PRESTIGE STATUS/KDR VS. WL DEBATE

In my last blog, I had said about going to another prestige level something that I’d never do again.

Well, I have to rescind that comment, and I’ll tell you why.

When I learned that I can take items with me through the prestige process, that’s a really good to me as an incentive to prestige.

Granted, my friends and family who haven’t prestiged in Modern Warfare 3 made the choice not to. As you already know, I got no balled into doing it.
No big deal to me. It keeps the challenge up, but the one thing I know is, man, if you’re all about your KDR (Kill to Death Ratio) as I am.
It’s been a good and bad experience.
(I’ll get into that subject later on if not into a totally different other blog. Hmmm…okay, let me think on that.)

I sat in party chat talked with a friend of mine who is a 20^th Level Prestige and WHY they keep pressing you to go higher and higher in the prestige levels, which we don’t get.
Maybe to keep the playability factor there for prestigaholics, those who do 25^th Level Prestige and so on? We don’t know.
Yet, I digress. I asked him, “Bro, what do you do when you prestige man? How did you do it, what was your process?”

He replies, “Well Horse, when I started to prestige, I thought, what do I need the most with me? What is my play style, I can always get my guns through, so that’s not a problem. What’s my go to gun, my go to lethal, tactical? My perks? So I took all of those into account and rolled with it. My advice is to go with what you use most. Like you Horse, you’re a point control guy and you like to ambush folks, maybe you want to go with the higher end 2^nd and 3^rd tier perks. Me, I know Blind Eye is a low level perk, do I have it with me, yeah, because I’m invisible to anything that can get me aerially. So go with what you know and how your style is and you’ll have a good time prestiging.

With Medal of Honor-Warfighter and BLACK OPS 2 coming out, I really don’t know how far I’ll get prestige-wise, what the hell though, after the aforementioned games come out, I’m not going back to Modern Warfare 3.

I mean, I’m burning through the prestige fairly quick. I prestiged on Monday, 13 August 2012 @ 1822 for the second time, so I’m guessing without another Double XP Weekend, I’ll make the next prestige sometime next week.

So here is how my next few prestige levels will be in no order at all.
Prestige 3 – Trophy System
Prestige 4 – Assassin
Prestige 5 – SITREP
Prestige 6 – BLIND EYE

Prestige 7 – Portable Radar
Prestige 8 – MP9
Prestige 9 – Claymore
10^th Level – MK14
*
11^th Level -
12^th Level -
13^th Level -
14^th Level -
15^th Level -
16^th Level -
17^th Level -
18^th Level -
19^th Level -
20^th Level -
* Will I make it to these levels, I don’t know man. I really don’t. I do, I do, I don’t, 99.95% thought is, I’ll be playing MofH or Black Ops 2.

Now, let’s talk about Prestige and Kill to Death Ratio
I’ve noticed during Prestige that I take about .001-003 point drop in both my overall and my Team Deathmatch lobby score. I’ve found that I’ve relied WAY too much on my Blind Eye Pro/Assassin/SITREP Pro, took my eyes off the battle space or I just simply show up on the RADAR with that BIG RED NAME TAG over my head. When I’m ending up on my back too much, I’m not helping my team, I’m HURTING my team. That’s when I let some of our better slayers take over and I run in the support role. Not a lot of kills but I’m the guy covering the slayer’s back. While he goes 34-0. I go maybe 3:1 for KDR or I go 5:1 or sometimes I get a lower KDR below my overall. The main thing, I can fall back on my Hardcore Kill Confirmed (HXKC, WITH THE RIGHT TEAMMATE TO RUN WITH!) game to get my numbers back up. I usually end up running solo in that do very well. Plus it helps in the XP department to get those achievements out of the way for Perks. Can rack up a lot of SITREP (I’m not even close to cracking the 50 I need to get it back).

*If I do prestige again, this perk will be coming with me?

*Yes, it will be coming with me, IF I prestige. The one thing I really only wanted was the extra class, for my Sniper/Designate Marksmanship Rifle (DMR). And I think it’s pretty cool that I have them all in German/Latin/Norwegian. People think they’re running against a Euro. HILARIOUS!

Yet, I digress. Like  I stated above, these three perks and being a better than average slayer (hey, my KD is above 2.75, come on, give me some credit), in HX these perks are more than necessary. Why? You don’t want to be seen or heard. With SITREP Pro, I hear you coming and can triangulate what angle you’re coming at me from. Then you run right past me and boom,  you get shot in the back? What? No killcam?  So sad Charlie.

NOW! ON TO THAT KILL TO DEATH ISSUE HUH?
If you look at the two game modes I play, it’s HXKC and Core TDM. There are two totally different game modes.
Core Team Death Match-This game mode, simple, team vs. team, kill as many as you can and if you get to 7500-Fuck Off. Fine. If not, hey, winning by 1000 points (1 Kill), or just destroying the opposition (as my team tends to do).
Now let’s look at the KDR aspect of this, depending on who’s on the team too. If you have a team of slayers, it’s going to be an even keel of scoring or someone will have an outstanding game, sometimes score 50% or 65% of the teams overall score, while everyone else is sitting at a 5:1 KDR. Where do I fall into this? Right now, I’m in the 5:1 KDR circle of players on the clan. I’m not doing anything other than playing my supporting role in what our slayers do best. Kill everything they see. I’ll run for my Strike Package in the Support Role, 3-4, UAV, Care Package, that’s is. Why? Because I know that’s all I’m going to get. I might go with a Predator (5 Kills), or I may even go 7-12-17. My SP depends on the map and where I’m on it and what fire lane I need to cover.

Lately though, and I believe this will change, now that I have Assassin Pro, I don’t have that big red SHOOT ME IN THE FACE gamertag floating over my head and I can head glitch in my ambush positions. Especially in HX.

So if this is my last run at a prestige. I’ll get back up to my almost 3:1 overall KD, I was sitting at 2.81, now I’m at 2.79 (that’s a .02 KDR difference), but with the amount of kills I have, that will take a LONG time to get back. In the TDM Lobby, I was at 3.28, now I’m .04 of a point down at 3.24. That’s going to take a lot of games of X AMOUNT OF POINT:ZERO KDR. A LOT!

You have to do the math. Currently,  I’m at an overall of 2.79 (2.788 actual).

To maintain that, I have to go 2.80 at least. To increase, I’ve got to go 3:1 every match. Even with high scoring games, like my recent personal best on Hardhat 55-3, that gave me a WHOLE .04 of a point BACK! So you see the numbers I need if I really want to get my KDR back up. (I know what you’re going to say and I’m not done, I’ll explain that). Whereas in TDM, I’ve got to get a 3.25 to MAINTAIN, but to increase that KDR, I’ve got to keep my deaths in the 0 number area. If I go 9-3, that’s fine, that’s a 3:1 KD. If I go 10:3, that’s 3.33. 11-3 is the number you want that’s 3.67 and that pushes you closer to a point increase. But getting that 20-30 kill count in a TDM game is great to. A 40 point game and whoever you’re playing against is a fucking dolt who just needs to lay down the controller and punt their XBOX into a garbage can. I came closer 32 is my personal best so far.

YET AGAIN, I DIGRESS

But you say HORSE SIX ZERO, do you just kill whore in HXKC or do you actually do work in it.
Yes, and no.
Let me explain to you my way of thinking in this realm okay?
If I’m on a team of say, myself (HORSE SIX ZERO) another clan mate or a good friend I run with, Kill Confirmed, is NOT an objective based game as everyone thinks it is. It puts a whole new twist on Team Death Match. Kind of how the new Multi-Team Deathmatch coming up in Black Ops 2 is going to be. You goal is to win to the game. Like TDM, if you win by one point or dominate, it’s a win. If it’s just a buddy and I? Damn right, we’re going to make it a killing field filled with dog tags bouncing all over the map. If I’m running on the HCKC team I run on, guess what, I am the designated slayer, I am the killer, I am the one who goes 30-65 kills a game. I may not have the most amount of DTs captured, but that’s not my problem. That’s the OTHER TEAMS problem.

Why? I shut down one whole section of the map, guess what, now they’re trapped. They either lay back in their spawn or come get dead. Easy prey.  
As a designated Slayer, my job is very easy, get kills, call out killstreaks in my Strike Package and do that all over again. I usually don’t die a lot in HXKC.

NOW YOU ASK!
“Yeah but HORSE SIX ZERO! COME ON MAN!? Do you get dog tags at all?”
Yes, I do, when I’m close enough to get them. Depending on the map, if I can get to the tag(s), I’ll capture. At distance though, no, I’m not leaving a perch that’s allowing me to kill everything I see (BTW, I’m strictly suppressed in HX) but it’s also good to use those you’ve killed (they show up gold to you, red to them) as bait. A smart team, won’t go back, a dumb player will think of nothing but grabbing those tags, end up on the other side of the sights, and I hear in my death mic “THAT FUCKIN’ HORSE SI….”/”SOMEONE FUCKIN KILL HI….”/”COME ON MAN! WT…”

Yeah, it’s happened MANY times.

If I’m on say, the map…let’s see, Terminal, and I’m where I want to be (that’s CLASSIFIED), and I’m picking em off at the distance and there is a teammate out there doing nothing but bird doggin’ for me, but he’s getting the tags? Because I got the kill and he got the tags, I get 150 points not only for the kill but for the tag pick up and he gets 50 points for the tags as well.

The team I run HXKC with, plays it the same way I do. Four shooters, a.k.a. Taggers, and 2 Collectors, a.k.a. Baggers.
If your bagger gets killed and I drop the gamer who took them out. They’ll spawn in a safe place, that gamer spawns in the opposite spawn, giving, plenty of time to get set up again for another round.

So while the aggressor comes in, I’ll drop them again, this time, my Bagger, may have more than one or tags out there to gather. Pop smoke grab tags and I’m waiting with my Thermal with Marksman on it. Booya.

Now that my killstreaks are up, my Bagger will come and give me and another Tagger BVs (Ballistic Vests). They run UAV, Vests, and AUAV and Escort Airdrop or just BVs. (This really works, every layer of vest helps.)

Plus, while on my prestige, I’ve gotten achievements out of the way and helped my team…win.

So there you have it, that’s how you can really run up a score and get your KDR back up if it’s fallen a bit.
That’s what I do.

Then others say to me. “HEY HORSE SIX ZERO, IT’S W/L VS. KDR! IT’S ALL ABOUT THE W!”

Okay, this is true. When it comes to OBGMs (Objective Based Game Modes), it’s apparent you can get a silly amount of kills, without dying a shitload of times either.

It just depends on what game mode you’re talking about. Now there are two TDM style games as we’ve previously discussed.

1. Kill Confirmed
2. Team Death Match

There are SEVEN count em’ SEVEN OBGMs.
Now you’ve got:
1. Capture the Flag
Now, in the version of CTF, I think the SPKS (Strike Package’s Kill Streak), don’t carry over into the new rounds. So, the strategy could go TDM style. Camp your flag and then when you unless hell on them, rush their flag and while they’re getting killed, steal it and head back. Nothing like having two or three IMSs covering avenues of approach with Trophy Systems on top of them to protect them from possible incoming grenades.
If your SPKS carries over into your next round, then you unless hell at the beginning of the round and then steal the flags (this was our strategy in MW2)

2. Demolition
Easy, give up one point same as capture the flag, then unleash hell and plant both, claymores IMS and bouncing betty.

3. Domination
I don’t play this, I think this and SnD are fucking garbage. Spawn trap? LAME!

4. Headquarters
This is like Dom, you want to make this game mode interesting, you gotta plant bombs on the headquarter and capture it all at the same time. Someone plants, while someone captures. Yeuppers, that’d be a wild ride, for those who play this garbage mode.

5. Sabotage

6. Search and Destroy (a.k.a. – Boosters Paradise)
…Really? It’s the dumbest shit ever, you get the most points per kill and such, but that’s about it. Then you gotta wait 10 minutes for two jackasses to outcamp each other.

7. Team Defender
This game mode, I could really get into with the right team. Get the flag, fall back and let the KDR just run up.

The one thing you can’t do while playing ANY MODE, is allow the other team to build up the SPKS. ESPECIALLY A BV (BALLISTIC VEST) SPKS.
Lots of OBGMs require you the need for BV, ADA, and what not.
BUT!

You can’t go negative. The team that stays in the positive will always win. No matter what.
If you play Domination and win 200-80. What happened? NO ONE WENT NEGATIVE AND SHOT, COMMUNICATED, AND MOVED OUT OKAY!?
They didn’t just rush in blindly and go 10-47. Because if you go 10-47 in Domination, you gave up a shit load of kills to the other team, SPKS, and if you’re a .21 KD and happy with it, and lose, you just need to dick punch yourself and not have children!

To Prestige again or not to Prestige again, that…remains the question.

HORSE SIX ZERO…out…

HOW TO WIN EVERY CORE - TEAM DEATH MATCH (TDM) GAME

By HORSE SIX ZERO -
HORSE SIX ZERO is a member of the CLAC clan on XBL.
The views expressed in this blog come courtesy of the 1st Amendent of the Constitution of the United States of America

Team Death Match is a 6v6 game pitting the factions within MW3 pitting one another team vs. team with a maximum score of 7500.

As a gamer who has a particular style within TDM, my team and I use strategy and tactics to not only allow us to win by a overwhelming score, but, to cause many hatemails to end up in our inboxes.

How do we do this? Well I won't go into the particulars of the maps so to speak, but the old adage, a good defense makes for a strong offense comes into play.

Treat TDM like a you would if you were a coach on the football field? How do they run their defense to score points? Then letting their offense take to the field to score? How does special teams come into play in a football game? Well, they are the ones who have to do the dirty work on kickoff and punt returns right? The coach, when winning wants to control the pace of the game correct? Of course.

How do we do that in a TDM approach?

Most of our teammates on our team are either prior military or current military. We have former football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and lacross players on our team. When you're talking TDM, what's the first thing that comes to mind? No, it's not win the game, it's TEAM.

How does a team doing something win at what they're doing? They talk, they communicate. You can't tell your offense what to do just being behind center right? Of course you can't! Your team isn't going to know which play they're going to do without doing what? Going into the huddle. The QB relaying the strategy from the coach to what's going to happen on the field. What WR route they're going to run, the hole that's going to get opened, etc. correct?

Now, let's put this into MW3 terms.

In MW3, you're a six man fire team moving out to engage a digital enemy and his main pupose is to put as many deaths on his teams scoreboard. These for him are kills. His other main purpose is to not attain a lot of those deaths handing the other team points.

Now, here's where the idea gets skewered. Do you attack, or, do you defend?

The pregame lobby is the huddle. This is where the team sets out it's basis for who's going to do what and have what (meaning weapons, perks, strike packages, and deathstreaks) is needed to accomplish the objective. To gain a "W" in the win column.

With that said and done, within that fireteam, per the basis of the map, everyone is assigned a field of fire and what to use to cover what is called "dead space". Dead space is defined as the blind section of a shooters field of vision which he cannot see into. E.g. Behind a wall, a declination, or out of visual range avenue of approach. The best way to cover dead space is with the claymore or bouncing better or both. Why both? It defeats Stalker Pro. Stalker Pro can only defeat one device. So, if you set a claymore and he trips that, the next device will be tripped and that gamer will receive a death.

Other devices used for detection e.g. the trophy system and the portable radar.

An organized fireteam defends, the opposing team attacks. Upon converging, the two teams open fire on one another. When the team that is defending drops a gamer on the opposite team, in the core environment; one only has to select X to respawn or they can use the kill cam to see where they were engaged from.

Once that attacker is dropped, the attacking team is one man short to the defending team. That turns it into a 6v5 engagement.

So minus one, then two, then three,  that team is X amount of guns less to engage targets of opportunity on the defending team.When one or more of the attacking players is gone, they are thrown out of focus and must regroup. If not, a single shooter in a mid range battle with LMGs, ARs, and SR (Sniper Rifles), will lose that gun battle.

The difference between the two teams. The defending team is leaving room open for them to respawn alongside their teammates instead of spawning away from the safe haven of the spawn; whereas the opposing team is spawning in various places throughout the map and generally falls into a state of pandemonium.
You have to remember, the average time for gamer without Extreme Conditioning Pro take's between 8-11 seconds to cover the distance from one side of the map to the other. On the larger maps or with maps that have inclines and declines, this can actually cause that time to increase to almost 15 seconds.

So if you're a gamer playing against this play style, when you go to where your kill cam (BTW, watching this, look at how much time you've taken yourself and  your gun, out of the game!), that gamer that you gave a point to, isn't there, has repositioned himself and then you get taken out...again. This process happens over and over again, until an overhead kill steak can and usually does spawn trap you. (If you've run into an Osprey Gunner, you've experience this.) Giving HUGE amounts of points to the defending team.

It's okay if you have ADA, we've got enough Air Support coming to keep you pinned down without any way to use it. From the predator to the stealth bombers and all things in between that go boom, and kill anything on the ground, it doesn't matter, when you're aiming at that UAV, you just might get taken out by that lil thing called an assualt drone shooting you OR blowing you up with a rocket.

As stated before, we do this all in the huddle.

Why does this happen? It's simple match making.
When a well put together clan team is together vs. a band of random players, those random players have not played the game together and usually do not have a  microphone on to relay information. They just blindly run into the defending teams gunsights and add to the losing point spread.

Also, the average KDR or Kill to Death Ratio of the MW3 gaming community is under 1.00. Logic concludes that no way in hell is a team with a median KD of .76 going to be a team with a combined median KDR of 3.75. Why? The clan team has been playing together and basically know who's going to do what, they're going to know what's going to happen in what spot before you, the opposing player, even know what's happening if they rush your spawn because it's more easily defendable. They usually have a sense of where an enemy is going to go to and are waiting on you by to enter their gunsights and put points on the scoreboard.

We are also a well organized "rushing style team" and overrun your spawn, flip it and then  defend it. Not only have we caused you to lose your momentum, you will rush at us over and over and we'll just let the digital bodies pile up and rack up the score on you. Because we know these maps like the back of our hands. As stated before, by the time you know what's going on, we've "Set it Up". Welcome to the killzone.

In my time of playing COD-4 until now, when you have a defensive team the knows where the line of no return is, aka spawn line, you do not cross it, you, defend it. You do not want that team's player to get into your spawn. Because if he does, if you have a teammate that hits the deck and coughs up a point. He may spawn on the other side of the map. Then the defending team is down one gun until that gamer can 1. Make it back without getting taken out. or 2. He becomes a floater and takes their rear flank.

By controlling the map, covering avenues of approach and having the right teammates with a similar play style to you. As a defender, the only thing that will happen is that you will have teams run into your bullets, your killstreaks and end up leaving the lobby out of frustration or fear of another loss.

How did this happen? With map control, clock control, coordinated kill streaks of assault, support, and specialist (and yes, there have been MOABs launched).

Since the defending team is in a party, and the final kill cam (99 percent of the time), is at the game winning 7500, they will see the mic indicators at that moment light up. Some of the defending team is called "The Camper".

Let's touch on that shall we? We shall in my next blog. Why the Strategist is called every name in the book.

HORSE SIX ZERO"I'll see you...from the other side of my sights"