Often times I will be given an order by a commander, that I know will not work, because I have more intimate knowledge of the area. I can hear aliens through the walls, that the commander cannot see. To the occasional frustration of theirs, I momentarily ignore them.
I have also felt the frustration and the immediate embarrassment, when I'm commanding and give an order to a marine, who is at the surface ignoring me, until I realize that he was baiting an ambush and made a perfectly good call.
It is an absolute myth that commanders should have better awareness than the field players.
Often times I will be given an order by a commander, that I know will not work, because I have more intimate knowledge of the area. I can hear aliens through the walls, that the commander cannot see. To the occasional frustration of theirs, I momentarily ignore them.
I have also felt the frustration and the immediate shame, when I'm commanding and give an order to a marine, who is at the surface ignoring me, until I realize that he was baiting an ambush and made a perfectly good call.
It is an absolute myth that commanders should have better awareness than the field players.
Agreed, commanders simply don't have the capacity to be aware of EVERYTHING that occurs on the battlefield, even the very best commanders its simply not possible, amount of times I've seen field commanders do their jobs for them!
They hear the same sound when they hover on the same area. It's also a hive drop detection mean...
Correct, they do but they STILL will not have as much awareness of whats occurring in that room than a troop that's on the ground.
In conclusion you cannot have one without the other, a commander that doesn't use his troops to their full potential is just as bad as a field commander that doesn't report a hive drop that the commander may have missed.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
edited September 2015
Perhaps instead of 'looking at map' I should say map & top view. Because I do not mean the map exclusive.
Also you keep going back to giving field players information they need to process. But they do not need certain information to begin with if they are not the person deciding what to do with said info.
Any information which is 'for all' which means not only for a field player, commander, or field comm, should already be processed by all. A commander indeed should not need to tell them, any field player should already be aware of it.
Doing as you are told can be easy enough, as it does not exclude all the normal default information thrown around. I do wonder why you keep making this hard barrier where such info is only seen and processed by a commander or field commander. Most of it should be processed by most players to be able to do their role.
If a marine is obviously baiting or guarding, you can see that as commander. If the comm in question does not realise, its their own fault. The commander role is not at fault.
Same for sound, as stated by others anything a marine hears a commander can hear if he hovers around it. Commanders keep this advantage even when marines are not around.
Here may be the part where confusion slips in. ANY field marine can make calls or notice stuff. I expect every single marine to call out if he/she notices a hive drop, a rush, or sees a opening. Its not limited to a commander or field comm. Field comms are their to fill a void of the rest of the field marines not paying attention.
Now if for whatever reason conflicting calls are made, you need someone who tells everyone else what we are going to do, and there is once again where the commander comes in.
>edit
I will give you one thing though. If the comm is failing in his/her job, then a field comm is also good to have. But thats in my view still a comm fail, rather then a field comms job.<
Here may be the part where confusion slips in. ANY field marine can make calls or notice stuff. I expect every single marine to call out if he/she notices a hive drop, a rush, or sees a opening.
Now if for whatever reason conflicting calls are made, you need someone who tells everyone else what we are going to do, and there is once again where the commander comes in.
I will give you one thing though. If the comm is failing in his/her job, then a field comm is also good to have. But thats in my view still a comm fail, rather then a field comms job.
So what you are saying is either a commander or field commander can make a call and should be able to make a call, but that in the event of a conflicting call, the person in the comm chair has priority.
I completely disagree because the person on the field might be correct and the person in the chair might make a poor decision.
Commanders offer nothing more in terms of strategy than a field player. The only time a commander should offer more in terms of strategy than a field player is if he is higher skilled (i.e. makes better calls in that independent moment) and that goes for field players too.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Seems we are starting to go in circles here.
In a matter of practicality, if the team decides who has prio, I dont give a damn whats more practical. Its what works for said team.
But back to me saying a comm is better suited then a field player. The oversight view is simply more practical for a general view & map, then field is. The only time a field player has a good general view is with his/her nose in the map.
You keep saying a field player has more time to look at said map, but thats simply not true. If they are sitting with their nose in the map nonstop, they are not doing anything worthwhile like putting bullets into a rt.
A commander can weave glancing at the map much more into his/her general routine.
Thats not to say a field player should never look at the map, but even with all the medspam a comm simply has more time to do it.
But back to me saying a comm is better suited then a field player. The oversight view is simply more practical for a general view & map, then field is.
But in terms of effect on the game, it's much better suited to a field player because of the additional processes by involving another player (the commander telling him what to do). The oversight view has literally no more practical effect than the map because of this.
The only time a field player has a good general view is with his/her nose in the map.
You keep saying a field player has more time to look at said map, but thats simply not true.
It is because the field player has more down time. A commander should be in every fight which means he is involved as much as the total sum of all marines in the engagments and so less time spent on looking at the map to make decisions.
A commander can weave glancing at the map much more into his/her general routine.
I think both commanders and field commanders are equal in the information they have with the exception to lifeform HP. As such, I think field commanders are only so much less valuable in decision making as their skill and the same is true about commanders in the chair.
The only difference between a commander and field commander (with the exception of seeing lifeform HP) is that commanders drop medpacks and structures, and marines shoot bullets and build structures. The decision making capacity is equal to both because the information is available to both players equally. To say one is better than the other because of the fundamental role they play is wrong. I know some field commanders who do better than some chair commanders.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Your first point makes no sense.
A commander telling a field player what to do, or a field comm telling another field player what to do. Still involves 2 players.
Also I do not see a field player having more downtime. I agree a commander should be in every fight, thats true. But a field player is not doing nothing.
Now I will admit I am basing part of my opinion on my own commanding style. I do not have the issue you describe with decision making while hovering over fights.
Most fights do not last long enough so its perfectly multitask capable.
Weave in a fed wel placed medpacks, hop between marine 'packs', and do this while keeping a eye on the map. It all weaves well into another without much effort.
Yes I know you can mouse 1 with the map open. I should say, if you are shooting something and being busy, I assume that marine is looking at the map around his/her general area to not get ambushed or something. Not at everyone else. Which is the whole problem. If they are paying attention to everyone else, they are not paying attention to their own surroundings enough.
I will definitely agree that in reality experience and skill play a far bigger role then the actual commander/field commander role.
Your first point makes no sense.
A commander telling a field player what to do, or a field comm telling another field player what to do. Still involves 2 players.
My bad, I was arguing that field players are equal to commanders, not field commanders equal to commanders.
agreed, commanders only got worse. i've only ever gone for 'adequate' commanding. so field for me, now it's 'dear lord our commander sucks' but we're winning, because the enemy commander is even worse.
I finally got a rig that can run NS silky smooth and now I can't wait to comm more. Last game I commed I forgot to use any map waypoints to guide my team and I really want to jump back in to use them. I think waypoints could be an excellent tool to guide pub players, especially on aliens. Oh, and I just found out there is a hotkey to grab the nearest Drifter, so now I don't have to scour the map!
Played a game last night where all the players except me went rines, I went aliens and commed. All I had were bots. I did not notice at first and wondered why my team was so brain dead. I ended up using alt-F4 and played Overwatch the rest of the night.
Played a game last night where all the players except me went rines, I went aliens and commed. All I had were bots. I did not notice at first and wondered why my team was so brain dead. I ended up using alt-F4 and played Overwatch the rest of the night.
*to high hiveskill, so the rest of the team cant handle the enemy..
This.
Can't com, still highest pdmg/sdmg at end of round even as (alien)com. Solution is to get a smurfaccount for commanding and/or work out a different calculation for hiveskill when commanding. But for now I can't relax and command a round because it's instantly a lost game which sucks.
Played a game last night where all the players except me went rines, I went aliens and commed. All I had were bots. I did not notice at first and wondered why my team was so brain dead. I ended up using alt-F4 and played Overwatch the rest of the night.
Your own fault if you start a game with bots.
Of course. I'll pay attention in the future. My complaint isn't so much about that specific round as the thinking that made it happen.
No one listens and the field players are hopeless, most of the time.
I understand what your saying, and I agree. There are a lot of skilled players who don't know what is going on around them. But for fun, because I can, you do not see many players with 700Hours+ players in hive. Only ~0.13% of players have 700+ hours recorded in hive.
I'm in that .13%!
I'm posting here because I really don't have an issue commanding at all
That being said, I see many players with crippling fears or inabilities to hop into the command chair. I think the underlying cause is fairly simple. It is a different game in the chair. I may not be a very strong player compared to the highest skilled shooters, but with a good team it is very possible to outmaneuver and out play very strong shooters. This is because my experience in RTS games shines in the chair and not on the field. I am in no way perfect or anywhere close, but the difference in gameplay, between the responsibility and different mechanics of a commander versus the aiming and firing of his players is what I believe to be the biggest factor in people being unwilling to command. This is not helped by pub player's lack of understanding of what a commander is capable of. When a marine commander is on a single res node, he cannot afford both weapons 2 and all of the medpacks self proclaimed "god player xxx" wants. He has to balance team and player needs. Same goes for alien com. As a commander, despite my love for the chair and my skill in it, I am frequently barraged by players who claim "they could do better" but never step foot into the command structure to prove it. It saddens me. I command usually by ignoring such statements and communicating with players willing to provide constructive feedback and ask for things with awareness of the other activities I am attending to. If I am doing a risky play, I usually ask permission from my players, but even then pub "legends" stay silent until it fails and then "why are you such an awful commander?" ensues. There is also a hideous inflexibility of players to welcome newer commanders and let them gain experience. In many cases I can understand the fear, which is that a commander who is learning for the first time will at times cost the players the game with sluggish acting and potential misplays but COME ON. Rookies have to start somewhere, and losing one match every so often and allowing a person to GAIN EXPERIENCE in a constructive and beneficial way that allows them to enjoy and get better at ns2 is crucial. That being said, nobody without a certain amount of ground experience should command in my eyes, as an understanding of gameplay mechanics, basic strategy, and tech trees is critical and expected of all commanders of any skill. Rookies without ground knowledge simply haven't played enough to understand what they should do in the chair, nor do they always know the short hand people use for certain things. I always welcome new faces in the chair but it is a commander's duty to the team to have a baseline of skill, and it is the team's duty to guide the commander and work WITH him to win matches. NS2 is a phenomenal team game. While yes some blunders can be put squarely on the commander's shoulders, shake it off, because everyone forgets to beacon sometimes. Remember that whenever you hop in the chair you are expected to communicate with your team, and work with them to succeed, not be a source of blame and conflict. To ground players, remember your commander isn't always as excited to be there as I am so cut them some slack and help them if they are not acting in a way you prefer instead of getting angry or insulting him/her.
Comments
I have also felt the frustration and the immediate embarrassment, when I'm commanding and give an order to a marine, who is at the surface ignoring me, until I realize that he was baiting an ambush and made a perfectly good call.
It is an absolute myth that commanders should have better awareness than the field players.
Agreed, commanders simply don't have the capacity to be aware of EVERYTHING that occurs on the battlefield, even the very best commanders its simply not possible, amount of times I've seen field commanders do their jobs for them!
Correct, they do but they STILL will not have as much awareness of whats occurring in that room than a troop that's on the ground.
In conclusion you cannot have one without the other, a commander that doesn't use his troops to their full potential is just as bad as a field commander that doesn't report a hive drop that the commander may have missed.
Also you keep going back to giving field players information they need to process. But they do not need certain information to begin with if they are not the person deciding what to do with said info.
Any information which is 'for all' which means not only for a field player, commander, or field comm, should already be processed by all. A commander indeed should not need to tell them, any field player should already be aware of it.
Doing as you are told can be easy enough, as it does not exclude all the normal default information thrown around. I do wonder why you keep making this hard barrier where such info is only seen and processed by a commander or field commander. Most of it should be processed by most players to be able to do their role.
If a marine is obviously baiting or guarding, you can see that as commander. If the comm in question does not realise, its their own fault. The commander role is not at fault.
Same for sound, as stated by others anything a marine hears a commander can hear if he hovers around it. Commanders keep this advantage even when marines are not around.
Here may be the part where confusion slips in. ANY field marine can make calls or notice stuff. I expect every single marine to call out if he/she notices a hive drop, a rush, or sees a opening. Its not limited to a commander or field comm. Field comms are their to fill a void of the rest of the field marines not paying attention.
Now if for whatever reason conflicting calls are made, you need someone who tells everyone else what we are going to do, and there is once again where the commander comes in.
>edit
I will give you one thing though. If the comm is failing in his/her job, then a field comm is also good to have. But thats in my view still a comm fail, rather then a field comms job.<
So what you are saying is either a commander or field commander can make a call and should be able to make a call, but that in the event of a conflicting call, the person in the comm chair has priority.
I completely disagree because the person on the field might be correct and the person in the chair might make a poor decision.
Commanders offer nothing more in terms of strategy than a field player. The only time a commander should offer more in terms of strategy than a field player is if he is higher skilled (i.e. makes better calls in that independent moment) and that goes for field players too.
In a matter of practicality, if the team decides who has prio, I dont give a damn whats more practical. Its what works for said team.
But back to me saying a comm is better suited then a field player. The oversight view is simply more practical for a general view & map, then field is. The only time a field player has a good general view is with his/her nose in the map.
You keep saying a field player has more time to look at said map, but thats simply not true. If they are sitting with their nose in the map nonstop, they are not doing anything worthwhile like putting bullets into a rt.
A commander can weave glancing at the map much more into his/her general routine.
Thats not to say a field player should never look at the map, but even with all the medspam a comm simply has more time to do it.
It is because the field player has more down time. A commander should be in every fight which means he is involved as much as the total sum of all marines in the engagments and so less time spent on looking at the map to make decisions.
You can mouse 1 with the map open...
I think both commanders and field commanders are equal in the information they have with the exception to lifeform HP. As such, I think field commanders are only so much less valuable in decision making as their skill and the same is true about commanders in the chair.
The only difference between a commander and field commander (with the exception of seeing lifeform HP) is that commanders drop medpacks and structures, and marines shoot bullets and build structures. The decision making capacity is equal to both because the information is available to both players equally. To say one is better than the other because of the fundamental role they play is wrong. I know some field commanders who do better than some chair commanders.
A commander telling a field player what to do, or a field comm telling another field player what to do. Still involves 2 players.
Also I do not see a field player having more downtime. I agree a commander should be in every fight, thats true. But a field player is not doing nothing.
Now I will admit I am basing part of my opinion on my own commanding style. I do not have the issue you describe with decision making while hovering over fights.
Most fights do not last long enough so its perfectly multitask capable.
Weave in a fed wel placed medpacks, hop between marine 'packs', and do this while keeping a eye on the map. It all weaves well into another without much effort.
Yes I know you can mouse 1 with the map open. I should say, if you are shooting something and being busy, I assume that marine is looking at the map around his/her general area to not get ambushed or something. Not at everyone else. Which is the whole problem. If they are paying attention to everyone else, they are not paying attention to their own surroundings enough.
I will definitely agree that in reality experience and skill play a far bigger role then the actual commander/field commander role.
My bad, I was arguing that field players are equal to commanders, not field commanders equal to commanders.
Cool
Those that love to jump in the chair are a special breed and I salute you.
The overal skill has diminished so much that most players in field dont know how bad a commanders messed up.
Yes.
But I think It's a challenge for comm to win even with a rookie team. More enjoy on winning
Your own fault if you start a game with bots.
This.
Can't com, still highest pdmg/sdmg at end of round even as (alien)com. Solution is to get a smurfaccount for commanding and/or work out a different calculation for hiveskill when commanding. But for now I can't relax and command a round because it's instantly a lost game which sucks.
Of course. I'll pay attention in the future. My complaint isn't so much about that specific round as the thinking that made it happen.
Don't tell me what to do