I give up...how does one give instruction to a pug?

[bmharrison]

I hear a lot of chatter on my server (Shadowlands) about sides that "suck"- funny enough, it's often a player on one side saying that side sucks.

 

I don't believe either side sucks, but there are certainly a lot of new/inexperienced players on both sides. I honestly try to encourage them the best I can, especially when I look over and see the dreaded "premade squad of death" or "gunship alley." If they get discouraged, they'll quit, and the player-base dwindles, which is bad for everybody.

 

Now, I've been around since the start of sub access, and while I'm no ace (I'm decidedly average- another post on that topic soon) but I have a fair amount of upgrades and am a regular flyer, so I've been around long enough to know some stuff. I also fly both sides (Xaxxer on pub, Zexxar on imp) so I've been with and against most players on my server. So when I give advice or instructions, especially based on opponents, I tend to know about what I am speaking.

 

Now I'm going to vent. Was playing pub side for a bit tonight- TDM and dom, some win, some lose. Up pops a dom match, and I get prepared- I check what my teammates are choosing so I can pick the right ship (I try to support the team by choosing what is needed except for gunships- another post about that soon as well). I also check out the opponents for ship types and names I know. Sure enough, Xi'ao pops up. I've flown with and against him, and I can say he's listed on the ace post for a reason.

 

So Xi'ao decides to go bomber in this run (he's skilled at all roles, though I believe gs is his favorite) and I see Jmoney picking a gs to give him support. - Before the match begins, I warn them about the skill level of Xi'ao and Jmoney.

 

It's the canyon map, so "b" is the covered sat. I rush to b in my flashfire, trying to grab it and hold it so one of our bombers can get in, but of course the imps have the same idea. A few seconds of dogfighting, and in comes Xi'ao and Jmoney. They promptly trounce my behind, clear everyone out, and set up camp.

 

I then go over with my pike and, with a little effort and some good teamwork, take over "c". At this point, we are not too far behind, so I strongly urge my teammates in chat (I hate typing and flying!) to leave "b" alone and go for "a." With Xi'ao fully deployed, Jmoney hovering overtop, and a scout/sf or two in the middle, there was no way we were getting it back.

 

I then watched most of my team attack b. And die. And attack b. And die. I repeated my earlier instruction- "B is entrenched- leave it and go for a." Then they....attacked b. And died. And attacked b....

 

You see how this went. We lost of course. Even if we would have had all upgraded pilots we probably would have lost trying to take b. At the end, I see from my teammates on chat: "Xiao is impossible to beat," and "Xiao sucks" (I assume you know to take the last as a complement, Xiao). To which I'm thinking, "Yep, if only someone would have warned them not to waste time pointlessly engaging him over and over in the most advantageous spot in which a bomber can set up shop...oh, wait...."

 

So, the point of this long, drawn-out story is this: You find yourself in a pug. You have good advice to share. You'd like to be taken seriously because you've been around enough to know a few things. How do you impart this to your team as concisely as possible so you don't spend all your time typing? I tried short-to-the-point messages which seemed to be ignored, but longer ones put me in jeopardy of flying into a wall or being shot down. Anyone have advice on what works, or am I just insane trying to organize teamwork in a pug?

[NotThatOne]

You don't.

 

Find a couple guys, or even just one, that's sick of getting face rolled, hop in a voice channel, and Leave the good, bad and ugly that come with pugs to there own devices.

 

Typing while GSFing is kinda like texting while driving, you might get away with it once or twice, but eventually it's gonna end messy.

[Xnemth]

Not insane. It just depends on a ton of factors. Gunna try not to let my disgruntled imp pilot mentality creep in... It seems to boil down to:

 

1. How willing they are to take/follow direction.

2. How tunnel visioned they are (middle of fighting, may not pay attention to the chat window in the corner)

3. Their capacity to execute instruction IF they decide to follow it.

4. Time interval between trying to execute and the other teams response making the suggested behavior irrelevant.

 

Some PUGs pull together and make it happen. Many, many, many do not. I wish to god I could find a regular squad to fly with, because damn if the imps don't get their asses handed to them repeatedly PST evenings on Harbinger. There are times I just wonder why the hell I bothered to spawn at all. Occasionally though, you get some good pilots, and some newbs who are willing to work together and magic happens. It's damned rare though.

[QuinMantha]

I think it has to do with phrasing.

 

Instead of phrasing it in a negative, "Don't attack B", maybe the trick is to wave more of a carrot in front of their nose. "A has less defenders!"

 

And believe me, nothing inspires folks to go take down a satellite like watching defense turrets go down in quick succession.

[SammyGStatus]

At the beginning of the match, I tell squads where to go all the time. As a mastered GS with 687 matches, my server knows me pretty well (more frequently getting imp alts popping up to whisper how much they hate me ). As a result, I can usually coerce people to follow my strats in the beginning. Once combat starts though, and tactics need to be changed, you better hope you have some highly-aware pugs, because they don't know how to react to every situation yet (I'll say EVERY SITUATION loosely, as I'm still trying to find the balance between blasting Jaxin with burst cannons and retreating to pop an ion / slug).

 

GSF has a channel (that usually require an invite from someone that already knows about the channel) where you can talk to anyone else in that channel, and group together. I've actually started a GSF guild and have been able to recruit a few people through the channel too, so we can start getting ready for 12v12 matches.

 

Relentlessly attacking a doomed satellite is stupid. So is attempting to 3 cap (and failing), which ultimately gives your hopes of winning 12 shots of a Jack Daniels. Foolish tactics lose games (as well as the noobs going 0-8). In TDM, it's a little easier to manage because even though I was yelling in all caps to "STOP FLYING RIGHT BY WHERE THEIR SHIPS SPAWN - REINFORCEMENTS FROM THEM COME A LOT QUICKER AND WE CAN'T SUPPORT YOU BECAUSE OF YOU BEING SO OUT OF POSITION"... or something to that effect. Domination - good luck. Join the GSF channel, and form premades. Get a vent / mumble / ts and your communication will be even further increased. I seldom lose when I'm with other pilots who know what they're doing, especially while we're relaying information about tactics, incoming enemies, who has us targetted, etc. Tell the pug that in any battle, a natural chain of command is established (i.e. one pilot blows away 6 of theirs before they take down one of yours), and to listen to the people who perform. Honestly, they just need to practice and learn the system more so that they can get comfortable. Till then, hope every match is a TDM and get at least 33 kills. You rarely lose getting 30+ kills in a match lol.

[mr_sim]

Sounds like you tried your hardest. This is not so new a problem for pvp though. Plenty of times players get it in their heads that they need a tricap or some such nonsense and ends up thinning out the team and the match is lost because they tried a "sneaky" strategy that everyone already knows. It really comes down to experience and often age, some people need to run into the same wall more and more often before they learn.

[Applejacxs]

Having tired this my self on shadowlands .....You just got to keep trying man some will listen, some wont, and some just dont care.

[-Streven-]

I think you take your lumps and try again next round. Winning ain't everything. Sure it's fun to win but even losing matches have their little victories.

[Fractalsponge]

Sometimes, you can't give instruction. In TDM you can carve a swathe of death and destruction and people will naturally follow you in that direction, but in domination it's really hard, especially with new pilots. That's partially why center node is so important in domination - it's easier for a team to reinforce adjacent nodes, rather than expect them to split effectively.

 

As for that particular match, I actually didn't expect you guys to push B so hard - I was in bomber mainly to keep out of it for that match...

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I've actually been told off for trying to coordinate in chat, like that's a bad thing in a team game.

 

You ignore silly stuff like that and try to coordinate. Last night in an asteroid domination round, I think I had to say five times in chat last night that we needed people off of B and to attack another node before it happened. Seriously... 7 people all over B, nowhere else. We finally got C and only ended up losing by 100 or so, but we might have won flat out if people had moved.