I've been playing a lot these past few weeks and I'm noticing a really irritating trend. NC is almost consistently losing alerts and by losing I mean placing last. The worst one happened today however. Alert popped up on Esamir and we had 60% of the continent capped. By the end of the alert we had 20% and we were still losing ground. Why is this happening?
To be blunt, NC sucks when the numbers are even. They don't know how to fight without numbers in their favor. To win an alert you need to split forces to defend/take territories. NC doesn't like to do this. Moving platoons to take over an small base, then moving them again to take the next makes it easy for VS/TR to gobble up territory. When they do split off, its like shooting fish in a barrel. I swear this is what happens when you always have the greater numbers to fight with....you start getting complacent. Then you start being bad without a zerg behind you.
VS on Briggs are kinda like that. We held about 60% on an Indar Alert and dropped down to 32% in the final 5 minutes for NC to take the win. I guess it is more about consistency than grabbing territory and attempting to hold it while grabbing more territory.
Well, it isn't just alerts though for the Waterson, NC. They generally derp around quite a bit regardless. If the VS had more than 26% population during prime time, the NC probably wouldn't have a continent most nights. I think the big problem is that supposedly DVS abdicated its zerg control/server leadership roles in favor of recruiting the top people on Waterson, NC and running around with them. So, did no other outfit pick up the zerg herder reins?
It seems like there's very little coordination between NC platoons/outifts. Even when pops are equal or we have a slight advantage, we'll have trouble not getting beaten down during alerts. And usually you can find most people clinging on to just few bases instead of trying to actually push out.
I think a lot of this is because a lot of the original leaders (from Jaeger at least) don't play as much or at all. I know a few out outfit leaders/founders that I haven't seen in a while including the outfit I belong to.
Regarding NC on Waterson during alerts, here are my observations: First 30 minutes to 1 hour, most TR coordinated outfits are absent. This "imo" is intentional. Because VS is always outnumbered, what naturally occurs at the beginning of each alert is NC will push the VS hard (dumb) mistaking their lack of numbers as our superior tactics/skill. When 1-1.5 hour is remaining on the alert the TR coordinated outfits show up & blitzkrieg. Meanwhile, the VS & NC are combating one another & by the time NC moves to protect its flank, its largely over. This has been going on for weeks. Almost exact same situation every.single.time. The only exception is when NC is leading by a massive population advantage 45-55% and has the population to combat both fronts. NC leadership needs to leave VS the hell alone, warpgate TR until 20-30 minutes left on the alert.
I follow this forum often enough (now with bloodpressure meds.. ) and this is pretty funny to me. Only because just before the patch, the Waterson TR were complaining how poorly they were doing and the like... Seriously, guys.. it's the damn warpgates. They really need to be balanced better honestly.
Indar is a terribly designed continent. I assume because it was made before they had an idea on what sort of system they were putting in place. Amerish is the thing that all the other continents should be based off of.
You're actually quite correct in your assumption that some TR outfits doesn't jump on the alert-bandwagon until an hour has passed. We finish off on another continent, securing it against any push made while we finish off the alert. Some alerts we just skip as we find it more useful to keep a continent lock or removing that of another faction. As for why you usually loose alerts when you start with most of the territory... Everyone will consider you the majority threat simply because you have so much territory to begin with. Thus both the other factions decide you need to be pushed back while leaving each other mostly alone. This happends no matter who holds the majority to begin with, and is not some conspiracy like most tend to believe. I agree that warpgating the VS to begin with is really stupid, as most tend to forget about them completely afterwards and they end up taking the alert because TR and NC were busy stalemate fighting a couple territories while the VS just needed a couple squads to cap everything else.
NC is largely dictated by Lone Wolves... and because no one on leader chat ever wants to use Orders, it remains largely blank. Which means the lone wolves will only go to the places where you see platoon worthy efforts happening. so when TR shows up in force with 1 hour to remain, no one opposes them. honestly, jump on 'orders' chat and start spamming intel while running CAP. you'll see a completely different story unfold.
+1 on this, I have an NC on Miller and tbh any direction from the bigger outfits is completely lacking, yes you will get the odd order but the lone wolves need direction, not just for alerts but for any continent action, outfits and large platoons cannot win battles alone, you need the lone wolves which make up the majority off players on any continent. I also have a VS on Woodman who have always been badly under populated but they do far better than the numbers suggest because they have certain individuals that continuosly encorage and let the lone wolves know what they are doing, one such person that springs to mind is Chickencurrys who is always giving out orders ( well done dude, you do have an effect, keep it up ) his outfit has been the biggest on the server for sometime but he realises the need for us lone wolves. Its the majority working together that wins battles not just a few outfits doing thier own thing.
This is an amusing thread, as being VS on that server, I'm always honestly impressed with some of the pushes and ways you guys handle your alerts while I'm on. You either zerg and punch a hole into a territory and move through behind... while our guys stupidly try to fix the hole. Or you're able to fight the front and push back.... Either way the one thing I've noticed you guys do with great success is you leave little squads behind in territories to make sure we can't back cap you. Really frustrating! But good game none the less I also always felt like you guys were always winning...
