Farming Newbies Etiquette

So I was just in a fight in which the attacking force consisted of low BR players all from the same outfit. They got massacred.

At first I was happy for the easy kills, then I started feeling sorry for them, and even started offering advice in yellchat. No idea if they actually read the yellchat though, as they never replied.

After I knifed a guy who turned out to be BR 1 I just instinctively logged out. I've played quite a bit of Planetside, I'm BR 99, but this is the first time I've ever logged out because I felt guilty about winning.

I thought about about a couple things I could have done differently.

I could have suggested they go to Koltyr, but apparently Koltyr has a farming problem too? I've never actually been there so I only have word of mouth to go on.

I could have logged on to my VS alt and joined them. Not sure this uninvited help would have been welcomed by either side though.

I could have let one of the newbies kill me, then put a bounty on them. It might have made them feel important. But, it could also have been taken the wrong way (as a punishment). Or the newbie might not even understand what the bounty was.

I could have tried to persuade my fellow NC to "let" them capture the base, it was just a 1-12 fight and the base was unimportant. That would basically be rewarding the newbies for poor playing, but I figure we could give those guys a break after they handed us 100+ free kills. Of course getting a half dozen total strangers to agree to such a thing was anything but certain, especially as the farm was so good.

And I'm sure people will say, "The newbies are never gonna learn unless they get farmed." And there's certainly truth to that statement. But have you ever felt you farmed someone too much?

We all know this game will die without new blood and it weighed on me that the newbie outfit was feeling pretty frustrated; even if I couldn't hear their chat, I could just tell by how their playing changed as the battle wore on. Would they come back to Planetside after this massacre? I don't know.

Any other people have similar experiences? What did you do? What do you think is proper newbie farming etiquette for a situation like this?

ive left a few smaller fights when it was clear it was new guys, but if theres enough of them ill wreck them and may not even notice their BR

The only thing I have a problem with is tryhard outfit squads abusing groups of newbies like this. If you're playing solo, well, one player doesn't really change their experience too much. If you don't kill them, someone else will, and of course, the only way they'll learn not to die is for someone to keep trying to kill them. Showing up with a whole squad of BR100s is like taking your college baseball team and signing them up for Little League.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here...

Newbies banding together in an outfit sounds like a bit of a stretch.. possible I guess. But improbable. What I think actually happened is a few scrubs got banned from the recent exploit that was fixed, made new accounts.. and without the crutch.. are getting creamed by 'average' players.

I've noticed since Thursday's patch that my performance in game Skyrocketed. Seems like the little exploit was pretty widespread.

Interesting comment - I've noticed an apparent improvement in my game too.

I dont think its not just a newbie problem when people are attacking bases they wont get and are only getting farmed. Almost every time im standing on crossroads watchtower looking at a tank column slowly making its way uphill, i think yeah, no, you wont get that base. Impossible. Why are you even trying?
But if you ask them why they are doing this you wont get an answer. They are not playing the objective because they are lacking the numbers, the coordination, the vehicles or all of that. They are obviously not playing for their stats.
Sometimes battles are balanced, more or less. Sometimes they sure as hell are NOT.
I dont think there is any etiquette because of that behavior. Some people are downright trying to get themselves killed, new and old. If you run into an obvious chokepoint with no support against a fortified position while underpopped, i cant help you. No one can.

Maybe its because i played this game for a long time. I dont know what i should tell a new player who asks me for advice because he is getting farmed. Its just so obvious. You are outpopped. REDEPLOY. Why are you doing this?
In some games i can and will give advice to new players. But here? I dont know what would actually help a new player.

I sometimes feel bad about killing low BR players, but generally only after I've already killed them 2-3 times and it's from a flank or something tricky and they're just trying to get to the point room. I've let a few people live that way.

But mostly I just kill everything. I've never been in a situation where it was a huge percentage of incredibly low BR players. I imagine if that happened I'd leave the fight to friendly low BR players unless the enemy had a pop advantage, in which case I will stroke my ego as I repeatedly kill them.

i only reported like 5 times tonight instead of 20

felt good

Think the main concern here is the time they get slaughtered.. back pre-lattice, there were alot of smaller fights and it took longer, with more of a struggle to conquer stuff, because you usually weren.t in a big zerg (unless) you wanted 2.

Then lattice came, made the zerg trails and created an insange amount of chaos by overpopping hexes and whatnot. Alot fo the zerg "fights" are not even fights, but more of overpopping and swarming..

There is no time to give them breathers or tips, because the speed and chaos is usually to much for them.

I really hope construction can spread out the pop a bit more again, so we can have normal average size fights again, which are not only better for learning the ropes, but also alot more fun. Right now it's either small of zerg, were missing the middle option.

Fair-play is important in all games. Even in FPS. Where's the fun in farming people who can't even fight back ?

Here's what i usually do :

If a single or a group of low levels only try and try and try again and i am the only one defender , well...I leave the place. They'll be happy to take the base, to earn certs in order to gear up... 10-15 minutes later, i'll be back in order to hammer them and to capture back MY base. Fair trade. Everyone is happy.

If a single or a group of low levels only try and try and try again and i have random or good teammates around, well...I redeploy or sometimes log and join the noobs. It will make the game harder for me but it will be more interesting. The reward will be doubled : i'll be happy of carrying the noobs and helping them to earn their certs. And i'll have a harder-more interesting task to achieve. Fair trade. Everyone is happy.

After that, giving advices...I did several times, i'm still waiting for any reply. Damn stupid noobs.

It was actually bona fide newbies. No hacker could have made the mistakes these newbies made. The guy I knifed made the mistake of setting up a turret and manning it when I was literally standing right next to him. I'm not sure he even realized I was there (I wasn't cloaked either).

It was a roughly even pop fight too, or at least as even as you could get in a 1-12 fight.

One of my concerns was that the pwnage was so lopsided that the newbies didn't even have time to learn from their mistakes...

Thank you all for the input; thinking about it... I think maybe logging in with my VS alt would have been the "better" choice. Maybe next time that that's what I'll do.

I always keep a friendly attitude in game partially because of this. Yes I may destroy the newer kids but I won't ever rub it in their faces. I'll even send whispers if what let me get them was something particularely bad, like part of their gear not going deep cloak. Granted though I haven't been in-game since HeadshotGate, finals keeping me busy and the issue itself sapping all motivation to keep playing fair. I wonder if that's why NC had so much trouble throughout my entire planetside history...

I myself have had it happen where a BR5 has emptied their rifle into my Lightning, and I'm just sitting there sending a tell to them that small arms can't damage heavy armor. I've never gotten a reply in that sort of situation, though, and I can't even be sure the new players know how to reply.

The hard part about this sort of situation is that fights in PS2 tend to be so broad and chaotic that quite often you don't even realize you're farming newbies at first, or that newbies on your side are getting farmed; most situations don't really give you the leisure time to consistently keep track of what others are doing. And once you actually do see the problem, what can be done about it? Maybe if you're really lucky and the stars align just right, you can get the newbies to join a squad with you, enable voice comms, and follow along as you walk them through the basics- but if that worked out more than once every one hundred attempts, I'd be surprised.

I'm absolutely in favor of fun balanced fights for everyone and newbies being able to get their feet wet without ending up in the shark pool constantly, but PS2's scale and freedom of movement actually work against that in a number of ways.

I don't get much satisfaction from killing newer players, but I like them for their usually bold and blissful play. I'm tired of seeing players who play the game like they're gonna die IRL and chicken it out even when they are armed to teeth and have an additional shield

I do sometimes feel bad for low BR NC. If only they cast aside their misguided ideology we might yet be brothers in arms. I feel no sympathy for cultists though, they are beyond redemption and deserve to be farmed without mercy.

yet yall use our immortality tech with no complaints..

I've had a few good conversations with new players that came out of bad situations for them. I tend to tank a lot lately, and a newbie in a vehicle is easy to see and easier to kill. What I will do is if I am thrashing someone bad, and clearly they are new to the game, i'll send a tell congratulating them on a good play, or a great try, even if it didn't work out the way they wanted . it's amazing what a little encouragement can do to improve one's mood.
We were all at one point 'that guy' and I for one tend to remember the times people did the very same thing to me. That encouragement kept me playing and trying out new things.

I'm still suspicious about these 'newbies'. BR 1-15 is on Koltyr. If they come to a normal continent then its usually an alt looking to get into the action immediately.

I've not seen a string of newbies lately. But I have seen a string of BR 70+ going down like they're newbies. Ever since Thursday.

Was it a squad of 5 Vanu guys in a Valkyrie?

I had something similar happen the other day. We had just finished an Indar alert and I was about a dozen certs short of 300 certs per session. So I hit redeploy and went to the first available reinforcements needed base, some who-gives-a-damn base in south western Hossin. So I get there and there' are a couple Libs overhead, point is being held by VS and there's about a minute and a half left until the base flips.

Long story short, half a squad of blueberries and myself end up pushing the VS off the point room and blow up their Sundy which was conveniently placed right outside the door to the point room. Threat over, job done. Only it wasn't. About 30 seconds or so to our full re secure of the base and hex population being 100% NC, most of the friendly randoms redeployed. Only people left at the base were an infiltrator and a light assault standing on point and me downstairs repairing our generator. Just as I brought our Genny back online, mini map has two red pings on it- another Lib and a Valk.

Back on point, fortify, prep for breach. Standard stuff. Only the squad that dropped in was anything but. 5 guys, all heavies, all part of an outfit I've never seen before, all below battle rank 25, all absolutely terrible. They got obliterated. First couple of waves, and they did come in waves never one at a time, it was a fun farm. By the 8th or 9th wave however, I started to feel bad for them. New guys who have every advantage on their side (numbers, organization, spawn logistics, Lib shelling our spawn room) get dominated by vets. So just like OP, I logged out.

All in all I got 24 kills in 11 minutes- 14 Bandit, 4 Betties, 5 Turret, 1 Sticky. Infiltrator must've had just as many. LA got a good chunk too. I don't know what happened after I logged out. Infi said he was going to redeploy too when I said I was gonna bail in proxy chat so hopefully the did end up taking the base.

I farm them like the newbs they are. No pity.