Tactics and Commanding in cRPG battles or Siege

[Micah]

Suggesting : Commanding in cRPG battles (which could also be useful in Siege mode battles)
Intention  : refresh of discussion how to get tactics into battles
             - i dont nessessarily want my idea to be the onlyone discussed in this thread , always open for better ideas and modifications , if they are reasonable better
Goal       : Battles need tactical dimension
Referencing: thomeks battle improvement thread which which is a great read and a must read ( http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,1590.0.html)
             and possible other thread with similar ideas...


How to find the point to start with? I want  to find a way to modify the game in a way which will be accepted by the community and also come out to be "better" , as in "more fun to play" and with a additional tactical component. I want the community to allow the game to grow into a more tactical version of itself. I want to plant a grain.
Commanding is already happening quite often in battles. Some players seem to have more saying in the teams than others _Bjorn_ or Phaz for example make people follow their plans. Now the only thing left to do is support that with some tweaks in the game.

What options are there to get tactics into a game? What are the key requirements of a game with a tactical component ? It needs tactical organisation and communication.

Commanding: One commander (who possibly assigns subcommanders). and a voice to command with. And possibly some nice toys to do some things better.
Squad system: But i actually think its not good .. e.g. squad system in bf3 has so many flaws , its so much forced , unflexible and causing anger ... how often i need to wait rounds or many minutes to get into a squad with my friend. An scalable squadsystem would result in very imlablanced squads ...
Other options ?

Commanding:
What can cause the players of a team to follow commands in a natural way. Bonus XP/gold are only a weak attempt to bribe players to obey orders. The motivation to fight is to win a round in a battle . The motivation to follow an order is trust . The resulting multiplyer is just the additional,sufficient payoff.
EDIT:

(click to show/hide)

in my initial version i was postulating the need of a persistant variable which accumulates the  commander quality of a player, i did reconsider this to be not evidently nessessary. unless on a community scale there might be still the need of a way to quantify the commanding skill of a player and also might be connected to a "ladder ssystem" mentioned in a later post.

 Here my new variable comes into play. The commanding history CH for each player telling the players commanding quality. This could be seen as a commanding reputation/proficiency rising or dropping with the amount of battles won or lost under his command. And this is a number. A number that players who want to become big battle commanders one day need to work on for a long time. A number that tells how well that player is reknown, valued and trusted by other players to lead them to victory. Much more worth than any skill or attribute point. 

CP : elected commanders will earn Commanding Points CP for successfully commanding a battle round in relation to the a winstreak, the size of the battle and the current multiplier
( something like CP= <win_streak> * <battlesize> * <multiplier>/<CH>)
CH : each player will have a persistant commanding history CH = SUM([CP])

Commanding would need the election of a Commander by the team:
i think it might be best to make poll at each round start which also might be skipped by players in order to make it not much annoying.

(click to show/hide)

commander election: (how to chose a commander )
each player can apply for commander at round start
optional commander poll at each round start for each team ( voting can be skipped ), a player can not vote for himself
                     elected player with most votes will become elected commander
                     if no player gets voted the CH decides who will be elected commander !!! IF A CH will be implemented
                     if no other player applied for commander there will be no  commanding this round ~ equal to current battles
this routine needs some work, but i think you get the idea. e.g. in what case the commander of a previous won round should become EC automaticaly.

Commanding:

What does it need to organize a commandship? The best tool is the commander chat since it is the most free one a commander can have. I only feel the need to make command lines distinguishable from the usual chatter. In best case would have a seperate place on the screen, but not nessesarily. Marking tactical locations or other players with flags(thinking of assigning subcommanders which are viewable by only a certain group of players ) or marking targets would be awesome tool to command subgroups. oh wait , we already have flags 

a Commander
                     can chose to command the battle from spec mode, obv the team loses a effective unit but commanding would be much more effective; commanding in spec mode should not disable team chat for the commander obviously aswell as flag placement on locations or people should be available.
                     have a distinct team chat color for commands aviable (either a seperate channel that can only be used by EC or merely a different color when usinf teamchat)
                     have access to commanding menue: ... well alot of ideas might be put here
                     be auto "flagged" so each player can always locate the commander if not in spec mode

Questions and answers:
how hard should it be to learn commanding ? hard imo.
whats if the commander plainly sux? dont vote him next round.
is CH cheatable? good question

[Rhekimos]

Ok, this history and voting business seems to be relatively straight forward.

What's missing is the actual meat of it. How do you actually implement commanding in crpg? Selecting a leader is fine and all, but it's the second step and we have no idea how to take the first one.

I like the idea of more tactics in plain cRPG, but if it's implemented (as in many other games) as a unmuteable voice chat, I might start playing with no sound. Shrieking kids and never ending dialogs in something other than English can be extremely annoying.

[BD_SUPERBEAST]

Simply great.

[Micah]

Ok, this history and voting business seems to be relatively straight forward.

What's missing is the actual meat of it. How do you actually implement commanding in crpg? Selecting a leader is fine and all, but it's the second step and we have no idea how to take the first one.

I like the idea of more tactics in plain cRPG, but if it's implemented (as in many other games) as a unmuteable voice chat, I might start playing with no sound. Shrieking kids and never ending dialogs in something other than English can be extremely annoying.

the meat hm ..
the meat for me is the community allowing the game to slowly grow into a more tactical version .. in the normal battle or siege that is.  My picture is , that in order to become a more tactical game  a commander  is needed in a battle (as in one, single commander ). Question arises , who should the commander be? Answer is : the players have to decide . Electing the guy to commander voted by the majority seems to be the most reasonable way to go. Still the question stays , what does the minority in that case ? They should still have fun playing! thats the most important thing ! Is there a way to make them accept the choice of the majority for one round or maybe more rounds even though they would like another guy to be commander ? Well .. i hope most players will agree that one good choice is better than none or 20 commanders.
How can i know who is a good commander if im new to the game ? I cant ! The only thing i can accept is a community choice. The CH includes this choice. A briliant commander who has bad relation to his men will not be voted by majority and thus will not have a high CH. A Charming guy wit aweful tactical decisionmaking will have a bad CH aswell.
Regarding implementation of commanding. Its important to carefully assess the things to be implemented because some wise man once said  " code is law " . yet , the election interface seems to be nessesary. the commander spec mode and distinct commander chat seems obvious too. additional commanding tools would be nice to have too, yet not mandatory.

[rufio]

combinding this with the ladder system might be an idea? having people with rank in ladders be electable , thus narrowing down the selection >?

[Micah]

combinding this with the ladder system might be an idea? having people with rank in ladders be electable , thus narrowing down the selection >?

im not exactly sure which ladder system you are refering to , if there is a thread about it pls link it for us =)
anyways i can get the frame of the idea which might make sense in some circumstances.
on the other hand i wonder how anyone should get to a certain rank in the ladder so that he would show up in the election screen :

[Micah]

i edited the OP, pls reread

[Sultan Eren]

This would be better than running around mindlessly.

[Rhekimos]

The commander having a special color in the chat sounds like a good tool for getting his voice heard. And easy enough to implement.

[CrazyCracka420]

I honestly think the only thing needed for people to start using tactics and basic formations (between pub players) is having VOIP in game.  And somehow tying that into the battalion system (I knew batallion was spelled wrong  in game!)

[Rhekimos]

I honestly think the only thing needed for people to start using tactics and basic formations (between pub players) is having VOIP in game.  And somehow tying that into the battalion system (I knew batallion was spelled wrong  in game!)

This could be really useful if used well by the random players. And not in the CS kid style: "let's scream and blast music in the ingame voice chat."

If it gets added, please add an option to mute it as well.

[Micah]

I honestly think the only thing needed for people to start using tactics and basic formations (between pub players) is having VOIP in game.  And somehow tying that into the battalion system (I knew batallion was spelled wrong  in game!)

i think chat is even better tool for commanding than VoIP because of serveral reasons:

...  And not in the CS kid style: "let's scream and blast music in the ingame voice chat."

this
- more  people have acceptable english writing(or what ever language is standard ) but a aweful english pronounciation, thus enabling more players to be a good commander
- technical problems like packet loss , chat is much more stable
- chat lines stay at least for serveral seconds , so people can take their time reading and dont need to ask for confirmation of the recieved order(unless there would be even a seperate commander chat where command chat would be persistand and always to read, which would be even better )
- it is already there , less work to implement it
- my personal preference because i really do not like voice chats very much
just wat comes to my mind ...

implementing subgroup chat like for different batalions would be an idea but i dont think that its even really needed

[Rusty_Shacklefjord]

In my opinion the best way to implement something like this would be:
- commander for each team is the highest-scoring player from the previous round.
- commander is able to place flags/markers for 0 battalion (the default) that everyone can see.
- commander speaks in team chat with colored text that stands out from the rest.

This ensures that each team's commander is their 'best,' most qualified player. That player would also be able to give basic instructions and place markers that the whole team can easily spot. As with everyone else, if the commander died they would no longer be able to talk to the living or place flags. This would add a new strategic element, with each team trying to assassinate the other's MVP commander.

There's no need for some complicated forum-upvote system or public teamspeak. Just a few developer tweaks to existing functions. Simple, quick, and easy.

[Rhekimos]

In my opinion the best way to implement something like this would be:
- commander for each team is the highest-scoring player from the previous round.

Although simple, this could lead to the commander role repeatedly going to people who just don't care about group tactics and rather swing about their huge sword in a crowd of enemies. Or backstab a lot of archers on their horse.

This ensures that each team's commander is their 'best,' most qualified player.

Kills don't mean everything.

- commander is able to place flags/markers for 0 battalion (the default) that everyone can see.

This idea I like. +1.

[Micah]

This ensures that each team's commander is their 'best,' most qualified player.

no!

... As with everyone else, if the commander died they would no longer be able to talk to the living or place flags. This would add a new strategic element, with each team trying to assassinate the other's MVP commander.

sounds interresting , even though in my version a commander would be able to still command even if he was chosing to command in player (not spec) mode. i think about servers with low pop where ppl still want to use commanding , but the lack of one active player would be to much of a loss for the team.

There's no need for some complicated forum-upvote system or public teamspeak. Just a few developer tweaks to existing functions. Simple, quick, and easy.

you might be really right , there might be even no real need of that CH . What i wanted to construct there was kind of "quantifyer" . but i have to reconsider this...


one new problem arises tho , commanding in spec mode would be much like ghosting since a spec can always see moves from the opponent
thus a strategic game arises which results in a commander always has to chose spec commanding in order to not fall in a disadvantage to the opponent commander. in a bigger server that would be the only choice. in small servers however, taking advantage of having one extra active unit would be a still viable choice.