No commander wins the game without his team. This game thrives on constant communication.
As regulars I play with will agree with me that the teams that have more people on mics tend to do better than those that don't. I know not many like this concept but trust me, it makes a HUGE difference.
I think going back to my original post that the best suggestion is an auto start after 2 - 3 minutes once all the teams are assigned, that should be motivation enough for someone to jump in the chair since forcing someone into the role isn't nice.
I see more and more people with badges (still amuses me that people moan at 'badge stack') that Ive personally never seen com when Ive played hours with them which proves that people must have farmed them. Perhaps having it linked to a minimum number of players would've helped stop this but I fear its too late now.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2014
Farming? Surely, if I jump in the chair once in a while because others don't want to do it, I can't play RTS so me jumping in the chair is normally a real last ditch scenario, I am going to eventually earn this badge. Even when I have this badge, I will probably be the worst comm in the history of NS2.
So i've obviously farmed the badge right? I mean, it's not like a really shit player can genuinely earn the comm badge is it...
@MuckyMcFly Your response is just as irrelevant as the Badge Stack argument. Just because I spent time in the chair, doesn't mean I am any good, or I farmed. Really, you have the comm badge you should comm is just as bad as teams are stacked look at the badges.
I see more and more people with badges (still amuses me that people moan at 'badge stack') that Ive personally never seen com when Ive played hours with them which proves that people must have farmed them.
You complain about people with badges being reluctant to get in the chair but then say that badges mean nothing. Why should someone with a meaningless badge be obliged to get in the chair any more than someone without a meaningless badge?
I think my thread has become distorted and I mean no disrespect to anyone.
This badge was mean to signify that the person had significant experience as a commander and was willing to command games.
Being sat waiting for more that four+ minutes waiting for someone to get into the com/kham seat while there are five or more people with this badge is frustrating. It devalues the reason this 'badge' exists.
Reading the thread I think this has drawn the conclusion that it currently means nothing and was too easy to obtain. Sorry. :-<
Mucky, if you find it frustrating to wait for a commander, why don't you go com yourself? Don't you think other players have the same needs as you? Pointing at others saying "They are bad people for not commanding!" while being in absolutely the same situation seems - well, funny.
If you say "I never com", then don't blame others for not doing it, too.
If they have a badge, then say "THANK YOU for spending time with a task I don't want to do, because it is obviously no fun, see, I don't want to."
If you see this badge, it could mean the player has jumped into the chair/hive often enough to take on a laborous task that for most people is considerably LESS fun than being a grunt to ward off that frustrating wait time and get a game going while others, like you, just wait around and see who is DUMB enough to do it? *raging!*
Dude, be part of the solution, not the problem. Command yourself. Stop blaming others. After a while you will get a meaningless badge. It just happens.
@BishopC - Trust me, I command lots and lots. I have no problems with it, my beef is that when I want to take a break no one will get in that chair. We sat on Eclipse last night, three mins of waiting I cracked and jumped in the chair. I wouldn't post if I wasn't prepared to do command myself.
Okay, then I won't "accuse" you of doing it anymore ^^
Still don't fully get it, nobody has a problem with "badges for money", but actually getting a badge for doing something in the game is a problem and called "farming"?
Okay, then I won't "accuse" you of doing it anymore ^^
Still don't fully get it, nobody has a problem with "badges for money", but actually getting a badge for doing something in the game is a problem and called "farming"?
I think people just seem to think the comm badge is far too easy to earn/ farm at the moment. Because it IS possible to farm by purely comming for a day or two.
If i'm correct, everyone seems to be in agreement that the comm badge requirements need to be changed in one of the following ways:
1. Increase # of hours needed by a large amount, perhaps 50 hours?
2. Require a certain % of # of games played as comm (somewhere between 5% and 20% would be a good minimum I guess?)
3. Require a minimum number of hours in the chair (could probably stay the same), plus a minimum # of hours of total game time (like, 300+ ?).
Personally I suggest 3, or a combination of 2 and 3.
I can agree that you should have to invest more time to get it.
I think what I disagree with is the purpose of the badge.
The op stated it, one of the problems is that nobody wants to comm. I you give people an incentive to do it, you can give 'em 50 badges, or different coloured badges for all I care, maybe even a gold comm badge for a 1000 hours of comming. As long as someone is jumpin' into the friggin chair (
When people have a tendency to go for achievements (and they do), you won't be able to change that. But if you see a problem like "Nobody wants to com" and you have the beginning of a solution ("Make 'em hunt for achievements like the comm badge, then more people want to com"), I think the statement should be more like
"Give 'em more" instead of "Take it away."
So I suggest giving blue, bronze, silver and gold comm badges. Giving achievement hunters what they want ("hooking" them) and making it clear for the op if it really is an experienced comm (also, I wouldn't ask a gold badge to com, since obviously he did it often enough to be tired of it).
I think people just seem to think the comm badge is far too easy to earn/ farm at the moment. Because it IS possible to farm by purely comming for a day or two.
If i'm correct, everyone seems to be in agreement that the comm badge requirements need to be changed in one of the following ways:
1. Increase # of hours needed by a large amount, perhaps 50 hours?
2. Require a certain % of # of games played as comm (somewhere between 5% and 20% would be a good minimum I guess?)
3. Require a minimum number of hours in the chair (could probably stay the same), plus a minimum # of hours of total game time (like, 300+ ?).
Personally I suggest 3, or a combination of 2 and 3.
So it's decided then. Let's get it done hoo-har!
If you want to add to the value of the badge:
2. / 3.
&
4. Only count games that you actually win.
So the more you play the less likely it is to get it? #-o
@BishopC
No, it simply means you must keep up an average of, for instance, 1/10 games comming to keep your badge. Could be calculated based on the last 100 games played or something to make it less difficult to get the badge if you only start comming at, say, 500 hours.
@CCTEE
I actually dislike the idea of wins/losses counting towards the badge. Bad comms can get carried and great comms can have unlucky stints of losses due to incompetant team members (thats every loss, right comms? )
At the moment where the badge is just intended to say "I'm a competant commander", factoring in wins/losses etc is too fiddly and without much payoff for the effort considering that most people learn commanding more or less at a direct proportion to the time they spend in the game overall. And the community is so small at this stage, I dont think this noise in the data is negligible.
When the playerbase grows, and hive stats factor in commanders, and actually mean something full stop, and if/when multi-tier badges for 'competant' 'great' and 'supreme' commander skill levels get introduced, then I'd support the factoring of wins/losses for comm skill.
I was lucky to have a game recently where units were doing what they were meant to do, and each comm had a well-defined approach to the match, to the point where it was apparent that comm skill/ knowledge of game flow were significant deciding factors to the outcome of the match. However games like this are few and far between in pubs; most games the micro-positioning of players and engagement outcomes are what makes the game, comm is more of a support role. Past a certain point of comm-petancy though :P Obviously if you dont medspam, and always rush phase gate, you dont deserve a badge.
I personally would like to see players able to +1 or -1 feedback about their commander. It would show whether the commander is a commander, a leader, or a dictator.
And then give badges based on your current "tier"
Would just need some solution to hamper the trolling that would happen.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I think people are looking at this backwards.
The problem is - People do not want to comm.
Current Solution - Offer them a reward for comming.
Result - People do something they don't want to do till they get reward, then they stop doing it.
End result, You get people in a chair for 10-20 hours, then most will never comm again.
The problem is that the solution currently used is no good. Adding hours, percentages etc, may keep people being a com longer, but doesn't get over the initial problem.
People do not want to comm.
The solution will come from making people want to comm as part of the game because it is fun, not by dangling rewards to make them do what they don't want. That is the bad side of gameification. Hide the problem by making the player do something they don't want to for a reward.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
People dont want to comm because infield players do not listen.
In ns1 this was easy. Either they listened, they died (due to not getting anything), or you got ejected.
In ns2 marines dont need to listen to get shinies and stay alive, as long as they do not to hugely worse then the other team. There is no real incentive on pubs to listen to a comm. Because surely, a comm is always wrong.
I see no way to fix this with all the current gameplay rules ns2 has.
Seen enough games as grunt and commander to feel frustrated as a com, but my problem is not infields not listening. This is not starcraft with lots of ai units, these are real human avatars running around.
My problem is the post round "Blame game". You win, nobody even remembers the coms name. You lose, every1 and his mother knows better what would have been the right action.
The best games I had as a com were those where marines had initiative and weren't waiting for me to tell em everything. When the teams are balanced, this is the most fun. I am not the "dictator" type who goes into a rage fit and yells at everyone for not following orders. If someone is doing good on the field, he is mentioned by name and gets his praise. If someone follows orders very good, he gets his praise.
If the game goes down the drain and everyone does the headless chicken, well, it's a game. I get and dispense enough stress and pressure at work, I don't need to put that into my free time. I have to admit, that I have bad days and then I tend to tell people when they do big mistakes, maybe not as kind as I should.
And I think it's about 50-50, sometimes the comm is right, sometimes he is dead wrong. I made (and make) enough mistakes as com and grunt to know that.
Everyone sees the commanders mistakes but the only person who sees players mistakes is the commander (not saving RTs, not phasing, bunching up in the wrong places etc)
One realistic requirement (in addition to time constraint and wins) to obtain the commander badge could be to use each ability of each team at least once.
Also, I imagine that there can be other requirements such as "use bindable hotkeys", "win game in 5 min" or "get three harvesters in # mins", or research JP in # mins, actively use 3 drifters simultaneously where 1 is enzyming ...
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I do strongly believe, as a commander, people should listen. Its not a democracy. Reacting only on players infield means you can not strategise, not counter or plan ahead. Infield people should listen, and I have little respect for teams consistently not listening to comms.
The name says it even, commanders are supposed to command, not be buff bots.
Yes I do believe and know that infield folk can give valueble feedback and calls. But the end decision should always be the commanders. The comm has a nonstop overview of everything and is best suited for calling shots.
Real life individuals who are actual commanders go through decades of training to reach the point where soldiers listen to them without question.
To say a video game "commander" has that ability is silly.
With the current HUD setup and the c-map. Players on the ground ARE able to see the entire picture.
Tbh I have little respect for commanders who feel like when they jump in the chair they get to disrespect, yell, and act condescending to his teammates. Yet when they are on the field they don't even know the basics of positioning.
P.s. it is a democracy...vote eject
P.p.s. not saying your one of those cmds. Just voicing my opinion
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Well there is a strong difference between listening to team feedback, which is good, and having them zerg all around the map without any remote strategy.
And yes, people can use the map but noone can do that nonstop.
I personally would like to see players able to +1 or -1 feedback about their commander. It would show whether the commander is a commander, a leader, or a dictator.
i'm not convinced wether this is a good idea in general (although it is difficult to say without testing it first), as it might put even more pressure on the commanders:
even right now i hesitate a lot to try out new tactics and approaches (which seems essentially to keep improving in the very long run) in fear of being verbally attacked. lowering some significant commander-specific rating would be the cherry on top of that. leaving the punching-bag role of the commander aside, some people seem to have a rather static mindset on what the "right" buildorder is: everything else is considered a mistake. i might become desperate to justify / explain my strategy in order to prevent the negative rating (instead of going "ok, was worth a try. i told them sorry for screwing up and now we can move on.").
so in the end, this might lead to a more hostile atmosphere due to higher stakes in post-game discussions about what should(n't) have been done.
so how about this: you can only give +1 or remain at the default of 0. that might feel less frustrating. side-effect is that even bad commanders will earn their badges eventually. but they will have to play much longer which means they have at least more experience to make up for bad attitude or w/e.
i also suggest that people are only allowed to give one rating per commander in order to prevent abuse. if they rate the same commander again, it overwrites the rating they have previously given that commander (correcting it). this could be implemented via steamID i guess.
Everyone sees the commanders mistakes but the only person who sees players mistakes is the commander (not saving RTs, not phasing, bunching up in the wrong places etc)
i'm quite aware of damage to structures as a fielding player thank you very much.
just because i'm not in the chair, doesn't mean i'm unaware of the map... what kind of player do you take me for?
i'd say at least 30 percent of the time, i'm the first person i'm aware of to call out problems. this might be due to delay in in-game comms, but it certainly means that nobody is telling me about it.
It's always fun when you say something everybody ignores, including the comm. then a minute later the comm repeats the same exact thing more emphatically, and too late and you lose the game. Thanks for listening people.
Comments
As regulars I play with will agree with me that the teams that have more people on mics tend to do better than those that don't. I know not many like this concept but trust me, it makes a HUGE difference.
I think going back to my original post that the best suggestion is an auto start after 2 - 3 minutes once all the teams are assigned, that should be motivation enough for someone to jump in the chair since forcing someone into the role isn't nice.
I see more and more people with badges (still amuses me that people moan at 'badge stack') that Ive personally never seen com when Ive played hours with them which proves that people must have farmed them. Perhaps having it linked to a minimum number of players would've helped stop this but I fear its too late now.
So i've obviously farmed the badge right? I mean, it's not like a really shit player can genuinely earn the comm badge is it...
@MuckyMcFly Your response is just as irrelevant as the Badge Stack argument. Just because I spent time in the chair, doesn't mean I am any good, or I farmed. Really, you have the comm badge you should comm is just as bad as teams are stacked look at the badges.
BADGES MEAN NOTHING.
I agree.
How does this prove anything?
You complain about people with badges being reluctant to get in the chair but then say that badges mean nothing. Why should someone with a meaningless badge be obliged to get in the chair any more than someone without a meaningless badge?
This badge was mean to signify that the person had significant experience as a commander and was willing to command games.
Being sat waiting for more that four+ minutes waiting for someone to get into the com/kham seat while there are five or more people with this badge is frustrating. It devalues the reason this 'badge' exists.
Reading the thread I think this has drawn the conclusion that it currently means nothing and was too easy to obtain. Sorry. :-<
If you say "I never com", then don't blame others for not doing it, too.
If they have a badge, then say "THANK YOU for spending time with a task I don't want to do, because it is obviously no fun, see, I don't want to."
If you see this badge, it could mean the player has jumped into the chair/hive often enough to take on a laborous task that for most people is considerably LESS fun than being a grunt to ward off that frustrating wait time and get a game going while others, like you, just wait around and see who is DUMB enough to do it? *raging!*
Dude, be part of the solution, not the problem. Command yourself. Stop blaming others. After a while you will get a meaningless badge. It just happens.
Still don't fully get it, nobody has a problem with "badges for money", but actually getting a badge for doing something in the game is a problem and called "farming"?
I think people just seem to think the comm badge is far too easy to earn/ farm at the moment. Because it IS possible to farm by purely comming for a day or two.
If i'm correct, everyone seems to be in agreement that the comm badge requirements need to be changed in one of the following ways:
1. Increase # of hours needed by a large amount, perhaps 50 hours?
2. Require a certain % of # of games played as comm (somewhere between 5% and 20% would be a good minimum I guess?)
3. Require a minimum number of hours in the chair (could probably stay the same), plus a minimum # of hours of total game time (like, 300+ ?).
Personally I suggest 3, or a combination of 2 and 3.
So it's decided then. Let's get it done hoo-har!
I think what I disagree with is the purpose of the badge.
The op stated it, one of the problems is that nobody wants to comm. I you give people an incentive to do it, you can give 'em 50 badges, or different coloured badges for all I care, maybe even a gold comm badge for a 1000 hours of comming. As long as someone is jumpin' into the friggin chair
When people have a tendency to go for achievements (and they do), you won't be able to change that. But if you see a problem like "Nobody wants to com" and you have the beginning of a solution ("Make 'em hunt for achievements like the comm badge, then more people want to com"), I think the statement should be more like
"Give 'em more" instead of "Take it away."
So I suggest giving blue, bronze, silver and gold comm badges. Giving achievement hunters what they want ("hooking" them) and making it clear for the op if it really is an experienced comm (also, I wouldn't ask a gold badge to com, since obviously he did it often enough to be tired of it).
So the more you play the less likely it is to get it? #-o
If you want to add to the value of the badge:
2. / 3.
&
4. Only count games that you actually win.
No, it simply means you must keep up an average of, for instance, 1/10 games comming to keep your badge. Could be calculated based on the last 100 games played or something to make it less difficult to get the badge if you only start comming at, say, 500 hours.
@CCTEE
I actually dislike the idea of wins/losses counting towards the badge. Bad comms can get carried and great comms can have unlucky stints of losses due to incompetant team members (thats every loss, right comms?
At the moment where the badge is just intended to say "I'm a competant commander", factoring in wins/losses etc is too fiddly and without much payoff for the effort considering that most people learn commanding more or less at a direct proportion to the time they spend in the game overall. And the community is so small at this stage, I dont think this noise in the data is negligible.
When the playerbase grows, and hive stats factor in commanders, and actually mean something full stop, and if/when multi-tier badges for 'competant' 'great' and 'supreme' commander skill levels get introduced, then I'd support the factoring of wins/losses for comm skill.
I was lucky to have a game recently where units were doing what they were meant to do, and each comm had a well-defined approach to the match, to the point where it was apparent that comm skill/ knowledge of game flow were significant deciding factors to the outcome of the match. However games like this are few and far between in pubs; most games the micro-positioning of players and engagement outcomes are what makes the game, comm is more of a support role. Past a certain point of comm-petancy though :P Obviously if you dont medspam, and always rush phase gate, you dont deserve a badge.
And then give badges based on your current "tier"
Would just need some solution to hamper the trolling that would happen.
Every game you have your rating augmented by the people you command.
The problem is - People do not want to comm.
Current Solution - Offer them a reward for comming.
Result - People do something they don't want to do till they get reward, then they stop doing it.
End result, You get people in a chair for 10-20 hours, then most will never comm again.
The problem is that the solution currently used is no good. Adding hours, percentages etc, may keep people being a com longer, but doesn't get over the initial problem.
People do not want to comm.
The solution will come from making people want to comm as part of the game because it is fun, not by dangling rewards to make them do what they don't want. That is the bad side of gameification. Hide the problem by making the player do something they don't want to for a reward.
In ns1 this was easy. Either they listened, they died (due to not getting anything), or you got ejected.
In ns2 marines dont need to listen to get shinies and stay alive, as long as they do not to hugely worse then the other team. There is no real incentive on pubs to listen to a comm. Because surely, a comm is always wrong.
I see no way to fix this with all the current gameplay rules ns2 has.
My problem is the post round "Blame game". You win, nobody even remembers the coms name. You lose, every1 and his mother knows better what would have been the right action.
The best games I had as a com were those where marines had initiative and weren't waiting for me to tell em everything. When the teams are balanced, this is the most fun. I am not the "dictator" type who goes into a rage fit and yells at everyone for not following orders. If someone is doing good on the field, he is mentioned by name and gets his praise. If someone follows orders very good, he gets his praise.
If the game goes down the drain and everyone does the headless chicken, well, it's a game. I get and dispense enough stress and pressure at work, I don't need to put that into my free time. I have to admit, that I have bad days and then I tend to tell people when they do big mistakes, maybe not as kind as I should.
And I think it's about 50-50, sometimes the comm is right, sometimes he is dead wrong. I made (and make) enough mistakes as com and grunt to know that.
Also, I imagine that there can be other requirements such as "use bindable hotkeys", "win game in 5 min" or "get three harvesters in # mins", or research JP in # mins, actively use 3 drifters simultaneously where 1 is enzyming ...
The name says it even, commanders are supposed to command, not be buff bots.
Yes I do believe and know that infield folk can give valueble feedback and calls. But the end decision should always be the commanders. The comm has a nonstop overview of everything and is best suited for calling shots.
To say a video game "commander" has that ability is silly.
With the current HUD setup and the c-map. Players on the ground ARE able to see the entire picture.
Tbh I have little respect for commanders who feel like when they jump in the chair they get to disrespect, yell, and act condescending to his teammates. Yet when they are on the field they don't even know the basics of positioning.
P.s. it is a democracy...vote eject
P.p.s. not saying your one of those cmds. Just voicing my opinion
And yes, people can use the map but noone can do that nonstop.
even right now i hesitate a lot to try out new tactics and approaches (which seems essentially to keep improving in the very long run) in fear of being verbally attacked. lowering some significant commander-specific rating would be the cherry on top of that. leaving the punching-bag role of the commander aside, some people seem to have a rather static mindset on what the "right" buildorder is: everything else is considered a mistake. i might become desperate to justify / explain my strategy in order to prevent the negative rating (instead of going "ok, was worth a try. i told them sorry for screwing up and now we can move on.").
so in the end, this might lead to a more hostile atmosphere due to higher stakes in post-game discussions about what should(n't) have been done.
so how about this: you can only give +1 or remain at the default of 0. that might feel less frustrating. side-effect is that even bad commanders will earn their badges eventually. but they will have to play much longer which means they have at least more experience to make up for bad attitude or w/e.
i also suggest that people are only allowed to give one rating per commander in order to prevent abuse. if they rate the same commander again, it overwrites the rating they have previously given that commander (correcting it). this could be implemented via steamID i guess.
i'm quite aware of damage to structures as a fielding player thank you very much.
just because i'm not in the chair, doesn't mean i'm unaware of the map... what kind of player do you take me for?
i'd say at least 30 percent of the time, i'm the first person i'm aware of to call out problems. this might be due to delay in in-game comms, but it certainly means that nobody is telling me about it.
It's always fun when you say something everybody ignores, including the comm. then a minute later the comm repeats the same exact thing more emphatically, and too late and you lose the game. Thanks for listening people.
@MuckyMcFly , you mean like this??
Welcome to the Australian servers!!