cRPG

cRPG => General Discussion => Topic started by: Thomek on December 30, 2011, 06:52:55 pm

Title: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 30, 2011, 06:52:55 pm
This is IT..

I've been trying to do some commanding recently with astounding failure. Players are either not listening, not believing teamplay is possible, and not grasping the most fundamental basics about how the battlefield works.

I remember back in the first months of cRPG when we used to camp hills. 2 teams on 2 hills, and shooting it out. Occasionally there were even teams splitting up trying to encircle the enemy.. Successful charges, when players finally learned what a charge is.

And this is the main point.

Players need to LEARN to teamplay. And then to start believing in it. IDK what comes first. A good leader is wastly more important than individual skill and luck when it comes to keeping YOUR X5. A good structure in the team, in stead of the chaotic spread out fights we have all day in and night out would help immensely, and be way more epic.

I have some ideas to how we can make this happen, some requires code, some not.

1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

2. Somehow appoint some players to leaders. Give them a new color text. (like admins, but other color)
Perhaps every player can get this text if they are at least gen5, and let the 2 best W:L ratio player on the team get it. W:L ratio could be a good tool to find true teamplayers and promote people taking charge and leading with success.

3. Let us buy banners as a kind of polearm.
The system we have about joining groups etc works only halfway. Few people join battalions and even fewer actually use them.. They are too "free" in my opinion. Someone seeing themselves, or getting appointed to be banner bearer by admin would care more about their "Job". Even the ones following and protecting that player. Perhaps loosing or keeping a banner would have some kind of effect like Valour for the people around it, or Valour for the one that takes it.

4. Nerf/Change how xbows work.
Make them more mobile, by making faster reload times, nerfing damage. Xbows promote a camping, sniping individualist gameplay where it's SHOOT, HIDE, SHOOT, HIDE. And it works wonderful for the players playing like this. This is not teamplay.

5. Change Cav to be a less individualistic class.
Cav has one of the most powerful teamplay mechanics/tricks available. Bump + lance, but it's very rarely used consciously because they DON'T HAVE TO! They do too well by just running around in a mess. Again relying on individual skill.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together.

Anyway. This is NOT a rant. I just believe teamplay is possible in pub servers because I've seen it happen, and players getting used to it is a big part of it.

Come with YOUR ideas on how we can promote more teamplay below:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Dalhi on December 30, 2011, 06:58:57 pm
Remove horses, remove target reticle, make some 2h/pole like great swords unbalanced. Enjoy balanced, skill and teamwork based game. Is it so hard?  :lol:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Overdriven on December 30, 2011, 07:07:44 pm
1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

5. Change Cav to be a less individualistic class.
Cav has one of the most powerful teamplay mechanics/tricks available. Bump + lance, but it's very rarely used consciously because they DON'T HAVE TO! They do too well by just running around in a mess. Again relying on individual skill.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together.

1.
Been lobbying for this for the better part of a year now. That was when it first came up, there have been successive threads and support for it, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to happen.

5.
A large part of that is due to the high speed nature of the class. It's a lot harder for cav to stick together, particularly if you are fighting the enemy cav as well. As a result cavalry usually breaks down into individual skill very quickly, even if you start together. Unfortunately having lots of cav fighting in an area causes a big cluster fuck mess that generally means the cav ends up dead. Working on your own tends to be more successful in surviving and getting more kills.

There are cases where cav working together in small groups, for instance an HA and a lancer, 2 HA's ect can be highly effective, particularly for the bump/attack trick. But any more than that and cavalry just tends to get in each others way. It's hard enough keeping an ounce of organisation on the battlefield using TS with cavalry, for random pubbys it's almost non-existant because of this. We've managed it with GK in the past, but a lot of those teamwork tricks come from instinct and timing, rather than any real organisation.

6.
Another great suggestion that's been banded around a lot. Would love to see something implemented  :)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 30, 2011, 07:14:03 pm
I get your point.

But that's why I want to change the class.. Perhaps cav too should have "charge" speed, perhaps even getting a speed/charge/damage/HP bonus if they stick together IDK. What I do know is that area of effect things are possible in cRPG. Also cav mostly prey on the chaotic nature of the battlefield we have. So if everything else get's organized they might have to as well.

Also.. Horns!

I got to learn some modeling.. will make banners and horns first.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Overdriven on December 30, 2011, 07:17:09 pm
I get your point.

But that's why I want to change the class.. Perhaps cav too should have "charge" speed, perhaps even getting a speed/charge/damage/HP bonus if they stick together IDK. What I do know is that area of effect things are possible in cRPG. Also cav mostly prey on the chaotic nature of the battlefield we have. So if everything else get's organized they might have to as well.

Well one of my biggest disappointments with cavalry in crpg is the sheer crappyness of a proper cavalry charge. The fact that so many weapons can stop you in your tracks, generally means that a formed up, organised cavalry charge is near suicidal, particularly because everyone can see you coming. We've done it a few times in GK and it scared the enemy into camping, rather than actually doing any real damage so we still lost. I can understand why it is the way it is, but it is quite depressing that cavalry is pretty much forced to act in small groups, and using charges is near pointless.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Reinhardt on December 30, 2011, 07:20:48 pm
If more clans/factions/guilds/whatever actually display teamwork with the batallion flags, then normal players will follow. Eventually, pubs will start to take banners and people will follow them around and thus creating teamplay in cRPG. Acre used to carry around flags EVERY TIME we had players on (admittedly we didn't always win, but we still tried) and eventually people actually followed us. Half the time the entire team.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 30, 2011, 07:25:53 pm
I know that theory Reinhardt, but it's been moving in the wrong direction for a long long time.

Teamplay get's rarer and rarer. Even Phaz has more or less given it up as far as I know. People are simply not accustomed to it or they don't know it can happen.

I think it needs a little help first and foremost in more plains and commanders chosen by W:L ratios. If we can push teamplay in the right direction it could mean a great future for cRPG. We need to tip the scale, since teamplay, at the end of the day, is all about educating the playerbase, and making them believe in it.

It cannot be forced from the top.

I think the three most important elements are:
Commanders
Banners one can carry (With slight bonus attached like Valour)
More Plains
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tears of Destiny on December 30, 2011, 07:30:58 pm
The Fallen used to do a lot of teamplay, but after Strat 2.0 we devolved into a horde of lunatics more often then not, just "loosely" sticking together. Now though we are re-indtroducing it back in...

I blame Strategus, why not.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Overdriven on December 30, 2011, 07:33:14 pm
We need another one of these:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,8764.0.html

Was some great teamplay in there.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tears of Destiny on December 30, 2011, 07:34:34 pm
I would gladly help referee another again.

I greatly prefer large tournies over most things, it builds friendly competitive play instead of certain other things destroying community unity.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tristan on December 30, 2011, 07:36:11 pm
I might do another when I am finished with my BA. 3 week of january sounds reasonable for me!

Remind me :D
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Reinhardt on December 30, 2011, 07:37:04 pm
We need another one of these:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,8764.0.html

Was some great teamplay in there.

Yeah, but it doesn't  bring teamplay into the cRPG population of non-clan players. Teamplay should be utilized by clans and factions, but not exclusively BY clans and factions. I can agree with Thomek that teamplay in cRPG would be a nice element and one that would bring much more interest to the game. The grind for heirlooms gets boring after generation... what am I? 14? The max experience bonus is capped at generation 16. Tactics change with new maps and new commanders, so it would at least bring a bit more variety and fun into cRPG's boring battle mode.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Nessaj on December 30, 2011, 07:37:40 pm
I miss when there were tactics all the time, even the more simple ones, really made for a more fun experience on the servers.

However, how it usually goes when trying to apply team-play onto battle is that one or several important players gets switched to the other team due to auto-team-balance, and slowly (but rather quickly since its per map) people trickle offline instead, who wants to play on the other side alone while your friends are having fun together. When I try to lead the Nords I almost always get balanced over to the other team, which means at least I cannot lead them.

Also having the battalion flag on you while fighting really skews up your point of view unless using first person.

If there is any way to fix auto team balance in this engine, so that banner balance is absolute unless it is the last resort to balancing the teams, then I'm 100% confident we would see an overall more tactical game on the servers, just make sure the two largest banner groups always ends up on each their team, should help ensure balance.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Overdriven on December 30, 2011, 07:37:48 pm
I might do another when I am finished with my BA. 3 week of january sounds reasonable for me!

Remind me :D

Would be awesome. That tourny was the most fun I've had in crpg. Far friendlier and nicer to play that strat and the battles were pretty epic  :)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lennu on December 30, 2011, 07:39:38 pm
Isn't it ironic that a NINJA complains about the lack of teamplay :D (kiddin!)

Anyways, big clans can easily improve teamplay, by looking good  :)
A loooong time ago we fallens had nice winning spree. Both teams were camping hills, but we managed to tell our randomers to stick to our hill while fallens made a fake charge. We managed to get the whole enemy team to forget about their hill camping and charge after us like lunatics. Sadly, I haven't seen things like that happen in a long time  :?
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Magikarp on December 30, 2011, 07:50:13 pm
We can't, res is on cooldown, 2000 years and 241 days to go.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Grumbs on December 30, 2011, 07:58:05 pm
How about a "pub teamplayers" banner you use. People without a clan can indicate they want to team play by using the same banner. Maybe too many different clans with different banners doing their own thing
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: SixThumbs on December 30, 2011, 08:15:10 pm
Not sure what you are expecting from pub games and it might be different on NA1 but I have seen some coordination for the most part even if it is loosely coordinated. Lines do form and I know I personally try to hold any line openings that may occur so that the guy to my left and right don't end up with their back exposed and on the contrary when I see an opening I do my best to break the enemy line and whatever ranks they have going on.

This game might be more team oriented if the mechanics somehow allowed for it. Lines form but as it is now I really don't want to get to close to the guy next to me with the glaive, german lightsabre, or whatever they may be carrying and I'm always wary of trying to help out in a melee fight because my timing is suspect and sometimes I either end up slashing my team mate in the back because I think the enemy is going to charge past them at the wrong time or I get slashed in the face because the enemy charged past my team mate and I was being complacent and I'm getting old and my reflexes are failing.

I am actually being team-minded when I hang back and act as a quasi rear-guard or charge into an enemy blob and then backpedal trying to thin out the herd for the main force to eat away stragglers.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on December 30, 2011, 08:50:43 pm
The whole gameplay caters the individual. Even if that wasn't the case, developers made it so it is. Every class is designed so they can function individually, otherwise we call it underpowered.

I still think the implementation of earlier active attacks was nerf to teamplay and that it made the combat even more individual. If you fight in a group you get your swings stuck in your teammates, also the degree of teamhitting increased. I like to fight on my own, you know what you can do, you can count on yourself, no surprises. With teammates at your back unexpected teamhits can really mess up your day.

The whole gameplay should be changed to get some teamplay going. But the first step that may lead to awesomeness is ofcourse open maps. I recently learned how to make maps and if I have more time I'll make a few open maps. If other mapmakers do that too we might get somewhere.

Also, the old xp system required you to stick with your teammates, although you might say it created stale battles, with two big blobs crashing into eachother, I still think that was better than we have now. Maybe come up with some sweet xp system that combines what we now have with what we had back then. So base xp but also a bonus for staying close to people that kill. (rather than people that are killed, so ranged can stick together far away and still get xp)

We need another one of these:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,8764.0.html

Was some great teamplay in there.
This, this was awesome. Might also help to wipe out the dirty stain that strategus leaves on sportsmanship and clan relations.

Oh and also, I like running around with a banner and flanking with some peeps, but the banner is huge and I cant fight at all with that thing in my screen, can't they be made transparent or invisible for the person carrying it? Basically this limits the usage of flags to shielders, because manual blocking is dirthard with a flag.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Fartface on December 30, 2011, 09:03:09 pm
Remove scoreboard.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on December 30, 2011, 09:07:41 pm




1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

2. Somehow appoint some players to leaders. Give them a new color text. (like admins, but other color)
Perhaps every player can get this text if they are at least gen5, and let the 2 best W:L ratio player on the team get it. W:L ratio could be a good tool to find true teamplayers and promote people taking charge and leading with success.

4. Nerf/Change how xbows work.
Make them more mobile, by making faster reload times, nerfing damage. Xbows promote a camping, sniping individualist gameplay where it's SHOOT, HIDE, SHOOT, HIDE. And it works wonderful for the players playing like this. This is not teamplay.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together.


1.  No

2. No

4. No

6. No

?  What's up with these suggestions?

Xbows are already fast enough and compared to realism they are way too fast.

You think people in reallife always run at same speed?^^

Some players as leaders??  Jeez don't we have enough little boys who consider themselves as supermegaepic? You want to create more of these? o.O   Btw, who should decide who becomes a "leader" ?  And why do you think people would follow them? What makes a leader is how he shows himself on the server and that he makes people follow him by actions, not by any granted leadership.
Some people often managed to get people behind them, but it seems they don't want anymore, as people are either too stupid for that or because they always "stone" that person afterwards with words...

Random plains totally suck and are actually just supporting cav....You can fight perfectly in a team in villages. All that's needed is teamplay :D :D  Which we actually lack heavily, I agree on that :/
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: SoA_Sir_ODHarry on December 30, 2011, 09:12:27 pm
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,22667.msg327679.html#msg327679
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on December 30, 2011, 09:16:58 pm
Random plains totally suck and are actually just supporting cav....You can fight perfectly in a team in villages. All that's needed is teamplay :D :D  Which we actually lack heavily, I agree on that :/
Random plains good for cav? Two teams camp a hill, the cav go fight eachother or charge foolish at the infantry and die. After two minutes no cavalry are left, except one or two with brains.

Open battle maps make infantry, archers and cav vulnerable, forcing people to stick together and think about their team. Village maps give infantry and archers enough cover to not care about their teammates and go rambo.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: SoA_Sir_ODHarry on December 30, 2011, 09:25:35 pm
i think u only can force teamplay a bit through rewards
The xp/gold amount of multipliers could be  decreased and replaced through bonuses u gain if u achieve goals.
This Goals need to be important too win the Round and so get the higer multiplier
If u wanna get random peopel work together there must be a reward in for them otherwise they probably not giva shit.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lansamur on December 30, 2011, 09:29:28 pm
Isn't it ironic that a NINJA complains about the lack of teamplay :D (kiddin!)

This.


I've been lacking in my works of commandeering anyways and I need to freshen up on it. I might give it another try at some point the next weeks, cause when I did some months back, it worked after some rounds when people got used to it and the majority of the team followed the orders as soon as they saw they actually won with that. You just need patience and stamina to push through the first rounds of retardation.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Ohayashi on December 30, 2011, 09:38:47 pm
You think people in reallife always run at same speed?^^

No, but you're sure as hell going to match the speed of your comrades if in formation.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Baggy on December 30, 2011, 10:13:07 pm
Dosnt Mount and Musket have a marching sped when you hold down shift.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Shadowren on December 30, 2011, 10:20:46 pm
1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

2. Somehow appoint some players to leaders. Give them a new color text. (like admins, but other color)
Perhaps every player can get this text if they are at least gen5, and let the 2 best W:L ratio player on the team get it. W:L ratio could be a good tool to find true teamplayers and promote people taking charge and leading with success.

3. Let us buy banners as a kind of polearm.
The system we have about joining groups etc works only halfway. Few people join battalions and even fewer actually use them.. They are too "free" in my opinion. Someone seeing themselves, or getting appointed to be banner bearer by admin would care more about their "Job". Even the ones following and protecting that player. Perhaps loosing or keeping a banner would have some kind of effect like Valour for the people around it, or Valour for the one that takes it.

4. Nerf/Change how xbows work.
Make them more mobile, by making faster reload times, nerfing damage. Xbows promote a camping, sniping individualist gameplay where it's SHOOT, HIDE, SHOOT, HIDE. And it works wonderful for the players playing like this. This is not teamplay.

5. Change Cav to be a less individualistic class.
Cav has one of the most powerful teamplay mechanics/tricks available. Bump + lance, but it's very rarely used consciously because they DON'T HAVE TO! They do too well by just running around in a mess. Again relying on individual skill.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together.

1.Random plains are really annoying now. why would you want more?? It's nothing more than cav and archer heaven.

2.That's what clans are for.

3.I like the idea but, you should add some type of bonus to go with it like extra defense or attack power for your team when your holding it.

4.They work just fine and there good for strat for people that don't use bow.

5.Team play with cav is only really good in strat if used correctly, when in C-rpg its a completely different story.

6.That's a good idea but if and only if you would add some type of running/sprint button.Because if you didn't the idea of having any type of agility build in game  would be useless.Or if there was some type of marching button added.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Ohayashi on December 30, 2011, 10:20:57 pm
Dosnt Mount and Musket have a marching sped when you hold down shift.

That's standard zoom-slow down. All of MM's infantry have the same run speed, to obviously facilitate moving in formation. 
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: dodnet on December 30, 2011, 11:04:26 pm
I've seen a few amazing line battle videos from Mount & Musket (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dpzrLNQboo&list=PLBB7F962DD82E9084&index=1&feature=plpp_video) and of course I would like to see something similar on cRPG too. But I have to admit that I haven't seen real line battles during Mount&Musket battles on my own. There still is more teamwork than here as you can't do much as a single warrior.

But there are huge differences between M&M and cRPG:
- some kind of ranks you select with the class
- no individualism, everything wears the same gear and uniform, you can only select between a few classes
- ranged attacks are very very inaccurate and take a long time to reload: I really would like to see that on cRPG, as it would force archers to stick together to do any harm and it makes them very vulnerable in close combat
- you almost ever die from the first hit (ranged or close combat)
- almost no cav

I really would like to see more teamplay on cRPG but I believe the current system just isn't made for it. I like the individual system, but it tends to make a few players overpowered (the topscorers) where the rest just dies somewhere unnoticed.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lansamur on December 30, 2011, 11:24:45 pm
See, the best way to get randomers to teamplay:

1. Assign yourself to a Batallion and carry the flag
2. Use simple orders in Teamchat, e.g.:
"Follow Red Flag (bat1)"
"Care Left Flank"
"Prepare Countercharge"

Best in CAPS
3. Win.

Just used it for 3-4 rounds and won all of them, then my game crashed, team instalost as I heard via TS. Came on again, worked again. Try it out if you think you got the balls to be a commander for a bunch of random people.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on December 30, 2011, 11:50:07 pm
See, the best way to get randomers to teamplay:

1. Assign yourself to a Batallion and carry the flag
2. Use simple orders in Teamchat, e.g.:
"Follow Red Flag (bat1)"
"Care Left Flank"
"Prepare Countercharge"

Best in CAPS
3. Win.

Just used it for 3-4 rounds and won all of them, then my game crashed, team instalost as I heard via TS. Came on again, worked again. Try it out if you think you got the balls to be a commander for a bunch of random people.

Your commands are too complicated for most players :P    I think the only words most people understand are "stick together" "regroup" "wait" "charge"  :D


Btw, you weren't the only one commanding there :O  And it was your stupid idea to go left :D


But in general I agree, just take a flag and tell people to follow it and give some easy and clear to understand orders. If you have maybe some clanmembers or some people you know on the server it makes it even easier, as they usually start following one person of the same clan and thus make other people to follow as well
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Blashyrkh on December 30, 2011, 11:59:52 pm
First you have to make a name for yourself to be counted as a commander (works well for Phaz --> merc guy i think) cuz nobody will listen to you if you're a nobody (which makes it hard for people like me who change their nicknames every gen). I most of the time do as one has the idea to do something, but there are only 4 -5 people interested to work together out of the 50 in one team.

you should make a poll in the beginning of the map where you could vote for a leader (who would write for his team chat with a different color like one suggested)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on December 31, 2011, 12:24:28 am
See, the best way to get randomers to teamplay:

1. Assign yourself to a Batallion and carry the flag
2. Use simple orders in Teamchat, e.g.:
"Follow Red Flag (bat1)"
"Care Left Flank"
"Prepare Countercharge"

Best in CAPS
3. Win.

Just used it for 3-4 rounds and won all of them, then my game crashed, team instalost as I heard via TS. Came on again, worked again. Try it out if you think you got the balls to be a commander for a bunch of random people.
The banner is huge and I cant fight at all with that thing in my screen, can't they be made transparent or invisible for the person carrying it? Basically this limits the usage of flags to shielders, because manual blocking is dirthard with a flag.

Its a choice between leading or fighting, and if I can't fight properly while leading I'll die early and your leadership is gone.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 31, 2011, 12:51:19 am
Some people here say how easy it is to lead right now, that we have the tools, that players follow etc. That is all lies. Thing is, it doesn't work when only HALF the team follow commands. You need at least 80-90% to be in on it.

Yes it IS still possible, but it requires often several maps, since players get's switched around for each map. One loss because of a bad decision, bad timing, bad luck, or generally bad teamplay by the very players you try to command can ruin your standing as a leader. It's can mostly be embarrassing or just tiresome to see your team fail again and again.

I.ex you have a strategy that requires your whole team to move constantly for them not to get fucked from behind by the other team zerg mob. Of course 2/3rds stop to shoot and recharge, get's kited by cav they should ignore, and get raped. It's much much harder to backstab a moving team. Stuff like this.. People don't realize the dynamics of the battle.

I recommend everyone to try and spectate a battle from birds eye. The retardation and predictability becomes extremely clear.

Thing is a Win to Loss ratio on rounds or even maps doesn't lie. Eventually, the best commanders would be someone who somehow manages to push the autobalance in his favour. This is nearly impossible by pure individual skill, as the mathematics of the autobalancer eventually catches up with your score and weighs you in for your average play. This would not happen to leaders, as the autobalancer AFAIK doesn't look at round W:L ratio, only individual skill.

Anyway.. My point is that YES it is possible to do rough tactical commanding and teamwork now, but it requires a huge effort with little gain. I think we still need a little buff to help it make it more convenient and natural to the gameplay.

Let me describe the 3 main elements a little clearer. (Suggestions on how it could work)

1. Commanders.
At the beginning of MAP, after autobalance:
a. Check for players above gen5. (or with a collected XP on alts and mains over a certain threshold)
b. Among those, check who has the best ROUND WIN TO LOSS ratio for the last month or so.
c. Send out invitations For Leader and Assistant Leader to the two BEST W:L ratio players. If they decline, send invites to the next best etc.  (You should be able to disable leadership invites on website)
e. The chosen Leader and Assistant gets access to special colored chat text for their team commands, and perhaps a leadership chat.
f. A leader should be immune to being autobalanced.
(g.) Perhaps being leader should give access to a special Horn button, sounding all over the battlefield when pressed. This could be used to Rally troops to Leader, or to pure spam, to start charges or to hold and wait. I would like it to be spammable. Codes could eventually develop naturally.

2. Banners and Banner carriers
a. At the website, let's say after 1 generation, you can choose to be a Banner Carrier. 
b. You choose a type of banner, each one giving different bonuses as a passive Area of Effect. One for ranged, one for melee, one for cav. (Let's say draw speed or accuracy, Powerstrike or HP, Charge bonus)
c. In-game the most experienced Banner Carriers gets an offer to carry it. Let's say it takes the two last slots.
d. If you manage to live through the battle with it you get Valour.
e. If an enemy manage to pick it up and hold it until end of round he gets Valour. (LoL tk a banner holder grants you 24h automatic ban...)

3. Walk speed

Press TAB once and you toggle synchronized walk or run.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: IR_Kuoin on December 31, 2011, 12:56:09 am
Love your ideas Thomek, but thats nothing new  :D

Exept the last part with the same run speed, I want to outrun my foes.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: IR_Kuoin on December 31, 2011, 12:59:02 am
Why don't "they" set up a teambased server so that everyone can get on TS or something and we have team controlled teams *BAD GRAMMAR* that can fight each other.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 31, 2011, 01:02:23 am
Well I know it has all been suggested before Kuoin.. :)

I just hope they will finally listen, now that they have more coders and seem to be pretty active!

And I just got the mess of everyday pub play up my throat, so I had to clear it.

The TS thing has also been suggested before.. Not so easy to do as far as I remember. Think it is difficult to integrate TS and cRPG.

Anyhow I'm sure Bulldog wouldn't mind opening up a public open cRPG battle chan on his TS. But IDK if I could handle the trolling by voice.. lol :)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tears of Destiny on December 31, 2011, 01:05:56 am
No, but you're sure as hell going to match the speed of your comrades if in formation.

I would greatly appreciate a "set speed" button for formations.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Riddaren on December 31, 2011, 01:13:24 am
I love teamplay just as much as I hate the lack of it.

A good example of mass stupidity:

- Enemy team is camping on a roof with plenty of ranged players. This team has X1.
- My team is full of melee players and horses. This team has X5.

In these situations it should be obvious for my teamates what to do:
Stand ground, milk it and just wait for flags.

I don't get why a team full of players with X5 "intentionally" loses their X5 by making the worst possible moves...
Instead of waiting for the situatation to change they all attack the enemy at a great disadvantage.

Waiting for flags is often the best move you can make and sometimes it's the only good chance you have to win the round.
So please be more patient and make use of flag tactics.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Riddaren on December 31, 2011, 01:21:13 am
Just have to add that I love the ideas you have Thomek. Would be awesome if some of what you suggested got implemented.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: dodnet on December 31, 2011, 01:37:22 am
Waiting for flags is often the best move you can make and sometimes it's the only good chance you have to win the round.
So please be more patient and make use of flag tactics.

Just waiting for flags is fucking boring too.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Kafein on December 31, 2011, 02:00:14 am
Just waiting for flags is fucking boring too.

Yep. The fact that waiting for flags is the best thing to do at some point in many battles, due to the rampant roof camping, is SAD.

Tactics aren't always boring campfests. In fact, when we did more teamwork in Pecores with Coin as leader, the infantry group spent most of the time maneuvering around the enemy, trying to get the terrain advantage, opening firing lines for our archers, and forcing the enemy to move into open ground for cav.

Playing the tactical game in a dynamic way will, I think, make more people listen. It is also more difficult to make people understand what you want, though.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: ThePoopy on December 31, 2011, 02:24:56 am
just spam a command in caps and pubs will listen, dont change to often
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on December 31, 2011, 03:12:52 am
I already suggested it somewhere else - make a poll in the forum to decide which volunteers for being commander enjoy the highest respect and faith of the community, and once the vote is set those on top of the list (about 10 to 20 players, I would say) get a special status on the servers, similar to admins (I never was admin, but I suppose you are automatically admin if you log in to a server with your character, or do you need to log in extra?), with having access to some nice commander tools.

Whenever there are two or more commanders, both will be autobalanced into different teams, and the commander tools will be unlocked. If there is only one commander he can't use his abilities, as it would be unfair for the team without commander. If there are more than two commanders, a ranking system will decide, according to the result of the forum poll.

To encourage players of following those commands you could give a small experience or gold reward, e.g. reaching a flag position (once per tick possible, no abuse by moving the flag a meter every second, farming money and experience).

I just got the funny idea that players could also get small rewards for every killed enemy (5xp, 2gold, or perhaps 0.01 more on multiplier?) within a certain range (50m radius?) as long as they did NOT kill them, themselves. I bet this would have funny effects on player behaviour, making them support and protect the others, in the hope of helping them to kill an enemy. I don't think enemies would be sorrounded but not attacked, the greed won't go that far, but it could support more little "suqads" like a shielder at the front, followed by a two handed fighter and both supported by a pikeman and a crossbowman. If they decide to help and protect each other this squad is a damn nightmare for everyone.

If you don't want to see or hear those commands you can disable them with a key combination, similar to muting all players, but I think it is important to have it activated by default to "catch" all those casual players who are not that into tactics or community affairs at all, thus not being up to date about new features like this.

The idea with the forum vote is not ideal, but I don't see any other solution to evade any tiresome ingamevote which probably won't succeed in most cases anyway, if the engine allows votes with more than two options at all. And any other "automatic" designation will be more than suboptimal, as the personal k/d doesn't say anything about this person's tactical or at least leadership skills. Most coaches for any team based sport would perform rather bad if sent on the field (again), and many of the best tacticians in history (e.g. Napoleon) were not really strong fighters, compared so some seasoned sergeants in their armies. And yet the coaches, and not the top goal getters decide about the tactic, the generals and not the non comissioned decide about what an army will do. So the K/D-ratio is really a bad base for determining who should be commander.

The votes could be repeated regularly, and the W/L-ratios of the different commanders (when being in charge, of course) could be tracked, so after a few months there would be a hand full of accepted and capable commanders. cRPG and strategus seems to be the attempt to transfer the entire single player gameplay to multiplayer, with the only difference that there are no bots, only players. So having a commander would still fit to this, as in single player it's always someone who's commanding the rest. Especially as both determining who is the commander as well as listening to his orders is up to every single player to decide for himself.

Anyway, I am more intelligent, so I am right, there is nothing to discuss about. Period.  :wink:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tomas_of_Miles on December 31, 2011, 03:24:55 am
I think the in-game voice commands are underrated. Of course they are prone to spam, but with enough people proclaiming logical sequences of orders in conjunction with capital letter team chat orders, a few people follow. When you have a consistent looking blob of people you can expect a lot of others to join the crowd.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on December 31, 2011, 03:29:21 am
You just need a spam control, because at the moment I don't pay any attention to this, as usually someone is only spamming "man the catapult"-shouts, and even if someone was trying to corrdinate something, the other spammers make it really difficult to distinguish his commands. The only thing I really pay attention to are the cavalry warning sounds.

Edit: lol, I wrote this without even having read your signature  :lol:  :P
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tomas_of_Miles on December 31, 2011, 03:31:20 am
You just need a spam control, because at the moment I don't pay any attention to this, as usually someone is only spamming "man the catapult"-shouts, and even if someone was trying to corrdinate something, the other spammers make it really difficult to distinguish his commands. The only thing I really pay attention to are the cavalry warning sounds.

Edit: lol, I wrote this without even having read your signature  :lol:  :P
When you hear "I am building a catapult." you can be damn sure I'm serious. :D
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: dado on December 31, 2011, 03:42:18 am
I miss when there were tactics all the time, even the more simple ones, really made for a more fun experience on the servers.

However, how it usually goes when trying to apply team-play onto battle is that one or several important players gets switched to the other team due to auto-team-balance, and slowly (but rather quickly since its per map) people trickle offline instead, who wants to play on the other side alone while your friends are having fun together. When I try to lead the Nords I almost always get balanced over to the other team, which means at least I cannot lead them.

Also having the battalion flag on you while fighting really skews up your point of view unless using first person.

If there is any way to fix auto team balance in this engine, so that banner balance is absolute unless it is the last resort to balancing the teams, then I'm 100% confident we would see an overall more tactical game on the servers, just make sure the two largest banner groups always ends up on each their team, should help ensure balance.
THIS AND THIS AND THIS !!!! i remember idea when u enter the server u can enter you "code" or "pin" (so 5 guys from same clan will enter same code and balance will keep them together) but it did not work good.. maybe devs could work more on that idea ?
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tot. on December 31, 2011, 04:53:21 am
1. I guess not many of us remember it but there was a commander system back in the days where there was exp/gold area-based. IIRC it was a randomly picked high-level player from the team whose role was to set a flag on the ground - where he wanted his teammates to be - and their choice was either to follow the orders or to get less rewards for playing. If my memory doesn't play tricks on me there was an announcing text every round saying that "Team A is led by <player's name here>". I'd say that those were the times when there was the most teamplay, though the system itself was rather poorly designed as it forces ie. cavalry to stay so close.

2.
About pubbers and their behavior: generally speaking, from what I've seen, people will follow orders and act reasonably when they see that there's an organized group of people, they tend to follow them, might be it's just the herd instinct but the outcome is the same, zerging wins battles. Forging a higher standard of teamplay surely must be done first in the communication respect, aka. implementing better voice communication. In short, Thomek, you have my sword :D if your intention was to set things in motion ie. by specifying a ts server where "teamplayers" can join while they're playing in general, or, better, if we would just announce say "teamplay nights" where everyone willing to play as an organized group of people would set a selected banner, get on teamspeak and play together regardless of their clan allegiance.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: SixThumbs on December 31, 2011, 06:53:37 am
http://wolverine.x-knights.com/sounds/wolv61.wav
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on December 31, 2011, 09:31:19 am
Thomek you know that a high k/d or a high gen or whatever doesn't make a good leader?

Why should I follow a person who is just running around killing people for his epen?  :rolleyes:
And yes it is quite easy to lead on a battleserver, just start it.

We won one map completely yesterday and the other map we won 3 times, lost 1 or 2 and won again afterwards. Just by keeping the people together and telling where to attack.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Glyph on December 31, 2011, 09:58:54 am
Thomek you know that a high k/d or a high gen or whatever doesn't make a good leader?

Why should I follow a person who is just running around killing people for his epen?  :rolleyes:
And yes it is quite easy to lead on a battleserver, just start it.

We won one map completely yesterday and the other map we won 3 times, lost 1 or 2 and won again afterwards. Just by keeping the people together and telling where to attack.
no, but gens and k/d make you a better leader then some random guy.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: dodnet on December 31, 2011, 10:18:41 am
no, but gens and k/d make you a better leader then some random guy.

Not necessarily.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 31, 2011, 10:24:37 am
Because a round W:L ratio should bring out his teamwork abilities. And/Or leadership. Not just score..

Let's say a pikeman who likes to support, an archer, or someone kiting half the enemy team away from the action. W:L ratio doesn't care how you win rounds. And since autobalance weighs in players individual skill in the form of K:D ratio, that player will also have a fairly even W:L ratio..
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on December 31, 2011, 10:27:32 am
So no one supports the forum vote solution?  :?
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 31, 2011, 10:30:45 am
Forum vote is better than nothing :)

But it's also not fair. Perhaps there are less active forumers, or relatively unknown players having lots of talent for commanding. On the other hand the community is not that big so..

I think W:L ratio would be more true.. It would also inspire people with ambition to be leaders to crack the teamplay code, and really try to push the W:L in their favor.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: a_bear_irl on December 31, 2011, 10:45:53 am
the main problem with being an internet general is it makes people really mad at you and nobody really enjoys being berated/banned nonstop (see:spookisland)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Elmokki on December 31, 2011, 10:48:04 am
If there is a commander system it needs tangible benefits tied on success. Best I can think of is additional bonus when your team wins. It could just be extra x ticks of xp and gold or if the multiplier cap was higher, double multiplier gain.

But no bonus from failing team. Automatic valor would just be sad since that way everyone would accept being a commander and just play  normally :D
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on December 31, 2011, 11:00:18 am
Forum vote is better than nothing :)

But it's also not fair. Perhaps there are less active forumers, or relatively unknown players having lots of talent for commanding. On the other hand the community is not that big so..

I think W:L ratio would be more true.. It would also inspire people with ambition to be leaders to crack the teamplay code, and really try to push the W:L in their favor.

My main character is still a relict from pre-upkeep-times, it's probably one of the worst lvl 30 builds ever, as a lot of changes (slot system, reduced max WPF, increased item difficulties) rendered this build more than useless. And due to the break I took my fighting skills are still bad, although I slowly start to be able to block more than twice in a row again. All I can use for fighting is a quarter staff. As you can imagine, my K/D is becoming worse constantly (thank god it's still positive due to past times  :mrgreen: ), so there is no chance that when I write something anybody will think "Hey! This is a good player! Let's listen to him."

And yet my W/L is rather good. Why?

Bannerskills!  :mrgreen:

I know the banners of all bigger clans on EU1, and whenever I see one clan dominating I change my banner and win. Sure, this is a miserable behaviour, but I tell everyone all the time what I do to piss people off, to eventually make them support any request to the developers to change this retarded system. The point is: I am sure I am not the only one doing so. Does this make me a good leader? Nope! An asshole? A bit.

Honestly, I think if you would just look at W/L ratios, you would have those top clan players as result, and I think most of them (except of Phazh, perhaps) don't give a fuck about leading the others. Being a good fighter puts a lot of people under some kind of "Pygmalion effect", creating some pressure to preserve the "name" they made themselves and thus they concentrate on killing. And what would be if you would have someone with a good W/L-ratio who is completely uninterested in leading, while the enemy team has someone really dedicated? This would be rather unfair and demotivating.

In fact the W/L-ratio is nothing else than your K/D combined with the banner you use.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on December 31, 2011, 11:51:01 am
This whole discussion here will lead to nothing as it is impossible to get a good leader by any given stats  :rolleyes:

Watch people's behaviour on the servers and write them down if you really want that leaderstuff (which is in my eyes totally unncesessary, as stated above) and then suggest them on forums.
But beware to put only people like Chase, Torben, Cooties etc on your list....High K/D doesn't make a leader. Usually a leader kills less than usual, because he has to keep his eyes on his whole team and on the enemy team etc etc. These "highskilled" players who can kill 5-10 enemies per round are better used under command of someone to do what they can do best.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on December 31, 2011, 12:07:48 pm
In any case shielders should be leaders, they can safely lead a charge and survive for long enough by keeping their shields up. For other classes there is always a problem with going in front, and of course the enormous banner in your face that makes you failblock. Leader with flag dies, teamplay dies.

I think W/L ratio would give quite a distorted view of commanding abilities. I think the win/loss ratio of every byzantium is above average because we have 5-10 good players on the same team almost always.

I think commander should be elected manually, just make a list with potential commanders and give them a special colour in chat only readable for their team. Or even better, enable him to use his voice ingame, probably really hard/impossible to do.

Anyway for real epic teamplay battles:
We need another one of these:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,8764.0.html

Was some great teamplay in there.

Thomek if you want to have more open maps, make them yourself. I made my first map in three hours, just follow Kong Ming's instructions. It's really a lot easier than I expected.

Also if you want to try to get some teamplay together, make an armoured shielder alt. You really need to stay alive and go infront. Ninja is the worst class to try to lead people. You are faster than the pack and very vulnerable.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: The_Bloody_Nine on December 31, 2011, 12:30:24 pm
teamplay? it is even impossible to get people for a santa-snowfight  :|

I'm really curious about those W/L stats if there even is such a thing. Would like to see if there are some surprises and ofc. as well where I would appear.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on December 31, 2011, 12:38:14 pm
teamplay? it is even impossible to get people for a santa-snowfight  :|

I'm really curious about those W/L stats if there even is such a thing. Would like to see if there are some surprises and ofc. as well where I would appear.
They probably don't get tracked right now, I'd think that would be implementable though.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on December 31, 2011, 12:41:07 pm
Well it's trueTeam W:L ratio would be a bit gimped, but it would be the value that should matter when evaluating a good leader. If someone manages to get team wins, that is the result that is needed of a leader. Of course if someone doesn't want to lead, they can uncheck leadership on the website.

Of course, banner would have some impact on the W:L ratio as clans already teamwork a little. Nevertheless I think the autobalancer does good resistance, even for byzantiums. As they rack up kills, they weigh in more, and so the balancer adjusts for that giving the other team more of the powerplayers.

I think the only way to "Beat" the autobalance is by helping other players be better, because your personal average skill is already counted for.

Still, honestly don't see the problem of choosing by W:L ratio. It gives the commander instant credibility, so the team should have faith in him. It makes players strive to get a good W:L ratio in stead of K:D ratio, eventually producing good leaders.

Would be the fairest way to choose them imo. Of course me and other forumers that are "known" could pick up and lead, but that doesn't mean we are actually talented at it.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: PanPan on December 31, 2011, 12:50:06 pm
but ''shooting it out''
is impossible with the missile speed these days...
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on December 31, 2011, 12:56:11 pm
Why should I have faith in a guy with a good w/l ratio?
As a couple of people stated, he might got it due to taking a good clan's banner or due to being in a clan with many good and active players.

That doesn't tell me he is a good player or a good leader. Leadership is something to be deserved, not to be granted by some random stats, that can be affected so easily
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on December 31, 2011, 01:03:06 pm
Still, honestly don't see the problem of choosing by W:L ratio. It gives the commander instant credibility, so the team should have faith in him. It makes players strive to get a good W:L ratio in stead of K:D ratio, eventually producing good leaders.

Would be the fairest way to choose them imo. Of course me and other forumers that are "known" could pick up and lead, but that doesn't mean we are actually talented at it.

You know, my W/L ratio would be much better if people actually listened to what I say, at least sometimes.

The problem is: the understanding of what would be the best for a certain team to do in a certain moment on a certain map is NOT measurable ingame by any means, with the current list of features. There is just no way. The W/L-r is determined by

- your clan/banner
- your skills
- your "auto balancer value"
- luck

And then a tiny little bit by how much you write in chat about tactics. And besides Phazh I don't know anyone who regularly tries to lead his team. Unless your skills as commander don't determine your W/L ratio by 51% or more, it is a BAD (= wrong, false) base to determine the leader.

In short: until now the game didn't offer any way to recognize capable commanders.

And I want to point out that I am speaking more of commanders than of leaders. Unfortunately, in cRPG you first need to be a good leader, and then a good commander, because you first have to convince people to listen to what you write in chat. If certain commander tools would be implemented, this "convincing" would not be needed any more, giving players a chance to show their tactical skills, who are not that known or eloquent or have a high K/D-r.

I agree that the W/L-r. should be tracked for leaders, but first AFTER they took over lead. Otherwise it is not representable by any means. You can't be punished for a loss if you were not in charge. As soon as a leader uses his commander tools, the round counts for his ratio, otherwise not.

But saying "There is no teamplay on the servers, we need to resurrect it" and then saying "you can see who teamplayed until now by the W/L-r." doesn't work together. Either there was enough teamplay to recognize good leaders, already putting us into the state you desire, or there was no teamplay at all (effectively), and thus the W/L-r. of every player is not affected by it at all. Which makes it a really bad base for recognizing good commanders.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Fartface on December 31, 2011, 01:06:43 pm
1 : high kdr doesn't mean that you are a better leader but more randomers will follow you ,because lets be honest if you see the 0-3 peasant telling you what to do you wont listen but the 12-1 tincan knight you get an feeling he knows what he is doing better.
2 : If you want teamplay just remove scoreboard alot of players care bout kills to mutch to focus on the team.
3: nerf cav.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on December 31, 2011, 01:10:58 pm
Less Ninjas? They arnt team players :P
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Leesin on December 31, 2011, 01:12:54 pm
I'm not going to take orders from someone or follow them every round just because his W/L ratio is good, that doesn't prove any credibility at being a good leader. There are probably alot of players with good W/L ratios who play "singleplayer" mode, i.e just for the kills and don't care about tactics or the team.

I can almost guarantee using that method you will see a ton of bad commanders and it will soon just encourage people to not follow the Commanders and resort back to their old ways.

Get a more credible method of choosing commanders or people are either just going to A) carry on being a randomer or B) Work together in a team with their own clan members via Teamspeak like we already do.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Inkompetent on December 31, 2011, 01:31:53 pm
2 : If you want teamplay just remove scoreboard alot of players care bout kills to mutch to focus on the team.

Definitely this. K/D ratio is a useless stat since the actual XP/money gain, and even fighting-for-winning isn't based on who has the most kills.

Good cavalry that supports infantry by bumping, or pikemen/ranged that dehorse enemy cav, or sledge-hammer-guys with a prepared overhand-attack scaring people into getting hit in the back, they are just as important to the victory as the ones getting killing blows.

Until kills actually serves a purpose, rather than taking away from the teamplay like it in part does now, remove it. We only need to know who are on what team, and if they are alive or not.

The first step to teamplay is after all to take away what promotes individualism.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Henry_Broodsonson on December 31, 2011, 02:37:27 pm
Crpg IS individualism...
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Xhandor on December 31, 2011, 02:47:15 pm
Athough is has long gone - XP and gold once were only earned by sticking together and killing enemies - one effect of this was that the team actually stayed closer together -
I agree that teamplay should play a bigger role not only in battle but also in siege - nowadays you see people charging stupidly to one ladder where they get smashed by a big maul one after the other and once there are a few skilled players at one team attacking another place the castle falls...
And if there is someone trying to give orders he is insulting his team and using caps all the time - the crown of teamwork at the moment is to tell your teammates that a door has been breached or that the gatehouse is lost - if there is someone around who cares he'll go and take a look but a most of the players dont seem to care.

I kind of like the idea with the banners and beeing rewarded for teamplay - one step further would be to reward people for saving others life (which is far fetched i know...)....
I'm not quite sure about the method of using W/L or K/D for selecting the leader - but I agree to the argument that nobody is following a peasant ordering you around even if he shows some nice tactics.



It would be a first step and I'd gladly like to see some more teamplay - so why not - select leaders by W/L or K/D and make it possible to change them by vote if needed.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Henry_Broodsonson on December 31, 2011, 03:01:11 pm
You just set W/L so it only takes into account players who have fought a certain number of battles.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Mosquito on December 31, 2011, 05:07:35 pm
The ONLY thing that makes leaders credible and great (ie ppl wil voluntarily follow what they tell them to do) is when folks see that there is a benefit to it. In my view it works a bit like this, please shout up if you think similarly:

1)Some idiot is shouting in chat about do this, or this that.....hhhm?

2)some ppl did what that idiot said, hahahahahaha!!!!

3)omfg it worked, we won / nearly won etc

4)hmmm, i'll listen / do to what they tell me this time............*charismatic tactical genius has been born*

Obviously this requires some luck on behalf of the leader!

I can only think of 2 people who really pushed themselves forward to lead a pubbers group (battle game) one was so bad/ unlucky/ whatever that i can't reember his name. Other was Phazh i would listen to him as i know that when his 'orders' are  followed it sometimes works. What i'm saying is that its all about the results.

New fashion for swapping out of losing teams will not help your drive for teamplay Thomek btw.

Voting for a leader each round would take too long unless it was like a 2-3 choices of candidate for general done like a kick poll of people that had somehow put themselves forward outside the main game screen to go in a 'warlord's pool' or something from which the voteable candidates are drawn. i'm sure if they thought about it most clans would have some such Odysseus type figure to put forward so as not to affect the banner balance too much.

What is written about K/D by likes of Gisbert above is correct, these high K/D heros are perhaps more like the Achilles of the Homerian story than the Odysseus we need?

Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on December 31, 2011, 05:56:49 pm
Athough is has long gone - XP and gold once were only earned by sticking together and killing enemies - one effect of this was that the team actually stayed closer together -


But it totally sucked for ranged and cavalry, as they are usually either behind their team or attacking the flanks :/
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Templar_Ratigan on January 01, 2012, 04:17:18 pm
Quote
Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?

Simple: By systematically revamping the entire game from the laggy, buggy, gear crutching, build copying pile of shite that it is and also by murdering the people who vote down this post.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Christo on January 01, 2012, 04:22:38 pm
Simple: By systematically revamping the entire game from the laggy, buggy, gear crutching, build copying pile of shite that it is and also by murdering the people who vote down this post.

Whoa.

So radical. I like it.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on January 01, 2012, 05:14:44 pm
Simple: By systematically revamping the entire game from the laggy, buggy, gear crutching, build copying pile of shite that it is and also by murdering the people who vote down this post.
You think a lot worse of this game than it is, I think its just not your type of game.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: verinen on January 01, 2012, 05:19:15 pm
Buff cav speed, significantly nerf maneuverability= more charges, no plane-gameplay (hit n' run)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on January 01, 2012, 05:20:58 pm
Buff Infantry's intelligence
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Overdriven on January 01, 2012, 06:34:57 pm
Have to say, this new auto balance really fucks with this idea. Yesterday afternoon half the server was being switched team every single round. I didn't play a single consecutive round in the same team. Having any form of teamwork/leadership with that happening really won't work.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: isatis on January 01, 2012, 06:38:37 pm
warning: content siege tactic

in c-rpg we got one thing: construction site.  now the only use for it is blocking the way...
but, if we could buff it a bit by adding some (a lot) of hp to the building, it would be awesome!
imagine: catapult sending rock of fury into castle, healing tent where line of wounded ppl could go see a surgeon, siege tower attacking the castle.
that could be epic! true siege indeed!

also, if we could add THIS (http://img1.imagilive.com/affiche/0112/mb4.jpg.htm) to con site capability... omg... power!

(the tower is from WWII china mod (bad mod with some great construction idea)

imagine the possibilites!

edit:
Have to say, this new auto balance really fucks with this idea. Yesterday afternoon half the server was being switched team every single round. I didn't play a single consecutive round in the same team. Having any form of teamwork/leadership with that happening really won't work.

true that: trying to built a catapult in this condition is impossible!
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: bonekuukkeli on January 02, 2012, 09:25:23 am
This new balancing system makes it impossible to plan any teamwork at all. About every round you are switched to other side. And when round starts... no-one is listening suggestions anymore, those are done in dead-chat.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gnjus on January 02, 2012, 09:33:44 am
Buff Infantry's intelligence

This.
Bloody blind & unaware infantry can't even look around them and then they cry about getting picked off by enemy cav or bumped/slashed by their own. Zeka fakiri at it's best.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Templar_Ratigan on January 02, 2012, 11:32:08 am
You think a lot worse of this game than it is, I think its just not your type of game.

I think it was my type of game, but then they released a bunch of patches which first deleted all my chars,(and I dont mean the really old patches where you lost your char every few days), but fine I got over that, then reduced my experience in the game to something akin to a 1940's black and white movie, in that it became stop motion and hard to follow without any reasons or solutions and I possess a pc capable of making BF3 cry with tears at its own beauty, as well as a connection so stable you could bounce rocks off it.

The changes to the balance was just the proverbial icing on the cake.

ps: Incidentally I would like to know what type of game you believe I like. That isnt meant sarcastically, I would like the observation.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Teeth on January 02, 2012, 01:38:17 pm
I think it was my type of game, but then they released a bunch of patches which first deleted all my chars,(and I dont mean the really old patches where you lost your char every few days), but fine I got over that, then reduced my experience in the game to something akin to a 1940's black and white movie, in that it became stop motion and hard to follow without any reasons or solutions and I possess a pc capable of making BF3 cry with tears at its own beauty, as well as a connection so stable you could bounce rocks off it.

The changes to the balance was just the proverbial icing on the cake.

ps: Incidentally I would like to know what type of game you believe I like. That isnt meant sarcastically, I would like the observation.
Something with completely unique character building or something. 

If its as laggy and unstable for you, you should take a look at some of the optimization mods that have been made, heard great things about them. Or reinstalling the game, it runs fine for me.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tomas_of_Miles on January 02, 2012, 01:49:45 pm
imagine: catapult sending rock of fury into castle, healing tent where line of wounded ppl could go see a surgeon, siege tower attacking the castle.
imagine the possibilites!
This is my kind of guy.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Spawny on January 02, 2012, 03:27:09 pm
This:
If its as laggy and unstable for you, you should take a look at some of the optimization mods that have been made, heard great things about them. Or reinstalling the game, it runs fine for me.

And this:
I possess a pc capable of making BF3 cry with tears at its own beauty, as well as a connection so stable you could bounce rocks off it.

Don't mix, since the optimization mods are designed to make M&B playable on very low end pc's and laptops.
If I remember correctly, he allready tried reinstalling multiple times.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: helvictus on January 02, 2012, 03:34:15 pm
Crpg IS individualism...

To be honest, first of all, this :P if we were based around all doing the same thing in formation then why do we all look more or less completely different, granted everyone is generally just going for the better stuff rather than individualism but still...

for a first post on a forum though its not too informative so...

Onto topic... i've seen people in this thread referring to the team play in mount and musket. I'm primarily a MM player and a member of a regiment (the grand and worthy 92nd gordon highlanders!) and the team play you will have seen in videos will all be from private clan matches on passworded servers. 

These servers are VERY strictly controlled and the clan leaders are very good at keeping the men in line but that is only half of how the team play works.

to begin with i'll say that the pub servers on MM are just as chaotic as people say this is now, randomers doing random things with occasionally the odd regiment lining up and firing into the buildings but it doesn't work very well if the others are following the rules. The regiments will only really ever play on public to try and recruit new members from people who like what they see. secret message, join the 92nd! :P

The main half of why people play so strictly on mount and musket however is the time frame that the game is set in and the expectation of particular behavior that this brings. If you have specifically downloaded a mod that is based around a time in history where people lined up and shot at each other then, to a degree, that's what you expect to see in game or at least what a good portion of the people playing want to see in game.

This game is set in an age of swords and shields, of battle axes and broadswords and the people who download it come to the game with their own set of expectations. They don't always want to be a cog in a machine, no matter how well oiled it may be. They want to be robin hood or some other hero character.

Right now I think i'm a little too busy to try and join any clans here and besides i'm still very newbish and so wouldn't want to try yet but i would love to see some form of team play be brought to the fray in game somehow.

I don't think it can be compared to MM though. The only suggestion i can bring from my experience there is that on the main MM public server there is a public line battle every monday at 7pm GMT, (if you were looking to play i'd suggest you start there) Obviously you cant have admins or mods online 24/7 but there will always be a couple at the public line battle. The notice on entering the server tells you the deal and you can expect to be kicked if you are ramboing.

Perhaps something similar could work here?

I'm very newbish on this mod though so dont flame me too hard :P

thanks.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Malevolent_Warlord on January 02, 2012, 08:14:18 pm
In order to get some teamwork going on a few statements have to exist:

1) Player understands teamwork and its benefits
2) Player is willing to serve others


Teamwork starts when a player serves another player. This maybe onesided, but still its two players working "together" even if the other one is playing solo. Multiply there "servants" and then we have more teamwork. But there will be no teamwork if those two statements dont exist.

What I do is I find the some skilled and non-suicidal players and I help them. They often recognize me when I start following them around for many rounds and help out.

Another solution (maybe) would be to create a server that name is "CRPG 7 - Teamwork only". Have the server password protected and the password placed in the forum in a thread where we state the rules of the server. I guess this would reduce the number of soloplayers... perhaps. We would need a lot of admins to kick out players who go solo all the time.

We need leaders, but we also need people willing to serve others.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tzar on January 02, 2012, 08:17:42 pm
This thread is pointless now with the new random twister hurricane team balancer.. enjoy having to explain your idea 10 times during 1 map...
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 02, 2012, 08:21:56 pm
Agree the current team balancer makes it pointless. But I have hopes it will get fixed.

Anyway.. You are right in that cRPG IS individualism..

Guess what I'm trying to say is that we need to help players be individualist teamworkers. There should be a potential benefit from carrying a banner. There should be potential benefit to listen to the leader etc.

If we manage to lift cRPG into a teamwork game, it will stay so. If team 1 is well led and well organized, winning all the time, team 2 will start to do the same.

Less campy maps would be a start..
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: To Kill A Dead Horse on January 02, 2012, 08:24:00 pm
Solution: (maybe) If a person gets a kill he gets exp for it,and the teammates up to a certain distance away will get exp also.
 This most likely would work; in my mind archers will group up more, and inf will try to stay together. While cav may not exactly benefit as much from this idea.

Bascily the old exp system (i think)

Also an event server would be nice if you could only pal with ceratin gear that is given.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Kajia on January 02, 2012, 10:26:19 pm
teamplay? oh, I wrote some stuff about that somewhere.
sigh ...
link (http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,19564.0.html)

a small excerpt from linked text (I'm quoting myself)
Quote
Right now, cRPG means all players are be equal on the battlefield. Everyone can duel every kind of ROLE on the battlefield always with a small winning chance. I mean for a casual game, this is ... okay. But for a game that ideally supports high level teamplay, like 'Strategus', this is not very helpful. Right now people are encouraged to just choose ANY weapon (preferably matching their skill) and defeat another player on their own, because it might be possible. I think making it more realistic in a radical way, meaning a small hammer can not beat a long axe/twohander/shielder, would be better. Because THAT would encourage more teamplay; and would still not change the levelling logic in general. It actually means being afraid of arch-enemies of your class and being urged to stay in team.

with this text I was suggesting more realism, to make people more dependent on another ... yes, dependent on all these dudes not knowing what the fuck they are hitting. wanna know why? because they'll learn. call me a dreamer, whatever :rolleyes:
___

well, realism is only one thing. commanders and such are the others.

- as for the commanders: why not make an ingame QMC option (like QMU) for voting up commanders?
- I'd also vote for a walk-in-same-pace button
- also this could actually work:
I just got the funny idea that players could also get small rewards for every killed enemy (5xp, 2gold, or perhaps 0.01 more on multiplier?) within a certain range (50m radius?) as long as they did NOT kill them, themselves. I bet this would have funny effects on player behaviour, making them support and protect the others, in the hope of helping them to kill an enemy. I don't think enemies would be sorrounded but not attacked, the greed won't go that far, but it could support more little "squads" like a shielder at the front, followed by a two handed fighter and both supported by a pikeman and a crossbowman. If they decide to help and protect each other this squad is a damn nightmare for everyone.

or what about giving this reward to all players who hit an enemy at least once without killing him? would be funny to have players running around hitting everybody but never trying to kill anyone :lol:
but maybe giving xp/money is not the best solution at all, wanting to play in team and being motivated through a group experience would be best (an inspiring commander can achieve this, but he can also fail)

my 5 cts
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Chagan_Arslan on January 02, 2012, 10:50:15 pm
to have a teamplay you only really need couple of open field maps in a row

first open map after a series of village maps wont work, as the mob is still mentally in rambo mode, they need some time to adjust
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Sawbone on January 02, 2012, 10:56:20 pm
I'll be the whining bitch: I'm taking 40 hours worth of orders a week, don't wanna start following orders in cRPG too ;)

Teamwork happens on a smaller scale every fight, and sometimes I've seen large portion of armies actually follow some very loose ideas (camp hill, goto ruins, etc). But personally, when a dude starts barking orders telling people what to do... well I'll ignore it. That is unless I know the person, in this case, I'm more open for suggestions.

That's the key word: suggestions.

I understand the objective though, and I wouldn't dislike the idea of organized battles now and then (but that sounds like strategus? - just saying, because I haven't tried it).
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: KaMiKaZe_JoE on January 03, 2012, 12:33:08 am
just get some in-game voice chat capability

barring that, an official TS/Vent server would work nicely.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Vibe on January 03, 2012, 09:51:37 am
Remove ladders, make archers stick to melee and melee protect the archers.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Angantyr on January 03, 2012, 02:58:21 pm
In the Vikingr mod we added a battle horn to the chieftain class ( 1 per team ) which can be blow for an added damage and armor bonus ( +1 on each or something like that ) to all friendlies within 30m, and with a timer and a cool down, this helps to get people to at least stay near their leaders and helps coordinate charges and such. We also added an equippable banner item which besides looking good on the battlefield gives a constant healing rate to all friendlies near it ( very low healing rate in a quite short radius, to mimic a morale boost I'd vote for something different though, don't like healing much despite it working well enough in Vikingr ). This combined with the the removal of the shield force fields has made formations viable for most players, and the usual Vikingr battlefield has a banner carrier following the chieftain and most everyone else forming up behind them ( plus for events there's often several chieftains and banner carriers per side ).

I know these aren't necessarily good features for cRPG but being close to what has been suggested here a few times maybe it could serve as inspiration for something usable.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Templar_Ratigan on January 03, 2012, 03:51:08 pm
Agree the current team balancer makes it pointless. But I have hopes it will get fixed.

Anyway.. You are right in that cRPG IS individualism..

Guess what I'm trying to say is that we need to help players be individualist teamworkers. There should be a potential benefit from carrying a banner. There should be potential benefit to listen to the leader etc.

If we manage to lift cRPG into a teamwork game, it will stay so. If team 1 is well led and well organized, winning all the time, team 2 will start to do the same.

Less campy maps would be a start..

Agreed with all, I especially liked the ' individualist teamworkers', that's a good term. I always made odd builds for my own personal amusement, but if I saw a friendly in trouble id always make sure I helped them out as best I could.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 03, 2012, 10:30:15 pm
In order to get some teamwork going on a few statements have to exist:

1) Player understands teamwork and its benefits
2) Player is willing to serve others

You are right on this, concerning the current state of the game. And as both points are missing badly in the cRPG community, there is something to be done about this.

That's why I suggested to implement a few commander tools to not only give orders, but also to reward players following them. I think money and XP would be the closest thing to decide for, and pretty much everyone wants those, so I think this would work.

This way players wouldn't need to meet those two points above, improving the gameplay for those who actually understand 1) and 2) (those who follow the orders because of the rewards, without really understanding or at least thinking about what they do wouldn't feel bad about the change, either, as they would receive small additional rewards. And still they wouldn't be forced to follow the commands, as they still get their usual rewards per tick)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 03, 2012, 10:51:32 pm
I think it is more fun, and probably more rewarding to get a 1 time reward rather than ticking in. Ticking in rewards are grind-reminding.

It doesn't even have to be that great.. Valour and/or even a public message would be cool if a flag bearer survived the round, or someone picked up a flag.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on January 03, 2012, 11:02:35 pm
You are right on this, concerning the current state of the game. And as both points are missing badly in the cRPG community, there is something to be done about this.

That's why I suggested to implement a few commander tools to not only give orders, but also to reward players following them. I think money and XP would be the closest thing to decide for, and pretty much everyone wants those, so I think this would work.

This way players wouldn't need to meet those two points above, improving the gameplay for those who actually understand 1) and 2) (those who follow the orders because of the rewards, without really understanding or at least thinking about what they do wouldn't feel bad about the change, either, as they would receive small additional rewards. And still they wouldn't be forced to follow the commands, as they still get their usual rewards per tick)

That way you will reward people who stop thinking and just do what a person "commands", just to get a bonus  :rolleyes:

Further this will totally kill any individualism, as everyone would do that stuff to get more xp or gold  :rolleyes:

Bad idea.

People start thinking! Just take the role of commander and start giving orders instead of whining about absent teamplay....If you give clear and understandable and also more or less logic orders (telling your team to charge in a line one after another for example wouldn't be logical^^) people will start to follow you, at least a couple of them. If people see that they survived for a long time they will start following these orders as well -->  TADA! Teamplay

You are like politicians^^  Lots of discussion, but it leads to nothing :P

Less talking, more raiding ;)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 04, 2012, 12:26:50 am
I think it is more fun, and probably more rewarding to get a 1 time reward rather than ticking in. Ticking in rewards are grind-reminding.

It doesn't even have to be that great.. Valour and/or even a public message would be cool if a flag bearer survived the round, or someone picked up a flag.

I wasn't thinking of banners taking item slots. I think you shouldn't be punished for trying to lead your team by not being allowed to fight.

(click to show/hide)

Now, for example, whenever you approach the right flag (or there are none set, which means you can move freely), you can get a small reward, once per tick. But if you for example approach the "danger!"-flag, you don't receive a punishment, but you won't be able to receive a reward for this tick any more, either.

And if you kill an enemy that joined the class you were assigned to target, you get a small reward. (Ouch! I just realize that this would be some sort of reward for kills, the thing I was always against it - I have to rethink this one  :? )

A reward could be 5 gold and 10 XP, for example. Something little, but still enough to make you follow orders if you are indifferent about it, otherwise. (Just to maotivate people who don't care if they use tactics or not, and thus in most cases, as there is no tactic, don't follow any  :? )


That way you will reward people who stop thinking and just do what a person "commands", just to get a bonus  :rolleyes:

Further this will totally kill any individualism, as everyone would do that stuff to get more xp or gold  :rolleyes:

Bad idea.

In theory it sounds like you are right. But in reality we are talking about the cRPG community.  :P

It wouldn't make people stop thinking, as this implies they would be thinking now. But they are not. So nothing worse there  :wink:

And those people, who actually value their individualism, won't let themselves being bribed by those tiny rewards, as they are people who usually think about what would be the tactically best thing to do every round, and so the command system is not meant for them. Anyway, if the commander is half way competent the actions of those individualistic players and the commander's orders will overlap, anyway.

And for people who see their individualism in weakening their team by charging five enemies on their own in the attempt to win somehow, I think it is completely justified, that if they don't take care of their team they don't receive any additional rewards.  :P

People start thinking! Just take the role of commander and start giving orders instead of whining about absent teamplay....If you give clear and understandable and also more or less logic orders (telling your team to charge in a line one after another for example wouldn't be logical^^) people will start to follow you, at least a couple of them. If people see that they survived for a long time they will start following these orders as well -->  TADA! Teamplay

You are like politicians^^  Lots of discussion, but it leads to nothing :P

Less talking, more raiding ;)

I tried what you said. I didn't only give orders, I also explained why and how, and still only in few cases the team listened. In most cases the team completely splitted up (between those who listened and moved to a certain location/waited, and those "I can't release the [W]-key-lemmings"), worse than without any suggested tactics, resulting in really ugly steamrolls, making most of the players think: no tactics makes us lose the round, tactics make us being steamrolled, so no tactics must be better than tactics."

Honestly, in most cases it will fail. Just try it yourself. Only a few, most of those who actually followed you, will see that it was not your fault the round was lost. Usually it will be those who ignored everything, charged over the open field, being shot by dozens of archers and then ridden down by cavalry, who will blame you for having lost them the round.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 04, 2012, 03:51:29 am
You are better than me with walls of texts joker :)

Anyway.. If some trusted and experienced players that WANT to carry flags do it, they will have some autonomy themselves. They will know what to do when leader doesn't see whats going on.

Let's say leader put a bunch of archers on a field, when they would be better off 10m away in the trees or on a hill for some cav protection.

People won't be mindless robots, you would reduce the whole game to nothing for 99% of players.. Besides we had a commander system not so far away from what you suggest once upon a time.

Teamwork has to be more fun for everyone than what we have now, or there is no point in this thread.

That's the real challenge.

* And, why commanders often fail, is because of slow response from the team players. A Charging bunch will most of the time win against a static group because of initiative and movement. Hard discipline trumps this again.. but I almost never saw that in a cRPG battle. (Except holding doors against bots in DTV) As individuals a moving soldier is much less likely to be stabbed in the back than a static one.


(Damn just got a great idea.. From Sudden Strike 1 and many other games if anyone played it. There used to be a tactical map before each mission, where you are told what to expect and strengths and weaknesses etc. Would be great if commanders had a chance to SHOW their tactic before each round. let's say 10-15 seconds where everyone see the map from above, and the commander draw lines on it. I believe it could be done with a forced birds eye perspective for everyone, and an interface for the commanders to draw on the map.. Dunno :) on the other hand we have capable coders around)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on January 04, 2012, 09:13:54 am
If the flag was smaller I'd take it, but I can't shoot with such a big thing on my shoulder^.^

Joker, did you repeat your commands over and over again for the whole round? Lime "wait and stick together" or whatever every 10-15 seconds?
That way it usually worked, for me and for Lansamur and several others I saw commanding


But maybe you were just unlucky with your team^.^
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Glyph on January 04, 2012, 10:28:50 am
Short explanations:
what the helll is your defenition of a long explanation?!!!!!! :shock:

but good idea, we need more people like you on the forum. but like thomek said, we need to make tesamwork fun and rewarding, if it is executioned in the right way, teamwork is always rewarding. but i think a lot of people don't know that and therefore, they don't use it. so we have to get teamwork out of the closet :lol:, and the idea of thomek is a good way to do that, everyone will know teamwork will be used. the fun part is also acctually just a matter of making it public, if i play a round with teamwork and shieldwall, advances, cavalry charges and so on, it's automaticly fun for me, and a lot more then just a lame round where everyone runs around like they can kill the entire team on their own, and the problem is, they can. if you are a very good player, then you can easily take down a shitload of people, if they wouldn't be possible to do so, then more teamwork would be used. don't get me wrong, i don't want to make this mod a no-skill mod, but i want the skill from the person be transformed into skill from the team.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Vibe on January 04, 2012, 12:47:37 pm
tl;dr
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Gisbert_of_Thuringia on January 04, 2012, 01:03:45 pm
tl;dr

Where is the bus?   :rolleyes:    ^.^
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 04, 2012, 01:58:24 pm
Let's say leader put a bunch of archers on a field, when they would be better off 10m away in the trees or on a hill for some cav protection.

Of course this sucks, but there is of course a bigger radius in which you count as "at the flag", I would say 25m at least, as you still have to move. I don't think you need commands that are more percisely than "take the way here, between these two houses" and "We wait behind this barn", which can be a fairly wide space.

And finally I am so optimistic about the people volunteering for commander and being elected by the community, that I must assume the commander has a reason to place the archers on the open field. And again, as I said, you are free to follow every single command or not. If one command doesn't suit you, don't follow it. If the commands start to annoy you, exit the command system.

People won't be mindless robots, you would reduce the whole game to nothing for 99% of players.. Besides we had a commander system not so far away from what you suggest once upon a time.

Teamwork has to be more fun for everyone than what we have now, or there is no point in this thread.

That's the real challenge.

Well, they already are mindless lemmings, so I am confident you can turn them to mindless robots, too. Especially if you support their urge to farm  :lol:

Teamwork is fun per se, most people just don't know about it.

It's like a rock you have to get over a hill. It's difficult to push it up, but once you reached the top, it will keep rolling by itself. You first need "real", concrete rewards for it, so everyone sees a benefit in them, never mind if it's the real benefit of tactics or not.

The point is to make a good part or even the majority of the team use tactics. If they do so, a good part of the rest will follow, be it only because of some "sheep"-mentality or the fear of fighting alone if not sticking to the group, and you will have only a few players who jump willingly into their bukkake-rape.

If this becomes custom on the servers, it will have several effects:

most important of all, people will start to learn and to realize. They will see that tactics help a team winning, more than having a lot of skilled players, and with right tactics (and the enemy team making mistakes, e.g. using no tactic at all) you can kill all the 80 enemy players with 5 own losses or so. (Extreme example, but happened). People will see the benefits of teamplay, and they will realize it's not a tad less fun than charging headlong into the next bunch of enemies, if anything, it's more fun!

And people will learn about tactics themselves. They will see which things work better and which worse, and the overall understanding of tactical matters will increase. Which means people will wait BEHIND bottlenecks, not IN them, or they will hold a hilltop by going into cover right BEHIND it, instead of exposing themselves to enemy fire ONTOP of it. The game will become more professional.

And finally, new players (whenever there is steam sale you get a whole new bunch of them) won't learn the game to know any other than with using tactics, and so they will use them themselves, by default.

If we reach this point (simply by taking advantage of the greed of the players, rewarding them for following mindlessly, at least in the beginning), chadz can make a new patch that kills the game, removing all command rewards. Players will cry and flame about the missing rewards, but they won't suddenly stop using tactics. Perhaps the overall teamplay level will be that high, that commanders are not even needed that much, any more.

We must create the "custom" of teamplay. People are creatures of habit, once they get used to something, they stick to it. Removing the rewards after some time again will bring back the total "freedom" you were missing in my suggestion. The difference is, that at this point the community will be "educated" enough to gain some advantage of it.

tl;dr

Honestly, Vibe, I couldn't care less. Either contribute something or just fuck off, I don't care, but please stop spamming around, increasing your post count e-peen.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Vibe on January 04, 2012, 02:08:23 pm
Honestly, Vibe, I couldn't care less. Either contribute something or just fuck off, I don't care, but please stop spamming around, increasing your post count e-peen.

Due to your percentage of useless suggestions I deemed your current suggestion unworthy of time that would be required to read it.

PS: post count +1, u mad?
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Glyph on January 04, 2012, 02:13:09 pm
Due to your percentage of useless suggestions I deemed your current suggestion unworthy of time that would be required to read it.

PS: post count +1, u mad?
if you don't care, you don't have to read it. if you read it and this is the way you think about it, stay away from his topics or try to post something usefull.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 04, 2012, 02:21:10 pm
Due to your percentage of useless suggestions I deemed your current suggestion unworthy of time that would be required to read it.

You are perfectly right to do so, and if I am honest I can understand it very well concerning several aspects, but there was absolutely NO NEED to inform the others about what you DON'T do. The only reson to do so is trying to upset me, and this isn't a sign of good a character.

I am a man, unlike women I can only do one, perhaps two things at a time, besides breathing and blinking. If I always posted what I don't do, I would be posting every single action you can do on this world, except of "posting what I don't do", for the rest of my life. Which is both useless and uninteresting for the others.  :wink:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Vibe on January 04, 2012, 02:33:25 pm
I just sighed
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 04, 2012, 03:43:42 pm
hmm.. I just don't think people care that much about the grind really. It's not much you can do either way. Just play the game your pace and looms etc will come. If you are a below average player the autobalance will put in an above average player in your team to compensate. There are few ways to hack the autobalance in a leveling sense except fighting harder at x5 or so..

What I think people do care about is having fun and the respect/attention of other players. They basically want to be seen and noticed somehow.

That's why I think rewards should be Red Text, Public Valour or similar. Even some special items like a crown like some people suggested.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 04, 2012, 04:11:32 pm
Well, then perhaps introduce a new currency to buy some new eye-candy-items that have really good, though not the best stats. This way players who fight for their team instead for themselves have an opportunity to externalize their social attitude  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Kajia on January 06, 2012, 05:13:18 pm
If we reach this point (simply by taking advantage of the greed of the players, rewarding them for following mindlessly, at least in the beginning), chadz can make a new patch that kills the game, removing all command rewards. Players will cry and flame about the missing rewards, but they won't suddenly stop using tactics. Perhaps the overall teamplay level will be that high, that commanders are not even needed that much, any more.

We must create the "custom" of teamplay. People are creatures of habit, once they get used to something, they stick to it. Removing the rewards after some time again will bring back the total "freedom" you were missing in my suggestion. The difference is, that at this point the community will be "educated" enough to gain some advantage of it.

very nice ambition here. you want to enforce people to think for themselves. I can only say: yes!
I think what will also help is people carefully looking at clans doing teamplay. today I had a good time watching some wolpers doing high level teamplay with everyone else in the other team. I think it's quite a rich experience to fight against those well-attuned groups, or with them of course.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 06, 2012, 07:14:56 pm
Thanks for your support!  :D

I think what will also help is people carefully looking at clans doing teamplay.

I think this is where the problem lies. What you (and a few others) suggested requires self-initiative from the community (even if it is noticing something very basic.). And this is what you won't get, otherwise we would already have a decent level of teamplay.

I already read other things in this topic, like "if you think about it" or "a vote system won't work, if you see good commanders write them down on a sheet of paper" and similar things. But all those things don't work.

In my eyes the majority of the population on a server behaves like a bunch of lemmings in search of the next cliff. Every other solution than one that "pushes" them into teamplay by default, only letting those out who actively refuse, won't bring any improvement.

It's like the law for compulsory education. First all people are not that into learning and school (as they are still children), but as soon as they get teenagers, many of them realize the importance of a good education, and keep on learning by themselves, to earn a higher graduation. Even if it's not fun for them, they see it's the "right" way. If they wouldn't have been forced by the law to visit the first few classes, many of them wouldn't differ a bit from all that other folks you see in front of pubs, stations or strip clubs, as they wouldn't know it another way.

The only difference is, that teamplay is a lot of more fun, for far more people, than higher education is.  :wink:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Glyph on January 06, 2012, 09:11:24 pm
Thanks for your support!  :D

I think this is where the problem lies. What you (and a few others) suggested requires self-initiative from the community (even if it is noticing something very basic.). And this is what you won't get, otherwise we would already have a decent level of teamplay.

I already read other things in this topic, like "if you think about it" or "a vote system won't work, if you see good commanders write them down on a sheet of paper" and similar things. But all those things don't work.

In my eyes the majority of the population on a server behaves like a bunch of lemmings in search of the next cliff. Every other solution than one that "pushes" them into teamplay by default, only letting those out who actively refuse, won't bring any improvement.

It's like the law for compulsory education. First all people are not that into learning and school (as they are still children), but as soon as they get teenagers, many of them realize the importance of a good education, and keep on learning by themselves, to earn a higher graduation. Even if it's not fun for them, they see it's the "right" way. If they wouldn't have been forced by the law to visit the first few classes, many of them wouldn't differ a bit from all that other folks you see in front of pubs, stations or strip clubs, as they wouldn't know it another way.

The only difference is, that teamplay is a lot of more fun, for far more people, than higher education is.  :wink:
what's wrong with going to a stripclub! haha(sorry, just had too)

good point, i know that if i will fail all my tests, which require studying... , that i will not be able to go to the university. so by logicly thinking, i can see that that is the better thing to do. but yeah, you need that first educational push towards the right direction, and the only people that can give that little push are the devs, no normal player can force the others to do so, we need power form above to help us solve this problem, so if we want this to work, we atleast need some opinions from the devs, if they don't aprove, we can whine all we want, but it wont make any difference. we need some bigger guns to win this war, donkey guns to be exact...
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 06, 2012, 09:30:06 pm
(click to show/hide)

100% agree.

It is signed, I can only approved.

+1
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Glyph on January 06, 2012, 09:35:03 pm
so Paul, get your ass up here and say something(usefull, not like the other time i asked you to...)  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tears of Destiny on January 06, 2012, 09:51:48 pm
Part of the problem (a large part in my opinion) is that some people don't want team play. They want to get home, fire up cRPG and relax and just mindlessly play and have fun to help unwind. Nothing wrong with that.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 06, 2012, 10:48:20 pm
Part of the problem (a large part in my opinion) is that some people don't want team play. They want to get home, fire up cRPG and relax and just mindlessly play and have fun to help unwind. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't see where this collides with the idea of teamplay.

- You don't need to use your brain to stick close to a flag that grants you additional gold and XP
- You don't wait any longer, as it doesn't care if you spend your time waiting on a hill or in spectator mode
- You don't kill less people, if anything you kill more of them

Teamplay is like driving cars. Once learned you don't think about it any more, when doing it. Most people appearently think that using tactics is like playing a small (Waht? Even smaller?) Napoleon Bonaparte, sitting over a map and discussing about flanks and reinforcements.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: KaMiKaZe_JoE on January 07, 2012, 04:10:22 am
I'm so late to the discussion that I'm only going to suggest one really fucking important thing: in considering coordination, leadership, and team work in cRPG I implore you to draw insight from any and all of your experiences with other games in which multiple people have participated. This applies mainly to video games, however I'm sure an adequate number of "good ideas" can be found in the guise of those other competitive games we've played through out our lives: tag on the school playground, board games with friends (if you have any), sports, etc. While cRPG is special, and is the focus of our discussion, let us remember that it is at it's very core a game.

How were leader's picked for the school yard games we all vaguely remember participating in? Normally popular consent, no? Though I remember occasions when we would rotate leaders so that everyone had a turn to take charge in capture the flag--fair, but there was lots of sucking. In the Empires mod for HL2 leaders are voted for at the beginning of each round, though the coordination is made possible by a clever squad system.

But who needs leaders when the simplest of forms of coordination is possible, such as when myself and my friends play basketball (I suck). There there are no leaders, only basic commands like "cover that fucker!", and spontaneous coordination whereby I simply know to go for the rebound because I'm the closest one, and no one's covering me. The same thing happens when a pikeman takes a moment to look around, and seeing that the rear of his team's gaggle-fuck is exposed to enemy cavalry, moves to the back of the "formation". In this, heed Joker's advice when he notes the misconception many have about team work, that "[it's] like playing a small...Napoleon Bonaparte, sitting over a map and discussing about flanks and reinforcements". It can be much subtler.

First and foremost I suggest that there be official ventrilo/TS servers--because coordination is greatly facilitated by communication. This includes verbal communication, though there are uses for non-verbal (banners, flags, chat, etc) shit.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Hellsing on January 07, 2012, 03:37:30 pm
Remove little kids, they think they are invincable and like a "super killer warrior all fucking hero".
Teach them feelings like fear and better understanding of hiding behind a leader.
Give them something like brain, that it is not a good idea to destroy friendly buildings like siege shield, healing tents and so on.
Could be enough :wink:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on January 07, 2012, 03:52:57 pm
Introduce a mechanic that makes players weaker when on their own, maybe for melee combat so ranged can still skirmish more loosely but will take more damage and be weaker at close quarters if caught. This is a bit like raised shield skill when near other shields in strat.

- Give players more IF, PS, PT and Shield when being near teammates
- Also give cavalry more riding when riding within very close proximity to friendly cavalry. The increase in manoeuvre will hopefully not be used as only tight formations will confer the bonus meaning any swerving will cause whole formation to get messed up and trip over itself. This would mean horses would gain increased speed and strike power, along with the ps bonus.
- Give ranged maybe a raised wpf in both xbow and bow when together. Maybe faster fire rates if possible.

This would encourage teamwork. We know that this mechanic is possible regarding increase of stats as it has been implemented into strategus, just need to balance out appropriate bonuses for  each class.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: KaMiKaZe_JoE on January 07, 2012, 05:14:59 pm
Quote
Introduce a mechanic that makes players weaker when on their own

Ah, but you see they already are!
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Glyph on January 07, 2012, 05:19:06 pm
Introduce a mechanic that makes players weaker when on their own, maybe for melee combat so ranged can still skirmish more loosely but will take more damage and be weaker at close quarters if caught. This is a bit like raised shield skill when near other shields in strat.

- Give players more IF, PS, PT and Shield when being near teammates
- Also give cavalry more riding when riding within very close proximity to friendly cavalry. The increase in manoeuvre will hopefully not be used as only tight formations will confer the bonus meaning any swerving will cause whole formation to get messed up and trip over itself. This would mean horses would gain increased speed and strike power, along with the ps bonus.
- Give ranged maybe a raised wpf in both xbow and bow when together. Maybe faster fire rates if possible.

This would encourage teamwork. We know that this mechanic is possible regarding increase of stats as it has been implemented into strategus, just need to balance out appropriate bonuses for  each class.
good idea! for cav extra speed and maybe horse hp, for inf more if and ath and for archers more arrows/bolts maybe and extra accuracy. this would encourage sticking together a lot!
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on January 07, 2012, 06:05:18 pm
Ah, but you see they already are!

True but give them factual disadvantages that they can be told of rather than common sense based disadvantages. Stupidity is the worst of the c-RPG diseases, its nigh incurable :P
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Fartface on January 07, 2012, 06:10:01 pm
Some great ideas in here.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Riddaren on January 07, 2012, 07:14:06 pm
Personally I don't think it is convenient to carry a flag because it is more or less in the way.
I have not read all comments but I'm sure someone else has mentioned it already.

A solution would be to not animate the flag if you carry it yourself but show it in the HUD instead.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Christo on January 07, 2012, 07:16:57 pm
Very good idea there, Riddaren.

I like it, because when I got a flag on me, I lost a lot of view.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Malevolent_Warlord on January 07, 2012, 11:11:12 pm
Whatever system u think of just make it very simple. Puplic games are extremely difficult to command so complicated command systems are pretty much out of the picture. Only clans can work things like that.
I liked Lorenzo of Iberias idea.

Simple system:
- Player grabs a flag. ( Just make it so that it doesnt bother the player.)
- Those teammates (in same battallion perhaps?) who are within 20 meters from the carrier receive: +5 IF, +1 athletics, and slow health regeneration 2HP/10 sec.

Not OP me thinks, but gives a clear benefit. It doesnt increase killpower that much, but gives good defensive capabilities to teammates.

A system like this really gives benefits to teamplayers over han-solos. It would be easy for players to understand. 
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: LordSnow on January 07, 2012, 11:25:56 pm
Follow us, listen to Tueten and you will have teamplay.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2012, 12:35:53 am
I think at the beginning you should indeed stick to simple commands, anything that goes further than "wait over there and attack at 4:30" probably won't work as intended, but the better the average level of teamplay in the community is, the better you can perform commands that are more complicated or require greater self-discipline of the players, for example "fall back while fighting to lure them through a bottleneck"... it requires you to fall back although there is this single pikeman a few more meters away who would be an easy target.

I think there is no problem in creating a command system that provides the commander with a vast variety of options, as he can always decide how percise his orders will be, according to the team he is leading.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: H4rdn3ssKill3r on January 08, 2012, 01:13:40 am

2. Somehow appoint some players to leaders. Give them a new color text. (like admins, but other color)
Perhaps every player can get this text if they are at least gen5, and let the 2 best W:L ratio player on the team get it. W:L ratio could be a good tool to find true teamplayers and promote people taking charge and leading with success.

So basically give people who allready love extending there E-peen more fucking E-peen?

Riiiiiiiigghhtttt.
Remember, kills don't mean anything, that damn lone wolf backstabbing archers could be your leader :P
Make it a vote like in BF3 that you can mutiny against them if they are complete garbage, and also maybe a buff to the player that are near the leader  so they are incitied to stay near the leader?
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Malevolent_Warlord on January 08, 2012, 03:25:50 am
I think at the beginning you should indeed stick to simple commands, anything that goes further than "wait over there and attack at 4:30" probably won't work as intended, but the better the average level of teamplay in the community is, the better you can perform commands that are more complicated or require greater self-discipline of the players, for example "fall back while fighting to lure them through a bottleneck"... it requires you to fall back although there is this single pikeman a few more meters away who would be an easy target.

I think there is no problem in creating a command system that provides the commander with a vast variety of options, as he can always decide how percise his orders will be, according to the team he is leading.

The problem again with the lack of teamplay is this, as stated before by me:
1) Player needs to understand teamplay and its benefits
2) Player is willing to serve others
If these two rules don't apply means no teamwork.

The problem that we are discussing is that we have no teamplay, period.
- We have no respectable and known leaders who want to lead round after round.
- We have no teamplayers and even those who want teamplay fall into soloplay often.
- We don't have many players who understand teamplay.
- We definently don't have a lot of people people willing to help others and keep eachother alive.
- We have a lot of people who want to do what they want to do.
- We have a endless stream of "stick together" and it's effect is diminshed to say the least.

If we want teamplay we need players who want teamplay. Not gonna happen in puplic server.
Or we need the game to support teamplay heavily above individualism.

Complex or even basic command system won't work without clear incentive. Shouting commands to non-motivated players won't work. And who does the commanding and yelling round after round?

Battlefield 3 (OMG!!! Did he just say BF3 in CRPG forum? BAN!!)
Yes, I said BF3.
BF3 gives advantages to other teammates in our squad eg. ammo, health, explosives, combat capabilities. BF3 also allows squad respawns.
Teamplay in BF3 doesn't exist among puplic players, but the wisest ones do join squads just to get those perks other members give them.
U get some sort of teammate interaction there with all the benefits. Still quite non-existant.

M&B is a different sort of game and staying with the group is more easily understod. U easily lose when facing 3-5 enemies.
So I suggest a squad system (flags and battallions) that clearly benefits players. One person carries the flag and those near him benefit from that flagcarrier.
I think money and XP acts poorly as incentive. Once u don't need money or XP it loses its attractivness.

Lets say for Infantry 15-20 meteres around the flagcarrier receive:
- Extra health and health regeneration (+ 10 hp, +12 hp per minute regeneration?)
- Extra athletics
- Extra shield defence
- Possibly extra power draw, PT, PS?

For Cavalry 50 meters around the cavalry flagcarrier receive:
- Extra riding (+1?)
- Extra health for horse (+30 hp?)
- Extra charge (+10?)

Other capabilites:
- Extra arrows
- Extra WPF, Strenght, Agility
- Join a battallion and u get -20% to upkeep costs
- Join a battallion and u get 1,5x multiplyer

Teamplay needs to be built in the game and the benefits of it should be something the player doesn't want to be without.
Fullfilling some noobs FUBAR tactics doesn't appeal to everyone.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Rical on January 08, 2012, 04:01:02 am

1. More random plains, or perhaps premade maps that are like plains.
This will gradually teach the players to stick together. Teach them not to run after cav.. (I facepalm everyday when I see this too much.)  The amount of cover and roofcamping in the village maps encourages xbow static play, invites cav to come around corners for the sudden insta-death couch or lancing or headslashing,

2. Somehow appoint some players to leaders. Give them a new color text. (like admins, but other color)
Perhaps every player can get this text if they are at least gen5, and let the 2 best W:L ratio player on the team get it. W:L ratio could be a good tool to find true teamplayers and promote people taking charge and leading with success.

3. Let us buy banners as a kind of polearm.
The system we have about joining groups etc works only halfway. Few people join battalions and even fewer actually use them.. They are too "free" in my opinion. Someone seeing themselves, or getting appointed to be banner bearer by admin would care more about their "Job". Even the ones following and protecting that player. Perhaps loosing or keeping a banner would have some kind of effect like Valour for the people around it, or Valour for the one that takes it.

4. Nerf/Change how xbows work.
Make them more mobile, by making faster reload times, nerfing damage. Xbows promote a camping, sniping individualist gameplay where it's SHOOT, HIDE, SHOOT, HIDE. And it works wonderful for the players playing like this. This is not teamplay.

5. Change Cav to be a less individualistic class.
Cav has one of the most powerful teamplay mechanics/tricks available. Bump + lance, but it's very rarely used consciously because they DON'T HAVE TO! They do too well by just running around in a mess. Again relying on individual skill.

6. Add synchronised walk speed.
One of the biggest problems maneuvering random groups on the battlefield is different run speeds. The team always reach the other team spread out. I believe if everyone had the same walk speed, one could keep better formations and keep people together. [/b]



I think I have to agree with you.. At least what I think is Close to what YOU think about bringing back teamplay.
1.Good Idea
2.Good as long as they choose a Decent guy...
3.Good Idea too
4.Yeap I totally agree
5.They are running around in a mess  because . . other peeps (archers - infantry-cav) ofter run around in a mess too , so they see it as the easiest and best way to get kills...
6.No I will have to disagree with you there..because someone else has higher moving speed than you doesn't  imply  that you can't manouver your group easy... It's all about teamplay.. and Oh it would be unfair A full plated swordsman running the same as a leather-wearing archer
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2012, 04:44:26 am
The problem again with the lack of teamplay is this, as stated before by me:
1) Player needs to understand teamplay and its benefits
2) Player is willing to serve others
If these two rules don't apply means no teamwork.

The problem that we are discussing is that we have no teamplay, period.
- We have no respectable and known leaders who want to lead round after round.
- We have no teamplayers and even those who want teamplay fall into soloplay often.
- We don't have many players who understand teamplay.
- We definently don't have a lot of people people willing to help others and keep eachother alive.
- We have a lot of people who want to do what they want to do.
- We have a endless stream of "stick together" and it's effect is diminshed to say the least.

If we want teamplay we need players who want teamplay. Not gonna happen in puplic server.
Or we need the game to support teamplay heavily above individualism.

You are right about every single point, except of the one I marked.

The topic has become quite extensive, so I understand if someone didn't see ll suggestions that were made, especially as some of them were made in several postings. I think I should comprehend them as much as possible.

In fact I suggested the following things:

1.: Elect commanders who volunteer via forum vote.
In my opinion this is the only way how the "proper" commanders can be elected, as this is a difficult decision and can't be done during an ongoing battle, so any ingame vote is inapplicable as solution. Especially because if you make it need a high percentage of votes, you will hardly ever have a commander, if only a few votes are needed, small clan squads could abuse it. They are commanders on the servers all the time, exactly like admins are admins on the servers all the time. But they can choose an option to leave commander modus for this match, of course.

2.: Improve the auto-/bannerbalance system
Instead of using banners and having a lot of leechers changing the banner to the one of whichever clan is currently dominating, you create "factions" on your character page or can join existing ones, where your application has to be accepted or declined. This way leeching and unneccessarily big bunches of people making things more difficult for autobalance are rendered obsolete. Also the new "faction"-balance has to distribute the factions as evenly as possible, and not all of them into one team. (Has this already been fixed recently? IDK). Commanders get put into different teams by default. If there are more commanders than two, the ranking of the forum vote decides who will be in charge. If there are less than two commanders (active), no one can be commander. (Everything else would be unfair)

3.: Implement a command system.
Every player has to see this command system by default! He needs to leave actively to get out of it.
Allow the commanders to...
... give different orders for different classes
... set (different) flags (e.g. "wait here", "stay away from here"...)
... give general behaviour commands via hud (e.g. "Stay defensively")
... write screen messages (e.g. "CHARGE NAO!!!")
... write chat messages in his own colour
... perhaps elect non commissioned officers, who have some limited "suqad control" commands, helping out with micromanagement


4.: Implement a reward system for listening to commands.
Be it small amounts of gold and XP or some special rewards like a new currency to buy some special looking weapons (without any outstanding stats), just give the players a new motivation for teamplay besides the sheer will to use or follow tactics.


Effects I am hoping for:

- Greed causes a good part of the server population to follow some of the orders
- The rest of the players will see more teamplay and follow for different reasons ("late" greed, being gangraped constantly, perhaps even some insights or enlightenments)
- Players will get used to teamplay. New players will learn playing the game with teamplay by default.
- After some time, hopefully, a good part of the community, perhaps even the majority (allow me to dream!) will recognize that teamplay...
... is a lot of fun
... doesn't take any longer than charging at the beginning of a round and then spending the rest in spectator mode
... makes you more successful and improves your K/D-ratio
... is neither complicated nor a great effort for your brain
... extends the time you're actually playing/fighting
- As soon as this stage is reached, a good part of the overall "cRPG skills" will be a common understanding of teamplay, making you do things that are not only the best for your K/D-ratio but also for the round of the match, simply by having learned WHAT to do WHEN, things you often enough see in other games.

When you play soccer/basketball on the playground with some other kids you don't know, you will still pass them the ball if you see they are standing free. You don't need to be friends (clanmates), or communicate at all (=use chat, need orders from a commander) to do so, it's as much part of the game as moving the ball.

At this point you can also remove the rewards for following commands, I bet people would still stick to teamplay, for a lot of (now) obvious reasons.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on January 08, 2012, 02:40:30 pm
(click to show/hide)

Commands are far too complex for Red Orchestra 2 with automatic squads and a built in command system, c-RPG community is just plain incapable. Give them simple automatic benefits to their immediate position such as increased stats when together and be there a commander or not. Electing one would be nice but atm a system does exist where if someone has enough charisma to lead a team to victory only some start listening and a lot of others still done, so I dont think its the lack of command thats the issue its just some people dont like commands.

Make it possible for players to not need commands or a commander but still do teamwork, via stats buff as I pointed out (page 9). You will find that the passive method will cause people to realise by them self its better to work as a team and when given commands they will not only passively but actively obey. Its a simple method of carrot on a stick, if we try to elect a higher order of players who are capable commanders, the proud, the trolls, the butt hurt they didnt get elected will all possibly go against the command. Mutiny will ensue and you lose all tactics. People dont like being told others are better than them, its as simple as that. Nobody wants to follow orders from some guy they dont recognise or know :/
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on January 08, 2012, 02:44:28 pm
Follow us, listen to Tueten and you will have teamplay.

Also sorry but I havnt seen much wolves influence on eu1 for a very long time :P a very very very long time, if anything I'd say the mercs are the closest to getting teamplay out public servers. Phaz is the most influencial and intelligent 'commander' I've seen actually pull stuff off on public servers, but Wolves I havnt seen you barking out orders in a long time ;)

I apologise for my double post
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2012, 03:27:29 pm
Make it possible for players to not need commands or a commander but still do teamwork, via stats buff as I pointed out (page 9). You will find that the passive method will cause people to realise by them self its better to work as a team and when given commands they will not only passively but actively obey. Its a simple method of carrot on a stick, if we try to elect a higher order of players who are capable commanders, the proud, the trolls, the butt hurt they didnt get elected will all possibly go against the command. Mutiny will ensue and you lose all tactics. People dont like being told others are better than them, its as simple as that. Nobody wants to follow orders from some guy they dont recognise or know :/

Well, stats buff is another form of reward for following orders (e.g. a certain buff within the range of a flag. A "Defend" flag could provide Ironflesh, an "Attack" flag Power Strike, only the bonus of the last placed flag within an area apllies), and what you write after this, about people realizing and actively following orders, shows that we basically agree.  :D
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: LordSnow on January 08, 2012, 03:42:15 pm
Maybe start with the shielwall bonus that we have on strat implement during normal battle? :wink:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 08, 2012, 03:46:51 pm
I think we need to keep it stupid simple.

People must actively carry banners with huge flags and bonuses around.
3 colors (archers, inf, cav)

I still think W:L ratio should determine who should be leaders. The only way to bypass the value you have for the autobalancer is to help others get kills or lead your team. Hence you can be as good individualist as you want, but it won't affect your personal W:L ratio. The autobalancer will always weigh in your leetness with another or 3 players on the other team.

Personally I would only respect the W:L ratio of a leader. It's the facts.. Perhaps the W:L ratio when he leads should be the only ones counting, but still.. Before that normal W:L ratio quite accurately identifies a team player. There will always be some bias towards archers and cav since they more often deal damage without killing, assisting, bumping etc.. But I suspect not by that much more than an average inf.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: gazda on January 08, 2012, 03:51:21 pm
havent red any post so im dont know if this was suggested, but im making it anyway

what if we give attribute of "commander" to some players, and that somone with "commander" attribute  would be able to join as spectator(he wouldnt be actually playing) and he would have all kind of commands and options, AND he would also get the multi and gold of his team,
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: LordSnow on January 08, 2012, 03:53:19 pm
I think we need to keep it stupid simple.

People must actively carry banners with huge flags and bonuses around.
3 colors (archers, inf, cav)

I still think W:L ratio should determine who should be leaders. The only way to bypass the value you have for the autobalancer is to help others get kills or lead your team. Hence you can be as good individualist as you want, but it won't affect your personal W:L ratio. The autobalancer will always weigh in your leetness with another or 3 players on the other team.

Personally I would only respect the W:L ratio of a leader. It's the facts.. Perhaps the W:L ratio when he leads should be the only ones counting, but still.. Before that normal W:L ratio quite accurately identifies a team player. There will always be some bias towards archers and cav since they more often deal damage without killing, assisting, bumping etc.. But I suspect not by that much more than an average inf.

I'd love banner that we can carry with our clan emblem on it, been on sugestion board many times:/
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2012, 03:58:23 pm
I still think W:L ratio should determine who should be leaders. The only way to bypass the value you have for the autobalancer is to help others get kills or lead your team. Hence you can be as good individualist as you want, but it won't affect your personal W:L ratio. The autobalancer will always weigh in your leetness with another or 3 players on the other team.

Personally I would only respect the W:L ratio of a leader. It's the facts.. Perhaps the W:L ratio when he leads should be the only ones counting, but still.. Before that normal W:L ratio quite accurately identifies a team player. There will always be some bias towards archers and cav since they more often deal damage without killing, assisting, bumping etc.. But I suspect not by that much more than an average inf.

I don't get why you are so hooked on the W:L-ratio  :P

- You claim that there is (almost) none teamplay on the servers
||
V
- Which means teamplay has no impact on the end of rounds. How could it, it's not existant?
||
V
- The only thing left to determine the outcome of a round is the average skill of a team and/or teamplay among clan players (= your banner)
||
V
- Currently the W:L will probably show the same players like the K:D will. Which will be the clan players with most skill
||
V
- No way this can be a good base to determine good leaders


You are right, after a command system is not only implemented, but also accepted and fully integrated into the gameplay, it is a good way to observe the success of a commander as long as you only count those rounds when he is in charge. But the problem is: this only works at a later stage, and is completely unsuitable for finding commanders, especially at the current state of the game.

Even if we DID have a working command system, and you would like to become a new commander, your W:L would only show how successfull your previous commanders were.

The point is: a single player can't influence his W:L WITHOUT having most of his team listening to him.

It's like saying "You can only start studying Maths if you made your professor in maths. Eerrrr..."

Or better:

"You can only become mayor of your town if the household of your town exceeds a certain value, showing that you have lead your town well before becoming mayor. Eerrrr.."

havent red any post so im dont know if this was suggested, but im making it anyway

what if we give attribute of "commander" to some players, and that somone with "commander" attribute  would be able to join as spectator(he wouldnt be actually playing) and he would have all kind of commands and options, AND he would also get the multi and gold of his team,

Actually an interesting idea, although I sounds abusable. Because every tard can give himself a high commander skill and then troll around with the commands ingame... but sounds worth thinking about it a bit further...  :)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 08, 2012, 03:59:50 pm
Back up in your ass with a resurrection. 
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 08, 2012, 04:09:27 pm
Atm the autobalancer, it may have even before afaik, takes into account block strength.

That means there is really no way to "beat" it except helping others get kills, AKA teamplay.

No matter the strength of yourself or your clan/block, it will be offsetted by the other team..
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: gazda on January 08, 2012, 04:21:20 pm
i didnt have any commanding skill in mind, i meant it like, a tittle that admin or dev would give to certain player,
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2012, 04:28:57 pm
Atm the autobalancer, it may have even before afaik, takes into account block strength.

That means there is really no way to "beat" it except helping others get kills, AKA teamplay.

No matter the strength of yourself or your clan/block, it will be offsetted by the other team..

I don't think the autobalancer can really offset such things, otherwise you wouldn't have always the same top clan players being in the winning team all the time, over a few maps. And it's not because they try to get their team the most kills.

You try to evaluate something that almost noone did on the servers, and even if he did, you most likely wouldn't see it by his W:L, as it needs more people to use tactics so that they can have an impact on the success of a team. I think pikemen for example are per definition more teamplayers than other classes, as they need support (or someone to support, respectively) to work. And I bet most pikemen will have worse W:Ls than for example the best two handed fighters of certain clans.

Could one of the developers actually answer if there is already some data about the wins and losses of certain players, ans who has the best ratio? By seeing the names we could see if the system would be viable or not.

i didnt have any commanding skill in mind, i meant it like, a tittle that admin or dev would give to certain player,

Ah well, yes, that's what I already suggested, together with a forum vote to determine who will get those rights. I must say I like your idea  :wink:
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: gazda on January 08, 2012, 04:39:35 pm
i see there are a lot of ideas, why doesnt some admin or anyone else make a post containing all those idead, and a paragraph with quotaiton from original idea submitor explaining the actuall idea and a poll to choose which ideas do you like the most?

if noone does that all those ideas will be lost
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Lorenzo_of_Iberia on January 08, 2012, 04:50:08 pm
Well, stats buff is another form of reward for following orders (e.g. a certain buff within the range of a flag. A "Defend" flag could provide Ironflesh, an "Attack" flag Power Strike, only the bonus of the last placed flag within an area apllies), and what you write after this, about people realizing and actively following orders, shows that we basically agree.  :D

I'm down with this ;)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: KaMiKaZe_JoE on January 08, 2012, 06:18:12 pm
Still think we need better voice communication ability before we can even consider the possibility of getting leaders into the mix. Sure, he can talk to his buddies in his clan vent/TS--but the majority of pubbies won't hear him. Need in-game voip, or official vent servers. I can't follow someone IF THEY CANT FUCKING TALK TO ME.

Voip's by far superior to the normal chat, too.

That being said, if we're gonna put a "leader" in charge, then I think that that leader should be voted for. Empires mod does this, and it works spectacularly. There is also a "vote to kick out the current leader" option, in case of trolling or shitty leadership.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: SquishMitten on January 08, 2012, 07:05:55 pm
in-game voip,
It would be hilarious and annoying all in one!
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 08, 2012, 07:26:50 pm
It would be hilarious and annoying all in one!

Hence the need to be able to mute people...both globally by admins (so it mutes that person for everyone), and locally by individual users (so it only mutes for the person who choose to mute them). 

In game voip is basically a requirement for any teamplay based game since 2001.  Without makes it terribly difficult to coordinate.

I do realize having 50 people on a team trying to talk all at once would be kind of hard to prioritize.  You'd have to make rules like in TS/Vent with that many people, only leaders call out strats, and only if it's urgent do you get on the mic.  Would be cool if they tied in-game voip with the battalions.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: SquishMitten on January 08, 2012, 07:32:30 pm
Would be cool if they tied in-game voip with the battalions.
this would be a good compromise
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 08, 2012, 08:11:33 pm
It is a difficult matter, as if you give VOIP only to a few people others perhaps feel underprivileged, and would like to join a tactical discussion without having to type all the time.

On the other hand VOIP for everyone means a lot of noise and annoyance, and thus many players will mute everybody, rendering the new feature useless again and we are where we started.  :?
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Mosquito on January 09, 2012, 12:47:17 am
the 'swapping teams every round disaster' has now passed (fingers crossed, pray to almighty chadz)!

So............we're back to plain human defficiencies as the only thing stopping us from having teamwork as fantastic as the movements of a swiss clock?

I think that once you go into the 'give ppl a buff to stats' routine it becomes impossible to stop and the game becomes something totally different to what we recognize, ie it becomes World of Warcraft........?i don't believe anyone wants that or they wouldn't be here.

We are basically like sheep, we like to follow, all we need to do is make it easy to see what we are following (coloured text, flags etc) and we like to know who is the best shepherd so we don't follow any random loser:) i still think that the 'leaders' have to be decided somehow before the round starts and perhaps we should have a short 'briefing period' at the start of round;perhaps 10 seconds where everyone is frozen to issue orders?

I see over the course of this thread that many people hold similar views  over what teamwork is about and hold it close as a valued ideal, i believe that this community could thrive on this idea given the chance as they are not quite as hardbitten as we might believe. I've seen cavmen give up thier horse if they accidently got a team-mates horse killed by their actions, maybe something exists beyond the base kill/frag whoring machines we sometimes picture the community as?

Lets push on.

We really only need some leaders to follow, i've seen plenty of good candidates in this thread for example (unfortunately most players won't read this!), i will follow you and when it works it is an infectious idea.

Time to step up Thomek:)
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Thomek on January 09, 2012, 01:48:28 am
I've stepped up many times, that's why I raged and wrote this thread..

I'm no leader. I fail mostly, or team fail, or they fail to follow, or I have bad ideas, or I don't communicate them well, or they demand that teammates understand what a charge is etc..  I don't even have any urge to lead, I sometimes try out of mere frustration from the general retardation! But I would love to see more organized play in the everyday pub battles.

I'm not so very opposed to forum votes, but at least W:L ratios should be made public. Thing about forum votes and general activity is that many players don't read it.. Also just because we are forumers that write a lot of crap doesn't make us leaders.. We are just known among forumers.

Joker, the autobalance DOES offset such things, at least it used to, and if not completely, to a very large degree. The reason you see top clans/players winning is just because they are always topping the charts, wether they are winning or loosing. Winning usually means they get more kills, which means their K:D ratio improves beyond their individual skill level, which means they are weighted heavier, which means their weight is again offset by the other team.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Riddaren on January 28, 2012, 01:50:31 pm
Step one - show W:L ratio

In the scoreboard, show the W:L ratio of all rounds played since the player joined the server.
That way people caring about winning rounds rather than getting a nice k:d ratio would get the recognition they deserve.

This would only be useful if the W:L ratio is kept between maps, not reset. Is it possible?

(click to show/hide)


Step two - Appoint leaders by W:L ratio

Once the scoreboard W:L ratio is implemented, it will be easier to successfully implement the idea of leaders.
They could either get appointed automatically or by voting (or both combined somehow).

Important: The leader should not see his own banner in the field of view. It should instead be displayed in the HUD.
The reason for this for those who doesn't know is that the field of view is decreased so badly you would not like to become a leader if this doesn't get fixed.

A leader should not get team swapped of course and for the rest it should not happen as much as it does at the moment.

The leader will stay leader as long as his team wins. Then a new poll can be made so that the round after someone else becomes leader.

The hard part about this is to have 2 teams vote for their own leader...
One thing you could to is to just have 2 polls, then randomly appoint those selected to each team no matter in what team they were before selected... hmm...
I think it will be more simple if it is done automatically somehow... maybe have the setting of prefered leaders on the web page.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Joker86 on January 28, 2012, 10:14:16 pm
I like the first half of your suggestion, but I have to disagree with you and Thomek on the second part.

In the current state of the game you can NOT recognize good leaders by their W:L-ratio. A single player doesn't have the possibility to constantly influence the course of a battle to his favour, unless he is incredibly skilled or only plays with a large amount of clan mates. Which is again an argument against the W:L-commander, because being skilled or in a good clan doesn't tell anything about your leadership skills.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tomas_of_Miles on January 29, 2012, 09:38:02 pm
I believe Empires has a system whereby people nominate themselves to be available to vote for. As Kamikaze Joe said, Empires' system works well.
Title: Re: Teamplay, how can we resurrect it?
Post by: Tavuk_Bey on January 29, 2012, 09:57:57 pm
we need a very large ts to solve this problem.

yo! calradian people! unite!

come together for the sake of your future!

yo! calradian people! unite!

hello calradia, tell me how you're doin'!

hello madaland tell me how you're doin!