Shiner

I was playing on the MEC side Sat Night and had good experiences with my SL and squads. Of course as a squadie we never know if what we are doing actually corresponds to the CO's orders, but in this case the SL was well known to me and I was fairly confident of it.

I do have a general question/statment that relates to John CANavar's situation. I was at one point seperated from my unit (they all jumped into a jeep and left me behind.) As I was hoofing it out when I noticed the flag I had just left was getting capped. So I checked the map and saw I was the only friendly still in the area. I turned around and defended the flag successfully. Moments later I was severely put on notice by my SL (yes the one that just left me behind) that I was going to be booted for not staying up with the group.

This happened in much the same way later this same map, except this time I did not turn around. I let the enemy take the High-ground northwest point on Karkand uncontested and I feel this contributed to our eventual defeat on that map.

Needless to say I had a few comments that I kept to myself and it was soon patched up; but the question remains what room in the SOP is there for individual initiative. I know this is a hallmark of the U.S. military and is considered a competitive advantage over other traditional army's. So, are we allowed to stray (with intent) without fear of reprisal from the less understanding SL's and Comm's?

To answer my own question I will not be squading up with that particular leader in the future.

__________________

Apophis

I appreciate you coming forward. I had forgotten who was the SL for the squad that I described. My frustration was more with the behavior of some of the particular squad members, when you came forward and started questioning my reasoning for removing the problem player(s) from the game, it just made it worse.

Having CO's that don't think through their actions and having squads that don't follow CO orders is much like a chicken and egg situation. CO's that think things through and actually formulate a plan for their actions will get frustrated when they have squads that don't follow the orders, and squads will stop following orders if they have a CO that doesn't do their job.

We need to correct this problem on all fronts. I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is the squad leaders and squad members assigning themselves their own orders and/or going rogue when they have assigned objectives. From there, we can look at CO's that pay more attention to themselves than their responsibilities as a CO.

__________________
Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Santa

A few weekends ago i was in a squad led by a TGer (forgot his name, but wouldnt mention it if i remembered) and he told our squad he was going to disobey orders of defense at the hotel in sharqi, and instead attack the tv station. I knew it was against rules to disobey co orders. Since i hadnt yet had my TG tag i felt awkward telling a tger that it was against the rules, so i just said that it was suicide to go to the tv station. Alas he went on with the attack, we were killed easily and lost the hotel as well. I left the squad afterward because i hate when squad leaders, even if they dont like the order, go and do their own attack.

Shiner if i was your squad leader id have actually been happy and commended ya for doing that. If your left behind thats a shame but if you can help the rest of your team while on your way to the SLs waypoint, awesome. Least thats how i view it.

One more point, ive seen a lot more server rules being violated even on the password nights. Bombing UCBs, killing planes as they take off (that is against the rules correct?), and like yall have mentioned disobeying COs. I think i remember reading somewhere on this website that its a one week ban for any offense to the rules on a pw night, but seems like people are just being kicked and come right back to annoy the rule abbiding people.

Dark Viper

Ok I was the squad leader of squad 4 and I'm sorry about the confusion so here is what happened. We didn't have a CO when the game started so I organized the squad into an armor column to get across the river. On our 3rd attempt we neutralized the far east flag. We all died and were on our way to try and get across the river again. This is where you came in as CO and you gave me an attack order to attack the far east flag where we already had our waypoint so I said we would try our best to get it again. Now I was trying to create a decoy so I could get across as SL but Legato was in the APC and made it across the river crossing and the rest of the squad jumped out to swim around cause I did not think that the APC would survive. But he made it and the rest of the squad died in the water. At that point I said to make Legato SL so we would spawn on him. I left as SL but Legato didn't become it, I forgot who became SL. So I got in an APC and drove across the river and was at the back flag when I got kicked. I did not recive any new orders from our new SL so I thought we were still attacking the east flags so I could see how I guess you thought I was still SL and was not following orders. Sorry for the confusion.

Apophis

I was the acting CO from the very beginning of Karkand. There was no CO at the beginning of the map previous to Karkand, but Karkand did in fact have a CO during the entire duration of the map.

__________________
Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Legato895

ok, im starting to remember what was going on. i think if i remember correctly, that it was the fact that we were SO CLOSE to achieving the ULTIMATE in that map by taking the opposite side of the map that we got caught up. we did try a lot of "i made it so ill become squad leader so you can spawn on me" stuff. if its any excuse, it was our primal instinct to break the stalemate that got everybody confused.

__________________
|TG-Irr|Legato

Apophis

Well, that's the problem, it wasn't a really a stalemate, but a strategic decision to switch the USMC to a defensive position. I even laid this out on VoIP to the SLs when I began setting up that defensive line. By holding our entrenched defensive positions we were causing a MASSIVE ticket bleed by the MEC team. They were losing tickets left and right in an effort to get across the river.

__________________
Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Apophis

This was also very poor form as it ended up leaving the CO with a "pot luck SL" for your squad and apparently not a single SL that could be relied on to do the job they were assigned.

__________________
Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

Dark Viper

Well before our 4th attempt I never recieved an order or heard you on the VoIP. Maybe it was a glitch or something but I never heard anybody but my squad or saw your name showing up as talking. So I thought you had just become commander.

John CANavar

dont take me wrong Dark Viper but because you mentioned it I felt a need to express my opinion on this particular matter. I think this should not be done on TG servers. It is an exploitation of squad system and I didnt realize our squad was doing it that day...

Legato895

today my willingness to listen to the CO was tested to its utmost. we were playing the peninsula and i mean, this CO was so bad... we were MEC and his ONLY goal was to take and hold the middle construction site. we had mutiny attempt after attempt to no avail and he was cussing and swearing at squads that couldn't hold the middle long enough. you've played the map, the construction site is a DEATH ZONE FROM HELL. my squad and i had taken the radio tower before he started telling every squad to attack the middle and i was told to move to the middle and abandon defense. at this time we had NO other spawn points other than our UCB's and the tower. he told me that "theres no point holding the radio building" and that "any commander knows that to win you need to hold the middle"

i swear, if we hadn't won by 34 around that time, i don't know what i would have done.

i know there are many many many reasons to obey the CO, but this was ridiculous. i guess i must have hit a bad day, but i've had no pleasurable experiences in any of the games i was on today. it felt like i was fighting an uphill battle to do anything. sorry for more negatives.

__________________
|TG-Irr|Legato

Levi

Sadly having a crappy commander just sucks. But it's better to lose doing what your commander ordered than win going rogue in my opinion. In fact, that's the TG opinion. I know that most commanders, new and experienced, consider their own fault if we lose, much more so than winning in which case the praise is usually all on the squad. I've commanded and felt like "if only this squad could do it's dang job!" that things would have been fine. But then I have to sit back, take stock and ask the not so able squad to fill a less important role while a more capable squad takes their place. The CO has to be responsive and adaptive in order to win. On the other hand, if your squads won't communicate with you, or listen to your orders, or try to obey them to the utmost, then it's hard to take the blame for that loss. I commanded Karkand one night because we didn't have a commander (I have a futzy mic and so try not to be SL or CO usually) and I had one squad who couldn't defend the NW flag and one squad (squad 2-oh how I hated thee) who wouldn't follow orders at all. Finally we push the MEC all the way across the river and instead of helping defend the river or chase down sneaky MEC who sneak through the lines, squad 2 decides that they're going to go over and cap MEC bases across the river. By themselves, with no support, and against direct orders to guard the shallow river crossing. The squad leader probably though I was an idiot for not pushing over there while we had the advantage, and is welcome to his opinion, but my strategic decision had been made and he blatantly violated orders because he thought I was wrong. I may have been wrong, but in TG you do not go against the orders of your CO. It's just not done. My room-mate was using the laptop (the TS machine) so I wasn't able to get him kicked, and ended up just resigning and joining one of the better squads. Dealing with players not following orders is atrocious, even more so on a PW night.

IronClaw247

Hi

There is a lot of food for thought in this thread and could`nt agree more.

Wulfyn

Just a couple of quick points:

If a squad is not good enough to perform objectives then there is no need to try and belittle them. Squads not following orders is frustrating, but you are not encouraging people to listen to you by swearing at them or telling them they are rubbish.


Not following orders just creates an atmosphere of unco-operative play. How do you expect CO's to become good at what they do if all they have to practice with is repeatedly asking you to follow orders? It is no fun to argue with people for an hour.


Squad Leaders should always be communicating with their squad and the CO. I don't mean talking all the time, but relaying information. If the CO tells the SL's of the overall mission plan (ie defend the West River Bank of Karkand, which I did clearly hear Apophis state), then this should be relayed. Similarly if new people join your squad you should give them a rough overview of what your plans are so they can perform it.


Individual initiative should not only be allowed, but rewarded. By all means do check with your SL before running off, but playing as a team does not always mean walking hand in hand. I have asked pairs of guys to go off and do things away from the main team, and also interpreted orders. Last night on Sharqi my squad was tasked with holding the western most normal flag as MEC. The one to our right started to fall so I sent 4 of my 6 guys up to assist Beatnik's squad in defending it, whilst 2 of us stayed back in case we needed to get back quickly. We regained the flag, and my squad fell back to our initial position. This is good teamwork.


Tempus is not lying. The admins really really are taking a zero-tolerance view on people breaking server rules, especially on passworded nights where everyone has stated that they know the rules and will play by them. This definitely includes teamplay. Get on TS. If this is not a possibility then failing that get to know the admin list, a lot of us play in the SL/CO position and are very easy to communicate with in game if you see us on.

__________________