In order for players to improve together as a team, they must train together effectively. Players often talk about skill and chemistry. Chemistry is not just about getting along and having some laughs. Chemistry is also about training together effectively to achieve common team goals.

What is Training?

Training is a simulated version of an actual competition. During competitions, you want to be supportive of your teammates; however, when you’re training, you must be critical of your teammates and the team’s performance. The purpose of training is to identify what works and what does not work, to figure out the best possible strategies and to identify the correct tactic or tactics for a given situation. In training, the intent is not to win, but to learn and improve.

Making Mistakes

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: training includes the freedom to make mistakes. In order for training to be effective, it must be a space for trial and error. A practice match is your chance to change up the normal order of business and to experiment with creative strategies and tactics. For example, it’s a chance to figure out the timing on a specific attack lane or it can be an opportunity to learn how to execute a new strategy. You train so that you avoid the common mistake of changing things at the last minute right before, or during, an event. During tournaments, you should execute what you practiced. Effective teams don’t scrim to win, they practice to learn and improve.

Identifying Mistakes

Identifying mistakes involves two separate and distinct components: noticing what went wrong and learning why it went wrong. This is true whether watching a player in a specific circumstance or watching the whole team’s gameplay.

First, you must identify the mistake.

For example: He died in a 1v2, or he died rushing under the bridge.

Second, you must identify why it was a mistake.

For example: Don’t rush forward without support. Or we shouldn’t send someone under the bridge alone.

You can’t hope to fix a problem until you understand the problem completely.

The best way to identify mistakes is for every member of the team to watch recorded footage. Every member should have the ability to record footage and the capacity to store and process it. Relying on memory alone is faulty at best. Each player only sees a small part of the battlefield, so memory is very limited. Footage will reveal a teammate’s exact actions. You cannot afford to be ashamed. You must be open to critique.

It’s also important for every teammate to see every other teammate’s footage. Knowing what happened from everyone’s perspective is crucial if you intend on improving as a team. Again, capture cards are the best way to prevent bullshit.

Here is an example of common bullshit, and the proper response to bullshit:

Common Bullshit: “I tried to revive you.”

Proper Response: “The first rule of reviving someone is ‘do not cause a casualty.’ You should have taken the 1v1. Instead, you died, and I didn’t get revived. You’ve got to work on timing your revives. In order to revive properly, you have to identify threats and know when it’s safe to revive and when it’s best to deal with the threats.” [Notice how detailed and specific the proper response has to be to be effective.]

Assuming that you’re serious about winning, and you have a working capture card, you must also watch footage with the right focus. Warriors watch VOD to compare themselves to others and feel superior. Soldiers watch VOD to improve themselves and the entire team. Watch footage of yourself to improve yourself. Watch your teammates’ footage to help them improve. Watch all footage to help the entire team improve.

Common Crying About Capture Cards

Another problem for many players is that video capture cards are in standard definition (SD). High definition (HD) capture cards are expensive and not practical for gaming. A common excuse from players is that they do not like to play in SD. What is more important? Playing in a “more beautiful” game or developing your skills and improving your team? What soldier would ever say, “I’m not gonna go to battle until I use a prettier/nicer/more personally pleasing weapon?” There is no excuse for not having a capture card.

Correcting Mistakes

After you correctly determine what went wrong and accurately understand why it went wrong, the next step is to correct what went wrong. If a teammate is rushing in alone, he needs to learn to wait until he has backup. If a teammate is failing to hold a position on his own, the team has to decide if another team member is better at that position, or if the strategy needs to be changed to send two teammates. Generally, these examples of mistakes are easy to identify and correct.

Unfortunately, many problems are more complex. How do you learn to shotgun better or use de-taunt more effectively? Finding a way to fix complex problems is the hard part.

Identifying What Works

How do you identify what works? In some ways, this is more difficult than identifying what went wrong. As you repeatedly try something, there are three possible results:

1)      It will consistently fail

2)      It will consistently succeed

3)      It will meet with mixed success.

Always failing or always succeeding are the easy situations. The real trick is to understand why a particular action worked some of the time and why the same action failed another time. For example, something may succeed because the enemy made a mistake, but then fail when they took the proper action. In order to train properly, you must understand why certain actions work some of the time, but do not work other times.

Practice What Works

You must practice something so that you increase your chance of executing it flawlessly. You must practice it until it is second nature. Keep in mind that you are practicing for a given situation, and that certain actions will not work in all situations. To train effectively, you must identify the proper action for a given situation, and then practice using it in that specific situation.

Consistently play against teams of the same skill level or slightly higher. When you do so, remember that you are not playing to win, but to improve. The warrior thinks knowledge shared is power given away, but the soldier knows that knowledge shared is power increased and tested. Your team will not win because of secret strategies. It will win because it functions well together, communicates and has a comprehensive team focus. Do not be afraid to tell your opponents what you’re trying, and give them the opportunity to counter it. This will teach you when a certain strategy or tactic will not work. This is valuable knowledge indeed!

eReputation is Worthless

Do not be blinded by a team’s reputation, or fooled by their lack of one. When you consider the enemy team’s strategy, you must take into account both their original strategy, as well as how they adapted it. All that matters is what the opponent actually did in a given situation. It cannot be a matter of what you think of the players, their team, or the number of nut-riding randoms who suck their ePenis on forums. eReps don’t pay the bills. All players make mistakes. All teams are beatable.

Don’t just scrim, Train!

Training is the process by which teams and players improve. The more you learn while you’re training, the more prepared you’ll be at competition (or as the Navy saying goes, the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war). This leads me to the next article, which will address teams at competition.

Tell us a little about yourselves. What do you want the vVv Community to know about you?

vVv Caper: My name is Craig “Caper” Mullen and I’m the leader of the vVv L4D team as well as the PC Manager for vVv Gaming. I built this team at the beginning of the game’s life. It started out with a group of friends from previous games, but over time I started to acquire more serious, competitive players so the team could have the competitive focus I was aiming for. It was originally Rawbur and I, the others started to fall into place shortly afterwards.

vVv Jerkstore: My name’s Mike aka Jerkstore. I’ll beat you in your favorite games, every one of them, and then I’ll steal your sandwich. Why? It makes me feel good.

vVv Fynath: I live in Columbus, Ohio. I am a junior, majoring in Computer Science and Engineering at the Ohio State University. I’m a pretty ordinary guy so I’m not going to bore you with my life story. All you get is a brief anecdote.

Video games pervade my earliest memories. I’ve owned every console since the NES, and I’ve been playing PC games for almost as long as I’ve played console games. Despite the fact that I’ve always been pretty competitive when gaming (always had to be the best within my group of friends, you know), Left 4 Dead is the first game in which I’ve actually gotten involved with on the professionally competitive level. I had a brief stint with a clan in Unreal Tournament 2003/2004, but there were only a handful of clans that played bombing run, so for the most part it only resulted in friendly scrims. The clan faded away shortly after UT 2004 was released. I also tried Halo 2, but that fizzled out quickly.

vVv Rawbur: My name is Derek Frappart, I’m from Michigan and am a quiet person overall.  I’ve been gaming on the PC since 2000 and the only console I own is a PS2.

What attracted you to the vVv Community?

vVv Caper: One of my teammates tipped me off about vVv after he saw them on the CEVO forums. This was when I was looking to move from our dead sponsor dTp. I checked out the website wondering who vVv was and saw how well established they were in console gaming. vVv looked to be the next big thing in my eyes. They had a very strong community and a small PC Division that I could help grow. And boy was I right!

vVv Jerkstore: Caper and the guys on the L4D team were very eager to have a solid 4th player when I was looking for a new team to join. I played with them a few times and saw that they were players I could go somewhere with. And they happened to be a part of a great organization and community.

What attracted you to Left 4 Dead?

vVv Caper: Nothing but the faith I have in Rawbur after he bugged me enough to download the demo to play with him. I wasn’t impressed enough with the demo to buy the game. Rawbur and his friend kept pushing the game and telling me how amazing it was, so I made him a deal. If Dave (Rawbur’s friend) would buy a new mic so he could talk on vent, I would buy Left 4 Dead. He did and so did I. As soon as I saw versus for first time, I was hooked. I had had no idea I could play as a special infected! Soon as I played a full round I was hooked and realized that it could be a really good competitive game.

vVv Jerkstore: Initially it looked like it was just a cool zombie game. Not to mention that I’m a huge fan of the games Valve puts out. I bought it immediately after playing the demo and played it for about a month. I wanted to play with friends and have loads of fun playing against other good teams. That’s when I joined up with my good friend Visceral and his team, and have been playing competitively ever since.

vVv Fynath: To be honest, I’m not sure. My roommate was the one that initially downloaded the demo and eventually bought the game. I played it very briefly during the demo phase and didn’t find it that entertaining. Then in January I started to play it fairly often, mostly playing co-op on Expert. I started to play Versus after I joined a group from the Penny Arcade forums. It was probably the huge emphasis on teamwork that ultimately drew me into the competitive community.

vVv Rawbur: I’ve been interested ever since I played Zombie Panic Source: a Half-Life 2 mod.  I thought that the game was extremely fun and then I heard about L4D. I decided to keep tabs on L4D and it was looking better and better as it progressed.  I tried the demo and I loved it! I got it as soon as it was available.

What are your first impressions of the vVv Community and people like LordJerith?

vVv Caper: When I looked at the forums, I saw how nice everyone was to one another. And then I saw some member’s setup with their two page long signatures, and I thought to myself, “Wow, what a bunch of nerds.” That view changed once I got more involved with community and understood what LordJerith was ultimately trying to achieve. LordJerith earned my respect immediately after our first conversation. I knew that with him having the community at heart and being the backbone of the organization that vVv would be a solid home for me and my team.

vVv Jerkstore: All of the staff seem like very professional, down-to-earth guys. There’s no dancing around issues or being afraid to say something, which I experienced with other teams I’d been with. The community is surprisingly active; more so than other organizations I’ve seen. Oh, and I want vVv Mrs.Violence to sign my plastic guitar!

vVv Fynath: Partly due to my lack of competitive background, I had no real idea of who vVv was. Caper was looking for a sponsor for our team, and when he informed us that we were going to have an interview with vVv, and I was like, “Okay. Who’s that?”  In that interview, Jerith literally gave me my first impressions of the community with his speech about how it’s the best gaming community, which left me with a positive feeling. Though the interview seemed silly to me initially, it gave me a good feel for the kind of person Jerith was, between his claims that he doesn’t play games and a rather strong statement about who will and will not wear a vVv shirt, which made me laugh. It made me more interested in becoming a part of the community myself.

vVv Rawbur: I was a little surprised at how big and active the community is.  My first impression of Lord Jerith was that he knew what he was looking for in a team and making a clear point in what he expected from the team and what vVv can do for us.

What are your team’s accomplishments?

vVv Caper: Since I started forming this team we’ve laid down a record of 37-0-3 with different rosters. Always pushing forward and improving as we go along. I can say with confidence that we have a solid roster that is a major contender in the competitive field of L4D.

vVv Jerkstore: There haven’t been many Left 4 Dead tournaments, and they were all before this team formed as vVv. Currently we’re ranked top 3 in CEVO, and are fighting to win that tournament.

vVv Fynath: We’re doing pretty well in CEVO.

What do you hope to achieve with your team?

vVv Caper: I’d like to win LAN’s with my team. We play online with some serious handicaps, such as high ping and hardware issues (except for Fynath), all of which wouldn’t be an issue at an event.

vVv Jerkstore: Lots of victories!

vVv Fynath: Winning CEVO would be pretty cool, assuming they end up creating a league for Left 4 Dead after the tournament. Playing in tournament and doing well would also be something to work towards. I want us to be acknowledged within the competitive community as a top team.

vVv Rawbur: I want us to win or place highly in CEVO for starters.  Then go to LAN’s and test our skill and teamwork.  I’d like to see us improve our gameplay as Infected, but overall we have very solid teamwork.

What do you hope to get out of vVv Gaming?

vVv Caper: I’m looking to get recognition, stability, and growth. So far we’re on the right track in all of those areas and I look to keep pushing it forward.

vVv Jerkstore: I hope to travel to tournaments and meet my teammates, have fun playing the game and have some good experiences.

vVv Fynath: To be honest, SteelSeries gear would be pretty nice <3. But getting into the competitive community and meeting lots of cool people are working out well enough.

vVv Rawbur: I want our team to be known. I believe that vVv Gaming has and will do this for us.  It’s been awesome grabbing some scrims and having people flip out, saying, “Oh god, it’s vVv!”

What draws you to PC Gaming over Console gaming?

vVv Caper: 1. Frames Per Second! Console cannot match my PC’s graphics and I don’t see the consoles catching up anytime soon.

2. Keyboard/Mouse combo! I cannot stand playing a FPS game with one of those controllers. It bores me that with a joystick you can’t pull off the disgustingly nice flick shot frags that make me smile. Plus, having more buttons to press allows you to react to situations quicker and have a more life-like control of your game.

3. Customization! Stock settings with a console? No thanks!

4. Usefulness! PC’s are cheap now, so I’d rather upgrade my PC every 3-5 years, to play all of my games in amazing quality, than buying a new console that will just sit and rot after something new comes out. At least my old PC’s still have uses…

vVv Jerkstore: The keyboard and mouse! Nowadays there’s not much dividing consoles and PCs, but I mostly play strategy games and first person shooters, both of which are silly to play without a keyboard and mouse.

vVv Fynath: I wouldn’t really say I’m more drawn to PC gaming than console gaming. I own a Wii (which unfortunately I don’t think has seen any play time in months), a Xbox 360, and a PlayStation 3, in addition to the PC I built last fall. With that said, I don’t really like playing Left 4 Dead on the Xbox because it doesn’t look as nice. I also find using the controller a bit awkward since I’m so used to playing it with a keyboard and mouse. There is also the ability to apply mods and alter settings, which have helped greatly in making the game more competitive. It’s just not something you can do on a console.

I also feel that a lot of PC games have a much more close-knit community. I played Ever Quest nearly 10 years ago, and I still occasionally catch up with the people I gamed with back then. It’s much easier to meet people and break into a community if you want to, especially if you use IRC. Back when I was interested in getting into Halo 2 competitively, it seemed like a very exclusive community and I couldn’t work my way in. Comparatively, getting onto a Left 4 Dead team took about 5 minutes of searching the CAL forums and messaging Caper for a tryout. It was so much simpler.

vVv Rawbur: The controller of any console bothers me, because I am not a joystick fan. I love how console gaming doesn’t have any cheaters in it or not as much as pc gaming, but that’s the risk us PC gamers take, I guess.

Does your team play better as the Infected or Survivors?

vVv Caper: We’re very solid at both, but there’s always room to become more efficient and unshakeable as Survivors. Mastering Infected play and co-ordination is a constant progression and interesting aspect in a game.

vVv Jerkstore: Infected, most definitely. We need to work on our Survivor game a bit; sometimes we take more damage than necessary or don’t react quickly enough to attacks. But we have no problem taking out teams with our Infected.

vVv Fynath: I’d say we’re pretty balanced, but if I had to choose, I’d say we have a stronger Survivor side. But to be honest, it’s so much easier to play Survivor than Infected, to the point that I think it would be weird to play Infected better than Survivor.

vVv Rawbur: I would have to say Survivor, but our Infected play is pretty solid too.  We always communicate well as Infected, but sometimes you miss that pull or pounce and it’s too late to do damage or try again.

Do any of you specialize in a certain form of Infected? For example, is one better as a Smoker than anyone else?

vVv Caper: Everyone on the team is very good at all of the classes, but there are certain aspects that we would all have that are specialized skills. For example I feel that I’m quite good using hittable objects with the Tank: cars, dumpsters, haybails, and forklifts for example. Rawbur is definitely the tree log champ in my book. Fynath would be Mr. Molotov dodge and Hunter DP’s from anywhere. Jerkstore is good at a lot of things too, but I’d have to see some of his demos to really narrow it down for his Infected skills. I do know he has a great shot as a Survivor.

vVv Jerkstore: Can’t think of anyone that specializes at one in particular. To be good at this game you damn well better be good at all of the Infected classes. It’s pretty cool how we’re all at the same level of knowledge and skill when it comes to the Infected and not have to lecture another on how to play a certain class. Trust in your teammates’ abilities is a big part of this game. I’ve never felt there was something one of my teammates wasn’t capable of.

vVv Fynath: Since you have no way of choosing which Special Infected you get you really have to be good with all of them. I would go out on a limb and say that Rawbur is our strongest Tank.

vVv Rawbur: We all know how to play each class of Infected, but I would like to see us improve with our Tanks.

This interview was written by Steven “Dark Chaos” Beach and Jordan “Doomhammer” Kahn and presented by vVv Gaming

How do you know if you’re on an effective team that’s right for you?

How do you know what to look for in a team, or how to be effective on a team once you find the right one? In the last article, Warrior vs. Soldier, we defined and discussed the differences between the concepts of warriors versus soldiers. Everyone starts as a warrior. It takes training to become a soldier. This series of articles will hopefully help players understand the training process that teams need to undertake in order to transform warrior players into soldier players.

We all start as warriors

The warrior finds one thing he does well (shotgun battles, sniping, creating strategies, or micro-management), or one small aspect of one game that allows him to excel. Suddenly, in his own mind, the warrior has perceived value. He feels valid, perhaps even superior. Now he wants recognition for this one thing he does well. No matter what actually happens, no matter how badly he does or how many times he loses, in his own mind he’s still great because he’s still “the best” or “really good” at this one thing. This is where everyone begins.

Balancing weaknesses and strengths

What the player must do is acknowledge the places he (or she) is strong and then acknowledge all the places where he is weak. What value is that strength if the team doesn’t have a need for those abilities, or never gets an opportunity to use his strength? The player must make sure he has the capabilities that are important and necessary to the team. Then, he must play to his strengths, and he must acknowledge his weaknesses, such that he teams up with people who compensate for those weaknesses. What truly matters is what the player accomplishes. The only way to accomplish anything is with the right team.

A good team knows three things:

• The roles that players must fill.

• The best types of players for the various roles.

• The strengths needed in each type of player.

Now that you’ve identified that your team needs your strengths, and now that your team realizes that all that matters is what you accomplish, now is the time to make a plan and set goals to accomplish it. The way to approach the plan and the details of this plan will vary from game to game but it is crucially important on the individual scale.

Forming a Strategy

On every single map or round, there must be three parts to a strategy: early-game, mid-game, and late-game. This way there will always be something to drive the team forward, give them direction and something to focus on. This will lay the foundation for what the team accomplishes.

For examples, I’ll use Gears of War 2. Among other reasons, this game has extremely fast rounds, and the precepts I’m discussing here apply very directly to each round. The over-arching strategy will look something like this:

• Early-game: Getting the power weapon.

• Mid-game: Getting the enemy team down to two.

• Late-game: Downing the last two.

The details of how to accomplish these things will change based on variables both within the game and within the context of the game. In the opening of the round, the tempo of the game will be hectic. Both teams will be charging towards each other and striving to gain the upper hand. But when going for the power weapon, whether you run with two members high and two members low or change it to three and one, or whether you use ink grenades to block a lane of attack, or whether you focus on long range fire or close battles, all will be variable. No matter which version you choose, the primary focus must remain the same. Your team is trying to get the power weapon. Everything you choose to do must always work towards that specific objective. Always. If you lose sight of the goal you will, most likely, lose to a team who has not lost that focus.

Once you have the power weapon, the focus becomes getting the enemy team down to two members. At this point, the tempo in the game will shift. The team in the worse position will have to focus on reducing the stronger team’s advantage. The variables are now changed based on which power weapon you have, how many members you have and how many they do, or what the map looks like, but the focus must always drive towards reducing their numbers to two. The soldier’s thought must always be, “what is the best way for our team to down another member of their team right now?”

Finally, once the enemy team is down to two members, how does your team approach cleaning house? Again, the tempo will shift as the losing team must try to delay the inevitable, or gain some advantage. At this point, the power weapon can be the tip of the spear while the remaining teammates support him, or the teammates can box the enemy in for the power weapon’s kill. Either way, time is on the side of the stronger team. What must be kept in mind is that the goal is to kill the last enemies. Getting clever with ink grenades or flanking maneuvers are only useful if they work towards the goal directly. Always, always, always consider how to achieve the goal.

The early-, mid-, and late-game goals are crucially important to remember and always be focused on. All too often gamers have a tendency to sit around waiting for something to happen while they’re not sure what to do. There must always be something for them to be working towards, to be focusing on, and for them to be trying to achieve. This is what separates a truly effective team from a team that sometimes wins.  Soldiers are always working to achieve the goals of the team plan. Warriors seek to do the things they personally want, often at the expense of the team’s goals. You must be a soldier!

Individual tasks

Now that your team knows its goal, and has worked out a plan to achieve it, next you need each player to have a task towards that goal. What is your individually specific job within the plan? Each player must have an individual focus that’s part of the team objectives, and they must be consistently working towards their job. One player has to grab the power weapon. One player has to throw the ink grenade. One player has to delay a flank attack. The player must always be asking themselves, “What am I doing? How does this accomplish my job? What is the best thing I could be doing in regards to accomplishing my task?”

Two things are especially important at this point. Firstly, it’s important that the player’s task utilizes the player’s strength. If the player is aggressive and good with a shotgun, they should be put in a position where they consistently have the chance to engage in close combat with the enemy. An accurate player should be given the sniper rifle, and so on.

The second consideration is that the player must always be finding the best way to accomplish his task. If his job is to delay a flanking maneuver while his teammates take control of the middle, then it may not be necessary to kill any of the attacking players. All he has to do is delay the flank attack. The requirements necessary to accomplish this will change based on what’s happening in the game, but neither being caught up with excitement and getting in a shotgun duel, nor feeling overwhelmed and backing away will achieve what the player set out to do. So, the player must stay focused both on what their task is, and the best way to accomplish that task.

Knowledge is power

In addition to knowing the overall team’s focus, you must know the individual pieces that will accomplish that goal. This means you must know how your job connects to the team plan. Knowing what your job means to the team allows you to stay focused on the best way to accomplish it. It also allows you to know how that task needs to change based on what happens in the game. As things change, you must continually re-evaluate how you’re doing your job. Knowing how your job helps the team accomplish a goal allows you to choose the best way to execute it.

The second half of knowing the individual pieces means knowing all of your teammate’s jobs as well. This will let you know what the team is trying to do and how well things are coming along. Knowing this will allow you to adjust what you’re doing to best support the team’s initiative. In addition, knowing everyone else’s job allows you to help everyone work towards the team goal. As an example, a player might get an opponent down but not dead. In this situation a warrior will assume the best action is to rush forward to finish off the enemy. A soldier will understand that the threat is removed for fifteen seconds, and will check to see if there’s a better way to assist the team before finishing off the enemy.

This cycle of knowing your job in context to the team, and knowing the team’s job in context with what you’re doing, and continually analyzing and updating both to maximize effectiveness is what will allow your team to achieve great things. This is how you win!

So now you know what your team needs to accomplish, you know what you need to do to help your team, and you know what your team will be doing to accomplish it. But what happens when not everything is working the way it’s supposed to be? The next thing to address is how to effectively give and receive criticism. This is where proper training plays a crucial role in team development. In future articles we will discuss how to approach training and how to make it effective.

Written by Jordan “Doomhammer” Kahn and Co-Authored by Jerry “LordJerith” Prochazka. Presented by vVv Gaming.