IRL wartactics in Planetside and Planetside 2

Oty · 2012-02-12, 04:37 PM

When I was playing Planetside many years ago I was never much involved in any outfit or any big tactical raids. From time to time one ended up in a squad that was serious and actually had some form of plan but thats all.
Now I've gotten older and from where I come from we still had military service which means I've spent a year in uniform (some years ago). I actually made equivalent of corporal as a rank. this is why I in this thread wanted to ask a bit about tactics.
In bootcamp we learned different types of tactics for dealing with different situations on the battlefield, like for example how to move with covering fire or how to clear a room in close quaters. from just the single soldier up to platoon size. this is something I've tried to use in FPS's to some extent and with varying results.
My question is to those who had experience with IRL tacticts and tried to implement them in planetside if they worked at all and how well compared to just zerging or "home made" tacticsfor example.
Also I have been trying to imagine how it might work in PS2 since in my mind eg. the faster TTK might favour more realistic tactics. I even saw some plans for outfits where when I read the description it seemed very milsim oriented.
my question is you guys think it will actually be a winning strategy to implement strategy and ways to fight from the real world to the battlefield of Auraxis?

Personally I would really like it to work and I feel it could be fun, but then again I realise that PS2 is a game and the ultimate goal is for as many players to have fun at the same time, not to raise small diciplined fictional armies and let them fight eachother.
just want to add that I'm really looking forward to PS2 since I still think PS is one of the greatest games of all time. I'm sure I'm gonna love this game anyway it plays

DviddLeff · 2012-02-12, 04:45 PM

*Coughs*

Check out my sig.

Most of the stuff on there I know works from PS experience or what I think will work when PS2 roles around. Some of it I do think may not work, or at the very least may be pointless to train into "troops" but "officers" may find it useful.

The key is training it into outfit members so that it becomes second nature, despite the challenges that come with playing online; difficulty locating squad members due to lack of locational voices and restricted vision, lack of a set squad to train with as players log in and out, etc.

Warborn · 2012-02-12, 05:06 PM

Real life tactics will be totally useless and trying to instill real life tactics stuff will be a wasted effort. Maybe some old school WW2 dogfighting tactics could be useful for people who pilot fighters as a group, but otherwise just forget trying to play real soldiers in the game.

People have played FPS games before. We naturally adapt to how games work and figure out using our brains what tactics are effective. People who want to be effective at the game will allow their outfit's tactics to grow organically from their members' own experiences playing. Fighting against that process through hamfisting inapplicable real-world tactics into people's repertoire will be an obstacle to effective play.

WiteBeam · 2012-02-12, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by Warborn

People have played FPS games before. We naturally adapt to how games work and figure out using our brains what tactics are effective. People who want to be effective at the game will allow their outfit's tactics to grow organically from their members' own experiences playing. Fighting against that process through hamfisting inapplicable real-world tactics into people's repertoire will be an obstacle to effective play.

I agree with this. There are multiple things in PS that make RL tactics impossible.
I am infantry in the Marines aswell. From personal experiance, you just can't combine real tactics to a game like PS where it takes mutliple rounds to kill someone or where a skill like stafing exists.
One thing that will always be affective is just teamwork in general.

Figment · 2012-02-16, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by Mightymouser

Figgy, I guess I'm going to have to ask you to quote where you're getting that Warborn ever said that no RL military tactic was ever useful in PlanetSide; because I just don't see he saying that, or even implying that, anywhere...

Originally Posted by Warborn

Real life tactics will be totally useless and trying to instill real life tactics stuff will be a wasted effort.

First thing he said and repeated several times, even when it was talked about in terms of abstractions.

Even RL tactical lessons by Sun Tzu (based on warfare experience), such as use of human psychology to bait etc, would not be applicable, apparently. He's indicated that he believes 100% of a player repertoire l should come from playing the game because that's the best result guarantee.

I completely disagree with that. Most players wouldn't know bait from a opportunity if the trap snapped on them 12 times. You know that all to well, as you're an infil as well.

Mightymouser · 2012-02-16, 01:18 PM

Ah, I see... The problem here is that in that quote War is literally talking about direct real-life tactics; as evidenced by the following sentence which notes the applicability of WWII era flight tactics... What's more, you agree with him on this stance, you've agreed that implementing actual tactics is a bad idea; what you seem to miss is that there really are people who have tried to do this in PlanetSide; people who forced their outfits to spend 20 minutes in sanc setting up a tank column, and running all sorts of rediculious drills, which only got them obliterated in the field. That application of tactics is what he's referring to as utterly useless...

The idea of applying strategy, and tact to in game situations I think is what Warborn was reffering to when he noted that these are not the sole purview of military forces; in other words, one does not need extensive experience in the Art of War to be able to derive the fact that killing all the spawn points is an important goal in winning a fight in PS. Is cutting the supply lines a military tactic? Yes. Can a 12 year old derive that tactic without so much as even watching the history channel special on WWII? Also yes.
I've read the Art of War, and I'd certainly agree there are some excellent themes presented there, but I look at much of the book in the same way I look at them writings of Nosradomis. People will read into them, and implement them as they see fit, regardless of the actual text. Most of Sun Tzu's writings provide vague starting points, which take great extrapolation before they are directly applicable to any situation. Much of that extrapolation requires that the person have extensive experiance in their field, so while Tzu's writing is useful for a start, the person with the ability to implement it, could probably have come up with the tactics without his writting.

I take for instance your quote regarding appearing weak, then crushing you enemy... Inentionally making your enemy underestimate you is a pretty obvious strategy, people do it all the time with out needing a military mastermind to tell them to... What is really important is knowing how to make yourself appear weak ingame. And that is something that has to be derived ingame, and real-life tactics are mostly inapplicable in this...

Graywolves · 2012-02-16, 01:36 PM

The argument that you shouldn't apply something directly from a military field manual feels too obvious for me.

No one lines people up shoulder to shoulder and make them all shoot and move at once anymore (outside of ceremony).

Figment · 2012-02-16, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by Mightymouser

That application of tactics is what he's referring to as utterly useless...

Agreed completely, which is why I gave examples of completely useless types of tactics, such as line infantry and square formations.

The idea of applying strategy, and tact to in game situations I think is what Warborn was reffering to when he noted that these are not the sole purview of military forces; in other words, one does not need extensive experience in the Art of War to be able to derive the fact that killing all the spawn points is an important goal in winning a fight in PS. Is cutting the supply lines a military tactic? Yes. Can a 12 year old derive that tactic without so much as even watching the history channel special on WWII? Also yes.

Again, fully agreed. However, when we're talking a sentence like "All warfare is deception", we're a step further away from the obvious tactics. This sentence for instance makes you think about ways to deceive your enemy. Someone who just button mashes may not link enemy player psychology to his own actions. It'd take a lot of observation and will to understand the enemy to come to more in-depth conclusions. Certainly where player psychology is concerned.

I've read the Art of War, and I'd certainly agree there are some excellent themes presented there, but I look at much of the book in the same way I look at them writings of Nosradomis. People will read into them, and implement them as they see fit, regardless of the actual text. Most of Sun Tzu's writings provide vague starting points, which take great extrapolation before they are directly applicable to any situation.

But that was the point of Sun Tzu, as he wanted to make people start thinking about their actions, without limiting them. He is purposely vague to inspire. Of course he also makes very practical observations and advises, but those are in many cases contextually very time period related and got largely outdated the moment marching armies of line infantry became outdated. The timeless quotes are the ones that are useful. (Which is why I went "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! IDIOTS!" the moment the Bush Jr. administration decided to disband the Iraqi army upon its surrender: Sun Tzu)

Nostradamus... I see what you mean, but from what I've read he was just making random self fullfilling prophecies. Those are not advice or have any truth to them, those you give truth. True though that you fill in the meaning to the quotes of both.

Much of that extrapolation requires that the person have extensive experiance in their field, so while Tzu's writing is useful for a start, the person with the ability to implement it, could probably have come up with the tactics without his writting.

Again agreed, as said earlier, I've never denied that's possible. The difference is that it cuts the learning curve tremendously, which Warborn disagrees with and also provides some perspectives you may have overlooked by just playing the game.

PS exclusive hot drop transport tactic, example of train of thought. I never NEEDED to come up with certain strategies (like Sund + Lodestar) in PS, since I could use the 'conventional', obvious and well known methods of a Galaxy or mass mossie hot drop. I didn't feel these airdrops gave enough protection at the drop site, as I wanted them to get completely covered (tortoise) right to the point of entry, without much risk of mossie/reaver/OS spam because everyone knew they were coming. Sunderer provides enough cover, but not enough freedom of choice.

However, while thinking of ways to increase the effectiveness of a drop, I recalled Sun Tzu deception quote.

There had to be a higher deception level to get troops safely close to where you wanted them without as much advance warning. When I combined these trains of thought of ground and air attacks, I realised that NOBODY ever saw a Lodestar used in an attack, other than suiciding onto vpads. And since nobody could kill it one their own, it's a low priority target that tends to take out itself when exploding, it's generally ignored (or fled from). Certainly on coms next to nobody will call "incoming lodestar!".

I also realised additional benefit of the names above a lodestar to be hard to see from bottom angles.

We used this to do triple Sundies on top of tech plants, where the Sund saved you from mines and first volley of Reaver fire, someone could EMP blast and you'd get your full crew in safely. If you wanted to go for a normal base, pretend you want to suicide into the vpad and drop the sund on the other side of the wall at the BD, any troops there would be too busy running away from getting rammed to immediately realise what's happening.

So tortoise + deception and even some chaos if all works out, perfect. Worked like a charm, game provided the tools, Romans and dear old Tzu the inspirational theory.

Unfortunately I never see anyone else perform that tactic. I've never seen an enemy do it, only some allies that had done it with me before. I'm certain someone on the other servers probably done this at some point as well.

The point though is that it's not something most players would come up with on their own, when they have something else that is more obvious and "works". I've seen outfits do five mossie drops in a row and get beaten every time, "but it works for those other outfits, so it should eventually work!". Problem is, those other outfits have more experience in keeping their approach unknown and they don't constantly repeat the same move on the same enemy every ten minutes...

Players on their own simply aren't as smart as some give them credit for.

They need inspiration.

I take for instance your quote regarding appearing weak, then crushing you enemy... Inentionally making your enemy underestimate you is a pretty obvious strategy, people do it all the time with out needing a military mastermind to tell them to... What is really important is knowing how to make yourself appear weak ingame. And that is something that has to be derived ingame, and real-life tactics are mostly inapplicable in this...

Again, agreed, but that's also what I've said since the first post I've made. You can use the 'dogma' (quote) as the basic framework and use real life examples as inspiration to help you in deriving a way to do this.

In that sense, as you said earlier, experience and knowledge are aids in devising plans for a (new) game. It's not a direct implementation. I've never, ever, argued that, but Warborn somehow thought I was.

Grognard · 2012-02-12, 05:11 PM

Ex-marine infantry here (25 years ago...). Short answer is... no real discipline, teamwork is good but not professional class, and... most importantly, no one is "scared", so the wild-card factor is much higher...

The illusion of tactics is there in sufficient quantities for me to have fun though...

Graywolves · 2012-02-12, 06:00 PM

You can use some of the knowledge into the game. If you had any training as a squad leader or above you can use some of the planning and executing skills you learned to better manage your group.

Tactics themselves never really change much, the real difference in video games is that you don't require an entire fire team or meneuvering element. A couple people can get the effect done and if you have a 3:1 ratio then you pretty much won anyways.

Battle Drills in the real world are designed to inflict the most casualties while sustaining the least. Casualties simply respawn in Planetside.

tl;dr - Some things are useful.

Warborn · 2012-02-12, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by Graywolves

Battle Drills in the real world are designed to inflict the most casualties while sustaining the least. Casualties simply respawn in Planetside.

I hope you influence an outfit in PS2 to attempt to use real world battle drills in this online video game. It's always fun having more bad players to steamroll.

Neksar · 2012-02-12, 06:50 PM

Real-world strategies don't work since players in games don't value their lives as much. No point in minimalizing casualties if casualties don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Graywolves · 2012-02-12, 07:19 PM

Originally Posted by Warborn

I hope you influence an outfit in PS2 to attempt to use real world battle drills in this online video game. It's always fun having more bad players to steamroll.

I don't know why I would when I just pointed out the flaw.

-edit-
As I said the leadership management is the most applicable thing. You can apply certain concepts but if you attempt to train your outfit in Battledrill 1A and try to execute that in the field on PS2, you're not going to be achieving much.

Warborn · 2012-02-12, 07:22 PM

Oh so your conclusion after all that vacillating was that they aren't good? Not that some work and that tactics never really change? Oh. Okay. Riddle solved. Too bad. Oh well.

Figment · 2012-02-16, 05:07 AM

Originally Posted by Firefly

Graywolves asserted, so I interpreted it anyway, that real-life military tactics have a tried-and-true place in Planetside. Warborn's assertion, as I interpreted it, was that they did not.

My interpretation is a bit different:

Originally Posted by Graywolves

You can use some of the knowledge into the game. If you had any training as a squad leader or above you can use some of the planning and executing skills you learned to better manage your group.

Tactics themselves never really change much, the real difference in video games is that you don't require an entire fire team or meneuvering element. A couple people can get the effect done and if you have a 3:1 ratio then you pretty much won anyways.

Battle Drills in the real world are designed to inflict the most casualties while sustaining the least. Casualties simply respawn in Planetside.

tl;dr - Some things are useful.

He makes a distinction that on a more abstract level there are tactics to be used and skills, including specific group management skills and - like everyone else - he makes the explicit distinction that there are differences and RL battle drills aren't quite the same if applicable at all.

Warborn hasn't made any distinction whatsoever on what skills or tactics can be imported - he explicitly stated there is NOTHING you can use or adapt. Although he does contradict himself by hinting at RL WWII dogfighting - I presume he's thinking of spiraling or Immelmanns - rendering his entire opinion of "total uselessness" already flawed by own admission. But he does not realise or acknowledge it at all.

Originally Posted by Warborn

Real life tactics will be totally useless and trying to instill real life tactics stuff will be a wasted effort. Maybe some old school WW2 dogfighting tactics could be useful for people who pilot fighters as a group, but otherwise just forget trying to play real soldiers in the game.

People have played FPS games before. We naturally adapt to how games work and figure out using our brains what tactics are effective. People who want to be effective at the game will allow their outfit's tactics to grow organically from their members' own experiences playing. Fighting against that process through hamfisting inapplicable real-world tactics into people's repertoire will be an obstacle to effective play.

Originally Posted by Warborn

I hope you influence an outfit in PS2 to attempt to use real world battle drills in this online video game. It's always fun having more bad players to steamroll.

Warborn is consistently thinking of EXACT IMPLEMENTATION (see second quote). That makes him a shortsighted fool, because he has consistently thought he's argueing against that, instead of abstractions.

I mean...

Originally Posted by Warborn

Attempting to shoe-horn in tactics, rather than allowing tactics to be developed out of experience playing the game, would be to one's detriment, though.

Someone like Figment I could imagine wasting a lot of effort trying to use real world tactics for the sake of using real world tactics

Using them not because those tactics are appropriate for use in a setting completely unlike the one they were developed for, but because they are infatuated with the idea of using those tactics.

All he's argueing here is so besides the point it became ludicrous, hilarious and sadly incredibly emberassing.

There is a danger in even keeping those tactics at the forefront of one's mind, lest one be sidetracked.

This was the only relevant part of the quote, but irrelevant as nobody said it should be. He's just imagining everyone who argues about RL tactics to shoe horn in stuff. To think that is just incredibly retarded.

There is another side to this worth pointing out, however. While dwelling on real-life tactics will be a distraction, there will no doubt be games which play very much like Planetside 2 will. It is possible that tactics which worked in those other games might be applied to this new one. Stuff that worked in Planetside 1, or Battlefield 3, could find new life here. Those are tactics potentially worth considering.

This made me laugh even more, because of the hypocrisy involved. Importing tactics from other games is EXACTLY like importing tactics from RL. You'd always have to adapt them to some degree to make them work. IF they are applicable at all.

I mean, anyone remember the bunny hoppers from CS before they realised stamina bar and CoF didn't agree with it and they had to adapt?

THAT is what Warborn is imagining with someone implementing an abstraction of RL tactics, but that's not at all what has been suggested by anyone. He's been argueing with 'fictional newb opponents' all this time instead of with us. That's the last I'll say about Warborn.