3 Commando Brigade

- we used to use Group manager too. And ended up with 18 man sections...

No easy answer to this

Nice weather in the UK? This must be a joke!


Yeah the Group Management thing was also causing more issues as it did solve. You did end up with oversized sections and from a technical point, it was also not working properly.

To me, there are two problems with BPT or more or less related to it.


1. You dont need section dedicated for recon on the public server
Most of our missions on the server simply dont need it and the join in anytime nature of the server makes this also problematic

2. State of mind of BPT
I am not trying to judge here, but this is how I see it. BPT is usually a excuse for a small group of people to go leeway and usually get some easy kills, without having to fully commit to section based gameplay and a troop structure. This does not necessarily has to be a bad thing, but it does cause problems most of the times. It ends up as being some kind of want to be elite and this is poison for a community. You will have people who think they are better as other people and  on the other side, you will have people who will be upset about the situation.

What I was thinking about was a custom version of the end-game group-selection UI that lets you join groups, give leadership (i.e. current squadleader -> new squadleader), change your callsign/group name.
So to avoid 18 man sections or sections with silly call signs,we would modify it to allow only a certain number of people in each section. Ideally, it'd even be clever enough to allow slightly oversize sections if there's e.g. 9 players on the server but not if there's 16. And rather than typing in a custom name we'd probably be better off with a drop-down of our callsigns..etc. 

I think the system BI have created is already pretty cool (at least it seems to finally work well in MP environments) but since it's not 'done' yet there's no real point in creating something based on it.

EDIT: Back to actual topic. I don't think we should remove the BPT slots. Not because I love how they're played the majority of the time but because I agree that we should probably be encouraging people to play in a teamwork oriented way no matter where they've slotted.

I can't remember how long you've been around MeFirst, but do you remember the public server before we introduced BPT? Exactly what you're saying still used to happen then, but it would be 4 or 5 people in "Delta" or "Echo" that would become the "special force". It's going to happen no matter how much we wish it wouldn't and in this regard I believe BPT has been very successful in containing those players to a defined area and quantity.

In any group of people we will find those that either don't care about others enjoyment as long as they are having fun, or don't want to accept any kind of authority, or don't enjoy mixing in a team - we have some members of 3CB like this who slip through the filter, and of course on a public server there are bound to be random pubbies with this mind set.

What should we do? Get admins to moderate heavily, set-up rules that force a certain play style, ban players that don't conform? Personally I don't think so.

The 3CB way, at least since I've been around, is to welcome all and try to educate by being role models as to how best to play. We don't force people to come under a Troop Command or follow orders. We take the rough with the smooth on the public server - some times it will be rubbish, other times epic. I fully agree with SJ's guidelines for moderation on the public server.

Things are different on private Op's: players must conform and follow orders - this usually weeds out recruits/members who will not play as part of a bigger team.

I'm not saying BPT is the best way, but aside from the suggestion of heavier moderation, I haven't heard alternatives yet (perhaps in enough detail) which I think would prevent some players from exhibiting that 'special' behaviour.

I dont think containing the people is solving anything. It just makes it easier to control them in theory.

Around the end of this month, I should be here for a year and of course we always had sections that kind of acted like a special (needs) squad. Maybe there is no real way to stop this from happening, beside massive weapon and equipment restrictions, but at least in the past we did not promote this kind of behavior. If people dont behave in play in a fashion that is actually damaging the gameplay and annoying the majority of players, you should not moderate it, this is a point where you must moderate it. This is different compated to having a some kind of section that is designed to be a place for this thing.


Most likely because it is a more complex issue and most people here are aware that simply removing it, would not fix anything in the long run.

Well the state and the actions of BPT members has been discussed a lot and so far I dont see a improvement. It can not cause some friction it pretty much has been causing it since it was brought online. I think so far we can agree on those things:

- there are issues with it.
- The name is irrelevant.
- Simply removing it is not the answer.

The public server is of course in some terms the greatest common divisor, but that is no excuse for certain styles of gameplay. Especially if you think about it, the server needs to provide a space where the majority of people can have fun. When some people or a section decide to go lone wolfe / rambo, they directly or indirectly cause other players to have less fun. Maybe because they solo objectives, or as mentioned by not properly filling up sections. When you go on the server and it is empty and you only have 3-4 people, the situation is obviously different.

If we keep BPT I think the only thing to prevent unwanted gameplay is more moderation. I also find it a bit easy to blame this gameplay only on pubbers. While there is in fact a certain ammount of pubbers that tend to play rambo, all I can say is that very often BPT was also player unproperly when not a single pubber was invovled.

Maybe the problem is that some people sometimes think that their fun is more important than the fun of other players. We had similar issues with CAS in the past and it got kind of solved by more moderation. This is however something you constantly have to do.

The problem you're highlighting here isn't unique to BPT, the simple fact is that's the slot the "Rambos" choose because it's the section most easily recognised as being different to the usual grunt work. We see it time and time again on the public, even when BPT is being used as intended there will still be that one guy who slots into an empty section because he wants to wear a shorts, carry a suppressed .50, 6 demo blocks and a javelin and run around like bravo-two-zero.

The public server is such a fluid environment that the second we decide on the best COA to solve the problem we'll find another. Which is why, as per my previous post, the public needs better moderation. Don't ask me how that can be achieved, but I cant see another way.

lol... we need video of that... Classic

Let's keep the discussion on topic please everyone. This is about BPT on the public server - whether it should be there, how it should be played, if we need moderation.

Uniforms and PID are already being discussed elsewhere.