Pre-emtive "Stacked Teams" Thread

[JMJ]

Originally Posted by perry

Now now, in Viper's defense, he's been much "better" about that recently. Sure, he can completely dominate a map when he wants to, but he understands that we don't have fun when he does that map after map. Even on Zatar the other night when he went something like 50-0, he was "letting" me fly around by not constantly shooting me down (maybe shooting fish in a barrel gets boring?) and get my 2 or 3 kills. Join a jet squad on a map with a bomber, and he'll often refuse to fly.. Or when you make him fly, he'll intentionally put the jet in to a tree and blame it on lag.

And he does share the love.. Saturday night I think it was, he racked up a hefty amount of points on the oilfields for China, then switched to USMC for Zatar the following map. Both sides got to feel the bombs hitting their noses.

I was just using him as a reference. I have pesonally seen him on the ground quite a bit lately, even on air maps. You can't fault someone for being good, they just need to be "good" opposite other "good" pilots to even things out.

Look, I understand that you guys can't see what the admins can see when it comes to the points per vehicle. I posted that to give you a reference of the complete slaughter last night. I didn't see that issue on ground maps like Karkand. If you are a good pilot/bomber and you are running the map unopposed, chances are the other team has either no pilots or below (TG) average pilots. If you're getting shot down every 2nd or 3rd bombing run, then maybe the other team has good pilots. The MEC guys on Oman went unopposed last night, it was clearly evident by their score and lack of deaths.

[munchkin]

Originally Posted by perry

Now now, in Viper's defense, he's been much "better" about that recently. Sure, he can completely dominate a map when he wants to, but he understands that we don't have fun when he does that map after map. Even on Zatar the other night when he went something like 50-0, he was "letting" me fly around by not constantly shooting me down (maybe shooting fish in a barrel gets boring?) and get my 2 or 3 kills. Join a jet squad on a map with a bomber, and he'll often refuse to fly.. Or when you make him fly, he'll intentionally put the jet in to a tree and blame it on lag.

And he does share the love.. Saturday night I think it was, he racked up a hefty amount of points on the oilfields for China, then switched to USMC for Zatar the following map. Both sides got to feel the bombs hitting their noses.

Viper's a great guy, and it's kind of him to do that. I've started jumping in a plane the moment I see him flying - hoping to pick up a few pointers, or learn something from crashing + burning. I think I already have..

[Dark Viper]

I can't tell if I'm being bashed in this thread for being too good or being praised for being too "good".

I was playing AA at the time of Oman, you could have came and got me. "Dark Viper help us pwease!"

I would have kept the chopper and bomber down permanently. The mig, well it depends on who was flying it.

[JMJ]

Originally Posted by Dark Viper

I can't tell if I'm being bashed in this thread for being too good or being praised for being too "good".

I was playing AA at the time of Oman, you could have came and got me. "Dark Viper help us pwease!"

I would have kept the chopper and bomber down permanently. The mig, well it depends on who was flying it.

You're not being bashed, it's nice to see you on the ground when you could turn the map otherwise.

And I'll remember that next time we're getting smoked, I'll check the AA TS channel for you

[ScratchMonkey]

I prefer the Craphawk. It has good climb characteristics, so I can shoot up high over the map as SL and rain paras on flags.

If I'm I'm on foot and see a chopper of any kind whoring the team, I switch to support, find an out of the way spot, and start pouring fire into the bird. If enough of us do that, it goes down, or at least away. And people on the ground at a distance are much more maneuverable and much harder to spot and take out than a vehicle.

I've also tried to be an engineer on board but the repair rate is pretty slow after the patch. It's just not worth it. Maybe it's useful if you've got 3 wrenches going.

[BaneII]

This weekend had an interesting occurrence. Evidently if you look at Deveran's and my AAR, OpFor dominated Friday thru Sunday at nite. I know my side only lost one map each nite I played and it looks about the same for Deveran. Coincidence I would say rather than stacking since we dont run with the same crowd. The only reason I bring this up is that I believe there are many factors for one side or the other to win. My ego isnt that big to believe that my squad is the only reason my team wins. And I have fought against the Leeth and dont consider them to be unsurmountable. In other words, just because they are on the opposing side doesnt mean we are going to lose.

I've noticed in many cases a side will lose mainly because of the CO. Ever notice the times your side is just rolling along doing great and then everything goes downhill when the CO comes on board. Since TG enforces the CO authority, the squad leaders will obey the commands given. While morally right, it isnt always tactically right. Sometimes you will get a bad string of COs.

To me, team stacking implies that you can just look at the roster and tell which side will win. Unless it is mostly non-TGers, I find this difficult. There are a lot of players and I really dont know the skills of the majority of them. If this was possible, then what would be the use of in-house scrims? All we would have to do is look at who signed up on each side and nominate the winner. I still say there are too many permutations to decide the outcome before the game is played. Hindsight is 20/20.

As for the squad leaders being a factor, yes, I consider them important. However they can be rendered impotent by a commander. But the thing about the squad leaders is that I can only see them for my side. While I can guess at who is squad leading on the opposing side, I cant actually see how their squads are configured. If I could, I may be able to say "yeah, that's some tough opposition." Since I dont have that information, I cant readily accuse them of team stacking or vice versa. Truthfully, I dont have any real information on the effectiveness of the squads on my own side much less the other team. So win or lose, I cant really pinpoint what exactly made that happen. Were our sqauds terrible, squads didnt listen to the commander, squads followed the bad commander's orders, etc. I only know what my squad did. The scoreboard only tells a small part of the story.

The skill of pilots have been noted as an unbalancing factor. Since this skillset is small, it is easier to recognize the skilled pilots (Viper, Lekdevil, Brittle, Duke, etc.). While I believe the air assets to be overpowered and the air defense underpowered, it is still possible on most maps to overcome it. Anyone who has been in my squad knows how I operate to compensate for the enemy's air superiority. This is something I believe a good squad leader needs to learn. While I find the total enemy air superiority extremely distateful, it can be compensated for on the ground.

And to finish it off, the helicopter issue. In the TG vs TG scrim, the blackhawk was used as a gunship stationed over the Hill and our MEC helicopter was taken from our side. I find no fault in this. One, I did not take into account USMC using the blackhawk as a platform to guard a flag. Two, our helo pilot had left and USMC grabbed it when they took caputured that flag. All fairplay. Yes, I believe the blackhawk is overpowered. Why a transport helo has unlimited (armor piercing) ammo and the tanks and APCs dont is a mystery to me, especially since the helo has a reload station and the armor doesnt. But since no one complained in the scrim, I dont see why the complaint now.

.02

[FPS_Douglas]

I agree that the Blackhawk is powerful, but it can be defeated by focused fire of machine guns and rockets. Unfortunately, if the ground fighting is very hot, this is not possible. It's a good idea to limit the BH ammo I think.

On a side note, if you say "blackhawk" really fast it sounds like something naughty.

[SgtDuke]

Originally Posted by FPS_Douglas

It's a good idea to limit the BH ammo I think.

I agree. In fact, that's one of the changes in the next version of Tactical Mod.

[FPS_Douglas]

Nice!