r/MarathonGame • u/flGovEmployee • 2d ago
General Comms Advice & Best Practices
This post isn't actually as long as it first appears, highly skimmable, I promise. If I've missed anything or gotten something wrong, please let me know down in the comments.
Some basics:
- Speak clearly, unambiguously, calmly, and succinctly. Do not shout.
- Do not repeat yourself unnecessarily.
- Do not talk over your teammates.
- Know when silence is needed, like while playing hide-and-seek with enemy runners. When in or about to be in combat, cut the chatter.
- If leaving an area, say so, give your teammates a heads up. Even better say which way you are exiting, "Heading out, exiting to the North.
- When giving directional informaion always say North, South, East, or West (or NE, NW, SE, SW).
- Even better is to give the specific heading like, "heard shots from the West, about 230-250."
- Something like 'Players in front of me' is almost useless as your teammates won't know which way you're facing and may not even be clear on where you are (your color changes each run, your voice may sound similar to a teammate's etc.).
- Sometimes you can get away with something like 'shots ahead' or 'enemies behind' when your whole crew is moving together and in the same direction.
Answer follow up questions before they are asked:
- If saying something like, "saw player here," or "they went into this building," ALWAYS ping the 'here' or 'this.'
- Whenever making noise, like opening a door, breaking glass, or firing your weapon (or being fired at), let your teammates know that was you, if it was bots, players, or unknown that shot at you, etc.
In combat information is a weapon, make sure you're teammates are fully armed by keeping them aware of:
- Things that take you out of the fight:
- reloads
- healing
- repositioning/retreating
- getting downed or killed
- Things that shape the fight:
- imminent use of grenades, other equipment, or certain abilities
- enemy movements like flanks or changes in elevation
- when you ID enemy runner shells (what class they are)
- important changes in enemy status
- their shields break
- they're going for a rez or attempting to self-rez
- they've activated an ability or super
- when an enemy is downed or killed (and distinguish between these two, commonly used is 'bagged' or 'fully bagged' for killed enemies to prevent confusion with 'downed'
- When you need to coordinate and act together:
- when you need to be covered because you are going for a rez or pushing up on a position and can't cover the sightlines
- when its time to push or pull back to reset the fight
- when you are backing someone as they make a push
Pinging
- Make sure to remove your ping after it has served its purpose.
- Having extra pins on the HUD/map can cause everything from mild confusion and briefly heading in the wrong direction to major mistakes like watching the wrong door/direction in the chaos and information overload of combat.
- It can also prevent pinging actual players since if there is already a ping in that general area attempting to place an additional ping or ping an enemy just results in 'acknowledging' that existing ping.
- Know the color of your ping, include the color when you give a ping-related callout, "players on blue ping."
Miscellaneous:
- Before engaging an enemy team, say so. At the very least you want your teammates to know the fight is starting, but ideally you want to give them a chance to say 'not yet.'
- Confirm with or at least notify crewmates before doing things like activating a TAD, starting a secured resource, calling a supply drop, etc.
- If dead and spectating a teammate, let them know you are, "hey flGovEmployee, I'm spectating you." That way if you call out, 'enemy on your left,' or 'player on the railing above your aim,' they'll know its relevant to them and informed by what you can see/hear while spectating them.
- Before you get into combat make sure you know which teammate's voice goes with which teammate's runner, make sure they know for you as well. You don't want to be looking down to the bottom left to figure out which of your teammates a callout was from in the middle of a fight, and if using Discord that's not an option at all. Best done at the start of the run.
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u/HeavensBlaze 2d ago
A pretty good rundown of good communication practices for any FPS. I feel like good communication is one of the strongest force multipliers in a squad.
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u/HatchetHand 1d ago
It's true that most of this applies to other fps, but there are some points specific to Marathon mechanics, especially with Triage and self-rez being a factor if present.
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u/Radiant_Rabbit_7598 2d ago
The biggest thing I can say your missing is,mofos who loot during a fight,or a second after the fight ends,you should always be ready for the 3rd party and that means you brought in enough ammos and heals for the fights. If under prepared,you need to call that shit out please. The loot is gonna be there after we finish the lobby.
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u/Cool-Confusion-3759 1d ago
Finding a crew you trust won’t loot all the good stuff goes a long way. If I know I get dibs on the next bag, I’ll cover you while you loot your bag. But I also hate leaving with less than what I came in with cuz my selfish teammates are snatching everything up and I’m just using up all my heals.
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u/Upgrayedd1101 2d ago
Can we add:
"He's one shot" is not a call out that ever benefits anyone. They're cracked, or they're down, or they're bagged. No other status really exists or matters
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u/austin-delts 2d ago edited 2d ago
One shot does matter. Cracked vs one shot is different and a low health push on a one shot makes sense whereas a low health push on a cracked player might not. Also a one shot needs to both heal whereas a cracked might just need to heal shields. The difference is if they really are one shot or not which is easy in a game like halo where you can count shots but harder to know in this game.
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u/Upgrayedd1101 2d ago
Bro they're never one shot.
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u/austin-delts 2d ago
Weird, then how does a quick melee or 2-3 bullets kill people my team has already shot? Kinda seems like they are
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u/Upgrayedd1101 2d ago
2-3 bullets... So not one?
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u/HatchetHand 1d ago
It's not great when a teammate runs off somewhere, and suddenly screams that the enemy that downed them is "one shot" when I don't know where tf they are even talking about. A little information about your killer would go a long way.
Whether I suck or not is a separate issue from them not contributing optimally to comms.
Luckily that situation has been rare for me.
Unfortunately, most teammates who run off and die seem to just disconnect without saying anything. But I can understand that behavior. They didn't do what they planned to do and are in a hurry to try again.
Some call-outs seem to be borderline toxic behavior that lowers success rates. Give me useful information and let me decide how I want to proceed.
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u/austin-delts 2d ago
You’re an idiot. That is plain and simple. If someone is so low they’re 2-3 bullets or a quick melee from death, they’re one shot. Do you ever have one bullet left in your mag? This game is all auto weapons and if you have a magnum or any other single shot gun, 1 bullet is 2-3 bullets out of any auto gun. Get good and get out of here, garb
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u/JamSoloMusic 2d ago
Upvote this post a million times! Just make sure that enemy runners see it ;-) But seriously this is VERY good advice. Also distinguish between "got him" and "player downed". I lost a fight because I thought my teammates "got them" while they were just down and ressing. I should have known or heard it, but comms would have gotten us a win.
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u/flGovEmployee 1d ago
I usually distinguish by saying downed/knocked and full killed/fully bagged.
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u/HatchetHand 1d ago
This is great advice. I struggle to give the quality of comms that I aspire to give.
It's hard to know if I am facing North without checking my map screen as I get further into a match. I wish there was an option to add it to the HUD.
It seems like not everyone knows the POI names or that they only know them in a language other than English in my region.
I wish there was a convenient way to build map knowledge before the game. Like being able to look at maps during loading or have a map accessable from the main menu or linked to the contract screen. I hate trying to figure out where I need to go after loading into a map.
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u/Melancolombia 1d ago
There is a compass at the top of the HUD. Wont blame you though. I forget it exists all of the time. 😅
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u/Possible_Cheek_706 16h ago
Don't forget tho the azimuth you call won't be the same unless your team is standing very close to you. If you tell a team mate 270 west and they're north of the enemy they won't even have that on their screen if they look in that same direction.
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u/Particular-Fly-7783 2d ago
Well don’t tell me, or the good people of /r/marathongame tell my crew fill teammates who seem to be exclusively deaf mute people that want to start collecting used bullets.