Interesting Strategy

When playing Dominion, and your team has fewer points capped than the enemy, chanting “defend” is not the winning-est plan.

: Zubon

6 thoughts on “Interesting Strategy”

  1. I’ve never played LoL, but I’m well aware from other games that there are some real strategic geniuses out there more than ready to share their ‘expertise’.

    The classic used to be in WoW’s Arathi Basin battleground. As soon as one team held three of the five control points, you could guarantee that someone would call for everyone to “now DEFEND!!!” instead of extending our lead. Obviously, the other team would never dream of concentrating to take one point (if we spread evenly) or ninjaing a base (if we concentrated on one)…

    The best defence in the world is a delaying tactic. You need offence to win. Of course, mindless zerging into the teeth of a prepared defence isn’t a winning strategy either :)

  2. For some players, and I’m one of them, defense is simply always more enjoyable than attack. In the same way that casting healing spells on allies is intrinsically more exciting and satisfying than casting damaging spells on opponents, a heroic defense of something you own is intrinsically more thrilling and involving than any attack on something you wish to acquire.

    My ideal MMO, in terms of overall milieu and combat-related strategy, would consist of being on a side constantly in danger of being overwhelmed, where “success” would be measured entirely in the ground you hadn’t lost that day.

    In terms of Battleground play in MMOs, a very close win is the best experience, but a spirited, losing defense that looked for a long time as if it might hold out trumps any other kind of win. For me, that is. The team may feel differently.

    1. This case is more akin to getting a few countries in Risk and defending them, rather than trying to conquer the world. The losing defense is more “guaranteed” than “spirited” here.

  3. For those who don’t know how Dominion works:

    Teams compete to control the most capture points out of five. Each second, the team who controls more capture points deals damage to the opposing team’s Nexus. Killing opposing players also deals damage, as does completing quests that randomly pop up (usually taking a certain enemy-controlled point before they take a certain one you control). Each Nexus has 500 hit points; when a Nexus ticks down to zero, it’s game over.

    In addition, it’s relatively quick and easy to take over a capture point even through enemy minions, as long as none of the opposing players show up.

    Therefore: If a team takes over two capture points and never contests the other three, it is trivial for the opponents to capture all three remaining points and hold the majority. Holding only two points and never contesting the other three (a.) never gains a majority of the control points, (b.) never initiates with an enemy player and kills them, and (c.) never completes a quest. Therefore, this strategy absolutely cannot win a game. It can’t even get close.

    TL;DR: Saying “Don’t attack, just defend our two points!” is like saying, “My prices are so competitive that I lose money on every product I sell, but I plan to make it up in bulk.”

Comments are closed.