Current status of Delta squad - Where are the Delta Mains and who the fuck is this guy?

[Mann handle]

Long story short, Delta got rep, and new people who superficially browsed the reddit/forums joined it in order to become street by association and bask in its reflected glory.

It was a victim of its own success.

This, even before summer kicked off delta lost the shine it once had.


The real question I have about this is who actually cares enough? surely OP cares seeing as we have a thread around the topic but there is no actual reason to give a toss seeing as it was bound to happen anyway. People would see delta fucking around and having fun and they'd want to join in. They join in and try to emulate some of the more known people and that's how we got to where we are. It's the basis of popularity, when you're popular people will attempt to emulate you, most people do a goddamn awful job of it completely miss the point of what made the original popular. Others learn via the emulation and develop their own unique ways to fit in, the downside is that this is a very very tiny amount of people. On the whole, delta degrades as it attracts a wider group of people. Same as all squads do and individuals inside them (I've seen a few 'clones' of people popping up from time to time.)

I do see people actually slap delta around and at least attempt to make them effective as a squad and props to both Kibbles and Abs for the work they put in as SO. Also props to the delta mains I still see inside delta leading the front or keeping the balds from dying horribly and this is the sort of thing that actually stops squad degradation from taking over and driving people away, I'd personally want to see more of it.

Heck lets add some more to this in terms of what squads USED to be.

Alpha = The snowflake squad, this one had robust people in it and a wide array of daft loadouts.

Bravo = FOB monkeys that generally did a solid job at whatever they built. They also had some of the better medics plus doctors liked bravo due to the triage areas bravo always set up. (Who remembers LV chapel triage centers?)

Charlie = This was the 'average squad' that filled the role that did what they needed to do.

Delta = How many crayons can you cram up a marines nose?

Notice how all that changed over time? This is normal due to the fact the people migrate between squads for a few reasons PLUS the horde of hanger ons move between squads that migrate to whatever is popular at the time.

[dasWurmtMich]

I am not the most experienced or most robust player scince I only play CM really for 6 months but here are my thoughts. I have to admit that I was one of the people that got bored from getting Fob duty everytime I ended up in alpha/bravo so I switched to delta.

Most of the causes of the problems have allready been mentioned so I'll skip that.

Part of the problem why delta has declined is that the metagame has shifted. Suicide rushes worked because the only AOE Damage source was Boiler acid and boilers had to be stationary for that. Nowadays if someone squad tries to do a suicide rush some random prae will just run up, acid everyone and laugh them in the face or a warrior just stunlocks one of the guys that leads the charge and drags him off. Which is partly why I'm pretty much only playing prae (when I end up as alien) and abusing acid cone so much because it's just busted.

Games are much more slug fests then in the past. "Delta flanks" just dont work anymore. Everyone and their mother is scared of of big bad prae/warrior.

Delta flanks worked in the past because you could actually push into a corridor and yes while you'd suffer some losses you could actually shoot back and hurt the aliens and force them back. Now praes make that impossible because unlike boilers they cant be taken out of the equation by CAS or specs.

Now this is obviously just a part of the problems because alien changes happened relativly recent. But it amplified the problems that built up in delta over the past few months by so much that we got this thread.

[zoboomafoo]

The deltas were greedy, and memed too hard.

[Rohesie]

Sadly lately Charlie has been Delta 2.0. Our RP has descended into LRP memery and the mental age has gone down the drain. It's basically "me farts"-level.

[Royal Griffon]

Sadly lately Charlie has been Delta 2.0. Our RP has descended into LRP memery and the mental age has gone down the drain. It's basically "me farts"-level.

Yea agreed, I hope I haven't been the cause of it at all.

[Meatshield]

In my day, Delta had old JImmy "Two guns" (anyone remember him?), he could shoot a warrior with one shot from his sidearm. BECAUSE HE HAD THE LOAD OUTS. Then there was the engineer, Ted Metal (was that his name?). He could build an FOB BY HIMSELF with 4 metal that would withstand at least 40 T3s. Then the privates. Ahmed Al-Muhammed and Chopper Wilson. They supported you like a boss, only friendly fired once in seventeen years of playing and would appear from nowhere and pull you out of the frontlines. Now them baldies need everything set up for them. SL, of course, was Annette "Fingers" Witherbottom. She knew what she wanted and took it. I remember when everyone died except her and Ted Metal, she told the CO to fuck off, took over the ship because the CO was bald, and her and Ted Metal went back down to the surface to fight the aliens with a wrench and 14 wooden planks. They won. Delta could never do that now. It's all too bald. Delta is bald, alpha is very bald, COs are bald, even loadouts are bald, even players that were not bald are now bald, admin are not completely bald but significantly more bald than they used to be, xeno are now bald, CLP are not just bald they are BALD and developers only encourage players to be bald. When I look at Delta now, I see a squad of gorilla children, like gorilla babies that were born from a mother gorilla, kind of like a bald gorilla baby family. And they are making a mockery of everything Jimmy Two guns and Chopper built.

That's what you guys sound like to me.

[Gnorse]

-snip-

I had a genuine laugh reading that.
Props to you.

[Build_R_]

Ramboing seems to be really popular though. Some people see robust people like Joseph Murta go out on a small run by himself and kill some xenos and try to do it themselves, costing their squad a marine. It's one of the aspects of the delta marines that tends to fuck 'em up. That and the "unga, me no listen to orders" thing.

[Sir Lordington]

The elitism on display is hurting my brain.

Bravo is the best because it's yellow and that's my favourite colour.

[Avalanchee]

Bravo is the best because it's yellow and that's my favourite colour.

viewtopic.php?f=114&p=203314#p203314


shhhhhh

[Maxim Inc]

I don't know, with the sudden exodus of delta mains a lot of restructuring has been done with how CO's assign squad roles which has upturned entire playstyles of people who need to figure out how to do a job there squad usually doesn't do.

[Diggman88]

I can't speak for the current affairs of Delta Squad because I left the squad a long time ago(6 months) and stopped playing by extension for a while now. Simply to frustrated with dieing in the first encounters all the time and the dumbing of Marines in general. Began to feel like a wasted effort after some time.

[Rohesie]

snip

Hah! Good one. And very fair.

[Blade2000Br]

For someone that used to main Charlie then put "any" on squad choice because of the lolz, I also see a pattern of Delta being bad.

Just recently on my CO round, I left Delta and Bravo to do the cleaning on prison after we had decimated the xenos. Delta managed to die off in minutes time span, leaving Bravo as the only flank squad.

That day Bravo did better than Delta. A truly shame to all the Delta mains out there.

[Arbs]

-snip-

Hah, that was a pretty good read.

[MikeHdez97]

I play as Mike Hernandez and i haven't been playing because i am bit busy with engineering school and that kind of stuff but i expect to come back by the end of this week or the beginning of the next one.

[NoahKirchner]

If you don't enjoy playing with the people who have delta set to their pref just move squads man.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Hmm, kind brought it on yourselves though? I mean, you built up Delta collectively so "high" that alot of players are magnetized too it, and when it falls, its hurts.

Look at the crew manifests most rounds like i do, and youll see that delta almost always has more players in its squad from roundstart, it could be the game doing that, not certain.I do see rounds where Delta is very competent, although usually they are new names and new faces, possibly one or two "known" players/characters.People obviously want to be the "new deltas!", forging their own reputation.

Always had the squad choice on random, so the game picks my squad for me, always has, always will.It likes to put me in alpha/bravo more often than not, but i dont class myself as a "main" of any particular squad.If anything, im a "FOB" main, as thats what the game keeps bloody giving me.

[Kesserline]

Just hoping in real quick :

Delta is not a property. It's not because you are maining Delta that other players don't have the right to play in this squad. This is how I used to be switched for some Purgatory Rounds (having to play with Al-FF-a or worse, Bravosii). But it's still fun. It forces some vets to shine in other squads, and give baldies some good things to follow.

What is important is that every squad is supplied with a good SL, or at least, some people willing to be SL. Leadership is the key. Even with no robustos, having some decent players following you is a good thing to enjoy your rounds.

Delta, before being a good squad, was a love-squad to me. The 30 minutes before deployment were always the best, because it was 30 minutes of banter with the greatest, memest, coolest, awesomest dudes and dykes of the battalion. And every little baldies who were willing to join the fun-train could hop in and learn from the vets.

Delta is not a property. You are not entitled to keep Delta for yourself. You want to make it better ? Make it better. Lead the boys. Teach them. Inspire them. Lead them from the frontline. This is what makes a good squad : a team spirit, not a false sense of elitism. (But still Delta > other squads, especially Charlies, because they are cunts, bwahahaha).

I would love to give a little of my time to Delta nowadays, but as explained in the first first Murray's post :
It's not about playing as a Delta, it's playing as a Marine that is problematic.

Xenos are overpowering and overwhelming marines so much that, no matter how you can be good, the enemy has to be really stupid to let you the victory. I can't stand it, can't stand it on a videogame where I want to enjoy myself after a hard day of work.

When you play marines, you have the feeling to play with dummy weapons, firing beanbags to hostiles that can remove you from the round definetely, in a matter of seconds, while they can rest without suffering any consequences from higher risks that you have just thought of taking.

_______________________________________

I loved the imperfect balance of this game, because it was meant to be challenging. That the RP got its real flavor because of the risks, the pain, the joy of winning or losing a round. The pleasure of bonding with other players that could be removed from the game, and you're like : Shit ! Gonna make'm pay for that !

Numbers of times I would over extend just to fire some extra bullets to Xenos after they took one of my Deltas. Number of times I died because of it. Number of times that other players sacrificed their rounds just to save me (and my awesome breath mask).

Now, I try to play, because I love the community. But I almost hate the current state of gameplay. Some would say it's bittersweet, I'm saing that's hate-love.

I love the devs for the time they put in the game, but they took a very wrong turn, months ago, and they are not going back in a direction that promotes enjoyment for both sides.

Still checking the changelogs from time to time, hoping for an opportunity to hop in back in the game in a more serious way.

PS : the new thingy-system with points for special roles is very good though, good QoL, seriously.

PS2 : Is it me or breathmasks are more available than before ? I manage to find some really often in the magical closets near the preprooms. People are done trying to be as tacticool as me ? I like that. Makes more tacticoolness just for me !

PS3 : Claymores. Claymores everywhere.

PS4 : I love you all. Especially you there, yeah, you ! No. Not you, I said the guy over there.

[Gut_TC]

I... Haven't play for a while. But I'd be back this weekend or so. I usually be active for couple of weeks and then dissappear un next couple of weeks. Huh. But yeah. It's hard to keep up on the game and amazing RP with the current status. Xeno get to wipe us fairly quick and then that is.

[RaidenFTW]

From my last 10 SO/XO rounds, Delta is worse than the Alpha. They mostly die in 40 minutes, they're all playing somewhat "Alone" instead of playing as a team. The main reason why it attracts the baldies is just getting the most fun objectives and that's all. What i've seen from my last command rounds is just Charlie being the best, followed by Bravo, most of the times Alpha is better than Delta because they get the shittiest jobs like scouting an empty place of the map or FOB.

[Brotemis]

Speaking from experience, Delta lacks experienced players to bring other players in line. We literally had a squad Leader named with the first name "Blade" who died within 5 minutes of landing and hardly spoke.

To me, Delta should exemplify fearlessness, not reckless abandonment. You should charge with your fellow marines if you see a single xeno carrying off a marine. You running in with a shotgun firing wildly at them scares the shit out of most xenos. 3 of you running in guns blazing against one xeno and I will guarantee you that xeno will drop the marine and run away.

Just recently during a round on prison, I was delta spec with SADAR. Delta and Charlie get orders to stay linked together and search medical. Delta SL gets a whiff of the enemy in chapel and calls for a kamikaze charge into the enemy. Mind you this is without comms and without Charlie. Needless to say, I ignore the SL's order and link back up with charlie. Delta wipes and the stragglers try to pull back to medical and then to lz1. I stayed with Charlie and pulled with them to lz1. I was the only Delta who survived because of that sort of incompetency.

Also during this round an SO fired an OB into the FOB and then committed seppoku.

[Bath Salts Addict]

What's going to happen is that another squad, probably Charlie, will step up to the plate of being the most robust and enjoy some time in the limelight until it gets a reputation, and those who like to think they're "robust" without understanding that CM is a team game will flock to that squad and sully it's good name. Then the vicious cycle starts anew.

[SovietKitty]

I don't even have a squad preference anymore, the summer brings dilution. I just look for familiar names in the crew manifest and join the squad with the most names I like in them.

This is a great thread though.

[Deanthelis]

Nobody can rip me off.

It's because I have a unique item and also I don't play Delta at all.

Delta's always been way too memey for me, whether it's a year ago or two days ago. It's just, you know.

They used to also get shit done.

Stay out of my Bravo though, smelly deltard wannabes. I don't want you mucking up my pain onions or getting bored in 10 seconds and ramboing off to die. That's what Alpha's for.