So this is pretty topical as Extra Credits recently did a run of videos on 'social difficulty curves':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuG7mIpVFc0 - Social Difficulty Curve - Easing Players into Communication - Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chFBWY7a9GI - Intermediate Social Curve Design - Introducing Cooperation Rewards - Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggDB6eSyQf8 - Advanced Social Curve Design - Empowering the Community - Extra Credits
Not sure it will help you here, but it is a good watch for working out the way GoI fails in this regard (and I do think the social difficulty curve in GoI is exceptionally steep and uneven). You've pretty much hit the stage they talk about at the end of the second and start of the third video in the series where you are looking to form a cohesive unit capable of taking on some of the hardest challenges in the game.
What is great about social gaming is that these kinds of social challenges teach us things in pretty much the same way as mechanical challenges improve twitch reflexes and reaction times.
I have actually caught these videos before. I'm not the biggest fan of Extra Credits, but I do feel they make a lot of solid points about game design and play. These videos have somewhat been on my mind as I fall further into the rabbit hole of this game. Good to know that I appear later on the spectrum, for this game, at least.
"The problem I face with having other pilots to fly with is twofold; firstly, my clan is small and I am the only person that would pick pilot as first choice in it (although I have been doing that less and less due to frustration with what I have said in this thread) and secondly, I feel other pilots might find my standoffish when I don't mean to be."
You've identified two social problems the game is setting for you if you want to reach your objective (beating the higher level stacks). The first is clan management and growth. The second is pilot compatibility. When I encounter problems like these in games with social components I treat them no differently that a puzzle in some horror game or some set piece in an FPS.
One perfectly valid response is to give up on the problem. If the objective isn't appealing enough or the work in to reward out is too small or I don't find the problem interesting to solve then just like I would stop watching a boring movie I'll stop working on dull social problem. You can even pick and choose a bit here. I have a decent number of folks who like to fly with me, but I don't have anything like the resources I could have if I was more active in clan management. I'm not really interested in clan management, so I just accept that some play sessions the random assortment of players who gravitate to my ship might be missing a top notch engineer or gunner.
I guess the objective extends to beyond just beating these stacks, but actually having confidence in each match I enter. I was going through a phase of assuming a loss every time I played. That's what I wanna beat. I want a loss to give me reason for losing, rather than just being "how the fuck?"
You feel? My last session went really well, which has brought about a bit more confidence in me (kudos to Mann for flying with me).
I'm not so much expecting top notch crew. In fact, until I understand all the higher-level play through experience, I'd rather have people on a level with me, as then we're communicating fairly and discovering new ways to play organically. That's fun. I think my only requirement for someone to fly with is someone who communicates what they need/want with space to compromise. (All too often I have found myself yelled at for not getting a charging pyra off my team mate instantly when I'm busy trying to survive a merciless Blenderfish two quadrants away).
I'm going to assume you want to solve some of these problems the game is throwing up at you, since you are interested enough in beating those 45 stacks to post about it in the forums and get frustrated at not being able to defeat them at present.
The first problem you can address by active recruitment. Keep in mind you don't need to get folks in you clan to have them fly regularly with your clan. You are looking for a few decent pilots you can regularly fly with. So when you run across good pilots pay attention to what they want. Are they bringing fun builds and looking to have a good time? Can you complement that? Is there a novice pilot with good instincts you can teach? Others have mentioned competitive. There are pilots who want to fly competitive but lack the motivation to put a team together themselves. If you have the resources to put together two ships maybe that is a way to recruit new pilots. Good pilots have something you want, you need to trade it for something they want.
You are right. It does feel that, the low player pop and retention, makes it hard to find a reliable ally who isn't already further committed to someone else. I mean, my clan has seven players in it. We entered the game with eight but one decided he didn't like the game immediately and left, the others are less reliably online. We can just about fill one ship regularly. Recruiting is something I have thought about. i would like to invite other people to our clan if they are relatively green to the game and show promise. I just don't wanna seem pushy.
And yes, you can get people to fly with you when not in the clan, but because we use teamspeak, it's easier to be part of the family so to speak. I'll be more proactive in adding friends and requesting the same in return, that way I have a list of people I can try and crew up with.
I usually trust the other pilot to take a build they fly best and feel is applicable to the situation. I will strategise with their build. For example, if we're a long range mob and feel it would work well against out enemies, we won't change, however if we have a metamidion ally, we'll build our plan around their ship working in tandem with ours (which usually ends up as us taking shots for that chip damage and disable, eventually sicking our guard dog ship on people who get to close - or if we get one kill and switch to the other, it becomes more safe for us to split up and double team).
By standoffish, I mean that, upon receiving advice, most higher levels I have met see the word "Why?" as a challenge to their game knowledge. To the point where I've been told "you don't need to know why, just do it!" after I had already accepted the given loadout.
As to the second problem, you may find experienced pilots who are willing to play with that style of socialisation. That said I would ask yourself - 'what do I want?'. If I had to guess I would say you are asking for explanations of advice for a two reasons. First you want to get better, and you cant generalise advice like 'the metamidion should avoid ramming' in the same way you can 'the metamidion should avoid ramming because it causes it to lose gun arcs and it is a ship that kills by keeping both guns in arc'. You might also feel like advice is criticism, which it usually is. I'm not going to tell you to do something differently unless I think the way you are doing something is currently sub-optimal. You want to make sure the criticism is justified since acknowledging it can cost social capital. Criticism is much easier to take from someone who makes it clear they respect you and value you and thus want you to improve, as opposed to someone who wants you to improve because they hold you responsible for the current difficult situation or is looking to punish you socially for your failings. I advise you to build trust with others so that you know they are engaged in the former and not the latter.
I can take criticism so long as it is constructive. For example, not being so obsessed with carrying drogue on mobula due to a traumatic experience against a lumber spire and grabbing something better for a vertical escape. I feel I'm good at taking criticism, so long as that criticism is justified. Even from some high-level players, if they don't explain their problem with what I did, they might as well just be giving me the common advice I get from lower levels; "Ready up!"
I can see a few other potential problems here, all related to command authority. If a ship is going to be effective it should have exactly one captain and that captains orders should be obeyed under almost all circumstances. If the pilot is getting orders from their crew then you have four captains, and four is greater than one. If folks want to be on my ship then I'm open to advice, although preferably outside of combat, but I make the decisions. It is important to also own the consequences of those decisions, if a crew member tells me that a charge on a spire is suicidal and I do it anyway and get us killed then I acknowledge they were right and move on. The voice commands are pretty problematic here. The only way for a gunner using voice commands to tell me the ship is out of arcs to the left is to say 'turn ship port side'. What experienced gunners mean isn't 'I order you, the pilot, to turn the ship to port', they mean 'if you want me to shoot the current target I need the ship turned to port'. This is likely a problem you encountered with the Rydrs, that and they were in their mumble.
Remember that you are engaged in a negotiation with your crew. From the Rydrs perspective you were getting a top level crew and an underdog win. At the same time you got a crew that basically handled ship management completely. It is okay to tell people if the deal on the table doesn't work for you. I've had crews like that and I've made it clear that I'm playing the game to pilot, not for chieves and I'd rather a crew who work with me than one I'm working for. I may be worse at ship management than my crew, but I cant get better at it by letting them do it.
Yeah, ha. I really lost my spine after being what felt like such a dead weight compared to the other three on my ship. I panicked, I feel. Tried to do everything they said but sometimes they were damn pushy beyond what I could reasonably do.
"Increase ship altitude" *balloon is gone*
I feel, in that match in particular, our let down was team composition. If I remember correctly, we had a mid-long range mobula, two metamidions and a carrofish. It could've worked, but no one could get in and we couldn't effectively trade off at range.
It's just, at this point where I have more knowledge than I have skill, I find myself lacking confidence in making my own decisions, should i be with a crewmate who is calling shots from a higher level. I should probably stop that, because I know how I fly best, and that might not be the most efficient for their play, but I am ultimately responsible for survival of our ship and coordination with others. Thanks.
The same problem arises between pilots. This depends a bit on game mode. 3v3 and 4v4 typically have one pilot step up and take command. This will usually be the most experienced pilot, but anyone with good target and positioning sense will be better than no one. It helps if you know how the builds are used. If I'm in a disable squid and a 30 pilot says 'Nano I'm guessing you are going to move in and disrupt their formation, once they are on you we will close and get a kill' then I already know this is someone who I can trust to manage the engagement. 2v2 is often more consensus driven as there is more time to build and execute a plan. If one pilot is considerably more experienced they may formulate the plan more independently though. That said pilots who can trust each other and know what it means when the other is using the imperative have an edge. I've won many marginal engagements flying with pilots I know because one of us said 'ram them' and the other just reflexively did it without stopping to think.
Yeah, this lines up with the social curve that you brought up earlier. I need more pilots that I trust and, in turn, trust my judgement.
I don't feel my judgement is bad (although I'm a little sketchy for constantly changing my focus ship), but I lack confidence in it when it's challenged. When it isn't, however, I can happily take charge, usually to reasonable effect.
Discussions about how to do things differently, unless really quick and obvious, are for respawning and after matches. That said to earn the respect and loyalty of your ally and your crew it is necessary for some of the criticisms you are receiving to become obvious to you. Crews are not going to come back to a pilot unless they show they are learning from their mistakes, and neither will ally pilots. Make an effort to show you are learning from your mistakes and, so long as you don't make too many, folks will keep coming back to your ship.
Hope that helps!
Often, criticism is non-specific or without context. "You let us get into a 2v1."
That's fine, but what about my positioning, aggression or movement put us in that situation? I can't avoid making the same mistake if I don't know what it was that put me there. I am absolutely not a meatgrind player, and will often be quite conservative unless I see a very quick kill on the table. So, I need mistakes that I don't spot in my own self-evaluation to be explained by the people blaming me for failures. A lot of people don't bother to do this.
Either way, I hope that clears a couple of things up about myself and how I play/communicate. But your advice is sound, and I'll take it on board.
Just gotta dust of the old friendship cap and extend a few grubby handshakes/clan invites.
