I originally wrote this a few weeks ago but thought better about posting it. Then I read this thread and figured it might be worth a discussion. Read on.
It occurred to me while playing tonight - my first night in almost a month - that the commander position is pretty ridiculous. Aside from vending supply crates, I don't think the commander brings much to the fun, immersion, or teamwork aspects of the game. Here are a few notes:
1) Commanders can't be effective at giving orders. Why? They have no idea what people are good at, and they mostly ignore the squad-specific situations and statuses.
I spent much of tonight, as usual, defending. Of course, my commander kept ordering me to attack flags, despite the fact that other players were already doing it (on their own initiative) and I was busy holding a position. The commander didn't know - couldn't know - that I am good at defending and had been doing so for most of the game. No one person is going to bother assessing the movements and skill of one player, or even a few players. It's just not relevant enough for the commander to bother looking into, especially for a 20 minute game.
He also didn't know when I was tied up with a firefight, or that the lack of vehicles around me made it a pointless venture to try and travel halfway across the map.
How can a commander who has no clue about the strengths of, and the circumstances surrounding, his troops, command? He can't. It's not his fault - it's just a stupid job.
1.5) Commanders also can't be effective at giving orders because the game's reward system focuses on personal excellence, not team excellence (or even squad excellence). There is very little incentive for players to follow commander orders, especially if those orders lead players to areas where there is less potential for points. Thusly, players aren't very likely to listen - unless they're of the rare breed that considers a team win more important than an admirable personal score.
2) The game would be better off without the UAV. You can thank the UAV and the Sat Scan for the total lack of stealth in this game. What good is being sneaky if you're visible to everyone on the other team with so much as a right-click-left-click from the enemy commander?
3) Artillery. Ugh. There's nothing fun about it. It's just annoying enough to frustrate me every once in a while, but just random and slow enough to not make much of a difference overall. The only thing is does well is ruin the fun of a good firefight or standoff. Oh, and it reduces everyone's score potential (even the Commander's).
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There are good commanders who make the very best of the position - my hat goes off to them. But honestly, I would've rather seen the DICE developers spend more time beefing up other aspects of the game instead of working to code in the commander, which I feel is pretty shallow.
So what might've made more sense? Richer squad-level functionality.
Squads are more manageable - many are made up of friends, clanmates, etc. so there's a far more cohesive understanding of who does what. Squad leaders are more likely to know the strengths and kit makeup of the squad, and he can also request that squad members fill certain roles - something the commander never does. Plus, you can control the membership of your squad (weeding out non-team players) with a simple kick, whereas commanders can't remove non-complying squads or squad leaders.
Squad leaders can recognize opportunities and threats as well as any commander, and it's far more efficient for the squad leader to tackle objectives because he has the context to know when and how to move his men.
Squad leaders would have to coordinate, but that's not too hard to handle. The minimap displays the SLs in big numbers, so it takes a half second to see that squad 1 is handling a flag assault.
But what about supply crates you say? Give each squad leader the ability to request supplies, with a longer timer. Or just ditch the magical supply crates altogether and make the players themselves participate in hands-on repairs, resupply, etc.
As far as additional squad-level functionality, here are a few ideas. I am sure that there are more, and I'm also sure that these are my 5-minute concepts and aren't necessarily balanced without some tweaking.
1) Benefits for squads that stick together - longer sprint, better accuracy, faster healing, more shared points, radial abilities for medics and support (like in a vehicle), a mini-radar that surrounds the squad (to account for the collective awareness when all members are near each other), and a variety of formations are just a few ideas.
2) Better intra-squad communication, especially between SLs and from SLs to squad. Additional radio messages, and the ability to VoIP to different audiences independently. SL to SL, SL to SM, etc.
Just my thoughts on Commander. I have about 1,000 points in that role, and I never intend to raise it.
These days it's hard to find someone who wants to command anyway, so the spirit of this post shouldn't be too far afield.
Check your flames at the door.
It occurred to me while playing tonight - my first night in almost a month - that the commander position is pretty ridiculous. Aside from vending supply crates, I don't think the commander brings much to the fun, immersion, or teamwork aspects of the game. Here are a few notes:
1) Commanders can't be effective at giving orders. Why? They have no idea what people are good at, and they mostly ignore the squad-specific situations and statuses.
I spent much of tonight, as usual, defending. Of course, my commander kept ordering me to attack flags, despite the fact that other players were already doing it (on their own initiative) and I was busy holding a position. The commander didn't know - couldn't know - that I am good at defending and had been doing so for most of the game. No one person is going to bother assessing the movements and skill of one player, or even a few players. It's just not relevant enough for the commander to bother looking into, especially for a 20 minute game.
He also didn't know when I was tied up with a firefight, or that the lack of vehicles around me made it a pointless venture to try and travel halfway across the map.
How can a commander who has no clue about the strengths of, and the circumstances surrounding, his troops, command? He can't. It's not his fault - it's just a stupid job.
1.5) Commanders also can't be effective at giving orders because the game's reward system focuses on personal excellence, not team excellence (or even squad excellence). There is very little incentive for players to follow commander orders, especially if those orders lead players to areas where there is less potential for points. Thusly, players aren't very likely to listen - unless they're of the rare breed that considers a team win more important than an admirable personal score.
2) The game would be better off without the UAV. You can thank the UAV and the Sat Scan for the total lack of stealth in this game. What good is being sneaky if you're visible to everyone on the other team with so much as a right-click-left-click from the enemy commander?
3) Artillery. Ugh. There's nothing fun about it. It's just annoying enough to frustrate me every once in a while, but just random and slow enough to not make much of a difference overall. The only thing is does well is ruin the fun of a good firefight or standoff. Oh, and it reduces everyone's score potential (even the Commander's).
-----------
There are good commanders who make the very best of the position - my hat goes off to them. But honestly, I would've rather seen the DICE developers spend more time beefing up other aspects of the game instead of working to code in the commander, which I feel is pretty shallow.
So what might've made more sense? Richer squad-level functionality.
Squads are more manageable - many are made up of friends, clanmates, etc. so there's a far more cohesive understanding of who does what. Squad leaders are more likely to know the strengths and kit makeup of the squad, and he can also request that squad members fill certain roles - something the commander never does. Plus, you can control the membership of your squad (weeding out non-team players) with a simple kick, whereas commanders can't remove non-complying squads or squad leaders.
Squad leaders can recognize opportunities and threats as well as any commander, and it's far more efficient for the squad leader to tackle objectives because he has the context to know when and how to move his men.
Squad leaders would have to coordinate, but that's not too hard to handle. The minimap displays the SLs in big numbers, so it takes a half second to see that squad 1 is handling a flag assault.
But what about supply crates you say? Give each squad leader the ability to request supplies, with a longer timer. Or just ditch the magical supply crates altogether and make the players themselves participate in hands-on repairs, resupply, etc.
As far as additional squad-level functionality, here are a few ideas. I am sure that there are more, and I'm also sure that these are my 5-minute concepts and aren't necessarily balanced without some tweaking.
1) Benefits for squads that stick together - longer sprint, better accuracy, faster healing, more shared points, radial abilities for medics and support (like in a vehicle), a mini-radar that surrounds the squad (to account for the collective awareness when all members are near each other), and a variety of formations are just a few ideas.
2) Better intra-squad communication, especially between SLs and from SLs to squad. Additional radio messages, and the ability to VoIP to different audiences independently. SL to SL, SL to SM, etc.
Just my thoughts on Commander. I have about 1,000 points in that role, and I never intend to raise it.
These days it's hard to find someone who wants to command anyway, so the spirit of this post shouldn't be too far afield.
Check your flames at the door.
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