Commander mode should have never been developed.

[imported_DwarfVader]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

I'm going to whole heartidly disagree with you.

The problem doesn't lie in the Commander postion, it lies in the players.

Example:

If I am the commander and I have 1 full (6) squad of guys with a squad leader that know how to not get himself killed and will follow and relay the orders I give them.... My team will win the map

It's that simple, what happens is when you have either a commander who doesn't know what he's doing, or squads who don't feel like doing what someone else tells them to do.

Now its true that one full squad with a smart squad leader can do well, I just did it on a server and our squad did fantastic but we didn't win the map or anything for our team. Adding the commander to that equasion just gives you an immense asset.

It comes down to the player, the individual first to make the command position work.... The individual Commander and then then the squad that will or won't follow him.

The more squads there are following a decent commander the more chances your team will win, its like adding a muliplier for every squad that does what it is asked.

[imported_DwarfVader]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

Evidently DICE knows zip about their product's player-base if they link the usefulness of a game function to the willingness of a team to obey orders from one total stranger.

Squad-level is where it's at. Trust me.

No, DICE was right on the ball....

You don't HAVE to listen to the commander, you don't need his assets to win, you don't need supply crates, you don't need UAV, you don't need Arty.

But those things sure can be nice in certain situations, so instead of being a jackoff about following orders, consider once in a while that the commander MIGHT know more then you do about what is currently going on. (I'm not saying all commanders are good, I'm just saying don't give the commander spot a bad rap because there are crappy players out there.)

you don't give the medic position a bad rap because of the idiots who will continually res you when they know you'll die.... You say that person is stupid, not the medic position is stupid.


The commander is an asset, use him or don't, but stop complaining that it's ruining the game.

[vbl]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

No, DICE was right on the ball....

You don't HAVE to listen to the commander, you don't need his assets to win, you don't need supply crates, you don't need UAV, you don't need Arty.

But those things sure can be nice in certain situations, so instead of being a jackoff about following orders, consider once in a while that the commander MIGHT know more then you do about what is currently going on. (I'm not saying all commanders are good, I'm just saying don't give the commander spot a bad rap because there are crappy players out there.)

you don't give the medic position a bad rap because of the idiots who will continually res you when they know you'll die.... You say that person is stupid, not the medic position is stupid.

The commander is an asset, use him or don't, but stop complaining that it's ruining the game.

I don't care if the commander knows more about the overall situation - the game is won and lost at the flag-level. And most decent players can gauge the rhythm and flow of the battle from the mini-map, and spots from teammates.

[Jesse]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

If I am the commander and I have 1 full (6) squad of guys with a squad leader that know how to not get himself killed and will follow and relay the orders I give them.... My team will win the map

So, it matters if you're commander whether your team wins or not, glad you have that view of yourself. That aside, it's not hard to take a set of tools that require absolutely no skill to use what so ever and tell your team where the enemy is and point and click at a large group of enemy dots to artillary them. Honestly, it's overpowered, and doesn't even require any amount of skill or thought to use.

No, DICE was right on the ball....

You don't HAVE to listen to the commander, you don't need his assets to win, you don't need supply crates, you don't need UAV, you don't need Arty.

Now you are contradicting your first statement...now you're saying you don't need the commander to win (which is absolutely true, bravo for that). We didn't need the commander position in Battlefield 2, yet they put it in there and it's been nothing but a gameplay killer and source of greif as people fight for that one spot on their team so they can get a 2x bonus in points.

you don't give the medic position a bad rap because of the idiots who will continually res you when they know you'll die.... You say that person is stupid, not the medic position is stupid.

The commander is an asset, use him or don't, but stop complaining that it's ruining the game.

Of course not, the medic position is fine. The commander position is not. Idiots who ABUSE the medic position are simply idiots, the commander position is overpowered. Plain and simple.


Having said all that, you're not really addressing the assets or giving any reasons as to why they're not overpowered. You just tell us the commander position is fine, and if you command, you win. That's about all I get out of your posts, what are you views on the seperate assets and why don't you tihnk they're overpowered? It would make for a better discussion for you to address the full picture.

[TooL]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

I'm not sure I totally agree here. I've played on servers where the commander does a good job but I think some of the onus should go to players not paying attention. Yeah it's rare but it can work.

[SnuFFeh]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

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.

-----------

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.

Agreed 100%

[The_Misfit]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

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?

If the commander is so ineffective, who's to think he's actually paying attention to his scans?

I like the commander position, and I've been playing it a fair amount as of late. I disagree with the thread, the position is a great addition to the game, and the squad system is a nice expansion on the buddy system in bf-v.

However, I can sypathize with your frustrations. I've gotten into commanding as of late since we'd have 4-5 clanmates online and some idiot commander, tooling around in a jet and never throwing down a UAV / etc.. for us.

When I play the position I generally stay close to my main, or to my assets. If its the main I'm protecting I C4 the flag and hide. Either way, I'm NOT ACTIVE IN THE GAME. I'm soooo tired of commanders that don't command, or seeing guys that don't understand the simple task of 'spotting' (seen commanders that couldnt spot the last guys for us when all the flags were taken lol).

You're right, people don't follow orders all the time. But usually out of 4-6 squads on a side I can manage to get 1-2 squads that do, and I use them to take care of the things that the normal pub monkeys won't do...take specific flags, rid the main of SO players C4'ing assets, etc... If you just take the time to use everything at your disposal, the job can be done right and have an influence on the outcome of the game. Enough rambling, play with a good commander and you might think differently of the position :)

[strikken]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

I disagree that the commander position is useless. I do, however, agree that certain gameplay elements should have been altered in light of the commander's abilities. Stealth is one thing I think is a valuable commodity; I personally believe the game would be more interesting if certain kits were immune from the scan and UAV. Namely, spec ops and snipers (and perhaps even engineer), two classes where stealth is mighty important. They should still be able to be manually spotted, mind you - from the commander's closest zoom level and by individual players - but not from UAV overflights and as an individual red dot on a general terrain map. That one change would add another dimension to BF2, and would keep people from bitching about UAVs and scans.

I also don't really see why people complain about tactical artillery, either. The only reason I can think of would be that they've been killed by it too many times. People say it's overpowered ... but it's nowhere near as overpowering as a good pilot or helicopter crew, or a tank/lav train which repairs itself, all of which can be essentially invincible. The artillery is an excellent tool the commanders have to both harry opposing forces and herd them to certain areas of the map. Used correctly it can turn the tide of a flag battle; used poorly it can still be an annoyance to teams (either yours or the enemy). Without it you would see many less people commanding, as the development team correctly realized that having a direct link to the battlefield is an important factor for people in the commander role.

I do not agree with the initial point that the development team should not have made a commander mode. It can be a very effective position, and a very fun one for certain players - especially those whose computers cannot handle the hefty system requirements to be effective in close-quarters combat. However, the developers in retrospect should have developed more incentive for players to follow commander orders, and perhaps deepened the commander's options on the battlefield. Commanding right now must certainly seem useless if you don't "buy in." If you don't communicate with your commander and he doesn't communicate with you, which I'm sure is the case in 95% of games, then naturally you probably wouldn't see the value of the position. But those few who *have* played with an effective commander and a team who has mostly "bought in" to his strategy, I'm sure they realize what a game-altering factor a good comm can really be.

[Noobzilla]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

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.

-----------

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.

Yes the commander mode is a joke.

I usually get the commander who only uavs himself all game, or
I get the one who does nothing all game, then has the balls to say,
'oh you got to ask for a uav.' <--- LMFAO.

The UAV is a disgrace to a realism based war game also. Since when
do armies have these uavs that show their enemies on it? And not only
that, the damn thing will even show which way they are facing.
CAN YOU SAY CORNY?

Too many times I have been on the team with the useless commander
while the other teams commander is artying the hell out of us, providing
constant uavs to his team, while we run around in the dark all game.

This commander mode is a total joke... They should have made it where
every squad leader has the commanders assets or something like that.
This way your whole game isnt determined on how much of a f*cktard
commander you have.

but hell, too late for me, I took this piece of garbage software back
to the store yesterday and got a FULL REFUND. I bought Battlefront II
with my refund, and its a blessing playing a game thats actually finished
and doesnt crash. Not to mention the players seem to have much
more maturity so far.

[Jesse]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

Lots of you are saying you simply have to accept the commander and it will change the way people think about it as long as the commander is good and looks out for the team. I have absolutely no problem with a commander that isn't some idiot looking for a 2x point bonus or to spam the chat since they can't get blocked. I'll agree that having a good commander that communicates with their team is a welcome addition to the battlefield, but at what expense? The commander, especially active ones, COMPLETELY nullify stealth in the game by spotting people trying to pull off a sneak attack or a flank attack that no one on the ground can see, and that removes that surprise element from the Battlefield series that used to be so prominent.

Good commanders are good commanders, that's really all there is to it. The tools they have to their disposal are still the same as the ones the idiots get when they get the position, so the assets can be factored out of the equation as a constant. (so I made an allusion to math, I'm a math person, deal with it :p ) I personally am surprised to hear a commander use VoiP or even chat with a squad. I find that a rare breed of person that communicates with his troops, and even more rare for the person to do so in a good manner.

The assets are the underlying problem, and they undermine the gameplay. That's the underlying cause. Even if you do have a good commander and have a good game, the assets (arty, UAV, scan, supply crates) still are the same as they are in any other round of BF2. They take no coordination to use and are point and click, no skill required. And with no skill added, they take out the skillful planning of many strategies that once were viable in 1942, but now are negated with the added intel that the other team receives. The only surefire tactic to use is simply head-on suicide and brute force, and that gets fairly boring after a while. (ok, a while might be giving it too long)

[Moke]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

Yes the commander mode is a joke.

I usually get the commander who only uavs himself all game, or
I get the one who does nothing all game, then has the balls to say,
'oh you got to ask for a uav.' <--- LMFAO.

The UAV is a disgrace to a realism based war game also. Since when
do armies have these uavs that show their enemies on it? And not only
that, the damn thing will even show which way they are facing.
CAN YOU SAY CORNY?

Too many times I have been on the team with the useless commander
while the other teams commander is artying the hell out of us, providing
constant uavs to his team, while we run around in the dark all game.

This commander mode is a total joke... They should have made it where
every squad leader has the commanders assets or something like that.
This way your whole game isnt determined on how much of a f*cktard
commander you have.

but hell, too late for me, I took this piece of garbage software back
to the store yesterday and got a FULL REFUND. I bought Battlefront II
with my refund, and its a blessing playing a game thats actually finished
and doesnt crash. Not to mention the players seem to have much
more maturity so far.

All you list here is becasue you have been unlucky enough to end up with a crap commander.... none of it have to do with the commander function itself...

[DMC]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

Great discussion. I agree with you on many of your points. The commander position is shallow IMHO.

[Noobzilla]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

All you list here is becasue you have been unlucky enough to end up with a crap commander.... none of it have to do with the commander function itself...

unlucky? 90% of the time? Thats not luck. Thats called exploited
functionality.

Besides, I mentioned the fact that UAVS do not really exist but yet theyre
in this gay ass game. Why dont they just add light sabres to each kit,
go all out corny.


Commander mode should be a server side option to admins.

[rtgbs7k]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

I don't think the commander brings much to the fun

I love to sneak around the edges and find the commander looking at the sky, busy commanding, and then knife him in the shoe...

other than that I kinda dissagree with ya and think it's a good idea w the commanding going on. having said that i only play for an hour or two some evenings so really... i dont know what im talking about:)

[Merlin]

Re: Commander mode should have never been developed.

I agree with the first post, although when u are on the right server with the right commander and squad it all works perfectly. Shame thats not very often.