Why do most teamates fail to help?

dude this is a solo / free for all, lone wolf game

The value of territory is directly proportional to the effort players in your faction put into defending territory.

Nobody defends territory, therefore territory has no value.

....except for wwiionline and PS1 which had the same exact player behavior patterns. And they have only been online since oh 2001.

You failed yourself
~Papa Vanu

Sometimes it takes awhile for a player to realize just how much flexibility they have when near a terminal or sunderer. They spawn as a class, go in with the mentality of a certain class but forget just how quickly they can flip between HA and engie and medic in this game. Also information overload is a problem like another poster said.

The number of players wanting to gun for your sunderer is highly dependent on the situation and requires you to determine the mindset of the players around you. What weapons you have certainly influences things but plenty of times I've just had basilisks and still random players jumped on in to try and get some kills. If someone disables their sunderer it's probably because inexperienced players will open fire on anything they see which will attract a lot of attention to the sunderer.

Regarding silent voice channels I've found that it's because players are generally unsure of the comm environment or simply because it's a squad that uses teamspeak. Making brief reports like "sundy up" or "enemy max on A point" without expecting a response generally gets people talking, if not then no big deal.

I will travel a long ways to avoid enemies.
Its not quantity of kills but quality.

Plus i run two clients, IE i have 2 accounts logged in at a time. One i use to support the other. At any time i can get healed or resupplied with ammo without needed anyone. Plus this is a throw away account. I leave him in the spawn room till needed, he travels to my unit in need, supplies him, and then suicides. To be used later.

For the OP - unsquaded players are hard to predict. I don't know where you are going, what you plan to do or what you want. I have no idea. If you want my help, ask for it. If you want to help me, tell me. I can't read minds, especially not through the internet, so you will have to inform me of anything you want or can provide. All I can say is that I will help you out if I can.
For the people who brag about being a wasteful non-contributor:

I only speak for myself, and here is my line.

1) I log on to help my team. Any means possible goes, as long as game-mechanics support them and it's not cheating.
2) I am playing this game to have fun, this is achieved by helping my cause. I don't care how often I die, or how often YOU die, so long as we achieve our ends together.
3) We wear the same uniform, and I will defend you to the death if you help me win, or kill you and forget you if you actively oppose my goals.
4) I play with other as much as possible. I help deal with the issue at hand as much as I can, whatever that may be at the time. Yes, I can do nearly everything by now.
5) Killing is meaningless and so is death. My enemy will be revived in 10 seconds or less and I have only gained some ground and some time. I do not think of you, I think of what you prevent me form doing and once I have ended you, I move on and waste neither thought nor pity on you. I aim to capture your base, destroy your tanks, down your aircraft, murder your friends meat-shields and kick you out. Try to stop me and I will kill you because you are in my way. no more, no less.

With this in mind... I will do whatever it takes to help the cause of the TR. Why? Because that's how I roll. If you insist on being unhelpful I will leave you be and rely on more useful companions. If I need your help and ask you and you ignore me I will seek help elsewhere. If there is no help to be found anywhere else, if you are the only Engineer, the only Medic, the only Infil, and I need healing/ammo/sensor coverage and you deny me on purpose because "you don't play the game to help out others", then I will kill you.

You hold the right to play the game the way you want and be as non team-oriented as possible. This is fine, it's your right. But I will ignore any requests you make for help. I don't exist to serve your solo adventure, I exist to aid my allies. You are not one of them.

You may actively ignore any requests for help and you may be a blood-sucking tick on my platoon wasting my space. This is fine, it is your right, but you will be removed when I see you.

You may sit there shooting enemy tanks with your AV turret, ignoring my need for more rockets to help do the same. This is fine, it is your right. You may ignore the V4, the repeated V4 and the proxy chat "Can you put down some ammunition please, there are tanks to kill" and this is also fine, it is your right.

And you can enjoy the chain blade stabbed into your jugular twice over until you die from it. This is fine, it is your right to play the game however you like. That includes the right to be treated the way I treat players whom fail the standard I hold for this game.

You may feel offended by me stating over proxy chat that "you are a useless waste, and useless waste get removed." after I end you. This is fine, it's your right. And you might even want some revenge, and come to try and kill me to get "even".

This is fine. If you want to waste your time I'll TK-tango with you until either or both of us hit weapon lock. Death is meaningless to me and so is your hurt feelings. I don't care for your protests and I don't give a damn about your play-style or your attitude. I aim to win, and I will use my team to do that by dragging them on if I have to. I will kill you if I have to.

Because I liquidate allied players who insist on being unhelpful. This is my play-style, this is fine, this is MY RIGHT, and it won't change anytime soon.

I dont help the team for two reasons:

1) Right now I play HA or LA because Im grinding their guns to auraxium, and they dont have direct team support tools. And I dont stay in the spawn long enough to notice the injured MAXes. Hey, if you play a class that has to rely on others to perform well dont expect me to play your sidekick, find a buddy to play with. Sure, if I return to switch to medic and self heal, and noone beside the half dead MAX are around then yeah, Ill switch to engi and top you up, but its more of an exception.

2) I dont help the team because I compete against the said team for kills. Why the hell would I feed them the points I came here for in the first place?


TL;DR You want teamwork - join a team. Aka squad or outfit. For some of us loners teamwork is just too unprofitable.

Cause every time I try to repair a MAX, they run away
Cause every time I throw a ammo box, they run away
In both cases I would have to follow you around, being your ****, something I'm not willing to do for randoms

Going near any vehicle is 99% death sentence and gunning for randoms is playing the lottery, same is it with having random gunners
More often than not, the gunner is shooting at stuff he cant hit and miss to see the stuff close to them
Randoms lack situational awareness
There is exceptions to everything I have mentioned, but that's rare, so in most case I prefer no gunners, than randoms that shoot at anything they have no chance at killing and giving away my position
I have bigger chance soloing with my prowler, than I have with a 2nd gunner, if I try to flank a target

lol @ people playing one of the most team-oriented games ever and going solo.

It always warms the depths of my spandex-clad Vanu heart.

Game has no big goals. What is worst possible outcome of any given fight? Losing base? Who cares, bases are lost and captured every minute. Lost alert? Again, who cares, you can play another alert next day or even 2 hours later at same day. Only sensible reason to put serious efforts in teamplay is your enjoyment of teamplay.

Do people seriously not value teamwork for the sake of teamwork?

Am I the only one who feels all warm and fuzzy because I rez'd 10 guys in a minute?

and no real benefits from "locking" a continent

In PS1, the continent actually get locked, meaning you cant drop into with any means, only go there via warpgate, something they havent unlocked in PS2 yet
In PS1 there is real benefits for locking conts, like more HP for vehicles (for some reason I cant remember the rest )

VS is special

I was going to post this exact thing.
This game really does stand alone in terms of how much info you need to know to be effective to your team. That's its strength and its weakness.

Remove Deaths as a stat and the game will change for the better.

While the above has raised some exceptions, I don't think the majority of the player base are consciously selfish I just think they lack situational awareness, in some instances, or an appreciation for the value of 'assisted kills' in others. Just having another player along side you instantly halves your chances of being shot at. Having them damage an opponent immediately gives you a boost to your effective dps.

I suspect also that many others modify their playing behaviour by what they see when they hit TAB. I would bet that most people compete "against" themselves - i.e. aim to have a better session than last time. Given there are no stats like "number of revives", or "max/vehicle support kills", "terminals hacked", "assists provided", or even "High Value targets neutralised", the only quantifiable behaviour is XP and K/D... the former of which is an extremely vague indicator of performance, the latter of which focusses people on getting the kill shot without dying.

My view is that if I'm not urgently required somewhere by my team, I'll stop to heal, rez and repair anyone... especially max units, as I appreciate others doing the same for me when I play max. All of these for the reasons at the top of my post; it benefits me too.

I specifically mentioned ppl who enjoy teamwork as a process. They play for team, even if this "team" consists of few nearest zerglings. But that's it, all "big goal" stuff in this game is inferior to any crappy korean grindfest mmorpg with sieges.

I'll take non-contributor over teamkiller any day. At least he can take on some enemies in same area, making my life easier, not make me watch my back for enemies AND TKer. I'm glad I dont play TR.

And for "information overload" argument: is average FPS player that dumb? I don't play shooters besides PS2, but I played mmorpgs and this game is so tactically simple in comparison, I don't know what info here can be hard to process. I can understand poor twitch skill, poor eyesight, lack of training with specific weapon, slow thinking in rush but player, who don't understand what's going on in game after month worth of experience, seems like mentally challenged person to me.

It's not a matter of intelligence.

The amount of visual and audio input is easily capable of overwhelming you and activating your "fight/flight" reflex if you're nor careful. I've caught myself being more-or-less crippled by this in the past, and I have exceptional mental discipline (On account of my previous real-world activities).

Consider that when soldiers are shot at, their first thought is to seize up and stand still; only through training, or by being in a low-risk environment (like a video game, or paintball) can you overcome that.

well that's kind of sad. teamwork is very motivating to adults.
maybe when you turn 12...