Marker Cooldown Facedesking
Posted: 2009-09-07 13:02
Hey folks. Long time lurker here, been loving this mod since v5.
SO, the commander obviously got a lot of changes this patch. The UAV? Awesome. Loving the hell out of it. I play Commander a LOT, but only now am I having real problems with doing any kind of respectable job in the role.
I gotta say, the new marker cooldowns have made it really hard to be any kind of good provider of intel. I keep a lot of VComms going with my SLs, and I get a lot more than 1 report per couple of minutes. Still, this limit doesn't hurt TOO much...I can memorize a location and wait for a marker opportunity without too much trouble, it's a pain in the ***, but it IS do-able... until you factor in the cooldown resetting when DELETING a marker.
I keep a clean map, only showing markers that are either only a couple minutes old, or still being confirmed by SLs engaging those elements. The cooldown seems to actively punish me for doing this, extending my time between proper single markings to up to two and a half minutes if reports come in outside of the 'window' (which happens a majority of the time). Intel starts to pile up, and is already way out of date and useless by the time I do get it up there. I've honestly already stopped flying the UAV, since I cannot adequately set markers that SLs are reporting, much less squeeze in any intel I get with the nice new toy.
With all that in mind, I've stopped running Commander, and instead watched how others have adapted to the changes. While the SLs I've run around with do complain some that the CO isn't listening to their sightings, the biggest effect of this change I've seen so far is that COs are simply not removing markers. Red icons clutter the map and cannot be relied upon in any way. While not checking my map as I go about infantry duties does make my round a little more streamlined, I sure do get wasted by stationary armor that another squad knew about a lot more often...
Are others seeing the same results? Is there a technique to get around this crippling bottleneck that I'm not thinking of? I can see reasons for the timer existing to prevent asshat COs who spam and lag things, but could removing it for marker deletion at least be an option?
SO, the commander obviously got a lot of changes this patch. The UAV? Awesome. Loving the hell out of it. I play Commander a LOT, but only now am I having real problems with doing any kind of respectable job in the role.
I gotta say, the new marker cooldowns have made it really hard to be any kind of good provider of intel. I keep a lot of VComms going with my SLs, and I get a lot more than 1 report per couple of minutes. Still, this limit doesn't hurt TOO much...I can memorize a location and wait for a marker opportunity without too much trouble, it's a pain in the ***, but it IS do-able... until you factor in the cooldown resetting when DELETING a marker.
I keep a clean map, only showing markers that are either only a couple minutes old, or still being confirmed by SLs engaging those elements. The cooldown seems to actively punish me for doing this, extending my time between proper single markings to up to two and a half minutes if reports come in outside of the 'window' (which happens a majority of the time). Intel starts to pile up, and is already way out of date and useless by the time I do get it up there. I've honestly already stopped flying the UAV, since I cannot adequately set markers that SLs are reporting, much less squeeze in any intel I get with the nice new toy.
With all that in mind, I've stopped running Commander, and instead watched how others have adapted to the changes. While the SLs I've run around with do complain some that the CO isn't listening to their sightings, the biggest effect of this change I've seen so far is that COs are simply not removing markers. Red icons clutter the map and cannot be relied upon in any way. While not checking my map as I go about infantry duties does make my round a little more streamlined, I sure do get wasted by stationary armor that another squad knew about a lot more often...
Are others seeing the same results? Is there a technique to get around this crippling bottleneck that I'm not thinking of? I can see reasons for the timer existing to prevent asshat COs who spam and lag things, but could removing it for marker deletion at least be an option?
