In another thread, Delirium suggested that whatever is wrong with this game is likely due to the vets’ attitude towards newer players. I agree to some extent; and a series of sorties I had last night suggested Delirium might be onto something.
Late last night, I was flying around in my Corsair at around 15k and happen across a group of players from the same squad. There were four of them, three spitfires and a pony. I engage, from below but with much more E (I was practicing the ol’ store your E to trick them Corsair tactic), and we start dancing, swirling about while I’m doing everything I can to keep some semblance of SA and stay alive as long as possible. I score a few hits, but don’t knock any down, and am eventually killed. No complaints from me, as I was having a blast, and getting some good practice in.
As soon as I’m dead, I hop back in my Hog and head back over to the fight, looking to have some more fun. I climb to about 10k this time, and by the time I get there, there’s only two spitfires left. I engage them, we get into another long swirling fight, and this time I’m able to knock one down near the deck. The other starts to run.
I follow him for awhile before a new spit starts to enter the battle, and I have to turn to confront the new threat. Meanwhile, the previously running spitfire turns back in. As soon as I merge with the new spitfire, I face off against the old one. I am unable to avoid the front quarter shot the old one takes, and I go down.
Not really a big deal, as I die all the time, and I think most people will say I’m not renowned for getting on 200 every time that happens. But this time I did. I asked the obvious question, “Why did you run from a 1v1 when you were in a spitfire?”
“I’m sorry you died, Vudak,” was the reply.
I told him I don’t care about dying, it happens all the time. I was just wondering how he expected to ever improve if he didn’t challenge himself.
Now I honestly wasn’t asking this to be a jerk. I was just trying to get him thinking about my question, which is one I don’t think enough people in this game ever ask themselves. I figured if he took the question well, I’d offer to go into the TA with him to spend some time with him and help him gain some insight and confidence. I’d
like to think if he said something along the lines of, “I do what’s fun for me,” that I’d drop it.
Well, instead I got called an idiot, and had it insinuated that my Corsair is some sort of super bird that uses unfair “skid turn” and “gear drop” and “tight chandelle” tricks, and as such he saw no point in taking his clearly inferior spitfire up against it in a 1v1 turn fight. I sure wish someone would tell the good spitfire sticks that, so next time I’m dueling them in the DA with my Hog they wouldn’t beat me up so bad, but oh well.
I came to the conclusion that offering to take this guy into the TA would just be seen in his eyes as my chest thumping or ego basting or what have you, so I declined to offer. I wasn’t entirely keen on helping him by that stage, anyway.
But it did get me thinking (and here’s the reason you’ve been patiently reading)…
There isn’t much you can say to some people these days that isn’t going to be perceived by them as an insult, whine, or personal attack. You can’t ask the blunt question, “why?” these days without being a jerk. It just isn’t heard of in our arenas any more. And there isn’t really any beating around the bush as to why that is… What you do hear often in the arenas is “coward, hotard, cherry picker, baby seal, no skill loser, lame, tard, noob, stick stirrer, DA now, you suck, get some skill, your mother’s ugly, etc., etc., etc.”
Given that environment, is it really any mystery as to why so many people it seems are reluctant to take advice, or to try and learn? Is it really some stretch of the imagination to see why some people would take every slightly negative comment as a personal attack? Is it really unfathomable to theorize that maybe this is part of the reason there is so much hording, so much hoing, so much running, and so much cutting corners by so much of the subscriber base?
Do not get me wrong – every single time I’ve gone to the DA with any person, who many would categorize as a jerk, I’ve found the person to be a great and helpful guy. They see I’m trying, and they don’t put me down for it. I’ve yet to meet a single person in this game that would knock a guy who’s giving it a shot, no matter how loud of a mouth they are in the game or this BBS, or in real life, or in persona, or whatever. If you try, they’ll respect you – it’s that simple.
Unfortunately, many people don’t ever get to the point where they can realize that. Many people seem to get so put off by what they read here or see on 200 that they’ll never give it a shot. Some of them will go on playing for years, and they’re the old timers here that form another part of the problem – the ones who label smack talkers as jerks, idiots, crybabies, or whatever, and help steer new guys even further away from what is, in its essence, good advice on the part of smacktalkers, that just doesn’t really sound anything like advice.
That last part is the nugget – the smack talk is laced with good advice that doesn’t sound anything like it, and is thus ignored, or chalked up as crying.
Another example:
After the above-mentioned sorties last night, another player said, “Well, I need help.” We went to the TA for awhile, had some fun, and got to talking. He mentioned that he gets yelled at all the time for being a Hoer, but that he doesn’t care, he just does it anyway.
I told him, “Ok, this next fight, HO me.” He tried, he missed his shot, I pulled a lead turn on him, and was on his six in seconds. I explained to him that
that is why you shouldn’t HO – not because some people have a problem with it. He immediately got the picture, and I think we now have one less player in the MA who will bank everything on a HO.
Now imagine if I’d just said, “No you shouldn’t HO because that means you suck.” I don’t think that would have been as effective.
So what’s the point of my long-winded ramble? Well, if we want the quality of this game to improve, there’s three types of persons who might consider experimenting with different things. My suggestions:
Smack Talkers: Keep talking your smack, keep doing what’s fun for you, and don’t tone it down… Unless your target is someone you haven’t run into before, or someone you know is pretty new. In that case, at least for the first few times you run into them, give them the benefit of the doubt, and make an effort to explain the folly of their ways in such a way that you don’t intentionally come off as putting them down. I’m sure I’m guilty of this too. I’ll try working on this too.
It’s My $15 Dollar Types: Keep playing how you want, keep doing what’s fun for you, and don’t stop if you don’t want to… But when you hear someone newer say, “You’re a crybaby,” or whatever, just try to explain to them, “They mean well. They just don’t say it well.”
Guys on the Receiving End of Both Types of Advice: Keep choosing to take the advice you want to take, and keep playing how you want to play, but try keeping an open mind when someone offers you advice, even when it doesn’t necessarily sound like advice… You’d be surprised just how quickly tigers turn to kittens in this game when you let down your guard and give it a shot… And between me and you, you’d be surprised just how much more fun you can have in this game once you have more options. “Options” is the key word.
If we all tried this for just a month or two, I think we’d see many positive results that everybody, no matter what their niche is in this game, could enjoy.
I apologize for the long post, I thank those of you who took the time to read it, and I’m realistic enough to know it won’t change a single thing
