Thread: A teamwork story

Last night I joined a server halfway through granary. I auto-joined red, just as a match was starting. Within two minutes we had lost our final point. We got owned HARD. There were a lot of good people on the other team, and probably not as many on ours. I got the feeling that it had been like this for a few rounds and somebody on my team was bitching about stacked teams. He basically said "I have a shitty team." Spaz (on the other team) replied "maybe it's just shitty teamwork." I didn't say anything, but I thought to myself that maybe the whiner on my team was right. The teams did look stacked (knowing the individual skill of a lot of the players on each team), and there is only SO much teamwork can do. The individuals on each team have still got to be able to aim, shoot, and kill.

But as the next round was starting, I decided to see how much some good teamplay could make up for the disadvantage of individual skill our team had. I looked and noticed we had no medics. Even though I had very little time to play, and had looked forward to soldier whoring all day, I went medic. Then I BEGGED my team to get another medic. Then I BEGGED for some soldiers and heavies to heal. Then I tried to keep us all together and alive and we went on to win a match that took well over 10 minutes (with the same "stacked" teams that had previously resulted in repeated 2 minute losses). I stayed medic for a few more well-fought rounds (don't even remember who won those, but they were good close fights) and ended at K 5:25 which sucked, but I had literally helped transform my team into a formidable opponent.

One guy on my team (maybe the same one who was whining before) now started a new kind of whine, saying "oh so 'teamwork' is simply spamming ubers?" I guess some people are just born to complain. I told him that killing is just spamming bullets, if you want to call it that. And gaming is just spamming WSAD left-click! And living is just breathe-eat-fuck-sleep... if you want to call it that. The uber happens to be a damn powerful tool but still requires strategy and timing to use, like anything else in the game. Besides being powerful, it promotes teamwork because even those NOT getting ubered on the team are drawn toward it because it's like a big umbrella.

Great story and more proof that Teamplay is the superior genetic code of online games.

TTP is a petri dish for it to grow.

Hell killing 5 folks with the medic is awesome! I have gone rounds without seeing a single kill as a medic. Probably the majority of the reason my ratio is .85 or whatever. A good medic or two fronted by a decent soldier or heavy can very much turn the tide of battle!

And those underdog wins are ALWAYS the most rewarding wins.
Great job Veovis!

Originally Posted by a weakling spaz

Yes I remember that very well. I congratulated the red team for pulling that one off. It was good to see that one guy wasn't able to bring them all down.

I believe the whiner's name was Tips and said "we have a horrible team." I replied "or horrible teamwork."

Team stacking has been brought up so many times in game and on these forums it's ridiculous. The vast majority of the time the losing team just needs someone to kick their asses into gear, and it sounds like you did a good job with that. :9

haha, I was on with Tips earlier in the night while we were playing Hydro - that guy wasn't complaining when his team was rolling up the wins.

bleh - typical.

I was in on that game. Great work!

Cool story. Great teamwork will aways overcome greater skill. I'm a perfect example. I'm a pretty average player, but if I work with my teammates, I become a more effective player and the team becomes more effective.

Medics have the stats stacked against them. I regularly end up with crappy K ratios, but if you factor in kill assists and healing points, it really does make things look a little better. I just wish the stat generators would factor that in. K is extremely overrated in this game.

Originally Posted by WileECyte

Cool story. Great teamwork will aways overcome greater skill. I'm a perfect example.

I agree that this is usually true, but just to provide a counterpoint to my own post (and your statement above), there is a limit to what teamplay can accomplish. An unorganized group of warriors will tear up a really well organized team of people who can't aim. However, on a pub server where the teams are randomly populated, the majority of the time, teamplay should be able to even the field. There will be an occasional case of genuine team stackage (though it's not really "stacking" if it's random), but not nearly as often as people will claim.

I have been thinking a lot about how clan match play will go down in this game, and how significant of a role will be played by both teamwork/strategy and individual warrior skills. Both will be important, I am not sure to what relative extent though.