Squad preference is going away for a month

[NethIafins]

Right, so here's what everyone have to do (especially newbs)- set your preference to Delta squad.

Outta be fiiiine

Going to tell that to every new player that asks me during times when no mentors are present

Maybe I'm the only one person here who is optimistic because I see issues with current squad prefs and wish for a better system?

It is from the getgo declared as a non permanent action

--cant adapt to my phone's keyboard--

[Torrentia]

A month seems like a long time. Maybe a day? Or a week? There are plenty of people I know (Charlie squad mains) who have no presence on the forums, discord, etc. that roll Charlie every round and it's great to see a core group of people that make up a squad that you can depend on. It adds personality to squad deployment and cohesion. I'd be really sad to see those people disappear in the crowd if they get separated into different squads.

I'm trying to figure out who would be in favor of this. Xeno mains? People who use a random name every round?

[solidfury7]

I used to be all about squad preference but I find myself watching the old problem of the metacliques returning.

Hell, even I left Charlie after nearly 2 years for Alpha just so I wouldn't be involved in all this OOC shit.

[taketheshot56]

I for one enjoy the fact that squad prefs exist.

As CO I KNOW for a fact that bravo and alpha will build good fobs while delta and charlie can curbstomp.

Squad prefs improves cohesion and makes the game better imo

remove it for a few days or a week....but a month???

No thanks...

[Casany]

So, I've been around long enough that I thought I should give my input.

Before, there weren't squad prefs. You still had people meta-buddying, but sometimes you had people make new friends and groups.

Now, people can choose their squads and its great

I doubt this will fix any issue. If people wanna metabuddy they're gonna, this ain't gonna stop them.

[Hedrite]

Sounds good.

[Blade2000Br]

I honestly don't mind if we have or not squad preferences, though when I started playing I stickied with Charlie because the lads there are quite balanced in terms of RP and combat skills.

I have peeked in other squads and honestly, going random for me always grant a different experience, I honestly have met way more people going random than when I mained Charlie, but that's my opinion.

IMO, I don't think this was needed, but don't hurt to test it out.

[TheDonkified]

Personally, I wouldn't like to see this happen, especially for a month. Squad prefs provide a mini sense of community since you will regularly see faces of people that you will learn to trust over time wearing the same squad colors as you. It's a good feeling when you do not only see a few people who you recognize, like in the Sulaco, but a whole squad of them. I also feel that some people are more inclined to talk and RP with those who they have developed friendships with through squad prefs instead of random people who are not in their squad every round, especially since we no longer have gen comms.

However, I've had my squad prefs off for a while now, so I'm not gonna mind seeing random players in my squad. I'll hope for the best and see how this test goes.

[Szunti]

I wish instead I wouldn't have to play with marines who don't care about superiors. Preferences make things better. Having Kesserline leading delta, even if I have no buddies there, it feels like a squad. Random marines often just spread out and never talk to each other. Pain as SL to lead them and pain as a standard.
If only we could choose in the lobby if we want to follow a leader or not and wouldn't medRPers mixed with lowRPers forcibly.

[Gnorse]

I know I'm just echoing what everyone said already, but squad preferences do more good than harm.
Besides, if a couple of people REALLY wanted to meta-buddy, they'd do it regardless of squads. You can't ban them for not listening to their superiors since that's an IC thing for MPs to handle.

[Emeraldblood]

Before I start, I'm going to start that I'm only speaking for myself on why I chose what I did and won't bring anyone else in on what they wanted or why they wanted it. What I believe may not line up with what Rahl (Host) has envisioned for CM.

Now I've always defended keeping squad preferences to it's fullest. Personally, I liked Charlie over other squads as it was one I picked when squad preferences first came out and I stuck to it over the months. Getting the ability to live, and die, with a good friend also helped me enjoy the time I got to spend playing CM. I think the squad preference system has helped CM grow as a community positively for the most part, even if it does cause some problems. All of that said, I was one who suggested we take some time off to see if this could help relieve some of the problems that are currently building up. I'll explain why I chose what I did in detail below.

The general problem:

With our role-back of rules, IC has become the new standard we want to be able to resolve things. While I'd say this has helped move us forward, it's also starting to bring a new problem with it, mostly with how MP are being dealt with IC. We want the MP to be the rule-keeper IC and leave things IC so we don't have to press down on people OOCly to keep things running, but more and more it's being shown that squads are not caring about MP and will constantly fight back against them when they try to deal with things ICly. The more everyone resists, the more force MP have to administer force (usually just to arrest one person), and the more people get annoyed/hit in the crossfire and the spiral continues. A big factor of this is the fact that friends of the person being arrested IC will often try to step in to prevent this. On top of that problem, this has been leading to an influx of player/staff report regarding MP + Squad problems. This is a growing problem as we can't have MP, the rule-keepers of IC, be unable to do their job on top of the stress all of the reports are bringing to the staff. Just from a personal side, it feels like the talk between managers and heads is constantly revolving around a staff/player report at this point. Keep in mind we all can't sit-down as a group 24/7 to talk these out so it can often take days to get these talked over on top of everything else we're dealing with.

Common Concerns:

• The MP in question was terrible and didn't even follow Marine Law properly, he had it coming! / The charges placed on my friend were false so this MP shouldn't arrest him!

We understand that MP aren't always in the right, but if you're being arrested on a completely unreal charge or the MP in question is breaking Marine Law, you need to ahelp this over just taking things into your own hands. MP aren't allowed to break Marine Law ICly so if this is happening, you need to bring this to OOC via ahelp. This doesn't mean everyone just needs to pretend MP can do no wrong, but we can't have MP constantly being assaulted for trying to arrest someone.

• A month is way too long and I'm just not going to play CM this time.

You don't have to play, but not playing out of spite helps no one. Again, let me stress again that this is not forever. In a best case, we could have them back up in a week or two but we need people to work with us here. If no one takes this seriously then all we're going to do is be wasting time. I promise you that squad preferences will be coming back in the future.

• CM won't be any fun during this time.

I get playing with your friend is fun, I get no one wants to have to ditch their preferred squad, I get no one likes big changes, but this isn't forever. At worst, you're going a few weeks not being directly with your group of friends. At best, you can spend a week or two trying something new and getting to just meet more people. People saying, "I'll never see my CM friends again" is ridiculous and later in the round, you're probably going to end up converging with most of your friends anyways. This can be something fun and different if you look at it reasonably.

• Why turn them off all at once over spacing it out over time?

Turning off preferences completely for a limited time allows us to see the direct effects this is having on the game. If we did this as a single day thing, it'd be really hard to really understand if this was just a lucky day or if it was impacted by the lack of squad preferences. It would take many weeks of doing this to get any real information and all the while, nothing would be changing. Another option was cutting the chances for everyone to get the squad they wanted. If we just cut the chance 50%, then that means we'd need about twice as long to see the effects. This just means longer inconvenience and less reliable results.

• What other options were there?

As I stated before, I believe that this is one of the best choices we have. While it sucks to have to change for a few weeks, everything can go back to normal afterwards. Aside from this, there was the fore-mentioned reduction in chances to get your selected squad but I'm very much against this as I feel like it's just going to inconvenience everyone while failing to pull any real data. Some people suggested making MP stronger but that is only a brute attempt to make people follow the rules and I don't believe it would help anything. In a worst case, and something I don't think anyone wants to go to, we'd have to make a law saying that getting involved in an arrest you're not a part of would be an OOC rule-break. OOC rules like these are not enjoyable to the round and something I'd only support if we can't find any other solution.

• Managers/Heads never play the game so clearly, they don't know what they're doing.

I won't deny that I've been less active on the server since I've become a Manager but this is mostly due to the fact a lot of my work has shifted internally. I still work on CM literally every day of the week on top of all the real-life responsibilities I have to run as well. While yes I can't be active on the server 24/7 to take notes on everything that goes down, I'm still in touch with CM and the things that go down because of it.

To wrap this up:

Personally, I don't see this as a fix to people grouping up with their friends with "Meta-Squads" as that's nothing we're ever going to be able to stop. People are going to group up with friends and probably use voice comms on personal levels, that's the reality and nothing we're ever going to be able to prevent. All I ask is that everyone just relaxes and just enjoys the random squads for a bit and try to meet new players and help them out. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me and I'll give you my stance on the subject.

[Lumdor]

This is the explanation that I wanted from all of this, thank you Emerald.

[slc97]

Emerald essentially covers all the reasons I wanted to remove squad preference but is not too lazy like I am to write it all up.

[NoahKirchner]

Just thinking about it a bit and not really taking a side in the debate because I personally don't mind testing (Though I do hope that squad preferences remain because they make the game a lot better imo.) Assuming that the next few weeks go smoothly, with no incident, would that cause the change to be made? It seems like an interesting variable to test for the problems you're trying to solve, and I'm concerned that seeing good results from the natural ebb and flow of good/bad - ness will give a false positive, or that people purposefully soft griefing in an attempt to not have the changes happen will give a false negative.

[taketheshot56]

I think the reasons emerald lines up are good.


but a MONTH a MONTH is a LONGGGG TIME

[Casany]

>MPs are just being shitlers
>Instead of going to the root issue, the MP players, do something ENTIRELY unrelated

This is what I got from this. Now I personally don't fucking care whatsoever if these stay in or not, I don't have a preferred squad. I play with that random setting each round because it's fun!

The MAJORITY of the time that MPs are fucked by the marines is because the MPs are being shit. Maybe they're TECHNICALLY following the law but they're being huge dicks and ruining the experience of MULTIPLE marines. For stuff like insub and fucking wearing pajamas to briefing. Or for shit like disrespect.

MPs have done shit like go to the front lines, flashbang and actually kill marines to arrest someone for disorderly conduct, but those fucking MPs aren't banned. I don't give a shit whether or not MPs are supposed to be IC moderators, they shouldn't have the same fucking privilege. They have been allowed to be absolute shit, they've been actually encouraged to by moderators online at the time. But instead of getting rid of these MP players you relate it to an unrelated issue and then say "That'll fix it"

It won't. The same shit will fucking happen, but instead of Charlie grouping up to beat an MP it'll be a group of marines from every squad beating an MP.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

While I understand that changes need to be made sooner or later, and this is only a test; one month is way too damn long. 1 week, 2 week ? Sure, test your heart out.

I already don't play much marine nowadays, with most of my time devoted to xeno or shipside roles (and with the scaling of doctor slots, I haven't been able to play doctor recently when latejoining either). And when I do play marines, I usually wish to be in Charlie or Delta, to have fun with my friends, talk shit and just in general not worry about winning that much as long as I can do some dumb shit with my friends watching. While I'm fine with leaving it random now and then, and I generally don't give a damn if RNG suddenly puts me in Alpha/Bravo when I wanted to be Charlie/Delta SG or PFC, I don't want the ability to choose my squad going away. Having fun with your friends is a big thing on CM, and even if squad pref is gone, that's not gonna prevent a group of friends just clumping together from all 4 squads and just fucking over squad cohesion and stuff

All in all, I don't mind the test, I just wish it was shorter, like 1 or 2 weeks at best.

[Torrentia]

Maybe start answering ahelps about shitcurity/MPs breaking the law if you want to enact this change? The amount of MPs who don't know marine law/don't follow the rules is staggering, and I'm not seeing how removing SQUAD PREFERENCES is going to help with an MP problem.

[Retrokinesis]

I'll start by saying that, as someone who prefers charlie but doesn't mind ending up anywhere (except delta), I'm very against this and also agree that a month is too long. But I was fine with the idea of seeing how it went... until I read Emerald's explanation of the reasons why it was being done. Removing squad preference because of bad MPs is just... unfathomable to me.

I get that there has been a lot of salt recently regarding MPs, marine law, and MP/CO conflicts. But that's a problem with marine law, or the current conceptualization of the MP role, or the lack of punishment of bad MPs/COs. That's not a metabuddy problem. A lot of people seem to have serious problems with MPs in general and they're going to take any opportunity they can get to fight with them, regardless of whether or not their friends are involved. The average marine player who knows nothing about the situation is going to side with literally anyone over an MP if they see a fight, let alone the CO. Hell, I've seen people refer to MPs as a xeno caste because of the perception that they have no purpose other than hurting the marines.

Now, I've never had any issues with MPs myself. But I see other people complaining about it enough and read the staff/player reports, so it definitely exists. This is a deeper problem that really doesn't seem is being addressed in any way. And I don't think ruining squad cohesion because you can't figure out how to fix marine law or make MPs stop being awful is going to help.

[Nantei]

So, if you would like some evidence as to why squad preference being removed isn't going to help stop metabuddying...

https://i.imgur.com/yW6ylLX.jpg

I edited out names because I don't want to put people on blast, but basically these two were Charlie only in name. Flagrantly had no interest in joining their squad, just went with Delta because that's their preference. There was nothing stopping them from ignoring me completely and going with the squad they originally wanted. So how is randomized squads going to fix this?

[Royal Griffon]

pfffffffffffffffffft
I'll admit it, I metabuddy'ed a lot, but usually when I wasn't in a squad (as in just sat with squads that I wasn't assigned to, cause well being a banana and getting FF'ed every 5 minutes is torture to even the eviliest soul), I mean this isn't gonna stop what had ALREADY been going on, it's just gonna increase it on a MASSIVE scale and make it harder to lead, but at least it's only a month, I'm interested in seeing where it'll go

[Lumdor]

So, if you would like some evidence as to why squad preference being removed isn't going to help stop metabuddying...

https://i.imgur.com/yW6ylLX.jpg

I edited out names because I don't want to put people on blast, but basically these two were Charlie only in name. Flagrantly had no interest in joining their squad, just went with Delta because that's their preference. There was nothing stopping them from ignoring me completely and going with the squad they originally wanted. So how is randomized squads going to fix this?

The point of this now is to catch people like that more.

So, if we see people always going away from their squad and going with others it will I guess help with metacomming?

Maybe it will or won't, but guess we will find out.

[Casany]

I've said my peace, but I'd like to add.

The reason so many people don't think staff even interact in game is shit like this. Not removing prefs, but the reasoning for it. The two issues have no relevance to each other. It's like you're putting wheels on a boat, it isn't gonna make it any better in water. Bad analogy but that's the point. My trust in the staff team has dropped exponentially in the last few months, and I see no reason to really trust their decisions. Everything you do either shows that A. You're disconnected or B. You just don't care. I get it, volunteers, but for real. I, like many other players, just want the staff to actually show that they are listening instead of just living in their echo chamber. I've seen no evidence that the view I hold is not true, and I know personally many players who agree with me.

[Sleepy Retard]

Alright. I'm gonna be blunt without trying to be rude.

Straight up. That is the most fucking surreal answer I've seen emerald. I read it a couple of times over, and I'm considering your point - I see it from your point of view. But it still doesn't make sense to me.

First question. Why focus on squad preferences? This doesn't actually help the MP problem, if someone thinks their friend is getting shitcuried, they're gonna jump in no matter what.

Second question. What are your opinions on adding more for MPs to do? This might seem out of the ball park, but I personally believe that a lot of shit curity claims and problems come from them (the MPs) being bored. Do you think something extra to do would help?

Third and last question. Do you think fight related crimes should have more categories? For example, a fight with no broken bones for injures a doctor has to treat should be max ten minutes. Why do I ask? Because this could be NJP'd. I think MPs should be handing out more NJPs to be able to soothe tensions and generate some extra roleplay. Because arresting someone in CM sucks, the MP ALSO has to watch the brig - it's a double edge punishment.

[Royal Griffon]

also for the MP problem, just tell them you want to file a report to High Command, 9/10 times THEY HAVE to listen and let you write it and have the CO sign it. I've gotten god knows how many CMPs and regular MPs into trouble IC'ly just by writing a report to High Command saying they were breaking marine law or doing something they shouldn't be doing.
The only situation is when, like with a round with Xiphos earlier where he was doing things unbecoming of an officer, (targeting a certain squad for arrests and beatdowns with stunbatons) he went cryo meaning nothing could be done basically.
But in all honesty if marines wrote to high command more admemes could interfere with bad MPs/CMPs/Command Staff, a LOT more, it's basically ahelping without the fear of getting bwoinked for spam or feeling that you'll annoy admins