Well speaking for myself I really like to play comm but being badmouthed after performing mediocre or bad, because my skill level is not yet up where I want it to be, is sometimes disencouraging.
(My number 1 reason to reconsider going into the hive/comm chair)
BUT 20 min of marine commander stress and then finally getting the upper hand in a fight feels really satisfying.
P.S.
I really wished I could save a replay of the match to review. Sadly this is not an ingame option and my never be one. [As far as I know]
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.
Ranking comms should actually be easier than ranking normal players, since you can base it on a normal 1v1 ELO ranking system. You don't really need to quantify issuing orders or medpack accuracies individually, as those all contribute to the win/loss ratio.
Ideally though, you'd have data on field player skill levels also and could with some accuracy calculate expected team win propabilites excluding comms. Then you combine the commander ELO points with the team skill points (with weighing of course) -> team value that accounts for comm skill and player skill. You can then use this value to modify commander ELO ranking. Sure, you need to define cut-offs on which rounds are counted and you need to think up a smart weighing system on the skill data of both field players and commanders, but over multiple games this could give a decent idea of relative commander skills.
(You could even account for players joining and leaving mid-game by calculating the team value something like (skill rating * minutes played / round minute) provided you have the data.)
EDIT: Personally I've thought for a while that there should be some small incentive in comming. If nothing else, then a badge a bit like the Reinforced badges. Maybe have that badge be visible only if the player wants it to be and only if they have commed at least a set amount of rounds/time in the last month or so. Maybe have different badge colours according to rank. The main point here would be to make it a badge of honour that says "I contribute to the community by actually helping you all play decent games by volunteering to comm and to take your ingrateful whine and abuse!"
EDIT2: You'd could also try and account for version-specific marines-aliens win-ratio to lessen the impact of winning on an OP side. This would have to be calculated on per-version basis though.
Having a comm rank system seems like it would be too complicated to properly implement. There just seems to be too many tricks and nuances that would be hard to quantify to seperate a good commander from a great one. Knowing when to recycle an extractor if you think help won't make it in time, echoing out structures that are in danger, effective use of a drifter/MAC's. It's hard to program in when to notice something as a waste of resources vs a small sacrifice to achieve a greater goal. For instance, purposely losing an RT on one side of the map to secure a tech point on the other, sacrificing a diversionary whip army to force a beacon so your team can hit a now vulnerable and exposed target, its especially hard to quantify if brilliant strategy fails to succeed due to one thing or another and a commander shouldn't be docked points for having the right idea but lacking enough team cohesion to pull it off.
Edit: Realised I typed a small wall of text, TL;DR No commander ranking unless it's based only on number of wins which would show that the person commanding knows what they're doing at least.
Number of comm wins would give small incentive to comm and give rough idea of the players comm xp. I support. :bz
Giving the other players a general idea that this isn't their first rodeo and has been around the block a few times would be a nice relief. It would also let other fledgling comms know who would be best to ask questions to or who's advice might be better to heed.
I would also suggest that the badge or whatever it is that shows comm rank would be different for aliens and marines. The reason being that I prefer to comm as alien and any advice I give for a marine comm may not be as good as a guy who, though may have less comm wins than me in total, may have way more wins as a comm for marines and whose advice and suggestions would be better heeded.
Yesterday, our team waited over 5 minutes until some1 hopped to khamm. He didn't have a mic and didn't communicate much, but he made all the necessary buildings (although a bit slowly). All this time my team bitched about this or that not being made. And then they wanted to eject him in the middle of the game so he hopped off. And we had no comm. I managed to persuade him to hop in to comm again and we won. I hope that everyone who reads this, helps their comms if needed without being rude. It's the general attitude of people which makes people steer away from commanding. I think that some points system would amplify that behavior, because people with low commanding score wouldn't be wanted to comm and if you were unlucky enough to have a high commanding score, then you would be pestered by people all the time to go comm.
I think that a halo and some confetti+balloons -effect on the ready room for the victorious commander would be enough :P
Edit: And a donkey hat for the commander that lost. It would be equivalent for the low commander skill score that some of you propose.
I have to say my experience of pub commanding has been near-exclusively positive. I think one of the problems is that commanders
1) don't have a microphone
2) when they do they don't keep in constant communication
When commanding I act as eyes and planner - calling out attacks and where defence is needed and praising players taking out RTs. If you think commanding is boring then you're possibly not maintaining tactical awareness - you should always be worrying about extraneous Rts and commanding specific team members to attack/defend. I think that's when the complaints come in - if you have no 'presence' as commander, i.e. if you don't have authoritative command where you're calling out where the problems are and organising solutions, then it's easy for team members to get on your back.
I've commed several times and I've got about 60hrs on the game. I knew a bit of what I am doing most of the time, and it doesn't take very long until you know what you need to build and what the tech trees (only because what other players tell you or overall experience as a marine). What I find makes us lose in most games is the lack of a priority or an objective that gets everyone's attention. Like for example, "The priority is Nano, we need to take it and hold it", a clear objective on what you want to go for in the game. What you want to do varies on the different maps and actively telling your team what you're going to do or want to do keeps everybody cool. Asking the marines themselves what they want helps morale too, "Do you want jetpacks or exos?" or "Upgrades or PG?", the little things like this keep your team alert and wide awake on your actions.
That is why having a mic is extremely important in the game, as the chatroom on the left feels insignificant and I can easily miss things when action gets too intense. When you command, take note that you're leading, and even when everything feels lost or everyone is blaming you, know that you're the dude who had the balls to do it.
When you jump in the chair, you're a leader, LEAD.
There is a level of understanding that I expect out of a comm.
Example of inexcusably bad com choices:
1. researching skulk upgrades on single hive.
2. Beacon to tech point with no chair
3. 80+ res... Ever.
4. Turrets instead of upgrades
5. 5+ PG
6. Forgetting about your idle arms lab
7. Giving up. Comm shouldn't be the first to concede.
8. Saying "trust me I'm a good com"
AiorosJoin Date: 2003-03-24Member: 14850Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Ns2 needs more commander POV casts and more guides explaining why the commander did what he did.
Like Day9 does for sc2, he explains why the zerg is now making a tech switch.
Or what you can see out from scouting. How to use the information you get from the battlefield.
if you got something like this going and advertise it. More people would try it out and get the feeling of the commchair and how awesome it is
you can beacon to a chair which have no power or obs itself by beaconing with another observatory. (as long there is no other chair closer)
But you may get called a cheater sometimes if you beacon into a room without power *g*
full ack on the other points, though (and on your initial thought of the first two, too )
you can beacon to a chair which have no power or obs itself by beaconing with another observatory.
Good reminder, always forget about out of base obs, although quickly judging distances can be tricky.
These days when marines start pushing out I try to ensure I have two robo factories for power surging the obs or phase.
But my number 1 self rule now as commander is hot keying ( CTRL + Number ) all new obs and drifters, avoids a lot of headache.
Back on topic, comm'ed a great match the other day, but 5 minutes in had abuse for socketing power in advance,
abuse for sentries to cover a phase gate, abuse for telling people to ignore some nodes and go help kill a hive,
etc, enough to rage quit, but stayed calm, told people to follow commanders orders, most did, we won,
and one person even had the decency to appologise.
It is very easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment, see things only from your point of view,
abuse the commander and as a result that person then avoids the role in the future.
Because, I get points, you get points, other people get points, and someone gets a Ferrari.
It's like Oprah.
It's best to observe the game, game play and to test out comming with people you have played with for awhile. Some people call you newb, jerk, troll, loser
, or whatever get a backbone and move on to the next round.
Played bio, where we had start, falls and platform. 3 chairs, 3 pg, 3 obs... We were pushing hydro when they rushed platform. They killed obs then pg then power. Team was yelling at me for my lack of beacon. Meanwhile falls CC is recycling... When they started hitting the platform CC I beacond falls... Poof platform saved our push was prolonged(causing max damage shells/spurs)... In addition in unprepared aliens lost an onos and a fade. Easy game from then on.
Comments
(My number 1 reason to reconsider going into the hive/comm chair)
BUT 20 min of marine commander stress and then finally getting the upper hand in a fight feels really satisfying.
P.S.
I really wished I could save a replay of the match to review. Sadly this is not an ingame option and my never be one. [As far as I know]
Ranking comms should actually be easier than ranking normal players, since you can base it on a normal 1v1 ELO ranking system. You don't really need to quantify issuing orders or medpack accuracies individually, as those all contribute to the win/loss ratio.
Ideally though, you'd have data on field player skill levels also and could with some accuracy calculate expected team win propabilites excluding comms. Then you combine the commander ELO points with the team skill points (with weighing of course) -> team value that accounts for comm skill and player skill. You can then use this value to modify commander ELO ranking. Sure, you need to define cut-offs on which rounds are counted and you need to think up a smart weighing system on the skill data of both field players and commanders, but over multiple games this could give a decent idea of relative commander skills.
(You could even account for players joining and leaving mid-game by calculating the team value something like (skill rating * minutes played / round minute) provided you have the data.)
EDIT: Personally I've thought for a while that there should be some small incentive in comming. If nothing else, then a badge a bit like the Reinforced badges. Maybe have that badge be visible only if the player wants it to be and only if they have commed at least a set amount of rounds/time in the last month or so. Maybe have different badge colours according to rank. The main point here would be to make it a badge of honour that says "I contribute to the community by actually helping you all play decent games by volunteering to comm and to take your ingrateful whine and abuse!"
EDIT2: You'd could also try and account for version-specific marines-aliens win-ratio to lessen the impact of winning on an OP side. This would have to be calculated on per-version basis though.
Edit: Realised I typed a small wall of text, TL;DR No commander ranking unless it's based only on number of wins which would show that the person commanding knows what they're doing at least.
Giving the other players a general idea that this isn't their first rodeo and has been around the block a few times would be a nice relief. It would also let other fledgling comms know who would be best to ask questions to or who's advice might be better to heed.
I would also suggest that the badge or whatever it is that shows comm rank would be different for aliens and marines. The reason being that I prefer to comm as alien and any advice I give for a marine comm may not be as good as a guy who, though may have less comm wins than me in total, may have way more wins as a comm for marines and whose advice and suggestions would be better heeded.
I think that a halo and some confetti+balloons -effect on the ready room for the victorious commander would be enough :P
Edit: And a donkey hat for the commander that lost. It would be equivalent for the low commander skill score that some of you propose.
1) don't have a microphone
2) when they do they don't keep in constant communication
When commanding I act as eyes and planner - calling out attacks and where defence is needed and praising players taking out RTs. If you think commanding is boring then you're possibly not maintaining tactical awareness - you should always be worrying about extraneous Rts and commanding specific team members to attack/defend. I think that's when the complaints come in - if you have no 'presence' as commander, i.e. if you don't have authoritative command where you're calling out where the problems are and organising solutions, then it's easy for team members to get on your back.
That is why having a mic is extremely important in the game, as the chatroom on the left feels insignificant and I can easily miss things when action gets too intense. When you command, take note that you're leading, and even when everything feels lost or everyone is blaming you, know that you're the dude who had the balls to do it.
When you jump in the chair, you're a leader, LEAD.
Example of inexcusably bad com choices:
1. researching skulk upgrades on single hive.
2. Beacon to tech point with no chair
3. 80+ res... Ever.
4. Turrets instead of upgrades
5. 5+ PG
6. Forgetting about your idle arms lab
7. Giving up. Comm shouldn't be the first to concede.
8. Saying "trust me I'm a good com"
Like Day9 does for sc2, he explains why the zerg is now making a tech switch.
Or what you can see out from scouting. How to use the information you get from the battlefield.
if you got something like this going and advertise it. More people would try it out and get the feeling of the commchair and how awesome it is
you can beacon to a chair which have no power or obs itself by beaconing with another observatory. (as long there is no other chair closer)
But you may get called a cheater sometimes if you beacon into a room without power *g*
full ack on the other points, though (and on your initial thought of the first two, too
Good reminder, always forget about out of base obs, although quickly judging distances can be tricky.
These days when marines start pushing out I try to ensure I have two robo factories for power surging the obs or phase.
But my number 1 self rule now as commander is hot keying ( CTRL + Number ) all new obs and drifters, avoids a lot of headache.
Back on topic, comm'ed a great match the other day, but 5 minutes in had abuse for socketing power in advance,
abuse for sentries to cover a phase gate, abuse for telling people to ignore some nodes and go help kill a hive,
etc, enough to rage quit, but stayed calm, told people to follow commanders orders, most did, we won,
and one person even had the decency to appologise.
It is very easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment, see things only from your point of view,
abuse the commander and as a result that person then avoids the role in the future.
It's like Oprah.
It's best to observe the game, game play and to test out comming with people you have played with for awhile. Some people call you newb, jerk, troll, loser
, or whatever get a backbone and move on to the next round.
Played bio, where we had start, falls and platform. 3 chairs, 3 pg, 3 obs... We were pushing hydro when they rushed platform. They killed obs then pg then power. Team was yelling at me for my lack of beacon. Meanwhile falls CC is recycling... When they started hitting the platform CC I beacond falls... Poof platform saved our push was prolonged(causing max damage shells/spurs)... In addition in unprepared aliens lost an onos and a fade. Easy game from then on.