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There is a lot to be said for this. I recently wrote the guide for teamplay with the US Forces army of Company of Heroes 2. USF is widely considered underpowe
by dropit_sphere 10y ago
There is a lot to be said for this.
I recently wrote the guide for teamplay with the US Forces army of Company of Heroes 2. USF is widely considered underpowered in team games, because those games often devolve into tank slugfests, and USF lacks heavy tanks. Players who are considered "good" at USF in team games generally play "worse Soviets" --- that is, their playstyle (mass artillery) would be better executed by a different army.
I quixotically refused to accept this, and played a ton of games as USF, trying to find a style that played to their strengths and was viable in large team games. It was my top idea in mind for a while, to use pg's concept---the thing I thought about in the shower.
Eventually I came up with a style that emphasized flanking, range, kiting, and prioritized taking and using ground. The most important thing was that it was non-gimmicky---that is, it is not an easily counterable one-track pony. I wrote a guide detailing it and the underlying concepts over the course of a couple days, then posted it to the subreddit.
I compare this to a React app I recently wrote for a client. We had to work with a kludgy financial API, we had to compromise on certain features to be ready in time for a stakeholder inspection, and some bits of the code are not so great.
It's strange, but I almost wish I lived in a universe where I could put the CoH 2 guide on my resume, and not the client work. It's a better product, it represents (relatively) pioneering intellectual work, and I can take full credit for all of it with clear conscience.
Of course, no one will make any money off of it; it will not feed any hungry mouths, and an overweening preference for solo projects can signify difficulty working with others. But: the experience of working on it was great, and I can look back and say, "I did a good job, at a hard thing, that conventional wisdom believed was impossible."