Groups Must Stay Together, a rant

[Ottar]

Ok, rant time again.

I have bloody had ENOUGH of people yelling frantically ”for group with speed”, who then promptly lose stick and/or wander off on their own, failing to notify the group pointrunner, wherupon the remaining group will spend next 10 minutes searching and/or waiting for the lost ones.

Group with skald speed moves at 205% speed. If 2/3 of that time is spent for waiting for people, all are better off moving around without any speed at all. In fact, such a group is better off exping in Mularn, learning basics.

When you group in RvR or in PvP, you STAY STUCK on your group pointrunner and remain so until you reach your destination or there is a fight. When the fight is over, 1st thing you do is to find your pointrunner (running around using /face command helps) and get stuck on him again. That way group stays together. Group that does not stay together is not a group but a bunch of soon dead people conveniently provided with a chat medium for asking ”where are you?” from eachother.

Know that the pointrunner’s job is to navigate through terrain. His job is NOT to keep an eye on each and every one in the group to see if they’re still there. Yes, he can turn his camera and all that but he should be looking where he is going. Therefore, it is YOUR obligation to yell ”stop” IMMEDIATELY as soon as its looking like you are losing stick or you got agro. If you fail to do as much, frankly, the group is better off without you.

Ottar

 

[ImLestat]

I must say that I totally agree with you. There is however another point you haven't mentioned, which should be noted:

The "pointrunner" as you say, also has an obligation towards the group members. To say when you are moving. I've many many times been in a fight or something, then just turned around to find that the skald (who most often is the point runner) is gone. I'm not talking of directly after a fight, when the skald perhaps is pursuing an enemy, can't really stop and wait for everyone then. No, it's other situations. Say I'm sitting down for an endurance rest, and when I'm done the skald is gone. Such things are usually why I miss the train, and I have to start asking for speed again. Tell the group when you are moving, and we save some time there too. A simple "moving" is enough, just so that we others can stick to the pointrunner.

 

[Blood]

I cant count the number of times i've stood stealthed infront of a group, trying to get close enough to shoot the enemy casters.. only to shoot one, turn around, and find out that the group have run off without me.

Please dont aske me for groups if:
1. you are a runie that wont put pbt on
2. you are a shaman that wants to chaincast dots instead of healing
3. you are a skald that likes your own speed so much you forget me behind

And for each one of those, im sure they _want_ me to stealth forward and farm RP for them

 

[_tindel_]

yeah midgård teamplay is TRAGIC sometimes. we charged mmg in emain one time and suddenly all midds run back to pk and the ones without skaldspeed die, trying to fight for survival in a desperate attempt. so when you get ported to emain macha PLEASE FILL YER GROUPS, you guys just run away directly and we poor souls without skaldspeed gets owned by infils,assasins,minstrels you name it and you are already 1000m away when it happends.

 

[SilverHood]

it's almost criminal in emain with albs/hibs camping mmg

We charge, kill a few, albs/hibs charge, everyone without speed dies

Repeat

Of course, us mids loose more than the albs/hibs... otherwise we wouldn't be stuck behind our own milegate

Worst is seeing a lone skald charging about..... despite /y group looking for skald

People play how they want to, be it solo or group, but when one person runs, others go too.... leaving those wihtout speed to get slaughtered

Know that the pointrunner’s job is to navigate through terrain. His job is NOT to keep an eye on each and every one in the group to see if they’re still there. Yes, he can turn his camera and all that but he should be looking where he is going. Therefore, it is YOUR obligation to yell ”stop” IMMEDIATELY as soon as its looking like you are losing stick or you got agro. If you fail to do as much, frankly, the group is better off without you.

For those that don't know, the command for stick is "/stick"
To make a macro write "/macro Stick /stick"
And place it in a convenient slot in your quickbar
It's not that hard

 

[Ottar]

> when you get ported to emain macha PLEASE FILL YER GROUPS,

Inviting random people to one’s group is the best way to insure nothing remotely resembling teamplay ever happens.

---

> The "pointrunner" as you say, also has an obligation towards the group
> members. To say when you are moving.

This is not always possible. Sometimes things happen so fast, it is hard if not impossible to type much anything. Unfortunately, these are also times when loosing one’s group is most likely to happen. The very reason I hate running point so much is that I find it quite impossible to keep up running commentary on why and where we are running and actually navigating more or less in right direction at the same time while avoiding aggro and keeping eye on chat window in case something meaningful is said there. Skalds aint best pointrunners anyhow. To make least likely people lose speed, skald should stick to the person farthest away from the pointrunner - if the point gets out of song range they will slow down and tail can catch up.

Telling people to restick sure works in many contexts. Then again, good players are stuck on the pointrunners already, before you have to tell them. It’s quite possible you know. As soon as the fight ends, find your pointrunner and stick to them. If you want to look around, use strafe keys - these will rotate your character arount the stick. If you want to wander around, keep your pointrunner selected and don’t run too far, restick every now and then making sure you are still close. Keep your pointrunner so close you are always able to see the guys with yellow name.

Another point - keep the group leader and pointrunner roles on separate characters. Pointrunner is the navigator. Group leader gathers and passes on info, makes decisions, is in chatgroup, tells people to gather up and pointrunner where to run.

---

> im sure they _want_ me to stealth forward and farm RP for them

Do they? Actually, it’s quite ok with me to taxi you stealther types to frontlines so you can disband there and do your own thing (as it mostly happens). Hunters, as soon as they get anywhere near enemy, stealth and wander off to farm. Pretty much impossible to keep in songrange with a rampant stealther. As for rp’s, I can get my own, thank you very much.

Ottar

 

[ImLestat]

If you reread my post you see that I already mentioned what you replied to my post. It's not always possible...

 

[Ottar]

> If you reread my post you see that I already mentioned what you
> replied to my post. It's not always possible...

Ah.. ok. Still tho, directly after a successful fight, there usually IS time to communicate. What I was thinking of, was more when there are 3-4 groups with no common leadership, a more chaotic variety of zerg what I’d call a herd. Now, this herd has usually little, if any, communication between groups. If there’s another hostile zerg nearby, the herd needs to stay together to survive. Now one group takes off at skald speed. Survival dictates other groups must follow immediately. Spamming “restick” and checking if everybod is present.. if one is lucky, takes 10 seconds. By that time, the bellwether group that moves with skald speed, is out of sight. Now there’s a dilemma - you either lose people who have wandered off sightseeing or you risk death to the herd as whole.

Another scenario is when the pointrunner is so pissed off about waiting and searching for people already that his desire to communicate anything to anybody is limited to expressions likely in violation with the code of conduct.

Ottar

 

[old.Hardbein]

@ Ottar


Ohhhh dejavu time....its as if those words came out of my mouth! Cant say anything else that I agree 110%.
People have to know their part in a group and utilize each others strengths.

Skald: speed/mezz, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Healer: healing/mezz/stunn, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Thane: ranged attack (interupt casters), stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Warrior: Meatshield, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Runie: ranged attacks/fend, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Shaman: healing/dot/ranged attacks, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
SM: ranged attacks/mezz/debuff, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Zerker: Damagedealer, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
Hunter: Scouting/ranged attacks, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.
SB: Scouting/damagedealer, stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit form it.

Its all about teamwork and utilizing eachothers strengths.......so if u read my post this far, i hope u get my point: stay close to ur group so they can get the benefit from what u can provide to them.

And a final note: Keep the mezzbreaking to a minimum aswell (AE) and this will do wonders to your group, u might even stay alive when outnumbered.

Cya all in the frontier

Edit: typos

 

[old.Det]

Originally posted by Ottar

Inviting random people to one’s group is the best way to insure nothing remotely resembling teamplay ever happens.

Inviting "random" people into grp gives them the possibility to contribute to the fight. People whos guilds arent big enough or rvr active enough to make their own grps in emain are left stranded (ir their class havent got a speed buff) at mpk and picked off one by one by stealthers as they lumber on towards wherever those thoughtfull skalds decide to go. But hey, if there is a small possibility that they cant meet your high expectations on a military unit then fuck em, right?

 

[old.Hardbein]

Hay Det


I can understand Ottars point of view there.....he (like me) have played this game since beta and almost everything is this game has been tried out..... in RvR that means: casual RvR Zerg, random teaming, keep takes, relicraids, guarding/scouting Odins but when all these have been tried out and in the long run can be a bit boring.....its time to try something new. Teaming with ppl that u know, people u trust in combat, ppl that work well together. Nothing can beat the feeling teaming with a group that can take out a "zerg" outnumbering u 3-1. That takes this game to another level. This game is about TEAMWORK and has been since lvl10......so its all about utilizing a team to the max (in this matter).

There is A LOT of peeps that I like teaming with in mid/pry (a lot of em not EoO for that matter) and I hope they like my company too , yes I tend to /yell a lot and if I ever insulted any1 from my /yelling Im very sorry Its just that my kind of play is based on good teamwork and I expect that from my teamies too. If not I might aswell roam into Jamtland to suicide to some hib-captured-to-get-DF-entrance-keep

Suggestion: If u like this kinda teaming, dont hesitate to gimme a /cg invite and our teams can work together......that will bring this "theory" yet to another level Beeing beaten by a little group of well organized ppl..... will de-moralize our foes even more

Cya in the frontier

 

[Krakatau]

And then...

Some some just run away as fast as possible after teleporting into keeps...
Sometimes I can't even buff up half of my healer/shaman buffs before all is gone and I'm left there all alone

I think it's quite a waste having unused buffs

 

[Danya]

I agree with ottar, especially on the loosing speed and failing to say. All it takes is "stop" "oor" (for out of range) "wait", something short. Taking the time to say "Excuse me, I seem to have lagged off speed and got left behind, can you wait a moment for me to catch up." is NOT useful as by that stage you're so far back you're out of view.

"Another scenario is when the pointrunner is so pissed off about waiting and searching for people already that his desire to communicate anything to anybody is limited to expressions likely in violation with the code of conduct." = me almost as soon as I port to emain.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Agree on all except filling up teams before porting sometimes. I like grouping with different people from out of guild as well as within, though admit that the teamwork is stronger in guild because we all know how each other works.

Pet hates at PKs when getting ready to set off: people that run in and out of the keep for NO reason whatsoever and people that jump from high places getting themselves killed because they want to see just how much damage they can take again and again. Deathspam. Both these things alert the enemy we are coming for them. This happened last night almost constantly.

Yelling and main channel spam? Hey, lets make sure a raid fails!

I think the peeps that aren't willing to be patient on raids and wait for the raid leaders to get things sorted out should just go to Emain and zerg their evenings away happily - all they are doing is spoiling it for the ones that want to play as a team.

 

[Sarnat]

Originally posted by old.Det


Inviting "random" people into grp gives them the possibility to contribute to the fight. People whos guilds arent big enough or rvr active enough to make their own grps in emain are left stranded (ir their class havent got a speed buff) at mpk and picked off one by one by stealthers as they lumber on towards wherever those thoughtfull skalds decide to go. But hey, if there is a small possibility that they cant meet your high expectations on a military unit then fuck em, right?

Right. But you forgot that the possibility they CAN meet the expectations is small

 

[old.moriath]

Originally posted by Roo Stercogburn
Deathspam. Both these things alert the enemy we are coming for them. This happened last night almost constantly.

Death of a middies is only spammed to middies not to every realm in the area. So im not concerned with ppl killing themselves.

I do get annoyed when ppl wont stick even after being told loads of times to stick to a certain person. Then they get behind and expect everyone to wait for them or they pull agro of something.

Is it really so hard to type /stick. Sometimes I think ppl must have had those keys removed from the keyboard <sigh>. It does get very frustrating sometimes just getting accross raum let alone in RvR.

 

[Freia]

there is also a huge responsibility on the pointrunner to atleast try to make sure that ppl are following when he moves.

i always do this:
take a few steps, turn around or rotate my camera and _walk_ a few steps more or back away facing them, then when everybody is moving i start running. it usually takes less than 5 secs to get everybody to follow.

the thing is that you never know if the guys in your group is maybe typing a message, going thru invettory or even looking away from the screen talking to his mother or whatever. so you really cant blame ppl for not following as soon as you move.

 

[old.Tbird]

Originally posted by old.moriath
Is it really so hard to type /stick.

OK 2nd time i've seen this stated so just to clarify, as one of those skalds out there DO NOT /stick to me. Use /follow it's doesn't keep you so close to me and has a much greater range before you drop off me.

It's a bit scary that we have RvR vets telling people to use entirely the wrong command for a job......

 

[Jupitus]

That's totally wrong - how quickly would those people using /follow instead of /stick bitch at the point guy when they get aggroed because they cut the corner???

Using /stick is much better as the tail is closer to the point, either for when crossing the path of mobs or coming round corners....

I shake my head in disdain at the number of people who get ganked by Telamons or goblins in Lyonesse just because they got this wrong....

 

[Danya]

Jupitus, you don't cut corners much on /follow, beleive me it causes a lot less hassle than /stick where you have to stop every 30 secs cos someone lagged off it.

 

[Jupitus]

Just talking from experience Dan - ok I don't have a speed buff, and very often I'll be towing several groups where it is simpler (if a little slower) to simply go normal speed... I much prefer to have people use /stick on me so I have a better idea of how close they are to me... if they can drop back a significant distance then there is a more serious risk of aggro at the back, hence whole group has to stop, hence time wasted while we kill, heal, re-stick and set off again.

It doesn't take much for the point man to pause briefly once in a while and let folks bunch up... much less time in fact than it would take for them to get spread out using /stick.

S'pose /follow would be ok at skald or minstrel speed - you're quite likely to outrun any aggro mobs with that anyway... normal speed I much prefer /stick though.

 

[old.Tbird]

Originally posted by Jupitus
That's totally wrong - how quickly would those people using /follow instead of /stick bitch at the point guy when they get aggroed because they cut the corner???

Get yourself a new point man then I steer my groups with the tail in mind, wide angles on corners, avoid densely packed trees, 'attempt' to avoid spawn areas etc.

Next time you get someone on dial-up lagging off /stick get them to try /follow and see how much longer they stay with you. BTW in guild groups when I know we have people who actually know their way around the frontier I tend to run on the tail guy, lose a lot less people that way.

 

[Jupitus]

I don't mean when the point man cuts the corner, I mean when the guy hanging way back on /follow does because he's too far away.....

... the point man in question is actually superb at towing...

 

[SilverHood]

I wonder who he could be

 

[Jupitus]

Originally posted by SilverHood
I wonder who he could be

.... don't suppose he towed 30-40 Albs all round your frontier on Saturday night bashing doors, do you?

 

[old.Tbird]

If the guy at the back is dropping off due to lag he should shout for a pause to catch up, even on the edge of follow range at skald speed he'll catch up inside a couple of seconds.

 

[old.Tbird]

Originally posted by Jupitus
.... don't suppose he towed 30-40 Albs all round your frontier on Saturday night bashing doors, do you?

You must have really uprated suspension to tow that many

 

[Jupitus]

Originally posted by old.Tbird
You must have really uprated suspension to tow that many

It's all down to having an extremely high-quality, well-proportioned undercarriage, actually... just ask Lady Lunar

 

[SilverHood]

that proves it... he's a Norseman in disguise

 

[Ottar]

> there is also a huge responsibility on the pointrunner to atleast
> try to make sure that ppl are following when he moves.

It helps a bit. But not much, really. Telling people to ”restick” in group chat is actually much more effective, when possible. If they are afk AND not stuck on the pointrunner it’s their bloody problem. Getting half the people to a battle in time is better than getting all of them there too late.

> so you really cant blame ppl for not following as soon as you move.

I can and I will.

I have conciously developed a habit of staying stuck on pointrunner at all times, except when in active combat. And you know what? It’s easy! It’s so bloody easy there simply isn’t any excuse for not doing it. It’s much easier than it is for a pointrunner to keep inventory of 7 other people in his group each time he moves.

There are hotkeys that enable you to target your group members (best redefined to F1-F8). Everybody has or should have stick macro on their hotbars. Now, resticking to pointrunner simply comes down to memorizing the number of the pointrunner in your group, pressing approriate F key and then stick. If pointrunner is out of stick range, use /face macro which has greater range than stick, then run towards that direction until you see your pointrunner. If pointrunner is out of face range, say ”stop, where are ya?” in group chat. Once stick is regained, stay that way until next battle.

Ottar

PS! On that stick vs. follow debate.. very interesting subject there, but until we can commonly observe either of them consistently being used while moving around in groups, those fine points between /stick and /follow, mostly qualify as a RAT (Really Advanced Tactics).