Zhohar

TG is a bastion of communication and teamwork but I feel this is a specific area we need to improve upon.

When reporting hostile enemy contacts, troop movements, or generally any point of interest on the map, make sure you give the point's position in terms of a well-known and nearby landmark -- not arbitrary coordinates like the compass directions.

The two conflicting ideas here are:
1. Saying "Several contacts North of the flag," and
2. Saying "Several contacts toward the Ruins flag"

I'm well aware that neither of those two are exemplary contact reports, but I choose them to illustrate this specific point.
"North" is an IDEA. Whatever you may think, North is an idea that is foreign to BF2142, and it requires thinking.
"Ruins flag" is a PICTURE. Everyone with even preliminary experience knows the PICTURE of the map, and the fastest way to get to the Ruins flag from wherever they are.

I'm nitpicking because this makes a very noticeable difference in communication, and communication is 50% of the battle. Giving people IDEAS over VOIP makes them THINK and this makes your squad's response SLOWER. People understand pictures MUCH FASTER than ideas so you should take care in phrasing your contact reports as pictures and not ideas.

I choose to focus on this specific point -- the direction of the contact -- because contact reports are so widely used. If all of TG can improve this tiny aspect of communication, phrasing contact reports in terms of what the contacts are near or toward, I believe we would have better teamwork, squad cohesion, and lower death counts.

Practically, this is what you need to think about:
Look for large, easily identifiable landmarks on the map.
The easiest to consider are the flag names. Instead of saying "Contacts East", speak "Contacts toward the Comm Tower flag"
Next would be objects that the squad has been staying close to: "Contacts toward the flag" if you've been at a single flag for the last few minutes.
Get creative: use objects that you believe a lot of people can recognize "Contacts on the boat" and "Contacts on the building above the boat, firing rockets at us."

The bottom line is, contact reports increase the situational awareness of the entire squad, leading to better responses and less deaths: doing them right is the difference between life and death. This small change -- giving reports in terms of landmarks and not arbitrary compass directions or such ("to our left" comes to mind) -- will greatly improve everyone's game.

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Skill4Lif3

Thanks for the info Zhohar. I always get confused when someone calls out "infantry NW" and I have no clue what NW is from their perspective. Less thought, more shooting please

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nuckj

I totally agree with Zhohar. However, sometimes directions are necessary. Like in defending a spot like command center where you have to know which way the enemy is breaking. But if you do give a direction you MUST give a landmark. "Contact's northwest" is too vague. You have to say "Contact's northwest of the burning wreckage moving toward the flag."

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9th MID | 2142 Profile | New to TG?

sc1ence

I am in disagreement with the original post. The valuable part of Zo's post is to to know landmarks. But landmarks are not enough. You NEED compass directions. Players need to increase their situational awareness and communication skills so that you know where north south east and west are. It takes practice, but after you get the hang of it, enemy locations can be communicated with much more precision and less unnecessary verbage.

Proper contact report: 3 infantry approaching ruins flag from the southwest. Thier SL has otus up. I am engaging.

Sloppy contact report: several infantry moving towards ruins.

Dont be sloppy. It hurts your squad and team. Compass directions are not arbitrary. They are a means to communicate location with precision, clarity, and speed. Keep working on those contact reports - practice makes perfect.

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mentholated

I'd have to agree with science on this one. It really isn't that difficult to look at the minimap and figure out which direction is north. I usually look at the whole map in the beginning of the round and establish a mental reference of my position on the map regardless of where I am, at all times. I don't understand the logic in using arbitrary words to determine location when north is north and south is south, at least until the poles reverse, but even then, north will still be north. In a game, this will never happen. North will still be north anyway. By the time you mouth the words "around ruins flag" the enemy will already be gone. If you say north, everyone knows what direction the threat is. If they don't, they ought to reestablish their spatial awareness.

Icehawk217

Im with sc1ence on this. I find that it takes longer for me to think of a well known land mark in certain situations. Some are simple, such as Tunis, and people attacking Junkyard from across the barge. Thats simple, but in many places there aren't as many easy landmarks. In those spots the directions are very useful.

Also, in the original post, Zhohar says that saying people are coming from a certain flag is better than a direction. However, it does not say at all which entry point they are using, or how far they are. The compass direction would change depending on how close they are to the flag they are attacking.

But overall, the idea that people need clearer reports is definitely true.

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"Give a man a match and he'll be warm for a minute. Light the man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life"

MDFubar

I also agree with Sc1ence, There is a compass on your mini-map. Study it on each map, it will become habit. You perception of north is the same as eveyone else's Nuckj, just like a compass in your hand. North is north.
I will mess up calling out positions and direction somtimes, but it's my own fault. I always use the compass directions and it seems to work well.
Still a great post Z, good to bring this up.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- General George Patton Jr

Zhohar

I disagree. The compass directions are much less precise than the ingame landmarks. "North" could mean any number of several things in a given situation.

I understand and agree with you that contact reports ought to be brief, clear and precise, and using compass directions does make the contact reports shorter. The problem is that such reports are more ambiguous and take more time to be processed by the squad. The simple fact is that a squad mate will respond faster to Ruins Flag than North because he has learned where the Ruins Flag is and has had little use for compass directions ingame. Yes, compass directions are a common denominator amongst people of all skill and experience but they are rarely, if ever, used in other ingame contexts. Hence, an average player is less familiar with them and will take longer to process the information.

As well, I'd like to mention that "sloppy" is not a property of either of those two models: sloppy contact reports are a result of inferior communication skills, regardless of what method is used to give the contacts' direction. You can be equally sloppy with compass directions as with landmark directions.

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sc1ence

Not if "north" is given with respect to a landmark. When no landmark is given, it is assumed that the person receiving the contact report is the landmark.
This is untrue if people put in the time to learn how to use the compass on the minimap.
This is not fact. Nearly all of the accomplished players I know use the compass with landmark system. Again, when no landmark is given, the landmark is the squad or the person the contact report was given to.
Not sure you realize this, but nearly everyone I squad with uses the compass extensively. The SL uses them to issue orders, and the squadmates use them to issue contact reports. We like to take average players and turn them into TG guys. To do that required discipline and effort. We play this in near simulation. We want to remain faithful to the game world. This game world clearly has a compass and we should use it.
I don't think an argument on the semantics of sloppy is going to help much here. Not reporting compass directions or understanding them when they are given to you is not playing the game the TG way.


Way back in the day we ran training drills to focus on compass work. I think it may be time to have a bit more training in this regard. Here is how to practice it: have a SL place random waypoint markers on a map and then the person that is training will have to give a contact report using compass and landmarks. It took doing this for about 10 to 15 minutes for most of the guys we trained this way before they got proficient. A great time to practice this drill is when you are seeding our server

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Pfeil22

Compass directions, please. Follow the report up with a spot using the Commo Rose and nothing should get past your squad. The verbal queue lets someone know to pay attention to a certain direction and the spot places the target on the mini-map for everyone.

Skill4Lif3

I think the problem we are trying to address is people saying "contacts north" which could mean north of that person or north according to the map. Not everyone has the time to pull up their map and see what direction they are referring to. Comma rose-ing contacts afterwards/before is necessary and landmarks in the immediate environment would help.

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Specterr

I think part of the problem is if people have rotating mini map enabled they will call out north to them, from their own mini map which is dependant on which way they are facing, which is pretty confusing if your not pointing the same way as them.

If you use the compass at the top of your mini map to call out the direction it's pretty straight forward and once you get comfortable glancing up at the compass it doesn't take any time.

When I make my contact reports I generally use a landmark if they are in close proximity to one, or a direction if they are not. Ideally what you do is paint the object with a spot and say "three incomming north, they are painted" so everyone can just look at the red dots on the mini map to get an exact location of them.

P.Drona

Gotta go with sc1ence on this one.

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nuckj

This is a true statement but has no bearing on the discussion. Yes north is north (except maybe at the north pole and the bermuda triangle). But when giving the location of an enemy in game you can do better than just "contact north". The entire enemy team may very well be north of your squad. By giving more detail, including a landmark and direction of travel, you are essentially pointing out the enemy(s) to your squad.

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9th MID | 2142 Profile | New to TG?

MDFubar

Agreed, I must have misunderstood your post. The way I read it was that you thought it varied according to how you faced. Apologies.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- General George Patton Jr