Clan Duels

Well I wish I could give you a better idea but my work schedule is stupid. The best way I can describe it is that I'm on a 2 week schedule where one week I would only work Wednesday and Thursday. Then the next week I would only have Wednesday and Thursday off. As far as times go after 8pm is usually best.

 

I should generally be around after 5, though some Wednesdays I have meetings until 9. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are pretty variable so I probably won't be able to nail down my schedule until a few days in advance.

 

Weekends are always in flux for me. Real life stuff gets planned or happens unexpectedly, like going to the race yesterday. Week nights I can usually be on after 9:00 PM CDT, earlier on some nights.

 

So we found out that when you queue up for squad battles you have to have eight and it can be any tier, any country. You will be launched (currently) against the first other group of eight even if they are all tier 5 and you are all tier 2. But the queue will disclose their tier.

 

Well that is one way to make sure that no one will every do squadron battles. In reality I understand they are just trying to get matches anyway they can, but if I had got put in a match against jets in a low tier plane before knowing this it probably would have been the last squadron battle I would fly.

 

This is so broken that they HAVE to fix it soon. They will never get squadron duels to live up to its potential otherwise.

That being said, let's assume that they fixed this tomorrow. Personally, I feel that our squad is not quite ready to jump into this. I feel that we need to become a more cohesive unit before we go in and start dishing out some pain. Several times last night, we got our asses handed to us. I will be the first to admit that I am always one of the first to be shot down, so I know that I am not ready for Squadron Duels. I think we need to work on wingman tactics and communication. If we go into matches without mastering at least these two aspects of squad play, we are going to find ourselves losing early and being mired in a hole that will be tough to dig out of.

I am a very competitive person when it comes to stuff like this. I hate to lose. I'm not an asshole that is prone to flying into a rage when I lose, nor am I big on assigning blame. Neither tend to be constructive. But I still hate to lose, and I don't want to see our squad have to wallow at the base of the ladder and grind our way up to respectability. I want to see us go in and become feared and respected early on. If that means I need to be an alternate to start instead of one of the starting line up, I am willing to take that role. Whatever is best for the team.

The next time we are all on comms, I think we need to share some ideas on how to move forward with becoming more cohesive and organized. That's just my two cents worth of some food for thought.

 

Before I start I will say that I am as guilty or slightly more so than most of us. But I feel that 2 things that we do often need to work on are: 1. We need to stick closer together so we can support each other. Many times one or 2 of us will engage and end up large distances from the rest of our squad and become a easy target for the other team. 2. We need to maintain any altitude advantage we have. Many times when we feel that all the enemies are down low we will dive on them and stay at a lower altitude to continue the engagement, only to find that there are still 1 or 2 enemies higher than us. These are a few things I feel we should work including what Val posted above.

 

Tomorrow’s victory is today’s practice.......... So lets Practice.......and Practice......and Practice.

 

We talked about this a bit last night, but just to echo it on the forums. I agree with what everyone is saying. But I also think much of the time when we team up as we are now we are not all on the same page. We are all in different parts of our day and in different mindsets rather than strictly working on formations, tactics, and communications. I do believe if we were to actually group up to launch a competitive battle vs another squad you would see a much different side of all the pilots from what you might currently experience when all of us are grabbing our x2s or x4s.


Just one guys opinion here, but I think while they are still figuring out the matchups system on squad battles we just continue to meet up once a week or so, to specifically work on communication, formation, and teamwork. It’s probably going to be most effective to fly something like 4v4 then meet back up after the battle to discuss each side’s advantages and disadvantages. This way we don’t reveal any of our tactics to the other clans.


I really have enjoyed hearing some of the constructive criticisms in the spirit of improvement. I know I personally feel like I am improving as a pilot and hopefully as a teammate and I have seen many others improving also. Anyone who’s name isn’t on the competitive roster and they would like it to be please let us know so we can put you on it.



*on a side note my wife runs a Flower Shop in our town and with Mother’s Day approaching this weekend, I will be working for my other Boss. So you might not see me as much this weekend.

 

I think this is a good idea. Something else we could work on in the 4v4's is switching up wingmen so we can either find people who work well together and we don't know it yet or at least get a feeling how different people fly than the normal person we pair up with. May even help someone learn a new tactic or manuveur with a plane.