AGN: Community Clash Recording TXR and MERC vs NNG and TGWW

[Phrygen]

Originally Posted by EnderVS

I think the difference is pretty clear cut and the situations are not even remotely the same. Mattherson's air elite have formed their own outfits that are basically called something else across the different factions, connery's air elite have not done this, they are not on the same team day in day out because they aren't in the same "group" of gamers as TGWW/QRY/N are. The group of gamers that are generally on the same TS nightly as well.

Comparing the best vs the best isn't relevant here and to bring it up is just reaching for anything at this point. Like I said, Mattherson's air elite do play together in the same squads nightly, Connery's don't. For whatever reason that's just how it evolved on Mattherson.

Personally i don't think the differences are clear cut at all. In fact the status of TGWW/QRY is only obvious to those who know about those players, and certainly wouldn't be obvious to players on another server.

For example, how are mattherson players to know what the elite pilots on Connery actually do, what alts they have, and who the fly with? More importantly, why would most players make the effort to acquire that information.

The 7 day rule is the best thing that can be done. It sanctions the use or ringers and removes responsibility for regulation of rules on the part of RCCC, while giving spectors a better chances of seeing the best players play. Besides, its not like all the top outfits aren't going out of their way to recruit the best players possible, and there are plenty of outfits that are already going to refuse to take part in RCCCs against the top outfits unless they can bring in outside help.

Originally Posted by EnderVS

It wouldn't have been 48v48 then, how does RCCC go about pairing outfits up that are similar level. It's not really that feasible and its more up to the outfits to bring their A-Game.

That is the larger point. The more all the best players are gathered into single teams, the less competition is available, and the less likely a competitive PS2 scene with longevity will emerge. This isn't a 4v4 halo or COD competitive scene. Right now there are maybe 3-4 potential top teams imho, and then everyone else who simply can not compete. Taking mattherson for example, there is simply no one left to bring an A-game in the air besides TGWW/QRY, and those that potentially could have are losing top skilled members to TGWW/QRY. Its not like PS2 has a noticeably growing player-base, and while i'm excited to see what optimization can bring, there are many hurdles that PS2 will have to cross in order to keep growing. Just this week alone is a hurdle in the form of BF4.

So when it comes to an RCCC like this, you either let it be server vs server and bring whoever you can, or you strictly enforce outfit rules (and that is not possible). Doing something in between results in what happened during the last RCCC, and one sided route that was, personally speaking, only enjoyable because its a chance to look at the new Nexus.

I already said it in this thread, but as I see it, the MLG score/$ value on the DA site being in initial basis for salary capping teams is the best chance PS2 has of becoming MLG viable. But hey, maybe the 3-4 teams that do become MLG viable can just have alts and pretend to be a completly different team and a full 8 team league can happen

[retrogreq]

Originally Posted by Phrygen

Just this week alone is a hurdle in the form of BF4.

Not gonna lie, I'll be flying the attack helicopters around those skyscrapers all month.

[Sardus]

Originally Posted by Lepalose

Your third paragraph was the issue we had. After the air was under VS control every push we did, even to defend bases, we had to go back to warpgate and pull resources to get back into the fight. Not only for Sunderers & Galaxies (which both would be hit or destroyed before moving out past the first line of bases) but also for the AA resources to deter their air.

Definitely a huge drain on resources and time to do this considering the current form of the Nexus' spawn mechanics, as well as having no spawn beacons or ability to squad deploy.

Getting an infantry force set up anywhere becomes a matter of attrition from air attacks, as there is not any safe locations for sunderers, or, broadly, from spawn room to capture points when defending.

On Live, that is something we do quite often too Sardus, but on Nexus it plays out very differently.

Maybe do what the outfits of antiquity did. Mossy or Libby drops.

Take a bunch of mossies, strap on afterburners, and just run like hell to the target. Then hack stuff out.

[Sardus]

Originally Posted by Dreadnaut

I agree with you 100%, yet we all had the same issues to deal with. No one had the use of squad deploy or beacons and to hear people complain about not having that worked both ways. I wish squad deploy and beacons had been working but once we were told beacons would not work, we made a game plan based off of that information (Liberators certing Ejection seat, etc). When we were told 60 minutes prior to the match that beacons would in fact work, I voted to not use them based on our new plan that we put in place. To revert to an old plan with less than an hours notice wasn't something I was at all interested in doing.

We came up with a plan and it worked based on the current rule set and the map. Our plan just worked out better than your plan, that's all. I don't think any less of MERC/TxR for losing a silly scrim, we just happen to have won that night.

Elaborate plans will always fail and the K.I.S.S. principle will always be the best option. That was our super secret plan, "Keep It Simple Stupid". As I stated before, it was literally, "Kill SNAFU first, Kill NAPOOPAN second, kill MAGNIFISCENT third, then focus fire everyone else. Be very very aggressive at the start. Be smart, listen to Nate, otherwise don't speak. Listen for the Sunderer strike calls...spawn points win matches, DO NOT let the enemy spawn, force resource drain, whatever it takes, DO NOT let a Sunderer live."

I don't believe that having beacons or squad deploy would have had any different effect on the outcome of the match, but that's just coming from the confidence level in my guys.

What we know after this match:

• Resources need to be replenished at 1/2 time. Absolutely no reason to punish a team in round 2 for having a bad round 1.
• All resource gain should be MUCH higher so people aren't stranded so early on

Yeah, I'd imagine the liberator with Ejection seat to be a very valid tactic.

Galaxies will not be as useful in nexus. They are too easy to hit and to spot. And if you lose one, you're 12 guys down. If you lose one lib, you're only 2 or 3 down.

Heck, I don't even think sunderers are very useful. Once beacons and squad deploy are working, that'll be the most important way to get people back into the fight, and that is ONLY when you're desperate, as medics and engineers will be incredibly important for the attackers. Relying on a sunderer can be a very easy way to get removed. Sticking together with medics, is what I recommend.

If you rush with mossies, you're even harder to kill, but coordinating people to drop properly with just mossies is not easy.

I hope they put in closer hackable spawn points near the major objectives. I haven't looked too closely at Nexus... are their camps/towers near the enemy bases?

Until then, strategy is going to rely on getting to the target with as many people as possible, and keeping them alive without the use of a hard spawn. Not easy for an attacker to do. Relying on a hard spawn is a poor choice, namely because it can be easily killed.. and if you don't have the tenacity to hold a base without the use of a hardspawn, the defenders are probably good enough/strong enough to take it back anyways.

[Lepalose]

Originally Posted by Dreadnaut

I said that TGWW should exit this thread, and I meant it, however I had planned on responding to this post before I exited the thread and forgot too.

If you meant it, then you should have acted upon it. Preaching about locker-room dynamics after an 'anonymous' source passes you a recording is clearly trying to infuriate my members, as sort of a 'passing-shot' as this conversation is supposed to die down.

I have no apology for you about how my players, in the moment of a loss and privately in conversation, reacted to the loss with each other. This was a private conversation, and this was venting. The passion they bring to competition is clear on the recordings, and I can understand the anger and frustration that they had. Their feelings and frustrations are their own. How we deal with that is an internal matter. Moreover, these do not represent the broader reaction within our community coming out of the loss nor the attitude of MERC leadership. Indeed, it has been a really energizing experience with some lessons that we learned from it.

To state the fact, we had a member take it into his own hands to continue to express his anger via this forum. Again, while I understand his frustrations with the situation, he is not speaking on behalf of MERC when he has posted as he too was inflammatory to this issue.

This is the only statement you will get from myself or MERC leadership on recordings of personal conversations, and of our member that was out of line in posting on forums.

Next, I understand that you believe your community of pilots across all factions constitutes the TGWW outfit. However PS2 communities are generally built around a singular faction, loyal to a certain team, one that they play continually with. This to me does not mean "play[ing] all over the place, regardless of tag ...shar[ing] many Teamspeak servers freely, bouncing from one to the other as situation warrants." And while we have numerous players including myself that will play all factions and with different groups, especially our best fliers, that does not mean by association these outfits and friends are all a part of the MERC community. So while we had offers of numerous friends and great players that are connected broadly to our community, it was our choice to follow what we believe to be the spirit of the rule and use only players directly in our outfit, that are core to our outfit, that primarily play our faction.

Now, it has been made clear that our groups differ in what we believe constitutes an outfit and community in this game for competitive play. I was concerned and knew about the situation of non-outfit members being added directly before the match, but we went into the match without raising an issue.

This issue of what constitutes an outfit is what MERC wanted clarification on after the match from the RCCC group holding these events for the future. While I too believe that a 30-day rule would be better then a 7-day rule, they have now been clear as to what the rule is. This is a positive outcome from all this mess.

People can still game the honour system (e.g. create a character on TEST server with an outfit member's name while really being a ringer), I would ask members of those outfits if they really want to be a part of a community that is willing to gut itself in order to look better for broadcasts. After all, ringers like that will only play on your side until you lose, and where will that leave you?

We went forward in the competition despite our concerns of outfit membership and the (sudden to me despite being a leader) change to spawn beacons. We did so because this is an event put on in the free time by the RCCC with PSU support. The CC is an evolving thing and I respect what they are doing with it. I had a lot of fun participating, but I believe that asking for clarification on rules is important to helping improve it. I also know that my outfit members really enjoyed it as well despite the loss, and indeed it would be something that we would like to participate with again in the future.

Finally, to address the talk about skill-level differences in this match. I believe what you saw in the NNG/TGWW vs TXR/MERC match was not a huge difference in skill levels as a whole, but a decision that we as TR leaders made with regards to air resources at the start of the match which given the map, resources and spawn options spiraled out of control. NNG & TGWW capitalized on that mistake, and should be commended for that, and for executing their plan extremely well. They have every right to be proud of that in this win. However, despite the lead in the first half, the starved resources, and issues spawning there was a period of time that TXR/MERC kept it close in the second half. So we have a single data point to judge and compare, and NNG/TGWW certainly won that one. But I believe that this one match though is not indicative of either TXR or MERCs potential, and I look forward to our future matches.


TL;DR: private conversations deserve to remain private, MERC accepts the clarification by RCCC to the rules regarding what makes a team, MERC congratulates NNG/TGWW for the win, MERC will continue to compete in the future.

[retrogreq]

Originally Posted by Lepalose

...shar[ing] many Teamspeak servers freely, bouncing from one to the other as situation warrants."

I just want things to be crystal clear, but when they were referring to multiple TS's, they are DA's, NNG's, and TGWW's. When we all aren't in TGWW's, we are in the outfit we are supporting's TS.

[TorinPS]

Originally Posted by retrogreq

I just want things to be crystal clear, but when they were referring to multiple TS's, they are DA's, NNG's, and TGWW's. When we all aren't in TGWW's, we are in the outfit we are supporting's TS.

Unless we are collectively playing a different faction, in which we could be on any number of other Teamspeak servers. (QRY, BAX, N, etc.)

[retrogreq]

Originally Posted by TorinPS

Unless we are collectively playing a different faction, in which we could be on any number of other Teamspeak servers. (QRY, BAX, N, etc.)

I was under the impression ironfist let the QRY TS die months ago.

[TorinPS]

Originally Posted by retrogreq

I was under the impression ironfist let the QRY TS die months ago.

Nope.

[retrogreq]

Originally Posted by TorinPS

Nope.

You should check again, Arc says it's down, and so does Dread.

[Dreadnaut]

Originally Posted by Lepalose

If you meant it, then you should have acted upon it. Preaching about locker-room dynamics after an 'anonymous' source passes you a recording is clearly trying to infuriate my members, as sort of a 'passing-shot' as this conversation is supposed to die down.

I'm slowly starting to lose my desire to be polite when I read things like this. No need to be snippy with me when your members are the ones that started this completely asinine TGWW bashing. I'll post as I see fit, I retract my previous statement. Now you sir have my 100% undivided attention.

Originally Posted by Lepalose

TL;DR: private conversations deserve to remain private, MERC accepts the clarification by RCCC to the rules regarding what makes a team, MERC congratulates NNG/TGWW for the win, MERC will continue to compete in the future.

Private conversations don't deserve to be kept private when your member is openly lying on a public forum and the only way for us to contradict those statements is to prove we know otherwise. We didn't steal anything, we didn't do anything wrong, we just proved your member was lying and it wasn't heresay.

No need for you to get on your horse when your members are the ones responsible for all the bickering back and forth.

[Rumblepit]

Originally Posted by Dreadnaut

I'm slowly starting to lose my desire to be polite when I read things like this. No need to be snippy with me when your members are the ones that started this completely asinine TGWW bashing. I'll post as I see fit, I retract my previous statement. Now you sir have my 100% undivided attention.


Private conversations don't deserve to be kept private when your member is openly lying on a public forum and the only way for us to contradict those statements is to prove we know otherwise. We didn't steal anything, we didn't do anything wrong, we just proved your member was lying and it wasn't heresay.

No need for you to get on your horse when your members are the ones responsible for all the bickering back and forth.

Proved he was lying??? You must mean me.What was I lying about?I did speculate that you guys went to hossin at half time, but i never accused you of it ,because I wasn't sure.Knowing what I know now,I know you didn't. From what I gathered from the QRY forum you just brought in a bunch of alts at halftime with max resources. Again not against the rules, but against the intent of the rule.

As for the intent of these rules. I think you will see most outfits have a clear understanding of these rules and wont be inviting all the ringers on their server when they show up at CC. But there are always be a few that will take it upon themselves to take advantage of the intent of these rules.That being said we now know what to expect when a matherson outfit is on CC.

[TorinPS]

Originally Posted by retrogreq

You should check again, Arc says it's down, and so does Dread.

[retrogreq]

Originally Posted by TorinPS

I wonder what server arc and dread are talking about, or if this server you are in is actually the 2nd one that got put up, not the "official/original" one.

[TorinPS]

Originally Posted by Rumblepit

From what I gathered from the QRY forum you just brought in a bunch of alts at halftime with max resources. Again not against the rules, but against the intent of the rule.

a) QRY don't have forums
b) They were accusing you of bringing in alts at half time, not admitting that we did