Teaching The Forts Community How To Play Forts

[boogerjoe]

I've been playing Forts and watching streams since May of last year and let's just say I'm not seeing much improvement. There has also been an increase of new players since the multplayer free weekend and the competitive system. To solve the problem of inexperienced and/or stagnant growth found in players, there should be a way for players to learn from the higher society of the Forts gods to play Forts well and improve, whether it be Incursus (youtuber) or an EarthWork Games (Developers) sponsored media. This could bring not only more competetiveness in tourneys that seems to be lacking, but it will supply the Forts gods with more allies or opposition to join their ranks of godliness which would bring spice into the game. There are many guides on Steam to learn and little bits and pieces of strategy spread on streams, but most new players don't know of these forms of media (not including streams). An organized collection of Forts knowledge delivered through spoken word that is properly stated would be an effective solution to educate the Forts community.



Basically, we need to learn how to git gud and we need some help.

[[DEV] BeeMan]

Something you might consider is joining the Discord and teaming up with the experienced players in a 2v2, or 2vAI to get some coaching. Voice communication would be very beneficial.

We're trying to figure out a convenient way to get replays from the experienced players into game - i.e. without having to update the game build.

[Incursus]

I'm actually working on fleshing out my tutorials, for this reason exactly.

My videos and streams are often good examples of what to do, and I often give help ask during my streams, but I need to condense these things into proper watchable videos. Keep an eye out over the next few days.

[narf03]

to be good, you need to do alot of test and research, knowing the game inside out, like :-
1) how much weight will cause your forts to collapse, if a structure is blinking red, how much more weight it can take.
2) how to avoid total collapse when certain part(especially lower front) completely destroyed
3) where to place batteries, or where to reserve place to place them (sounds stupid, but very critical)
4) how to avoid using armor (they are expensive) and replace them with sandbags or multiple wood sturcture(heavier, but much cheaper)
5) know each maps, not all workshop maps, but standard maps, knowing what to be aware of, like in vanilla 2v2, you are in the front, you cannot place wind turbines right in front of your ally's fort, or some maps mortar will never work
6) build order for different types of map, for different type of play style, some ppl waste their starting resources building structures for his entire forts, compare to his opponent spend all those resource into mines and wind turbine, according to my experience, adding 2 mines and a wind turbine asap is a must, except you see your opponent doing some strange thing, like adding workshop b4 any mines.
7) etc.

basically knowledge is power, you need to know things that most ppl dont.

[Yuna]

Originally posted by narf03:

to be good, you need to do alot of test and research, knowing the game inside out, like :-
1) how much weight will cause your forts to collapse, if a structure is blinking red, how much more weight it can take.
2) how to avoid total collapse when certain part(especially lower front) completely destroyed
3) where to place batteries, or where to reserve place to place them (sounds stupid, but very critical)
4) how to avoid using armor (they are expensive) and replace them with sandbags or multiple wood sturcture(heavier, but much cheaper)
5) know each maps, not all workshop maps, but standard maps, knowing what to be aware of, like in vanilla 2v2, you are in the front, you cannot place wind turbines right in front of your ally's fort, or some maps mortar will never work
6) build order for different types of map, for different type of play style, some ppl waste their starting resources building structures for his entire forts, compare to his opponent spend all those resource into mines and wind turbine, according to my experience, adding 2 mines and a wind turbine asap is a must, except you see your opponent doing some strange thing, like adding workshop b4 any mines.
7) etc.

basically knowledge is power, you need to know things that most ppl dont.

So a lot of people build 2 mines and a turbine right away then get a workshop? Also you have a good point and I completely agree with you.

[[DEV] Blammo]

Community member Joapocalypse has put together this guide to fort building which you might find useful...

Base Building Guide

[Romerolagus]

I spent most of the weekend watching new Forts streamers, reading questions here, and joining lobbies. I agree, most of the new players seeemd a bit lost. At the same time, it's not as though information is hidden away.

I'd say a good 30% of all the people I saw were building strut by strut. People were posting complaints about having to build strut by strut. And people were leaving negative reviews that being forced to build strut by strut made weak bases and couldn't hold weapons.

Extruding, building by clicking and dragging on a strut to make tidy little boxes is literally the 4th thing in the first tutorial mission. Right after panning and zooming. Making it clear even the in-game popup tips were ignored, let alone any external info.

I'm not saying it would hurt to collect all the information in one place. Maybe highlight a featured guide or video from the main game screen/home page during events. And the Discord link. But, you can't force feed knowledge to people.

Lest this appear too bleak, Joe's guide went from ~170 visitors to 1200+ over the weekend. Over a thousand new people taking the extra time. I saw one streamer google why his swarms wouldn't fire mid match (he'd upgraded his sniper to an AP sniper who cannot paint).

And just yesterday, I watched a new Forts Streamer (sauced82 on Twitch) and saw Joepocalypse in the match. Then Incursus says Hi in Twitch chat. Laughed on Discord that we were all watching, which got cubanwargaming's attention. Eventually, they were all playing, helpfully showing techniques like T3's on Trench. I'd have joined too, but there was a sudden opportunity to beat on the devs to offer testing assistance.

One last thing, there's a ton of possible build orders, I wouldn't discount unconventional builds out of hand.

[narf03]

Originally posted by Romerolagus:

I spent most of the weekend watching new Forts streamers, reading questions here, and joining lobbies. I agree, most of the new players seeemd a bit lost. At the same time, it's not as though information is hidden away.

I'd say a good 30% of all the people I saw were building strut by strut. People were posting complaints about having to build strut by strut. And people were leaving negative reviews that being forced to build strut by strut made weak bases and couldn't hold weapons.

Extruding, building by clicking and dragging on a strut to make tidy little boxes is literally the 4th thing in the first tutorial mission. Right after panning and zooming. Making it clear even the in-game popup tips were ignored, let alone any external info.

I'm not saying it would hurt to collect all the information in one place. Maybe highlight a featured guide or video from the main game screen/home page during events. And the Discord link. But, you can't force feed knowledge to people.

Lest this appear too bleak, Joe's guide went from ~170 visitors to 1200+ over the weekend. Over a thousand new people taking the extra time. I saw one streamer google why his swarms wouldn't fire mid match (he'd upgraded his sniper to an AP sniper who cannot paint).

And just yesterday, I watched a new Forts Streamer (sauced82 on Twitch) and saw Joepocalypse in the match. Then Incursus says Hi in Twitch chat. Laughed on Discord that we were all watching, which got cubanwargaming's attention. Eventually, they were all playing, helpfully showing techniques like T3's on Trench. I'd have joined too, but there was a sudden opportunity to beat on the devs to offer testing assistance.

One last thing, there's a ton of possible build orders, I wouldn't discount unconventional builds out of hand.

its a bit like the game starcraft, there are many build order but its obvious better if you start with a stonger economy, assuming you dont die from the early rush. those who rush also knowing that its a gamble, if they dont make any mines early on and rush to weapon hoping to win the game quick and the defender able to defend from the early rush, they have no more chance.

[Romerolagus]

I can attest to that. I rushed xRayz3n_ on Abyss in a test match using an Armoury-Upgrade Centre-Mine build order once. It was going so well, until it wasn't. So much so that he wanted to know if I'd choked because I was playing against xRayz3n.

For the record, yes I choked (using E to refire rockets without reaiming while manualling FG/BG/FG doors) but not because it was him. I destroyed all his weapons and got tunnel vision, microing my own base and stopped scouting. And then my flak decided to launch an ultimately unsuccessful attack upon its own door once he got out a nuke.

But there's a patch for that now...

[boogerjoe]

These are all very great ideas. I'm looking forward to Incursus' tutorials the most. Very articulate and a sexy voice makes for engaging content. I've been watching you since the Long War video.

https://youtu.be/yx1IlSxCzYI
(Link to the video)