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Squadding in Pubs

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3 years ago
I think it's harmful for 2 or more players to be able to squad up and immediately gain multiple times the eco for, essentially, no downside considering you'd never squad with people you don't trust. Squadding should, honestly, be banned in non-private lobbies.
+1 / -5


3 years ago
Are you implying that teamplay is OP?
+6 / -0
teamplay is OP! nerf NAO
+2 / -0
This is essentially the same as clan stacking or playing with people you know. Coordination is a significant factor in squad success. The only means of defeating a coordinated squad with voice comms is to be equally coordinated. Mumble clan has been doing this for months, albiet without using the commshare feature and having multiple top players coordinating in the same team.

There are significant downsides to squads that voice comms alleviate:
- Players can have overlapping perceived responsibility scopes ("move the dante out of the way to avoid incoming fire", "we should move the dante to kill x", "I want to fire dgun at this")
- Competing resource allocation goals ("let's make singu", "we need more dantes", "we need more screening units")

ADVENT uses commshare with designated responsibilities, flat-like command structure, a designated top level goal, and strong communication. Information is rapidly distributed and responses are typically swift. This is extremely coordinated over voice comms. All commshare (or squadding) does is enhance the coordination. The same can be achieved without it (and we've done it in the past).

Simply put: it isn't the squad that makes the person op. It is the coordination that makes it op.
+3 / -0

3 years ago
Squadding was a problem in team matchmaker back when people played team MM since it often ended up in randoms being blindly thrown against a coordinated team and since the squad was typically veteran it was just curbstomp after curbstomp for the randoms.

It's much less of a problem when you can see who you are fighting and especially in a pot where the really closely coordinating squadded, Mumbling, whatevering are likely to be only a small part of the game.

It'd be nice if more people attempted at least rudimentary teamwork in a pot. I had a couple of good games yesterday when ITrankMakT and I worked together quite well despite not actually saying a word and barely broadcasting at each other. It's a shame games like that stick out because they are the exception rather than the rule.
+1 / -0
3 years ago
I have also been in cases of silent teamwork. You don't need words when people have an intuitive understanding of what they need to be doing to make the team succeed.

But that's how it is with randoms. When I played League of Legends for a bit sometimes I had teams that just flowed like we were communicating telepathically, and sometimes the team spent the entire game shouting angrily at each other on chat and got crushed.

In Zero-K each player tends to have their own zone of responsibility so that kind of organic cooperation is less common. I think that isn't such a bad thing, in a strategy game a division of fronts probably works better than everyone trying to pay attention to everywhere.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
Squadding was a problem in team matchmaker back when people played team MM since it often ended up in randoms being blindly thrown against a coordinated team and since the squad was typically veteran it was just curbstomp after curbstomp for the randoms.

I think you are talking about matchmaker parties.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
nerf the power of friendship!
+4 / -0
USranknop
3 years ago
Knowing how and when to break out of your "lane" is How To Be Good at Teams. You need just as much battlefield awareness as in 1v1, but there are more plops and thus more variables. Sometimes a few Fleas can do great work when you put them in a place nobody else has bothered to go.
+4 / -0


3 years ago
My Little Lobster: Friendship Is Overpowered
+7 / -0


3 years ago
At this point I think the fun had by the squadders is enough to outweigh the, that I have seen, minor impact it can have on others.
+3 / -0
3 years ago
op is confused is all.. he thinks you gain extra eco likley.. but you dont.. im going to upvote the poor sod so he doesnt feel as bad for his mistake
+0 / -0


3 years ago
Oh.

Well the way squadding works (unless there is a bug) is that the 'team' (set of units of the same colour) that contains the merged players gets the income of each player, while the 'team' with no players on it receives nothing.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
Just gonna step in here and say that usually, when squadding with my two brothers, we get split in lobsterpots to balance elo. Rarely are we on the same team, even if we're in a party in-game. We're usually fine with it, since splitting us helps keep the game more fair for everyone... but it does appear that squads do get frequently separated.
+1 / -0
maybe im confused now too.. so if a 6 player team called alpha has + 6 eco .. and two pair off so that the teams look like 1,1,1,1,2 the income of alpha team is still only +6.. but the team with 2 players is getting +2 eco and are sharing it

so the net gain of alpha team is zero? and OP stating that alpha will "gain multiple times the eco" is false. correct?
+0 / -0

3 years ago
quote:
so the net gain of alpha team is zero? and OP stating that alpha will "gain multiple times the eco" is false. correct?

You have certainly described the intended behavior.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
The graphs at the end of the game suggest that the intended behaviour is being implemented. Someone else has to do some of the legwork before I look into a bug here.
+2 / -0
IMO the only issue with players grouping is that they can put more metal behind one strategy in teams. that can easily crush many weaker players just through sheer force of numbers.

but this is also a risk if not managed correctly, like for example the many games where _Shaman ended up vs me in teams and i just sat there hoovering up the reclaim as his units marched into a meat-grinder.

at the end of the day this isn't an issue unless someone nefarious makes some smurfs, groups with them, and then uses the double metal income to do silly cheese.
+0 / -0
quote:
at the end of the day this isn't an issue unless someone nefarious makes some smurfs, groups with them, and then uses the double metal income to do silly cheese

I feel like this should be what happens when someone gets two coms due to uneven teams.

An actual "reward" for being the conscripted carry.
+0 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
I feel like this should be what happens when someone gets two coms due to uneven teams.

Shouldn't the elo of the two commander player be weighted times two as well, in that case?
+0 / -0
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