Battlefield V

Battlefield Community Spotlight with daskro

Posted by DoctorKajita on 21/10/2013 18:50

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We recently interviewed daskro, a U.S.-based competitive Battlefield (BF) player and eSports commentator, most recently for LevelBF's 32 versus 32 Battlefield 4 (BF4) beta competitions, to provide The Art of Warfare (TAW)--BF division and the greater BF community with an insider's perspective on competitive play. You can find daskro on Twitter and YouTube, and he is regularly a part of other prominent YouTubers' videos and discussions, such as LevelCapGaming, xfactor, Matimi0 and Luetin.

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Hi daskro, thank you for taking the time to do this interview with us! We consider you one of the most important thought leaders in the BF community, especially for what we are trying to achieve within TAW, so it's an honor for us to have you provide us and anyone who is reading this with your insights.

As you may or may not know, TAW is a multigame community structured by a Code of Ethics and military-style ranking system for its members, which helps us promote community leaders. Our members span the globe and within each game, or division, we have battalions (e.g., North America battalion, Europe battalion) managed by a staff overseeing its members and events. All of this is really just to keep things fun and organized.

Why we're so excited to have you join us is because within our BF division, we are developing a competition battalion for those members who are interested in participating in leagues and ladders. The other "regular" battalions comprise of internal matches--which for the duration of BF4 we are calling "Tides of War"--that are spread out by seasons (e.g., season one will be called "Tides of War I"). Each season, members are drafted onto teams, or platoons, and are led by a platoon leader (PL) and squad leader (SL). Fire team leaders are also assigned to lead an in-game squad.

We have historically used this structure to help us be better prepared for external scrimmages and to develop players for competition.

So, with that said, let's get into some questions!

Q. How did you get started in competitive play? What drew you to it?

A. In the late 90s, my brother and I would ride our bikes to a local comic book store with a LAN center, which had a dozen high-end gaming PCs. While we had our own PC at home, we only had a dial-up connection, and this LAN center was one of the few with a 128K ISDN connection. We'd go there two to three times a week to play some of the favorites of the time: Quake 1, Quake 2, Half-Life, Command & Conquer and Age of Empires. Playing against other people was what made it fun and eventually a mod for Half-Life called Counter-Strike (CS) came out. We formed a local CS team and began playing in local tournaments. There was an excitement and camaraderie to it that I never really experienced before. Sure I played soccer and baseball as a child, but it wasn't the same. More than a decade later, I still have that zeal for playing competitively.

Q. In TAW, we feel the most important skill is succinct communication; I would rather play with someone who has a crappy K/D ratio but understands how to talk to his/her team in a way that makes the team better. From your competitive experience, can you tell us a moment when communication made the difference, good or bad?

A. This is tough because communication is such a big deal that it's hard to separate out one moment. In one of the Battlefield 3 (BF3) Global-Conflict matches, I was in a tank fighting three enemy tanks on the desert side of Firestorm. I told our commander we needed help since it was a big push. I managed to take out a tank while retreating, but my tank ended up getting disabled. As my squadmate was repairing, the two remaining tanks descended on me. As one was about to peak, our helicopter takes out one and the jet disables the other. I managed to barely survive while the two remaining tanks were taken out. If we didn't have good communication, not only between squad leaders, but also within the squad, I wouldn't have survived.

Q. Besides being really good at a game (e.g., high SPM, K/D, etc.), what are some other attributes that are essential in helping your team during competitive play?

A. Map awareness in both understanding the map layout and what is going on in real time. Understanding the map layout is understanding not only what the capture points are called, but of all the various positions around those capture points. This is so helpful with communication because it allows you to convey the location of you or the enemy to your teammates. Likewise real-time map awareness is knowing where you, your teammates and your enemies are. This is not simply at looking at your minimap, but looking at the kill feeds, listening to your teammates and looking at what's in front of you. Knowing where your enemies are and where they aren't is worth more than having a good shot.

Q. For a team to be successful, whether it's an internal scrimmage, a scrimmage with another clan, or competition, we feel that a lot of the back office elements are just as important as executing during a game. For example, scouting other teams' players, putting together a strategy, communicating that strategy, and well, getting your team to show up. What are some common administrative challenges you've faced for competition and how did you overcome them?

A. Getting players to show is always tough, and for teams with a variety of players with numerous time commitments and skill sets makes it even tougher. In these situations, focusing on a few SLs to always be there will benefit immensely because they can convey objectives to those that do show up without being overwhelmed by the larger strategy.

Q. I can't speak for other competition teams before me, but during my brief stint playing on TAW's BF competition team, we basically got beaten to a pulp by teams we thought we could easily beat. We learned quite a bit of humility from that experience. In many ways, for us to form a competition battalion from scratch is pretty foolhardy. What is some advice you can give us or other similarly zealous BF communities in order to avoid getting burnt out on competition play? How should we stay engaged and keep members interested and excited to play?

A. The key to staying in competitive is to always be having fun. I think a lot of teams get burnt out because they end up playing others with very different skill sets. In this respect it's best to find scrim partners who are around your same skill set. Finding these teams can be difficult but it's about reaching out and giving it a try.

Q. Win or lose, what are some of the benefits a community can realize from participating in BF competitions?

A. Competitions are about experiencing BF the way it is meant to be played, in a team-based match where everyone is playing the objective and having fun doing it!

Q. With BF4's Spectator Mode, how do you see the landscape of eSports changing in the coming months and years?

A. I think Spectator Mode will be a great opportunity to showcase to the average BF player how fun and exciting competition is.

Q. We're possibly looking into doing our own type of "eSports" commentary for our internal matches. Do you think that format would be a fit? How did you get in eSports commentary? What's needed to be successful as a live commentator?

A. I don't have all the answers as to what works with commentaries; my only recommendation is to give it a try. See what works and what doesn't. There will be criticism, but take what feedback is worthwhile and try again. My philosophy is if I'm enjoying the match as a commentator, then others who are watching will enjoy the match as well.

Q. What will your role in eSports be and what would you like to accomplish for the community?

A. My objective is to see BF as the next major eSports title with skill-tiered leagues and ladders, large LAN events and for the BF player base to know that playing competitively is another way to have fun and increase your skill.

Q. We've seen your commentary for LevelBF's competitions. Can you tell us more about LevelBF and what makes them such a great asset for the BF community? Are there other organizations like them that you would recommend?

A. LevelBF organizes BF competitions from large 32 versus 32 battles to small five versus five events. They are best known for their 32 versus 32 battles and developed BF3 spectator tools to showcase these amazing matches. Beyond making tools to make the game more accessible for spectators, they also allow anyone to play in these large matches. You really see an amazing cross section of players that participate in these matches, from casual players to the best players in the world! There are a few other organizations that do similar large-scale matches that I encourage everyone to give a try, regardless of how confident you are with your skills. Those include Global-Conflict.org and 21^st Century Warfare. I like both of these organizations because they add a role-playing game element to the game, where playing a match is part of a larger strategy to take territory, sort of like the game Risk, but instead of rolling dice, you play matches.

TAW: We also conduct similar-style internal campaigns.

Q. In the recent years, we have seen the evolution of advanced statistics in pro sports and how many teams employ statisticians, or sabermetricians, to not just supplement front office decisions, but lead them. Do you see a similar evolution in game metrics and how can we use these numbers better?

A. I think we will see better game metrics implemented, no doubt. While DICE can create some fantastic metrics, at the same time, I think this has to be spearheaded by the community. Websites like BF3stats and Symthic do a great job at assessing and creating new stats.

Q. Based on recent comments with DICE's executive producer, Patrick Bach, it's clear that creating a game like BF4 is extremely challenging. So in that respect, they deserve a ton of credit for accomplishing this feat. I think they've also done a good job of not "feeding the trolls." With that being said, what are some things DICE could do even better that they perhaps don't realize just yet?

A. I think in what ways they can attempt to create balancing that isn't as much constrained by cross-platform limitations. In BF3, many on PC viewed certain guns or vehicles to be overpowered whereas on platforms this view wasn't shared. What's balanced for one platform may not be balanced for another. While this is extremely difficult, I would like to see more balancing for each platform and not just across all of them.

Q. It seems YouTube is becoming saturated with people looking to be the next LevelCap; it's getting increasingly difficult to pick out quality YouTubers. We tend to like to support the "little guys" who work hard and put out good content (because a lot of times, content improves over time). Who are some of your favorite YouTubers that we may not know and should subscribe to? Why do you recommend them?

A. BrettFX is one the YouTubers I support immensely because he is as dedicated as I in supporting competitive BF. In this same respect, I support all channels that want to emphasize and showcase competitive play. In my view if they are successful, then I have accomplished my goals as an advocate of competitive BF play.

Q. What is one thing that many people don't know about you?

A. A lot of people don't know that I ended up working for that comic book store with the LAN center all throughout high school. Eventually, the LAN center was shut down and I became an "expert" in Magic the Gathering & Pokémon cards. It was basically the dream job in high school.

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TAW: daskro, it's been an absolute blast and I thank you again for your time and participation. It would be great if we can do this again. We'd love it if you and your friends could join us for one of our internal matches or come play on one of our many servers we'll have for BF4; our door is always open. We're also planning on developing a round table discussion of sorts, so if you're interested and have time, we invite you to that, too.

daskro: Thanks for having me and I look forward to seeing TAW showcase their community events in the future and maybe even casting some of them too!

You can find me at the following social media sites:

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For more information on TAW's BF division, please visit us at TAW.net or on the following social media sites:

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