Commander Selection Phase
Malachi_NGC
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170530Members
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170530Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Gracefully choose a commander at the beginning of each round.</div><b>Issue:</b>
The beginning of a round is crucial to a team's progress and potential for victory (or loss).
Teams that struggle to find a commander take on a huge disadvantage over a team that is able to quickly place an experienced commander in the chair. The first few minutes can, and often do, determine the winning team.
During this crucial beginning, players are often still connecting and choosing teams. Through no fault of their own, an opportunity to find the best commander is limited at best.
Considering the time and effort players put into a single round, 'sloppy' starts like this unneccesarily takes away from the enjoyment of the game.
<b>Proposed Solution:</b>
There are two complimentary ideas. First, have a new game phase inserted into the beginning of the round that allows for players to connect, choose teams, and decide on a commander. Second, implement some kind of commander ratings.
The new game phase would be inserted before the current level round begins. During this phase, teammates would have an opportunity for voice/text discussion to choose a commander. Once both commanders were choosen, the phase would immediately end and regular gameplay would begin.
It would have a max limit of, say, 90 seconds. Players would be restricted from leaving the vicinity of their spawn to prevent teams from using it to advance or gain intel.
It is true that some of these issues can be addressed by simply increasing the time before a round starts, but this would not address less experienced or indecisive teams - making choosing a commander more difficult. And it would unnecessarily burden every round with a long default waiting time.
A ratings system would complement this by enabling players to easily see which teammates would be the best candidates for commander. The player ratings would be kept simple: the total number of hours as commander and a win/loss ratio. To simplify things, the win/loss ratio would only include complete rounds. Rounds would need a minimum server population and no mods.
Ratings would follow players from server to server. An additional nice touch would be to keep a seperate win/loss ratio for each team. So a strong alien commander who happened to be playing on marines wouldn't confuse the issue by reporting inflated stats.
The ratings could be shown on an altered version of the scoreboard which would only be used during this phase.
Together, ratings and a new commander selection phase would enable players to quickly and easily choose the best candidate for team commander, leading to a smooth round and more enjoyable games.
The beginning of a round is crucial to a team's progress and potential for victory (or loss).
Teams that struggle to find a commander take on a huge disadvantage over a team that is able to quickly place an experienced commander in the chair. The first few minutes can, and often do, determine the winning team.
During this crucial beginning, players are often still connecting and choosing teams. Through no fault of their own, an opportunity to find the best commander is limited at best.
Considering the time and effort players put into a single round, 'sloppy' starts like this unneccesarily takes away from the enjoyment of the game.
<b>Proposed Solution:</b>
There are two complimentary ideas. First, have a new game phase inserted into the beginning of the round that allows for players to connect, choose teams, and decide on a commander. Second, implement some kind of commander ratings.
The new game phase would be inserted before the current level round begins. During this phase, teammates would have an opportunity for voice/text discussion to choose a commander. Once both commanders were choosen, the phase would immediately end and regular gameplay would begin.
It would have a max limit of, say, 90 seconds. Players would be restricted from leaving the vicinity of their spawn to prevent teams from using it to advance or gain intel.
It is true that some of these issues can be addressed by simply increasing the time before a round starts, but this would not address less experienced or indecisive teams - making choosing a commander more difficult. And it would unnecessarily burden every round with a long default waiting time.
A ratings system would complement this by enabling players to easily see which teammates would be the best candidates for commander. The player ratings would be kept simple: the total number of hours as commander and a win/loss ratio. To simplify things, the win/loss ratio would only include complete rounds. Rounds would need a minimum server population and no mods.
Ratings would follow players from server to server. An additional nice touch would be to keep a seperate win/loss ratio for each team. So a strong alien commander who happened to be playing on marines wouldn't confuse the issue by reporting inflated stats.
The ratings could be shown on an altered version of the scoreboard which would only be used during this phase.
Together, ratings and a new commander selection phase would enable players to quickly and easily choose the best candidate for team commander, leading to a smooth round and more enjoyable games.
Comments
Thanks!
How about number of wins? That would work!
Thanks!
Without trying to sound immodest, I hope that UW gives this consideration. It may help address the discrepancy between pub and competitive play. Pub has a 60% alien win rate, while for comp its even.
How about number of wins? That would work!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
if you made it number of wins you would create a few problems.
1. Coms would rage at their team more if things go badly.
2. Coms will leave the chair/hive as soon as it looks like a loss is on the way.
3. trolls will eject coms at the end of games and take the command post to claim the win.
1. Coms would rage at their team more if things go badly.
2. Coms will leave the chair/hive as soon as it looks like a loss is on the way.
3. trolls will eject coms at the end of games and take the command post to claim the win.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So true.. I think eject is a failed feature in NS2.
My 2cents=
1. In populated games, noone comms twice in a row.
2. Comm has a 15 second window he can leave chair until a new comm can replace. Instantly aborted if he dies.
3. A Comm can be ELECTED to comm a second game in a row.
Number 3 would work like eject. But instead of ejecting, you would be re-electing.
Enough votes and the player will be notified of their 'Good Standing' and will have the option to Comm in a second (consecutive) match.
Ejecting is for feminine men that enjoy hissy-fits.. I don't even know how to 'eject' comm.
Is it 'V'?
I mean, the number of hours played would clearly be a disadvantage to new players, no need to explain that.
But the wins/loss ratio could also be a huge disadvantage to someone. What if you comm a couple of times for the first time and you have an awful team? Your ratings would be brought down immediately and people wouldn't have any incentives to pick you as their commander again. You could solve this last problem by implementing a threshold, let's say a minimum of 10 rounds before you are 'officially' rated... but even this would be horrible for new players: Who would vote for a commander who hasn't been rated yet because he hasn't commanded for 10 rounds?
What could be done however is the creation of a real tutorial map. If you complete the tutorial, you get a symbol next to your nickname. That way people are sure that you at least tried to understand the concept of the game. This is much more newbie friendly and i honestly can't think of a reason to be against it.
Also, as far as the voting system is concerned, i would opt for a two round run-off and not a simple plurality system. (In order to avoid the risk that a couple of trolls on your team get to pick the commander because your other teammates votes are too divided.)
My experience with the issue of commander selection is rarely that more than one person wants to command, is usually that no one wants to.
I don't think a com rating system is warranted really. Just a time period or selection phase to ensure the round does not start with out one.
Players that are idle ingame should be removed server side, anyway.