Help with tactics, and avoiding miscommunication

[pskitz 1]

I've put my first 100 hours into this game in about a week, so I'm definitely not new to the game, but I haven't developed any real tactics yet. What spawned this topic is, earlier when my two friends and I were fighting two guys in Berezino, there seemed to be several breakdowns in communication, both of which resulted with me being shot by each of my friends, and ultimately dying. I'd like to say that I take the role of the leader of the group, and I try to act in a way that reflects that. The first time I was shot likely resulted from one friend being trigger happy/not listening to me call out my location. The 2nd time I blame myself for, I wasn't clear about my location and thought my other friend was the enemy.

 

What can be done to eliminate these errors? Ideally everyone would always know each other's location. Is the best way to accomplish this by having people constantly calling out location? Are there any useful tips as far as communication is concerned, e.g. pre-established names for buildings. Any tips would be appreciated.

[Jasonperson 78]

You could wear like a certain piece(s)of gear that is unique to your squad to avoid accidental firing. Ex.Hardhat and green painted fireaxe. Having a clear plan before any flanking maneuvers, etc. are made could also be helpful.

[Irish. 4886]

Sometimes you just gotta practice and build a rapport with your guys. Get to know how each other fights, and what they do. Then build on that with tactics.

 

Until then, slow is fast. Call out each movement prior to its execution. Make sure everyone knows exactly what is happening before it does.

[Gundar 16]

Even though this is a game, the concept of leadership is pretty much the same as in real life. Leaders just lead by nature, they don't need to make a conscious effort to do it. But with that said, you firstly need to know how to communicate with each person in terms of tone and language. The way you speak forms the basis of whether a person will trust and do what you say, whether they are a complete stranger or have been your friend for years. Speak clearly, calmly, confidently, and it can't hurt to have a sense of humour, since let's all remember one crucial detail; this is a video game, you and your team are here to have fun.

 

Now imagine briefly that you are in the middle of an engagement, and you're playing with a great player who has saved your ass countless times and knows the game inside and out. Whilst someone new to the game might take indirect shots and immediately respond with 'OH GOD, I'M BEING SHOT' before sprinting in circles (we've all been there), this other player might instead react more calmly and calculatingly. He or she is the player keeping their head on a swivel, knows where you and each and every single member of his or her squad is in the world, whether they're all travelling as a group or whether some are stationed in far away places with scoped weapons. He or she is constantly anticipating, possibly without they themselves even knowing. It's usually players like this that enable your group to come out on top, or rather, why that group of players just totally outflanked and outplayed you as you run along the coast to gear up again.

 

For actual solid tactics, like maneuvering, risk mitigation, flanking, etc, just watch youtube vids of squads who consistently know what they're doing and come out on top (I have examples if you want). Watch, pay close attention and try to learn that way. Beyond that, there's nothing better than good, solid experience to help you learn and develop into a better player. And whilst you may think that means always being successful, it doesn't. At all. You and your squad won't get it right every time, mistakes will always be made, and a lot of the time you will only learn what not to do when you take a risk, do it and it ends up getting you killed.

 

I'm approaching 400 hours in this game, and I still learn something new each and every session I play.

 

Clear, calm communication, knowledge of your team's positions (including their knowledge of yours) and effective ways of winning. Good luck, and have fun.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Gundar

[pskitz 1]

I like the idea of some kind of matching gear. Maybe something like the UN helmets (if we find enough) that we could wear during combat.

 

It'll be hard but I'll work on taking things slow, it's difficult to be calm when you're being shot at. We will have to work on establishing consistent roles too, depending on who favors what position.

[sess130 50]

Sometimes you just gotta practice and build a rapport with your guys. Get to know how each other fights, and what they do. Then build on that with tactics.

 

Until then, slow is fast. Call out each movement prior to its execution. Make sure everyone knows exactly what is happening before it does.

^This.

Dean has announced that eventually you will be able to put armbands on to help distinguish friend from foe, so that will help. Until then, make sure your team knows what you are doing before you actually do it. Using a VOIP program like mumble, teamspeak, or even skype can help this be much smoother so that your enemy cannot hear you over proxichat.

 

Edit: I especially agree with the military sniper slogan: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Edited April 1, 2014 by sess130

[pskitz 1]

We've been using Skype, I can't imagine how uncoordinated we would be just using in-game chat.

[Weedz 1105]

What me and my friends did was play shooters together for over 10 years straight both at a professional tournament and just for fun level. We just hive mind while talking about TV shows and stuff and just know what the others are gonna do and when they're gonna do it.

 

 

We have nicknames for pretty much all the buildings and that does help a lot when you can just say "Construk bldg" instead of "You know that cement building that's 3 floors and has 2 sets of stairs on either side and the little center roo..... and I'm dead."

 

Constantly updating each other helps if you've not played together every day for years like us and can just hive-mind exactly what everyone is doing. Every time you're gonna move to a different spot let them know before you move and when you get there.

 

A uniform of some type can help more than anything ... but can also be bad if someone just happens to be wearing something similar and wanders into the area.

 

Try to always stay in sight of each other don't hide behind buildings or walls where they can't see you then run out to where they can.

 

Keep a line. Like always have the same people in the same order from left to right that way everyone knows how many people should be on either side of them and if someone is there that shouldn't be take them out.

 

But basically nothing can help more than just playing together all the time.

 

 

Also none of these things work 100% and even we still "accidentally" shoot each other all the time .... sometimes shit just happens.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Weedz

[mgc 92]

If you're really serious about tactics, make a map with a 10m grid of the location you're going to attack and use coords.

Edited April 1, 2014 by mgc

[Irish. 4886]

Edit: I especially agree with the military sniper slogan: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Exactly ;)  

 

My unit thought they were smart for expediting this phrase even further with, "slow is fast" so it stuck with me. Ive used it ever since. But you're spot on, it comes from that old saying 'Slow is smooth..'. I always say it to myself whenever things are hitting the fan in life, and it works wonders.

[LigerRider 82]

We have nicknames for pretty much all the buildings and that does help a lot when you can just say "Construk bldg" instead of "You know that cement building that's 3 floors and has 2 sets of stairs on either side and the little center roo..... and I'm dead."

This. For bigger buildings, we have different call outs. Using the construction building, for example; Open stairs, closed stairs, (#) floor. - "I'm moving up open stairs, 2nd floor."

 

Also, know your compass directions. "East side police station" is faster than "beside the police station on the side that is on the right of the side door."

Edited April 1, 2014 by LigerRider

[alsmir 255]

Some of my thoughts:

 

Whether leadership is needed or not is a whole different story. It depends on who you are playing with. 

First of all never ever let an unexperienced person give other orders. He will doom you all. Secondly you don't need to be a born leader to give people advice and generally people react better to other people giving them some tips rather than direct orders.

 

This one is harsh. If someone keeps doing the same stupid thing over and over again and won't listen to reasoning just let them die. I.e. shooting loud weapon in the middle of Stary is a nono, unless your life depends on it. When your teammate does something like that just gtfo to a safe spot - there are big chances that either zombies or random squad will take them down. Bear in mind that if they make it for the first time just explain calmly why it was a bad idea.

 

There are times for fooling around and times for being serious. If someone doesn't understand that throwing a flare on your teammate's position in firefight is bad maybe you shouldn't play with them.

 

Always announce when you're changing your position and shooting. Don't be trigger happy. If you're not sure if you're aiming at enemy or teammate - ask. Tell them to go prone if the person doesn't do that - then shoot. Another part is - listen to what your teammates say. If you're not sure what they said (background noise, they are chewing on a fodd or sth) ask them to repeat their sentence.

 

When describing unusuall position try to use as many details as posible. Saying: "some dude behind a tree!" when you're in the middle of the forest isn't helpfull at all.

 

Always, always announce when you think you've heard something unusuall. Depending on individual sound settings and quality of your headset there are chances you will hear something but others won't.

 

Don't be afraid to talk, especially in combat. Let them know that you're bandaging, when you can see the enemy, what the enemy is doing, when you need help, when you run out of ammo or medical supplies. 

 

You should probably know that 6+ people groups playing together aren't the best idea. When 7 people start talking at the same time it creates massive chaos. You can divide them into fireteams but it's still complicated and migh lead to lots of missunderstandings.

 

Experience is the key to success. In this case you want to play a lot with every member in your team. You want to know how they react in different situations, when you can count on them, what are they good at.

For example: one of my squad members is a great pilot but I would never let him drive a vehicle. The other one is a great sniper but is useless in cqc situations - he chokes when bullets are flying over his head. You really want to know all of that.

 

Don't depend on clothing to identify your teammates. Sometimes it just won't work - be it either situation when enemy just happens to wear the same gear or when you're aiming with iron sights at target that is a few pixels big.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Alsmir

[belphegor_goatzombie 100]

...

We have nicknames for pretty much all the buildings and that does help a lot when you can just say "Construk bldg" instead of "You know that cement building that's 3 floors and has 2 sets of stairs on either side and the little center roo..... and I'm dead."

 

Constantly updating each other helps if you've not played together every day for years like us and can just hive-mind exactly what everyone is doing. Every time you're gonna move to a different spot let them know before you move and when you get there.

...

 

^ This.

Me and my friends are using this same "tactic". Make up short names for field quadrants, treelines, buildings... Always update (tell) your position when moving, there is no time for questions like "is that you?", "who is this?"... so you can react fast. No need for specific clothing.

Edited April 1, 2014 by belphegor_goatzombie

[AzrailCross 48]

Best tactic is to familiarize yourself with what your friends are wearing at all times, preferably ensure each of you wear the same thing: like everyone wears a cowboy hat, and then remember each friend is wearing x color cloths with x color and size backpack. Always communicate when your changing attires and make sure everyone gets a good look at your new - well - look.

 

Generally it's in everyone's best interest to stick closely together anyway, I always cover the door while my girlfriend scouts out the building for supplies and calls out whats there; if she doesn't have room she replaces me and I go looting. We always avoid main roads and railroads where possible and take covered entry into areas; never standing shoulder to shoulder but also never out of sight of one other at a glance. 

 

The worst situation we came across is when we get careless and separate, at one point I literally walked up on a guy who was wearing all the same colors. She looked up at my screen and said 'yeah that's me' so I walked in closer like 5 feet away and he turned around so I saw his mask and was like *FFFFUUUUU* .. gratefully I think my shouldered m4 scared him more because he pulled at 180 and bolted down the street but still.

[captain_finnish 134]

I never shoot before confirmation from my friend. We usually are less than 50 meters from each other so we dont get lost.

[pskitz 1]

The extent of my position as a leader of the group is basically that I'm the one with enough monitors to have a map open and play the game at the same time. Making sure everyone familiar with the cardinal directions and can know them just based on out location would be helpful as well. We're pretty good about not shooting without confirmation first. 

 

I do agree that ideally we wouldn't need identifying clothing, but at least at this point, considering the levels of experience of everyone, it would probably be beneficial.

[Jex 1104]

In towns always stick close and cover each other. In the open spread out. When you get engaged be aggressive and call out what you're doing. If you have 300 rounds of ammo each, everyone fire off 100 rounds at the enemy location. You can't fire bullets if your dead and the more rounds you put on the target, the more chance of getting a kill (and remember bullets go through some things). 

 

I wouldn't worry too much about tactics or id'ing ur mates right away. You're learning right now so just go for it. Be aggressive, if ur mates shoot you or you shoot them you'll learn more so now you need to start making mistakes but the most important thing you'll learn doing this is exactly how each of you play and move and fight. This will allow you to make subconscious predictions about your mates, what they're likely to do, where they're likely to be.

 

The more you practice the more you'll your brain will start to expand on what information it holds. Lot's of things happen so experience needs to be built. Once you have that you should naturally know where your mates are and you'll gel as a squad and move and fight as one. Also, don't be afraid to send one guy on a long ass loop to come around behind them. You can cover a lot of ground sprinting quickly.

 

That being said coincidence is a big killer in Dayz. A mate and I were looting the NW airfield and had come from the ATC, heading north to the barracks. I went down the taxiway keeping to the outside of the construction site whilst he went through it. When I got to the other side I saw him run through the fence just ahead of me which I thought was quite weird since he route was longer. So he runs inside, turns around and shoots me dead. 

 

It wasn't my mate, just another player who just happened to have not noticed us and was literally running through at the same time as we were and would have been almost in exactly the right spot my mate would have been running out of the construction site lol.

[irl-calibre 744]

it's just pointless if people don't even know the direction they're looking or what their looking at. I said to someone "coming up behind the west wall at the south most hangar" and they just hadn't a notion where I meant & started running towards the SE barracks across the runway, wut!!

[over9000nukez 199]

im also a leader in a group, best way to help with miscommunication is to tell them repeatedly, or say their name before you say anything, or say GUYS then blah blah blah

[hrdrok 183]

Sometimes you just gotta practice and build a rapport with your guys. Get to know how each other fights, and what they do. Then build on that with tactics.

 

Until then, slow is fast. Call out each movement prior to its execution. Make sure everyone knows exactly what is happening before it does.

 

This. 

 

Also a big help is knowing the map. TWD has names for most the buildings in Elektro (our usually pvp spot). This helps identify our location and helps identify enemy locations. I was really bad at PvP at first, but once you learn how the team battles, it becomes much more seemless. Also cut the random chatter.

[blowurselfup 54]

Check out the members of your group before you go in a raid and remember what they are looking like or wearing

[DayZ_Friendly 145]

I find that one of the most useful things is anyone in the group can say, "Comms clear" and everyone shuts up.  At this point only necessary comms should be happening; movement, contact, and status.

 

Sometimes, conversations get out of hand and some people don't know to shut up when things get heated.  Or they get extra chatty when they get nervous.  Having everyone respect, "Comms clear" can be one of the most important things your group can learn.