Commander Changes in v0.6

[Dyer |3-5|]

Regarding man power...
Remember, since most servers have Auto Balance on, if you don't have enough people to put down and support the new assets, then neither does the enemy...

[Long Bow]

WOW!! This sounds like an awesome evolution of the game. For the most part I can see this causing allot of confusion and waisted resources. BUT when a team comes together and the commander is on the ball it will be an awesome round for sure. I had thought about this idea before with deployable bunkers etc. but thought it was to far out there to be done. Well done PR team, well done.

The one thing I think could make this work a little smoother is if an icon would show up on the map and/or on the ground to indicate to anyone on the team where to construct. This would vastly help in communicating to the team as to what the commander is trying to accomplish. You would still need to be communicating down to the squad leader and have a squad that stays somewhat close to the commander. However I know if I was in a squad close by and saw that the commander was trying to establish a bunker etc. I would tell my squad "hey we need to go help set this up, before we advance any farther..."

Again a big WOW to the PR team and thank you so much for this. Now upon realise of these new features I would appreciate if one of the Dev's would call my wife and explain to her why I am currently un-available for family events etc.

[indigo|blade]

You may be missing my point Dyer?

Yes, the teams will be even, that's a given. If I 'slice off the top' of one of my squads to make use of these new features, will the benefit out weigh the cost of:

1. An under strength squad still obligated to do its job
2. The overall time spent deploying assets to consolidate or reinforce positions that may well be circumvented by the enemy through maneuver or firepower(pick an attack craft and insert here). This time could have been spent elsewhere using earlier, tested PR tactics.

Let me also add that I think the features sound incredibly cool, and the concept innovative; I am only speculating as to the battlefield practicality of it all! =D

[Maistros]

It only takes a 2 or 3 man (including the commander) team to successfully negotiate the battlefield and construct/maintain assets. You only need to slice away 2 people to tag along with the commander, really. It's about teamwork, but you don't have to spend two whole squads on it. If the commander sticks with a group he may also find more support than with his own small task unit.

[zeidmaan]

drop one sniper and one marksman from the equation and it will be fine

[indigo|blade]

It only takes a 2 or 3 man (including the commander) team to successfully negotiate the battlefield and construct/maintain assets.

That answers my question, thanks Maistros.

[=Romagnolo=]

Does the commander need to go at the place in the map and "set", for exemple, the bunker or does he just need to set by the commander map ?

[Maistros]

The commander will need to negotiate this way through the battlefield and be present at the position of construction to "place" the asset on the field. He can not simply sit in a command tent and "make it so".

[SethLive!]

what exactly does the cammand vehicle do? is it like an armoured support vehicle?
does the commander still have arty?
does the commander still have satelite overveiw?
does the commander have to be in the command center/command vehicle to grant supply drops?

[tg-root]

"he/She" Come on Rick this is Reality,......just say "he"..................

Rick was speakimg from a TG viewpoint. We have ladies in the ranks, who contribute just as much to our community as the guys. At least one of those ladies plays PR.

[Maistros]

Katiewolf?

[Master Shake]

Rick was speakimg from a TG viewpoint. We have ladies in the ranks, who contribute just as much to our community as the guys. At least one of those ladies plays PR.

If that's the case then the modders need to work on a "nurse" skin or some sort of "secretary/clerk" skin.......................and one of an insurgent woman in a Birka.... So the ladies can play PR realistically..................................













jk.....

[Dyer |3-5|]

That would be awsome...

Maybe a "pickup kit" for the insurgent women in the burka could be a kit with a little kid wearing an explosive vest. The ultimate ins. guided weapon...

[Wolfe]

Three questions:

1. As commanders, we can hardly persuade squads to follow common sense hold/attack orders.... so how do we expect a squad to additionally build things for us and additionally asking them to go nearly full engy to do it?
2. Why would a team devote already limited time, tickets, and manpower to create items that are huge targets for the enemy to easily destroy? It seems like the cost of these items outweight the benefits. In other words, what exactly does a bunker and firebase do that justifies the effort?
3. As a commander, my time is monopolized by attempting to coordinate attacks, locate enemy rally points, and approving asset drops, meaning I spend all my time in the commander screen. I don't have time to run around in a jeep, picking up kits, and placing assets in the line of fire. I could miss a timely arty call or get killed and have to wait 30+ seconds to be of any use as a commander. Commanders are already chastised for ignoring squad leader comms because they were busy run'n gunn'n, but now it will be even more widespread?

I want realistic gravity, etc etc, and wicked model sounds/guns etc, not complicated rules regarding how to use equiptment.

To a large extent I have to agree with this. There are so many unrealistic movement and weapon behaviors in the current game that should be corrected and tested by the masses first before radical departures from gameplay (how about more destructible city buildings and fences first?) Combined with a very complicated set of rules...

• "Yes you can get a kit but you have to have x amount of people for that kit and x amount for that one, but that kit can only be requested from here and here, but not if the second "here" is less than x meters away from a flag and only if the first one is more than x meters away..."

Uhhhg. I consider my an experienced fps/rpg/rts player and it's even confusing and frustrating (therefore not fun at times) for me. I just want to play a realistic game that is fun, and I swear to god that the !@#$ QuarterMaster can !@#$ my !@#$ if he tells me one more time that he's "not coming over there" but never tells me where to go. Next he'll be telling me I can't use anything because I need to polish the hinges on my footlocker!

Of course, we'll have to see the final product before we can pass final judgment, but it's hard to see how this fits in without being let in on the vision of future releases.

[Master Shake]

That would be awsome...

Maybe a "pickup kit" for the insurgent women in the burka could be a kit with a little kid wearing an explosive vest. The ultimate ins. guided weapon...

They could make that horrible lalalaalalalalalalaa.....noise to alert the insurgent forces collition troops are near...

[eggman]

wrt manpower... er.. well if one team chooses to have 5 or 6 guys standing around waiting for the A-10 / Cobra / Tank to respawn while the other team devotes 2 or 3 guys to a defense squad with the CO .. um .. I think the latter of those two is going to be more effective as a team unit... just the way it should be.

I don't understand how folks can read in manpower problems with this.. it really comes across as grasping at straws to try and somehow prove they are smart enough to find some major loophole in the approach.

It takes 2 to 3 folks to be highly effective as a support squad for the Commander and that squad is largely going to be in a defensive role (which doesn't happen enough in PR because it's boring). This will give players something to do while defending, effectively creating a defense squad out of 3 or 4 players .. leaving 28 players on a full server to go off and wait for the A-10 to spawn.

We can scale up and down the stuff we do based on map sizes / player populations, play testing will flesh that out.

There is another element to the defensive squads that I am not sure if it will make v0.6, but it will be relevant to the squad composition whenever we do introduce it. It will also make taking a defensive position more interesting.

Y'all have to keep in mind that PR is not intended to be a "mod for the masses" .. there's some great alternatives out there for that.

[Wasteland]

Yes, I think people are looking at this concept through the framework of the 0.5 community, smacktards and all.

You have to remember that we'll be ditching a lot of the smacktards in 0.6.

[SethLive!]

You have to remember that we'll be ditching a lot of the smacktards in 0.6.

[eggman]

Three questions:

1. As commanders, we can hardly persuade squads to follow common sense hold/attack orders.... so how do we expect a squad to additionally build things for us and additionally asking them to go nearly full engy to do it?

Up to them... have no intent of designing a team work and realism oriented mod around players who dont want to play as a team. We'll just shed those players from the player base and hopefully end up with a core of players that DO want to play as a team.

1. Why would a team devote already limited time, tickets, and manpower to create items that are huge targets for the enemy to easily destroy? It seems like the cost of these items outweight the benefits. In other words, what exactly does a bunker and firebase do that justifies the effort?

These assets give you:
- forward spawn locations for the entire team
- another fixed kit req location
- defensive weaponry to help hold a CP

1. As a commander, my time is monopolized by attempting to coordinate attacks, locate enemy rally points, and approving asset drops, meaning I spend all my time in the commander screen. I don't have time to run around in a jeep, picking up kits, and placing assets in the line of fire. I could miss a timely arty call or get killed and have to wait 30+ seconds to be of any use as a commander. Commanders are already chastised for ignoring squad leader comms because they were busy run'n gunn'n, but now it will be even more widespread?

You are in the minority. 85% of the time I play PR there is no Commander because frankly it's dull as hell. Making that role have more to do and more of an impact on the team will hopefully see more players play the CMDR role and more players listen to the CMDR role.

To a large extent I have to agree with this. There are so many unrealistic movement and weapon behaviors in the current game that should be corrected and tested by the masses first before radical departures from gameplay (how about more destructible city buildings and fences first?)

Mod teams are made up of radically different skill sets. Different guys work on different parts of the mod.

Combined with a very complicated set of rules...

Certainly there are usability issues with having to work around the engine in so many ways.. but if all folks want to do is jump in and kill stuff, the base classes are not too difficult to figure out how to use. Limited kits require some reading of the docs .. SLs are slightly more complex and the CMDR role is becoming quite complex.

I don't agree at all that adding JUST realistic weapons into BF2 would make an adequate realism mod. The underlying fundamentals in BF2 are designed around a frag festing arcade experience. Those don't work for a realism dynamic and the stuff we put into PR is our way of addressing that. Not everybody is gonna like it and there will certainly be issues and tweaks needed.

[Wolfe]

edited...

had some questions that were answered above; thanks for the detailed response. Hopefully it will all work out.