Don't Be That Guy: The Uninvited Caller

Been a while since I've done an edition of "Don't be that guy" but had one this morning.

Let me start by saying that I don't mind if somebody points something out, or makes a suggestion, in chat. I may ignore them, but hey...a suggestion is fine. Occasionally even helpful. But every now and then you get somebody in battle who thinks they're the caller.

The caller is the person who tells the team where to go and where to focus. Usually used in clan wars or skirmishes when a team is working together.

They'll bark orders in chat, sometimes from the grave. Usually they're ignored. When they're ignored they often get angrier and angrier, demanding that the team follow their instructions and sometimes declaring the team idiots (or worse) for not doing as they order.

This morning I had a game on Redshire in my T78 where one of our M44s started out right from the countdown. Insisting that everybody go to the castle. Everybody. MUST go castle.

Not just a "Hey, let's make sure we take the castle." That's fine. Not pinging the map once or twice and saying "I'm going to pre-aim the castle area." That's actually helpful. But a long multi-post harangue about how the mediums need to go to the castle, and the heavies need to go to the castle, and everybody needs to go to the castle. And that our arties are ONLY going to support castle (as if he were empowered to speak for the other two arties on our team). 

I just tapped "Negative" in response to his orders and otherwise ignored him.

As the battle started, and some people ignored him, he got more and more agitated. Barking orders at the team to go to the castle immediately. As it turned out about 2/3 of the team was in the West of the map (quite a few on the middle hill though). Predictably the East side of the map got overrun, and the enemy team started to roll up our undefended arties - completely predictable result if you order everybody to one flank (and they actually do it).

Naturally all the time he spent barking orders was time he spent not aiming and shooting. Granted he was an arty, so... but still. He was more of a distraction than a help.

The lesson: You can make a suggestion if you want to, or let the team know what you plan to do. But don't be a dick and start ordering 14 strangers around like you're Napoleon. 

Don't be that guy.

(By the way...my entire team got dead and I ended up 1 v 4. Turned into an epic 6-kill carry for the win for me.)

GLHF!