The most important question to ask is this:

If slayers_boxer got in the command chair, could he win the game?

The answer should obviously be yes. If the answer is no, that means that there is a rigid skill cap in place which dwarfs commanding skill and needs to be removed. This has to happen because the inverse is true.

If Amish_Jeremiah jumped in the comm chair, he would RUIN the marine team.

Discuss.

NS2 is a team game. Your logic fails.

Boxer should win with a lower skill marine team than your average joe.

More to do, more choices and yet somehow newbie friendly I guess.

Right now a good competetive marine team makes excellent use of a good comm, but a good comm can't affect all that much on a below average team. It's also frustrating since you can't win those rounds alone, but its easy as anything to lose those rounds with a bad call or two.

For public its quite right. I'm worrying more about how we get people to follow orders than the commander's abilities to affect the win ratio.

Your argument sucks.

How much influence should a commander have on a team?

A lot. If boxer jumped in the comm chair, he should be able to do MUCH better than I can and should be able to win the game. The only aspect where boxer could show his skill in NS1 would be med spamming.

As you said in your OP -- "discuss." Tell us how a commander would achieve "a lot" of influence. Throw out some ideas. Right now, I only see this thread as you overreacting to a poorly explained idea in the I&S forum. From my experiences, most people support ideas in I&S's forums (save the really bad ones) without thinking anything through.

As for the topic, I would hope that every role in NS2 is fun.

Medspamming is the best example I have. Also, controlling Mr. Zaps properly - preferable multiple.

I don't know, how much should be have? More than the average player on the field, certainly. But having a good commander mean an instant win (Even if it were Boxer) completely throws the team aspect of the game out of the window. I shouldn't even have to explain why it's a bad idea to make the outcome of a multiplayer game depend solely upon one player's abilities, as you seem to be advocating.

You're a Starcraft player, so it's not surprising you seem to believe that each player/lifeform has some static level of performance, but this simply isn't the case. A skilled comm should (and does) do better than one that doesn't know what they're doing. There's more to comming than medspamming, it's just that a lot of it hinges upon whether your marines are willing to cooperate.

(tldr at bottom)

Maybe a better question is "Can commanding in an RTS/FPS be fun?" I have my doubts because of the inherent characteristics of an RTS/FPS (but maybe my definition of "fun" just doesn't mesh with a commander's duties.)

The commander has no actual control. He cannot force his units to do anything. RTS games rely on your units reacting the way you tell them to when you tell to them. It's always annoying to have an RTS with crappy pathfinding and when playing a RTS like that I often find myself saying "wow, I didn't tell you to move there..." So what if an RTS added a 'feature' where units could say "nope, not gonna follow that order" and go do something else? The whole game would break down.

So, naturally, the next thought is to give the commander some kind of control over his marines to encourage them to follow orders. Control usually means punishment for disobeying orders. Who wants to play a video game to be punished? Who wants the commander to deny them med packs / weapons because they didn't follow an order? Who knows, maybe the marine thought the order was arbitrary, an underutilization of his/her skills, or just flat out wrong. It doesn't matter, what matters is the fact that one player has the power to punish others.

Instead of thinking of commanders as being in control of everything, I think it's better to realize that the 'fun level' of every team member is equally important. One person shouldn't be bored out of their mind while clicking on upgrade paths and the other's shouldn't be slaves to the comm's orders. In a perfect world, it would be nice to see both marine and commander needing each other equally as that would encourage teamwork and communication though positive means instead of a negative, punishing, mean.

So how do we get this kind of synergistic approach in the game? Through support items. A good example of a support item is the catalyst pack, even if the catalyst isn't the most used thing in the world. Maybe in NS2 the commander will be able to drop 'special' ammo instantly granting a bonus against fades / onoses. Maybe there will be other "catalyst" pack type items that temporary increase armor, decrease build time, etc. These are just real quick and poorly thought out ideas I came up with to illustrate how support items could separate the good commanders from the bad ones while still encouraging teamwork instead of focusing on a system of punishment.

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TLDR; The commander cannot have the solve responsibility of strategy, as everyone is involved in the process and people don't always listen. Forcing a system around the idea of the commander creating a strategy then having the marines following it will create frustration. Instead, the commander should be able to aid his marines though teamwork-enhancing ingame mechanics while the team forms a strategy together.
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NS1 commanding summarized:

--- commander's strategic calls ---

Choose whether to hop out of the chair and pull a Furious or choose not to pull a furious.
Weigh W2 vs AA
Motion rush?
Choose walk-in or siege
When and where to get gates
Early game strategy (capping/pressure/shotgun etc..)

--- commander skills ---

medspamming
keeping marines stocked on ammo
listening and pointing out skulk locations through fog of war

I would like these lists to be expanded in NS2. Especially the 2nd one.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Commanding is kinda boring and daunting for some.


thanks.

Sure. But then he's no longer a commander is he? Just that guy you never see but that can drop medpacks on you.

This is assuming they he knows how to play NS well. Having high apm != good player. I was watching a gosu player(I think Savior) play someone in SC2 and he was, well not good. He pumped out units quickly and efficiently, but he froze strategically even though he may have had a better economy and micro overall his zealots were dying too quickly.

I think spells will help increase the power of commanders, but as it's been said, NS is a team game.

Except in a good organised team this would already be decided on before the game by more players on the team than the commander. Most contingencies in case of radically different alien set ups would also have been worked out. Only in extreme cases would the commander actually decide on any of this (except possibly whether or not to siege or walk in depending on map and set up otherwise) on his own, on the fly.

In the end the commander's job in a well organised team would be to pull off the plan without making mistakes, calling when to do what to remind the rest of the players, balancing medspam expenses with investment into the economy, and scouting for his team. That's alot to do and you can get really good at it. But is it any fun compared to shooting skulks?

This is all assuming the interest to actually plan for officials is there, which relies on a larger and more active player base. Which we in turn don't have at the moment. Yarr.

Thinking that the commander is the only one who creates strategy or leads troops is, in my opinion, wrong. Honestly, the commander never really has created the strategy all on his own. Look at your standard game of NS - "Comm, can I get a welder to weld X?" "Comm, where's that PG?" "Comm wanna siege this?" "Comm can I get a shotty?" Those are all strategic calls and most of them are coming from the marines. Strategy is a team decision and I don't think it should be thrown on the shoulders of one player because that player's job will be really boring once the team starts contributing and making calls along with the commander.

What does having high apm have to do with anything? Boxer played fatality in counter strike and beat him. He made fatality cry.


Heh, every game I've played in I've always had to decide when to get what on my own. And I've commanded for xensity a couple of times as well. They just let me do whatever I wanted as long as I medded and ammo'd them before they even got the impulse to ask for those things.


We're talking about competent commanders here, which NS lacks severely IMO. I bet if commanding was more fun, more good commanders would enlist.

I'm saying I wouldn't expect an NS newb, even if he has excellent APM as boxer probably would, to be good at NS. I thought I illustrated that point rather clearly, but apparently not.

Offtopic but link? I googled for it but didn't find anything.

Well said. To try to steer this thread to a more constructive topic, what kind of commander spells would further commander depth? This is from the original "Dumbing down games gets you nowhere"{link} which is pretty much the same rant as this.

I'd suggested the kharaa commander would have a similar feature based upon choosing a Quorum Leader{link}

Another direction to go in is have the commander's spells be more powerful, but be hard counterable by the other commander. I don't think I'd want to reduce the importance of the FPS skill by that much though.

I think the inactivity of ns is hurting the comm section quite bad. At least I've got quite a lot of semi decent little moves to push nodes and fight the fades and such, but I can't try them out enough to get them working properly. It's not the most creative game, but you can think outside the box too. For example something like this. I think with a few tries you could pull off that with 1 pack and 2 rines instead of the usual sg pressure. It's not the most effective way to kill nodes, but at least you could have your top3 aimers rampaging somewhere else. That one was startgame, but you could call at any point of the game as long as you're not facing a lerk or field gorges.

Calling those is not a twitch skill, but at least the comm gets to use the big picture and see opportunities like that.

Catpacks could be surprisingly effective if some team really took time to practise them. 3 res drop that allows you to avoid spamming 2 medpacks doesn't seem such a bad thing especially when it keeps fades on their toes and gives you quite a lot of flexibility.

I guess the point was : Of course ns2 needs a lot of new stuff for commanding and anything tactical, but I think quite a few things should go right by themselves if the competetive scene gets active enough to support a little tricky squad moves and timings better.

Catpack cost goes way beyond the 3 resources they cost to drop. As you know, they are researched from the arms lab, and cost more resources. Most importantly, they cost armslab time. Armslab time could be used to upgrade a plethora of other more useful, passive and less expensive upgrades. (Unless you can have weapons 2, armor 2, welders AND catpacks, which is roughly the equivalent of a a2w1 welder+shotgun, I'd say)

Its hard to picture non-offensive spells that take much commander skill or are useful in the field. We already have a solid defensive spell, its called medspam. Maybe if you add medpacks, but for movement speed, which cost 1 res but don't last too long?

I agree that droppable items is currently where the commander depth is at, but I think ammo, health, and cat(speed) have the defensive end pretty well covered. Also commander spells aren't necessarily "non-offensive", just not direct damage to a player. For example, I would call a spell that increases attack damage in an area of effect an offensive spell, even though it's not directly harming the kharaa or infestation.

I definitely agree skillful commander spells are hard, especially if there's not to be too much of an entry barrier to commanding. That's why I suggest we focus on that avenue of discussion. I want commanding to have depth beyond med/cat dropping since that's just one skill move.

Here's a different suggestion: we know there are two types resources planned from the last podcast, nanites and metal. It seems likely to me that, generally, nanites will be used for commander spells, and metal will be used for buildings(I say generally because there will probably also be exceptions where higher techs also require nanites, and some structures will facilitate spells).

What if you had to 'build' the spell before you could use it. Building of a spell wouldn't necessarily require other players, it would just take time. This way commanding takes more forethought, and you could have multiple versions ready(a bunch of +attack spells for a shotgun rush). Maybe more expensive instantaneous versions of spells would also be available so as not to hinder commanders too much, but good commanders would be able to "macro" spells as well as "micro"(medpacks/ammo/cats).

The tech time is 'only' 40 seconds. It means you'll get the catpacks even for your shotgun pressure. No other upgrade can do that. With proper use you might get a lot of nodes down early, giving you way more than 40 seconds of armslab time before the fades and hive. You can still squeese the armor 1 and catpacks inside the 2 first minutes if given the res. In addition, you don't need the w1 and 2 that bad while rushing the hive, since your dps is huge anyway.

I'm more worried about dc, adrelerks and late pg because of lack of res than the lost 40 seconds. As long as you can get the a1 out before 3:30, you shouldn't be too much behind in schedule. Catpacks can replace the missing w1 in crucial places more than well after all.

This is one of the few suggestions that I like upon hearing it, mainly because the general idea of it is something that could really be expanded upon. In RTS's there are several strategies available to players (rush, economic boon, technology rush, etc). Assuming the game is balanced, each strategy has its strengths and weaknesses. If these strategies were able to be implemented into NS2 there may be some more control and direct decision making going on by the commander.

If there are two resources maybe there could be a building that would allow the commander to transfer excess 'nanties' into 'metal' or vise versa. Most RTS games have this, in the form of "the market." The market could also be a good area to have some kind of 'macro spell' for a economic boon. While this spell is activated maybe the team would get resources +X% faster while marines do -X% less damage. If the commander was confident in his marines' abilities, then the extra res could be worth it.

That's just a general idea that we may be able to craft into something that is useful. If it works out well it could help the commander direct the strategy of the team, especially if there are multiple avenues for the commander to take such as one that helped a team tech up or one that helped a team do more damage early on. I'd say that idea is worth thinking about, as it gives the commander the ability to choose a strategy on his/her own and helps the commander to have control of marines' actions without punishing players.

The idea of general macro strategies is interesting, the AoE series has things like this right? Something along the lines of:

Guerrilla Tactics: +attack -defense
Agile Manuevers: +tech +res -attack -defense _OR_ +tech -res
Resource Boom: +res -tech
Planned Assault: +attack +defense -res -tech

This stuff is currently implicit, +res -attack is dropping an rt instead of dropping a shottie welder. Still an explicit global system could be interesting, maybe with +res and +research speed paths for the commander.

Yeah, AoE3 had a system similar to this and it was explored more in AoE3's first expansion with the addition of "big buttons." Another game to feature something similar is Command and Conquer Generals where the USA could build a "strategy center" and the player had 3 options - increasing unit damage, range, or armor. Each allowed for different strats based off the strategy center.

a minute after the game started is by no means fast. A better alternative (and by better I do mean better in all respects) is to drop a 2nd shotgun. That fills the role of hardcore aggressive offense.

A minute is something you can live with. It's the same effect as going for early obs, except that you actually have something to equal the advantage of upgrades. Shotguns are good, but I'd say catpacks could be at least equal to that later on. Depending on your shotgunners and map of course. With catpacks you can have such a huge firepower and mobility anywhere you want, not just your sg pressure.

Enough of offtopic though. Maybe we should create a topic in the frontiersmen strategy or something :>


I doubt that would work that good. If you're winning in frags, you're winning a lot of things. You can have the map control and through the map you'll get the res control that most likely pays off a lot more than the extra res you'd get by the weaker marines. That might be good for finishing the stacked rounds in public, but I don't think it would help much with equal teams. Of course we know very little about the res mechanics of ns2 and you could tweak the numbers quite a lot. Those were my first thoughts anyway.

I also feel that the commander should be supporting the marines, not gaining an advantage through their weakness. It's a bit of the same as turreting up two hives before upgrading anything; you might win, but the marines can't do much for the first 20 minutes outside the tf range. Once again, you can try to tweak the numbers, but I feel the game flow would be better if the marines are encouraged to fight rather than secure their positions just to be able to turtle up in permanent fortresses.

Yeah, it would be hard to make them meaningful. I still like the idea though, it'd just be hard to implement.