The Emerald TR and zergfits...

You do realize there's more than just Hossin in this game right? Of course you only care about the one continent you happened to be on that night. Next day you might log in and see AOD at every base you go to because they also happen to operate there.

There's just so many false statements you made. For one, last night goes to show nothing bad about AOD. For all I know VS mostly stayed off Hossin last night and focused someplace else (maybe wherever AOD was?). Which would explain why you were doing better (Also AOD has ops Monday night, coincidence? Might want to send them a thank you note for keeping VS off your back). I don't know for sure I was busy last night, couldn't play. Two, VS don't always beat TR, that's defeatist attitude that could explain why you personally lose more. Self fulfilling prophecy.

Also if you were doing good last night did you REALLY want 2 more AOD platoons (or any others) following you around? Wouldn't you say they made the right strategical decision of focusing elsewhere because you already had enough forces and made progress? If they were a zergfit like you and others claim, wouldn't they just jump on the bandwagon along with you and keep over-reinforcing bases that you already didn't have any trouble with? Instead from what you are saying, it sounds like they went elsewhere, where they were actually needed, making a sound Strategical decision.

I'm not even going to get into the last paragraph where you somehow believe larger outfits exist to serve you and do your bidding....

Big outfits are not prisons. People can leave anytime they like. If you want more small to med sized outfits make 1 yourself and ask players from the outfits you think are 2 big to join.

I don't understand why people bag out outfits unless they are known to have exploiters. I have seen AOD and I have played on Connery and Briggs and they are pretty good not the best I ve seen but far far from the worst. I ve seen them defend and cap bases with even or sometimes even underpop.

Not all outfits can be supper pro and the more casual outfits make a good training ground for the elite outfits. New players join them gain a feel for the game and if they want a more organise outfit they will find out about them in game and when ready join the small to med spec ops outfits.

I tip my hat to the people who take the time to run outfits and I think the work that outfits with a open recruitment policy make the game much better as people get a feel for platoon and squad play before they meet some of the impatient elite squad and platoon leads who will chew people out, calling them names then kicking them for not being up to standard.

The elite outfits need to carry the more casual outfits(AOD is above being classed as a casual outfit.) but thats true of all factions. Its better to have a working relationship with the casual outfits then bag them out and get their backs up.

Well you are just plain wrong. If you dump 8 individual squads of decent players with a smart leader in each squad, they will manage to coordinate better automatically than a big 2 platoon lump of stupid meat with their pants on their heads. Because the smaller smarter outfits knows exactly what needs to be done and they keep an eye on the map. They will automatically divide up and find their role and do it well. We'll take an assault of an old Amp Station as an example. I have seen this scenario many times. The large 2 platoon pile of meat will run around and trip every generator and then leave to room and run around to find something to shoot, often getting shot in the progress. Then the generators are undefended and they get repaired. This will go on for ages and you can't really break an Amp Station without a very organised GSD crash unless you take and hold the generators. The large unorganized blob does not know that. They take one generator then rush away to be farmed around the spawn. The organized smaller outfits will push the entire squad towards one generator and then stay there and hold it and trust that the other outfits knows what they are doing. When the other outfits sees that a generator is locked down, they will trust that the people holding it will keep doing so and move to the next objective and hold that. Or if you want a bare minimum of organisation. All you need to do is write in the region chat: "My squad had vertical locked down" and the rest know that they can focus on other stuff.

A bunch of squad sized but organized outfits will always beat the zerging platoon at equal or slightly lower numbers. There are many capture points that can easily be held by a squad against twice the population. A single well organized and good squad will completely ruin the large zergs since many of the TR zergs are highly predictable and highly unorganized. They'll just take out some key components such as the single sunderer and then the entire assault falls to pieces. As soon as they take their base back, they already have people on the point of the next base which will be halfway caped and everything will be hacked or destroyed by the time half of the zerg realizes what is going on.

I used to be in AoD. Their problem is they let anybody lead. I got the speech several times of "We want to promote members into Squad and Platoon leads fast, so anyone can ask to be one during non-alert times". You do this a few times and you get to lead Squads/Platoons in alerts. I even got offered Platoon lead, which is scary, because I was a newbie. Also, I found out it's very difficult to coordinate with AoD as another outfit. AoD command tends to only run their zerg platoons and since they have numbers, they tend to ignore requests from the smaller outfits to coordinate attacks. AoD does what AoD wants.

This creates the sense of incompetence, because an AoD platoon can really be led by someone with no clue. I remember being in on platoon where the lead literally had 4 squads take a bio lab in a tech plant alert. When questioned, he said "It's a distraction". Then he got in my Harasser and said "let's run crowd control". Under a bio lab....

However, there are a few good AoD leads. Eventually, I would only join AoD platoons led by someone I recognize to be competent. One guy only ran small 2-3 man squads and we even drilled taking over tech plants, blowing up sundies, sneak cap with galaxies and etc. They eventually left and so did I.

Instead of blaming AoD for sucking up members, it's the other outfits fault for not being more available to newbies. I applied to BWC and withdrew my application after I saw how my schedule was outside their main play time schedules. Very few people are going to go through the effort of seeking out and applying for outfits outside of the game. If you don't get to these players first, they will eventually find all the AoD and 382 pub platoons, who auto-invite anyone without a tag. Then you've lost them for at least a couple months until they figure out the outfit situation. BWC/903 should open up a pub zerg platoon during alerts. That way they can at least control the zerg flow, instead of letting AoD run rampant.

If we can recruit 2/3 of the current AoD members into the good mid-sized platoons, I think AoD itself will be a good outfit. They won't have the option of zerging anymore and they won't be starving for leadership to lead all the zerglings. Players who actually want to lead small tactical squads will have their chance, instead of being forced to run 4 full squads of newbies.

Maybe don't join or make a zergfit? We TR would get alot more done if all the pubs didn't just get shoehorned into the terrible AOD-esque platoons.

How do you propose we break up the zergfits? And do you think that would be advantageous to our cause? I sometimes wondered that...and decided that it may be easier to have the zergy type players stick to one outfit, and then just try to help that single outfit play better. That approach has many pros and cons and whatever we consider, is probably worth a try. Unless we just don't care anymore. I have found it hard to care more and more though.


During my tenure as a 382 officer back in the fall of 2013, 382 was the cannon fodder of the TR. Before my time, from what I understand, 382 was quite the force of good players specializing in base captures, coordinated galaxy drops and sunderer support for medium to large fights. Once early summer of 2013 hit, it went downhill. I joined 382 in July 2013 and left at the end of September to form ECUS – Harasser Specialized Outfit.

Before the merge, I found 382 to be significantly worse than it was when I was there. Not sure what ODAM was back then or how they identified themselves. Maybe zergfit? Maybe also cannon fodder? Back then, both outfits had the reputation of being about massive numbers with all the advantages and disadvantages that come with that title. Unfortunately, for many frustrated players, we only remember the disadvantages.

I don't know much about AOD except that their vehicle drivers are oblivious to everything around them, and they will squash friendlies everywhere. Our Harassers often get the business end of their Prowlers, without prejudice. I can't speak for their infantry play as I don't do infantry, but I'd imagine it's similar.

From what I can tell about today's 382nd, their impact has a lot to do with who's leading: They do have some solid folks in there who are trying to do a good job, but managing a zerg can be daunting. From what I can tell about ODAM, they have been working to improve their reputation and overall image as they take the leadership of their outfit far more seriously than they used to. My impression is that they're giving it the old college try and quite frankly, it seems to be working. I haven't had issues with ODAM TK related issues in quite some time.

From the perspective of Faction coordination: ECUS has supported 382 and ODAM base capturing initiatives; and we've come to help them deal with enemy armor. Working together in CO chat and beyond has proven easy actually. I think going forward, if asked for their assistance or if others attempt to open a dialogue with them, they would be agreeable to coordinate strategies. Take it with a grain of salt though, and be mindful of what kind of support their zergfit can provide.

There are a lot of great players in these zerg-type outfits. Lots of potential and talent that is just waiting to be realized. ECUS, OAK, HR, NUC, TRAF and LUXE are just a few outfits that have had players with roots in 382. Zerg type outfits are good for new players to get situated I think, but if they stay too long, they'll be scrubs forever. I think of the larger more newbie friendly outfits as boot camp. Once you get to BR30, you should have a good handle on how you want to spend your time in this game and be specializing in something. For most people, that means finding a specialized outfit.

Since the merge though, everything is a 100+ fight and it's nearly impossible to get a decent fight or duel in. Most of my fights occur near the continental boundaries because I know there isn't any reason for the epic blobs to be there. That’s also where we find flanking vanguards and magriders running stealth. That's our kind of fight.

Seems Planetside 2 is now just an epic version of farmville.

Not cool, people just blindly hounding on other groups who are trying to have a good time. Organized command does not come natural to everyone but everyone should get a chance to try it out...some times it falls apart for what ever reason but to sit here and just say these groups are bad is poodoo IMO.

I'm all for ANY size of outfit...the big ones and the smaller ones...regardless we TR should all work together. I see (well hear) it all the time in command, our PL coordinates with our second platoon via Outfit channel but also updates command all the time...well provided command is in a functioning state and not full of lame. We respond to valid communications within command and try to help. Not everyone is a BR100 whoopazz...so somedays bad things happen lol.

It is to bad that some of these outfits have left a bad taste in players mouths but c'mon man inter faction meddling and bashing will get nothing accomplished.

You do this to yourselves.

I've been saying since the merge that Matherson TR has trauma from all the VS butt kicking they've endured. NC fights you because you attack them. Seriously. When you find yourself being the underpopped faction and getting double teamed, take a close look at where the NC-TR fights are happening. It's on the NC side of the map.

You have some zergfits or masses of pubs that are simply scared of fighting VS so go pick a fight with NC. NC pulls back from VS to defend and suddenly boo-hoo, TR is getting double teamed.

Stop being so scared.

Nearly every NC platoon I've run with since the merge has begun it's fight against the VS. VS has the population so NC *loves* picking fights with them. It's challenging. It's fun. Then that fun gets wrecked because we are constantly getting ankle bites from TR who just refuses to engage VS head on.

Nobody is forming official treaties between factions. There are "logical treaties" where the two underpopped factions *should* be fighting the larger one. NC gets this. TR seems simply ******** in this regard and makes strategic moves that are not in their own interest. It baffles me

(I generalize here of course and there are exceptions. I stand by the accuracy of the overall sentiment)

How would you suggest newbies find non-zergfit outfits? As a new player, this game is the epitome of sensory overload. Being shoehorned into an outfit is a huge positive when you're new, and have no clue what's what and who's who. Until SOE makes it easy for new players to get accustomed to the PS2 experience, these zergfits will be the best option.

From the platoons I've been in with them I actually don't mind 382 that much. My beef is with AOD. ODMN I haven't ran with enough to really judge.

I do have to say that this is pretty hilarious thing to point out since its a thing we really don't do. GOKU is so ingrained in the mentality of "we are redeploying soon don't pull armor" that we might run a full platoon and one guy has a tank.

Are you sure you aren't seeing Lasher spam? Because that is definitely a thing we do.

I don't know what time you played but VS were ALL OVER Hossin and the only reason we "did better" was that VS had reached all the way to the North forcing TR and NC to fight them instead of each other for once...

not really "doing better" though considering VS held> 75% of the map

You didn't. While that was all happening, TR was still trying to warpgate NC.

See my previous. I have no idea why TR does what they do sometimes. I think you Matherson VS guys just beat them into submission for so long that they are a broken dog now. They come to NC for an easier fight and it never works out.