Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?

[Thomek]

This is IT..

I've been trying to do some commanding recently with astounding failure. Players are either not listening, not believing teamplay is possible, and not grasping the most fundamental basics about how the battlefield works.

I remember back in the first months of cRPG when we used to camp hills. 2 teams on 2 hills, and shooting it out. Occasionally there were even teams splitting up trying to encircle the enemy.. Successful charges, when players finally learned what a charge is.

And this is the main point.

Players need to LEARN to teamplay. And then to start believing in it. IDK what comes first. A good leader is wastly more important than individual skill and luck when it comes to keeping YOUR X5. A good structure in the team, in stead of the chaotic spread out fights we have all day in and night out would help immensely, and be way more epic.

I have some ideas to how we can make this happen, some requires code, some not.

1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

2. Somehow appoint some players to leaders. Give them a new color text. (like admins, but other color)
Perhaps every player can get this text if they are at least gen5, and let the 2 best W:L ratio player on the team get it. W:L ratio could be a good tool to find true teamplayers and promote people taking charge and leading with success.

3. Let us buy banners as a kind of polearm.
The system we have about joining groups etc works only halfway. Few people join battalions and even fewer actually use them.. They are too "free" in my opinion. Someone seeing themselves, or getting appointed to be banner bearer by admin would care more about their "Job". Even the ones following and protecting that player. Perhaps loosing or keeping a banner would have some kind of effect like Valour for the people around it, or Valour for the one that takes it.

4. Nerf/Change how xbows work.
Make them more mobile, by making faster reload times, nerfing damage. Xbows promote a camping, sniping individualist gameplay where it's SHOOT, HIDE, SHOOT, HIDE. And it works wonderful for the players playing like this. This is not teamplay.

5. Change Cav to be a less individualistic class.
Cav has one of the most powerful teamplay mechanics/tricks available. Bump + lance, but it's very rarely used consciously because they DON'T HAVE TO! They do too well by just running around in a mess. Again relying on individual skill.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together.

Anyway. This is NOT a rant. I just believe teamplay is possible in pub servers because I've seen it happen, and players getting used to it is a big part of it.

Come with YOUR ideas on how we can promote more teamplay below:

[Dalhi]

Remove horses, remove target reticle, make some 2h/pole like great swords unbalanced. Enjoy balanced, skill and teamwork based game. Is it so hard? 

[Overdriven]

1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

5. Change Cav to be a less individualistic class.
Cav has one of the most powerful teamplay mechanics/tricks available. Bump + lance, but it's very rarely used consciously because they DON'T HAVE TO! They do too well by just running around in a mess. Again relying on individual skill.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together.

1.
Been lobbying for this for the better part of a year now. That was when it first came up, there have been successive threads and support for it, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to happen.

5.
A large part of that is due to the high speed nature of the class. It's a lot harder for cav to stick together, particularly if you are fighting the enemy cav as well. As a result cavalry usually breaks down into individual skill very quickly, even if you start together. Unfortunately having lots of cav fighting in an area causes a big cluster fuck mess that generally means the cav ends up dead. Working on your own tends to be more successful in surviving and getting more kills.

There are cases where cav working together in small groups, for instance an HA and a lancer, 2 HA's ect can be highly effective, particularly for the bump/attack trick. But any more than that and cavalry just tends to get in each others way. It's hard enough keeping an ounce of organisation on the battlefield using TS with cavalry, for random pubbys it's almost non-existant because of this. We've managed it with GK in the past, but a lot of those teamwork tricks come from instinct and timing, rather than any real organisation.

6.
Another great suggestion that's been banded around a lot. Would love to see something implemented 

[Thomek]

I get your point.

But that's why I want to change the class.. Perhaps cav too should have "charge" speed, perhaps even getting a speed/charge/damage/HP bonus if they stick together IDK. What I do know is that area of effect things are possible in cRPG. Also cav mostly prey on the chaotic nature of the battlefield we have. So if everything else get's organized they might have to as well.

Also.. Horns!

I got to learn some modeling.. will make banners and horns first.

[Overdriven]

I get your point.

But that's why I want to change the class.. Perhaps cav too should have "charge" speed, perhaps even getting a speed/charge/damage/HP bonus if they stick together IDK. What I do know is that area of effect things are possible in cRPG. Also cav mostly prey on the chaotic nature of the battlefield we have. So if everything else get's organized they might have to as well.

Well one of my biggest disappointments with cavalry in crpg is the sheer crappyness of a proper cavalry charge. The fact that so many weapons can stop you in your tracks, generally means that a formed up, organised cavalry charge is near suicidal, particularly because everyone can see you coming. We've done it a few times in GK and it scared the enemy into camping, rather than actually doing any real damage so we still lost. I can understand why it is the way it is, but it is quite depressing that cavalry is pretty much forced to act in small groups, and using charges is near pointless.

[Reinhardt]

If more clans/factions/guilds/whatever actually display teamwork with the batallion flags, then normal players will follow. Eventually, pubs will start to take banners and people will follow them around and thus creating teamplay in cRPG. Acre used to carry around flags EVERY TIME we had players on (admittedly we didn't always win, but we still tried) and eventually people actually followed us. Half the time the entire team.

[Thomek]

I know that theory Reinhardt, but it's been moving in the wrong direction for a long long time.

Teamplay get's rarer and rarer. Even Phaz has more or less given it up as far as I know. People are simply not accustomed to it or they don't know it can happen.

I think it needs a little help first and foremost in more plains and commanders chosen by W:L ratios. If we can push teamplay in the right direction it could mean a great future for cRPG. We need to tip the scale, since teamplay, at the end of the day, is all about educating the playerbase, and making them believe in it.

It cannot be forced from the top.

I think the three most important elements are:
Commanders
Banners one can carry (With slight bonus attached like Valour)
More Plains

[Tears of Destiny]

The Fallen used to do a lot of teamplay, but after Strat 2.0 we devolved into a horde of lunatics more often then not, just "loosely" sticking together. Now though we are re-indtroducing it back in...

I blame Strategus, why not.

[Overdriven]

We need another one of these:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,8764.0.html

Was some great teamplay in there.

[Tears of Destiny]

I would gladly help referee another again.

I greatly prefer large tournies over most things, it builds friendly competitive play instead of certain other things destroying community unity.

[Tristan]

I might do another when I am finished with my BA. 3 week of january sounds reasonable for me!

Remind me

[Reinhardt]

We need another one of these:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,8764.0.html

Was some great teamplay in there.

Yeah, but it doesn't  bring teamplay into the cRPG population of non-clan players. Teamplay should be utilized by clans and factions, but not exclusively BY clans and factions. I can agree with Thomek that teamplay in cRPG would be a nice element and one that would bring much more interest to the game. The grind for heirlooms gets boring after generation... what am I? 14? The max experience bonus is capped at generation 16. Tactics change with new maps and new commanders, so it would at least bring a bit more variety and fun into cRPG's boring battle mode.

[Nessaj]

I miss when there were tactics all the time, even the more simple ones, really made for a more fun experience on the servers.

However, how it usually goes when trying to apply team-play onto battle is that one or several important players gets switched to the other team due to auto-team-balance, and slowly (but rather quickly since its per map) people trickle offline instead, who wants to play on the other side alone while your friends are having fun together. When I try to lead the Nords I almost always get balanced over to the other team, which means at least I cannot lead them.

Also having the battalion flag on you while fighting really skews up your point of view unless using first person.

If there is any way to fix auto team balance in this engine, so that banner balance is absolute unless it is the last resort to balancing the teams, then I'm 100% confident we would see an overall more tactical game on the servers, just make sure the two largest banner groups always ends up on each their team, should help ensure balance.

[Overdriven]

I might do another when I am finished with my BA. 3 week of january sounds reasonable for me!

Remind me

Would be awesome. That tourny was the most fun I've had in crpg. Far friendlier and nicer to play that strat and the battles were pretty epic 

[Lennu]

Isn't it ironic that a NINJA complains about the lack of teamplay (kiddin!)

Anyways, big clans can easily improve teamplay, by looking good 
A loooong time ago we fallens had nice winning spree. Both teams were camping hills, but we managed to tell our randomers to stick to our hill while fallens made a fake charge. We managed to get the whole enemy team to forget about their hill camping and charge after us like lunatics. Sadly, I haven't seen things like that happen in a long time