Pick Up Games (PUGs)

[Bananas]

Should rename these to community gatherings, community games, large games. These aren't pugs. Pugs imply semi-competitive. At 20 players it was already borderline terrible. With increased size and very lax rules/common sense, they are just public games.

People leaving mid and joining mid game, random stuff being said on teamspeak, very little communication, hardly anyone knowing what is going on before it starts. Some people thought the game had started during "warmup" and then we just change map and go with little warning.

If these aim to be at all competitive, they are completely missing the mark.

[Canucck]

There's so many people, we could make several teams (captains or random) and have an 8v8 round robin or something

[yosh56]

... Our side was slightly more organized after I joined. Admittedly it was still a cluster with this many people. Hell, I said it last week to just keep it 40/40.

[DoctorB0NG]

Next week will be 2 12v12 servers.

[Xtractor]

Sad to say ..was the worst PUG for me ..Sometime too much people talk at the same time and we dont get the Plan cleary ..when there is one .

[Quinc3y]

Actually I don't think it was that bad or chaotic. My team maybe lacked one leader, but we still got a few rushes going and were defending well on all maps.

What I didn't like were the low vehicle limits. Those made it impossible to rush with vehicles and limited the tactics.

Short summary of the games:

Whiteout

Nod defends its harvester and destroys enemy's, Nod gets arties, game over.

Volcano

Odd game. GDI loses PP early (I'm not sure how?), but Nod can't do anything more than that and is gradually falling behind in points for the rest of the game. Both teams try rocket/gunner rushing and other kinds of inf rushes, but nothing works. At the very end of the game Nod PP goes down to vehicle mass, but that doesn't matter since Nod is far behind in points anyway. GDI win on time.

XMountain

After some back-and-forth vehicle pushing in the first minutes, Nod manages to gain control of the field and silo area, starts the usual Arty -> WF spam and gains a big point lead. With 6 minutes to go, a sneaky hotty destroys HoN and the game goes intense. GDI pushes Nod to defense, tries med rushing and mobius rushing, but the Nod camp is real. Nod point advantage goes down from ~3,5k to below 2k in the final minutes, but we still win.

Complex

No buildings are destroyed, but Nod win on points comfortably. Really not much to say about this game, it wasn't interesting. I think we didn't have enough meds to dominate the field, but then again - the vehicle limit was only 8 and we were maxed out almost all the time... perhaps with the limit being 14, the game would have been different.

Team Bananas/Madkill win 3-1 and Nod wins 3 out of 4 games. Most games end on time, not many destroyed buildings, no memorable rushes or actions. Meh.

[Agent]

This definitely wasn't a particularly well coordinated PUG in terms of team-play. Several rushes were still organized, but overall it was overly difficult to coordinate things and people ended up playing closer to that of a standard pub game. This wouldn't be too difficult to remedy -- just make sure there's at least one decent team captain that can coordinate their team, and give them priority speaker so that they're easier to hear and understand. This way, there's a singular and clear action to take, and it's easier to hear and understand what to do.

There's also certain options available in large player-count games such as these, like organizing split rushes (one group pushes tanks through the vehicle path while a Mobius or Gunner group pushes through infantry path), which weren't really effectively utilized too much during the games. Seeing more proper strategy would be greatly beneficial, but would absolutely require a high level of coordination, which in turns requires an exceptional team captain and players who are willing to listen.

[Xtractor]

(PUG 09-01-2016) 14:53 HD Video

I will have to play with my game setting I guest, Bcoz graphic is much more darker (like 2 much Saturation)

and will have to fix my sounds that cover Teamspeak chat

Edited January 10, 2016 by Guest

[Idiotas]

This definitely wasn't a particularly well coordinated PUG in terms of team-play. Several rushes were still organized, but overall it was overly difficult to coordinate things and people ended up playing closer to that of a standard pub game. This wouldn't be too difficult to remedy -- just make sure there's at least one decent team captain that can coordinate their team, and give them priority speaker so that they're easier to hear and understand. This way, there's a singular and clear action to take, and it's easier to hear and understand what to do.

There's also certain options available in large player-count games such as these, like organizing split rushes (one group pushes tanks through the vehicle path while a Mobius or Gunner group pushes through infantry path), which weren't really effectively utilized too much during the games. Seeing more proper strategy would be greatly beneficial, but would absolutely require a high level of coordination, which in turns requires an exceptional team captain and players who are willing to listen.

Thing is.. people don't want to listen and priority speaker won't really help (we tried that before and was really annoying, couldn't hear if rushes were called out. I did like 3 times but wasn't heard because of priority speaker).

The problem lies to the players themselves. Bananas was our team captain, but couldn't really organize stuff because the other 20+ players had their own ideas and rushes to do.

People didn't listen for shit. It was said many times to not to talk bs and they didn't listen. Same for calling out rushes, "call out rushes and be specific". No one did that.."MENDOZA RUSHHH" "ApC Rushhhh!" Ect. Never said where they were coming from. Did got a few "specific" ones zzz. Like " where do you think it is?" While volcano has like 4 entrances and also "mendoza rush coming!" " where?" " volcano".

It was so terrible. Nothing was competitive at all.

[Ryz]

Hmm I liked it, but indeed the organisation could have been better (also with half our team typing instead of using TS).

With more organization we could have launched combined attacks like Minji mentioned, so not just get unit A, move to place B and strike thing C, but more like squad A has this objective and squad B has that objective. Winning doesn't start with simply attacking a building, it starts with surprising the enemy. On Whiteout we called for an MRLS rush and 'only 3 ppl came' and they managed to get the HON down to 1/3rd perma damage. It works so much better if you strike together and don't do the obvious thing (camp the hill for example).

Next week another 20vs20 normal PUG?

[Xtractor]

There is several reasons things turn out like it did imo.

First its a bit normal has we arent use to our team players.

There is some guys that talk very low ,barely understandable.

Some guys talk very Clear like DcBong ,and he repeat the actions to take often(+1).

I Think we should have a Captain and a sub Captain.

Guys in "waiting for the map begin" should suggest a plan if the leaders dont know then when the game start its should be mostly be capt and sub capt calling for actions .

With a call when a decision is made like Bong usualy say : "OK guys here what we will do.. "

None important call from the team should be said in the team typing .And try not to talk all at the same time when something is important going on .

[Idiotas]

There is several reasons things turn out like it did imo.

First its a bit normal has we arent use to our team players.

Still, people should work together used or not. It's not that hard to follow orders from the team captain, but apparently for some it is.

There is some guys that talk very low ,barely understandable

.

Ask them to speak louder or type in team chat.

I Think we should have a Captain and a sub Captain.

Guys in "waiting for the map begin" should suggest a plan if the leaders dont know then when the game start its should be mostly be capt and sub capt calling for actions

.

Most people don't listen. When the capt has an idea while the others have other ideas, it will be ignored. I've playef almost every pug (expect last months due work) and i see that every time.

None important call from the team should be said in the team typing .And try not to talk all at the same time when something is important going on.

And that is what most renx players aren't able to do.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm still for the black list idea. People never learn.

Everyone that played the pugs alot knows not to change their name ingame. Everytime 3-6 people change their name when they join. At this pug it's said many times. But people like husqar changed it ever match except the last one.

People were warned to not talk bs and non related stuff. Most people didn't listent. There should be consequences like not to play the pugs for 2 weeks or so.

[SMayhew]

A bit of a mess, it was good fun, but definitely not the best PUG I've been in. Despite it was fun last week I think having loads of people in didn't help, sort of counterproductive with a PUG.

I liked the suggestion of two separate servers, less people in each, may make things more co-ordinated.

[testman]

I would suggest we stop using word "captain" like we are sailors or some sports team, and instead start using the word "commander", since we are part of Command & Conquer community after all.

[Ryz]

A 'real' commander is a good idea

Besides this PUG gave some more insight in the infantery changes. First time we tried a patch rush for example, would have never occurred to me before this patch!

[RoundShades]

Everyone that played the pugs alot knows not to change their name ingame. Everytime 3-6 people change their name when they join. At this pug it's said many times. But people like husqar changed it ever match except the last one.

People were warned to not talk bs and non related stuff. Most people didn't listent. There should be consequences like not to play the pugs for 2 weeks or so.

I did it last time. To be honest, I did it as a joke, changed mine back, and I make sure what team I am on anyway.

It makes more sense, to tell people, and if you find them on the wrong team after the fact, simply kick them.

But yes, they are warned that it screws with IRCBot automated team switching, it tries to switch the name of the player it "remembered" and if your name is different then it doesn't switch properly. That costs us more time setting up than it even really should, because stupid people aren't going to listen the first or fifth time so there is no point taking 8 minutes explaining not to switch names in-game.

Here is another productive idea. Have the IRC bot, run a script, that skims the game-output chat, for the words "has changed his name to", and have it kick the text on the end of that little text. BAM. Auto-kicker for anyone that tries it. Make that mofo have to rejoin, and he damn sure isn't changing his name come hell or high water unless he does it through steam or at the launcher.

-------------------------------------------------------

But more importantly, I think it will be good to have 2 servers evenly divided, that will cut down on "mass conversation" as well as improve gameplay as it is neigh impossible to do anything when you have to get through 1 person every 5 meters of square map. I was a Mobius spy on Volcano, and despite putting up a good act "firing at nod tanks" and backpedalling to base, I ran into like 6 people and it only took 1 (chuck) to notice me. If it were less crowded, I could blame it on "chuck being good" (he is), but as crowded as it was, it was mere statistics that I had no chance getting by 6 people meandering around the side of the Barracks for not much reason.

[yosh56]

Think it's about time to start making that "isCompetitive" value in the configuration files actually do something...like refuse name changes, manual team switching, and probably a host of other things.

[DoctorB0NG]

Think it's about time to start making that "isCompetitive" value in the configuration files actually do something...like refuse name changes, manual team switching, and probably a host of other things.

I like dis.

[Agent]

Sounds like an awesome idea tbh

[djlaptop]

Are the PUG's always in this same time window? I work every Saturday from 10am-6pm PST (1800-0200 GMT) and have never been able to participate.

[Ryz]

Are the PUG's always in this same time window? I work every Saturday from 10am-6pm PST (1800-0200 GMT) and have never been able to participate.

Yup they are, unfortunately for you... Maybe, if they keep on growing and more people can manage the players there can be a new date in the future, but this timeslot looks to be the best right now.

[kenz3001]

[RoundShades]

Public Service Announcement: To Embed a Youtube Video on the Forums Via BBCode, use:

[Youtube]kxMqYQVE6Sc[/Youtube]
...where "kxMqYQVE6Sc" is the ending jibberish on your video URL.

I know Kenz3001 knows, but LavaDragon asked I believe.

[yosh56]

Roll call. Also, let's not have a repeat of last week...please.

[kenz3001]

moar peeps

[Ryz]

You showed up waay to late last week Yosh, but I am looking forward to the next one!

[LavaDr4gon]

Public Service Announcement: To Embed a Youtube Video on the Forums Via BBCode, use:

[Youtube]kxMqYQVE6Sc[/Youtube]
...where "kxMqYQVE6Sc" is the ending jibberish on your video URL.

I know Kenz3001 knows, but LavaDragon asked I believe.

I never asked... But its nice to know how now. However, I like to place links so I can keep all the videos in the same post.

For the PUG, are we attempting over 40 players, 40 players max, or splitting into two servers?

[RoundShades]

For the PUG, are we attempting over 40 players, 40 players max, or splitting into two servers?

Depends on turn-out. If over 48 players, we can split them into 12v12 in 2 servers. The less players, the more open a target is to offense.

To be honest, we would probably improve the entire game, if we just made the player cap of every server 32 or 28, and just had more servers open simultaneously.

Also, with any luck, a high school friend of mine and one of my roommates may get on this PUG. Not sure if this game is their flavor, but they have both done shooters and will have played a couple of rounds by then. They will probably not be the strongest players, but they should be all aboard massing in group attacks.

[kenz3001]

[Ska-Ara]

just want to share my experience in my first PUG Today.

i fought on 4 fights .. we lost 3 and "won" one.

so i think it was alot of fun and its has much more planned attacks than a simple round on a normal round.

its pretty funny and cool to see how the different teams attack and counter each other.

We had a good commander or captain? called Ruud, he was good all the time in giving oders and start attacks.

so even as a noob like me could follow easy his orders. f.e. the "terrorist" attacks by an apc and much gunners/engeeniers.

So for this Point i want to rank up ruud to the " Sergeant of the Master Sergeants Most Important Person of Extreme Sergeants to the Max!"

but now the cons of the pug. Maybe some guys see it others.. they are fully my optinion.

first and most annoying was the permant talking ppl on the ts.

Maybe they dont talked shit but they often give orders which was totaly useless.. f.e rush incomming (one real attacker), lets make rush XY (without giving a time, target and a usefull plan)

then there was some guys which was talking all the time so many important informations wasnt hear.

then another annyong this was the Q spamming.. i think its enough topush it one time.. but many guys was spamming this button.. its totaly annoying and some guys spammed this button for one single soldier.

that was in my oponion the only bad on this pug.

so maybe it will work next time better

[Xtractor]

I was there only for the last 2 games (BONG team)

How the others maps was and went ?

[RoundShades]

Hope Quinc3y posts his post, but preliminarily...

First: Islands. Was on GDI. Started chem rush, gunned down by officers at tunnel entrance. Massive arty push, defeated by progressive GDI med tank pushes, eventually had control of Nod base entrance rest of game. Game really ended when I drove an apc as sydney and ion, and planted nod-bunker next to rock, was second attempt at ion, but mass tank exodus atop of it did it's job. SBHs and LCG could have stayed competitive, but they lost too early.

Second: Complex. Was also on GDI. Much the same, for the beginning, flametroop rush covered a lot of wf interior with timed, arties and meds traded control of field. Was a regular game, despite obvious team imbalance, they had like 4 snipers and we had like 2 and I was one of them and not that good but did good that game. Field-play was nominal, arties then meds then mammies then flamers then arties again, round and round, few gunner and apc rushes too. Finally ended with STanks killed bar and ref in one fell swoop.

Third: XMountain. On Nod. Lost mines, lost ref, early game. dont ask how. Good STank field-play, despite 8 meds hitting fields in droves, kept in the game a little bit. Few SBH and LCG rush attempts. Didn't net a building kill, eventually lost.

Fourth: Mesa-II. On GDI. Getting frustrated at this point. B0ng decided to help us and switch to our team. Didn't stop an early-ish Ref loss. Struggling to compete for field for what seemed like forever but wasn't very long, and someone scored an amazing Nod PP kill, don't know how, prob infy. Now, Nod contracts into their base with arties on walls. Tanks keep pressure on ref. Few flame tank attempts, no biggie. GDI gets creative and works like GDI should and uses gunners and chainguns. I believe we lost the Bar then, so we had a harder time competing against Artys and LCGs, until a good coordinated 3-pronged triple-jeopardy attack put enough threat to two buildings to crack both, leaving Nod with an offline Oblesk and an Air. 3k score lead, Nod rocket soldiers whittled it down to 1k lead before it ended and GDI won. I was SO happy when the HoN died and the LCGs depleted.

Last: Walls. On GDI. Was standard Pub game, GDI lost early harvester, still got field with humvees, lost it to Artys, then all the arties died to gunners easy enough. Problem was, SBH killed ref. Then, apache swarm after apache swarm eventually claimed another building. End of PUG this week.

[Quinc3y]

Hope Quinc3y posts his post, but preliminarily...

Nah I think one is enough, good job

I think the PUG was quite good, for sure better than last week. Especially the game on Mesa was great... so many turnarounds and the winner not decided until the last moments. Epic.

What I didn't like was a lot of people changing the team. In the beginning my team had a good commander (Bong) and 3 good snipers (IonTech, miz.hht, ks.ol), but during the PUG we lost all of them. IonTech left early and the 3 other changed to the other team for some reason. Same with Yagi, who started on our team, then moved to team Ryz and then came back. Combined with a lot of people joining/leaving the PUG during games this caused a lot of chaos and it looked like a public game to me sometimes.

GDI win 3/5 games (despite how Nod got much stronger this patch) and my team wins 3-2.

[Xtractor]

I joined late somewhere in Mesa and frozen 2 times trying to open FRAPS .couldnt get my game back in first plan

So havent no videos only 1 ScreenShot http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.c ... E005A4369/

[RoundShades]

I was flexible and switched everytime it was 21/24 or something stupid. B0ng switched because we were unbalanced. We should have started from the very beginning with either miz.hit or that k.io guy or whatever because he too was a sniper. That is like 5 snipers on a team, I know we didn't expect k.io to snipe, and I didn't expect to have to snipe myself, but I had to handle k.io and we had Kenz3001 trying to handle Bananas along with actually trying to play. Snipers aside, those are also very dangerous infiltrators too, along with vertiso I believe? We definitely should have had better balance, but I am glad this time, we reacted before we threw any more than 2 games into the toilet.

[Henk]

Was on team 1, had some good games, too bad my mic didn't work. Loss of our PP on mesa actually came after we destroyed the Refinery (and Barracks right?) I was defending that game, and lost connection, to come back to a destroyed PP

Islands was pretty epic for me, I was in the GDI Ref with B0ng and some others, and helped cover the ions at strip, I was mostly defending and repairing on other games but that was fun too these games, a lot more dynamic than usual, mostly because of the teamspeak coordination.

Good comeback on Mesa, team 2! And those last 2 minutes trying to beat you on points were intense.

[SMayhew]

It was a good PUG, a bit clusterfucky (yeah, that's now a word) again but all in all pretty good fun.

[Bananas]

Thought this pug went really well. The games were mostly close and some cool stuff happened.

[RoundShades]

Been quiet. This still happening in 14 hours, as well as the Map Testing Session 1hr prior? Which maps? JW.

[boxes]

yep, crash/grassy (no ion)

[yosh56]

Ah, right... ahem..

#RollCall

[kenz3001]

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrp

[NodSaibot]

merp i should be there

[NodSaibot]

3-3

[Agent]

Another fun PUG this week; looking forward to the next!

[Quinc3y]

Balanced teams, good stuff

Volcano & Canyon

Same story on both maps, Nod wins the harvester and crushes GDI with artilleries/flame tanks within few minutes.

Lakeside

Both teams well organized, a lot of rushes happening. Apache rush and gunner rush fail, the first successful one is 2 chinooks that destroy Nod refinery. Nod tries raveshaw rushing barracks, but fails and surrenders just as a horde of orcas with ions enters their base

Walls

Fun game. GDI plays standard at the start while Nod begins with a LCG rush that doesn't accomplish much. After that 15 SBHs outside C4 the barracks while the rest of the team struggles to defend. HoN is destroyed while barracks are saved (barely) and this is when the game is decided. Nod base is finished by good cooperation of chinnok + gunners and vehicle swarm.

Islands

Standard Islands. Nod gains an advantage in the beginning and gains a few k points lead by spamming Ref with arties. Even though after that GDI is in control of field most of the time, that point advantage is held until the end of the game. Both refineries are destroyed during the game (Nod to meds, GDI to SBH?), but it doesn't have much influence on the gameplay.

Complex

Draw-ish in the beginning, after ~15 minutes a stank rush kills barracks & GDI ref and the game is decided. For some reason GDI didn't want to surrender until 2 minutes of time were left Even tho they managed to kill Nod ref, the point difference was huge.

3-3, Nod win 4 out of 6 games, 24v24 in peak I believe. Good PUG overall.

[SMayhew]

A very good PUG. Balanced teams, more organisation and I had a good internet for once! LCG rush on Walls was funny.

I look forward to more maps being available, maps like Islands and Volcano can get quite samey every week.

[Terekhov]

^ Thanks for the writeup Quincy!

Appreciate CT hosting, those 50-player games are fun. Enjoyed playing with everyone again!

[RoundShades]

^ Thanks for the writeup Quincy!

Appreciate CT hosting, those 50-player games are fun. Enjoyed playing with everyone again!

CT and it's owner have always been very reliable, but it's the playerbase that attends. I appreciate everyone that used to come together regardless of affiliation, for the sake of play and not for the sake of clantag, and I especially appreciate everyone that still attends even despite the clan affiliations of the past. We all did a good job sticking with this game and showing it love.

A very good PUG. Balanced teams, more organisation and I had a good internet for once! LCG rush on Walls was funny.

I look forward to more maps being available, maps like Islands and Volcano can get quite samey every week.

Can we please, PLEASE, play TrainingYard and Eyes next time for the love of Kane? Heck, we NEED to have the PUBLIC server not offer maps on vote within the last 5 times it was played, so if you played Walls, Field, Volcano, Canyon, and Under, you AREN'T getting those for the next map, you MUST choose from Complex, Islands, Eyes, TrainingYard, Valley, heck, I don't care anymore, let's just get more than 10 functional maps pl0x.

[Canucck]

Can we please, PLEASE, play TrainingYard and Eyes

rofl, no