An ORIGINAL Planetside 2

[Greensbr]

Take a deep breath because this is a bit of a long idea. I don't like the direction that a possible "Planetside 2" will be taking according to the ideas I have researched so far on this site. From what I have seen, the forums are still filed into the mindset of Planetside, without much originality. I hesitated to share this, but here it goes.

First and foremost what made Planetside good, and is still to this day the main factor that makes it worth paying for, is the massive amount of PvP you experience. While Halo, Crysis, and many other popular games can fill a maximum or 32 clients at a time on a server, Planetside easily offered combat of up to 50 versus 50 players, even sometimes 100 v 100 or more. However with the recent release of ARMA and many other such games, you will find that attaining massive scale PvP can no longer be monopolized by this game or others, as the technological advance allows more than just 32 players to be accommodated at a time. The only other attractive feature of Planetside as a mmo, is the fact that it doesn't allow level or "Battle Rank" to exponentially increase the advantage of some players over others, such as you will see in Eve Online or WoW. In otherwords, Planetside at least treats its new and low level players well.

However, you might wonder how much that can go for. What can keep Planetside 2 fresh and creative? Something that is enough to make it worth paying for.

That thing is my idea.

Planetside as of now is a static "First Person Shooter." The players are in a first person shooter from the day they enter into their factions world for the first time, till the day their accounts expire the last time. However, as the player journeys along that path, increasing in level, players gain certain perks, like new weapons and skills of course, but more importantly, they gain the ability to use battle chat and more global chat as they increase in military rank. Obviously you would think that a "General" in an army should get more privileges then a "Private"?

What if a general had more responsibility, not as a soldier on the battlefield, but more behind the lines in the command of bases, structures and what not? Hmm what if those who were higher in "rank" got a little more than the ability to drive a vehicle, but to make that vehicle available in the first place? Yes. You can see where I am going with this; I am talking about incorporating "Real-Time Strategy" elements into Planetside 2.

But you must be wondering; How in the world can you have the elements of a real-time strategy game in what is supposed to be an MMO? You might be envisioning a single person, sitting at the computer, commanding an entire faction of units while other players follow his command! But this is not the case. As a matter of fact it is a rather relative idea, whereas the command will not fall into the hand of a single person but to those who are highest in rank, starting from the top to the bottom.

Sounding weird? You have to recognize that this genre of gaming is growing steadily in popularity. Take a look at the game "Tiberium", for example; http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/tiberium/index.html

So how will it work? Well there are many ways to begin... but first let’s talk about whets important, the average player.

So one of you are playing Planetside 2... you are walking along the surface of an alien planet, when all the sudden, a green message and an arrow is displayed on your hud. Could it be? Yes it is, that is you being selected by a commanding officer watching you from above. "What is it?" you wonder. The arrow turns red and a bar below it appears. Ah. He wants you to attack a base, with orders to destroy it. Well thats good, because destroying a base is one thing, but being selected to destroy a base means a little extra experience on top of what you'll get. So you walk toward the base when you notice that the bar on your hud slowly decreases. Ah.. heres the downside... that little bar is a timer for you to complete your mission.. it sort of "guarantees" that your mission wont expire. "Well thats fine." you say, as you try to walk away from your target. Ouch! The bar begins to decreases even more rapidly.. "Argh." It seems this is in place to guarantee that you move steadily toward your target and not away from it. "Well cripes" you say, "I guess I just gotta move toward it more logisitically, and hopefully I'll avoid enemies along the way." So about two minutes later you get to your target. The small base stands unguarded. "Well, this will be a piece of cake." you say as you load your rocket launcher. You aim and pull your finger down on the trigger, shooting at the base. To your surprise, the half depleted timer bar stops depleting... as a matter of fact, it looks like its increasing slightly, giving you more time to destroy this base! "Looks like I will stay and shoot at this base to get my extra experience points." And surely you do, since attacking the base is rewarded with more time...



Got your attention? What you have just read was what I call the concept of "Missions". If you've ever played the game Starcraft, Command and Conquer, or any such RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game, you will know that when you click on a unit and order it to attack, it will follow your orders without hesitation. Players can be just as loyal too, and maybe even better a unit then an NPC, they just need an incentive first. Our commanding officer in Planetside 2 will have the option of selecting a player to complete a mission he/she thinks is necessary from a birds eye view.

But what about abuse of this system? Would a player and a friendly "officer" work together to gain large amounts of experience easily? Would it be used to spy on other nations giving them an unfair advantage? No, because there will be systems in place to prevent this from happening. For instance, a player won't be able to be selected for a certain period of time after he/she has been selected. He/she might be selected with another group, increasing the chance that the mission will be a success. But any experience gained from completing the mission will be equally distributed among players, making the prospect of gaining a large amount of experience, for a single individual null. Factor in the fact that enemy units are in short supply to achieve this, and you will find that abusing the "Missions" system to gain extra experience, is impossible.


If you've read this far, I can tell you probably find this idea interesting to say the least, because now I am going to talk about the most innovative and challenging part of this idea; "Bases." As you already know, Planetside's bases and towers remain at set locations, as a matter of fact, every single structure and landmass in the game remains unchanged throughout the course of the entire war. Now don't get me wrong, because from my experience playing Planetside, most players don't find this unchanging aspect of the game boring. This is frankly because there is plenty of land to explore, to run, and to hide. That is why this portion of the idea is most controversial.. but it is pretty much necessary within the game, if the generals of a faction wish to build bases.

Yes, thats right, build bases.

It will work something like this. A planet will have a set of factors regulating its environment. For instance, and ice planet will everywhere be covered in ice, and a tropical planet, will everywhere be dominated by sand, hurricanes and green plants. When a war begins, an untouched planet will have no set landmasses... until it is scouted by a faction for valuable resources. Resources are the material required to build a base, units, supplies, and pretty much everything fueling an empire. The server will decide that the "scout" has found a location on a planet that as an ample and lasting supply of resources. More specifically it will state that is has found a location by which a faction can draw and mine resources. Yes.. thats right. If you have played any game in the "Warcraft" series, you will know that the scout as found an entire Faction, one of these things;

http://bnetd.org/war3/images/human/screens/thumb-gold-orc.gif

The general(s) of that faction will peer with interest. "It will cost you 2,000,000 initial resource to begin a base here sir. Shall I proceed." Gazing upon his losing battle at Cyssor, the general decides, "Yes."

(continued)

[Greensbr]

When it is accepted, the server will immediately start generating a massively sized map, much the size of the maps seen in Planerside, after all, this is a "Level 3" resource find, which is the largest resource deposit possible in Planetside 2, meaning that it can support bases on the grandest of scales. The server is finished generating the map after 20 minutes. A command vehicle is launched onto the surface of the planet. Luckily this decision was a good one, because the only enemy base on this planet is a "Level 1" resource find, meaning that it is just a small reconnaissance outpost, and also, that base's resources have been used for 2 months (in real time) suggesting that this enemy base is close to expiration.

"Well the enemy won't be bothering us for some time" says the general, proud of his strategic opportunity. The vehicle he is driving can do many wonders, but first, "Lets take advantage of those resources." The commander selects the "birds eye" view from his desktop PC. Moving his mouse over the resource deposit, he begins to warp in his faction's equivalent of a "resource mine." The commander's mother yells at him to take out the trash. "Dangit," he says, "Brb" he types walking away to complete his chores. When he gets back, he find that the mine is almost 3% complete. "Wow, this is taking slow!" he types. It sure is, because buildings in Planetside 2, take often hours to complete, even some of the most expensive structures taking nearly a half of a day.

Reality check: Why is this the case? Well if buildings and structures could be built quickly then it would remove much of the strategy of building a base stealthily. On the flip side it would be overpowered if a faction found a huge deposit of resources and were able to quickly take advantage of them. Also, it allow players to savor each moment each time a commanding structure, or a small tower is created.

Hours pass. "99 % and.... 100%" the general yells. "Its completed!" The mine warps in, and an entire host of players from the faction begin to line up to warp into this new base. "Guys its just a mine, I haven't built the unit factory yet." says the general. "What are you talking about? We CAN warp into the planet through a mine!" says a lowly private player. "You can warp in if you want too, but you will only be able to drive a mining vehicle!" replies the general. Thats correct. In Planetside 2, each building has its distinct advantages. A mine for instance, will not supply the player with weaponry or items. It only serves to warp in drivable mining vehicles that are designed to mine resources, for a small cost to the faction. But it will be able to warp in as many players as it wants, 4 a time, that is.

"I think I better just help out the base at Cyssor." says the private, leaving his faction's home planet. "How will I get workers to mine resources then?" thinks the general. A sergeant comes up to him, figuratively. "Hey NPCs are cheap to the faction, but they'll mine them for you." he says. "Use NPC's for mining?" retorts the general. "You had better use them for mining now instead of combat later" the sergeant suggests "...because I wouldn’t want to pull players out of the Cyssor battle to mine here, and reinforce Cyssor with NPC's for combat." After thinking about it, the general replies, "Your right. Better to use NPCs for mining instead of combat, because players obviously make the best soldiers, but lazy miners." They both laugh.

Yes. Thats also right. NPCs will be available to all factions for a small but substantial price to perform the menial functions of a faction, and even combat if needed. These functions can include patrolling a base for security, mining, and guarding certain areas. A faction will not be able to overwhelm another simply by buying NPCs, because the price of NPC's will fluctuate depending on how many players and NPCs are already present. Their will be limitations also on how many supplies can be allocated to players. And if the player demand more supplies, the NPCs most recently spawned at a base, will disappear and more supplies to the playerbase of a faction will be generated.

All this will be relative to the resources a faction or a base has.

Many hours pass later.. "The commanding center was done 2 hours ago. The second unit factory was just done. I am starting to see enemy units pouring in... they obviously knew about this base from the start." the general proclaims, no longer in his command vehicle, but sitting in-game inside one of the main "commanding center" buildings. Doing this offers him protection, and an extra bonus to his commanding actions which reduces the cost of building bases. "Look," says another general "Cyssor is lost. We are going to start spawning into your base. I hope you’re ready." Yes I am, says the first general. "I am giving command of my base to the players." He allocates command to the players. This allows any player of any rank, to walk up to a base to gain supplies and spawn vehicles for themselves. "We have a level 2 technology here, so no BFR yet, but you can have all the tanks you need!" says the first general. "Good! Because we are going to need to push on them hard here at this new base. I am glad to see you got a head start. And the layout of this base is superior; we will have an easy time defending this location. Good job my friend. Over and out." the second general says, leaving the chat. The first general smiles.

He flips on the "birds eye view" at the commanding center main screen. This newly constructed building has 5,000,000 hit points, and would take a good 20 minute barrage of artillery to destroy it. The other buildings in this base are not too bad either. In otherwords, these buildings are here to stay so long as they have the resources to supply them. I guess the long wait to build a base was rewarding....

Spotting a corporeal, the general opens him up for a chat. "Hey you!" says the general. "Yeah." says the corporeal. "Do you want to take control of this base?" says the general. "Wow really?" the corporeal cheers. "Yes, I gtg for now so.." the general trails off. "Well I just logged on", says the corporeal. "Good. Have you done the tutorial..?" the general asks. "Yes, ever since I was a sergeant, I knew I might probably get the chance..." the corporeal explains. "Well good, because I was about to give control of this base to the server, and you know how sucky they are at strategy." the general says. "Lol, I know... Ill be at the command center in about 5 mins." the corpeal types. "Okay, I'll send you the ticket now, then you take control when you get here." says the general, "..and I gtg for now.. so good luck!" "Thanks!" says the corporeal. Five minutes later, the corporeal arrives at the command center. Looking at the birds eye view he has so longed to look through... he is greeted by the threat of three enemy tanks to the north. The corporeal flips on the world chat message. "Hello I'm currently the commander of this base.." the corporeal smiles, having rehearsed this next moment. "It seems we have an intrusion of enemies to the north. Well, we wouldn't want them interrupting our progress, would we?" The chat fills with a plethora of quirky comments. The corporeal does a "world select" selecting all the units within the world, and offers them the Mission to attack the three units in a small 50 meter radius. "Extra experience points for all!" the corporeal grins. The factions units on this planet begin to converge on this location. The three enemy players crap their pants.




Hmpf, they get owned...

Well now you've got a taste of the structure and dynamic of my perspective of this future game. Of course, it is important to recognize that this idea isn't complete, it is not set in stone, and will never be. But what I have stated in this post is quite nearly what I would like to see in a possible Planetside 2. With this idea, you get to see both sides of the war, from the gritty view in the trenches to the informative view at a battle station. This idea coalines with a rising genre in gaming, and would in my opinion make Planetside 2 an original and worthwhile game to play. Well thats all I have. Tell me what you think.

[Kumoblade]

I don't know whether or not you're trying to tell me a story or sell me a used car...

Anywho, in a few of the suggestion threads, I've posted similar requests, however, i'd prefer if you didn't give players complete control of an RTS Element of the game and let the unseen hand do it. With commanders having less control and have the ability to hand out quests for people. Regardless, its good to see someone who has similar ideas for a potentially great game.

I believe there should be resources and an economy.
I believe there should be crafting and various levels of gear. I don't think it should make a huge difference in power though.
I believe levels and battle ranks should be more meaningful than simply Certs.
Your idea would be far from a "static" FPS and would be much more dynamic.

i'd also like to stress emphasis on an actual world/planet to play on that is completely alien/unique and I don't think any 2 locations should look the same. Each fight/battle should be different.

[JackEarthrider]

Interesting ideas

I think that "missions" would have to be given to squads or platoons though to make it doable and not overcomplicated.

Resources are all well and good as long as you dont spend all day gathering (too static, makes you an easy target as well, frustrating when you get killed after gathering a lot and not being able to deposit).

And as for the bases, that sounds like a good idea and all, but bases are always going to be kinda static in an mmo format; in reality, the "commanders" are probably only going to be able to place their stuff in "preset" locations which would make it kinda boring, not to mention decrease the fun factor if you need to rebuild the base 10+ times per week.

(also you wanna make sure the time factor is reduced, anything that takes too long to build wont be rebuilt when its destroyed in seconds.)

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.
All and all interesting ideas, but they need tweaking.

[Firefly]

Keep the PvE crap out of an FPS.

The end.

[DviddLeff]

Commanders need RTS style controls, as it stands the maximum force you can control is 30 people; CR4/5 continent and global chat just doesn't work when 50% of the player base has access.

Squad and platoon leadership should be tied into the CR structure, with commanders only able to give orders to their troops if they are leading squads, platoons or even companies (3 platoons).

CR should cost cert points, and you should only get to use the toys when you are both certified in it AND leading a squad.

Squad leaders should also get Brothers in Arms style context sensitive orders control, able to quickly target an area or enemy and tell his squad to move there or destroy something, rather than have to fiddle about with way points all the time.

Regarding missions, Squad, Platoon and Company leaders could accept them and even create them, telling the rest of the force what they are doing or if there is a higher commander what his troops to do. This should all be easy to control, say just right click on a base on the map and a drop down menu allows you to select your squad to capture the spawn tubes, or a commander does the same for his company, platoons or squads giving them their orders, again context sensitive; right click on a friendly base and you tell your troops to defend it.

Regarding building bases I am all for it, as long as there is the opportunity for variety in them; we need more base designs to fight through, and not just the same buildings again and again.

[Kyonye]

Commanders need RTS style controls, as it stands the maximum force you can control is 30 people; CR4/5 continent and global chat just doesn't work when 50% of the player base has access.

Squad and platoon leadership should be tied into the CR structure, with commanders only able to give orders to their troops if they are leading squads, platoons or even companies (3 platoons).

CR should cost cert points, and you should only get to use the toys when you are both certified in it AND leading a squad.

Squad leaders should also get Brothers in Arms style context sensitive orders control, able to quickly target an area or enemy and tell his squad to move there or destroy something, rather than have to fiddle about with way points all the time.

Regarding missions, Squad, Platoon and Company leaders could accept them and even create them, telling the rest of the force what they are doing or if there is a higher commander what his troops to do. This should all be easy to control, say just right click on a base on the map and a drop down menu allows you to select your squad to capture the spawn tubes, or a commander does the same for his company, platoons or squads giving them their orders, again context sensitive; right click on a friendly base and you tell your troops to defend it.

Regarding building bases I am all for it, as long as there is the opportunity for variety in them; we need more base designs to fight through, and not just the same buildings again and again.



Something I said, somewhere in another post, sometime in the past.... when you get to a point when everyone is a CR5, it just doesn't work out. Everyone is saying, "only listen to me, I know what I'm talking about." Then the response is, "he's a fucking idiot, I've been playing this game for 4 years now."

The only way to really make something like CR work, is if only a certain few players are allowed this ability. Basically, specific people who have played hard and shown leadership abilities. They are then granted leadership rights. Say, a couple at the top controlling everything. then each continent is given leadership, etc. If done right, this would allow for better organization of an entire faction.

As it stands now, and like I said above, you have a ton of people spewing out commands that don't get listened to because others have trained their minds to completely not look at what is being typed, because of all the previous BS that they used to read.

[Kumoblade]

Then I think high Command Rank should be voted upon based on player feedback/relationships who would recommend them.

As such, your CR, besides requiring experience should also be dependent on how many people don't think you're a douchebag order-tossing idiot.

[Tikuto]

A brief thought....

"Ulterior Role" - Purpose of your character. the Soldier - any old character in the field
the Officer - a squad/platoon leader that grants use of commanding equipment and features. Charcter model is distinctly different than the ordinary Soldier. Constricted inventory space allowing special commander equipment (Command Uplink Device and so-on). This equipment only available to Squad leaders, Platoon leaders and Outfit leaders.
the Commander - permanently in a commanding ulterior role (all of Officer's) by being the Outfit leader whether Squad/Platoon leading or not. Possibly includes extraordinary commanding features. Don't like the responsbility? Someone else will do it!

This ulterior role is determined by the position you are in either a leading role or not, and that's going to be either a Squad leader and/or Platoon leader or permanently an as Outfit leader.

[Furret]

perhaps CR should be a ratio between all of the other players?
Not sure if it'd be a good idea, but instead of having a ton of people at CR 5, maybe have the top 1 at CR 10, the next 4 (#2-5) at CR 9, next 14 (6-20) at CR 8, 21-50 at CR 7, 51-100 CR 6, and then you rank up to CR5 by yourself.
So really, theres only 6 command ranks, but everyone who has attained 'CR 6' is put into a ratio of the top 100 CR ranks in the empire. so if you get CR 6, and are the 34th highest CR rank in the NC, you'd be placed at CR 7. If enough people pass you, you're demoted to CR 6. If you get pushed down to #101, you get CR 5 'honors' or something.
Would be an interesting way to keep people with the best CR on top, and not have 500 CR5's spamming global chat with conflicting ideas.

CR10
- Ability to chat empire-wide
- Can give any member of the empire a general command, with a text box for specifics. Also gives green arrow pointing to objective.
- Can set empire-wide waypoints on any continent
- Can draw on minimaps, regular maps, and show up on the ground on all players' screens, seen empire-wide.

CR9
- Same as CR10 without drawings on ground/minimaps, text box for specifics, or green arrow.

CR8
- Same as CR9 without general commands, only specifics like 'crash this point, hack this CC, defend this point, etc.

CR7
- Same as CR8 without empire-wide waypoints, or drawing on regular maps.

CR6
- Only empire-wide chat

[JackEarthrider]

Good idea, making it so that people had to fight to maintain their CR rank would ensure that only the person who was still racking up kills and captures successfully could say or do anything imporant, with everyone else taking a backseat approach.

[Furret]

Right, having a single commander who makes a few bad decisions is better than having 10 commanders who don't make mistakes, but want to go about capturing bases differently.

[Galapogos]

I agree with kumoblade, I think the top command should be voted on, because not all the players who rack up the most kills or xp have much interest in their empire's welfare.

[JackEarthrider]

Not sure about the voting system. Although your right that people who rack up exp and command points all day don't necessarily have their empires best interests at heart they at least have some credibility to back up their talk.

Commanders who are voted in are done so only because a large number of people like them, they could be absolutely horrid commanders, but because so many people are persuaded to vote for them (could easily be done if they led an outfit) then they are automatically granted commander status.

I think if I had to choose between those two evils I would go with the exp whore over the popular guy, no offense.

[Galapogos]

You do have a point, maybe it would work better if players had to meet certain criteria to vote such as xp or base caps.

[Furret]

trying to take the best of both worlds here.

What if the vote feature would only be used to remove someone from office.

The EXP whore gets into CR 10, but if he does a shitty job, he's able to be voted out (to CR 5 honors)

[Kumoblade]

I do believe there should be only so many Commanders barking orders on the field. At Maximum 5. I like the idea of fighting to maintain your position, and adding voting to get jerks out of office and promoting next in line to his spot is a pretty damn good idea.

Only problem I could see is if you have assholes down-voting officers they don't like. However, that happens everywhere you go even in the real world. People will kick a lot of people to try to get above them.

However, you can only restrict assholes so much before they decide to take their business elsewhere.

[Gortha]

I really would love to play THIS Planetside the OP is talking about.

Very good thoughts.

Regards
Gortha

[Sifer2]

It's true the command structure should be better in the sequel so that some especially good leaders can rise to the top through a combination of ingame accomplishment an politics. So that the people in charge know what they are doing an can lead the faction much better.

Something like successfully completely missions an taking structures as a squad leader puts you in the running an then other players can vote you up if they think your good. You would have to keep actively playing too to stay eligible.

[DviddLeff]

The key thing that was wrong about PS command structure was that the most experienced commanders (CR5s) had no reason to carry on commanding, it was even a waste of points for them to carry on doing so.

Sure not all CR5s were decent commanders, but at the very least they had put in the time leading squads.

[Furret]

and all they would do was flame each other on global chat and draw penises on our maps =D
but that was always fun

[Sifer2]

Yeah that's cause they just made it a grind for points. An grinders are the last people you want leading you lol.

I would like to see maybe no more than 20 CR5's per faction. With each one of them having got there because everyone respects them an knows they are good at leading people to win. An of course they have to keep playing regularly to keep the rank so its not something you just earn for the hell of it but more you get there cause you want the job.

[DviddLeff]

http://sites.google.com/site/planetsideupgradeproject/phase-2/command-overhaul

Reduce the number of CR5s by putting them in an actual command structure, only allow them to use their command tools if they are leading a squad/platoon/company and have invested certification points into commanding.

[Vancha]

^
Few things come to mind...

- The people who are most proficient at commanding their empire are restricted to 2 hours a day?

- How are planet commanders decided? Merging 3 companies?

- There's a difference between people who are best at leading and people who want to lead. Won't making command abilities cost cert points cause those who are best at leading on a worldwide/galactic scale but prefer other roles cause them to stop leading entirely?

[DviddLeff]

I suggested the restriction of two hours so that Galaxy Commanders cant hog the role, but as there is a voting system to get rid of them then the restriction would not need to be in place so I have removed it :)

Good question regarding deciding planet commanders (same goes for deciding base and galaxy commanders for that matter). Perhaps allow the relevant commander to put themselves forward for the position but then any other eligible commanders in the base SOI/continent/world the chance to put themselves up as well, then its voted on?

Regarding command taking cert points; I do think this is the best way as commanders have a lot of very useful tools which they get for free anyway; and many more with my proposals. As it stands you get even more people leading that don't want to, as otherwise its simply a waste of CEP and everyone wants to unlock the OS anyway.

[Vancha]

Who would vote, and what would be their motivation? I can't help but think you'd end up with zergfits abusing the system by sheer force of numbers.

Regarding certs, I agree as far as PS, and have no idea with PSN. Hopefully they'll keep both certs *and* the command system in the sequel, but being a new game means they could take them in an entirely different direction.

[DviddLeff]

Id probably have all the squad leaders voting, but the major flaw in the system seems to be that you could get even a small outfit making lots of 2 man squads and skewing the system; but I don't see how to counter this apart from weighting the votes depending on how big the squad/platoon/company is.

In my eyes the cert system is one thing they must keep the same in PSN. The command system works fine as is... for the first 6 months at which point the experienced commanders retire and just pad their kill count with OS strikes and bicker in global chat.

[Vancha]

I certainly hope certs stay practically the same as in PS. Changing to a class system would be unforgivable. Though assuming certs for the sequel, they could still be changed slightly...either in their value or what the choices consist of.

The command system works fine as is... for the first 6 months at which point the experienced commanders retire and just pad their kill count with OS strikes and bicker in global chat.
So we have two problems. Encouraging people to keep commanding and discouraging people from gaining CEP for the wrong reasons.

The second one's easy...change orbital strikes.

- You could remove all personal gain. Give credit to an "Orbital station" and stop them adding to kill count, merit requirements and BEP.

- You could have a CR5 start a vote on using it on a certain base, and if 50% of the CR5s online agree it kills all friendly and enemy troops at a selected base and turns the base neutral (I'm thinking 12-24 hour cooldown for the entire empire).

- Or you could remove them entirely.


The main problem is encouraging people to lead after they reach CR5. I'm thinking there needs to be some kind of CEP decay, so the only way to stay CR5 is to keep commanding. How quickly it would decay, whether it decayed when you were offline, how fast it decayed while you were offline and whether certain actions could accelerate or decelerate the decay would all need to be figured out, of course.

If you consider planetary and galactic commanders to be "macro commanders" and squad/platoon/company leaders to be "micro commanders", this raises a new problem...How does a macro commander continue gaining CEP without resorting to micro command? A macro commander doesn't necessarily want to be leading squads, platoons and companies when they're busy leading the entire empire.

Something similar to your missions system would probably solve this, though there are countless ideas that could be dreamt up I think. I always found the best commanders could tell what would happen before it happened, though I'm not sure how you could implement a system to reward that. You could also reward micro commanders CEP for providing recon to the macro commanders, and reward macro commanders CEP for contributing recon via camera drones and scout video feeds (though I have no idea how CEP-worthy recon would be decided - votes would be too abusable). Presumably the drivers of said scout vehicles would receive BEP/merits for their service.
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Having said ALL That, I never felt that micro commanding and macro commanding had much in common. Perhaps it would be an idea to provide separate ranks and rewards for micro commanding and macro commanding, as well as a way to become a macro commander without micro commanding (a way to get CR5 without leading squads/platoons/companies). Though obviously going down this route of thought throws up a fresh new batch of problems and possibilities.

[DviddLeff]

CEP decay is an idea I've toyed with in the past but overall I dislike it as however yo do it it will have more of a negative affect on casual players than those with more time on their hands (who play more and have less downtime for CEP to decay during).

By getting a commander to invest both time leading squads and cert points towards commanding makes them really decide which role they wish to play as.

Regarding the OS I wish the thing was never implemented, or at least increase the timer so that only a certain number can be deployed in a combat zone every so often. As it is its only really used to target AMS's, and driving them to the front line is one of the most frustrating tasks in the game.

Macro commanders would gain CEP as a percentage of their company or platoons successes, it filtering through to them.

You mention that the best commanders could predict what would happen in the field, and this is totally true. However it is very hard to reward such forethought as typically these commanders would finish fights quickly and with minimal risk; thereby reducing the XP available to the troops and themselves.

Keeping commanders commanding is a big issue, and one way to do this could be to reward success with medals (essentially just the merit system) but rewarding commanders for x amount of base captures or defences or so long commanding a company, platoon or squad. You could even give out medals for earning more and more CEP past CR5 (a bit like martial artists getting different degrees of their black belts).

[Vancha]

have less downtime for CEP to decay during).

During...what?

It sounds like you're assuming the decay happens while they're offline. If it only decayed while they were online, I don't see why it'd be any worse for casual players.

Cert cost - while your ideas are good for discouraging people who want CEP for the wrong reasons, it also pushes away those who may be good at leading but prefer to spend certs on non-command roles. I'm not against your idea if it's the only possibility available, but I think if we can find an alternative way to stop people gaining CEP for OS/chat channels, that'd be preferable.

The OS problem gets solves by removing it or drastically altering it like we've said.

Whether or not global/continent chat should stay and how it would work is something else entirely...and depends on how macro commanding will work in the sequel. Any thoughts on this?


Macro commanders would gain CEP as a percentage of their company or platoons successes, it filtering through to them.
You mean any platoons or companies that take a base on a continent would give CEP to macro commanders (CR5s) on that cont as well? You dismissed CEP decay earlier, so what purpose would this serve?


Rewarding forethought - I agree entirely this would be hard to reward, but you say commanders would try to end fights quickly and cleanly like it's a bad thing. Granted, in Planetside it was, but that was due to fault with the game. Hopefully the flow of battle and the design of bases in the sequel will mean that a decent resistance by the enemy makes a good fight inevitable. Though once again, our inability to know what bases will be like, how they'll be captured, how they'll be built and how we'll be rewarded for capturing them makes this a pointless avenue of conversation I suppose.


Merits - This would definitely hook some people into commanding; good idea!


The more I think and talk about this, the more I think commanding squads/platoons and commanding
globally (galactically?)/continentally should be two separate avenues with their own rewards. That way you could encourage people to lead squads and platoons for the sake of leading squads and platoons, rather than simply being a stepping stone to CR5.

[DviddLeff]

Yeah I was assuming CEP decay during time spent offline as well as when that character is online, but if it only happens when that character is online then it works fine (think Ill add that into my site in fact). This also keeps it worthwhile for commanders to keep commanding, which is one of our main goals here.

Continental and Global messages would now be handled by my Base, Continent/Planet and Galaxy Commanders who would be responsible for giving directions to the troops (no more CR5s bickering and counter ordering for all to see). Commanders would be able to access their command chat for the relevant levels still, but with fewer of them around due to the other changes they would have less idiocy to sift through.

I do feel that the planet and galaxy commanders need to have experience of leading squads and platoons (which in my system they can achieve by putting 3 points towards) and then if they want to take the next step up they can put the extra 2 in and get that opportunity. I want CR to have this cert cost as you get a lot of toys as it is with CR, and even more with my changes; enough to ideally keep commanders busy commanding (and fighting) with little time to perform other tasks. As it is commanders have their CUD with EMP, reveals and their OS, as well as command chat and way points to keep them busy, which is not difficult. With my proposals they would also have camera drones, context sensitive orders (point at a door lock and click, automatically tells your squad to hack it) and a command vehicle to play with.

[Vancha]

I love the idea of command vehicles and camera/defence drones, but I think all these different commanders are too many. As they say..."keep it simple, stupid!" (I'm not calling you stupid).

Sergeants - What's the benefit? Do we want a second person in squads receiving CEP when the idea is to cut down on non-commanding commanders?

Company leaders - I think these guys are redundant. Do you really need a person to lead the three people leading the 9 people leading squads? You could probably scrap the company idea and simply allow more squads into a platoon...or cut the squads in a platoon down to two, and have 6 squads in a company, then you'd end up with 3 platoons leaders and 6 squad leaders. I'm fairly sure between the nine of them they'd have suitable control over everyone without a company leader (assuming the squad leaders and platoon leaders had a channel they could communicate in).
If you're going to have company leaders, they need to have at least 8 platoons to make them worthwhile imo.

Planet+Galactic commanders - If Auraxis returns as a planet in the sequel, I'm guessing these would turn into planetary and continental commanders. ;)
Is there any reason to have a separate galactic commander beyond trying to fix global chat abuse? I can't help but think that putting the power and responsibility into a single galactic commander alone would spawn a thousand new problems.

[DviddLeff]

Sergeants - What's the benefit? Do we want a second person in squads receiving CEP when the idea is to cut down on non-commanding commanders?
The main idea behind the squad sergeant is that you then have a chance to split your squad in two and go after two separate targets/objectives. This is primarily designed to allow the sergeant to use the context sensitive key to direct the part of the squad that is with him quickly and efficiently. For example the squad enters a base and the SL wants to split the squad, half to attack the generator as a distraction and half to take the CC. The sergeant takes the distraction force down tot he gen while the SL leads to the cc both issuing quick orders to their troops as they go.

The Sergeant also gives new or inexperienced commanders a chance to start leading troops without all the responsibility of an SL.

Company leaders - I think these guys are redundant. Do you really need a person to lead the three people leading the 9 people leading squads? .... If you're going to have company leaders, they need to have at least 8 platoons to make them worthwhile imo.
Good point; in my proposal we go from having no separate leaders to having 4 of them. Perhaps tweak a company size to whatever the population limit is on a continent/world; in the current game that's 133 people per faction if memory serves, while my company only has 94 people. If we add another platoon onto our company (31 players) we then have 125 players including 5 (4 platoon leaders and the company leader). Leaves us with 8 left over, so we could stick 5 troops into a command squad with the leaders as body guards.

It is still a lot of leaders, but I do think they will be kept busy and more importantly useful analysing the battlefield and their troops and directing them; the company leader looking at the whole continent/planets strategy and the platoon leaders focusing on the individual battles. Then the squad leaders focus on small unit tactics.

I see the command structure as essentially providing radically different game play within PS, represented most by the following games:
Trooper: Standard team FPS eg Battlefield or CoD
Squad Leader/Sergeant: Brothers in Arms or Star Wars: Republic Commando
Platoon Leader/Base Commander: Company of Heroes or Dawn of War
Company Leader/Planet Commander: Supreme Commander


Planet+Galactic commanders - If Auraxis returns as a planet in the sequel, I'm guessing these would turn into planetary and continental commanders. ;)
Yep

Is there any reason to have a separate galactic commander beyond trying to fix global chat abuse? I can't help but think that putting the power and responsibility into a single galactic commander alone would spawn a thousand new problems.
Other than the reason you stated it gives players the chance to really stand out and make a massive difference to the entire game world; everyone will remember and respect a good galactic commander (or a terrible one) and attribute success or failure to them. Most MMOs try to make everyone the hero yet only succeed in making everyone the same, and only a few MMOs try any different (Archlord tried). Remember that any commander could be voted out if they are poor.

[Vancha]

Sergeants:
Seeing as these guys are only used as either a half-a-squad sub-leader, do they really need to retain all their command abilities? I could understand a sergeant in command chat or sitrepping (maybe firing an EMP), but having them pull command vehicles or fire off an OS would seem slightly "beyond" a sergeant. Perhaps restrict them to CR3 commands and below?

Also, I still think rewarding CEP to these guys may pervert the purpose of the role. If you take the CEP reward away, it ensures the sergeants have chosen that position to lead in some capacity rather than leeching CEP.


Companies:
I understand your direction, but I don't think it would translate to the game. In that 133 population cap, there are so many people who are either solo, in an outfit-only squad/platoon or in a zombie-squad (no leading/direction going on), I don't think you'd get enough people together to form a worthwhile company.

Same with the RTS comparisons. It's a nice idea but I don't think it would translate. The current CR5 is the only command rank that starts to feel anything like RTS commanding, and that's on a far more fluid scale than commanding individual squads or platoons.

Speaking of fluidity, it's also worth considering the amount of people who want to be lead. The majority of people at the big fights in PS aren't there because their commanders want them to be, but because that's where the fight is. The zerg can't be controlled by commanders...it's like a flow of water, you can guide it, block off some paths and try digging others, but it will largely go where it wants to go.


Galactic commanders:
everyone will remember and respect a good galactic commander (or a terrible one) and attribute success or failure to them.
This is what I'm worried about. By having a single mouthpiece, that one person is blamed for any mistakes that the empire's command makes as a whole. You also make it so that person has the sole control over the empire, which means they can over-ride the entire command section's decisions and create all sorts of drama.

Again, a brilliant idea if it worked as you envision it, but when translated into the game I think it could be disastrous. You need to consider what this could do in the hands of the worst kinds of people.

[DviddLeff]

Good point about restricting Sergeants to CR5 abilities; no need for them to have command vehicles and OS strikes.

CEP rewards for them I think they can earn however I need to think of some way of making them earn it rather than it just being given it just for filling the role...

You have hit on one thing I really want to do with companies; zerg-herding.

CR5s have always felt that zerg-herding was like pulling teeth; I am seeing squad and platoon missions as being methods of getting the zerg do follow the guidance of ultimately the CR5s. By giving them tasty experience rewards and merits for simply completing missions we should get more people doing so. The zerg is selfish; it has always gone for the biggest fights rather than the tactical choice which usually results in them hitting the closest base until it cracks. By giving them more XP for following orders rather than just butting heads with the enemy you can get them working for the CR5s. Look at support XP; when that was implemented many more players started being a lot more supportive; not necessarily because they wanted to help, but because they wanted the XP.

Are you happy with a single continental/planet commander? Is it just the galaxy commander you disagree with?

[Vancha]

CR5s have always felt that zerg-herding was like pulling teeth; I am seeing squad and platoon missions as being methods of getting the zerg do follow the guidance of ultimately the CR5s. By giving them tasty experience rewards and merits for simply completing missions we should get more people doing so. The zerg is selfish; it has always gone for the biggest fights rather than the tactical choice which usually results in them hitting the closest base until it cracks. By giving them more XP for following orders rather than just butting heads with the enemy you can get them working for the CR5s. Look at support XP; when that was implemented many more players started being a lot more supportive; not necessarily because they wanted to help, but because they wanted the XP.
I had a thought similar to this, but I also thought you might end up with a lot of people who resented "missing out" on XP by preferring to play their own way. The support XP worked because it rewarded people who before, were missing out on XP by helping the empire. It allowed people to play other roles and still benefit. I agree that some kind of reward system would help commanders guide the zerg, but I think you need to be careful not to have people missing out too much if they decide they'd rather do their own thing.

Also, you said you want companies to help with zerg herding, but go on to say it's CR5s who give out the missions to help control the zerg. Are you sure that whatever roles you have in mind for companies couldn't be adequately filled by CR5s?

The only objection I have to a single galactic commander is that he's the only one who can global. Personally I think both galactic and planetary command would be better spread among all the CR5s, but your system might work too...I'm still not sure how planetary commanders are decided though.

Wait a second...If planetary commanders are the only ones who decide primary/secondary targets, what can the other CR5s do to continue gaining CEP, apart from leading squads/platoons (infringing on lower CR's territory)? Between the galactic commander, planetary commander and company leader, you have 3 CR5s getting CEP for taking planets/bases...add another 2 CR5s for a planetary commander and company leader fighting on another planet, so you end up with 5 CR5s getting CEP out of an empires-worth?

[DviddLeff]

Hmm good point.

However remember that we are having our commanders actually commanding now, not just sitting around bickering while they whore for kills or run with their squads... CR5s dont have to only command planet/galaxy wide; due to CEP decay they can carry on leading squads and the extra command tools cater for that by providing them more equipment to use to directly aid their squads.

CR5 will therefore still be in the population; and they could retain their CR5 chat and then they really will have earned it by actively commanding recently; not 5 years ago.

Say you have just one pop lock; you have at least 1 company commander, 4 platoon leaders, 12 squad leaders and then another 12 squad sergeants. That is 29 people in the zone earning CEP. Sure they don't have to be CR5 but they could be, in fact CR5s should have more experience and also have more tools so they can do a better job leading.

I am happy to make the galactic commander role filled by the CR5s online voting for targets, I just worry it will slow the whole system down and keep it as the bickering and counter globalling we see now; but if the CR5s are actually leading then they have a squad/platoon/company to think about and ensure they are having fun and completing missions.