Project Reality Forums

Murphy wrote:There are enough TKs with friendlies on the map, please for the love of sanity don't mess with the maps!

Wow, and maybe we should give the minimap back because of that? Having a live map is so goddamn arcade and is in my opinion the reason why commander isn't used.

Even if we remove the actual map system I think would suck to be 2 hours per map behind a map sitting on the main, once might be cool, but imagine 3 maps in a roll, no one can possible like commading that much and we surely would run out of commanders because its just not as fun as infantry or armor. IMHO of course.

You guys that say a CO is irrelevant are interpreting the factors relating to his lack of use incorrectly and are undervaluing what a single voice focused 100% on organizing a battle can do. SLs can do fine coordinating a team on mumble but they aren't going to be as good as a CO with just as much organizational skill because of a number of factors.

Firstly a CO is a centre to send intel to and who can process with a global pov while an SL may not see the significance of a single contact report. A CO can inquire about more detail on intel or use his UAV to see things that a map contact doesn't tell you.

Also, SLs tend to be very brash and aggressive. They like to advance and keep their guys happy and think they can do a lot more than what a CO might think is actually useful to the team. Optional orders versus instantaneous dissemination of a series of orders which dovetail together to fit into a single team strategy are something that a CO will always be able to do better.

Examples of incompetent COs and servers that don't enforce the rule of the CO are not reasons to say the CO is useless. Might as well say that seeing a bad SL means we should just have squads run by consensus.

CO being boring to you is also pointless. Winning is boring sometimes. If some of us enjoy the thrill of organizing a team, getting prompted on voip regularly for intel or orders or support then it just means its not for you. All you need is 2 people out of 64 who want to do it. You need 12 or 14 guys who want to SL out of 64 to make a team work. Some people hate SLing.

Who needs to give the CO toys to make his job more fun? The toys just distract him from his true purpose by either confusing his role or by distracting him with playing with his toys. A CO is a brain that tells all the other brains below him what to do to win. You can get by without one but when you have a good one (just like when you have a good SL) it changes everything about how a round plays out.

If admins on more than just a few servers made COs into the god's they ought to be (with the right safeguards against tard COs) then game quality would go up dramatically on average. Fewer headless teams running around because while SLs in mumble can get the job done what happens if none of them steps up to try and organize each other? What if they're just too busy to? Usually these are the fail rounds that ruin so much of PR for many people.

Funk, make a server where there is always a CO. And stop pointing the finger at the server admins, if its not fun. Its not going to happen.

FUN Factor!

I love coordinating teams, i hate coordinating after ive clicked the apply button. Its boring. I love mumble cause its easy to communicate with other SLs.

The CO has no power, unless given by the admins. Therefor, it is the intention of the developers that the CO role isnt important.

Unless the Developers gives the CO powers, he cant do much unless he owns the server, or is a really patient and well know person.

Screw all the ideas soruounding "how" to lead, or what is fun when being a CO. Cause it doesnt require you to be in the CO position ingame.

By the way Murphy, how do you imagine lonewolfing without a map? Or trying to hunt down caches as an infantry squad working without commander, without anything marked on the map?

I like the idea of changing up map. Removing livefeed on friendly positions and have commander setting "blue markers". But it needs a commander to work and I dread the amount of tk's that would occur initially. Think many players have trouble with weapons-discipline as is. However, after a while the larger playerbase will adapt, as we always seem to do =)

Wicca is spot on on fun-factor (from here on FF). Think thats been pretty much the conclusion in earlier threads on subject aswell.

I've mentioned variants before of what I'm about to write. To increase FF I believe the way to go is by increasing CO's workload. A way to accomplish this would be to make the commanders apc drivable by him.

Point with this would be that with it he can deploy a fob on steriods with it. Extra goodies that a regular fob dont have. E.g: fixed repairstation (like the one trucks drop) but don't run out, a fixed supplycrate, guardtowers with MG's and sandbagwall-segments etc. Plus the usual stuff ofc.

This position would also be ideal for setting up mortars in good cover and using fixed crate for ammo. Not having several crates ensure mortars not spamming all round by default. It can be done though, the same as now, if extra ammocrates are supplied.

So here we have a commander with his UAV and mortarsquad, also serving as fob security.
The teams true frontline base. The frontline commander is ensured to have stuff to do. Fun stuff

The Command OutPost (COP) should not be restricted by proximity to another FOB for building. AAS If destroyed, should not be easy, commander can still function from main.

For the fighting commanders; give him a colt 1911 (base security), Mel Gibson would not have wanted it in any other way...hehe.
I do not mind a fighting commander as long as he stays focused on his task, i.e leading the team properly. If he dies due to reckless charging, he failed leading in my book. Seeing a commander with binocs in the field barking orders, is a more reasuring sight then the sight of him charging in with the rifle.

I believe that many servers have competent enough admins to make it all run smoothly if we wanted to. We can admin those who refuse to follow aswell as an abusive commmander if need be.

I think that in general, players are afraid of changes. I say: lets try some new stuff out. It don't work, we go back and/or evolve to better things. trial and error, the only way progress is made

All of these quite long posts view the commander in a public server.

Need I remind you that commanding in a pub game takes an enormous effort with very little, to no gain. People can't, or don't want to listen to the CO because they want some fun time with their clanmates/friends.

Lugi wrote:By the way Murphy, how do you imagine lonewolfing without a map?

It ain't really the meaning of this game.

how it is now only the really dedicated commanders can get the job done better than SL's....

and the reasons for this are plenty as already explained.

removing the live feed for the foot soldiers.....possibly having scout helicopters (the co-pilot in the kiowa) or scout humwees that when your not the gunner or driver then you got a command seat that enables you to see live feed of friendly's. (cough..... Generation kill) "cough".

I use the mini-map as a grunt soldier ALL the time....and im able to know that whoever pop his head around the corner is enemy before I get to the corner....and that isnt really realistic.... it would be more fun that I had to double check and figure out if I should shoot or not.

Team kills would go up perhaps....but eventually it would drop again like it has done in the progression of PR mod.

I dream about the "Armored Command Vehicle" being mobile and useful in the battlefield.

Anyone else think the marker delay for commander is kinda useless? As trooper909 already mentioned a commander is slower at placing markers than a SL because SL has no marker delay, but commander does. This makes it difficult for a commander to track mobile enemy assets because after they change their location commander will have to a) remove first marker b) wait for the delay, it is what 30 seconds? c) and then place a new marker, just imagine doing this for up to three enemy assets. Also there is little point in having that delay, even in real world, it doesn't take 30 seconds for a message to get through. I would suggest reducing marker delay to none or to three seconds.

Regarding mumble usage of the commander. A lot of people seem to be fond of the idea that commander speaking to SL channel on mumble is good for the team. In fact it is almost never good. Commander should be on SL channel but commander has a better way to speaking to squads, called in-game VOIP. In in-game VOIP commander can choose to which SL's to speak to. In fact I can think only two possible situations where commander should speak to SL channel: a) The person who cmdr is speaking to is NOT an SL b) The person who cmdr is speaking to has muted in-game VOIP.

Hoxzer wrote:Anyone else think the marker delay for commander is kinda useless? As trooper909 already mentioned a commander is slower at placing markers than a SL because SL has no marker delay, but commander does. This makes it difficult for a commander to track mobile enemy assets because after they change their location commander will have to a) remove first marker b) wait for the delay, it is what 30 seconds? c) and then place a new marker, just imagine doing this for up to three enemy assets. Also there is little point in having that delay, even in real world, it doesn't take 30 seconds for a message to get through. I would suggest reducing marker delay to none or to three seconds.

Its even worse than you think..the delay is 60 sec (1min) it was introduced because of annoying commanders painting ducks and worse things than that on the map for fun, and possibly also to imitate the time it takes to relay the communication.

A squad leader can place 2 markers on the map instantly but max 2 at a time, but it enables him to "update" his targets very fast where as the it takes the commander 1 EXTRA min to erase...misplaced...or no longer valid markers.

the commander can place unlimited markers but 1 min apart

Can ADframework be made so that CO get !resign command?

Many SL disregard and ignore orders even on good TW servers. SL also dont use the CO, reporting contacts etc. This leads to a wide gap between CO and SL awareness, with the end result that the SL is in a better posistion to assess the situation. However some SL just to unusefull things. Also CO dosn't have the squad-layout he needs. No logi squad, a sniper squad, a 6 man CAS squad etc. Having CO requesting (some?) assets would be good, and could help on the situation.

CO must be in the field, not to shoot, but to get situation awareness. Give CO his own reseved way of transport. He should be able to use the UAV from anywhere, and all the time or most of it anyway. Restrict lasing posibilities if needed to keep it ballanced. The UAV is not THAT helpful, sure you can see some, but it's hard to really get that message accross to your squads fast enough and accurate enough. Reinable vBF2 auto spoting in UAV maybe? Also reduce traveling times.

CO rally should not require more then 4 people close to you, or increase the radius. I've had 12 men with me as CO and had huge problems getting them close enough to eachother just to place it. CO rally should instantly reaload.

sgt. Mahi hits the mark on page 1,
I had almost forgotten it but back in the day you'd often have constructing commanders, fellows who spent the whole round building up FOB's, bunkers and the like. of course they could only lay the foundations but there was always one squad which would help build up those assets. construction markers where holy, and commanders generally respected. Perhaps the fact that deployables were new then was of influence as well.

LieutenantNessie wrote:It ain't really the meaning of this game.

Tell it to them lonewolfs.

Again you cannot force people into obedience on public servers.

Lugi wrote:By the way Murphy, how do you imagine lonewolfing without a map?

Wrong game buddy.

The commander role is a tool which has been neutered.. not because of developer changes but because of the community attitude about the commander role. Powers..?
You could give the commander a fricken sniper rifle in the UAV and up the participation.. but that player contributes zero to the game.

TheComedian wrote:Again you cannot force people into obedience on public servers.

But you can easily make disobedience a lot harder by this simple change.

Gorkounov wrote:Wrong game buddy.

I wouldn't say so, as you can play vanilla style arcade shooter lonewolf and still inflict a lot of casualties to the enemy.

When I command i just set up my chair in a building and pull out the peeping tom glasses. All goes according to plan, I coordinate and have squads do my dirty work and annihilate/counter ambush the enemy. Mission successful as Ice Cube said in Triple X.

Gracler wrote:Giving the SL a topographical map with only the information they "place" themselves is definitely interesting. The commander has the live view of his troops and he can highlight objectives for the SL he chose....

gets a bit complicated on how it could ever be made and if it would work.....but i think that commanders will come from all directions if the guy playing commander actually feels like a necessary asset.....not just a guy with a few different skills than the SL.

Right now commander is like the rifleman anti-personel kit..... its there....but no one really needs it.

This I like.

Murphy wrote:There are enough TKs with friendlies on the map, please for the love of sanity don't mess with the maps!

I do thinking finding a perk to give would-be commanders a desire to lead would be a great solution, just not at the cost of the average grunts situational awareness.

The average grunt needs to learn to think on his feet and memorize camo. As well as differentiate what his team is wearing compared to the enemy team. Discern details.

Mellanbror wrote:I've mentioned variants before of what I'm about to write. To increase FF I believe the way to go is by increasing CO's workload. A way to accomplish this would be to make the commanders apc drivable by him.

The job is hard enough as is, driving the APC would make commanding moot. I'd rather be in my lounge chair 5000 commanding with my PTG's than driving an APC onto a hill and becoming a huge loud target. Removing the live feed maps would be a much better solution as to give the commander his job back.

Lugi wrote:I wouldn't say so, as you can play vanilla style arcade shooter lonewolf and still inflict a lot of casualties to the enemy.

Casualties are only a minuscule part of the battle. They don't do much either if your team is getting torn to shreds while your poking around in someones backyard for your own gain.

SGT.Ice wrote:Casualties are only a minuscule part of the battle. They don't do much either if your team is getting torn to shreds while your poking around in someones backyard for your own gain.

In RL, but not in PR. Killing the enemy is the main target here.