Commander Badge Frustration
MuckyMcFly
Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
I'm finding it very frustrating playing with people who have the 'commander badge' and are reluctant to jump in the command chair.
Example yesterday, waiting five minutes for a marine commander despite five team members having the badge.
I know it's not a given that they are either good commanders or like commanding since its a time based thing but seriously, they have a lot of hours in the chair. It makes me think many simply farmed them.
I wonder how many would own up to farming. ~:>
Example yesterday, waiting five minutes for a marine commander despite five team members having the badge.
I know it's not a given that they are either good commanders or like commanding since its a time based thing but seriously, they have a lot of hours in the chair. It makes me think many simply farmed them.
I wonder how many would own up to farming. ~:>
Comments
But 10 hours max is just not even enough, it should be at least 10 hours marines 10 hours as alien commander at least.
I have a badge but I am still reluctant to comm marines, because it's just not that fun.
In NS1, the marine comm had POWER. He was responsible for weapon drops. If you didnt do what he said, fuck you, no shotgun.
The NS2 marine commander at its most basic level is just a slave to the idiots. A mere support class, not even remotely a 'commander'.
Sure, you can give orders and if you're really lucky people will follow them, but the most efficient way to comm in pubs often just involves going with the flow, only intervening when marines and aliens set up an interface at a hive entrance for 20 minutes and you have to tell them to do something else.
I work in IT support and by the time I get home I'm more than fed up of being a completely integral but ultimately slave-like caterer to people who dont even seem to have the level of self-awareness you might expect from a domesticated animal.
I'll still marine comm when nobody else will, and I might even enjoy it sometimes. But the majority of experiences people have as marine comms are very negative and stressful.
I recently found that playing marine comm without a microphone was actually more fun in a way. No vocalisation of your orders, therefore no angry voice, therefore less of a vicious cycle into ubercommrage. Had a fun game on kodiak like that. I'll probably also stop complaining about mic-less comms. As long as they type and ping properly, that's enough for me now. Thanks for taking the bullet, marine comm. It's a soul destroying job but someone has to do it.
I believe you're mistaking between : the badge significance and the typical commander portrait.
The badge : 10 hours winning as commander and / or 20 hours loosing. Nothing more. It doesn't mean because the badge is on that they are pro at commanding and / or have any obligation to command for future games.
Typical commander portrait :
A commander has two concerns before and during the game.
1/ The oracle syndrome
If no one wants to jump in the chair it probably means the teammates aren't the "kind" that play proper (at least). Worse with greenies. So the guy with the badge is most likely to be better on the field than the rest of the team. Basically the guy knows the game is over before it happens.
2 / The Rambo case
I see more and more games with players who lack of experience that just rush, and rush, and dies, and dies for no improvement on the tactical layer. They do not listen and probably never will. You can do that when you're a top ten competitive player but they're not.
As an example: On kodiak i asked for lerks and only that. Stacked team on marine side. I knew that i could only delay the inevitable. But worse happened. I saw one guy having enough res for a fade. It means he stayed as skulk long enough to weaken the team by not being a lerk earlier. I told him not evolve as fade but lerk and lerk only. At least he could have 2. He evolved as fade. Then was "flashed" and flushed away. That is the kind commanders hate.
It's like the guys asking for exos... They clearly don't know what it is obviously and worse, they don't know how to read as they can train against bots with the "training" menu. whoaaaaaa.
Another example on large game. Everyone rush, shoot bullets and die in the first minute. And even if you have 2 IPs already, you know the game is done.
So if you guys want to motivate the commanders:
1/ listen to the commander and try to do as he says when he ask. A commander do NOT forgive teammates when he loose because jerks are running around doing nothing. He will be forgiving when you try do do as he says because you tried at least. Loosing a game is not important for a commander as long as the team behave as he wish. Then it'll be his fault and responsibility. This time for real. But we all know it's always the case.
2 / Look at your ****ing map on a regular basis. It's not difficult, and red dots means bad thing happening. You will be far more efficient on the field when you look at it. Simply because you will know where to go without the commander asking for it.
3/ Sentry the PG. If you see you're alone on a PG site and you're not sure of the surroundings, stay and guard a little. You'll be visited for sure. Dispatch on the map. Everybody on a location means no one on other locations...
I still vote for commander evaluation on games. People never listen if there is no risk to loose something. Even if it is a on-line NS2 game reputation only.
I enjoy being blamed for losing when marines don't follow your orders, classic example on Kodiak, six arcs prepped to kill hive at southern biosphere, "Marines defend the arcs, spam grenades"... they all run to save RT at surface... me with head in hands listening to "you noob why did you waste res on arcs" ..
My point is that the badge generally seems pointless at the moment, which is a shame. But if you do have it, please don't leave 19+ other people hanging around for a commander, jump in the chair for the love of spaghetti! :-B
The hardest part is an unexpected bile rush (without warning). I still think bile should work on structures not power nodes.
About the comm badge it should be more of a get and lose thing. More you win then more you can keep your badge. Now it doesnt show any thing about comm skills. It had a good impact on ppl to try out commanding. But when the hype is over thay will probably not do it again...
I don't think it should take longer to get, I just think it should be based on wins.
It also depends on who is on my team...
Playing on servers like KKG for example, you get some really nasty and arrogant people there particularly if they play marines. If you don't hover over them the entire game ready to medpack them then you get abuse and votes to eject. They might be good individual players but they're awful at teamwork. Same applies to lower ranked pubs, a bunch of relatively speaking 'noobs' instantly resort to cognitive dissonance and blame the commander for their loss whereas in reality, the team might be awful.
In its current incarnation, commander badge means nothing anyway other than the most basic of pub servers. A tiered badge system and different badges for alien and marine comm would be better. Atm, its just a badge that if you comm every now and then you eventually get.
This. So much this. There's basically two situations for me:
1) I play on a server with people I know. This means there's always someone to comm around.
2) I play on a random pub server. People who I've never seen, who don't respond to my questions if anyone has a mic and who probably can't shoot straight. I don't want to comm this kind of people. It's exhausting, you feel powerless and it makes you rage for no reason.
The fact that I'm a bit of a sucky comm probably doesn't help. I actually prefer marines. I never know what to do all the time, and you're very dependent on your field players, which adds to the helplessness. And my alien teams always seem to lose ALL of my RTs -.-
...which, on the other side, means, that I use my power as marine comm to medspam way to much which leads to delayed upgrades and lost games...
Spare a thought for us Aussies, when you join a typical game, at least half the players have a comm badge (and shadow or both - small community), but no one will comm :-) We aussies play different.
Quite the opposite actually, fielding is much more effective on higher ping than commanding.
Aussies don't always comm but when they do, they do... they fight over who isn't going to comm...
Someone think of something better. Coolest man in the world meme thing.
The only solution is more badges.
Since the only option is these three or none at all.
It's a very subtle way of earning more money
1$ blue babbler badge. #problemsolved
It's a very subtle way of earning slightly more money
You almost made it, now think one step further.
Extrinsic motivators like achievements or this commander badge fall flat on their face once the condition has been fulfilled and the superficial carrot handed out.
Example: TF2 has this pyro achievement where you are supposed to set a target on fire and then shoot it with your shotgun.
Easy enough. Given enough time everybody will make it.
A halfway decent player will make it within less than 30secs after setting out to "get" the achievement.
But lo and behold, in marches the grind.
You are expected to repeat this really easy and stupid set of actions 100 times.
Guess what happens once the player has gone through the required motions 100 times in a row?
He drops it like the toxic 10,000°C radioactive potato that it is and never does it again.
And why would he? He has done it 100 times in a row. In the end it was no fun and it sucked. He had long since proven that he is capable, he just kept going through the motions like a brain-dead zombie to get that carrot, but now he got the carrot.
He's done with it.
--> 10min waiting for comm badge players to get into the frakkin chair/hive explained.
This is why I set my server to start a 45sec countdown until game start once there is 1 comm. The results speak for themselves.
Not to mention that the grinding process is rarely fun for anyone else involved.