<!--quoteo(post=1839114:date=Mar 29 2011, 03:31 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Mar 29 2011, 03:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839114"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>Why?</b> What's the point of even having the FPS component at all then, if the FPS portion barely matters in a player-vs-player confrontation? Are freely-thinking players just a gimmick? Is the FPS part of the game just a gimmick? Maybe they should just be bots that we can babysit and order around. Hell, maybe we should go back to Starcraft.
Rofl. Not shared by the team? Are you mad? When your team has harvesters, where do the resources go? Into thin air? They get split among the team - split, that means SHARED. Your very <b>presence</b> in the game does in fact impact other players' res availability. If you make a stupid purchase, e.g. you go onos, rush the marine base and immediately die - you're not the only one that has suffered, your team has - you can tell by the amount of rage you are about to receive from your teammates. If you do that in NS2, where everyone has their own personal resources which they accrue at the same rate, freely, with no opportunity cost to the team, then no one on your team suffers for your stupidity.
Flip the coin and it's called griefing, ramboing, noobs, frustration and losing. <b>Being able to</b> rely on others should make a team better. <b>Being forced to</b> rely on others should <u>not</u> make a team worse.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No of course it wouldn't be a gimmick. Was it a gimmick in Ns1? No it wasn't, your really ###### stupid. Compared to games like halo the fps portion should have less impact, marines should barely be able to win with pure gun skill or the commander is pointless and just a gimmick.
<!--quoteo(post=1839184:date=Mar 29 2011, 04:29 PM:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex @ Mar 29 2011, 04:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839184"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No of course it wouldn't be a gimmick. Was it a gimmick in Ns1? No it wasn't, your really ###### stupid.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Who the hell do you think you are, telling ANYONE, ""Your really ###### stupid"? If <u><b><!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->YOU'RE<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b></u> going to go insulting people, at least do it correctly, lest you make yourself look like the bigger idiot.
<!--quoteo(post=1839184:date=Mar 29 2011, 04:29 PM:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex @ Mar 29 2011, 04:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839184"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Compared to games like halo the fps portion should have less impact, marines should barely be able to win with pure gun skill or the commander is pointless and just a gimmick.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The game should have little to do with fps skill compared to contemporary toss.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Seems you're implying that in NS1, FPS SKILL had little effect on the outcome of the game, by comparison to the Commander's role. Since FPS SKILL is an undefined umbrella term, this statement is just asking for misunderstanding. If by FPS SKILL you mean ground-unit player skill, then your statement is false. The individual and collective skill of a team's ground units had as much a part in victory as the Commander did. If one failed, the other typically failed.
If either role becomes marginalized or non-essential, yes that role becomes gimmicky and the players of those roles will not have fun. But it sounds like you're suggesting that the success of the game should rest on ONE INDIVIDUAL, which makes every ground unit the gimmick.
<!--quoteo(post=1839199:date=Mar 29 2011, 10:14 PM:name=KuBaN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KuBaN @ Mar 29 2011, 10:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839199"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Who the hell do you think you are, telling ANYONE, ""Your really ###### stupid"? If <u><b><!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->YOU'RE<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b></u> going to go insulting people, at least do it correctly, lest you make yourself look like the bigger idiot.
Seems you're implying that in NS1, FPS SKILL had little effect on the outcome of the game, by comparison to the Commander's role. Since FPS SKILL is an undefined umbrella term, this statement is just asking for misunderstanding. If by FPS SKILL you mean ground-unit player skill, then your statement is false. The individual and collective skill of a team's ground units had as much a part in victory as the Commander did. If one failed, the other typically failed.
If either role becomes marginalized or non-essential, yes that role becomes gimmicky and the players of those roles will not have fun. But it sounds like you're suggesting that the success of the game should rest on ONE INDIVIDUAL, which makes every ground unit the gimmick.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> No you misunderstood, victory should have nothing to do with FPS skill or RTS skill, but usage of those skills together and at the same time. Marines shouldn't just be grabbing whatever guns and running around doing whatever they want, they should have to listen to the commander and follow orders. When I played NS1 this was the aspect that defined the marine experience and set it apart from other games, the fact that you were being told what to do and where to go like you actually had missions other than kill aliens and re-spawn to kill more aliens. If the commander chooses what weapons the marines have (such as an fps player would choose what units to spawn) it would greatly discourage Halo like gameplay and more Natural Selection like gameplay. If they didn't listen to directions and kept straying from orders, their weapon set would not be as effective as if they used it according to the plan of a good commander.
<!--quoteo(post=1839226:date=Mar 29 2011, 09:35 PM:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex @ Mar 29 2011, 09:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839226"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No you misunderstood, victory should have nothing to do with FPS skill or RTS skill, but usage of those skills together and at the same time. Marines shouldn't just be grabbing whatever guns and running around doing whatever they want, they should have to listen to the commander and follow orders. When I played NS1 this was the aspect that defined the marine experience and set it apart from other games, the fact that you were being told what to do and where to go like you actually had missions other than kill aliens and re-spawn to kill more aliens. If the commander chooses what weapons the marines have (such as an fps player would choose what units to spawn) it would greatly discourage Halo like gameplay and more Natural Selection like gameplay. If they didn't listen to directions and kept straying from orders, their weapon set would not be as effective as if they used it according to the plan of a good commander.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That was definitely miles from where it sounded like you were going. I of agree with your intention, however such strict dependencies caused problems in unorganized, public games. People were frightened of jumping in to the Comm chair because the responsibilities of the Comm rested on one Comm. Likewise, Marines were screwed unless they had an experienced Commander. I think they are shifting away from complete "Dependence" between Marines and Commanders while providing the tools for either role to "Support" the other. While this is less demanding, it will hopefully be less stressful, and more rewarding when players who aren't FORCED to cooperate actually do and emerge victorious from it.
Possible Compromise: Give the Armory "Build Weapon" abilities that requires energy and stocks the Armory with 1 of the selected weapon each time the ability is used. These "stocked" weapons can be obtained by Marines at a reduced (or no) personal res cost, however Marines are not restricted from buying any currently researched weapon at the full personal res cost.
You're singing a different tune now. Before you said "little to do with fps skill", now you're saying "together and at the same time".
Let's put that aside though. I'm making two arguments here:
A) <u>On the strategic level, <b>teams</b> that play better should <b>win</b>; but on the tactical level, <b>players</b> who play better should <b>kill</b> and/or <b>survive</b>.</u> NS1 worked without strictly following this guideline, because there was one resource, shared by the team. Player classes did in fact translate to units, because there was a finite amount of resources. Therefore, NS1 could take a more RTS approach. This may be a good or bad thing, but regardless, it was difficult to balance. This is not the case with NS2's personal resource model, which exists for two reasons: To make balancing teams easier for all team sizes, and to allow people to actually have a chance at trying the different classes, arguably in a less intensive environment. But because of this, having {greater price = far superior} won't balance well, and will simply be less fun for players on the ground, despite there being no real <b>trade-off</b>. NS1 had that trade-off, that's why it worked. The commander dropping a weapon had an actual cost to the team - that was res he couldn't spend on other things. And that's the key point, <b>to the team</b> - classes were valuable because they were both precious and powerful and possibly specialised - the loss of a class was a loss to the team. In NS2, classes aren't precious, so they shouldn't be overly powerful or too specialised just because they're higher tier or higher priced or have a certain defined role. <u>Every class should be effective, even if they're a little better at some things than others.</u>
B) Because we have this personal resource for personal expenditures system in place, it would make little sense to then enforce what weapons can or can't be purchased. People should have the choice - they are given the choice of where to go, why not the choice of weapon? But of course the commander needs to be able to plan certain assaults or approaches, so what can you do? You can create a guideline (the idea I discussed a few posts back), but you do not <b>force</b> it. Forcing it would be fine if this were an RTS and you were pumping out units for specific roles, but this is an FPS as well, probably moreso. This is certainly even more the case in NS2 compared to NS1, from what we've seen so far. <u>If they were going to go to the effort of making it so that anyone could buy any available weapon for themselves, why limit that?</u>
KuBaN: That's a rather interesting approach. In that case, you're not limiting the available arsenal, and forcing marines to choose that weapon; but you are providing the incentive of the freebie weapon, thus encouraging them to choose that weapon. You could even perhaps use the commander's personal resources to purchase those weapons, at a lower price. You might only want the chosen weapon as cheaper rather than free, though; to prevent abuse. So in effect, the same amount of personal resources are still being spent on the weapon - just from two sources: player and commander. Half-half, perhaps. It would give commanders more to do with their personal resources, as well. It does actually facilitate some manner of personal resource sharing though.
<!--quoteo(post=1839253:date=Mar 29 2011, 11:33 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Mar 29 2011, 11:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839253"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->KuBaN: That's a rather interesting approach. In that case, you're not limiting the available arsenal, and forcing marines to choose that weapon; but you are providing the incentive of the freebie weapon, thus encouraging them to choose that weapon. You could even perhaps use the commander's personal resources to purchase those weapons, at a lower price. You might only want the chosen weapon as cheaper rather than free, though; to prevent abuse. So in effect, the same amount of personal resources are still being spent on the weapon - just from two sources: player and commander. Half-half, perhaps. It would give commanders more to do with their personal resources, as well. It does actually facilitate some manner of personal resource sharing though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I went with Energy cost in spite of the fact that I think Energy should be replaced with Personal Res just to avoid being presumptuous, but if a Comm is spending Personal Res to finance weapons for his team, I think half-and-half would leave the Comm broke very quick. More importantly, I'd be more in favor of this costing some amount of Team Res, despite it's implications, to provide a choice to Commanders between a "rushing" (risking resources on micro-managed tactical pushes) or "teching" (investing resources in unlocking technology, which provides a more lasting advantage).
I don't think he should be financing weapons for his team on such a scale that he'd go broke. You could go 1/3 & 2/3 perhaps. It has to be a significant enough discount that it serves as an incentive; but the commander can't cover so much of the cost that he goes broke. Besides, more weapons is less medpacks and ammo.
<!--quoteo(post=1839253:date=Mar 30 2011, 03:33 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Mar 30 2011, 03:33 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839253"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You're singing a different tune now. Before you said "little to do with fps skill", now you're saying "together and at the same time".
Let's put that aside though. I'm making two arguments here:
A) <u>On the strategic level, <b>teams</b> that play better should <b>win</b>; but on the tactical level, <b>players</b> who play better should <b>kill</b> and/or <b>survive</b>.</u> NS1 worked without strictly following this guideline, because there was one resource, shared by the team. Player classes did in fact translate to units, because there was a finite amount of resources. Therefore, NS1 could take a more RTS approach. This may be a good or bad thing, but regardless, it was difficult to balance. This is not the case with NS2's personal resource model, which exists for two reasons: To make balancing teams easier for all team sizes, and to allow people to actually have a chance at trying the different classes, arguably in a less intensive environment. But because of this, having {greater price = far superior} won't balance well, and will simply be less fun for players on the ground, despite there being no real <b>trade-off</b>. NS1 had that trade-off, that's why it worked. The commander dropping a weapon had an actual cost to the team - that was res he couldn't spend on other things. And that's the key point, <b>to the team</b> - classes were valuable because they were both precious and powerful and possibly specialised - the loss of a class was a loss to the team. In NS2, classes aren't precious, so they shouldn't be overly powerful or too specialised just because they're higher tier or higher priced or have a certain defined role. <u>Every class should be effective, even if they're a little better at some things than others.</u>
B) Because we have this personal resource for personal expenditures system in place, it would make little sense to then enforce what weapons can or can't be purchased. People should have the choice - they are given the choice of where to go, why not the choice of weapon? But of course the commander needs to be able to plan certain assaults or approaches, so what can you do? You can create a guideline (the idea I discussed a few posts back), but you do not <b>force</b> it. Forcing it would be fine if this were an RTS and you were pumping out units for specific roles, but this is an FPS as well, probably moreso. This is certainly even more the case in NS2 compared to NS1, from what we've seen so far. <u>If they were going to go to the effort of making it so that anyone could buy any available weapon for themselves, why limit that?</u>
KuBaN: That's a rather interesting approach. In that case, you're not limiting the available arsenal, and forcing marines to choose that weapon; but you are providing the incentive of the freebie weapon, thus encouraging them to choose that weapon. You could even perhaps use the commander's personal resources to purchase those weapons, at a lower price. You might only want the chosen weapon as cheaper rather than free, though; to prevent abuse. So in effect, the same amount of personal resources are still being spent on the weapon - just from two sources: player and commander. Half-half, perhaps. It would give commanders more to do with their personal resources, as well. It does actually facilitate some manner of personal resource sharing though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well using them together as a team is a skill in its own. And what if to be a commander you first need to take a commander tutorial to receive the pass that can ne taken away, this way you'd greatly limit bad commanders and the ones that just want to ###### around would get their rights temporarily removed.
See, you're just creating more and more limitations. Forcing more. I hope this is not how you treat your women...
Teamwork on the tactical level is fine, you should be able to kill more and survive more while working as a team. Hell, the simplest expression of that is numerical superiority. But forcefully pigeon-holing people into certain rock-paper-scissors roles isn't really fun.
<!--quoteo(post=1839385:date=Mar 31 2011, 07:04 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Mar 31 2011, 07:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->See, you're just creating more and more limitations. Forcing more. I hope this is not how you treat your women...
Teamwork on the tactical level is fine, you should be able to kill more and survive more while working as a team. Hell, the simplest expression of that is numerical superiority. But forcefully pigeon-holing people into certain rock-paper-scissors roles isn't really fun.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It doesn't have to be, im just trying to bring back some or the teamwork and rts aspects of the original ns that have been lost in ns2.
The Commander should be primarily in charge of strategy (over-arcing objectives), leaving tactics (the specific implementation used to carrying out a strategy) primarily to the squads. This could be something Squad Leaders could have some influence over. Leave them in charge of telling their units which weapons to bring, however I still think some sort of investment the Commander can make to temporarily affect weapons (such as reducing their price) would be strategically viable.
<!--quoteo(post=1839542:date=Apr 1 2011, 05:22 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Apr 1 2011, 05:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839542"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Games are about fun, though.
<i>Thanks, Captain Obvious.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> And currently the majority thinks ns1 was more fun than how ns2 currently is, you silly man
<!--quoteo(post=1839647:date=Apr 2 2011, 08:34 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Apr 2 2011, 08:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839647"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm 99.9% sure that that's because NS2 is barely halfway complete, you silly man.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well, they specifically complain about this problem, if not this thread wouldn't have become so popular. Why don't you stop being selfish and realize 90% want the fps portion that was taken away.
I am sad about your intentions Harimau. I think this time you are mistaking greatly. So for you, when playing a game as a marine in NS2, you should be able to do your best (even better: being able to win) if the rest of the team is bad. So for you individual skilll should be the priority and team skill just a bonus or used only on "pro" games. I am sorry to say but the concept of this game is just the opposite of that point. If they want to make a game that truly takes advantages of the RTS aspect, they need do make some compromise on the FPS aspect. Of course than the FPS competitive part of the game will never disappear but they need to make it more dependant to the commander as well. If a bad commander takes the lead on a public game, the team should lose, and it's normal. If you want absolutely to make the game noob-friendly in the RTS aspect, you will just have in the end a game pulled downward to his full gameplay potentiality with great flaws. That's not what you want? do you? It's inevitable that the commander should be a "pro" and an experienced player able to handle the game properly. Look at Savage 2, they managed to make a great system with a systematic vote to choose the commander before the beginning of a game based on his number of matchs played and it works perfectly. The commander is often a high ranked player, but you know that the more you play, the more you have the chance to be at his place. There is also noob servers friendly where the commander is not forced to be experienced. After this the commander chooses the squad leader based on their experience, and the game finally begins. There is also a vote to kick the commander if he is incompetent. And you know the best? very little flame, very little frustration in the end because the community is very mature and the game is designed on a very intuitive interface with a lot of communications between commander and soldiers that avoids a lot of misunderstanding. It's just magic and nevertheless all the games are in public, it works because the players learned to arrest correctly the way the game works. They didn't played it with the idea of playing it like another standard game, because in fact the concept just doesn't allow it, they learned to play something new and loved it.
Savage 2 gameplay pro video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJa_0Tq4-0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJa_0Tq4-0</a>
<!--quoteo(post=1839708:date=Apr 4 2011, 01:25 AM:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex @ Apr 4 2011, 01:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839708"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well, they specifically complain about this problem, if not this thread wouldn't have become so popular. Why don't you stop being selfish and realize 90% want the fps portion that was taken away.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> 90%? Where did you find that statistic? Did you make it up? Also, I wasn't aware that the <u>fps</u> portion was taken away - that's certainly at odds to opinions I've read around the forum. Perhaps you made a mistake. Perhaps then you should calm down, take a deep breath, and set out your argument calmly and rationally. Remember the three C's: cool, calm and collected.
To both of the above two... The fact is this: In order to have <b>what <u>you</u> want</b> back the way that <u>you</u> want it, they will NEED to scrap personal resources, and restore a single resource model. That is a fact. <b>Maybe that's what you want.</b> But will they scrap it? Very, very, very unlikely. Almost as unlikely as them switching engines.
Also, both of you don't seem to understand that, in what I envision, FPS success =/= RTS success. They are related, of course - if one team is always superior in the FPS portion (they always kill and never die), they will win (the RTS portion). This is fine. However, I do take issue with a single bad player ruining the game for the entire team. In HoN/DotA that player is a feeder or a rambo. In NS, that player is a <b>bad</b> commander. Because we now have a personal resource model, i.e. the game is already shifting towards greater player independence, partially because of the bad commander reason, then we don't <b>need</b> to for some reason re-chain ourselves to good or bad commanders.
Bad commanders just make the game one-sided, and depending on how far the game takes it, that loss can be a very bad experience. If the game reduces player dependence on the commander, then there's less opportunity for that one player to ruin the game for the team. It's a balancing act. You either have high player dependence, which comes with the benefit of strong player-commander links, but comes at the cost of making your game experience dependent upon one player (who isn't you). Or you have low player dependence, which comes with the benefit of the game not being completely ruined by one bad player, but sacrifices those player-commander links. The game should lie somewhere in the middle, but I'm of the opinion that we need less player dependence because A) the game is already headed that way with personal resources and B) the majority of people playing NS2 will be experiencing the FPS. On the other hand, you are of the opinion that there should be much more player dependence (or possibly maximum player dependence) because that's what you value from NS1 and Savage2.
Currently, RTS success in NS2 impacts higher tier/higher cost availability, and nothing more. There is no opportunity cost for a player to pick a class and lose it because his loss is no real loss for the team (assuming you haven't got a very small game like a 3v3). It doesn't represent any actual worth on the team vs team scale. Because of this, to fix it you can go one of three ways: A) drastically reduce availability (increase cost, decrease income extremely); B) keep cost the way it is but have the game more dependent upon player skill, i.e. plateau the effectiveness of each class; or C) re-route cost to the team so that it is a team expense and a team gain or loss (the most simple application of which would be to scrap personal resources).
Whatever is chosen, the idea of the commander doling out weapons, <b>given the current personal resource model</b>, is a bad one.
No they wouldn't Harimu, the Commander simply decides what weapons are being produced at the moment, each of the different weapons being worth differently depending on their effectiveness, and then when marines come to the armory they can select which of those to by. The commander, having some knowledge of the game, would decide what tasks are most important currently and choose what weapons to produce based on that and thus providing the marines with the correct equipment for carrying out his command (he is the commander after all). If there is an abundance of creep, then he'll obviously put flamethrowers in production, if he wants the marines to rush the alien base, he'll put in shotguns. Obviously if he's stupid the marines will either kick him or ask him for things to make, either way, and increase of communication between the commander and marines. And I took an educated guess at the amount of people who want this, obviously I didn't count each one, that would be a waste of time.
It would not be a hard thing to implement into the game, and if enough people want NS2 to make use of it's rts side more than it is, then it's not a stretch at all that Unknown Worlds would implement this into the game.
You didn't retain the first thing i wanted to show on my post. The clue to all the problems for me is not to make the players dependencies stronger (not to minimise it also indeed) but overall, we need a better interface, a way to make bad player not being able to play the role of commander until they have enough experience is primordial and will solve the persistant problems. I will love a solution to reward players who listen to orders. Let's imagine something for example : Every player on the winning team gain 200 points at the end of a game and the side losing only 100 points. When the commander gives you an order as a soldier, like destroying an Harvester for example, if you succeed by last hitting it you gain 10 points or if you take part as assist you gain a little less: 8 points and finally without order you would have won only 5 points (following checkpoints doesn't count, it could be spammed). To continue on this idea: killing a Onos (strong unit) on order makes you gain 5 points, assist : 4 points, and without order 3 points. Et caetera, you can continue this principle for everything by balancing it according to the importance of the given objectives. Indeed it is just an idea, it could be more polished. Those points you win are the only thing that stays on the account as "Experience". You can't see lose/win, k/d ratio so even a bad player who sucked at first will gain more and more points over time anyway. Before the start up of every games you vote to choose your commander between the pretenders basing on their number of points, sometimes a player with less points than the others pretenders will chat with his team to tell them to let him be commander (it happens a lot in Savage 2 and the community is often generous in those cases if the guy doesn't seems too bad, and anyway it's not forced that as a high experienced player you want to be the commander every games). What is important in this system it is that that is frustrating in no way for the players, it is generous for anyone. So the defeats remain gained points even if it is in a less consequent way than winning, so you will not see a horrible community like the Dota/HoN one taking form, it will be still competitive but not in a merciless way. Of course this system will ask a way to restrain points only on legit server without modifications.
Puts the Marine commander in charge of things he shouldn't be in charge of. His role is shifting towards more supportive than commanding. If there is an abundance of <!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->INFESTATION<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->, the Commander should be able to issue a "Stop the Infestation," order, and let the Marines make the tactical decision of how to go about completing that objective, since there is more than one way to do accomplish this, such as destroying the linking Hive with any number of weapons, or beating it back directly with a Flamethrower (and if Harvesters are eventually given their own Infestation, by destroying Harvesters).
The game isn't being balanced with a set team size in mind like NS1 was. Teams have the potential to be very large in NS2 and the difficulty of micro-managing groups like you could in NS1 is going to scale with the number of players in the game, which makes balancing this aspect difficult. This is probably partially why they introduced multiple comms.
I think just showing how many players in your squad have the equipment you're mousing over in the Armory would help a lot to balance out the squad compositions, but putting Squad Leaders in charge of (or at least able to influence) their squads loadouts is a fair compromise. As a Squad Leader, you're making the wider-scoped tactical decisions of your squad, so at the very least you should be able to indicate a suggested team composition (that squad members see in the armory). This makes the Squad Leader a unique role that players can compete for (assuming Leader assignment of each squad is based on Score). This is of course assuming a bit about the future implementation of Squads.
Nex: So he's still producing weapons. No, in effect, he's deciding what weapons are <b>not available</b> to marines (with all weapons not available by default). What is the point of the personal resource model then? Why do you, again and again, ignore that point? You want all these restrictions (choosing what players cannot purchase with their own resources), but I want communication (suggesting to players ideal weapon loadouts). We both want more communication, but unfortunately, you appear to live in a world where the only valid forms of communication are text and voice, so you want to increase that method of communication, despite how cumbersome it is for getting a point across that could easily be gotten across through other means.
HolyTeal: Fine, but what's that got to do with what the rest of us are talking about? How could you have disagreed with what I said when to begin with we're talking about completely different things? Having requirements for the commander is not a new idea. In fact, some months ago I suggested an RTS-style tutorial masked as a challenging single-player campaign, that upon completion (victory), allows you access to the command chair - otherwise you remain locked out.
KuBaN: You really like them squad leaders huh? :P Myself, I'd prefer to keep that role with the commander(s).
<!--quoteo(post=1839870:date=Apr 5 2011, 05:52 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Apr 5 2011, 05:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839870"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->KuBaN: You really like them squad leaders huh? :P Myself, I'd prefer to keep that role with the commander(s).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My ideas of late tend to have some overlap, so I end up repeating myself a bit. But also, I'm excited for yet implemented features, since it's the speculative ones that no one can scream "NERF" about :)
What is a "Commander?" There is no definition that the game adheres to, it's just a moniker for a role defined by the developers. All you're really saying is, If soldiers have full control of their weapons, then the Commander's role in NS2 is less similar than his role in NS1.
Bump for better idea. <!--quoteo(post=1836303:date=Mar 7 2011, 07:17 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Mar 7 2011, 07:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1836303"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=1836284:date=Mar 7 2011, 05:06 PM:name=Svenpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Svenpa @ Mar 7 2011, 05:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1836284"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A possible way around the problem would be to allow the commander to prioritize (or if you will, recommend) certain weapons with a fill quota. It could work by adding a number to the weapons the commander wants equipped by his marines. So if he wants 2 grenade launchers to be equipped he clicks the GL twice, the number will decrease with each marine purchasing one. All of this without actually removing the marines freedom to get whatever they want, it will simply add some guidance to what the commander wishes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Oooo. Nice. Guiding, not forcing.
I would expand on that idea (possibly needlessly complicating it...), by allowing the commander to decrease the number by right-clicking. What would be the purpose of this? (Other than correcting one's self?) Well, rather than expressing the number of GLs required as a certain number that increments (by the commander's action) or decrements (by a purchase), instead have two numbers: Current number equipped / Current quota. So a commander could always be <b>encouraging</b> certain equipment roll-outs, regardless of deaths or purchases. So for example, you could have seven players: The commander could request 2 shotguns, 2 rifle+GLs, and 1 flamethrower. He'd make that the quota. It could be that currently there are 3 shotguns, 2 standard rifles, 1 flamethrower and 1 rifle+GL (<b>equipped</b> not merely purchased). The armoury buy menu would display the following information: Rifle: 2/0 Rifle+GL: 1/2 Shotgun: 3/2 Flamethrower: 1/1<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> lol
I would expand on that idea (possibly needlessly complicating it...), by allowing the commander to decrease the number by right-clicking. What would be the purpose of this? (Other than correcting one's self?) Well, rather than expressing the number of GLs required as a certain number that increments (by the commander's action) or decrements (by a purchase), instead have two numbers: Current number equipped / Current quota. So a commander could always be <b>encouraging</b> certain equipment roll-outs, regardless of deaths or purchases. So for example, you could have seven players: The commander could request 2 shotguns, 2 rifle+GLs, and 1 flamethrower. He'd make that the quota. It could be that currently there are 3 shotguns, 2 standard rifles, 1 flamethrower and 1 rifle+GL (<b>equipped</b> not merely purchased). The armoury buy menu would display the following information: Rifle: 2/0 Rifle+GL: 1/2 Shotgun: 3/2 Flamethrower: 1/1 lol<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I like it, though still the idea of the Commander making weapons appeals to me.
Noobs should stay out of the comm chair, pros should go in.
In a way I agree, but the whole point is everyone should be allowed if they want to. But when I first played NS1 I just ran around as a marine to start off, got used to the game, the maps, saw some tactics, and then tried myself.
The idea of the commander selecting what he wants equipment loadout wise. Could be useful, mixed with the team res idea. You could have upgrades within the armoury, one shotgun costs 5, so one person can use a shotgun on the team, the second costs 15, third costs 30, fourth 40. Then it will be like back in team fortress, when class restrictions were in place, when they goto the armoury, they effectively select if they want a shotgun, there may be 2 guys alive with shotguns at the moment and 3 total available for the team, so he can go shotgun, if one of the others then dies, a shotgun becomes free to select again. Obviously the costs to increase the max cap of a weapon type would scale disproportionately and become expensive fast, especially for the big guns, but its obviously an investment!
For res in this instance, personal res could be pooled into one large bank, this can then be spent manufacturing weapons to fill this role, could be good for preventing your team from becoming shotgun dependant or full of hmg's (alien benefit I suppose) (and when they are released)
So thats the good thing.
What I disagree with is that the team is seperated from the commander, but again in alot of videos I've seen this seems to be the opposite, if the commander gives a waypoint people tend to try and meet that goal, and when the comm drops things and speaks to them on the mic they tend to respond and build them.
When I used to comm, I often liked to have one or two blokes running around doing their own thing, not only would it harass the aliens, but it would also give you a good idea as to what was going on, and what was coming toward your base!
Who couldn't miss the good old "I'm in their Hive, PG now!"
Comments
You say you're the only person impacted, but that's a selfish way of thinking.
Hell, maybe we should go back to Starcraft.
Rofl. Not shared by the team? Are you mad? When your team has harvesters, where do the resources go? Into thin air? They get split among the team - split, that means SHARED. Your very <b>presence</b> in the game does in fact impact other players' res availability. If you make a stupid purchase, e.g. you go onos, rush the marine base and immediately die - you're not the only one that has suffered, your team has - you can tell by the amount of rage you are about to receive from your teammates. If you do that in NS2, where everyone has their own personal resources which they accrue at the same rate, freely, with no opportunity cost to the team, then no one on your team suffers for your stupidity.
Flip the coin and it's called griefing, ramboing, noobs, frustration and losing.
<b>Being able to</b> rely on others should make a team better. <b>Being forced to</b> rely on others should <u>not</u> make a team worse.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No of course it wouldn't be a gimmick. Was it a gimmick in Ns1? No it wasn't, your really ###### stupid. Compared to games like halo the fps portion should have less impact, marines should barely be able to win with pure gun skill or the commander is pointless and just a gimmick.
Who the hell do you think you are, telling ANYONE, ""Your really ###### stupid"? If <u><b><!--coloro:#FFFF00--><span style="color:#FFFF00"><!--/coloro-->YOU'RE<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b></u> going to go insulting people, at least do it correctly, lest you make yourself look like the bigger idiot.
<!--quoteo(post=1839184:date=Mar 29 2011, 04:29 PM:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex @ Mar 29 2011, 04:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839184"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Compared to games like halo the fps portion should have less impact, marines should barely be able to win with pure gun skill or the commander is pointless and just a gimmick.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Nex Carnifex)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nex Carnifex)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The game should have little to do with fps skill compared to contemporary toss.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Seems you're implying that in NS1, FPS SKILL had little effect on the outcome of the game, by comparison to the Commander's role. Since FPS SKILL is an undefined umbrella term, this statement is just asking for misunderstanding. If by FPS SKILL you mean ground-unit player skill, then your statement is false. The individual and collective skill of a team's ground units had as much a part in victory as the Commander did. If one failed, the other typically failed.
If either role becomes marginalized or non-essential, yes that role becomes gimmicky and the players of those roles will not have fun. But it sounds like you're suggesting that the success of the game should rest on ONE INDIVIDUAL, which makes every ground unit the gimmick.
Seems you're implying that in NS1, FPS SKILL had little effect on the outcome of the game, by comparison to the Commander's role. Since FPS SKILL is an undefined umbrella term, this statement is just asking for misunderstanding. If by FPS SKILL you mean ground-unit player skill, then your statement is false. The individual and collective skill of a team's ground units had as much a part in victory as the Commander did. If one failed, the other typically failed.
If either role becomes marginalized or non-essential, yes that role becomes gimmicky and the players of those roles will not have fun. But it sounds like you're suggesting that the success of the game should rest on ONE INDIVIDUAL, which makes every ground unit the gimmick.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No you misunderstood, victory should have nothing to do with FPS skill or RTS skill, but usage of those skills together and at the same time. Marines shouldn't just be grabbing whatever guns and running around doing whatever they want, they should have to listen to the commander and follow orders. When I played NS1 this was the aspect that defined the marine experience and set it apart from other games, the fact that you were being told what to do and where to go like you actually had missions other than kill aliens and re-spawn to kill more aliens. If the commander chooses what weapons the marines have (such as an fps player would choose what units to spawn) it would greatly discourage Halo like gameplay and more Natural Selection like gameplay. If they didn't listen to directions and kept straying from orders, their weapon set would not be as effective as if they used it according to the plan of a good commander.
That was definitely miles from where it sounded like you were going. I of agree with your intention, however such strict dependencies caused problems in unorganized, public games. People were frightened of jumping in to the Comm chair because the responsibilities of the Comm rested on one Comm. Likewise, Marines were screwed unless they had an experienced Commander. I think they are shifting away from complete "Dependence" between Marines and Commanders while providing the tools for either role to "Support" the other. While this is less demanding, it will hopefully be less stressful, and more rewarding when players who aren't FORCED to cooperate actually do and emerge victorious from it.
Possible Compromise: Give the Armory "Build Weapon" abilities that requires energy and stocks the Armory with 1 of the selected weapon each time the ability is used. These "stocked" weapons can be obtained by Marines at a reduced (or no) personal res cost, however Marines are not restricted from buying any currently researched weapon at the full personal res cost.
Let's put that aside though. I'm making two arguments here:
A) <u>On the strategic level, <b>teams</b> that play better should <b>win</b>; but on the tactical level, <b>players</b> who play better should <b>kill</b> and/or <b>survive</b>.</u>
NS1 worked without strictly following this guideline, because there was one resource, shared by the team. Player classes did in fact translate to units, because there was a finite amount of resources. Therefore, NS1 could take a more RTS approach. This may be a good or bad thing, but regardless, it was difficult to balance.
This is not the case with NS2's personal resource model, which exists for two reasons: To make balancing teams easier for all team sizes, and to allow people to actually have a chance at trying the different classes, arguably in a less intensive environment. But because of this, having {greater price = far superior} won't balance well, and will simply be less fun for players on the ground, despite there being no real <b>trade-off</b>. NS1 had that trade-off, that's why it worked. The commander dropping a weapon had an actual cost to the team - that was res he couldn't spend on other things. And that's the key point, <b>to the team</b> - classes were valuable because they were both precious and powerful and possibly specialised - the loss of a class was a loss to the team. In NS2, classes aren't precious, so they shouldn't be overly powerful or too specialised just because they're higher tier or higher priced or have a certain defined role. <u>Every class should be effective, even if they're a little better at some things than others.</u>
B) Because we have this personal resource for personal expenditures system in place, it would make little sense to then enforce what weapons can or can't be purchased. People should have the choice - they are given the choice of where to go, why not the choice of weapon? But of course the commander needs to be able to plan certain assaults or approaches, so what can you do? You can create a guideline (the idea I discussed a few posts back), but you do not <b>force</b> it. Forcing it would be fine if this were an RTS and you were pumping out units for specific roles, but this is an FPS as well, probably moreso. This is certainly even more the case in NS2 compared to NS1, from what we've seen so far. <u>If they were going to go to the effort of making it so that anyone could buy any available weapon for themselves, why limit that?</u>
KuBaN: That's a rather interesting approach. In that case, you're not limiting the available arsenal, and forcing marines to choose that weapon; but you are providing the incentive of the freebie weapon, thus encouraging them to choose that weapon.
You could even perhaps use the commander's personal resources to purchase those weapons, at a lower price. You might only want the chosen weapon as cheaper rather than free, though; to prevent abuse. So in effect, the same amount of personal resources are still being spent on the weapon - just from two sources: player and commander. Half-half, perhaps.
It would give commanders more to do with their personal resources, as well.
It does actually facilitate some manner of personal resource sharing though.
You could even perhaps use the commander's personal resources to purchase those weapons, at a lower price. You might only want the chosen weapon as cheaper rather than free, though; to prevent abuse. So in effect, the same amount of personal resources are still being spent on the weapon - just from two sources: player and commander. Half-half, perhaps.
It would give commanders more to do with their personal resources, as well.
It does actually facilitate some manner of personal resource sharing though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I went with Energy cost in spite of the fact that I think Energy should be replaced with Personal Res just to avoid being presumptuous, but if a Comm is spending Personal Res to finance weapons for his team, I think half-and-half would leave the Comm broke very quick. More importantly, I'd be more in favor of this costing some amount of Team Res, despite it's implications, to provide a choice to Commanders between a "rushing" (risking resources on micro-managed tactical pushes) or "teching" (investing resources in unlocking technology, which provides a more lasting advantage).
You could go 1/3 & 2/3 perhaps. It has to be a significant enough discount that it serves as an incentive; but the commander can't cover so much of the cost that he goes broke.
Besides, more weapons is less medpacks and ammo.
Let's put that aside though. I'm making two arguments here:
A) <u>On the strategic level, <b>teams</b> that play better should <b>win</b>; but on the tactical level, <b>players</b> who play better should <b>kill</b> and/or <b>survive</b>.</u>
NS1 worked without strictly following this guideline, because there was one resource, shared by the team. Player classes did in fact translate to units, because there was a finite amount of resources. Therefore, NS1 could take a more RTS approach. This may be a good or bad thing, but regardless, it was difficult to balance.
This is not the case with NS2's personal resource model, which exists for two reasons: To make balancing teams easier for all team sizes, and to allow people to actually have a chance at trying the different classes, arguably in a less intensive environment. But because of this, having {greater price = far superior} won't balance well, and will simply be less fun for players on the ground, despite there being no real <b>trade-off</b>. NS1 had that trade-off, that's why it worked. The commander dropping a weapon had an actual cost to the team - that was res he couldn't spend on other things. And that's the key point, <b>to the team</b> - classes were valuable because they were both precious and powerful and possibly specialised - the loss of a class was a loss to the team. In NS2, classes aren't precious, so they shouldn't be overly powerful or too specialised just because they're higher tier or higher priced or have a certain defined role. <u>Every class should be effective, even if they're a little better at some things than others.</u>
B) Because we have this personal resource for personal expenditures system in place, it would make little sense to then enforce what weapons can or can't be purchased. People should have the choice - they are given the choice of where to go, why not the choice of weapon? But of course the commander needs to be able to plan certain assaults or approaches, so what can you do? You can create a guideline (the idea I discussed a few posts back), but you do not <b>force</b> it. Forcing it would be fine if this were an RTS and you were pumping out units for specific roles, but this is an FPS as well, probably moreso. This is certainly even more the case in NS2 compared to NS1, from what we've seen so far. <u>If they were going to go to the effort of making it so that anyone could buy any available weapon for themselves, why limit that?</u>
KuBaN: That's a rather interesting approach. In that case, you're not limiting the available arsenal, and forcing marines to choose that weapon; but you are providing the incentive of the freebie weapon, thus encouraging them to choose that weapon.
You could even perhaps use the commander's personal resources to purchase those weapons, at a lower price. You might only want the chosen weapon as cheaper rather than free, though; to prevent abuse. So in effect, the same amount of personal resources are still being spent on the weapon - just from two sources: player and commander. Half-half, perhaps.
It would give commanders more to do with their personal resources, as well.
It does actually facilitate some manner of personal resource sharing though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well using them together as a team is a skill in its own. And what if to be a commander you first need to take a commander tutorial to receive the pass that can ne taken away, this way you'd greatly limit bad commanders and the ones that just want to ###### around would get their rights temporarily removed.
Teamwork on the tactical level is fine, you should be able to kill more and survive more while working as a team. Hell, the simplest expression of that is numerical superiority. But forcefully pigeon-holing people into certain rock-paper-scissors roles isn't really fun.
Teamwork on the tactical level is fine, you should be able to kill more and survive more while working as a team. Hell, the simplest expression of that is numerical superiority. But forcefully pigeon-holing people into certain rock-paper-scissors roles isn't really fun.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It doesn't have to be, im just trying to bring back some or the teamwork and rts aspects of the original ns that have been lost in ns2.
<i>Thanks, Captain Obvious.</i>
<i>Thanks, Captain Obvious.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And currently the majority thinks ns1 was more fun than how ns2 currently is, you silly man
Well, they specifically complain about this problem, if not this thread wouldn't have become so popular. Why don't you stop being selfish and realize 90% want the fps portion that was taken away.
So for you, when playing a game as a marine in NS2, you should be able to do your best (even better: being able to win) if the rest of the team is bad.
So for you individual skilll should be the priority and team skill just a bonus or used only on "pro" games. I am sorry to say but the concept of this game is just the opposite of that point.
If they want to make a game that truly takes advantages of the RTS aspect, they need do make some compromise on the FPS aspect. Of course than the FPS competitive part of the game will never disappear but they need to make it more dependant to the commander as well.
If a bad commander takes the lead on a public game, the team should lose, and it's normal. If you want absolutely to make the game noob-friendly in the RTS aspect, you will just have in the end a game pulled downward to his full gameplay potentiality with great flaws. That's not what you want? do you?
It's inevitable that the commander should be a "pro" and an experienced player able to handle the game properly.
Look at Savage 2, they managed to make a great system with a systematic vote to choose the commander before the beginning of a game based on his number of matchs played and it works perfectly. The commander is often a high ranked player, but you know that the more you play, the more you have the chance to be at his place. There is also noob servers friendly where the commander is not forced to be experienced. After this the commander chooses the squad leader based on their experience, and the game finally begins. There is also a vote to kick the commander if he is incompetent. And you know the best? very little flame, very little frustration in the end because the community is very mature and the game is designed on a very intuitive interface with a lot of communications between commander and soldiers that avoids a lot of misunderstanding. It's just magic and nevertheless all the games are in public, it works because the players learned to arrest correctly the way the game works. They didn't played it with the idea of playing it like another standard game, because in fact the concept just doesn't allow it, they learned to play something new and loved it.
Savage 2 gameplay pro video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJa_0Tq4-0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJa_0Tq4-0</a>
90%? Where did you find that statistic? Did you make it up?
Also, I wasn't aware that the <u>fps</u> portion was taken away - that's certainly at odds to opinions I've read around the forum.
Perhaps you made a mistake. Perhaps then you should calm down, take a deep breath, and set out your argument calmly and rationally. Remember the three C's: cool, calm and collected.
To both of the above two...
The fact is this:
In order to have <b>what <u>you</u> want</b> back the way that <u>you</u> want it, they will NEED to scrap personal resources, and restore a single resource model. That is a fact. <b>Maybe that's what you want.</b> But will they scrap it? Very, very, very unlikely. Almost as unlikely as them switching engines.
Also, both of you don't seem to understand that, in what I envision, FPS success =/= RTS success. They are related, of course - if one team is always superior in the FPS portion (they always kill and never die), they will win (the RTS portion). This is fine. However, I do take issue with a single bad player ruining the game for the entire team. In HoN/DotA that player is a feeder or a rambo. In NS, that player is a <b>bad</b> commander. Because we now have a personal resource model, i.e. the game is already shifting towards greater player independence, partially because of the bad commander reason, then we don't <b>need</b> to for some reason re-chain ourselves to good or bad commanders.
Bad commanders just make the game one-sided, and depending on how far the game takes it, that loss can be a very bad experience.
If the game reduces player dependence on the commander, then there's less opportunity for that one player to ruin the game for the team.
It's a balancing act. You either have high player dependence, which comes with the benefit of strong player-commander links, but comes at the cost of making your game experience dependent upon one player (who isn't you). Or you have low player dependence, which comes with the benefit of the game not being completely ruined by one bad player, but sacrifices those player-commander links. The game should lie somewhere in the middle, but I'm of the opinion that we need less player dependence because A) the game is already headed that way with personal resources and B) the majority of people playing NS2 will be experiencing the FPS. On the other hand, you are of the opinion that there should be much more player dependence (or possibly maximum player dependence) because that's what you value from NS1 and Savage2.
Currently, RTS success in NS2 impacts higher tier/higher cost availability, and nothing more. There is no opportunity cost for a player to pick a class and lose it because his loss is no real loss for the team (assuming you haven't got a very small game like a 3v3). It doesn't represent any actual worth on the team vs team scale. Because of this, to fix it you can go one of three ways: A) drastically reduce availability (increase cost, decrease income extremely); B) keep cost the way it is but have the game more dependent upon player skill, i.e. plateau the effectiveness of each class; or C) re-route cost to the team so that it is a team expense and a team gain or loss (the most simple application of which would be to scrap personal resources).
Whatever is chosen, the idea of the commander doling out weapons, <b>given the current personal resource model</b>, is a bad one.
It would not be a hard thing to implement into the game, and if enough people want NS2 to make use of it's rts side more than it is, then it's not a stretch at all that Unknown Worlds would implement this into the game.
Let's imagine something for example : Every player on the winning team gain 200 points at the end of a game and the side losing only 100 points.
When the commander gives you an order as a soldier, like destroying an Harvester for example, if you succeed by last hitting it you gain 10 points or if you take part as assist you gain a little less: 8 points and finally without order you would have won only 5 points (following checkpoints doesn't count, it could be spammed). To continue on this idea: killing a Onos (strong unit) on order makes you gain 5 points, assist : 4 points, and without order 3 points. Et caetera, you can continue this principle for everything by balancing it according to the importance of the given objectives. Indeed it is just an idea, it could be more polished.
Those points you win are the only thing that stays on the account as "Experience". You can't see lose/win, k/d ratio so even a bad player who sucked at first will gain more and more points over time anyway. Before the start up of every games you vote to choose your commander between the pretenders basing on their number of points, sometimes a player with less points than the others pretenders will chat with his team to tell them to let him be commander (it happens a lot in Savage 2 and the community is often generous in those cases if the guy doesn't seems too bad, and anyway it's not forced that as a high experienced player you want to be the commander every games).
What is important in this system it is that that is frustrating in no way for the players, it is generous for anyone. So the defeats remain gained points even if it is in a less consequent way than winning, so you will not see a horrible community like the Dota/HoN one taking form, it will be still competitive but not in a merciless way.
Of course this system will ask a way to restrain points only on legit server without modifications.
The game isn't being balanced with a set team size in mind like NS1 was. Teams have the potential to be very large in NS2 and the difficulty of micro-managing groups like you could in NS1 is going to scale with the number of players in the game, which makes balancing this aspect difficult. This is probably partially why they introduced multiple comms.
I think just showing how many players in your squad have the equipment you're mousing over in the Armory would help a lot to balance out the squad compositions, but putting Squad Leaders in charge of (or at least able to influence) their squads loadouts is a fair compromise. As a Squad Leader, you're making the wider-scoped tactical decisions of your squad, so at the very least you should be able to indicate a suggested team composition (that squad members see in the armory). This makes the Squad Leader a unique role that players can compete for (assuming Leader assignment of each squad is based on Score). This is of course assuming a bit about the future implementation of Squads.
HolyTeal: Fine, but what's that got to do with what the rest of us are talking about? How could you have disagreed with what I said when to begin with we're talking about completely different things? Having requirements for the commander is not a new idea. In fact, some months ago I suggested an RTS-style tutorial masked as a challenging single-player campaign, that upon completion (victory), allows you access to the command chair - otherwise you remain locked out.
KuBaN: You really like them squad leaders huh? :P Myself, I'd prefer to keep that role with the commander(s).
My ideas of late tend to have some overlap, so I end up repeating myself a bit. But also, I'm excited for yet implemented features, since it's the speculative ones that no one can scream "NERF" about :)
<!--quoteo(post=1836303:date=Mar 7 2011, 07:17 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Mar 7 2011, 07:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1836303"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=1836284:date=Mar 7 2011, 05:06 PM:name=Svenpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Svenpa @ Mar 7 2011, 05:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1836284"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A possible way around the problem would be to allow the commander to prioritize (or if you will, recommend) certain weapons with a fill quota. It could work by adding a number to the weapons the commander wants equipped by his marines. So if he wants 2 grenade launchers to be equipped he clicks the GL twice, the number will decrease with each marine purchasing one. All of this without actually removing the marines freedom to get whatever they want, it will simply add some guidance to what the commander wishes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oooo. Nice.
Guiding, not forcing.
I would expand on that idea (possibly needlessly complicating it...), by allowing the commander to decrease the number by right-clicking. What would be the purpose of this? (Other than correcting one's self?) Well, rather than expressing the number of GLs required as a certain number that increments (by the commander's action) or decrements (by a purchase), instead have two numbers:
Current number equipped / Current quota.
So a commander could always be <b>encouraging</b> certain equipment roll-outs, regardless of deaths or purchases.
So for example, you could have seven players:
The commander could request 2 shotguns, 2 rifle+GLs, and 1 flamethrower. He'd make that the quota.
It could be that currently there are 3 shotguns, 2 standard rifles, 1 flamethrower and 1 rifle+GL (<b>equipped</b> not merely purchased).
The armoury buy menu would display the following information:
Rifle: 2/0
Rifle+GL: 1/2
Shotgun: 3/2
Flamethrower: 1/1<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lol
Oooo. Nice.
Guiding, not forcing.
I would expand on that idea (possibly needlessly complicating it...), by allowing the commander to decrease the number by right-clicking. What would be the purpose of this? (Other than correcting one's self?) Well, rather than expressing the number of GLs required as a certain number that increments (by the commander's action) or decrements (by a purchase), instead have two numbers:
Current number equipped / Current quota.
So a commander could always be <b>encouraging</b> certain equipment roll-outs, regardless of deaths or purchases.
So for example, you could have seven players:
The commander could request 2 shotguns, 2 rifle+GLs, and 1 flamethrower. He'd make that the quota.
It could be that currently there are 3 shotguns, 2 standard rifles, 1 flamethrower and 1 rifle+GL (<b>equipped</b> not merely purchased).
The armoury buy menu would display the following information:
Rifle: 2/0
Rifle+GL: 1/2
Shotgun: 3/2
Flamethrower: 1/1
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I like it, though still the idea of the Commander making weapons appeals to me.
I've heard this one come up
Noobs should stay out of the comm chair, pros should go in.
In a way I agree, but the whole point is everyone should be allowed if they want to. But when I first played NS1 I just ran around as a marine to start off, got used to the game, the maps, saw some tactics, and then tried myself.
The idea of the commander selecting what he wants equipment loadout wise. Could be useful, mixed with the team res idea. You could have upgrades within the armoury, one shotgun costs 5, so one person can use a shotgun on the team, the second costs 15, third costs 30, fourth 40. Then it will be like back in team fortress, when class restrictions were in place, when they goto the armoury, they effectively select if they want a shotgun, there may be 2 guys alive with shotguns at the moment and 3 total available for the team, so he can go shotgun, if one of the others then dies, a shotgun becomes free to select again. Obviously the costs to increase the max cap of a weapon type would scale disproportionately and become expensive fast, especially for the big guns, but its obviously an investment!
For res in this instance, personal res could be pooled into one large bank, this can then be spent manufacturing weapons to fill this role, could be good for preventing your team from becoming shotgun dependant or full of hmg's (alien benefit I suppose) (and when they are released)
So thats the good thing.
What I disagree with is that the team is seperated from the commander, but again in alot of videos I've seen this seems to be the opposite, if the commander gives a waypoint people tend to try and meet that goal, and when the comm drops things and speaks to them on the mic they tend to respond and build them.
When I used to comm, I often liked to have one or two blokes running around doing their own thing, not only would it harass the aliens, but it would also give you a good idea as to what was going on, and what was coming toward your base!
Who couldn't miss the good old "I'm in their Hive, PG now!"
classic!