Commander Abilities

[Koenside]

I remember Higby stating the command system in ps2 will be completely different than 1.

So what kind of abilities can we come up with that you would like to see commanders have?

I would really love to see a way for leaders to organize outfit squads into formations and give orders that can be seen on the screen by the players. One of problems when organizing attack movements was that coordinated tank/troop movements quickly became a large clusterfuck with a common objective or target. The movement of each player is of course under the control of the individual player, so orders would have to have an incentive for each player as well. It would be very useful if commanders could better organize a mob into a synchronized killing machine.

My idea is an Real Time Strategy type map available to commanders of outfits. The map would give leaders the ability to give directions to squads under their command. The leader would open the map and select his availible squads and then select a rendezvous location. For the sake of this example say we organized a tank column. After reaching the rendezvous point, the squad leaders would then create a formation using their map tools. The commander will be able to give directions to each of the squads in formation. Lets say anti-infantry vehicles in the lead followed by heavy tanks and then anti-air and support vehicles in the rear. The players would have to move into their appropriate space that is marked on their screen. When the player reached his space the player would be marked as present on the squad map. Once the players are formed up the commander opens his map and gives all of his squads an objective. Each squad under his command is shown the path on his screen. If the player ramains on his designated path, the player receives a squad xp bonus. The player recieves additional bonus for being in the appropriate spot in formation as well.

The commanders will then be able to direct squads in an RTS style meta-game. Players will receive xp bonuses for following orders and squad leaders under their command can direct each individual player and create formations. This system would hopefully give leaders the ability to organize their effort rather than lead a large clusterfuck into battle. PS1 had a half assed attempt at this with the map tools for higher lvl CR. You could draw attack plans but the player had to open the map to see them and the player had no incentive to follow the plans either. A more robust method for commanders to organize and strategize i think is a must.

Thoughts/comments?

[Noivad]

I don't want orders to be given on the screen by pushing a button. I perfer to talk on voice cummincation software. My Outfit Uses teamspeak3 because I can have multiple teams up, and whisper to my team leaders to change orders / directions depending on the flow of battle. PS2 will have a voice communication system included. However how effective and complex it will be is something we have to wait for in beta. I want as close to real world communications as we can get. Team - squad - platoon, Outift and a way I can talk to specfic indivuals in my outfit with out other hearing. Cross outfit / alliance channels would also be on the wish list. If we can get all that I will give the PS2 voice a go, but if it can't handle that for up to 300 players then TS3 will be my continued choise.

I think it has been said that we will have a more robust Rank System with titles, so I am hopeing I can have enlisted, NCO's and Officers. - E1 to E9 and O1 to 09 if its modeled on the 101st Airborne and US Military it should have that.

PS1 Had map drawing ablity, and I'm sure PS 2 will have it also. But only people who have training in leadership should have that ablity.

I want the Leader of a group to have a map ablity that is able to give his plan to everyone in the group no matter the group size, yet not be a designated squad or platoon leader.

I would like to designate who is in what fire team.

I would like to be able to designate squad / team number and name.

I would like to make teams of 2, 5, and 10 with the slots namable. Left right breacher - Medic - Security, rifleman, Grenidier, ect

I would favor a very steep learning curve for Outfit Leaders, and leadership skills that would be attained for people who actually lead and not every tom dick and harry that want to OS something.

Outfit Size could start off as low as five people. PS 1 had 10 people and I remeber there were a lot of Outfits that formed that I put an alt toon in to help someone starting up. EVE online you only need to be one person to have a corp. But to increase the corp from a basic number you have to train for it.

I would like to see required training for the number of people allowed in an outfit at one time something like eve does.

I would like to see an attrition system that prevents outfits collecting players as trophys to say "Look at my Outfit we have 1000 people in it, and 95% of them are NOT active. People who stop playing the game should be auto booted from outfits, say 60 days as an arbertary number.

I want Outfit Leader skills available to only people who actually run Outfits.

I do not want to see anyone in my outfit who are not playing get any Outfit resources. And if they leave my outfit then they lose those resources as well.

I would like a screen that everyone in my group could see showing the OPORD for the Mission. OPORD for you non military types is Operations Order.

The OPORD should be based on this example made apropreate for PS2

http://www.armystudyguide.com/conten...er-opord.shtml

I want a Recruiter position that does NOT allow the recruiter to kick some one.

I want the ablity to give unit kick people rights to specfic indivuals not linked to the Ranking system.

It has already been posted and stated that Higby wants to have Outfits specialized, and thats great, but as OL I want to be able to offer my outfit more then one specialization through Ol leadership training. Air - Tanks - Transportation, Heavy - Light Infantry. I want all the the types of things I can get as a Batallion Commander of a Task Force, with other type units supporting my operations.

If I as an Outfit Leader have the real life skills that can manage that many people effectively, why should PS2 deny me that ablity to do it in a more organized way.

I want to see training skills to be an officer, or NCO, so that not everyone can be one on just the say of an OL. Linke in eve where a Mining Director has to train for it. Or a fleet commander.

Maybe officers in a unit can provide some kind of a buff to his platoon, and an NCO SL can give a buff to his squad, and a Team leader can give a buff to his team.

See Directors rights in EVE as and example of the flexiblity.

If there is a waypoint system on the map - I want to designated names / numbers.

As far as real time strategy - If PS2 really strives to emulate warfare, then the battle will be too fluid, the "FOG of WAR to encompensing then a Viedo game can handle. It can't even be done in real life on the ground.

I would like SOE to reconsider the term Outfit and exchange it with Unit. Google Outfit and you come up with clothes 99 % of the time. There were outfits back in world war two, I perfer the term Unit as it implies cohesion and teamwork were as Outfit implies something your going to clothes yourself in.

I would be grateful to anyone who could find something online that states an outfit is some kind of military organization.


I base these ideas on 18 years military service as team, section, squad, and platoon NCO in real life and an advid player of PS1 since 2004.

Oh one more thing, about player incentive. Thats simple, Plan - Order - Direct if leader. If member does not comply kick from outfit. Thats all the incintive you need.

[Furret]

Problem with that system is it only works for groups of people who are on teamspeak. We have to remember that there will be a lot of 'greenies' playing who aren't in outfits, and they will need a way to feel included in large assaults. Most of PSU is likely biased in this way, since the more experienced players that would frequent a fan website are also in outfits (experienced players like outfits.)

In my opinion, the system for commanding has to favor the players who don't use teamspeak. The game should be able to function completely without the use of third party programs, regardless of whether they're better/more useful/etc. I've often thought of using an RTS style system for command and I agree, I think it's a great idea. In fact, I think it could play exactly like an RTS, except your units don't respond automatically, only when they receive and comprehend the order.

[Lonehunter]

I'd love to see Commanders get more cooperative abilities. I'm really lazy right now but one example I thought of before was for Liberators.

We know they won't have bombs at launch, but it would be awesome if Squad Leaders could laze a target, and then a special mission pops up for all Libs in the area. Once they get within range of that way point they gain the ability to carpet bomb.

[Zekeen]

I like this idea a lot. I'm sure some of it won't be quite so usable in the setting, but it calls a lot of attention to giving good commanders and additional edge. I like where you are coming from Koenside, and don't mind the hardcores too much, they're thinking in the idea of "one or the other", but your idea is very good in many ways. I don't think an RTS view is too good unless, maybe we get some fancy item, and it'd be limited (also, I suggested a recon galaxy mod for commanders in one of my posts). You'd have to use the map to place orders.

But your idea is good, it can give visual confirmation on activities to both the commander and the soldiers, as well as allow dividing up a squad so they know WHO to follow without having to get close enough to see the name. Also, I like how you think we should have visual confirmation for the commander when someone reaches the objective, that'd be nice, seeing the names turn a different color when they are in place or something, so you can wait till everyone is there and not have to ask them all. Only thing I think that should be changed, is rather than bonus xp for following an order, they get some sort of XP multiplier from following orders, such as 15-25% bonus experience for defending an area. Each kill, which is part of their objective there, net's them 125% experience.

The ideas are great and are giving me a lot of ideas to expand some command features I may suggest later.

[Koenside]

The idea was inspired from trying to coordinate in planetside 1. The trick is to give commanders a way to 'direct' a battle from his own map and give each squad member an incentive to follow his commands, like an xp multiplier.

Organizing more than 10 people for attack quickly became 5 magriders driving in circles attacking one target. No order at all. Gal dropping a squad into the base had similar issues, it quickly became a squad full of people people trying to dodge bullets and strafe in front of incoming friendly fire from the rear.

The easiest way to direct troops in my mind would be to take elements from RTS game and apply them to PS2

[Saifoda]

I gotta say there's a lot of "real life is not planetside" on the forums here and I certainly agree with that, but lots of what happens in real life, especially things that get jacked up (remember: no plan survives contact with the enemy) do have validity in these discussions.

First of all I wouldn't go so far as to say that the platoon leader/sergeant or even squad leader will say "I want you here, you here, you here, and you here" and then u have little waypoints that say where each individual should go and etc.. etc... Too cluttered I think. IRL status, a squad leader will say "travelling overwatch, squad echelon team wedge." And then the team leaders will get in the right spots and then direct their tr "Johnson, move back 5 meters. Thompson, close that gap up" (or hand and arm signals). If you're having to individually designate waypoints and paths and etc... you turn into an armchair commander and you're just "in charge" (and that term is a very loose one in planetside, or online gaming in general) of a few guys or even a few dozen guys. Inefficient and I think it would give a bad taste for most people people -- commanders (sl, tl, pl, etc...) as well as grunts.