Pick Up Games (PUGs)

[LavaDr4gon]

Leader definition:

the loud people

[Idiotas]

I'm not agreeing with that jeff. We had like what? 3 snipers, 2 decent players and the rest were not that great at all.

[Glacious]

As mentioned before leaders where all stacked on one team, and leaders are definitely not just loud people, we had plenty of those lol after day I had and then being tired plus the PUG bleh I left apologies but yea could tell how it was going to go right from the start, it's not all about the skilled players it's about leaders and when they are all on one team well you know how it's going to go sadly

Seems to be getting harder and harder to get equal fair teams lately, and today the balancing well...... yea it wasn't. Just my view.

Leaders are the people who can rally the team together and lets be totally honest here we all know it's Bong, Yosh, and Jeff and when they are all on one team the opposing team had no one who was able to really take charge. Just the truth.

[RoundShades]

Discussion is obviously not getting very far. When discussed, one claims it was balanced but unlucky, and the other questions why show up for the amusement of someone else when they can play Rocket League while Bots play in the PUG instead.

Honestly, if it were me, and 1 of them actually happen to be me, then I'd completely support Minji's stance, and simply leave early, no later than the 2nd match if the 3rd match has no prospects to get any better. Eventually, attendance will dictate that someone has to do something about it. That is up to the individual effort though, it always has been about the individuals helping shape things. This game and community requires and appreciates some personal accountability and self-management.

If next week is bad, and people use their personal decision-making skills to either insist they personally move around the teams regardless of what anyone else says, or just leaves, then we can make this a whole lot better. 2 people said they were going to move teams after the 3rd match but then disappeared, but next week someone with a sense of "Constructive Tyranny" needs to think for themselves and simply swap teams, and i'd help them do it. Anyone, anyone at all who would decide to swap teams, cooperate with someone to swap with, and we could just do it without asking with the intent to improve the next match. And that is all I am going to say about it.

[LavaDr4gon]

This was just chaotic. So much confusion over had no idea what was going on since I came in late. Sure we lost the first map, okay just analyze the mistakes and fix them next map. Then the second map came, lost a building, then people start leaving. Now we are down 4 players. Leaving the game might make you feel better, but it sure not helping your team do any better.

Edit: on a sidenote, these PUG is showing that there is nothing wrong with the game itself, it's just the players are the main problem. This game can't really appease to the casual gamer of racking up kills, it is very team based. Some MOBAs are team based but only have around 5 players while we have 20. This game can become a competive game, I can see that, but as you can see, you need a variety of different players that are willing to focus on one objective and make sacrifices so there team can win.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Guest

[voltex]

I don't think we should be trying to balance the game before it even starts, just stick with whatever team you join as, no switching, if after the first or second map some people need to be switched then fine.

[Idiotas]

This was just chaotic. So much confusion over had no idea what was going on since I came in late. Sure we lost the first map, okay just analyze the mistakes and fix them next map. Then the second map came, lost a building, then people start leaving. Now we are down 4 players. Leaving the game might make you feel better, but it sure not helping your team do any better.

How do you want to do better when most of the team are not even listening? Before i left at mesa, we said like "get tanks" and do this and blabla. Most people agreed. In the end we only had like 2 tanks. That already shows a lot. People agree to do things, but don't do them in the end. At walls same story with the LCG's ect.

Seriously i don't see the point on wasting my time on a chaotic game.

[LavaDr4gon]

This was just chaotic. So much confusion over had no idea what was going on since I came in late. Sure we lost the first map, okay just analyze the mistakes and fix them next map. Then the second map came, lost a building, then people start leaving. Now we are down 4 players. Leaving the game might make you feel better, but it sure not helping your team do any better.

How do you want to do better when most of the teams are not even listening? Before i left at mesa, we said like "get tanks" and do this and blabla. Most people agreed. In the end we only had like 2 tanks. That already shows a lot.

Get drunk and start screaming? I'm not really the person to ask here, ask how Yosh, Bong, and Jeff do it.

[Idiotas]

No need to.

[Quinc3y]

the end

no!

I think teams were balanced, or at least more balanced than last week.

It's just that Walls as Nod and Mesa as GDI are not easy, especially in the first minutes. We were pushed back to the defense and couldn't do much. People got discouraged, started whining, leaving, team fell apart...

I was the commander on Walls, we did a failed arty rush in the beginning and then the plan was to max out vehicles and take control of the field. I was even taking my time to spam the commander message on screen with what to do. But, as we were losing and incapable of going 9/9, some people started to complain how we don't have a commander, don't have a plan, how we suck, that there is no teamwork blablabla and voted LavaDragon to command instead. But he couldn't change the game, since us losing on the first 2 maps was not fault of the commander...

Next was Mesa nd LavaDragon being the commander, we had the plan to get vehicles but we got annihilated with artilleries... was nothing we could do. Arties are very strong on this map and Nod always spams them in the early game while GDI struggles. But this was when our team fell apart and I think 3 people ragequit.

Tomb came up next and it was a good game for the first ~15 minutes. A lot of action, pushing back and forth, we had a flame rush and some pressure on GDI base and it looked even. Then our harvester got stuck in our ref and team jeff played very dirty. I asked them to kill our harvester - no reaction, 5 minutes later it was still stuck and GDI was taking control of the field and siegeing our base. They began to destroy our PP and then our ref even though I spam to target and kill our stuck harvester. Ofc that meant we lost and that was totally bug abusing by GDI in my eyes. I got pissed and was actually about to ragequit as well.

I perhaps should have, since I admit I didn't contribute to my team at all in the last game at Goldrush. I just turned my mic off and was sneaking the whole game for fun. I felt neither of the teams played that last game for 100%, a lot of inf rushes etc. instead of playing standard vehicle spam.

I guess I can say it was the worst pug I've played in so far. Perhaps if I was shouting more and people didn't get discouraged & played fair, it could have been different.

[HaTe]

Well it took 61 pages to finally come to the conclusion that having competitive public games is a complete oxymoron and is rarely ever going to be accomplished.

That's the problem when you can't handpick players.

I would suggest a doing a Teamspeak "Draft" before the game starts and reorganizing before the game starts, but I have a feeling that certain people would get way too sensitive over it. In Renegade, there was a script set up on competitive servers that made it so that all players had to to type !r (ready) before the game could start (time, harvester, and credits were all stalled prior to this, along with movement being impossible too). That gives time for reorganization and helps kick any potential afkers at the start of a game as well. Food for thought

[RoundShades]

Honestly Quinc3y, you have a pretty good description of that game. There were problems, and they need addressed, but a lot of it can also be gameplay-related. I will now formally suggest code to check for stuck harvesters and either suicide them or unstuck them.

This was just chaotic. So much confusion over had no idea what was going on since I came in late. Sure we lost the first map, okay just analyze the mistakes and fix them next map. Then the second map came, lost a building, then people start leaving. Now we are down 4 players. Leaving the game might make you feel better, but it sure not helping your team do any better.

Depends. Are they going to replace those that leave with, as Glacious said, "Jeff, Yosh, or B0ng" or even Quinc3y or Bananas or Minji or Kenz? If so, that might be for the best.

A better way to fix it without jeopardizing stable playercount, is simply ask one of the above, to switch with 2 other perfectly good structure-players from the other team, switch B0ng, Bananas, and Kenz or something, with Me, Schmitzbergh, and Tony. Simply PM in-game, some of them, and agree to quietly switch teams right as the next match starts. Then there would be at least some mental reinforcement for the next match to improve.

It does no good to claim WHO is listening or leading or playing well, but it does do some good to take the initiative and switch up teams. FYI, that last game of GoldRush was actually quite aggressive for an "inferior team", but that was only mostly because the "superior team" underestimated the threat of our team and didn't put enough into defense, allowing for a semi-successful field-gunner rush, and a fully successful late-game med-tank rush.

Lastly, the more we play and stick with this, the more we can get a foundation for further suggestions to improve the game. Think it's safe to say, the verdict is in, and camping is too strong in AoW in this last patch. Hoping and expecting this to translate into balance tweaks and new gameplay mechanics in the future. Which will be as fun as patches always are, and is a great thing to look forward to. The PUG is definitely no waste of time in this regard, it'll help shape a more reliable and complete and interesting gameplay in patches that Yosh's hard work should help expedite.

[MrSeriousOak]

I can honestly say that I completely and utterly forgot about the PUG this weekend, and I was happily playing tiberian sun. But reading Quincy's post above tells me that I did not miss a lot, so I guess its fine.

[Xtractor]

After Last week ,I didn't feel much to play this week and didn't .Took my tw200 and when out having fun ride

But as I can hear it was almost a Copypaste of last week

Remember the non so far away good ols PUG

[boxes]

We should probably make it clear as to who is classified as a leader so we can separate them fairly next time

[voltex]

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

[Guest Gliven]

I'm all for a draft before we start. Everyone vote for the 2 captains and then the captains pick their members 1 by 1.

[Crowsy]

Ill just post my opinion that might be very wrong or might be ok:

What I think the PUG lacks is coordination and a standard set of rules or "code" if you want to call it. As examples we could have few rules like:

-> People show up 20-15 minutes prior to the pug so we have time to do a proper draft/ balance and to pick captains (actual people that proved that they can lead).

-> If one team has a bug (like a drunk harvi that got stuck) the admin of the server or/and the players from both teams should adress the bug and then resume to the match (so we can keep the fairplay feeling)

-> Have a list of people that show up constantly (yosh , bong , quinc , lava , david , minji and many other that we see at the PUG each week) and split them in 2 teams (the idea is that the people that usually show up each week are also the people that are listening to the TS and actually doing what is said...atleast when the spirits are calm). Would be a good idea to add to the list what those people are good at so you can have somewhat equal roles in both teams ( ex: 1 sniper per team , 1 sneaky per team , 1550105 defenders per team and so on).

-> To avoid "snowballing" (a.k.a when a team is literally raping the other) i suggest to let the loosing team choose the next map. This way we could keep up a bit of the loosing team's spirit up and give them a chance to win a match. This could lead to somewhat even scores and to both sides having fun because let's face it...no one enjoys it when you get absolutely raped all night.

Thats all I can think of at the moment.

P.S. : I am not claiming that all these ideas are mine, some of them are the ideas from other people's minds.

Let's not forget that handpicking each player and balancing them out is a tedious job which takes time if you want to do it right, so we should help the organizers do it by letting them know that we will show up (we could post on the forum if we are making it or not) and actually being there 15-20 minutes prior to the game so they dont have to rush it. This week for instance they did try to balance out the teams..but theres just so much that you can do in what? 5 minutes?

[Fffreak9999]

Ill just post my opinion that might be very wrong or might be ok:

What I think the PUG lacks is coordination and a standard set of rules or "code" if you want to call it. As examples we could have few rules like:

-> People show up 20-15 minutes prior to the pug so we have time to do a proper draft/ balance and to pick captains (actual people that proved that they can lead).

-> If one team has a bug (like a drunk harvi that got stuck) the admin of the server or/and the players from both teams should adress the bug and then resume to the match (so we can keep the fairplay feeling)

-> Have a list of people that show up constantly (yosh , bong , quinc , lava , david , minji and many other that we see at the PUG each week) and split them in 2 teams (the idea is that the people that usually show up each week are also the people that are listening to the TS and actually doing what is said...atleast when the spirits are calm). Would be a good idea to add to the list what those people are good at so you can have somewhat equal roles in both teams ( ex: 1 sniper per team , 1 sneaky per team , 1550105 defenders per team and so on).

-> To avoid "snowballing" (a.k.a when a team is literally raping the other) i suggest to let the loosing team choose the next map. This way we could keep up a bit of the loosing team's spirit up and give them a chance to win a match. This could lead to somewhat even scores and to both sides having fun because let's face it...no one enjoys it when you get absolutely raped all night.

Thats all I can think of at the moment.

P.S. : I am not claiming that all these ideas are mine, some of them are the ideas from other people's minds.

Let's not forget that handpicking each player and balancing them out is a tedious job which takes time if you want to do it right, so we should help the organizers do it by letting them know that we will show up (we could post on the forum if we are making it or not) and actually being there 15-20 minutes prior to the game so they dont have to rush it. This week for instance they did try to balance out the teams..but theres just so much that you can do in what? 5 minutes?

-> People show up 20-15 minutes prior to the pug so we have time to do a proper draft/balance

This would be ideal, but the only real way to enforce this would be to have a cut-off of where people can no-longer join after a certain time, which at times is unfair.

-> If one team has a bug (like a drunk harvi that got stuck) the admin of the server or/and the players from both teams should adress the bug and then resume to the match (so we can keep the fairplay feeling)

In Relation to the harvester issue, there is currently no RCON command to kill the harvester or some other command to deal with this as far as I am aware, and stopping the game to deal with a single issue can cause more issues than you realise. The harvester issue could be resolved my adding a command or by a mutator or something like that.

-> Have a list of people that show up constantly

This is also an issue, since if people don't turn up when you expect them to, I.E when someone is delayed or has another reason not to be on, then you risk de-balancing teams, and Bong/Yosh and a few others have a good idea of people's strengths and will normally try to balance around those strengths anyway, without the need for a list.

-> To avoid "snowballing"

I like the premise of your idea to allow the losing team to decide, however the game is currently not set up to do this. What is stopping players on the winning team from voting and forcing a map more suited to their team?

I think there may be a way round it using RCON, but that requires a Server Admin on to make sure this runs. 99% of the time this wouldn't an issue but you never know.

Also there is no easy way to currently handle the teams except through the team control mutator, and it doesn't have any UI it is literally run by 3 commands, and that is not ideal to allow an easy team change.

Maybe yosh could look into creating a UI screen, with a list of all players, and you can drag them over different teams to move them to a new team. I feel this would be more user friendly.

Maybe something like this?

[testman]

-> To avoid "snowballing"

I like the premise of your idea to allow the losing team to decide, however the game is currently not set up to do this. What is stopping players on the winning team from voting and forcing a map more suited to their team?

I think there may be a way round it using RCON, but that requires a Server Admin on to make sure this runs. 99% of the time this wouldn't an issue but you never know.

Couldn't winning team be adult and fair enough to not vote, so that only losing team's members decide on next map?

I mean, PUG players are supposed to be reasonable enough to withhold votes if rules were set up that way. I understand that there would be a dick or two on each team who would vote even if told not to, but that should not out-balance the opposite team's map vote.

If you think that people in PUGs would not be capable of making that work, it means that PUGs have devolved into pubs with microphones.

[yosh56]

I'm just going to sit back and look at all of these things that have already been done (and showed themselves to make no difference), be discussed again.

[DoctorB0NG]

PUGs are gonna need some sort of rework if they're gonna continue. I'm starting to get pretty burnt out from them.

[LavaDr4gon]

Why do we still play Renegade X?

For me its matches like these:

In the video you can hear everyone enjoying the game. Sure they lost but they aren't moping around and complaining, but rather amazed at what GDI managed to accomplish. What was different back then that we can bring back?

[Crowsy]

I guess is the general mood? I had a pretty big break from RenegadeX and when I came back I did notice a general "toxicity?". People seem ....too serious? too angry? I have no idea if it is because there are new people that don''t realise the importance of teamplay , comunication in game and tbh..the importance of having a good community (a.k.a being friendly to each other , not complaining day and night etc.) or if the "old people" (the ones that you''ve seen both in-game and on forums for quite a while) just changed. Maybe is a bit of both.

Also, my apologies if my post about setting up some rules made Yosh or Bong feel like I don't appreciate their work or that I think that they didn't try a lot of different ways to make the pug enjoyable for everyone ( its clear that you guys do your best....drunk *Yosh* or not drunk and tbh the pug exists because of you ).

[Ryz]

Another attempt next week?

[Quinc3y]

Well, I will be there. Not getting discouraged easily

[boxes]

I'll take a break from the pugs for two weeks

[Crowsy]

Ill be there with armed mines and loaded guns .

[yosh56]

I'll take a break from the pugs for two weeks

Uhg, that means We'd have to go back to Me. Vs. B0ng

[Quinc3y]

I can be a commander as well. As I said, I don't get discouraged easily So it can be me vs. bong&yosh or whatever you choose.

I think I'm good enough for that.

Also, there is Yellow 13 who said he will get a mic for this week and was eager to command as well. He plays on public a lot and he's really good and understands how this game works (imo).

[Ryz]

More important than the commander is that someone should be able to lock teams...

[Guest Gliven]

I agree Quincy or Yellow 13 would make good captains.

[RoundShades]

So. Tomorrow. Remember. Everyone focus, and if teams appear to be giving us problems, arbitrate to trade teams with someone you think would balance it better. Otherwise, play like you actually want to win, focus on mine limit, don't get demoralized.

I am not asking everyone to outright ignore team-locking or anything. I am asking, if it looks bad, to pick 1 person, and make sure you both agree to manually switch teams and teamspeak channels all nonchalant and such. If you have any doubts about coordination or if someone else is doing the same, then simply don't do it, those that know what they are doing will take the initiative this week with any luck whatsoever.

[DoctorB0NG]

arbitrate to trade teams with someone you think would balance it better.

Please don't do this. I already get enough PMs during the PUG and it's gonna force me to police teamspeak even more if people are haphazardly moving.

[RoundShades]

arbitrate to trade teams with someone you think would balance it better.

Please don't do this. I already get enough PMs during the PUG and it's gonna force me to police teamspeak even more if people are haphazardly moving.

I modified the post to tell people they have the personal responsibility to do it wisely, but if someone DOESN'T do it, even if this person is you, then I will be severely disappointed if the quality of the weekly game pays the price as a result.

If you do change teams up, and fix it, then people shouldn't be stupid enough to do it after you do it. That actually requires you to do it though, because Minji left last week, and that is the other option, to abandon it as "won't be fun this week" and kill it from lack of attendance 2 games in. Apparently, Minji will do this, I would do it depending on my mood or the reason why the matches aren't doing well, and I would respect people more to leave it, than to stick with it if the problem isn't being solved when it can.

If the problem is motivating and one team is acting "soft", I'll stick with it though, that is the fault of people becoming demoralized. There is a difference.

I just want this to work, and hope everyone will be on their best behavior to improve these tomorrow and do some justice in this week's game. It's long overdue from the last 2 weeks.

[LavaDr4gon]

All I want is to make videos again.

[RoundShades]

All I want is to make videos again.

...I think I will do a toaster-recording of this PUG. First time in about 8 months.

[Profane Pagan]

Looking back on the thread, I think you can't expect players to have military discipline. You can assign a dedicated player to be a commander, and you can give orders too, but people won't become soldiers at a wave of a magic wand. Even the most sophisticated military simulator games lack the proper attitude from players in multiplayer sessions which is necessary in real battle. And Renegade X is not even a realist depiction, this is an abstracted shooter. Every abstraction is the degradation of the reality. People won't cooperate, not because they are idiots, but because they are here to play their game in their own ways. We use NPCs to do the heavy lifting. Or for the seemingly boring tasks like base defending.

What is the sollution? You will never succeed with preliminary muster roll. You might frustrate less capable players in the long run. If you are really want to make a competetive heavely team-based game, you should create a rewarding - enforcing system, thus you would magnetize the wandering players. The game should shepherd the players. Because they are cattles really. Some ideas:

* Make visual markers the commander could put on display, so everybody in the team could see that. Like a red arrow hovering above a stroke point or above the refinery when it is attacked.

* You could crate personalized visual orders. If a yellow marker would appear on my screen, saying: "Profane_pagan, engage!" or "Profane_pagan supressive fire!" with an immersive warcry sound effect, I certanly wouldn't sit on my ass.

* Put the commander or dedicated officer on the ground, make his proximate area as a mobile respawn point: teammates would be heavely relied on their comander. Death of the officer would erase the respawn point.

* Too easy? Give the abality to the commander, so he/she can point out a destructable rally flag or something as a mobile respawn point. This would force the players to stick together, in order to defend or destroy the rally beacon.

*Or instead of respawning, the rally beacon could heal the teammates constantly.

*I do think a good in-built communication system, instead of Teamspeak, and better, military lingo command lines would benefit us.

I still hope one day I can join to a PUG, I have never been to, my Saturday evenings are too busy. I know these ideas are not easy to implement. They are here for illustrative reasons only. Wish you the best!

[Idiotas]

People won't cooperate, not because they are idiots

Well..you are wrong about that lol.

they are here to play their game in their own way

They shouldn't play the pug, they should play the public games instead. Pug games are all about working together and listen to the commander, but as you can see...that's too much for a lot of people to do. You can do all these things to make people listen and get their attention and stuff.. but isn't that retarded? People can't even go to the right TS channel. That's already too hard for them. Pug and stuff is good, but the people are just too sad for words.

[Profane Pagan]

"They are here to play their game in their own way " I wasn't clear about that. The game has it's own mechanism, which can offer certain gaming experiences for the players. If they only practice in their own way, they will solidify their style. The game allows people to do this. Like TS is not part of the core game, and it is not even a good solution: I have to download it, separately turn it on, I can even change channels to overheard others. Okay I wouldn't do it, but it is still a thing. I was talking about the necessity of integrated elements of the game, which would steer even the newcomers to experience the intended gameplay which was conceived by the designers.

However If you really want to keep the PUG clear of "non-listening casual" gamers, I must say your only option without any work on the game mechanism, is to change the server into private. Many groups do this in various games to ensure the seriousness of the gameplay. Then you can advertise join processes. We just doesn't have a big player base to be picky.

I am not the fan of this approach as I wrote a lengthy topic above: I am more like a fan of subtle manipulations. Makig the players belive it was their idea to cooperate. Let's visualize the importance of the teamplay and make them enjoy the cooperation. But at end of the day we will have a loser team. It is chaos-theory really. Sometimes shit happens, and nobody can do a change.

[Quinc3y]

Better than last week, at least for me I can imagine the other team being frustrated about losing, but I don't think this was as humiliating as some pugs.

Lakeside

In the early game GDI didn't go for the predictable orca rush and instead tried to take control of the field and take Nod silo / kill Nod harvester / take down the turrets. They partially succeeded and managed to defend from the first apache rush, acquiring quite a point lead. But the second apache rush by Nod, combined with a nuke on WF, destroyed the whole GDI base.

Walls

Drawish for the first half of the game. Nod tried buggy rushing and apache rushing and GDI tried a chinook rush, but both teams defended well and the score was even. Then GDI lucked out and got a SBH spy - airstrip tower was not mined properly and SBH planted ion inside the tower while orcas rushed HoN. Airstrip went down. Soon after another orca rush destroyed HoN and Nod surrendered.

Goldrush

Once again, drawish for the most part. Not much action, meds vs. arties and flame tanks, GDI having control of the field but the score was even. Then a tech killed the barracks (once again the mining could be better) and it looked hopeless for GDI, which couldn't infantry rush and lost the hotwire support on its vehicles. Nod managed to take control of the field and flame rush in the last minutes of the game, destroying the AGT and Ref.

Mesa

The closest one. GDI went for a rocket rush in the early game and took down Nod refinery to 30 health. Nod responded with massive arty spam and they destroyed GDI refinery and reduced the health of AGT and the barracks. But GDI was organized, managed to push artilleries back with a few meds and MRLS and responded by destroying Nod refinery. At that point, after about 10 minutes and with both refineries down, the score was roughly even.

But after that GDI played better. We kept control of the short side for the most part, hitting the airstrip and bringing it down to about 30 health by the end of the game. We tried APC rushing about 3 times, but failed. Nod tried to chem rush (and rocket rush, too?), but never managed to damage the health of a building anymore. A lot of technicians tried sneaking in, but they were all dieing to our campers. I feel if Nod just commited to rolling out arties and flame tanks and pushing us away from the short side, they might have stood a chance. GDI won on time by 2k points.

Field

Boring game. Standard vehicle fight for 40 minutes with no permanent damage on buildings at all. I saw too many infantry in GDI and not enough meds, which led to Nod winning comfortably by points. Nod only had 2 snipers, but top ones (miz.hht and ks.ol) and they were commited to keeping control of the tunnels. Both finished with 40-50 kills.

I commanded one of the teams, Madkill the other. 5-0 total, sorry Still, I don't think the difference between teams was as big as the score would suggest. GG!

[RoundShades]

Eh. Had other stuff going on. Felt like the PUGs, after the last two weeks, would be less than cruise control this week. So I simply didn't make it. Didn't want to vent my frustration over life-issues onto it. Wanted to populate it, just have a lot going on, and had planned on coming just to get my mind off things, but it ended up not being the best place for me right then.

[Xtractor]

[Mystic~]

Just to add for completeness.

Lakeside: GDI also rushed at the Nod base at the same time as the Second Apache rush dealing some damage to the Hand of Nod and destroying the Nod Refinery with combined Orcas and an infiltrating hotwire. However the GDI base was totaled.

Walls: Hand of Nod initially took major damage from 1 of 3 infiltrating hotwires at that time and was later finished off with Orcas and a Gunner/Hotwire inside. The airstrip tower beacon was diligently defended from techs by another Chem spy, whoever that was ensured it made it.

Although the score was 5:0 non of the games were easy wins.

[SMayhew]

Sorry for leaving during the third match, my internet dropped out (quelle surprise!). The first two matches were very good, good teamwork and good leadership from Quincy. People listened and did what they were told - a complete contrast to the last PUG I was on!

Hopefully I'll be there again next weekend.

[Ryz]

Not much to say about it, except:

On Lakeside: "They have apache again.." Minute later: rush their HON and nobody cared about apache. We all know where it lead to. Bad luck and maybe also bad communication, can happen one game...

Walls - Commander: "We have 2 SBH, plz confirm that you are one." One person replies, the other doesn't.... Second time asked. No reply... Same with loads of important things on our team... A lot of players didn't care. This was the point where I was afraid it would be single sided again with one team losing all...

Goldrush - I was one of the persons mining, but we were to soon at limit. I got the feeling, but never found out, we had someone overmining all game. Never new that you could reach the barracks via WF and river btw... Also cause the map almost never gets played when I am there. Otherwise I had put less mines on the bridge. I also called out the flamerush when it left Nod base. You won't be surprised that people didn't listen and got surprised when it hit our AGT....

Mesa: "Someone screams 'rocketrush' and than nothing. We try to ask where... No answer, untill ref almost got killed. Crowsy was mining, but asked for a donate like 5 minutes when he lost his tech. Again nobody cared. People were also busy flaming eachother, me for example, when I called out mines went missing and left the base (while I had checked the PP first, but not the other buildings). It was more important for them to confront me that I left base, than actually care about mines. We also did some inf. rushes, but it took way to long to get enough people. GJ with the arties in the beginning btw...

Field: I gave up and never tried. Announced a few times that I had to leave in x minutes. No reply. Machette did the same thrice, 0 reply...

[RoundShades]

Didn't sound fun. Couldn't chance it, had a long day prior and things to do anyway. For appearance in TS3, it seemed more password-y and while the games sounded longer they didn't sound matched. Nobody remixed, did they? I am assuming if that is the case, I saved myself the trouble of leaving no later than 40 minutes in after asking exactly once to remix teams.

Team balance be important. The leaders, the infiltrators, the snipers, and the filler, especially those that reply when in-game and those that don't. One team getting all those don't-reply kind of people is bad, some want some vetting process for the PUG but I just want them to balance the darn people. Make a list of usual attendees and categorize which of those 5 categories they belong to and make sure each team has even amounts. Everyone knows everyone else's playstyle at the PUGs, and if they are new to a PUG or something then just balance then as a "responseless filler" player until you know better.

Who here wants to make a list, of just 4 of those categories, assuming unnamed falls under 5th, of every regular attendee of PUGs? Serious request, and I will do it sometime before next Saturday if not. Mind you this is not some ranking thing, this is literally whether someone: Coordinates players to location, snipes, infiltrates, or fills the field requests. If they do 2, put then as the prior. If they defend, either a new category or list under fills numbers.

This way, I will literally suggest this be used but will accept if it isn't used, but I will personally eyeball the teams using this list, and if numbers don't match or snipers are stacked or something silly, I literally will know to not play and bail instead, but at least I will have a grading rubric.

[Crowsy]

To be honest...I enjoyed the pug. The fights were meh (cause we were losing) but the fun was in the chat actually and people laughing at each other ( in a good way ) + psycho madkill telling people that spawn in the silo to atack the tib field (or smth like that) XD .

About balance ...the balance was actually good. We had competent people (the other team seemed to have that too)...but we didn't have the coordination. As in, even if both teams had an equal number of veterans....our team just seemed to have people not wanting to command but trying to command ( intended or not intended by said people). We had many ideas flying in the TS ....inf rush , tanks rush , destroy the tanks , inf rush while they are busy with tanks etc.

About the people not listening to me when i was asking for money or when i was saying stuff...thats because i didnt talk in TS and i consider that it is my fault for that and not theirs. Is hard to concentrate on a fight , speak in ts in same time and also read every text that appears on your screen and try to spot when a player says smth and when theres just automatic messages like ( ctrl + 1,2 ,3, 4 etc).

I have no idea if someone overmined in the other games...but on Goldrush we actualyl had an overminer because we had no mines in the PP (not going to name him unless he wants to) so it wasnt really a "noob" but an attempt to fix bad mining that just went wrong.

What is worth noting is that at the begining when Yosh and Bong didnt make it in time people actually organised themselves and all was ok. Everyone remained in their teams , everyone waited patiently for Freak (i think) to fix the teams and didnt start panicking and changing teams themselves or moaning / wanking / crying etc. Big thumbs up to that people !

Moral of the story : Let's not forget that it is a game...and the pug is an event meant not to be a competition to prove that 1 team is better than the other ...it is an event where people are meant to come together into a fun game , wether they lose or not , to have a good laugh in ts and to socialize dare i say? (as in actually talking to each other , laughing at each other , calling each other crazzy people - which is fun etc.). So just take it easier.

As tips? What I can think of is just that if you see something happening , announce your team and help in fixing that issue. Examples:

You see mines going down? Yell out in ts that mines are down and start checking ALL buildings

You see 2-3 flamers and you think they are forming a rush ? Stay there..peek at them and keep your team informed about the change (wether the tanks number increased or they just went away).

Try to remember that the commander is a human being (psycho , drunk , high or not ) and he can't keep up if you have 10 people telling him different stuff at the same time. This is why is important to take action on your own (for instance : I saw that people werent called out to defend so I tried to defend myself. I tried to keep mines up , I tried to patrol buildings etc )

The PUG went better and if people learn to take the event as a fun betwen friends and not a competition it will go even better.

P.S. - Sorry team if my defense sucked....as a make up gift I will present the head of the YOSH that i hunted on field (#getrekt Yosh ).

[testman]

I was on team Quincy and had quite a lot of fun. Probably mostly because we had really awesome communication and coordination. Most information passed trough TS was relevant to the game and presented effectively. Which is probably the case of what Yagi said, most of don't-reply people being on the other team.

Is there a good way to test if people on team are able to communicate / follow instructions? Maybe in pre-PUG we could test if we are capable of forming line in front of commander on some random location, to see how whole team handles simple task that requires everyone's effort. Or maybe even something more complex.

I'm not saying that PUGs should be played with military-level of discipline, but at least some minimal level of discipline is needed for all of us to have fun.

Also for pre-PUG, I think it would be fun to see a line of 7+ nukes reasonably far from each other, each deployed 2 seconds after previous. And maybe get Ions going on in the opposite direction.

[Xtractor]

Again didn't you guys thought that mb when no answer from someone is mb because he haven't hear you ?

Some voices are loud and clear and some other are barely to impossible to distinguish .Repeat yourselft Louder or someone else repeat the same command if you think it can be the reason