It's funny to see that Quake3 players like it and UT player think it gives the clan a 'unfair' advantage!
Fact is, that eventually you will become more skilled if you do it yourself .. And it comes in handy at 1on1 as well!
:d

To me, a coach is a 5th player. If one team has one and another hasn't, how can the teams be even?

On a smaller level, a team that has teamspeak (or is sitting in the same room, like QPO) will beat an evenly matched team that hasn't. I mean, the simplest command - "hey Forav, BEHIND YA!" - is the most useful one and can't be (efectively) achieved with binds. Just hearing the first word and tone-of-voice when the quad picker says, "here they come!" is so much more effective than stopping what you do tofind a bound key and the receptor knowing that he has to look at the teamchat at that instant (exaggerated).

For me, a TDM 4on4 with coachz0r ain't a 4on4 anym0r (rhymin' an' ztealin', lyl!)

Also note that all of the prominent Q3 players say they don't need a coach.

Maybe they should banned coaching from football?

Fact is, with football the coach can do little once it kicks off.

hmm, thats not true

That is not what coaches say. Really, in sports once it starts 90% of it comes down to what you had learned on the training ground.

ehm, nope, a coach can be really important during a match, thats just a fact, and the biggest is what youve learned already, but thats just the same with every pcgame as well....

Not true man...with major sports like American Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc theres no way in hell a team could do without a coach, on the training ground or in the game. I dunno about football but that ones boring to watch so I don't care. ;P

Well, I read the Polish sports daily on a regular basis and I can tell you what the coaches themselves say. Of course a completely uncontrolled team will not manage.

Anyway, ask seven if sportive comparisons apply :)

i think what carmac means to say is that the amount to which a coach effects a video game is a hell of a lot more than that in a 'real' game.

Carmac your talking shit. Watch the trouble a coach gets in if the teams playing wank in a match. You should go to more football matches.

A coach is important in football yes, but no where as much as in Quake3.

In football during the match the coach can only tell his players to change position attack more or whatever, and can usually only speak to one person at a time and tell them to pass the message on.

In q3 a coach is speaking to all players at once, and is timing the items which can make or break the game.

Shaggy, the fact that coaches get sacked after their team playing bad does not mean that they have the real leadership on the pitch. I guess you mean the so-called "playmaker" or central midfielder who reads the game and dictates the tempo at which his team plays.

WELL YA CARMAC YOUR Q3 COACH IS DOING THE JOB OF THE COACH, MANAGER AND TEAM CAPTIN IN A FOOTBALL TEAM SO IT DOESNT MATTER TOO MUCH WHICH IAM REFERING TO OTHER THAN ALL OF THEM PLAY A BIG ROLE IN THE TEAMS PERFORMANCE.

Try using commas instead of caps lock next time =)

Yes, that is what I mean.

4!

= 24.

Carmac is on a Columnspree :)

Damn, idea stolen ;)

I think a coach is a good, because the 4 players AIM and time all weapons etc. and the caoch time shield, amp etc.
there can be a 100% map look.
and the coach can tell teh team thinks better than the players (sometimes).

I don't think coaching is that big of a benefit to anyone with the small 4v4 TDM games with UT and Q3. Its nice to have for some, others hate it, it doesn't really give anyone a huge advantage. A mediocre clan with a coach isn't going to take down a top tier clan without one so it really doesn't matter.

But...if pro-gaming ever gets into 10v10 team games, a coach that does a lot more than timing is going to be needed. I think allowing coaches is a good precident to set as far as looking to the future of professional gaming. If all the communities ban coaching now, it'll be a lot harder to get it back later with new games when coaches can add a lot to the game.

Where can I find a good coaching script?

try czm config, it's pretty good

http://www.cyberfight.org/getfile.php?file_id=3307

1on1 coaching sounds strange =)

i agree :)

I've been thinking about this, and who would really say anything if a player's friend sat by him and watched his style and suddenly says "oops you forgot the RA" "oh yeah. doh!" (walks back to get it).

Is that cheating? Well, he'd have given the opponent an armor if the friend hadn't said anything, most probably. And an important frag, one that could turn a whole match, could hinge on the boost of that powerup. In TDM, no single frag is a match swayer - possibly fragging a quad guy, but since all 8 players at any kind of professional level knows when the quad comes anyway, the turning of the match is not the result of a friend timing.

Of course coaching 1v1s are cheating. But I see no way of stopping it, unless the players are to be isolated in booths :P

I know a couple of swedes who uses a "coach" for timing MH and RA in 1on1. That's so f'cking lame, it's not 1on1 anymore but 2on1. :/

u gotta be joking, coach for 1on1?!!?!?1++1 :D

Sad thing is that you've been playing against at least one of those guys ;)

gimme some names damnit!!11

I wonder if this column was somehow inspired by a comment I made here on Esreality this weekend...

Anyway, I dont think there's anything wrong with coaching etc. Im sure its a great advantage and good in all ways bla bla etc... But personally I just laugh at the idea that clan have 1 guy who is in that clan especially for coaching, and coaching only. I just think its so so so utterly silly!! :D

Its a friggin game... let them poor coaches play too!! Or they dont want to? They dont enjoy the game? Oh but maybe its like hockey and other sports... Maybe they're retired? :p
Or maybe coaching is more fun than actually playing the damn game?

Nah, I bet coaching is a good thing and really above us normal gamers, but I myself will just keep thinking its silly. :]

edit: wouldnt it be funny to have a coach in CTF? :p

Maybe they suck at the game?? But they are good tactically.

A friend of Sven Goran Erikksan (sp?) once said "Sven, you are rubbish at football, but you have the tactical mind of a champion." Look where he is now.

Just to let you know, 55 seconds is much easier to time than 35 seconds; 110 is also a walk in the park ( for 55 just subtract 5 seconds, for 110 just subtract 10). And the timing thing altogether doesn't really matter since nearly all coaches (and lots of players) use timing scripts. I didn't read the rest of the article so I don't have anything else to say :)
latez

ok,ok, I did read the rest of the article; great job on it. You presented the issue, gave the opinions of two sides, and let the reader decide for themselves what to think. Really nice :)

I'm still thinking what is this item that takes 110 seconds to respawn :)

UT1 amplifier and invis. Note that to time those you need to focus for a longer period of time.

55sec is easy for me but 110sec is allways troublesome... 120sec would be much easier...

but most fuck'n respawn time is 27.5sec... The truth is that I actually never even try to time 27.5-junk in TDM :P

hmm in ut2003 it gets even worse

double damage has a respawntime of 82.5 seconds =X

I'd compare FPS TDM to rallies where you have a driver and a co-driver. Don't you think the existance of another role in the game makes it much more interesting?

Anyway thats just another thread of a more developed scene vs a less developed one, same happened with FF, WS, on-screen clock, brightskins, hitsounds... Time will put everything into its place.

Well, why don't we have duels coached?

Well you'd have to understand the difference between "individual" and "team" to answer that question.

Really, I do not see a reason why TDM should be coached and at the same time 1/1 should not. The only example in traditional sports that comes to my mind where you have 1/1 and "TDM" is tennis where coaching is banned for both individual and doubles competitions.

Because one is meant to be played individually and the other one is meant to be played as a team effort, and teams with a 5th player coaching that requieres very different skills and has such an interesting role in developing the scene besides the boring Ice Climbish FFA provide a much richer game.

Quake 1on1s and TDM used to be coached (both) in Spain (at least in it's biggest competition) and with time and experience we could find what was best for the game and the comunity.

I've seen that ut vs quake debate before, the quake comunity has always been much more biased to experiment and finding new ways (which is understandable as it's older than unreal's), this leads to have a more developed comunity (brightskins, hitsounds, cpma...), obviously that also means that we've done much more mistakes than the unreal players in the past too ;)

The same could be said about tennis singles and doubles.

As for your saying that the Q3 community is more advanced because it is willing to experiment I think this is not the whole truth. There was never a need to use brightskins in UT1 as everything was clearly visible and as for hitsounds - afaik it was a standard out of the box, not something the Q3 community achieved.

The UT community can be called less advanced not because of its obstinacy but rather because of the legacy that it lacked. It didn't have its QW and Q2.

Whatever, www.promode.org, besides, q3 default skins were as easy to spot as ut1's.

Even tho nobody seems to remember, there were hitsounds in q2:

1- because everytime you hit a player there was a clear "ugh!" sound
2- because the sound system worked good and you would always hear the "ugh!" shout no matter how strange, far away and around-the-corner the shot was.

Then in Q3 things changed to a stupid sound system where sounds were reported based on a stupid unkown rule (some kind of mix between visibility and distance) and most of the time shots around the corner stupidly didn't sound, so hitsounds were needed.

Who cares about tennis?? They can't wear colored suits, or have letters on it... You are only comparing to Tennis now because it works like you think ES FPS should work. I say, compare it to swimming and waterpolo! <- Just as stupid argument.

I would not call it stupid because the rules stay the same. It was only one example of a competition where you could play it single or with someone. It is far from stupid but not so close to relevant either.

That Tennis thing isn't really a good point. Dunno if you ever played Tennis, but i started it at the age of 6 or 7 (both 1on1 and 2on2), and 2on2 is so much different than other XonX (like Basketball, Soccer, American Football or even q3 TDM 4on4) that you can't really call it "TDM". In Tennis-2on2 as well as in q3-2on2, these 2 guys have to play as if they were one, which isn't the same in q3 4on4, that's why i think coaching in 1on1/2on2 is lame, but i like coaching in TDM 4on4 very much.

Erm cause in 1-1 the dueller takes all items
In 4-4 different players take items

coaching for duelling is haha
coaching for 4-4 isnt that important imo if u have a player ingame that times Q/BS

i remember some sc (maybe bw) players using assistant (coach?) when dueling, mostly practise games thou.

I coached some duels @pgch year ago.
But I must say I'm fully against it (not only both duel/tdm but ctf also > as I remember ocrana used it @pcgch UT CTF as well - you can see it @video by players from czech rep.).

Duels are pure 1v1. That would be very unfair. However, a coach's main purpose is to time items in my opinion. It helps but if its in the rules then it cannot be cheating.

you mean like fatal1ty has? ;)

coaching during games: no

i would favor timeouts tho, during which a player can be advised by a coach.

think that way of coaching is similar to normal sports like football

but which spectators like timeouts during matches if there are no sweet cheerleaders ? :D

What about Hunter? Would be a sweet cheerleader, i guess.. i would really appreciate to see her hopping over my screen during a timeout.. hope some of the GTV guys read that :D

As the coach of mob (NA West coast), I feel the need to comment on this. The argument has been put forth that when a coach is used, the other four players can just be complete ass hats with aim and focus solely on the fragging. I would tend to disagree. Coaching allows complete interaction and coordination between every member on the team. Instead of four players running around without a plan of attack, the team operates like a single unit defending, attacking, retreating, and ganging-up together. Coaching allows everyone to be on the same page, and provides for more entertaining games for viewers to watch on GTV. Aim is something to be marvelled at, yes, but I think what separates teams in the q3 scene (perhaps moreso in north america) is the teamplay they are able to achieve.

I view my role more as a "traffic director" rather than a "number cruncher". Sure I time all sorts of items, but that's insignificant compared to the role I play ensuring everyone is actively thinking towards what the team is going to do next. I love coaching (I'm usually always out of breath after matches), and I guess my view is biased, but I think coaching adds an extra dimension to the game and brings the team closer together while providing GTV viewers with something other to gawk at than just some nice railing. Anyways...have a nice day.

\m/

mob has elite teamwork!

Well, I have a lot more respect for teams who have members who can read the game and coach the team as if from the inside. It is possible, you know =)

But thats also possible with a coach in your team.

At least I (and a lot of other players i know) don't start playing like "Ugh, Ugh.. need some frags.. NOOOOOOOOOOW" only because there's a fith dude coaching my team..

Finally, someone touches on the fact that the coach is not just a 5th player in the game to time items, but a true coach. Someone orchestrating attacks on key areas, coming up with a plan of attack for power-ups, directing players to assist their teammates or take out a low enemy. All this, AND at the same time keeping track of items. This is the exact role our coach (D|S-Syn) plays in our matches, and in my opinion is essential to our success.

A coach is a valuable resource for a team in Quake 3 tdm and all sports. I feel a lot of you are underestimating the importance of a coach and the depth they can add to a team's strategy.

As far as coaching in duels, the only sport I can think of at the moment that allows coaching during match play is wrestling. The coach sits on the side of the mat and will actually call out a takedown, reversal, or pinning combination he sees an opening for you to execute. Coaches aren't allowed in Q3 1v1, and I don't think they should be.

We also got a coach but he plays with us :). We play 4on4 and 1 of us is the one that coordinates. The timing of the powerups we do ourselfs. e.g. 1 is timing amp, 1 timing shield etc. And 1 players (coach?) is coordinating the tactics / atacks / defends etc while he is playing.

Its like in the military. You got a team and there is 1 teamcaptain that coordinates the team. The other members of the team informs the teamcaptain about there status and the status of the powerups they time. With that information the teamcaptain makes decissions what to do etc.

So if ur a good team u can do without an external coach. I don't see a need to use one.

nice column - blimey u write alot of columns

hi, I have just registered, but I started browsing this web since almost 2 years ago.
I'm from Argentina and my english isn't that good yet.

back to the column, here we never had TDM tournaments whits coachs. I think it's because we never feel the need of it.
imo timing is so important as map-strategy. so if "someone" helps you telling you when the items are going to respawn, why can't that someone tell you exactly where your teamates are in the map. (for example)
i thinks that you have to do that. it's just matter of practice. and that the team should work togheter whitout the help of a spectator (look at iCE cLIMBER...lately they are winning all the time and they don't use a coach.)
like I said, just practice.

=)

batata = homo

batata=sweet potato

batata = potato
batata doce = sweet potato

nonoono

I think for games with few players (UT, Q3, CS) coaching isn't really needed and detracts from the skill required of the players.

In games where overall strategy is much more advanced and the different roles required are more varied (T2, perhaps TFC) a coach will probably make things better.

I do find it a bit silly to have someone time the quad in TDM as a coach. Come on, surely you can do that yourselves and part of the charm is when one team loses timing of an important object. With "the eye of god" that never comes into play.

I think having a coach is a good thing because it makes it easier to concentrate on other areas of playing. I find it a bit funny to say that timing items raises the skill level of a player since 'skill' could be divided in to several categories and timing is just one of those. Surely timing items would raise one's ability to time items, but it would probably make some other part worse then. Some players can surely learn to time it in their head, but the thing is to tell of it to your team too, which usually requires scripts or a voice comm and would again reduce focusing on other parts. Coach could raise the level of the playing by focusing on the thing he's good and letting the players worry about the gibbing.

For what Fred pointed out, that mods like TFC would probably be better for coaches I maybe disagree. I don't know that much about tfc or such, but I've pretty much experience from q3f and qwtf and I'd like to think that those games are more bout routines and tactics decided before the game, where as TDM is pretty much about adapting to your opponent's playstyle and timing the items and so on.. But then again, it all depends on the mod/game.

yes for the coach - better have an official coach than someone sitting behind a player with a stopwatch during an online game. if he also helps raise the level of teamplay, why not.

in football the coach can swap players as well.. i think that qualifies as making an impact on the game?

Yes, but not in the same way coaching has in TDM.

Well, people don't understand the need of a coach because they only see it as some kind of player improvement, not as a team improvement. Most people think that the main role of a coach is to help the players in what they have to do in order to have them focus on something else.

I'd rather say that the coach should be more busy doing the job that no other player can really do. For example, coordinating the team, preparing the rushes, telling what people have to do, when and where they have to rush or not go, what zone they have to control or let control, when they have to stop rushing, etc...

As a player, you only have your own vision of the game. That means that you only know what you actually see, and you have a very biased vision of your own situation.

As a coach, you have the vision of the 4/5 other players. That means that you have a more global vision of what's really going on. Not only about where the players are, but also about what they are doing. Are they keeping the zone at the right positions? Are they too weak to keep their position? Is the team in a strong enough position to hold a zone? Is it worth wasting a few deaths to take back that zone? Isn't that player trying something worthless? Isn't he taking too many risks?.. there are so many thoughts that a coach could have, that no other player in the game could have.

In individual competitions, the player has control of 100% of what's going on his side, so a coach wouldn't give you something that you are not able to give by yourself. In a way, this could be considered as cheating since the coach would *only* improve the player's performance (since there is not team performance)

In team-based competitions, the player does not have control of whats going on. He maybe has the illusion that their team is controling something, but in fact, they're only controling what each player is doing, and assumes that the sum of these players is the team's control. In fact, coachless team control is more based on speculations that each player is doing his job correctly. It is not really what I'd call team control. I'd call that the reliability of teammates and trust that players give to each others.. The coach will truely provide a team control since he will be able to give orders to players that no other player would be able to give. These orders will be given according the other players, not only according to one player.

A coach busy timing resources is just wasting his time doing stuff that players should be able to do on their own. The time he wastes to make this is time he is not busy analysing the match and providing essential informations to his players. It might be a strategical choice to have the coach give the timings to his players since he knows that they're not able to do it on their own. However, if the opposing players are able to manage timings on their own, their coach will probably be able to use his time to provide them a way bigger advantage.

The only true problem is that we need good coaches =)

My 2 cents.

Zarkof

Well, I still know one team that was able to do marvels on their own. All it takes is four intelligent players who can read the game. It is not speculation - it is reading the game and communicating with each other. I am quite sure that with a coach this would be done easier (and probably better) but it is possible without a coach.

Its possible without a coach, so what?

Coaches develop the comunity, coaches make games go further on its exploration, coaches make bad games worse and good games better because it makes the comunity explore deeper in the game's universe... cmon carmac, timing is possible without an onscreen clock but we are using it now... why? Read above.

A player can only read HIS game, not THE game. Each player has a different vision of what the game is. The coach is the only one that can actually read the TEAM's game. (which tends to be THE game for a team after all but well..)

Players DO speculate all the time because they don't know what their teammates are doing. Sometimes, they can learn what a player does if he communicates his actions to them. Yet, they are not able to judge if the player's action was the best one to take and all 4 players are not constantly telling what they are doing because they are again making assumptions on what is important to say and what is not.

I just say that players speculate alot more than coaches, giving them less accurate informations in order to judge a situation and take a decision.

I don't say that players speculate wrong all the time, neither do I say that coaches always take the good decisions. I just say that potentially, a coach might take more efficient decisions because he is in the position to do it, while a player is not in such position since he has to take care of many more aspects of the game.

You might still say that a very clever perfect god player could make the right assumptions and take the right decisions. But I could just say the same about a very clever perfect god coach who would be more efficient only because he who would have more time and less to care about!

Oh well, I guess it's like with politics. Neither of us will be convinced (although I do acknowledge what you say).

A player can only read HIS game, not THE game. Each player has a different vision of what the game is. The coach is the only one that can actually read the TEAM's game. (which tends to be THE game for a team after all but well..)

--

tbh thats BS :>
in Q3 u have teamhud wich gives u a VERY good id about what ur team is doing

So you can read the teamoverlay (player locations, health, armor and weapons), think of an appropiate strategy for your team, communicate that strategy to your teammates AND still be able to hit someone?

You're good but not THAT good :>

A coach can be 100% dedicated to the team strategy and timing because he isn't playing the game at the same time. If the coach and player have equal strategic intelligence the coach will instruct the team a lot better then the one also playing the game. My 2 eurocents :)

BTW I'm in favour of coaching, it enhances the teamplay and that makes it cool to play and to watch.

So you can read the teamoverlay (player locations, health, armor and weapons), think of an appropiate strategy for your team, communicate that strategy to your teammates AND still be able to hit someone?

--
I used to in M5 yes

i can

Not anymore with PZZ? :p

I still think a dedicated coach can do a better job because he can be 100% occupied with the coaching. The problem is that sometimes the coach has less strategic insight then the players themselves.

I like having a coach tell me the spawns of the various items and the general team strategy. I agree you can do this without coach, but it's easier and more effective with one imho.

Well I've often seen players looking at each other's screen during matches ( was pretty obvious when standing behind forZe for example ) so I think good teamplayers don't have such a biased view of the game.

It would be fun to see an american football game whitout coaches. No coach for : special teams, defense, offense, kicking team and so on.

Ive never let a coach tell me how to play, i dont believe if theres a good team of experienced players the coach can really offer any useful information. The one and only thing i ever use from a coach is the exact time of quad and mega and nothing else. I think ive actually told coaches to shut up when they start telling me how to play.

I always feel fascinated with people who know more things looking at a single screen than me looking at four... Personaly, i'd only accept this to be true in a handful of players i deeply admire, kane, czm and the abuse ppl.

And... you are not on the list :\

exactly
a coach telling the team what to do is irritating and most of the time wrong
coaches should just time items, and this is not very demanding for the players themself
so coaching isnt that important imo !

i sertainly understand everyone that doesnt like the coaching idea.. but the fact remains.. if it was banned.. lanclans may use a coach anyway and noone is able to controll that.. so letting teams have it is imo the only way to make a fair'er game..

Same happens with aliasing in team games, lan clans have always had the advantage of 100% transparent aliasing, just like lan clans don't have to deal with teamspeak.

i dont wanna argue bout the coach thingie, but i have to remind u one thing. Maybe its easy for clans such as mtw sk 4k etc to find a coach, since theyre well known and play at high levels (im talking bout ut here, who aer "ice climbers" btw ffs :p)
but now think about the clans who are good but not top notch. Do u think it will b easy to recruit some dude, who plays as good as other members (cuz i think its needed to b a good coach cuz if u dont understand whats goin on how the hell can u make up tacs?) but then u tell that person "hey dude ure not gonna play ure gonna b or coach?
cmon guys weve been playing this game without coaches for about 4 years now, and still we get fkin awesome games with superb teamplay/timing/skillz.
I think this is only going to enlarge the gap between eurocup teams and open cup teams (his is just an example) at all levels.
and yes most of the teams have a coach who actullay plays the war and then decides bout tacs himself. thats a lot more fair and requires a lot more knowledge of the game.

You can get better players from other clans to coach you, for example, i've coached CB OC div2 clans while being in div1 with my clan as both player and coach at the same time.

I've seen average players who know a lot about TDM strats who are willing to coach but other clans usually refuse to think that someone who aims worse than them knows more about tdm than they do. Besides, its not easy for a clan of players looking for a coach to distinguish whats a smacktalker and whats a good strategist.

I suggest a football-like structure, get a coach, do EVERYTHING they tell you to do and if the team thinks they can do better with another coach, remove the first and look for another one. This is the structure that works best as it can get a coach-market working just like the player recruiting works.

The problem is, in my experience, the only way in which a coach can do his work without having to deal with each player's ego is being better than them so they admire you in some way, this shouldn't work this way but thats how it is, thats because so little clans have coach, its very hard for a coach to make the players understand that they know more than the players do.

Hi

I am the leader of wz (a clan that is prolly div2 standard) I would never make the starting lineup of wz as I am pretty poo as a player. However I have been coaching for wz since season 4 of the bwq3dml. Now if what you say is true I would not have coached for the likes of DC neo unr gzd UK (and indeed I am the current UK TDM captain, and the coach of choice for the CTF Side) wz are inactice atm, and EK have asked me to coach them in BW, some of these clans have just wanted me as a glorified calculator, others have wanted me to call tacitcal plays, and even entire stratergies. A lesser skilled player can be an excellent coach (think Sven if you wanna go along the football analogy)

Malc

In the team I play for (granted I haven't been with them very long) there is an A team and a B team, the A team is coached by an expirienced B team member. He has good knowlegde of TDM, Quake 3 in general and has excellent comunication skills, but isnt as good a player as the A team members. That way, the coach still gets games but also coaches. (He chooses to coach by the way)

Edit:

He doesn't just give item timing either, he often gives advice on an induviduals role ("stay back eth, dont chase" etc lol) or the teams role, and can allow a change of tactics mid game. This wouldn't be possible without a coach as someone would have to re-tacticise while playing.

seriously, lets take all the arguments FOR using a coach, and just say that teams should be able to coordinate themselves well enough to do all this without a coach, wouldnt that actually be the most show of "skill"?

but then again a coached game is probably much more fun for clans that dont want to play practice scrims 5 days a week to be able to get their templay going.

I think coaching is an unnecessary tool, especially with all the help you have for timing items as it is with the clock in Quake 3.

If you're good, you shouldn't need a coach, period. The game should be up to the players to decide what's being timed and such, not somebody (or 2 people in some cases) who are devoting all their time to just time items ... really takes that element COMPLETELY out of the game. And I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of seeing 6-8 people all jumping toward quad with their gauntlets because a coach knows the millisecond it is spawning. At least make the players communicate with their teammates to get that kind of information out.

Coaching takes timing, coordinated attacks, and positioning AWAY from the players hands ... do you really want that? I think the players should be able to figure out their own strategy as they play without somebody 'holding their hand.'

that's right. coachs takes some team skills away.

I can't understand how 4 guys train like 5hs per day and still need someone who tells them when the quad is going to respawn.

Isn't it the case that if you're making the argument for coaching, you may as well say that games should have inbuilt timers?

Not clocks, timers. A message saying when such and such an item is going to spawn.

TBH I think this is a good idea. Timing is bent anyway.

Timing = skill.

This is really an interesting thread. I have been playing q3 under a coach since fall 2000 i think. During this period our coach has only been playing the game as coach, never as a player and I am sure he enjoyed the game as much as we did as players!

My clan, nocturne commando, has managed to advance from a medicore clan on the danish q3 scene to a eurocup team, without playing practise matches every day. Actually we only played about 2 wars a week, that being a clanbase match and a danish league match. This is mainly because of good team coordination.

In the beginning he started by timing for us, but the timer script and coach function in osp showed up and made obsolete because we, the players, could do the timing for ourselves. Later on our coach has been analysing our every game to find our teamplay flaws and thereby making our game a little more perfect.

During our last year of q3 he did a great job coordinating our tactics during the match. He had a better overview of the game than any of us ever could attain from our single screen.

This was just some of the coolest stuff I have ever experienced as a team and I really miss it now every time I play ut2. I really hope for some kind of coach function to be included in a future release of TTM, but I see that many uters dosnt feel that way, which I think is really sad :(

An advantage of coaching: when you have more then 4 members you can switch coach and players. It improves the team spirit when you have a 5th member actively participating in a match.

I actually like to coach a game once in a while, I see some funny shit sometimes :)

whats up brothers and sisters and welcome aboard to the next generation elbow from your local circuit pro, its sho. yo just so you know, some people think im crazy but the truth is im just lazy, i just dont give a fuck.

i say fuckin A yeah to having a coach. its all about having more quality teams. some great players are not in a position due to real life to be free to compete. but they could coach 4,5,6 man teams of ok to good players and help them play great as a team. mo quality teams is our mission.

welcome aboard to the struggle.
k|shogun|7 |rtcw|

in my opinion a coach is dispensable

It cant be so hard to time 3 items (amp,littleshield,big shield)

But the problem is that all players are there at the right time - sometimes they get fraged on the way to the item

1on1 coaching \o/

the whole idea is a joke..

if youve got some "coach" sitting in battlecom telling you when powerups respawn you might as well just have on screen timers. would people still feel the same way then?

2.Coaching adds a new flavour to TDM. Players do the fragging and coaches do the thinking. The match becomes a duel between two coaches who use the players like pawns and the one with superior skills wins. Still, this requires one man in the clan to be intelligent and the rest could all be Forrest Gumps.

Wrong I think, although I know that a coach is a good addition for the team, because a clan with a good coach would play better than a team with a bad team or probably without a coach, as long as they´re not good timers themselves (,

Fragging and playing, and thinking about what you do, when you try to shot your opponent, and when you should better leave your position and fall back is still the thing the players have to think about and not the coach, when the coach would try to tell you this it would probably be too late for your move.

I also think that a good clan would never play good only because they got a good coach, the game still requires a kind of skill, and if the players do not have any skill the clan/team would not play well.

But still the coach can improve the teamplay of the team, because he could tell the players to go there and there at the same time, quad rush and so on.

/lb out

I could vote "yes" only when players will fight against each other on closed arena > "coach" stay outside it with only a notepad (no additional communication devices only his screamy voice) :P

Coach is a coach... not clock or player... he shouldn't interfere.

Besides when I'm wathing demo I wan't to see ingame players skill. "Coach" is something hard to see like that and in my opinion demos wouldn't be such entertainment with him.

it makes the game more professional :D

I don't think coaching is important in the current "eSports" games, but maybe we'll have more complex games in the future that need more ingame organisation which obviously makes coaching a key element of the game. RTCW is a step into that direction.

In regard to TDM games such as Q3 and UT2K3 I'd have to lean towards no coaching. When in order to win you need to accumulate frags and time items, coaching is unnecessary for true professionals and actually counterproductive to improving one's individual skills on an amateur team. When we're talking 4v4, control the red, grab the quad, then run mothafuckas over, you don't need a coach for that. But what about RTCW like you've said Reptile?

RTCW is a war game, a coach is a General. Two teams battling each other to achieve or prevent an objective from being achieved is simulated war. Two coaches useing their teams to play each other is chess, much as many athletic sports are looked at when the coaches are either very skilled or in an influential position, such as all college sports.

Coaching could be easily implemented in RTCW and would prove very helpful, not just for teams, but to attract spectators-RTCW is truly the first team game with the potential to make gaming into a ligit occupation. CS, while it has the players, is not because it is too repititve to spectators. (So if you want to make a career out of playing games all you CS players, come to RTCW and lets all make this a reality).

In RTCW you have 3 aspects to success: 2) individual fighting skills in order to execute team strats to perfection and to fight battles when its advantageous to yourself and your team 2) preparedness with strats and the creativity of them. In this respect, coaching is already implemented by team leaders during scrims and practices (although no teams really run drills like they should) 3) and lastly and most importantly, being able to adjust on the fly. Spot your enemy, choose the terms of battle, and update your teammates on how many enemies are coming from each direction. In RTCW, for example, it is difficult for the lookout guy to say 3 my way if he doesn't know that until he starts shooting at the first enemy and then is either killed or can fall back and find quick cover in order to relay a voice message or hit a bind. With a coach, the General can relay that information to his troops and recommend how and where they should fight. This could be easily implented on the internet as a coach could simply be able to view all the different players' points of views simultaneously or by scrolling through them. The integration could even be realistic if RTCW was to be modded into a modern/slightly futuristic time period where it would be conceivable that each soldier would have a camera mounted somewhere to their equipment. It could even be on their helmet which can always be shot off leaving the camera as either useless if destroyed or useful as a lookout if not. Another option is freeflying mode, which could be viewed at as an eye in the sky like we currently have over Iraq.

Gaming needs to make some major steps over the next few years, and as available technology becomes seamlessly integrated into the game we love, spectating will become a viable form of entertainment, gaming events will become a media for hardware and software manufacturers, and playing games will be a realistic occupation to pay the bills. Most extreme sports you see in the X-games had very little attention until ESPN made a leap of faith to organize and televise an event that could be marketed towards a specific group of customers. Gaming has the very same potential, and even more appealing about is that anyone can game and almost everyone out there up to the age of 25, especially males, do play video games, and many spend a lot of money and time doing it. Where are the sponsors!?
-Chris

masterful piece toff! i agree with you that RTCW will be the first computer game to launch vSports(virtual sports). fuck the critics that say gaming is not a sport, they are right its a virtual reality sport. an exercise in mental combat in a virtual realm. as in game camera technology evolves the general or coach will become increasingly important. I can picture a camera mod where the general can display his 6 fighters views on his one screen. The general can have his team change defenses, change classes, fall back or attack based on what he sees in the field relative to the round time. There is no question that RTCW needs to be set in modern times, and new combat features need to be added. Nobody cares about WW2 when WW3 is going on. as for coaching in q3 and ut2k3, who really cares right now? both were good games but why play a good game when you can play a great game?

cK vSports

Coaching is a grand idea. In every facet of sports and for that matter in war even there is a some sort of coaching goin on which is critical to winning ang with strategy. Sure some teams dont need it but others do. I mean in real life war what would happen to a battallion if they didnt have the orders(coaching) from the field generals or whatever. Same with sporting events. Yes granted good players can and should be able to time things on there own and this isnt a life or death situation but coaching is a great idea and should be used if and when possible but it isnt a necessity in pc gaming. It is in effect a valuable tool to have in many facets of life and in fps pcgaming I feel it should be allowed without being bashed on.

xfactor
Team Chatkill

Im always watching my younger brother's Q2 matches and often my comment saves his ass. "Don't do this, switch to chaingun, stop playing with RG here!" or "Take MH then frag him, moron" is always usefull :)

nO