following commander orders

[Gracler]

On an ending note, while people bring up the point SL's can communicate, it's mostly bickering or to just yell at each other. Nothing else really happens in the overall spectrum of things in pubs.

This is the part I hate the most. There is always someone yelling about a squad wasting assets, while the same squad hardly give any intel and the assets are blowing up around there ears.

[Michael_Denmark]

While it is in the discretion of server administration with regard to rules the naked truth is that the commander role died long ago.

I respectfully disagree with that statement. In my mind the commander role has never really been brought to life and therefore it cannot have died.

The role has been available in the game, like so many other options, but nothing more than that. However, in some PR formats, like for instance the tournaments, the CO role has been attempted brought to life, however, the spectrum of PR cover public gaming as well, thus only part of the commander role has been attempted brought to life.

The day when PR has seen a commander in each battle for minimum a year of gaming, regardless of public, tourney or whatever the game format, then we can perhaps begin to talk about the commander role having been born.
After that, as with any other game role in PR; automatic, rifleman, medic, pilot etcetera, the commander role would still have to mature over the course of at least a few years of gaming.

Then after that, should the maturity phase somehow have destroyed the fun of playing the role, then we can begin to talk about the commander role having died long time ago.

[cyberzomby]

There was a version of PR where a CO was needed to be able to deploy FOB's. You saw a lot of CO's in that version. Not saying that was better btw

I still think it needs to be in server rules that SL's follow orders. I was thinking about stepping up to CO on MERK server a few days ago. But without a rule to force my gameplan on SL's theres little use to step up. Why the hell would they listen to me? There was a squad on the MEC side all the way in the bottom left of the city while the north city flag was in play. They where there for more then half an hour. Why would they move up if I asked them when being a CO?

[mat552]

There was a version of PR where a CO was needed to be able to deploy FOB's. You saw a lot of CO's in that version.

Yes, in .6, you were forced to have someone in the chair to put down FOBs. FOBs weren't yet required though, squads were still able to move forward individually with the as of yet un-nerfed rally point system, as well as with APC spawns. More importantly however, at that time, there was no way to effectively communicate without using the commander, who naturally fell into the planning role as the only one with full picture of what was occurring on the battlefield. Finally, rounds in .6 were much, much shorter, being a commander was no longer a multi-hour commitment, so there was less burnout all around.

[DDS]

Commander role is dead. I wondered once upon a time if the community valued the role and it's clear that they don't. If a server actually required you to follow CO's orders I would be very surprised because the community has clearly rejected the CO role. Those days are gone for good. I will occasionally go CO when squads are locked or have no leadership and wait for a spot.

[Sgt. Mahi]

Commander position is not dead people just need to figure out how to co in public servers. As someone already said the commander's role in public games is to advice people what to do. Personally I mark any relevant enemy activity on the map and if there's a squad that suits a task I mostly just put a "spot" marker for the squadleader. That way he van decide if he wants to take the assignment.
If someone ask for assistance I try to convince a squad to help out but only if it doesn't seem like a suicide mission. I try to communicate as much as possible through markers on the map because I know that the squadleader are busy talking to his squad. Noobs think they can boss people around as a co in public servers. You can't unless you have a well established reputation.

[Brooklyn-Tech]

i think the commander screen should be redone so that you could see the names of the people in the squads (most importantly the SL), like you could see it when you CAPS-LOCK when in a squad.

this was a commander has a way of reporting disobedient SL's.

i was once a CO on fools road (militia) and 3 full squads were "camping" the british bridge while the "fight" was between the fortress (defend) and the next flag (attack).

i had to resign to write down names so i could report and wait a long time to finally get the admins to start to react (all admins were stacked on the other team).

[Heavy Death]

That way he can decide if he wants to take the assignment.
If someone ask for assistance I try to convince a squad to help out but only if it doesn't seem like a suicide mission. I try to communicate as much as possible through markers on the map because I know that the squadleader are busy talking to his squad.

Cancer of leading. Not saying youre bad or anything, just general. You can give me all the nice orders... and i can "decide" that its better to go to A1 and do jack shit with my squad.

Ofcourse as soon these words turn in to must do, will do, or as in army jargon, ORDERS, people leave the server because its waaaay too HC and PR isnt HC game. Its arcade. Or atleast thats the trendy thing to say lately.

[Oskar]

i think the commander screen should be redone so that you could see the names of the people in the squads (most importantly the SL), like you could see it when you CAPS-LOCK when in a squad.

this was a commander has a way of reporting disobedient SL's.

i was once a CO on fools road (militia) and 3 full squads were "camping" the british bridge while the "fight" was between the fortress (defend) and the next flag (attack).

i had to resign to write down names so i could report and wait a long time to finally get the admins to start to react (all admins were stacked on the other team).

Don't have to resign to check names Brooklyn, just press enter in the spawn screen and you get the same Caps-Lock menu as usual, even as a CO. Although I admit it's a bit clunky, I'd rather the CO interface was better.

[Michael_Denmark]

Commander role is dead. I wondered once upon a time if the community valued the role and it's clear that they don't. If a server actually required you to follow CO's orders I would be very surprised because the community has clearly rejected the CO role. Those days are gone for good. I will occasionally go CO when squads are locked or have no leadership and wait for a spot.

The PR community has never valued the role of the commander.

In all the time of PR gaming the vast majority of players has never wanted the commander role when they played the game. Tournaments and similar formats has been the periodical exceptions.

Reason is simple; most players in PR consist of followers, not leaders, including leaders who furthermore want to create temporary teams (public battles), in principle being a kind of temporary and randomly assembled kampfgruppen, consisting of a mixed group of players who often don't know each-other and therefore also being unaware of each-others skills, strengths and weaknesses, thus really not being able to common synthesize efforts. So this "team" label in public PR and public BF2 is still today a bit vague, a bit misleading.

Most probably we will never experience the day where public PR will begin to want the commander role when they play this otherwise great game.

PR commander role has never really been born, therefore never matured and consequently never died.

Actually I think the game format and its adjacent culture is in many ways pushing away leader types from PR, and will most probably continue to do so. A completely new approach to the game it self, thus not only the commander role, is necessary before the day will come, where the CO function is played just as much in PR as the role of the rifleman.

[smgunsftw]

I think they should return the commander overhead spy camera to Project Reality, although it may be a bit cheap, at least it encouraged players to use the commander post more. Another alternative would be to increase the fuel for UAV's and decrease their refuel times, or remove the fuel system completely.

On a related note, the time limit between putting down markers is really frustrating for a commander, can't the Dev's email EA/DICE about a possibility of give PR devs the chances to change the times? I understand changing commander asset times was hardcoded in 1.5 to prevent hackers from abusing vehicle drops in vBF2, but it'd really be a nice change if EA/DICE would give us the tools to alter it.

[DDS]

I respectfully disagree with that statement. In my mind the commander role has never really been brought to life and therefore it cannot have died.

I wished to see the CO role revived too. But the reality is (no pun intended) the community does not want it. Unless the game mechanics force it or servers actively enforce it. Its just not happening.

Years ago I always heard at game start

"who is the commander?"

That is because we had players who were committed to team work. Most of those players are gone for good. And it's not like game changes have made it any easier for those types of players.

The reason the CO role is brought to life in organized tournaments is because they are required to follow CO orders, big difference than in PR as a whole. In regular PR servers, unless it is enforced by admins. Most of the time it is only used briefly for an area attack or to remove a FOB. And I'd like to note that because of the lax or non-existent admins I'm seeing the squad leader role in their sights too. The game mechanics have all but excluded the CO and reduced the CO's to making suggestions to the team.

"pardon me there squad leader. If I may suggest, could you direct your squad to protecting our last flag.. it seems to have come under attack"

I saw this lolololol attitude coming a long time ago. They see CO influenced gameplay as milisim or anal. It's too late to turn it back unless the game mechanics were changed or the community decides to play PR differently. Not happening. You must have missed the funeral, the music was nice.

[Cavazos]

I refute the opinion that is because admins tell the CO his opinions and orders are not welcome that the slot is useless. It is my opinion it is because the position is useless that has caused many to view the position as a waste of a player slot. The CO(mmander)'s role of Command and Control simply isn't needed in a PR where Mumble means every SL, and all too often every SM, can be in the same channel and converse with each other. SLs now come to consensus on the overall battleplan, if such discussion is even needed with the unchanging nature of PR's maps.

The only use for the Commander in squad radio channel is to get others to shut up. There is too much non sense in there for public play being said and it interferes with squad comms. A commander is useful in that he can individually talk to squads, find out what their plans are - compare it to others, and help coordinate the squad efforts to maximize potential.

This is done easily if there is no commander and it's only squad leaders in the squad radio channel. You don't actually need a commander to accomplish this.

However the commander can continually focus on the strategic part of the map and supervise comms to keep out nonsense versus a squad leader who met continuously shift focus from strategy on the map, tactics of the squad, location of squad members, doing squad comma, keeping track of enemies, and doing FPS combat. This is all alongside to the commander abilities at his disposal. Even without his abilities, he is useful.

Usually he doesn't have to juggle all of these as once but sometimes it can get hectic.

So the commander isn't one who gives out orders that all must obey. It's to coordinate efforts while at the same time respecting the squad leaders who are very individualistic in their squad goals. If he can get them to work together in an effective and practical manner, great. If he can't, don't start punishing people for not following his commands. A core gameplay element of PR is the squad leaders leading squads as they see fit.

[DDS]

So the commander isn't one who gives out orders that all must obey. It's to coordinate efforts while at the same time respecting the squad leaders who are very individualistic in their squad goals. If he can get them to work together in an effective and practical manner, great. If he can't, don't start punishing people for not following his commands.

Thats mostly correct. Except you forgot that respect goes both ways. It's a good thing when someone steps up to SL or go CO. Mutual respect if you want to get cooperation.

[ShaunOTEast]

I tried CO a few times, even as a slightly less experienced CO I received generally positive response and cooperation from SLs. Though we lost most of the time cos I usually joined mid game. Though sometimes you get squads running off to hell knows where or squads staying on an uncappable flag, including one rude SL telling me STFU :<
But I think I will keep trying to be CO, improve teamwork and cohesion between squads and such.

[saXoni]

As soon as you get in the UAV it feels like you're playing a strategy game, and I love that.

[A.Wickens]

Frankly some of the opinions expressed here are the start and finish of why the Commander role is often viewed as "irrelevant" in some corners. Amazingly if you believe the CO is only there to get people to quiet down and politely suggest stuff he becomes ineffective. Of course he does, because you are ignoring COC once it climbs above squad level.

Is a Squad Leader there to 'suggest' what his squad might like to do? No he isn't. Same goes for CO. Whilst the CO is not there to pick your load out and micro manage he can and in some cases should be giving you a task as SL and squad and expecting you to sort your kit accordingly.

I would much rather follow a new CO and help him learn and develop his game at the strategic level then half *** it with a bunch of very competent SL's just because I know it will mean we win that round by ignoring proper COC.

I would rather lose with cohesion and a singular purpose and see a potential CO progress through the undoubtedly difficult learning curve (which will benefit the game later by providing another skilled CO) then simply win another game (yawn). Its about quality.

The CO is there to unify the efforts of the team in a singular purpose, he provides the battle plan. For me, I'm pretty jaded as SL, I hate the E-Sports type tourney play because it become cheap and simpl uh about points and winning by any means etc, I want an experience. I want a CO to give me an objective, whatever it is, and I want to focus my efforts on delivering that objective regardless. I don't want to meta game it because I know the quickest way to 'kill that map', I want to play, be part of a team and do my bit.

CO is relevant, he's not if you ignore him and do your own thing. CO is good for the game and good for the experience. SL's need to check themselves because if you break COC, well you're setting an example for your SM's.

[Onil]

The pro's and con's of having a CO that is truly in charge of his team is highly dependent on who is in the CO "seat".

As long as squad cooperation is seen as an extra instead of being a necessity, the CO won't be very useful in coordinating them. He might be used not to lead but mostly to inform and provide visual aids in the map.

Over-all, Squad leaders tend to continue to run&gun instead of developing tactics with other squads and relying on intel provided by the CO or spotters. That happens because there is no focus on survival, as long as you have an easy comeback with quick respawns. The only thing that can force more teamwork and strategy is the "fear of dying".

That will probably never change and so the teamwork between squads and the use of a proper CO will always be extremely limited on public gaming and sometimes even on more organized events.

[zombie-yellow]

Sadly, it's impossible to implement the fear of dying in a game. This is the real bug to a realistic simulation game.

Much like DayZ aimed to be an open-world zombie apocalypse temwork-oriented game, it ends up as a open-world deathmatch with zombies just here to bug you a little. This is because no one have the fear of dying. All those peeps killing everyone in DayZ would team up with everybody they would meet in a real zombie apocalypse lol

Same applies for PR and every game