Commander is still useless on public servers

[Knitschi]

I denunciated this problem some time ago, but in a list of problems and nobody really responded to it. As the patch has not dealt with it i want to bring it back to the menue.
The problem is that the commander has practically no influence on the dynamics and outcome of a played round. This gives the game a very random- and therfore boring character. My experience with the commander position is the following:
There are maybe 2/3 of the players in a squad. If you give your orders, about 1/2 of the squadleaders trie to follow your orders. Within the squads about 1/2 of the members stay at the squadleader and therefore follow his orders. Summed up this is 2/3 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/6 of the players in your team trying to follow your orders. In my opinion this is not enough to have a decent influence on the game. I think if 1/2 of the players followed the commander orders it should have an observable effect on the game dynamics and I would be satisfied with it.
A negative side-effect is that the position of the commander is very often vacant and you can not get supplies as a squadleader.

Is there anybody else who thinks that a stronger commander had a positive influence on the gameplay?
How could the position made stronger and more attractive?
What have the devs to say to this problem? Do you see it as a problem and have plans to deal with it, or will there be no change?


These are my suggestions:

1. Give extra points for following orders. This could be giving the squadleader 0.1 points if he accepts an commander order. Give 20% more points if you kill somebody in a defend/attack order area. Give points for reaching a move order area. Give points for staying in a defend order area for some time.

2. Give the commander arty impact area different shapes. Like large area but short fire duration, small area but long fire duration, long drawn-out shapes to shell frontlines, commander smoke screens in that shape.

3. Give spotters points for spotting. Maybe 0.1 - 0.05 points for a successful spot. This would increase the general reconnaisance situation and therefore give the commander a better picture of the situation on the batllefield. With the current version the commander does not know where the hostile troops are concentrated an therefore can't give reasonable orders.
To avoid a massive radio spam, the radio- and textmessages for missed spots and infantry spots could be switched off.

4. Give the commander the ability to reward certain squads with special equipment like the lafette or other limited kits.


I am aware that some of these ideas might not be possible with the engine but as I have no insight of what is possible and what is not, I mention everything that is on my mind. The last patch with the lafette and the assist points for arty-spots gave me some hope that there is more possible than I thought before the patch.

What are your opinions and suggestions?

[N24Reporter]

Sounds interesting knitschi.

I will try to forward some stuff like that. Should work with the oncoming awards system.

[=7DR=von.small]

I agree with your sentiment that the commander is not a strong battlefield presence at the moment. I'll admit that the I use the commander role to take a break and smoke or drink my tea whilst watching the battle and dropping supply crates - there is only one map at the moment I feel the commander role is vital and that's Op Aberdeen - here there is a reliance on the commander to keep the tanks topped up and holding the line with supplies.

With the introduction of ammo kits on Tobruk for example the need for supply drops is gone on most maps. The artillery, and this is just a personal opinion - takes too long to reload, is too sporadic in it's reloading to be of any huge benifit to the team, or pf course non-existant.

I would be great to see a more active commander role, even small additions like a smoke screen, or specific kit drop e.g. AT or mortar could help build a better role for the player using the commander. Of course we will forever run into those commanders that are just utter douchebags and don't have a clue how to conduct a war, but eveyone has to start somewhere don't they.

[Biiviz]

Is it possible for the commander to recieve different artillery patterns for different maps, for example a creeping barrage on one map and just random impacts on other maps?

[Stray03]

Problem on public servers is that teamwork it seems isn't everyones Priority. I feel bad joining a squad as a Scout or sniper because I know I probably won't be able to follow a command my squad leader gives unless we are defending. So I walk around the map by myself spotting Threats and taking out Gunners. I understand the importance of teamwork Which is why I spot as much as possible (which is why I'm constantly complaining about the spotting systems flaws)

In my opinion as I'm sure most others see the logic. If you want to encourage teamwork you will have to make teamwork rewards worth more than lone wolf style ones.

Once that happens then the commander will actually function as one. You have to work on teamwork before you work on using a commander. The FH-ers that have been here a long time already work as a team and you can tell because they get things done, But as this is a public server, it does attract new people who do automatically think they are Rambo. They want all the points and don't give a shit about the rest of the team. If they realize the only way to get lots of points is to work as a team it will force them to change.

"If you want Icecream you better finish your Beans" sure they won't like it but they want that Icecream bad....

[Flippy Warbear]

With all the limitations that there are in BF2, its very hard to come up with a very solid setup for commanders.

[Raizok]

Originally Posted by =7DR=von.small

I would be great to see a more active commander role, even small additions like a smoke screen,[...]

Yeah, a commander smoke screen would be great. Perhaps replacing the Vehicle Drop function from 1.42?

[Tedacious]

good ideas! hope some of them can be implented.

I just don't understand how some people are thinking.
Everytime I enter a public server, there is 5-9 existing squads. one or two of them has 4+ members. then the rest of the squads have just 1 or two members. people actually start squads to be squadleader, even though it does not come with any benefits (other than the NCO kit, which you still need to be a total of 3 members to get).
that is what makes me the most mad when playing as commander, not the not-following-orders part.

[Natty Wallo]

cant a commander just grab a gun and run for the flags like the rest of us?

[Niebler]

For the commander arty, I believe its based on what offmap statics the mapper has put for the commander. For example, he could place 3 guns in a line, having them fire some what in a straight path, or 4 guns in a diamond shape, giving it a larger more dispersed fire. Unless I'm mistaken, when mapping I noticed you have to place the commander arty yourself. So technically mappers could have specific styles of arty permap. Lots of mortars with the occasional heavy arty shell etc. Some with smoke then arty. I dont think it can be randomized, just map specific.

As for the rest, yeah it's hard to encourage people to listen, but if you have good squad leaders, the commander can make a difference. Supplies to tanks is incredibly helpful, as well as the well placed arty blast. I agree it would be nice to get small points for spotting, not too many or you'd have 200 point people with no kills :P