Taking Command

[Knocky]

Originally Posted by Brusi

I have a good feeling about the carrot approach they are putting in with the mission system.

Hopefully we will never have to blow our own tubes to herd the zerg again

[StumpyTheOzzie]

command is always going to be a popularity contest - that's fine...

except...

The most popular commanders are usually the ones who have the most "exciting" jobs and not the jobs that will win the war.

This is from PS1, but it will also apply in spirit to PS2:
Everyone loves a tech plant. So when the lattice links up to a tech plant we charge it, right in between the two other empires and then we get screwed. Seen it a million times. The CR5s are all screaming in global "let them have the bio lab and take the tech plant"

The correct strategic choice made by the best commander is to ignore *that* tech plant and cap the bio lab, quick llu run and then hack the tech plant halfway around the continent. Then you have your tech (30-35 minutes later) but you miss out on the 2 hour 3 way brick wall that never advances your faction. By delaying the 3 way clusterfuck by only 35 minutes you can have the amp station, bio lab AND tech plant and you can come back and FLANK a faction, forcing some other faction to be double teamed... Or you can rush straight ahead and get ground into the dirt.

Problem with this is, nobody likes to hack and hold for 12 minutes with nothing to do and then 3 minutes of fury while the re-secure team comes flying in. Most people want to be shooting.

Meanwhile those sneaky purple bastards have made the proper strategic choices (because they only have 8% pop and *have* to play smart) and suddenly own 50% of the continent with 8% pop.

Back to reality:
I know there's no lattice. But hack and hold in the middle of the enemy forces is going to be a much longer timer than "nearby" hexes so it'll be very difficult to pull off and impossible for zerg. When the zerg see a big shiny base with a 1 hex link, they're going to charge the base even though the best strategy is to envelop the base. Attack from all sides, faster hack time when you do break through, it limits enemy reinforcement directions so that when the base is hacked, flank forces can close off that gap. By delaying a suicidal front on base assault from one direction till you have the flank hexes hacked you will ultimately shorten the time required to take the base *and surrounding hexes*

How are you going to reward the correct strategic choices? You can't.

You can however spam stupid crap that's easily achieved, therefore have a high "mission success rate" which makes you look 4w3su/\/\!!!1 with heaps of XP for everyone and lots of twitter followers but you'll end up losing the war.

[Dart]

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

command is always going to be a popularity contest - that's fine...

except...

The most popular commanders are usually the ones who have the most "exciting" jobs and not the jobs that will win the war.

This is from PS1, but it will also apply in spirit to PS2:
Everyone loves a tech plant. So when the lattice links up to a tech plant we charge it, right in between the two other empires and then we get screwed. Seen it a million times. The CR5s are all screaming in global "let them have the bio lab and take the tech plant"

The correct strategic choice made by the best commander is to ignore *that* tech plant and cap the bio lab, quick llu run and then hack the tech plant halfway around the continent. Then you have your tech (30-35 minutes later) but you miss out on the 2 hour 3 way brick wall that never advances your faction. By delaying the 3 way clusterfuck by only 35 minutes you can have the amp station, bio lab AND tech plant and you can come back and FLANK a faction, forcing some other faction to be double teamed... Or you can rush straight ahead and get ground into the dirt.

Problem with this is, nobody likes to hack and hold for 12 minutes with nothing to do and then 3 minutes of fury while the re-secure team comes flying in. Most people want to be shooting.

Meanwhile those sneaky purple bastards have made the proper strategic choices (because they only have 8% pop and *have* to play smart) and suddenly own 50% of the continent with 8% pop.

Back to reality:
I know there's no lattice. But hack and hold in the middle of the enemy forces is going to be a much longer timer than "nearby" hexes so it'll be very difficult to pull off and impossible for zerg. When the zerg see a big shiny base with a 1 hex link, they're going to charge the base even though the best strategy is to envelop the base. Attack from all sides, faster hack time when you do break through, it limits enemy reinforcement directions so that when the base is hacked, flank forces can close off that gap. By delaying a suicidal front on base assault from one direction till you have the flank hexes hacked you will ultimately shorten the time required to take the base *and surrounding hexes*

How are you going to reward the correct strategic choices? You can't.

You can however spam stupid crap that's easily achieved, therefore have a high "mission success rate" which makes you look 4w3su//!!!1 with heaps of XP for everyone and lots of twitter followers but you'll end up losing the war.

In this instance I think it'll come down to establishing a reputation and rapport within your particular Empire. If you get to know other influential Outfit Leaders and co-ordinate your "correct strategic choices" with theirs, they'll be more inclined to trust you and more likely to tell their Outfit Members to follow your missions. When I said being a leader in an MMO was a popularity contest, what I actually meant was; it requires a modicum of social aptitude and a large degree of enthusiasm (much like a popularity contest).

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by Dart

In this instance I think it'll come down to establishing a reputation and rapport within your particular Empire. If you get to know other influential Outfit Leaders and co-ordinate your "correct strategic choices" with theirs, they'll be more inclined to trust you and more likely to tell their Outfit Members to follow your missions. When I said being a leader in an MMO was a popularity contest, what I actually meant was; it requires a modicum of social aptitude and a large degree of enthusiasm (much like a popularity contest).

You only need to get respect from zerg, by giving them easy XP. Outfits can yell at you how are you stupid and losing the war, but you will be still highest commander as long zerg have good fight.
On the other hand, outfit leaders will earn respect between themselves, coordinating and completing missions together. If we will be lucky and zerg commander is reasonable we can ask him to change mission target, but it still has to be within zerg reach.
Ideally zerg commander should be some good outfit commander, but he has to earn and keep their loyalty by create bad missions on purpose that is good for zerg just to keep them. Then you can expect they will do something harder once a while.

[MrSmegz]

Just a question I would like to ask about command, because I have been thinking about this a lot lately.

What would you think of a system that allowed Outfit leaders and Squad Leaders to cast votes on who was command for say, maybe like 4 hours or so for positions like Continent Commander or Faction Commander?

[Duddy]

Originally Posted by Dart

I'm starting to wonder just how useful 'missions' will actually be. I know they'll be popular because they'll offer extra experience for those completing the tasks but it seems to me there is a pretty major issue with them...

Perhaps it's just my suspicious nature, but if I create a mission for my Outfit to undertake, what's to stop an opposing player using a second account to hop on an alt (f2p and all) and see exactly where we're going? More over what would prevent them looking at all of an our Empire's available missions and relaying them back to their allies? Wouldn't this effectively kill mass Empire 'raids' and make any kind of tactical subterfuge almost entirely redundant?

Unless I hear a good reason why this will be impossible, I highly doubt DT will be advertising any of our targets.

I suppose it depends on how the mission system works, if you can set a "scope" to your missions then I think it would be better i.e.;

• Empire
• Outfit
• Squad

Certainly doesn't alleviate the issue of spies, but it would allow for some secrecy at least.

[Wanderer]

Weak leaders, even if popular among peer groups are always separated out by successes and failures. People with the skill for big-picture strategy will step up, by their very nature, they will be 'called' to do it by the weakness of whatever leader is destroying their Empire. The Zerg won't care much initially, until they realise there are Carrots being dangled within missions. So the majority of the Command Politics will be developed between the big Outfits. Huge, multi-MMO, Guilds already have leaders, so thats where the major players will emerge, no-question.

A good Commander knows what they have, what they need and how to listen to the needs of leaders in the field. They will certainly need to be committed to a "game" which for most people with the skill set (more importantly - Maturity) of leaders, is impossible. The time investment alone is a hard gate to pass through. So we will get a lot of Chaff before we get some Wheat. We just have to deal with it.

I honestly pictured that some S.O.E. staff or dedicated affiliates would initially have the Command roles on the servers, to get the ball rolling, show off the mission features and get people into the action. Eventually taking a back seat as others show up to take the spotlight.

[Vancha]

The "following" of three leaders worries me. Even when Planetside was a ghost town there was probably 20+ people I wanted the opinions of.

In Planetside, you had people who were the "public face" of command, who typically put out the globals and contalls, but command chat was almost an outfit in itself. The leadership of the empire was not done by a select few, but by a community of CR5s. I think they need to be very careful not to end up with just 5-10 people at the top. Similarly, they need to be careful that the position of macro commanding (empire-level, as opposed to platoon or squad-level), isn't accessible solely to outfit leaders.

Originally Posted by MrSmegz

Just a question I would like to ask about command, because I have been thinking about this a lot lately.

What would you think of a system that allowed Outfit leaders and Squad Leaders to cast votes on who was command for say, maybe like 4 hours or so for positions like Continent Commander or Faction Commander?

I think you'd have the largest zergfit using it's numbers to continually elect the person that that zergfit's leader wanted to elect.

[MrSmegz]

Originally Posted by Vancha

The "following" of three leaders worries me. Even when Planetside was a ghost town there was probably 20+ people I wanted the opinions of.

In Planetside, you had people who were the "public face" of command, who typically put out the globals and contalls, but command chat was almost an outfit in itself. The leadership of the empire was not done by a select few, but by a community of CR5s. I think they need to be very careful not to end up with just 5-10 people at the top. Similarly, they need to be careful that the position of macro commanding (empire-level, as opposed to platoon or squad-level), isn't accessible solely to outfit leaders.


I think you'd have the largest zergfit using it's numbers to continually elect the person that that zergfit's leader wanted to elect.

Well I am kind of thinking of a system where only Squad Leaders and Outfit Leaders are the only ones that get to 'vote'. If you just want to zerg around on your quad-bike and bolt-driver, you probably wont care to vote anyways. In this case only Leaders would vote for Overall leaders.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by MrSmegz

Well I am kind of thinking of a system where only Squad Leaders and Outfit Leaders are the only ones that get to 'vote'. If you just want to zerg around on your quad-bike and bolt-driver, you probably wont care to vote anyways. In this case only Leaders would vote for Overall leaders.

Not zerg, zergfits. They typically have more squads and thus squad leaders.

[ringring]

To my mind, as in most things in ps, the DEVS should provide a simple framework and then leave it to the players. On their own players will add complexity and structure.

[MrSmegz]

Originally Posted by ringring

To my mind, as in most things in ps, the DEVS should provide a simple framework and then leave it to the players. On their own players will add complexity and structure.

I don't think a system of some kind should be in place, with a plethora of tools to commanders disposal, because providing tools improves communication. I think with the right tools and incentives, you can even control the Zerg or Zergfits quite well. Its worth a try to create something like this, because if it doesn't work, Zergfits will just do what they do best anyways if a system wasn't there.