Suggestion: Commander role

[Yellonet]

A lot of battles can get disorganized and most often it seems like there's just small skirmishes and duels all over the map instead of a coherent and concentrated battle.
To better allow for organization of the "teams" I suggest introducing a sort of commander role, depending on the amount of players there could be different numbers of commanders, say 1 commander per 10 players in each team. So a battle of 30 vs 30 would have 3 commanders in each team, one of them being a Captain and the other two Seargents.
Each commander would then be given command of close to equal amount of men, for instance if one team has 23 players, there would be two commanders of which one is the Captain and the other is a Seargent, the Captain would be given 12 soldiers and the Seargent 11, at most there would be 15 + 14 soldiers with two commanders, when another players joins one of the soldiers will become a Seargent and all three commanders will have 10 men each.

Each commander would have a flag of a certain color which would make the easily distinguishable in the battlefield, and a solider would have a symbol of the same color as his commander so he would instantly know where he belongs in the battle. Orders would signaled through means of simple understandable icons displayed on the screen. Orders would be given to the men through a fast menu system, such as the commands in the single player game; stand closer, spread out, charge, stand ground and so on, plus several different formation types, line, wedge, line with ranks, square and more.

As for the Captain, he would have all command options as the Seargents but could also give commands to the Seargents of where on the map to go with their respective squads or if he wanted them to join him as one big unit and so on.

Perhaps there should be commanders for each soldier type, one commander for archers, one for footmen and one for cavalry.

I haven't come up with an idea of how commanders should be appointed, first one in might not be the best way.

I think that battles between two teams which really utilize this system could truly be epic...

 

[Heimir]

Well, the best way to elect a "Marshal" would be through a vote.

 

[Yellonet]

Well, the best way to elect a "Marshal" would be through a vote.

But on what grounds would you give a vote to someone you don't know?

 

[Binboy]

This idea could probably work if the M&B had a voice chat system of it's own. Even though I don't play I don't think they have one.

Others factors would be: Who would Listen and carry out the orders of a commander?

 

[Kingkaneda]

I think this is a very cool idea! Sure there will be people who wont listen to a commander, but that doesnt matter. Probably a big part of the group will, knowing that a medium strategy carried out by alot of people works alot better than a good strategy carried out by a handfull. Voting would be a good way yes, like when you enter the game you get a list of all your teammates and you HAVE to vote before you can play. As long as the reigning commander has the most votes he stays commander. If people think their commander sucks they should be able to do 1 revote per round. Especially being able to give some basic orders with menu buttons would make life so much easier.

 

[Frostynuggetry]

I think no matter how bad leader is, he is still better than group of unorganized guys who only fight for themselves

I pretty often suggest tactics myself if nobody else is doing it, when playing battle mode, you simply have higher chance lose if you do not have a plan with your mates

 

[Lord Rich]

What if rather than simply giving someone the commander role you would instead have players pay other players to obey their orders. So if a move here order is given out to some players by another player, for each player that follows the order they get say 10 gold, perhaps there could be a scalable quality to it as well to allow people to place larger amounts of money. At least it would get rid of some of the leftover gold you collect during a battle (If your winning that is  ).

Or in a reversal of the system maybe you could simply buy a rank upgrade which would allow you to give orders to anyone of lower rank, refusal to carry out these orders would result in players losing gold. Players with lots of money could simply ignore it if they wanted or could buy a rank of equivalent level to avoid having to get the orders in the first place.

 

[Yellonet]

I think this is a very cool idea! Sure there will be people who wont listen to a commander, but that doesnt matter. Probably a big part of the group will, knowing that a medium strategy carried out by alot of people works alot better than a good strategy carried out by a handfull. Voting would be a good way yes, like when you enter the game you get a list of all your teammates and you HAVE to vote before you can play. As long as the reigning commander has the most votes he stays commander. If people think their commander sucks they should be able to do 1 revote per round. Especially being able to give some basic orders with menu buttons would make life so much easier.

Yes, some kind of voting is probably the best way to go. Perhaps if there was a global database with records for each player that has played as a commander, then there could be a statistic for won and lost battles as commander, that would at least give some indication if you want someone to be your commander or not.

 

[Tercero]

how you decide someone is disobeing?


maybe an archer is sniping at him and can't move so he is taking cover dunno... there are lots of situations... maybe he is holding ground against a horseman etc

 

[Yellonet]

What if rather than simply giving someone the commander role you would instead have players pay other players to obey their orders. So if a move here order is given out to some players by another player, for each player that follows the order they get say 10 gold, perhaps there could be a scalable quality to it as well to allow people to place larger amounts of money. At least it would get rid of some of the leftover gold you collect during a battle (If your winning that is  ).

Or in a reversal of the system maybe you could simply buy a rank upgrade which would allow you to give orders to anyone of lower rank, refusal to carry out these orders would result in players losing gold. Players with lots of money could simply ignore it if they wanted or could buy a rank of equivalent level to avoid having to get the orders in the first place.

I'm not sure that such a system would work, that would in the first example promote obeying orders until you get enough money to get good gear and then solo. In the second example it limits the game too much. A soldier shouldn't be punished for acting on his own initiative. I believe it's better to promote obeying through the experience that it actually makes your team win more often. An organized team will win almost always against a bunch of players going solo.

 

[Lord Rich]

What if rather than simply giving someone the commander role you would instead have players pay other players to obey their orders. So if a move here order is given out to some players by another player, for each player that follows the order they get say 10 gold, perhaps there could be a scalable quality to it as well to allow people to place larger amounts of money. At least it would get rid of some of the leftover gold you collect during a battle (If your winning that is  ).

Or in a reversal of the system maybe you could simply buy a rank upgrade which would allow you to give orders to anyone of lower rank, refusal to carry out these orders would result in players losing gold. Players with lots of money could simply ignore it if they wanted or could buy a rank of equivalent level to avoid having to get the orders in the first place.

I'm not sure that such a system would work, that would in the first example promote obeying orders until you get enough money to get good gear and then solo. In the second example it limits the game too much. A soldier shouldn't be punished for acting on his own initiative. I believe it's better to promote obeying through the experience that it actually makes your team win more often. An organized team will win almost always against a bunch of players going solo.

I guess in that case the commanders role is rather defunct since players will learn from experience who to listen to and as such they need no built in structure to support the command hierarchy. If you want to have a commander which is anything other than name only you need to have some sort of reward system to back up orders and instructions, otherwise I doubt players would treat his instructions with any more weight than they would another player.

 

[scythe111]

I guess in that case the commanders role is rather defunct since players will learn from experience who to listen to and as such they need no built in structure to support the command hierarchy. If you want to have a commander which is anything other than name only you need to have some sort of reward system to back up orders and instructions, otherwise I doubt players would treat his instructions with any more weight than they would another player.

i agree w/ rich. people will figure it out. no need for this kind of thing.

side note- i'd be all up for a "best player" idea. like if you kill their best player (ranked by kills that particular scenario) then your team gets 2 points or w/e (team deathmatch, i'm talking) or you respawn faster when you spawn again or something. this only ties into the topic because people are bound to try to protect him, so he's the natural person to listen to because a- you're already near him and b- he's obviously doing better than you are, so he must know something

 

[faigulla]

A good solution for wild berserkers that run off like me would be to add some kind of bonus for being on the victorious team. This way people would want to stick together and let their fun-ego aside for the sake of the whole group cohesion.

 

[Yellonet]

side note- i'd be all up for a "best player" idea. like if you kill their best player (ranked by kills that particular scenario) then your team gets 2 points or w/e (team deathmatch, i'm talking) or you respawn faster when you spawn again or something. this only ties into the topic because people are bound to try to protect him, so he's the natural person to listen to because a- you're already near him and b- he's obviously doing better than you are, so he must know something

Now that you mention it, one reason to stay with your commander is because the enemy will try to kill him first to promote disorder when there's no one to give orders...

 

[Yellonet]

A good solution for wild berserkers that run off like me would be to add some kind of bonus for being on the victorious team. This way people would want to stick together and let their fun-ego aside for the sake of the whole group cohesion.

Yep, that could work, also in battle mode players in each team should get a big bonus for being alive at the end of the battle, thus making you less careless about your virtual life. Also a bonus for each team member, dead or alive, based on how many of your team that survived the battle, per round and then at the end a total amount for all rounds added up. Point systems should promote staying alive and using proper tactics is the best way to stay alive.

 

[scythe111]

A good solution for wild berserkers that run off like me would be to add some kind of bonus for being on the victorious team. This way people would want to stick together and let their fun-ego aside for the sake of the whole group cohesion.

Yep, that could work, also in battle mode players in each team should get a big bonus for being alive at the end of the battle, thus making you less careless about your virtual life. Also a bonus for each team member, dead or alive, based on how many of your team that survived the battle, per round and then at the end a total amount for all rounds added up. Point systems should promote staying alive and using proper tactics is the best way to stay alive.

i like where you're going with this. i'm not sure i agree on the way to go about it, but definitely a good concept. i don't want to be penalized for my teammates being retards (any more than i already would be), but maybe a perfect bonus or something if none of your team dies on a battle? highly unlikely, but it will happen. or maybe for respawn games, there's a bonus for the player with the highest k:d.

besides, the more people despise getting killed, the more fun the game will be. regardless of group cohesion and all that, satisfying kills are kills that suck for the other person. my favorite thing to think after i get a kill is "oh that guy's throwin his keyboard across the room  "

 

[obolus]

The best implemented ranking/commander system I've ever seen in the game were in the "Call of Combat - on line java game"

There are two groups of soldiers
- lower ranks
- officer ranks

lower ranks are given just by playing the game well - good k/d ratio, many victories etc.

to get an officer rank you have to join an army group (sort of a clan)

the army groups battle with each other in army games all the month to get points (given by victories in army games and number of played games on "ag servers") and in the end of each month the most successful groups get a few officer ranks (like you can get for example 5 lieutenants, 2 captains and 1 colonel rank to distribute) - the leader of the army group just gives the ranks to the players, that participated and did the best in the army games. you can be sure that community sticks really together in these army games and even the low ranks know very well who are good and active possible players with possible leader skill and should be officers for the next month. all these groups have their separate in game channel to chat etc...

this is how it works in Call of Duty - i think something similar could be even here. If you have some sort of ranks that are reasonably distributed and the community of the players is good (I believe that there won't be any problem with this in M&B since most of the stupid kids left for wow already), the officer's orders are obeyed almost all the times even in the "non clan" games.

hmmm what I'm trying to say is - if there are any ranks or commanders that are chosen well (not randomly) and good community of players with the game somehow supporting clans, the teamwork will work.

 

[Gobblecoque]

I think a commander is unnecessary, people usually are plenty able and willing to consider suggested plans and act upon them. A commander role would be more likely to make the game a competitive circle-jerk.

 

[Yellonet]

the more people despise getting killed, the more fun the game will be.

This is really the heart of the matter. And when you really don't want to die, you're likely to try planning and using tactics with your team mates to avoid getting killed.

 

[faigulla]

Or when you don't want to die you'll wait for other people to die first so you can feel good with yourself by not being the first one to die. Battle definitely needs an incentive. I run off and either die or kill. I have a book that I'm finishing up reading while waiting for the next round. That's why I like Team Deathmatch better.

Basically, there is no incentive, the true incentive for most players will be to see their name look cool on the scoreboard. There is nothing to gain or nothing to lose to be on the winning team. Nothing.