Preparing for Titanfall: map size
The size of a game’s maps often determines the flow and pace of matches, and while games like Battlefield or Planetside compensate with large player counts, already fast games, like TF2 or Call of Duty, are made faster with their close quarter combat areas. Titanfall, despite the speed at which everything moves, has maps that fall somewhere between BF and CoD, though from a purely technical standpoint maps are more akin to CoD than Battlefield. Still, if you come from either side of the map size equation, how best to prepare for Titanfall?
Pick up the pace, shorten the space
To begin, Titanfall is a game about constant, chaotic movement. While you can sit at the highest point on the map and shoot down like some uncaring god, you will experience far less than someone doing the “gotta go fast” dance on the ground below. Moreover, you’ll miss out on a lot of interesting map if you stick to one area. Even the largest Call of Duty, Halo, Killzone, etc. maps barely touch a medium sized Titanfall map. With all that space, there’s a lot to see, especially when Respawn has to pack in some single-player-esque story into the environments. Of course, at the speed the game moves, you’ll probably miss most of it.
So what I’m getting at, I guess, is you need to move around the maps some more guy. The thing about big maps, especially those of Battlefield size, is the foot soldier rarely gets anywhere very fast, and has to rely on vehicles or other means of transportation. In Titanfall, dealing with the maps’ size can sometimes result in a similar sense of slowness, made worse if you find yourself without a titan to pilot or ride in a wide open space. To prevent that kind of dragging, spend some time in a certain, smaller area of the map, and keep your titan – when piloting one – to the crowded streets and factory areas. Open fields are nice and all for giant robot fights, but even the grunts are against going too far afield of the main combat zone. Losing a titan where there’s nothing going on isn’t a five minute trek back to the action like it is in BF3/4, nor will you be instantly shot from every direction like CoD, but if you aren’t careful, there’ll be thirty seconds or so where you’ve got nothing to do but hoof it.
Bear in mind, however, that you can ride every titan in a match, friend or enemy. While hopping on a hostile titan just to get someplace is counter-intuitive, especially when you could be killing the thing, if the pilot’s running from combat, he’ll likely head towards his own team. If you’re comfortable being surrounded by your foes, there are few better ways to dominated then from the back of their heavy ordinance. Better yet, ride the hostile titan into enemy territory, then go down with it, slaying from atop the enemy armor, laughing as you do so.
Don’t forget that you can also set your own titan to follow you around, giving you a handy means of escape, and that you can ride other titans away from conflict if the need arises. The high jump from an exploding titan is a great way to get around if you can manage to survive in the air, and if you find yourself in the middle of a field because of it, another titan to ride can’t be far.
