It has come to my attention that Empires at this very moment is unplayable for "good" veterans. Today I joined the VIPER server to play with clanmates and I can tell you this, everyone there sucks. Do you even know how to play an RTS game? Do people know what the repair tool does? Many of these questions go unanswered to the new in-game community. I am very disappointed in the direction Empires has taken with a new community that doesn't know how to play whatsoever. To the guys that consider themselves Vets but are only a year old to the game, shut the fuck up. I don't need advice on how to command. I'm the best commander in Empires. After all, my elite scrim record speaks for itself. As for more shit I have to say about the players, learn to have map awareness. I swear, no one knows wtf is going on in the game. I can understand why Trickster died. I thought he griefed but in all reality his commanding style is boomy mobile. Same goes for Hobbes but hobbes is boomy safe. The team should at least be able to pay attention to the messages received that buildings are taking damage and that we need KILL FUCKING SPAWNS. Everyone lacks map awareness and commander attentivity. If you don't know where your commander is, look on the minimap. Fucking go to your commander if he's black on the minimap or is taking damage (indicated by the top vgui bar. Until the players get better and less intrusive into other people's skills, I will refuse to play with you shitholes.
This, right here, is the basis of Empires right now. Though, I don't particularly blame anyone for feeling that way.
Wait a minute, you were serious about the whole, "I'm the best com evar" charade? Whoa whoa whoa, you weren't joking when you said Trickster was griefing? Fuck me, I need to recalibrate my sarcasmometer.
Lawliet is actually probably one of the best Empires commanders there has been, however he may treat pub games. When it comes to games that matter, there isn't anyone I can immediately think of that I'd rather have in that seat. Those games were fairly atrocious. I cried out for help and just had to sit there watching our entire base die on 2 different maps. It was a really sad situation. It does seem like players just don't react to anything outside of their own area of operation these days. No-one ever killspawns and no-one seems to actually care enough about winning the game to try and prevent the loss. They almost think it's funny to just keep attacking the enemy main base (looking at you Teef and all the other bad players you were with) whilst, one by one, our buildings fall until eventually they turn on the CV. It's just a really sad state of affairs.
A lot of the good scrim/pug commanders aren't very good at pub commanding. I'm one of them. I don't really have the patience for crowd control, so if the team isn't going to make life easy for me, I don't really tend to bother doing much commanding, I just do RTS stuff. Lawliet is pretty similar in that respect. Whereas in pug/scrim games, you don't have to waste time trying to get your team to do what you want, so you can focus on actually commanding your team and using every aspect of the game within your strategy, rather than being limited by what your team can practically achieve and understand given their level of coordination. That's just not an issue at higher level games. On the other hand, there are a lot of pubstar comms who aren't really that good at actually commanding or creating innovative strategies, but they do excel at crowd control and getting people to actually do stuff. There's no better example of that than Headshotmaster.
I was unconscious at the time, Lawliet drove me and I blacked out. Next thing I know im smashing peoples faces in with pistol whips and there was a friendly apc behind me. I didn't tell them to come to me, but I wasn't going to abandon killing the base that had no protection. Yell at the people who instigated it, I was doing it before it was cool. Also this thread lacks Teef bashing, its not a good pub match without people cussing me out.
So, I was just going to bed but I had a few thoughts I thought might be worth sharing. There hasn't been a discussion I actually found interesting on these forums for a while, so maybe this will provoke something actually worth reading. It's pretty much unanimously agreed that over the past 5 years at least, the standard of Empires pub play has decreased at a fairly steady rate. There are a number of reasons for this, though some people tend to favour one over the other. I figure I'll just take this opportunity to share my own thoughts. So this first kind of occurred to me with regard to Dota 2. You see, my brother also plays, and has slightly more games than I do. But he's a far far worse player with much less knowledge regarding the game. Why? Because of the people he plays with. In the group of players we have, I'm at the bottom of the ladder. I'm one of the worst players out of all of us. Meanwhile, over on my brother's side, he's one of the best in his group. As a result of this, he plays with shitty players and doesn't really improve, even if he wins more. I play with people who are much better at the game, but I frequently end up in higher playing brackets which tends to hurt my winrate. But I learn more as a result of this. Candles kind of brought to my attention that this applies to Empires as well. As less and less "vets" play the game, this actually does have a really significant effect on the playerbase in terms of the quality of play. The lack of reaction to rushes and whatnot just comes from the lack of experience with regard to them. I mean, we had a fucking thread on the forum from someone complaining that, to put it simply, FN was winning too much with "bullshit tactics". They weren't bullshit, but they were tactics that the playerbase of today just doesn't get much experience of. When a lot of us talk about the "2.12" games, it's twofold really. That version sucked. It was horrendously imbalanced and had so many completely gamebreaking exploits that it's amazing it was even playable. But it was a fantastic time. Why? The standard of play was just so much higher. You often had more than 50% of the server (which was always full) being clanners, all of whom constantly wanted to shit on their rivals. You could pluck a random pub side of that time and it would probably have beaten most clans in the last couple of years. But there is another side to it. Whilst 2.12 was a sucky version for most things, there is one thing that really does set it apart. It was really, really unforgiving. I mean, brutally so. Weapons did a lot more damage, as did tanks. CVs had very little HP. Coupled with many other factors, this made the entire playstyle of the time completely different to what we're used to today. Over time, the CV health increased, targets were removed and replaced with autospot, weapons got weaker, as well as maps like Rainbowroad appearing. The game became a lot more relaxing as a result, but it didn't really demand the same level of play. Suffice to say, I've tried to go back to this old playstyle in the time I've been in my position. This has had a fairly mixed response. Old players and really new players are all fairly happy with it, but the players from the generation in between are all fairly unhappy with the changes. This isn't the game they started playing. It could be said that it's too late to make a difference anyway now. Either way, my point is that as a result of the game getting a bit easier and there being less and less top-end players to raise the standard of the pub game, the newer players (last few years) aren't really learning the huge amount of potential strategy and tactics that Empires offers. Whilst they are arguably linked, the actual standard of play is a far greater issue for me than the average playercount of the game. It's at the higher end of the play quality spectrum that Empires really does ascend to a level that so few games can claim to, but it feels like that only ever happens in very very rare competitive matches these days, whereas "those rounds" used to be a fairly common occurrence. This, more than anything, is what really breaks my heart with regard to Empires. Someone else can TL;DR this, I just wanted to type up my thoughts before I forgot them.
WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST FUCKING SAY ABOUT ME YOU LITTLE SCOUT? I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I CAME OUT TOP OF THE SCOREBOARD IN SPECTATOR, AND I HAVE OVER 300 CONFIRMED SCRIMS. I AM TRAINED IN DECON WARFARE AND I'M THE TOP SNIPER IN THE ENTIRE SCOUT FANBASE. YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME BUT JUST ANOTHER ENGINEER. I WILL WIPE YOU THE FUCK OUT WITH HE-SPAM THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, MARK MY FUCKING WORDS. YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH SAYING THAT SHIT TO ME OVER EMPIRES? THINK AGAIN, FUCKER. AS WE SPEAK I AM CONTACTING MY SECRET NETWORK OF SCOUTS ACROSS THE EMPIRES FANBASE AND YOUR POSTS ARE BEING TRACED RIGHT NOW SO YOU BETTER PREPARE FOR THE 9MINE, BASEWHORE. THE 9MINE THAT WIPES OUT THE PATHETIC LITTLE THING YOU CALL YOUR COMMAND VEHICLE. YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD, KID. I CAN BE ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, AND I CAN SPAWNKILL YOU IN OVER SEVEN HUNDRED WAYS, AND THAT'S JUST WITH HEALTH UPGRADE. NOT ONLY AM I EXTENSIVELY TRAINED IN SPAWNKILLING COMBAT, BUT I HAVE ACCESS TO THE ENTIRE ARSENAL OF ARMORIES OF MY TEAM AND I WILL SPAM THEM TO THEIR FULL EXTENT TO WIPE YOUR MISERABLE ASS OFF THE FACE OF THE MAP, YOU LITTLE RECRUIT. IF ONLY YOU COULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT UNHOLY RETRIBUTION YOUR LITTLE "HELPFUL" TIP WAS ABOUT TO BRING DOWN UPON YOU, MAYBE YOU WOULD HAVE HELD YOUR FUCKING TONGUE. BUT YOU COULDN'T, YOU DIDN'T, AND NOW YOU'RE PAYING THE PRICE, YOU HOBBESDAMNED NOOB. I WILL SHIT ARMORIES ALL OVER YOU AND YOU WILL DROWN IN THEM. YOU'RE IN SUDDEN FUCKING DEATH, KIDDO.
Seems people aren't motivated. Commanding is like pulling teeth right now. The really annoying thing is players who are actually good but play really derp for some reason ohh yeah, and people don't get better because there aren't enough vets playing. you only get better by playing with people who are better. \\All the good players only come to play now when it is full of other good players. Most of the time it is the blind leading the blind with a squad of clanners sticking together in one squad playing half arsed. The best rounds now happen on the simplest of maps where map awareness and such are mooted
There just isn't any passion these days. The only time I ever see any is when someone wants to beat JustGoFly or Connexion, but even that doesn't get people fired up. People just don't care enough to try and prevent their team losing.
On a side related note: What makes a good general is not in shouting "Charge!" at his most skilled warriors. What makes a good general is his ability in taking peasants, farmers, ordinary men and FORMING the coordination between them, eventually making warriors. The whole point in strategy is that whatever move you make it has a strong side and a weak side, and there is a chance that it will fail. As for the people who run off into nothing and refuse to listen, why would you want them? In yet another side related note: I suggest we empower the commander with abilities such as disabling ticket use of certain players, disabling respawn until they listen or are revived.
The thing is, we used to have a dedicated population. Then reality kicked and we all grew up. People got better because there were dedicated players who played a lot and then created a bar that everyone wanted to reach. All of us are too busy to play constantly like we used to, so this is what happens when you have a neglected child. They are forced to learn by themselves and develop a lot of bad habits. Daddy is working and Mommy is wasting daddies money at poker games or the bar. So you learn how to cook, and based on nothing bad happening you assume you did okay. Then you stick to doing what you know, then it becomes a routine. Then you find out you have been doing it wrong for months. Of-course your going to argue and get mad, somebody just shit all over your hardwork. I would not have the slightest idea on how to get it back the way it was. The only thing I can suggest is people adopt new players and teach them then hope they spread the knowledge and repeat the process. I learned the game because Melerion took an hour of his day, everyday for two weeks showing me how to com, and learn the game through experience. If people do what he did for me, then we can have more quality games again.
The difference being that when I taught myself to cook, I always thought, "How can I make this better, how can I do this more effectively/deliciously/magnificently?" Competition between others is the lifeblood of the game, but many players of Empires could use some internal competition as well.
Normal people dont think this way, they give up if its too hard. Especially when the general populace are kids or people 15 and under. People dont share my mindset, my mindset is if your going to take the time out of your day to do something you might as well do it right. I don't care if I am labeled as a try-hard or not, its better than being a lazy fuck and succumb to lethargy.
Players don't listen to the comm and even the good players seem to fuck around now. Then when they lose they blame it on the comm if the comm has a bad team there is very little the comm can do to help so the comm just has to watch his team fail and lose everything.
