Hello there!

There is one thing that I would love to have when commanding my marines:

A great commanding improvement would be the ability to draw more or less freely on the marines minimaps. Maybe even on each individual marine's minimap. That way the comm could mark spots with letters/crosses/marks, draw arrows and colored lines: In other words explain the strategy better to his teammates.

Background: I have been commanding since the first day of NS1.0 and keep growing more and more frustrated with having to explain the same things (route, locations) to my marines. It would be very helpful, being able to tell them "I want you to go to position XY -look on your minimap NOW- it is HERE I want you to go. And I want you to go through here to here."

More explanation: Maybe the drawing could be made to affect only those marines who are selected (or squads). There also arises the need for 2 hotkeys: "Delete current marines' minimap markings" and "Delete ALL minimap markings for all marines".

Some might argue that this would not be useful for "regular" public NS. I on the other hand think that this would help in making the NS mode more accessible to new players. It also would make my life easier when trying to teach yet another NS-newcomer the basics.

Thanks for rading! Discuss!

Fantastic idea

one word: guildwars

Exactly what i was thinking.

What is Guildwars? Is that a game? Could you please describe how the problem was solved in this game and how this would relate to my posting or a solution for NS?

You know, as long as only you are able to mind-read, those oneword answers won't get you far.

Yeah guild wars is a game and you can draw on the minimap telling your team mates what to do.
This idea is pure brilliant, it was be an amazing addition to NS.

Maybe it could work by the commander holding CTRL or +duck or whatever and the crusor turns into a pen and you can draw on it


Good work.

Top idea.

It could be easily done, the commander selects the marines he wants the paths to come up on, the commander holds minimap, he then drags a line onto the minimap which then can be seen by the marines if they press their minimaps, they are also notified their commander has given them a path, and the commander can cancel any path by selecting the marine then clicking cancel or whatever.

Great idea. Abuse of the drawing tool by the comm could be addressed by either by voting to eject as normal or possibly by an extra option of making it invisible to you (a quick toggle button/shortcut)

I do like the idea greatly, but I am just thinking ahead with immature commanders who will draw phallic objects all over the map.

I thought: "Savage!"
I just freaked out when I saw the Commander drawing Strategies on the Map - and writing curses (lol).

Well, make it a Mode depending Bind, so the comm can draw and remove, but the Marine can choose to dis/able it with the same Buttons.

Eject always worked in the past cookie!

Having to manually delete everything you have drawn on the map for each person would be a time consuming pain, make it like guild wars, the drawings disappear after say 10 seconds

Good point, but you can never prevent idiots from doing stupid stuff. Let the players just kick people who abuse the function. By the way: The same point is brought up by the developers from Steinberg who ignore the pleads of their paying customers (most more thann 600€ per application!) for a user-adjustable working area.

I would like having the drawing linked to the currently selected marines, i.e. single/multiple marines or squads.

TBH, I was having this wish since NS beta 2 but always thought it would be so obviously useful that Flayras guys would include it soon.

About deleting the drawings: Give the commander 2 simple hotkeys/clickspots -> "Delete current soldier's drawings" and "Delete all drawings from all soldier HUDs".

The com can already drop 10 CC in the Alien Homebase, so argueing with People "but idiots will abuse it" is futile.
If you are afreaid of People abusing available Functions, and want to stop that, you have to delete everything and make NS a rendered Stillpicture on the Player's Screen.

Actually im sure you guys have not played this game

But planetside has Exactly that... Give me acouple min ill post a screenshot

Civ 4 also has this feature. Is great for pointing out what direction your teammate is going to expand, point out resources, and write profanities.

I would say just make it semi-translucent, so that way the immature comm cannot black out your entire minimap.

Sounds like something very difficult to do in the HL engine.

How about multiple chained waypoints / pathing, like many RTS games? When you get to one waypoint, you get shown the next.

Great idea! I hope this is realisable with the HL1 Engine.

it could also be use to give silen messages to retards, just write a "you don't listen, /ignored" on the minimap to let him know why you don't drop him meds/ammo

instead of draing i think it would be more useful to set up multiple waypoints, so all you have to do is click for example topo -> dome -> cargo, if you want them to go that way, the wp is removed when you acomplished the amasing task to reach topo, but the wp in dome and cargo would still be there.
If you die, the wp in topo would reappear.3 clicks would make it lots faster than drawing a line through the specific route.

But you already have a 3D waypoint in your hud - I think this is slightly unnecessary.

Plus the pace of NS is much too quick, u'd be constantly redrawing waypoints as your marines die and respawn, because you can never really do the same thing more than twice until the other team catches on.

I reckon it would be better just to improve the current waypoint and hud.

Is this even possible? Wouldn't the minimap sprite have to be re-downloaded in-game whenever the commander updated it?

not a bad idea, would be a bit akward given the current ns/comm interface however, plus i dunno if its even possible engine wise or whatnot

I'm not sure if this is possible with the HL1 engine but I think it could be possible with the source engine, and I agree this would be a nice addition. I was waiting for some one to put a screen shot of Planet Side, which by the way was one of the best FPS games to come out in a while until it got ruined by Sony like very other one of their games. If this was added it would not take anything away from the game and could add a lot to the game for some people.

Hmmm, I am also quite sure it would be difficult or impossible to realize in the HL1 engine. However it might be a good feature for NS2.

i think using waypoints and voicecomm should be enough, i dont really want draw marks all over my minimap personally

I don't know about you - but when I com I barely have time to get upgrades going, let alone screw around the minimap with some fricking crayon.

Until that one lamer draws penises on the minimap... Then again, GW lets anyone draw on it.

this should also go into the NS2 I&S forum

Bad point: a waypoint from point A can easily have 10 different ways to get to point B. To give specify a route so the marines know exactly what path to follow would be invaluable.

I also love commanding, and have been doing so since 1.0 was released. I've always wanted the ability to group marines and have their armor change color to signify their group so they could more easily group up with each other in game. I think the minimap drawing idea, especially if you are able to assign different drawings to specific groups, is much better.

I don't know how this would be possible with the HL engine though. Maybe a drawing could be rendered as a sprite, and that sprite uploaded on-the-fly to all players? Does anyone have any ides if/how this would even be possible?

This is one of the best suggestions I've ever read. Sadly it came way too late, with NS moribund, and I don't even think it would be worth the dev time.

if your team is really that stupid you can tell them which direction to go in, or you can just give them closer waypoints

You can`t compare an impression given by a small waypoint with the one from a big red arrow on the minimap. If anybody sees that, he`ll understand the comm really wants everyone to move that way.

oh really? and how many players do you know that regularily check their minimaps that dont know the best ways to get to places, and if the comm doesnt want them to take the fastest route, then he can easily tell them to go a certain way using his microphone.

the only people this suggestion will help are people that don't know the names of rooms that check their minimaps, and there are none of these people so this idea will never be used. that and its seemingly impossible on the half life engine

Probably impossible, even if it is possible I'm not sure it's worth to time to develop it.

OOow i am torn, i love the idea dont get me wrong but it truely is a toss up between drawing, and multiple linked sucessive way points

like aknua said you walk over two point die to the third the first two become active to cheack off again

drawing if it does have a ten second timer you will still need to redraw quite offtan

bah forget idiots writing curses and well hung stick me

i wanna see the art work a great com can do with a even better team that knows exsackly what to do

got some free time waiitng for proto lab upgrade, Boom sketch out a narly cool sulk riping your mini map to peices, such high detail that every time you push your mini map you cream

Well maybe template strategies then?
1) Resource Towers (may be displayed on the HUD or for 5 sec on the screen of a new strategy, smthing like that); every res tower will get a pointer that hasnt been reclaimed
2) Securing a Hive(individual hive by name or any one of them)
3) Regroup at base( For equippment ect)

or let marines who order something be more precise, than the current " need orders!" like "need a phasegate!" , "need a resource tower" and let the comm see a icon on the map showing more clearly what the request is.

Another idea that i think would be usefull is let the comm define the area of action and where the marines are needed to be like hold and draw a diffrent color box on a area of the minimap that defines the action zone or like a orange colored zone where the marines should gather up, when certain number of marines are at that spot it would group them and form a squad of them and give them a automatic goal where to move.

This is definitely a cool idea. I wonder if it might work better to allow "squad leaders" (if such a thing existed) do this instead of, or in addition to, the Commander?

Also, I wonder if we would even need this ability if we added one other feature instead: whenever you are have a waypoint, the fastest route to that waypoint is drawn automatically on your minimap.

As cool as that would be, there are times when the commander specifically wants you to take a different route, if it has less aliens defending it or something like that. So I don't know that we want the engine calculating the best route for you to get anywhere.

I can see this having some significant use for the comm to use (especially on some more complex maps/with more complex strategies), but I'm not so sure about a squad leader getting any use out of drawing orders rather than shouting them out. Then again, I've never seen/been a squad leader. =P

That 'fastest path' to a waypoint idea sounds like a neat, separate idea for newbies to a map. On the beta maps, I often find myself running around headless when the comm gives me a distant waypoint, as running with the map out can get confusing and dangerous.

Granted, once I learn the maps, any such system could potentially become obtrusive.

definetly we need the drawing from the commander

just imagine the commander wants to show the marines a way around a fortified area, which is not the fastest way

drawing just has a greater use, you can show danger, alternate routes, tactis etc, better as the quite unflexible "show fastest router" solution

Great idea.

It should be quick to use, so that the comm doesn't have to pull out an eraser tool every time he wants to change something. I like the GW implementation for that reason.

Doink

I support this as long as commander does sound effects while drawing.

I would just improve on the existing waypoint idea. It seems comms just need to be better at micromanaging verbally than having to draw it on a minimap.

I'm sure there are some good ideas out there for improving existing functionality of the waypoints in conjunction with a commanders specific orders going there.

Usually when I comm I'll say "take the keyhole route to south loop" or "stay down this long hallway for a few seconds to draw their attention". I think a lot of these problems would be solved by more comm's doing things like that.

people can learn the fastest routes to places after playing the map for 10 minutes, or by just looking at their minimaps once. We're not talking about bots here that have no common sense, nsplayers should be able to learn the basics of the maps very quickly. why not spend time fixing the balance issues in ns instead of adding a feature that really doesnt impact gameplay at all

Thanks for discussing my idea for so long!

Aeroripper, I have to partially disagree with you. You are certainly right when pointing out that the commander must do his job also verbally. I have been commanding since the first day of beta 1.0 and my experience is:

1) You need to give waypoints
2) You need to adress people by their names or they wont listen. Eg. "Someone please go to South loop and wait there for the restower" will have zero effect as no one will listen. Saying "[PlayerX] please go with [Player] and do this and that" will in many cases make them do your bidding.
3) Most players (from experience I'd say 90%) do not check the minimap and do not know the location names.

So I think you can talk until your mouth is all worn out and they won't listen. We need 2 things:

1) The commander (and his Squad leader - cool idea Flayra!!) need to be able to draw on the minimap.
2) Whenever something is drawn on the map or waypoints updated, there should be SOMETHING that draws the marine players' attention to that fact. E.g.: A blinking symbol (blinks 3 times, says "Your minimap has been updated with orders from the commander. Please check it and comply ASAP."), a beeping sound, etc..

When trying to explain strategies to my team I often fail due to their lack of knowledge about the map arichtecture. If I could draw+explain it, this would definitely help.

p.s.: The commander needs the power to punish marines which do not comply with orders (Although that is prone to abuse.... )

You're aware that this topic is half a year old, right? The people discussing might not even visit the forums anymore.

Anyway, neat idea though it is, I agree with aeroripper that it'd be better to just improve on the existing waypoint function(chained waypoints for example).

although it ha potantial I doubt most comms have time for this.
I tend to be everywhere, its hard and nearly impossible to do anything and not letting me know if a rine is near. This would slow down the most important thing in NS... TIME. Its not about res, mapcontrol or guns.. its about time. You can have all the ups and res, if you lack time you are gona lose. Same if you have nothing.. which enought time you will pull it off. (unlikely, you get resistance decreasing time)

I see this being used on a spare ocation if its implemented simply cause it takes time we valuably need. A comm doing nothing is a waste, I know you have no res.. atleast scram around the map and get that vital info.
Ppl either hate me or love me as a comm cause I blur so much info/orders through the mic its insane.

and no.. you do NOT need to hear the skulk, go in teams, let ya teammates cover you and I will freaking tell you if theres a skulk. if I aint telling, it did not matter, you were of low importance, it was a higher priority to shout out info somewhere else, just die.