Game Features and Co-operation between Commander and Player role
PsympleJester
Join Date: 2008-04-06 Member: 64024Members
Join Date: 2008-04-06 Member: 64024Members
Hello, firstly I am a NS1 player and I did buy NS2 almost as soon as I had the money to Pre-Order it!
I am doing a project for Uni on RTS-FPS combo games and how game features help or hinder cooperation between Commander and Player roles.
I was just wondering if you guys could give me a hand and answer a few questions I have to players of NS1 and people who have currently played a little of NS2.
1) "Do you guys feel that the interests of players and the commander are disimilar and do you feel that NS1 had and specific features that bridged that gap and thus made the players more likely to listen to the commander?"
(Beacon or Phase gates for example?)
2) "In NS1 the commander issued the players with weapons, in the NS2 this will be more down to the player than the commander, do you feel this will have an affect on the Players listening to the Commander due to them no longer being dependant upon him for weapons?"
3) "In NS2 there will be controllable NPCs for the commander, do you feel that this will damage the relationship between Commander and Players or do you feel that this will have no effect?"
4) "In other RTS-FPS combos there are features that make the player even more autonomos and have less need for the commander to give them equipment and upgrades.
An example is Empires: In this game a player is rewarded for doing specific things with points that he can spend on small upgrades for their player charicter.
How do you feel a system like this would affect NS1/NS2's relationship between Players and Commanders?"
(Make it better because the player would be rewarded for team work or worse because the player can become more powerful and thus has no need to rely on the commander.)
Mappers- “How do you use map design to interest the players and the commanders to the same spots, if you did how well do you feel this works to fix the problems of commanders and players having different goals?â€
Anyway,
Thanks for reading and I hope this causes a good discussion...
Dont feel limited by the questions and talk about anything you want not just the specific questions.
Finally if stuff about this has already been made in another thread and you dont want to write it all up again please just send me a link. :)
I am doing a project for Uni on RTS-FPS combo games and how game features help or hinder cooperation between Commander and Player roles.
I was just wondering if you guys could give me a hand and answer a few questions I have to players of NS1 and people who have currently played a little of NS2.
1) "Do you guys feel that the interests of players and the commander are disimilar and do you feel that NS1 had and specific features that bridged that gap and thus made the players more likely to listen to the commander?"
(Beacon or Phase gates for example?)
2) "In NS1 the commander issued the players with weapons, in the NS2 this will be more down to the player than the commander, do you feel this will have an affect on the Players listening to the Commander due to them no longer being dependant upon him for weapons?"
3) "In NS2 there will be controllable NPCs for the commander, do you feel that this will damage the relationship between Commander and Players or do you feel that this will have no effect?"
4) "In other RTS-FPS combos there are features that make the player even more autonomos and have less need for the commander to give them equipment and upgrades.
An example is Empires: In this game a player is rewarded for doing specific things with points that he can spend on small upgrades for their player charicter.
How do you feel a system like this would affect NS1/NS2's relationship between Players and Commanders?"
(Make it better because the player would be rewarded for team work or worse because the player can become more powerful and thus has no need to rely on the commander.)
Mappers- “How do you use map design to interest the players and the commanders to the same spots, if you did how well do you feel this works to fix the problems of commanders and players having different goals?â€
Anyway,
Thanks for reading and I hope this causes a good discussion...
Dont feel limited by the questions and talk about anything you want not just the specific questions.
Finally if stuff about this has already been made in another thread and you dont want to write it all up again please just send me a link. :)
Comments
The most important feature here is communication so the players understand why the commander is doing what he is doing and vice versa.
2) Yes, receiving the weapon from the commander is an information that helps communicating tactics.
3) It makes the Commander more independent, depending on the team this can be good or bad. In my experience it detaches the players from guilt in losing as they can blame it solely on the commander when something was not built at some point etc.
4) Again, this depends on how well the players and commander are working together already. If there is already a lack of communication it will worsen things.
In this respect, I view good RTS/FPS game features as ones that make it easy for the comm to give orders that players are likely to follow. For example, "Repair all my structures in base all game" is an order that I think most players would find boring and likely to disobey them eventually. On the otherhand, "Attack that hive until its dead" is an order that many players would find interesting and likely obey. Therefore, I view 'good' features as those that would encourage the comm to give the latter order more often than the former one.
This leads to defining what activities/orders a FPS player in an RTS/FPS would find "interesting" or "boring", which is quite subjective. However, my experience of comming numerous games in four RTS/FPS games/mods (Empires, NS1, NS2, Nuclear Dawn) has led me to characterize that list as follows:
<u>"Interesting" activities/orders</u>
- Killing players
- Killing structures
- Defending bases/outputs (< 5min)
- Buildings bases/outputs (< 5min)
- Capturing/buildings resources (< 5min)
- Waiting for orders (< 1min)
- Other unrelated activities that may help winning (e.g. being a distraction, killing a comm, camping a room/corridor, etc) (< 5 min)
<u>"Boring" activities/orders</u>
- Dying
- Defending bases/outputs (> 5min)
- Buildings bases/outputs (> 5min)
- Capturing/buildings resources (> 5min)
- Waiting for orders (> 1min)
- Other unrelated activities that may help winning (e.g. being a distraction, killing a comm, camping a room/corridor, etc) (> 5 min)
I put a timelimit on many of the activities because RTS/FPS draws players interested in teamwork and are generally interested in doing activities other than killing/destroying the enemy. However, in practice I find that the majority have a limit in how much of these other activities they are willing to do before getting bored (i.e. they don't mind repairing powernodes some of the time, but they don't want to spend the entire game only repairing powernodes).
Therefore, what game features would promote comms giving interesting orders likely to followed? The following is my (incomplete) list of such suggestions:
1. Movement structures/upgrades that help players quickly get to the contested areas of the map (e.g. phase gates, leap)
2. Structures/upgrades that increase the survivability of players in contested areas of the map (e.g. armor1/2/3, frenzy)
3. AI or auto-building/repairing of structures (e.g. autobuilding/repairing of alien structures, MACs)
4. Passive defensive structures (e.g. sentries, hydras, whips)
5. High damage, anti-structure weapons (e.g. GLs, bilebomb)
6. Wide selection of comm orders available and order queuing
I was a bit worried about that but it's not so bad after all, if the commander knows a bit what he is doing he will research a weapon when needed, beacon/gather the team and ask them to buy a weapon, so it's not very different from dropping weapons.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3) "In NS2 there will be building controllable NPCs for the commander to control, do you feel that this will damage the relationship between Commander and Players or do you feel that this will have no effect?"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It does, I've seen many public games where the comm just build macs and does stuff without caring much about the team.
2) No. Some people listen ...some people do not.
3) Actually this is better. The fact that when alone in the base the commander does not have to get out of the chair and endanger himself is a boon.
4) I don't think the trick is to make people dependent. I think the real struggle is to make it easy to communicate in both directions. People who are really good at RTS games are not used to talking to units. They are used to pointing and clicking.
2) I think the commander issuing the weapons had a strong positive effect on the relationship, mostly for pub games. The marines that listen to the commander received weapons, encouraging others to do so, and marines feel rewarded for carrying out the commanders orders with weapons, medpacks etc. Changing this to self bought does have a somewhat detrimental impact on this I feel but it's an understandable change given the popularity of combat maps, and it allows players to get into the game a little more easily, both as commander or marine. I suspect it also helps the game scale to the more variable player counts intended for NS2.
3) Nope, the ARCs cannot function effectively alone and the MACs mitigate what is mostly a chore for marines.
4) Personally, I feel the closer link is a better method, as long as the player count is relatively small. It has advantages in both helping you control the marines and also you will know exactly what weapons and equipment your squad has, as you issued them. I am generally against autonomous upgrades.
Any psychology books in general will help.
2) Players are still dependent on the commander for weapons via resource control and weapon research. No i don't think it will have much of an impact on whether or not players listen to the commander. The player's decision to listen to the commander is independent of what weapon he has been given etc.
It is rather the commander's ability to communicate his plan and perspective to the ground player that is affected, not so much the player listening part.
3) Yes, this has the potential to damage the commander/player relationship to some extent. It breaks the dependence of the commander on players to execute his/her building plan and can lead to tunnel vision which leads to misallocation of resources and mutiny. In the end it depends on the commander more than it does the mechanic.
4) How tight the mechanics make both commanders and players depend on each other largely determines the extent of teamwork that is needed to win. Because both parties want to win, closer knit gameplay naturally promotes teamplay and communication in comparison to gameplay that empowers individuals more. There needs to be the right balance and supporting social mechanics that reinforce a sense of reward when contributing to the team whether emotional or statistical through points. Its all very well to reward people with points for teamwork but it means nothing if there is no sense of team.
The nature of pub games with random strangers will always be that of individuals playing within their own sphere and there are limits as to how much you can push a sense of belonging to a team. I think knowing the pubscene/community/market specific to your game and how you cater to them in a fun manner is more key than just simply looking at how empowered individuals are from game to game. Or rather, i would suggest its a relative thing. NS is fun because it is designed to work if you play as a team. Porting a more individual focused model from like Empires just wouldn't fit i think.
-I think chokepoints, and easily communicated/intuitive layouts.
You don't want to silo off information between players and commanders more than needed to provide unique roles. Communication of mundane information distracts from more strategic discussion and tactical info. The overlapping info is also critical for players/commanders to offer advice to each other during gameplay. This allows more experienced players to offer advice to other players no matter what role they are currently playing.
Along with this, the key is to make the job of facilitating your team mates' dependencies interesting and fun. Once everyone knows what needs to be done, you want them to be excited about doing the task as well. There's a very satisfying feeling when capping a res with your team mates while repelling intruders. Perhaps one of my favorites on NS, baiting/distracting with a well executed ambush. There's much more to creating a cohesive comm/player experience than how you buy weapons or upgrades. If the team knows what is happening, they will act or react as needed.
Anyway, wondered if anyone else had any comments.
Anyway, wondered if anyone else had any comments.
<!--quoteo(post=1885228:date=Nov 16 2011, 08:03 PM:name=Destroid)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Destroid @ Nov 16 2011, 08:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1885228"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3) Nope, the ARCs cannot function effectively alone and the MACs mitigate what is mostly a chore for marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have heard comments to this before saying that this is infact not true, because as a marine you still need to escort the bot around in order for it to do its job and this is equally as boring however this also comes with the added drawback that if the bot is killed the player themselves cannot do the job of the builder bot...
as comm I usually don't request escorts for macs.. arcs yes but not macs
insetad - sometimes i use macs as scouts/decoy/bait for marines
nothing is more enticing than a mac flying around making noises lol
2. Considering most of the time in NS1, commanders just heaped guns into a pile and you picked one up when you spawned, no, I don't think it will have an effect.
3. 'Damage' is not how I'd describe it, 'divorce' is a better word as the relationship is already pretty terrible, and separating the two is an improvement.
4. In empires the skill system is farily useless, there are a few skills you need but most of them have minimal effect on your power as a player. I don't think a system like that would be any more effective in NS2 than it is in empires.
5. You stick a resource node in the middle of the area you want them to fight over.
1. (if marines have brain and listen to you), order them, count on them
2. (if they are brainless) let marines run around like chickens, drop meds-armor to them and use the MACs-turrets to conquer territory
Since marines buy weapons for themselves the comm is less important and I really miss that. In NS1 the comm was the most important person in the team, had to calculate the chances and make cruel decisions. Now marines can live without a good comm and this puts this great game closer to a game like counter-strike, where in team you could win as a team player, alone you could win as rambo.
I’m not a skilled commander by any means, so my views may be naïve of what a good commander should do in a scenario that the players would need help in the general direction of game flow and tactical positioning.
I don't think cooperation is the right term to use between commanders and players. What I believe is that commanders are first and foremost, should be a good player. Meaning that he will know the flow of the game as if he had the role of a player, but since he also has a birds eye view of the situation, able to assist and direct players to specific weak locations of the map in specific in a specific time of a game, on the basis that players are too intimate during play in parts of their game and unable to see such opportunities. The role of the commander is then to group and redirect players in ways that are beneficial to the team, put them in a role to succeed as some may call it. Now players will have a good feel of the commander as soon as he steps into the command chair because the players will know the exact flow of the game and how some things should be done in a holistic sense, and therefore will be able to judge the commander solely based on his first steps. The features and gameplay of ns1 to old ns1 players is so well known that players and commanders have, in some ways, come to a conclusion about what each other’s role should be and how it should be acted out. Therefore it's not fair or for a lack of understanding to say that the interests of the players and commander are separate because they are the same, to win games. Now in ns2, the gameplay has not been worked out by the players and the commander because the game itself is not finished, so it's hard to say whether if it will be the same as ns1 or it would be different. They cannot be compared at this stage yet.
Some features that may have helped in ns1 are the smoothness of graphics and the general flow/feel of the game, that simply isn't present right now in the game of ns2 (in a holistic sense). The smoothness and feel would enable players to do things are quite simply impossible in ns2 right now because of the state of the game. There are no such features that would directly connect or disconnect cooperation, only modified. It's hard to say a specific feature because they are all features to win a game, only their usefulness in a games moment determine their ability to get players to listen to the commander. ie. phase gate goes up at an empty hive, commander beacons, gives shotguns, and tell the players to haul ass to the hive via phase gate. That players would do and listen because it's inline with the flow of the game and because the commander seized and exploited a perfect tactical moment. But when commanders make an ill informed decision, that's when players begin to lose faith.
Independence give freedom, and freedom give ways to rambos, which I don't think would be ideal for the commander, as the rambo would either die useless, or in some cases, players can create tactical opportunities. So the freedom of choice would be up to the player, what giving commander-independent weapons would do is create greater opportunities for the player to create those tactical opportunities without using the teams resources. The case still stands, would the commander be able to seize the tactical moment and do the right thing, or would the opportunity be missed. This may also encourage individual play however, because each marine would have greater firepower, and induce them in thinking that they would be able to singlehandedly take on problems by himself. This will cause a bigger independence of each other from both the commander and the player. Therefore the commander will have his own game, and the players, feeling less used will also go find his own game. There will be less cohesive movement overall so it will be up to the commanders to take on a bigger role and provide more leadership (in today’s ns2 at least).
Give an example of a small upgrade? Would it be game changing, or simply cosmetic? If it's game changing like +1 dmg to your lmg, then I don't think players and commanders would adhere to the given incentives at all because there would not be a level playing field, I cannot see this change implemented in ns without a great deal of effort to balance and maintain such a system.
All in all I don't think it's about cooperating or not cooperating, but simply the understanding and reacting to a games change that underlies the relationship between a commander and player. Would players be able to provide those moments and the commander to seize them? That would be my question. Therefore I think you’d need to dig deeper than simply asking the question of to cooperate or not cooperate.
Depends on the orders.
I play empires quite a bit, and I love playing with a good squad in that, because the orders are always given in the immediate area, and are always relevant, and basically, they aren't orders. They're advice on the best solution to the situation I'm in.
Chances are, I don't NEED the orders, but sometimes they point out something I didn't realise, or they help me to better understand the intent of my squadmembers. Maybe the squad leader wants me to revive someone I didn't notice had died, or he wants me to go to a specific place, so he can mark it for me using orders.
Like I said, most of the time I don't need them, if I see someone injured I heal them, if I see a corpse I revive it, if someone needs ammo I drop it, if I see a tank I take out my RPG and shoot it while the riflemen cover me from infantry, if I have the motion scanner ability I tell people when I see things. Teamwork can be an awful lot of fun, but it is usually the most fun when it doesn't require orders, it's fun because we all know how to and want to do it, not because I particularly enjoy being bossed around by some twerp I don't know.
The point is that in that situation, an order is always relevant, because it's given by someone who is in the same location I am, and it can't be placed very far away, and it's almost certainly something I can do quickly, and probably involves killing something. It's relevant, achievable, and enjoyable.
Whereas in NS, the orders usually take the form of 'run across half the map, build this extractor, and then you can go do what you wanted to do' or 'run across half the map, kill this one skulk that was killing everything, repair the power node, rebuild the extractor, then you can maybe do something fun'.
I don't object to the entire idea of orders, I object to being expected to waste my leisure time perfoming busy work so that everyone else can do the fun stuff, that's what AI is for, or automated systems in the game.
It's like designing a game where the job of one player is to repearedly mash the space bar to power the respawn machine. It'd be really dumb and boring for that player. I dislike being that player.
+1
Leadership is a skill that you are borned with and is rarely learned beacause the main part of leadership is your personality. A calm, active, polite, communicating commander is going to be more considerable to follow than a excited, lazy, impolite, quiet commander. So a good commanders in NS2 doesn't necessarily have the greatest build order but instead a great personality.
I believe when the resource model is adjusted player and commander will be even more depending on each other than they currently are.
Leadership is a skill that you are borned with and is rarely learned beacause the main part of leadership is your personality. A calm, active, polite, communicating commander is going to be more considerable to follow than a excited, lazy, impolite, quiet commander. So a good commanders in NS2 doesn't necessarily have the greatest build order but instead a great personality.
I believe when the resource model is adjusted player and commander will be even more depending on each other than they currently are.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A commander that is very nice but who fails to make the game playable is not a good commander. I don't enjoy following people to inevitable failure.
A good commander is one who performs every commander related task perfectly, without unnecessary prattle, without human error, without honest oversight.
A good commander is a robot that automatically gives me an order to target the most important object in my vicinity, based on my location and surroundings, and who automatically prioritises which structures are most important at any given time and drops them as soon as funds are available, who automatically triggers beacons when the complex interaction between need to do it, number of players dead, number of players doing other important things, importance of other important things, and so on, reach the optimum point where triggering a beacon is the best choice. A good commander can medpack every marine on the field whenever their health drops low enough with perfect precision.
A good commander is one that does everything perfectly. The best commander would be no commander, and simply automated AI oversight of all his duties.
Leadership is a skill that you are borned with and is rarely learned beacause the main part of leadership is your personality. A calm, active, polite, communicating commander is going to be more considerable to follow than a excited, lazy, impolite, quiet commander. So a good commanders in NS2 doesn't necessarily have the greatest build order but instead a great personality.
I believe when the resource model is adjusted player and commander will be even more depending on each other than they currently are.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe you may have been talking about motivation. The motivating skills of a commander to get what he wants from a player. That would play a part as well, but falls apart if he shows he doesn't know what to do in such and such situations. Players may give him second chances because he is polite and willing to learn from his mistakes, but to them, the objective is to win the game, and the only option is paring the marine team with a good commander that knows what to do in certain situations. Some of these things Chris has touched on. If the only point, and the most important point of a game is to win, then the polite commander will get ejected for a impolite commander with a good overall understanding of game mechanics. (You can always mute and follow the rhythm of the game yourself if the commander annoys you, that's how I find it anyways)
Unless you are talking about it as a learning process, and not everyone having the most optimal knowledge of the game.
A motivating commander always trumps a harsh and negative commander, at least in my experiences. (If both have optimal knowledge)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Motivation from the commander may also play a large part in how the team plays. Partly because it reinforces the actions the commander may want the player to take opposed to what the commander don’t want the player to do. Ie. Talk a lot, banter, play, instill values unique to the commander etc. That may get the players more inline with what the commander expects and want the players to do etc. A non-motivator’s team may do well because everyone knows the game so well, it may not be necessary. But I also see the motivator’s team as being more cohesive and encouraging.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To me, the reason I like winning is because of its symptoms. If you're winning, it means the game is fun for you. You have all your tech available, you have a good amount of money so you can use the tech you want, you don't have to do un-fun things to stave off losing, you essentially can focus on having fun in the game, losing teams can only choose between doing what is absolutely neccesary and not playing (because they lost). Losing is not fun. Of course winning easily is not fun either, because you just steamroll everything and there's no engaging activity, there's no fighting, no teamwork, you just shoot constantly and everything in front of you crumbles effortlessly, that's just as boring as losing.
I don't object to the idea of having enjoyable teamwork, but the entire commander concept puts enjoyable teamwork at direct odds with enjoyable gameplay, by putting all of the important game mechanics in the hands of a fallible, limited, <i>human</i> commander, you sacrifice playability for sociability. That I do object to.
That's the other reason I like empires squad orders, actually. The game doesn't suck if they aren't given. If the NS or global empires commander doesn't command properly, the game is completely unplayable.
1.
Yes and no.
Most players want to win but not necessarily all. If the player and commander want to win and know the basics of the game they're interests are very similar and there are rarely any conflicts of interests. However there are a couple of conflicts of interests when competetive or skilled players play with less skilled or casual players.
The first problem is that competetive players don't often even want to win the public games. They're just playing to warm up for the next game, practise a certain thing like using a skill, weapon, lifeform, part of the map, etc. Or they might just be training or trying to get the best K:D ever etc. This is because competetive players want to better in the game in the long run, and wasting precious practise time with building stuff in base etc. does not make you better player as fast as going to the frontlines. Also winning a public game doesn't usually give player like this any satisfaction because there's no prize or anything else stake in the game.
The second conflict of interest is that players with different skill levels usually have totally different approaches to the strategy in the game. This usually results to both ends playing their own way without cooperating.
2.
I feel that NS1 marine weapon system helped to the situation with conflict of interests between commander and players. In NS1 you could order (or bribe or blackmail) even the most experienced players by promising to give them weapons if they do certain tasks that benefit the team. Many commanders rewarded the good players even if they went solo because they usually were big asset to the team in that way too. But sometimes bribing and blackmailing were good ways to get ignorant skilled players to participate to the teamplay. In NS2 the marine doesn't have any incentive to do what the commander says especially if the player thinks that he knows better how to win the game than the commander does.
3.
Yes NPCs damage the relationship between commander and players. Because of the weapon system commander has now way to get marines to obey his orders commander needed something to execute his strategic plan on his own. I believe that is why NPCs were added. Now the result is in many rounds that the commander plays his own game and the players play their own. Just like Chris0132 has explained to us in numerous posts.
4.
I am not sure about my opinion on this one. I think that the commander should have a way to reward their players and players should have a way to reward the commander. This could be done with game mechanics but also by simple stats database with the ability to rate your fellow players after the match. RPG/RTS game called Savage 2 has this kind of feature and I think it works great. It might not be so good option in NS2 though.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A good commander is one that does everything perfectly. The best commander would be no commander, and simply automated AI oversight of all his duties.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is how it is in traditional RTS games. The beauty in using real humans as units in RTS is that you need more than a robot executing the perfect build order and micromanagement. You need leadership in order to get the people to understand, believe and execute your battle plan. However there's a big challenge to get this to work at this moment because of the bad implementation of waypoints, voicecomm and lack of minimap indicators.
I don't really think leadership would work that well.
I don't have the time or the inclination to give someone an inspiring speech every time I need them to go and build something. I just want them to get on with it when I click to tell them to do it.
I've said this before, but the point of RTS games, the reason why they're fun, is that they simulate military combat. In the military, you don't need to justify to the soldiers why they should go and defend this base in the arse end of nowhere for the entire war, you just tell them to do it and it gets done, because they're trained to obey orders without question. This is simulated in RTS games by having AI units with no independant thought.
In a game, you're commanding players, not troops, they're mostly composed of over opinionated socially deficient armchair generals who ALL think they know better than you what they should be doing (at least, that's a fairly accurate description of me). As a result, trying to lead them is like herding cats, except cats will generally follow you if you offer them food, players will complain about the quality of the food, or that they have already eaten, or that they are on a diet. Players are argumentitive by default, and this is their leisure time. First and foremost they will do what is fun, which means they won't do what you tell them unless they happen to be a submission fetishist and enjoy pretending to be ordered around. I have met players like that and I treasure each and everyone of them for their wonderfully warped obedience to my instructions, but they are not the majority.
No amount of leadership will work on a creature which is inherently not leadable. The average gamer falls into that category I find.
I played NS1 from the very beginning until it was competitive game (once it was the most played HL game as i remember) and im pretty sure it'd work better on the classic way.
chris: in NS1 you didnt have to pray to every person, you just told them im the comm, i know what i do, if you want to win, do what is say and they did it. If they didnt do it they didnt get any good weapon. And by the way, we dont want to breed perfect soldiers:)
I don't have the time or the inclination to give someone an inspiring speech every time I need them to go and build something. I just want them to get on with it when I click to tell them to do it.
I've said this before, but the point of RTS games, the reason why they're fun, is that they simulate military combat. In the military, you don't need to justify to the soldiers why they should go and defend this base in the arse end of nowhere for the entire war, you just tell them to do it and it gets done, because they're trained to obey orders without question. This is simulated in RTS games by having AI units with no independant thought.
In a game, you're commanding players, not troops, they're mostly composed of over opinionated socially deficient armchair generals who ALL think they know better than you what they should be doing (at least, that's a fairly accurate description of me). As a result, trying to lead them is like herding cats, except cats will generally follow you if you offer them food, players will complain about the quality of the food, or that they have already eaten, or that they are on a diet. Players are argumentitive by default, and this is their leisure time. First and foremost they will do what is fun, which means they won't do what you tell them unless they happen to be a submission fetishist and enjoy pretending to be ordered around. I have met players like that and I treasure each and everyone of them for their wonderfully warped obedience to my instructions, but they are not the majority.
No amount of leadership will work on a creature which is inherently not leadable. The average gamer falls into that category I find.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whoa. Are you seriously comparing NS to a military service? And saying that NS2 is a simulation of one? Having played NS1 and NS2 quite a lot and serving in the army as Sergeant I really don't see NS2 as a simulation of armed service. It is just something totally different. And I'm really surprised and even amused that somebody can think NS2 as a military simulation.
Leadership is not only about inspiring speeches. Not at all. Leadership is exactly what is used in the army to get the soldiers to obey every command precisely. You told that it's the training that makes troops to obey without a question. But leadership training is the biggest part of a leader's training in the army. So it's really the way you talk and coordinate with the players that makes the difference in their obedience. Sure you're right about the fact that leadership in the army and in the game is totally different. You can't motivate soldiers and gamers in the same way because the setting is totally different. However the leadership is still there and you can and have to use it to get the players to understand and execute your strategy.
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No... I'm saying it isn't one, I thought I was saying it very emphatically, but apparently not.
The entire problem is that the players are not trained to follow orders, which is why they are so horrible to command. I actually don't object to the idea of a command hierarchy in say, armed assault, because that is a military simulator and is full of people who just love to roleplay military people, and so will follow orders.
Leadership in the army is 'do as I say or I'll shoot you' or 'do as I say or the enemy will shoot you' or 'do as I say or the military tribunal will have you shot when we get back to base'. I'm sure there's quite a lot of stuff built on top of that but when it comes down to it, not doing what you're told in a warzone will probably result in you dying, you need the rest of the army on your side to survive, so you probably shouldn't do anything to annoy them. Sadly I do not have the ability to effectively threaten players with death over the internet, so it is quite hard to make them do what I say.
Enlightened self interest is generally what motivates all but the stupidest of people, and your own interests in NS2, or any online shooter game, very rarely lie with doing what the commander says. In real life you don't need to be led because you know full well that if you don't do what you're told, you'll lose your job or your life. That's what the law, corporate hierarchy, military hierarchy, and just about every hierarchy ever has been and is built on.
<!--quoteo(post=1887556:date=Nov 30 2011, 12:03 AM:name=WizardHUN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WizardHUN @ Nov 30 2011, 12:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887556"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->chris: in NS1 you didnt have to pray to every person, you just told them im the comm, i know what i do, if you want to win, do what is say and they did it. If they didnt do it they didnt get any good weapon. And by the way, we dont want to breed perfect soldiers:)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Er, maybe for a while, but when I played the only time the comm actually handed out guns was at the very start, once you got going he just piled them next to the jetpacks and you picked one up when you spawned, he had far too much to do micromanaging siege cannons to hand out guns to every player.
Because shotguns, hmgs, gls were worthy and "expensive". The comm dropped weapons after beacon-before rush. In my opinion in NS2 weapons are less worthy as they was in NS1.
No... I'm saying it isn't one, I thought I was saying it very emphatically, but apparently not.
The entire problem is that the players are not trained to follow orders, which is why they are so horrible to command. I actually don't object to the idea of a command hierarchy in say, armed assault, because that is a military simulator and is full of people who just love to roleplay military people, and so will follow orders.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is not about training. It's about the commander being able to communicate his plan in a way that the player can both understand and believe in it. If he understands what the commander means and believes that this is the right thing to do he will do it. It is very simple principle but very hard to master when you're given 1-2 seconds and only one sentence to get it right.
<!--quoteo(post=1887567:date=Nov 30 2011, 04:01 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 30 2011, 04:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887567"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Leadership in the army is 'do as I say or I'll shoot you' or 'do as I say or the enemy will shoot you' or 'do as I say or the military tribunal will have you shot when we get back to base'. I'm sure there's quite a lot of stuff built on top of that but when it comes down to it, not doing what you're told in a warzone will probably result in you dying, you need the rest of the army on your side to survive, so you probably shouldn't do anything to annoy them. Sadly I do not have the ability to effectively threaten players with death over the internet, so it is quite hard to make them do what I say.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is where the leadership in the army is based on. But as you said you can and have to build a heaps of stuff on top of that to be effective. I agree with you that there's a problem in NS2 because there's no way to give this kind of "outer motivation" to player (I'm sorry about my terminology here. I did not take my leadership studies in English). This comes to the point i raised earlier in this thread that in NS2 the commander has no way to motivate players except his words. Things were different in ns1 because of the weapons.
<!--quoteo(post=1887567:date=Nov 30 2011, 04:01 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 30 2011, 04:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1887567"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Enlightened self interest is generally what motivates all but the stupidest of people, and your own interests in NS2, or any online shooter game, very rarely lie with doing what the commander says. In real life you don't need to be led because you know full well that if you don't do what you're told, you'll lose your job or your life. That's what the law, corporate hierarchy, military hierarchy, and just about every hierarchy ever has been and is built on.
Er, maybe for a while, but when I played the only time the comm actually handed out guns was at the very start, once you got going he just piled them next to the jetpacks and you picked one up when you spawned, he had far too much to do micromanaging siege cannons to hand out guns to every player.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah the weapons didn't work as a motivation in the end game if you could afford to get JP/HMG for your whole team. But in that point very little motivation was needed anymore and the game was easily win. If the round was more even and you could only afford one or two JP/HMGs you could easily motivate people to work for the team.
Voice is quiet than every other sound in the game, and instead of selecting marines to assign to a group, you get macs and marine and arc. Quite honestly it's a mess.
A comm is only as good as his team, if his team can't shoot focus the right bits it's over.