Making People Want to be Commander

[GreedoNeverShot]

I used the search button, came up with nothing...

-Let me set the scene
"Someone be Commander! We need CO... Commander! CO someone!" how many times have you gotten on to a server and no one is commander... well for me, a lot. I always end up having to be the Commander, we get a noob Commander, or there is no commander.

Think of why people would want to be commander...
1. Order people around who don't take your orders 50% of the time (either because they are lone wolfs or not fluent in move marker/Voip language)
2. Place Assets that SL's can build anyway (with a page up from you)
3. Get Officer kit (SL's can do that too)
4. UAV, arty, vehicle drop, ..... oh wait!
5. Drive Command trucks (SL can do that too...)
6. You get little combat at main/not frontline (oh wait thats a con)
7. uhhhh.......

I say we need to give the CO more power or control over the situation, I believe... so... thoughts? suggestions on how we can do that?

Suggestions

Squad Rewards (more ammo, less spawn time, exceed kit limitations in squad, etc.)
Supply Crates
Bringing UAV's back (controlled by player)
Punishing SL's
Mortar Barrage (smaller arty)
Approving and allocating kits
Special Commander kit
Commanders allocating vehicles
System designed with squads that support the commander
Commander as "SL" of command or logistics squad

[Waaah_Wah]

Lets just wait for 0.8

[cyberzomby]

Yea word is the CO is gettin a revamp in .8

Im with you on this one though. Today I was CO on Kuffrah and even a squad with 2 devs in it didnt listen to me

[Tuscan]

>Yea word is the CO is gettin a revamp in .8

The threads I have read on 0.8 have hinted Squad leaders will gain powers (can put down bunkers without a CO) making a CO even less necessary! I think CO is a great idea but definitely needs more powers to make it attractive. Hopefully 0.8 will have a few nice CO surprises.

[chimpyang]

Other reasons not to be commander:

Incompetent SL's who are miles away with the whole of their squad AND think they know better (including refusing the polite offer of a chopper extration and relocation). Their effect is countered by the good SL's who may not agree with what you just asked them to do, but give adequate and sound reasoning based on sitrep to WHY they are doing what they are doing.

Abuse from random squads when you ask them to merge.

The only real benefit is that in lieu of TS/Vent, it facilitates the co-ordiantion between SL's and armour/air/inf elements of the tema without having to resort to chat (which can prove the difference between getting hit by the tank you've just seen and not doing so) I think they're more or less crippling the CO kit in future and to use a Nu-Labour spin word: "enabling" the SL's.

[Tuscan]

>I think they're more or less crippling the CO kit in future

I REALLY hope not ..... I think that would be dumbing down PR and very sad. However too early to tell.

[DavidP]

You know what I think CO needs? The ability to punish Squad Leaders and their Squad Members.

[M.Warren]

I heard vaguely at some point that the Commander isn't needed to deploy bunkers and firebases. Apparently squad leaders can deploy it themselves if need be. Alternatively if a Commander is present they would have to request a build order to be authorized.

So much for teamwork. Personally If no one wants to go Commander then I feel the team should suffer like it is already. Point of a Commander is to overwatch the battle and designate squads to perform certain duties.

Besides, you know how many times I've had to drill a point of logic and tactical value into certain people's heads? I can assure you, there are a number of faulty Squad Leaders out there.

For example:
<Note: Taken from a situation on "Fool's Road" on the British team while an SL attempted to put up a Bunker in Warehouse.>

Squad Leader - "Commander, can I deploy a bunker at Warehouse?"
Commander - "Negative, I'm not allowing you to establish a bunker in that area."
Squad Leader - "Why not?! We need a bunker to defend!"

Reason why this makes sense?

1. A Bunker cannot be deployed in a safe location within 100m of Warehouse.
2. A Bunker should not be deployed in the Warehouse flagzone because it's in a depression/low lying area.
3. A Bunker should not be deployed in the Warehouse flagzone because the spawning soldiers cannot easily travel the area because of steep geography.
4. A Bunker should not be deployed in the Warehouse flagzone because it's encompassed by an elevated position that enemies can fire down from.
5. A Bunker may/will be spawncamped by RPG's and Grenadiers.
6. A Bunker should not be deployed in the Warehouse flagzone, BECAUSE IT HAS NO TACTICAL VALUE. Set up a Firebase nearby instead and tell the SL's to establish Rally Points to perform a defensive manuver and stop relying on a hard spawn point.

I decided to leave it be before I pissed off the guy on VOIP.

Anyways, to best describe this situation...


Also, I can't help but say that I'm personnally annoyed at whoever removed the kill indicators from the scoreboard for Commanders. A kill is a kill, is a kill. Although you shouldn't be awarded any points for it as that is all derived from teamwork, but it still can deny the enemy tickets in the end. Even as a Commander, I personally go out into the field and deploy my own Bunkers and Firebases which may even require me to defend them at times with my squad leaders and thier members.

If a Commander is running around primarily just shooting people like an infantryman, that's up to the server administration to kick/ban him. Like while playing at Tactical Gamers, this would be considered "Not following/performing Commander or Squad Leader duties.".

On another note... As time goes on we have lost some of our most intresting concepts. Such as requesting kits at Supply Crates. There used to be alot more thinking involved and caused the players to be more resourceful. After a heated firefight and I was low on ammo, I remember the days of being able to go up to a vehicle wreck in v0.6 and pulling clips out of it. Many, many, many good ideas that have been turned to trash because of unsavory players HAT sniping all over the place. Oh well, I guess all we have left of Project Reality now is to reminisce of patches some time ago.

Personally I think the Air Dropped Supply Crate should make a return. This would help Snipers and Spec Ops perform thier duties. A 30 minute wait timer would be acceptable, this would allow players a optional resource to consider. Can't help but say that the buzzing sound of a propeller plane flying overhead and fading in the distance as you waited 5 minutes for the Air Dropped Supply Crate to touch down.

Even mentioned using the Command Post as the UAV trailer again. Where a player could actually get into the CP and fly the UAV itself and spot targets manually. But that's another story.

[Masaq]

...


Also, I can't help but say that I'm personnally annoyed at whoever removed the kill indicators from the scoreboard for Commanders. A kill is a kill, is a kill. Although you shouldn't be awarded any points for it as that is all derived from teamwork, but it still can deny the enemy tickets in the end. Even as a Commander, I personally go out into the field and deploy my own Bunkers and Firebases which may even require me to defend them at times with my squad leaders and thier members.

...

On another note... As time goes on we have lost some of our most intresting concepts. Such as requesting kits at Supply Crates. There used to be alot more thinking involved and caused the players to be more resourceful. After a heated firefight and I was low on ammo, I remember the days of being able to go up to a vehicle wreck in v0.6 and pulling clips out of it. Many, many, many good ideas that have been turned to trash because of unsavory players HAT sniping all over the place. Oh well, I guess all we have left of Project Reality now is to reminisce of patches some time ago.

...

Personally I think the Air Dropped Supply Crate should make a return. This would help Snipers and Spec Ops perform thier duties. A 30 minute wait timer would be acceptable, this would allow players a optional resource to consider. Can't help but say that the buzzing sound of a propeller plane flying overhead and fading in the distance as you waited 5 minutes for the Air Dropped Supply Crate to touch down.

...

Commanders shouldn't be out there killing people. Your K :d ratio is of no concern to anyone. If you kill someone that's great, but it shouldn't be to rack up more points for killing.

/

Why is requesting a kit from a crate an "interesting concept"?! Taking them from a FOB, yeah. That makes sense. From an ammo box? No, that doesn't.

Likewise, why do you think it's a good idea to get ammo from wrecked vehicles? That was a bug! If a hummer is so burnt it's a charred wreck out why on earth should you be able to get ammo out of the back?!

/


Point and click airdrop supplies? Why oh why when you can have a real, human-controlled pilot fly one in for you?!


I'm sorry but saying that all that's left of Project Reality is memories of past versions is both disrespectful and just plain foolish when the current (and next) version of PR offer a much more refined, teamwork-orientated and tactical version of the game.

[EOD_Security-2252]

The JDAM is sort of an incentive, but 1 hour is a bit long to wait for that nice little treat.

[GreedoNeverShot]

No offense to the JDAM creator. but it is useless. Along with several other things, the kill radius is just tiny.

[Spec]

JDAM needs to go through statics (maybe doable by "toxic" dust effects).

[Longshot100]

There's the old adage about getting more flies with honey than with a stick. I don't personally feel that giving CO's a 'punish' type ability would do anything more than piss people off and have folks be -less- inclined to follow orders. Contrarily, if the CO were able to reward people for following orders with some tangible effects, I think people would be a lot more inclined to follow 'orders'. Some ideas of that would be:
Take a tick or two off of that squads respawn time
Maybe allow the squad to exceed normal kit or ammo limitations in some small way. Hey, if you're workin' for the boss and he tells supply to give you more, chances are they'll do it!

I'm sure people would yell about abuse if someone hopped in and started handing out CO goody bags to everyone on the server, but if there's an associated ticket cost, that'd probably even out. The basic end result is to permit the CO to help out the squads that are 'helping' him in his battle plan.

[EOD_Security-2252]

Maybe points could be given to an SL and squad members when they get congradulated by the CO, so he actually congradulates them. Say, SL gets 5 Teamwork points and squadmembers get 2 whenever CO uses the "Good work squad" on that squad. It has real potential to get abused though, maybe make some sort of limiting thing where a squad can only get congradulated once every 2-3 minutes.

[gclark03]

Commanders shouldn't be out there killing people. Your K :d ratio is of no concern to anyone. If you kill someone that's great, but it shouldn't be to rack up more points for killing.

How can anyone think that the Commander does not deserve to keep track of his kills? Yes, he shouldn't be killing anything, but the Commander should still have the right to the same kill-tracking ability as his subordinates, even if he receives no points for the kill.

Also, the Commander's K : D ratio is of concern to someone: the CO himself. I just don't see why any time was wasted in disabling the CO's kill count, regardless of how irrelevant it is.

Isn't the scoreboard being crippled in 0.8 anyway?

[Bringerof_D]

give the choppers's suply crates a parachute and i'll agree with Masaque, but without that parachute i'll hafta agree with warren.

and no explosions dont turn vehichles into chared scrap metal, i dont know why the game makes it that way though. but yes a dead vechichle can still have things inside,(911 reference) just cause the the building fell and burned down doesnt mean the paper didnt make it out. its perfectly logical to find usable equipment off of old destroyed vehichles, if your car exploded i'm sure i can still find your house keys and they'ed work just fine. concidering bullets are stored in near invincible metal boxes and are not fragile, thin wired, electronic devices that can be shaken to peices i'm pretty sure that they'll survive a small explosion.

[General Dragosh]

give the choppers's suply crates a parachute and i'll agree with Masaque, but without that parachute i'll hafta agree with warren.

Yep, warren has a point... too bad that the crates have no chute supply box

[nathanator8811]

CO'ing can go one of two ways, and there is no middle ground: either it will be the most rewarding experience you will find in PR, or you will vow to never do it again. And it all has to do with your ability to communicate your plans/rationale, know good advice when you hear it, and having at least two competent infantry squads (more is better though).

Players are hard-coded; giving the punish ability to the commander would be a mixed feature at best. It wouldn't add anything positive and would be subject to abuse by tard commanders. And those SLs/squads which would care about being punished are probably already cooperating.

Something needs changing, but I don't think that particular path would be the way to go.
My $0.02

[Longshot100]

Players are hard-coded; giving the punish ability to the commander would be a mixed feature at best. It wouldn't add anything positive and would be subject to abuse by tard commanders. And those SLs/squads which would care about being punished are probably already cooperating.

My $0.02

I agree punishing won't solve the issue. While you're right, the folks who normally are doing the teamwork thing would already be cooperating, I feel that an incentive might bring the tards to a more manageable level (Oooh shiny CO benefits!) and whether or not the better squads care if they spawn 5 seconds faster or not wouldn't matter.

[cyberzomby]

Not really the subject in this thread anymore but I would like to say this on Squadleaders being able to deploy bunkers and firebases.

I knew of this also. But I saw a DEV say in a similar thread a while ago: Just wait for .8 So I really think ( but also hope! ) The CO will get some new gameplay or features. Because if the squadleaders will be able to deploy them we will see even less CO's
( And I know that when theres a CO they wont be able, but other than communications, what is there to do when theres no CO )