And not much to do as commander in an insurgency map???!!!
Disagree completely. Had an absolutely amazing round on korengal on Saturday, and it was all because we had a great Taliban commander that relayed information, set waypoints, called contacts, moved squads to reinforce areas that were under heavy attack, setup ambush kill areas, setup groups overwatching each other, retaliated against the enemy FOB's with mortar attacks, and got squads organized with a medic in each to ensure minimum loss of life and intelligence.
Commanding in PR v0.85 is very enjoyable for me so far, but you have to be in the right mindset.
Heres is a ss from a round on Ramiel, where I played as CO. It was a really fun round for me and I thank all the squad leaders under my command.
All squad movements (except squad 7) were 100% under my control. I got situation reports from all these squad leaders so I constantly knew the situation on the ground. I had complete support from the air units, which ran recon and also covered the flanks of the team when they were engaged in a fight. Blackhawk support dropped off any squad members that got seperated from the convoy. I worked together with my squad leaders to plan each attack route to the various cache locations, and usually after a successful mission I recalled the platoon back to rearm . This is all very possible on a public server with the current tools we have supplied the CO, you just have to find willing squad leaders who want to play in this way.
I've commanded about 5 rounds in v0.85 and each one has been very interesting and rewarding, I recommend giving it a try when you see squad leaders that you know are willing to listen and coordinate. Without willing squad leaders though, it can be too frustrating especially for your first time.
Again, I think the role definitely needs improvements and refinements, but to say its useless/unwanted is definitely a close-minded and jaded opinion, and is ignoring all the times where players have been great commanders and affected the mission outcome by a huge margin. I have seen myself and other players take the CO role and turn PR into a much more coordinated game because of it.
The v0.6 PR had commanders a lot more often, but it was extremely rare for them to actually coordinate and COMMAND the team. They were usually simply building workers and JDAM deployers, not really affecting the coordination of the team in any significant way. Now we have a lot less commanders, but the times that one does step in, and knows how to do it right will usually bring amazing gameplay to it. The key thing we need to improve on is getting new CO's to step up and making the role interesting for those first timers, so that we can see experienced commanders more often.
Look to the Tactical Gamer and other veteran communities for a glimpse at how commander can be used to affect the gameplay. Get together with the regulars of your server that regularly squad lead, and coordinate a time to all be on teamspeak/the server together and STEP UP AND LEAD instead of complaining that the role is useless. Its the player and communication that make the role useful, no matter how many goodies and extras you give the CO in the end that dont mean shit unless the CO is organised, disciplined, and has a clear plan and objective with the support of his men.
