prep for copy/pasta.
Dear CO Council,
CO need to stop deploying. Be a leader or play rifleman.
There’s a few CO who can roll xenos when they deploy, and want everyone to follow them but… just play Squad leader if you want people to follow you…
If an SL sees a flank that can be executed, then radio in and call CIC, or if it’s not a massive outflank, then just do it…
CO just “attacking” doesn’t promote the teamwork required for the marine side.
Many players complain about “death ball” strategies; nothing is more “Death Ball” than CO as point-man.
I refuse to create player/whitelist reports, and I won’t name names, but I am positive you know who are the biggest critiques of people that speak out against deployed COs. These are the players that often PFC++ and deploy 9/10 times they de-cryo as CO on round start.
My two main criticisms about deployed CO are as follows:
- Tunnel Vision
- It’s all about the Protag CO.
Most, like 80% of the time a CO deploys, ESPECIALLY ON FIRST DROP… the front collapses due to the most basic lack of situational awareness. The CO is all about what he gets to shoot that he forgets that “oh yeah, the xenos can flank and kill everyone else.”
Otherwise, it’s all about the CO.
“The CO ran off to the other side of the map.”
“The CO is incapacitated.”
“The CO is being captured.”
“The CO called a retreat and is already back at the FOB, but 2 minutes later, here’s the announcement.”
“We were hijacked, and evac wasn’t called, but the CO deployed, and had to get more ammo from REQ, so I guess if you need to evac, tough luck.”
I personally have no problem with CIC deployments IF they assume leadership roles.
Leadership is not about how many kills you get, but instead about telling other people to get a lot of kills.
Too often CO and XO deploy themselves when they have 3, 4 or even FIVE staff officers.
If you have staff officers, deploy them… INTO A LEADERSHIP ROLE.
CIC is a support branch of the USCM, not the killer supreme role. Restrictions to who can deploy who should IMO be put in place.
For example, one time I was XO, and had 4 Staff Officers. I chose to deploy 2 staff officers as platoon leaders for Alpha-Bravo, and Charlie-Delta. They were to focus on communicating with their respective Almeyer Staff Officer.
Some bad flanks had them eliminated, so, graciously, I deployed Kleiner, who was CO into a leadership position. Not for combat, but for more immediate and reliable ground information.
He assumed and took that role very well.
I know I goof on Kleiner a lot, and I will stop. I know a lot of you think he sucks at leading ops, but he took the role well, and played as a leader, not a fragger, and we did very well that operation because the leadership roles played leadership roles. This is why I am certain Kleiner is well regarded in the CO Whitelist community. In addition to his ability to maintain a roleplay standard in his announcements.
I’m almost inclined to suggest that CO should be incapable of deploying with a rifle.
Having personally been a fan of historical military learning, generals like Patton didn’t carry rifles, but instead pistols. Similar to CM, he carried two ivory revolvers of his own personal purchase.
Sure, yeah, okay if the opposition broke into the base, yeah, he’d probably bust our a rifle. But on the battlefield, it was more important to be commanding, than managing and unwieldy rifle.
Hence why many Squad leaders carried lighter sub machine guns, and carbines.
Locking the CO rifles to hijack explicitly, or even taking away the snowflake Smartgun and M46C or whatever it’s called to ASO might make more sense just to remove the temptation of protag-gameplay to someone with massive restrictions of FOB-duty at most.
So in summary:
-CO deploy way too much.
-When CO deploy, everyone under their command suffers.
-If a CO deploys, he must be closer to a last resort deployment, and should probably be requested by someone else to be deployed. Otherwise, the CO should have others deploy for him.
-CIC Personnel should maybe not deploy with rifles so they can assume their leadership responsibilities instead of fragging temptations.
-Perhaps CO should NOT have snowflake rifles. Having the snowflake pistols is more okay with me since it’s less… “comabt-capable,” and is more suited to last resort defense.
Anyway… coping and seething.
Lemme hear how the situational awareness wouldn’t have been different with a WL CO being in CIC instead of on the battlefield where there’s no fallback cades, and everyone dies to a mediocre flank for someone that aspired to be the ultimate leader but chooses to be a snowflake RFN.
I don’t think anything will change, so acid goop section. Copy/pasta intensifies.
Maybe literally anyone from the CO Council will have thoughts.
I don’t need to hear them. I just ask that perhaps you spend 5 minutes on mine.
Thanks!
-Rezzer.
