The New Threat to Players: Lagging

I am seeing a lot of players using a new tactic to gain stars at the expense of teammates, I call it lagging. The player will float at the start of the game and not move. He will wait until all his teammates are nearly dead, and they have died inflicting damage on the opposition. Then at the last minute, the laggard will jump into the game, try to kill a few weak, damaged opponents, and get killed himself.

This tactic often shoots the laggard to the top of the team ranking, getting a star even if the entire team got killed 5-0. And it takes almost no effort.

The only tactic I can think of to end this practice is when I spot a laggard, I reverse course and sit right behind him, shooting at him, until he starts moving. Maybe he will take the hint, and engage in the game. If he never moves, I'll report him at the end of the game as a floater. If he starts moving, I will sit right behind him, so his tactic will fail, I will out-lag him. This is equally unfair to my teammates, but a single floater/laggard will doom a team to losing, I might as well go down with the ship, fighting to stop the laggard tactic.

 

I would recommend you go into battle with the other 3 teammates. Maybe you can win 4v5 or the laggard can do the clean up at the end if he/she show up. It doesn't make it right for you to do it also. His tactic will backfire if he have to do clean up of damaged opponents or you guys actually win the battle.

 

I've gone into battle without the laggard, and it almost always ends in a defeat. And worse yet, the laggard gets the benefit of stars while his teammates get screwed. I had better results trying to outlaggard the laggard, usually they start moving once they know they're busted. But I just had one game where the laggard started moving once I parked on his butt. And then he suicided by moving into the battle and never taking a shot. I think sometimes this is infamy tanking, they want to be a floater, but they will get banned if they just float and never move. So they move at the end and make a token shot, to avoid the ban.

 

And there are those infamy tankers too. The fact that you're leaving you teammates hanging in battle is not right like you said. It's a game, just have fun with what you got.

 

lmao so if you can't beat em join em?

 

Essentially yes. This tactic depends on the lagger being the only person who stays behind. If you lag with them, the tactic is useless to them.

 

Exactly. There is nothing to gain, all you're doing is griefing your teammates. The developers need to do something to prevent this particular style of griefing, or at least give a stronger disincentive.