NA Server Tactics

[Canary]

But another interesting facet of NA is probably our admin selection.  What's the biggest EU troll clan?  Picture them.  Now picture half of them being your main server admins.  That's NA.

What? Hardly any of the NA admins are affiliated with the same clan anymore, at least proportionally few are. I'm not sure to which clan you might be referring as a troll clan that has so many admins on NA, but I assure you that "half of them" are not server admins here.

  That's why NA is always overrun with trolls and douchebags.  Even when we post irrefutable evidence of them TK'ing, TW'ing or flat out cheating, their troll admin buddies are standing by to read their copy-pasted unban essay, faux tears in eyes, "10/10, best essay ever, would read again" and their little douchebag troll buddy is right back in the game again, trolling it up again.

Having an admin clanmate does not keep you from getting banned or remaining banned. It's not our protocol to remove another admin's ban, in fact, so what you're saying is literally not happening. Most of the times when people are getting unbanned it is because they're appealing to the global admins, nearly all of whom do not play on NA.

It's probably a big part of why NA has a hard time retaining serious team players and why you don't see big team-play clans that last very long.  The troll atmosphere is too thick.  If you don't like delaying, slap fests and teamwounding, you "can't take a joke" and "take this game too serious".

It's more likely that they get discouraged when they find out that their strategies do not work as well as they had hoped. Even worse would be being made fun of for using said strategies unsuccessfully.

So the serious players that would be a part of big teams and organized play go find a game with a community that isn't run by trolls.

Or they get discouraged by not having as good a win-loss ratio as they'd hoped and play something that's less challenging to succeed in. At least two of the more team-oriented clans I can think of mass-quit for reasons related to strategus and started playing a different MMORPG instead. It didn't have to do with trolls or whoever they don't like having admin.

[Smoothrich]

I'm not calling out any clan in particular (except Fallen), or generalizing all clans that like teamwork.  I just think a lot of groups can pretty much work against their team by splitting up from them and only defending each other, and it makes it frustrating or not fun to play sometimes when these "squads" refuse to adapt or just insist on camping in a silly place. 

I'm not even here to shit talk NH or KUTT or anything, I know as a sometimes cavalry player I've been griefed by both clans as you've mentioned managing to cover key chokepoints around the main battle consistently with good anti cav loadouts, zoning me or other cav out of the blob.  When I'm melee though and see an NH stack, I just get the crush through 

Pretty much all a good group of players need to do to help the team win is you know do something like attack a flank of the main blob together, where local victories over less organized/skilled players will collapse the enemy pub blob and lead to a quick rout/slaughter.  A lot of clans do this kind of thing without really thinking too hard about it either, because it Just Wins Games.  If you have more than half a dozen players and you are more then half the map away from the blob, you are probably fucking up bad or are just griefing like ATS did (rip Noobie)

Of course, the ultimate next level tactics in Warband gaming was pretty much defined and exemplified by PRO.  Stack half a dozen champ courser lancers, fill out the rest of the spots with 2handed heroes who 1 vs 3 mindlessly and effortlessly, with little to zero organization or discussion of actual events on the server except "I almost feel bad about my 5x for the past 4 hours.. nevermind I don't, fuck cRPG"

[Lemmy_Winks]

Ya i remember fallen hill camping spawn with like 10 guys, leaving the team outnumbered 40-50 in the main battle resulting in them being gang raped. Then the 30 survivors from the other team go and gang rape the 10 camping fallen noobs. Then pepole would get mad at fallen for doing this over and over again resulting in us losing over and over again. Then fallen would yell about how we dont know anything about tactics or playing intelligently and that is what they were doing. Isnt there motto like win by any means neccesary? as if they put so much emphasis on winning that they will do anything in order to win, but there tactics make their teams lose constantly.

[Beat]

I agree with Bryggan and Tank Burner.  Simple team tactics can be effective and fun.  The problem is you have people who will never cooperate.  That's fine, adapt.  Even the best plan will fail if you can't get enough people to carry it out.  That's why it's usually best to just go with the majority of players and use your team tactics on a smaller scale, on the fly.  A handful of organized shielders and pikes supporting 1 or 2 of those good rambo types can win matches for those of us who want to win...

The reason I originally DLed this mod is that I was hoping for more teamwork and tactical gameplay than I found in native multiplayer.  The game is not realistic by a long shot but the principles behind the basic weapons, armor and horses is close enough that, organized team play executed well should dominate the battlefield.  Sadly, it just seems there is not enough interest in that type of game in this community.  Perhaps those of us who are interested could set up some kind of formation battles.  I'm not talking anything near what Napoleonic Wars players do in their rigid lines, but good old medieval tactics with units of infantry, archers and cavalry.

Either way, I enjoy this mod for what it is.

[engurrand]

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[EyeBeat]

I just run out and try to do my best to divert half the team towards me and let my team take care of the other half.

If this does not work I start trying to take out archers.

If there are no archers I try and set up 1v1's.

That is basically my strategy.  If it doesn't work I can alt tab and go on the internet for a while.

[Slamz]

Because camping is boring and I'm not playing the game to be bored. I play games because I get bored, not to further compound the problem.

So you don't want to camp the hill for 3 minutes because that's boring, but you love charging out, dying to the first group of enemies you see and then spectating the match for 3 minutes.

Sense.  This makes none.

Of course, the ultimate next level tactics in Warband gaming was pretty much defined and exemplified by PRO.  Stack half a dozen champ courser lancers, fill out the rest of the spots with 2handed heroes who 1 vs 3 mindlessly and effortlessly, with little to zero organization or discussion of actual events on the server except "I almost feel bad about my 5x for the past 4 hours.. nevermind I don't, fuck cRPG"

As for PRO, what they did had nothing to do with good tactics (or fun).  That's what you call a "cluestack".  You put all of the game's biggest veterans on one banner, guaranteeing that the other team will have few, if any veterans of their own, and then you run around with pants on your head and declare yourself the world's greatest tactical players.  It's like playing some MMORPG where you take your level 92 half-dwarf gayblade into the newbie zone, slaughter everyone and declare yourself the best gamer ever.

PRO's weakness ended up being 2 long spears that stood near each other.

[TurmoilTom]

As a Ex-PRO clanner and a current member of KUTT I can confidently say that both Ramboing and Tactics are viable methods of holding a multi for several hours.

Even though PRO had a Vent channel everyone hung out in, we never discussed tactics unless the cav couldn't work their magic because of some NH pikemen or something, and even then it just took a dude like Shincock, Serge (when he's not on his horse) or MrShine to assassinate the dudes. (Not trying to make it seem like I've got beef with NH or something. You guys were one of the few clans that made PRO discuss how to win instead of just talking about how awesome we all are and making fun of the entire enemy team.)

As for KUTT, we play siege almost exclusively. Our extensive use of weapon racks, healing tents, siege shields, and clever positioning at vital chokepoints render the enemy team incapable of captu-AHH FUCK IT YES WE WIN BECAUSE WE ALL STACK STRENGTH AND PLATE CRUTCH! UMAD BRO? COME AT ME I GOT +3 MILANESE AND A +3 GREAT MAUL YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT THESE RAD "TACTICS" I DON'T THINK SO

[Blackzilla]

Serge threatened to ban me for suggesting that we use Teamwork.

[TurmoilTom]

Serge threatened to ban me for suggesting that we use Teamwork.

True story, but even then teamwork occured spontaneously at times and no one minded it.

[Havoco]

Go play strat if u want strategy.

[Digglez]

Go play strat if u want strategy.

Just like hospitallers to have low standards.  how bout dropping battle mode and only keep siege only, you'd see a gigantic patch of fixes that focused the game on teamwork

[Havoco]

Just like hospitallers to have low standards.  how bout dropping battle mode and only keep siege only, you'd see a gigantic patch of fixes that focused the game on teamwork

Lol, we were one of the first clans to do tactics and strategies. This was back during strat 1 with the formation of the northern empire. Tbh, it doesn't really matter how much strategy u do in public games. You still lose and win at about the same ratio.

[OpenPalm]

Tbh, it doesn't really matter how much strategy u do in public games. You still lose and win at about the same ratio.

I feel like this is probably true, but I think it's much more fun to use strategy.

[Rheinhardt]

I'm going to agree with this much that I've noticed; using basic group tactics is kind of like this.

If teams are evenly matched, then every fight is 50/50, at least in abstract. If every fight is 50/50, and the only fights are duels, then every battle is 50/50. These are the battles that come down to two or three players per side. Victory is ultimately up to chance. If every battle is 50/50, the only way to improve your chance of victory is either imbalanced player skill, or fighting in stacked odds. Imbalancing player skill is practically codified in the clan-stacking mechanism, and I will not disparage it. Fighting in stacked odds means 2v1 or 3v1 fights, or 1v1 fights with one player wounded by an archer, or matching up an enemy to his foil such as pike versus horse.

It is the fundamental concept of teamwork and all useful game tactics to create stacked odds. If one team creates stacked odds while the other team does not, the imbalanced fights would practically assure victory. A team of rambo 2h wielders running like a string of ants head-on into a team of archers behind a wall of 1h shieldsmen would be decimated before hitting the infantry and beaten in 2v1 or 3v1 fights after they did. This is because the strung-out individual 'warriors' are hitting a coordinated enemy one at a time after being engaged by their natural counter, archers. Its simply one team ganking another.

Based on this, one would think the first team to attempt teamwork (hill-camping or other simple tactics) would win. However this frequently isn't the case. Many players react to a call for tactics with lines like 'shield walls don't work' and proceed to ignore the suggestion. This results in a split team; those who are listening to the order to hold at a point, and those who are willfully ignoring the order and continuing in 'team deathmatch' style. This creates a problem. The team that called for tactics but did not implement them in unison is now stacked against itself because half of the team is holding back while the other half is charging forward. The team is engaged in two half-battles, both at 2v1 odds, and destroyed. Thus 'camping didn't work'.

The tactics are failing not because the tactics are bad, but because only about half the team is using them.

Possible solution; designate an NA server as the 'Teamwork' server where like minds can fight, get clans to form a nucleus of tactical play and publicly call the other players in to join them, use banner-stacking to stack team players together in pub matches, change the multi/xp reward mechanism to encourage blobs the way the original proximity-to-death rewards worked to encourage 'xp barns'.