Command Ranks

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Figment

I just wonder how you are going to compare and get to know if a leader is worth following.

lol yea.

I don't like it. Too elitist.

you know the current method worked fine, at least until servers merged into Gemini and pops dropped low.

I know on Werner TR we used to work out our priorities pretty well using command chat alone. If we were undecided on a target someone would call for a vote.

There was no counter-globalling.

In the early days with larger pops there used to be continental commanders for each cont we were fighting on.

Two further points .... if a large outfit doesn't agree and don't have one of these 'super commanders' they'll go elsewhere no matter what the 'supermen' say.
If an person in a platoon obeys a 'super commander' rather than their platoon leader .... kicky kicky and platoon commanders+outfits are undermined.

[Warborn]

I like the idea. They should add a "leader browser" where you can see all the people who've signed up as a leader and maybe those potential leaders can write a brief statement about what kind of missions they'll be making.

Also, I laughed at the "I don't want to see leadership become a popularity contest" remark. It is a popularity contest. And besides, it's approximately thirteen billion times better than the stupid command rank system in PS1. Oh hey, I spent a couple months spam-inviting people to my squads, now I can talk on global chat to let everyone in my empire know I'm a big retard. Great command system.

[CutterJohn]

Well, I like that its not a rank, so thats good. I'm not too keen on the implementation, though, and as OP says, the fact that 'following' them is devoid of any effort or sacrifice on another players part just means there will be popularity contest aspects to it.

I personally feel that you should only get 1 'follow', and thats your squad leader. Your squad leader can then follow the platoon leader, and the platoon leader follows the brigade leader, etc, and these are the people who get command tools and can set missions.

Does two things. First, you have to put your money where your mouth is by actually joining up with the person you want in charge.

2nd, it kind forms a series of delegates, i.e. the squad leaders, platoon leaders, etc, who will be more likely to know whats going on.

[Figment]

Another thing is that it may lead to a more fractured, incoherent empire strategy. So I'd really like to know how this is coordinated between commanders.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Well, I like that its not a rank, so thats good. I'm not too keen on the implementation, though, and as OP says, the fact that 'following' them is devoid of any effort or sacrifice on another players part just means there will be popularity contest aspects to it.

I personally feel that you should only get 1 'follow', and thats your squad leader. Your squad leader can then follow the platoon leader, and the platoon leader follows the brigade leader, etc, and these are the people who get command tools and can set missions.

Does two things. First, you have to put your money where your mouth is by actually joining up with the person you want in charge.

2nd, it kind forms a series of delegates, i.e. the squad leaders, platoon leaders, etc, who will be more likely to know whats going on.

This works and I'm for it. Instead of all the players following x commander taking up missions individually it would work like this: Platoon leaders have missions given by the commander, they set there own missions with the goal of accomplishing the mission, the squad leaders have these missions and set their own goals for their squads in order to accomplish their goals.

Tie it all together with a good voip system and you've got something that works well, has a command structure and won't turn into a giant mess of hundreds of people all trying to achieve the same goal via the same orders but instead via unit group tactics on the ground, on the initiative of the leaders of every group.

Allow squad leaders to speak to their squad on 1 button and their platoon leaders on another. Allow platoon leaders to speak to each individual squad leader or to all squad leaders at once. Allow Commander to speak to platoon leaders.

Tie all of it together with directional/area/distance voip so that players on the ground can converse with other squads directly around them too, allowing on the fly tactics or warnings based on the current situation, or warning that vanguard patrol of trouble up ahead as they're about to steam past you into a horde, and you've got a winner.

I really think area/distance based voip will be the thing that can pull people away from private voip, works phenomenally well in Project Reality. I will personally fucking hate every idiot on private voip that can't contribute or hear the needs or warnings of the rest of his faction. It is the most annoying thing on PR, a person not able to hear those around him is completely and utterly useless.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Warborn

I like the idea. They should add a "leader browser" where you can see all the people who've signed up as a leader and maybe those potential leaders can write a brief statement about what kind of missions they'll be making.

Also, I laughed at the "I don't want to see leadership become a popularity contest" remark. It is a popularity contest. And besides, it's approximately thirteen billion times better than the stupid command rank system in PS1. Oh hey, I spent a couple months spam-inviting people to my squads, now I can talk on global chat to let everyone in my empire know I'm a big retard. Great command system.

In my outfit we don't have an outfit leader we have 5. These five form a council who, well, lead the outfit both in game and out.

In addition to that we have senior and junior officers who would lead squads in game.

We'd produce a lot of cr5's. However, we made sure that everyone that got cr5 earned it by leading the platoon properly. Properly mean not spam inviting then slpping down a waypoint but choosing considered strategic/tactical targets, deciding on the mode of attack/defence and issuing instructions to carry out the plan.

This is a big step backwards imho. At the moment is sounds like we're getting a faster fps and a zerg mentality.

[Sabrak]

I see what you did here, Higby!

You know you're gonna get the most "followers", which would officially, and in-game, give you the New Conglomerate High Commander rank.

[Coreldan]

I think the system sounds cool in a way, but say, if I'm the leader of my outfit and require my members to follow me, can I follow someone higher up?

I sorta planned my outfit to be more of the.. executing sort. Take the orders from a big time commanders and just focus on leading my bunch. So yeah, can I follow "the badassest" leader of NC and then select a mission from him, that then my guys get?

I guess there is a chance this wont work out as they had planned, some scenarios were already brought up here, I guess then they'll just have to change it in beta. I guess sorta like the addition of lattice system

[megamold]

i like the sound of the new system, it might be a popularity contest in some cases where the guy is not a leader and still has quite the following
but i think the actual great leaders will have many more.
and since you can pick and choose wich players you want to follow ,its your own choice so i will only have descent leaders in my list

i think the leaders should be rated outside of the number of followers with some sort of "score" but the cr5 thing wasnt perfect either cause after a while you get a buttload of cr5's and you have no clue if they are actually any good cause they might have just farmed a long time for the xp, just to be able to say "hey look at me im cr5! watch me OS this tree!"

[SpLiTNuTz]

Bring back cr5 back packs!

[Mightymouser]

The biggest problem I see with this is that Outfit Leaders of large outfits are automatically going to be at the top of the list. As anyone who played PS1 for any length of time knows, the largest outfits were zergfits which invited anyone who had [No Outfit] under their name; these people shouldn't be sent to the top of the command structure just because they can type /outfitinvite, and then tell everyone to 'follow' them...

I think the most ideal way to solve this would be to simply make it so you automatically 'follow' your outfit commander(s), and then not count those intra-outfit followers as part of a commander's actual count. It's still a 'popularity contest', but at least this way the system isn't skewed towards the larger outfits.


Also, does this only affect the mission system? Is there perhaps still another path to /c channels and /comXX channels (if such channels still exist)? I'd like to see /c saved at least, as there were many valuable discussions held there (despite the spam); and it really helped build the feeling of intra-empire leadership. I don't think it could really be replaced by /sl or /pl (channels which both exist in PS1, and which are both relatively useless), primarily because there are times when multiple people from an outfit (who are likely squaded together) all have valuable input to give, and veterans (here meaning PS2 veterans, who have earned their stripes in the new game) should have constant access to the channel so the empire can benefit from their experience.


Edit: Another flaw I can imagine here would be that this system would seemingly make it very difficult to 'unseat' an older commander, meaning once a person made it to the top of this list, it would be difficult for a new commander to ever shine through his shadow. This wasn't an issue with the PS1 system, as all CR5s were essentially equal (except that players learned who to listen to, and who to ignore); however if the new system is going to have some sort of hierarchy, how are new commanders going to get the chance to advance? (especially as the game ages, and a commander might have many 'followers' who don't even log in anymore, though I suppose that could be solved by putting a time-out on 'following')

[Mastachief]

How about startrek online system of star ratings for user set missions.

Listing the outfit that said leader is in and let people use that along with a star rating to gauge their interest in missions.

So for example:
xXiliketodefendtheccinasparrowXx - Bluelions(1390 Members) - 5/5star rating over 2months

Hmm lets not do that one folks.

Or

Braveheart - MercenaryS (80 Members) - 4.8star rating over 2years

Kinda along the lines of popular auction sites, leaders would build reputation properly over time based on quality rather than quantity ratings.

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Personally i am really keen to see a better command structure than planetside has, I became CR5 around Christmas 2003 iirc and it had already started to go downhill. Then they made it ridiculously easy to get without having to actually earn your knowledge by actively leading squads.

[WarChimp130]

I think this is one of those things that will start out annoying but work itself out. If a certain person keeps making missions that fail people are going to stop following them eventually. Personal greed for xp and resources should see to that. So while it might start out that some zerging moron has a ton of followers, as they lose missions they should followers.

It should sort itself out within a few weeks I imagine.

[ringring]

There is a big lack of detail on this idea. For instance:
How do the 'leaders' get elected?
How long do they serve?
Does every single individual sign up to the 'great leader' missions?
Do the candidates conduct election campaigns?

Perhaps with 5k people per continent and with an expected huge influx of casual players something more than the old ps command mechanism is necessary. However I would first go in the direction of adding more structure, ie squad/platoons/companies/Brigades.

The two aspects of ps that made people continue with it for so long were their outfits/friends and the metagame ... by whatever method the new game needs these too.

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by ringring

There is a big lack of detail on this idea. For instance:
How do the 'leaders' get elected?
How long do they serve?
Does every single individual sign up to the 'great leader' missions?
Do the candidates conduct election campaigns?

Higby didn't imply this was an actual elected leadership thing. Having it work where people "subscribe" to certain leaders solves the problem itself. Let anyone essentially put themselves forward as a leader, and let people naturally gravitate toward the person who is setting missions that produce the best results while also being around the most to provide those missions. That's what people who weren't bogged down in partisan foolishness did in PS1. The guys who were around consistently and weren't drooling retards had people listen to them when they called for a shift to a new continent or whatever.

Also, the old command rank system was completely irredeemable and virtually none of the people who were CR5 were CR5 because they were anything like good leaders. Smart outfits naturally worked toward building up a roster of people with CR5 to get more orbital strikes/EMPs/etc to throw around. Letting leaders become apparent organically, based on nothing more than the results they produce, and not tying stupid shit like orbital strikes to the thing, that's a far better way to handle command rank. So this is absolutely a step forward. Anything that departs from PS1's system is a step forward at this point.

The only caveat is that if literally anyone can just put themselves forward as mission-providing leaders for their entire empire you might wind up with too many, making it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. So perhaps only people who are paying for the game via a membership should be able to set missions and function as leaders.