Battle Commanders

[Spec]

This is a suggestion mainly for the more tactical gamemodes on public servers. It won't be that useful in a clan match where organisation is no issue, and it won't matter at all in deathmatch.

My suggestion is a feature that allows one player in the team to become a "leader" who can organize the team, mainly in battle mode. Name him (or her) leader, commander, general, whatever, I'll stick with "commander" for this post.
The team could vote for a commander (this kind of vote should be dis-/enabled separately from other polls) for the following round (with the ability to vote for someone else or switch back to no leader at any time, given most of the team agrees). The % needed should also be separate from those for other polls, because it's not quite the same as kicking a player. A server who wants to encourage teamwork might set it to a rather low number, such as 30%, another sever might prefer it to be at 51%.

The commander would have the ability to place flags of different colors on the map, using a system similar to the command system in single player. (For example: F4 - F1 for red flag, F4 - F2 for blue flag, F4 - F9 for flag with the team banner on it). These flags would only be visible to the own team. Additonally, whatever the commander types in teamchat should appear in a different color than the usual (team-)chat, so it's easier for everyone to follow his orders. They might even stay on the screen longer than other messages or appear in a different corner.

This shouldn't be too difficult of a change, and in my opinion would help gameplay alot. As it is, on public servers, tactics look like this usually:
Player1: lol, we totally pwned them
Player2: ALL CAV! ALL CAV!
Player1: Nah
Player3: Let's do a shieldwall
Player2: ALL CAV!

Would sth like this not be easier for everyone?
Player1: lol, we totally pwned them
Player2: ALL CAV! ALL CAV!
Player1: Nah
Player3: Everyone, shieldwall on red flag!
Player2: ALL CAV!

Not quite as good as organized clan play of course, but maybe a useful addition to public games.
One problem I can see is that maybe it will not be used often enough and that players might simply not vote for anyone and just rush off, but that's up to the server rules/admins. Most will see this as optional anyway, but WHEN you have a situation in which people actually want to use tactics, I'd be glad to have sth like this so I have an easier time finding out what are orders and what is spam, so I can focus on the battle instead of the chat.

Sorry if this is a resuggestion, I searched, but didn't find anything equal to this.

 

[sir smokey]

I like your vote in a commander idea, but, since some people like to do their own thing, perhaps this would be part of a completely separate game mode called "Campaign Mode" so you only get players that want to participate in the teamwork.  Also, the commander could have ability to kick lone rangers that disobey orders to ensure compliance.  After each battle the leader stays in unless there is a poll raised to replace him (to demote incompetent commanders or ones that are too power happy).  There would certainly need to be a pre-battle phase of like 2 minutes to vote for leader and then discuss strategy.  One thing that is also really lacking is the ability (like most other fps games) to see the number of players that have chosen each class before the match begins.  That way I'd know not to choose archer when i see that the team is already 80% archer - this would certainly allow a commander to balance out the unit classes to match his strategy. 

Here's the basics of Campaign Mode:

Campaign Mode would present a series of battles between two factions taking place on multiple maps encompassing a whole campaign.  At the beginning of the campaign a commander would be chosen by poll.  The first battle would take place in a neutral location representing the border between the two waring factions, perhaps one of the open field maps.  The winning side would then advance into the losing faction's territory and the next battle would take place on a village map of the losing factions.  Ultimately the goal would be to win the campaign by a successful siege of one or the other faction's castles or cities. 

Not sure if this is modable or if it has already been done or suggested.  There would certainly be a lot of issues to work out but overall, I think this type of mode would be a blast to play. 

 

[Spec]

Such a mode would really be very interesting. If not as part of Warband, maybe a some modders might be inspired to create such a thing. You could certainly count me in as a regular on a server with such a game mode