Is PR serious business? [semi-rant about "What we've become?"]

[CR8Z]

I'll be honest. I have not taken the time to read even a fraction of this thread. Mostly, because it's already been said countless times over the lifespan of this game.

This is a video game. It should be taken as seriously as you want it to be. And as seriously as those in your squad want it to be. You can have a perfectly awesome round with a great squad but a shit team. You can even lose, and still have fun with your squad.

If you don't think your SL lives up to muster, then be the SL that you want to have. Try the SL position and emulate all of the qualities that you like in a great SL until you exemplify them. Other great players will join your squad and help identify different tactics and strategies that are learned over time, but leadership and interpersonal communication skills are what make a great SL. Stand up and stand out, Or sit down and shut up.

Just do the best you can.

[Mouthpiece]

snip...

Thanks for the honest suggestions, if I was the person who you think I am, those suggestions would really help me. But because of not reading the responses in this thread, you actually have little clue about what are the exact point I was making (as it was a hard nut to crack, It took me few days and lots and lots of words).

In the end the distilled form can be read out like this: "The somewhat unseen problem with PR is it's potential playerbase - the one that is/can be now and the one that was/could have been before (let's say 1.0). - is that with the newer the release, the more newbish crowd gets thrown together. Yes, it happens on every major release, but as things have gotten A LOT easier setup-wise for people whose hands don't grow out of their right places (and also those wth serious cognitive function problems), it seems that there isn't any kind of "FILTER" that in the worse case scenarios automatically filter out players who can't make themselves to read a guide on how to fix the issues (how to install/use mumble 0.5 / how to make PR to run / etc.). My guess is that fewer and fewer people nowadays even touch the Manual. But back then it was like a totally normal thing if everyone in my squad had read it. Like, no fucks given (as opposed to now).

So I hope that now you see what my at first vague points were. I and many others feel that it's a trend that with every new release more idiotic and savage people join this beautiful game. No disrespect to the newbies who are playing this mod like it's supposed to be played - if INF, knowing the main things the SL will need/want/ask from you as a specific kit user and talking to him about this stuff and the squads advancement/defense plans - and what can one say about assets? All of them basically is like a metal box (that can roll over difficult terrain, swim and even fucking fly) that kills people more efficiently then the standard handheld weapons can ever dream or imagine to kill. So the basis is and always be the standards of INF play. What can I say, there are no more standards to my knowledge. Of course, I have had a a lot of gg's and even some great ones in the past 6 months while mainly playing in [NEW], but my experience was so different there... why? Because of teammembers. They're mostly quite experienced there. And the new ones at least get the chance to learn from the RIGHT SOURCES. Yes, I cannot emphasize this more then I can - WRONG LEARNING SOURCES are killing the tactical side and basic competitiveness (e.g., win that is not automatically achieved by sitting on a flag and engaging enemies for 20 minutes hoping their assets go down first so to get the OH SO DESERVED (the team gets TOTALLY punished because of 1 or 2 idiot mistakes, and there's nothing we're doing about it - EVEN NO SHAMING, except maybe right after the incident online).

Guys, we should be more demanding. And yes, that includes towards new players. It's not that you can't be demanding and can't teach one how to play at the same time. You just don't tolerate mistakes, that's all (of course, mistakes vary, and some are really tolerable as, for one, I'm still sometimes flipping the fucking logistics trucks).

Disclaimer: didn't re-read this post so it may potentially harm the reader. Read it at your own risk.

[Heavy Death]

If the majority of the people plays "wrong", it probably makes it right. The decisions have led to this and it only us old farts who want the realism mindset back. It is possible, though. Need about 10 capable people on each team in SL and CO positions, coupled with strict admin rules in regards of lonewolfing and disobedience.

[agus92]

Hi again. Some of you said in this thread that private servers are much better realism wise. Could someone elaborate that?

[Heavy Death]

Private possibly meant clan servers, not generic community ones. I might be wrong.

Also, instead of only ranting, I went and played PR after some time to get some first hand experience on the current situation and quite surprisingly, 2 out of 2 times, I jumped into the right squad.

But.

On the first occasion, while all was going really good, SL gets kicked for afk. He was down but still giving orders, just missed the admins. Ofcourse another guy took over and it was shit. Tough luck right? Right. On yesterdays occasion I jumped into a squad, SL seemed quite competent, however it was ramiel and blufor is a ***** there. Some bad decisions have cost us some lives and time but hey it is a hard thing so I was far away from ragequitting since SL was good. Then it started picking up, squad started to work well, made progress, but then server crash.

What the fok m8? Like, can I play one decent round of PR. Too much to ask? JFC. Then I remembered it was the same pattern for the last years I played. Either SL leavea for this and that reason, either it is a shit team or a shit SL or... or the server says tha I should promptly fuck off.

God damn it.

[Portable.Cougar]

CR8Z nailed it. Be the change you want to see.

SLing is like lone wolfing with 7 other people. Just do what you would do if you were solo with seven other people. It's really not that hard.

[CR8Z]

It took me few days and lots and lots of words).

That part I got, and I meant no disrespect to all of your words. However, brevity leads to clarity, and I think there were just too many words to clarify your points. I did skim them, and as I stated, I have seen them all in countless threads over the years with each new iteration of the game.

It is even mocked in the Forum Alerts section of the forum here.

Note the Orange OMG level. "These changes have ruined the MOD even though I haven't played it yet".

The changes always ruin the mod, and yet this game continues to be the best damn game I have ever played.

[agus92]

Private possibly meant clan servers, not generic community ones. I might be wrong.

I've been offered a couple of times to join one, but I didn't know the advantages of it. And I though clans played on public servers?


Regarding what CR8Z said: when this thread started I became more proactive creating squads, and I've enjoyed it a lot. Me and my sq members, that were able to find a teamwork sq.

And for other potencial SL out there: don't worry too much about tactical deployment, a MIC INF ENG squad (or similar) attracts experinced people with whom you can discuss tactics.
The biggest hassle is handling comms, really.

[=-=kittykiller]

IS PR Serious Business Anymore

no not like it was started in .8 and used to be alot of over the top milsim guys, forcing you to stay and defend a point on the map perhaps all game.

I remember once some guys flanked us on quai river and had friendly kits (aka ninja squad) i left my foxhole to nail them as they were 50m away and moving fast got chewed out. Squad leader then had a hissy fit like all this was too much for him to cope with.

that was on tactical gamer, However i did also enjoy playing on more serious servers.

Thing is this game is so old now all the milsim guys moved on ages ago so dont be a milsim **** dictating the battle like its ure master plan, be a squad or fireteam and co ordinate with ure nearest squads, thats always fun.

But no i havent had a game of DISCIPLINE INF in years and dont really miss it save that for Tournaments or clan wars and even then i dont think the clans are that way inclined we just trying to have fun in this game with a mature community (excluding FCV which is cancer lol)

[Michael_Denmark]

Project Reality has always been divided into a more serious group and a less serious group. The less serious could and can be found mostly on the public servers and the more serious in the tournament and the clans, however also in public gaming.

If I read the cards correctly throughout the process, both the developers and the community, has in overall focused more on maps, graphics and sounds, models and animations, than the game it self, supporting the level and type of play the individual player may want to try out. Thus, an overall focus-line of player-level-aspirations, as continuous add-ons to each player, or group of the same, has never been developed or implemented. Could be the developers have developed something along those lines, so I apologize if that has been the case. However, has it been developed, I never heard about it.

That may be the product-service, if you will, that is missing still as an add-on to the core-service-product, in relation to provide the type of gamely to both the community and its individual players, however, it will not be an easy nut to crack.

But the developer team and or community that does so, should in my opinion do it silently, because I think there can be made a good portion of money on such an add-on, on the gaming-market that is. In my opinion the PR developers deserve a good deal of money. They have provided thousands of people with an overwhelming amount of fun and great gaming-hours, completely free of charge.

[KingKong.CCCP]

@virus,

Nice post, I agree.

I really didn't go through all those big posts, sorry.
I play PR since forever and PR today is better than ever. The quality of the games is a lot higher. I just wanted to add that.

[matty1053]

Hi again. Some of you said in this thread that private servers are much better realism wise. Could someone elaborate that?

More strict servers pretty much.

[agus92]

More strict servers pretty much.

And how do you get access? Paywall?

[matty1053]

And how do you get access? Paywall?

I would say "white list" players. As players would have to sign up on forums to gain the password to the server. Which, there would be nearly zero tolerance to rule breakers. It would probably be considered a "milsim" server. Which, who knows how many would play on it.

I think that paying to get in a server for PR is against the terms for PR Server agreement.

[Wispin]

I'm sure what I will say here has been repeated in this thread a number of times in some form or another, and this is a sliiiight necropost, but I want to share my subjective experience.

I've been playing off and on since the tail end of 0.5, back in 2007ish. I started playing more often than the occasional round in late 2008. Being nearly 22 at this point, I certainly wasn't the most mature of people back in those days, but I did gravitate towards servers like T&T, TacticalGamer and such. I found the guidance of the commanders and squad leaders there to be *incredible* and grew into a (hopefully) pretty decent squad leader.

Being a female gamer, it's a bit difficult to get some level of respect - at the time (and even still today) many people just assume I'm a young boy. This was even more interesting during my teenage years, but anyway..

On T&T, TacticalGamer, and other servers, that didn't matter as much, if at all. If I was an SL and was making competent decisions, I was respected for my skill and my authority as a leader, and not criticized for who I was.

Today, though, this sort of respect is off-and-on. I recently (within the last few weeks) returned to playing PR actively and I've found a very different community from even two years ago. It's not necessarily bad, though, just looser - there are behaviors that happen on a lot of these servers that are tolerated or tacitly encouraged that would have gotten a player banned previously. The disrespect also seems to be at a higher level.

That said, I've also had some really good experiences with some fantastic squads in the last few days alone. There were even competent commanders (Right!? Who does that?). Not to be critical of other servers, but all of these good experiences have happened on the HOG server. I think there's definitely something to be said for the type of environment that the leadership of a server fosters, and the approach they take to administration and community engagement.

That's not to say there haven't been shitty experiences - or shitty people. Those are everywhere.

But to sum: It's not that bad, and still way better than most of the rest of the internet and PC gaming community.

[st0necold]

>2600 words.

That's longer than anything I've had to write in my Masters degree so far. :l

You nailed it before I could.

[st0necold]

I'll die before I read that entire rant. That has to be some sort of record for a rant about a video game.

[Carl Weathers]

I'm not gonna itemize a reply but I agree with the gist of what you're saying OP. I chalk it up to the meme generation and their lack of patience. My best PR experiences are in a tight squad with good cohesion. I don't mind chitchat during a lull in the action and I certainly don't mind losing as long as we lose as a team.

I like SLs that lay out the initial movement. It's not mandatory but it fosters cohesion and gives the rest of the squad an idea of what's going down. I don't like SLs who whine at people though. Tell us what you want or need, request a SITREP if we're out of position,but don't whine.

I will say that we got too many fuckers rocking the asset squads who don't actually work with the team. Had some SL twirling his chopper around over spawn because he was bored,then crashed it and shrugged it off. No fucker, don't shrug it off. The guys out there fighting want to win and you're undermining their game. If you can't relax when you have no active mission then give up SL.

[RAWSwampFox]

Good Evening,

I've kind of read the vast majority of the thread but really wanted to go back to the OP post so, here's my reply:

1. No
2. Has PR in it's post 1.0 releases have become a game that doesn't reward this kind of hardcore SL'ing? By hardcore I mean an SL that directly commands their squad, and there is no time and place for screwing around by chatting about random stuff or switching to another kit w/o asking permission (those are just the tiniest aspects of "hardcore").

"commands" is a term that could branch off into many different things that may mean positivity (safe blanket) to some and negativity (smothering blanket) to others. I don't think that this a version specific issue but rather more of an ever evolving player base. As a SL, if I've never played with you before, I don?t know your abilities so how am I supposed to be able to assign you a specific kit. Personally, when I SL, I strongly prefer spawn kits as they are mostly always available. In my opinion, if you cannot operate a basic spawn kit at a high level, you have no business even considering a special "elite" kit.

3. Has the mod gradually become more and more suited for lower level of tactical play where nowadays it's easier to win by mostly using individual initiative together with mandatory "stick with your squad" (mostly because if you don't, you're chances or being revived are slim), leaving out the important aspect of people following a leader who more or less dictates the pacing, gear, ROE and even positions of individual SM's, not to mention tactics and the grand strategy?

To answer the root of this question in a simple manner, yes. On a broader note though, Mumble has opened it up to a "community" squad of sorts where people kind of run around playing with their friends regardless of SL's. While in the days of yore, Commanders on the servers you mentioned had more of an impact on the gameplay and roles of squads which in my opinion, mostly smothered new ideas. Commanders now basically cater to their friends or to specific assets for a specific (UAV fuel) amount of time jumping in and out of that role when the need arises regardless of how it disrupts the bigger picture of gameplay. I command by building support into the round such as FOB?s, markers, and other related communications. I do it mostly in the field instead of sitting in a shack as I have found that the best intel a commander can have is a SL that can accurately mark things and communicate that clearly to the commander. SL?s could pick this up by simply learning the extremely SIMPLE way to mark things on the map but making the effort to do this requires so much time (3 seconds) that they are just too lazy. The last part of your question really is dictated by how much server admin enforcement of "QUIET BRIEFING" time the team has before the round as well as SL's willingness to be flexible instead of glory hounds.

4. How often do you encounter an SL who at the start of the match explains their strategy and tactics instead of just naming the kits he needs and what kind of transport to occupy? (I remember that I used to leave squads who had SL's that didn't even talk about their plan)

Again, this kind of goes back to question 2. I don?t really go for the micro-managing type of SL. When I SL, it is all about the objective and how to best support it. The players that I play with most often, any one of us can be an SL of our squad and we would still work so closely together that it gets kind of scary how much alike we think. There are times that I think that some SL?s allow their ?acquaintances? to occupy a squad slot so they don?t have to keep kicking a non-compliant player. There have been some times that I would join a squad of an acquaintance and never play with the squad but rather lonewolf. The SL would allow it because I would at least feed some intel from time to time that would be helpful but it also kept that one extra squad slot filled to keep out the newbs, for a lack of better terms.

5. Has the SL postion has become somewhat obsolete- only to be used as a tool to gather/relay intel and more rarely - try to work with another squad (that usually being CAS, not an INF squad that together could decide the outcome of battle)?

The SL position has not become obsolete. It has evolved into something other than what I feel "pre-1.0 mumble not required" was. Example, to mention a couple of players in this thread that I have played with often. Virus - I could always count on him to be a supportive CAS player after he eliminated high priority targets. Sidekiller - I could always rely on him to methodically build FOB's, solidly defend or assault objectives, and support the team. I could mention many more but you get the point. While there were times that I did not agree with these guys, we have a mutual understanding of our differences and work with them towards the "greater good" so to speak.

6. Why don't I see the vets coming back to this mod (except the ones who do almost exclusevly are joining a clan)?

The days of clan togetherness has been basically done away with. Between the wars with other clans or inner clan wars, there is so much history with these vets that it is sometimes extremely difficult for older farts, such as myself, to "let it go" so to speak. I usually had a better time playing with a clan rather than being in a clan. I've only kept the CIA tags because that is how I am known. I feel that I could probably drop the tags and still be known but the nostalgia of the tags is what keeps them there. Some of the buddies I play with still have tags on of clans that haven?t existed since pre-.7x days. I seriously think that if there would be some kind of "let it go" or "forgive" or "group hug" type of moment, some vets may come back. ON the flipside of the coin though, if the devs would be open to changing some things (do not even know where to begin on that), there may be a way to bring life back to an old game that we all love. Like I mentioned, I don?t even know where to begin but maybe the thing called "life" has changed a lot of the devs enthusiasm for the game. Some still have it but may not be in a position to effectively bring about any change. I don't know. I feel that since Squad started, PR has become to look like a gentleman that still has all the trappings of prestige but looks tired and listless if that makes sense.

7. Has seriousness (e.g., a SL who leads, not just keeps people together) got thrown out of a window just because nowadays it's not mandatory to win a match? Is it just a balance problem (more players = more chance of unbalanced teams?)? Or has the fact that right now we have to deal with 36 more players in a server is making us less serious business/teamwork orientated? (I'm talking especially about SLs as EVERYTHING is in their hands, and as noted: now IMHO a team can win by being more laid back then ever)

I'm not sure that seriousness is the correct word. I think it is more like the difference between playing checkers or chess. Both games have similar tenants of strategy with one being faster paced than the other. With checkers, you just need to understand the basics and it satisfies a short term need without much player investment. You can walk away from a checkers game and start over on a whim. Chess is a totally different type of player need and investment. Chess players are more of thinkers than doers, simply put. I think we have more "checkers" types of players nowadays than "chess" players.

8. So maybe SLs in the 'more stacked' team have this mindset that if they try harder (e.g, encouraging more teamwork oriented style of playing), the opposing team won't really have a slightest chance of resisting the 'stacked teams' squads? So maybe it's a good thing in this scenario (for the newbies) afterall?

The "stacked" terminology is kind of a misnomer in my opinion. I have seen this term thrown around so much that it kind of has become a "placeholder" for players that are always the "victims" of some grander scheme or other universe. The only time I truly think that the term "stacked" could be applied is if you play a series of similar sized or asset equipped maps with the same players being on the same team, not side (blufor/opfor). The only minor differences you may see is the selection and specifications of the assets. I've seen rounds where a team soundly beat the other on one map with people screaming "stacked", please "scramble" next round. The next round would come with nothing being done about the supposed "stacked" players and due to the dynamics of the map, assets, mode, and faction the "beaten" players would soundly beat the supposed "stacked clan pros".

The only thing I would add that I strongly feel that the lackadaisical attitude towards teamswitchers and ghosters has seriously affected the overall player quality and experience of this game. There is not a real way to vigilantly police this without player loyalty to PR player values that have stood the test of time.

Sorry I didn't meet the 2600 word count but at least I got in my 1184.