There was a couple of FF incidents last night concerning myself. First was when we were attacking the power substation on Chernarus. I had ducked for cover shortly after one of the BRDM's had rushed in the area, because I was taking fire from that direction. When I popped back up to scan the area, I saw muzzle flashes from an AK firing in our direction about 20m right of the dead BRDM, and I reacted by immediately popping a shot in that direction. Right after my first shot I noticed 2 friendlies right next to the now dead body of Steffen. Very sorry about that Steffen! This just proves again how important target recognition is, especially in a sort of a crossfire situation like that one, and this was just me neglecting this obligation.
Second time was on that faithful mission where we tried to free our comrade from captivity in Stary Sobor. (Or was it Novy?) I was engaging targets with a scoped weapon and saw Setup run PAST MY LINE OF FIRE but managed to hold fire at this point. Shortly after my target was moving left and as I tracked him and shot, my round hit Setup, who had parked himself about one (1) meter to my immediate front left, like literally 2-3 degrees to my front left, so basically right in front of my barrel.
Protip: Never cross your teammates line of fire
Protip: Never line up 1 meter from your teammate
Protip: Never, even in a wide line, line up too much in front or behind you teammates
In line formation your sector is usually 10-2 (o' clock), so make sure you're not in anyone's sector if you need to be in front of them, or that no friendlies are in your sector if you stay behind for some reason.
Also make sure not to engage targets beyond this sector because there will be friendlies to your left and right. The guys at the tips of the line will take care of your 9 and 3.
Feel free to use this for any future FF incidents you need to rant about or apologize for.
After giving this a thought, I came to conclusion that the problem (at least usually) is not in coordination between teams, it's a lot more about not maintaining proper formations. Friendly fire does happen, at some times it is inevitable, but we sure could have a lot less of it. Everyone should stay alert on the teamspeak channels and VOIP. If your VOIP doesn't work, make sure your team leader knows so he can forward the messages to the whole team. I've had a incident where I called out clearly on teamspeak and VOIP that I'm going to run to a small enemy outpost to get AT before the tank comes in, because the base seemed clear at the moment. As soon as I got to the first bunkers wall, I was shot in the back by team mates. And I don't mean any single person with this, a lot of times I can hear the squad leader calling for someone 5 times and then after a while the guy responds. Listen to the comms god damn it! (Set them up so, that you can hear everything from teamspeak even if you are in a chopper)
We often play as one squad or one squad broken into two teams. Very Very often some guys sprint in front of the formation, don't know whether it's to score kills or to get into the action, but it really often causes a lot of problems. Problems in advancing and keeping the approach stealthy. And in worst case scenario he is so much ahead of the squad, without informing rest of us, that he gets shot to the back because he is where the enemies are supposed to be.
And I don't know about the rest, but if I'm leading, I'm expecting everyone to stay in a line if so is said. You should only sprint if you are dragging behind or if you make a small sprint for cover. But even then you shouldn't be more than 5 meters ahead of you team leader. Yesterday we had a pretty open formation at the time I was leading, so nobody did anything wrong there.
[size=0.7em]RANT:HOW DAMN HARD IT IS TO EVEN STAY IN COLUMN. ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO, IS TO MAINTAIN ABOUT 5-10 METER DISTANCE TO THE GUY IN FRONT OF YOU! (AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT NEXT TO ANYONE...)[/size]
This is getting a bit off-topic but I agree that formations seem to be very difficult to keep. Especially in column formation it seems to be more about a race to the finish line than staying in formation. People are constantly passing each other and running side by side. This is the reason I always prefer to stay at the back of the column because I can't stand people breathing down my neck 1-2m from me or going past me left and right
.
On comms, someone had probably announced that Steffens team was approaching the objective from that direction yesterday but I had missed it, most likely due to everyone being on the same TS channel and having way too much information for a mere footsoldier constantly coming in from the comms, while in contact.
For me at least, rushing towards the enemy is killing the atmosphere. I expect at least to some extent that we all behave realistically. That is, watch for our own and each other lives. Preservation of the team should be priority, not killing the enemies.
It's been a trend for a year or so, that we don't play as carefully and patiently as we did before. Lately, Now it's more like run, shoot, sprint, shoot, and on many ocassions we lose track of each other during missions.
It's not my intention to attend coop nights later in the evening, but with less players present those problems seem to be diminished.
(11-14-2012, 05:03 PM)Miša link Wrote:Preservation of the team should be priority, not killing the enemies.
This is what I'm after also. Actually even leaders tend to try to advance too fast. Of course some routes might happen to be worse than others, about that we can't know before hand. A bit more careful approach might save a lot of grey hair, though. Even if it takes time. But that's how this game works, you can't just run into the fight. And the advancing is always so... like.. well, at least I always tend to be a little "nervous" (not really, but I do immerse in to the game quite a lot!
), when we are advancing in a forest or place where the visibility is not too great and the possibility of getting flanked is higher.
And nouty, I didn't mean you with the comms
I actually had no idea something like that happened.
And I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but by the way, but it's true. The players have changed and so has the gaming style.
Ps. I'm sorry nouty that I turned this thread a little off-topic.
I agree with everything that Misha has said here, my self have not been too active in the recent weeks just mostly because i am very busy but also a slight bit of frustration of how the coop night have been going in the couple of weeks i got to play recently.
With this surge of new players we have on the server, some of the strategic & general disciplinary characteristic aspects of our coop nights have faded..
It doesn't help when i am the kind of "player" as you know, that does not like things done half ass.
To kind of reiterate what Misha said. It's not my intention to attend coop nights later in the evening/or sometimes not at all, but with smaller groups of players and the people that tend to stay later i feel as thats the time i enjoy to play.
This is my opinion and nothing more.
Best Regards Gary.
Agree with both of you Gary and Misha. Games tend to go a bit smoothly with fewer players.
We just need to try and do something about the problems we have when playing with more people. Maybe we need to take a more strict approach when leading. It takes a bit more from the leader and can be quite frustrating first but I believe it would make things better in long term. Help of other experienced players would make it easier of course.
Maybe have training missions when we just practice these things. Kinda hard trying to practice movement and staying in formation when you are being shot at.
Wishing that the problems would go away on their own usually doesn't work too well.
One problem that I see is people not listening to orders from their team leader. Some people tend to do what they want instead of what the team leader wants. Recently, I had the displeasure with such a team, randomly getting out of a car, ignoring my commands to rally up or enter a vehicle, not answering to a clear and simple question... these things breed only chaos, and convince me that leading is a crappy job.
The rule "always follow your leader" is quite simple. When your leader says "Do not fire", simply obey. I know this is a game, but if some people would take it a bit more serious, things would work much better, even with a large number of players.
My apologies about shooting you last night Variable :-[ I really felt bad about that, and that along with the spontaneous Dragon attack on the HMMW in the ambush mission tells me I've got to be more controlled in firing.
With respect to the friendly fire incident, I was under the impression that you had just said that a sniper and one other hostile had managed to disembark from the downed heli that was in the center of the compound. I thought you were one of those hostiles, as it didn't occur to me that any of us would approach the heli.
The other one was just plain bad rookie reaction, but I also wasn't sure what target to select for my heavy AT.
I think I'm going to try to err on the side of just being more generally passive and building up my experience of coop play, working with you guys, and learning missions. One friendly fire incident is enough for one lifetime.
No worries, shit happens. It (still) happens in the best families. As time goes by, one learns to identify the way AI move and distinguish the human players, but first and foremost, it's important to pay attention to the friendlies' uniforms.