IRL wartactics in Planetside and Planetside 2

[Mightymouser]

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]

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).

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

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).

Even our manuals (at least for the Army) don't talk about this. I have a copy of the Ranger Handbook and FM 7-8 sitting on my bookshelf by my desk and I can't find a single reference to 18th and 19th century field formations.

So when my outfit practices battle drills, and Galaxy quick-load procedures, and small-unit tactics, and CQB... this is all done as adapted to the game. We don't drill it relentlessly but we do drill it. We have training courses for players that don't know this stuff but want to improve.

There's another aspect to battle drills - practicing teamwork and cohesion.

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by Firefly

Even our manuals (at least for the Army) don't talk about this. I have a copy of the Ranger Handbook and FM 7-8 sitting on my bookshelf by my desk and I can't find a single reference to 18th and 19th century field formations.

So when my outfit practices battle drills, and Galaxy quick-load procedures, and small-unit tactics, and CQB... this is all done as adapted to the game. We don't drill it relentlessly but we do drill it. We have training courses for players that don't know this stuff but want to improve.

There's another aspect to battle drills - practicing teamwork and cohesion.

Exactly,

One obviously can't take their field manuals and apply them verbatim into the game. Like you said things need to be adapted. So when I think of using knowledge from the real world into the game it's not like "Hey guys we just started the game, let's get in a wedge and move to contact."


I have knowledge of older tactics from history courses and being a revolutionary war reenactor in high school. But I felt comparing modern tactics and older ones projected my bewilderment in people thinking things should be implemented directly from a field manual.


Having the knowledge couldn't hurt and might help you see what's possible sooner than others. But anyone who doesn't adjust what they are applying with real world knowledge for the game is doing it wrong.

[Figment]

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.

[JHendy]

Figment, your fingertips must be starting to bruise by now.

[Fortress]

He's built up a resistance by now.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by JHendy

Figment, your fingertips must be starting to bruise by now.

Meh, I've always typed long posts. :/ It's a habit from an old philosophy forum. Besides it doesn't take THAT long to write or read.

Suppose people just aren't used to reading anymore. Out of curiousity, how many books (novels, deeper stuff) do you lot read in a year at how many pages an hour? >.>

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by Figment

Suppose people just aren't used to reading anymore. Out of curiousity, how many books (novels, deeper stuff) do you lot read in a year at how many pages an hour? >.>

I average a book a week if I have the time, one every two weeks if I don't. I don't measure pages an hour because if I'm into a book and it's easily-read, I fly through it. If it's tedious or complicated, I go slower. I also read in bursts - pages at a time, then two pages later, then another two chapters. I will say that I'm a speed-reader.

[kidriot]

it doesn't work. someone early in the thread mentioned how there'd be people in sanc forming vanguard lines and 3-4 galaxies for drops - the big outfits, like Devil Dogs and shit would have these massive fucking numbers of vehicles all lined up and we'd be flying by them in our mosqs and reavers. around the time we'd have a base capped or towers turning blue or the enemy pushed back, here comes these people with their formations crawling along. they were too late.

I think even the idea of training in PS2 is pretty laughable. you can say, hey, they practice scrims in competitive fps's and the like and yes, PS2 will probably be competitive but they get better by playing the game. you don't get better teaching people breach techniques for towers or whatever.

if I ever wanted people to form up, I'd put a waypoint in the middle of nowhere and say, you have 5 mins to get here and then we're leaving - if you weren't there you were dead weight and I was tempted to kick your ass out of the outfit.

the thing is, when your outfit is playing like a well oiled machine, it isn't because of some pseudo training you did in-game, it's because you're playing with like minded people who want to win and know what it takes to win. you can't train that, it's just there. during heated fights in our ventrilo you'd typically only hear 1 or 2 voices, mostly telling people where to meet up and which towers to take and which gens to blow, besides that it was mostly quiet or people talking about how shitty the Vanu or TR are and people laughing about it. there is no tacticlol speak or anything like that, it's people chillin' and ownin'.

essentially, if you're having to show people how to play the game and think for themselves, you've already lost. kick them out of the outfit and look for someone who doesn't need to be babysat and you have the foundations for a good team.

[SKYeXile]

Sharing a Physical bond with your outfit mates is clearly the best method to success, I'm sure Delta Triad will agree.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by kidriot

the thing is, when your outfit is playing like a well oiled machine, it isn't because of some pseudo training you did in-game, it's because you're playing with like minded people who want to win and know what it takes to win.

And I would say that about does it. Anyone who disputes this fact is a silly goose and isn't invited to my birthday party. Everyone who concurs with it has two feet planted firmly on the ground and will be amongst those best suited to excel at killing space men with laser guns over the Internet.

[SgtMAD]

Originally Posted by kidriot

it doesn't work. someone early in the thread mentioned how there'd be people in sanc forming vanguard lines and 3-4 galaxies for drops - the big outfits, like Devil Dogs and shit would have these massive fucking numbers of vehicles all lined up and we'd be flying by them in our mosqs and reavers. around the time we'd have a base capped or towers turning blue or the enemy pushed back, here comes these people with their formations crawling along. they were too late.

I think even the idea of training in PS2 is pretty laughable. you can say, hey, they practice scrims in competitive fps's and the like and yes, PS2 will probably be competitive but they get better by playing the game. you don't get better teaching people breach techniques for towers or whatever.

if I ever wanted people to form up, I'd put a waypoint in the middle of nowhere and say, you have 5 mins to get here and then we're leaving - if you weren't there you were dead weight and I was tempted to kick your ass out of the outfit.

the thing is, when your outfit is playing like a well oiled machine, it isn't because of some pseudo training you did in-game, it's because you're playing with like minded people who want to win and know what it takes to win. you can't train that, it's just there. during heated fights in our ventrilo you'd typically only hear 1 or 2 voices, mostly telling people where to meet up and which towers to take and which gens to blow, besides that it was mostly quiet or people talking about how shitty the Vanu or TR are and people laughing about it. there is no tacticlol speak or anything like that, it's people chillin' and ownin'.

essentially, if you're having to show people how to play the game and think for themselves, you've already lost. kick them out of the outfit and look for someone who doesn't need to be babysat and you have the foundations for a good team.

Rathdal did kick ppl for not rallying the hell up, I used to preach "Speed Kills" over and over again,you have to be able to fight a "hyper war" where everything is happening at a much faster pace than you see 99% of the rest of the playerbase ever move at.

once you start rolling other empires like that, you will find your platoons stay on-line longer and you have a shitload of ppl start looking you up to try out for the outfit.

kidRiot was a God among boys in PS and ppl are going to shit when they see what we are bringing to the table this time around.

[Hamma]

Wow this thread is a wash. I think a new thread needs to be created about the ACTUAL topic

[Figment]

Originally Posted by HtSgtMAD

[...] you have to be able to fight a "hyper war" where everything is happening at a much faster pace than you see 99% of the rest of the playerbase ever move at.

True. Speed in PS is essential, especially for responses against larger groups. You have to be able to make split second decisions to drop what you're doing if something else is more important. Very often an empire loses because it just doesn't respond fast enough to a changing situation and is obsessed by grinding at a particular base that's not even relevant.


You also see this need for speed when strategy was being discussed. Instead of determining next moves well in advance, CR5s would only start debating next course of action the last 3 minutes of a cont cap. Too often the next target would already have been figured out by the enemy because it just took so damn long to make up their mind. Not to mention that some part of the zerg would go to (stupid) target X without orders, because it had hot spots or was called Cyssor. Additional problems occur when someone just stalls decision making on purpose or makes countercalls out of spite.

The situations following that show how important it is as an empire to play with an overall strategy in mind, act as one, time it together and fluidly with previous actions and to make such decisions swiftly.

Same goes for tactical decisions within battles, you have to be able to adapt rapidly to a constantly changing battlefield. Also why a lot of tactics and tactical outfits in PS were reliant of fast (air) units, more so than heavily armoured units.