Smokaz's 10 Tips for horrible teamplayers, failguys and cowards

Oh okay, so you think you're a big man and you join my game, mr random example guy on my team. Well you aren't, you're one of those fat buffoons who need everything nailed to their forehead with a hammer before a piece of information or inquiry even starts you thinking about imagining calling in a meeting to discuss the possibility of maybe getting a clue.

Now gently place your hand in the air in front of your head and slap yourself, soljah. The journey begins with the first step, a wise man from Tibet once told me that and in your case it should start with self-inflicted violence to get you into a pedagogically acceptable state of mind.

Basic: get ventrilo or get used to using team chat while everything is going to hell ingame. Sometimes its better to agree on something before moving ahead even if some time or opportunity is lost.

#1 If you see your teammate being attacked by what looks to either be:

  - A unit type which he doesnt have outrageous amount of counters to (a blob of t17s and shermans for example)
  - What looks as possibly all the forces of one player or more

  .. you should immediatly ask him if he wants help and starting moving as you ask. In fact, the good team players see a big hole in AT/AI or flank as it comes into existence and reinforces this hole before anything even happens.

#2 Look at your unit composition, and the closest units near the front lines of your whole team. Does one teammate have nothing but shreks against a sniper, a jeep and a sherman and getting horribly pwned? Send a pak over. Exchange some shreks over to protect your own pak if you dont have any. Exchanging units like this is the very essence of a good team, they are able to cover each other and help each guy achieve the best unit composition possible.

#3 "I'll protect the rear!"
No, goofy. You will not protect the rear.

If you see that your forces are hanging out on the flank just holding a sector that isn't being pushed on, leave a infantry squad in the sector and move the majority of your forces closer to your ally so that you can respond faster to something happening outside of your personal little dream position. Nothing pisses me more off than a bunch of wehrmacht support teams sitting behind or in middle doing jackshit when they could have contributed elsewhere. Its like fighting the enemy with half your strength, utterly pointless.

#4 CHAAARGEEE!!!

Unless your teammates are equipped with gypsy crystal balls or watching all parts of the map at once like Jesus from the sky, they are not going to be in perfect position when you feel like attacking or see a opening. Clearly issue the want for assistance, tell them where you want it and what type of unit thats most integral that you have them support you with.

The most important thing here is that your teammates are not as fast as you. You took the initiative here, you have your plan ready for your units. They might not even if they really want to help you as best as possible. Make sure they are engaging before you put on your micro tunnell vision as your units go in there. Wait for them to show up.

#5 "Dude, my 5 mgs and 3 paks was totally a balanced unit composition. You guys just failed to cover me."

When you bring out units that need support, make sure your teammates are conscious of this. Especially if you have a big blob of stealable weapons only covered by themself, if you get screwed over this can easily cost your team the game.

Alternatively, bring out stuff that wont bend over to a lot of things. Never sit on the flank without AT or without AI and then expect your opponent to let your teammates bail you out.

#6 "This is my side. Why do you want me to go over there? Thats confusing."

Theres no such a side as "your side". The entire map is being contested. As important as it is to hold equal or more territory than the other team over time in a game, your side needs to be capped and held before it becomes a issue again. If you have a side and a little infantry squad hidden away in the first sector of the side you are leaving, they enemy backcappers first have to waste time finding that squad, then defeating it if its camping a building and finally capping and moving on to cap the rest of that side. By that time you could be back, but units lost because you sat on your big fat ass watching "your" side, wont be.

#7 Right unit for the job.

Okay. So you see that a side is being terrorized by a backcapper and a light vehicle. Look over your own and your teammate's units, and propose what unit could be sent with a infantry squad to deal with it. Sending tons of upgraded expensive infantry to die to a backcapper supported by a sherman or a light vehicle (Hi Killer) isn't overly clever. Request that your teammate sends a AC and a 50mm over there to beat it back and hold that sector without diverting slow moving units or too much units from the main fight. If a guy starts to move his slow ass pak half across the map to counter a t17 harassing him and some other guy is idling his upgun pumas or ATHT's elsewhere, the team has failed.

#8 Flanking for couples. A step by step guide. No not really, its kinda simple to do if you trust your teammate.

   So you ran into a mg and you dont have the units to flank it there right now. Oh noes my vet 3 rifles got pinned. But wait, over there is a teammate's flamer squad. Ping your supressed squad and say "im holding the fire of this mg" and let your teamate just waltz in there from the side. Basic flanking, team style.

#9 Overview of team resources.

At the beginning of the game, try to find out what kind of offmaps and ability uses you and your teammates have. Your eyes and their eyes will not be at the same action most of the time. If you see a grand target (big supressed blob) and you know a teammate has a offmap, all that remains is for you to ping the location and tell him "need arty here".

#10 Tim The toolman.
Got some spare pop and ready to call in something? Ask your teammates what they need and what they are planning to call in. Nothing spells fail as clearly and without spelling mistakes as three wehrmacht players calling in each their nebel at the same time. Nice, now we have 20 pop of units that can't defend themself. Good job, team.

"What do we need" and "where do we need it" is the secret here.

Bonus tip 1:

Please consider the situation where everyone joins the game thinking everyone else has the triage, the anti sniper bike blob, the spotter units, the sniper, the artillery. Yes thats right, BigFail. Find out what doctrines the other people are, shortly discuss what utility units or upgrades you might lack. Coordinate the starts if you expect attack/defend/ME mode and you plan to start with a unconventional callin. Not everyone runs balanced companies, and finding out that noone on the team has any indirect fire or a sniper counter as you are literally getting owned by it equals BigFail.

Bonus tip 2:
Whenever your or the enemies crewed weapon is decrewed, find out if someone can crew it before it is regained or captured by the enemy. If not, make sure everyone knows that this should be destroyed as quickly as possible.

Bonus tip 3:
Resource managment. Its a good idea to ask your other teammates what they have left in terms of AT and AI. If they have a lot of AI and you have a lot of AT, you taking more losses of AT units is acceptable because it protects the overall flexibility of your team.

Bonus tip 4
IDLE HANDS KILL AMERICANS. Well idling as axis doesn't help accomplish this directly, sadly. Whenever you have a break you should build sandbags for your PE ally, tanktraps for the pak of your ally and wire off the flanks of your teammate's 30 cal. Ask your british ally if he wants a placeholder for that trench squad, so he can move around a bit. Maybe your PE teammate could need some sandbags for his goliath or FSJ? Maybe your british teammate wants them for his piat ambush?

Bonus tip 5

Warn your teammate of your mines! BigFail occurs when your teammae's two pershings both get engine damage at the same time because they were sitting on one of YOUR mines which you didnt point out to him the location of.

Bonus tip 6
Sodoma is destroyed by three different 105mms at once. Please notify your allies where you are dropping artillery, especially hellishly big spreads like rocket arty, nebel fire or earthshaker. BigFail occurs when your inept nebel aiming ends up pinning your buddy's KCH because you ended up aiming wrong and didn't notify him in the first place.

[Bonus tip 7

Tank Traffic Rules. Bigfail ensues when a lot of team tanks starts crashing into each other just as a large amount of enemy AT starts firing on them. Keep your distance to the friendly tanks. Your crappy tank control can end up blocking your friend's retreating tiger, your bandidos bike can be stopping his mg from setting up properly. And for god's sake, nothing is more frustrating than a player who pushes his teammate's sniper around JUST as the enemy ranger blob is getting ready to charge it.

Bonus tip 8

Some unit's are frailer than others, and is everyone's responsiblity. Covering your teammates low health tank as it makes it way to repair, backing his sniper up etc is integral to good teamplay. Show that you understand his needs by gladly taking fire or hindering the enemy from taking out units that need to fall back by placing your own in the way. A tank dead before it was allowed to even try repairing is munitions wasted. "I'm covering your sniper with these shreks *ping*" and "I will bodyblock that panther with rifles" are words spoken by the true team player. If you see a arty piece thats unprotected, suggest where it can be moved to or what kind of support you can give it to free up his own units, as long as its something better you are offering.

Lastly:

If you're the good teamplayer, it falls to you to keep tabs on all of this. Some people are better at answering than asking. You'll have to find out who wants to partake in teamplay and who prefers just to answer or say yes and no. The latter will be much less fun to play with than the first. Pointing out their errors, as relieving as it is, sadly does seldom help them improve that game. It just stresses them out, so swear at them after the game. Its fun to coordinate the team, though, so don't be afraid of attempting this.

---Killer344: small typo

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