Teamwork in shooters.

[Zannah]

I've seen lots of teamwork in cod games, just not when joining random games alone. And there's a simple reason for that, as Yahtzee so eloquently phrased it: People are Shit.
With the general gap in ability, between an average player, and a competent player in cod, is simply too big, to the point where in nine out of ten cases, having a teammate close is a threat, rather then even remotely helpful.

 

[thedeathscythe]

-snip-

Amen man. And hey, all the power to them, if their game caters to their lone wolf style, then I'm all for them playing it, but I hate to see a game that is very team heavy where someone tries to be Rambo. Shit man, I'm surprised someone else here understands Socom too, I'd share that cookie with you and then we could extract some vips.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Team Fortress 2 requires a great deal of teamwork (obviously)
Medics are most effective when utilizing an ally player for heals as well as Uber/Kritz
Soldiers can use their various banners to buff up groups of allies
Snipers can use Jarate to break gridlocks and save allies from fire
Pyros can airblast off stickies and fire as well as light arrows
Heavies can throw their sandviches to heal allies
Engineers build teleporters and dispensers to restock and reinforce allied troops
Spies are much more effective when allies are drawing enemy fire and causing a distraction
Scouts can use Bonk! to distract sentries so allies can gun them down
Demos can make quick work of entrenchments provided they have backup with Medics and/or distractions

Overall, games like CoD seems to actively discourage teamwork. Touching allies usually results in you either getting hung up or getting pushed into a wall and the overpowered explosives/killstreaks encourage scattering over grouping up. Also add in that any gun in CoD could probably kill 10 enemies in under 4 seconds and you have a recipe for failure if you get hung up.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I try to corral the morons on my team into a winning strategy, but generally my pleas of "don't push their spawn, they'll spawn behind us!" are met with silence, and inevitably lead to much frustration for me. No matter how loudly I scream at the trained chimps on my team, they never seem to take my advice.

I guess my question here is, if you KNOW someone on your team is better than you at the game, and knows more about successful strategy in said game, do you ignore his advice anyways if he's being a dick? I often can't help myself from being an asshole to these people. It's so damn frustrating when they completely ignore me and lose the game for our team.

 

[Nexoram]

I think the lack of teamwork stems from the fact that we can jump into a match with any group of random people. People who we've never met and probably never will meet again.

We've been programmed to think that they're dicks, and they may be dicks, or they may not. Either way we'll probably ignore them and go by ourselves.

I don't think true teamwork can be accomplished unless you're playing in a group with your friends, a group you can trust. That's really really difficult with a group of strangers that we think will turn on us at any moment.

Hm... this is very true when you think about it. Randoms will just come in and out of your game and you won't know if they're good team-players or death-whores. If you play with your mates however, you all know each other and their weaknesses and strengths so you make a "formation" of sorts, tactics and the such. That would probably be already better than the masses of noobs and randoms you meet in your team. Add a bit of communication (quick-chats, VC) and you're gonna rip through the enemy.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

-snip-

Amen man. And hey, all the power to them, if their game caters to their lone wolf style, then I'm all for them playing it, but I hate to see a game that is very team heavy where someone tries to be Rambo. Shit man, I'm surprised someone else here understands Socom too, I'd share that cookie with you and then we could extract some vips.

oh fuck. desert glory..god dammit, there was ALWAYS a bastard camping in the jail cell room with a 12 gauge shotty waiting for you to come get those vips =\ and i forgot the name of the map, but it was one huge ass snowy mountain in the middle, and extracting the vip's without getting them killed on that map..god that was balls hard, i remember we would spread them out on the seals team and use them as bait, we'd catch a good 3 terrorists that way and ambush em with m4a1 sd's =] (that game actually made silencers HEAVILY useful, like they should be_

that is one of maybe 4 reasons why i am keeping my ps3 around, if socom 4 keeps the same classic gameplay, with updated team tactics and graphics, i might die of excitement/happiness.

 

[thedeathscythe]

-snip-

Amen man. And hey, all the power to them, if their game caters to their lone wolf style, then I'm all for them playing it, but I hate to see a game that is very team heavy where someone tries to be Rambo. Shit man, I'm surprised someone else here understands Socom too, I'd share that cookie with you and then we could extract some vips.

oh fuck. desert glory..god dammit, there was ALWAYS a bastard camping in the jail cell room with a 12 gauge shotty waiting for you to come get those vips =\ and i forgot the name of the map, but it was one huge ass snowy mountain in the middle, and extracting the vip's without getting them killed on that map..god that was balls hard, i remember we would spread them out on the seals team and use them as bait, we'd catch a good 3 terrorists that way and ambush em with m4a1 sd's =] (that game actually made silencers HEAVILY useful, like they should be_

that is one of maybe 4 reasons why i am keeping my ps3 around, if socom 4 keeps the same classic gameplay, with updated team tactics and graphics, i might die of excitement/happiness.

God damned Blizzard, that's definitely the one you mean. You always gotta bring one VIP as bait, me and my clan have a couple people roll with red smoke, you bring a vip to the extract point and you smoke it up like you're actually going for it. 3 guys come out of hiding and you take them out. And Dessert Glory, one of my favorite maps but that jail cell is SOOO hard to take. We also designate people to rush the cell, they run left and quickly grenade the balcony leading to the jail cell so we can take it. My all time favorite map is Frost Fire, any game type on there is dope.

I'm wishing the same thing man, Socom Confrontation is a huge mess (we still play it...), but here's hoping 4 will actually bring everything good about Socom back. If not, I'm considering pulling out my classic Socom's again. A game like that had natural team work, it didn't just reward you for acting like a team, it made it so that you had to work as a team to win. I'm interested in Battlefield 2 right now, but it has examples of forced teamwork rewards, instead of just an end game reward of actually winning. Nevertheless, I want to get it soon.

 

[Blue_vision]

I'd say there are two reasons for a lack of teamwork:

First is that there's little consequence to dying. You die? Just respawn. Similarly, most of the cover all points flank the enemy coordination that's needed for good teamwork can just be replaced by a single person ramboing in and getting some lucky/well practiced shots at the enemy. A game really just can't have 1v1 deathmatch capability and teamwork at the same time. Not that there's anything wrong with 1v1 dming, but I personally find it boring and it'd be cool to have a good new popular subgenre.

Second is that objectives are usually secondary. Again, most games that I've seen online are just deathmatches, which can't really ask for any teamwork. That's why a game like TF2 does so well with teamwork, and why unlimited time CTF is the least team-oriented gamemode of them all. In every other gamemode, there's always pressure put on the player to keep pushing the objective. I find this lacking in most other games.

 

[Bradd94]

You're always going to have the Johnny Rambos of FPS players that think they have the 1337357 skillz and will disregard any strategies in team objective games.

MMO's for the obvious reasons are the only games with solid team playing, imo.

 

[Assonabum]

A main issue I find, for console players, is that not many people have their mics turned on

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

snip.

haha yup, im glad over nearly a decade of that game being out we can remember maps exactly. oh and yes, on desert glory if you made it left hard and fast you could get that jail cell building and get an easy win. FROST FIRE! besides having to make a sprint for it at the beginning to dodge the grenade throws off the bat, that map was awesome, i always laid down piss tons of mines downstairs then went hunting from the backside by there spawn =]

yeah i played confrontation and i just...eh it left me so disappointed that i immediately sold it back, my roommate has the 1st and 2nd one so we occasionally play campaign on there, still just as fun as the day i got it (although easier, now that we know where every damn terrorist and their chosen paths.)

personally my favorite map of all time will always be abandoned from socom 1, beasting the sprint off the beginning to dodge the grenade spam war in the middle, then killing 3 snipers rihgt off the bat, that was the most awesome exhilarating feeling i had playing video games as a kid. i would play 3 hours a day before school (you heard me right, 3 hours a day BEFORE SCHOOL alone) on that game, so i knew the ins and outs of that game like the back of my hand.

but enough nostalgia, i'm itching for killzone 3 to come out, i'm going to get that socom beta code and play the hell out of that online to see if its going to be worth it.

 

[Jack Macaque]

I just had to register so I could comment on this, though I guess since I frequent the site I should have done that a long time ago...oh well.

For myself, playing a game like Call of Duty Black Ops is unbearable unless you add in one key factor: Teamwork.

I can't count the times I've gone into a game (CTF is my favorite) and the opposing team is well, one big team, that plays flawlessly.

By the time first blood is spilled they already have the flag, as soon as they score a point another teammate grabs the flag to score again, it's just a work of art how these guys play the game, with the defending being just as important as scoring, they handle it like a nice walk down the beach.

Now I play more frequently when I have a friend online, or preferably someone beside me to splitscreen, then the fun starts.

Once I have someone to communicate with properly the wins start to add up, and our gameplay turns into art.

Not saying I'm an uber zomg 743687.00 KDR player, but when it comes to CTF with great teammates, WE can really kick-ass.

Playing public the problem mostly lies with communication, some people have mics and some don't, some turn off the voices in gameplay, some are in a party with other people doing different things, some people blast music through their mic, and some people just don't care.

Now getting everyone to communicate is one problem, another is getting people to listen to commands, most people in public games don't feel like someone telling them what to do, I'm sure we can all agree with that.

Now even giving simple commands like watch the back door, keep an eye on the alley, those are simple enough commands that might make or break a match, yet the intimidation of leadership is lacking enough that people will casually ignore these requests and run around the corner into a claymore.

Now I'm starting to ramble I need some sleep so I'll sum this up, Teamwork in shooters in impossible without a few key things:

- Communication
- Leadership
- Teamwork itself

And with that, I'm off.

 

[shootthebandit]

Bad company 2 is very teambased, the classes are balanced and work really well togther and the vehicles have got balanced strengths and weaknesses

intersquad chat is needed to make it almost perfect, seriously why cant i chat to other squads especially when they are in my vehicle. a squad structure like MAG would be nice in BC2 too as it would let the team leader control the priorities

 

[Drummie666]

Actually, lack of team work was why I stopped playing BFBC2. I found that I was the only person moving toward the objectives while everyone else sat there and focused on kills. Everyone's complete lack of effort infuriated me so often that I just couldn't deal with it anymore, and killing my stupid team-mates only worked so well.

 

[Jamieson 90]

If you want teamplay then you need to play a game that is designed for it. For example I have been playing Enemy Territory Quake Wars for the last couple of years. The game is huge, the maps are 1km squared. There are land sea and air vehicles and you need a variety of classes to win.

With that said pub play will always be pub play. You want teamwork then you need to play in a team or an organisation i.e clan. If you want to play at the highest level then you need to play with a pro team in competitions and tournaments. I was part of a ETQW comp team that competed and won trophies in tournaments. We played together pretty much every day for an entire year and we were an efficiet killing machine simply because we knew each other so well. simply put you can't usually rely on people you don't know to have your back.

 

[natster43]

Battlefield Bad Company 2 can have quite a bit of teamwork in it, but it is still pretty rare. Left 4 Dead 2 and Dead Space 2 from what I have seen have much more teamwork.
I remember how much fun Battlefield 2142 was, even when I was with teams of complete strangers there would be a lot more teamwork than in most games I play nowadays.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I found games that teamwork was almost always there were survival games, such as Killing Floor, Left 4 Dead and COD Zombies. Hell, even then there'd be that one dick who would who would go alone to get the most money for Killing Floor, Leroy Jenkins-ing it in Left 4 Dead or taking the elevator before everyone's on there in COD Zombies.

In games where getting kills is a higher priority than not dying, or there isn't that much of a penalty for dying, vigilantism is inevitable.

 

[Bullfrog1983]

The problem with teamwork online is usually there is "one guy" who always wants to order everyone around because they arrogantly think they know more than anybody else. This usually results in people muting said person and continuing to play their own style of game. However, when I play with friends I usually try and work as a team with them.

 

[burgbrand22]

I agree with folks here who say that TF2 and Left4Dead are good team-oriented multiplayer games. It's hard to have success in both those games if you don't rely on working with your squad. One of the best parts about Left 4 Dead are the infected, where their attacks basically forces you to rely on other people's help. Which is why I appreciate the games from Valve.

 

[Taxman1]

There was a half life 2 mod called Battlegrounds 2, which was based around the American Revolution. A lot of the servers hosted "linebattles" where people actually came together in lines and took shots at each other, sometimes in turns. There was a commander leading the line, usually an admin but other times you can have the honor of leading. The lone wolfs are "rambos" and they usually get a kick/ban.
These servers needed admins to actually function properly but the clans are big enough for this to be a small problem.