Ok, so I've thought up 4 things that should be easy/quick to implement that I think would make c-rpg even better. Most of them have been mentioned at some point, but I would like to remind the devs about it, and hear you opinions. :)
1. LEADERSHIP CHAT
Give the person with the highest Win:Loss ratio on each team a special Leadership coloured team-chat. (Like, purple or bright green)
With this he can issue commands, and the players would be free to follow them or not. One can argue that players would refuse to follow etc, but I think this would only be true in the beginning. Once a commander has developed trust with the players and an outstanding W:L ratio people will start following him. If they will not follow a commander, his W:L ratio will naturally worsen and another one will be no.1
Of course, players that can "carry teams alone" will have an advantage, but I think it's ok if the commander is also a hero! Over the long run though, autobalance will take care of his W:L ratio, and only his commands will be there to shift the balance back. (A cool additional feature would be that the commander could give away command to the next on the list if he has to go etc. )
Reason:
I do believe we can have tactical battles like in the old days when there was proximity based XP. Often one could see the effectiveness of charges and interesting teamplay going on. I think this would also lead to an awareness of teamplay among the players that we haven't seen much of yet.
How?:
Start to track the win loss ratio's of all players, the only true measure of their battlefield effectiveness and teamwork. Each MAP nominate the leaders of both teams after 10 seconds of the first round. *Would be awesome if it was a full screen message to both teams. Players should be able to tick a box on the website if they would like to be leaders.
To me this doesn't look like a lot of work for a dev, and could be worth testing in c-RPG before M:BG anyway. Ozin? you busy? :)
2. REMOVE HX
One can ask a moral question here: Do the class substract or add to the overall "Fun For Most" of cRPG? I think HX leads to most fun for the HX, and is generally too detrimental to other classes. He also doesn't fill a vital need on the battlefield that can't be replaced by HA, which is a more active class with higher shots per minute, lower accuracy and lower damage, though probably higher dps. Point is, the HA needs to sacrifice more than the HX in terms of points and armor.
In general, I think most players agree they are lame. Lame to fight and lame to die from. They also seem a bit lame to play, but what do I know. Not everyone likes to melee.. Overall I think they are detrimental to c-rpg, as well as OP.
HX battle features:
* High accuracy
* High missile speed
* Speed bonus to ranged, aka very high potential damage
* choose battles
* Bumping, aka mad powerful teamwork ability
* Bump shooting
* Bump slashing
* Slashing with speed bonus
* Armor doesn't slow down
* Hold fire indefinitely
* Cav+Melee+Ranged in 1
* Ninja cav
+ certain features that slow down the game: Slow reload, leads to low risk, extended playtime. Primary weapon unsuited to kill aware enemies. All these leads to a likelyhood of unnecessarily delaying rounds.
How?
Simple, remove reloading of crossbows on horse in the weapon attributes.
3. GIVE RANGED FULL POINTS FOR HITS
Lately I've seen ranged with staggering K:D ratios but low points. I think a buff to their points would do two things: 1. Give them valour, 2. show everyone a more accurate estimation of their effectiveness on the leaderboards. I think archer-hits do slightly more damage per hit than melee strikes in most cases, so why not give them full points for it?
How?
I'm sure devs knows how to do this! :) probably just a parameter somewhere and thus a 3 minute job.
4. INCREASE CROSSBOW WEIGHT
Skilled crossbowmen already drop their ranged weapons for melee. I think this is a reasonable tradeoff for their ranged abilities. They can always pick them up again. Besides, many bows are already heavier than xbows, something which doesn't make any sense realistically.. (If that's an argument) I also think it fits nicely thematically, what crossbowman would fight with his heavy crossbow on his back?
@Paul: If you read my post, it's clear that players must tick a box if they want to be commanders. As well, in the field, the commander can give command to the next on the list.
Yes, I know there are potential for lots of features, but this post is all about relatively easy fixes, within current dev-effort levels. :)
Your idea would make it less likely to be implemented because it sounds like work. My idea sounds like a cool little feature, easily and quickly made, and worth a shot! (If it works, you can repeat it for melee)
If it is a success, it can of course be expanded upon. And yes, downvoting a bad commander should probably be an option, but I think that after a while, most commanders that deserve the spot will be rather competent.
This is step by step how it could be implemented:
1. Track Win:Loss ratio. (Some code that adds 1,0,-1 to a W:L ratio database field to each player at the end of each round)
2. Harald makes a tick box on the website for players who wants to try for commander.
3. At map start: Check who has the best W:L ratio, award special text to one commander on each team.
4. At 15 seconds: Display server side chat message to all players (or full screen message) "Paul is now commanding Blue team, Bjord is now commanding Red team"
5. Add button to each commander to give away command to next on list. If done, display new server message accordingly.
To my eyes, it looks like a few hours work to implement, but what do I know. Worth a shot imo.
(It could be easily enchanced as well, with resets each month, tracking commander W:L ratios as a separate field, putting a special banner/icon above commanders, giving them a crown, shout full screen message abilities etc etc.. , overhead map like you suggested, but I think all of this is not necessary for basic functionality. Players know each other too well atm, and almost everyone looks unique anyway.)
@Phew: Sorry forgot, this is obviously for battle. In siege it wouldn't work because of the aggressive autobalancer, as well as tactics are OP there.. :)