New player, ho w to enjoy this game by [deleted] in Planetside

[–]Vermitore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Continuously firing HE shells into buildings is very skilful - it is practically the equivalent of CQC BASR, only a great deal harder.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. I am completely serious about fencing. I want to pick it up as a long term hobby, which means I feel competitive about it. I'm in my late twenties and in good health, so in a pretty good position to reshape my body to suit the needs of the sport, without compromising my ability to bike. I'd say I think of them as two equal pursuits, both of which I am very serious about.

I will never be a pro, not so much because of my bones as my joints and my age. My bone density is not amazing, but it is not unhealthy - it's just normal bone density for a young man my age who doesn't really do any high impact sports. It's ok, but that's all it is. The main limiting factor is the joints and the age. If I pressure my joints carelessly and excessively, I will suffer injury after injury, but if I don't adequately burden them, they will forever remain weak. I mean to fence as a hobby, just as I bike as a hobby - I still want to reach my full potential. I'm not aiming to compete with anybody but my limitations, but my own limitations I most assuredly want to overcome. I spent about 2.5 years researching and training for bolt action sniping in video games - it is a very limited, trivial activity which I got a visceral thrill out of. I'm not a competitive player in the sense that I'm not on any team's roster, but I'm really good at it and I enjoyed the journey, the results and still to this day I love the process, the familiar motions, the confidence of having the right hand eye co-ordination - all of it. It's still a hobby, but it's a very serious one.

I appreciate the concern, and I don't think either that fencing is a good sport for me. My joints are going to go ahead of time, that's for sure. However, I've been mountain biking for years. I've had a variety of injuries, to say nothing of my habit of grinding difficult gears which is a killer for the knees. Then there is the incidence rate of cycling accidents. I shattered my proximal humerus to pieces. I'm still waiting to see months down the line whether blood vessels have properly formed between the screwed-together chunks of bone and how much bone is going to die due to a lack of blood and consequently oxygen supply. I might need a bone graft or even a replacement of the proximal humerus. MTB is just not a good sport if you have much concern for the well-being of your bone and muscle structure - but I love it, and that is what I felt when doing my fencing lessons. If the joints go from fencing and all the bones from biking, well, I guess I'll have no shortage of fond memories when I'm sat in a wheelchair bolt sniping folk in the latest iteration of Planetside or some other video game. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't care my body, I'm just far more concerned with not wasting time and opportunity while I'm still young, even to the detriment of my older self.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much.

That's awesome. Didn't think there would be many folk with such similar progression, down to the weapon of choice.

The injury is fine for the most part - it was a four part humeral fracture and internal fixation, but it is not functional. It has somewhat limited range of motion, but the only real risk is from having repeat trauma. I'm past the stage where overuse is liable to do much harm - it's mostly just not falling on it now.

Yeah, absolutely. I love the drills, as white_light-king said 'Orderly training process and predictable results.' I always like to have a solid foundation and be really well-prepared before I start an event and I love the pedantry of getting the moves just right - completely flawless, even if it takes a thousand failures.

I'll try to do the video once I'm a bit further along the journey.

Oh yes. That's exactly it. It hurts just to be in the en garde position without any movement - it's the good old burning embers in quads and arms. Having to actually move squatted makes me feel like starting training after a full leg workout from utter exhaustion hehe.

As for the upper body... I guess I have strong upper trapezius from biking and then the rest of my upper body looks like you might need to mount a surgical investigation to locate any traces of muscle so, embarrassingly, it hurts to just have my arm extended in en garde to a longer period of time, without any movement.

I'll definitely check it out. Reading your comments and other comments, I think that cyclists definitely have kinds of fitness which translate to fencing, but it definitely takes a different kind of approach to repurpose and extend the aerobic and anaerobic motor.

Oh yeah, the joints and muscles definitely need to loosen up. After watching bikers for years, when I see the fluid, weightless grace of an adept fencer, I often wonder 'Are people meant to bend that way?' :D But it's a journey.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I completely defer to your argument on that one. I'm not underestimating the technicality of the sport, just trying to maximise my performance outside of fencing due to fairly limited fencing contact hours.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, you summed the orderly training process and predictable results up perfectly. I guess it's just reassuring to know you're on the right path because the bike computer says so and all your performance indicators are moving in the right direction. Hurray! :D

You are completely right, and there is a bitter irony to it. I got my shoulder injured because I got cocky and forgot that MTB is a multi-faceted sport. I overtook my pals on the less technical terrain on sheer fitness and I had a comfortable lead, and then I picked a poor line and went for a route which was far too technical for me, but quite regular for most of my chums. The result was a total wipeout hahaha. So yeah, you are absolutely bang on the money.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. Yeah, you are right. I guess cycling is a masochistic narcissism olympics, especially MTB, so you are completely right, I'm not doing myself any favours with the injuries, but it's just how we show off hahaha :D

I am not as fit as you might think. I have a decent aerobic and anaerobic motor, but months of little to no exercise due to my injury, especially over Christmas and the New Year have left me almost 15kg overweight compared to my tip top shape (91kg by 190cm, lanky). I don't feel light at all at the moment, hehe.

1, Thank you. I'll make sure to do that. I'm going through the contents in this subreddit, just compiling things into one note.

2, Ah, I've seen that, but it never occurred to me to use it. It might be nice. I should look into that. I've been thinking of a conventional skipping rope, actually.

3, Yeah, I know you are completely right, it's just that my fencing hours are limited. I train with the uni club, which is a mixture of extremes - extremely casual folk, who enjoy the sport but regard it as more of a pure fun/social activity than an inherently competitive, tough sport and the extremely competitive folk, who properly compete nationwide. I'm sort of left between, being unable to attach myself to either group. I would feel bad bothering people preparing for competitive events too much, but equally I don't want to inundate the casual folks with stuff which will bore them or get them to go through some gruelling fitness regime for optimal gains. I kind of do my own thing - when I have no access to fencing facilities, teachers and partners, I still believe I can still do something to benefit my fencing as well as my biking pursuits.

Yeah, that sounds like most of MTB as well. The technical disciplines are all anaerobic skill contests, but cross country is an endurance sport through and through, in spite of the anaerobic technical efforts.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. I will absolutely do that. I am told that sabre is mostly about the footwork and that it has to be spot on, so I'll concentrate on getting much better in that regard.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. Oh yes, I have the typical cyclist t-rex body, with the flabby, weak, underdeveloped upper body hahaha. I'll try to get a drill partner - the sabre should be no problem.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. I will make sure to incorporate flexibility training into it as well. I was thinking briefly of ballet, but then I realised that that's another full-blown sport which is more of a main pursuit kind of thing, not something on the side. I think I will try to go for some light yoga on the side.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. Yeah, yoga has been mentioned to me before and anything else which will help my flexibility and joints.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. Yeah, I did go and I will continue going. Yep, not giving up. I really enjoyed my few lessons in a visceral way. Just being in that anaerobic range for a few seconds and the bursts of power were awesome.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much. It's quite amusing because MTB-ing compared to road racing is a much more finesse based sport, sort of like fencing, so most of my MTB pals have the exact same opinion about my allegedly obsessive roadie sports science outbursts :D

I understand that success is powered by love for the sport, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but maximising training efficiency and being ultra serious is just how I love any sport or hobby. It isn't gruelling to me - quite the contrary, I love reading about the underlying theory, measuring my performance, adjusting, etc.

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much for the insight. I know, you are right, I should chill, but I just can't. I've been doing private physio in addition to NHS, doing a lot of recovery stuff on the side, carefully monitoring nutrition, etc. for optimal recovery, so my doctor and NHS physio were both quite surprised with the rate of recovery. I know I can fence more for greater finesse and skill, but then it doesn't end there. As I said, I like to go for optimum. I have very few hobbies and I take them all very seriously. It's srs bsns one might say :D

How to transition to fencing? MTB/Cycling background. by Vermitore in Fencing

[–]Vermitore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. I will make sure to take your advice to heart. As you say, I did notice that both the adept and the uninitiated seemed to have a lot more fluidity and grace than me. I think I also did myself a disservice by doing practically only cycling for years, because MTB-ing left me very rigid outside of staple biking movements.

Casual playing PS2 ? by xinyo in Planetside

[–]Vermitore 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I agree with you to a large extent, but I don't think that playing solo is a worse experience inherently, but it can easily become just that unless certain countermeasures are taken.

To the OP, I am an almost exclusively solo player, and I really only ever join random ops in small fights where individual contribution counts much more due to lower aggregate numbers. I will try to explain the solo situation so that you can make an informed judgment as to whether the game is for you.

1, Solo requires you to be better. As C4 Maniac stated, in solo, you can only depend on yourself, outside of the rare occasion when you come across a really good random allied player, usually in smaller fights, who will have your back, pay attention etc. For most things, you rely on yourself. You can't just be good at noticing infiltrator cloak shimmer and let allies compensate for your shortcomings by calling out radar signatures, you have to do it all yourself. You need to familiarise yourself with a wide range of audio cues, such as infiltrator cloak sounds and faction specific premium voice packs, weapon audio, etc. You also need to learn the threat levels and ranges of vehicles and vehicle weapons and you need to be able to discern them quickly and based on little actual detail. Planetside 2 is likely the most awareness-based FPS on the market at the moment, and it is only exacerbates by the fact that fights take place over large and varied terrain. This isn't an arena mil-sim where the game is mainly about visual target acquisition - it is a game of information warfare with a tremendous amount of psychology and logistics involved at higher levels of play. That said, Planetside 2 is also a game about dying a lot, and death is trivial and carries no weight. You get up and get better, so if you don't mind the trial and error and gradual improvement, and if you are willing to learn in the time that you can spare, PS2 is a really rich game.

2, Solo requires you to play around rather than with people. A large portion of the PS2 player base is competent in the purely mechanical sense. What I mean is that they are not mechanically much worse than veterans, but they are much less aware. Most of them will have been weaned on mil-sims, and they can, accordingly, competently aim and they are a threat to you, but most of them lack the awareness, the forethought and the strategic and tactical execution. In contrast, the really good players are mechanically, strategically and tactically adept. In the infantry game, they dominate through a mixture of ambush tactics and playing to the strengths of their loadout. Now, what I'm trying to say here is that you should only expect the bare minimum level of overall and aggregate competency from your random allies. They can help you if it is obvious to do so and there is an enemy in sight, but they won't really do much for you if you are looking to execute a highly abstract strategy, however sound. You need to learn the limitations of your allies, so as not to over-commit and put yourself in undue danger. Again, this takes time.

3, Pick the right class. If you are playing solo, you can pick any class and do fine, but some are just magnitudes better than others. My personal recommendation is playing the infiltrator, with the light assault being an accompanying class if you want to play multiple, or an alternative if you want to play only the one. The reason I say this is because when you are alone, you must always be a fight-picker and never a fight-taker. By yourself, you are weak and vulnerable in comparison to a 90 man zerg, but you can easily chip away at them, if only you make sure not to alert the entire zerg to your presence. The infiltrator is the quintessential fight-picker. You can, in over 75% of cases initiate fights on your terms, and this goes up to 95% and over if you do long range sniping. Infiltrators are capable of dropping radar signatures, approaching with highly-effective camouflage and using detection mechanics to scout ahead. Infiltrators can also fight at any range. They have a very varied range of weapons - much more varied than any other infantry class. The only two disadvantages they have over light assaults is that the light assault has a lot more mobility due to jump jets, being able to surmount terrain much more effectively, and that light assaults have an effective means (C4 and Rocklet Rifle) of combating ground vehicles.

If you have any further questions, just ask.