Follow orders? no

Go along with a reasonable plan that someone takes time to type? sure

The ops leader title is meaningless and should probably be eliminated from regular WZs.

Possibly. I just view it as a game and I'm here to have fun. I win some, I lose some. I try not to judge people I don't know, but like you, once they've opened their mouth, then we can make more accurate assumptions

See we can get along.

Also I generally am not having fun unless I am winning.

The OPs lead is just the guy/girl with the highest valor cap at the moment, their ability to actually lead has nothing to do with it.

I usually put out suggestions when the match start timer runs down to about 30 secs and no one has spoken up yet, but I follow the KISS plan (keep it simple stupid) when its a majority PUG with no guild tags in common.

I find people appreciate someone speaking up and calling out Incs and whatnot, so i end up getting plenty of mvp votes, probably from players who see my name in the chat a few times trying to help direct the team during the game.

The thing to remember when doing this is you are NOT the "leader" you are just the one who is trying to help steer the team to victory- people dont need an in game boss, they sometimes just dont want to speak up and lead themselves, so a little direction without being bossy about usually does the trick.

Will you follow [op leader's] plan if you don't agree with it?

Yeah. 8 people going their own ways is even worse than a sub-optimal plan. And I'm happier if I'm NOT the ops leader.

But ops says "no, we ALL should focus attack right".

Not on exactly on topic, but for what it's worth, this could be the difference between a zerg working and failing.

Nothing angers me more than an ops leader who thinks he can just throw everyone around like pawns.

Or explain to me how I am wrong with whatever I am doing because it is not what they said.

Sorry not going to listen to someone who I don't respect .

Especially if their idea is total fail.

If I'm pug'in I ask up front so I know what the group is doing. But I will also react off of what the opponent does. (Think of the option route in football). Plans should be flexible initially as well as further into the match.

If I am in a pre-made with a mix of pugs, we normally will dictate what our plans are (usually holding mid) and we let the pugs loose to wreak havoc, score, and generally throw the other team off balance.

I never judge an ops leader based off their level. They may be a vet playing a new toon that is still at a low level. And some people at lv. 49 can still be a PvP noob.

In fact most noobs don't say anything at all and the key to a good PvP group is communication. So long as people are calling out strategies I'll go along with it, like most said it's better to play a lame strategy as a team than to try to Rambo a node by yourself.

The only people who truly provide no help in a pug are the people that just complain "you're doing it wrong!" if you're going to take valuable time away from fighting to type at least make it worthwhile with a suggestion to change plans. Maybe you can rally the team with a new idea and turn things around.

Few things bug me more than some self proclaimed hero telling you to stick to plan A when it's obvious its not working. Their excuse is that "you guys just suck" When in reality the opposing team just has a defense for that move and is probably wondering why you keep smashing your head against a brick wall.

Generally speaking neither the Ops nor whoever is listening to him will actually be qualified to lead and since neither are qualified to lead you might as well go with the guy who is at least willing to speak up.

The problem with leading is that most of leadership is pointless. Let's say you start on D on Voidstar, what is there to say? "Don't forget to defend the door?" Or if you're on O, what's there to say without having any idea of what kind of defense you'll be facing? Let's say you're in Alderaan, an appropriate opening strat might be like: "Open 2/6/0 rotate 2 guys in middle if you see an unusual opening from the middle" Problem is that if your guyss know what 'rotate 2 guys in middle' means then you wouldn't need to say this, they'd rotate on their own. If they don't know what this means, the fact you were saying that wouldn't help.

I mean I'd see people say like: "Play smart call incs fast", as if people try to play dumb and call out incs slowly? Unless you're trying to run a diagramed play in Huttball (Tankasin curl left and jump down for the pass!) most of instruction involves 'don't be dumb' but that's not something you can avoid by just saying it.

Many of the responses in this thread illustrate nicely why so many Pug teams will fail.

Lots of hot air and utter lack of discipline!

Aside from vent and gear checks, it's the 3rd advantage premades have - they got a leader and players on the team listen, follow and respond to him/her.

I wish I could opt out from ops leader duties in pug games. It's pointless trying to organize them.

7/10 times they simply cannot/want not follow basic instructions.

It's even worse when you get a little Napoleon, valor 50 in PVE gear, spouting off garbage and causing yet another Waterloo before the match has even started.

Many of the responses in this thread illustrate nicely why so many Pug teams will fail.

 

Lots of hot air and utter lack of discipline!

 

Aside from vent and gear checks, it's the 3rd advantage premades have - they got a leader and players on the team listen, follow and respond to him/her.

.

Um leadership is not an advantage because the guy in charge doesn't necessarily always know what he's doing either. Prior to the merges where every game against Republic might as well be against a super premade, one of the key things that kept Empire in the game was that because we know it's always the same 8 guys and that they always follow their leader, and that we actually figured out what whoever is leading is thinking, we pretty much can always hard counter their strat without even seeing their guys. If it's Alderaan we know they always open 1/5/2 so we can always stop it. It's probably better to have some plan as opposed to no plan, but just because you outlined a particular strat is no inherent advantage whatsoever. The Republics would win more often if they realized that we knew their strat better than they knew it themselves and that's because they're following the wrong leader.

I always follow the Ops leader regardless of how I feel about the plan. It's better to work as a team then for everyone to do their own thing. We win as a team or lose as a team.

As you can see in this thread though most people are too cool for school and are going to do their own thing anyway.. I bet they have many more loses then me on their records

Listen to your leader and in the end if you lose then at least you can blame someone other then yourself.

If someone tries to organize the team, I will usually go along with it even if I disagree, because even a bad plan with people working together is more likely to work than if everyone's just doing their own thing. However, in my experience, leadership rarely plays much of a role in the outcome of pug warzones. People either know how to play the warzones or they don't. If they do, no instructions are needed. If they don't, all the orders in the world are unlikely to help.

^^ This.

Higher valor is basically meaningless, given the amount of alts we all roll. But 8 people at least attempting to work in tandem, is always better than 8 people just winging it. But in my experience as with the person above, when rolling a premade with guildies, we don't really have to communicate much, and pugging it, people just ignore the communication anyway.

You think that your plan is better or you feel that you is more experienced than he is. But he is the Ops this time. Will you follow his plan if you don't agree with it? Or you will argue or even violate his orders?

 

To illustrate my question let's imagine you are a stealther and say something like "everyone attack right door and I'll ninja cap left". But ops says "no, we ALL should focus attack right". What will you do? Join everyone, like ops said or will try your plan anyway?

 

Personally I'll follow ops orders even if I think that it's stupid.

This is a fine line between tactics and stupidity.

No matter what the ops leader suggests... if the group is going along with it. It is a much wiser decision to go with the pack... no one person is going to win a WZ alone so to at least put up a solid effort WITH the group makes a lot more sense than running against the group and running into 3 v 1's because you want to rambo it.

However... if the ops leader has what I consider to be a really bad idea before hand. I will and have taken ops lead without the dark orange letters.

Many times I will suggest another game plan and see how the group reacts... many times even the ops leader will agree. I think we all know that the ops leader is not set in stone and in many cases shouldn't be leading a kitten to a litter box. Sometimes someone needs to step in and take control.

On the same note again though... if the masses are going with the current plan you stand a much better chance of winning if you contribute to the team effort.

^^ This.

 

Higher valor is basically meaningless, given the amount of alts we all roll. But 8 people at least attempting to work in tandem, is always better than 8 people just winging it. But in my experience as with the person above, when rolling a premade with guildies, we don't really have to communicate much, and pugging it, people just ignore the communication anyway.

But it goes both ways. A lot of time you'd have say an Op leader that insist on going for 4/0/4 in Alderaan. Now, that's not a bad strat to execute if you're not in the mood for arguing so it's perfectly fine go along with it. Most of the time this strat will fail spectcularly and then you'd have the guy talking about how everyone sucks because they didn't follow his strat. No, the reason it failed was the strat sucked. I respect that people at least put together a plan but don't act very shocked when you outlined a bad plan and see it collapse. By the way, it's actually quite possible to come up with a plan that's worse than 8 guys just winging it.

This is a fine line between tactics and stupidity.

 

No matter what the ops leader suggests... if the group is going along with it. It is a much wiser decision to go with the pack... no one person is going to win a WZ alone so to at least put up a solid effort WITH the group makes a lot more sense than running against the group and running into 3 v 1's because you want to rambo it.

 

However... if the ops leader has what I consider to be a really bad idea before hand. I will and have taken ops lead without the dark orange letters.

 

Many times I will suggest another game plan and see how the group reacts... many times even the ops leader will agree. I think we all know that the ops leader is not set in stone and in many cases shouldn't be leading a kitten to a litter box. Sometimes someone needs to step in and take control.

 

On the same note again though... if the masses are going with the current plan you stand a much better chance of winning if you contribute to the team effort.

Um no, going say 4/0/4 in Alderaan is almost always a worse strateg than 8 guys just winging it.

Now I say that I'll go along with a 4/0/4 because the time I spent arguing with the Op leader about how 4/0/4 is a bad strat would ensure the result is worse than either the 4/0/4 or 8 guys just winging it, so I do what's best for the team by going along with the plan. But there are plenty of bad strategies that are worse than 8 guys doing their own thing.

I love when the imps go 4/0/4... As soon as I get to the node I say to my team.. "We won this". even if they cap both they will quickly lose it on the first rotation.

I hope Ops leaders arn't calling that strat.. I only run premades and I have a good rep so most people listen to us so this is not an issue for me personally.

Um no, going say 4/0/4 in Alderaan is almost always a worse strateg than 8 guys just winging it.

 

Now I say that I'll go along with a 4/0/4 because the time I spent arguing with the Op leader about how 4/0/4 is a bad strat would ensure the result is worse than either the 4/0/4 or 8 guys just winging it, so I do what's best for the team by going along with the plan. But there are plenty of bad strategies that are worse than 8 guys doing their own thing.

I got quoted why? LOL... Misquote?

I love when the imps go 4/0/4... As soon as I get to the node I say to my team.. "We won this". even if they cap both they will quickly lose it on the first rotation.

 

I hope Ops leaders arn't calling that strat.. I only run premades and I have a good rep so most people listen to us so this is not an issue for me personally.

Sadly, Imps call it all the time and it's almost always a guaranteed loss for a pug team.

Only time I see that strat working is when we dominate so much that it really doesn't matter which nodes we hold.

I love when the imps go 4/0/4... As soon as I get to the node I say to my team.. "We won this". even if they cap both they will quickly lose it on the first rotation.

 

I hope Ops leaders arn't calling that strat.. I only run premades and I have a good rep so most people listen to us so this is not an issue for me personally.

4/0/4 can be a very effective strat if everyone in your team knows what they're doing, but they usually don't so this leads to a quick loss since there's a huge amount of risk involved. People call all kinds of crazy strat, even in premades, because sometimes you do have to take the risk.

There are basically tiers of strats in WZ:

1. Good strat.

2. 8 guys winging it

3. Bad strat

4. The guy winging it arguing with the guy with the bad strat.

In some sense #3 trumps #2 in PUG always because as soon as someone called for a bad strat, if you argue with him you immediately go further down to #4. So you should listen to him and maybe try to wing it within the strat to salvage it. I don't fault people for calling bad strats, but the leader can definitely be calling a strat that's worse than just 8 guys winging it.