Pick Up Games (PUGs)

[Ryz]

In my case I am pretty sure people heard me because:

a) I repeated the message(s) numerous times

b) My voice is very loud (I am a bit deaf also, so with a headphone on I tend to talk even louder...)

c) When I told the mines were gone for example, I also mentioned: I might as well go play a pub if people do not respond. People immediately responded to that... "Well bye" and other jokes... While ignoring the mines...

It's just a matter that some people still won't 'acknowledge.' Maybe I shouldn't have higher expectations from a PUG than a PUB, than again it's a shame that if you play a game which is focused on teamwork just lacks one of the basic skills for teamwork: communication. While I know from a few weeks ago that, depending on the players you are with, if can be played with good communication and 'precise' teamwork.

[Xtractor]

Yeah Ryz you're usualy very easy to hear

mb once the teams are locked ,Commander could do a quick voices check:

Eg :named each guys and see who answers and advise the ones that are too low speaking to ajust their mic volume or talk louder.This will also help to put a nicknames to a voices

[Quinc3y]

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

You probably can't, because of the base defences. I went via the bridge, but I jumped at the little fence on the side of the bridge and omitted all the mines. That's why it usually doesn't make much sense to mine it.

My two cents on PUGs:

The current PUG formula is good. If there is something I would change, it's the people's attitude.

I understand the importance of the social side of PUGs. But I believe that during the actual games, talking on TS should be focused on gameplay as much as possible - clear orders from the commander and warnings, reports, questions, suggestions from the team members. I think the amount of suggestions should be limited and that the commander should briefly comment on every suggestion given by a player. Individual orders also work well. All this should ensure order and, from my experience, the team where teamspeak looks like this is more likely to win.

The better time for comments, experiences, complaints, stories from the game is before or after the PUG on teamspeak or in this thread.

Of course I don't demand military discipline. It's okay if you make a joke every now and then. Then again, from my experience, the less you talk the more likely you are to win a game on a PUG (unless you're the commander).

Generally, in my opinion PUGs should be a healthy mixture of having fun and rivalization, but with much bigger emphasis on rivalization (80%? ). This is because winning games is more fun than "chaos & fun" on teamspeak and then losing games, at least for me

[RoundShades]

Should be about those rare gameplay mechanics you get by working as a team as opposed to a group of randoms. Such as 14 man rushes, coordinated beacons with a tank rush to defend, air-war mindgames.

The attitude is important because the attitude should be fun and most people find crazy tactics cool. Shooting the bull isn't the biggest problem, if the chatter was completely cut down and a team was fully coordinated for a rush, they may still be unable to dent one team as their base is burned in their absence. Then it is unfun because it is morbidly silent and serious, and is also unfun because it's a shutout no matter what they do.

The players should be coordinated, focused on the goal, and still light-hearted and lively. Yet, when morale drops so fast for one team, swapping some players should be a fair solution to, if nothing else, improve morale.

So even attitude, can be improved, if teams are shuffled when it might be helpful, a few matches into the PUG. They can also be improved, if you have the same amount of coordination for each team, by balancing the chatter with the coordination, and I think this can be done by balancing teams as well, so you don't get too many quiet people on just one of the teams.

[Guest Gliven]

I think the only thing we should change about PUG's is the attitude towards losing. What i mean is, that people need to chill out.

You lost a building? Oh well, try and keep the morale up, pop a few jokes to lighten to mood. Your WF just blew up? Announce to the enemy that "We don't need tanks, we have Yagi on OUR team" "He will blow everything up with his Grenadier"

What is more fun, than getting that last minute victory when all you have left is one building at half health?

Also people need to chill out about team selection too. You are going to rage quit because you think the teams will be unfair? How do you know that you wont be the MVP of that team. You just left, now what will your team do

you may know each individual's skill level to an extent. But how well do you know how each individual will work with certain teams? You may think that one team is stacked based on each individuals skill, but that doesn't guarantee victory.

Maybe it is just because i am new to the PUG scene. But i think people should stop looking at individual skill and more about how certain people play together.

I cant be the only one who plays to have fun, not play to win, right? Both sides cant win after all

[Ryz]

So is it on ppl?

[Quinc3y]

I'll be there.

[testman]

Standing by

[RoundShades]

I have destroyed more structures with Grenadier than most other players have. Not a particularly influential fact, just means I got lucky in early game rushes in pubs. Truth be told, morale would help, but mixing teams occasionally mid-pug would help morale.

Having a worst week than last, but I am actually awake and in front of my computer. I can see about joining, but won't be as sharp and energetic or of high morale, and thus might not stay. Won't leave "just because I'm losing", never did that in Ren-X or even SMNC or Old Ren for that matter, but won't stay for the 4th and 5th game when I doubt it'll make a difference and know it won't be good for my use of time or real-life morale.

[Mystic~]

Will be playing.

[kenz3001]

dont have time

[boxes]

I'll be late, so if there's room I'll join the losing team

[Idiotas]

Won't be playing the pug for a month or more.

Have fun guys.

[TK0104]

Going to do a 2 hour live stream on youtube of this PUG. People who don't make it or don't wanna play, you always can watch

[Profane Pagan]

This was my first PUG, and I really enjoyed it even without a mic. Thank you.

[Quinc3y]

The best PUG in a while. Pretty balanced teams and interesting - although sometimes frustrating - games!

Mesa

GDI defended from the first artillery rush and very early on a hotwire managed to destroy the airstrip. Very soon all Nod tanks but a single flame tank got destroyed.

And apparently a single flame tank and a mass of raveshaws and lcgs were enough for Nod to defend their base from all the GDI tanks.

With 15 minutes until the end, another hotwire managed to destroy the HoN and Nod was left without production buildings. But... GDI was still behind in points and falling behind even more. Nod started using rocket soldiers and airstrikes instead of special infantry and it worked as well. GDI tried med rushing, apc rushing, gunner rushing, but nothing worked. Nod won on points despite having their 2 key structures dead for the most part of the game. Weird.

Grassy Knoll

No big story behind this game, GDI just destroying Nod with meds and MRLS as it usually happens on this map. Nod did try but there was just no way we could have won this.

Under

Me and LavaDragon were forcing people to get meds and hotties for the first 25 minutes of the game, but apparently we were just unable to take control of the field. Nod played very well and kept us locked in our base. So we went for a gunner rush, we lucked out and no one in Nod saw us coming and we destroyed the PP. But it still didn't help us at all and we were behind in points & getting even more behind. The second gunner rush failed, but in the last minutes a hotwire destroyed the Nod refinery. Still that was not enough points and it was the second game where my team destroyed 2 buildings and didn't lose any building health at all, but lost on points. Very discouraging.

At this point I saw that team Bong simply had better players, who could make more use of their vehicles and infantry and not die too easily. That's why they were always ahead on points.

Complex

From the past games' experience, I was thinking we will get raped by meds quickly, but somehow we managed to max out the vehicle limit and held well, even though - of course - we were behind in points. Then 2 stank rushes happened, the first destroyed the refinery and the 2nd destroyed barracks. And GDI surrendered. To be honest that was a suprise for me and I believe they would have still been able to win on points given how the previous games looked like.

Tomb

Probably the best game of the evening. Early McFarland rush destroyed the airstrip and GDI took control of the field, but then we lost our ref (to a tech probably?) and once again I was expecting to lose on points. One APC rush took Nod refinery down to 3 health and then we had Ryz come up with a crazy plan, we all agreed to it and we did an "outside C4 on PP combined with inside C4 on Ref APC rush". The outside C4 destroyed Nod PP and with about 25 minutes until the end of the game we had a roughly 1,6k point lead.

At this point I've ordered people to camp, play conservatively and don't lose any expensive stuff at all. And it worked quite well! Don't get me wrong, our point advantage was still decreasing - of course - but at a much slower rate and with 5 minutes to go we had a 1k point lead. But then Nod did SBH magic and destroyed our PP and WF with outside C4 & lasers and won. Well played by Nod and I admit it was a big mistake from GDI not to leave anyone stealth checking.

Team Bong won 4-1, but somehow I feel my team played very well for what we could do and we actually destroyed more buildings in total If it was Marathon or if we had like 30 more minutes on Mesa and Under to finish Nod off... we would have probably won those 2 games. Oh well, team Bong also played well and was very organized. I also liked how the atmosphere in my team was good even after we lost the first 3 games. GG!!

[Xtractor]

DeVitto was with team Bong ?

Just asking Because hes very good to get points ..a Key Player..just saying

[Quinc3y]

DeVitto was with team Bong ?

Just asking Because hes very good to get points ..a Key Player..just saying

He's the best arty and mrls user in game imo, but no, suprisingly he wasn't present in the PUG. Team bong had Xeon Wraith (debut on pug), Yellow 13 and skip0420, who are all great with vehicles. We had spagg but that wasn't enough. Also we lacked a good sniper that we really needed on Mesa or Under... miz.hht wasn't present and ks.ol was the only sniper in game and he was in team bong. Also wp by him.

[RoundShades]

By Structures, we won 3-2. By Score, we lost 1-4.

Despite the win screen deciding victory 4 times for the other team, it is made by humans who are just as capable of clerical error as everyone else. I know I am not the only person who disagrees with the algorithm for scorekeeping, or how it decided some of the matches in this PUG, and I am confident more people probably disagree with the score system, so in the eyes of more people than not, it was 3-2. I raise a beer to those people. Maybe oneday soon a patch can calculate endgame score more agreeably...

Well played anyway everyone.

[boxes]

By Structures, we won 3-2. By Score, we lost 1-4.

Despite the win screen deciding victory 4 times for the other team, it is made by humans who are just as capable of clerical error as everyone else. I know I am not the only person who disagrees with the algorithm for scorekeeping, or how it decided some of the matches in this PUG, and I am confident more people probably disagree with the score system, so in the eyes of more people than not, it was 3-2. I raise a beer to those people. Maybe oneday soon a patch can calculate endgame score more agreeably...]

At least from what I heard on Under GDI was getting their ass beat the whole game, and the score reflected that. If killing two structures isn't enough to gain a point advantage, it's clear that one team played a lot more efficiently that the other and deserved the win, despite making errors at the last minutes of the game.

Mesa seems to be a different story though, and that is the reason why I want infantry kill rewards to be increased.

Tomb

Probably the best game of the evening. Early McFarland rush destroyed the airstrip and GDI took control of the field, but then we lost our ref (to a tech probably?) and once again I was expecting to lose on points.

Tech and Chem

[Crowsy]

Bah...screw the score. Pug was fun...we had plenty of funny moments like the sbh rush...chem rush getting ruined by 1 farland...then gunner rush getting ruined by a random ltank that was just passing by...2 noob sbhs hunting a poor sakura spy for 5 minutes chasing her all around the big bunkers on under XD.....the apc rush and the outside c4 rush chaos on tomb and many more.

Can't wait for the next pug ^^

[Ryz]

Yeah this was actually a good one, too bad I had to leave during Tomb.

[RoundShades]

By Structures, we won 3-2. By Score, we lost 1-4.

At least from what I heard on Under GDI was getting their ass beat the whole game, and the score reflected that. If killing two structures isn't enough to gain a point advantage, it's clear that one team played a lot more efficiently that the other and deserved the win, despite making errors at the last minutes of the game.

Mesa seems to be a different story though, and that is the reason why I want infantry kill rewards to be increased.

Under wasn't "last minute". What it seems right now, a loss of a tank is 200 score, and shooting at a building for over a minute is 200 score. So, the tank on the offense, has almost no chance to do enough score damage, before it's repairs are ran dry by a defending team, who can repair at their own structure doors. It isn't skill, it's obvious gameplay happenstance, that a defending team will die half as much as an offensive team, and if unit loss is worth more than 50% of the score, then defense will always score more. You can't even attempt an offense without costing the team score.

APC, if it doesn't score 200 points of damage, which is like literally emptying building armor 3 times or more, then it gave enemy score. It needs to kill like 10 tier 1 enemies to make up near it's cost. If they are free infantry, it's like 40 of them. If a tank doesn't score 200 points of damage, it gives the enemy points. if 8 tanks commit to that, then you need 1600 score, and when it fails to get any building health at all, that gave the enemy 1k score. You attempt this rush 6 times, and the enemy's "skillful defense" earns them 6k score, when your organized offense was supposed to be the point of the game.

And Under, well... it was Under, and Nod won from score... ಠ_ಠ do you really think Nod had farmed enough score in the first 18 minutes, to represent a large enough percent of "efficiency" to make up for a building loss, followed by contracting like a cold scrotum in their base for the next 18 minutes? Because if you do, then maps like Under should be removed from rotation because it has a base defense for the love of God, defense is impenetrable and you can't safely shell anything for a positive ratio of credits. That base defense is a tower of defensive credit farming at a higher rate than offense can ever hope to get.

I am still in favor of tanks getting a lower score reward in ratio to what building armor had got. Whether it was calculating "pre-5.15 score" or calculating less per tank death, Under and Mesa would have both had different winners. I am also in favor of just getting rid of score and adding natural game-end mechanics so that killing a base and not "doing more damage per tank value" is the actual game goal. I was under the impression this was supposed to be an objective shooter, not "World of Tanks", but score measurement proves me wrong so far, the objective is get the highest kill streak in the same tank-life, it is quite literally, World of Tanks.

[Ryz]

Or maybe introduce a new 'mode' which is something between AOW and Marathon? Marathon is just who wins by killing buildings and finish the map, AOW is win by score. What if a building kill would ALWAYS count more than no building kills. Score than only comes in mind when both teams destroy an equal amount of buildings. Right now it's kinda sucks that the best thing you can do to win is camp....

[Quinc3y]

Or maybe introduce a new 'mode' which is something between AOW and Marathon? Marathon is just who wins by killing buildings and finish the map, AOW is win by score. What if a building kill would ALWAYS count more than no building kills. Score than only comes in mind when both teams destroy an equal amount of buildings. Right now it's kinda sucks that the best thing you can do to win is camp....

I have suggested exactly this after the PUG on teamspeak, but Jeff and Crowsy made a good point that it wouldn't be fair either, since a team could play well & control the game for the whole time & maintain a big point lead and still lose the game if one lucky hotwire sneaked in in the last minutes. I also feel this change would influence the gameplay heavily, because a team with one building down would have to focus on destroying an enemy team's building and for the team that has more buildings alive, it would be enough to just camp.

The solution to AOW points unfairness that we experienced on the last PUG is probably to work on score balancing more - I'd suggest more points for infantry kills and slightly more for damaging building armour. Also maybe even more bonus points for building kills.

[Ryz]

I get what you say Quincy, but now it's exactly the opposite. A team kills 1 or 2 buildings and still loses, cause the other team goes in full defence... Forcing them to (try to) attack would make the game more open. We now noticed that a losing team was a) camping b) winning by the points by defending... Which lead to the winning team to do the same tactic last round (don't get units, do not attack, sit this out).

The score / points should be so that people are rewarded for initiative, not punished. I have no clue how to get out of this impasse btw.

[Xtractor]

What if for every building lost your Hit points goes -% (?)

[boxes]

The following changes will give attackers the advantage:

-Further reduce building armor repair point rewards (next to nothing)

-Reduce building armor by 20%

-Reduce MCT repair rates from 2x to 1.5x

-Increase vehicle limits on all maps

Basically make buildings more squishy, 1 Hotwire no longer able to cancel out multiple tanks, attacking building armor is more beneficial, and more vehicles=more firepower.

Problem right now is that it's too easy to respond to buildings being under attack and it's too easy to nullify any vehicle/infantry rush while sustaining minimal damage. The game right now is a complete sneak fest because it requires way too much effort to kill buildings externally, let alone break through armor.

[Ryz]

So? Tonight is the night!

[MrSeriousOak]

Standing by

[Guest Gliven]

Affirmative! Move out!

[Quinc3y]

I'm in position

[Ryz]

Beer ready, tranquilizers ready, tie-rips in place!

[MrSeriousOak]

Let me quickly oil my light tank's treads...

[Quinc3y]

Volcano

The first few minutes of this PUG were crazy. GDI PP and Ref fell to mass flame tanks/APCs and a nuke, meanwhile Nod Ref fell to not sure what (inf rush?). Nod came out with a stronger economy and a 2k point lead.

After that Nod played defensively until the end of the game, keeping the vehicle count high. GDI tried to diminish the point difference with meds, but it didn't work for them and they were falling behind even more. So GDI tried a few gunner and other infantry rushes, but nothing worked against well organized Nod, which comfortably won on time.

Goldrush

Nothing to see here really. GDI played standard and pumped meds throughout the whole game. Nod also tried to take control of the field, but most of the time they weren't able to (I think no GDI harvesters were killed at all). Despite this, the game was interesting in a sense that the score remained roughly equal for the bigger part of the game, with GDI being only a few hundred points ahead.

Nod also tried a few infantry rushes and they even managed to destroy the rear GT. With the time running out, the point difference was becoming bigger in favour of GDI, because of Nod rushing to try to turn the game around. But they didn't manage to and GDI won on time. I think no building health was damage at all in the game.

Tomb

The worst of the games. GDI tried an early infantry rush on airstrip and Nod tried a buggy rush, but both fail. Then comes the standard vehicle fight, arties vs. meds mostly, with score remaining equal.

And then guess what - Nod harvester got stuck, GDI proceeded to abuse this fact and targeted everything but the harvester and after 10 minutes meds already rolled in Nod base and it was game over.

I think afterwards we all agreed not to play this map on PUG again until this bug gets fixed.

Complex

The first 15 minutes were standard vehicle slugfest and then somehow both teams rushed in the opposite bases at the same time. GDI managed to destroy the airstrip with an ion at the end of it and at the same time managed to defend from the vehicle mass & 2 nukes at barracks and WF. Soon after the rest of Nod base was finished with more meds and ions.

Islands

Nothing much to see here either, standard vehicle fight. Drawish for the first 15-20 minutes, then GDI managed to push Nod into their base and roll in with meds + ions and it was game over.

I think that GDI is on quite a winning streak on Islands at PUGs.

3-2 total. It's debatable, but you could say that every faction won the map where it has an advantage. The games weren't particularly interesting, but at least the teams were balanced and the atmosphere on ts was good. Also first PUG in a while where no buildings were destroyed by solo hotties/techs. Generally both teams defended well and seemed organized. GG

[Profane Pagan]

Tomb: Quincy, I was shooting out your newly deployed harvesters several times with the GDI mammoth and med buddies long before we rolled in to settle the score. If the harvester got stuck, we freed it pretty soon. By blowing it up. I wouldn't call abusing. This map was won by the coordinated fire support. But of course I might be wrong, I wasn't there from the very start, however I was part of the armoured spearhead.

GG everybody. Congratulations on the 3 wins!

P.S.: What if we'd have a harvester eraser - vote option? If we encounter a stucking harvester, we just vote in the team for it's self destruction. Not a bad idea, right? Might come handy in the future.

[Quinc3y]

If the harvester got stuck, we freed it pretty soon. By blowing it up. I wouldn't call abusing.

I can't really agree on that... oh well, let's just forget this harvester thing. As long as we don't get to play Tomb again until this gets fixed it's okay.

[RoundShades]

Someone fired at the harvester, but it getting stuck is bad anytime that it happens. It is already fixed but needs to be updated with the fix. It also moves the silo.

I REALLY HOPE it moves the height-advantage for GDI tanks on the non-tiberium side outside Nod base entrance. They CANNOT be uprooted once there. Nod can't consistently hit with shells, GDI can hit with shells from complete safety, 3 GDI tanks can engage while Nod cannot get more than 2 tanks in position. If the height was less sharp and more gradual of a hill, then at least GDI would have a height advantage without it being a sheer cliff. It would also reduce some of the angle on the PP, GDI has a lot of angle advantage on that PP

[Handepsilon]

Needs to make sure that Harvester pathing is on a white line without any crosses in the editor. And I believe it's time the Harvester pathing can use some more foolproofing. I know I've been outta the circle for long but this seems to be a constant issue ever since I started playing the game

[MrSeriousOak]

For some reason I lost connection during the beginning of the Goldrush game (not the very beginning but say around the 10 min mark). I was kicked from TS because of "maxclientreached" and at the same time I lagged out of the game? I was not able to come back so Team FUN was without its light tank driver for half of the PUG

[Profane Pagan]

I am sorry to hear that mrSeriousOak! By the way if I am not mistaken, in the past, Pugs had 60 player seats, right? Did we reach the 40 players on this weekend?

[Ryz]

Qnd then guess what - Nod harvester got stuck, GDI proceeded to abuse this fact and targeted everything but the harvester and after 10 minutes meds already rolled in Nod base and it was

A bit sad this is posted like this here. I suggested yesterday to watch the admin recordings to prove different. I killed the harvester off a few times as soon as it got delivered and I noticed more people doing this. As soon as someone started complaining about the harv being stuck we killed it and some morron even tried to repair it on Nod while we were shooting it.....

We had this on PUGS with multiple maps. Next time, since people are on TS in the team, just send out a message to the enemy team to ask support. I know this can't be done on a public game, but I am sure you can make your team listen so a GDI person can approach the harv and kill it. But it was allready downed like once a minute by our team...

Overall pretty balanced PUG. Too bad about the many games decided by points.

[Crowsy]

I am sorry to hear that mrSeriousOak! By the way if I am not mistaken, in the past, Pugs had 60 player seats, right? Did we reach the 40 players on this weekend?

We did have 40 players in the first games and ended up with 35 ish or so @ the Complex game.

[MrSeriousOak]

I am sorry to hear that mrSeriousOak! By the way if I am not mistaken, in the past, Pugs had 60 player seats, right? Did we reach the 40 players on this weekend?

This was a full PUG, but I was in by the time it was full. I have no clue why I was "kicked" from the game (game acted as if it lost connection) and then I checked TS and it said "maxclientreached" and I assumed it was because the TS server had too many people on it and a privileged member with a reserved spot came on.

[Profane Pagan]

At the next PUG event, is it possible to raise the max player limit from 40 to 45-50? For the sake of crashers and late comers.

[boxes]

We've been there already and it's absolute chaos in game, and in teamspeak. A 40 player limit is already crossing the line

[Madkill40]

A small-game PUG of 24 featuring a fixed map rotation; randomised per week of smaller maps (such as Field, Complex, Canyon & Grassyknoll (possibly Snow?)) would be the only ideal alternative for late-comers who cannot fit into the full 40-player PUG.

In other news, I should be available next Saturday for the next PUG and I am looking forward to it.

[Crowsy]

In other news, I should be available next Saturday for the next PUG and I am looking forward to it.

You better bring the thinking tune and let us have a debate on tactics too.

Im also looking forward to the next PUG ^^.

[RoundShades]

If we could get anywhere near 60 players at game start, we could make 4 teams of 14 players in 2 separate servers.

No reason why we couldn't, but I don't see us getting 60+ players in a single PUG day.

[Fffreak9999]

There is also the issue of needing 2 servers running, needing at least 1 admin per server to operate the necessary commands, and someone to organise the teams for both servers.

It takes a while just to sort this for 2 teams, never mind 4, and to make sure people go to the correct server, are in the correct TS channels among other things, this would be a massive undertaking, one that many of the admins are likely to not wanting to do since it would be too much to handle compared to just managing 2 (which is still awkward in it's own right).

We did trial a larger pug for a few weeks, and while we did consistently manage to get more than 40 people on, the organisational aspect grew much higher and made managing teams a nightmare.