A Simple Game - Why Sticking Together Matters

The key to winning in Battle Bay is quite simple. There are only two objectives:

• Focus fire on a small number of enemies more effectively than your opponents
• Share the damage from your enemy as evenly as possible across your team

Focusing fire better than your opponents means all of your team picking one specific player to target, meaning that player will be more likely to die first in the game. This reduces their firepower, and makes for an easier win.

Sharing the damage across your team, means that your teammates will survive longer and enable you to maintain a higher combined firepower for longer. If you notice a teammate being targeted by opponents and has low health, advance your ship to make yourself an alternate target to a low health teammate whilst also increasing your chances of hitting the enemy. If you stay back and allow all teammates to take the damage, you may well end up with the highest contribution of your team, but your tactics will have played a part in the loss. (This also explains why camping behind walls whilst your teammates are under fire is also a bad tactic).

Both of these objectives are best served by sticking together. If you’re off on your own, you are less likely to be able to join in efforts to focus fire on a specific enemy. You also are more likely to find yourself outnumbered, likely resulting in your death, meaning that the enemy has an advantage in both of the two main objectives for the rest of the match.

I know that many experienced players will think this advice common sense, but I still see players failing to follow this advice even at high levels and frequently on The Foundry. Also, we often tell noobs to ‘stay together’, without explaining what that tactic is trying to achieve, or perhaps without explaining the ‘share the damage’ aspect.

 

And the way to achieve these objectives is through communication.

The ‘together’ command is good for getting your teammates together, but ‘follow xxx’ is even better.
The ‘target xxx’ command is the best way to let players who to shoot. Your teammates aren’t psychic, and will usually shoot at the target that is easiest for them to hit first if you don’t tell them.

Players spend a lot of time learning to use boats and weapons, but spend relatively little time in teaching themselves to use battle commands in the heat of battle.

 

AND finally, remember. War is won by the side that makes the "fewest mistakes". Not "no mistakes", but "fewest". Fixer down? Rambo teammate? AFK? Lag?

No problem. It's losing hope that is the biggest problem. If you think, "Oh my teammate is AFK, we're doomed!" Well, no! "My teammate is AFK, can I use him as cover while shooting unfriends?" Is what you should think about.

Making the enemy overconfident is also an advantage of having a handicap. They make foolish decisions, take unnecessary risks, and make unessential compromises.