Chapter 77: Split Pushing (2/2)
The VSW Club then entered in the VR headsets to practise their split pushing idea. The team straight away came across a number of different problems.
It was rare for a team to group up so early on in a game like Hershel. They needed a match that would simulate what they would face against Hershal.
The team tried many tactics to try baiting the team to group together but it didn't really work, all there testing and messing around made the team lose game after game. There were a few wins here and there of course but they came from a Wipeout rather than a flag capture.
”Dammit, this isn't working!” Alex said as he was getting frustrated over the whole thing.
”Maybe we can't get them to group up but why don't we try manning them one on one?” Dan suggested. ”We do it all the time in Football. Each person selects someone on the team and they cover them, try to not kill or be killed by the opponent while we let Scarlett push up ahead?”
”It's a good idea but you're missing an important detail out,” Alex replied. ”With Scarlett pushing they'll be four of us, meaning one of us will have to take on two.”
Novis then raised his hand.
”I'll do it, I did it before, I know it will be a bit harder since I have to stop them from going back to base but I want to get better.”
The team looked at each other and nodded. Although the whole school thought Dan or Ashley was the strongest members of the team. The VSW members thought differently. After playing many games with Novis they were amazed at his skill. So far in all the matches, they had played where they were trying to delay their opponent without killing them. Novis was the only one to succeed.
The only reason why they lost most of the games was because they were trying to keep the enemy busy for as long as possible without killing them. Then when each member would die Noivs would be left to face 5 on 1.
Over the next few days, the team tried the man on man tactic with Novis taking on two players. Although it wasn't the perfect simulation for their fight against Hershel, it was the next best thing. The problem was Novis now had to deal with two people and make sure they didn't leave his side.
When a tower was destroyed on your team a message would appear notifying everyone. So while Scarlett was destroying towers the team's first instinct would be to go back to their base. This was where the hard part came in for Novis. He needed to do his best to stop the team from running back and killing Scarlett.
It was hard at first as Novis would often let one slip out of his sight. It was easy for a player to just run into the forest once Novis was engaged with another. But after match after match, the team eventually got a capture win.
Scarlett's face was so happy, she herself was having a tough time. She had to come up with the best way to allow the NPC knights to help her take down the tower. At first, her tactics were slow but then game by game she got faster and faster at it.
The team was confident in this new strategy, they played a few more games and they started to get a nice 50/50-win rate in their games.
Finally, the weekend had come and it was time for the match between Hershal and Montem.