Increased incentive for Outfits have made Solo play more annoying

I'm a Blueberry. A Random. I've played solo for the 4,000+ hours I've put in the game over several years. I've tried Outfits, they just don't click for me. It's too much investment for a side title I use to just get my team based PvP kick when I get too tired of getting curb stomped over in ESO's PvP. But now with the game encouraging people to play in Outfits more it's affecting my playstyle.

Yes I play alone but I also like to support others when I can. I like to help fill the Silos of other's player bases in important areas, I like to gun for people alone in their vehicles so they have more damage output and another repair tool handy. But when I'm kicked from a Valk miles from a base because I'm taking up the gunner seat, or kicked from two Vanguards, back to back for not being in the driver's Outfit, it's enough to give them one of my C4 bricks as a present before they drive off. I can't even help my teammates without joining an Outfit now because of this attitude.

Didnt you ever had this thought that said vanguard drivers are not playing alone like you? And they are just waitng at spwan for their mates.
Or in valk they are on coms you are not, you get on to important seat and refuse to change what exactly do you except?
And random in valk seat can really screw up drops and fast pulls.

Usually they are in a squad just waiting for a buddy to spawn in; as much as I hate it, I can't blame them. A few times, I went on an epic run gunning for this random's prowler, only to get kicked out of 30 minutes of shredding everything - just to see the guy drive off with his friend and get destroyed.

Think of it like this - only absolute morons pull multi-seat vehicles without anyone to gun for them. It's more fun to have someone you can communicate with, have played with before to gun for you, than hope the random who hops in your vehicle isn't one of those guys that must shoot at EVERY single thing - even dump a mag of my extended bulldog onto the ground, from inside my stealth bus.

No reason to get angry over it, if they kick you out, they likely expect a gunner, if they don't and think they can solo an MBT - they're dead meat anyways.


The main problem is mostly that larger outfits don't have an incentive to defend bases they don't already own.


By the way, you can still make your own outfit as a solo player, if you want to play with the tactical slot.

Eh, that tends to sort itself out, as they can't hear the "3, 2, 1, drop". The smarter ones catch on and exit, and participate in the fight in a meaningful way. The not as smart ones crash with the Valk.
I personally don't mind randoms in gunner seats though, they might be really competent, the status as a random has nothing to say in that regard. When running solo (which is rare, granted), I sometimes pull vehicles with multiple seats and first come first serve for gunners; or gun for others that seem to not have anyone yet. It's really hit and miss, but sometimes awesome stuff can still happen.

Gee, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to run with someone with that kind of attitude.

As others have said, it's entirely possible, likely even, that these people are trying to coordinate with their own friends/squadmates and that you simply inviting yourself in isn't entirely welcome. Every day I see no shortage of vehicles requesting gunners for their Harassers/MBTs/etc., so I'm not quite sure what you're on about unless you're particularly picky.

Most of the time I've hopped in with Random Harassers I've had a good time. The most recent was with a guy cruising around the edge of a PMB just outside the Bastion and we went on a ~15 minute murder spree shooting, roadkilling, dodging tanks and OS's sometimes clinging on with just a sliver of health. No verbal communication or coordination whatsoever, don't even remember the guys name. Was a blast.

If you play solo all the time, you should not be mad if you get kicked from a vehicle you were not invited to get in, doesn't even have to be an Outfit thing, any squad with members of different outfits working together will kick you from their vehicles in the same way.

What's the big deal with being in an Outfit?, you can just get in one of the big ones and keep playing in the same way you have been doing it all this time, or make your own Outfit and that's it.

Those Vanguards were actively traveling to the next base and I was in the path, saw it was a 1/2 and jumped in to both catch a ride and help gun. Most times when I see a multi-seat vehicle waiting at a spawn point I'll watch to see anyone running for it, even notice Outfit tags. If all friendlies present are just standing around or not making for it then I jump in.

Also, what's wrong with putting a couple words into text chat if the random isn't using voice?

Why I only threw the one. Enough to vent frustration, not enough for a TK.

If playing without an outfit I get ya. I've done that deliberately for stretches.
And playing solo, I get that too. Outside of my outfit's planned ops I'm more often than not just pure solo.

The vehicle play thing you are encountering is pretty expected though. This is a team game and most people using a team vehicle are waiting on... teammates

I'll frequently pull a vehicle with the logistics specialist implant too. Your presence would prevent one of my squadmates from coming in. I won't type a warning before kicking. I'll try prox voice chat (can't be more than a mediocre gunner without it anyway) b but I don't usually read text.

Attacking other players for this ain't cool. Sorry. You're a griefer for doing such things. It's not warranted.

You might want to give an outfit a try. Some are all milsim and ****, avoid those. Find a casual one. Something that is just a glorified friends list. Run with them when you want to, don't when you don't.

Yeah, that's not how that works. Taking seats from outfit members and rage-chucking explosives at them when you get booted is a real great way to get black-flagged. If you've been making a habit of this behavior that might explain your distinct lack of prospects in this department.

When you choose to run solo you're going to have to accept some things are more difficult to find. You should also be more careful with intentionally griefing other players since you don't know if, 1) they also want to run solo 2) saving the spot for a teammate and this teammate might not be immediately visible to you either or is waiting to be picked up 3) simply have a very different goal in mind.

I play Sea of Thieves as well as PlanetSide. The official forums over there get a lot of complaints from solo players whenever the developers add things that are intended more for group play, which is extremely often since the whole game was designed around playing with a group of friends.

It's a similar case here. Solo play is fun and all, especially when you're looking for just a casual good time, but only playing solo completely misses the point of the game.

As a mostly solo player myself I have found the game a bit less enjoyable since the Devs drive for a more outfit based game but I am finding new things to try out and different ways to achieve the things I was doing before.

With regards to randoms jumping in vehicles, yes it can be annoying as I prefer to jump in and out of the gunner slot myself.
To that end I always try and set the vehicle to locked before I set off, but occasionally I forget and a random jumps in.
Sometimes they are good and sometimes just downright stupid, if they are good I'll let them have a bit of fun if they are stupid I'll kick them out.

So for those saying they don't want randoms in their vehicles try and remember to lock them or set them to squad only. Pagedown key if you don't know that already.

If you are the random jumping in uninvited, don't get upset at being kicked out, as was said above you may be ruining someone else's plans. Yes it would be better if they locked their vehicle down or gave you some sort of message before kicking you out but sometimes it's very time critical that you are removed immediately and it's easy to forget to lock the vehicle.

Everyone bashing the solo player, but no one noticing that the "teamplayers" who are supposed to have voice comms or at least be able to communicate dont spend a second just using proxy chat or a /tell to say "hey I got this reserved". Or since these are supposed to be TEAMplayers they should be throwing INVITES to the guy who's actively trying to help them.

Instead he gets kicked without any word or attempts being made at recruiting him. Giving credence to the idea "not in my outfit? Not in my team".

Firstly, as you may have read, some of us here said they don't neccessarily kick people. Secondly, depending on the situation chat is too slow, and then voice comms have to actually work (fingers crossed) and not be deactivated by any party. That's two hurdles that shouldn't be there to incentivise good teamwork between non-premade people without relying on telepathic communication or instinctive understanding so much.

Firstly, this isnt about the people who do nice stuff. This is about the people who dont do nice stuff (like not giving a reason or delivering one (!) C4 on someone's tank).
Secondly, a solo player has little reason to turn voice off as the only people who will voice him are proxy chat players and the boombox players have evaporated long ago. So a voice message should come through (and for some reason proxy chat is almost always the last to go if voice chat fails). If all else fails, just do a V+8 when you kick them out. Its the minimum effort that does get the message across.
Thirdly, its stupid that "teamplayers" kick people rather than try to recruit him. Half a minute of "sorry reserved seat but join in a Lightning" or something can do wonders (I timed typing that, it took +/- 10 seconds on my phone, now imagine a keyboard). The best teamplay I've had was with randoms who played solo but saw merit in sticking close at that point.

The problem as I see it: dont C4 your mates. But dont give your mates a reason to c4 you either! Squad, platoon and outfit gameplay have supplanted actual teamplay, and actual teamplay moments are fked bloody in the rear and left for dead because someone isnt in their group.

I say remove squads, remove platoons, remove outfits, work on a system that actually promotes playing together with anyone and once they finally have that up and running bring back the squads, platoons and outfits. They are supposed to support teamplay so the game should be able to handle teamplay without them.
Yes that would be a blow to the game in the short run, but in the long run it would help the game if we actually promoted teamplay with anyone, at any time, just because you can.

What you're talking about is cooperation between players. Teamwork is something build up over the time (through clans, outfits, guilds, or whatever community we're talking about). When you play solo and interact with players you *always* start from square one and it is blind luck if it works out or not. Outfits and squads make sure you do not have to start from square one every day. That's the appeal of it all, I get to play with familiar faces, with people with similar goals, who want to achieve stuff together.

I see no reason why we need to remove a fundamental aspect of teamwork when we could just as easily work on ways to implement both on-the-fly co-op between players with a solid outfit system. These systems should facilitate each other, not be mutually exclusive.

As for VOIP and communication, I don't want to have my ears start bleeding and/or a migraine within 10 minutes of a session. This is why most of us use discord or TS because you don't want to listen to 2324234 General Patton's screeching orders and engaging in dank banter (it isn't cause we're elitist pricks we do this but because we value our sanity). Most outfits love to have new players but it is a pretty big ask to demand that people start taking time out of the session to recruit new players. Especially since such conversation can be finicky while having to keep a lookout for that person's name... And that's ignoring the fact you might be in a hurry.

I see cooperation and teamplay as the same thing, but lets go with your version for now.

Currently squad, platoon and outfit play is designed to be exclusionary. "These can do stuff together, these cannot". The setup encourages you to ignore people not in your squad, platoon or outfit, and the newer updates have even encouraged rivalry and backstabbing into that mix.

Yes it would definitely be better if we could just create on-the-fly co-op without removing the squads, platoons and outfits. Unfortunately the devs (and many players) have shown a complete failure to understand how teamplay works, and that they have been working hard to segregate the playerbase. So my solution is to remove them in order to force everyone to come up with idea's, mechanics and tools that give us actual teamplay and co-op without it relying on squads, platoons and outfits to execute them. Then when they are added back in a leader can give more nuanced orders than "everyone go there". It would also make the use of fireteams or "local" leaders valuable whenever the leader(s) are respawning or somewhere else. PS2 at its core is about killing and dying, and if the teamplay stops because a leader isnt there or people are still on the way back after a death it stops the teamplay!

As for the voice comms, the point is that YOU have it turned off because YOU are in squads, platoons and outfits and YOU dont want to listen to that. But the SOLO player who you just kicked out doesnt have that problem and he can listen! And even if you are in a hurry, V+8 is your friend! I even put it on a macro so I just push one button and my character yells "sorry".

As for recruitment, just adding them to your squad, or throwing them a quick tell, or saying "wanna join in a min?" Takes mere moments. And the whole point of teamplay is that you DO take the time to communicate with others.
I do agree that the communication options are stunted. Voice comms is the worst for large-scale communications and we should be using pictograms, callouts, area designations, Q-radial menu's, add a V-radial menu for more depth in voice macro callouts etc to make it easier and faster to communicate with others. If anyone in a squad (or a random!) Can relay information about enemy movements or the requirements for an airstrike, AV attack, defenses etc with almost the same speed and ease as a Q-spot it would already boost the teamplay more than every update since launch combined.

I distinguish team play/cooperation from teamwork since the latter implies there is extra work put into the effort. The former can happen organically if more tools/mechanics are in place for it whereas the latter requires you formulate strategies and goals "outside" of the game to achieve a desired outcome.

To this end outfits and platoons is a requirement. It would be excruciating to have to explain and integrate new players over and over at the behest of them randomly joining up. Even when everyone's onboard, knows what's up, it can be mentally exhausting to lead even a squad (but it is also very rewarding). So what you call exclusionary is just a result of wanting something VERY different than what a lone wolf wants which is also why the lone wolf's play style is 100% incompatible with mine (since that player will most likely run off randomly).

But like I said, I'm all for ways to make things easier and smoother to co-op. I don't quite understand where you get off telling others why and how they should play though. Punishing players who team up would frankly be an insane move (unless you really want to destroy this game).

You have the wrong idea for solo players.
Unless you are ghost capping a solo player is always with others. He spawns with others, fights alongside others, places Sunderers for others, and while the local squad is fighting at the frontline who do you think those people are that are trying to flank? Solo players. They cannot ignore the position their allies take to form a frontline, they cannot ignore the placement of a good Sunderer, and a good solo player will use this knowledge to help their teammates. Because believe it or not, even if they arent in your squad they are part of your team. In fact when I'm squadlead I'll give orders and then go "solo" a lot in order to place a proper squadbeacon, or place a Sundy while the rest does their thing, or attack a flank. Yes you have dumb solo players, but you also have dumb squad/platoon/outfit players who do nothing but run to a waypoint. And why are there so many dumb players in that regard in this game? Because the groundwork for teamplay is mostly missing.

The Squads, Platoons and Outfits (SPO's from now on) can only truly function if there is a groundwork to use. A squadleader can order a squaddy to pick a Sundy and place it, but this is a feature anyone can perform. The thing with me "telling others how to play" is that the current idea for "teamplay" would be that the Sunderer can ONLY be placed by someone part of the SPO and that ONLY people part of the SPO can spawn there. If Sunderers were introduced during the last update, this would literally be how they would function and people would applaude it.
I hope you can see how wrong that is.
You even say it yourself: you use TS and actively segregatr yourself from other players this way. And my philosophy works perfectly there: as supplement to existing teamplay this is perfect. As the only method of teamplay its a horrifying monstrosity that segregates players rather than encourages teamplay.
But again: the leaders of SPO's can only function if they have the organic tools and mechanics to build on. There has to be co-op first, teamplay second. Because teamplay builds on the co-op elements it has been given. Just take away every organic co-op tool or mechanic we have right now and think of what would be left for SPO leaders to do. Basically it would be telling everyone "go there" and nothing else.

Organic co-op is the basis of teamplay, and helps players understand what is happening, why and how. It teaches them to look further, and with that encourage them to join SPO's in the long run.
Removing SPO's temporarily would force everyone to see beyond their forced segregation of the playerbase. It would instead force them to lay the groundwork that teamplay is build on, and then when SPO's are returned they would have far better tools to work with without segregating themselves from people not in their SPO.
And again: I would prefer it if the devs would simply start adding the co-op tools and mechanics right now without removing SPO's. But the unfortunate truth is that people think that forced segregation equals teamwork, so if that is necessary the SPO's should simply be removed until that groundwork is build and segregation wont be an issue as they are encouraged to play together instead of rivalling eachother.

Dont forget my mantra when it comes to teamplay: Make teamplay for EVERYONE

Yeah, I don't feel very included here. It is probably time to revise that mantra into something like, "my way or the highway."