Battle exhaustion

[Renomaki]

Many of us has felt this before I believe: You start out a round nice and fresh, ready for a good scuffle. You are feeling confident that, win or lose, you are going to give it your best shot, keep professional and die with style.

But then, as the round goes on, you aren't the same person you were when you stepped out of the dropship. Suddenly you are bumbling more, paying less attention to your radio as you try to keep alive. You normally don't friendly fire, but for some reason you are starting to get clumsier. You slowly get overwhelmed, winning or not, trying to keep up with the rest of your faction. If you are a human squad leader, the stress really gets to you, you struggling to keep your squad together during those intense pushes. Next thing you know, the once more talkative, confident marine you were on mission start has become a rather quiet, disoriented bumbling fool whose brain just stops working after awhile, you doing stupid things that you normally would avoid doing.

I had this happen to me a lot as a marine, and it always makes me feel bad how during the length of a single round, I go from trim and proper marine to baldie. This most often happens in rounds where I am alive for a long period of time.

I can't be the only one who suffers from mental exhaustion the longer a round goes on, though, and I wonder if others feel the same way as I do at times? I ask this because I had a few recent SL rounds where my performance, even in winning rounds, began to suffer considerably as time went on, and despite compliments from the squad, I always feel like I should have done better. I tend to have high standards when it comes to personal performance, you know?

Am I alone in this sensation?

[Recounted]

I can feel what you mean the round going on for over an hour while it's mostly around the mid game section of the fighting happening. Marines win some ground and try to push up then gets denied that by boilers and the rest of the T3s, taking marines back where they started.

[Boltersam]

You're not alone. You manage it better if you take regular breaks from combat.

[slc97]

[quote="Renomaki"You normally don't friendly fire[/quote]

Unless you're Bill Carson

[Jakers457]

It's why I'll shit talk at the FoB now and chill out. Ideally you want to chase after action sparingly, due to limited ammo and shit.

[Simo94]

good commanders swap squads fighting in the front line so they can recover, sometimes they dont and that one squad that went scouting from the first second keeps fighting till its wiped out

[McRipfist]

Yeah I get this a lot. If you feel this coming on and you aren't a priority role it's best to inform your squad that you feel like shit and you need to get back to the FOB. There you can go take a leak IRL, get some coffee, cry about the marine who's speech bubble you saw as he was dragged off. Once you're done get right back up there.

If you're like me a complete loser and play four or five rounds a day it's a good idea to take breaks after every match and spawn in late every second or third round if you don't plan on going for a special role. Take that time to take a short stroll around the block or stand on your balcony.

[notasyndie]

Being the trimp and proper and very talkative guy was me playing on the server when it first started up. At this point I dont really talk on the radio anymore my aim has improved so no FF that much at least but I just dont care anymore, you go from "OH MY GOD THOSE THINGS TOOK JENKINS! WE HAVE TO SAVE HIM!" To "Meh we lost Jenkins tried to get him but failed, hes a goner" After playing here for awhile you get major battle exhaustion and I think the stress of trying not to make yourself look bad also plays a factor.

[Jellycog]

If anything, it's pretty realistic. Managing comms, squadmates and fighting aliens is pretty tiring just due to SS13's UI and the pace of the game when you have 30+ marines running about. Most real battles aren't constant firefights, and see "battle pulses" as the two sides fight, break away to prepare, fight again. Extended periods of mental and physical exertion would definitely wear down your troops, so units are rotated to and from the frontlines to keep this from happening. The lack of respawns in CM adds a fraction of that stress as you know dying could mean you sitting out for another 30 minutes or more if you're not a xeno player. If you feel like you're losing your edge, head back to the ship for a while or hunker down when you're on the planet.