You are definitely right about it, but I also regularly see players do really retarded and brainless stuff. And not only a few of them.
It was this very day where I watched my brother playing conquest siege, he was on the attacking team. He spawned a few meters away from the siege tower leading up the wall to the first flag. On the way to the tower, outside the walls, an enemy cavalryman on a large warhorse rode towards him. He somehow managed to dodge it, and went on towards the tower. When he climbed it, he looked back and said to me: "Look at those retards! They will chase him for like five minutes instead of trying to capture the flag and win the map." and he turned the camera and was perfectly right. There were about seven or eight infantry players (a few of them ranged), trying to kill that horse and the rider, circling around dancing pirouettes or running after a horse like a dog runs after a car. If they climbed up that siege tower the horse would not have been able to follow them, it would not have posed a threat, and they would have had an easier game capturing the flag. But they chose the braindead way. And it was seven or eight of them. For the attacking team it's like that cavalryman would have killed them and they needed to respawn.
I think a good part of the cRPG community is really braindead on the servers. I don't say they are really stupid, have lower intelligence or something like that. cRPG doesn't attract particularly dumb people more than other games. It's just the problem that teamplay in the beginning never was used that much, and people didn't get used to it. It didn't become a custom, like some other games tend to have. And every new player learned by the average gameplay on the server that you just go for the kills, and once they grew to veteran players they tought the new noobs to play that way. The one and only golden rule for winning a round in cRPG was never followed on the servers:
Don't go where the enemy is - go where your teammates are!
I would like to see something being done about that problem. We have essentially clever players being stuck in some kind of "braindead" mode, because neither the community itself, nor the developers in form of game features encourage teamplay. You need to have the idea that teamplay could be something benefitial yourself, and even if you have it, you are pretty much alone with it, unless you join a clan. And even then I usually see those clan groups seperating from the main force of their team.
In a perfect world the players should have that insight by themselves, but as this world is not perfect, I say you need to push them into the right direction. My constant solution to everything for the past few months is conquest mode, and so it is in this case as well. But a (reasonable, in reality working) commander feature would be nice as well. And perhaps an overhaul of the entire presentation of the mod.
The community had time enough to develop some decent teamplay behaviour. It failed. So we need to change the system, as in the current state it apparently is not working. That's why I say, that we do need the game to encourage the proper behaviour. As sad as this might be.
Just two last statements at the end:
a) Teamplay does NOT mean there will be less challenging fights, or that you can't fight against several opponents for your life. If anything, it can cause you to live longer and have more fights per round. The more of a Rambo-Lemming-Autowalker you were, the bigger the performance difference will be when you concentrate on teamplay.
b) You don't need a clan for teamplay. I know several other games where people join with different classes or roles, and immediately know what their task is, or where they ask in chat what the current agenda is. You don't need teamspeak for coordination, you only need some community habits.
tl;dr version:
Waiting for the players to start applying teamplay has failed. So the game needs to be changed to encourage it more. And there is not a single good reason why cRPG should not go that way.
8) Nerf blunt/peirce damage vs light armour
9) Buff all shield HP
12) Speed up archer rate of fire slightly
If we want more team play then we have to start changing certain melee weapons so that they are not so good in all situations
1) Make more weapons unbalanced but buff their damage in return
2) Nerf 2H stab vs horses (not sure how)
3) Increase weapon stun due to blocking against a heavier weapon
4) Remove the point blank stab on polearms (not sure how)
5) Nerf cut damage vs heavy armour
6) Buff cut damage vs light armour
7) Buff blunt/pierce damage vs heavy armour
8) Nerf blunt/peirce damage vs light armour
9) Buff all shield HP
10) Buff axe/poleaxe damage to counter the shield HP increase
11) Nerf axe/poleaxe speed slightly
12) Speed up archer rate of fire slightly
13) Activate weapons when chambered so that you can't move them through other people or objects prior to swinging (not sure how)
All of the above will make weapons more situational so that players can't kill absolutely everything really easily with the same weapon. Instead players have to carry multiple weapons (expensive) or team up with other people using different weapons.
I don't actually want to see all these changes btw, they are just the one way i can think of to encourage more natural team play
If we want more team play then we have to start changing certain melee weapons so that they are not so good in all situations(click to show/hide)
All of the above will make weapons more situational so that players can't kill absolutely everything really easily with the same weapon. Instead players have to carry multiple weapons (expensive) or team up with other people using different weapons.
I don't actually want to see all these changes btw, they are just the one way i can think of to encourage more natural team play
Or, they don't care about winning and simply do whatever they think is amusing.
One item on teamplay:Remove earlier active attacks against friendlies, it was a bad change, fixes all the getting stuck on teammates behind you as well. It's not our fault the animations only allow fully horizontal and vertical swinging.
If you want to encourage teamplay, the game mechanics can not make it more likely that you will be wounded by a teammate than the enemy. Even odds of 25% team/75% enemy damage is too great. I believe we need a combination of less chance to team hit and in-game less penalty when you do.
Take it away completely? No. It is an important mechanic in itself. But it should be encouraging smart teamplay rather than discouraging it altogether.
(Side effect is griefers will find it harder to grief as it will take more hits to kill a teammate and thus easier to reach the 5/5 auto-kick for douchebaggery)
Imo i think we should buff ranged and make at least half of the maps random plains.