[VS] State Of The Giraffe's Doctrine

[CMaster]

OK, seeing as this seems to be coming up again, in various discussions. So I'm going to call for a group discussion here, but start by outlining how I feel about this sort of thing.

Time to talk about how we can maximize our effectiveness as an outfit. Things that we should be incorporating into our playstyle to the point that they become natural. Those guiding principles that help leaders know how they are going to get the best from us.

Eclectic especially is rather fond of arguing that we should play a certain way. That we need to do this or that, often quite micro thing. I don't think that can work with the kind of outfit we are. Yes, we have some people who play a huge amount. Yes, we have players who are broadly willing to learn. But we also have an environment where lots of our players have relatively little play time (which they want to use to play the game and not hours of drills), where people connect and disconnect at times that suit them, where experience and indeed what they want from the outfit varies a lot. This all has to be allowed for. We have no skill requirement, not cert requirements (although people, please make sure you get AMS at some point). People will rock up mid-operation and need to be accommodated. This is what doctrine has to be built on. Doctrine come from broad-brush command level stuff, with players that are cooperative but not drilled. Doctrine has to build on what we already do well not try to get us playing in a way that suits other outfits.

So, what do I think we do well at the moment (ignoring some problems we've had over the last couple of weeks that we seem to be getting over recently).

Flexibility: In the outfit, we've got people certed ito and experienced in the vast majority of things. We're perfectly happy running infantry ops, galaxy dropping is second nature (and if you think gal drops are easy, I could give you 5 examples in the last week I've seen of others getting it very, very wrong). We can pull a well geared and balanced armour force or harasser swarm at any point. We can't go full air at any point, but we can normally get decent air cover for each squad. AA nests and Lancer positions we regularly set up on demand. We're also open to breaking out of "standard" ways of doing things. We've made good use of offensive sunderers, unusual defensive positions many times (on that note, more battle sundies please. I've never seen that fail to break an infantry line. 3-4 sundies per squad charge is a great way of clogging the meatgrinder with metal). We can even break out a couple of squads worth of lashers at most points.

Mobility: We've had some wobbles with this one lately, I admit. Bur prior to the last CtA, we had got very rapid and redeploying. We reguarly caught opponents off guard with suddenly appearing and surging, either from spawns or galaxies. Even now I see us responding and moving quicker than many other forces on Miller. We're also generally pretty willing to up and move at the PL's command - contrast with say, MDK, who often find they can't well direct their forces. Sure, we may grumble - but it's rare to see people outright refuse to switch fights/locations.

In turn, things we haven't had a lot of luck with:
Set pieces: We've practices things like tower approaches with a set pattern to them. I've never seen us actually pull them off in a combat situation. The training for how to in general approach a tower has improved how we deal with them I think. Trying to rehearse particular maneuvers doesn't seem to.

Dedicated squads: In general, these never seem to pan out like one would hope. We've tried air support squads, taxi squads, armour support squads. They never seem to be worth the player power they take, or deliver on what we hoped. There's nothing wrong with doing these for fun, but they should be deemphasised as something we aim to do.

Fancy Terms: Don't tell people you want them to "provide bounding overwatch for Alpha", it just confuses them. Say "We're going to sit here and shoot anyone who tries to stop alpha from getting to B."


So, how do I feel we can build on these strengths and plan them in:

Platoon leads need to use the flexibility. Get squads to provide an aspect - be it AA, securing sunderers, armour push, whatever. Encourage people with scythes/libs certed to CAS their squads. Communicate with the rest of the faction more, and use use to provide whatever is lacking. We can be the point holders for an armour push, or the armour push for the infantry horde. We can be the group doing outlying securing party in gals, or the spearhead. Use the tools at your disposal we've probably got somebody int he platoon most of the while with SOMETHING unusal, that will come in for that situation.

The mobility means recognizing that most people are mobile, and ignoring those who aren't. Set ~2 minute time limit for galaxy mounting, and stick to it. Remind people to use their delete key (no going into menu, no slightly wrong-feeling suicide).

Combine the flexibility and mobility by having us defend nearby bases by showing up in vehicles from the outside as relief, rather than joining a spawn camp.

So, where do people agree and disagree? Can we build usefully on what we have with this?


Also: Pull more maxes. They are STRONG now, and we have far too many engineers. More on this later.

[NickWhite]

Definitely.

I think that this outfit is undefinable. It is what the individual members make it at any given moment. It's not specified in style either way, though it caters clearly for both equally.

In the light of Eclectics tactical views, which i appreciate and echo, it is perhaps simply down to members encouraging a bit more consideration and patience in terms of engagements. At certain points speaking up and expressing your opinions on alterations and improvements to 'the current plan'. Write up a guide that informs players they might enjoy or be more effective if they: "follow these handy and effective steps". They just might not know the Planetside approach.

Then, if they do or don't, that is down to them - Consequentially not really being a true example of our outfit, only on those less experienced players, hence nothing to really let frustrate you in light of 'outfit effectiveness'. That 'tactical effectiveness' is bred from those players who are clearly a lot 'better' at the game. Who in turn are realised as skilled and valued commodities, who should make the effort to pass that on. The people with weight in our community are the ones who can get things done. Such as Eso and his great guides. Ride and his trailblazing systems way back when. CMaster and Silly Mondays. If you dont suggest andor implement something, it will never get done. Sharing 'secrets of the trade' that earn you an extra cert or two are things that sometimes just get lost in the ether as "obvious things to do". Share them on here or speak out in game so others can get near to you level of effectiveness!

Tutoring, advising or 'how to guides' are something i wholeheartedly promote. And in turn is something to add onto our repertoire above. I will offer SL, RO and Liason tutoring whenever we next get a situation where we need one and nobody steps up. I've started to feel that as a community, we need to do less expecting and more proactive encouraging.

[Henlaaz]

I'm following these discussions on the outfit with much interest. I find it very reminiscent of my past experiences in my wow guild. Again there was a lot of discussions about organization, purpose and direction. After a lot of introspection and thousands of words on the forums, I undertook a major change, completely redid the website, overhauled the roster, wrote page after page on rules, expectation's, appointed officers and officers of officers, and generally expended far too much time and energy.

And the thing that had the most impact was the first simplest thing that we agreed on that could be practically applied.

So the only insight as a ps2 novice that I feel qualified to offer is that you should think of 2 or 3 practical actions you can put in place that will have a big impact. Off the top of my head something involving mumble - like go straight to a place to be sent to the correct place for whatever is required for that moment in time, and a todo list for new players to break them into the game and ensure they are flexible e.g. upgrade your gun, slice the pie, use a Max, nothing deep just an instruction.

[QuantaCat]

To continue the squad loadouts and compositions discussion going on in the State Of The Game thread.


I think 4 Maxes - 5 engies is quite enough. One engie per max plus one that reps whichever needs it.

But of course, thats purely in a constant firefight, where covering fire is necessary.

For actual crashes, you desperately need 6 maxes and the rest support personell. Or even a full max squad and another squad that takes care of that one.

[Yargh]

I'd be more in favour of the more MAX method with damaged MAX suits pulling back to a central repair area managed by a much smaller number of engineers. Recently revived MAXes do the same.

[sketchseven]

Yeah we can easily get onto full squad of Engineers and Medics (maybe a 3/4 split in favour of engineers) supporting a 12 strong Max squad. Some Maxes will go down but the damage output would be phenomenal. We're also not thinking of variables like topped-out certed Engy guns vs more basic versions.

I think if we had 5 and 5 and 2, so each Max has a dedicated Engineer behind them in cover making sure that they stay up, with Medics on hand to get in there and rez when people get dropped. It's the kind of thing where proper coordination and discipline would do wonders but at the same time it's really hard to practice (other than 'stick with your engineer' and 'MAXes up front, Engies behind, Medics behind them, keep trying to push forward').

[Loki_MGF]

I mostly seem to struggle getting revived during MAX crashes, generally cause I get dropped by C4 or a rocket right on the frontline so its very hard for medics to get to me, other than continuing to push forward theres not really a lot we can do about this. Especially as TR MAXs can sit back away from doors and spam fractures at them. I generally don't find myself wanting for repairs too much.

Communications between separate squads of MAXs and Engies/medics would be a nightmare, especially in TACGIR or split comms situations.

[Henlaaz]

sorry to post offtopic in here but am unable to start my own posts

could someone start a thread so newbies can ask simple questions about the game

I was going to call it `There's no such thing as a stupid question... but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots..` or some such thanks

[qaz]

Different scenarios will require different compositions, imo. If we're crashing a biolab, we need to maximise number of maxes. E.g., 25 maxes, 12 medics, 12 engineers. When we're defending we'll need more engineers. Maybe 5 maxes, 5 engies, 2 medics. If we're assaulting a small base, something more versatile might be needed: 3 maxes, 2 heavies, 2 engineers, 4 medics, 1 infil.

Also: we'll need new ways of crashing biolabs. The old ones won't work against lockdown maxes or shields anymore, but that's not a topic for this forum.

[QuantaCat]

!!!

I completely forgot about that. people are still very unable to contribute in a proper way due to the stupid spam system on RPS.

Ill talk to jim about it.

note: Im still most in favour of one large squad (alpha AND bravo) and two smaller ones. We could definitely have a better max crash if we do it this way.

[sinomatic]

This is in reply to Rizlar's post on the other thread (since we moved the convo here):

It just never seems to work that way in a push - all the MAXes are moving and pointing forwards, focused on their target(s) and the support is forgotten (not intentionally) and gets hit from the sides/behind. All approaches being covered by MAXes sounds great, but I'm not sure how easily they can do that if there were only 3 of them.

It's fairly quick to repair a MAX if they aren't too damaged (with a certed up repair tool at least), and as long as you don't overheat it, the cooldown can be managed. I'd say: 2 or 3 at least up front, falling back as they take some damage, quick repair and return to the front. Won't always work (but neither will lots of engies on one max - no approach we can come up with is perfect), but the rotation version tried to keep everyone up fighting without needing to res. Having said that, it's more of a pain to co-ordinate.

To be honest it's probably entirely situational really, dependent on the people, the certs and the spaces you're in. Defending you could probably do less MAXes, but moving in could probably do with more. And what Sublett said about not all piling in through one door is probably more important than anything.

[CMaster]

The point of this thread was to talk about how we can be maximally effective in the game, allowing for who we are and what we find fun in the game.

Not really to have another thread about responsibility and all that.

[sketchseven]

I was thinking primarily about assaulting a biolab - I think a three squad MAX crash with that kind of composition would work well - each squad taking a particular point and holding it. Once you're on the point and you have a circle defence in place to prevent it being retaken, it's fairly straightforward. It's the push into the point in the first place that we can struggle with sometimes.

[CMaster]

MAX crashes are all about wiping the enemy from a position with an unstoppable wall of metal, not about sustainability.
To that end, you want to lean heavier on the MAX and Medic end, less on the engineer side.

If you want to work on containment, then you need to think about upping the medic quotient.

[sinomatic]

Yes, do away with fancy terms!

(P.S. What does CAS mean? )

[CMaster]

Close Air Support. And yeah, I probably shouldn't have put that in.

Basically, we've tried having air squads that you can call in. Either people forget to call them in, or they don't arrive when called (it's made worse by the fact that they also get called in to AA hell-holes). But what does seem to work alright is what the likes of Eleven and JG do, just roll along with their squad, picking off vehicles largely.

[Sublett]

Setup time when switching comms.
20 minutes to set up proper TACGIR for example is too damn long..

Also, make better use of squad deploy. Why take the time to get a gal drop on an empty base when a scytche + squad deploy can do it much quicker, and at the same time aid the hex that the squad is in prior to the squad deploy.

Also: More maxes.

[Rizlar]

Perhaps people are better equipped to counter MAXes these days, making the tanky style of crash I had in mind less viable. From my own experience though MAXcrashing was all about tightly coordinating so that everyone stayed safely behind the wall of MAXes, then pushing from defendable location to defendable location, repairing constantly and obliterating any infantry that dared to stand in your way. Every time I have seen a crash attempted with a majority MAX setup they have all died. This has just been my experience and I am open to other techniques, but has anyone actually seen a successful MAX crash using a high proportion of MAXes?

[Skhalt]

Every TR one ever?

[Sublett]

The only successfull MAX crashes I've seen is where they blatantly outnumber us. For example, when GOON+DEIM does a last minute save on a cap (like yesterday).