The Iron Wolves versus Future Crew

You may not have noticed but they routinely dump on their own faction as well and leave them to die in battles where they could easily capture or defend by assisting simply because there's no mass spawncamping/killfarming. They'll stick around in a battle refusing to advance for half an hour or more simply to farm but they won't stick around for a five minute battle.

I have said nothing bad about TIW, they have the testicular fortitude to stand up and compete and deserve respect.
My comments are directed at couple of posters that jump into every thread we are mentioned and spew accusations and hate.

Why the **** are there no awesome NC outfits?

Seriously, all the best players are VS or TR - NC does not have any Future Crews or NUCs. Couple that with the fact that the NC is dominant on NO servers (unlike other two) and I really hate my faction - we always ******* lose. And since I'm not good enough to detach myself from the playerbase at large and stand on my own prowess, I have nothing in this game to be proud of.

It's seriously demoralizing in a game where the objective is basically bragging rights.

Well for what it's worth, Recursion on Connery is an outfit of highly skilled NC players.

I suggest that you focus on your own performance, rather than the wins and losses of your faction. It is nigh impossible to control your faction- in the end you can only improve yourself. Don't worry about what you can't do anything about.

Yes but that basically means I'm stuck on the worst team. And since I'm not particularly good, that just reinforces it.

It is not fun to be on the team that doesn't win anything, even if said team is tens of thousands strong.

PS2 MLG in a nutshell: ZOE

I watched FutureCrew sit back from 300 meters plus out and just lib/tank/esf farm a tower base for over half an hour being extra careful not to get too close for more than a few seconds where anything could shoot back at them. They sat back and did this while there were other Vanu outfits actually attempting to repeatedly capture the base and getting their faces smashed in...for...over...half...and...hour. Literally, they were being massacred. If FCRW had simply moved in to attack with the other Vanu outfits that were fighting, it could have been taken ridiculously easy. Instead, it ended in a stalemate and FCRW left to go farm somewhere else.

I've seen them leave enemy bases before that were successfully defended when they weren't even outnumbered because no one would play their patented come and chase me over the other side of this hill game with them.

If that's how you play the game, that's your prerogative. But, I wouldn't exactly call leaving your allies to die en masse while you farm some easy kills from a safe distance as a shining example of being a teamplayer.

That said, there are some FCRW players I've seen that actually routinely fight on the ground alongside other Vanu quite admirably. That's not to say you have to be infantry to be good but you have many players who spend the overwhelming majority of their game-time in a Scythe or Liberator spending most of their time a close distance from a defended position so they can constantly take a few potshots, run away and then repeat. Of course, that tactic is definitely not limited to use by FCRW or the Vanu faction. There are plenty of TR and NC who do the exact same thing.

It's an easy way to stack your KDR but just kind of lame, in my opinion.

The honest truth is that many of the best NC players have simply re-rolled to the other factions to join other outfits, or to escape oppressive server populations. There are still strong NC outfits out there right now but it's tough when the better players keep getting poached for 'MLG Outfit's' or burn out on constant 2:1 odds.

Being 'mediocre' (Translation: Not Pro l33t players) is a crime now.

Give people a break, if there is something that annoys me more than people whining about balance, hacks, "cheese" tactics etc. to excuse their own performance, it's elitists ***** whining about people who are supposedly inferior to them, where "inferior" means "not as devoted to being good at a game".

Congratulations Future Crew, you won. Decisively, and your opponents were sore losers. Be the better people and be gracious winners as opposed to elitist tools.

Yes, this has been the Future Crew tactic for many years now since ShockSNFC became the prime rainbow. Basically what we do is use a "catch em all tactic" where we collect players like trading cards and build the strongest deck possible.

I guess I'm to old to understand why that resentment kicks in .. As Connery NC I run into FCRW and they kill you and you kill them, that's the whole point of the game .. The fact that they have some very good players killing you shouldn't IMO be a cause for resentment but a cause to challenge yourself, both individually and as an outfit.

In a game of the scale of Planetside when your next death is just as likely to come from an unskilled playing spamming HE as it is to come from a skilled one , any sort of " skill " resentment seems idiotic.

I can't speak broadly to all servers, but I think where TIW is concerned the problem is knowledge of the game. They seem to rely strictly on their shooting ability, which may work for farming the huddled masses but won't get you anywhere in a competitive scene.

IR and TIW have had really good fights. We were very competitive in most, and even beat them into redeploying on occasion. They recruit for MLG pro skillz. We recruit based on whether you're a good guy or not. Overall, they have better twitch gamers. How did we compete? With tactics and game knowledge.

Case in point: NeonTiger was the NC representative at a MLG convention and was being interviewed about his thoughts on the game by the developers. He did not know how to distinguish a radar Flash from a non-radar Flash (this was back when empty radar Flashes still worked). You might be saying to yourself: Hater, that's no so bad. Just shoot all the Flashes. ...I guess I'll accept that.

Later in the interview he was asked by a developer (I think Maggie?) what changes he would like to see. He said it'd be cool of Engineers could defuse AT mines. ...this was about a week after the patch that introduced mine defusing. Not knowing how to distinguish radar Flashes is sloppy. Not knowing that you can defuse AT mines is inexcusable for someone so MLG pro that they're representing an entire outfit and faction. Mine defusing was a game-defining change. And he had no idea about it.

This is what is wrong with NC's MLG outfits.

Ah, so Jax does an MLG show for PS2? I haven't really watched the PS2 MLG-related stuff yet so I don't know much about the people officially involved. I thought Jax was just doing commentary for this match up between his outfit and Future Crew. And that this was just a matter of an outfit leader getting upset about losing. Yeah, if he officially involved with MLG/PS2 then he may want to learn to keep it under control better.

But in the end, people are still going to people so its unrealistic to expect them to always keep their emotions under control. Even freaking world leaders have their moments... Personally I don't think outfit leaders should be allowed to do commentary for matches involving their own teams. That would solve one problem.

And Hamma is kind of an exception to the rule. LOL I have been around him since the tribes series and he has always been extremely laidback and calm. I think he is one of those people who almost never gets angry. I know a few like that but obviously I am NOT one of them.

this post essentially sums up what is wrong with PS2 MLG ambitions and "competitive gaming" in general. SOE isn't Blizzard, they don't understand "asymmetric balance" (read: intentionally unbalanced) and they think that slapping MLG all over the game will somehow magically attract rank-and-file gamers and make the game a financial success.

what happens when the average player on an open server faces an outfit like FCRW? total demolition, demoralization, and disgust. after getting slaughtered repeatedly, then they click the "Exit" button and all their dollars walk out the door with them. the market won't stand a game like PS2 anymore. inexperienced gamers far outnumber the old elite who have been playing since Quake, and they won't bother wasting their time and money on a game where they get abused relentlessly, and are essentially "content" for the veterans to grind through.

lets ignore the no MAX round while were at it

FCRW existed and did what they do long before MLG was ever even mentioned....

Outfits are supposed to make a huge impact in battles... that's why we have them

MLG is just to give outfits that may or may not face each other on their server a chance to really test each other with even matchup and see who can do what when it's just the 2 outfits involved without anyone else around to help/hinder.

It is interesting that only 6 of the top 25 outfits are NC and of those outfits two are air orientated (QRY & Prey) which really only leaves you with 4 outfits (TIW, BAX, Recursion, MCY). If MLG competitions do get going it does make you wonder what type of NC representation there will be.

These days a very tiny minority of gamers think this way.
Most players believe they are above average, which obviously isn't the case. Most also believe there is little skill difference between themselves (above average) and the top players in the world... this is also false. So when these players get dominated by a highly coordinated, professional-level team, they attribute the pro gamers' success to nefarious behaviors.
They're hackers! Their team is OP! They spam heavies! They only medic train! They're just harasser farmers! They only air zerg (when I'm flying)! They only MAX crash! Etc, etc.
For more on this, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

1. you might smell things better without your nose wedged firmly between FCRW's cheeks

2. outfits make a "huge impact" in battles in a negative way, by zerging and steamrolling. this isn't their fault, due to atrocious base design and mechanics that encourage spawn camping and other un-fun behaviors. the net effect, however, is that F2P players, the financial lifeblood of the game, realize how futile their efforts are and quit.

3. there's no such thing as an "even matchup" in a game like this. when you have to start banning certain units, like MAXes, from the fight, you already know the mechanics are fundamentally unbalanced and broken. instead of a paper > rock > scissors style of asymmetric balance, like Blizzard manages to achieve in StarCraft, you essentially have a undulating pattern of rock = rock >>>>> rusty old pair of scissors. asymmetric balance in a first-person shooter is difficult to achieve (see Natural Selection, Counterstrike for functioning examples) and SOE simply doesn't have the skill to achieve true balance. this game would be far better off with mirrored weapons, mirrored vehicles, and mirrored stats the whole way around.

And this is why I don't mind getting killed by NUC.