Command Ranks

[DayOne]

I think the missions should pass down through the chain of command, something like this:

Squad A\
Squad B.\
..............|--Outfit leader A\
Squad C./..........................\
Squad D/.............................\
............................................|---Random good leader guy
Squad A\............................../
Squad B.\.........................../
..............|--Outfit leader B/
Squad C./
Squad D/

Random leader guy sets a mission. The outfit leaders following him see that mission and can now pass parts of that mission down to their squad leaders. who go about completing the mission with their squad.

Example:
Random leader guy sets mission to take a base.

Outfit A is mostly air units, the leader sets squads A, B, C to give air cover in that region. Mission XP is earned by keeping air units in that area and taking out enemy air units.

Leader A then sets squad D, their infantry units, to go into the base and capture it.

Meanwhile outfit B is an infantry specialised outfit. The leader sends all squads into the base to capture it. The outfit leader will tell the squad leaders where to attack. Outfit A, squad D will be relieved that there is an infantry outfit there to support them.

[nomotog]

Originally Posted by Figment

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

I think the commanders are going to have to advertise.

[Death2All]

Originally Posted by 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.

They could perhaps make it so that you would have to be a certain BR, Outfit rank within the outfit and acquire a certain number of outfit points (assuming their are outfit points) to be able to follow a commander. A potential way to prevent outfit leaders from getting a ton of easy zerg followers.

I think they hinted that /c chat could be coming back. I think it could be a WHOLE lot better this time around as leadership is more of a choice than a separate XP bar to grind out. It would be really bad to hinder commanders and make them unable to communicate and coordinate with one another.

[WarrantOfficer]

There isn't really a 'popularity' contest as you would probably imagine in this system, a similar setup is in Aces High 2 which features a persistent world and anyone can create a mission.

The only real issue I could see with this is if the community closes itself off and never communicates ingame (see Xbox Live) If that happens missions will very quickly turn from public orginazation into 'friends only' sort of things, which is just awful. Players should be willing to organize and associate with other players they don't know.

When good commanders are being ignored by pubs ingame that would rather do their own deleterious action and bring the collective down rather than co-operate with the team, it will be the end of team work in planetside. People that played NC recently in PS1 will know what I mean, a good 50% of the NC pop would rather shoot phoenixs at empty bases all day instead of defending planet capitals.

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by DayOne

I think the missions should pass down through the chain of command, something like this:

Squad A
Squad B.
..............|--Outfit leader A
Squad C./..........................
Squad D/.............................
............................................|---Random good leader guy
Squad A............................../
Squad B............................/
..............|--Outfit leader B/
Squad C./
Squad D/

Random leader guy sets a mission. The outfit leaders following him see that mission and can now pass parts of that mission down to their squad leaders. who go about completing the mission with their squad.

Example:
Random leader guy sets mission to take a base.

Outfit A is mostly air units, the leader sets squads A, B, C to give air cover in that region. Mission XP is earned by keeping air units in that area and taking out enemy air units.

Leader A then sets squad D, their infantry units, to go into the base and capture it.

Meanwhile outfit B is an infantry specialised outfit. The leader sends all squads into the base to capture it. The outfit leader will tell the squad leaders where to attack. Outfit A, squad D will be relieved that there is an infantry outfit there to support them.

This is exactly what I want too! I think it can still be done in the twitter fashion. The outfit leaders "follow" the "badass leader" who can give the orders to outfit leaders, from which outfit leaders select what do they do or even give their own squads several different missions (depending what kind of missions we are talking about).

But how does that go together with people outside outfits. I guess random squads can also follow the badass leader and take on assignments. But I do agree that there definitely needs to be some good chain of command kinda thing where the outfit leader being followed doenst have to make the plans himself. Good outfit leader isnt necessarily the best strategist

[robocpf1]

A couple of points -

We don't know whether this "follower" system will be permanent out of game. I'd much rather envision this as a system where you only see how many people someone is being followed by that are currently in-game, right then. Someone made the point that people that start earlier in the game will have thousands of followers and it will be difficult for new commanders to catch up or get out of that person's shadow - I think (I HOPE) this is a non-issue. Twitter is a good analogy for the basic idea, but Twitter is a permanent-follower system. You click "follow" then you follow that person until the end of time or until you unfollow them.

In PS2, I'm imagining you have to choose who to follow every time you log in. Otherwise people can make loads of alts to follow them and never log them in again. You log in, see "Oh hey CommanderX is online" and click to follow them. When you log off, you're no longer following him actively (perhaps there is a "non-active" follower list so you can save favorites, but this wouldn't affect what kind of missions the commander can deploy). So the number that gives a commander that ability to deploy better missions is directly based on how many followers he has that are online, right then.

In answer to someone else's point about a different cert point system for CR, I have to disagree. By having the same cert points for all the branches, even leadership, you ensure that people have to sacrifice some of their equipment to be leaders, which weeds out some of the people that just want to shout at people. If they have to choose between being a leader and having a super rifle, a lot of people will take the rifle.

On the note of large outfits being unjustly powerful - again, I don't see it as a real issue. It's always a matter of choice - just because HugeOutfitLeader1 has all of his outfit following him, you don't have to. But you CAN, and in some cases why wouldn't you? What if HugeOutfit1 is really on point today and you want to go where they're going? Click follow on their outfit leader, and boom. You have access to what they're doing. I see this is an advantage, not a disadvantage.

[Coreldan]

I personally expected it to be "session based", any and all followers naturally drop as soon as you log out.

[DayOne]

Maybe you can toggle permanent follows for outfit leaders.

[Hmr85]

Its sounds like a great idea. But lets be honest here. The zerg is gonna do what the zerg wants to do. Where ever there is the best fight count on them sitting there for the next week and not moving. You can be the best commander in the world but its not going to make a dam difference. We have seen it happen over and over. What its really going to come down to is who has the biggest outfit. Outfits will be leading this game not randoms.

With that said I do like the system Higby stated though.

[Coreldan]

Well, I dont think the follows have to always be non-permanent, just dont make offline players count, easy as that.

Then again, then the leaders have to start off from scratch in every session (Higby mentioned something about more followers -> cooler missions, though?), but a good leader will soon pick up followers when he gets online, just like now.

[Graywolves]

I like the idea of the top leader having "priority" or showing up first.


The bigger benefits thing though seems very highly exploitable though and will probably lead to having a handful of commanders who everyone is going to follow because they already have the most followers, compounding on the advantage.

[sylphaen]

Just to highlight this point again.

Planetside has TWO command structures:
- a public structure (command ranks)
- a private structure (outfits)

The glue bridging both together was possibility of joining random/outfit squads through the group menu,

____________________________

PS2 will keep the same model:
- a personalized public structure (twitter-style Command stalking)
- a private structure (outfits)

This time, the bridge from zerg to outfit seems to be the mission system along with random/outfit squads.

_________________________

One last point: the twitter style CR will be a kind of many zerg outfit structured from the top (i.e. leaders) where "outfit members" (i.e. the followers) play solo with a common objective (i.e. the mission).

It's a model based on decentralized leadership and solo gameplay. (caters to casuals (zerg, noob, 20-minute players))

Outfits will be the home for serious teamplayers.

Voila ! All kinds of players satisfied with their command structure ! (since it was personally chosen)

[Figment]

Once upon a time I wrote a command revision suggestion. Note, these are taken from a thread made in 2007 purely for PS1 and is not adapted to PS2 at all.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/po...id=88000012939

Of course at the time I did not consider that free accounts could be made to create sister outfits and rig votes. Hence why it probably does not work for PS2. However, it seems they may have taken some ideas out of it with the whole commander certification tree and outfit bonusses. >.>

They did say they scoured PSIdealabs once.

You can skip it if you want.

The system I'm proposing is basically a cross between Battlefield 2s voting system and C&C's Generals promotion system, integrated into the Planetside Command Rank system.



Basically, Cr 1 to Cr3 will remain the same as it is now. Cr4 and Cr5 however, will be expanded quite a bit. Cr4 and Cr5 will be divided in SIX star levels. 0 to 5 stars.

Once you reach Cr4 level, you will be awarded 1 star. See it as being a rookie Cr of that level. You will obtain the Reveal Enemies as you do now and access to Cr4 /c. You will also be awarded the option to upgrade ONE of your abilities or obtain a new one:

• Upgrade Cr3 blast to Cr4 EMP blast
• Upgrade Cr4 /c to Contall ability
• Obtain Mini-OS
• Squadleader Bonus (affects squad's/platoon's abilities) - only work when you lead squads.

You'll also receive an Outfit Leader bonus if you're OL of an outfit, enhancing your outfit's capabilities in a particular field. For example, 10% increased vehicle armour for units driven by your outfit members. Perhaps some of these could cost Outfit Points to use. Think of it as the upgrades you can give vehicles or troops in C&C games.

At Cr5 stars 1 to 4, the same thing happens, starting at 1 star, you retain the upgrades you had as a Cr4, but you can now also select basic CR5 upgrades:

• Cr4 upgrades you didn't have yet
• Upgrade Cr4 EMP to Cr5 EMP
• Upgrade Mini-OS to Large-OS (Mini-OS is a prerequesit)
• Upgrade /c to /contall and /comall ability (Cr4 contall is not a prerequesit)
• More Squadleader Bonus options (some with prerequesits for specialisation) - only work when you lead squads

Five Star Cr5 upgrades:

• Set Empire Homebase (works like platoon homebase, but only within the continent).
• Order Empire Recall to Homebase (comes with Setting Homebase ability and only works for troops on a continent, not outside of it) - works as a squad recall
• Order Empire Recall to Sanctuary (global ability) - works as a squad recall
• If you're Outfit Leader, a second Outfit Leader Bonus would be awarded.

STARS
Since you have 1 star, you can only obtain one upgrade. To obtain more stars, you'll have to convince people from other outfits to rank you higher. You can probably best do this by leading conts well, supporting others and being good for morale, things that are positive for everyone around you. You'll find that if you abuse your abilities, people will 'demote' you by adding less or zero stars to your name, potentially revoking you the right to your upgrades if you had multiple stars, but most importantly, it will disallow you to send com messages. (Particularly spammers can be shut off this way). You will still retain access to /c.


Voting and Main Character concept

Voting is very simple. Next to the Outfit List, there will be a Commander List. Each and every commander of Cr4 and higher is listed here (and can be sorted by activity and outfit). Behind their names, their Star Rank and Cr4 or Cr5 rank is listed. You can then assign, much like you assign favourite songs in Windows Media Player, stars to each commander, or zero stars to vote to revoke their com powers.

To prevent abuse, only 5 people per outfit may vote on a single person, where the top 5 ratings will be used to determine the rating. No Outfitters may not vote, as they're not part of the ranking system. They may be voted for though and you won't lose your votes by leaving an outfit. Just your right to vote. Also, I would propose the introduction of a Main Character, where each account has a Main Character he or she can always log on to. Only the Main Character can vote. You can only have one Main Character per server, so you can only vote for one Empire. This would remove the potential of Outfit Rank Spam and Abuse seeing as to get a 5 star Cr5, you'll have to do well with at least 5 people from ten different outfits.

Note that the existence of a Main Character should increase empire loyalty. A Main Character may only be changed once every month, but any votes given on the old Main will be frozen and inactive. Your first created character is by default your Main Character.

Required amount of votes:

0 Stars - 50 0 Stars votes (spread over 10 outfits minimum)
1 Stars - 10 1+ Stars votes (spread over 2 outfits minimum
2 Stars - 20 2+ Stars votes (spread over 4 outfits minimum)
3 Stars - 30 3+ Stars votes (spread over 6 outfits minimum)
4 Stars - 40 4+ Stars votes (spread over 8 outfits minimum)
5 Stars - 50 5 Stars votes (spread over 8 outfits minimum)


Popularity and goal of this system

This basically means a large portion of this system would be popularity. Is this a bad thing? Not really, because the popularity reflects your popularity within other outfits and thus their trust in your capabilities to lead them as well. It's not an outfit popularity question.

This system as such is aimed at helping and rewarding those that actively aid the Empire. Particularly those that would take the effort to lead will be rewarded, as they would be more commonly known. Those people that are less known and quieter on /c, but do their bit for the empire, will most likely be known to the Cr5s and Cr4s, so they and their outfit would/should aid in giving them promotions, despite not making many if any comms. Next to that, it would obstruct global spam and global abuse by directly punishing those that abuse their Cr powers to grief or spam.

Eventually you'd get a clearer hierarchy within command systems.

Note that people who were ousted from global coms can undo that by doing their bit for the empire, without abusing their powers, resulting in people regiving them stars instead of their old zero star vote. But you'll have to do well to compensate, because a lot of people are not easy on forgiving you.


Cr4 to Cr5 progress and selecting upgrades

You can only receive the max number of upgrades, once you've been a Star 5 Cr4. This should encourage you to do your best on Cr4 in service of the empire because it's largely in your own interest. This will also wead out the lesser and less interested commanders from having the same amount of powers as the best leaders your empire has to offer. Apart from contall/comall, you can not lose your Cr4 upgrades once you've been promoted as a five star Cr4 to Cr5. Even at star 0, you will retain one upgrade per rank above Cr3 (the free upgrade that came with your increased rank), but you may not global or contall. So if you're a 0 Star Cr5, you can still have your large OS, but no other upgrades.

You should be able to switch upgrades like you do certs, because not everyone will always want to lead, or realise later on they want to specialise differently. As a Cr5, you have the amount of abilities you can get through your Cr5 stars, on top of the amount of abilities you gained when you were Cr4.

Note that this will mean that only the good and respected Cr4s could get the full amount of upgrades, which will show in Cr5. CEP [Removed for Content] probably won't have time to reach 5 star Cr4, making "Nub Cr5s" less
powerfull.


Specialisation

Some Cr4s and higher will want to specialise as Squadleaders, Global Leaders or not be interested in that and just want their OS. All of this is possible. You can specialise in Squadleader upgrades (Squad Bonusses), Empire upgrades (Command Upgrades), or personal upgrades (EMP/OS Upgrades). But you can do more so if you invest a lot in your empire and comrades, because they can and will reward you for your efforts.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b...R_Revision.jpg

The chart to my 'Command System Revision' idea. Note that at two star Cr4/Cr5 you could choose to be as powerfull as you would currently be, minus the comall (or minus one EMP or OS upgrade). You could however also specialise in diverse types of platoon or squadleading, or Empire command.

The only killwhore related items are the two small and big OS types, the rest has influences on your squad or platoon, or empire.



You could make these Squad and Platoon Leader upgrades things like:

• +10% Armour for infantry in squad (per bonus)
• +10% Stamina for infantry in squad (per bonus)
• +10% Ground Vehicle Armor for ground vehicles in squad (per bonus)
• +10% Air Vehicle Armor for air units in squad (per bonus)
• +10% Damage Output for infantry (and/or) vehicles in squad (per bonus)
• +10% Capacitator Usage for squad (per bonus) - Increases duration of Afterburners, MAXes, BFRs, etc. by 10%
• +10% Support Speed for engis/medics in squad

• +5% Armour for infantry in platoon (per bonus)
• +5% Stamina for for infantry in platoon (per bonus)
• +5% Ground Vehicle Armor for ground vehicles in platoon (per bonus)
• +5% Air Vehicle Armor for air units in platoon (per bonus)
• +5% Damage Output for infantry (and/or) vehicles in platoon (per bonus)
• +5% Capacitator Usage for squad (per bonus) - Increases duration of Afterburners, MAXes, BFRs, etc by 5%.
• +5% Support Speed for engis/medics in platoon

These would only go into effect within a Base SOI of the Squad or Platoonleader. If the leader is removed from the area or you go out of range, you lose the benefit upon next death/spawn, much like the removal of a health module affects your health.

Likewise Cr4/Cr5 OL's could select these or other type of upgrades to go for their entire Outfit (max of two upgrades per outfit). For example you could add specialisations like:

• Infantry
• Ground Vehicles
• Air Vehicles
• Support
• Other
• That could be something like the squad incentives but permanent for said Outfit, mainly increasing the ability of outfit members in particular fields, encouraging outfit specialisation.

Obviously these would only go into effect when you're squad or platoon leader. Promoting Crs to lead their platoon, despite having all their CR power. Making outfits chose between handing out free CEP to non-leaders, or having the true leaders lead so they gain combat advantages. This would also provide extra incentives to join squads and outfits, promoting teamwork as well.

[sylphaen]

PS2 will be a very different game than PS1 though... And command mechanics even more so, based on what Higby said.

Edit: and just so you know where I stand, I am against having strong priviledges given to command ranks (if there is even a rank structure in PS2). The reward of command should be... commanding. Not combat rewards.

[EVILPIG]

I'm not seeing what the problem is to those who do not like it? Gaining Command XP will only allow you to unlock command tools. Those tools will only affect those who are following you.

Global Chat is dead. The devs saw the spam and nixed the shiit out of it. Commanders will not get "command weaponry", such as the Orbital Strike. It's all command tools. You will only see the chat of those you follow.