TWLB squads

[Ward]

basing blows. period.

[Asmodeus]

Down with 'governmental' and 'society' controls! Support the free market and competitive concepts! Look to nature for verification that the competitive mechanism works just fine. We don't need artificial constraints applied, let the mechanisms work as they were intended.

Players have free will, squads should be given latitude and autonomy. If it turns out that only a few squads are run in a manor that everyone migrates to them, is it really 'fixing' anything by artificially forcing players into other squads? This isn't just about quality players, it is about having long term quality squads (and leaders of those squads) too.

If the argument against having roster limits is that it allows 'hording' of quality players, I would suggest several other factors that are of much greater impact. Perhaps quality players are simply moving away from squads where leadership is greatly lacking. How many fairly good squads have we all seen that crapped out due to bad/dubious leadership? My opinion is quite a few. How many squads have pretty good leadership redundancy? Very few. Many squads have only a single 'mover and shaker', my opinion is that these type squads are more likely to fold.

So my opinion in this subject is that it is a 'reach' to try to say that a roster limit is not good for us. The responsibility of building competitive leagues and enjoyable long-term TW community is on us all. Pointing fingers towards not-quite-perfect rules only deflects and disguises the real issues. TW is mostly a mirror of ourselves. I believe that if everyone spent some time on holding back some emotion, channeling it into more sportsmanship and class, then TW would be a better place to hang. Seeking exploits as a player, being an irresponsible squad leader, lagging like a fool and not having the consideration to bench yourself, making excuses when you lose, bragging when you win. It is my opinion that these are the things that bring TW down and force squad turnover faster than the people working at McDonalds.

So if the desire is for balanced, competitive squads, then we should consider ALL the causes/solutions and not just reach for excuses that removes all responsibility from ourselves.

Nicely put.

[Asmodeus]

Was re-reading this thread and someone mentioned that there's possibly a lot of players that are at school/work and/or busy with their lives. The more I think about it, I don't think that's a valid excuse. I mean, just look at the TWDD and TWJD ladders. I'd say it's safe to say that there's an ample amount of squads competing in those ladders...so why not BD? With BD you just need at least 6 players, compared to the 4 in DD/JD. I doubt it's that hard to find 2 more players for a game BD game.

[Kings]

Was re-reading this thread and someone mentioned that there's possibly a lot of players that are at school/work and/or busy with their lives. The more I think about it, I don't think that's a valid excuse. I mean, just look at the TWDD and TWJD ladders. I'd say it's safe to say that there's an ample amount of squads competing in those ladders...so why not BD? With BD you just need at least 6 players, compared to the 4 in DD/JD. I doubt it's that hard to find 2 more players for a game BD game.

How about yo go create a basing squad and actually try it.

[Asmodeus]

How about yo go create a basing squad and actually try it.

Again, anyone with a squad shouldn't have too much trouble finding two more players for a BD. Just look at all the active DD/JD squads. You're telling me you can't find 2 more players out of 500+ to get a basing game going? I could easily create a squad and get a game going, we may suck and have no chance at winning the game, but at least we played.

[Cig Smoke]

Ya its ez to create an active basing squad much like Dudgeon and RB were. The problem is keepin ur players. As soon as they start showing talent u got spastic and anti-scrub pming them to join. Thats where the problem lies. The new squads r made, new players are taught to base, they become good and then they r stolen/leave that squad for a better one, resulting in the squad to die soon.Great example, dudgeon. Mikkiz/zizzo start showing talent and get recruited to diso, then dudgeon dies.

[Copy!?!]

mik/zizo talent? You are hilarious Cig Smoke.

[Jz-]

here, roster limit... limit this one first http://twd.trenchwars.org/squads/7489/roster

roster of 73 single league squad, they win

[PaulOakenfold]

Yah, that's what upset me when I started RB the first two times. I knew that in the back of my mind people were either using RB for its activity, or using it to get better and that they'd most likely leave, but it still sucked whenever someone left, especially someone you saw grow so much in talent. I think if I were to do it all over again, I would have just stuck it out and been THAT squad, because when it boils down to it, why give a shit if it's helping the TW playerbase as a whole? I think that's much more rewarding than winning a TWL.

[brookus]

As soon as they start showing talent u got spastic and anti-scrub pming them to join.

Wow. Where do you get your information? I can't speak for Spastic, but I can count on one hand the number of squadded players we have asked to join over the past few years. Those people you claim that we are stealing (if that's your claim), are asking to join us. I generally only ask classic-good players (like Credit, PJ, and Inv to name a few recent squadless ones ) to join and Era goes after the complete unknowns. I've never watched a bd or base game and said "hey, let's steal that guy from his squad".

To flip that, how many squadded people has Sumpson asked to join BC?

llater,
Tony

[Ephemeral]

Ya its ez to create an active basing squad much like Dudgeon and RB were. The problem is keepin ur players. As soon as they start showing talent u got spastic and anti-scrub pming them to join. Thats where the problem lies. The new squads r made, new players are taught to base, they become good and then they r stolen/leave that squad for a better one, resulting in the squad to die soon.Great example, dudgeon. Mikkiz/zizzo start showing talent and get recruited to diso, then dudgeon dies.

Oh please.
Firstly, as long as this community keeps rewarding players who don’t show loyalty this issue will continue to exist. I have seen many squads recruit people who have a long history of squad hopping. I have seen thread after thread after thread where people, including you, ‘vote’ for the ‘best player’. Someone show me the ‘most loyal’ thread. Someone show me where anyone brings up loyalty has an attribute of being a ‘good’ player.
Secondly, learn how to recognize loyalty and include it in your recruitment criteria. Tell us what you have done in the area of changing the recruiting procedure in your squads to consider loyalty as a major factor.


What the fuck do you mean players are ‘stolen’? No player can be ‘stolen’ if they are happy with their current squad. It is called managing people. You manage people by managing their expectations. This was the point of my earlier post, this thread is about the lack of good leadership, not the lack of good players.
Good leadership means setting the objective of the squad, good communications, and good relationship building.

Example, I start a squad with the objective of providing a means to cyber with each other. I communicate that to everyone before they join, ‘our intent is to cyber with each other, playing TW is secondary.’ People are recruited with that expectation (the squad expects the person to cyber and the person expects to cyber). The squad chat is full of cybering, people are participating. Everyone understood the point of the squad, the squad would be successful and no one could be ‘stolen’ UNLESS they changed their expectation. A player might say to himself, ‘well I want more than to just cyber’ and leaves.

If enough players leave it is up to me to figure out why it is happening. Perhaps it was because the objective of cybering was stupid, people want more out of the game than cybering. Perhaps my leadership sucked since I only recruited guys and they wanted girls to cyber with.
Point is that I don’t lay blame on some silly rule about squad limits. I don’t blame other squads for ‘stealing’ players. Let the squads with shitty leadership die, they deserve to. It this community evolves to having only 2-3 good squads, then that means we have a lot of good players but few good squad leaders who are willing to spend the time and effort to lead a bunch of immature kids who value nothing more than what it takes to shot a digital bullet across the screen.
Everyone should think about that next time they support a inane ‘best player’ thread or sit silently as their squad recruits some ‘super-star’ who everyone knows won’t stay in the squad more than 3 weeks.

[CrvenBan]

Eph, you make that kind of squad and I am joining it on the spot!

[Rigor]

man i wished stor bded as much as we dd. bd is so much fun but these warbirds hate it

[Polari]

Actually, Cig is right. Here's the story of many new basing squads (not talking about ones whose players are aready well-known and L337):

1. The new squad is formed, probably with a few more experienced players.
2. Caps recruit talented newbies. Squad starts bd'ing, but loses a lot because of lack of experience.
3. New guys are learning how to play. Squad becomes pretty good and is capable of snatching wins against the bigger squads.
4. The new guys don't realize - or don't care - that their squad is a work in progress and think they are too good to be in a mid-level squad. Or something like that. Anyway, they move to LB squads or such, either these squads "steal" them or they start asking to join themselves, it doesn't matter.
5. Repeat stuff from steps 2-4.
6. Squad withers, eventually the caps gets tired of being a stepping stone to older squads and the squad dissolves.

[Herik]

Yeah, polari
What you said is right
How to oppose to that?
Roster limit.