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Mosaik
Oct 16, 2003, 02:12 PM
Rant discussing what TA is and isn't in my opinion.

Lets start with what TA isn't:

TA isn't replaying a map over and over again till you get this awesome map where you only have 1 wave a room with 2 monsters per wave. There seems to be this growing obsesssion over how to generate god maps. In my over 500 hours of playing straight cmode, I have yet to see a god map with my own eyes. The only time I think anyone will ever see a god map is c1, only because its so short. Other stages I have yet to run into a completely 2 wave max room, and you know what that doesn't bother me. This obsession is so great about getting that god map that they fail to see a realistically good map in the progress. If you play a cmode stage through to the very end enough times, you start to notice wave count trends based on each room. There will always be "short" rooms and typically "long" rooms.

So I ask you players, why do you need a god map so much? To lower your time and impress other people? Frankly if you had to resort to miracle maps to get an 'ubah' time, then whats the point of having the low time when you lack the skills to back it up? In fact time is nothing. Skill and passion are what you need. There are countless people with times under 4 hours who quite frankly suck at TA. Instead of looking at their own skill and weakness they blame maps. They try to play with other 'experts' only to get ousted by them since expert players know good play when they see it. Time doesn't say anything about a player's skill. Then they go complain how no one serious joins their games. I mean of course no one serious will join your game when you complain about not getting the first weapon, you shadow others, etc.

TA also is not as rigid as people have you believe. Yes their can be optimal teams. But that doesn't mean you must play C2 with 3FOnl all the time. If anything, its the players who are behind the classes rather than the team composition itself. Ok I am not saying that you can TA with 4 RA. But I am saying you can have a RA, or non HUc, non FOn, and still meet reasonable success.

Ok now to the good news, what TA is:
TA is the ability to utterly dominate a map. What's utter domination? Utter domination is being able to clear a wave in 10 seconds or less consistently. OMG we got more than 2 waves bad map bad map. Well why you are busy complaining, real TA players would have destroyed the wave in about 5 seconds. They aren't bothered with having an awesome map. They are too busy getting a rush out of demolishing a room to notice. A 7 wave room is only 35 or 40 seconds on the clock if the players are good. Yes there are exceptions with c7 being dependent on good weapons to deal with belra, c6 and dubchic, c4 and pan arms, but aside from that if you cant consistently clear a wave in 10 seconds or less, then you aren't ready for TA.

TA requires you to be able to take any monster 1 on 1 with any weapon, swords included. Swords are the only weapon i think its ok to not 1 on 1 with since the swings are easy to delay to avoid cancel. TA requires to know every enemy pattern, how they act.
Good FO's fill in for HU's until they get their weapons. HU's better fulfill the rest when they do get their weapons. TA is about divide and conquer. TA is about efficiency. TA is about the passion to truly master PSO. And lastly, TA is about having fun, working together, and showing ragol who is boss.

Well end rant from
A Pompous Ass and retired TA enthusiast.
Bacchus

Valleo
Oct 16, 2003, 02:22 PM
Thanks for that. Though my TA experience is somewhat limited, I agree completely. I remember a certain FOmar with a time under 4 hours who I thought was a terrible example of how to FO in Cmode, and I thought he either did what you mentioned above with the maps, or had some seriously good teammates to get that time.

I suppose its just different playstyles and preferences. Not everyone likes to level up doing one HS after another either, and yet people do that too.

Personally, my favourite part of getting a good C mode time is getting into a groove of incessant killing, and not getting hit once. Anyways...



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Valleo on 2003-10-16 12:23 ]</font>

YujiNaka
Oct 17, 2003, 04:40 AM
100% agree.
Many people with good times dont know what they are doing. They give up maps before 1st area end only because there were one or two 3-4 wave rooms in the first area (same as you said, it happened to me yesterday in a C3ta team). I got a 31min C9 time with HUcsl after a terrible 1st Area (5wave in first room).
When they want to learn the gameplay? The strategies how to attack enemies etc? You can learn it when you get bad maps (akuma map) not when you get a great map and almost dont need to fight.
The problem is they think they are good and dont want to be criticesed, they dont want to get hints from other people, maybe people with better times. Are they jealous? I dont play TA to become a "star" or whatever. I play TA because of fun, because of my friends, because of teamplay, because of learning new things every day and of course get maybe a good time someday. The teamplay in challenge is more important than in normal mode.
That's what I like. You can fail in challenge, but you cant fail in normal adventure mode.

Also I agree that some people think they can get only good times in the right combination.
I got a 26min time in C8TA with my HUcaseal and one Racaseal in our team. Of course this time would be maybe a bit better with a HUct in it, but who cares?

Capricornus
Oct 17, 2003, 05:31 AM
Are you retired Bacchus?
Well thats too bad, the few times I played with you was quite fun, so I'll keep a nice memory of these.
I dont completely agree with your post though. Maybe it should have been better to state that all players with a time below 4 hours arent all good TA players.
Because you see, for TA the map does still play an important role, just as important as a good team and a good weapon drop rate. For a good TA you really need those 3, there is no other way around it. You can have the best team in the world, but if the weapon drop is bad, or the rooms do get infinite waves (like I like to call 8+ waves) your time wont differ much from a normal map clear. It reflects the best on a FO. The best FO in the world will get useless (out of TP)if he has to consistently clear a 7+wave room.
I'm not saying that TA only has to be done with god-maps. I myself do use some timestamps for each area.
For exemple, a good TA time stamp I use for the 1st area C5 is 4-. I wont quit if I do get 5+ but will rather wait my second time stamp to see if I did win some time on the second area. I'm well aware that some rooms can contain more waves than others, thats why I do wait till the last area (unless I'm far over my fixed time stamp for a specified area).
I rarely play with people I dont know, so the fact of having a "I'm a good TA player because I have a 4 hours- total although I suck at playing correctly" is rarely an issue for me. We all do know the dammage cancel and the best way to deal with enemies (although there can always be a small misunderstanding of having 2 people on 1 enemy due to lag)
To make a long story short, In my opinion the map generation will always play a major role in TA games. But then again, this is mine and I do respect yours Bacchus.
Hope to see you around again





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Capricornus on 2003-10-17 03:35 ]</font>

rena-ko
Oct 18, 2003, 06:26 AM
hm... true so far...
there grows the urge to see you in action, mosaik ^-^ sorry that you retire...

those timestamps might be interesting to know (if you have some time, maybe you could PM me them, capricornus)...

i for myself play challenge - even TA for fun. so if its not that good of a time i still can be proud of myself and the team for clearing a map with bad circumstances.

in the end its a game and its supposed to be fun all the time.

Cerris
Oct 19, 2003, 07:46 PM
rants should stay in rants...

ABDUR101
Oct 19, 2003, 07:48 PM
On 2003-10-19 17:46, Cerris wrote:
rants should stay in rants...


This seems to be more of an explaination thread, than a hot-blooded vent of a rant. It stays.

Cerris
Oct 19, 2003, 08:05 PM
k

HaLLa
Oct 20, 2003, 02:53 AM
I have seen some good maps but never one that good. I just like to play it I dont cheat and do some of the tricks like trying to get a map and dying for items and so on.

Jazhara
Oct 20, 2003, 07:41 AM
Playing through a map fast as you can, ignoring side routes / boxes and killing quickly, using scapes to refresh TP = Time Attack, or TA.


Retrying a map over and over to get good map = "Genkai" play.

Only *supposed* to be attempted by true experts who have already got the best times they can in the way stated above.


Unfortunately it seems many non-JP players want to Genkai before they can TA, which is the root of this problem. Bacchus' frustration is rightly deserved, players should perfect TA before they use Genkai tactics.

A true Genkai players' target time is under 3 hours for Gamecube, not 4.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jazhara on 2003-10-20 05:43 ]</font>

Cerris
Oct 20, 2003, 11:25 AM
whas genkai?

Curiosity
Oct 20, 2003, 01:21 PM
On 2003-10-20 09:25, Cerris wrote:
whas genkai?




basic gist, or "style" if you will, is start map and if something (read darn near anything) appears/happens that someone doesn't like, die, remake, repeat until ideal/near ideal map is gotten. after the map appears, keep repeating map until best possible time is achieved.

genkai means "limit" which is exactly what the team wants: the absolute fastest time possible.

for example back on v2 i was able to take part in a genkai C1 w/a target time of under 6min 30sec. over 2hrs spent just trying to a good map (in area 3 around 4.50-4.55 if i remember correctly). then 2+hrs spent on that map trying to achieve target time. we would've succeeded, eventually http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif, except someone dc'd. doh! >__<


almost forgot... it seems that over time, a gray area between TA and Genkai has developed. imo due largely to the non-jp influence, and take on TA. heh, i actually kind of miss the "good old days" when TA was TA and Genkai was Genkai, w/little or no cross-over. not to mention when i could actually join a TA team relatively easily and know i was w/ppl that knew what they were doing. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Curiosity on 2003-10-20 11:31 ]</font>

tinykutz
Oct 20, 2003, 06:35 PM
heres my take on this- it seems like a lot of people want to do TA before they understand whats involved in doing TA. now- i don't TA- despite your teachings mosaik, i've tended to shy away from TA games because basically i don't think i'm ready.

meaning, i know the basic principles such as zone splitting, one on one, dmg cxl-etc. doesnt mean i always practice it.

its funny, people say they wanna do TA but haven't a clue what theyre doing. meaning, aren't you going for the fastest time when you do normal cmode? TA requires a completely different mentality and most people want to be mvp. im guilty of that but its hard to break old habits.

case in point- person i was doing c4 with didn't like his time. for some reason didnt have a sword at the worm... he was hurting for mates early on-then afterwards goes into a c4 TA. umm- do you guys think he was mentally ready for TA?

its like people think that TA means that you're going to get a faster time. well, only IF you practice TA principles.

good map helps if you have the skills to exploit it. you serious TAers are on a whole nother level. and i mean serious TA- not the casual "Lets do a time attack!" mentality.

its a shame you're letting your hl expire today mosaik.

Rauha
Oct 22, 2003, 04:52 AM
Possibly best thread ever about TA in english. Congrats. hehe

YujiNaka
Oct 22, 2003, 05:09 AM
Rauha? Is it you? ;D

Rauha
Oct 24, 2003, 05:13 AM
No its not me.

YujiNaka
Oct 24, 2003, 05:55 AM
http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_eek.gif