Maybe some personal $$$ for the commander that they can spend next game either as commander on something you'd normally have to wait to get for the team or if they go player next game after commanding they get some $$$ to spend on the black market and buy something for themselves... like a wep not researched yet or fist exo etc.
Just throwing some ideas for incentive.
Ok lets go from there.. Some reward for commanders.. hmmm
Maybe a simple badge/star/number that indicates the amount of victories you achieved with you as a commander. I remember reading about that somewhere else on the forum. It seems to me that it could actually be the solution for the commander shortage in public games.
Maybe some personal $$$ for the commander that they can spend next game either as commander on something you'd normally have to wait to get for the team or if they go player next game after commanding they get some $$$ to spend on the black market and buy something for themselves... like a wep not researched yet or fist exo etc.
Just throwing some ideas for incentive.
It is a cool idea but one of the things I like most about NS2 is that matches are contained to one match. this gets closer to the progression models found in CoD and the like. Which are fine and all, just not really what I want in my NS2.
I think removing the Res Penalty they added would be nice, maybe even give him a Res Bonus for being comm. That might be OP though. I like the ideas floating around about more Fanfare in the Ready Room after a match. Maybe a special skin for the winning comm, in an admirals uniform, and for Khamm they could be some sort of Queen type being. That is a lot of expensive modeling for the ready room though.
I was about to suggest giving them in game abilities for the person who starts the game as commander. For instance Comm has no Armor and only a side arm, but builds at 2X speed. And Khamm could be a different life form entirely, so to jump in during the match transforms you to a more vulnerable unit (Limit 1 per side). Which would be cool but his is getting really complicated, and there have already been so many fundamentally game altering changes.
Heh, would be fun if there was a tiny bar under the commanders name for the displaying of victoriously commed games... Since a bar, it'd easily adopt the e-peen name, also wouldn't be obtrusive. Just 4 pixel dots in a row.
Edit: Not in scores tab, but in player UI where you see the comm name.
Edit: Oh but aliens don't have it... Don't I shine tonight.
Heh, would be fun if there was a tiny bar under the commanders name for the displaying of victoriously commed games... Since a bar, it'd easily adopt the e-peen name, also wouldn't be obtrusive. Just 4 pixel dots in a row.
Edit: Not in scores tab, but in player UI where you see the comm name.
Edit: Oh but aliens don't have it... Don't I shine tonight.
Hmmm not so keen on that.
If a good commander has crapy team all the time (bad luck) his bar will have negative influence on teammates as it reflects bad performances which isn't the case.
Troop moral, eject syndrome, and so on...
I like the ideas floating around about more Fanfare in the Ready Room after a match. Maybe a special skin for the winning comm, in an admirals uniform, and for Khamm they could be some sort of Queen type being. That is a lot of expensive modeling for the ready room though.
Lots of people seem to want comm skill rankings, but such a thing would be problematic for a couple of reasons. Number one, you'd need to essentially have a completely different metric for it and rank comms separately from field players, because the skills needed for one are drastically different from the skills needed for the other. Number two, how would you even quantify comm skill in a way that could be measured numerically? I suppose you could measure medpack accuracy, but other than that how would you calculate skill for a comm? There's no way to quantify the ability of a comm to issue good orders.
Heh, would be fun if there was a tiny bar under the commanders name for the displaying of victoriously commed games... Since a bar, it'd easily adopt the e-peen name, also wouldn't be obtrusive. Just 4 pixel dots in a row.
Edit: Not in scores tab, but in player UI where you see the comm name.
Edit: Oh but aliens don't have it... Don't I shine tonight.
Hmmm not so keen on that.
If a good commander has crapy team all the time (bad luck) his bar will have negative influence on teammates as it reflects bad performances which isn't the case.
Troop moral, eject syndrome, and so on...
Ah, I didn't mean a win/lose ratio bar. I meant an all-victories-ever bar. Simply how many times has the player commanded a team victoriously. A bit like hours played for commanding, except you don't get "xp" from losing.
Could you add the ability to spectate commander? It would help newbies to see what competent coms are doing, where their vision is focused and what they click.
Lots of people seem to want comm skill rankings, but such a thing would be problematic for a couple of reasons. Number one, you'd need to essentially have a completely different metric for it and rank comms separately from field players, because the skills needed for one are drastically different from the skills needed for the other. Number two, how would you even quantify comm skill in a way that could be measured numerically? I suppose you could measure medpack accuracy, but other than that how would you calculate skill for a comm? There's no way to quantify the ability of a comm to issue good orders.
I think any point system would also lead to strategically unsound play. You get points when someone uses an armory to heal? Armories and turtling marines everywhere! Points for dropping medpacks? Incomming spam and no upgrades! In the commander role more than any other too much of a good thing is a very bad thing. There are probably still a few things they could earn points for without detriment but their score would end up being so much lower than any team member that there's not really any point.
The PRes penalty for jumping out of the hive is not helping either. I'm aware that this was added to fix a perceived problem, but it creates a new one instead: it penalizes creative, skillful play, while it should be just the other way around.
Alien Commander: Almost no tech priorization (just single lifeform unlocks), which removes too many options. My suggestion would be a cheaper lifeform unlock, and then you research the abilities for that lifeform individually. The total cost per lifeform should be similar to now, maybe a bit higher as you can skip and reorder then (which is a buff).
I agree with the 1st point *infinity, creatively using that little extra bit of comm res was a great little part of the meta.
Kept second point in there because it has a flavour to it of the quote below, and while the game has BALANCE at the moment, it is not maliable and fluid. More changes of this sort would bring back some of the great fun of earlier builds.
I can understand the problem very much. Here's why I think it happens:
Complainers - not so much. Just ignore them and the med/ammo request spam. But I can understand this is very hard for new players who don't "know better" and, due to lack of confidence from experience, believe they may be doing something wrong.
Dumb teams is really what puts me off commanding.
I'm not speaking about the typical noob teams who couldn't hit an Onos right in front of them. You can't blame them for that.
More about people who don't know what they are doing. Ignoring orders, no strategy, running into the same hallway the entire game for no effect, no idea of timing, ignoring the map and PGs in general, AND THAT YOU HAVE TO FINISH THE FUCKING PG INSTEAD OF SHOOTING ONE SKULK AND GETTING KILLED BY IT... things like that.
I don't think the whiners are the problem - the ignorants are. Those isolated beings who are completely unaware of any external influences.
I don't mind explaining the game to newbies. But I mind talking with bricks.
Yea. People who believe they are playing deathmatch.
Stacked teams - no fun commanding and seeing your team having no chance, again and again.
Nobody wants to command all the time.
Ever since 250 (balance update), commanding is boring.
250 removed so much strategy and made NS2 more like team deathmatch. It doesn't really matter which upgrades you do first, just do something. Worse for Aliens, you have the choice of Hive and then that's it.
Reinforced removed the last bit of fun in Alien comming - I'm not sending that 8 res Drifter with my team just so it gets sniped, for the chance of using some nerfed abilities that no longer decide anything.
Choosing between building a Crag which you don't need or a Shift or Shade which you don't need just to get some random lifeform upgrade is boring.
The entire Drifter building mechanics and the huge costs, delays, and random structure requirements everywhere, which were introduced just to force Aliens to spend money and delay their tech, make commanding tedious.
I REALLY miss things like rushing for Spores or Bile or whatever specific upgrade pre-250, in order to try and surprise the enemy and gain an advantage.
Marine comm is better, but in the end, you either go Arms Lab or PG first, and that's the most influential decision you'll make. But you don't have to react to what Aliens are doing any longer (like getting Flamers when Aliens rushed Spores).
I really would like to see different tech trees/options to choose from, and that you'd have to react to the enemy decision. Right now, there are no surprises and commanding is mostly linear. You're basically a deathmatch supporting bot who drops buildings, researches things, but is disconnected from what the enemy is doing and what is happening on the battlefield (minus the occasional med drop).
TLDR: There's little to decide and nothing to react to. Not very exciting.
The UI is unpleasant to use. It's not bad or anyhing, just not really fun to use.
For sure the amount of commander strategy has been reduced significantly, and it's a shame. It was cool having to anticipate and react to what the other team would do, but things have become very predictable now.
The sad truth of the matter is that the commander, at any level other than a high-level competitive match, is not a deciding factor in the oucome of a game. He's just a guy who enables the deathmatch for everyone else by clicking on buttons every now and then. It is completely possible for a bot to stand in for the commander and give pub players about the same experience as they get with a human commander (minus the scapegoat for when they lose). Alien commander is far worse than marine in this regard, but really both of them are fairly limited in their scope of decisions. You start out by deciding crag/shift/shade or arms lab/PG and after that things are fairly linear.
Could you add the ability to spectate commander? It would help newbies to see what competent coms are doing, where their vision is focused and what they click.
Could you add the ability to spectate commander? It would help newbies to see what competent coms are doing, where their vision is focused and what they click.
This is a really good idea, except people typically vote kick spectators because they are using up a valuable server slot.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, NS2 really needs "spectator" slots, so for example a 16 player server has 4 slots for spectators, who are effectively either queuing to play or can spectate and learn without feeling they are penalizing the server. The servers definitely have the capacity to have the extra player slots, I don't know why it hasn't been implemented personally.
I have seen games in the past have spec slots counted separate than player slots. A 20 player server was always a 20 player server and in the server config you could set amount of allowed specs and they didn't take away from the player count that was "actually playing".
At the end of the round you just add up all the players' scores and assign it to the commander.
Done. Comm is the sum total of his/her team's performance.
At the end of the round you just add up all the players' scores and assign it to the commander.
Done. Comm is the sum total of his/her team's performance.
So then someone comms for a team of greens, they got stomped, and his skill ranking is severely penalized? No thanks.
At the end of the round you just add up all the players' scores and assign it to the commander.
Done. Comm is the sum total of his/her team's performance.
So then someone comms for a team of greens, they got stomped, and his skill ranking is severely penalized? No thanks.
It's more or less the same as a field player. you get 1/3 (or 2/3?) penalty for losing and if your team gets heavily stomped you will not get the chance to earn much points, too.
But wouldn't spectators be almost as intensive on the server as a player? Everything still must be relayed to the client and such, there's just no significant traffic going back the other way. In order to have two spectators, you'd have to pay for a 20 slot capable server just to have 18 on the field.
I really don't think the small amount of bandwidth each users receives is hurting server performance, I think it's more the entity they exit as in the game and their affect on other entities. Spectators do none of this.
But wouldn't spectators be almost as intensive on the server as a player? Everything still must be relayed to the client and such, there's just no significant traffic going back the other way. In order to have two spectators, you'd have to pay for a 20 slot capable server just to have 18 on the field.
Well, 24 slot servers prove it's possible, so that's no problem on my 18 slot server favorites
If you comm you should get to use some sort of freaking awesome player model for X amount of time or matches afterwards (that means comm a game start to finish). To re-activate it you have to play comm again for a bit.
IMO the solution is really up to fellow players to help non commanding players become commanders. On the one hand you have folks saying how little strategy this game has from a commanding perspective and how few APMs are required but on the other hand people who have never tried it are skittish about doing it (especially if they never play RTS games). All it usually takes for a person to get the hang of it is for someone with a mic to just talk a new comm through one round of play (assuming the new comm understands the game) and for the team to not be dicks about having a new comm...
Comments
Ok lets go from there.. Some reward for commanders.. hmmm
Maybe a simple badge/star/number that indicates the amount of victories you achieved with you as a commander. I remember reading about that somewhere else on the forum. It seems to me that it could actually be the solution for the commander shortage in public games.
It is a cool idea but one of the things I like most about NS2 is that matches are contained to one match. this gets closer to the progression models found in CoD and the like. Which are fine and all, just not really what I want in my NS2.
I think removing the Res Penalty they added would be nice, maybe even give him a Res Bonus for being comm. That might be OP though. I like the ideas floating around about more Fanfare in the Ready Room after a match. Maybe a special skin for the winning comm, in an admirals uniform, and for Khamm they could be some sort of Queen type being. That is a lot of expensive modeling for the ready room though.
I was about to suggest giving them in game abilities for the person who starts the game as commander. For instance Comm has no Armor and only a side arm, but builds at 2X speed. And Khamm could be a different life form entirely, so to jump in during the match transforms you to a more vulnerable unit (Limit 1 per side). Which would be cool but his is getting really complicated, and there have already been so many fundamentally game altering changes.
In reality, just remove the res restriction at the start for commanders, people already abuse work arounds so there's really no point in having them.
Why are points so important?
Because, I get points, you get points, other people get points, and someone gets a Ferrari.
Edit: Not in scores tab, but in player UI where you see the comm name.
Edit: Oh but aliens don't have it... Don't I shine tonight.
Hmmm not so keen on that.
If a good commander has crapy team all the time (bad luck) his bar will have negative influence on teammates as it reflects bad performances which isn't the case.
Troop moral, eject syndrome, and so on...
I like that. Khamms could look like a Brain Bug
It's afraid!
I'd prefer the Khamm gets an onos with an admirals hat stuck in its teeth.
Ah, I didn't mean a win/lose ratio bar. I meant an all-victories-ever bar. Simply how many times has the player commanded a team victoriously. A bit like hours played for commanding, except you don't get "xp" from losing.
I think any point system would also lead to strategically unsound play. You get points when someone uses an armory to heal? Armories and turtling marines everywhere! Points for dropping medpacks? Incomming spam and no upgrades! In the commander role more than any other too much of a good thing is a very bad thing. There are probably still a few things they could earn points for without detriment but their score would end up being so much lower than any team member that there's not really any point.
I agree with the 1st point *infinity, creatively using that little extra bit of comm res was a great little part of the meta.
Kept second point in there because it has a flavour to it of the quote below, and while the game has BALANCE at the moment, it is not maliable and fluid. More changes of this sort would bring back some of the great fun of earlier builds.
Quoted for truthful agreementisms
The sad truth of the matter is that the commander, at any level other than a high-level competitive match, is not a deciding factor in the oucome of a game. He's just a guy who enables the deathmatch for everyone else by clicking on buttons every now and then. It is completely possible for a bot to stand in for the commander and give pub players about the same experience as they get with a human commander (minus the scapegoat for when they lose). Alien commander is far worse than marine in this regard, but really both of them are fairly limited in their scope of decisions. You start out by deciding crag/shift/shade or arms lab/PG and after that things are fairly linear.
+1
What about a Gorge in a little Admirals Uniform, with big sunglasses and a Pipe like General MacArthur!!!!!
This is a really good idea, except people typically vote kick spectators because they are using up a valuable server slot.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, NS2 really needs "spectator" slots, so for example a 16 player server has 4 slots for spectators, who are effectively either queuing to play or can spectate and learn without feeling they are penalizing the server. The servers definitely have the capacity to have the extra player slots, I don't know why it hasn't been implemented personally.
Done. Comm is the sum total of his/her team's performance.
So then someone comms for a team of greens, they got stomped, and his skill ranking is severely penalized? No thanks.
It's more or less the same as a field player. you get 1/3 (or 2/3?) penalty for losing and if your team gets heavily stomped you will not get the chance to earn much points, too.
But wouldn't spectators be almost as intensive on the server as a player? Everything still must be relayed to the client and such, there's just no significant traffic going back the other way. In order to have two spectators, you'd have to pay for a 20 slot capable server just to have 18 on the field.
Well, 24 slot servers prove it's possible, so that's no problem on my 18 slot server favorites