a reply to:
onequestion
There's a lot I could say on this topic, I've literally written a book on MMOs, been the top player in the game in two of them, was a successful
raid leader of large scale raids (talking 50-100 people) and have in the past done development work on MMO's.
Most of what you describe comes down to a lack in communication. When it comes to strategy each person has a plan, it may be their plan, it may be a
plan they found on the internet, or it may be a plan the group came up with. The main principle though is that each person interprets that plan
different, and many are incapable of altering it on the fly. Psychologically this plays into the idea of group think. The hive mind comes up with a
consensus plan and people will rigidly stick to it despite all evidence that it's not working.
You can see this in action in games where a raid is coming apart at the seams, or in smaller scales with pick up groups where there is no cohesion
because each person has a different plan. You can even see this in real life with failed businesses or most notably politics and the military.
America's middle east foreign policy being an obvious example.
In these games having strong individual ability can increase the success of the group, but a group of individuals, even if they're all ridiculously
good will fall to a coordinated group if their communication isn't up to par.
As far as analyzing profiles, you absolutely can. When doing guild interviews or trying to put together super groups to tackle tough non raid content
I could read people fairly easily and a 5 minute conversation would let me size them up pretty well. There's actually a pretty good psychoanalysis
of me out there that someone did as part of their thesis, based entirely on others descriptions of my ingame behavior. I would link it but I would
prefer to stay atleast somewhat anonymous. Needless to say, it described me better than I knew myself.
These days I've retired from playing the MMO's and do 1 on 1 games like Magic, however it's still very similar. In an MMO you have a group of 3-6
people trying to improvise making a plan work with little ability to communicate in depth as conditions change, thus communication is reduced to
foreknowledge and announcements of triggers, it's basicaly choreographing. In Magic the communication is between yourself and your opponent, usually
neither will talk during the game about anything other than confirming the game state, but there is a lot of non verbal communication in a round.
Reading a person, deriving the hidden contents of their hand, building a decklist to figure out their outs, solving the board state, and so on.
Watching the interaction is quite interesting, it's also amazing how many people fail to simply pick up on the information their opponent is giving
off. Linking that back to MOBAs, if one person panics and goes to another lane they risk the groups success, but your opponents will also pick up on
that. They will see you aren't acting cohesively and that one person just created a weak spot. If your opponents are watching this they will strike
and you will lose.
As far as military applications go, there's plenty. The military is the ones that developed these tactics afterall. This is why hitting the enemy
lines of communication is almost always priority #1. When people stop talking to each other they panic, make poor decisions, and in general cease to
behave rationally. Similarly this is the greatest strength of the US army. We give more authority to lower ranking officers than any other military
in the world. This means they don't feel constrained in ability or overwhelmed when conditions cease to be favorable.
So the take away from that? Stay calm, stay rational, and continue to take in and use relevant information, but most of all communication. That's
for life or a game.