Know Your Game: when you’re (un)stoppable

We here at Top Tier Tactics are known for our in depth strategies and guides for games large, small, and the humor we bring in the relaying of those tips. Today, I’m adding a little spice to the mix with a article series called Know Your Game. Two, connected ideas about multiplayer games, relayed in brief, broad strokes. Application across genre and playstyle is my goal with these articles.

Today, my focus is about how to act when you can’t be stopped, and when you’re stopped at every corner.

You’re like the Juggernaut: an unstoppable force

Different than being “in the zone,” some games nothing any of your opponents can do even phases you. Your control of your character and grasp of the mechanics has come to a point where you rule the fates of both your friends and foes. In situations like these — and you will be aware of them — your goal is to seek momentum in every movement. No matter where you are on the map, how weak or vulnerable your avatar might be, you must push harder, play better, go faster, be stronger. Destroy everything that stands in your way, and if you cannot, take the shortest route around it. Keep your enemies on their toes: go in their spawn, kill them right after they die.

But do not gloat or revel in your power. Instead, use the rush of success to force you to new heights until either the game ends or all your enemies rage quit. After either occurrence, take yourself down several levels and let your inner spring uncoil. If you’ve combined “the zone” with being unstoppable, you’ll wind up again next round, ready to unleash hell on anything and everything on the field of battle.

Like a flea before a giant: you can’t win

Those games where everything is stacked against you. Lag, bullshit tactics, lack of morale and abundance of anger; some days nothing you do seems to work, and dropping everything to go outside grows more and more palatable. Well, fellow gamer, let me give you some advice. First, if you are so inclined to go outside and look at the sun, I advise you to do so. The first rule of playing video games on a bad day is to not play at all.

If, however, you want to play despite the frustrations, there are a few things to consider. After a bad match ends, go back to the menus and take stock of where the failures occurred and why. If it comes down to lag, check your connections and how you’re searching for matches. If your enemies are being dicks, consider adopting their mindset for a game or two. One of the few positives about douche playing is the reactions it engenders. Trolling from the troll’s point of view is a grand game in which the end always justifies the means.

If trolling’s not your style, take a higher road, but a different path. Flip your strategies and class setups on their heads and use something you never have before. Expectation is one of the most powerful generators of rage. Knowing what you’re capable of and not being able to attain it is one of the most maddening feelings in life.

If, somehow, none of the above ideas eases the seething feeling in your gut, go back to your tried and true tactics, but focus them even further. Identify, through some means, the best player among your foes. Make it a challenge to yourself, and then your duty, to keep him from reaching his potential. And do it legitimately. In every encounter, match his skills with your own and force him to accept that this won’t be the lobby to dominate in. More often than not, your chosen enemy will leave. The arrogant and foolish will stay, and your frustration will be theirs, but for the right reasons.