How do you teach Commanding?
locallyunscene
Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">taking another cue from Blizzard.</div>Commanding is fundamentally hard for new player to learn in NS for a variety of reasons:<ul><li> NS is an FPS game first, and there is a large conceptual jump from non-comm to comm</li><li>There are not many opportunities to be comm compared to being a non-comm</li><li>Criticism of comm is harsh because it's such an important role</li></ul>
Some various approaches mentioned:<ul><li>Tutorial/Single Player</li><li>Wiki/manual</li><li>Bots/Skirmish Mode</li><li>Ranks for commanders</li><li>Achievements geared toward commanders</li></ul>
There are problems with these approaches though:<ul><li><b>Single Player</b> is out of the question due to resources.</li><li><a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105707&hl=tutorial" target="_blank"><b>Tutorials</b></a> and <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/User%3a%44aworm/Sandbox" target="_blank"><b>wikis</b></a><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> are boring to someone how wants to play a game and often ignored. They also require a lot of effort to create.</li><li><a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105886&hl=bots" target="_blank"><b>Bots</b></a> could be doable, even though they also require a lot of resources. The problem is they don't teach the player to play well, just let them play around.</li><li>And while <a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106705&hl=tutorial" target="_blank"><b>ranks</b></a> are easy to do, they don't give any guidance on how to do things</li><li><a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104013&hl=achievement" target="_blank"><b>Acheivements</b></a> are easy to do and could be targeted to teach, but the player still has no place to practice and would be ignored.</li></ul>
<a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106976" target="_blank">Blizzard's</a> approach for SC2 is to combine tutorials and achievements into compact, targeted <b>challenges</b> that can be practiced again and again by novice and experienced players alike. The benefits of this approach are:<ul><li>Challenges are separate, so work can be run in parallel and quantified.</li><li>Challenges are targeted, you can can teach players important concepts beyond the basics.</li><li>Challenges are quick, to prevent the player from getting bored.</li><li>Challenges can be improved upon, so they are not useful to just one groups of players.</li><li>Challenges don't require complex AI.</li><li>Challenges run locally, so they can be practiced by a single player</li><li>Challenges leave room for expansion, so more can be added as the game progresses(and add more players).</li></ul>
For a couple quick examples, the first challenge would be the medpack response challenge:
Stationary marines are placed randomly around the map and they periodically call for medpacks(think whack a mole) and the player is judged on response time.
The next challege could be a marine straffing in a circle that you have to land medpacks on.
The next could be a marine jumping erratically(so the comm would put it where the marine lands) etc.
Many wouldn't need AI. There could be build order challenges and building placement challenges.
Finally, consider if the creation of challenges was a part of the mod tools and was outsourced to the competitive community...
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>NS2 will probably still need a wiki.</span>
Some various approaches mentioned:<ul><li>Tutorial/Single Player</li><li>Wiki/manual</li><li>Bots/Skirmish Mode</li><li>Ranks for commanders</li><li>Achievements geared toward commanders</li></ul>
There are problems with these approaches though:<ul><li><b>Single Player</b> is out of the question due to resources.</li><li><a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105707&hl=tutorial" target="_blank"><b>Tutorials</b></a> and <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/User%3a%44aworm/Sandbox" target="_blank"><b>wikis</b></a><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> are boring to someone how wants to play a game and often ignored. They also require a lot of effort to create.</li><li><a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105886&hl=bots" target="_blank"><b>Bots</b></a> could be doable, even though they also require a lot of resources. The problem is they don't teach the player to play well, just let them play around.</li><li>And while <a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106705&hl=tutorial" target="_blank"><b>ranks</b></a> are easy to do, they don't give any guidance on how to do things</li><li><a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104013&hl=achievement" target="_blank"><b>Acheivements</b></a> are easy to do and could be targeted to teach, but the player still has no place to practice and would be ignored.</li></ul>
<a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=106976" target="_blank">Blizzard's</a> approach for SC2 is to combine tutorials and achievements into compact, targeted <b>challenges</b> that can be practiced again and again by novice and experienced players alike. The benefits of this approach are:<ul><li>Challenges are separate, so work can be run in parallel and quantified.</li><li>Challenges are targeted, you can can teach players important concepts beyond the basics.</li><li>Challenges are quick, to prevent the player from getting bored.</li><li>Challenges can be improved upon, so they are not useful to just one groups of players.</li><li>Challenges don't require complex AI.</li><li>Challenges run locally, so they can be practiced by a single player</li><li>Challenges leave room for expansion, so more can be added as the game progresses(and add more players).</li></ul>
For a couple quick examples, the first challenge would be the medpack response challenge:
Stationary marines are placed randomly around the map and they periodically call for medpacks(think whack a mole) and the player is judged on response time.
The next challege could be a marine straffing in a circle that you have to land medpacks on.
The next could be a marine jumping erratically(so the comm would put it where the marine lands) etc.
Many wouldn't need AI. There could be build order challenges and building placement challenges.
Finally, consider if the creation of challenges was a part of the mod tools and was outsourced to the competitive community...
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->*<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>NS2 will probably still need a wiki.</span>
Comments
1. remove extreme ties to the commander and marines... i.e. not having to drop med packs, guns, and ammo because the large picture is more important...the overall strategy... besides they should get that ammo automatically anyway like some servers script it now. Or make it easy... the bullets regenerate over time along with health and armor.
2. A sub commander role, or multiple sub commanders, ... i.e. multiple dropping of CC's allowing multiple people to command in different regions of the map asynchronously.
Benefit: it's easy to get a noob to learn the interface and start commanding without it costing the game! ... sort of like how pilots are trained with both the teacher and student flying the same aircraft.
Benefit: Marines are better taken care of... give each commander the same res flow + personal res so they can each work independantly without sucking resources from one another during a critical moment.
Benefit: 1 commander has to make the decision to drop additional CC's to allow for other commanders... in this way we can keep it "classic" and overall stop any form of abuse to this... Additionally: the original commander would be allowed to limit what other sub commanders are permitted to do... like are they limited to dropping in only certain parts of the map or are they limited in what they can drop... are they just permitted to manage the upgrade-tech-tree?... And of course the primary commander can eject the sub commanders only... this way the marine team doesn't have to make 10 different votes to eject on 10 different commanders... Makes for a better learning environment for the sub-commanders... They stay almost anonymous when sub commanding (i.e. not listed at the top of the marines hud who the sub commanders are), except that their dropped structures indicate who dropped it. And we can show them as sub commanders in the players-on-server-scoreboard thing.
3. the computer talks to the commander. Besides saying what piece of equipment is under attack, it should also tell you when on-average the concentration of alien structures and forces in an area of the map changes rapidly. So by automatically following the trend, the commander can anticipate a course of action. In addition to the audible alerts, a visual indication can be easily created by showing a bunch of overlapping 2D filled ellipses, under the contents of a room which shows those big deltas in enemy activity (so when you overlap them enough, you end up with this blob on the "floor" of those rooms)... we can even color code it so orange indicates structures + infestation while red indicates enemies as well... and where they are in the room)
These ideas could use some refinement but any one of them can help the situation for making the game easier to command. Overall blurring the differences between CO and NS could do fix this problem also. Make it fun and easy for the marines and commander.
Charlie has all ready mentioned doing similar things(ie: comms not dropping weapons any more). This is a good thing, but doesn't really teach players.
<!--quoteo(post=1717818:date=Jul 17 2009, 03:49 PM:name=FocusedWolf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (FocusedWolf @ Jul 17 2009, 03:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717818"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2. A sub commander role, or multiple sub commanders<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Charlie again has mentioned doing this all ready. It helps, but there are still many more non-comms than comms. And a second commander wouldn't come into play until a ways in the game since it requires taking and fortifying a tech point.
<!--quoteo(post=1717818:date=Jul 17 2009, 03:49 PM:name=FocusedWolf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (FocusedWolf @ Jul 17 2009, 03:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717818"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3. the computer talks to the commander. Besides saying what piece of equipment is under attack, it should also tell you when on-average the concentration of alien structures and forces in an area of the map changes rapidly. So by automatically following the trend, the commander can anticipate a course of action. In addition to the audible alerts, a visual indication can be easily created by showing a bunch of overlapping 2D filled ellipses, under the contents of a room which shows those big deltas in enemy activity (so when you overlap them enough, you end up with this blob on the "floor" of those rooms)... we can even color code it so orange indicates structures + infestation while red indicates enemies as well... and where they are in the room)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I suggested something similar for the <a href="http://unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=103684&hl=hive" target="_blank">Kharaa Commander</a> a while ago. That was just for a stylistic choice, not for teaching though. This idea would probably take just as much, if not more work, as a tutorial. I'm hesitant to suggest that much work of the devs for something that would only be used by new players.
That's actually a good thing because it means that you'll most often have a seasoned comm as the main commander, and thus will have someone who knows what they're doing to assist you with learning the ropes when you jump in as an assistant com.
Now that I think about it more, that's a really nice idea to help the learning curve of commanding.
Now that I think about it more, that's a really nice idea to help the learning curve of commanding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes i agree and also... just now i read here: <a href="http://www.nsplayer.net/ns2interview.php" target="_blank">http://www.nsplayer.net/ns2interview.php</a> that their will be multiple commanders... ya i didn't know when i wrote my post lol... that is cool... only foreseeable problem is when you have 10 commanders and only 4 marines xD.... but it will be funny when their are games where the marine team does a "CC" rush and everyone hides in their personal command chair... look forward to those games lmao.
Wow look at this, probably old, mockup for ns2 commanding... i feel like i was describing many elements of this in another post i made...
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/images/news/NS2_commander_mockup.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
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As for teaching, I think a Commander observer mode would be good. If you could select to spectate the Commander as well as all the other players, it would allow people to watch an entire game and see most of what the Commander is doing. This means you can still learn from inside the game, so you could watch one game being played out at high level and then switch to a different server and try commanding.
This is a good idea.
Multiple commanders is a bad idea.
No constructive criticism? Just "Idea is bad."?
I think it's a great idea. Let's see how it forms up in Alpha.
Speaking of which, you act as if you know exactly how it will form up. What's that? You don't? You're just negatively speculating that some idea someone other than yourself came up with is bad?
Oh.
Why does is need constructive criticism? If you spent any time on Public servers during the peak of NS you know this conclusion is based on simple logic.
There was not enough commanders when we only needed 1 marine commander. Now we need a marine commander, an alien commander, and support commanders?
Look I know you are trying to suck up to Charlie and Co, and is desperate to sound witty and smart but this is all logic and experience buddy.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think it's a great idea. Let's see how it forms up in Alpha.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When you test gamplay ideas with veteran clanners and experience pubbers you run the risk of overlooking the impact of what an average player who has no experience with NS might have difficulty with.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Speaking of which, you act as if you know exactly how it will form up.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anyone who played on public servers during the peak of NS popularity could come to the same conclusion.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What's that? You don't? You're just negatively speculating that some idea someone other than yourself came up with is bad?
Oh.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is pure trolling because I didn't say anything like that and you are putting words into my mouth.
Look, when you have good counter-arguments for me, I'll be happy to respond but if you just continue to play smartass because I'm raising legitimate concerns I'll just ignore you in the future.
I am here to try and help make NS2 a success as well but the way I do it doesn't involve my mouth and Charlie's private parts.
This seems to be your universal response, but the fact of the matter is, this won't be NS1. Comming could be much simpler, less intimidating, and multiple comms COULD actually do their parts right therefor increasing their popularity. Not saying this will work for sure, just keeping an open mind.
Commanding was not difficult because it was not dynamic. Since you cited blizzard, let's compare NS to Starcraft. If a zerg player scouts a protoss player and sees that the protoss has built a forge before their first gateway, thereby allowing the creation of stationary base turrets, the zerg will know that a large portion of money is being sunk into base defense. Instead of a zerg rush they may want to consider teching up or expanding, both of which are decisions made due to proper scouting and reacting to what your opponent is doing. It can change every game. NS does not have this, which may be why I found the commanding experience to be so lackluster when compared to NS's fast and intense FPS side.
I don't want to hyjack this thread with my issue so I will be discussing why I think multiple commanders is a bad idea in this thread:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/forums/index.php?showtopic=107000" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/forums/ind...howtopic=107000</a>
Sorry again.
Commanding was not difficult because it was not dynamic. Since you cited blizzard, let's compare NS to Starcraft. If a zerg player scouts a protoss player and sees that the protoss has built a forge before their first gateway, thereby allowing the creation of stationary base turrets, the zerg will know that a large portion of money is being sunk into base defense. Instead of a zerg rush they may want to consider teching up or expanding, both of which are decisions may due to proper scouting and reacting to what your opponent is doing. It can change every game. NS does not have this, which may be why I found the commanding experience to be so lackluster when compared to NS's fast and intense FPS side.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very interesting, lots of insight in this response.
but good solid commanding smarts come from experience.
i think you can only give a player the tools they need to achieve the job, but they must use their own brain when it comes to being a good creative commander
hey what does "RTFM" mean
hey what does "RTFM" mean<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Read the -ing manual.
Basically all the info was always slammed in and nobody pointed out where to start. Give players a good route through the basics of the game and they can build their knowledge around it, but they need to get started with one thing, try it out and then move to the next one. Keeping that in mind should help tremendously while trying to explain the NS2 comming.
The blizzard guidelines have got some of the same idea, but I think they are still built so that player can finish the tutorial by playing the single player. Without single player the separate tutorials might not combine quick enough.
Many have refered Starcraft to show how to teach commanding. I'd like to refer C&C3 command school episodes. I have learned much from these videos and this first one reveals good building order. Maybe devs could make something like these videos 'how to build good base' or ' what to research' for noobs.
@Whiskey: lol @ your post. Charlies private parts, instant classic quotation.
@Sentrysteve: The game has no dynamic feel? i completely beg to differ. first two thing's the commander needs to know when he gets in the chair.
Where is the hive? What chamber are the aliens using? he must alter his strategy's to these two questions. What higher lifeforms are the aliens using? Armor 2 or weapons 3?
how many lerks? it's 8 minutes in, JP or HA? etc.
The questions go on and on for the comm. You mentioned good scouting. In NS this is one of the most essential facets of commanding. Getting your guys to the alien hives, finding out fade numbers. Maybe your problem isnt lack of dynamics in the game, but lack of a decent tech tree or some other issue. As for marines yelling at you and cookie cutter builds, fact is this game has been out a looong time. There is a set path that the commander must take in responce to alien activity. AA upgrade by the latest at 3 mins comes to mind. Being ready to siege or rush the growing 2nd hive at 5 mins also comes to mind. The alien tech tree is as linear as it could possibly get, there's literally only one building which will give you game winning abilitys and increased spawn times, and the commander must also be rigid to combat this. Every build order has already been tried, every strat thought of, every noob comm who think's he can micro his way to victory over the aliens and suddenly realises the hard truth of NS. Commanding is all macro.
inb4medspamismicro.
You can use the "reply button" next to the quote button. It's hard to quote multiple people though.
<!--quoteo(post=1718195:date=Jul 20 2009, 03:21 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jul 20 2009, 03:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1718195"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This doesn't directly connect to the ingame tutorials, but I think the segmentation and information overload turned out to be the biggest problem for the written commander guides in NS1. The guides gave a lot of more or less necessary information, but most of them failed to explain the basic structure of the game. Most of them never answered things like "It's one minute into the game, my base is built and I've got my teams progressing now. What are the most important things to do right now?" or if it was answered, it was mixed up with more than a dozen pieces of similar information. Combine this with the fact that you can hardly try out the commanding without going online and you've got a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This combined with the fact that most players don't RTFM is why I don't think a wiki is sufficient to teach new players the basics of commanding.
<!--quoteo(post=1718195:date=Jul 20 2009, 03:21 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jul 20 2009, 03:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1718195"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Basically all the info was always slammed in and nobody pointed out where to start. Give players a good route through the basics of the game and they can build their knowledge around it, but they need to get started with one thing, try it out and then move to the next one. Keeping that in mind should help tremendously while trying to explain the NS2 comming.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is one of the more elegant things about the challenge approach; information is segregated into discrete chunks that the player can digest at his own pace.
<!--quoteo(post=1718195:date=Jul 20 2009, 03:21 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jul 20 2009, 03:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1718195"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The blizzard guidelines have got some of the same idea, but I think they are still built so that player can finish the tutorial by playing the single player. Without single player the separate tutorials might not combine quick enough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe, but I don't think the idea itself is flawed this way. Yes, NS2 challenges will be different from SC2 challenges, but I see no reason why this design pattern should be specific to Blizzard.
<!--quoteo(post=1718223:date=Jul 20 2009, 09:26 AM:name=todd1Ok)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (todd1Ok @ Jul 20 2009, 09:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1718223"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The questions go on and on for the comm. You mentioned good scouting. In NS this is one of the most essential facets of commanding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I used medpacks because it's another one of the harder aspects to teach correctly. Aspects of scouting could be done in this style too. For Example: You could have some number of fades zipping randomly around the map. Give the comm 10-20 secs to count them using sound alone.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Eddie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Eddie)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->his seems to be your universal response, but the fact of the matter is, this won't be NS1. Comming could be much simpler, less intimidating, and multiple comms COULD actually do their parts right therefor increasing their popularity. Not saying this will work for sure, just keeping an open mind.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well said.
It's definitely not a bad start. I think it might need some adaptation and fresh thoughts mixed up with the existing ones, but there is nothing wrong to start with that pattern.
That's the problem... they already fleshed out a design. Every odd week we learn a little bit more about it... One day we learned their'd be multiple coms and then all hell broke loose with people trying to steer the game a different, conservative, direction, sort of like what this thread is trying to do.
how many lerks? it's 8 minutes in, JP or HA? etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Aside from "where is the hive," do you really ask these questions? Because the tech trees and strategic possibles are so limited, something we seem to agree about, the role of scouting is greatly reduced. If you know what you're opponent is going to do, and if they do something else they'll put themselves at a large disadvantage, why even worry about scouting? It's not like there are any surprises, and that has nothing to do with the age of the game. An actual strategic game allows players to do unorthodox builds and develop new strategies throughout the game's lifespan. In starcraft, for example, once it came out that vultures could fire while moving in patrol mode that opened up the whole mechanized build which was thought to be really impractical in the game's early life. I should say that NS is at an large disadvantage when it comes to this because the commander can't 'use' units since they're other players and at face value every thing seems pretty cut and dry.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You mentioned good scouting. In NS this is one of the most essential facets of commanding. Getting your guys to the alien hives, finding out fade numbers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since the upgrades in NS are not based on unit counters, it doesn't really matter how many fades they have. It's not like you're going to say "well, they only have 2 fades so I won't get weapons 3." Why not get weapons 3? Why not get the AA? These upgrades are so versatile and can be used in any situation so, once again, scouting is really reduced.
This is neither here nor there. Challenges can be created for whatever gameplay they want to teach.
I partitially agree, you can definitely get away without scouting in NS. Still, scouting isn't completely irrelevant. For example scouting allows me to leave more open routes to base, hit alien nodes quicker, intercept lifeforms and hivebuilders. It's just that it's often easier to allow your marines to overpower the aliens instead of risking a baserush just because you failed to hear it coming or to spam the voice channel by trying to point out the location of a blinking fade.
I think scouting would have been used more if there were more teams with only minute differences in skill level. Right now most teams can just walk over the opponents with brute skill and experience, so there isn't that much attention to fine tuning the strategies and taking calculated risks. On public games there's probably more variation as the game isn't played in the 'optimal way', but then again also your chances of adjusting based on the scouting information are heavily dependand on your team's ability to react to quick orders.