[Sun] 23 Mar 2014 (Will it explode?)

[audiox]

Basically, it comes down to telling people very accurately what you want them to do. What you think is implicit in a statement is very often not.

For instance : If you tell somebody to watch north, and a message comes over TS about something spooky and scary to the east most people will, in my experience, stray from what they are meant to be watching because they want "in" on the action. Which makes some sense, since its a game and the pew part is pretty fun. As an FTL that can be annoying, since you meant "and keep watching north regardless unless explicitly told otherwise, or the message was "firing marid 50 meters to the east!"". Also, being explicit about stuff like that sort of means that you deny people the "sights" of a session, which can be annoying to some.

Finding the right words in hectic situations is very tricky, especially when english is a second language and you end up going "run to that thing.....thing.... over there". Also, we are still pretty horrible at de-hectifying situations by slowing down the pace and hunkering down.

Also, don't over-estimate the resilience of four guys. They go down very very fast. Personally i'm becoming of the opinion that it is really not advisable to split up Alpha and Bravo squads, though that is just something i need to try out before i can pass any real judgement. 12 + 2 has just seemed too weak in way too many engagements we have experienced lately.

So, basically, i'm thinking leashes. Maybe with some sort of electric "jolt" function. Should work like a charm. Also, one IFV-6c/fireteam.

[Kefirz]

Anyone have any ideas?

Naming actual people to do tasks does wonders.
Instead of just saying ''Blue team.. stack up on the wall to your Left/Right/North/Whatever'', but saying ''Tiger and Shark stack on that wall....''.

You can draw parallels with real life crisis situations, from my experience, if you will say to a group ''someone call 112!'', while you are doing CPR, then nobody will call it, BUT if you point at him and say ''YOU, call 112!'', then shit will get done.


Also, experienced people take slots like CO and SL's and some FTL's, but how about you encourage those people to take FTL slots and leading by example, while leaving the upper command to someone newer.

If someone that doesn't feel comfortable with leading yet, I hope this will help:
-Slow and steady will win the race, take it slow, there is no need to rush.
-Stick together with your squad and fireteam members, you, me, and even Iceraiser isn't Rambo, most of the times we all die, it's just the matter of how long you can cheat death.
-Ask questions, we are all friendly people.
-We might giggle sometimes, but we can't help it

I realize your frustration Tiger, but we cannot expect people to do something if they aren't trained for it or if they even hadn't done it before.
You, as a mission maker, a CO/SL, and a FTL must take in consideration that people that come here, have an appeal to FA because the whole point of the community is relaxed, yet organized approach.
Many people either don't have time to go to the workshops, or they just get bored, as I did, forgive me people who were and are still running them, it's just that after the 4th time of bounding, it gets a bit tiresome and you start to wonder why are you here.. so maybe change the format a bit? i.e. start with the main course that you want to run, and end it with a discussion/debrief of what just happened or do some quick bounding exercises for 10-15 minutes, before the session starts.

In short:
-Calling out people by their screen names will get you a long way.
-Lead by example.
-There is no need to rush.
-Communicate


Anyway, that's just my 2 cents, maybe somebody wants to add, discuss or to reject something, feel free, my eyes and ears are open.

[Dogface]

I've been playing Arma for quite a while now, and Project Reality for ages before that, and as a grunt I *still* find it difficult to reliably do these two things at the same time: staying in a useful formation, and looking/moving around in an effective way. Even with STHud, I still have to constantly switch between one and the other - spend too much time on one, fuck up the other. I'm sure this is even harder for new people. Likewise, it's difficult for a fireteam to be handling fireteam stuff and *also* keeping in a good formation at the squad level.

This can sometimes make it quite frustrating to be an FTL or a SL, respectively. But when people are wandering around like loons, seeming to turn selectively deaf/blind or to get taken by crazy notions all of a sudden, I always try and remember that sometimes I myself can't stay to the back-left of my FTL without bumping into a wall or missing an enemy patrol or whatever. The only thing that really helps is for the FTL/SL to keep their instructions informative but concise, to keep people's attention without overwhelming it, to be motivational but not overbearing, to remind people of good technique without nagging... all of which takes experience (even if that same experience can make it all the more obvious, and potentially frustrating, when people under you are making mistakes or not paying attention).

The moral of the story is: relax, you're just experienced. Do your best to help people out and they'll do the best they can for you.

[audiox]

[
Naming actual people to do tasks does wonders.

A million times this. "Someone", is a bad, bad word to use if you have a command slot.

[Wilson]

Perhaps for the main coop mission of the session ask only experienced players to take leadership slots. Will make gameplay a bit smoother for others and also allow less experienced people to learn.

Obviously then have no restrictions on all the other missions and perhaps even slotting less experienced people in those roles outside the main mission.




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[audiox]

Perhaps for the main coop mission of the session ask only experienced players to take leadership slots.

Preferably not. What sets FA apart for me is that you're allowed to seize the position you want if you want to practice/think yourself qualified to do so. We already have plenty of hesitancy when it comes to filling leadership slots and i'd hate to make the process more exclusionary.

In other news, i stumbled upon this http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tactics- ... latoon.htm
and this http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tactics- ... niques.htm

There are plenty of resources like this available on-line i guess, dyslexi's and others, but it might be worth a read to some.

[audiox]

Also, regarding leadership slots. For me, personally its been much easier to take a leadership slot in a coop than in an adversarial. I just feel more comfortable goofing up in a "us vs computer" setting than in a "us vs them" setting. But that's just me.

[Thirith]

In other news, i stumbled upon this http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tactics- ... latoon.htm
and this http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tactics- ... niques.htm

There are plenty of resources like this available on-line i guess, dyslexi's and others, but it might be worth a read to some.

These look interesting - I'll add them to the resources thread: http://www.folkarps.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&p=8670. Please feel free to add anything else there that might be useful!