Looking ahead and playing better

[SloDaz]

Earlier I took the liberty of asking Vovo for some advice. This did not come lightly as I have been thinking about this for a while now. Although I am not a core team player, I get a huge buzz out of knowing that we win games and I want us to do better. Where are those days of the game being decided by the last few kills?

My original thought was to contact Chaos and talk to him but seeing as we took a thumping from SSG and they are keen to play next week (thanks Paul for the heads up), I wanted to test the waters.

I cannot believe that clans are running illegal software to improve their game play, sure one person can get away with it but the WHOLE clan. How do they keep something like that secret and what do you do if a player gets pissed off and leaves. This mostly leaves other clans playing better than us – so what do we do… I have spent a lot of time listening to you guys on TS strategising and whilst we are making a lot of progress, we are getting to the point where there are no new ideas on how to change our game play. So far we have the following rough conclusions (excluding map strategies):

• Attending a pre-match walk through – on the map or using tactics software
• More frequent practices or at least one before matches
• Keeping a consistent core team
• Working on gelling within the squads during open servers
• Listening to the leaders in match
• Introducing a commander in match

My plan so far is to mix up the practices for the next leg. We should mostly practice with teams in our league, however, I do want us to have a few feel good games and give teams in the lower division a chance to improve against a superior team. Once the league is finalised I will compile a list of team captains and start engaging with them to set up a practice roster. It is good to play teams that are better than us but at the same time there is a psychological aspect to playing a few games that we should end up winning.

Sorry back to the point and my discussion with Vovo…

Vovo has indicated that he is willing to chat to us via TS, so I was thinking of the squad leaders setting up 15 min to chat to him:

• Voetsek
• J0nny
• Shadey
• Skoups

It cannot hurt to bring us closer to the other clans and share ideas to make this game more balanced. I have published my original email to Vovo and his reply. It was not meant to bring us down, so I am sorry if it offends anyone.

From: Vaughan Robey <vaughanrobey@gmail.com>
Sent: 30 July 2010 08:57 AM
To: Darin Kent <jaydaz@webafrica.org.za>
Subject: Re: Grrr vs SSG Practice Match

Hi Darin,

Lets see. Well the basics. We use two squads, 1 is 'infantry' the other is 'armour'. We haven't really jumped around in squads. Our lineup is basically 90% static, only making changes due to player availability. We try to get at least two practises on each map.

Our squad layouts differ depending on the map. One thing that we found is that on maps with lots of vehicles, you cant use them all. Sounds strange, but you're better off with more people on the ground.

Maybe if you want to chat more we can chat on ts?

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 8:28 AM, Darin Kent <jaydaz@webafrica.org.za> wrote:

Hi Vaughan,

Thanks for the post. I am very keen that we play a match but wanted to ask your opinion on our game play. To be very honest and I am probably talking out of turn but we are finding it difficult to go up against you guys and tend to get swamped by your players. Its not unique to your clan but others as well. We want to learn and get better but so far, we cannot seem to crack what works and what doesn't - no matter how much we strategize. In this last league we completely changed tactics and constantly tried new things but in most cases we drew or lost.

It may simply come down to the amount of practice and time spent with a core group of players. It was very demoralizing for the guys who are individually great players but in a clan match don’t seem to get it together. I am not looking for your map tactics but simply wanted to try and understand what has worked for you, like the amount of practice, how you choose your team for the match - basically your thoughts.

I don’t mean to put you under pressure to answer, so there will no hard feeling if you don’t answer any of these questions. I accept we are most likely in the same league and this email may not be appropriate, however, I needed to try otherwise we could find our team falling apart as no one can handle constant losses or draws.

I have asked the guys if they could make a game on wed but we may need to look at Tuesday or Thursday as well. I will post replies on the website today or tomorrow, so that we can confirm

Regards,

Darin

[Paul]

Nice initiative there Slo, lets see what comes of it

[Voetsek-Mikey]

Dazzy you are the man.

[NiteShade]

Awesome idea there, Darin! I'm willing to sit in on a TS discussion... just lemme know when & where.

I have something difficult to say and I do not know how to say it without sounding like a total bitch.
I've been thinking lately to 'step up' and offer my services as commander. The reason being that I do not always agree with Skoup's in-game calls and/or I think calls are made too late. This is a fast-paced game and calls need to be made asap.

I'm not pretending to be all-knowing, but I feel with my past COD experience and BF2 comm experience I could be the right person for the job.
I've learned long ago that armour means fokol in this game. The only time armour is really effective is if you are dominating a map and pull the armour in for support.
I think Skoup might be still kinda stuck on the idea of armour from BF2 being a major deciding factor. In my opinion, this is a more one-on-one infantry based game which resembles COD more than BF2.

I've been hesitant to volunteer for comm because I admit I do not know this game as well as BF2. I admit I'm afraid to make a wrong call and lose a match for us. It might sound silly, but taking on a comm position is a lot of responsibility and I will only do it if I have support from all of you.

Therefore, please let me know if you are willing to let me take the reigns and try and bring GRRR to a victorious ending in Leg 4.

Skoup... I think you are a great guy and I hope you do not take this too personally.

I look forward to the responses.

[Paul]

Well Shadey the way I see it, there are no places for ego here (that is one of the reasons why FiB kind of went to pot). If it was determined that my best skill is sitting at the back typing insults to the other team well then that is what it should be.

We now have a "fixed" team roster, the captains and squad leaders must sit together and decide how the team will be structured and how we will operate.

Simple as that. The dude abides!

[SloDaz]

I understand your comments guys and i am all for the best team going into the matches. Skoups is a big boy and does not take criticism personally, however, he could be placed into the commander pool with Shadey and grow into the position.

A while ago i was miffed that there was a core team and reserves - It seemed unfair that there would be reserve guys always hanging around hoping for a game - remember the cool kids at school and then the others that hung out in the shadows (sheez i think its time for that team hug).

I now know that we need to focus on a core team and then provide support in times of trouble but we need to be aware that our reserves also need to be nurtured and made to feel part of a team.

Perhaps we could develop a loose set of clan gaming rules or comments, so that everyone understands how grrr approaches competitive gaming.

* Typical league week - practices, strategies, matches, posting agenda
* Squad leaders responsibilities and team selection
* Expectations of the core team as well as the reserves.
* Contingencies for key persons - commander and squad leaders
* Rating system or process for team selection

We need to think of a method to determine how a keen player can break into the core team. I must admit I have no clue on how to do this but we need to give guys a chance to be able to join. Perhaps this can be as simple as a core squad voting system, where a player is dropped and another include or perhaps more sophisticated like minimal game time with the clan, kd ratio per type of kit - although I am not sure there is the stats to support us in this. This will ensure that we have the core team for the games and that the team does not change for each match. We would need to have the option of try outs at the start of each league.

[Skouperd]

Shadey, I don't mind at all to sit on the back seat and give somebody else a chance at commanding. I agree that I sometimes make the wrong calls, I am the first to admit that.

However, with regard to making bad calls, forget it, nobody can make 100% correct calls all the time. The key question is how does the squad respond to those bad calls, and how does the commander react to them? More importantly, does the squad follow those bad calls irrespective or not?

With regard to me commanding, I merely assumed the commader position because after I've played my second game with the Danglers we were all still running around like headless chickens, everybody talking cross over and everybody issuing orders left right and centre. At that stage, nobody took it upon themselves to try and resolve that. If the players / team have advanced to such a stage now that there are other people wanting to command then I am very happy to step back because it means I can get back and focus on killing people again!

[Paul]

Daz does have a very good point, we will achieve our best result the more stable our team is but that doesn't mean we must stick with one set of players throughout, no matter what.

I don't know if this might be too bureaucratic but maybe after each match we have a post match debrief, the SL score each player out of 10, the players score the SL out of 10, the entire team scores commander out of 10.

If the commander gets less than 5 out of 10 for two weeks, then they are relieved of duty. Same goes for the SL, who then become regular players that are up for selection. If player gets less than 5 for two weeks then they sit out the next week (unless of course there is no one else)

I don’t want us to become like FiB but we do need to be a bit strict if we want to improve and progress.

My 2c, use it, don’t use it