DDS wrote:I think a wrong turn was made when the
commander rolewas diminished a while back. Teamplay is the only thing that holds it together along with dev corrections here and there. The game is what we make it really. When there is sporadic teamplay, which is becoming more the norm nowadays, it makes for a **** game. I long for the MATURE and RESPECTFUL player base to return and replace what we have now. Or maybe I just need to find another game.
I think there's no Commander because people dont' see a value in anything that doesn't have a gameplay feature built into it. There is no Commander kit, he has no special powers, aside from authorizing Area Attacks and using the UAV (apparently thats small potatoes). Apparently being a guy empowerd with deciding the flow of the entire battle isn't enough.
Apparently we'll see more commanders when we need them to do absurd **** like drive Logistics trucks all over the place and build Firebases and call in other **** we don't need.
Fact is that a Commander has a purpose that has never diminished in its core, its only become less attractive to people who have no patience for staring at maps and thinking abstractly.
The Commander is the mastermind of the battle, he directs the overall strategy, gives squads coordinating instructions, and makes the broader deicisions about attacking, falling back, defending here or there and ensuring that all units are working towards a common goal and that no squad leader is taking initiative that wastes assets that might actually serve a better purpose elsewhere.
People don't like that idea. They don't want a guy who tells them what to do. They want a guy who spawns uber assets and marks enemies seen on the UAV so that they can choose to attack them. He's seen as a radio bridge between squads, a coordinator of logistics (maybe) and in general a nuisance to the fun of being a squad leader.
This isn't helped by numbskull commanders who don't know that they're spending the entire battle talking on the all-talk VOIP net.
Commander is just a guy who's in charge. Thats all he is. A squad leader doesn't need an officer kit to be in charge and he'll frequently be as effective without his kit as he is with it, only really needing it for peculiar scenarios like rally points and markers or calling in airstrikes.
Commanders only need the acknowledgement of his authority to make stuff happen and the wherewithall of countless hours of PR experience to know what to do. I don't think much has changed this. The only bad decision they made was briefly to require a commander to be in his outpost to do his business, which limited his ability to go forward. They've added the very useful Commander Rally which nobody ever uses.
I see no reason to not have a Commander right now other than an unwillingness to have one or a lack of desiring candidates.
The only thing thats diminished the Commander role is the attitude people hold towards it. The mainstream sentiment is that its of no material value. The only things the devs can do to change that is arbitrarily create gameplay mechanisms that require him, but this doesn't guaratee that the role will be used correctly. Ultimately this is entirely player driven. If players don't take the role and use it correctly then it won't properly be realized no matter the developer choices.
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