Thread: Situational Awareness

Warning: angry Cheese has created a giant wall of text.

While I was playing medic last night, I was starting to get more and more annoyed with my team. The people I was working with - many of whom were very good players - seemed to have major blind-spots. Again and again, I watched my patients throw themselves into piles of enemies, or ignore the pyro above them who then proceeded to jump into my face. So I am going to take a moment to put in text what lots of good players know: how to get the most out of the battlefield.

People talk a lot about medics needing positional awareness, and it's true: medics, more than any other class, both need to and have the opportunity to know what's going on around them. But other classes need to know what's going on too - not just to help their team by calling spies and snipers, although that is important, but for every aspect of the game. The heavy who jumps around a corner and traps six enemies in the spray of his minigun is demonstrating excellent situational awareness. The engineer whose sentry can't be taken out without wasting a pair of ubers is demonstrating situational awareness. The pyro who dodges six rockets, reflects a grenade back into a demo's face, and burns three medics to death before disappearing as though he was never there... it's all thanks to situational awareness.

Each class needs to do slightly different things to be properly positionally aware. Most people do it instinctively, to a certain extent. But perhaps pointing out what it is they are doing will help them do it more . I've listed techniques for all of the classes I feel I do it right for. For the others, I'm hoping that experts in the classes will weigh in.

The scout: Lots of people say scouts are twitch-based, and all that matters is reflexes and aim. Lies, I say! Scouts are the team's map-awareness. Scouts can find enemies, harass them, get out, and tell the team where they are. Better yet, scouts can harass them, and make them go where they want. Scouts funnel and direct the enemy's movement, and have an enormous capability to change the strategic situation. So they should use it.

The pyro: Hit-and-run. Ambush. Those terms are easy to throw around, but what do they mean? Pyros need to know the movements of enemy troops, their fields of vision and their reaction times. When they engage, they need to make sure they will be able to win - or at least to get rid of enough enemies to count as a win. Does the group you're after have medics? Are there more than one? Can you kill them before their patients get rid of you? If the enemies are only long-ranged, you should have a field day. If they have low DPS, you should be able to obliterate them with proper positioning and timing. If there are a lot of them, or they are high-damage classes - is there a weird angle you can hit them from that'll make it hard to react? Or would you be better off going after something softer?

The demo: Can you guess how your enemies will move? If not, you shouldn't be playing demo. Knowing where enemies are and where they will be, and how you can make them go where you want and be dead, is the key to exploding things. Demos also need to know what weapons to use - too many use the wrong weapon for the job, and lose easy fights because of it. Demo is all about movement and timing and prediction - with it, they're unstoppable. Without it, totally useless.

The heavy: The heavy's most critical resource is his health bar. He has to know how much damage he can take - but more importantly, how much damage he will take. Keep an eye on the class composition of your opponents. How much damage will those classes do at the range you are at? How much can you do in the same amount of time? Is there nearby cover or medics or a far-off sniper that could throw these equations off or tip them in your favour? Thnik about this, heavies, and you'll know when to engage and when to retreat.

The engineer: Where can your sentry see? Where can it be seen from? What classes have the best chance against it where it is, and what classes is the enemy bringing to bear against it? Would you be more useful humping it or putting out damage? Can you get to it from where you are? Where are your team's other engineers? Engineers' lives revolve around their sentry. On defense, they should look for the most defensible position against the majority of classes. On offense, the sneakiest position - or the one that best stops enemies from disrupting your advance. You are area denial, so you need to pick what area to deny.

The medic: The medic, as the common wisdom goes, is the king of positional awareness. In fact, to a certain extent, it's all they need. Team-mates are a resource, and it's the medic's job to maximise that resource. Look for the people who need you the most. Who's dying? Who can be saved? Who can be sacrificed? Medics need to know the overall strategic situation, and apply that with every single move they make.

In conclusion: When you play, think about not just how to aim and how to avoid fire - think about what to aim at, and how to make sure enemy fire is never an issue in the first place. With proper situational awareness, you can take on enemy forces many times your strength and never even be in danger of losing.

Also, if you got this far, thanks for taking the time. I was just frustrated, you know? :P

Hopefully, the excellent soldiers, snipers, and spies we have will be able to weigh in on what they think about while playing.

Too long. Did not read. Just kidding. There are certainly some things that can be done to be more aware. However sometimes it's not fair to say someone isn't being aware. When attacking you just have to rely on teammates to protect your flanks because attention can't be spared from your target. If you don't have backup you're basically betting against the odds that no one will flank you.
But most of all, Medics, try to buff everyone around you. If you try to do that I promise you won't forget to heal me -- err -- heal anyone on your team.

Largely, of course, the people posting here aren't the ones that need to read this.

Ar-ti-cle.

Originally Posted by heyf00L

Largely, of course, the people posting here aren't the ones that need to read this.

Agreed. I guess my hope is that, by getting people to think actively about it, they'll have an easier time helping others do so as well.

Originally Posted by heyf00L

There are certainly some things that can be done to be more aware. However sometimes it's not fair to say someone isn't being aware. When attacking you just have to rely on teammates to protect your flanks because attention can't be spared from your target. If you don't have backup you're basically betting against the odds that no one will flank you.

Again, what you say is absolutely true - but in that case, I would say the fault is with the team-mates who aren't properly supporting the push. It was they who were not aware. There may also be communication issues involved, which again is a problem of awareness.

Fantastic post cheese.

Soldier: Protect and stay on your medic. If your medic is with a heavy or another soldier already, even better. You can range out and come back to that mini base for healing. Do not leave your medic without telling him, or unless he has got someone else guarding him. If your medic is sufficiently guarded, ask for a buff, and rocket jump into their team's medic and kill him. Expect other soldiers to do this to your medic, so prepare to jump in front of him.


And it goes without saying that all classes must protect and sacrifice yourself for your medic. Get in front of fire and tell the medic to fall back. They will appreciate it because when they are healing 6 people at once, they don't always see that pyro barreling down towards him.

Spot-on regarding the demo. I always see people tossing grenades when stickies are the proper tool for the situation. If you can gauge where your opponent will be heading, it's a damn sight easier to detonate your stickies then lob a grenade on a moving target.

What are the procedures for submitting an article? And if I did, what should I change to make it a good article? I would need thoughts on the other classes, at the least, and I have no doubt that people who are better than I am at the classes I did talk about could say something more useful.

Thanks for the stuff about soldiers, Coors. I suspected that a lot of the advice for soldiers would have to do with medics, but I didn't think all of it would. That's fascinating, actually.

Originally Posted by Addrake

I always see people tossing grenades when stickies are the proper tool for the situation.

Guilty. I've been trying to use grenades for more things that I used to use stickies for, and have probably gone too far in the other direction. But it just makes such a satisfying thwack when you hit an annoying scout in the face.