Task/Objective system for commander orders
Plasma
Join Date: 2003-04-26 Member: 15855Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Join Date: 2003-04-26 Member: 15855Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">Dramatically improving team play and organisation for a team</div>Hi,
** Pretty pictures of this idea a few posts below **
Preface: Your commander has a great tactical plan; you have great players on your team; and you all want to win - somewhere between the commander making an order, and the player's executing that order, things start to unwind and the teamplay starts to fall apart. How can we fix this? I think I know how.
<b>Summary</b>
Allow commanders to issue queued orders to players that appear as objectives on the player's HUDs, and automatically assign squads. Make it painless to communicate intentions between commander and players. Issuing orders simply via text/voice comm chat is not good enough.
One-button squad assignment and Queued objectives are the main take away points.
<b>Idea</b>
Players do not always have a sense of what they should be doing - they may get a chat message or two; but no real goals are marked out for them clearly. Was I supposed to be attacking west wing? Oh I dont know, I cant remember, there's bad guys there, ill keep on fighting anyway.
I propose we make NS2's commander/player system more solid to make team play _easier_ and more fun _by design_.
We can do this by:
* Allowing commanders to ask the game to 'Create 3 squads (for eg) of equal players' for me automatically
-> As a commander; I just want 3 (for eg) separate groups of players to work with; I don't care whos in what squad, just make it happen right now; I have orders to give
* Allowing the commander to assign lock/step objectives, where a commander can 'queue' tasks a particular squad that must completed in order
-> Commands are queued, so that squads can go for 5-10-15+ minutes and know that strategically, they still need to be pushing for West Wing, or should be busy setting up defences at marine spawn, because their current objective continues to say so, and the commander has not revoked/made a change to the current objectives
Here's a breakdown of how this should work in a bit more detail:
1) Commanders need to be able to very easily create a squad/group of players
The actual players in each squad is not necessarily important, what is important is that the commander can ask the system 'Create me 3 balanced squads'. Let the game assign 3 players to each Red, Green and Blue squads automatically.
Letting players join particular squads may be something to consider; but what is important here is that this is a 5 second task; not a few minutes.
2) Players should clearly understand they are in a squad assigned by the commander, on their HUD it indicates they belong to a squad, their mini-map shows their squad's team mate locations, and their squad member player models have an icon hovering over their head (for example) to indicate they are a squad member.
This lets players know who they need to be sticking with when completing objectives.
3) The commander can now issue orders to a squad
For example, assume I am commanding ns2_rockdown and want to attack West Wing, secure it, build my 2nd spawn resource tower, and also take East Wing and then Center Hive.
Trying to co-ordinate and communicate something this complex to players via chat (thats 9 players now for example on my team, 3 squads of 3 players each) and remind them of their objectives is confusing, inefficient and not very fun.
Imagine if I could do this as commander:
a) Click 'Create squads' and enter '3 balanced' as the amount
b) I select Red squad on my commander HUD, hold shift and click on West Wing's CC/hive location. I then shift click again on Marine Spawn's 2nd res node (that is empty at the moment), and then shift-click Alien Spawn.
Immediately; my commander's HUD adjusts to indicate to the side of the 'Red Squad' icon on my commander HUD:
Objective 1: Capture West Wing
Objective 2: Build Marine Spawn resource tower
Objective 3: Push forward to Alien Spawn
These objectives are editable by me - I can re-order them, delete them, or insert another in the middle, at any time.
c) Each of my Red Squad team members now have their own HUD updated with the same objective list on the right hand side (for example), and a compass/arrow indicating where the Red Squad team member needs to go to achieve Objective 1.
When Red Squad arrive at West Wing, they issue the 'Waiting for orders' (or perhaps this is automatic - the game can know when the squad is where I told them to go), an alert appears on my commander HUD indicating that Red Squad is now waiting for me, as commander, to respond to them.
I press SPACE (or some other shortcut) for example to jump to their location, and both of our HUDs indicate 'Objective 1: Capture West Wing - Commander Observing' (for example) to indicate that I as commander acknowledge they are needing me, and I am attending to their needs right now (by dropping a res node, turrets, etc).
By marking Objective 1 as 'Commander Observing' (or something better?), it lets Red Squad know to keep holding it and that I am acting on their successful capture of West Wing.
After in my opinion as commander they have completed Objective 1 (enough defence is there, etc), I click 'Completed' beside Objective 1 which lets all of my Red Squad players know I consider that finished.
Objective 1 on their list has a 'Completed' icon (or green strike through for example) to mark it as completed. Their compass now points to Objective 2.
While this is all in progress; Blue and Green Squads could be completing entirely different objectives. I could have Blue Squad pushing Center Hive while Green Squad has one objective to remain at Marine Spawn and help setup defences. I don't need to micro manage or check up on each squad, by using a lock/step model I get notified when they need me, and they get notified when I am acting on their request.
This is really powerful for teamwork. The team understands everyone's objectives and what's going on, all without having to speak a word.
4) The commander can easily see the status of their players and how many objectives they have completed so far.
For example, I may notice that Blue Squad has not captured Center Hive yet as instructed, perhaps because they are running into a lot of defence, while Red Squad has almost finished their building of Resource Node at Marine Spawn (Objective 2).
It would be fantastic as commander that I could make the strategic decision to have Red Squad backup Green Squad after they have finished their Second Objective using one mouse click.
Imagine I could drag the Red Squad icon and slot it into the 'Objective 1: Capture Center Hive' objective of Green Squad.
This would update all of Red Squad's Objective/Task lists to now proceed to 'Capture Center Hive' as their 3rd objective, instead of 'Push forward to Alien Spawn', but that they should only do this once Marine Spawn (Objective 2 of theirs) has been completed - as I value this more important for Red Squad at this time.
[b]Take Away Points[/b[
a) The idea I have for this commander/player relationship is to try and encourage _teamplay_ and _more fun_ by working as a team, by _dramatically improving the team dynamic_ with the commander.
b) Make being a commander more about strategy and directing team mates than doing grunt work (selecting groups of players and simply ordering them once to proceed somewhere with no real objective/task as a constant reminder)
c) Do NOT make the commander micro-manage his/her players. Let the commander make high level decisions "Capture West Wing" or "Proceed and hold X", which are tasks displayed on each player's HUD.
d) New players to the game will automatically join a squad, and would be able to see the objectives of the squad immediately. Without even speaking a word; the player will know they are supposed to be pushing for West Wing and then falling back to build a Resource Node.
e) This system is designed to _streamline the sharing of information_ between the team so it is near effortless to communicate, and allows the commander to make high level decisions (Capture West Wing) and assign it to a group of players in a squad that was formed randomly, without having to micro manage, or constantly issue 'please take west wing' requests, or have players lose sight on what they are supposed to be doing from a strategic perspective.
--
Allow the commander system to be powerful and easily communicate with players (and vice versa) using a lock/step model of tasks/objectives that allows the commander to respond tactically to problems in real time, while making it clear to player's what they are supposed to be doing.
I would love as a commander to make clear orders to my team mates, be able to review/modify them with a few clicks at any time, and most importantly know the players have a clear understanding of what they are supposed to be doing.
As a player, I would love to have clear direction from my commander (with objectives), and only bother him when we need something (objective completed, or we need more health kits, ...) using a sort of lock/step model to also know when an Objective is Pending (we're still making it to West Wing), 'Commander Observing' (commander is busy dealing with our objective right now), and Completed (time to move on to our next task assigned to us).
Players would also feel far more immersed teamplay wise when they are part of a small squad of players they can easily spot in-game (Squad icon above their head, on mini-map, etc) and know they are all proceeding to the exact same objective you are - because your HUD says so.
Feedback?
Thanks
** Pretty pictures of this idea a few posts below **
Preface: Your commander has a great tactical plan; you have great players on your team; and you all want to win - somewhere between the commander making an order, and the player's executing that order, things start to unwind and the teamplay starts to fall apart. How can we fix this? I think I know how.
<b>Summary</b>
Allow commanders to issue queued orders to players that appear as objectives on the player's HUDs, and automatically assign squads. Make it painless to communicate intentions between commander and players. Issuing orders simply via text/voice comm chat is not good enough.
One-button squad assignment and Queued objectives are the main take away points.
<b>Idea</b>
Players do not always have a sense of what they should be doing - they may get a chat message or two; but no real goals are marked out for them clearly. Was I supposed to be attacking west wing? Oh I dont know, I cant remember, there's bad guys there, ill keep on fighting anyway.
I propose we make NS2's commander/player system more solid to make team play _easier_ and more fun _by design_.
We can do this by:
* Allowing commanders to ask the game to 'Create 3 squads (for eg) of equal players' for me automatically
-> As a commander; I just want 3 (for eg) separate groups of players to work with; I don't care whos in what squad, just make it happen right now; I have orders to give
* Allowing the commander to assign lock/step objectives, where a commander can 'queue' tasks a particular squad that must completed in order
-> Commands are queued, so that squads can go for 5-10-15+ minutes and know that strategically, they still need to be pushing for West Wing, or should be busy setting up defences at marine spawn, because their current objective continues to say so, and the commander has not revoked/made a change to the current objectives
Here's a breakdown of how this should work in a bit more detail:
1) Commanders need to be able to very easily create a squad/group of players
The actual players in each squad is not necessarily important, what is important is that the commander can ask the system 'Create me 3 balanced squads'. Let the game assign 3 players to each Red, Green and Blue squads automatically.
Letting players join particular squads may be something to consider; but what is important here is that this is a 5 second task; not a few minutes.
2) Players should clearly understand they are in a squad assigned by the commander, on their HUD it indicates they belong to a squad, their mini-map shows their squad's team mate locations, and their squad member player models have an icon hovering over their head (for example) to indicate they are a squad member.
This lets players know who they need to be sticking with when completing objectives.
3) The commander can now issue orders to a squad
For example, assume I am commanding ns2_rockdown and want to attack West Wing, secure it, build my 2nd spawn resource tower, and also take East Wing and then Center Hive.
Trying to co-ordinate and communicate something this complex to players via chat (thats 9 players now for example on my team, 3 squads of 3 players each) and remind them of their objectives is confusing, inefficient and not very fun.
Imagine if I could do this as commander:
a) Click 'Create squads' and enter '3 balanced' as the amount
b) I select Red squad on my commander HUD, hold shift and click on West Wing's CC/hive location. I then shift click again on Marine Spawn's 2nd res node (that is empty at the moment), and then shift-click Alien Spawn.
Immediately; my commander's HUD adjusts to indicate to the side of the 'Red Squad' icon on my commander HUD:
Objective 1: Capture West Wing
Objective 2: Build Marine Spawn resource tower
Objective 3: Push forward to Alien Spawn
These objectives are editable by me - I can re-order them, delete them, or insert another in the middle, at any time.
c) Each of my Red Squad team members now have their own HUD updated with the same objective list on the right hand side (for example), and a compass/arrow indicating where the Red Squad team member needs to go to achieve Objective 1.
When Red Squad arrive at West Wing, they issue the 'Waiting for orders' (or perhaps this is automatic - the game can know when the squad is where I told them to go), an alert appears on my commander HUD indicating that Red Squad is now waiting for me, as commander, to respond to them.
I press SPACE (or some other shortcut) for example to jump to their location, and both of our HUDs indicate 'Objective 1: Capture West Wing - Commander Observing' (for example) to indicate that I as commander acknowledge they are needing me, and I am attending to their needs right now (by dropping a res node, turrets, etc).
By marking Objective 1 as 'Commander Observing' (or something better?), it lets Red Squad know to keep holding it and that I am acting on their successful capture of West Wing.
After in my opinion as commander they have completed Objective 1 (enough defence is there, etc), I click 'Completed' beside Objective 1 which lets all of my Red Squad players know I consider that finished.
Objective 1 on their list has a 'Completed' icon (or green strike through for example) to mark it as completed. Their compass now points to Objective 2.
While this is all in progress; Blue and Green Squads could be completing entirely different objectives. I could have Blue Squad pushing Center Hive while Green Squad has one objective to remain at Marine Spawn and help setup defences. I don't need to micro manage or check up on each squad, by using a lock/step model I get notified when they need me, and they get notified when I am acting on their request.
This is really powerful for teamwork. The team understands everyone's objectives and what's going on, all without having to speak a word.
4) The commander can easily see the status of their players and how many objectives they have completed so far.
For example, I may notice that Blue Squad has not captured Center Hive yet as instructed, perhaps because they are running into a lot of defence, while Red Squad has almost finished their building of Resource Node at Marine Spawn (Objective 2).
It would be fantastic as commander that I could make the strategic decision to have Red Squad backup Green Squad after they have finished their Second Objective using one mouse click.
Imagine I could drag the Red Squad icon and slot it into the 'Objective 1: Capture Center Hive' objective of Green Squad.
This would update all of Red Squad's Objective/Task lists to now proceed to 'Capture Center Hive' as their 3rd objective, instead of 'Push forward to Alien Spawn', but that they should only do this once Marine Spawn (Objective 2 of theirs) has been completed - as I value this more important for Red Squad at this time.
[b]Take Away Points[/b[
a) The idea I have for this commander/player relationship is to try and encourage _teamplay_ and _more fun_ by working as a team, by _dramatically improving the team dynamic_ with the commander.
b) Make being a commander more about strategy and directing team mates than doing grunt work (selecting groups of players and simply ordering them once to proceed somewhere with no real objective/task as a constant reminder)
c) Do NOT make the commander micro-manage his/her players. Let the commander make high level decisions "Capture West Wing" or "Proceed and hold X", which are tasks displayed on each player's HUD.
d) New players to the game will automatically join a squad, and would be able to see the objectives of the squad immediately. Without even speaking a word; the player will know they are supposed to be pushing for West Wing and then falling back to build a Resource Node.
e) This system is designed to _streamline the sharing of information_ between the team so it is near effortless to communicate, and allows the commander to make high level decisions (Capture West Wing) and assign it to a group of players in a squad that was formed randomly, without having to micro manage, or constantly issue 'please take west wing' requests, or have players lose sight on what they are supposed to be doing from a strategic perspective.
--
Allow the commander system to be powerful and easily communicate with players (and vice versa) using a lock/step model of tasks/objectives that allows the commander to respond tactically to problems in real time, while making it clear to player's what they are supposed to be doing.
I would love as a commander to make clear orders to my team mates, be able to review/modify them with a few clicks at any time, and most importantly know the players have a clear understanding of what they are supposed to be doing.
As a player, I would love to have clear direction from my commander (with objectives), and only bother him when we need something (objective completed, or we need more health kits, ...) using a sort of lock/step model to also know when an Objective is Pending (we're still making it to West Wing), 'Commander Observing' (commander is busy dealing with our objective right now), and Completed (time to move on to our next task assigned to us).
Players would also feel far more immersed teamplay wise when they are part of a small squad of players they can easily spot in-game (Squad icon above their head, on mini-map, etc) and know they are all proceeding to the exact same objective you are - because your HUD says so.
Feedback?
Thanks
Comments
Needs an abstract or an executive summary. I'd like to not have to read the entire thing before I know what the idea actually <b>is</b>: once the idea has been established (in summary-form), go ahead, flesh it out.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hi,
Preface: Your commander has a great tactical plan; you have great players on your team; and you all want to win - somewhere between the commander making an order, and the player's executing that order, things start to unwind and the teamplay starts to fall apart. How can we fix this? I think I know how.
I had an idea to dramatically improve the teamwork and information sharing between players and the commander dramatically.
Often as a commander, or as a player, I will hear/issue orders such as 'take west wing' or 'take the power node, then move to hive' via text/voice chat.
The commander can only 'multi task' so much, they can't oversee multiple squads performing multiple objectives while building structures etc so easily; its information and micro-management overload.
Even with text chat and voice comm, and players who are super eager to work together, it can be difficult for everyone to work together because of how the game projects the commander's intentions to players.
Players do not always have a sense of what they should be doing - they may get a chat message or two; but no real goals are marked out for them clearly. Was I supposed to be attacking west wing? Oh I dont know, I cant remember, there's bad guys there, ill keep on fighting anyway.
I propose we make NS2's commander/player system more solid to make team play _easier_ and more fun _by design_.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All of this is introduction. You're telling me the reasons for your idea, but seven paragraphs in, you still haven't told me the idea.
----------
Your ideas, I think, can be described as such:
<b>One-button squad assignment</b> and <b>Queued objectives</b>
Now, as for your actual core idea, I like it in theory, some points though:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->1) Commanders need to be able to very easily create a squad/group of players
The actual players in each squad is not necessarily important, what is important is that the commander can ask the system 'Create me 3 balanced squads'. Let the game assign 3 players to each Red, Green and Blue squads automatically.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel this may conflict with their dynamic squad system, though. Having seen their system in action so far (on the NS2HD videos), it does look somewhat clumsy so your idea could work as a potential replacement, but I think the dynamic squad system just needs refinement. I think it will be alleviated by <b>longer allowable separation times</b>, <b>greater allowable separation distances</b>, and <b>clear indications of which squad</b> you belong to, which brings us to...
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2) Players should clearly understand they are in a squad assigned by the commander, on their HUD it indicates they belong to a squad, their mini-map shows their squad's team mate locations, and their squad member player models have an icon hovering over their head (for example) to indicate they are a squad member.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel this is just a feature that hasn't yet been put in. At least I've always assumed that this kind of information should and will be available to us.
Having said all that, your squad idea does return a bit of control back to the commander. Maybe as a compromise, you could allow the commander to combine disparate squads, or split cohesive squads; or even to "force 3 balanced squads" for example - basically temporarily overriding the dynamic system.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->* Allowing the commander to assign lock/step objectives, where a commander can 'queue' tasks a particular squad that must completed in order
-> Commands are queued, so that squads can go for 5-10-15+ minutes and know that strategically, they still need to be pushing for West Wing, or should be busy setting up defences at marine spawn, because their current objective continues to say so, and the commander has not revoked/made a change to the current objectives<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Excellent idea. Queued objectives are great, especially because it means the commander doesn't have to cajole and babysit his marines constantly, and can have his attention where it's needed.
inb4: "This will decrease the cohesion between the team and the commander." or in other words something along the lines of "The commander and the marines will each be playing their own separate games." Laughable argument though.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I feel this may conflict with their dynamic squad system, though. Having seen their system in action so far (on the NS2HD videos), it does look somewhat clumsy so your idea could work as a potential replacement, but I think the dynamic squad system just needs refinement. I think it will be alleviated by <b>longer allowable separation times</b>, <b>greater allowable separation distances</b>, and <b>clear indications of which squad</b> you belong to, which brings us to...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah I know the dynamic squad system exists; but I don't see a real purpose. The only purpose I could really see is to select those players as a group on your screen, and then issue them an order, but its not persistent. It's not very useful to me at all as commander.
With a persistend squad system and queued commander orders (as discussed), I think it makes for a far better gameplay experience.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Having said all that, your squad idea does return a bit of control back to the commander. Maybe as a compromise, you could allow the commander to combine disparate squads, or split cohesive squads; or even to "force 3 balanced squads" for example - basically temporarily overriding the dynamic system.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The main reason I wanted the commander to be able to make squads, is because its faster and you just want to tell players what to do, not ask them to first join a squad.
Perhaps instead of forcing a specific squad layout; let players (such as friends) form squads amongst themselves quickly on their end, and as a commander if I need another squad I can click 'create another squad' and the game will merge players without a squad into one, or halve an existing squad, etc.
So that for the majority of the time, people can play with each other as friends if they like and be part of the same squad - but if the commander needs another squad (to tackle a separate objective in parallel to another squad) then they can have one created for them, and not be restricted to 10 friends being in the same squad (which isn't necessary).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Excellent idea. Queued objectives are great, especially because it means the commander doesn't have to cajole and babysit his marines constantly, and can have his attention where it's needed.
inb4: "This will decrease the cohesion between the team and the commander." or in other words something along the lines of "The commander and the marines will each be playing their own separate games." Laughable argument though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Spot on.
Its no fun micro managing the team players, or having your orders such as 'help setup base defense first, then take the hive' getting lost in communication because the chat messages have been forgotten by the team players 10 seconds ago.
I am missing a lot of detail, but you get the gist.
<b>Objectives and routes shown to commander</b>
<a href="http://img256.imageshack.us/i/commander1.png/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/8384/commander1.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Route markers are always shown, and the objectives per squad are also shown in order. This allows the commander to grasp what strategies are in place instantly.
<b>Commander sees final objective, and notice the mini-map also overlays routes</b>
<a href="http://img375.imageshack.us/i/commander2.png/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/932/commander2.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>A Marine in the Green Squad. Their objectives and squad members are visible, as well as a HUD compass and overlay to guide the player</b>
This may be a bit too much information, but the idea is that its easy for people to know where to go to carry out each objective.
<a href="http://img121.imageshack.us/i/marine1.png/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/7264/marine1.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Marine sees their second objective a bit further ahead</b>
<a href="http://img232.imageshack.us/i/marine2n.png/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/9046/marine2n.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Marine calls for commander to say "I am ready for you to help now" / "Awaiting orders"</b>
<a href="http://img602.imageshack.us/i/marine3.png/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/1082/marine3.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Notice how the first objective has been crossed off as it was completed, and there are some arrows pointing out where your other squad mates are so that you can play with them easier.
This question of persistence of squads is important, though. I believe that the automatic dynamic squad system is great because people can just naturally flock and form a squad, but I also believe the commander needs the control over squads and part of that necessarily requires persistence - of course another part of that is just general control: being able to assign and reassign players to squads (disbanding squads, splitting squads, joining squads etc.). This is especially important for planning offensives, and for the squad spawning system. There has to be some kind of hybrid solution that would be optimal.
This system would just increase the communication between soldiers and commander a lot, and I think would be really neat to see implemented.
I'm sure the Dev's have thought about dynamic squads more than we have, I'd like to hear what they have to say on it.
-If you have a group of stragglers from different squads in an area you need to now defend.. you could always select all of the marines in that area and tell them to defend. Mabye have a separate icon for DIRECT Commander orders apart from squad orders.
Quick recap: QFT Harimau's last post.
1. Players should be put in squads when they Join the marine team, no player without a squad. Commander can adjust squads move players around whenever need be.
2. Displaying what squad your in, solved.
-Listing objectives, not hard to do.
-Knowing where squad members are... could get cluttery unless we get a mini map of some kind we can pull up quickly(don't want it there all the time)
-Visual on squad members in players vision, need to be clean and simple.
3. This is a bit elaborate....i like shift click with multiple objectives is good but the rest seems little unnecessary right now.
Be mindful of how much stuff is going with the commander all ready and how much is on the screen, he has a notification thing on the right hand side we should probably be utilizing that a bit better. Making it smaller and display objective completions as well as other stuff.
We need to play the game more and that will let us know better what we really need and what is actually useful.
you should put the pictures in your first post to break up the wall of text which was TL:DR for me - but i get what you are trying to say from the pic's