A suggestion for team rules - please read and comment

[J_Th4ng]

I have been thinking that we need to establish a list of 'rules' to which we as a team must adhere when playing BC2 (both when squadding up in publics and in clannies). Please feel free to add to my suggestions at the bottom of this post, and we can use the input to define a 'code of conduct' (crap choice of words, I welcome a better suggestion) to which we should always adhere. For now I'm just posting this amongst the Danglers, but as we start ironing things out I will make this open to the rest of the clan.

Before i get to the rules, here I'll start with teh tips that make up this reasoning...

A few general tips that we must get right:

1. Revive, revive, revive. In BF2, we used to be very good at keeping squadmates alive. We need to do the same here. Whether playing Conquest or attacking in Rush mode, reviving your teammates saves us tickets. Of course, be sensible about it, don't revive someone right infront of an enemy squad, and always let the person know when you're about to revive them so that they don't arrive with their squad screen open and unable to defend themselves...

2. Every squad needs a medic. No medic = no revives = lost tickets, even if an encounter is won.

3. Ticket bleed in conquest mode is currently extremely low. Most of the games are going to be decided on deaths, rather than bleed (until this gets fixed). As such, it is far better to hold one flag against an attacking enemy than to push in on a well defended point. Set defenders will almost always exact a heavy toll on attackers, and the ticket loss from trying to force the capture of a flag will often cost a lot more than the ticket bleed loss caused by being patient and waiting.

A few critical points on squad management and repawning:

1. Everyone is a squad leader!! In BF2, there was an important distinction betweem SL and squaddies. SL's were the sneaky fuckers that stayed behind during an assault, acting as a mobile spawn point for when people died. Now that we can spawn on any team mate, it seems that we often forget to leave a lagger in each squad when attacking. So what often happens is that everyone charges in, three peeps get killed, and they all start screaming for the fourth person to 'stay alive'. Often at this stage it's a little late for number four, as he/she is fighting for their lives. There should always be a designated lagger in every infantry squad (it doesn't matter particularly in armour as once the armour goes down, we need the drivers to respawn and retake it). For simplicity, let's refer to the lagger as 'fallback'.

2. The designated squad fallback should NOT run in and revive fallen teammates. As tempting as it is to do, the chances are you'll just get yourself killed trying to help squadmates. For this reason, don't have the squad medic as the fallback (particularly if there is only one medic in the squad).

3. If you are the current fallback, and get taken out by flanking enemies, it is your responsibility to tell your squad about it. At that point, a new fallback must be appointed, so that the assault can continue unabated. There is nothing worse than having to respawn the entire squad back at your base because everyone in the squad died. Granted we can sometimes alleviate this with squad swaps, but all to often we end up with nowhere to go because both squads get wiped simultaneously.

4. Fallbacks are even more important when defending objectives. If you can keep one person away from the flag that is under assault, the defending squad can quickly regroup and re-engage attackers. So don't bunch up on defense. Always keep a reasonable spread, so that one person is always able to go sneaky and act as a spawn. Remember that the converse is true for attacking. If you kill three enemy defenders, you'd better be prepared for a wave of four pissed off defenders to attack you in about ten seconds time... It may be that they only had three in the squad, but don't count on it!!

5. When defending, and you get informed that another member of your squad is under fire/killed, don't all go rushing to his/her position. Quickly ascertain who the fallback is going to be, so that they can stay away from the engagement, and allow the downed person to respawn.

All of these squad management points can be practiced any time were on publics, and we need to work at it until it's second nature. It will require good comms to work effectively, we need to get used to talking to each other. It doesn't have to be onerous either. If you're in a good position to be fallback, then call it. As soon as someone has called the role, then they are it. It's their responsibility to remove themselves from the engagement and stay safe somewhere in the near vicinity.

Lastly, my thoughts on how to improve our general standard of play.

I invite criticism. The only way that I will learn to do things differently is to be told about how I fucked up. I am the sort of person that is subject to brain meltdown from time to time, leading me to charge in against a full squad armed with only a pistol and screaming 'THIS IS SPARTA!!!'. Although I know that this is not smart, it's only when someone reminds me of what a dick I was that I'm going to analyse my failings.

We're all quick to apologise to the team for our individual poor perfrmances when we lose. However, I feel that what we don't do enough of is criticise. I know it's not nice to be told that you fucked up, and I want to ensure that we criticise constructively, but I'd hope that we are all good enough friends now that we can accept the criticism for what it is. A desire for all of us to improve as a team. I hope that we all respect each other for our ability to play the game (we are the pride of grrr, after all), and being criticised for a poor tactical decision does not detract from our respect for each other's skills.

To this end, I recommend that we have a post mortem discussion after each game that we play (win or lose), in order to identify what we did wrong (both as a group and individually), and what we can do to rectify the situation. I'm not sure if we should do it directly after the game or the next day, both have their pros and cons, but my initial gut feel is that we should do it directly after the game, while our recollection of events is still fresh.

I suggest that we start this after our game against BOC tonight. Everyone stay on TS for a quick (10-20 minute) post game discussion. Punches should not be pulled in this discussion, but by the same token, people should not be picked on. In fact, I recommend that one of the non-player members of the team act as an arbitrator for out discussions, to ensure that no points are belaboured. It would be great if the arbitrator could sit on TS throughout the match, listening (not speaking at all) to the in-game discussion as it happens. They would then be in a perfect position to provide feedback on our in-game comms, and whether or not we have communicated the 'fallback' role effectively.

Anyway, this post started as a simple few tips and tricks, and has now morphed into a long rambling monologue. PLease all have a read of this and post any feedback that you have. Unless we have disagreement, I'm going to ask that we put two things into effect from tonight:

1. The use of a 'fallback' role, communicated at all times to the infantry squad(s)
2. A post game discussion, where we openly critique our performance, as a team, squad and individuals. This discussion should be arbitrated by a non-playing reserve who will also sit in the TS channel(s) through the course of the game.

[NiteShade]

Jarrod, I agree with u 100%. If I am not playing tonight, I volunteer to sit in TS and listen in on the game.
Added bonus is that I can watch the game from Lep's pc too.

[Stu]

Thanks for the points J...

I 'd like to add one thought on the matter, I believe that BFBC2 is complete Squad based game. If the squad is not within viewing distance of each other I feel it is useless. It's a simple principle.

I think that a more strategic approach should be taken during squad movement now I know that the through of moving as a tight-nit squad is a vague concept when playing online but I firmly believe it will make a huge difference in the effectiveness of a squad. Kill Assists + Squad damage and Spots are not in BFBC2 for nothing.

When attacking we should use the principle of a 'Fire Squad'

Simply - Assault, Assault, Medic, Medic or any combination that retains Medics.

The fire squad works with the follow Acronym - F F F F

Find The Enemy

This, being the first "F" is probably the most important. Find your enemy. Try to find out how many there are, what kind of cover they are using, what sort of weapons they are carrying, any intel you can gather. This should be done as silently as possible. You don't what your enemy to know where you are until you are ready for them. Once you figure out what the conditions are, get your squad into position.


Fix 'Em

To fix an enemy unit means to stop it from moving and ideally prevent it from firing back. You also ideally want to put fire in a location to prevent him from being reinforced or falling back without coming under fire. To fix a unit you have to put enough firepower on it to pin and hopefully reduce one or two steps to paralyse or litter teams. Pinning is a minimum, though.

After your squad is spread out, send your fire team to some decent cover, and tell them to open fire on the enemy when you give the command. Your assault team should be ready to move. Knowing when to send them is key. If your enemy doesn't know that you are there, you can try to send them before your fire team even starts to shoot, or you can have the fire team open fire, and send them in after the enemy is suppressed. Either way, give your fire team the open fire signal and tell them to pour it on.


Flank 'Em

Send your assault team to a position on the other team's flank. Speed is the key. Don't send your team halfway around the field just to find the perfect flank. Anything will do, as long as your guys have some cover. If possible, try to stay quiet. Most people are to caught up by the fire team to notice that the assault team is standing next to them.


Finish 'Em

Now that you are on the other teams flank, finish them off. Leaders of an assault team should mark targets for other men. "First on the left, second on the left, third on the left" and so on. Open fire on the enemy and make sure no one makes it out. Grenades work well also, if you have them.


Find Em - Spots and call outs to squadies of the enemy position
Fix Em- Use suppressing fire, force the enemy to take cover (Medic's Role + Fix (Heal) + Fire or Covering fire)
Flank Em - Assault members can flank the enemy while Medics LMG suppresses them.
Finish Em - Simply put kill the enemy with the Assaults cross fire.

We do not use real world tactics and we forget we are playing against humans on the other side...

Think of it this way, when you take fire what is your first reaction? To take cover, once your in cover you can assess and move forward. But if we keep the enemy suppressed their heads are going to be down and they will be worrying about the incoming fire and not the incoming troops (Assault players).


It's about playing more slowly and smartly, WE HAVE TO move from Cover to cover if we work as a squad cover your squad mates as they move so they can cover your movement over open ground. During or after an engagement REGROUP! Use the opportunity to heal and get ammo in the safety of cover. Then move on...
We sometimes have brilliant games as squads and really work well together and then we go AWOL and lone-wolf, its not very consistent.

I think it has something to do with the excitement of an engagement we mow down 3 troops and rush in like rambo and promptly get our brains blown out. Rather than carefully moving forward and taking ground efficiently.

[Edit] I couldn't agree more with Onxy being a medic in BFBC2 isn't like BF2 I don't always know my team mates exact location, by staying relatively close the Medic can see where the squadie was downed and take necessary precautions (Fire back) or revive. Its incredibly frustrating having two squad mates down with 50 - 100M distance between the two of them in cases like this the medic is forces to choose, we should never choose we should be close enough to get both team mates...

[Onyx]

Some very good thoughts here. I agree with Stu, sticking together is important. A medic cannot do his job properly if the rest of his mates are running off in different directions. He either has to pick which one he will follow to back up, heal and assist or he just stays behind and subsequently heals players from other squads who regroup around his medpacks. A frustrated medic is not a happy medic.

Its a change of mindset, but I am sure the satisfaction of excellent squad work can be just as satisfying as going lonewolf.