Project Reality Forums

{UK}Suzeran wrote:.no one likes to sit behind a computer ,sitting behind a computer

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Looks fun

.............^LOL^.............

Spilt the Area Attack (arty and mortars) in to around 3 smaller strikes consisting of around 3 rounds.
Have them warm up 5 minutes after eachother, the first at 20mins.
3) Augment 2) to mortars and arty, 2 of mortars, 1 of arty. mortars = 5 rounds each, arty = 3. Mortars have a wider area of effect, but that also means less chance of hitting what you wanted. Arty is more precise and thefore armour becomes a target for it.

i wouldnt call it spammy tbh and it will heavily affect team tactics and strategy
this will lessen amount of "camping" you stay static on one position- you get wiped out by arty\mortars, just like irl

Also on Insurgency it would end up being the main destroyer of caches unless that gets fixed

agreed here, i will personally like if caches would be destroyable only by incendaries, this will also prevent HAT spamming

Engineer wrote:If the strikes are called in by lazing the target, and not by vanilla style 'click anywhere', I dont see any problems if the caches ( not sure if this fitts for insurgency ) or firebases being destroyed by straight impact.

I think someone mentioned about incremental support system, I liked the idea.
More you wait, more devastating strike is available. Tho' it sound's a bit complicated to code...

fair enough
and if you waited for 3 hours you get this and whole kashan rests in smoke

Michael_Denmark wrote:Your wrong - I like it.

I like playing CO off-screen as well, but so far only when commanding static defense, since the mobile stuff (off-screen) is too complex to follow (to me at least).


For the radio operator - no thanks, there must be a commander to destroy this narrow-minded, immature, non-sensible, non-creative, non-body-creating, non-killing-machine-creating opportunistic squad leader culture.

Squad Leader Rework please.

I second that. The problem is not the toys but the personel. More JDAMs et cetera will not improve the quality of CO-SL interaction, nor the quality of the CO positions itself. That can be only done by giving him more options to choose from, i.e. by map design or the suggestions I have put down below.

Of course the commanders assets should be tweaked depending on the map - and they are, for all team assets are actually commanders assets, and he is the one who decides on how to invest them. This is a very ideal point of view I am discussing here - but that is what Joe Squadleader has to understand. If the CO is a country jokel... well, that is another story and problem. But for now, lets just remember that Joe Squadleader has to organize his squad so it can be utilized by the commander. That is one of his premiere - and most difficult - tasks.

As for Rambo Commanders fighting with their troops: I would not manage to do that, it is simply to much to organize. And if I am not trying to re-organize, organize, help out the team, I use the spare "silent" time to think about on what to do next with the current situation.

While the information is currently relayed by the team and thus not directly accessible by the commander, I would suggest to give him more tools to evaluate the situation the team is in. Three things come to my mind, and all three have been proposed before:

a) Information on Asset spawning times in a short list.

b) Detailed topographic maps as a second map display options, as proposed in this topic. That would give the commander a much better knowledge over the terrain and thus a better guess where to send his heavy assets and where to put his FBs. Of course, satellite/topographical hybrid maps would do fine as well.

c) the release of assets / control of asset spawning, and even, if possible, the choice of the asset type or asset set to spawn. Is this possible at all with the current engine?

Ergo: The more choices the commander has to make, the more interesting his position will become. Those who want be in the field should play in the Squad Leader outfit. In the Commanders chair, Your are supposed to give out directives and orders, and watch how they are executed.. from a safe distance.

Of course, to give the commander the possibility of putting a battle plan into motion he needs active, communicating squadleaders. And here we are again, at the beginning of my post.


Gibbon-6


p.s.: Thanks, Mike, for giving out this communication hint. I read some guides here in the forums, but I can not remember having seen that statement. The use of a simple "Squad 5 here, over" type of CO-SL communication protocol when not having a devilish pressing need would help the CO to organize his communication much more effectively and reduce the terrible traffic that sometimes allmost overhelms the CO. This should go into the Squad leader manual, if there is one.

p.p.s.: What is the impact of Mumble on CO-SL communications?

Hi Engineer,

thanks for Your reply. And You are right, the topic has probably been discussed to death. Is there a chance You could You point me to the forum threads? I am curious if it was a technical or a game design decision not to introduce these changes.

wuschel wrote:More JDAMs et cetera will not improve the quality of CO-SL interaction, nor the quality of the CO positions itself.

Engineer wrote: It would make Commander position more wanted one, because you could actually do something for the team. In Project Teamwork there has to be a link between squads and commander, now it does not exist. [...]

Engineer wrote:I see the way is to add more explosions... But does PR want such commander? Does PR want a commander?

I absolutely disagree with Your statement. Currently, the CO does contribute to the team. However, the best result he can achieves is, in a way, pre-defined by his hard-coded squadleaders and squadmembers, as they are the most important assets.

Again, (in my humble opinion,) if I want to get into some shooting or bombing, I take a rifle, a tank or a jet. The CO position is different in its very nature: It is about strategy, about guiding Your team in an offensive or defensive operation. It is the squadleaders job to win the battle and make advantegous moves against the enemy.

Lets go back to our ideal situation, in which the commander has the ideal team to his displosal: Responsive, active, communicative, like i.e. in a community event.
Like You have asked, do You really want to be a commander that can make some arrows on the map and bomb something from time to time? Is this really going to change the gameplay of this particular player position to an extent that everyone is going to have a run to the commanders sofa?

And it is exactly here where I think this has to be tweaked. After map X has been replayed dozens of times, it is clear even to the most strategically uneducated player where the crucial positions and moments of this map are. The trick is to give the CO more choices to make. That could be

- random flags

- control over asset spawn

- better information pool (asset spawn times, topographical map, UAV)

- diverse set of artillery: smoke screen

- working CONTACT report

- more defined round goals (i.e. one offensive/defensive team, Insurgency, etc), bound to multiple options on how to approach an objective --> Map & game mode design.

Engineer wrote:CO-SL interaction, what do you mean by it?

The nature of CO-SL interaction and the style of leading. How much tactics are discussed, how much strategy. Is it more of a coordinating, or a commanding type of information flow? What does MUMBLE do here? But maybe, this should be a seperate topic, so lets go back to Your statement.

Engineer wrote: Commander can already speak to individual squad leaders, and all squads together. I think this is already a somewhat perfect situation in voice communications. However, what the CO is lacking is intel of enemy positions and providing it to units fighting his war, and also real tools to help squads to succeed in their tasks. Now he has a pen to draw arrows with.

Yes, in a way You are right. He is lacking direct influence over the battlefield. What I am lobbying now for is not going to change this. I rather want more indirect tools to spice up this position ( see also: above ).

Engineer wrote:If a commander that has a sole purpose to communicate with squads would really work, we'd see a CO every round and maps filled with true intel on enemy positions. But guess what, we dont. Why? It's probably been explained over and over again in this thread, CO role is not sexy. CO role doesn't give you anything, it just takes everything away.

I disagree here. If You had a superresponsive team every round, You would go for commander more often. Right now, I mostly jump into the CO seat to avoid that my team gets steamrolled. And, while not beeing a superb CO, I often find myself able to stabilize the situation and, sometimes, roll back the enemy. The teamplay performance often improves dramatically, as well as the number of cohesive squads. Given a good day, the orders I give out happen to be quite good and we kick some hostile ***. But even then winning is an entirely different matter, as it heavily depends on Your team members and their use of team assets.

You see, while the is a squad leading culture in the game that dictates how to handle Your squadmates, there is no way to deal with rogue squad leaders on a public server. You can not kick a squad leader out of the team, but You have to beg to do what You say or ignore him. Most people do not realize the teams potential with a commander, or they have been exposed to many uncompetent ones. However, note that it takes even longer to grow into this position then it does leading a squad. The amount of communication, terrain awareness, tactical positions, strategic decicions (ticket cound vs objective) is huge. You need to get some bad rounds in order to get the grip. I.e. on the TG Server, You better have a good commander in the container, for the CO orders have to be followed: With a bad CO, Your team performance will get some bad statistics.

Engineer wrote:Things you suggested are nice and most of them have been discussed to death. But those alone would not make anyone to take commander seat.

Yes, and no. It would be much more interesting to have these things in the CO container. There is only a small amount of dedicated squadleaders. This applies to commanders as well: Not everyone is suitable for that job from day one. While some guys are lucky gold handed leaders, other need to grow into the job.
Every CO will have a bad day when every single of his squad leaders does not have an officers kit - but we are speaking about an ideal situation here, in which commanding is fun for those who like the strategic aspect of the game. No need for artillery coordinators.

Don't make the CO position another SL position, but widen its strategic possibilites. Since I am not informed about the limiations of the game engine and modding possibilites, I do not know how and must give blind suggestions.

The key elements of the CO positions are a) information flow and b) control of his assets, indirectly through orders [or possibly through "spawn control"]. Both aspects can be improved, as suggested before.

These are the technical additions I would add to the CO. As for game play / game culture additions, I would opt to make CO orders mandatory to follow. Maybe a vote on this topic would be good?


Maybe an R-DEV/R-CON could comment on the status of suggestions or ideas on this topic or previous discussions?





Yours,

Gibbon-6

Bump to point any R-DEV or R-MOD to my questions..

Squad Leader culture

Hits the nail on the head. I dislike it how SLs can be little dictators by demanding their SMs to follow his orders or be kicked while at the same time not recognizing the superiority of the CO.

And I definitely do not need a CO who gets in the chair because he likes to drop artillery.