After a brief overview of the game, I discuss guaranteed ways team effectiveness can be achieved if individual team members agree to implement them. For each objective and strategy, I will highlight a player role, main idea, and supporting subideas. Yet for those stubborn teams who are unwilling to come to a common agreement, I offer two alternative strategies per objective. These alternative strategies could be categorized for medium-skilled, high-skilled, and professional squads. Each alternative has an underdeveloped probability to be successful when objectives rely on chance. I assess both individually and collectively via common anchor text or elaborative contents page type that encourages a careful methodical stance with data-based underpinnings on each strategy beforehand. Finally, I evaluate and compare the recommended strategies and player roles with numerous data across the objectives, principles, and team-building alternatives used to support those ideas.

Firewall Zero Hour (FZH) is a team-based, virtual reality, first-person shooter. The game’s prominent feature is the team play, pitting four players against four other players. As expected, the game rewards teams that adaptively mesh together in ways that effectively leverage their combined efforts. On the other hand, outlined in the «Firewall Zero Hour’s Hardest Challenge» section, poor team organization leads to frustration. Unfortunately, addressing the challenges as a team is more than the sum of its parts. There could be multiple evolutionary paths and strategies unique challenges for bringing these parts together. It is my intention to help teams overcome some sense of the distribution’s raw variance by pinpointing and discussing strategic approaches and individual player roles. It is my hope that the team-oriented tools and information will, in turn, provide teams more ways to spend time positively meshing with their teammates and less time swimming in a vomitorium of skull gunk. All of my information should resonate generally with your average FZH player, and I have played with players at all skill levels.

1.1. Overview of Firewall: Zero Hour

One such example that the team plays is getting together in a position where tactical decisions can be made easily and effectively, such as around the situation laptops, door jams, or door blockers where the team can concentrate fire and move more rapidly. This study focuses on exploring the strategies involved in team plays to optimize the team’s performance while playing different roles in Firewall: Zero Hour. Our study provides clarification and elaborates on the strategies of team play that exist in the game and then showcases a set of tactics that were performed with different roles and compared the performances to justify the strategies.

Firewall: Zero Hour (FZH) is a first-person multiplayer shooter game developed and published by First Contact Entertainment, initially released to the general public in August 2018. In a game of FZH, two teams of four attackers and defenders go head to head in a match. The defenders are assigned to secure a laptop, whereas the attackers are tasked to locate the computer, rig it to blow up, and escape successfully. The team that completes their objective within the shortest time wins the round. Amid the robust action of the game, there is not solely an emphasis on guns but also a huge significance of having good team play in overwhelming situations. Team huddle plays a huge importance in allowing teammates to strategize together to increase the chances of winning.

2. Importance of Team Play

In the mesh of all the practical constraints, a team-building process designed to enhance its strategies and to achieve the team objectives reverts back to a simple but fundamental precept: strategic coordination and logistics. Whether or not a war is being waged, a team that works well together is a unit capable of achieving targets responsive to strategic coordinative and tactical logistic needs, characterized by all teammates oriented and committed, showing a high level of confidence and trust, and by a mutual level of awareness of team member capabilities, providing knowledge of how the other members are contributing and planning, and executing the appropriate actions to reach the agreed established objectives. It then becomes clear that this is not only a fundamental approach that should be taken into account in gameplay, but it is also one of the major aspects that may be more strongly reflected, with just a small set of behavioral considerations, into the players’ training, realizing a training utility as close as possible to deployed prowess.

The virtual battlefield on which the virtual warriors struggle and fight demonstrates a unique model for understanding and implementing the tactics of gameplay. The roles and behaviors in such a complex system, built by a team and characterized by a hierarchy of goals, actions, and constraints, all portrayed by the players, are a subject of particular interest and have a profound and practical impact on the quality of the gameplay. While the architecture of the individual strategies has been addressed by a plethora of researchers and practitioners, only more recently has the issue of how to best bundle the behaviors together in such a way that the team dynamics is most accurately portrayed and executed raised the attention of the relevant communities.

2.1. Advantages of Working as a Team

Firewall has a huge emphasis on working as a team, and all the game mechanics are built around it. The game is more beneficial played with friends and it is important that participants communicate constantly about enemy location, themselves, and strategies. Rescuing an executed teammate can change the outcome of the game stage, and as much as that officer points out, he will never reach the defeat, and either team can defend the body or revive the player. Data that is not withdrawn from contractors after their death and a respawn safety period in some situations count players without life at a disadvantage teams. Reviving a defeated Security from a contractor is strategic, and although his life is given, the defender’s drone will be offline, giving a significant tactical advantage to the attacking team.

2.1. Advantages of Working as a Team

In Firewall: Zero Hour, the mechanics are simple, but coordinating with a team can raise the level of play. The game has 4v4 multiplayer, meaning two teams of four battle against each other to accomplish their respective objectives, depending on their role. The Contractors are the attacking team and have to neutralize the signal-modifying generators by hacking their firewalls, while the Security Officers need to capture the attacking team before they can get to the firewalls and neutralize them. The map has many internal elements that make it difficult to locate enemies through walls and other structures. The entire game plot is based on objectives, and players’ characters almost never reach the same place more than once, needing to improvise to disarm mines, hide from enemy bullets, and coordinate strategies through communication. Thus, working as a team has a huge advantage.

3. Communication

Before starting a game, ensure that any team you’re a part of has the ability to communicate clearly and effectively. And remember, use your outdoor voice when things are calm, but reduce your volume when you’re in enemy territory! A peaceful game can turn quickly into a firefight when the enemy hears you giving away your position over the radio. It is also important to use clear, short phrases when talking to your team. This is of critical importance as quick decisions must be made in the heat of battle, and you don’t want any message to be misunderstood due to lack of clarity.

Effective communication is paramount for success in Firewall: Zero Hour. Most importantly, it is worth noting that enemies can also communicate with their teammates. In general, it is a good idea to avoid using the radio to communicate with teammates, as the enemy can easily hear you. Even breathing heavily through your microphone or rustling about can give away your position in the heat of battle. If your team’s strategy relies heavily on communication regarding enemy proximity, a verbal signal such as «heartbeat» may be a better way to go.

3.1. Effective Communication Tools

Theater Mode – Spectator mode allows you to help your team by directing them to threats, but audio needs to be enabled through a headset for this to be effective. You can point out dangers even more effectively if the player in control of your ghost tata rotates the ghost figure around to view enemy positions.

Voice Commands – Simple, in-game voice commands have been added to the game since launch, and they allow users without a headset to communicate with their team a little easier. You can use your character to call out enemy locations, request covering fire, and let the rest of the team know where you’re moving.

Headset Chat – This is the most effective method of communicating with your team, but only if your team also has a headset and isn’t coming through the television speakers. Using PlayStation’s 3D audio feature can help determine a foe’s location in 3D space too.

Quick, effective communication is the cornerstone to success in the team-based multiplayer of Firewall: Zero Hour. Your teammates will not be successful if they have no idea who killed you or where the enemy is located. These are the communication tools available in Zero Hour:

Effective Communication Tools in Firewall: Zero Hour

3.2. Establishing Clear Communication Protocols

Use of hand signals to quietly communicate with those in your vicinity is helpful, although tricky to achieve in many instances. These cover such game minutiae as asking a required question, providing an answer or comment, indicating numbers, suggesting a course of action, and so forth. The keys to using them effectively are to keep calm, keep tight (light) surveillance, engage in quick surveillance, and keep talking.

The enemy of the team is ambiguity and doublespeak. Therefore, a good leader avoids it when giving orders and instructions. At the same time, everyone on the team should aim to clarify what others have said if there is any hint of confusion about what was meant. It is important to establish a few basic techniques for signaling means «stop the noise,» «halt,» «slow down,» «beat it,» or other commands that do not require speech or might not be heard when spoken. The clave is to keep the noise down if near the objective. This makes it less likely that you and/or your colleagues will be heard while you converse with your team.

Successful team coordination is rarely accomplished without the ability to communicate effectively with teammates. The following tactics are of considerable importance in this regard.

4. Roles and Responsibilities

The selection of contractors is determined by their abilities, and these determine the tactics a team can employ. Non-lethal personnel can incapacitate opponents in order to obtain their data or restore teammates. Lethal personnel can defend the attacking team members from a distance or limit the defenders’ options within their objectives. Early in a team’s development, every player wants to operate as a lethal operator. But teams will become more specialized as they grow in skill and experience. A team should, however, develop at least two pointmen which are designed specifically for breaching doors. Other players in the starting defense team are ideal for pointmen. The easiest role for a new player to the team is point man (or door breaching master) since they are the first inside of the new area and can provide updates to the rest of the team.

Firewall: Zero Hour is a fast-paced, multiplayer first-person shooter game designed for virtual reality combat. The game was created by First Contact Entertainment for use on consoles through a Sony PlayStation VR system. The game is a four-versus-four tactical game which requires teamwork for successful completion of objectives. Teams are ad hoc and players often find themselves playing with strangers. Initial game setup provides the option to «train» with team members. This is essential for team coordination and development of strategies. We provide strategies based on personal experience with other players in our teams. Mastery of game hardware such as controlled voice communication and play of the game can also facilitate the effective implementation of the game plan.

4.1. Understanding Different Roles in a Team

A team of professionals involves both repairing and protecting. A sniper and a team member in an entry team, all entry teams need a shotgun. The play style of a skilled bomber and other team members would not blend; a sound-proof structure might suck. One of the big opportunities that new players have to help can be boiled down to just three terms: backup, sound, and up. Be prepared to multitask in tournaments controlled by winners. Security is paramount, and snipers enjoy wireless cable. A qualified lobby that wants to win needs both, so all of the staff will be educated in guideline adherence. People, weapons, playing styles, and outside decorations need well-rounded properties. In a team of highly experienced players, a versatile beginner is significant.

The Firewall team is composed of four individuals who share a unique set of advantages and disadvantages, including viewpoint, power, and map coverage. The game mechanic is designed to emphasize the value of teamwork. Against a team of four professional players, it is improbable for one person to succeed, so understanding your role and operating to your strengths is crucial for success. In a Fortune 500 IT environment of Zero Hour, there is a good guide to participating in entry contests with someone who can fit into every group.

5. Map Knowledge and Strategy

Stay frosty. The round is not over until the last man is down or the clock ticks to zero. It only takes a second of inattention to let the opfor through your defense. If you see or hear something unusual, you need to actively pursue it (within reason). A ghost win is not a win.

The big picture. In general, the best defense has a good understanding of the big picture, so make the best educated guess and talk about where the enemy team is in relation to the laptop location. You will need to ultimately focus on a set of approaches that will let a defender cover the most likely approach vectors while making the attacker guess about the real attack vector. A tactical «M.H.I.C.» approach (Most Hated Imaginable Course).

Team roles. Different players are better at clearing different areas of the map, so make use of these strengths.

Coordinate strategy. It is not a bad idea for the team to review the in-game map before playing and come up with a good strategy for both the offensive and defensive turns. The map is designed with good strategic routes, chokepoints, and different elevations (stairs) that can work to your advantage. The staircase is a very powerful defense option.

Strength in knowledge. Knowing where you are and where you need to be is more than half the game. The team that has a comprehensive knowledge of the game map will always have an edge on their opponents. This is particularly important when selecting a route to the laptop or playing defense.

5.1. Map Callouts and Points of Interest

Patio – A small, glassed-in courtyard by the Pool Area, with an elevated square. The southwest corner of the patio is actually a hallway connecting the VIP Room and the Courtyard.

Pool Area – A large room with stone walls and a brick balcony, accessed via open arches or an open roof, with a mezzanine.

Estate – A series of small rooms sheltered under a second-story walkway, with sunlit galleries to the west and an access stairway descending from the north.

Genoa – The west corner of the map, usually accessed through the lobby of Estate or long corridors with high sniper visibility.

Red Door – A primary objective area and chokepoint leading from the Parking Roof to the Warehouse. It also has several railing lookouts and overlooks the parking roof and the area south of the main canal.

Bridge – The bridge crossing the main canal from the parking roof, bound by a concrete and chain-link cage.

Parking Canals – An open area with two vanishing canals to permit looting or attacking around the south side of the stage. It also has the southernmost interior canals.

Clinic – A courtyard with a two-level structure and arched entryway, with tight offices and the Courtyard to the south, and the parking canals to the north.

Courtyard – Actually the only downtown area on the stage, the Courtyard has a second-floor balcony, outer walkways, and a Clinic. It also has the most grenade choke points.

Art Gallery – A second-floor hallway with a large opening in the center. There are three rooms on the garden side of this hallway.

Office – An L-shaped structure with large windows and multiple balconies.

Compound – A small courtyard with a few outbuildings connected by alleys, with narrow balcony walkways on the second floor.

Downtown – A courtyard with a large hole in the center. There are two second-floor balconies here. Although the stage is named Downtown, the Compound is actually downtown, and the Courtyard is the only outdoor area on the stage.

6. Equipment and Loadout Coordination

If you can’t share because of, say, a JAMMER, then you should be a resupply source, with some cooperative overlap in the standard choices amongst the four of you. There could be the possibility of sending an extra reinforcement to a randomly selected teammate, in the case that you might get separated suddenly. If everybody has kit that no one else has for quantity discounts, it poses a risk in case somebody doesn’t survive to the end. Figure out amongst the team who has a second full resource to drop in case somebody dies with it in their pocket.

Person-specific equipment is not limited, but there is a long list of useful choices you will not be able to carry all of with you at once. Every person should coordinate with their loadout choices with the information of the other team members. Try to use equipment which never duplicates another choice.

It is good to double up on some equipment to give you redundancy. Each person on your team should coordinate with some choice of primary, secondary, and lethal equipment that best complements your respective playstyle choices. Each equipment choice for the whole team should create its own independent strong class of role so that you can also act with alternative resource classifications if some of you get blocked during the match in a significant way.

6.1. Sharing Equipment and Resources

There is also a significant performance cost for healing yourself using the health syringe or firewall repair tool. Ammunition and ordinance use are especially scarce. Each two-fire team must coordinate their loadout to maximize their effect on the game at low combined resource cost. If one or more fire team members specialize in device jamming or supply the useful Revive team skill, they must use their operator skill Activity Feed to spot exposed foes and trap the digital operatives. A professional team must protect the most valuable team members out of the 3 options available for fire suppression: LMG/Grenades on walls/truck wall in order to maximize the cost of repositioning or reloading that Elemental Weapon wielders will have coordinated, isolated targets can be taken off one by one.

Sharing equipment and resources is crucial. A squad has a limited amount of resources, most of which are shared among all players. Ammo boxes, grenades, revive syringes, signal modifiers, and the firewall you must breach in order to win the game effectively place hard or soft limits on which equipment you can bring into the mission and how often you can use it. Players must distribute the limited supply of revive syringes, ammo boxes, and grenades among the two-fire team members. Players without the revive skill would benefit from staying together, and players with the signal modifier skill are best kept apart.

Economy of shot and tap are also some of the factors that make effective team play. There is an inherent balance of resources such as equipment and ammunition in the game, and cooperation is necessary for an effective distribution of resources to the members that are most likely to take advantage of them. Cooperation in movement and reconnaissance allows sharing of the limited visual fire lanes in the corridor-shaped levels. Large maps with ample cover in between require less but are less inclined toward meaningful strategic decision-making resulting from the economy of shot and visual fire lanes.

7. Adaptability and Flexibility

Remember the words of Mike Tyson, «Everyone has a plan until they get hit.» You can develop a solid strategy. You can plan for different contingencies and scenarios. But sometimes, things may not work out the way you planned. Have a Plan B. Have a Plan C. Work with what you have. Adapt. Sometimes, this means you may need to be a little bit more aggressive. Sometimes, you may need to be a little bit more conservative. Other times, you may need to be patient or practice good discretion. The best players do all of these and decide what is the best option in the particular situation they are in.

In team play, it is critical to be adaptable and flexible in your approach. Stick to overall general strategies, but be prepared to adjust and adapt as play develops. This is true not only for play as a whole group, but even for the individual. There are many random events or challenges that require quick thinking and that can threaten to overwhelm a single player. Be ready to adjust on-the-fly to survive some of these challenges.

7.1. Adjusting Strategies Mid-Game

In a similar way, the defending team will have to adjust their tactics when fought into a corner. Instead of keeping one person on each door to the nade-blowing attackers, the defenders could do some pre-firing of their own. They could purposefully expose their sides so to stay out of the dark of night for a few seconds to wear down the attackers, forgo camping out in a single location to hole up in pairs ready to guard Nev or the firewall to be more mobile. These strategies can be effective if the squad in question is very familiar with the map and can predict where the attackers will have to enter to get line of sight to the data.

Players need to be ready to adjust to new map objectives. For example, on the attacking side, if the enemy team is holed up in the server room on the Office Map, certain contracts might not be a good idea to have equipped. When nobody can get into the server room, quick contracts are not needed, and the Hired contract, for example, might be changed to go after the No Witnesses Contract, as the enemy team easily is aware of where their office is. The Volatile Contractor might be changed to draw a smoke grenade instead, to make room for another lethal nade or flashbang. Players should scan their current map’s situation and reevaluate their actions.

8. Training and Practice

For example, Big Battery Replace is one strategy when you are confident that the opposing team will try to keep a low profile or hide out around the laptop. When you can predict confidently that the enemy team will not be aggressive, you can divert one or two players from the center. As you approach the laptop and are just beyond the «Blow Me Range» for two landlines, everybody in that group will call out a Lemon so that the remaining three teammates who are on their way to the laptop can guess where the two landlines are. They count down three, two, one and then swing wide to the opposing side of them, allowing the two big batteries to rush their way in and destroy the two pieces of equipment.

The majority of the above strategies can be developed and honed through good old-fashioned practice and repetition. Unfortunately, developing strong gunplay skills generally requires more training time than developing strategies. New players are encouraged to spend time practicing under combat conditions in Training Grounds to become more comfortable with their chosen weapons and to assess whether they need to reconsider weapon choices. From a collaboration perspective, it’s also important to be aware of the play styles and personalities of the players on other teams and practice strategies to compensate for them.

8.1. Drills and Exercises for Team Coordination

You can learn how to work better as a team from time in solo play. The enhanced activation you acquire from knowing what to expect from a player is why your performance will be better as a team. This is not about absolute performance. Other teams will have better shot-to-kill ratios, better kill zones, faster speed runs. I am concerned with the relative team performance because its cooperation is planned, practiced, and effective.

These are group mental-drill effectiveness activities. These drills are as important (if not more) than gameplay if your team frequently has problems crashing with walls, being unable to find each other, and others.

1. Communicate. 2. Use fire discipline. 3. Use timing. 4. Use relative team position to minimize the risk of friendly fire and optimize combined arms operations. 5. Use genuine montages to coordinate actions.

I am less concerned about the effectiveness of various team actions than I am with the predictability of other team members and the accuracy of my own actions in accordance with the plan, my individual strategy, and the coordinated acting of team members, in particular the ability and willingness of my team to:

Set your own objectives for these exercises. The game is a tool for these activities. Your goal is not to optimize effectiveness in the game, but rather your effectiveness as a team.

To improve a team that does not work effectively together, I strongly suggest the use of drills and practice. These are like gym workouts, and they do help. The team lead can quickly set «warm-up» drills at the beginning of a play session. More detailed drills can be set during such activities as a «coffee break,» a «squad huddle,» or a «half-time break.»

9. Case Studies and Examples

Container Room Defend (Extract the Enemies) In this attack scenario, the defenders are known to be on the other side of the red wall in the top containers. The attackers must extract the securing codes from the laptop and interact with the laptop. The defending team’s strategy should be to place a door blocker, the firewall, and dense attackers at the break room to force the attackers to advance into the top container at the other door (see the previous section for room orientation). Then, you want to have one team member stationed in the top container with the red walls, and another team member hiding at the box past the door. These two team members should prefire the door and break the firewall as soon as the door is opened.

Hostage Defence The defending team must defend their downed teammate while the attacking team works to kill them. The attackers can either wait out the timer (roughly 90 seconds) or kill all the defenders. From the attacking team’s perspective, the defending team has their back to one of the red walls and is ideally hidden by one of the red walls.

In this section, we provide some sample Firewall: Zero Hour scenarios to illustrate how the strategies we’ve outlined in this document can be effectively employed.

9.1. Analysis of Successful Team Play Scenarios

CONSTANT CONTACT: To protect the player who installed the firewall, the support player leaves the center of the computer-assisted design room, and after successfully completing the installation, the two players go around the estate. When moving to another important area near the action, the first player approaches the place to prevent ambushes.

POSITIVE CONTROL: For the duration of installing the firewall, guarding a critical area reliant on suboptimal cover and maintaining effective combatants’ contact with the support player who configured the system.

DIVERSION: Discouraging opponents from approaching a critical area by pretending to pose a greater threat than actually exists (one seemingly very stupid player enters the territory of the enemies while other players in her own team systematically destroy them). In our test sessions, the enemies usually take the bait and finish by the reserve.

COMBAT BETWEEN TEAMS: Both players who are approaching the war zone already safely verify their surroundings to ensure that they will not be surprised. Through regular visual contact, the first player entering the territory of the enemy team maintains knowledge of the enemy position to whose eyes the other players are masked, ready to assist. In this confrontation, if the pair cannot find effective combatants, the first player retreats, avoiding being pursued.

Strategies for effective team play. Identified successful team play scenarios are:

The first area examined is the strategies of experienced players, which, in this case, derive from their understanding of the game and how to act against other players. To identify successful team play scenarios, we analyzed and synthesized the live laboratory experience. Following the methods of (a) identifying the different statements, (b) generating concepts that could purpose them, (c) creating the categories by grouping similar concepts, and (d) enabling continuous comparison by asking what controls the contestants held, we obtained several successful team play scenarios. Four of them were observed and revealed firsthand, while others follow the development of these in more complex cases. In some rigorous competitions of such FPS, we gathered several (11) successful strategies that have a basis in the gameplay’s tactics and interestingly are not mutually exclusive. A player could prefer, for example, to force an enemy to find refuge, to protect specific teammates or game items, and thus could at each moment adopt multiple strategies considering different positions around the place of interest. At other times, the player could be controlled by conflicting rules and lack helpful means of properly choosing the better strategy to implement against an intelligent enemy trying to annihilate the opponent team. In such a context, welfare-like mechanisms, with the goal to coordinate the players’ shared desires could (still?) be useful. Well-chosen coordination, meaning cooperation with the right teammate, health kits, and ammo packs, and orders to reach the hill to create chaos, for example, could greatly simplify decision-making.