BF2S Forums Flags versus Kill: Which Is More Important to Winning?

Definatly on 64/64 servers ide say killing is much more important. However, on 16 player servers capping flags would be as important as killing.

If you can kill fast enough to even it out, killing > flags. 32p karkand I usually let the enemy have central island so the flags are 3 - 2, but i more than make up for the ticket bleed by raping it stupid and blowing up the heli once it spawns.

I do that Tactic aswell, I have done it in a 12vs12 CAL Match and it always works because the enemy team ALWAYS flys to the middle flag and captures that first off to get the Helecopter which is important but you put a flag between them they ill go for that first leaving the center flag open for a Squad to take it.

The problem with most players is they are to focused on getting points and don't care about the flags and don't relize there importance with regards to winning or losing a map. Good example is the Hotel on Karkand where people won't even cheak the map to notice they lost Train Accident or a flag further. By the time they relize the Action has died down at the Hotel, the island is taken and its just a bloodbath over the two bottlenecks.

Every 10 seconds or so, the team without the win condition in place on the map, loses a ticket. Every death on the Battlefield counts as a lost ticket for that team. If a team can keep a Global KPM of 6 while in this state, they can still win. Very hard to do but its not impossible. Flags are more important though...But you can't have good flag capture and poor killing, you need balance or they walk right through you.

attack is best defend

I'd say it ultimately depends on the map. Some maps are spread out, so kills happen less often, thus making it harder to "beat the bleed". Smaller maps, like Sharqi, Karkand, Mashtuur.. you can easily out-kill the other team, and beat the bleed easily every game. Some maps, it's only important to have 1 or 2 key flags, for armor, helis, aircraft, whatnot. Those vehicles are key to winning, and will easily beat the bleed. Larger maps like Operation Clean Sweep put more importance on who is bleeding, because kills happen much less often, since everything is so spread out, and even the bombers have long distances to travel to rearm.

On average, I'd rather have a team that is much more skilled at killing and are point whores, than a strategic team that concentrates on capping flags. I've seen too many Wake games won by USMC without ever capping a flag, too many Karkand games won without ever capping a flag... Just a couple days ago, I was MEC on Karkand, and we lost all but 1 flag within the first 5 minutes of the game, but we were out-killing them by such a large margin, that at no point in time were we less than 30 points ahead. We ended the game I think with only 2 flags, neither of which was the Factory, yet we won by almost 80 points.

Like someone else said, killing is more important on 64 person servers, and flags are more important on 16 person servers, mainly because you can't sustain the KPM necessary on a small server necessary to beat the bleed.

This is also how pure base-raping becomes a viable strategy on some maps, because the KPM garnered from base-raping easily overcomes the ticket loss from not capping flags. I've had games won because my team had 2 full squads constantly raping an uncappable base, both preventing access to key vehicles as well as commander assets, not to mention everyone that kept spawning at the uncappable main to get killed repeatedly. I don't think there is any "set in stone" guide to determining when to kill instead of take flags, it's just a feel you get for the tempo of the game. Some games I'll be defending a flag or taking flags, only to realize we were still losing, regardless of having almost all the flags. I'd then switch to just straight kill whoring, and managed to pull out a victory.

Totaly agree with torin but woud like to add

It depends on the map and how many flags you need to start them to bleed tickets. In Karkand USMC only need to capture 1 flag to stop the bleed, and Mec has to only have 1 flag left to start ticket bleed. This is an exampleof where kills is much more important because to restrict a team to just 1 flag is very hard. But there are many other maps where you only need a majority to start bleed. I cant tell you what everymap is off hand but i know theres differences. Just look at the ticket counter. When its flashing that team has ticket bleed. When its not then only kills are making it go down.

It depends on situation. If your team bleeds and loses tickets constantly then taking a flag is the most important for you. It does not matter how many times you will die trying to take the flag.
     When there is no ticket bleed then kills are more important.

     There are few exceptions. I've played in a few rounds (Karkand) when USMC did not have any flags but win due to excessive spawnkilling.

blacksheepcannibal wrote:

wtf is all this talk of winning? I thought score was most important?

In clan wars nobody gives a sh!t about score.

I think that it depends on the map. For example;karand. Stratigically, the bloodbath for the hotel is for next to nothing. It doesn't help the USMC one bit besides the slow decline of tickets. I have even seen entire rounds where that slow decline doesn't even matter a whole lot. However if you can manage to get the factory right off the bat and hold it, its most likely a garunteed win.

Basically killing is more important (as well as not dying,) But getting a flag or base with lots of vehicles and/or assets makes the job that much easier.

In agreement with Torin, it depends on the map.  Certain flags on certain maps slow the drain on tickets faster than most.  The TV Station on Warlord, the Airfield on Zatar Wetlands are two examples of key points that need to be held to win a map.  Of course more kills take the tickets down quicker... but finding the key points are necessary for winning a map.

-Miki3 outlines it pretty good.

Last edited by CmdrTenchi (2006-05-08 10:14:08)

It's flag, but more important, which flag...

On Karkand take the back flag and you cripple the MEC. On Sharqui, take the back flag and you are chopper/tank free for the rest of the map and you will get numerous kills from people trying to get the flag back.  On Mashtuur, it's the tank flags that you must control.

you need 3 flags, in a 64player map, thats more then enough to do the rest with kills. the 3 is so if there is raping going on, spawn at a other flag, kill it over long range.