Game-changing communication feature for pubs
devel
Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
Disclaimer:
There will be no mechanic changes discussion here.
References/examples:
Garry's Mod: Murder and Dota2.
So. Names are fundamental and very useful.
But goddamn people are just picking unpronounceable sets of symbols to mark their identity. As a result, the commander's orders and horizontal exchanges are often imprecise in the very important part - "who must do the thing".
It boils down to orders like "someone go to the base" (where "someone" eventually turns into "everybody" or "nobody"), or raging over the fact that "everyone" is, for example, walking alone (without specifying the exact people that are doing that).
Sometimes the commander's brilliant plan turns into some mysterious (for rookie) waypoint just because the rookie didn't listen carefully as he hasn't heard his name. (enough things are going on already!)
Does he remember in which room he is? If the comm uses location-based naming system then actually the name of that poor player changes every time he goes to another room.
Have the rookie failed or just "everybody" failed (as commander said)? He has done something wrong? No one complained directly mentioning his name...
Mics are underused. On this level of "addressing granularity" you can play without it.
So, a great thing about Dota is that you can refer unambiguously to the player by his hero name. Which is writable, pronounceable, comes from predefined set of names and it is unique during the round. It transports useful information and rage to target very fast. That is due to fact that emittent and recipient both operate on common predefined set of names.
I think that we should try Murder-like naming system for the low-mid pub servers:
each player receives a second nickname from a predefined set of sane names for the duration of the round.
(there are some implementation details and tweaks that I don't include in the first post. don't want to blur things)
What do you think?
There will be no mechanic changes discussion here.
References/examples:
Garry's Mod: Murder and Dota2.
So. Names are fundamental and very useful.
But goddamn people are just picking unpronounceable sets of symbols to mark their identity. As a result, the commander's orders and horizontal exchanges are often imprecise in the very important part - "who must do the thing".
It boils down to orders like "someone go to the base" (where "someone" eventually turns into "everybody" or "nobody"), or raging over the fact that "everyone" is, for example, walking alone (without specifying the exact people that are doing that).
Sometimes the commander's brilliant plan turns into some mysterious (for rookie) waypoint just because the rookie didn't listen carefully as he hasn't heard his name. (enough things are going on already!)
Does he remember in which room he is? If the comm uses location-based naming system then actually the name of that poor player changes every time he goes to another room.
Have the rookie failed or just "everybody" failed (as commander said)? He has done something wrong? No one complained directly mentioning his name...
Mics are underused. On this level of "addressing granularity" you can play without it.
So, a great thing about Dota is that you can refer unambiguously to the player by his hero name. Which is writable, pronounceable, comes from predefined set of names and it is unique during the round. It transports useful information and rage to target very fast. That is due to fact that emittent and recipient both operate on common predefined set of names.
I think that we should try Murder-like naming system for the low-mid pub servers:
each player receives a second nickname from a predefined set of sane names for the duration of the round.
(there are some implementation details and tweaks that I don't include in the first post. don't want to blur things)
What do you think?
Comments
..but will people actually pay attention to it? O.o
Ok. Arguments?
Minimap is a problem, but tab and spectator are not very useful on low lvl pubs.
It is a tool for commander to manage rookies with names like this: ¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸
(real example)
This tool Just removes a barrier. It leads to more communication, potentially to more successful commanding. So usage of this tool by a commander would become a sign of a good commander.
To be serious for a second. Assuming the person you want to command is someone who is willing to interact in the first place, you should be able to ask the person how he would like to be addressed. If the person is not being coorporative at this point, then what do you think the chances are he will listen to your orders anyway?
And every time it will turn into imagination exercise with 3-5 nicknames. No one does it in a real world.
And it is not guaranteed that the whole team has the same cultural/linguistic background to understand created association.
Serious thing is a player retention rate.
You are just saying that amount of effort to be made by the player to start having fun and stay in the game is ok already. If you think that required amount of effort is good and doesn't need to be minimized (but in fact it is high, cos "niche game"), then how the retention rate can be increased without adding more reward (i. e. big gameplay features)?
So, effort requirement can be lowered. New player need not understand why communication is important and when he should establish it. The thing simply starts working out of box.
Lower requirements - higher retention rate.
Sorry, I can't find any use of this system.
Also, calling players by the hero they picked in dota is different because those players specifically picked their hero.
These things are the implementation details. And of course they are different for each game. Somewhere they are inseparable from the low level game mechanics.
I usually point to the locations the marines are in rather than their name though. "One of you guys in mezanine, go back to hub please" i.e.
When we encounter players who seem unable to hear team voicecomm, we use text to educate about our communication requirement (mics optional) and default chat binds, and we remove those who still don't respond at all, ideally before their inattention to team coordination can too negatively affect collaboratively play. We've removed countless isolated players through this enforcement, but those who return night after night find the cull's effort more than justified by the fantastic play that's possible only when everyone is reliably participating in effective coordination. We don't require mics, but most regulars use them when comms aren't too crowded.
Keeping the bar as high as reliably usable names and reliably effective team coordination takes a lot of social diligence and effort on a public server. TGNS has specialized mods that make education and enforcement easier, and maybe NS2's stock offering can be improved, but I really think the spirit of OP's need will always require a strong social enforcement.
This feature places a person who "does that social enforcing" in more advantageous position.