Sleeper, what you’re learning now are the things reaper had to learn the hard way. Few TG SLs have understood this idea and fewer still have applied it properly.

Let’s break down the facts:
- PAC SL assaulting Cerbere
- Made several buggy rushes, each failed
- Got revived 3 times during the entire round

Essentially, your squad was a mess and you accomplished nothing. The problem is that you expected too much of your squad members – the buggy rush objectives were too difficult for them. If you were revived 3 times during the round, your tactics were too hard for your medics – they weren’t skilled and experienced enough.

You should have realized that your squad doesn’t have the horsepower to pull off the usual TG blitzkrieg tactics and you should have downshifted your expectations. You should have set easier objectives and expected much less of your SMs. You should have stayed back, safely, to provide a spawn point, and supported other squads in large, slow pushes that would take bleed off, albeit in a very time and ticket costly way.

The problem here is that you weren’t used to playing with a squad of newbies and it was difficult for you to change your expectations from “usual TG butt kicking” to “let’s take on something easier – let’s take it slow and let’s praise people when they do simple things like revives correctly. Let’s do damage control.”

Shifting expectations in such a dramatic fashion is pretty difficult. You’ll hear a lot of people scoffing at this – “surely it can’t be that difficult to realize your squad is a bit on the weak side – know what you’re working with and set objectives accordingly.”

It’s not easy. As an experienced squad leader, I find this to be the hardest aspect of leading on TG. I run open squads like you do, Sleeper, and this is a prime problem for us. Other SLs lock squads and invite competent people – we throw the dice for the good or the bad at each round start.

I can count on my left hand the number of skilled, experienced SLs who have successfully adapted from:
“I expect my SMs to revive me, I expect to be alive at all cost, I expect my SMs to revive the squad, I expect my SMs to hold spawn, I expect my SMs to cover me, I expect my SMs to spawn in when asked – without instruction”
to
“I’m working with some very inexperienced people. I can’t rush flags because my medics won’t know to cover me when it’s important. I can’t take the front seat, and we can’t be the meat and potatoes of this team. I can’t keep a great squad kill/death ratio because most people here are newbies. I need to take it easy, be patient, and teach them things. Instruct them, and take them close to action – show them teamwork and let them learn things. Expecting them to perform much better is useless and will make them hate me – I need to drop my expectations and be happy when they catch a revive. I need to stay back and be a spawn point. I’m not going to see a lot of action, but I will let my SMs have fun and I’ll try to do my best for the team. It’s obvious we won’t take a flag, but let’s try and do damage control – let’s go for revives, let’s support other squads.”

That kind of a downshift in expectations is difficult and ugly. A lot of people can’t do that downshift – they can’t fun with newbies. A lot of people, a lot of TG people, define fun as kicking ass in a skilled squad of TGers. Not a lot of TG people define fun as having fun in a squad of newbies.

The sad truth is, the more experienced as players we get, the harder it is to work with newbies – the harder it is to be humble and patient and praise them for accomplishments that seem tiny and insignificant in comparison to our usual play.

It’s hard to take your expectations down from “I’m going to be the man 32 people on the other team are hunting down” to “I’m going to be the guy who sees the least action in this squad but I’m going to make sure the other five newbies have fun and learn something.”

I truly believe that your only mistake in this round, Sleeper, was not properly shifting down your expectations. You tried five buggy rushes because you expected that it would work with the players in your squad. What you didn’t realize is that the players in your squad weren’t experienced and that you’ve set unrealistic expectations for them. I’ve done the same, recently no less, and I sympathize with you. I get very used to playing with the TG regulars. I get used to not dying. I just don’t speak when I’m dead because there’s no use – I’ll be up before I finish asking for a medic. That’s what I’m used to, that’s what I’m expecting. I reach a mental block when I die in a buggy rush and I’m not immediately revived – it boggles me at first, and then it just frustrates me. It takes a lot of self-control not to blow up – simple things like this shouldn’t be difficult. It takes an extra bit of effort to calm down, and realize you are not working with extremely skilled people. It takes a lot of humbleness and patience to shift your expectations from “fast and furious assault squad” to “damage control squad.” It takes maturity and humbleness to realize that the things you take for granted – keeping the SL alive, SMs holding spawn, shooting accurately, and reviving properly – these things are just foreign to newbies. They need to be taught these things and you have to be patient with them. You have to expect less of them, and praise them when they do simple things right.

It’s something to think about as a squad leader – know who you’re working with, know what you can do with them, and lead accordingly. Expecting risky tactics to work with newbie squad members is going to be fruitless and frustrating. You're going to get frustrated that things aren't working out as usual, and your SMs will get frustrated because the squad will be dead most of the time. And there comes the worst aspect of unrealistic expectations: your SMs aren't going to have fun, and they will lash out at you, like Allectus did here. It doesn't matter that the logic and tactics of his complaint aren't valid -- he has a valid point. He didn't have fun, and it's because you set unrealistic expectations for him and the other SMs.

I’ll leave it at that. Take a moment and figure out who you’re working with – assess the general skill level of your squad members. Then, set your expectations and objectives accordingly. That may mean aiming for smaller things, but if it’s so, let it be so. Learn to have fun with newbies.