Teamwork in pubs (with strangers)

(tangoliber) #1

I’m on PS3. The smaller matches we setup through our chatroom groups are usually very good and very coordinated.

However, when it is a game with strangers, I find it very hard to coordinate an offense. (Especially in an 8v8)

Is it difficult in PC pubs as well? Or do most people have an understanding of how offense in Enemy Territory games is supposed to be played?

The biggest issue is when the offense is respawning at different times and players are going to the objective by themselves or in pairs. I’m always trying to encourage people to group up after the spawn, but I’m afraid that I’m annoying my teammates…haha.

What I’m looking for is advice on teamplay, as offense, in games with complete strangers. Do you still try to group up and coordinate your attacks, even when playing in pubs?

When I’m playing with a solid team, we will split up and attack from different angles at the same time. With strangers, however, this is too hard to do, so I generally just get my team to move as one group…as that is much easier to coordinate.

But I get the feeling that some people find the idea of sitting around waiting for the rest of the team to respawn is counter-intuitive. Sometimes they humor me for 1 or 2 pushes, and then go back to running their own path.

I don’t like being the leader, but after seeing my team constantly bang their head against the wall, I want to try to set us on the right path. What do you do in this situation?

(TailSwallower) #2

Huh, this isn’t a discussion about playing Brink at the pub with drunken strangers?

I am disappoint.

(tangoliber) #3

[QUOTE=TailSwallower;352505]Huh, this isn’t a discussion about playing Brink at the pub with drunken strangers?

I am disappoint.[/QUOTE]

It can be.

Ignore my post. This topic is now about playing Brink at the pub with drunken strangers.

(Apocalypse_Pony) #4

No. VOIP use on the PC is extremely rare. Probably didn’t help that it didn’t work quite right at launch.

Pubbing, I think on any platform, is going to be hit or miss. Sometimes you’ll have people that get it, others you won’t. OK, mostly you won’t.

Best you can do is friend up with like-minded people and play with them, when possible. Even a couple-three people working as a group can make a difference.

(thesuzukimethod) #5

i often try and figure out what my team is not doing on the matches with randoms.

if no one is flanking and all are charging up a primary corridor, i will try to flank. if no one is playing soldier and i have one of my soldier chars loaded up, i’ll work on support roles and grenade work. If it’s not a hacking objective and there are no ops, but the opponents are working us over with turrets, i’ll spend time hacking and disrupting from behind.

this doesn’t mean my team always wins, but it’s good practice, and definitely can be a challenge.
(the ultra charge when everyone just tears out bothers me less than when half my team is trying to snipe, and noone is clustered/helping out in the chokepoint…arrgh!)

matches with complete strangers seem to create less of a social sanction for solitary or non objective advancing gameplay. we’re already kinda faceless to each other, but some random guy who’s messing around - either trying the game out or maybe rented it, or perhaps someone leveling up a char, isn’t as likely to give a **** about teamwork or even really understand or be familiar with the maps/strategies necessarily…VS when you play with people you know (either from here, or randoms you’ve had success with), you (and they) would feel like a jerk(s) going all lone wolf and not helping the team (plus the repeaters tend to know the maps/objectives in pretty close detail)

(Coolaguy) #6

I nominate changing the title of this thread to:

Friendly Strangers???

(Shadowcat) #7

In pubs, i find that focusing on keeping my team alive goes a long way to make everyone else work together. Keeps the team grouped together and covering each other.

When a pair decides to push, I’ll go along with them. Sure, its not as good as a 4-man push would be, but the enemy usually isn’t as organized either. I also try to play point most of the time, since I have more trust in my own ability to stay alive than a random pubber.

(kilL_888) #8

for me it depends on the time of the day. early afternoon+afternoon, there is almost no teamplay whatsoever. people are even unable to buff me when im jumping before them. all they do is camp and snipe sometimes. this really annoys me.

when it gets later, people get home from work and the more mature players start to play. i get buffed now, get revived. but also die faster, cause mature people apparantly aim better. :slight_smile:

but i actually never saw someone waiting at the spawn to group. i sometimes wait, but when someone respawns, he just sprints past me. well, not even buffing me.

this is a problem in all public games though. people probably need more time to learn how to play effective. they need to learn that buffing your teammates is really important and that without teamwork, completing objecives is almost impossible.

(Smoochy) #9

i dont use a mic but i do type orders sometimes. i think pc players are generally better at teamwork than on consoles. not always. we still get some idiots.

(FireWorks) #10

Im not trying to attack anyone, just some food for thought.

When the buffs are missing, you might want to check for a command post. Its very hard to keep a team buffed with 4 pips. Even harder when you want use the class in another way because mines, turrets, nades, molotows and all the facing stuff of the medics are costing a lot and eat the pips up very fast.

Its very common that I cant do what you want, simply because I cant do it anymore:) One or two pips from the post can be a real relieve here.

(jazevec) #11

As far as fundamental parts of teamplay - coordination, pincer attacks, and so on - unfortunately it’s still bad. Big groups of players moving together are fairly common, but they’re very inert, indecisive, even cowardly. Part of them will typically stay in a doorway or other dangerous choke point, repeatedly revive themselves. “Blob” describes them more accurately than “a team”.

(Stormchild) #12

Its rare, but when teamworks erupts from pubb among strangers, it’s something beautiful. Without speaking (or radio commands, duh), seeing people knowing what they have to do, is really nice. Teamwork born from nothing !
It’s like golf you know, you spent 95% of the time walking, 5% hitting the ball and (in my case) 70% of your hits are ****. But the very few % that work make it up for the rest.

(Smoochy) #13

[QUOTE=FireWorks;352656]Im not trying to attack anyone, just some food for thought.

When the buffs are missing, you might want to check for a command post. Its very hard to keep a team buffed with 4 pips. Even harder when you want use the class in another way because mines, turrets, nades, molotows and all the facing stuff of the medics are costing a lot and eat the pips up very fast.

Its very common that I cant do what you want, simply because I cant do it anymore:) One or two pips from the post can be a real relieve here.[/QUOTE]

+1

i dont give too many buffs at start as medic as you end up running out when you need them most. as engi i will buff a lot if my mine is planted and i have a turret.

depends on the map though

(HiGHJaCK) #14

Hm i do not think this people are idiots. This is the new gaming generation.
they only know CoD Games - bäm graphics but zero skill necessary.
When you pub you understand where i am from. Sometimes i play with or against a group full of CoD camper.

I hate it to play with them because after the 100. attempt rushing in and completing the objective you realise you are the only one rushing in. the others are camping far away the objective spot watching there KDR.

But playing against them sometimes is realy funny. You play Terminal and go trough the hack objective in 1 minute and all i can think is “wtf how can this happen”. The next minute you open the safe and in minute 3, the complete level is done. wtf , am i playing against bots? --> press TAB --> no Bots, a server full of humans not realising that there playstile doesnt fit to this game. But instead of adapting there playstile they ragequit because the teams are so unbalanced. !! Hello wake up, the teams are uneven because of you and your 3 friends camping right at the spawn. This game is not about KDR adapt your gameplay !!!

(Terminator514) #15

I play on console but I actually agree. Console gamers tend to have many more young players than PC, young players that rather worry about themselves than their teammates or objectives.

(nephandys) #16

It sounds like you are going about things the best way possible. Maybe this is a dumb answer, but I just talk to randoms in pubs via VOIP and things usually get done. Now am I going to develop a tactical war plan the likes of Patton or something? Probably not. Can I beat another random team which 9/10 times is what I’m up against? Definitely. The biggest piece of advice I wind up giving out time and again in this game is “stop fighting those people over there, it’s/they are just distracting you from the objective, get on the objective and stay focused there or we will lose.”

A lot of times to the speaker, at least for me, it might feel like nagging or being bossy, but I try to express what I want to get done in as nice and polite a way possible and if someone has a problem with it I simply clarify what I’m trying to do. Thus far in Brink I haven’t run into any problems doing things that way. However, you are always walking the fine line of someone interpreting what you are doing as “telling them how to play” or “thinking you are better than them” or something along those lines. For anyone that takes it that way - no biggie you are just trying to help/win after all.

(Humate) #17

This is why auto-chatter simply fails.

Say for example, you are stuck in spawn on container city - youre a heavy soldier that wants a speed buff, an adrenaline buff and a damage buff but not in that order… you need to be able to request things at the drop of a hat without needing to go into text chat or voip. Players dont want to use voip, because they simply dont take pub games seriously enough to talk to strangers. And players arent going to use text chat, because they will come off as a massive pub hero and it takes too long.

ETQW has a menu chat system with all the things that you could possibly ask for from team-mates - Link

(Apocalypse_Pony) #18

It was simply the best quick chat system I ever saw. Which, I guess, is why it was tossed.

(its al bout security) #19

it can be a pain depending on personalities, sometimes you just get one too many chiefs and not enough indians

(Englander) #20

It is pretty shocking that there aren’t any vsays, even the global taunt vsays add a bit of fun too. I think players who played ET & ET:QW miss having the option to use them and it does add a bit of extra spice to the game! Instead of making all those silly audio logs I’d have preferred the energy to have gone into making some vsays.