Battle Tips

What's up, ACP!

As we enter our fourth tournament, it's very important to know about proper battle etiquette. Proper battle etiquette could win or lose us a battle. Every single troop matters when it comes to making clean looking forms, covering the other army, and winning. Here are some tips that will help you become a better troop! 

Split Screen

The very first thing you want to do is split your screens. If you have a PC, snap CPR to one side and Discord to the other. You should be able to do something similar on a Mac. Even if you don't "snap" them to either side, you can still make it so they overlap. Look below for an example. 

Why split screen? If you split your screen, it's much easier for you to copy a tactic and paste it into CPR, then press enter right as the leader says 3. If you need to switch from typing in discord to CPR quickly, PC users can press alt + tab to switch between their selected window. This is quicker than selecting it from your task bar at the bottom. 

General Tips

- Do not lead. Only follow the green/light red names in chat's directions.

- If you can be in voice chat, jump in. You will be muted and only need to listen in. Often, for tournaments, the room change will come through voice chat quicker than it will in #event-chat. In addition, leaders will be helping direct people in voice chat and calling out what needs to be fixed. 

- Be ready for room changes. Room changes will typically happen at 10 minutes intervals.

- Ping mods for questions. Leaders are busy leading. Moderators are there to call out slow tactics, or people out of formations as well as assist you with your questions. 

- Stay for the full 30 minutes! Every troop counts and size factors heavily into wins. Make sure you're there the entire time!

Formations

- Get into formations quickly. Pick a side of a Plus or an X quickly. Don't hesitate. Find your spot. Once things settle, then you can move if needed. 

- Move if you're bunched. Don't be the dummy who got there first and doesn't want to move now. Bunching is an eyesore and judges will consider it as taking away from quality. Move. Find a gap that needs filling or a spot that won't look as crowded.

- Spread out. Make every formation look as big and even as possible. Make sure you're looking around your penguin and placing yours evenly spaced between the ones around you and if you see a gap that you can fill out better, go there.

- Sit down. Press the "S" key or the down arrow and take a seat. Everyone sitting looks better than a bunch of penguins looking all kinds of different ways. 

Tactics

- DO NOT BOTHER TYPING STUFF UP. Copy and paste the messages from Discord into CPR so that you're not wasting time typing. Late tactics will slow you down.

- Wait for 3333333333. Do not do a tactic before this. The entire army doing a tactic at the same time makes it look cleaner and higher quality which will convince judges of our quality. Follow directions.

- Hold the tactic for as long as possible. Whether it's an emote tactic or a word tactic, copy and paste the word tactic multiple times. Hit the emote shortcuts several times over time. It's usually good to hold it until you see the leaders order another tactic. Only then, do you stop repeating it.

- Press emote shortcuts slowly. Tactics like E + H which done correctly, produce a heart emote in game, can sometimes be done incorrectly. If you press E + H repeatedly too fast, you can mess up and press just H. Just H will only produce "Hello" in  game. It's better if you press E + H slowly. Do so a handful of times in a row and it will last long enough, without mistakes.

- Don't lag behind. Doing a tactic late looks just as bad as doing it early. We want it as together as possible. This goes for formations and moving tactics too. If we wipe (move from one side of the room to another) or waterfall (move up and down), don't be the person lagging behind everyone else or, even worse, not moving at all. 

That concludes my tips for now. Stay tuned for future posts like this one and make sure to review it before the tournament battle with Help Force at 3 PM EST!

Field General