Squad preference is going away for a month

[Reuben Owen]

I am just wondering if when squad pref was on, were the numbers in each squad imbalanced? Like 20 In alpha but 30 in delta? I have no clue since I'm a Xeno.

Robustly, squads were very differing in terms of effectiveness even if they had the same amount of people (I'm not gonna rank em y'all know which). Yeah you wanna be a SL but you get Alpha and all the baldies and you're sent to the frontlines. It's hard. We know. At least now you're more likely to get a "mix" of robust and new people in each squad.

Yeah nothing can be done about dudes tagging along with other squads.

Also I have no personal experience with CM's discord. But if it is more used than it's ever been... well... that's not going to suddenly stop just because this takes place. Buds will still be buds.

Looking at this from a basic standpoint, why do we even need squads at all? (yes I am actually asking this, I wanna hear what people have to say)

[WinterClould]

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

PFC getting greifed by MPs don't have access to a fax. Who's gonna send it for them? The MP greifing them?

[Nantei]

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.

I don't see that really happening, and I don't think they were metacomming either. Best case you find people who you think might maybe be metacomming? You have no way to definitively prove it unless they leak it. You'l find the people who consistently ignore their squad to hang with their pals but... I literally could just tell you that if you asked me. Hell, asking a frequent SO player is a very good way to find that sort of stuff.

[CaptainYankee]

As far as how MP issues tie into this topic:

In the last two days I've been arrested thrice. In one case I attempted to handle it ICly with no results. In the other two cases I ahelped and received... nothing. Never marked, no "IC Issue", nothing. An MP was able to walk up to me, shush me quietly when I asked for help (I was dying of liver damage on the floor of the medbay lobby), handcuff me and drag me to the brig where I was not given treatment. My charges were "fighting" which is not a charge that I'm aware of. He also failed to tell me who I had been fighting. I give you this additional information to show that it was clearly a mishandling of prisoner rights. I nearly died in the goddamn brig. The WO refused to act, the admins refused to even give the situation a cursory glance. It seems clear that at least some of the problem is caused by the changes to the rules. Perhaps things will settle in time, perhaps the staff team is uncomfortable stepping into MP issues now.

[Rohesie]

Alright, I've read everything so far and I have mixed feelings. On one hand I love playing Charlie, for I've made a lot of good friends there, and on the other I'm not adverse at all to being sent to other squads. Specially because of having good relations with members of others and enjoying meeting new people. Alpha is specially good due to the amount of newbies you can teach.

That said, the action taken does not seem to match the problems that have been pointed out, as others have said in less kind words. I'd like to ask for some clarifications.

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.

Is this an issue? Some regulars will cryo if they get sent to squads they dislike (which I find fine), some will insist A LOT for a transfer and often get it from friends in command (not a fan of this, but seems acceptable), and some will just ditch their squads and join their buddies elsewhere, even if they have a special role (this I really deplore). That screenshot shows an example of the latter, and I've seen that being done by staff members while playing. Is it a problem rules-wise? Not metacomming as far as I know, by the byes, as that would be a clear violation and I wouldn't have to ask for clarification.

Emerald mentioned something that I feel is being overlooked: Rahl's vision to shift the OOC enforcement of the rules to a more IC self-regulating approach. That sounds lovely, but also brings issues. One of them is IC across-the-rounds groups forming cliques that actually manage to provide a serious threat to MPs (which has been causing quite a lot of issues), or even jump into a fight without knowing how it started to gang upon whoever their buddy is facing (a less visible issue). The MPs getting their own channel also helps to distance them from the rest of the crew and make them feel a team of their own, instead of them being just command.

My take is this: if ditching your squad is not an issue in any role you take, I don't see the need to remove squad prefs. If what you want is to limit the IC gangs and don't want to intervene OOCly, empower the MPs and give them IC tools to deal with it. It will be messy, but that's how allowing players to resolve issues ICly with force goes, really.

[Nantei]

As far as how MP issues tie into this topic:

In the last two days I've been arrested thrice. In one case I attempted to handle it ICly with no results. In the other two cases I ahelped and received... nothing. No marks, no "IC Issue", nothing. An MP was able to walk up to me, shush me quietly when I asked for help (I was dying of liver damage on the floor of the medbay lobby), handcuff me and drag me to the brig where I was not given treatment. My charges were "fighting" which is not a charge that I'm aware of. He also failed to tell me who I had been fighting. I give you this additional information to show that it was clearly a mishandling of prisoner rights. I nearly died in the goddamn brig. The WO refused to act, the admins refused to even give the situation a cursory glance. It seems clear that at least some of the problem is caused by the changes to the rules. Perhaps things will settle in time, perhaps the staff team is uncomfortable stepping into MP issues now.

I was there for this round, and this is honestly a textbook example of what has me so frustrated about MP's. Staff inaction. I would much prefer overmoderation from staff than undermoderation. I know that may not be a popular opinion around here, but it is my opinion. Never have I ahelped something an MP did, and have staff help me solve the problem with the MP. It has always proven to be a complete waste of both me and the staff's time. As far as I see it, the only way an MP will be punished for being malicious is if they do something blatantly incorrect, like beating prisoners. Otherwise, they seem quite untouchable by staff as nobody seems to want to make a call. We have an idea for how we want people to play here, so why don't we start enforcing it instead of letting people dance around the rules to abuse them?

[Renomaki]

I always viewed squad prefs as creating toxicity and elitism, as well as spreading out the skilled players too thin.

Look, I get it, you wanna play with your friends and/or play to a certain style that certain squads have. But do you have to be an asshole about it?

I swear, as the months go on, I grow tired of the constant bickering and dick measuring competitions that take place between certain squads, causing some members to develop a sort of superiority complex and even starting stupid fights with other squads because they want to assert their dominance. This MP thing is just the icing on the cake.

And it doesn't help matters that the skill pool is often uneven, which often results in certain squads always having the majority of the good players while the other squads get whatever the game can scrape together... Which results in squads like Alpha getting shit on for something it can't control.

I never used squad pref because I would rather have my experience be totally random than predictable. I let the game decide what squad I'll lend my talents to. Doesn't mean I won't get to see many a familiar face. Hell, I might even discover new faces that'll build a name for themselves in time, and said face will start to get to know me over time and build a relationship of sorts, like many others I had met in the past.

I really do wonder how this'll affect certain players knowing that they will have to adapt to new squads instead of going with the same team over and over again?

[Westhybrid]

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.

See, that's a big fucking problem if a policy is created in order to instigate people to break it.

You're going to punish players for buddying with their friends across squad lines, but you're also the ones who put them in those conditions by taking out preferences, thus pushing them to go to such lengths, AND, you're going to try to justify the reason behind the policy as a solution to metabuddying, but the policy is an instigation and a motivator to go to greater lengths in order to be with your friends.

The policy punishes players by pushing them to break the rule in the first place, and is disgustingly justified by the breaking of the rule the policy inspires.

It's so forwardly hypocritical and fundamentally backwards. It's also unbelievably unenforceable.

You can either handle it two ways. Either, one, every mod and Admin is going to draw their own line in the sand of what qualifies as metabuddying and people are going to get infractions en masse for just trying to roleplay, or two, you're going to attempt to leave it to the MP's to enforce segregation of squads, which is like trying to put out a fire with fucking gasoline.

I'm sure Emerald and SLC have the best intentions, but I'm not remotely satisfied with their explanation. And as a Mod, you should not be so overwhelmingly passive at a decision that is going to be such a colossal headache for the mod team in particular to the point where your final thought is, "guess we'll see how it goes." Don't tow the company line here when you know this is going to be a shitshow.

Don't antagonize your playerbase for a fucking witch hunt.

[Lumdor]

-snip-

I mostly said this as we as staff already argued about the point at hand.

We were shut down and told that it was going in no matter what, so now all we can do is deal with what is to come.

Of course, I already know the ahelps that are gonna pour in from this, but nothing can be done.

We'll see if it stays in the full month, or maybe will get cut down.

[Westhybrid]

I mostly said this as we as staff already argued about the point at hand.

We were shut down and told that it was going in no matter what, so now all we can do is deal with what is to come.

Of course, I already know the ahelps that are gonna pour in from this, but nothing can be done.

We'll see if it stays in the full month, or maybe will get cut down.

That's really unfortunate to hear.

Best of luck in the wars to come.

[Lumdor]

That's really unfortunate to hear.

Best of luck in the wars to come.

Thanks brother, we'll try our best as moderators.

[Recounted]

This issue rarely bothered me as much cause I barely seen any metabuddys or any foul play.

im neutral to this issue. But im interested to how the rounds will play out overtime with each week.

[Casany]

>No matter what the change is going to be implemented

Nice. At least give us a concise reason as to why, instead of just the blanket and UNRELATED "It should help fix MPs"

[Royal Griffon]

PFC getting greifed by MPs don't have access to a fax. Who's gonna send it for them? The MP greifing them?

The CL, or another MP, but if a MP is griefing you just ahelp it, I'm talking about command staff mainly, saying some of the problems come from MPs griefing command staff and such, so just say misconduct is happening, or like I plan to do next time I get caught ever being an MP and a bad CMP shows up, report to high command about any possible crime they have done and get them demoted, I've done this countless times, you can ask Lordington, they once played the USSR national anthem when I overthrew a CMP once.

[Casany]

The CL, or another MP, but if a MP is griefing you just ahelp it, I'm talking about command staff mainly, saying some of the problems come from MPs griefing command staff and such, so just say misconduct is happening, or like I plan to do next time I get caught ever being an MP and a bad CMP shows up, report to high command about any possible crime they have done and get them demoted, I've done this countless times, you can ask Lordington, they once played the USSR national anthem when I overthrew a CMP once.

I think the problem people have is that when they Ahelp there is no response or nothing is done. I’ve experienced this in the past as well.

What do you do when an MP breaks the rules? Nothing because the Admins don’t fucking care

[Bancrose]

Only for a month. Well its not a permanent removal but this will force me to be in Bravo meaning there is a 25% I might just cryo at round start, I have squad prefs so I dont get forced to do FOB duty every round. I can see the +1 to this being that it lets players have a chance to work together with players and maybe remove the sort of cliques, but this is how it is for players. We hang with those we enjoy playing with and working with. Those that complain that squad prefs makes meta cliques and metabuddies don't really make that many friends with players ingame.

I fail seeing how this will work well, because players who recognize other players will fuck off IMMEDIATELY, and follow each other as an unga squad as it that how it generally goes.

[Royal Griffon]

I feel that the last squad preference you had is what you are now stuck with for a month, cause I am a permanent Charlie all rounds even when late joining. So I think it basically locked your squad preference to whatever you had it last? Just saying

[Royal Griffon]

I think the problem people have is that when they Ahelp there is no response or nothing is done. I’ve experienced this in the past as well.

What do you do when an MP breaks the rules? Nothing because the Admins don’t fucking care

Here's the thing about me, I try to be a good MP and usually am including a CMP, I treat the law as a fair weight, justice and rights.
Here's also the problem of some CMPs, CMP is supposed to be the police of the MPs, and is supposed to keep them from breaking the law, but if they decide to be a dick and refuse to do anything, there's nothing that can be done about it cause the CMP is being that way, you won't find me doing that and I have removed plenty of CMPs and MPs from rounds for their bad/toxic behavior.
Also you have to remember one other thing as well, the people upstairs are playing with you as well, if you ahelp it enough times, they'll listen and trust me if there's a personal vendetta against the CMP (I've had this happen to me with an admin it's why I stopped being an MP/CMP) an admin WILL do something about it.

[Wesmas]

Like many people, I have concerns about this. But the staff do get to see more infomation than the players. All I would say is that the staff just need to be willing to end the experiment early if it is clearly non-functional. After a week to 10 days, I imagine enough of a baseline will have been established to roughly tell if its better or worse.

Personally, I feel like the 'squads' we curently have are non sensicle anyway. A sqaud might be 1 SL, Spec, Engie, medic and smarty, plus 5 PFCs, or it might be a 40 to 50 man group. Maintaining any standard formations when you have just varience is madness. But that is more or less a seperate issue.

[taketheshot56]

i am a good simple man, I always go alpha to help the newer folks who get auto filtered to alpha, now i will have to be thrust in with robust players....very saddening.

[Tornadium]

Personal opinion, Squad preferences ruin the experience for casual/new players.

Your round experience varies drastically depending on the Squad you get and even if you sometimes do get one of the squads stacked with competent players the behavior of some meta-cliques is at times downright hostile to outsiders.

I don't think this change will make much of a difference to that kind of playstyle but it may highlight the issue in a broader context. I'm in favor of at least trying it. My hope is at least some of the meta cliques will attempt to improve the server experience by attempting to communicate and assist a wider range of players instead of staying with their meta clique and being an isolationist group.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

The length of time for the test seems abit too much, the test itself is interesting, but probably predictable regarding the outcome.


Ive already been doing this test myself for 6 months plus as a individual and i have always had my squad preference on random.Im also not apart of any discord/teamspeak type groups either.

Do i always use radio to communicate with my assigned squad? No, sometimes i dont say a thing on radio or in person, sometimes i actually get a headset of another squad if i think they might be more interesting or quiet even.Sometimes i turn off my headset altogether or chuck it away and go radio silent so im not distracted, maybe even take my helmet off.

Do i always interact with the players that main specific squads? No, they are sometimes completely ignored

Do i always interact with new players, ones possibly even trying to interact with me? No, equally ignored sometimes

If you get assigned to a squad that is FOB duty? If i dont want to FOB, i go mesh in with another squad or marines and do what i feel like doing, sometimes solo.

If you get assigned to a squad that has orders to scout/assault? If i dont really want to, i dont join and you may even see me manning a cade at FOB

It doesnt matter already whether im thrown into a squad of new players or experienced players, just because i may see a faces/names ive seen before or alot of, doesnt mean im going to "meta-buddy" with them.

Will i go about it any differently whilst this test is active? No, aside from one thing, i will probably will be even more radio silent because there wont be the handful/pockets of players banded together with their "getting shit done" kind of chatter over the radio, and most likely it will be shit talking, which i dont really want to hear or participate in.

Or,

more likely, "argh my squad sucks, im a deadman, help!"

[Tornadium]

The length of time for the test seems abit too much, the test itself is interesting, but probably predictable regarding the outcome.


Ive already been doing this test myself for 6 months plus as a individual and i have always had my squad preference on random.Im also not apart of any discord/teamspeak type groups either.

Do i always use radio to communicate with my assigned squad? No, sometimes i dont say a thing on radio or in person, sometimes i actually get a headset of another squad if i think they might be more interesting or quiet even.Sometimes i turn off my headset altogether or chuck it away and go radio silent so im not distracted, maybe even take my helmet off.

Do i always interact with the players that main specific squads? No, they are sometimes completely ignored

Do i always interact with new players, ones possibly even trying to interact with me? No, equally ignored sometimes

If you get assigned to a squad that is FOB duty? If i dont want to FOB, i go mesh in with another squad or marines and do what i feel like doing, sometimes solo.

If you get assigned to a squad that has orders to scout/assault? If i dont really want to, i dont join and you may even see me manning a cade at FOB

It doesnt matter already whether im thrown into a squad of new players or experienced players, just because i may see a face/name ive seen before or alot of, doesnt mean im going to "meta-buddy" with them.

Will i go about it any differently whilst this test is active? No, aside from one thing, i will probably will be even more radio silent because there wont be the handful/pockets of players banded together with their "getting shit done" kind of chatter over the radio, and most likely it will be shit talking, which i dont really want to hear or participate in.

Or,

more likely, "argh my squad sucks, im a deadman, help!"

Some may view that kind of attitude as part of the problem that this test is designed to target.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Some may view that kind of attitude as part of the problem that this test is designed to target.

Well sorry to break it to ya pal, but thats how some people play the game, im one of them.

I want to shoot shit, not RP.

The RP that does exist however is from the band of regular players that do create a atmosphere,which i notice whether i want to or not.

So this is actually targeting them players, not me, as i already just stated, i wont be going about it really any differently.Almost unaffected.

[Westhybrid]

Personal opinion, Squad preferences ruin the experience for casual/new players.

Your round experience varies drastically depending on the Squad you get and even if you sometimes do get one of the squads stacked with competent players the behavior of some meta-cliques is at times downright hostile to outsiders.

I don't think this change will make much of a difference to that kind of playstyle but it may highlight the issue in a broader context. I'm in favor of at least trying it. My hope is at least some of the meta cliques will attempt to improve the server experience by attempting to communicate and assist a wider range of players instead of staying with their meta clique and being an isolationist group.

I've never seen a group of people who buddy up ever once completely freeze out a new player who didn't know what they were doing. If someone has a question in LOOC, someone will give them their answer.

That said, personal opinion, no one's obligated to hold the hand of people playing the server for the first time. There's a reason Mentors exist, and it's not to play secretary to the Mod-team's ahelps.

If players are acting hostile to newcomers, that's not the squad preference system corrupting their good nature; they're just assholes.