The Worsening Squad cohesion.

General Discussion
1

I AM A PROUD ALPHALOID!..but frankly the the squad cohesion is starting to get really bad…and if its getting really bad for alpha, its going to be worst for the rest of the squads.

As of now the only squad that doesn’t just fall apart at the seams is Charlie.

Now I know I am part of the problem seeing how even though I am a alphaloid, I quite readily go unga like a deltard.

But that’s not do to a lack want on my part to stick to the unit. really i find its do to the fact that in the meta, Flanks never happen and just death balling is the name of the game.

Now the question is why and how do we fix this.

I can think of a few things that is killing our cohesion and that is well…just how bad it has gotten. The few lads like cash who try to get shit going and keeping the cohesion up. tend to not get enough lads together to do much and so the few that reman tend to fuck off as the unit doesn’t have the manpower to do anything.

Secondly its we are losing our good SLs as time goes on, not that i blame them being a SL a good one even is quite hard. you got shit ton of info to keep a EYE on, you also have to herd the cats that is your unit.

To top it all off you got to be part of combat. At lest when you are doing a Command roll you well yes have more to sort… you also don’t have dodge your local lurker from coming and taking your kneecaps.

Really lads what do you think we can do about this?

Edit:

Did a bit of thinking what do you lads think of buffing the Enforcing of insubordination. For you non Command plays on the overwatch console we have a button that can mark Marines down for insubordination if we find they are not following orders.

The only problem with its that there is not much marking down a marine will do its not like the MPs can go down there and nab them… And by the time that the marine is ship side the round is most likely over.

So i was thinking what if being marked for insubordination takes away your ability to be buffed by orders.

Edit: 2

Seems like a lot of lads like the idea put forwed by HungerJames

More or less have the orders work like xenos pheros.

  • Making Squad lead orders work like xenos pheros.
  • Keep the orders how they are but buff them.
  • No change to the Orders.
0 voters

EDIT: 3

Love all the discussion going on.

Now after doing a bit of thinking after reading the replies. I think i found a trend in the lost of cohesion, That being the lack of MPs enforcing marine law.

Bare with me I know lads don’t care much for the MPs but it seem one of the issues faced is that marines are not going to brief and are being a nuisance during brief.

Now this has always happen but i find that MPs are never enforcing marine law for disorderly conduct, and insubordination ship side.

More or less the poor ship side discipline maybe trickling down on to cohesion.

This is two fold one the marines banding together to push the MPs and stun lock them breeding a sense of unity for the hate of the MPs. Also it punishing insubordination ship side were the MPs can get them helps breed better discipline.

  • Enforcing Marine law will help cohesion
  • It doesn’t make a difference.
  • BEATING WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES. (will cause riots and harm cohesion.)
0 voters
6 Likes
2

Unless a squad is commanded by some very charismatic individual (or everyone is a meta buddy), you can guarantee that squad cohesion will fall apart the moment the Marines make contact with the Xenomorphs.

Before first contact, the squads generally do a decent job of staying together, however even then people will melt off.

Now the question is why and how do we fix this.

You don’t. The only real solution are things I do not think will ever be accepted for the game, so we will continue to have this issue.

If you actually want to fix it, add strong bonuses for a Marine to remain near their Squad Leader, and stacking penalties to not being near them. You will also want to make it far more obvious for a Marine to know where their SL is (far more obvious than a tiny tracker in the corner)

Otherwise, this is what we live with.

5 Likes
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Really we do get bonuses for sticking to A SL that is the abilities Orders. But really i find most the time they never seem to be used or even seem to be that useful. Also the fact that is not readily clear that you are getting the buff.

And in the fact that you can get it from any SL doesn’t help. Maybe what if we can have its so you get less of a buff if you not getting buffed by your squad SL. Also make it more clear we are getting the buff.

2 Likes
4

It could be interesting to replace (a)SL’s orders with an ability to passively emit (weaker?) orders, kinda like a mix of xenos pheros and the engie’s flag

This would hopefully help encourage marines to stay with their SL. However, to promote marines to stay with their SL the “new” orders may have to affect their corresponding squad exclusively

This does not do anything to punish marines for leaving their SLs, but at least this would add a consistent benefit for sticking with them

4 Likes
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It is lore accurate, remember Aliens movie, they were led by a charismatic and beloved Sergeant Apone, the moment he died all cohesion fell apart. Gorman just couldn’t mantain it.

15 Likes
6

just make it so if you are 15 tiles away from your SL you just horribly automatically combust and turn to ash, problem solved, aint difficult

11 Likes
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Marines not following basic orders is a big issue for squad cohesion.

The hate for being part of a squad such as bravo, is also a big issue.

Ive seen bravo rifleman leave the fob agaisnt orders, which just leads to insub charges, then hate for the SL/ASL/XO/SO who placed it.

Ive seen countless “I dont care about orders I just go where I please” types lately and its… kinda iffy?

I get some people dont want to sit in one place and guard something, but the whole “I MUST FRAG!!!” Is… concerning

6 Likes
8

Because marines are worse at flanking than xenos are. Like much worse.

All due to fact that resin structures and weeds cost nothing but time, marines are much slower and they lack battle information. Any runner is a good scout, base even has extended vision, lurker is literally a better scout spec in terms of providing info. Queen on ovi is a SS13 AI equivalent.

Bravo obviously has to be split, because somebody has to mann FoB and even then flanks are often left unguarded, or with a sentry if we are luckey.

Charlie falls apart just as much as any other squad.

You don’t. If marines don’t spread, they get surrounded. Imagine the most basic CM scenario. LV round, fog drops, marines rush beach. Now imagine all of them cooridnated enough to chew a one and a half screen corridor trough weeds, all next to each other, squad cohesion 100%. They go trough
beach, t-fort, containers and into the caves, up untill cave lake.
Whats next? Xenos behind them, weeded caves with xenos left and right, in front of them cave lake house and that is it.

Xenos start to reweed and rebuild structures from where marines came. Mind that there was almost zero xeno skills, due to super squad cohesion nobody chased anything and wounded xenos retreaded to heal easly.

Marines naturally get split from the main group via chasing xenos, gathering intel, gathering loot, healing others, etc.

You know why marine murderball is so damn effective? Because every wounded marine in front is quickly replaced by a healthy marine from the back.

Alright, now lets imagine super-cool 4 separate squads having 100% cohesion, sticking like a glue to their SL, they all have orders to do some super cool flanks.
Xenos notice 4 groups of marines all by themselfs, they leave some defenders and such to entertain three squads and focus rest of their forces on one squad, wiping it out, then another, then another.
That is why those famous “split drops” fail. Not because of meme, or whatever.

Yes, xenos can easly shift forces from one frontline to another. Marines risk getting nabbed by backliners. Xenos risk moving through entire map. A place without anyone on a colony is a xeno territory.

Marine order buffs are generally useless.
The most used is “Move!” because it is obvious in SS13, speed is king. Helpfull in any situation besides sitting behind cades. In that scenario you order “Focus!”, but does it really matter your gun is a bit more accurate and has more range? You already optimise for your gun to be as accurate as possible and increased range matters really matters for M39 and sidearm users, it is not like marines start getting offscreen kills because of that order.
Last and least is “Hold!” that is only of any use during a Queen’s Screech.

That is why being marked for insub, thus not having order buffs is pretty weak and would achieve nothing. You know how many xenos are banished each round from the hive? The same ammount of marines would be marked for insub in such proposed case.

Doesn’t have to be charismatic. He has to have earned some trust from marines. In most cases (and mine) is that I saw that character before doing good in combat as a marine, proof that he has combat sense and won’t make obvious stupid decisions.

Otherwise Alpha PVT John “Bald” McBaldo can bark out his orders, the same chance marines with some hours under their belt will follow.

Massive nerf to marines. Bravo holding FoB flanks? Debuffs. Medic stuck with constant barrage of corpses? Debuffs.

Unless SL orders are good stim-tier, it would be a massive pointless debuff. Marines need to be spread out and not on their SL 24/7.

I don’t think I have a good and big idea how to make squad cohesion better at hand, but I can easly argue with bad ideas that will break other shit on top of barely “fixing” the main issue.

One simple small idea is making sticking to SL something better than minor stats buff. What if staying next to SL gave you temporary superior MD that you don’t have to carry and refreshes quicker than normal one? And such.

What if command could be a bit more like a RTS player, being able to draw stuff directly on marines screen using Railgun mechanics, but actually being able to see what marines with helmets do, kinda like vanilla SS13 AI with cameras and borgs and kind of like Queen’s markers, but better, temporary and in real time.

I am sure I and many other marines would be more inclined to follow a line made by command on the ground instead of reading what they are saying in chat, then pulling out map how to get there without getting stuck.
Tacmap is too slow.

4 Likes
9

For sure really if we can make the tacmap have less of a cooldown will help for giving orders.

Also well yes 100% cohesion is not really need and if anything will make the marines do worst. But with just how bad the unit cohesion is now we can’t ever get off working flanks.

murder balling does work quite well but only to a point… there is a reason most the time the marines hit the caves on LV and just start to melt.

murder balls only work well when we have the open room to make use of the full mass of marines but some times the marines are going to hit the hell chokes. in this case we can only get I am guessing around 10 marines into the battle at any given time.

really how it is now the only 2 ways the hell chokes are busted into are by throwing our selfs into the meat grinder and killing enough xeno to break through. OR getting a good OB to crack open the choke for long enough to flood in.

But really back in the day when we had cohesion we will send delta out ungaing on the flank forcing the xenos out of the choke and reorganize the line. It was risky for sure but it DID work!

Hmmm maybe but i don’t think it will have to be better than base MD. also maybe have it so the SL has to have a MD on him for that to work.

but still i quite like that idea!

3 Likes
10

This is unironically true, the SL playerbase is kinda yucky and sucky these days(for years) so people aren’t keen on following the squad lead.

8 Likes
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That is quite intersting and may help with the orders never getting used.

3 Likes
12

Meh, squad cohesion hasn’t worsened. It’s stayed basically the same from day 1. The only factors that realistically matters for squad cohesion are as Steel said, metabuddies & charismatic SLs. These two factors stay pretty much constant since they’re wholly dependent on the equilibrium between new players & veterans, which has stayed the same for the most part (except for periods such as the ssethtide). Veterans leave the game at about the same rate newbies become regulars, hence the server pop has remained pretty steady.

Re: Insub, that stuff basically gets ignored by marines. The majority of marines are insubordinate every round, so it’s kind of a “ok, but everyone else is doing it” thing. I honestly don’t think you can solve it IC, but maybe I’m just pessimistic.

As Steel said, there isn’t an acceptable solution to any of the fundamental issues regarding the optimal marine strategy being to death ball with all 4 squads, since that would necessitate ripping up the foundations of current gameplay.
Xenomorphs are basically the fucking Napoleonic Grand Army, obliterating superior numbers with superior mobility and coordination. Any squad that splits off to flank without enough men to survive a screech (12+ marines) may as well apply for early maternity leave, because they’re going to get capped faster than you can say “divide and conquer”.

I very much agree that marine orders should become a somewhat weaker, permanent pheremones-like buff. A pheremone-like buff will heavily incentivise sticking to SLs more, even if they’re mute and bald.
Xenos get one, and it massively encourages sticking to leaders and vulnerable castes like the drone, or a T3 buddy like the warden. It obviously works for xenos, so it’ll probably work for marines too.

8 Likes
13

Eh i don’t think so. but guess you prob just on different times than me. we do get high and lows of cohesion.

Well yes true many of times, i find its a lot of time case of command not doing there jobs or a lack of info being feed top side.

because many of time i find that flanks fail do to the fact that one side stalls out. For the flanks to work out with out one side getting mobbed both sides have to be pushing at the same time.

That way if the queen and xenos are pushing out on mass one flank will fall in and slap her for trying that.

2 Likes
14

God to I know this; lost half my squad almost right away after we landed and set up the radio. Admitidly I’m still a little new to SLing (everyone’s gotta start somewhere), but didn’t matter how many times I called out “Where the hell are you guys?”, I never saw more than about two or three in the battle at any time, medic not withstanding they’ve got more important things to do.

Probably doesn’t help that command players are all too happy to yell over the radio “OH YEAAA! GET’EM QUEEN! BRAVO, FORGET YOUR CADE POINT, PUSH PUSH PUSH!” Like man, I get it, if we can kill the queen we win, big whoop, but you should still hold onto somewhere for your marines to fall back else you’re literally sending all of them into a ricefield.
Not to mention you get idiots like me who run something that doesn’t have auto-aim assist (-like) and end up shooting your buddies in the back of the head because they keep jumping in front of your firing line (hey look, a salty sniper, hue hue hue).

OMFG, PLEASE. I hate the 8-Segment display tracker that only tells you a rough direction. Like just give me some kind of corrdinates or something; distance to SL, closest square they’re in, just not an 8-segment. God knows how many times I’ve accidently stumbled into a resin-structure because of that thing. We all get maps FFS, make it useful to actually keep the toiletpaper out of the toilet.

Honestly, NGL, this might make being an SL kinda make more sense. If nothing else, yes, it incentivises staying with an SL. Maybe give each crew a seperate, specific ability like Alpha gets a small boost to their damage or penetration, Bravo can cade faster or make special cades while their SL is nearby, Charlie has… omni-electrical vision like a T-Scanner?, Delta… Delta needs two, I’m sorry Delta but you make it too easy.

3 Likes
15

It’s also important to take into account that new people are always joining, and hence don’t always know what’s going on and go do their own thing which is okay since people are new and still have to learn.

Additionally, getting more people involved in the community and getting to know each other could help with getting people to recognize others and be more wanting to work together. I know I follow and pay attention to other asks who I can recognize and interact with OOC and IC.

SLs should also try to be more engaged with their squad other than just giving orders and being a tracker to follow.

6 Likes
16

yup there is a reason I always stick to cash when they are SL. if we had more chatty SL things thing will not be so bad.

sadly its not that ez to chat and get shit done. but still SLs should talk more pre-drop.

3 Likes
17

I was thinking the same thing, it will be quite nice having the powers tailored to the squads culture.

3 Likes
18

Trust me, I’d love to do this, hell I try to do this.
Problem, people gear up and run off to the briefing room and get started in fights that get MY ASS in trouble. Got forced to do pushes after trying to break up a fight between a member of Bravo and MY OWN F***ING SQUAD MATE instead of telling who I want where.

4 Likes
19

Fob cohesion breaks down because standing doing nothing for an hour is boring. so marines trickle away as they each get bored, but not together because they each get bored at different times.

2 Likes
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I think if orders worked like pheros and only for people in your squad it would be great for cohesion.

5 Likes