Frontline PSA - Playing to Win

[Dimitrii]

These not so subtle shots are funny to read.

[TheWaywardWind]

I wish people would move back to their original GC and stop harassing others, Dimitrii. It's just so irritating.

[Makado]

I will usually call nodes and stuff when I play, the biggest problem comes from people who can't see the big picture going against what you say. Most times people can't see that next step ahead, and think a really good call is bad so they start shouting how dumb it is then half the group doesn't listen and it fails. It is very very hard to get an entire group to just listen.

[S-snape]

I think one weakness most ppl who are good at frontline have is not helping their team SEE ahead. If the node you're deffing easily has 20% left, TELL people that because your node is soon dying, let's spread out on the battlefield to get a quick cap on the next one that'll spawn soon.

But because everyone assumes everyone knows/is paying attention to this, it's usually not called, and you end up spreading too late and letting the enemy cap every node. So your only option is to full-on attack. And if you got inexperienced players, that won't always work.


But yea, I agree it's probably hard to pick up leadership. You say you have alot of wannabe callers. I've played the game for a little over a month now and PvP'd for 3 weeks, and I was probably one of those wannabe callers at the start, but only because I didn't see someone else step up all the time (so maybe that's what the callers in your GC are doing, they just don't see any great shotcallers stepping up, so they shoulder the burden even though they know they're not the best).

And I've played competitive moba at a high level for a long time, so I know how important it is to be organised. Even if I didn't always make the right calls in the beginning, I kept at it because I knew following 1 bad call is usually better than not having a call at all. It's really the only way to learn; and.. I learned a shitload about SR strategy that first week. lol

[Kyani]

Most times people can't see that next step ahead, and think a really good call is bad so they start shouting how dumb it is then half the group doesn't listen and it fails. It is very very hard to get an entire group to just listen.

This is a big thing - there will be times when the right choice is to cede nodes entirely, or to disengage from a fight you're winning. If there's any dissent to that call at all, your group will splinter, and you'll wind up losing the game because half of your team suicided into an objective, and the other half didn't. Then who gets blamed?

A lot of Aether Flames' high-end shotcalling got undermined this way - people would transfer over, yell at shotcallers without offering advice (or worse, offer terrible advice), and cause new players to distrust the knowledgable ones. Over time, the worst shotcallers gradually eroded the best shot callers' ability to lead games, and the whole faction suffers for it.

[Knahli]

I usually feel pretty confident about what move is the best but I lack the charisma to actually go about telling people what to do, mostly perhaps because there's always a part of me holding back thinking that maybe I am making the wrong call. Though if I can say one thing, use sound effects with your calls. Maybe some people find them a little annoying or obnoxious, I don't know, but it's really, really easy to miss a lot of direction when you're in the heat of battle, running for your life, or trying to help a teammate escape.

[NessaWyvern]

I'm one of those obnoxious shotcallers that use sounds effects, and spam the chat until I see enough people move >.> It gets the job done, but it makes me look like an ass.
(that being said, I only shotcall if nobody else is)

[KayVonTrarx]

I only started shotcalling recently since Gilga Flame leads were taking it easy. But from their advice, sound effects are sometimes the only way to get people to wake up. Given that reacting quickly is the make or break in many matches, something like "<se.12> Retreat South" repeated a maximum of 3 times is very effective (don't over-spam).

Sometimes, more complicated orders help when in dire situations like pincers. If you're on bridge & pincered from both north/south, "<se.12> Retreat East through Beach" helps retreat around one GC so that the enemies are left facing each other. Never fight a pincer unless you are on Ramp/Cliff with only one way to you. Survival>Nodes>=Kills

Of course the leadership culture might be different for your datacenter/GC. But for Aether Flames it has seemed to create better coordination. Won't fix inadequate calls which I've made for sure but at least people will listen. A grouped GC is always better than split alliances.