36 replies to this topic

[CaptainDeez]

Nothing is more challenging than getting pubers to cooperate. In war, they would be rabble militia with no discipline, little unit cohesion, and poor morale. They go their own way, cooperate in a oppurtunistic fashion and freely sacrifice eachother, what's more they are skitish and if you're not careful you can find 10 mechs suddenly routing away from the enemy instead of utilizing provided cover. It's a tough place to start a battle from huh? But there are ways to encourage this mass of mechs to make tactically sound moves. You just have to realize that in the heat of combat you're going to need other ways of communicating besides text once the shooting starts.

In pubs, there is no official leaders, directing the battle is everyones responsibility. Every mech knows something about part of the battlefield and it's up to you to grab attention if you see something important because General Patton is not going to do it for you.


Four Communication Tactics More Effective Than Calling Your Teammates Noobs In Chat:

1. Lead by waypoint: By taking company or lance command you can issue waypoints to direct the team. This can direct a team of reletive noobs to the best firing positions early on. Choose wisely because your team will usually only acknowlegde waypoints early game.

2. Lead by example: Your team is holding behind an outcropping of rocks across from a ridge that you think is clear on enemies. You truely believe that if you moved you mech ahead of the pack you should be able to spot the enemy with their pants down. But no one else seems to be interested in that ridge. Instead of typing "Let's take that rigde.", and waiting for them all to move, advance slowly towards it yourself, if your situational awareness is as good as you claim, others will see you not getting hit and will follow. Sometimes you just need to allvieate the fear of impending death. If they see you on the rigde blasting and not dying right away they wil join you. Leadership is showing the other mechs that your idea is a good idea by achievable by taking the initiative.

Don't expect people to follow you into multiple contacts, however, acting bold(but not foolish) underfire is a great way to encourage teammates to be more bold themselves. Often players are hesitant because they see the mechs in front of them acting hesitant, thinking there might be insurmountable odds ahead. In fact, if you're a skittish mech that likes to fallback alot staying behind the front of the formation would be ideal.

3. Lead by radar: Just because you're not a light doesn't mean you can't scout enemies. Lighting up other players radars with contacts is the best way to get them looking in your direction. If you sight enough enemies, you will begin to draw mechs looking to fight them. If you're a heavier mech, that means scouting the outskirts of the main blob ensuring flanks are secure or pushing flanks. If you're a light scout that means finding the bulk of the enemy team. If the triangle on your hud is hollow, no one is spotting that enemy. If you ecounter a cluster the team needs to know asap.

4. Lead by weapons fire: The enemy is behind your team, en masse at 1400m and closing. And you're the only one looking that direction, and they are under ECM. If text aren't selling the point. Start making noise, back into their views firing at the enemy, fire over their heads, anything to get them looking. If you feel they are particularly dense, sweep their asses with light spray of fire and blame the enemy.{DuhTip:Don't shoot teammates if you're all big weapons, jerk)

Anyways, these are some of the main methods I have used in the past to communicate information about the field to puggers. What are your strategies for herding cataphracts?

[xengk]

I play 99% PUG.
Particularly agree with point 4.
Sweeping a ML at an enemy's direction works like laser pointer and cat, it generally will get their attention.

I also use short chat to alert the team on enemy location, something simple and can be type up in seconds.
"D5 2" = 2 enemy at D5
"E6 multi" = alot of enemy at E6
If I have enough time to observe and the safety to type, I could elaborate further after sending out the first alert.
"2 jen" = 2 Jenner spotted
"boomjag, cat, ddc, hawk" = AC40 Jagger, Catapult, Atlas DDC and a shadowhawk spotted.

Edited by xengk, 13 March 2014 - 08:14 PM.

[Void Angel]

Good advice, but I can't agree with #1. Those fracking icons are a pain in the asteroids, since they obscure everything underneath them - including enemy (and friendly) radar contacts.

Also, on point two, I should mention that your method will not work in a lot of situations which require that you accept damage. The joke goes: "How do you engage the reverse gear on an Assault 'Mech?" Answer: "Shoot it with a Medium Laser." In the many situations where you need the team to get out from behind their favorite rock and shoulder some of the risks, they're going to see you getting battered and just hunker down a little more. Still, this is an excellent way to get people into roughly the right place to do some good, and I find the advice to be excellent.

[Wraith 1]

This one usually only works on competent players, but...

Using an AS7-DDC. Staying near the friendly ECM is usually a really good idea, and the 600 armor wall of guns to hide behind is a nice bonus. The ECM cloak marker makes a great PUGmagnet.

People also seem to try and stay near the blob of blue arrows on the minimap. This can be used at the beginning of the round to influence the direction the team heads. I've had this be a disadvantage when I'm trying to be a solo scout/spotter, but I imagine it could be used for positive results.


... Those only deal with positioning though. While that's certainly important, I haven't mastered the art of getting my team to turn around to deal with an incoming flank. I usually end up going Leeroy at that point, so I'll have to try some of these.

[strygalldwir]

"They go their own way, cooperate in a oppurtunistic fashion and freely sacrifice eachother,"
Co-operation relies on trust.
After being used as a sacrifice a few times by premades I would never take orders or advice from a member of one again. When the time comes for a fight I will check the maps and make my own decisions on where I can do the most good for the team
When you talk about herding you just reinforce my view.

Edited by strygalldwir, 13 March 2014 - 09:15 PM.

[JediPanther]

You can do several more things that work fifty percent of the time:

1. UAV. Any teammate who even remotly looks at the radar will normaly notice a sudden blob of red. If you have any lrm mechs on your team like catapults,in particular the A1, will be watching radar like a hawk for that all important missle lock.

2. LOCK TARGETS IE THE R Key. A butt load of puggers don't do this despite being new or having a lot of xp. They either have no clue what lock targets mean or get so tunel visioned and gung ho on contact they just open fire.Litterly the easest thing to do in the game. Press R key when you see a target so t shows up on radar AND gives you the mech id and weapon loadout. you might not want to engage that atlas d you just spoted but your own teammates might.

3. R key spam. Usefully when you suddenly find a lot of the enemy. Take cover and cycle r. you might get a lot of cbills and some xp for spot targeting.

4. BINGO. I've found this the most usefull as a scout. Give the grid location and number of contacts. B6 x3 which means B6 grid location with three contacts.

5. Disconect. Sometimes the your team will find it during the match. Now they've probabily derped out shooting at it. Yell at them that the enemy is coming from behind and that they are about to be flanked/steamrolled. I've seen teammates stand and blast away at disconects even with two enemy mechs shooting them, ignore the two active mechs doing damage at them and continure to kill the disconect. Good job. You killed a mech that doesn't shoot you while taking damage. Now try shooting a real mech.

6. Rambo. The worst option for you. You've encountered three or more mechs with your team behind you. Target a mech and start firing while trying to retreat to cover or moving back into your team drawing the enemy with you. Your crazy movements on radar will let your teammates know something is up. Your lance will hopfully notice your hp percent droping like a rock and move in.

7. The Noob Scout. Use all chat to give out contact with the enemy. Use all capital letters.

[Naduk]

biggest thing i find is the com's delay
not enough people factor this is

pugs are often very responsive to info and commands/actions
the players want the communication and the leadership

however what alot of "leaders" fail to do is wait for their commands to be seen
a simple "Push now!" will suffice to get gears moving at the right time
but what most people see is one lone mech speeding off at 90Kph and getting killing instantly
then the "push now" command appears , but its to late, they saw what happened and are in NOPE mode

make the call, wait a bit then lead by example and chances are they will back you up

[Acierocolotl]

In my experience, a good way to get something to happen reasonably early on is to lock a target. Every player present, save chronic idlers and disconnecters, wants to shoot the red robots. They'll see the red markers on their screen once you get a lock, and they'll come investigate if it's not too far so they can shoot the bad man. Lights especially love to gang up on distracted enemies.

Suggesting a plan early on may have mixed results, especially if the plan is simple: "Go to the hill on H5" or "hold the tunnel". Generally you'll get players sticking with the plan, right up until combat is joined anyway.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, and I want to stress this part, if any of these ideas don't work, don't blame your team and take your destruction/your loss with some grace. Sore generals are tedious.

[Deathlike]

CaptainDeez, on 13 March 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

Nothing is more challenging than getting pubers to cooperate. In war, they would be rabble militia with no discipline, little unit cohesion, and poor morale. They go their own way, cooperate in a oppurtunistic fashion and freely sacrifice eachother, what's more they are skitish and if you're not careful you can find 10 mechs suddenly routing away from the enemy instead of utilizing provided cover. It's a tough place to start a battle from huh? But there are ways to encourage this mass of mechs to make tactically sound moves. You just have to realize that in the heat of combat you're going to need other ways of communicating besides text once the shooting starts.

In pubs, there is no official leaders, directing the battle is everyones responsibility. Every mech knows something about part of the battlefield and it's up to you to grab attention if you see something important because General Patton is not going to do it for you.

I'll post a better response after getting some sleep. All I can say is, being a PUG commander is not rewarding. Directing people is key, but the tools for accomplishing this are rather weak though.

Quote

1. Lead by waypoint: By taking company or lance command you can issue waypoints to direct the team. This can direct a team of reletive noobs to the best firing positions early on. Choose wisely because your team will usually only acknowlegde waypoints early game.

This doesn't really work. Tutorials addressing this would help, but the effort to effectiveness ratio for the Command Map is really bad. Either people don't understand it or simply that you have to apply the same command 3 different times. It's a pain.

What works better is giving coordinates, like "goto H9" on Alpine although my preference to motivate people to get there is "H9 or die (alone)" (alone is implied). People usually respond better.

Quote

2. Lead by example: Your team is holding behind an outcropping of rocks across from a ridge that you think is clear on enemies. You truely believe that if you moved you mech ahead of the pack you should be able to spot the enemy with their pants down. But no one else seems to be interested in that ridge. Instead of typing "Let's take that rigde.", and waiting for them all to move, advance slowly towards it yourself, if your situational awareness is as good as you claim, others will see you not getting hit and will follow. Sometimes you just need to allvieate the fear of impending death. If they see you on the rigde blasting and not dying right away they wil join you. Leadership is showing the other mechs that your idea is a good idea by achievable by taking the initiative.

Don't expect people to follow you into multiple contacts, however, acting bold(but not foolish) underfire is a great way to encourage teammates to be more bold themselves. Often players are hesitant because they see the mechs in front of them acting hesitant, thinking there might be insurmountable odds ahead. In fact, if you're a skittish mech that likes to fallback alot staying behind the front of the formation would be ideal.

One of the problems is that even if the plan is a good idea, if you die, people are far more reluctant to do it. Sometimes you have to remind them (as in, yell at them in caps) to do stuff... particularly at the choke points... like not going into the middle in Terra Therma. It helps a lot if you're in a premade, where people tend to follow the crowds and they tend to follow...

Quote

3. Lead by radar: Just because you're not a light doesn't mean you can't scout enemies. Lighting up other players radars with contacts is the best way to get them looking in your direction. If you sight enough enemies, you will begin to draw mechs looking to fight them. If you're a heavier mech, that means scouting the outskirts of the main blob ensuring flanks are secure or pushing flanks. If you're a light scout that means finding the bulk of the enemy team. If the triangle on your hud is hollow, no one is spotting that enemy. If you ecounter a cluster the team needs to know asap.

The biggest problem with radar has always been ECM, People need to really learn and master the UAV so that it gives people a better understand on how to approach the target. The problem though is that some players tend to not know how to properly make sure of that info... or the UAV. Of course... that's what a tutorial would be good for.

Quote

4. Lead by weapons fire: The enemy is behind your team, en masse at 1400m and closing. And you're the only one looking that direction, and they are under ECM. If text aren't selling the point. Start making noise, back into their views firing at the enemy, fire over their heads, anything to get them looking. If you feel they are particularly dense, sweep their asses with light spray of fire and blame the enemy.{DuhTip:Don't shoot teammates if you're all big weapons, jerk)

Weapons fire is usually the most productive way of getting people's attention. Whether it is delivering the shots yourself, I would hope people take a look at where I'm shooting at AND where the return fire is coming from. All weapons have to originate from some point so most players can and will learn about weapons more effectively if you take the initiate to fire in the direction of the enemy as early as possible... as players will tend to gravitate in that direction. It's probably the most effective way to get people to focus fire (at least, you'd hope they do). It almost always works, whether you are a newbie or a veteran.

So, yea. Tutorials.

Edited by Deathlike, 13 March 2014 - 10:04 PM.

[Gasoline]

Deathlike, on 13 March 2014 - 10:04 PM, said:

So, yea. Tutorials.

So much this!

I know that there are currently more urgent things to fix, but tutorials are a necessity. The learning curve and accessibility of this game is way to steep.

Also the battlegrid, especially the iconization, should be totally revamped. Orders could be given via flags, the commanders can place on certain spots in the terrain, enemy or friendly mechs, etc (e.g. mark the enemy Atlas D-DC as priority target via a simple command key and displaying it with a target marker, which should be hidden, when the enemy is not within line of sight, or mark the friendly D-DC to guard and protect via a shield marker).

Other than that, very good post.

(edit: grammar dilettante)

Edited by Gasoline, 13 March 2014 - 11:24 PM.

[Laconicus]

PUG matches are like farting in an elevator, you don't know what the effect or reaction will be until its happened. So worrying about the outcome is useless
Great post and love the suggestions, well thought out. Though sometimes a PUG match seems to be won or lost and the actual reasons behind the result is unexplainable. I saw two lances who stated they were each on Coms but separately go down to 12 randoms. Life is a cruel task master online.

[Spawnsalot]

One way to work with solo players is to treat them with a little respect and not like inferior beings - they are players just like you. A lot of read the forums too and don't particularly appreciate it when regular groupies talk about them like they're something unpleasant they just stepped in, can you be surprised that, after reading some of the posts I've seen, they don't feel like working with the "superior" 4-man?

You've got plenty of time at the beginning of a match to say "Hey guys n gals bravo is a 4-man, we're going to head this way first, anyone want to back us up? We'll try and call targets for focus fire" or words to that effect.

It works, I use it myself and I solo drop 99% of the time.

(While we're at it PUG means pick up group, so the actual pugs would be the folks on comstar )

[Appogee]

If you shoot near their feet, they all tend to run in the one direction.

[Magna Canus]

I mislike the title of this post and fear that a lot of solo players are not going to read it because they find it simply derogitory, as Spawnsalot noted.

That asside a lot of the command and leadership suggestions are good, save perhaps the one where you shoot your own team and blame it on the enemy. I agree that getting a visual on the enemy and giving your team obvious visual clues like weapons fire are the best ways to redirect their attention.

In over 6.000 drops I think I have seen just about everything fruit or fail depending on the group you are working with. The same tactics don't always work with every team. If you continue to remind yourself that you are dealing with a wide variety of individuals from different culture in a broad spread of age groups your leadership should improve with that consideration alone. The key idea is common respect, respecting the player as a person, as you would like to be respected in turn. Like any collection of individuals you can make tactical suggestions to the teams advantage, but you do have to remind yourself that you were never appointed as the leader and first need to convince your team that you have something of value to contribute. It is a difficult task in the short time we have per match, but anything positive you do end up bringing about will turn to dust if you rant at the end of the game. Terms like "useless PUGs" and sacrificing members of your team for personal gain are the best way to ensure that you build a wall of mistrust that will echo into other games and make the life of other leaders that much harder.

Experienced players will have their own views of how best to fight, but any good pilot will also know that supporting the majority of the group, even if they are executing a plan you don't agree with, is better than going it alone.

That asside I would like to add that even when you are dead you an contribute effectively, if not more effectively as a leader if done correctly. Cycling through the views of different team members and relaying important information can be very valuable if done properly.

As for influencing the more opportunistic players the key is to play to their sense of opportunity. Add information like "CORED atlas at D5" or "Neutered Highlander A6". Using the right key words will open the door of influence quickly. This also works in reverse if you want a group to stay away from a trap; you notice a DDC and two mechs waiting in ambush, exaggerate their numbers slightly to inflate the threat "DDC +4 at D3".

[BLOOD WOLF]

Void Angel, on 13 March 2014 - 07:52 PM, said:

Good advice, but I can't agree with #1. Those fracking icons are a pain in the asteroids, since they obscure everything underneath them - including enemy (and friendly) radar contacts.

Also, on point two, I should mention that your method will not work in a lot of situations which require that you accept damage. The joke goes: "How do you engage the reverse gear on an Assault 'Mech?" Answer: "Shoot it with a Medium Laser." In the many situations where you need the team to get out from behind their favorite rock and shoulder some of the risks, they're going to see you getting battered and just hunker down a little more. Still, this is an excellent way to get people into roughly the right place to do some good, and I find the advice to be excellent.

EXACTLY, time and time again, i have to be the one to make a push and destroy my mech to give my team the initiative they need to press the advantage.

[Jody Von Jedi]

I Pug 99.9% of the time as well and will follow directions given to me by someone that wants to take the lead. I'm a follower by nature and it's reflected in my game play style.

However, I've been the victim of poor leadership more times than I want to count. I can't tell you how many times I've been told to "PUSH" and when I did hardly anyone else went with me and I died rather quickly. So, I've learned to pick and choose when I follow said commands.

As some have said above, informative chat like "D6 contact" or "DDC in A5", or especially something like "HELP in C10" gets my attention and I'm much more willing to heed the request for help. A request for help is usually answered.

Last night someone took Command in Tourmaline Valley and issued an order via the Battle Map that was just stupid. We were told to attack an area that was wide open with no safe approach, while the enemy team was behind cover. Some of the puggers sauntered right out in the open and died quickly. I stayed in my cover and managed to get 1 kill before the rest of the team fell apart. In cases like this, my suggestion is for some of these arm chair generals to take into consideration the terrain before they issue blind commands.

So in summary, you catch more flies with honey, than you do with vinegar. Give me a gentle nudge and I'll usually follow. Start barking out commands, and I'll usually run the other way.

Jody

[Amsro]

My favorite is to let the team decide, post up options and let them choose. Sometimes for better sometimes for worse. But at least they feel included and part of the decision making!

The thing I hate the most is the 4 man that refuses to work with the team and derps off alone, then proceeds to bark orders and complain about the rest of the team.

Remember 80+ % are pugs, 4 mans would do well to communicate with the typically better pugs. 8vs12 is never fun.

[Fut]

strygalldwir, on 13 March 2014 - 09:14 PM, said:

"They go their own way, cooperate in a oppurtunistic fashion and freely sacrifice eachother,"
Co-operation relies on trust.
After being used as a sacrifice a few times by premades I would never take orders or advice from a member of one again. When the time comes for a fight I will check the maps and make my own decisions on where I can do the most good for the team
When you talk about herding you just reinforce my view.

Any leader is better than no leader.
If you're ignoring orders/cooperation/advice from somebody on your team, you're doing a disservice to your entire Company.
Especially if you're doing so purely because somebody let you down before. Time to pull up your big-boy pants and get over it.

You're here to fight, so do the best you can, and leave the drama at home.

[Jody Von Jedi]

Fut, on 14 March 2014 - 06:22 AM, said:

Any leader is better than no leader.

Wrong on so many levels. Oh look a cliff, let's jump off it............

[Amsro]

Jody Von Jedi, on 14 March 2014 - 07:46 AM, said:

Wrong on so many levels. Oh look a cliff, let's jump off it............

You mean Theta on Frozen City.