After playing a rousing session of PCTF, I have decided to create a helpful guide to playing Capture the Flag with the pros.&nbsp; Here goes.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Exceptions[/b][/size]<br /><br />Players tend to think they are exceptions to rules, but they are not.&nbsp; To be clear: [b]you are not an exception[/b].&nbsp; You are not bad at this game.&nbsp; You are definitely not good.&nbsp; This is a way you can avoid people hating your guts while you improve your owning skills.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Proper Offensive Cover[/b][/size]<br /><br />Unless you are Ralphis, and by Ralphis I mean completely full of himself and thoroughly uncoachable, then it is [b]never[/b] appropriate to wait at the enemy flag stand while your runner runs back to your base with the flag.&nbsp; The odds of you scoring are shitty, way worse than the odds of your teammate scoring if his teammate wasn&#039;t a glory-hogging douchebag.&nbsp; Help yr dude out, and kill people for him.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Jumping[/b][/size]<br /><br />Jumping is one of the worst things you can do.&nbsp; &quot;Why,&quot; you ask?&nbsp; I&#039;ll tell you.&nbsp; IDL servers have no air control, so as soon as your little DOOM boots leave the ground, you&#039;re completely prone.&nbsp; You might think you&#039;re being unpredictable.&nbsp; You might think you&#039;re hopping bullets.&nbsp; You might think this saves you, even once in 100 shots.&nbsp; You are completely wrong.&nbsp; It actually just sends your sprite, as it chokes, screams, and dies, flying through the air.&nbsp; This only increases your opponent&#039;s bloodlust, and you can be assured he is laughing at you, because this is hilarious.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Rocketing[/b][/size]<br /><br />Unless you are Nostar, and by Nostar I mean completely full of himself and thoroughly uncoachable, then it is [b]never[/b] appropriate to use rockets in the base.&nbsp; Don&#039;t shoot them while you&#039;re standing in the base.&nbsp; Don&#039;t shoot them into your base from anywhere else.&nbsp; In fact, keep your hands off that fucking thing altogether until you know what you are doing.&nbsp; If you should be so unlucky as to inadvertently (because I know you would never do it on purpose) run over the RL, think to yourself, &quot;is cockblocking the balls off my runner really worth a couple of spam kills&quot;, and &quot;what are the odds of LordBritish selling enough &#039;LeBron + Cleveland 2011&#039; t-shirts to purchase a bus ticket to my parents&#039; house so he can beat the hell out of me in person for hitting him with 18 consecutive rockets, causing him to be shot several times in the ass&quot;?&nbsp; These things do happen in real life, even when pros are doing their best to avoid them (there are some great demos of HumanBones rocking mikehail in S2009, or you can watch my demo from Week 3 in W2010), so there&#039;s really no need to add to those unfortunate, yet hilarious occurrences with shitty RL usage.&nbsp; Just say no.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Shooting[/b][/size]<br /><br />You are going to whiff shots (whiffing a shot is shooting directly at someone, but nothing happens), and you&#039;re gonna be pissed.&nbsp; You will feel like this always happens when you really need to shoot someone.&nbsp; This is not true.&nbsp; ZDaemon is, overall, a pile of junk written by crackheads and broke assholes, you should not trust crackheads and broke assholes to treasure your packets, or to give you accurate information about where your opponents are.&nbsp; Try and put yourself in positions and situations where you don&#039;t have to hit every shot to be successful.&nbsp; Give yourself the reaction advantage (hide), and plenty of opportunities to shoot your opponents (don&#039;t hide right next to your flag).<br /><br />[size=4][b]Whoring[/b][/size]<br /><br />Let your poor runner get the fuckin powerups.&nbsp; This means all armor and supercharges/megaspheres.&nbsp; That guy is gonna die 1000 times and get maybe 2 flags a round (the highest flags/round stat from last season was mikehail with 2.083).&nbsp; Increase his odds, and don&#039;t fucking wait at the goddamn flag stand while he&#039;s running his ass off, wondering where his cover is.<br /><br />[b]But[/b], health in the base belongs to the defense (supercharges/megaspheres are NOT health, they&#039;re powerups!).&nbsp; I know scoring multiple times in one life is really cool, but just concentrate on not sucking for now.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Locker Room Etiquette[/b][/size]<br /><br />This really only applies to IDL, definitely not to PCTF.&nbsp; It is [b]never[/b] okay to be a faggot to your team, not in private (team channel, PM, etc.), not in public (#idl, practice) and certainly not while you&#039;re playing a fucking game.&nbsp; The best way to make your team lose is say a bunch of mean, angry, negative shit to them.&nbsp; Many captains have been known to perma-bench, and curb to free-agency players with shitty attitudes, and I can personally say that we take every opportunity to talk shit about you if you should transgress in this manner.&nbsp; You can get a long way in the IDL with a good attitude, and really, yelling &quot;WHERE IS THE FUCKING MID YOU NIGGERZZZZ KILL YRSELFZZZZZZ&quot; all the time is unhealthy.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Where is the Defense?!?!?111?![/b][/size]<br /><br />If you are asking this question, it is you.&nbsp; You are the defense.<br /><br />Let me clear this up, because you probably don&#039;t think you&#039;re the defense if you&#039;re asking this.&nbsp; There&#039;s really one of three things happening here:<br /><br />[list]<br />[li]You are really the defense, and you are fucking up[/li]<br />[li]You are playing mid and you aren&#039;t fragging well enough[/li]<br />[li]You are running, and you&#039;re not clearing the base when you spawn and fragging as you go[/li]<br />[/list]<br /><br />So you can see that there is always something that each position can add to defense.&nbsp; I often see runners zombie-running, sometimes just barely ahead of the other team&#039;s flag runner.&nbsp; Of course, that idiot gets shot in the asshole and flagged on.&nbsp; Turn around, goddamn.&nbsp; Be aware of what is going on around you.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Where is the Mid?!?!?111?![/b][/size]<br /><br />If you&#039;re a runner and you&#039;re asking this question, you are not running correctly.&nbsp; If you grab the flag and run out as fast as possible, guns blazing, you will die.&nbsp; You&#039;ll die in the same goddamn spot every time, because that&#039;s called a pattern.&nbsp; Even worse, you&#039;ve given your team no time to push up and help.&nbsp; You can&#039;t expect help to magically appear if you didn&#039;t wait for them before you grabbed the flag, or if you didn&#039;t wait for them after you grabbed the flag.&nbsp; Mid has other shit to do, fuckin give them a break.<br /><br />If you&#039;re defending and you&#039;re asking this question, you are not defending properly.&nbsp; Stop camping one tiny spot where you can&#039;t see shit, and move the hell up.&nbsp; Anticipation is like, 200% of defense.&nbsp; Shot is the rest.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Where are the Flags?!?!?111?![/b][/size]<br /><br />Scoring in the IDL is much harder than PCTF or (ugh) Public CTF.&nbsp; The best runners DOOM has ever seen hover around 2 flags around, and they&#039;re considered dominant.&nbsp; Just think about that for a minute, that means that if your team scores 2 flags, then the odds are that you are going to win.&nbsp; So first, relax.<br /><br />If you&#039;re defense, then it is [b]never[/b] acceptable for you to run.&nbsp; You might think, &quot;hey, we&#039;re 4 flags up, I&#039;ll take a taste&quot;.&nbsp; No, you will not taste anything but the sick bile of defeat.&nbsp; We used to call this &quot;supermanning&quot;, because a player would have to think they&#039;re superman in order to pull this kind of thing off.&nbsp; Now we just call it &quot;Tai&quot;.&nbsp; Don&#039;t be Tai.&nbsp; Tai&#039;s a lot better than you are, and not even he can avoid our ridicule.<br /><br />If you&#039;re the mid, you should consider the fact that every time you frag someone, they respawn right next to your runner... and shoot him in the face.&nbsp; Getting shot in the face blows, don&#039;t do this to your teammate.&nbsp; Be careful about who you frag and when.&nbsp; There are a lot of players that just run to the middle and shoot everything that moves, but unless your runner is a dominant runner, he&#039;ll never score if you do that.&nbsp; You might think, &quot;but if I kill enough people, my runner will have a clear path&quot;.&nbsp; You will never pull that off.&nbsp; The highest frag ratio last season was Shakal with 165% - which means every time he died he&#039;d killed 1.65 people.&nbsp; Shakal was playing defense, so he was [b]waiting for people who&#039;d already been shot, and knew where they would be coming from[/b].&nbsp; You will have none of those advantages.&nbsp; Multi-kills and killing sprees are rare in the IDL.&nbsp; Don&#039;t count on them to make up for your shitty play.<br /><br />[size=4][b]Attitude[/b][/size]<br /><br />Probably the most important quality for an IDL player to have is a sense of humor.&nbsp; Laugh, make other people laugh, and remember that this is the internet.&nbsp; Above all, be competitive but don&#039;t get raged.&nbsp; I can honestly say that I want to win every game that I play, even when I know it&#039;s impossible.&nbsp; But afterwards, don&#039;t go into #idl and say something like:<br /><br />&lt;rookie&gt; ladna ur a chump faggot cheater<br /><br />or<br /><br />&lt;rookie&gt; ROFL was that a game?&nbsp; i thought you had to be good to be in IDL bahahahahaha *burp*<br /><br />Not only will Ladna ridicule the shit out of you, others will too.&nbsp; You&#039;ll feel like IDL is not a place for you, and that you should leave.&nbsp; Don&#039;t feel that way.&nbsp; Just don&#039;t be a bitch, and we&#039;ll all get along just fine.&nbsp; In case you were wondering, the proper thing to do after all IDL games (win or lose) is GG.&nbsp; Be gracious when you win:<br /><br />&lt;rookie&gt; ladna i can&#039;t believe i scored on you, that was tough d<br /><br />and constructive when you lose<br /><br />&lt;rookie&gt; i think we did well that game, but with a little more practice we could&#039;ve been awesome and won<br /><br />I know, I know, sometimes people are real assholes to you.&nbsp; The average response is to either erect an e-penis, or try to be funny.&nbsp; If you honestly think you can accomplish any of those things (I assure you that you cannot), give it a try (once or twice).&nbsp; After you fail, just laugh it off from then on.&nbsp; Let your game do the talking.<br />