Yeah, there’s nothing really like the intensity as when you get to the close game. I just got #5 and am still shaking. I was almost dead so many times, from being shot at by a sniper at around 25 left, to flanking around being in the blue, then getting behind some other guy and taking him out, to being shot at again from behind when going to the next circle at the school, to firing at two guys driving cars around the place, to being shot at again as I went into the school, just to find out the next circle was outside the school in the open so I had to sneak back out again, to getting into a gunfight with one of the drivers using his car as cover, to being shot dead by him as I had to move to the next circle which was where he was.
And I have no idea where the other three left were. And that was a small circle, so people are getting some really good ninja skills out there.
People are getting patient too. I don’t know how many times the last few days I’ve been shot dead from behind where they’ve been in the blue zone. Of course, if there’s nobody behind me, there’s almost always someone waiting for me to get to the next circle. It makes playing the circle very hard to time correctly, even when you’re way off the flight path.
I didn’t think it would happen, but over the last few days I have been telling my crew I thought we were doing better, getting more consistent in engagements, choosing better ground, aggregating more kills. Then this! 3-man with a pick-up 4th. Only real error was an unforced error car crash. Lost two while looting our drop location around mid-game, including the pick-up. The other fellow and I made a break across a field as the circle was closing to take a high ridge. Cleared one side which was against the circle and recce’d around the circles edge and up to the crest with the defilade in our favour. With 15 to go we kept our heads down and our side of the ridge clear as the others took each other out. Pinged a solo team survivor as he was making a break for our cover, then the circle forced the last two-man team to advance on us. But our cross-fire positions were too good. One killed, then the last downed my partner as my fire sealed the deal.
Got real tense there as we could sniff the chicken dinner in the last minute or so. Phew!
Congrats. I don’t think I’ve played anything as intense as the last few minutes of this game in my life.
I don’t think I’ve actually been this into a game in many years. I’m watching youtube videos and thinking about it a lot at work, constantly trying to get better.
I went totally ninja and hid out in a bush in the open there, while the other guys were hiding in the apartment buildings in front of me (left and right). But when the circle closed outside, they were forced out and all hell broke loose. When the guy in front of me started shooting at someone, I decided to shoot at him, and was pleasantly surprised when I saw the match finished message. So apparently he must have killed his target just before I killed him. But man, the last 5-10 minutes were nerve wrecking as I had a couple of skirmishes while I crouched and crawled my way to where I ended up:
First I hid out in the north eastern compound, behind a crate looking at the garage in the south side of the compound, having fence and bush concealments in the other directions. This because I heard a car driving up towards it, and then a guy popped into the garage from the back door in the south, and hid in a corner. I took shots at him, hitting him a couple of times, but he managed to get back out again. Luckily he got scared and just drove off as fast as he could towards north west.
Then we got a new circle and I went a bit south east to the shed and hid until the next circle. I crouched my way there with ridge cover north and a hill south. I then killed another guy before I ended up in the final circle, as he probably came from the building in the south east, and I found him hiding behind a tree shooting at someone westward. After that I crawled the whole way to where I ended up. Luckily the rest of the people were in the west so nobody noticed me until I took the final shots.
There is method to this madness. Over the last few nights me and my team have been getting consistent top 10 finishes - probably in the order of 60%. Often (as evidenced by lack of additional dinners), not in good enough positions or well enough equipped to bring it home, but we are obviously doing something right in terms of reading the map and circle and choosing the right traversal paths and defensive positioning. I almost never die now without knowing where the fire was coming from as well, so experience brings knowledge in that regard. No need for directional hit markers, IMO.
Any advice for team games? Specifically duo matches? My brother and I have been playing at least an hour every night for the last week or so and don’t seem to be making consistent progress. We can get to the top 10 (#2 in one game) sometimes but not others and I’m not entirely sure what we can do better.
Mostly I wonder about the last few circles. We usually gear up and avoid conflict early on. We don’t get into fights unless we absolutely have to for the first three quarters of the game. Usually we’re moving toward the center of the circle as soon as we’re geared up and feeling pretty confident. The problem is that it never works out for us.
I’m wondering if we need to be hunting other players early on. Normally when we arrive at the middle of the circle and start looking for cover we’re all alone for at least a few minutes. Then suddenly it’s like we’re surrounded on all sides. Being aggressive seems to work well for a lot other players so I’m wondering if we aren’t aggressive enough.
We can’t seem to decide if holding out in a building is good or bad. The visibility limitations in most buildings are a huge liability. We usually survive a siege from another team when we hold out in a building but often at the cost of one of us dead or both severely wounded. Then again, holding out somewhere outside (usually in a clump of bushes) leaves us very exposed.
I’m kind of rambling here and mostly just wondering if anyone has any good midgame strategies. I’ve been watching some youtube stuff but nothing has been as helpful as I would like.
Being aggressive gets you better gear, and more high-end consumables. What will happen is that basically all the best loot will be concentrated to a few players. For example the only time I’ve seen an adrenaline syringe was by killing someone in the top 5. And that’s a pretty sweet item to have. (Incidentally, did the loot probabilities change with the latest update? Yesterday I had a hellish time getting any weapons at all. Like runs where I got a micro-Uzi at the 5 minute mark or a red dot sight at 15 minutes qualified as good. In one run the only weapon I got in the first two two-story residential buildings was a machete. Was I just unlucky, or are other people seeing this too?(
I’m probably taking a break until I hear the server stability improves. Last night I got disconnected by the server twice in six games, and had the game crash to desktop once. It’s one thing to lose 20 minutes of preparation to making a mistake. It’s much more annoying to just lose it to a random technical fault half the time.
They haven’t done anything with the drop rates, but it’s worth remembering they are random.
As for strategies, I think both playing the circle or camping somewhere in the middle are valid. Just play it the way you like and what works for you (or mix it up). Positioning, awareness and thus engaging when you have the advantage are much more important.
That’s been a running commentary in our games. I don’t think they’ve changed anything but it really feels like it’s harder to find a decent weapon lately.
I actually noticed this as well when I played a few matches today. No ARs in the first 4-5 buildings or so, which rarely happens I think. Then again, maybe I just haven’t noticed this happening before because I wasn’t looking for it to happen?
If someone’s interested in seeing an example of how I play the circle end-game, here’s a video:
It’s not exactly riveting video (to say the least), but I thought I played it well except for two occasions:
I shot at a jeep driving away, which was stupid since it gave away my position. But in my defense I was bitter over him avoiding my trap by jumping down from the building instead of going downstairs where I was waiting for him.
I shouldn’t have run directly towards my victim in the end, but I was too eager seeing what kind of loot he had. Instead I should’ve run to the side of the building, where I had cover, and check for any kind of movement nearby (basically doing a stop and listen). I also honestly didn’t really need any of the loot anyway, though it would’ve been nice to get a 4x scope for my AKM.
In retrospect I also remembered I had a silenced pistol, which I could’ve used to shoot out the tires of the jeep before waiting for the ambush. But I guess that may have given me away sooner.
So I played this for the first time as a group tonight, and good god it is so much better than playing solo! We even one once as a squad–though my contribution was negligible at best. Looking forward to playing more.
Yes, mostly. Grass and shrubbery renders at all settings now, just quality varies. They disabled the manual .ini edit that would affect render distance as well.
But you’re still going to have an advantage with some settings - like turning shadows to low or off completely. And lower settings is going to give an FPS performance, particularly during early access, I suppose. Not sure anything is going to fix that fundamentally until custom servers come along and they can support various client config settings.
Edit - I should point out that grass is not rendered at long distances for anyone, so hiding in it won’t save you from a sniper 200m away, regardless of your settings or theirs. Trees and bushes are fine, as are the wheat fields, just not the grass.
I’ve been watching Mewnfarez (ex-HotS streamer) play this and he’s insanely good at it. He prefers to play solo into squads because he hates the camping of solo and he’ll often take out whole squads by himself.
If you can get past him occassionally bitching about 3rd person exploiting, he’s pretty fun to watch and really good. He’s more of a variety streamer now so he isn’t always playing it, but man it’s crazy how good he is some matches.
Edit: He just won solo in squads with 21 kills. WTF.
So we drive to and loot a house just on the edge of the circle, such that as the blue comes in, our UAZ is just outside the zone. We decide to move on the the next location so I grab the UAZ.
‘Back up into the white so I can get in’ says my partner. So I do…while he proceeds to stay standing behind the UAZ. /facepalm
One revive, one medpak and minute of laughter later, we are back on our way.
