Admins vs bad SLs

[Psyrus]

The only squads that need disbanding are those that are unresponsive, or flat out ignore their fellow squad leaders or commander in-game.

It's a teamwork based game, if I'm squad 4 and we're defending... I see your squad of 6 people off in whoop-whoop and I call out on SL chat

"Hey squad 5 we're having trouble at the flag and are gonna lose it if we don't get backup, can you help"

And I get either *No response* or "No we're busy with DERP DERP NOT FLAG ACTIVITY"... That squad is now defined as useless.

I don't mind people doing their own secret squirrel missions as long as the FLAGS are being taken care of. Once we start losing the flags, or the caches in insurgency... this is a teamwork game, get your *** back to the objectives or **** off in my opinion.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

And free kits squads that are rare but make me rage on a full PR server....

[CR8Z]

Free kit squads do nothing for me. I could care less. Unfortunately, they are sometimes the only squad to join. I think they only exist because no other squads are available and that guy doesn't know how to SL. Is that his fault? Should he wait patiently for a spot in a real squad to open up? Sometimes I'll join that squad just to see if I can take it over. 9 times out of ten, they just had nothing better to do because all the other 3-4 man leet squads are locked.

The fight is not always at the flag, nor is the game always won at the flag. I get that unresponsive SLs are annoying, I deal with them almost every time I play, but they never ruin my game. They have nothing to do with my game. They don't matter to me. I just don't understand why people are so bent out of shape and worried about what other people are doing.

My advice, just worry about yourself. If that squad doesn't want to work with you, eff em'. Just let them be. They'll get bored and move on. Or better yet, they'll start working with the team.

Otherwise, good luck getting people to behave how you think they should.

I only wish there was more than one or two servers available when I play. perhaps 1.0 will help with that.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[smiley]

LOL, No, not really, I just disagree with you.

In a competitive match, I would never go off on my own without first working with the CO, or absent that, the rest of the SLs. But in a public match, where I'm lucky to A) get a squad together at all, B) communicate with other squads, C) have enough time to get a full round in, D) stop what my squad is doing on a moments notice to change my objective, E) have the assets and skill available to help, F) etc. There are a lot of variables in a public match that are beyond my control.

Public matches just aren't that organized. Sometimes they are, and that's great, but most times they simply are not. It's not my job to get everybody in line, unless I opt for the command seat, at least as I see it. My job is to lead my squad to the best of my ability, to make sure they have fun, and to help the team in the best way that my limited intel affords me.

I suppose on some level, that it would be great if I could just tell everyone what to do, and threaten to resign/kick/ban them if they didn't do what I say, but I'm not an admin on every server, and that really isn't my style anyway. I believe in leading by example versus with a stick. Aye, sometimes a stick is necessary, but rarely, at least in my experience.

I'm not saying that an admin should NEVER use the admin tools, but it should ALWAYS be the last resort. As a server admin for many different games over many years, I think I can count on two hands how many people I've kicked/banned. It's just not necessary, and counterproductive to what we're trying to achieve.

I get that we're talking about resigning an SL versus kick/ban, really I do. I just see them as a similar tactic and disapprove. Imagine just using the "kill" command over and over again on someone. While not kick/banning them, you sure are inviting them to leave. I view the "resign SL" command in a similar light.

Consider the argument of NOT defending unknown caches. I think this is ridiculous. Of course you should defend a cache, known or unknown. There are many tools at your disposal to defend a cache, but not defending it is not the best one, imo. While this is my opinion, I know that many in this community disagree.



Likewise, I disagree that every squad must be tasked to whatever other squads or an admin feel they should be tasked to. Whatever your assumptions of what some other "useless" squad is doing, I don't believe that an admin should force them into complying.

If you think that the game is won or lost based on the actions of 6 people, I would ask what the other 26 people are doing? Probably not what they should be.

Most people want to be led, and they want to help, but they also hate being told what to do by somebody they don't know and have never heard of. ESPECIALLY if they disagree.

I think we are at crossed purposes here so I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about, one that I have witnessed many times.
Your team has the their 1st flag, your team is attacking the next flag and the opposition is defending well so no further progress is made. There is a full inf squad on your team sitting on the next flag up who have built no fobs, killed nothing and just type up " hurry up and cap guys we are ready to cap the next flag" and despite multiple pleas to come and help especially as they can come from an alternative direction refuse to and just sit there.
I have seen this happen on many an occasion and it's very frustrating.

As for the rest of your post I do agree with pretty much all that you've said, so I'm finding it hard to work out what it is that I said that you don't agree with.

[smiley]

How do you define 'the best interests of everyone'. What if as Onil suggests that a squad is building a FOB away from the fight that wont get quickly overrun. Should his squad be disbanded in the "best interests of the team". How about based on stated RULES that are well thought out? This all looks more like group think than sound rational judgement imo.

I define the "best interests of everyone" as when the overwhelming majority of people are in agreement about a certain course of action and the small minority are ignoring those opinions without communication or rational explanation thereby creating a fragmented team.If one as an SL cannot see the benefit of doing some of the things that Onil pointed out then they are a bad SL as well but I don't think that's what's really at the core of the OPs argument.

Group think and sound rational judgement aren't necessarily polar opposites, how would you define the difference? How would you define "sound rational judgement?"
Your opinion that stated rules are well thought out is just your opinion and could be argued about ad infinitum and would be fruitless and pointless unless people can find common ground on what they believe is the correct course of action.

A better question could possibly be "what defines teamwork?" or "what defines the obstruction of the teams goals within the game?" These are the questions that need answering before a sound rational judgement can be made regarding whether or not someone is a bad Sl who isn't contributing to the team effort.

As Arcturus has pointed out there seems to be a lack of desire to understand other peoples points of view and a greater desire to just disagree, so that very little common ground is ever reached, which by and large is usually counter-productive.

[viirusiiseli]

PR is not really rocket science, allow me to explain.

<4 men squads in the team need to take care of logistics, mortars and other behind the lines or support jobs

4+ man squads need to BE ON THE GODDAMN OBJECTIVE. If you have a 4+ man squad it is not your duty to make a TOW+AA fob in A1 on kashan. Your job is to be on whatever flag that has a defend/attack marker on it.

Doesn't seem hard to follow, does it? Yet almost every game you see these types of squads wandering around not understanding what the objective/teams best interest is.

Not saying sabotage, mortars or whatever are useless, just saying it can always be done by a squad consisting of 3 or less players. If you have a sabotage squad lock it at 3 people, instead of making it a full squad being useless.

[Tit4Tat]

agree ^^.


This isn't that hard, PR is an understatement for teamwork, wanna do your shit which detaches you away from the team and you become a burden? go play COOP.

[Onil]

PR is not really rocket science, allow me to explain.

<4 men squads in the team need to take care of logistics, mortars and other behind the lines or support jobs

4+ man squads need to BE ON THE GODDAMN OBJECTIVE. If you have a 4+ man squad it is not your duty to make a TOW+AA fob in A1 on kashan. Your job is to be on whatever flag that has a defend/attack marker on it.

Doesn't seem hard to follow, does it? Yet almost every game you see these types of squads wandering around not understanding what the objective/teams best interest is.

Not saying sabotage, mortars or whatever are useless, just saying it can always be done by a squad consisting of 3 or less players. If you have a sabotage squad lock it at 3 people, instead of making it a full squad being useless.

I definitely agree even though I prefer using a squad of max 4 since we usually divide into fire-teams. But the main issue for me is that even if my squad is locked with 3 to 4 members, sometimes I'm forced to unlock by admin orders and so some random players will join and would "force" me to do normal infantry based on the current squad member number or to just ignore that fact and send those two extra guys to help on the flags on their own while I continue to lead the rest of the squad as I usually do.

The other exception is when my squad is locked with 3 to 4 and some other mate asks to join. I would feel bad about not inviting him to the squad and so we end up with a 5 or 6 man squad which I truly hate. In this case, I tend to send my third fire-team to help on the flags or close proximity.

I think the 100p servers will perhaps fix the issue with lack of manpower on the flags since you will have more players for each infantry squad. The problem I see with that is that a 3 or 4 men locked squad is now a waste of a squad slot that would otherwise have 10 or 12 people in it. Since we cannot have more than 9 squads, I truly hope that some specialized squads group up more. CAS and Trans, Recon and Mortars/Logistics, etc.

This is because not all SL's will like to have 10 or 12 players in their squad... it might be too much for them but they might not mind having 8 for example. So more squads will be needed to compensate. The major issue with grouping different roles is in my opinion the extra chatter and the fact that only 1 SL = only 1 marker. If the PR devs would be able to add an NCO element to the squads so that he can put his own marker, that would be one of the most awesome features for big squads.

[CR8Z]

These are all sound strategies. Assign various squads to specific tasks, with the expressed intent of winning the game. Fantastic!

But WHO is assigning these tasks? The group? So, if I could somehow convince the group to assemble in A1 and build FOBs, never mind the objectives, then this would be acceptable?

Though this discussion has taken many twists and turns, I believe the OP states that admins should use the tools at their disposal to deal with certain squads that aren't acting in what they feel is in the team's best interest. I stated my disagreement with this by pointing out that this is subjective, despite the fact that PR is not rocket science.

I believe that admins should use their tools to enforce hard coded rules, such as TKs, one manning vehicles, etc. If the server rules clearly state, "follow the orders of any admin or a quorum of SLs.", so be it. At least it's in the rules and I have an opportunity to either play by them or not.

My own personal opinion, and mind you I do not have my own PR server, would be to allow people to play how they wish, despite the outcome of the game, so long as they are not intentionally griefing other players, or causing a majority of players to leave the server due to their actions, or I suppose, inaction.

Generally speaking, I don't care if I win or lose the game. I often don't even get to finish a round. I just want to play and have fun.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[doop-de-doo]

While I frequently have to go around building/replacing FSBs that our team needs, my squad continues at one of the current objectives. Any information I receive from them is passed on to the team. So even if I am not personally at the objective, my function does not fail.

Generally speaking, I just want to play and have fun.

I agree. I'll leave the game once the fun has ended, but when I am in a responsible position, sometimes I'll have to delegate some of the the fun so the team isn't shorthanded.

Could you define failing the team hard?

I could, but most admins wouldn't need me to tell them.

Failing a rule.. is that what you mean?

Failing is inevitable at some point or another. The admins should decide if specific cases failure to the team warrants being called out.

If you want an admin to disband, kick, fling or ban a squad leader or player then I think it should be based on stated rules or it is arbitrary. And in my most humble opinion, I wholeheartedly disagree. Micro managing by admins happens all the time. Just read the server feedback forums.

Rules vary per server. I am not interested in creating any kind of list of rules for all servers to follow. I am sure that you favor some servers, their admins, and rules over others.

[a3dboy1]

Admins are not there to dictate how to play the game.
Admins are there to make sure :

a) people are not getting offended by other people
b) people are not ruining other people experience (TKs, bug/glitch abusing, spamming etc.)

I do not understand why admins should tell people how to play on PUBLIC servers.

If you want "organize" teamwork - play "competitive" matches or "events" where rules are more strict.

Public gaming is always a chaos.

[DDS]

Maybe just add BOT's so we know how to shuffle across the map correctly the PC way.
The game is always in flux - people leaving/joining the server.

"wait a minute, we now have 5 people.. switch to defend!"

This is beyond micro managing.. it's just fn' creepy.

This thread is better than the discovery channel.

[Wicca]

Public gaming is always a chaos.

No. Please stop treating pubbing like chaos. Expect perfection. And try to bring people in on that idea.

There is nothing worse than coming into a squad or team, with an attitude like assuming public gaming is chaos.

Oh yeah "war is chaos".

Well get it out of your head. Project Reality should be the game where, no matter what server you join, there is teamwork and heaps of it.

If the players dont make that work, then the mod is worthless to me. Luckily there are few like you, and i rarely see players treating the public matches like "chaos".

[Oskar]

No. Please stop treating pubbing like chaos. Expect perfection. And try to bring people in on that idea.

There is nothing worse than coming into a squad or team, with an attitude like assuming public gaming is chaos.

Oh yeah "war is chaos".

Well get it out of your head. Project Reality should be the game where, no matter what server you join, there is teamwork and heaps of it.

If the players dont make that work, then the mod is worthless to me. Luckily there are few like you, and i rarely see players treating the public matches like "chaos".

Well put, Wicca. Only the players themselves can bring about real change in how this game feels. Shooting people is fun to a degree but I prefer to do it when I know everyone around me are working together toward the same goals, doing their in-game jobs and complementing each others abilities. Slow, scary and drawn out firefights and less running around like wild chicken. I know this is possible because I've been in such games, and no they were not pre-planned in the slightest and very much public.

Admins are good to have to maintain a minimum of order in a server but only squad leaders who lead by example and squad members who know how to help the SL carry out his plan in the best way possible will give us that kind of gameplay.

[Psyrus]

No. Please stop treating pubbing like chaos. Expect perfection. And try to bring people in on that idea.

There is nothing worse than coming into a squad or team, with an attitude like assuming public gaming is chaos.

Oh yeah "war is chaos".

Well get it out of your head. Project Reality should be the game where, no matter what server you join, there is teamwork and heaps of it.

If the players dont make that work, then the mod is worthless to me. Luckily there are few like you, and i rarely see players treating the public matches like "chaos".

Have I ever told you I love you?