Any tips? Because you need insta-react and immediately know what to do unless your dogs won't follow you. When your dogs dont follow you it's frustrating. Thank you.
For having fun at leading you have to choose carefully ur dogs. Leading friends or outfits will give you better results! If you are trying to lead a platoon of random guys then good luck! Still keep placing waypoint and issue vocal orders. There is no way that you can force a dog following you... unless if they release a dog's leash tool shortly! lol (Like forcing mates to respawn near you)
Voice, voice and more voice.... Outfit is a whole lot easier and rewarding. Public squads just end in someone telling you in great detail how he knew "that" was going to happen but didn't want to say. These guys also don't want to lead their own squads
Assuming you are inviting random people: Provide a spawn beacon, sundy, general objective (base / hive, support a battle). Avoid detailed instructions on how many medics, etc you want in the squad. Avoid detailed battle plans. Use your inside voice. No screaming, cussing, insulting.
Prep: Don't just jump into it. Take a moment to get your stuff right before moving out: Make sure SLs have good voice comms, beacons and smoke. Replace them if they don't. Pull everyone to the warpgate. Give 60 seconds to comply. Kick anyone not there (will save hassle later) Set your squad composition. Make sure you have enough medics. I disagree with earlier posters on this. If you don't have a self-supporting team, you will fail over and over. Decide what you want to do. Are you finding the fun fights? Those ones with the even pop? Fun stuff. Are you fighting for your faction during an alert? Is there a base on a lattice that you want to ultimately hit? Doesn't matter what your plan is, but have one. You don't have to share it, but have it. Leading: Everything has lag to it. If you ask for something to be done, allow time for it to unfold. Think ahead. (pull your logistics for the next goal before the first one has completed. Send resources ahead of main force to hack, get logistics ready etc) Be super specific. Don't put waypoints on a base. Put waypoints on the exact spot in the base you want your folks to go. If attacking/holding a base use your squad waypoints for one of two things: Designating exactly where you want each squad to be OR illustrating the path you want your troops to follow. *everything* should be a flank. You want to position your troops to be firing at the sides of people, not the front. Do this and your troops will have a high KDR and have much more fun. Being specific is important. Some people will brush off the specifics. That's fine. Those that follow correctly though will have success. This will snowball and you'll find cohesion getting tighter and tighter. Watch the farm! Do NOT let your guys come streaming out of the last remaining sundy in a failed offense. Relocate. Watch the zerg! Do NOT let your guys sit around holding dicks waiting on a timer to count down. If it's too easy, find a fight that is more even. When the back seat driving starts: Thank folks for their suggestions, then reiterate what the current plan is. If someone argues, welcome them to start their own platoon and move on from the discussion. When it comes time to make your next move take those suggestions into consideration. If you follow a suggestion, be sure to acknowledge the person that made it. If cohesion starts to turn to ****: Reset. Redeploy back to warpgate, get squad composition right again, recheck those comms with your squad leads, kick folks that don't comply. Once redeployed, make an attack on something very easy with a guaranteed success. That will tighten everyone up. THEN move back towards the hard ****. With a taste of good cohesion in their mouths, your guys will kick *** at the hard stuff.
From years of experience I can tell you what keeps a platoon together: Keep things simple: Dont put a squad waypoints up. 1 platoon waypoint, delegate to your squad leads, make sure every squad has a beacon up/ or find someone that will put it up consistantly. Defend 3 point bases like its the end of the world, every map has 4 main 3 point bases. Your job is to make people money as i say, see if you can work with another platoon for best results. I follow the 30/30 rule, try to keep both opposing factions 30 or less. You can grind on one for awhile then switch fronts. If you have a platoon thats alot of power. Combined arms is your best bet when attacking and defending, use your Air and Ground people, hook em up by placing them together so they can work together. Dont chastise your vehicle users let em do their thing. Some people like to talk alot, im not one of those, use your smoke and attack markers to explain things on the map. I mainly play light assault while leading and I spend most of my time looking for the enemy in my hex. Its my job to find enemy spawn points and direct fire on those points. Ive run full platoons for 8-10 hours on weekends, kick your people that dont listen, it ruins it for everyone and weakens you as a group. I always talk politely to people and let them know what I expect. Know if your in my platoon my goal is to make you as much XP as I possibly can, its not to have you run mindlessly into objectives.
Aye, to reiterate again: Don't be afraid to kick people that don't follow orders. If it makes you have to condense down a platoon and drop a squad, so be it. The worst: Ordering 30 players to attack something that takes 20 players to win. Then 18 people comply and get massacred. Sure, you're a dick to the people you kick. You're a worse dick to the 18 people that just got killed if you don't though.
