Squad tactics
bobrun
Join Date: 2012-03-06 Member: 148235Members
Join Date: 2012-03-06 Member: 148235Members
There has been some squad talk around here, and I was thinking about how to make squad efficient and relevant in the current marine situation. An easy way for marines to micro-manages themselves in different situations, without having to disturb the comm for things that marines can handle themselves.
I'm not a fan of multi-comm mic teams, where the comm and 3 or 4 guys all talk on the mic to discuss what they need to do. Especially when you have situation where you have a big melee with 5 marines where the comm is trying to give orders, and you have a team of 2 marines on the other side of the map talking to each other. The mic have no geographic limit, it's everwhere, anytime.
Here's my proposal of squad management:
Let's take a "useless" key, like Z. It will be the squad key.
You just spawned, you're a normal marine. Pressing Z make a "squad call", and you input a number (between 1 to 3). So, if you press Z and 2, the surrounding marines received the squad call (a small pop-up in the hub, "player Dude123 wants 2 marines"). To answer the call as a marine, you press Z for the squad options, and Z again to accept the call. When the squad leader gets its 2 marines, he can give them short-distances order. The squad leader could have a medal on top of his head, or something to know it's him.
How do the orders work? Simple:
You press Z for squad options.
If you press WASD, it is "follow me" order.
If you press Fire (left-click mouse), it is "attack" order.
If you press Ctrl (to crouch), it is "secure the room" order.
The orders are only given to the marines in the squad. No spam on the chat, neither on the voice channel. Just a simple sound "Follow me guys!" with a pop-up, or a waypoint on the leader.
That's it. There's still the Reload button and Jump button that could maybe use for 2 other orders, but I like simple things. If you're the squad leader and just want marines to follow you, you just press Z and start walking. Intuitive, easy, and those are really-used buttons anyway, you know them.
Some points:
-Squad members could even share points when one of them accomplish an objective so they can feel like a team :)
-For the squad call, I limit to 3, because I think 1 squad leader + 3 marines is more than enough. I think this system could be more useful for 2 marines only. One guy takes the lead and the other one cover his ass.
-Nothing is forced. Everybody is free to take squad leadership, and everybody is free to follow a leader or not. The comm doesn't even have to intervene, it's between the marines to organize themselves.
-If you want to quit a squad, I think the Q button exist for that reason. Press Z, then Q and you're free. Maybe just pop a message with the name of the guy, so the leader can know about it, and that if some people abuse the system (hey, let's attack the hive.....no sorry, I choke, I'm out), well, you know who's who.
-If the squad leader dies, well, I don't know, maybe give the title randomly in the squad, or the first one in the squad to press Z get the leadership.
-If a player die, he quit his squad. I mean, you're dead dude, and the marine spawning is not the old you anymore, it's a portal, not a revival pod.
What do you think?
I'm not a fan of multi-comm mic teams, where the comm and 3 or 4 guys all talk on the mic to discuss what they need to do. Especially when you have situation where you have a big melee with 5 marines where the comm is trying to give orders, and you have a team of 2 marines on the other side of the map talking to each other. The mic have no geographic limit, it's everwhere, anytime.
Here's my proposal of squad management:
Let's take a "useless" key, like Z. It will be the squad key.
You just spawned, you're a normal marine. Pressing Z make a "squad call", and you input a number (between 1 to 3). So, if you press Z and 2, the surrounding marines received the squad call (a small pop-up in the hub, "player Dude123 wants 2 marines"). To answer the call as a marine, you press Z for the squad options, and Z again to accept the call. When the squad leader gets its 2 marines, he can give them short-distances order. The squad leader could have a medal on top of his head, or something to know it's him.
How do the orders work? Simple:
You press Z for squad options.
If you press WASD, it is "follow me" order.
If you press Fire (left-click mouse), it is "attack" order.
If you press Ctrl (to crouch), it is "secure the room" order.
The orders are only given to the marines in the squad. No spam on the chat, neither on the voice channel. Just a simple sound "Follow me guys!" with a pop-up, or a waypoint on the leader.
That's it. There's still the Reload button and Jump button that could maybe use for 2 other orders, but I like simple things. If you're the squad leader and just want marines to follow you, you just press Z and start walking. Intuitive, easy, and those are really-used buttons anyway, you know them.
Some points:
-Squad members could even share points when one of them accomplish an objective so they can feel like a team :)
-For the squad call, I limit to 3, because I think 1 squad leader + 3 marines is more than enough. I think this system could be more useful for 2 marines only. One guy takes the lead and the other one cover his ass.
-Nothing is forced. Everybody is free to take squad leadership, and everybody is free to follow a leader or not. The comm doesn't even have to intervene, it's between the marines to organize themselves.
-If you want to quit a squad, I think the Q button exist for that reason. Press Z, then Q and you're free. Maybe just pop a message with the name of the guy, so the leader can know about it, and that if some people abuse the system (hey, let's attack the hive.....no sorry, I choke, I'm out), well, you know who's who.
-If the squad leader dies, well, I don't know, maybe give the title randomly in the squad, or the first one in the squad to press Z get the leadership.
-If a player die, he quit his squad. I mean, you're dead dude, and the marine spawning is not the old you anymore, it's a portal, not a revival pod.
What do you think?
Comments
I've never experienced the issues you're trying to solve here, but this could be just as useful for players who lack mics. My only concern is on the authority of the marine requesting the command. New players may end up issuing commands that don't actually make a lot of sense strategically (like getting a squad of three to defend marine start in the very beginning of a a 6 on 6 game). This could lead to people outright ignoring the feature and ending up ether using mics, or just just following other players manually. Limiting leadership to only the top XX% players on the team could solve that problem, but undermines the purpose of the task force system itself.
With regard to the idea of Squad Leaders, I keep going back and forth in my own mind about that. In favour of that idea, it could be an excellent management tool and a great way for newbies to learn strategies by following around more experienced players. Against that idea, the feature wouldn't have a direct or obvious effect on the game and so much just be confusing to people. I also feel that this kind of thing requires some other foundational work to be completed, specifically there has been talk about a player ranking system.
On the voice chat issue, I made a <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119056" target="_blank">post</a> a few days ago which I think addresses some of your issues.
A squad of marines is marines that are close to each other, no need to add anything to this.
The talk menu is already working like that, it's local communication with "follow me" order and such.
Maybe it could be improved?
I would also like is to have a local mic chat, it's a bit silly to say "follow me" to someone and the whole team hear it. Khyron thread basically.