Need More Commanders
SlowLefty
Join Date: 2011-02-13 Member: 81653Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2011-02-13 Member: 81653Members, Reinforced - Shadow
I have seen too many games with full teams, but no one willing to be a commander.
So we sit and wait for 5 minutes, until reluctantly someone jumps in or people leave.
I can understand why, it takes effort to properly command, players can have high
expectations, you can get abuse if too slow with requests, blamed for the team losing.
So why exactly would anyone want to be a commander?
We need to some how encourage more people to take on the role, maybe some sort
of visual skin perk for a couple of days to those who have commanded a full game.
Some may think it extreme, but I also believe completing commander training should
be a requirement before you can join a server. It would help people better understand
how resources are involved and reduce the 'I have never done it before' barrier.
Thoughts and suggestions?
So we sit and wait for 5 minutes, until reluctantly someone jumps in or people leave.
I can understand why, it takes effort to properly command, players can have high
expectations, you can get abuse if too slow with requests, blamed for the team losing.
So why exactly would anyone want to be a commander?
We need to some how encourage more people to take on the role, maybe some sort
of visual skin perk for a couple of days to those who have commanded a full game.
Some may think it extreme, but I also believe completing commander training should
be a requirement before you can join a server. It would help people better understand
how resources are involved and reduce the 'I have never done it before' barrier.
Thoughts and suggestions?
Comments
Problem is com is mostly frustrating, plus it's like a hen-egg problem.
A) If you want to play a decent game, you need a decent com, however, bad coms can't get decent without practice.
1. Alien is just mostly dropping stuff and using drifter here and there and doing nothing else; boring most of the time
2. Marine is much better, because it is more demanding.
3. Still a huge fun killer is a bad team that has no clue. I had games where I had to protect like 3 bases from skulks [or marines for that matter] constantly, because nobody ever listens to anything or watches map. Games lost because of that too.
Also no point in playing com when teams are uneven disfavoring your own team.
4. Interface, although improved significantly since beta, can still be frusttrating. Like selecting/hitting random buildings or NPC units being stupid (like MACs starting to weld somewhere whilst you wanted them somewhere else)
Some mentioned "Yeah, its hard on pub, cause everyone is only complaining about the com"
Cause i was knowing some of the names i jumped into the cc.
What should i say: The one who mentioned some mniutes ago was the bigges complainer:
"Why did you scan there"
"Why no medpacks"
"Dont waste too much res on meds"
blablabla
NONSTOP
In the end i ragequit, cause they complaining more about the com as hitting stuff/lifefeforms
These marines where losing not cause to many medpacks, they lose cause Rule Nr1:
ITS ALWAYS THE COMS FAULT
And thats why people dont like to go com.
How to get more comms?
Be a mediator. If someone is b*tching to the comm _undeservedly_, SAY something. Comm doesn't have time to argue with a single player, or the game gets even worse and he receives even more blame. Even if the guy blaming the comm would be right, you can tell him the way he's putting it is "way too mad" or overkill or whatever.
Edit: I still love being comm, because I'm pretty good at it, but holy hell it must be bad for inexperienced players. The number of times I have to explain why am I not doing something is HUGE, and if you can't answer that question whining ensues.
"Comm rt in sky pls."
"i told you im not dropping you sky"
"why not"
"because it keeps getting taken out we gotta focus nano or we lose"
"k just drop it i go nano then"
"you're alone i can't drop it you can get taken out right after"
"OMG STUPID COMM WE NEED RES"
Meanwhile your team is getting brutally MURDERED elsewhere.
Not the best example, but in general, reading (as in reading the situation) and communicating stuff like that is a drag. :P
Noone took up the offer yet.
As for comming.. The 'few' who are willing to comm are pushed away either by bad teamplay & behavior, or by needing to comm so many times that they just want to do something else.
On the other side, waiting for someone to command takes way too long. You can jump around the map until the round starts = no one feels the urge to command and start a game. If there is no comm after 1 minute, a teamvote should decide who comms. Maybe with the option to opt out and in for the vote. Like in Empires Mod.
I don't mind explaining the game to newbies. But I mind talking with bricks.
I'm not speaking about the typical noob teams who couldn't hit an Onos right in front of them. You can't blame them for that.
More about people who don't know what they are doing. Ignoring orders, no strategy, running into the same hallway the entire game for no effect, no idea of timing, ignoring the map and PGs in general, AND THAT YOU HAVE TO FINISH THE FUCKING PG INSTEAD OF SHOOTING ONE SKULK AND GETTING KILLED BY IT... things like that. Yea. People who believe they are playing deathmatch.
250 removed so much strategy and made NS2 more like team deathmatch. It doesn't really matter which upgrades you do first, just do something. Worse for Aliens, you have the choice of Hive and then that's it.
Reinforced removed the last bit of fun in Alien comming - I'm not sending that 8 res Drifter with my team just so it gets sniped, for the chance of using some nerfed abilities that no longer decide anything.
Choosing between building a Crag which you don't need or a Shift or Shade which you don't need just to get some random lifeform upgrade is boring.
The entire Drifter building mechanics and the huge costs, delays, and random structure requirements everywhere, which were introduced just to force Aliens to spend money and delay their tech, make commanding tedious.
I REALLY miss things like rushing for Spores or Bile or whatever specific upgrade pre-250, in order to try and surprise the enemy and gain an advantage.
Marine comm is better, but in the end, you either go Arms Lab or PG first, and that's the most influential decision you'll make. But you don't have to react to what Aliens are doing any longer (like getting Flamers when Aliens rushed Spores).
I really would like to see different tech trees/options to choose from, and that you'd have to react to the enemy decision. Right now, there are no surprises and commanding is mostly linear. You're basically a deathmatch supporting bot who drops buildings, researches things, but is disconnected from what the enemy is doing and what is happening on the battlefield (minus the occasional med drop).
TLDR: There's little to decide and nothing to react to. Not very exciting.
You're not the commander. That simply is a bad term.
You don't command anything. You're the teams bitch.
At least untill you play with a good team wich actually doesn't see you as a bitch
It's worse as a alien commander, at least with marines you can still spam medpacks and nanoshield and pray your team manages to accomplish something. With aliens you just stare intently at the screen while your team dies as the only real method of direct support aside from the occasional well placed bonewall is drifter enzymes. You have to have a drifter ready all over the place and they will generally die costing you the equivalent of a harvester in res. I adore the addition of contamination you can personally take out the marine base with whips even with minimal player cooperation.
The best way I could see the commander experience improving was if we could magically drill into peoples' heads the notion that the commander is the commander. Even if the players suck, if they listened to you at least I don't feel particularly put off by it.
Of course this doesn't totally mitigate the whole problem but I find that most of the time your players are not actually actively ignoring you but most are just lost and running around not sure what to do.
But I admit, it's hard to get to a state where people are completely satisfied with you, even when you lose. Just deal with it.
If nobody is willing to jump in, then 'you' man up and take it whether you know how to or not. Its a great opportunity to learn the game from a whole different perspective.
Any chance I get I love commanding.
However, I hate losing even at a public setting and I know how much I weigh and since the community is so small you know by playernames who is someone decent and who is just well.. not, so when you see your team is the latter you can't really command because you're guaranteeing yourself a loss.. like losing with a total of 750 points is pretty obnoxious.. actually it's obnoxious that the game even went on long enough for you to single handed do so much damage and still lose because your team could not do anything
What I'm saying is
Commanding people who will lose regardless is not fun, you have a higher chance winning with an 'ok' commander and a good field player, instead of a 'master' commander and a bunch of awful field players
tl;dr - player skill levels have gotten worse as the years in fps gaming has progressed
The single most frustrating thing about commanding is having to deal with people on servers. On average, a player will be one of the following: a new player (or someone who just doesn't understand the objectives) who is uncommunicative and refuses to listen to any of your requests, or an arrogant backseat comm who clearly learned the basics of comming from a YouTube video a couple days ago and now feels as though he has the right to criticize your every move (you know the kind, the one who says "do you know how to comm" when you jump into the chair and berates you for not getting phase gates in the first minute because "how else can we have map control?"). On average, you will get 1-2 players who actually listen to what you tell them to do.
Honestly, I feel like a lot of people miss the point about what the commander is supposed to do. Yes, the tech tree is important, but if the commander doesn't know what to build in order to get armor it isn't the end of the world. A more experienced player can instruct them during the course of the game. When I judge a commander I pay more attention to how he communicates with his team than what his build order is. (Well, that and medpacks. Those medpacks are important.) The most important thing the comm does is provide his team with a grand overlying strategy, a plan that they can execute. And I would rather have everyone following a horrible plan than have most of the team doing their own thing out of ignorance or a false sense of superiority.
I put up with it, because I do get something of a thrill being the commander and overseeing everything, but I can fully understand why many players, especially newer ones, stay away from the chair. The backseat comm types can be really harsh, and if I had just started playing NS2 I would be nervous about jumping into the chair knowing that my every move would be questioned like that. It's only now that I've played the game a bunch and understand its mechanics more than your average pub know-it-all that I can brush off some of their comments.
Most of the game is decided by the team.
The constant whining is because all players see when the commander is slow dropping an RT, misses a beacon (beacons too cautiously) or makes any other error. But people overlook when 2 marines fail to hit the gorge bileboming your IP, or when people res-skip or block the spawn queue needlessly.
It's one of those things that will never be solved.
I'm not sure an incentive program would work but I do think that a movement should be started to thank people for commanding at the end of a game. There was a certain amount of this in NS1 but it didn't seem to carry over. The closest thing you get to a thanks for jumping in the empty chair and winning a game is not being criticized incessantly.
.tl:dr Be extra nice to comms and maybe others will follow.
Had over 150 hours of gameplay before my first attempt. Watched all the tutorial videos first, knew what I was doing, and had practiced in training mode.
Made the decision to NEVER command again for a few reasons.
1) No matter the reason, when you lose everyone blames the commander. You can get upgrades asap, call out enemy positions, and literally do everything PERFECT... yet when your team sucks they blame you.
2) Very few people want to actually LISTEN to the commander. They ignore resource points that are being hit, then complain that our upgrades aren't coming fast enough when we only have 1 or 2 RT's. "they're taking nano, EVERYONE to nano" = 1-2 people go to nano while everyone else continues camping their ambush spots.
3) When the game passes the point of no return (like when the enemy team holds the entire map) there's no reason to command anymore, so I'd hop out and add my vote to concede. Only to end up being harassed for "giving up way too early" - When your team can't even hold a 2nd resource point, there's no chance of victory.
So basically it's all down to the facts that the team rarely listens, always blames the commander for the loss, and is very verbally abusive. I actually feel sorry, and have a bit of respect for the people who put up with all the BS in order to command.
I tend to only get irritated with commanders when they are slow at dropping structures and don't med when I request. Luckily these are in the minority in normal play but the majority of commanders only know the tech tree, they don't know the intricacies of what makes a commander so important. A lot seem to miss that communication is critical especially as marine comm but I guess many of these players are forced to comm because nobody else will or they are learning. I love commanders that show a willingness to learn, those that ask for help but the commanders I hate the most are ones that simply contribute nothing but dropping structures and research, never communicating or supporting their team directly.
However, a commander is only as good as his team allows him to be. If I find people complaining that we don't have upgrades then I tend to reference lack of RTs or a different tech choice.
It's not an easy problem to fix tbh. I think a badge mod would be nice if you are recognised as a player who accepts commander frequently and efficiently on certain servers but an official method seems difficult.
I would like to see servers that have specific requirements for commanding. Servers ranging from complete newb to frequent and experienced comm. If you try to command without experience on some servers, you should be ejected. It's harsh but at least it gives people some indication of what to expect on a server.
I dont think any incentives are needed, and imo would be to absolutely ridiculous to be awarded a skin/badge just for comming a game. Would introduce ten times more bugs than it'd be worth I imagine.
Anyways, I didnt even feel comfortable comming til I had somethin like 200 hrs in-game. I imagine I'm not the only one who was so reluctant to comm at first.
But honestly, this is what makes commanding SO much fun in pub games. It really is about establishing confidence and trust with your team, and truly leading. It is scary and intimidating and it does take on more responsibility for the winning or losing. But that is where I get a lot of the fun.
All this talk about the lack of upgrade paths means you aren't commanding, is kind of ridiculous. The person deciding what equipment is available is the Quarter Master not the Commander, if that is the only aspect you are looking at, you are playing the game wrong. Yes, it is a res game, yes an army runs on it's stomach, and yes the Commander needs to deal with supply lines. But Commanding is about managing resources AND people, the latter of which is always going to be the hardest.
Khammanding just doesn't seem right for this game.
And once the round is over, you get a "shit com" from them in chat.
I have 1 question, and depending on how you answer it i think you are a %%# com or not...
Instead of getting upgrades did you build turrets, recycle, or sit on res?
If you do not get upgrades because you have NO res thats fine. If you do not get upgrades for any other reason, your a piece of shit. This is a team game, especially in a PUB where people are here to have fun, upgrades help people kill thing and people like to kill things...