About Being The Commander

Gnatsum · December 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">an opinion</div> *I have total respect in the makers of this mod... i am not looking for flames, i am not putting anyone down.... just an opinion of mine

Lately, i've been noticing some ..stuff

anyone notice that being comm in ns is a little too stressful and dare i say it.. .. boring?

i mean...how annoying is it to highlight a group of 12 marines who are all over the place...

you can only highlight at least a maximum of 6 or 7 marines...

and then go all the way to a "area" and send a waypoint... which takes forever

Then you gotta watch them... and the screen staggers and its hard to keep on track. Then suddenly! they are attacked by aliens...and you gotta highlight each and every marine and check their health status,....and drop a med pack RIGHT on their heads which can get very frustrating.

anyone with me so far?

my point is...its just that its very hard to move around as a commander.

I was watching a game of starcraft ...

watching one of my friends play it, and man did he have control over the map. He scrolled there...and here...and man it was freaking cool ...
He didn't have to draw any health packs and drop them over players.. or creatures
and then i remembered myself... playing ns...how troublesome it is...
"comm i need a health pack plz asap"... "plz comm now... im @ 12 hp"

*sigh..

building and researching technology is cool the way it is...

its just that the relationship between the comm and the marine is somewhat...lacking...

i just hate dropping health packs for marines that are all over the place..
i just hate how hard it is to assemble a squad of (GOOD) marines.
I just hate how hard it is to show the marines where the enemy is (you know, when theres a skulk and you see where he is and you highlight yer marines and then right click the skulk and then you automatically say "The enemy is nearby! "

anyone getting this... or am i the only one thats feeling these vibes...

sorry ... i have a small suggestion... i just thought of this right now...

would it be alright to have a fog of war?
instead of "What the marines see, the comm sees"

PureSolace · December 2002

I think it's the frustration of the comm chair that makes the game interesting... Remember, the units in NS are human! not some AI that follows written programming instructions. That's why I as a programmer, I'm really loving the experiance of this game... you have to build a relationship with your troops up front and set out goals for your team to accomplish... the game sets up one goal for everyone....win. Now how to do that? that's up to the commander and his team. I've seen blow out games, come back games, games where the tide of battle and the front lines shifted more than the san andreas fault. No two games are 100% alike... and because the marines are humans and not programmed units ready to suicide for their commander, you have a new and unique experiance. Is it frustrating? yes. Is it boring? sometimes yes... but, is it a new experiance? Most Deffinatly, and this is what the video game industry needs right now... Instead of the latest instalment of quake or warcraft with the same game mechanics over and over, these guys are pioneers in a new type of multiplayer game. This type of idea has been tossed around for about the last 7 years. I mean, I'm sure some people here remember the "Commander Mode" thought of for "Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood in Arms" but due to the success of Counter-Strike, Valve thought to move on to other things... (Even though some circles swear it's still on the back burner.) there's been talk of people commanding, leading, a battle and let the "units" be actual humans controlling them. But nothing this fast pased has been done... till NS came along. And for a first relase of a mod, these guys did good, so give 'em props! I say give it a while, let the dev guys iron out the bugs, let the community get familiar with the game. (Remember new people join us every day. And this game has a nice sized learning curve..) but it's worth it. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'> So, be cool man, use patience, and try to find a good crew to practice with.

Big_Game_Hunter · December 2002

Yeah, most people agree with you. I'm pretty sure there will be drastic improvements in the next client side patch. In the meantime, <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=19&t=16194' target='_blank'>here</a> is a great new hud, much less obtrusive.

PureSolace: Im pretty sure his major gripe was about the interface, not about the gameplay.

Gnatsum · December 2002

oh when you put it that way pure solace

I FEEL ALL BETTER ABOUT COMMANDING! <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Anyways

the only thing i have a problem about commanders is the relationship between commanders and their troops

/me looks at the dev's

not that im actually trying to put anyone down <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'>

Sirus · December 2002

people like me because I hover over important battles dropping medpacks as soon as they get damaged w/o them having to ask.

SemperFi · December 2002

I find somethings to be VERY frustrating while commanding. One of them is tyring to lasso marines like oyu stated in your original post. Easy solution to this; double click one marine and it selects them all. This would be especially handy for when your trying to tell your marines that you want them all to go somewhere in a hurry.

Also, when someone asks for a medpack or ammo, it would be really nice if it showed a little beacon go off at thier location on the minimap. Same thing goes for when "your base is under attack".

I think that if just these small imperfections along with a few others were cleared up, being commander would be a little less tedious.

Soryr if anyone in the above posts mentioned any of this i quickly perused the thread. Im tired give me a break.

Bobpoblo · December 2002

I find commanding pretty easy and NOT boring at all, it takes many hours of practice to get used to everything but it's all worth it for the rush <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

FlatlineUTD · December 2002

I'm here at CPL and playing NS with a group of people who have *never* played it before. It's great having 2 teams of complete newbies with one or two people that know what they're doing. We each get on separate teams and are showing the newbies the basics of the game.

When I command, if they don't listen to orders, I tell them that they need to start listening to orders, and then they do! If these guys stick with NS, they'll be the marines you WANT under your command in a few weeks. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'>

Zerglin · December 2002

The problem with commander mode right now is that the controls are little shoddy. It's ok right now, but an RTS needs some fluid control like Starcraft or Warcraft. Like a double click so you can select all marines, or player icons so you can set down medkits directly insteadly of "aiming" for their heads, or give the commander a list of K/D of all players on his team so he can give equipment to worthy players, or smooth out scrolling because at this point using arrow keys is very sticky and WSAD continues to slide in the direction chosen so only scrolling around using the mouse is doable.

Tweaking the command controls and interface for a quicker response is crucial. You don't want to spend too much time lassoing all the marines or making a futile effort to drop a medkit on a strafing marine.

About Being The Commander

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