Multiple Commanders, please remove this.
OPIE
Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8343Members
Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8343Members
I honestly do not know if this has been reported or not but there can be multiple commanders on each team. Wither this was intentional or just has gone unnoticed it has become quite a hassle. I find it so annoying when I am commanding and have a nice system in place then someone jumps in the second or third chair/hive and starts fiddling with things screwing everything up. Placing turrets or whips in the worst possible locations or just any building in a bad location. Wasting resources on upgrades that are just not needed at the time when something is more vital.
This has become more rampant since the BETA launch and all the new players are curious about commanding. It's screwing up games that can actually be played right now. It's reminding me of the early days of NS1 when someone just decides that they are going to be the commander even though they don't know how to play it. It destroyed that game. I'm also not sure if it's in the game yet but if not I would like to see the return of the "Eject Commander" button to vote the commander out for the remainder of the game.
I know it's early and people are learning everything but when a good game is in progress and this happens it's on the same level of frustration everyone felt when the Alpha was first released and the game was 100% unplayable.
My advice to anyone who is new to commanding just getting into the BETA. Create your own server and enable cheats. You can figure your way through the menus and upgrades so you know where everything is. Strategic placement of buildings of course will come with experience. But for ###### sake is you already have a commander don't jump in the other chairs or hives.
This has become more rampant since the BETA launch and all the new players are curious about commanding. It's screwing up games that can actually be played right now. It's reminding me of the early days of NS1 when someone just decides that they are going to be the commander even though they don't know how to play it. It destroyed that game. I'm also not sure if it's in the game yet but if not I would like to see the return of the "Eject Commander" button to vote the commander out for the remainder of the game.
I know it's early and people are learning everything but when a good game is in progress and this happens it's on the same level of frustration everyone felt when the Alpha was first released and the game was 100% unplayable.
My advice to anyone who is new to commanding just getting into the BETA. Create your own server and enable cheats. You can figure your way through the menus and upgrades so you know where everything is. Strategic placement of buildings of course will come with experience. But for ###### sake is you already have a commander don't jump in the other chairs or hives.
Comments
Unfortunately because this is an on-line game people can (and will) jump straight into things without knowing the consequences of their actions. Constraints however often give rise to opportunities, and I think this a chance for UWE to design their commander/UI around their varied player base rather than forcing horrible tutorials on people, etc...
They are apparently going to be working on a more 'usable' interface for the next patches. I hope this includes some sort of story element in game so people understand (lightly) what they should be doing.
These are early days though so there will be problems. If you can think of more constructive ways of educating new players who jump into games, post some ideas. Check out the commander GUI thread in I&S as well. There are lots of threads around regarding the comm at the moment.
And yes the multiple commanders were an intentional feature the devs added.
Don't change it, although maybe change the resource consumption so that it draws from personal funds first, that way if a player wants something they can pay for it, the A pure commander will obviously spend all his money on team stuff, so he will have more cash available. Also maybe make it so that players get a bit of cash back when structures they paid for are used, they get cash for turret kills and maybe 10% comission on armory purchases, so it rewards people for placing needed structures. The pure commander can obviously get a reasonable income this way, maybe equal to an extra ref or something if he has a few bases going. Just a little positive feedback to help offset the personal expense and also to help people learn what placements work best, if a structue sees a lot of use they'll know that sort of placement works very well, and use it in future.
By default only one commander can be in a team, however that commander can unlock additional command stations hives.
If he would build an additional commander center/hive he can click on it, and a small button will appear
"unlock command center/hive | lock command center/hive"
If no one is in a CC/hive you can enter any you like (just like now) but the remaining ones become locked until you decide to do otherwise.
That way it can be prevented that a random player totally messes up the team, however, if wanted by the commander, another player can help him out. Due to the way he can lock a command center from being used, this more or less makes sure, that the player he would work with is someone he knows very well and can work with.
If a player stands before a command center that is locked and presses the use key, a small warning will show up on the commanders map indicating that someone wants to join as a 2nd commander, he can then ignore it if he feels its not needed or contact him and tell him what he wants him to do and proceed to unlock the cc/hive. If the 2nd commander still does weird crap, the 1st commander can decide to throw him out.
We don't want players able to command whenever they want with no restrictions. Otherwise switching to the other team for sabotage will happen. So we want some restrictions. Something like "Cannot command any team you didn't start on" is good. Completely shuts down enemy sabotage.
But that doesn't stop players sabotaging own team through inexperience (sad but unstoppable). So we want more restrictions. Something like only one person can drop structures and research upgrades. Think of them as the big picture macromanagement style player. We need one of these guys.
The two other commanders can only use the commander spells (drop med/ammo/catalyst packs, scan with observatories, activate AComm structure abilities and etc). Think of them as the eyes in the sky, watching out for individual squads and keeping them informed on map-level events so they can focus on First-Person-Shootering the ###### out of their current room and not giving a ###### about the RTS game unless they want to (how NS2 SHOULD be made!).
The first commander would have all abilities for obvious reasons (Med packs have to be a Tier 1 ability, as much as my cold alien heart wishes otherwise). As more commanders are added, the stress of micromanaging commander spells and ordering 2-3 squads all in different situations in different places will be lessened as Field Commanders pick up the slack, making big decisions like "Armor 1 or Weapons 1" and "Jetpacks or Exoskeleton" much clearer and less bogged down under fast-paced action.
The first commander can still DO that if needed, but can rely on right-hand marines to get the job done too.
Splitting up macro and micro between two players is getting me really, really, really excited. This. Sounds. Awesome. It was also UWE's idea, I'm just retelling it.
It also makes newbie mistakes much more bearable. They can only waste a scan or mistime a Whip Bombard, so it's not a huge deal.
UWE should totally work on this after pwning their server optimization (which I totally understand is first priority) and taking a week long break after (You deserve it, guys!).
There is no team res, commanders personally earn extra money while in the command chair, they can spend this money on stuff. If you hop in the command chair you do not get access to the funds that the dude who has been in from the start has access to, but you can spend any of your own money (say you want a sentry you can buy it and place it somewhere, and you get some cash when it kills people so it's a good idea to do this).
If you leave the command chair, all the extra money you accumulated during your stay there goes into a pool, after 2 minutes of absence, the money is distributed among all other commanders. So you can't farm personal cash with this, but you can hold on to your own bunch of resources when commanding, and manage your own budget.
So, if you want to command, you get access to the team income to do so, but you only get this income while you are commanding. If you stop commanding for a while the money goes to other commanders for them to use, but in no instance can someone just jump in and waste all the team money, unless nobody else is commanding, in which case I have no idea how to stop people doing that.
But it also makes technology expansions into amazing powerful resource harvesters (worth 2, probably 3+ each!). I think that's making things too complicated. Balancing commander stations to be "good" or "bad" will be super difficult if their are many possible pitfalls (commander buildings, technology expanding buildings, AND resource harvesters). Whenever a new command station is filled, the game's pace also speeds up drastically. That's hard to balance just by itself.
I think a game could definitely use this idea, but that game would probably be made by Blizzard and still have consequent imbalances after a year of Blizzard style meat thrasher detective game development and balancing. UWE should stick to simple if possible since they aren't Blizzard.
I just saw it today in a server, I was commander and looked at the scoreboard to see another commander...
I had an awesome upgrade/expansion in place until the 2nd [noobish] commander jumped in and sent all my MAC's on a suicide mission. It really set back the team and made teching / acquiring new RT's difficult.
I hope something can be done to lessen the confusion that stems from someone jumping in the second chair and screwing your plans...
But it also makes technology expansions into amazing powerful resource harvesters (worth 2, probably 3+ each!). I think that's making things too complicated. Balancing commander stations to be "good" or "bad" will be super difficult if their are many possible pitfalls (commander buildings, technology expanding buildings, AND resource harvesters). Whenever a new command station is filled, the game's pace also speeds up drastically. That's hard to balance just by itself.
I think a game could definitely use this idea, but that game would probably be made by Blizzard and still have consequent imbalances after a year of Blizzard style meat thrasher detective game development and balancing. UWE should stick to simple if possible since they aren't Blizzard.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Erm, no, you get the same amount of resources as now, it simply puts it primarily under the control of people who are doing a lot of commanding.
If one commander is present, he gets all the 'team' income delivered into his account for use on buildings and tech. If another commander joins, the first comm keeps any money he has, but the income is now split between them. If another commander joins it splits 3 ways and the first and second commander keep their built up stockpiles. If the first commander leaves for a while, his comm money gets sent to the remaining two.
Command a lot, get money all the time to spend as comm, command a little, get less money to spend as comm. Players jumping in and out does nothing to exisiting commanders other than slow their res income while they are in, and give them a cash boost when they leave. A minor distruption at best.
If you want you can also include locks for structures and MACs to prevent mass recycling or people from stealing MACs you are using. The locks would of course release once the commander leaves and perhaps get assigned to other existing commanders. In general if you build something other people shouldn't be able to recycle it, and in the case of MACs shouldn't be able to tell it to go do something. You could also assign a portion of the MAC/drifter limit to each commander, adding say an extra 2-4 builder slots for every comm that joins, allowing each comm to have their own little builder group or something.
It may sound a bit complex but it basically boils down to 'if you have money, you get to keep it for as long as you command, if you build something, other players can't mess with it, and the more you comm, the more resources the game gives you to use in comm mode' which should be simple to understand and appreciated by players.
I don't think you really need that many systems like this, but a degree of partitioning between commanders might help public play, and in organised play multiple commanders should work together as well as multiple players.
Addition: Commanders can share resources with each other. Even automatically give all their resources to the first commander if they wish.
Sound good?
Addition: Commanders can share resources with each other. Even automatically give all their resources to the first commander if they wish.
Sound good?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh yeah being able to give your money to other comms was supposed to be in that post, forgot.
Right on. Your suggestion loses its main weakness (forced fracturing of marine resource pool, though only by twice or thrice).
This could work.
I'd like a default where the first commander has all the resources and can give a portion of their resources to the additional commanders. So the first comm is the ultimate judge of who gets what. So they can still split resources evenly if they want or only give a little bit to a newbie, etc.
Sound good?
Maybe you should make this into a fully fledged suggestion so UWE pays it some attention.
A player needs to know what cash he has, so you shouldn't really have other players taking out of his cash pool that he probably has plans for, that makes sense, and you shouldn't have other players issuing commands to or removing units that the player probably wants to do something with, or is relying on being there when he needs them.
But I don't see what makes the first commander any more important than the second or the third. As a rule the longer you spend commanding the better you will be at it, so giving long term commanders money also makes sense, but giving commander number 1 final say over everything, that I don't really get.
bingo :) +1
A player needs to know what cash he has, so you shouldn't really have other players taking out of his cash pool that he probably has plans for, that makes sense, and you shouldn't have other players issuing commands to or removing units that the player probably wants to do something with, or is relying on being there when he needs them.
But I don't see what makes the first commander any more important than the second or the third. As a rule the longer you spend commanding the better you will be at it, so giving long term commanders money also makes sense, but giving commander number 1 final say over everything, that I don't really get.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, I see where you're coming from, for sure.
Post your idea already!
Then players should have to elect a commander at game start instead of it being first come first serve.
I like yourbonesakin's idea much better. The subcommanders should be there to support the main commander. Having multiple commanders each doing their own thing with their own pool of resources...that would just be a mess.
Basically play red alert 3's campaign, it's entirely based around the concept and works well.
I like yourbonesakin's idea much better. The subcommanders should be there to support the main commander. Having multiple commanders each doing their own thing with their own pool of resources...that would just be a mess.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Chris' idea can be mine if the additional commanders choose to automatically give all resources to the first commander.
When i play empires mod organised sometimes the commander gives orders squad leaders, and squad leaders give orders to people, sometimes the commander gives orders to the entire squad, sometimes he splits the team into two groups and gives orders to each, sometimes squad leaders just decide what they're doing and the comm builds base and alerts people to big threats, sometimes people just go off and do their own thing as it is neccesary.
Depending on the situation and players, lots of different command structures or lack thereof are useful, I don't think defaulting to a top down one is best though because if it doesn't work, it breaks the game, better to default to a communal one which will always exist, and then let the members of that system operate hierarchically if they want to.
Giving all the money to the first commander and making it distribute the funds manually... it's really complicated actually. Too complicated. The default setting should be simple and what's expected. Everyone getting an equal share makes more sense as the default.
Everyone sharing the same pool (NS2's current build) also is an expected model, but is broken for reasons we've discussed.