then they swap, you shoot at the new guy, and then the process continues on and on. To cut down on their numbers, you have to have so many people shooting at the new guy that he's dead before he can swap someone else. That will break the cycle and give you a greater advantage. Otherwise, they can all have low hp, hide behind a tank, continue to inflict damage, and you lose. Disrupt their supply chain and your enemy is that much weaker.
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What you're saying here isn't anything new. It's already known that focusing fire on small area to get a kill is a good idea. Let's take a look at this plan of yours again:

rice farmer said:
The plan: http://www.westforts.com/s/JBo
Implementation: http://www.westforts.com/en15/battles/battle/16418
Respect isn't even necessary, but it's frustrating when people don't argue with the numbers but decide to not follow orders during the battle.
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People disagreeing with this doesn't mean they don't like the idea of focusing fire on one spot. It's more likely that they just don't like the idea of voluntarily giving targets to every defender in the battle, including offliners. And I'd have to agree that it's a too high price to pay, especially when there are plenty of enemies around who can survive a round in that one spot. No one in that battle died on ST point while attackers lost hp faster because they were so exposed.

Nowadays people are good at swapping and staying alive so I think that small fort battles are much about the total hp. If you get to take out an enemy it's a plus but basing your plan around that is too much to ask. I think it'd be a better idea to shoot where you have better chances to get hits and try to avoid getting hit while doing so. Of course there's a lot more to it than that and I might be way off since I don't have a lot of experience leading small battles. On newer worlds I play they're usually during off hours when I'm not around and on older worlds they're different because there's more offliners and less hp. Still, the same principles apply as in bigger battles, just the details are different. And I have a lot of experience in fort battles in general so I think I have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about.
 

DeletedUser16008

If its a comment on your battle you posted you wish im with all the rest, bad start point for a small is a bottom corner for exactly the reasons chuck states. Every advantage apart from hp is with defenders and the last thing you want is to ruin your only advantage from rd1, by rd 9 the attackers 35k hp advantage was blown and turned negative, from there unless something drastic and different was done it was 100% game over for the attack.

As for detailed plans and orders ? ive found people just don't read or execute them past the first line, which is why you must be prepared to be flexible. On a good day the server will decide your side hits well and you can adjust accordingly, on a bad one it will seem no matter what you do your toast.
 
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DeletedUser

I addressed those concerns earlier so I won't repeat them here. I firmly believe brute force can overcome any hp advantage. It is possible for fort fighting to be more than just which side has the most hp.
 

DeletedUser14006

rice farmer said:
What Makes a Good FF Leader?
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The ability to not smash your computer into tiny little pieces when nobody listens to you and does whatever the hell they like for personal gain rather than the good of the team.
 

DeletedUser16008

Brute force would be all about having hp, that is exactly what using brute force is, strength. If your saying hp is not the be and end all of a battle regarding other options on strategy id agree except for one thing, and thats hp are directly involved in a sides hit ratio especially the attack.

In fact youll be hard pressed to find any battle where an attack overcomes and succeeds with similar let alone less hp unless its a flag rush. Actually if you look at it attacks hardly ever succeed in general anyway which is why turnouts are always harder to get in an attack whereas in a defence youll usually find it overflowing as its a virtual guaranteed win before its started and hiders and the like do love a dead cert ;)
 
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DeletedUser

rice farmer said:
I addressed those concerns earlier so I won't repeat them here. I firmly believe brute force can overcome any hp advantage. It is possible for fort fighting to be more than just which side has the most hp.
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I don't know what concerns exactly you mean and how you've addressed them so it would help me at least if you did repeat them. And I didn't say that fort fighting is just about hp, I know it isn't. What I meant with my comment about small battles is that you're not likely to get easy KO's against defenders who know what they're doing so it's better to reduce their total hp in places where they're less likely to get dodges. That's just one strategy though, I know there's other things that can work too.

Also one thing about concentrating fire. The goal in doing that isn't really to get KO's. That's just hopeful thinking (unless there's an offliner staying still of course). The goal is to clear the targeted spot or area and possible KO's are just bonus.
 

DeletedUser16008

Lets assume its an attack your leading, lets also assume youve somehow managed to get your team to set up and placed for maximum effect such as GG and soldiers adding leadership etc to begin with to everyone around them.

You have absolutely no control of exact troop placement on attack after Rd 1, at which point the only thing that helps to affect the hit ratio from there is your teams overall hp.

If anything buffs would be the only other thing that helps if we are to believe + this and that makes a big difference, I don't believe buffs help much on attacks given there are hardly any bonuses like defenders have on towers, walls etc... in fact having run toons with maxed out points on every fort skill when attacking and still hit no more often than with a pure duel build i only ever use Graphite lube when attacking.

Buffs work on defence far far better and stack with bonuses on towers etc. Given that attacks so rarely have a chance of success most players will not waste a good or expensive buff on an attack whereas they will on defence knowing they will get a much better result.

Forts are far too easy to defend which is why attacks fail to fill so often, people arnt stupid and don't waste their time, money or energy on attack if they know theres a very slim chance compared to defence where they know its a 90% win and they can go job after etc.

One thing I have never understood about forts is why defenders always get the initiative,its not as if they don't have enough bonuses etc already, by changing this alone into alternative rds it would make battles so much better if defenders could'nt hit and run away every rd
 
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