Winning and Losing: The Musical

[Mark Karlfeldt]

> DISCLAIMER

I'm not here trying to stir drama. I just want to start a meaningful debate on our stances on interacting with the rest of the community. Any shit that goes down in posts on this thread was not my intention, nor my fault.

---

Have you ever been in a multiplayer game with someone who can't accept defeat? To whom, winning is the validation of their life? Do you recall them throwing a verbal tantrum when things don't go their way, when they get killed, or when their team loses? Do you remember just how annoying it is?

We've probably all experienced it at one point or another. We all click our tongues and shake our heads at this obviously immature behaviour, wondering how someone could get so worked up over a videogame. It's ridiculous, right? Winning is nice, sure, but losing isn't the end of the world. That's how the game works - sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. No biggie.

Which is why it confuses me so when so many members of the Second Life military community, both within Ordo and without, refuse to accept the idea of a defeat. And - frankly - it's easy to claim a victory whenever you want. This is Second Life, the only game balance we have is entirely voluntary and often discarded in a matter of minutes. If things don't go your way, just pull out a bigger gun. Bring in more people. There's no team autobalancing or the like. Simulator rules are often unenforced. Go nuts.

Now imagine if you could do this in every other online game. Imagine playing Call of Duty where you could whip out a tank in the middle of an infantry battle the moment things tip against you, and there was no enforcement to stop you. To a lot of people, this might actually sound appealing at first - but let's look at the varied ramifications of doing so.

Other players would be pissed off, and refuse to play with you, as they would always lose.

You'd quickly get a disliked reputation in the game's community.

Victory after victory would make victory itself hollow and worthless.

You drive other players away from the game.

These are just a few examples, but are probably the most prominent ones that come to mind in a scenario like this. In the end, the result is simply that everyone loses - everyone else loses the match, and you run out of other players to play against. And even the few matches you find become meaningless because you win every single time.

You can probably see where this is going. Let's translate this back over to Second Life, specifically, back to Ordo.

It's a cold day in hell when we accept a defeat. In fact, defeat is something reviled, failing is punished by revoking the privileges of being able to lead raids or hold OIC. You can say that it doesn't happen, but I know it does, and it concerns me deeply. When we begin to lose territory on a defence, we immediately jump to the biggest guns in our arsenal. It's not terribly uncommon to have a tank on both extremity objectives, taking out anyone who gets close, or a Thanatos strafe-bombing the roads leading to the objectives. We will often continue doing this even after the threat has been mitigated and we have things locked down again, parking the tanks or bombers there until the enemy simply gets tired of being stonewalled and leaves. And then we throw down the victory card, cheer about how skilled we are and how poor our opponents were. Even on raids, it's not uncommon for us to bend the enemy simulator's rules to secure a victory.

And doing all this has the exact same consequences as it does in any other game: it pisses off everyone else, and makes the concept of victory a tired, beaten horse. It's complained that we rarely get anyone other than lonewolves coming to attack us - well, perhaps this is why. Perhaps because the only time an enemy raid has secured victory conditions was by rushing us during early morning hours when we're understaffed, an act which we counter with outright hostility and annoyance, even though it's not unheard of for us to do the exact same thing to others.

Every time I've brought this up in the past, it's been met with derision and denial. Commonly, other members will flatly deny that any of this happens, or tell me to lead my own raids or be OIC more often, which is entirely missing the point. I think it's an issue that has been swept under the rug for too long, and needs to be put on the table for a serious, thoughtful discussion.

1. "We can't accept defeat, because if we do, other groups will jump on it as an opportunity to erode our reputation and standing."

We're Ordo. We pride ourselves on following our own standard, and we often consider ourselves above and beyond the reach of other groups. It's easy to see why: we have an enormous member count, an intricate and complex rank and command structure, we have our own established protocols and divisions, and we've followed this formula to relative success for years now. Other groups will often spring up, stay around for six months and collapse again. Not us. We've held out for a long time.

That's why we should be maintaining a standard above and independent from the rest of the community. Cheap name-calling and ego-inflating actions by others shouldn't affect our judgement and ethical guidelines. The hollering by other groups who oppose us vehemently never really bothered us before, so why should we start caring about that when it comes to offensive or defensive combat?

I'm not going to outright say that we're solely at fault for the sheer amount of hate directed at us - those who direct it at us are just as much at fault for perpetrating it, and we are still a damn sight more fair than them. But there are some things we can be doing about it, things we should be doing about it, because we're the motherFfffing Ordo and we don't need to listen to a man-child cockwaving about how they defeated us. Let them have their circlejerk. It shouldn't faze us in the slightest. If we lose, we should lose graciously, rendering their boasts hollow and worthless.

2: "Other groups would do the exact same thing if they had the manpower or gear."

We should be the forerunners of progress, not following the trend set by others. Once again, we're Ordo. We don't need to bow to pressure from others; we should be the ones who stand above the others in a sea of churning faeces and egotism. And if that means that sometimes we have to bow to a fair defeat, then it should be so. Be "the bigger man" and all that. Because in the end, if we're doing what they do, we're simply being no better than they are.

3: "We need to make our gear more powerful to meet the threats posed by other groups."

Arms races are pointless and yield nothing but wasted effort. Having been in Munitorum for as long as I have, I've gradually witnessed concerns for balance and fairness crumble in the face of an enemy military that has the bigger stick. Trying to match the gear used by enemy groups has historically resulted in nothing but a race to see who can make the bigger booms the fastest. This just destroys the point of combat entirely, as instead of fighting our battles on the field; we're fighting war in the R&D departments instead.

On top of this, we have the best training out of any military on the grid. And I say with confidence that nine times in ten, training will always trump gear.

The reason why an enemy group resorts to such bullshit is because they can't accept defeat. They're the kid who yells on the mic and throws a tantrum when they get fragged in Call of Duty. And elevating our tech to match theirs is simply validating them, and encouraging them to make an even bigger stick. See where this is going? Straight to critical mass.

There's a word for equipment that is overpowered and unfair. It's called "bullshit". And it's something we shouldn't be even entertaining the thought of doing, even for moment.

Once again, we're Ordo. We have our own Ffffin' standard. Just because we have the ability to throw down the big stick, doesn't mean we should.

4: "It's demoralizing to accept defeat."

Pulling out the stops to claim victory makes victory itself meaningless. I'll refer again to the introductory section of this thread - that in the end, being on the winning end every time inevitably causes a loss on a larger scale than just the match you're in. If we believe it's acceptable to think like this, then we're essentially becoming the ubiquitous Call of Duty kid.

Let's theorize for a moment that we go on a raid, we play fair, and we're losing. At this point, almost every raid commander would yell for a bigger stick, whether or not it violates the enemy's rules. You can't really blame them - losing a raid is frowned upon immensely, and often punished both directly with the stripping of privileges, and indirectly with a loss of respect.

Let's say that we lost because the enemy flew off the handle, they brought out every big stick they have and they rained every piece of bullshit down on our heads to maintain their superiority. Should we validate this "tactic" by meeting it in kind, or should we laugh it off and leave them to stew in their anger, knowing that we played by the rules, they didn't, and that's victory enough for us.

Now let's say that we lost to an opponent who was playing fair, by the rules and generally being fairly reasonable. Do we really want to become the kid who throws a tantrum when we lose? Or should we accept a loss, and be mature adult men who can tolerate the concept of losing. After all, there's always a next time.

---

So what do we do?

There's several ways to approach this. One way is to lay out more comprehensive policy regarding Ordo conduct on defensive and offensive operations, ensuring that force is met with an appropriate response, avoiding overreactions, and that we maintain our standards wherever possible. Hold training and seminars focussed on addressing this issue. Be more lenient on people who bring home a loss instead of a victory sometimes.

I'm not suggesting that we become anal about balance and fairness like our good friends the Merczateers. I'm not going to throw around terms like "game design" in a game where anyone can shoot a nuke out of their crotch and destroy several simulators.

All I'm suggesting is that maybe, just maybe, we can avoid being the Call of Duty kid.

Discuss.

[Ron Bleac]

If an enemy military has a bigger stick, we should either aim at disabling their stick or bringing out a bigger one. As much as I would love to say we can go up against multiple fleetships, AGLs and automatic weapons with Scar-Ls, that doesn't work today. The modern battlefield is a place where things such as tanks, armored fleetships, aircraft and high yield explosives are common place. We must either adapt our offensive capability to match today's standards (we don't want to play Scrabble in a Call of Duty game) or develop sufficient defensive measures to reduce our casualties, thus outpacing the enemy by bringing in a steady flow of reinforcements by manpower resupply or by starving their defenses with firepower, reducing their reinforcement output or obstructing their supply line.

Just because we pull out bigger guns or more guns doesn't mean we're the Call of Duty kid, it means we have the resources and power to outmatch an enemy that would normally outgun us, such as when attacking a dug in enemy in their own sim. There is no shame in calling in heavier ordnance onto the enemy when the situation demands it, or bringing in bombers to assault a position that is in fact, outgunned to clear the way for a ground advance.

I have never seen a commander stripped of rank or lose respect over a failed battle, unless they have committed a serious offence or have been negligent of rules, both of the enemy and our own code of conduct. I have been here close to two years now and I'm notoriously heavy handed with firepower and even criticized as "stupid" for launching full frontal assaults with tanks, infantry and aircraft when in reality: That may be the best option in some sims, such as Erebus Initiative (who are no longer with us) or Alliance Navy.

[Aryte]

You lecture at a narrow view; your first point notates we escalate gear when faced with trouble. The existence of said gear is present for that purpose. We ought not have anything but handguns if, when we run in to trouble, we question ourselves on a moral dilemma if we should utilize it, lest it make us “scared of losing.” The escalation of gear and use of heavy materials is not founded simply in the “fear of losing.” It’s natural escalation of force during the commission of battle. There need not be any worry about pulling out larger guns when the presence of said guns provides a tactical advantage: that is the entire point of battle, to have the tactical advantage and to ascertain victory.

Your second point is irrelevant. We have never put our group into role by judging ourselves on how another group would act. Other groups have the manpower and gear. All groups we routinely interact with have the latter and freely employ it without shame of doing so (ex; Chaos utilizing a virtually immortal tank).

Your third point. Arms races are not pointless effort and yield progress. Everything we use is from an arms race. We all battled at once time with G36s that were freebied. No joke. The AN used plane. We developed planes. The AN developed more advanced and efficient weapons. We developed even greater weapons. Armor, attachment air craft—all born out of arms races. No one simply sat there and went “this is a good idea.” We did it out of “this will kill enemy better, it is a good idea.”

Training, certainly, impacts effectiveness. But there is no reason we should tie our hands behind our backs and avoid complimenting training with gear. We have the capability to do both: why restrict ourselves to simple means and “train better” to win? We need technology and heavy armaments to cope with the realities on the field. You can’t train to beat a tank with health regeneration that runs laps around a full fireteam dumping ammunition into it. You need the technology to destroy it.

It is not demoralizing to accept defeat. The Ordo has been bested on the field of battle and used the opportunity to learn. We aren’t immortal. We’re just damn good at what we do and we’ve a lot of practice doing it. We’ll be demoralizing ourselves if we try to take the high road and expect success from avoiding the use of force in battle, as it’d be militarily, frankly, retarded to do so.

You indicate we bend rules to claim victory, and yet I have no reports of such. I have no complaints of such. I have no details, only hearsay. If we so flagrantly abused rules to claim victory, you’d think something would come up from it. Valkeyr congratulation us and welcoming us back on every event? Chaos telling Mercz to leave so they can enjoy fighting Ordo? CO restricting Vanguard’s motions so our battle can continue? Bloody, glorious battles with AN that, although occasionally result in ban, always quickly resolve with unbans and more glorious, bloody battle? 2142, contacting us, asking if we’d like to skirmish in mixed teams with them? The enemy aren’t bitching. Are we that sneaky, then?

Loss in a raid does not result in loss of raid privileges. That has not been the case for a very long time. Cite the last time someone was punished for someone who “brought home a loss.” Failure to demonstrate capability will result in loss of privileges. If you are utilizing what you’ve been taught and carry through in a dignified manner, no raid leader would ever see punishment. Carrying through, however, includes use of our technologies within permissible bounds to seek that victory.

We aren’t throwing tantrums. And frankly, I’m insulted to have that insinuated as such. I’d imagine the folks who lead us in combat expeditions would be equally insulted, considering the effort they put forth. I remind you that our standards and strive for excellence in battle, victory or not, has been status quo for the Ordo since 2006. And it’s doing us just damn fine.

I have personally lead hundreds. /Hundreds/ of raids. There are individuals in this group who rival my numbers at this point. Don’t arm chair politic our capabilities out of concern of being portrayed negatively, when we’re not receiving anything of the short from the folks we’re bringing the rain on.

You’ve better things to do with your time than to lecture us on our combat ethos.

[Hollowmenphobia]

Where do you pull this expertise in offensive maneuvers from? According to the records, you yourself have only led four raids this year.

[Krow Ames]

I remember the days when only Aryte could lead raids. Everybody sat around eagerly awaiting Aryte to get home and get settled so we could go out and grind 2142's face into the dirt. Or lead us in a 48 hour battle against Vanguard that was just epic. Infantry advancing under the artillery support of our Punisher mechs.

I'll be honest with my opinion here. I miss the old days. I really really do. But times change and I accept that. If you stop growing, you become stagnant. And I think Ordo's ability to adapt to the times has been it's soul reason for surviving (Aryte's leadership aside). But on the topic of winning and losing, everybody loves to win. And it sucks when assholes who don't deserve to win, like VALOR, beat you. I personally feel like it's a cosmic injustice when a group that is truly evil scores a win that they don't deserve. I really think that some people get upset that the other guys win, not that we lose.

I'm not insulted. The man is entitled to his opinion. Let's just try to keep this respectable. I don't want to get home from class tomorrow and see a flamewar.

And we actually have a good reputation in the community. It's just the people who don't like us are louder than the people who do.

[Shizzerk]

I see no problems with how we assault or defend, nor with how we accept our winnings or defeats. We play fair, escalate force when needed and we never have an entirely bad attitude in battle. Sure we may fight hard to win, but isn't that the idea? Even with that most groups don't mind us attacking a lot of the times they actually IM the OIC and say they had fun. There is a lot to be said just with that statement as I have NEVER experienced that with other groups I was in.

We play fair, but fight hard. We are a challenge, but are not completely absurd. Everyone, even the opposing force, has fun. Sounds like victory to me.

[Phares Sarjeant]

Interesting point of view.. i have been on the other side fighting a group like you describe here, fighting said group with inferior weapons (weapons they sold with higher scripting..lag inducing excessive scripts placed in obscure prims of their weapons that responded very poorly when being fired, having longer reload times, etc.) and a seemingly different set of rules they considered themselves to play by. We stuck it out, did our duty, and made do with what we had. Never once did we back down even after losing sometimes pretty soundly. We found a weapons scripter to make our own weapons, trained in better tactics, and turned around and knocked them out of the park.. They have since left that particular set of sims due to that loss and never fought anymore there as a group. The weapons maker they had has been rendered obsolete, and from what i've seen has no shops anywhere in those sims. Apparently the destruction of their ego was a little more than they could handle. I do not know. I could care less. Their former victories ring very hollow. For us it was very satisfying. That group stirred up drama wherever it went with accusations like what you have discussed following them around continually. So far i have not ever experienced this kind of drama in Ordo from other groups, nor have i heard any such accusations from other militaries when being at places such as New Jessie in full Ordo gear. Nor have i ever heard it from random people i meet with enemy groups listed in their profile.

In pointing to Ordo's skill, I think it's telling when Ordo can attack itself during the stress tests and capture/hold all 3 points, and a similar sized raid team from another sim is unable to.

On defences, I've seen Ordo actually scale back our weapons to mellee and muskets not really to be sporting, but it's sort of depressing killing the lonewolfer the same way who travels the same route 40x's in a row.

So i disagree. Good luck finding the group you think lives up to that standard. At some point this is WAR. If the US were to go up against its enemies with the mindset you proposed we would still have been there. Sorry guys you only get camels and clubs. Lol

[George Reisman]

I will agree that sometimes we go a little too far in escalation, and that sometimes escalation lasts past it's usefulness. However, this seems to be more the exception rather than the norm.

[Kishoshima Dragonash]

I will speak to this point from my own experience.. Sitting in the Officer Forums and reading what goes on, the discussions that take place, the numbers of disagreements that take place... Your views are a bit skewed Mark. Aryte doesnt just up and decide to remove someone's raid authority because they -lose.- IF they get pulled at all, it's because of the actions that took place DURING the raids (Note the plural) that eventually decide whether or not someone loses the ability to lead a raid. Again, let me stress that it isnt because they lost, but because of what they did or didnt do during the raids that causes them to lose that ability.. and even then its under a lot of scrutiny and debate among the officers and Aryte before action is taken. Aryte has told us time and time and time again that he doesnt care if we lose, it's whether or not we use our heads and take advantage of the tactical situations that present themselves.

Most of what I see posted there Mark comes from a lack of access, you see things based on the information you have available to you and you draw conclusions for the rest. We dont bend our own rules, if it happens then Curia needs to be notified so it can be dealt with (cant be everywhere yanno lol). I do agree that use of force can appear excessive now and then, but when you look at the WHOLE picture, not just what you want to see, it doesnt appear that way at all.

Here is what people see when they moan and bitch about the force we decide to use.. both IN Ordo and Outside Ordo -

Three Enemies on sim, 30 Ordo on sim.

Three enemies attack, 15 ordo respond.

Three enemies do not make it beyond the warehouse corners.

Here's what's actually going on:

Three enemies on sim, 30 ordo on sim

Three enemies attack and are faced with 5 (at most) defenders per corridor.

Three enemies fail to find the chink in Ordo's armor and bitch because we curb stomped them.

Scenario number 2:

Three enemies from a known group of retards attack (Grim Troops), 30 Ordo on sim

Three enemies rush the North objective, Ordo responds by laying down layered defenses (mines, claymores etc)

Three enemies get bored and die.

THree enemies now rush to SW objective and get hit with Medium weapons (usually because the weapons these guys come out with are spam cannons and blow out the 5 defenders we have with the same amount of fire power 8 people would have)

Three enemies back and forth until they decide theyve won because they can talk the best shit, and leave.

Scenario 3:

Small 8 man raid appears using the Fragtastic lag machine spam cannons

Ordo responds by setting up reflexive and elastic defenses

8 man team gets stone walled at the warehouse because they run the same route 15000000000000 times and follow the exact same line every time.

Raid team goes home crying about how Ordo is unfair and cheats.

These are the three most common scenarios we face on Titan every day. Titan was never designed for small scale assaults, because at the time the sim was being built, we were getting hit by large assaults every few days. Lonewolves always complain about our tactics because the sim wasnt designed with them in mind, at least not to the point large scale assaults were taken into account.

So from that point of view, yes we appear to be the big bad wolf, huffing and puffing and blowing down houses.. Titan IS winnable, if you want proof take a look back at the Praetorian assaults a couple months ago. Eight Praetorians hit Titan with everything in the Ordo arsenal, and still took the objectives. If you want to win on Titan, you have to use your head and be smarter than the guy leading the defense.. plain and simple. If you know what Ordo's weaknesses are then you can steam roll the lot of us, even when we have a full compliment. The trick is figuring out what Ordo does to Ffff up.

On External Missions..IE Raids, the same tactics apply there as well. The DIFFERENCE, and this is where raid experience comes in Mark, is that we set foot on a sim, we play by our rules if our rules are more strict than theirs or we play by their rules if theirs are more strict than ours. The issue lies in the fact that the moment we step foot elsewhere, there's an immediate escallation from what we consider light to near over the top heavy within the first couple minutes. Why? Because we analyze where the enemy is and deploy our troops according to the holes we see open.. we always start out on light unless the enemy we're attacking has a history of trying to nuke us the moment we walk into the spawn. Very very VERY rarely do we ever walk into a situation pulling out the big guns the very moment we start a raid.. all our weapon choices are dependent on the actions of the enemy.

Most often than not, at least on the raids we've been on, the victories we claim are based on the goals we set for ourselves because there are a lot of sims out there that DONT have objectives. On the raids Ive lead, I know the group Im going to attack and I know that its going to be impossible to "win," based on their objective system layout and tactics, looking at the people I have with me in the raid team. I find out what gear we have available, I know the limitations imposed on said gear and the triggers that must occur before we deploy them. If I know Im not going to win the objective system, I set goals that we accomplish. If the goals I set arent met, then I take the defeat myself.. if they are, then the team gets the credit for it.

The goals that I set have a degree of difficulty based on the opponent. If its an "easy" opponent (with no objective) then the goal's just to go out and have fun. Keep things light and easy, keep the team calm, dont worry about what the other guy's doing. If we start getting pushed back then tactics change. If they start throwing out heavy weapons, then we'll bump up to medium..maybe. Most raid leaders, at least that I'm aware of, use similar tactics. It's not a matter of "win at any cost," if that IS what's going on, then its an example of bad raid leadership and leadership in general.

[Recalibar Zaytsev]

Treaties exist for a reason, the ones that limit the technology that both sides have in their arsenal? Usually groups get mass blockaded when they go outside these existing boundaries.

If anyone remembers the teen grid, specifically the Rome and Talon wars (I wasn't there specifically, but I can tell you stories of their existence), there existed no such treaties. Pretty much they resorted to flyfighting, railgunning, and all kinds of ridiculous tactics to take home a victory. There was even a gun that was often used, I believe it was called the orbus(?) that if you shot it, it would self replicate until the sim reached it's limit and both sides were blackscreened. At that point you went home, called it a victory and celebrated. Eventually our own system of a standard RoE was made that would disallow these. I could go on about teen grid politics, and how often times the only way to "win" was to be banned from the parcel, as considered by most, but I'll save that for another time. My point is that treaties exist so that cases like these don't ever happen, or even become close to happening. With every development we make, it will still (hopefully) fall into allowed standards set by the rest of the grid.

On a sidenote; This is how I roll in every other game than Second Life.
/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPYSUf9wbXI&feature=sh_e_se&list=SL

Edited October 18, 2011 by Recalibar Zaytsev

[Reinhardt]

As someone who averages five offensive raids a week roughly (minium is 3, maximum is 10 so far), and 2 doccumented (meaning 3 or more persons) defensive raid with uncounted undoccumented defensive raids (for lonewolfers OR defense reports simply forgotten about by the OIC) I can tell you that the point of the original post is NOT the actual attitude at the front lines.

Prehaps it DOES appear that way externaly. But hte reality isnt true at all.

I am on more offensive raids that FAIL to achieve all victory goals than a sim has, than raids where we do achieve everything. But we chose to declare a victory becuase our opponents chose to counter us with overwhelming and unreasonable force that we refuse to match. Which counts, according to doccumentation I've read, as grounds for us declaring victory. I see sims we attack where we are stuck to light or medium weapons, heavy at most, becuase if we pull out a single vehicle (even unarmored ones), a single Aegis, or hell, we begin advancing on their base, they pull out pretty much invincible, unlimited ammo, flight enabled armored mechs. As I said.. this is our NORM. I have yet to be on a raid where we have pulled out firepower that overwhelmed the opponent by sheer scripted power.

On the front lines in defenses, well it happens most often that automatic explosive weapons in enemy hands, is where most OICs begin debating an escelation to medium weapons. MOST keep us light if enemy numbers are slim in comparison to Ordo numbers. If the enemy is overwhelming a position of ours BUT using weapons we define as light, my experience on the front lines, is that we remain light. we just rebalance our forces.

From my experience.. on offensive and defensive raids... our escelation of force is done more for balance of effect, rather than a balance of firepower or size of sticks. The topic of the original post, while well worded and thought out, seems more based on public opinion of Ordo, rather than any sort of Ordo reality.

[Recalibar Zaytsev]

I am on more offensive raids that FAIL to achieve all victory goals than a sim has, than raids where we do achieve everything. But we chose to declare a victory becuase our opponents chose to counter us with overwhelming and unreasonable force that we refuse to match.

Well, actually, that was his point in some respect. Sometimes we can pull out unneccesary force to deal with odds (Like this morning, we allowed a tank and a plane to deal with one or two lone wolves simply because we did not want to deal with them at the time, so was the impression I got from it.) Which was more or less what Mark was talkng about. The best way to deal with a situation is to use the best tactics, not the best weapons.

Again off topic was the philosophy that when your home base gets attacked, the only thing two outcomes that could result is a loss and a tie. For example; if a burglar breaks into your house and trashes your things before finnally leaving after being beaten with a bat, who really lost more if he still got away? Would be interesting to think about if the entire community also thought that way.

[Aryte]

@ Reinhardt; most regions are built to be unwinnable.

@ Recalibar; if the enemy achieve nothing, I wouldn't consider that a tie or a loss. We're unable to bleed them down due to the fact no one really dies, but if all points are sustained, that'd be about the same thing.

[Recalibar Zaytsev]

@ Reinhardt; most regions are built to be unwinnable.

@ Recalibar; if the enemy achieve nothing, I wouldn't consider that a tie or a loss. We're unable to bleed them down due to the fact no one really dies, but if all points are sustained, that'd be about the same thing.

If most regions are unwinnable, won't victory be that much sweeter of we did achieve it? And in terms of us winning in our own sim, it's only time that our opponents have really

Lost when it comes down to it. The only reason I don't really persue this philosophy is that I doubt the entire community would support it.

[George Reisman]

@ Reinhardt; most regions are built to be unwinnable.

And that's a damn shame. I personally don't like the whole idea of objectives that must be taken in order to 'win.' I usually could care less about the objectives - when I go on an attack, I go to kill. At the risk of sounding like AN, I wish that the community would stop this trend of making impossible objectives that must be taken in order to claim "victory." Let's go back to the days of utter domination being all that was needed to claim a victory.

[Guest Ruin Nefarious]

@ George: yes, in so many ways, yes.

[Recalibar Zaytsev]

And that's a damn shame. I personally don't like the whole idea of objectives that must be taken in order to 'win.' I usually could care less about the objectives - when I go on an attack, I go to kill. At the risk of sounding like AN, I wish that the community would stop this trend of making impossible objectives that must be taken in order to claim "victory." Let's go back to the days of utter domination being all that was needed to claim a victory.

^

Edited October 18, 2011 by Recalibar Zaytsev

[Ookamiwulf Lemton]

bothing winning and losing has an effect both positives. Loosing or in other words defeat, well you learn your defeats from it. No need to rage over defeat. All you got to do is improve and work around that defeat to turn it into a victory. But lets face it we can't always win a battle , but we never hold back when we want victory. In all matter, we can't always win when were repeating the same mistake. thats why loosing gives you a chance to look back at your mistake and fix it on the next raid.

(cough cough, note to self doing work at school while shit on the forums at same time can be nervewrecking, Also the post been edited)

Edited October 18, 2011 by Ookamiwulf Lemton

[George Reisman]

:confused:

[Arokh Takakura]

“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming -- in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you -- means a loss of opportunity for some other task.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

[Tsume Xiao]

Aryte, it is with all due respect I respond to the following.

You indicate we bend rules to claim victory, and yet I have no reports of such. I have no complaints of such. I have no details, only hearsay.

While it does depend on the definition used of "bending vs breaking" rules, I see and hear it happen way more often than it should. Most of the time it is smaller things, thankfully, but on some it is something rather large. Most of the time, these larger incidents are not the doing of the raid leader, but individual members acting out.

If I try to speak in Vent/TS3, I am met with petty excuses or people who suddenly think that, despite their lack of focus, they are entitled to shout "COMBAT PERTINANCE" or "CLEAR COMMS"

If I try to bring it up with the raid leader in IM's: Most often met with petty excuses.

If I try to bring it up with higher ups, I get told off because it resulted in a victory so it was the right thing to do, or just seem to get ignored.

It was after so many of these responses I just figured no one cared as long as we won (to an extent), so why should I continue to try and point things out if it just got me yelled at.

If you want me to I will keep better notes on it.

The most common excuses I hear are, in my mind, rather childish. they include "Oh well they never call us on it" or "well they are doing it".

This irritates me quite often because just because they dont call someone on a rule every time doesn't mean they don't car about it or make it any less valid of a rule. Think of all the times someone mentions an enemy using an disallowed piece of gear and are met with "don't worry about it now". Does that change the fact that said piece of gear is against the rules? No, it just means we are too busy to deal with it. But if people read the rules and followed them, we wouldn't have to.

The "well they are doing it" can be reflected with the usual "two wrongs don't make a right" saying. Just because they seem to have a rule against it for attackers doesn't necessarily mean there is a rule against it for defender, as broken as that may seem.

Now, this is one of the points where, as stupid and contradictory as it sounds, there is a strange exception. I can think of two instances, and they both involve unkillable armor. One of these involved a technical exploitation of a wording loophole, and while they did complain, it technically did not state that 100HP was a limit for Armor (Cati vs Aequitas). Was this bending the rules? Technically no, but it probably wasn't the best thing to do diplomatically. Yeah, it was my suggestion and I will not lie Armor bullshit-ery is one of my hot buttons because of the hard work I put into armored systems.

The other one is much more recent and nods to the explicit breaking of rules because "they are doing it". I am of course talking about the Chaos "possessed tank" used by Secondary Lionheart. Was it just for us to prepare for the next raid, for me even to put it together, an equal tank, now labeled as "[Ordo] Tyrant MBT - Spooky Possessed Tank" in my inventory? Am I a hypocrite for even considering such? Pretty much, and I can understand everyone having their limits.

What was this a case of: Basically, that enemy tank was a case of "find a way to deal with it or leave". And, thankfully to both sides (especially Ordo because the spooky Tyrant is absolutely Ffffing annoying), it was a case of Secondary acting on his own accord. Last night / this morning we attacked chaos and both types of tanks they pulled, regardless of the driver, took damage and died. Were they filtered somewhat and is the hitbox still really small? Yes (mostly because he is using the freebie dev kit and didn't really modify it to fit, but I digress). But the point is that the case of bullshit-ery was limited to that one person. Furthermore, I lost all track of what this example was proving.

TL;DR

So what should we do?

Follow their rules. Win. Take pride in the fact that we won by their terms.

If their rules say no weapons with a capacity over 100, don't pull out a Negev or Arcus simply because "well they never check". Don't give them any legitimate reason to try and find fault in our methods. They can accuse of of "zerging" they can accuse us of "desperate combat tactics" and other immeasurable things that are subjective to their interpretation of the situation. They cant make a quantifiable statement on those. But give them something they can prove we did against the rules, and it hurts our credibility immensely.

Granted, this mentality combined with past raids leads me to point at the following....

Loss in a raid does not result in loss of raid privileges. That has not been the case for a very long time. Cite the last time someone was punished for someone who “brought home a loss.” Failure to demonstrate capability will result in loss of privileges. If you are utilizing what you’ve been taught and carry through in a dignified manner, no raid leader would ever see punishment. Carrying through, however, includes use of our technologies within permissible bounds to seek that victory.

I have to point out an incident that happened to me personally, namely at Ark. The first Ark raid before all the drama between them started, and one could argue Mark's point that it was the response to this incident that sparked the drama.

A summary of the situation:

I was given auth to lead a raid to Ark. Their rules said equal numbers and certain equipment not to use. I refused to violate the rules and bring in reinforcements or allow use of weapons against their rules. Certain people tried to start internal drama during the raid from outside the raid (they have since been adjudicated), they came in threatening CiR's and trying to force more people into the team, which would as was pointed out, violate their rules.

So what happened?

Up until the ventrillo drama, and through it until the officer who had permitted me to take the raid out took over and told said people to get the Ffff out of the raid channel, and until said officer had us leave, it was a back and forth battle.

Ark uses a random capture point system, first to hold it wins it, and it goes to X number of points until the "match" is won and the system resets.

One of the points we didn't win was admittedly one sided as there was no cover for us and they could just zoom over and storm the place, but the global picture was an equal but alternating fight.

We were tied and fighting over the deciding point and lost it before pulling out, there-by failing to meet the full victory conditions by one capture. Essentially the same as losing a basketball match by one shot.

When we left I got a message from their command saying that they enjoyed the fight and hoped we would come back.

I announced it, and was met with "well of course they thought it was a good fight, they won"

What does this have to do with the quote?

I was told I couldn't lead raids anymore until I proved I could lead raids successfully and utilize all that was available to me.

By their sim rules, I did.

Did we win? No. By their objective system we did not.

Did I call it a win because "well it was impossible to win anyways so we win"? No.

Were there any reports of problems during the fight or after the fight of Ordo members breaking the rules? No.

While there were other circumstances around the incident in vent that probably contributed to the aforementioned decision, basically what it instilled in me was the following:

Don't try and lead a raid if you are not willing to do whatever it takes to win.

Quite frankly after that, since I won't bend/break rules to win (in that case, call in extra troops), I was put off even trying to lead raids.

Granted back then the breaking of rules by certain raid leaders was much higher, and this same individual who tried to start drama in vent because I wasnt leading like them and according to their misinformation breaking rules, was one of the prime offenders, and I can say things have changed for the better.

After this, because of the climate of certain people at the time, I stopped going on them because I couldn't stand their bullshit standards of warping the outcome so we always win and doing whatever it takes to win.

I am glad things have so greatly improved.

However, since that incident, I've lead one or two raids

Would I like to lead more? Yes, I find it enjoyable and fun.

But is it worth what I went through before when I didn't seemingly bring home an astounding victory?

Absolutely not.

As for what followed that raid, I don't know the exact details and only gotten bits and pieces from both sides, but the general picture I got was this:

Ordo brought in a massive overwhelming raid force. Claims were made this was done because losing was not an option (which I doubt, but I can see to some degree why they would have thought that). Ark deployed all sorts of crazy bullshit that broke their own rules (beyond broke, shattered) and got rather defensive and nasty in IM's about the situation as it was going on.

Ark supposedly spews autoturrets everywhere (they claim it was 2). Ordo member used flak on Infantry (they claim it was HE rounds).

Bad shit happens, starts bad feelings. Bad feelings between groups progress for months before eventually settling down. We now approach, at least on some levels of Ordo, amicable terms.

Without FRAPS, I will never know what fully happened there. But it seems like an example of what Mark was trying to point at.

Does it happen tho this extreme every time?

No, thankfully.

Can you see some of the attitude he mentions?

Yes.

Me personally? I think his "people don't want to play in our server" analogy applies more to our defensive tactics.

I've already gone on a rant about that as Agares can vouch (he either is a good listener or just tunes me out :< ).

[Tsume Xiao]

In pointing to Ordo's skill, I think it's telling when Ordo can attack itself during the stress tests and capture/hold all 3 points, and a similar sized raid team from another sim is unable to.

To play Devil's Advocate here:

When we do this we cut our defensive numbers to create that raid team. Suddenly instead of 5 versus 15 that is seen with outside groups it is 5 versus 10.

We also know our sim and, even if we don't admit it, have a different attitude because somewhere in our minds we know this is training and practice.

We also know that, if we pull bullshit as attackers or defenders, we are pulling it on our comrades, and if it is bad enough, will go to our superiors from our comrades.

What is more severe? Being banned from an enemy sim for breaking their rules (whether we actually did or not) or being reprimanded by our own command for our actions?

I personally don't like the whole idea of objectives that must be taken in order to 'win.' I usually could care less about the objectives - when I go on an attack, I go to kill. At the risk of sounding like AN, I wish that the community would stop this trend of making impossible objectives that must be taken in order to claim "victory." Let's go back to the days of utter domination being all that was needed to claim a victory.

George, Objectives stemmed forth from the fact that domination was subjective. Who says when it is achieved?

When we leave after X time in those days, before sims had time limits, the enemy didn't see us as declaring victory because we dominated their forces, they saw it as giving up, as them besting our endurance, as them holding us off.

Its all relative.

Do objectives fix this?

They could if people didnt build them in the completely bullshit ways we see.

These disgustingly complex objectives serve only as a taunt to say "well you haven't won unless you achieve X conditions". It makes the attackers think there is a measureable victory condition to strive for.

Are these impossible? Sometimes, and to most attackers they are.

But look at Ordo raids.

I can counter Mark's statements by an example of a recent raid to CDF.

To win you have to get down into their base and blow up their core.

To do that, you have to fight the multitude of spam-cannon wielding, massive chested, pants-buldge wearing giants who will often utilize armored mechs that increase the spam further.

Look what Ordo did. We blew up their core.

We did it by following all their rules, and within their time limit.

We even did it when they pulled mechs, something they claim they only do in response to hostile vehicles. Hell, even an observer of the raid said that action was bullshit.

Under other conditions thier sim is impossible.

Under Ordo conditions, conditions that adhered to their rules, we won.

We didnt say we won. We won without dispute. They can't say we broke the rules and they can't claim that massive explosion of their core that wipes out about 1/4 of the sim didnt happen. We even have a nuetral 3rd party as a witness.

That is what objectives are for George. Measurable victory.

What they have become is another story all together.

I don't want to see sims without objectives, i want to see sims with plausible objectives.

But the thought that they can actually lose? Good luck passing that as an ok scenario through most Militaries' heads.

As for Ordo? Our objective system is actually quite balanced and well placed. By technicality it has been won by large raid teams (think 2142 size of 10+).

The problem with our system? We have, to my knowledge, no qualifer of how long the points must be held to declare victory.

Its some of our other defensive things that make people not want to attack.

[Reinhardt]

As for the question of our sim... we do have a home field advantage, more than any other group seems to have in their sim. We train harder, and more than most is my only reasonable explaination. That said.. yes it is clear why people are reluctant to fight us en masse, which is theri greatest hope for victory. But prehaps this is also becuase of "sim balance". I'm not saying hte sim IS, or ISNT balanced. But everyone has pros and cons for any and every potential sim design, and I think the quest to build a perfectly balanced combat sim will never really end.

[Tsume Xiao]

As for the question of our sim... we do have a home field advantage, more than any other group seems to have in their sim. We train harder, and more than most is my only reasonable explaination. That said.. yes it is clear why people are reluctant to fight us en masse, which is theri greatest hope for victory. But prehaps this is also becuase of "sim balance". I'm not saying hte sim IS, or ISNT balanced. But everyone has pros and cons for any and every potential sim design, and I think the quest to build a perfectly balanced combat sim will never really end.

Our advantage come from not only training, but sheer numbers.

The training means we can act smartly and defend with even your basic assault rifle or SMG.

The numbers pose an issue to attackers because, instead of an equal force of better trained soldiers, we have about 3:1 of better trained soldiers.

As for our build itself... the spawn exits and the ability and eagerness of Ordo to obliterate anything the instant it leaves is the Achilles heel.

[Arokh Takakura]

words

TLDR~