Zerg - And what that means?

[jepaul]

Originally Posted by Trafalgar

Joseph Stalin approved of zerging. You don't want Joseph Stalin's approval, do you?



Nonense, he's wearing red and yellow. He's obviously some kind of TR-NC hybrid.

He won. Well sort of I guess. Communism argument ext.

[jepaul]

Originally Posted by Rexdezi

thank you i never played PS1, and felt stupid asking :3

Again just my thoughts. Veterans of PS could elaborate more I'm sure.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Trafalgar

Joseph Stalin approved of zerging. You don't want Joseph Stalin's approval, do you?



Nonense, he's wearing red and yellow. He's obviously some kind of TR-NC hybrid.

lol reminds me of enemy at the gates.

the part where they're attempting to zerg the germans and the commander is yelling something like "when the man with the rifle dies the other man picks up the rifle and continues to shoot!"

[super pretendo]

I don't think zerging will ever be a problem except for the people that do it, since if too many people are in one spot, they can lose other spots on the continent

[Khellendros]

In PS1, zerging didn't really have anything to do with numbers, just referred to unorganized play, along with certain characteristics, such as not really using vehicles at all/effectively and no coordinated tactics, just running at the enemy.

[noxious]

Originally Posted by Khellendros

In PS1, zerging didn't really have anything to do with numbers, just referred to unorganized play, along with certain characteristics, such as not really using vehicles at all/effectively and no coordinated tactics, just running at the enemy.

This is a good definition.

People tend to call any large group a zerg, but those people are just rationalizing failure. A well organized group is likely to employ numerical superiority because it hastens the capture of objectives. Such organized efforts are not zergs even if they severely outnumber their opposition.

The zerg is the unorganized group that moves from one fight to the next without any concern for strategic objectives; they are interested only in pursuing the shortest path to engaging the enemy.

[Snipefrag]

Adding to the above post, 'foot zerging' also happened a lot in PS1. Where a bunch of unorganised members of 'the zerg' would walk between facilities instead of teaming up and moving together in transport, often in AA maxes as air vehicles were the real danger to the foot zerg. They were fun to farm !

[Espion]

Originally Posted by noxious

People tend to call any large group a zerg, but those people are just rationalizing failure. A well organized group is likely to employ numerical superiority because it hastens the capture of objectives. Such organized efforts are not zergs even if they severely outnumber their opposition

Any group, outfit or not, that couldn't win a fight without a significant pop advantage (2:1 or more) was pretty much considered a zerg.

[Mr DeCastellac]

The Zerg are the second-born of the Xel'Naga.

[Landtank]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

lol reminds me of enemy at the gates.

the part where they're attempting to zerg the germans and the commander is yelling something like "when the man with the rifle dies the other man picks up the rifle and continues to shoot!"

Best mission in Call of Duty II, running up the riverbank of Stalingrad waiting for someone to die so you can take a damn rifle.

I suspect epic zergs in PS2, not always a bad thing.

[Trafalgar]

As long as resources are per-person and not per-empire, I won't bemoan their existance too much as long as good outfits still exist. Though, if one empire ends up with vastly more people zerging aimlessly rather than operating in any kind of organized fashion, I could see things going badly for them as they are outmaneuvered by their enemies.

[Miir]

Heres my take on it:

The act of "Zerging" meant one empire(or outfit) would quickly mobilize a large group of players to attack a single target prior to the target being able to counter attack or defend (see Max Crash). The tactic was the trade mark of the play style for Planetside and many Zerg Outfits (Zergfits) became quite good at mobilizing and executing these types of battle plans. Many people argue that it takes little skill to overrun an enemy that does not have equal numbers to counter attack. And I admit when you are on the receiving end of a zerg it kind of sucks. But it is a valid and proven tactic of the game that works and I suspect that it be making a huge return in Planetside 2.

That being said one of the major side effects in the early days at least was lag produced when a zerg attack encountered a defense force of equal numbers. I believe this may no longer be a concern but back in the first couple years of Planetside it was the bane of players existence. Nothing killed the fun like lag and nothing brought the lag on like the Zerg.

So in a sense "The Zerg" was the lag.

So to some "Zerging" means steam rolling an empire with uneven numbers. To some "The Zerg" means large laggy battles.

Either way you can see why people don't like the term much.

[Blackwolf]

Zerg is pretty much a blank term. It has no real meaning because it is defined by everyone who assumes they know what it means from how others use it.

A lot of people in this thread use the term to describe a massive group of players who use superiority in numbers to win a battle, essentially describing 90% of the fights in PS1. If an outfit decided to, for example, go behind enemies lines and blow every spawn tube in towers and bases in order to completely kick an enemy presence of of one of new Oshur's maps while minimizing frontal assault, the response to this is outrage and mockery. So respecting an outfit that uses tactics to accomplish a victory clearly isn't high on the agenda.

In fact most people who are soundly beaten will refuse to admit it. This isn't limited to gaming btw. People can't accept losing in a fair and equal fight, someone once called it the "broken controller syndrome".

Anyway point is zergs don't actually exist, except to describe two or three empires clashing over the same base which, btw, was an event more or less forced onto said empires because of the lattice network. The lattice network gave everyone a limited number of choices for where to go next, and all it took was a CR5 cont. chatting "go here next". A lot of people will point at crap like "black ops" and "gen drops" saying they made major contributions towards the fight, but the simple fact is that their contributions would have meant squat without the so called "zerg" holding the front line, and there to take advantage.

I can see battles take major changes based on the number of snipers one side has over the other. How much air is out and who has what kind of AA platform out. I've seen a single burster make a huge impact on the battle just by taking out enemy aircraft in a very large field of fire. Given the very large number of changes that can affect the battle, a single black ops team can be about as effective as one solitary player who decides there isn't enough AA in the area. It's not like this is a particularly brilliant strategy, it's a basic tool.

Tactics like "back hacking" and "gen dropping (inside the target base)" were scoffed at, and mocked. You wouldn't believe the shit storms people would raise when someone mentioned dropping the enemy generators at a base. It was only tactics thought of, supported by, and performed by "vets" that were legit. Everything else was cheap or cheating.

So if someone were to start a zerg outfit (and I'm considering it), and knew how to control it, it would probably wipe the floor with everyone. And yes this is entirely based on sheer numbers, but would also mix in a considerable bit of strategy and tactics. Kinda like how modern military groups work.

I mean lets face it, superior training and superior weaponry is better then superior numbers, but when you look at even 2 to 1 odds against you, you're in a serious bind.

[CutterJohn]

Zerg is the name given to people who are just having fun playing the game for having the audacity to do whatever they please in a video game instead of following the orders of some blowhard.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Zerg is the name given to people who are just having fun playing the game for having the audacity to do whatever they please in a video game instead of following the orders of some blowhard.

Exactly.