What makes you (not) fallow orders and work as a squad

General Discussion
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Everyone who has played command or SL knows how frustrating is when you are trying to coordinate operation but you are just being ignored. Quite often command just comes out with the conclusion that marines they are commanding are stupid, but I do not agree and have written down some ranting about what I think you can do in order to improve coordination, as I find working in a proper squad and fallowing orders, rather then deathball, more fun and rewarding. I would like you to write down your ideas BEFORE reading the spoiler as I do not want to influence you

Keep players entertained, the moment they are just bored they will fuck off ignoring orders and suicide. Keep squads separated as long as possible, the moment deathball is formed splitting it up becomes extremely hard and players start to fallow hear mechanics and walk into slaughter, because everyone else did. Lack of information, you can shout to stop/start the attack but giving players numbers and full situation not only the enemy but also allies helps to convince them. With multiz try to assign squads to z levels, this way they stick to their their SL (you if you are the SL) more and coordinate and cooperate. And lastly, when you play marine, fallow the orders and stick with your squad leader, especily when you are a good player, when they see the “robust” people fallowing orders and coordinating as squad, they will fallow your example.

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I’d say the most important thing is sharing information. A good marine is less likely to follow you into fire if they think you’re trying to get yourself killed, but will happily run through flames if you tell them there’s a good flank with targets to attack.
This isn’t actual military so keeping people in the dark and expecting them to follow every order doesn’t work, but if you share the information and add the why when giving an order, you’re much less likely to get ignored.

And I agree with this as well, probably the worst assumption you can make while in CIC. If you don’t tell your people why you want them to risk their lives, they won’t. Keeping the marines informed on top of your own orders not only increases the chances of them being followed, but experienced players on the ground might piece your info together with their own and alert you to an upcoming flank or other unforseen consequences much faster.

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While yes many times from the chair up in CIC things the marines do can seem dumb but is in fact not… still… A lot of marines are just dumb, to highlight what i mean back when i was playing command rolls more i had extreme issues getting the marines to not throw themselves into the death trap choke on west caves on LV.

It didn’t matter how many times i told them to pull back so we could morter and CAS the xenos they just would not stop throwing themselves into the meat grinder. This is a issue i had many times.

And that leads me into why i think lads don’t follow orders… its simple half of the marines hunger for battle while the other half are terrified of following orders when they are under strength. The battle junkies will almost away break to where ever the front line seems to be forming and will get tunnel vision once they are in the thick of it.

while the other half are willing to follow orders but if they think they lack the power to get the job done they will just break off and join the nearest mass of marines. More or less this lot can get things done but are not dumb and know when they simply lack the man power to do there given job.

Basically the Ungas drain at the marines man power and feed it to the organically grown front line to the point that marines trying to follow orders is just a death sentence.

Now why are there battle junkie ungas in the first place? ether they are jaded from so many rounds with shit CIC so they just follow the sound of battle. Or they are just on autopilot because they played the game so much its just routine and they want to just frag.

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I think part of the reason a lot of marine players are so eager to throw themselves into the meatgrinder and disregard retreat orders is that it’s fairly easy to revive them given that their body can be recovered. During sieges this is often more likely unless they just suddenly rout.

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personaly as a marine i dont follow orders if it would end in my immidiate demise
in the case of others, i think about the fraggerd and fear RPers, fraggerd wanna fight and if command/SL doesnt dhow enough personality to get their attention they go into autopilot mode as its just another round
fear RPers dont have the skill to believe in themself (even though you dont need skill) and try to avoid dying or being harmfull to fraggers with FF or blocking LoF and stay back due to a lack of game sense to know when to push. this is also solved by good command (mostly SL) that they can trust their lifes to him and most likely make it to the end.
i play low/mid pop often so having good squad leaders on is rare and marine majors are rare.
we started to get new SL mains that play SL recently though

newer players

most of fear RPers are newer and from what i see are new players and since the new tutorials a lot of marines lack mentors (not the staff) in game which would help them get good which may be a cause for so much fear RP

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Generally if you explain what you are doing “we have orders to sensors and a clear route, ON ME!” “Flanking from the east. Maximum prejudice authed, terminate all hostile biosigns” people listen.

I think there is also a mild fame effect, where people knowing you makes them drastically more likely to follow you if they trust you.

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Command, 90% of the time, does not know how to help you. Instead they decide to go on their own whims.

So I just ignore them and instead, use that time to help and trust the people who will help me (my squadmates, especially the ones I know can shoot) and that teamwork is much more useful, reliable, and vital in comparison to the untrustworthy, unreliable, and unnecessary teamwork with Command.

CIC is unnecessary and annoying in tactical play (unless they provide information or support that is useful, timely, and reliable), but in strategic play they are the only ones with the full view of the field, and should focus their efforts there if they want to be seen as a reliable commander. But strategically, their influence is weak or very slow (because troops don’t listen), so it’s also kind of pointless to listen to them there, because it’s better to be with your teammates (the ones who don’t listen). Another thing is new players are more likely to follow orders that keep them safe then the ones that put them in danger, so having no bodys with aggressive strategy limits what you can do quite a bit (thats why its only really feasible to be aggressive tactically on defensive fronts: ie: following up on an injured xeno). And yet, new players don’t quite have what it takes to make decisions on their own tactically - which leads to very defensive fronts, with minimal CIC influence. It’s a win condition for xenos to stall out new players (and thus make a majority of marines useless), and kill players who try to follow up on gameplay cues (such as injured xenos) since once they’re gone, theres nothing that can break the stall.

Other experienced marines will realize this and instead, support new players who try aggressive things, so that they are less likely to die and will allow throughput on the front (by alleviating noob anxiety) via pressuring and stopping xeno attacks and saving bodies etc. This leads to a skirmish gameplay loop, and eventual shift of morale/tempo (and thus aggressiveness/defensiveness) since without confident noobs there is no safe aggressive play, and is the pretty standard arrangement of fronts. The problem is that confident noobs also let themselves get capped, and play more defensive in the future.

So there is no perfect solution because as noobs develop, they don’t know who to trust, don’t know when to trust, and don’t know why to trust because of trust issues. Super noobs also don’t trust themselves, and once they gain self-confidence and/or tactical experience they become useful noobs (if a bit selfish, because of trust issues). But truly pro noobs know to do best you must both support other noobs and do things, because in the context of the game everyone is a resource that is useful even the noobiest noob and noone is not a resource, even yourself.

That’s why CIC is a weak role and why xeno is easy.

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When I see that guys I’m supposed to follow have as much experience in groundside combat as Lieutenant Gorman.
No, your amazing flank won’t work, because when it does 1/10 times, it is when robust marine players got an idea to do it and lead it themselfs. You are not that guy.

When I see a name I recognise as robust PFC order something, then I will follow no qestions asked (unless my morale about current round is low). If some random name XO orders something, I know this has to be ignored, guy doesn’t know groundside conditions, he doesn’t have enough hours behind his belt to know that flanking for flanking sake won’t work.

And I didn’t came up to this conclusion out of my whim, out of beliving myself to be a robust marine (I’m not), but over the years when I did follow those orders and they almost always end up in a perma death on some god forsaken “flank”.
I tried SL few times and always get fucked by listening to command.

When it comes to groundside orders and working with squad, it is pretty much the same. I see dumbos shooting hedgehog ravs during shield, I see them walking into a fireline of somebody who was already shooting for few seconds before hand etc, then I know they are brainlets who are no less dangerous than xenos themselfs.
As a slugger, I usually tend to wander on the edges, or I glue myself to some fragger helping him out with dunking lurkers and warriors.

Show me that you know groundside combat and that you won’t sacriface marines for your stupid command gimmick, then I will follow.

The rest is about people who don’t go on discord, or forums, faceless masses of PVTs who just want to have fun and having fun equals living as marine and shooting xenos all the time.

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Writing my ideas before the spoiler!

People not following instruction from SL and CIC come from three causes:

  1. Not hearing the order
  2. The instruction being against what they think should be done (usually a command to do something off-meta)
  3. Not trusting the person giving the instruction

Number One - Kitspamming, reloads, various damage states for guns & Marines flood the chat constantly. It’s bad enough to the point that I have a seperate tab for radio chat, but that’s only because I play mostly SL. I know most people don’t have that set up. It’s incredibly easy to miss the radio on the frontline, and if you don’t constantly scroll up to read what CIC is announcing then you’ll miss that too.

Number Two - If someone believes that instruction is going to get them killed, and for some people, and/or will prevent them from having fun (because this is a game about having fun) they are just not going to follow it.

  • One important point here is that CIC often isn’t aware that they don’t see everything going on. They don’t actually understand the situation, they just see where everyone is and where all the Xenos are. Planetside, you can often feel the morale in the Marines and if they’re
    losing far before any retreat. CIC doesn’t feel that through the headset camera.

Number Three - (I am guilty of this too) if they see their XO or SL has a Bronze service medal or lower they mentally tune out what they are saying because of point number two.

How do I believe in fixing this?

  1. CIC should be feeding nearly all orders through Squad Leads, especially if they’re experienced ones, unless it’s extremely urgent.
  2. CIC should be communicating qualitative information to and from Squad Leads over the phone. It’s incredibly informative to call a Squad Lead when a push has stalled and ask how the situation is going. Messages to Marines should be going through the Squad Message function. Quality not Quantity.
  3. There’s no fixing trust issues with low-hour players. They should play more.

Now to read what you said…

This is just going to get Marines wiped round after round, Squads are unable to hold their ground against the Hive for more than 60 or so seconds.

I generally agree with the rest of it, although I’m not sure about spamming out information that isn’t relevant to most riflemen on announcements.

After reading the other replies

I think if you personally tell the Squad Leads, this works out far better 90% of the time. I really think as per point 1, that most Marines just don’t hear the order to retreat even if you’re spamming it through announcements. What usually gets Marines to retreat off of LV Caves is other Marines telling them in person, very few Marines fall back from announcements. Communication to SLs (and relaying orders through them) is what gets orders done.

Mild understates it. New XOs really struggle leading because no one trusts a no-medal XO.

This is actually very true, and is important for CIC. Once you start losing your statics, round-start SLs and Smartgunners. AKA once you start losing your experienced NCOs you really need to start searching for a change of strategy. With few NCOs, you’re unlikely to get any sort of attack going on.

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True. Master of understatement i suppose. Some SLs and XOs have a cult following qnd can order hive dives and it goes through.

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I lose most of my faith in command while playing IO. Most of them don’t understand the risks and just think of you as sudo scout.

Too many times I listened to command to “go over here and give me a look” and it turned out to be like 10 xenoes waiting for my ass.

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A terrible SL that refuses to communicate. That is worse than a terrible SO maybe even a mid or bad XO. Good SLs can make a break an OP. @rocket2guns is on to something with his post on leadership.

Edited for expanded response on 2025.05.22.

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To answer the title:

Often times I follow this cycle:

Play as RFN → I get no orders because the silver/bronze SL that I get doesn’t knows what to order → In another round, I actually get placed into a FT and the FTL has ass leadership and gamesense, I tend to die babysitting them. → In yet another round I join in as RFN and once more I get no orders → Get pissed → Join as SL → Either get micromanaged like shit or receive stupid orders by CIC that are hard to implement because nobody wanna follow dumbfuck orders → get pissed → Join as FTL → “Hold comms” or hold whatever place → everyone fucks off to unga → I either live alone and forgotten or I die alone and forgotten → get pissed → join FTL once more → make everyone eat a dick → enjoy the NVs and the superior skillset → have fun for once. → Forget why I don’t play RFN → Play as RFN (back to the start)

Everyone in the chain of command fucking sucks ngl. The only times it’s fun is when I click the SL tracker and on SL I read names like Eka, Greta, Slopits, Ren or at least a CO WL holder.

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by keepting them separate I did not mean wastly, for example when pushing 624 beach assign alpha west delta central and charlie east. similary when attacking a building you can send them from diferent sides, they still combat the same enemy but not as a blob, but rather still remain as squads and can have more flexibility in their movements

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Totally depends on a variety of factors, some extremely arbitrary tbh.

For me, the biggest two reasons are:

  1. What character am i playing
  2. Do i think i know better

Rare optional third is in fact OOC LRP but if I have to end my round soon, i’m more keen to take a big risk because if I die, i was going to be out of the round anyways, by virtue of having to go. Why not give it my all?

#2 isnt “do i know better” or “is my SL stupid”, just if i think i know better. If the bravo SL i have keeps telling me to hold cades and play safe and i think their risk analysis is too protective, i wont listen perfectly. If the delta SL tells us to keep pushing and charging and their risk analysis is too liberal, i also wont listen perfectly. They could also very well see within their assessment opportunities where pushing and me, myself, my personal loss in the round might be significantly offset for the rest of the team by the ability to kill 3 xenos or something on a good push. A conservative SL might see a long game where my perpetuity in the lategame would help secure more ground or kills but in the moment i feel like my better use is being aggressive and maybe i die doing that. I can’t say my way or theirs was better or not, just that my assessment differed in that moment and it’s a primary cause of why i do or dont follow my SL.

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Now that you say that this is very much true. issue is many SL are just PFC+ players, now these lads try i will give them that. But they just as much as the rest of the marine mass get tunnel vision.

But yes it does work better if the SL relay your orders but even then SL themselves have issues getting the marines to not unga.

And to tie this into my other point i made, marines tend to want to clump up. As a example again on LV, when a order to fall back from cave entrances are made few will see it. most the time you got give the order around 3 times before things start to get moving. But here is where the issue starts only part of the marine mass will leave the choke.

This leaves the other part still at the choke at risk of getting wiped out, add this with the marines want to clump… the most stubborn party are usually the one that wins… and we all know the ungas are the most stubborn. so what ends up happing is half the force follows orders at first but after a bit of the others not pulling back as well. they will end up rejoining the mass of marines who are still stubbornly fighting.

i have seen this happen both when i am acting as SL, am just PFC unga and or in the chair in CIC.

Now i don’t fault the lads for going back, i mean i have had times where i just had to give up on trying to herd the cats that is the USCM and say fuck it ‘if you want to bash your head against a wall so much then fine, every one join in and start bashing with them.’ although i am paraphrasing this straight up happened multiple times.

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I’ve done that exact things many, many times. Command calls FALL BACK TO HYDRO, I start wandering there, I’m ALONE, so I move back to where people are. Do that x30 and it’s why the front line doesn’t move. 10 people pushing that will not in any circumstances retreat will doom the rest of the marines by getting capped

note: unbridled aggression is how you actually win though, this only matters when you’re actually getting shellacked

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“Marines cannot be controlled, only unleashed.”

An easy 3/4 of Marines will stop listening to you as soon as the squad makes meaningful contact. Even pointing directly at someone and giving them a direct order is like a 50/50 at that point.

Situational awareness in SS13 in general and CM in particular is just absolute ass due to how short your line of sight is, and just the 2D perspective, and how muddled the (entirely text based) comms channel can get with random alerts and useless bullshit.

Once Marines commit to the hellchoke you basically have to go down with the megaphone and try to break it up yourself to have any reliable chance of getting people’s attention.

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The real thing is just look at it like this

90% of players are casuals who aren’t even on the forums and don’t listen to orders. Why would they?

They’re here for some fun

The same thing with this forum, there’s so many paragraph 99% of it isn’t read

When you’re down there and combat logs are up. People don’t care what command has to say, they’re focused on the rav tearing them up

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What makes you (not) fallow orders

Spelling mistakes. :crying_cat:

Mostly it’s probably just tunnel vision and not reading the chat scrolling by at however fast it’s going. Leadership messages really outta make a little noise or something.

But sure the rest is mostly Meta lemming to the meta position to wait for the other meta lemmings to get there so people can click sprites. It’s impressive how people don’t really have the patience for a full round.

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