What we need for command

[Mackenz]

I actually like the twitter-like system, although at first blush, it seems pretty exploitable. But as long it has suitable refinements (further below), I think it has a chance to work.

First off, any system is exploitable, *especially* computer generated leader boards. Got 10 guys in NC and 10 in TR trading an outpost over and over = win for example. The variations are endless, and I think the devs recognise they will be fighting a lost battle no matter how smart the computer arbitration tries to be.

So, it seems like twitter leadership will be a leader popularity contest gamed by an outfit with 500 players. Lets look at that:

1) The leader with the most popularity should be derived by those player's *online*, and can be seen at a glance. 500 player outfits with 10 guys online losses to a 50 player outfit with 30 guys online;

2) You follow the leaders you want to follow, and ignore the rest. No need to down vote - just ignore them. Sure, they may put up a zerg, and quite frankly, that is fine. Why? Well now you have all the zerglings in one spot, and sooner or later those that want something better will ignore the zerg leader. If folks *want* to follow a zerg you are better off letting them do so;

3) Player controlled leader voting is more transparent that dev computer generated methods. If the devs give the leader system the tools, I believe the leadership will be sorted into those that you ignore and those that are worthwhile;

4) Sure, some folks will follow a leader just because they like them and have fun, whether or not they are effective. And so they should - it is game after all, and nobody is actually drafted into the armed forces here.


The platoon system was something I did like, and I am concerned about it being missing (ATM). Of course, I always felt higher organisational groupings would be nice too, but the ability to control that is limited by the limited feedback that a group could get back up the chain. And no the command to tell the next CR up the chain was pretty lame.

Being able to put alert tags on bases/outposts/locations (almost 'hexes' now) would be nice, and give higher level commanders feedback on what is going on ('TR platoon gal drop on outpost'). I mean, we do have satellite comms right (and that would lead to infiltrators having the ability to jam signals pending an attack for example).

I am not sure about whether addons will be allowed in PS2 (there were none in PS1) - a lot of organisational helpers could be supplied by the community.

[Malorn]

It may have gotten lost in my lengthy response, but with a good mission-browser, the system I proposed on the previous page will easily allow people to "follow" a specific leader, provided that leader is active with a platoon and put out a mission.

All that is needed is an "issuer" field that people can search or filter on. For example if people love my missions then they can open the mission browser, filter for "Malorn" and see the one or more missions I have put out.

If the mission browser had a concept of "favorites" then perhaps you could favorite a mission issuer for easier searching of their missions.


As an aside...


I also think that missions ought to have an "accept" feature where someone can choose to accept a mission like they would accept a quest in a MMORPG. Acceptance should be required to reap the rewards of a mission. If a squad leader accepts a mission effectively his entire squad auto-accepts it. When browsing the mission list, the number of people that have accepted the mission should show up. That tells you whether the mission has anyone at all doing it. It helps address issues from PS1 like "Is anyone bringing an ANT?" simpel solution - create mission for ANT at the base and look and see if anyone has accepted it. Same thing with capturing an outpost. IS anyone capturing that outpost? Could open up the mission browser, see the outpost mission and see whether sufficient people have signed up for it to be taken.

With F2P we want to at least make it a little harder to get empire deployment information. If all I have to do is make a VS & TR character and park them in the foothold base and learn where all the squads are going then that would be bad. Spying will happen but the lower the bar the more impact it will have on the game. Strategic information should be on a need-to-know basis.

[Mackenz]

Yes, a mission browser is necessary. Of course, it will need controls such that a bunch of numbskulls don't spam it, so you need a way of having some initial way of ranting and ranking leaders until you build up a goto list.

The accept feature is a must have, so the mission isn't over provisioned (as important as under provisioning). It would be nice if the completion fed back into the mission creator's information base - that might be used for mission assignment in the future.


I am not sure what you mean by deployment information - I am not saying everyone has access to all information - that should be controlled via command channels. What I am saying is that it should be easier to raise the fact that your outpost is being bounced up the command food chain.

It could be that you mean multi-boxing with multiple accounts, but that seems like a small number of folks. To be quite honest, the fact that folks can look at the mission browser is of far greater concern for spying. I guess people could put up generic mission statements:

Need an ANT for X
Need air support for Y

where X and Y get revealed when you accept the mission - but then of course you get folks accepting missions to find out X and Y. Even worse, if I was real spy I would accept X then do nothing.

Yikes I am coming up with ways of doing bad stuff...

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Originally Posted by Mackenz

Yikes I am coming up with ways of doing bad stuff...

That shows a predisposition for being a CRIMINAL!

Lots of people are going to be doing bad things, that's why a "mission accepted" button should not remove the mission from the list of others who will actually get it done.

Also, free market capitalism says that payouts should be given on completion of objective, not before (Halliburton, Lockheed etc, I'm looking at you) and should be open to everyone (US Govt... WTF?) It's the best method to get it done.

Which logically leads to.... Who decides how the mission is accomplished? If bossman says "put Gal here" and marks the base side of a grove of trees, that GAL is going to be butchered? If I put it 200m away, on the other side of the forest, is that close enough to get the reward?

Maybe bossman wants it exactly there for some reason.

Like I said elsewhere, we need a timer system too, otherwise gal pilots will touchdown, deploy, get XP, undeploy, move, deploy and rake in the personal XP but ruin the team.

[Mackenz]

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

That shows a predisposition for being a CRIMINAL!

I am Australian so having a predisposition for being a criminal is a given .

Ya the mission stuff sounds great, but there are pitfalls. Maybe you have to tie missions to specific (resource measurable) events:

• Take base/outpost;
• Refuel base;
• Hold base/outpost for x minutes (>= than say 15 minutes).

Not having measurable results will make it tricky. Even stuff like kill/heal enemy/friends is easily exploitable. Maybe only stuff that results in some reasonable measure of resources gain initially?