To Order or Not to Order? That is the Question.

It is an age-old question, whether you or any sane person should try to help your team, with some much needed advice and suggestions, to push your team forward to a closer grasp of victory.

There are obviously 2 opposing opinions at play here, one side which argues that without the gleaming salvation of the word of a saviour (that’s you), the clueless 14 insignificants on your team would simply waste away into the depths of the oblivion of stupidity. At the other side, one can argue that any such acts of compassion in the form of giving advice to your teammates, is simply a waste of time. As the 14 mindless zombies would much rather jump down a watering hole than follow any logical and intelligent orders from you! Hence we have a debate, should we, as sensible emissaries of the All-Knowing Tank God, even bother to help our teammates on the fields on battle in the form of advice?

 

Holier Than Thou…

Let us begin with the ‘we should’ argument. Any compassionate individual would only be too happy to offer his/her generous hand in aid in the form of advice. After all, you have the better stats, and you have the most valuable tank, so what could possibly be the problem with your team following your suggestions?

The truth, as my sarcastic tone infers, is that you don’t know it all. Why? Because in the end, if those ‘other’ 15 mindless fools with insignificant stats can manage to kill you through the sheer force of numbers, then it means you don’t know it all. If you did, you would have never died right? Because you know all there is to know about survival and battle tactics! In reality, no matter how much you believe you know about a situation on the battlefield, the overwhelming chances are that you don’t actually know everything. You only have 2 eyes and 1 monitor to look through to see the fine details in the carnage of battle. Hence the input of information coming into your brain is limited to exactly that, because of this, your judgment can only be formed based on that limited information, and in turn, excluding a lot of other missing information. This results in an often poorly judged and unpractical solution to a problem that is simply not comprehended by the vast majority of players who are screaming orders to their allies akin to that of Sergeant Bane.

So we get it! We don’t quite grasp the real situation, so what? Our infallible solutions cannot possible be worse than what those fourth-world people are already attempting to do! Well… I can’t argue with an explanation like that! Especially if you are already convinced your own solution is of a higher quality. But hey! As long as I can die for a greater cause such as not ruining the games of you and those 13 other far superior players on my team then that must be OK then! Um, but let’s go back to the little known secret called reason for a minute. Those 13 other players, what do they consist of? Oh, right, yeah, they are the 13 other players you’ve just bossed around so that your gameplay may go more smoothly and you can get to a ‘critical location’ in which you yourself can fire indiscriminately at the nearest moving target.

OK, let’s stop here for a moment, a lot of sarcasm and overly powerful words were used, many comedians and Ilosz wannabes will cry, but did I make my point? Well, yes and no. Yes, refers to the fact I did convey the message that your own suggestions are, naturally, your own. It does not take into account the situations or difficulties other players has to face, and hence becomes either too unpractical or well neigh impossible for the other player to carry out successfully (which you will probably blame them later on for being useless due to their failure). Another point made earlier was that the ‘please don’t ruin the game for the rest of us’ argument commonly used simply does not work. As the vast majority of times what really happens is that the person giving the commands is the person who is truly ruining the games for everyone else, with their endless misinformed waffle and insults. But if looked at from another perspective, I did not fully make my point, perhaps the most powerful point I wanted to make was through my ill-hidden sarcasm. Which means to say that your thoughts are only your own, it has nothing to do with me and I’ll be damned if I (or the majority of the playerbase) gives 2 cents for what you deem to be ‘the right choice’. Hell… if I didn’t believe Obama when he was elected that he was going to stop droning people… then I am probably right about your judgment too.

In the end, one common trait for all ‘command whores’ out there is that they will either save the game by themselves regardless of your commitment to the Hivemind Programme, and follow it up by waving a ‘I’m The Man’ flag while cruising through a parade. Or alternatively, they will lose the battle regardless of your contribution and then blame you for the inevitable loss. The final conclusion? Don’t be a douche, stop ordering the peasants around, because you’re not always right. Mind… BLOWN!

 

 

The Lost Cause

The other extremity is the argument that we shouldn’t help these mindless keyboard warriors. Because let’s face it, the psychological and financial value of the energy I expand typing the orders is worth more than the results I’m going to get from doing it, which, if simplified, means you get nothing from them, as nobody will do anything you just said.

Truth be told, out of around 10 battles, you will inevitably get 1 special match in which somebody replies with the Oh so revered ‘Affirmative!’. You jump in joy and hold a celebration in honour of this milestone, but did it actually change anything? Did the battle swing in your favour because of this compliance to your will? Did the Messiah finally come to save the suffering masses from their own stupidity? Generalized conclusion? Probably not, but that battle definitely had a flavour to it, when 2 strangers team up together to give the enemy an ass-whopping the likes that hasn’t been seen since Bruce Lee tore the bullet-proof vest from Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon. So it’s been confirmed that when you do give some advice, and people follow them, it might not change the winning result ultimately, but it sure feels a hell of a lot sweeter, even in defeat.

But the odds of that happening, it’s simply not worth it, you say! Well… you may be right, but do you think there is a point to playing a game, nobody helping each other, resulting in a loss, then grumbling about it later in your attic thinking what would have happened if you had said something? Is this really a satisfying method of approaching the problem? Is not saying anything really the right way purely because of the inaction of the majority of the audience?

Well, let’s put it this way, I deliver a passionate speech to a crowd of 100. When I finish, the general expectation is that while the crowd may give a half-hearted applaud at the end, the majority will not be able to tell you around 99% of what you just said, but there is always the one, one person out of the 100 who can accurate tell you what you just said, both pleasing and surprising you in the process as most likely you yourself cannot regurgitate what you just said. That one person matters, because it is that person who makes this game very much bearable and exciting, someone who can respond to your requests and someone who can carry out action based on logic without fail, or die trying.

The argument that trying to advice the masses is a fruitless endeavour has its merits as with all things, but it is not strong enough to warrant a positive consent from me. As you develop your game, and develop the skills necessary to communicate with random strangers, you become more believable. Also, as you continue in this pursuit for recognition by your fellow teammates, your knowledge of advising itself improves, giving you the ability to be a one-tank consulting machine.

 

The Middle Path is Best

This is an opinion piece, and henceforth, everything written or otherwise decreed here will be optional or mandatory at your convenience. But personally, I advocate a middle path between the extremes. Throughout my experience, both summarily executing someone via imbecilic comments and not helping at all proves to be an unsatisfactory solution to the problem of lacking teammates. What I found was that, at least for me, helping my teammates on occasions when there is no other option but to make known your suggestion upon them is best. This way, you give valid advice, which is essentially to offer alternatives the player may not have thought of, without imposing your will upon that player. But it is not enough just to simply tell them what you want them to do, but also to give your reasoning. Even toddlers do not respond well to parents when they are not given a reason to an order, and likewise, those rolling babies on tracks do need reasons as to why you believe your breastfeeding of alternatives would make any more sense than their kamikaze charge. Hence, give your suggestion, then immediately explain the reasoning.

This is not to say you should go into overkill with your suggestions. One suggestion is enough, which actually requires logical and comprehensive thought and analysis (wow!) before handing it to that crucial player for decision. Blasting all your dozens of suggestions onto them will probably hurt them more than the enemy tanks killing them with puny shells. This basically means they will not consider any of your suggestions and ignore you completely. Therefore, give one suggestion after thinking about it yourself, then offer it to them with the whole package, everything from reasoning to humour included! Think that whole process of carefully thinking and analysing your own suggestion beforehand is too much? Well too bad! If you want to get heard, then you better have something good to say. Because if not, I will have more reasons to blame you for the defeat than the enemy team as between you and the enemy team, only one is supposed to be killing me painfully, you just successfully made it two.

My message (hidden in all that sarcasm) is that give only constructive advice. Baseless and poorly thought out advice is worth nothing. Thinking you are the Sun Tzu (how DARE you!) or Steve Jobs in terms of intellect probably will convince most people the exact opposite. Belief in the supposed fact that you are always right will only alienate yourself more from your audience. Hence, as the writer of this esteemed piece, I hereby command you to follow my suggestion! As if you don’t follow it, you are just a loser who has no intelligence or logical thought in your entire body! Sounds ridiculous right? What gave me the right to accuse you of such a heinous crime against humanity? EXACTLY! So do as I say and stop being an ass! Yes, yours truly has officially created the first opinion piece which no matter if you agree or disagree with me, I’m always right! Why am I right? Because I’m just better than you! Get my point now?