Last night's training debreifing

So last night's training...what'd you think of it? Did you like it? Provide feedback on what other things we may want to train on next time! Tell me what we did good, and tell me what we did bad so we can focus efforts on improving and continue doing things we did well. Again, thanks for everyone who attended!

My after action comments:​

Things we can work on:

• Max crash: It was good, far better than we've been doing in the past. However, if we had any kind of resistance that would have went a lot worse than it did. But when we showed up with 33 maxes (i figure 2.5 squads worth) i'm sure the enemy shit their pants allies got a hard on and we DID get noticed. Also, gathering for the max crash was a little on the slow side, but ultimately that IS how it should go. I'd also like to point out, someone said "ALL of us maxes??" Yes! All maxes! No engineers no medics you say? Nope. Here's why, we had tons of backup from GOTR. Did anyone else hear joker on proxy? I asked for them to back us up with medics and engineers. They will love the XP they get from rezzing us and for repping us. The situation would have been far different if we were solo. In which case yes I would have called for some medics and engineers to remain behind. Once we had it secured, we thanked them for the support, asked for them to back us up on the outskirt towers while we held them inside until secured. Point being here, listen to those around you, work with people outside the outfit because they can back you up as well. If you're an ass to them, they'll be an ass to you and next time you might just need THEIR help! This is a team game always remember that. This isn't about NNG winning, this is about the VS winning. If you see a max crash forming up, either suit up with them, offer your assistance, or grab medics and engineers and back them up. When they saw we had 33 maxes standing in wait, you know what they were doing - getting ready to either join us or back us because they knew shit was about to hit the fan.

• TS communication: Again, keep it short, keep it simple. Platoon leaders don't need the whole story they just need the information: Identify, Who, What, Where, and how many. "Alpha 1 reporting (optionally pause here to wait for squad lead response, squad leaders / platoon leaders the proper response would be something like "Alpha 1 go." then everyone else should be silent) TR pushing into Southeast outskirt base with at least 2 light tanks and at least 3 heavy tanks." you can omit the "reporting" as well if need be as that takes some time to say as well. (We'll do that when we get better.) That tells me if i send a whole squad, we'd outnumber them 2 to 1 unless there's a lot more than 5. I frequently hear this "Huge enemy tank push from the southeast" All thought this is good in that we need to know this, you omit the important parts. Lots of enemies should not require you to panic. Identify: Who are you again? Not your name, your number because your name doesn't appear on the map. If you tell me I can make a reference of where but the easier is...; Where: Southeast of what? The main base? outskirt tower?; How many: Huge? are we talking an entire platoon? half a platoon? 5 platoons? define huge! If you see enemies say "at least" and then how many you see. If you know there's more that'll cover that you KNOW "at least 5 enemies" so i know there's at least the possibility of more than 5 which means a single squad may not be enough.

• Squad Formation: This makes us look REAL good when we're all lined up. When we did this in the warp gate, how many of you noticed people looking at us? Every time I see GOTR doing that in the warp gate I get real jealous that we don't do that more frequently. You guys did real good when I called for lineups! Don't wait for someone to call it out! I think after each flip, or even while we are waiting for the flip, we should do this and I'd like to see some squads practice it this week during normal ops. Even if there's only 3 or 4 of you, line up anyway. Crouch down by the point. sight up your guns in the same direction and make it look real good. If you see an enemy, fire together! If your squad is called to hold the point, line up facing the point and show everyone NNG may be small but we're coordinated! 1) It makes us look organized and makes people go "Holy hell what outfit is that? I want some of that!" and 2) it keeps us together and organized. When waiting for pickups, line up, don't clump up! If we want to achieve this 1000 members goal in 3 months, this is one way we can do it! Pub squads are great, but if people see us lining up, they'll take notice and BEG us for an invite not the other way around.

Things we did poorly on:

• TS chatter: We need to work on communication within squad chat (if you don't have it on, turn it on). Report information to your squad leaders and let them either A) handle it within squad, or B) report it to the platoon leader for response or direction. Possibly backup to be requested as well. Either way, that should be up to your squad leader. If after reporting it to them and no action is taken, then step up and let the platoon leader know but only if your squad leader doesn't respond at all to your information. Just be sure they know about it, if they know, drop it. If not, escalate it up.

• Along the same lines - TS complaining: Hackers, cheaters, which weapons are OP on the enemy side, which one I should spend my certs on to counter it, and mothers and those that F*** them, they can all be removed from TS communication. It makes it very difficult for people to report when people complain. We all know about them. Comment once, leave it alone. Note the name, take video report it to the PS2 forums. Please don't clutter up our TS with "XXX is hacking!" "ZOMG he's STILL hacking." "Oh he's not really that good! Hes got to be a hacker!" over and over again is not needed. Save that for casual play channels.

Things we did great:

• Gal drops and redeploy: OMG awesome job! Last night was a far cry from the 5 to 10 minute redeploys we've been having and goes to show there's no reason we can't be in the air in under 60 seconds if we are coordinated with it. Key points, squad leaders: Call who gets the gals! Everyone else move to the gal landing zone and wait. Don't pull other vehicles, tanks, scythes or libs unless asked to do so. In the instance of mobile infantry, there is no need for you to be flying a vehicle unless told to. That's the air cav's job! Coordinate with your teams! Platoon leader has target set prior to the redeploy, everyone loads up in the right gal with their squad so when they drop they're all together. From here out, i see no excuse as to why we can't be in the gals and on the ball in under 75 seconds. On target within 3 minutes and still with our entire squad. Even our longest ones were 100 seconds and that was because of internal confusion and triple load screen bugs. The bugs we can't control, coordination we can and it will get better with practice. Best of all of everything that I saw last night: Gals did NOT stop, People dropped WITHOUT NOTIFICATION. (at least in my squad). Why we can't do that every night is beyond me. No need to park over the point, keep moving let people drop as they get close. If the Gal is on target, people will be able to drop.

• Squad cohesion: I saw squads moving together, and doing the same thing all night long. THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE! We shouldn't have 1 guy off on his own being Rambo, or 2 guys running off thinking they know whats best for the team, the #1 guy in the squad tells you to do something, do it! Stick to that #1 guy in your squad and everyone will be together. Don't follow #5 when he goes off to the outskirt base or starts following alpha squad instead of bravo squad! Follow #1 and the green point. Squad way points should trump the platoon way point at all times! (if properly handled by squad leaders, feel free to poke us whenever possible if we forget) Stick together! When you meet resistance, 12 guys together will trump most of the enemy resistance unless they are just as coordinated. You can't hold off the entire zerg, but if 12 guys shoot the same guy, he drops fast and then they keep going. Again, work with your teams. Help out those on your team together.

• Sacrificing transports: Aside from the noob guy in our squad who complained and wasn't on TS, no one whined about losing their gals / wasting resources or whatever. We had people deploying gals, using them, deconstructing it, getting them destroyed...it shouldn't matter because we have 12 guys in a squad who can pull a gal, and pilot it. (if not, go practice piloting this week) These are basic skills and its literally a transport to go from one point to another. When you don't have that transport, squad leaders should call for a redeploy and get another as a squad! When you arrive on target after the drop if you haven't already been told, ask the squad lead if they want to keep the gal, if so, land somewhere nearest to our territory on the outskirts of the "zone" where you'll get XP from the flip, and repair it (you did get into an engineer suit before you jumped in to pilot right?) And stay with it, if you come under fire, move. Protect your galaxy like it was your child. If you lose it like we did on my team, we can get another. One thing I did wrong was that I called the same guy to pull a gal after he lost it. This wasn't the best choice because he had a timer on it. Instead of freaking out, I called him back to the squad from the warp gate. Shouldn't be any harder than that. When at all possible, keep your squad together. If you don't have resources, squad leaders should be notified, and then squad leaders should be able to adapt to use other people who do. At no time should everyone have their cool downs going on at the same time or be out of resources if your entire team is used properly. If you're dying too much and that ends up being the case, you're doing something wrong and should change your tactics after you're able to pull vehicles again. And again, if that's the case, notify your platoon leader to let them know tactics need to be changed up.

Points I plan to focus on next week:​

• Teamspeak comms: We will be practicing callouts on comms so that we are uniform next week to try it out. During the week, practice this as well. - Example: "Alpha 1 reporting at least 3 enemy light assault on the roof over spawn point."

• Know your number: We'll be moving people around between squads and reorganizing people mid-mission to see if you're paying attention. Know where your squad is, and re-adjust on the fly whenever possible.

• Max Crash: We'll be testing out solo max crash tactics where we wouldn't normally have ally support. If we can do it ourselves then we'll be that much better. I have a few ideas in mind I'd like to try out. They may work, they may not. We'll see. I will need 3 volunteers to help out with this, if interested let me know. I'd prefer people with upgraded engineer and medic skills (you don't need both, just one or the other) but whoever is interested let me know in this thread. Upgraded maxes are a plus but not required.

Additional notes:​

• Squad leaders: After drops always always always deploy squad beacons (I SUCK at this FYI)

• When you are left behind: Don't panic! Wait for your squad leader to get on target and instant action onto him. If you are in a max suit or some other high cost item, relax, it's ok. Start moving in that direction and keep going. Once they are on target, you can redeploy on squad leader (note do NOT use the insert key, use the "squad leader" button on the list in the lower left side of your map) and you will retain that suit. FYI this is only good once every 30 minutes so only use this if you absolutely have to as this will also deny your ability to instant action onto a target later if required to do so. If you're sticking with your squad this won't be an issue. If your instant action is on cooldown, grab an alternate similiar mode of transportation as the squad is currently in if at all possible (scythe / lib if gals, flash or tank if sunderer) and get on target. If you can...BEAT THEM THERE!! LOL

• Use allys whenever possible and help them out: If you are an engineer, repair other allies maxes, medics res ally maxes, don't step over them and keep going, HELP them! Assist where you can. Light assaults get on the roof and help cover allies as they move. Move with other groups if you get separated from yours until you can join up with your team. (notify your squad leader as well) Listen to your squad leader: You may have a great idea, but after an order is issued is not a time to debate his choice. He may have other plans from the platoon leader and taking time to argue them will cause team cohesion failure.

• Don't go off on your own: You're not rambo. (unless your a hacker...then by all means do whatever you want)

Great work out there guys! I see a few more sessions like this will make our daily ops better as well as our division op nights. Thanks for reading all this! I know it was a long read, but grats you did it!

 

Somthing I thought of with redeploying. Sometimes it will be something where we want to redeploy and form up at the WG, but it's okay to keep fighting until you die. Other times we want to do an immediate redeploy-like in we did in training. I feel that we should have a consistent method of specifying which one.

Other than that, not only was it fun and helpful, I think that it helped make some sense of outfit unity.

 

Im going to comment on this as I read it.

I was the one who asked about us all being MAXes because I don't like putting that much trust into people I don't work with. They could have left at any second.

Only SLs and PL should be talking in TS. Hearing orders from those who arent you really started confusing me when someone called to have AA MAXes on the pads. In short, if you aren't SL or PL do not give orders.

Recomendations should be given in squad chat, not TS.

Things not relating to the current objective should stay in your head, not in TS.

 

I would agree with that assessment. GOTR is a fairly reliable group of guys and I did place a lot of trust on them. Hope for the best, plan for the worst: If we had lost lots of guys I would have been calling for dead guys to respawn as medic and engineer and get up to defend our guys asap. In the interest of speed and the fact that we already had a significant amount of maxes waiting I went with the plan of all maxes.

You are correct, assess your surroundings first before going on with all maxes.

 

thought the training was great, and should be mandatory for anyone seriously consisering running with us. the discipline and timing were impressive and really made me proud to be NNG. Ps I can help wit h your plan, ive got repair 6 and medi gun 5.

 

If asked to redeploy, do it immediately. Waiting until you die just slows the process even more. I can't think of one good reason an SL/PL would want you to wait until you die to redeploy when called upon to do so.

 

We could say this is a personal preference to a platoon leader. I'd consult the leader in charge.

My personal take on it: When platoon leader calls for a redeploy my opinion is get to the position asap. No doddling or "last minute kills" type setup. Unit cohesion is key to success and if he's calling you somewhere get there. 99% of the time, we call for a redeploy to reorganize the group, and get on a new target. If someone is waiting on you, you're doing something wrong. I'd prefer to be ready to go when the platoon leader says "go" i'm not left behind. A lot of the time we don't have coordination between the squad leader and the squad members which causes delays, but again, if someone is waiting on you, you're doing something wrong. If you're standing next to that #1 guy, you're already on target and you won't get left behind because there's no doubt that guy will get picked up eventually.

 

From what I saw last night I thought it went very well.

The only negative thing I will say is on the squad formations, while yes I think it’s cool and will get us recognized… it’s fluff, that’s purely my opinion. Now that’s not to say that I won’t do it if asked. I have no problem showing off when we are trying to get attention, but I think it should be something that is used sparingly and for short periods of time. A great many players in this and all games have a short attention span and standing staring into the back of your team mates head will quickly lead to alt-tabbing or a second monitor.

I seem to remember someone talking about this, but I don’t remember if it ever happened. I think a training night purely for leads would be quite informative. We have several that lead often and I’m sure they could give insight to those that don’t do it that often or like me just end up being a squad lead. (I didn’t ever think I would want to be a squad lead but, after doing it a few times I don’t mind it but would like information on doing it better)

Also gokou, I’d be happy to help with your engi, medic thing… my max isn’t that certed but my engi and medic are.

 

I only recently started using in-game voice chat, and definitely need to practice using it. Sometimes when I'm distracted, I'll say squad-only info in TS by accident, and that can be worse than just not saying anything at all. :P I'm glad that voice-comm training is on your list for future training sessions!

 

re: redeployment point- It's just that I specifically remember there being times where PL told us to redeploy somewhere after we die. Though now that I think about it, I do believe that they were all during casual/recruitment ops, which makes a difference. Ergo, I'll assume immediate redeployment unless told otherwise during serious ops.