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Team Ranked in SWTOR: Part 3 – Team Ranked Communication

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This is part three of my “Team Ranked in SWTOR: Player Perspective and Insights” series of articles. The content of this series is divided into five parts which will be released successively over the next few weeks leading up to the start of season 7. Thank you to all of the players interviewed (full list in the link above) and to all of the streamers who have unknowingly helped me write this article.

Team Ranked Communication
“If you have two teams of equal skill the one with the better communication will always win.” – Gladias

 

Let me start by saying that from the streams I have watched it is clear that there is a direct correlation between miscommunications and a team’s win/loss ratio. Let me give you one example of what I have observed.

Example 1: The case of the long lost carbonize
A double PT team starts out with the upper hand, pushing their opponents into a defensive playstyle. Without any warning PT no. 1 call out “carbonizing, follow up” (mistake no. 1). PT no. 2 says “I’m mezzed, can’t carbo yet” (mistake no. 2). After the mezz is over PT no. 2 carbonizes anyway, sure they lost a little momentum by that failed double carbo but they will get the next one. They keep up really good play and by the time PT no. 1’s carbo is back up again they are almost close to a kill. “Carbonizing, follow up” says PT no. 1 again without warning (mistake no. 3). PT no. 2 says in frustration “Dude, my carbo isn’t up yet”. They lose their second double carbo window and start becoming pressured by the other team who has recovered health and is now playing aggressively. The players of the team with the failed carbos becomes overwhelmed and start exhausting their defensive cooldowns after which they are forced to use their next carbos defensively to survive. The moral of this story is nicely expressed as the team with the failed carbos lose the round to a team of a lot less experienced players than themselves.

Mistake no. 1 – Prepare your team in advance for important moments like carbonizes or switches by saying “I’m going to carbonize in a second, you ready?”
Mistake no. 2 – Call out when you’re mezzed
Mistake no. 3 = Mistake no. 1

This is a very clear example of miscommunication affecting the win/loss ratio of team ranked. Next I will briefly go into the basics of communication theory and how it relates to team ranked. If you don’t want to understand the why’s but simply want to know what to do and what not to do then you can jump ahead to “Communicating effectively with your team”.

Communication always fails!
Finnish scholar Osmo Antero Wiio coined 8 laws commonly referred to as “Wiio’s laws”. These are humoristically formulated serious observations about how human communication always fails – except rare occasion when it might succeed by accident. Though Wiio’s laws are entertainingly pessimistic there’s undeniable truth behind them. There are so many more ways a sentence or even a word can be interpreted than you and I comprehend when we say it out loud. We always assume that people understand what we are saying in the way that we intended them to.

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Team Ranked in SWTOR: Part 2 – Healing, tanking and dealing damage in Team Ranked

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This is part two of my “Team Ranked in SWTOR: Player Perspective and Insights” series of articles. The content of this series is divided into five parts which will be released successively over the next few weeks leading up to the start of season 7. Thank you to all of the players interviewed (full list in the link above) and to all of the streamers who have unknowingly helped me write this article.

Healing, tanking and dealing damage in Team Ranked
In accordance to patch 4.0.3


 

The role of a tank
SWTOR has a unique guard mechanic which allows tanks to have a significant impact in PvP. Ignoring a good tank, as is done in many other games, can make getting a kill close to impossible. This guard mechanic is what gives the tank so much power but also a heavy responsibility. Every single guard swap has the potential to save a life or condemn one. This is what makes the role an essential part of any team yet the number of players wanting to tank for team ranked are few. The latest changes to the meta has forced the tanks into an even more offensive role since the sage healers are so powerful. It is the one role where the player needs to be very aware of both the offensive strategy and the defensive status of his team. The DPS and healer can get away with having more of a tunnel-vision mindset to getting that kill or keeping everyone alive, but a tank cannot. This balance between a defensive and offensive playstyle is something that new tanks are often overwhelmed by.

“My team decided to go with an aggressive strategy with mostly dps gear on the tank.  Due to the strength of sorc healers in the current meta too many games were going to acid and we were losing interest. A win after multiple acid rounds does not feel much more rewarding than a loss. By going with aggressive gear and strategy, rounds tend to end a lot more quickly. While using this strategy I rely more on my team members to notify me of imminent threats so I can focus on offensive pressure. It’s important to discuss with your teammates what you expect from them and what they can expect from you before you even enter the arena. You want to surprise your opponents, not your teammates.” – Jaq’n

Like Jaq’n you might feel that in order to have kill pressure in this patch you have to give up some defensive play. This has consequences for the tank playstyle. One of these consequences is that positioning for the tank has become more difficult since where you are on the map determines the effectiveness of your different options to play defensively or offensively. In some ways tanking in team ranked is the most challenging role yet many feel it’s also the least rewarding since a tank’s skill is hard to measure in numbers. Though the effects of a good tank is obvious to all those who play with him, the servers often lack them since it requires a very specific type of personality to get a sense of gratification from it.

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Team Ranked in SWTOR: Part 1 – Set up and Strategy

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This is part one of my “Team Ranked in SWTOR: Player Perspective and Insights” series of articles. The content of this series is divided into five parts which will be released successively over the next few weeks leading up to the start of season 7. Thank you to all of the players interviewed (full list in the link above) and to all of the streamers who have unknowingly helped me write this article.

Setup and Strategy:
In accordance to patch 4.0.3

Like chess, team ranked is about being proactive in the sense that you need to be predicting the behaviour of your opponent. Unlike chess you have a split second to make a judgment call and all you have to guide you are cues such as cooldowns on breakers, defensive abilities and the enemy team’s stuns etc.  New teams tend to be reactive by nature but the truly successful teams are proactive by choice. These players don’t just have good reflexes which help them quickly react. They also have enough experience to alert them to possible upcoming dangers and opportunities. The less experienced players will see the vast amount of abilities that can be used at any given time as overwhelming but as you encounter these situations again and again it becomes clear that the amount of effective moves at any specific moment are quite limited. This allows the players to be more extrapolative in their playstyle and their choices can be made more decisively even under pressure.

 

Understanding your composition
Understanding the strengths and the weaknesses of your own composition is one of the first things you need to focus on no matter what setup you choose. This is something Morvin from the <FOXHOUND> ranked team emphasizes in his interview with me.

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Parasocial relationships and the future of Gamers Decrypted

Have you ever been saddened when coming to the end of a game you truly loved? The other day I was having a conversation with a friend who told me he just couldn’t make himself finish The Witcher 3. He has connected to the character and doesn’t want to let it go. He explained to me that he has had the same problem with a number of games he felt greatly immersed into. I have experienced this many times when reading. I get very invested in the characters of the books I read and when I get to the end of a new series I’ve grown to love the last pages tend to sadden me. I know I can reread the book but unless I know more of the same will be released I cannot be satisfied because I will never have new experiences with these characters again. It turns out however that caring about the disappearance of a fictional character is normal and even healthy according to scientists.

During the television writers’ strike of 2007–2008 a study called “How Do We React When Our Favorite Characters Are Taken Away? An Examination of a Temporary Parasocial Breakup” was carried out to examine reactions to the many television shows taking temporary breaks in their airtime. Moyer-Gusé (assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University and co-author of the study) said the results of this study suggest that the relationships some viewers have with their favorite television characters are indeed like what they have with real friends.

“While some participants felt real distress at the loss of their favourite TV shows, the distress is not comparable to the distress that comes from real breakups,” she said. “There are some aspects of relationships with TV characters that may be comparable to real relationships, but the intensity is generally much lower.”

What happens when we immerse ourselves in these fictional worlds is that we form real but parasocial relationships with these character who are not real. Strange, huh? A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship where one person extends some level of emotional commitment, interest, time or effort whilst the other person remains unaware of their existence. These parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities and even organizations such as sports teams.

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Maintaining a Gaming Community

What makes gaming communities strong? Why are we drawn to them? How do they tie in with culture and sub cultures? These are questions I’ve found myself wondering about lately. When I entered the world of online gaming I got to discover an online community that fascinated me. Gamers are very interesting and often a lot of fun to be around. These are educated, clever and entertaining individuals with wit and they keep things fresh when the games you play sometimes get a little stale. The stereotype of a sweaty, smelling basement dweller has, or should have been extinct a long time ago. Their creativity is not just evident from the innovative use of abbreviation and curses these players use to insult each other. Look at Minecraft and the worlds that these gamers create. Look at the fan art, the dedicated blogs and the YouTube channels made about games. I repeat: gamers are creative. They are also helpful. For every immature troll there is a friendly person who is always willing to lend a helping hand to someone who’s stuck or is looking for advice. As for the immature ones who are so very creative with their cursing, trust me, they have their place in this community as much as anyone. This is something I have recently come to understand.

THE CONTRADICTION

For online multiplayer games especially there needs to exist strong (ideally conflicting) sub cultures and personalities. Why? Because most of these games are built upon winning or losing. The community’s part in this is to define the value of  victory or success in relation to the rest of the player base which is vital for maintaining interest in the game. That’s why competitiveness plays such a large role in how strong these gaming communities are. A perfect example can be found in Mylex Asheron’s Call post:

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Knights of the Fallen Empire and how we got here

As I step into the story-driven adventure SWTOR has provided me with I can’t help but fall in love with the plot of this new expansion. Through BioWare-style cinematic storytelling we are offered a high quality narrative filled with well rounded characters, comic relief, dynamic conflicts of interest and many twists and turns in the story. This kind of single player like story telling is new for an MMO and we are all watching with excitement to see what happens once the chapters are completed. Will people stay for the end game? For the community? Is SWTOR taking a chance on a new brave concept or just repeating old mistakes? Before we return to dig deeper into the new expansion, bear with me for a minute while I quickly reminisce over how we ended up where we are in SWTOR today…

Developed by BioWare Austin, SWTOR was first announced on October 21, 2008. In 2009 the game’s first cinematic trailer “Deceived“, made byDeceived Blur Studio, was presented at a press conference and in September the same year BioWare began accepting applications for testers from the gaming community. Within minutes, the official website was down due to the high traffic. The increase in visitors was accommodated and a second  and third cinematic trailer (“Hope” and “Return“) were released. Books were also published to increase the hype. This was a great way to promote the game to Star Wars hungry fans and within three days of its launch SWTOR had one million subscribers, making it the fastest growing MMO ever seen. However, this thrilling success did not last long and in the following months the game lost a fair share of its subscribers. What happened?

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Trailer released!

Today the final Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer was released on US television and uploaded simultaneously online. Advanced tickets also went on sale a day before. The trailer is 2 minutes and 35 seconds long and gives a lot of insight into content we haven’t seen before. So far, over 5 million people have watched the trailer at the time of writing and it has only been released for a few hours.

This trailer is filled with plot which raises many questions about the story. Who is the red lightsaber wielding Kylo Ren and what is his connection to Darth Vader? Maybe my readers know more about this and can inform us in the comment section. The character of actor John Boyega known as “Finn” is stranded hopeless and without a cause on the infinite sea of sand that is presumably either Tattooine or Jakku.

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Extra Life – Gaming and increasing awareness

Throughout the short period of time that I have been gaming I’ve seen announcements for many charity events. In the very start this seemed like a strange combination. Gaming and charity? Really? We often learn from society to be skeptical to the world of (especially online) gaming. We hear much of the negative effects. The people who are a part of online communities that they genuinely care about are often made to feel foolish by people who are not a part of this environment and who will heavily judge those who are. I’ve written before about the positive effects of gaming for the individual. But is there more to it?

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Why do we troll? – The toxic side of disinhibition

Back in June I did a guest post on Ravalation‘s blog discussing why we troll which I explained by reciting the result of the research done on “The Online Disinhibition Effect”. Later on I wrote an article based on the same research discussing “Why we develop feelings for people we meet in games“. To really understand why we behave the way we do in online environments I believe the disinhibition we experience to be key. Therefore I’ve decided to re-post “Why do we troll” on my own blog to give a fuller picture of what this online disinhibition is and how it works. Enjoy!

Having always taken a great interest in human behaviour and interaction I was intrigued by the world of gaming since I first came in contact with it. My fascination with online gaming and the communities that dwell there was striking from the start and it’s what I tend to write about. My thoughts tonight are revolving around a story a in game acquaintance of mine from SWTOR, let’s call him “Tristin”, told me recently. Long story short Tristin thought he had made a new friendship in game. He seemed very happy about this new friendship. Soon enough some very personal information Tristin had told this other player in confidence ended up in a forum somewhere for all the world to read. The person he had befriended wasn’t the person he had thought at all, it was someone having created a fake in game account for the sole purpose of trolling Tristin.

This made me think about the notion trolling. What is trolling? Why do we do it?

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Cyberspace is a small world…

Yet another sleepless night. Tonight I am finding myself pondering over the complexity of chance. Coincidence. Some believe that the probability of a certain set of circumstances coming together in a meaningful or tragic way is so low that it simply cannot be considered mere coincidence.  Some believe in destiny. Some might say we don’t create our destiny but participate in its unfolding. Others, like Ernest Henley would undermine the power of chance and famously say “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”. Albert Einstein said that coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

I personally don’t believe in divine intervention. I don’t believe in destiny. I believe in randomness. A beautiful mess of constant occurrences in this huge space known as “the present moment”. Right now is happening all across the world and in this enormous collage of “now”, collisions happen. We only find these collisions strange when they are of a certain character which is somehow meaningful to us.

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