Flight Academy: Teamwork

Recruits,

A subject that we’ve often alluded to over the course of our on-going Flight Academy series is the crucial impact of teamwork and how it often directly correlates to success in battle. Many pilots dismiss it completely, thinking that there can be no cohesiveness in random battles. However, we intend to prove the naysayers wrong by showing you what advantages come to those who play with each other instead of just alongside each other.

Teamwork

Don’t go alone! – We can’t stress this point enough, especially for beginners. Everybody who’s fought one-on-one duels before knows that, if planes and pilots are equal, there are very few ways to change the course of a dogfight after the first few moments. Most of the time, the pilot who manages to either deal the bigger amount of damage during the first head-on encounter or get on the tail of the other pilot first will ultimately score the takedown. Yes, there are countermeasures (see Defence Part I & II) that the defending pilot can resort to, but for the most part, if put to the test against an equally skilled attacker, the defending plane will draw the short straw. Luckily, this is only true under certain conditions and when you are on your own without team assistance.

Nonetheless, to avoid finding themselves in such situations, newcomers should take it as a general rule to never go alone. In World of Warplanes, power lies in the greater numbers. This is due to the nature of combat in the game.

Think about the most common fights that you have been in. Probably the first thing that will spring to mind will be the image of a group of planes tightly rotating around each other in what looks like a dense fur ball. In such engagements, every plane is usually chasing one other plane. Logically, it will be the group that has one or more additional aircraft than the other that will have an advantage. While everybody else is busy with each other, the ‘extra pilots’ won’t have to worry about defence and can just pick their foes out of the sky. This will give the group that was already more numerous at the beginning an even greater advantage by further changing the numerical odds in their favour. All of a sudden, instead of being engaged in the initial one-on-one combat (within the fur ball of course) the smaller group of planes will find themselves even more outnumbered. You’ll know from experience that shaking not just one but a whole bunch of enemies surrounding you is basically impossible.

Once this trend begins, the smaller group will eventually be wiped out unless it is reversed somehow. This is why trying to gain a numerical advantage is so crucial. As long as you’re learning, you must avoid going into combat alone or outnumbered at all costs! Check where the different groups of your team are going, analyse the map and decide based on your plane and your mission which one of them to follow. Not only will you improve your own survival chances because your mates can provide you cover and help out if they see that you’re in trouble, but you’ll also indirectly help create that numerical advantage that so often decides the outcome of encounters. 

Stick together in flights! – A great way to improve your odds and learn the game in more favourable conditions is to fly in Flights. Get one or two friends together or find new buddies in the game’s own chat feature to connect and play together. Select your warplane based on the kind of play style that you and your flight mates want to be playing and don’t forget to assign roles within your own little group before taking to the skies. Make sure that your communication works, either by discussing strategy together beforehand or setting up Voice Chat, so that you can stay in touch throughout your adventures without the need for typing.

Make no mistake – it’s in the cohesiveness resulting from exactly this kind of improved communication that the great strength of Flights lies. Players who have been randomly matched together for just one battle will largely focus on themselves and won’t be too eager to help their comrades. In addition to the fact that they just don’t know you, taking your hands off the controls to chat in order to communicate with someone can be very risky in a game like World of Warplanes. This is why random players often develop a kind of ‘tunnel vision’ where everybody just pursues their own goal, without taking into account what this behaviour means for the team.

In Flights though, you needn’t make this mistake. Your big advantage is the fact that you (hopefully) know who your wingmen are and actually care not only about your own success but also the team’s survival. This should enable you to follow what happens in the air space around you more closely, which in return will help you develop better all-round vision and a deeper understanding of the game.

If you do decide to take off in a Flight with your buddies, make sure you stick together throughout the game. The best communication in the world won’t do you much good if the three of you are all spread out in different corners of the map where everybody has to deal with a different situation and is too far away to be relied on for help. Stay close to your wingmen and try to act like a unit, following the lead of one designated commander who coordinates the actions of your trinity. That way, when called on for help you’ll actually be in the same region and should be able to intervene quickly if you or one of your teammates needs assistance. Maximise the potential of your Flight by preparing your planes, equipment and strategy together before the game and stick close to each other throughout the battle to make the most of your opportunities.

Help first, shoot later! – Help out your teammates first before going on a hunt yourself to chase down a target. Sometimes you’ll end up in situations where, upon skimming the map, you’ll be faced with the decision to either engage in a battle of your own or go and help out a teammate who is already chasing or fighting off some other enemy. Obviously there is no one answer as to what you should do in such a situation. You have to consider all the circumstances. However, in most cases, you’ll find that it’s best to give assistance first to help clear a situation and only then go and find new objectives.

Think about how you would feel if the roles were reversed. If you’re being chased by somebody and you see comrades of yours in the vicinity banking away to some other conflict zone instead of helping. Their inactivity might result in you struggling to defend yourself and possibly even dying on your own. You wouldn’t be too pleased about that now, would you?

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to get your enemy’s attention. You will find that giving an attacking pilot some heat can make him give up the pursuit of one of your teammates quite quickly. Even a few bullets flying in the general direction of your foes can be enough to make them change their course, bank away or just generally miss whoever they were chasing. These precious moments of inattention might give the defending player just enough time to slip away or maybe even gain the much needed break that will help turn the odds of the encounter around. However, all of this is only possible if you play together and think ‘teamwork’ first.

So if you see somebody in trouble and the situation permits it, you should always favour lending a hand to try and even out their chances or save teammates who would otherwise be lost without you. The chance of scoring a takedown somewhere else is not worth much if it comes at the expense of your team losing another member.

These tips are just the beginning of all the things there are to know about in-game teamwork. Next week we’ll continue the subject by taking a closer look at why it’s important to protect your bombers and how to develop strategies as a group that will help your team win.

That's it for now, Recruits. You're dismissed.

Now go Get Airborne!