Teamwork in public games

[Proud_God]

I was wondering how much teamwork is achievable in a typical pub game.

Would this be something we can achieve in a pub game?

- The Team Leader should only give commands to squads. High level commands like 'Squad 1 defend obj, right flank'.
- The Squad leaders should use squad talk to rally their squad and carry out the squad command in more detail.
- Squad members should also use squad talk most of the time.

[JakeWedd]

I dont think we will be getting much teamwork due to the influx of new players. You can spends allot of time trying to get a engineer standing right next to you to understand his Grenades are made for taking out tanks...

But once combat starts rolling, most people shut up and get in the zone, this tends to the teams being disjointed and lacking any overall awerness of the situation.

[Golf33]

You can get lots of teamwork, just not a lot of squad teamwork.

A good Commander / Squad Leader team that calls enemy movements, marks artillery, keeps track of reinforcements and coordinates actions is a powerful force in pub play and happens quite a lot (on Australian servers at least).

I've also heard small groups of guys close together coordinating very effectively to fight as an ad-hoc fireteam, even though they weren't in the same squad.

The team as a whole can work well with key members like AT gunners and engineers, for example on Red October Factory attacking C as soon as A falls and allowing the engineer to blow B once the front line has moved on.

With aerial recon up, people calling out groups of enemy and arranging for respawn waves to plug holes in the defence also happens a bit.

[Alphons Alphahane]

I've seen some quite impressive teamwork at times. It all comes down to the competence of the commander though. It would be kind of cool if teamspeak/mumble vas compulsory on some servers. That would create some real teamwork.

The single thing that would increase teamwork the most would be 3d audio. I believe the optimal system would work like this:
- Everybody can hear the commander.
- The SL:s have direct connection with the commander so that they can put down smoke, spot targets, make suggestions with ease. Perhaps an increased shouting radius.
- The ordinary soldier only has a realistic radius in which he can be heard.
Perhaps there could even be some sort of cool radio distortion when the commander says something. Now, some of these things might not be very realistic (every soldier has his own personal radio connected to the commander) but the teamwork, the immersion... it would be glorious.

With the current system, if I want to tell the guy next to me about the enemy that I saw flanking us, I have to use the entire teams channel If he isn't part of my squad. If he is part of my squad, there are still 7 guys who hear my completely unnecessary announcement. This would still be a problem even if everybody was on mumble because of the voicecom getting completely flooded. Teamwork could use quite a lot of refinement.

[Proud_God]

Agreed that 3D voice would help alot. In the meantime, I think we have to start sticking together as squads and using squad talk more (both in voice and text form).

[Dutchdude]

Yes, 3d Voice like we have in Arma 2 would be really great to promote more teamwork, maybe even a small Icon above somebody's head to very quickly indicate that the person next to you is talking.
But at the same time I also feel that the GUI needs some work. The way you pick a squad in the menu and also the naming conventions could be a lot more intuitive

[Cwivey]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but Coloured chat would be ideal for those without microphones, helps us get noticed!

[S/Sgt. Raider]

Originally Posted by Golf33

You can get lots of teamwork, just not a lot of squad teamwork.

In a nutshell.

You'll notice lots of communication in team chat, but almost never, never will you ever find someone typing in squad chat. Most people are used to ROOST style "Pick a class and hurry to the front", and don't even notice the squad system from what I can tell.

[MeFirst]

Teamwork can be a pretty vague thing. I often make a seperation between what I would call teamwork and teamsupport. Those are my personal definitions obviously you dont have to share them.

Teamwork in in RO2 (and other games too) for me is when players not only work together to archieve a goal in the game. it also must be planned and executed by a group of players. This can be pretty much everything. It can be the defense of a spot, or a well coordinated attack.

What you often see instead is somethign I would rather call teamsupport. That is stuff like basic communication and sharing information. Have you seen a tank and if yes where? This was only one example for other things like giving MG-gunners ammo, or just sharing other information like what you are going to do and what the enemy is doing at the moment.


I dont think that you see and will see actually much "teamwork" on a normal pub-server when the normal crowd is playing. There are of course (usual) exeptions when people from the same clan or unit are playing or when it is just a bunch of other people playing together and sit on the same TS server. But that is not that much of a bad thing. I play a lot of DH and also Tribes and you can actually get good gameplay on both times when two things come together.

1. People need to know what they do and what their task is.
People need be aware what they should do in certain situations and on a map at all. That is stuff like attacking or defending objectives or if they have a special class like a MG for example how they need to use it to aid the team. When people have some experience know the classes and the maps you get a better gameplay exoerience.

2. People need to communicate.
Everyone who has played on a server with a few friends sitting on teamspeak knows how much better you can play when you share information with your friends. RO2 gives you the chance to share this information with people without the need to sit on the same teamspeak. It is sad that most times a lot of people dont use it at all.

[Buzzles]

Team and squad work could be made much easier if the Commander (and SL's) had an easier time of setting order markers.

Yeha, sure, marking arty by looking at something makes sort of sense otherwise it would be too easy and also lead to lots of spawn killing, but there should be no reason why Commanders/SL can't mark movement or attack orders via the map.

All they'd need to do is right click in a map square, have a small menu pop up, and allow them to choose an action (Attack, Defend, Move etc). Slightly more complex for Commanders as they have to choose a squad to order (or the entire team) but it would make teamwork MUCH easier to manage.

[Proud_God]

Originally Posted by Buzzles

Team and squad work could be made much easier if the Commander (and SL's) had an easier time of setting order markers.

Yeha, sure, marking arty by looking at something makes sort of sense otherwise it would be too easy and also lead to lots of spawn killing, but there should be no reason why Commanders/SL can't mark movement or attack orders via the map.

All they'd need to do is right click in a map square, have a small menu pop up, and allow them to choose an action (Attack, Defend, Move etc). Slightly more complex for Commanders as they have to choose a squad to order (or the entire team) but it would make teamwork MUCH easier to manage.

Agreed!

[I. Kant]

Another thing is being responsive. When your teammates/squadmates issue orders/ ask for something — respond. Use the chat radial and either "Acknowledge" or "Negative" it. I hate it when I tell my squad something and I never get any return confirmation.
Sod it, do it for the sake of fun. You will notice that when you do it, so do the others. This already creates a sense of cohesion for the squad/team.

Next thing that ought to be mentioned is trying to stick with your SL/ squadmates. It's often difficult, but at least try. Makes it much easier to apply bounding movement or cover more approaches. It's really simple. Use the "request orders" command from the radial, use squad chat to ask the SL about which spawn you should come out of.
Obviously, a single man with a gun can cut down (or at least decimate) your squad in seconds, but — again — for the sake of fun, don't be discouraged. I find that always going around in groups of three, four, or more, is preferable to randomly zipping about. You may get the feeling that it's a tactically less optimal approach than just zerg rushing, using blood for time/space (in defence/offence, respectively), but for me the immersion and sense of teamplay far outweigh tactical setbacks (which I think are illusory).

[Trotskygrad]

Originally Posted by Buzzles

Team and squad work could be made much easier if the Commander (and SL's) had an easier time of setting order markers.

Yeha, sure, marking arty by looking at something makes sort of sense otherwise it would be too easy and also lead to lots of spawn killing, but there should be no reason why Commanders/SL can't mark movement or attack orders via the map.

All they'd need to do is right click in a map square, have a small menu pop up, and allow them to choose an action (Attack, Defend, Move etc). Slightly more complex for Commanders as they have to choose a squad to order (or the entire team) but it would make teamwork MUCH easier to manage.

yup, the current system sort of reminds me of the commander system in BF2, and that ability would be rather nice.