<!--quoteo(post=1885983:date=Nov 21 2011, 09:08 PM:name=Zeikko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zeikko @ Nov 21 2011, 09:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1885983"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So first you make an AI unit to save the players from the hassle to walk all over the map to build the buildings and then you destroy the whole point of it by making it controllable in first person view. Sure! Sounds like a great idea to me too!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
<!--quoteo(post=1885995:date=Nov 22 2011, 12:12 AM:name=Papayas)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Papayas @ Nov 22 2011, 12:12 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1885995"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What an idiot...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Thanks!
I'm pretty sure that first person view controlled drifter wouldn't fix whips. Personally i think it's fine that all the big buildings are on the ground and only mini cysts and hydras are on the walls and ceilings.
But serisouly if we have an FPS/RTS game there's no need to make the RTS player to be able to play FPS in the RTS mode. Reminds me of the Yo dawg jokes. We put FPS mode in your RTS mode which is in FPS mode!
If you want a quick fix around the navigation system on the commander view being pants, without fixing that first then the short-term solution is obvious.. let the gorge control it, just like you had to give some control to gorges for Cysts.
<!--quoteo(post=1886017:date=Nov 21 2011, 10:42 PM:name=konata)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (konata @ Nov 21 2011, 10:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886017"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->He has a point though. Leave the RTS to the RTS and the FPS to the FPS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then why do you keep trying to jam FPS stuff into the RTS side?
Leave the RTS to the RTS means actually having an RTS game! Not a half complete top down marine cheerleading role.
There's still asymmetry in the commanding aspect. For example turrets / hydras.
Marine commanding, quite simply he should be about upgrades and ammo/med upkeep, that is why I disagree with MACs as they take so much attention and time away with their building and mine capabilities which coupled with guiding ARCs are just too much to keep up the whole support aspect of the commander.
Alien commanding is about upgrades, creep building and for some reason whips? Gorges already have hydra placement, you may aswell give them the ability to make the whip and not the commander. Especially as your alien commander will be preoccupied throwing some silly AI around to build RTs, whips, crags etc. Although, he has to actually have the creep and the cysts (assisted by the Gorge) in place to do that in the first place.
They're both overly involved and too exclusive. Marine commander doesn't have enough time monitoring and organising his team and squads. The alien commander doesn't have enough focus on interacting with his own team. Commanding really needs looked at again, as does the alien commander/gorge symbiosis and it needs looked at in a lot more depth as it is one major part of this game; which will really let it down.
Obviously this is just my opinion and the team may have other ideas and may be progressing commanding in a different direction. Just as I see from here and now, commanding is completely different on both sides which makes it a lot more difficult to learn the game. They're both very disconnected from the FPS, the players in the team, it feels like RTS + FPS not RTS/FPS.
I think that aliens should be allowed to have their drifters cause they vanish anyway after building something so it cost res for each one the commander builds.
On the other hand I think that marines should have limited MACs 1-2 total <u>OR</u> 1 per techpoint built, that way the commander is dependent on the players but at the same time he could build stuff without leaving the chair like in NS1 or can assist in building a forward base while the rest of the team are charging into enemy territory.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1886017:date=Nov 21 2011, 02:42 PM:name=konata)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (konata @ Nov 21 2011, 02:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886017"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->He has a point though. Leave the RTS to the RTS and the FPS to the FPS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Except a comm that doesn't have some type of controllable AI/NPC is just another FPS guy yelling at his team to do things rather than an RTS player. You can try to rationalize it because he controls some research and building placement, but tons of other FPS games do the same (e.g. Engineer in TF2). Controllable AI/NPC is a core mechanic of an RTS, such that if you want to call your game a RTS/FPS, its silly to not include it.
<!--quoteo(post=1886027:date=Nov 21 2011, 11:39 PM:name=konata)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (konata @ Nov 21 2011, 11:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886027"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's still asymmetry in the commanding aspect. For example turrets / hydras.
Marine commanding, quite simply he should be about upgrades and ammo/med upkeep, that is why I disagree with MACs as they take so much attention and time away with their building and mine capabilities which coupled with guiding ARCs are just too much to keep up the whole support aspect of the commander.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's amazingly boring.
Why would I want to have a strategy game based almost entirely around clicking on things I have no control over? Why would I want to have ANY game like that?
Following players around and dropping things on them is like the least interesting, least engaging, least ANYTHING part of the commander. It turns commanding into a spectator sport mixed with a button masher, commanding becomes the torture sequence from metal gear solid.
So the commander, which is the most important support class who keeps his units alive so they can build those RTs and get him resources for his team who must on demand be able to jump and give health and ammo.. is totally invalid for you?
Would you like to just sit in a tech point, throw macs around, build your stuff, upgrade your stuff, turtle and let your team die and organise themselves?
Did you play NS1? Or have you just forgotten how important that part of the game is.
I played NS1 but I hated commander in NS1, I don't particularly like commander in NS2, I DID like both alien and marine commanders in NS2 though, at least, when they started.
See macs used to be the only builder, so I would play it like an RTS, and I'd enjoy it. I paid attention to the players, but I used them like a strategic element. I'd give suggestions for where they should go, but it didn't matter too much if they followed them, because as the commander I could do my own stuff.
If players secured a room, I would capitalise on the advantage, and busy myself with doing that effectively, placing buildings and stuff well and that sort of thing, if players are having a problem getting somewhere, I build a forward base, give them forward armories, that sort of thing, then later you have things like sentries and ARCs, which give you more options to capitalise on what marines do, or give them direct incentives. If the marines see arcs rolling out they tend to protect them, and they also benefit from the distraction they provide, even if the arc never gets there, it helps the marines to push forward and maybe you can get a forward base there and bring more arcs.
Aliens on the other hand used to benefit from structure placements and infestation to help with attacks or block marine building placement, simple yes but it's a direct effector the alien comm can have on the battlefield, they could use more of that, more structures and more direct effectors, maybe make whips more practical, but the idea was there.
Of course now macs have been nerfed into being mostly useless for actual construction, and infestation is so horribly weak that it practically invalidates all other structures, so both commander roles have become far less enjoyable, but they are still better than NS1.
The point is though Chris, it's not just about playing FPS, it's not just about playing RTS. It's about doing both to achieve your goal, otherwise the hybrid nature of the game has failed. So immediately, yes, this means you will not like commanding in an FPS/RTS game.
However if you have played NS1, fair enough you didn't like it, however you don't have to like it to know that the commander was an important support class and if you removed that from the game you'd severely nerf marines; unless you gave them combat-mode resupply. I particularly dislike commanding NS1, a lot of people do and that is because it is the most important support class in the game. Without a commander you can't win, because you can only aim so good, you need a constant rebuff.
I don't like how the asymmetry is I don't know how others feel, if it's more difficult to learn commanding from one to the other or not? There's not a simple and clear enough goal to commanding right now as there is in NS1.
EDIT: What it comes down to is from my point of view, you need to have a commander who has enough time to not only build and upgrade in their own base, but be out there looking at his squads and med/ammo'ing to back them up. If the game evolves to 16v16 this will be very hard to achieve for one person, yet I believe dual commanding is not the way forward but simplifying the commander role.
It seems as though you want to remove the support ability and focus on building, upgrades and essentially turtling your base as a role for the commander. Again another valid concept design for commanding but it makes you a totally RTS play and in my opinion disjointed from your FPS units. You're not a support class, but you're in fact the God, the creator of all the universe that the marines can offer. I feel it's just silly to take away the ability to support your units forcing them to come back to base to re-focus on moving out again.
You don't force them to go back to base, you move your base to where their activities make it optimal.
The entire game is about supporting the marines, but you don't follow them around like a lapdog, you play YOUR game while they play theirs, how they play theirs affects how you play yours, and vice versa, the two are intrinsically linked because they take place on the same board. It's like if someone made a board game for two teams of two where you play chess one way across the board and draughts the other way across it, with the pieces applying their capture rules to both sets of enemy pieces. There's no way such a game could possibly not be connected.
The marines do rely on the commander for most of their support in the field now yes, but you could fix that. Give marines medkits they can use to heal others, but they have to put their gun away to do it, much like welders, and rebalance their health/armor/damage as appropriate, you can find new and better ways to do the 'follow people around' support, personally I think it's much better done by mariines in the field than the commander. You could also let the comm build things like supply arcs, which is an arc chassis with an armory stuck on it and it dispenses health and ammo, then give the comm the ability to set these to marine control, so marines can command them from the floor, suddenly marines are doing some strategic thinking with the AI positioning as well. It takes the FPS out of the commander a bit, but adds some commander to the FPS.
Yes you can't just dump the commander/marine interaction and expect the game to work, the commander buffs can make marines nearly invincible if applied correctly, obviously you need to account for that, but you can do it so much better. You can make it so marines can't be essentially ubercharged by medpacks or have medpacks be largely crap depending on commander skill, you can make it reliable, uniform, somethig marines can count on and anyone can do, you can make it a positive teamwork contribution between all of the FPS players, rather than the commander just clicking for victory.
Give them medpacks to heal each other? I don't agree with that, it's not left4dead, I'm not holding an area, medding up my team mates waiting for a mac to come in and build an RT.
You're describing two different games that depend on each other. Not one game that is intertwined so the roles support each other. It'd be really boring to be fully upgraded for Tier 1 and unable to help team mates.
Next you'll say the commander ability to drop weapons will be removed? I don't think you've thought through a command structure.
What's wrong with marines being able to heal each other? It rewards teamwork, makes them inherently stronger in groups, makes them exponentially stronger in groups in fact as the more there are the faster they can heal up after a fight, it emphaisses the marine thing which is teamwork, and it scales perfectly with team size, as more players = more players need healing = more players with medpacks to do it, which you yourself said was a problem with the commander method, it doesn't scale.
And no, I'm not describing that at all, why do you consider the only way to help teammates to be dropping medkits on them? Everything the commander does helps the team, and everything the players do helps the commander, and the team. When players kill aliens they protect the commander buildings, when the commander builds structures the players can use them. If your team is having trouble breaking through an area, drop a damn phase gate for them, a couple of turrets, an armory, get them some ARCs in there to help, or some MACs to help them get the power back on, do your commander thing in such a way that they can beneift from it and eventually they will do their player thing and take the room for you, so that you can win better at your RTS by taking ground. That's the entire point. The commander RTS intrinsically helps the marine FPS and vice versa.
Why do you need explicit 'this is for helping players ONLY' and 'this is for helping the commander ONLY' separation? Make an RTS and it will help the FPS, my objection is to the implementation, not the effect. I don't dislike helping players, I dislike doing it by seeing how fast and accurately I can click on them while hitting the medpack key, I've been making it pretty clear that everything you do as commander should be to capitalise on the efforts of your team, and that doing so is automatically helpful to them.
Marines can heal theirselves at an armory, medpacks is a stupid idea when you have a class that can instantly heal all over the map.
I never said it doesn't scale. I said the commander has too much to do to keep up with these anticipated large games if he is only playing around with his building and upgrades and base building. That's a problem that can't be eradicated by throwing it down to the players, because that's a huge nerf, not being healed, not being supported on the fly at any point and at any time.
I think you should play NS1 again, see how important it is to get that support rather than staying in base or running to an armory all the time to get armor and medpacks.
Are you not reading anything I say? You're kind of inventing scenarios here that are entirely contrary to what I've posted, I can't construct an argument if you are going to assume I believe a certain thing, like that marines should be running back to base constantly or whatever.
That's not inventing a concept, that is telling you what will happen in the event of removing such a game feature. So there's really no point in discussing this with you as you're not considering all of the effects.
EDIT: And if you watch the latest DI video that's going to be inert healing constantly. Removing medding from the commander really would be dumb now.
You do realise I never drop medpacks or ammo when i command at the moment? Simply because they are, by and large, unneccesary? The marines most certainly do not run back to base all the time, and they even more certainly wouldn't do it if I could assign armory tanks to follow them around, and they could regenerate each other's health. There are already working alternatives to medpacks for most situations, they're called forward armories. Marines being able to heal each other and truly mobile armories would patch up all the other holes, except of course for the stupid 'drop so many medpacks that the marine becomes invincible' rubbish which is NOT something you should be balancing the game around.
If anything I'm suggesting a buff to marines. I really don't get your obsession with medpacks.
<!--quoteo(post=1886064:date=Nov 22 2011, 03:42 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 22 2011, 03:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886064"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You do realise I never drop medpacks or ammo when i command at the moment? Simply because they are, by and large, because I am a bad commander<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I won't be such a problem when aliens can effectively assault a marine base, which will prevent the massive team resource build up that occurs. When stacking is fixed it will also help.
Although perhaps marines do need something to spend team resources on late game, in NS1 resource glut was controller by having to spend on weapons and armour.
As far as im concerned this whole 'issue' is kinda silly. MAC's are just buildings which can move and build other buildings. They have a cost. They are player controlled not AI. Its as silly as saying lets get rid of all buildings because they have autonomous functions or make the commander have to spam spacebar to extract resources. They vary gameplay, not take away from it.
And this talk about ARCS. Their just siege cannons with tracks wut =/.
In the end its still up to the commander how he integrates with the team. Seriously guys.. you can't win with just MACs. I've tried.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1886102:date=Nov 21 2011, 08:07 PM:name=Argathor)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Argathor @ Nov 21 2011, 08:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886102"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Challenge Accepted!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You just can't win against my MAC STACK ATTACKS!
1. Move mac to command station, only one per command station allowed. Increase the price and health and decrease the speed. The mac will stay mainly in base to build stuff in the late game, it fix the "hey someone build the obs please" problem. No more mac trains wandering around the map.
2. Decrease the robotic factory size and price, slow down the arc. So the robotic factory and arc will play like the turret factory and sieges in ns1, i.e. you have to build them at front.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1886068:date=Nov 22 2011, 02:48 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 22 2011, 02:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886068"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->*headdesk*<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Dude, he's right. Comms that don't drop meds/ammo are incredibly frustrating for the marines and a very inefficient way to play. Yes, you can win without dropping anything, but it's more a case of "despite..." than "because...".
<!--quoteo(post=1886140:date=Nov 22 2011, 02:02 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Nov 22 2011, 02:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886140"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe something like this :
1. Move mac to command station, only one per command station allowed. Increase the price and health and decrease the speed. The mac will stay mainly in base to build stuff in the late game, it fix the "hey someone build the obs please" problem. No more mac trains wandering around the map.
2. Decrease the robotic factory size and price, slow down the arc. So the robotic factory and arc will play like the turret factory and sieges in ns1, i.e. you have to build them at front.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> May as well just go all the way then...
But seriously, the size of the robo and arcs is ridiculous compared to the map size.
<!--sizeo:6--><span style="font-size:24pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Work in Progress</b> (WiP):<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->work that is not yet finished.
Just to make sure we are all on the same page here, in this thread.
Comments
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Thanks!
I'm pretty sure that first person view controlled drifter wouldn't fix whips. Personally i think it's fine that all the big buildings are on the ground and only mini cysts and hydras are on the walls and ceilings.
But serisouly if we have an FPS/RTS game there's no need to make the RTS player to be able to play FPS in the RTS mode. Reminds me of the Yo dawg jokes. We put FPS mode in your RTS mode which is in FPS mode!
Then why do you keep trying to jam FPS stuff into the RTS side?
Leave the RTS to the RTS means actually having an RTS game! Not a half complete top down marine cheerleading role.
Marine commanding, quite simply he should be about upgrades and ammo/med upkeep, that is why I disagree with MACs as they take so much attention and time away with their building and mine capabilities which coupled with guiding ARCs are just too much to keep up the whole support aspect of the commander.
Alien commanding is about upgrades, creep building and for some reason whips? Gorges already have hydra placement, you may aswell give them the ability to make the whip and not the commander. Especially as your alien commander will be preoccupied throwing some silly AI around to build RTs, whips, crags etc. Although, he has to actually have the creep and the cysts (assisted by the Gorge) in place to do that in the first place.
They're both overly involved and too exclusive. Marine commander doesn't have enough time monitoring and organising his team and squads. The alien commander doesn't have enough focus on interacting with his own team. Commanding really needs looked at again, as does the alien commander/gorge symbiosis and it needs looked at in a lot more depth as it is one major part of this game; which will really let it down.
Obviously this is just my opinion and the team may have other ideas and may be progressing commanding in a different direction. Just as I see from here and now, commanding is completely different on both sides which makes it a lot more difficult to learn the game. They're both very disconnected from the FPS, the players in the team, it feels like RTS + FPS not RTS/FPS.
On the other hand I think that marines should have limited MACs 1-2 total <u>OR</u> 1 per techpoint built, that way the commander is dependent on the players but at the same time he could build stuff without leaving the chair like in NS1 or can assist in building a forward base while the rest of the team are charging into enemy territory.
Except a comm that doesn't have some type of controllable AI/NPC is just another FPS guy yelling at his team to do things rather than an RTS player. You can try to rationalize it because he controls some research and building placement, but tons of other FPS games do the same (e.g. Engineer in TF2). Controllable AI/NPC is a core mechanic of an RTS, such that if you want to call your game a RTS/FPS, its silly to not include it.
Marine commanding, quite simply he should be about upgrades and ammo/med upkeep, that is why I disagree with MACs as they take so much attention and time away with their building and mine capabilities which coupled with guiding ARCs are just too much to keep up the whole support aspect of the commander.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's amazingly boring.
Why would I want to have a strategy game based almost entirely around clicking on things I have no control over? Why would I want to have ANY game like that?
Following players around and dropping things on them is like the least interesting, least engaging, least ANYTHING part of the commander. It turns commanding into a spectator sport mixed with a button masher, commanding becomes the torture sequence from metal gear solid.
Would you like to just sit in a tech point, throw macs around, build your stuff, upgrade your stuff, turtle and let your team die and organise themselves?
Did you play NS1? Or have you just forgotten how important that part of the game is.
See macs used to be the only builder, so I would play it like an RTS, and I'd enjoy it. I paid attention to the players, but I used them like a strategic element. I'd give suggestions for where they should go, but it didn't matter too much if they followed them, because as the commander I could do my own stuff.
If players secured a room, I would capitalise on the advantage, and busy myself with doing that effectively, placing buildings and stuff well and that sort of thing, if players are having a problem getting somewhere, I build a forward base, give them forward armories, that sort of thing, then later you have things like sentries and ARCs, which give you more options to capitalise on what marines do, or give them direct incentives. If the marines see arcs rolling out they tend to protect them, and they also benefit from the distraction they provide, even if the arc never gets there, it helps the marines to push forward and maybe you can get a forward base there and bring more arcs.
Aliens on the other hand used to benefit from structure placements and infestation to help with attacks or block marine building placement, simple yes but it's a direct effector the alien comm can have on the battlefield, they could use more of that, more structures and more direct effectors, maybe make whips more practical, but the idea was there.
Of course now macs have been nerfed into being mostly useless for actual construction, and infestation is so horribly weak that it practically invalidates all other structures, so both commander roles have become far less enjoyable, but they are still better than NS1.
However if you have played NS1, fair enough you didn't like it, however you don't have to like it to know that the commander was an important support class and if you removed that from the game you'd severely nerf marines; unless you gave them combat-mode resupply. I particularly dislike commanding NS1, a lot of people do and that is because it is the most important support class in the game. Without a commander you can't win, because you can only aim so good, you need a constant rebuff.
I don't like how the asymmetry is I don't know how others feel, if it's more difficult to learn commanding from one to the other or not? There's not a simple and clear enough goal to commanding right now as there is in NS1.
EDIT: What it comes down to is from my point of view, you need to have a commander who has enough time to not only build and upgrade in their own base, but be out there looking at his squads and med/ammo'ing to back them up. If the game evolves to 16v16 this will be very hard to achieve for one person, yet I believe dual commanding is not the way forward but simplifying the commander role.
It seems as though you want to remove the support ability and focus on building, upgrades and essentially turtling your base as a role for the commander. Again another valid concept design for commanding but it makes you a totally RTS play and in my opinion disjointed from your FPS units. You're not a support class, but you're in fact the God, the creator of all the universe that the marines can offer. I feel it's just silly to take away the ability to support your units forcing them to come back to base to re-focus on moving out again.
The entire game is about supporting the marines, but you don't follow them around like a lapdog, you play YOUR game while they play theirs, how they play theirs affects how you play yours, and vice versa, the two are intrinsically linked because they take place on the same board. It's like if someone made a board game for two teams of two where you play chess one way across the board and draughts the other way across it, with the pieces applying their capture rules to both sets of enemy pieces. There's no way such a game could possibly not be connected.
The marines do rely on the commander for most of their support in the field now yes, but you could fix that. Give marines medkits they can use to heal others, but they have to put their gun away to do it, much like welders, and rebalance their health/armor/damage as appropriate, you can find new and better ways to do the 'follow people around' support, personally I think it's much better done by mariines in the field than the commander. You could also let the comm build things like supply arcs, which is an arc chassis with an armory stuck on it and it dispenses health and ammo, then give the comm the ability to set these to marine control, so marines can command them from the floor, suddenly marines are doing some strategic thinking with the AI positioning as well. It takes the FPS out of the commander a bit, but adds some commander to the FPS.
Yes you can't just dump the commander/marine interaction and expect the game to work, the commander buffs can make marines nearly invincible if applied correctly, obviously you need to account for that, but you can do it so much better. You can make it so marines can't be essentially ubercharged by medpacks or have medpacks be largely crap depending on commander skill, you can make it reliable, uniform, somethig marines can count on and anyone can do, you can make it a positive teamwork contribution between all of the FPS players, rather than the commander just clicking for victory.
You're describing two different games that depend on each other. Not one game that is intertwined so the roles support each other. It'd be really boring to be fully upgraded for Tier 1 and unable to help team mates.
Next you'll say the commander ability to drop weapons will be removed? I don't think you've thought through a command structure.
And no, I'm not describing that at all, why do you consider the only way to help teammates to be dropping medkits on them? Everything the commander does helps the team, and everything the players do helps the commander, and the team. When players kill aliens they protect the commander buildings, when the commander builds structures the players can use them. If your team is having trouble breaking through an area, drop a damn phase gate for them, a couple of turrets, an armory, get them some ARCs in there to help, or some MACs to help them get the power back on, do your commander thing in such a way that they can beneift from it and eventually they will do their player thing and take the room for you, so that you can win better at your RTS by taking ground. That's the entire point. The commander RTS intrinsically helps the marine FPS and vice versa.
Why do you need explicit 'this is for helping players ONLY' and 'this is for helping the commander ONLY' separation? Make an RTS and it will help the FPS, my objection is to the implementation, not the effect. I don't dislike helping players, I dislike doing it by seeing how fast and accurately I can click on them while hitting the medpack key, I've been making it pretty clear that everything you do as commander should be to capitalise on the efforts of your team, and that doing so is automatically helpful to them.
I never said it doesn't scale. I said the commander has too much to do to keep up with these anticipated large games if he is only playing around with his building and upgrades and base building. That's a problem that can't be eradicated by throwing it down to the players, because that's a huge nerf, not being healed, not being supported on the fly at any point and at any time.
I think you should play NS1 again, see how important it is to get that support rather than staying in base or running to an armory all the time to get armor and medpacks.
EDIT: And if you watch the latest DI video that's going to be inert healing constantly. Removing medding from the commander really would be dumb now.
If anything I'm suggesting a buff to marines. I really don't get your obsession with medpacks.
Fixed.
Although perhaps marines do need something to spend team resources on late game, in NS1 resource glut was controller by having to spend on weapons and armour.
And this talk about ARCS. Their just siege cannons with tracks wut =/.
In the end its still up to the commander how he integrates with the team. Seriously guys.. you can't win with just MACs. I've tried.
*edit* medpacks ARE useless against fades only.
Challenge Accepted!
You just can't win against my MAC STACK ATTACKS!
1. Move mac to command station, only one per command station allowed. Increase the price and health and decrease the speed. The mac will stay mainly in base to build stuff in the late game, it fix the "hey someone build the obs please" problem. No more mac trains wandering around the map.
2. Decrease the robotic factory size and price, slow down the arc. So the robotic factory and arc will play like the turret factory and sieges in ns1, i.e. you have to build them at front.
Dude, he's right. Comms that don't drop meds/ammo are incredibly frustrating for the marines and a very inefficient way to play. Yes, you can win without dropping anything, but it's more a case of "despite..." than "because...".
<!--quoteo(post=1886140:date=Nov 22 2011, 02:02 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Nov 22 2011, 02:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886140"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe something like this :
1. Move mac to command station, only one per command station allowed. Increase the price and health and decrease the speed. The mac will stay mainly in base to build stuff in the late game, it fix the "hey someone build the obs please" problem. No more mac trains wandering around the map.
2. Decrease the robotic factory size and price, slow down the arc. So the robotic factory and arc will play like the turret factory and sieges in ns1, i.e. you have to build them at front.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
May as well just go all the way then...
But seriously, the size of the robo and arcs is ridiculous compared to the map size.
Just to make sure we are all on the same page here, in this thread.