Help me understand whats so bad about the "zerg"...

Typically people sneer at "the zerg" because it tends to be comprised of a horde of random, unorganized pubs who don't seem to be aware of the existence of the concept of "tactics", making them giant, dumb mobs that swamp things with numbers. It's not seen as "intelligent" gameplay. However, it is entirely possible for a large "zergfit", a large outfit running multiple platoons, to be well organized and thus use effective zerg tactics to great effect. If a couple well organized squads can hold of a platoon of mindless zergs, then a couple of well organized platoons can dominate pretty much any fight where the enemy doesn't fling their own equivalent at you.

You're all zergfits.

Ever since the first "organized squad" in 2001 wwiionline grouped together 100 bombers and started bombing an empty base (because they pulled 100 players off the battle and lost the town while they were flying enroute to target), have you guys never learned proper FPS videogame tactics.

By product of tactical and gameplay "I got it right" syndrome.
That's not a shot, I think that's why a lot play and enjoy this game.
There are so many choices and avenues for enjoyment and effective game play.

Unfortunately there's some that need to belittle and/or hate on just about anything and everything (zergs, ghost hackers, libbers, tankers, snipers, this Outfit, that Outfit, anybody that's not a personal human bot, etc etc) in order to cement their feelings of "I got it right".
That's a shot, though not meant as the end all of explainations or that's why all and/or everybody type thing.

Real thing though, was the 1st type of psychosis discovered on Auraxis.
Look it up

Another starcraft-historically-accurate aspect of "zerging" is using only one type of unit. Pull a bunch of players away from the fight (losing a bunch of ground in the process, and by the time you arrive with your zerg the tactical situation has radically changed), and group up one type of unit:

Tank-zerg
Bomber-zerg
Fighter-zerg
Infantry-zerg
Galaxy-paratroop-zerg

It's almost always a terrible use of both player resources, and tactics; which means it's the pubies and lonewolfs that really determine the outcome of battles.

Fair enough, but that still separates them from the people following mission objectives.

Depends on whom you ask. To the majority though, it seems to be any group larger than 3-4 squads. To me personally, it's excessive and wasteful use of numbers with little thought to strategy involved.

Slightly more numbers as an attacker is justified, twice the enemy in number is not, and once they're camped it's prudent to move any excess people off of that base to either prep the next one or fight on another front. A zerg on the other hand will stick to a camp with 70%+ advantage and is actually a detriment to their faction on other fronts.

There's also the proper "The Zerg" which tends to be present for any one faction on any given day. It's a name given to the inevitable clump of random, lonewolf, or outfit players from outfits who travel with the zerg for an easier time down the path of least resistance.

When people say zerg they mean population imbalance, not population greatness.

Help me understand whats so bad about the "zerg"...


Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Big battles, lots to look at and see. And good hunting grounds.

Long live the zerg, long live the lattice.

^^^^

Being in a large fight is not the same thing as being in a zerg. When you see 48+ enemy vs 1-12 friendlies then you are getting zerged. When you see 30 MBTs and 20 or 30 air Vehicles and you can't get out of the spawn then you are zerged. It is not fun to sit in the spawn room at a base.

Every time I try and fight or slow down the zerg if never works. I always try to find equal pop fights to ensure we will not be spawn camped.

When 2 zergs clash it's fine, but most of the time, what actually happens is something like this:

https://imgur.com/a/wxMuF

If you don't see the problem in that, well, I don't know what to tell you.

The term is mostly used negatively by people who still don't know how to redeploy.

See this is the key for me. There are different types of zergs. As stated above... "The Zerg" is the collection of individuals with no real leadership other than going with the flow and following the lattice. This will always be there... is predictable and has various abilities due to major differences in makeup. I've rolled with The Zerg on many a weekend day just chillin getting kills when there isn't an outfit squad up and going. One of the main reasons for the Lattice and Missions system is to focus and direct these groups together... to allow the organized forces to have something to fight... and in numbers that are worth fighting.

Yes, "The Zerg" is a waste of manpower, but its not manpower that would effectively be used any other way because its mainly made up of casuals. As much as this group is ridiculed and belittled and called names... it really is there because a certain percentage of players are just there to get some kills and have fun. Organized outfits should be keeping an eye on friendly versions of this, and play off it. Let your factions Zerg take bases, and you go elsewhere to maximize the numbers. It becomes a problem when the majority of your factions population is in this group. (happens on underpopped factions a lot... and causes frustration for organized squads)

The zergs that I have a problem with? A platoon that drops the full 36-48+ players on a base with 1-12 enemy... overwhelming and stomping out any chance at a fight.... They either refuse to split their squads up to attack 2 bases at a time or hit larger fights because they either have issues with communication and leadership or they can't hold a base without overwhelming numbers. That is true misuse of resources and can hurt a faction even more than "The Zerg" ever would.... especially if it's an outfit that keeps recruiting, but then just pours those numbers into singular objectives... the so-called zergfits. Yes, they train complete newbies in a lot of ways, but they also instill bad habits upon them as well. If all the new players are sucked up by a zergfit without good tactical leadership... then all the other tactical outfits have issues with numbers.

TL;DR Don't mistake "The Zerg" (something that occurs naturally and cannot be stopped) and "zergs" (coordinated groups, committing many more troops than are needed, by far) One can't be helped, and can be predictable.. the other depends on the leaders and can hurt a faction just as much as help.

What happened during WDS was an epic fail in player motivation via rewards by SOE. They finally got it worked out better, but that first week was a colossal mistake. Even while in those WDS-capping zergs... the players themselves were ******** about how the WDS pointing system basically promoted the round-robin speed-capping and avoiding confrontation... all while they were doing it to get their "prize". On Matty VS, the WDS zerg was actually being lead around to maximize the points on that first Friday... and was extremely effective in doing that. (Boring as hell and not very good with the kills & XP though)

However, That's a separate issue than the normal day-to-day Zerg that forms. The Zerg doesn't have leadership... it just flows... so as much as people think they like to avoid each other... it has less to do with that and more to do with, "hey... there is fighting over there, lets go there!" and "hey, the other guys are going that way... might as well go that way as well... there must be a fight!" and "hey, i'll get 250 xp for the next base-cap down the line, on we go! (to ghostcap and spawncamp your way down lattice)".


The Zerg is a necessary evil when you have a high number of casual and/or non-outfit led players looking for a fight (they naturally group up). The key is getting your outfits to stay away from those fights. If you're really lucky... you'll have a couple guys willing to zerg-herd a bit... and maybe direct a zerg in a better direction for the benefit of your faction.

It doesn't even have to be that small. A full platoon destroys basically any fight it shows up to. I've seen rolling multi-base fights destroyed by an outfit coming in and doubling the pop (which by itself is fairly common), but then spam /yell to say "You're welcome."

Screw you Mr. Outfit man. We were having a perfectly awesome fight before you came in and convinced the other team to redeploy to Esamir.

I know that example was a bit extreme, but that actually happens everyday albeit in a less blatant way.

The problem is when we're avoiding the zerg, getting into a pretty good 25-48 vs 25-48 fight with pretty even odds, and then the zerg comes and ruins everything (be it enemy or ally)

The problem with zerging is I like to macro and hate getting 6 pooled when I expo first, wait......

This is how I feel, this game is about huge battles. Its where I go when I deploy, i dont want a 12 v 12 fight show my and my buddys can show a group of newbs my epeen. I MASSIVE scale battles.


Infact I wish they would turn the pop cap backup. At least once we get cont locking

Yea, I hear ya. It's especially disheartening during the late night with our overpops.... trying to open up lattice lines and draw a small fight just to have bored VS redeploy in and swamp the fight. That why whenever we relocate, we try as hard as we can to drop on under-popped bases or try and open up a fight on a base that will draw enemy rather than overswamp an existing fight. (Most nights our small numbers won't change much... but our Ops nights can swing fights, so we try and be careful then) Course then we get TR/NC that will drop a full platoon on our squad. All well, gotta try something.

Hell, I've even tried dropping in on NC/TR fights that we will then be way outpopped... seems like more fun than pushing a fight to 70/30 advantage. TR/NC don't usually like that though...

Hell, its not even just an infantry thing. Even when we are running vehicle ops or air ops, we have the same issue. A good little skirmish between 3-4 vehicles and infantry (sundy or two) and suddenly you see a rolling convoy of 20 tanks/sundies/esfs coming down the road.

This.. so much this..

I have been agreeing with posse way way too much lately...