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Getting People To Obey The SL

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Al_Ka_Pwn

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Sep 5, 2011
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#1
Ok during my expirience with the game one of the things that drives me crazy is that I'll do a really good job of being a SL but the guys in my squad just won't listen to me, they'll wonder off and die and if I give an order marker, they'll go in the opposite direciton. It's so frustrating.. Like in Battlefield 2 puppies and stuff had a good reason to stay in a squad b/c each member did something to help them out, and everybody always spawned on the SL if he was still alive. It was a good system. So I've been thinking of some ways to make make people obey squad leaders better

1: Allow SL to see when a wave of people will spawn. As it is ppl cannot spawn in on a SL while he is in an objective. If he could see when a wave was about to spawn he could run out of the area, let it spawn and then run back in.

2: Disable the maps unless someone is near a SL. Like if someone presses M to look at the map, or presses T to see tactical view, this won't come up unless they are somewhat close to a squad leader.

This only makes sense since a bunch of Russian troops were conscripts from other places and didn't know what was going on, and german grunt troops probably weren't briefed on the area, so it makes sense that they would have to be near a squad leader to know about the area and what is going on as IRL he would have to tell them and make those descisions.

3: give riflemen 2 clips of ammo and elite rifle men and SMG only 3 clips of ammo. Make that the maximum that they can carry. And make it so that they have to get more ammo by going to the squad leader and pressing control.

This make sense historically as rations for both sides were low and squad leader couldn't let someone who might walk out and die in the first couple of seconds of battle without even doing anything do it with 6 full clips of ammo. It would be his responsibility to ration ammo and give it to soldiers as they needed it instead of letting them die with a ton of it.

4: Make it so that people people near squad leader do not have to bandage, get a slightly more stamina and can last longer and be more effective in "bleed out mode" IE make them able to stumble around a bit, last a bit longer before they die, and let them reload their weapon.

This makes sense as SL inspired the men under them and pushed them to greater and more amazing feats. Making them fight through the pain of wounds, pushing them to run harder and even die harder.

5: Make it so that someone who makes no progress at all towards an objective the SL has set for x amount of time can be executed. With the exception of Machine gunners of course. How this would work is if the SL sets an objective somewhere, and the player under him do not get any closer to it at all, like not even 5 feet closer to the objective in say a 35 second time span, a target will appear above their head and the SL can execute them at no cost to reinforcements and they will respawn as a riflemen. The timer will of course be reset and the target removed once they've made progress. This gives the SL discretion and control as he can determine if his squad is pinned down and not execute, or if there is some dirty coward camper that needs some motivation.

This makes sense b/c in the war soldiers that disobeyed orders or showed cowardice would be executed without question.

Not all these things have to be implemented but if even one was I suspect it would encourage far greater squad unity.
 
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#2
It is impossible to expect non-bots to see a "leader" as anything other than one more class with extra capping power.

In a game with good voice communication or even chat communication I just try to call out where I see enemy, heavy weapons etc. and when I need help capping.

I say say such things in chat more out of a general where all in this together sort of way, more like FYI than expecting anyone to "do what I tell them".

Sometimes people start to pay attention to me when they see I actually know what I am doing, tactically speaking. Some end up asking me what to do next once my tactics are proven effective. But I have not played RO regularly for a couple of years and need to reacquaint myself with it.

I love the idea of SL's giving better moral to those near them. I am happy to go where people say to go, when they seem to know what they are talking about, whether they are SL or just the alpha player types who seem to know what they are doing.

I have had wonderful game experiences in public clan skirmishes (having never been IN a clan) where people really do lead squads and squads actually follow leaders.

I am sure that will happen more as the game evolves, even outside of clans.
 
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#3
@1: What? you can already do this by hitting M and looking on the left of your screen. This isnt building confidence in your being a very competent commander if you dident know that...

@2: So when people wander away from the SL, they should have an even harder time finding their way back....

@3: SL carrying ammo? ... no...

@4:....no

@5: Great, welcome new people to the game by team killing them, im sure that will go over EVEN BETTER then RO1's monolithic learning curve.


None of these do ANYTHING to encourage unity of any kind, but make everyone extremely dependent upon the SL. Thus turning this game into a defend the SL game, where occasionally you take an obj when you can manage. This also adds a huge gameplay hole in that you cannot defend two flanks of an area without one side always being out of ammo and being incapacitated at the first sight the enemy hoarde defending their commander . Not to mention the concept of defending something with a young adolescent commander tking everyone because they havent mooved in a while and this is getting him points.

Rage comment over.

I wrote a thread in the original RO forums titled "Arm chair generals" which was basically a writeup of how to get people to work together and take OBJ's. I think its still mostly pertinent to this game, and what it all boils down to is having a microphone. People are about 10 times more likely ( arbitraty number ) to follow an order if you can explain it to them with a microphone.

Next point. Lead by example, When I play commander I tend to get Tked a LOT because my team is always behind me, I like to try and be the first one charging into the enemy stronghold, because it always means more to people to hear " hey guys I'm in the OBJ attempting a cap, get your asses in here" as opposed to "you guys get in the cap while I sit here in relative saftey".


I could say more, read the original post made by me if you want. Or just experiment on your own, a Mic is a must, beyond that its just a process of adapting to the situation of working with pubbers & finding the best way to coordinate them.
 
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#6
I think the easiest way to incourage playes to follow Commander/SL orders would be to give them a few extra points for every time they successfully follow orders. Similarly to BF games where following SL's orders could give you a nice bonus to points. They don't have to be much, at the very most +3 or +5 points, like you already get for killing an enemy in a cap zone, or for a kill assist.
 
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#7
I'm usually playing SL and I think one thing that would increase coherence dramatically is one where you actually pin-point enemies and only share pin points when you are close to the SL. It's easier to follow orders if you are close to the SL to begin with, so if that problem can be solved the rest should follow.

But obviously the chances of surviving are better if you stick to someone, so even if people are supposed to follow I usually follow at least one other player to increase field of view, maximize reaction times and get more firepower.
 
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#8
Colt .45 killer said:
@1: What? you can already do this by hitting M and looking on the left of your screen. This isnt building confidence in your being a very competent commander if you dident know that...

@2: So when people wander away from the SL, they should have an even harder time finding their way back....

@3: SL carrying ammo? ... no...

@4:....no

@5: Great, welcome new people to the game by team killing them, im sure that will go over EVEN BETTER then RO1's monolithic learning curve.


None of these do ANYTHING to encourage unity of any kind, but make everyone extremely dependent upon the SL. Thus turning this game into a defend the SL game, where occasionally you take an obj when you can manage. This also adds a huge gameplay hole in that you cannot defend two flanks of an area without one side always being out of ammo and being incapacitated at the first sight the enemy hoarde defending their commander . Not to mention the concept of defending something with a young adolescent commander tking everyone because they havent mooved in a while and this is getting him points.

Rage comment over.

I wrote a thread in the original RO forums titled "Arm chair generals" which was basically a writeup of how to get people to work together and take OBJ's. I think its still mostly pertinent to this game, and what it all boils down to is having a microphone. People are about 10 times more likely ( arbitraty number ) to follow an order if you can explain it to them with a microphone.

Next point. Lead by example, When I play commander I tend to get Tked a LOT because my team is always behind me, I like to try and be the first one charging into the enemy stronghold, because it always means more to people to hear " hey guys I'm in the OBJ attempting a cap, get your asses in here" as opposed to "you guys get in the cap while I sit here in relative saftey".


I could say more, read the original post made by me if you want. Or just experiment on your own, a Mic is a must, beyond that its just a process of adapting to the situation of working with pubbers & finding the best way to coordinate them.
Click to expand...

apologies, I was in a hurry so left out some of the stuff that would have hopefully qualmed your misgivings.

1: Having to open the map is annoying when in combat, so this is more of a UI complaint.

2: I meant to say everything is gone except for the tactical view where you press T

3: the SL wouldnt be weighed down by the ammo and would be rather autonomous in the process ideally. Also "No" is not a constructive answer.

4: nor is this a constructive answer

5: it would not be something that happens suddenly and without warning like trespassing in someone else's spawn. It would have a nice bit of bold text that says "Progress towards the order point or be eligible for execution" A newb will quickly be able to grasp its meaning and its in no way any more draconian or obtuse than the hundreds of other strange things in the game like dying in the other ppl's spawn instantly, not being able to go prone in random places, and suddenly not being able to respawn in countdown mode. Also no points are awarded for execution, IDK where you get this idea from. This is totally at the commander discretion and the status effect is easily and instantly removed by simply standing up and moving something like say 5 feet towards the objective. Or whatever number is deemed to be fair.

Similar methods are used in the battlefield games. This is empirical evidence that these methods do work to create unity. And yes squads would be dependent on the SL but winning the game and having fun is dependent on teamwork which this would encourage. I'd much rather have a squad that depends on a SL than SLs and players depending on players wondering around and hopefully meandering to the point.

And squads would not become a game of "defend the SL while occasionally attacking a point" Non of these would in any way make a squad helpless without a commander with the exception of less ammo but no map is so big that a commander can not die, get back to his squad and give out more ammo in the time it takes for someone to get through the clip that is in their gun and their additional 2 clips for rifle men and the 3 clips for SMGs and ELITE rifle men. They'd have to go through 3 clips in the time it takes for a squad leader to die and get back to his squad which would be a ridiculous amount.

and a squad can still easily fight and navigate with the tactical view but they would not have access to the map so once again they would not be helpless.

Also your commanding strategy is actually punished and less efficient than a SL who stands back. Since if your squad members die while you're messing about on the point they don't get to spawn on you so they'll have to walk all the way back from spawn to where you are through gunfire etc. Making them a bit cross I'm sure having a glory hungry commander forcing them to trudge half way across the map.

Also as crazy as it might sounds you could perhaps coordinate with another squad leader to defend that flank. Or since MGs are untouched by any of this, perhaps you could even have them defend a flank. So no it's not much of a hole at all.
 
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#9
ok in the last sentence there you mention multiple squad leaders, do you mean fire team leads? Because each team only has one squad leader. Perpahs that was part of the mis understanding, considering forcing everyone to remain close to one team member is what i was aiming my criticizms at. ( Especially when that player often is not directly related in combat because they are dropping artillery or sitting next to a radio ).

3 clips of ammo for a bolt = 15 bullets. That goes pretty darn quick.


nitpicks aside my main dislike of such a structured approach is that RO has never been a game for the structured approach. It doesnt hold your hand or force you in any way shape or form, if the players dont want to teamwork they dont have to. Oddly enough it is this that makes teamwork when it happens ( give it some time for the newplayers to learn the game ) that much more sweet. I used to ( RO 1 Here ) have no problems getting people moving in a generally unified manner within a few minutes of jumping on the server. ( SMG's go here cap this building, rifles flank left and attack through this way, take that cap & hold till the SMGS cap their area, then all move towards.... etc ).

All of these suggestions also make the game much harder to play if there are no FTL's or SL's on a team, or those players are new to the game and not necessarily good with the position.

In short, I think some UI changes might not be bad, but I think teamwork is already possible and quite feasible with what is supplied, and does not require major gameplay changes to acquire, and I feel these gameplay changes take RO out of the scope of its original intent. I wish all the best to anyone trying to make a mutator to try out this idea, but I would not support TWI building it into the core gameplay.
 
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#10
Colt .45 killer said:
ok in the last sentence there you mention multiple squad leaders, do you mean fire team leads? Because each team only has one squad leader. Perpahs that was part of the mis understanding, considering forcing everyone to remain close to one team member is what i was aiming my criticizms at. ( Especially when that player often is not directly related in combat because they are dropping artillery or sitting next to a radio ).

3 clips of ammo for a bolt = 15 bullets. That goes pretty darn quick.


nitpicks aside my main dislike of such a structured approach is that RO has never been a game for the structured approach. It doesnt hold your hand or force you in any way shape or form, if the players dont want to teamwork they dont have to. Oddly enough it is this that makes teamwork when it happens ( give it some time for the newplayers to learn the game ) that much more sweat. I used to ( RO 1 Here ) have no problems getting people moving in a generally unified manner within a few minutes of jumping on the server. ( SMG's go here cap this building, rifles flank left and attack through this way, take that cap & hold till the SMGS cap their area, then all move towards.... etc ).

All of these suggestions also make the game much harder to play if there are no FTL's or SL's on a team, or those players are new to the game and not necessarily good with the position.

In short, I think some UI changes might not be bad, but I think teamwork is already possible and quite feasible with what is supplied, and does not require major gameplay changes to acquire, and I feel these gameplay changes take RO out of the scope of its original intent. I wish all the best to anyone trying to make a mutator to try out this idea, but I would not support TWI building it into the core gameplay.
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Oh sorry, I've always heard them refereed to as squad leaders and Team leaders. There being four squad leaders and only one team leader.

and remember that RO1 was a far smaller community of dedicated players. For better or for worse RO2 has a much larger audience. Ultimately it will be a lot better for everyone if you just kind of beat teamwork into the core gameplay itself so that people are forced to use team work, this is something that the battlefield games and left 4 dead have done, and if we look at games as a study, we can see that these techniques are very effective. Implementing these will increase the average game experience significantly for everyone who plays, and not RO1 players who can rally a team around them.

But these could certainly be optional, I'm not saying that you would have to play like this, or even that it should be default, on a clan server it's something you obviously wouldn't need, but on a server full of pubbies these would be a Godsend. You would at least agree that more options are always good right?
 
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#11
Basically, for future reference...

- (Fire)team
- Squad (3 teams)
- Platoon (3/4 squads)
- Company (3/4 platoons)
- etc

Numbers vary between nations, branches and all that.. but this is a good estimate to go by.

Unfortunately, you can't beat teamwork into public players. You want teamwork and have everyone listen to their leaders? Join a clan. Even if you restrict them with 15 rounds of ammunition, they'll go off and snipe somewhere. Run out of ammo, and be useless/get themselves killed.

It's as simple as that. Join a clan. Or play on super hyper total realism servers where most players seem to know what they're doing. (Same effect in Project Reality. Publics working together)
 
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#14
Al_Ka_Pwn said:
If you're not a machine gunner or marksmen, I have no idea why you wouldn't progress to the objective. Are you one of those rifle men who sits out and camps on the outskirts of a map sniping people that run by as your team tries to capture or defend a point?
Click to expand...

So you're basically forcing people to play the game a certain way?

If they want to sit back and pixelsnipe, let them. You need a few riflemen on the flanks to pick off enemies, and sometimes I just want a relaxing game of RO where I rest my weapon and shoot a few dudes. The round afterwards I'll happily jump into the mess and get slaughtered every minute by automatic weapons.
 
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#15
IceShade said:
So you're basically forcing people to play the game a certain way?

If they want to sit back and pixelsnipe, let them. You need a few riflemen on the flanks to pick off enemies, and sometimes I just want a relaxing game of RO where I rest my weapon and shoot a few dudes. The round afterwards I'll happily jump into the mess and get slaughtered every minute by automatic weapons.
Click to expand...

This is proof of it being a good idea as admitted campers and non team players do not want it implemented.
 
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#17
Al_Ka_Pwn said:
1: Allow SL to see when a wave of people will spawn. As it is ppl cannot spawn in on a SL while he is in an objective. If he could see when a wave was about to spawn he could run out of the area, let it spawn and then run back in.

Sounds reasonable

2: Disable the maps unless someone is near a SL. Like if someone presses M to look at the map, or presses T to see tactical view, this won't come up unless they are somewhat close to a squad leader.

I like this one, usually SLs where the only ones carrying maps :3

3: give riflemen 2 clips of ammo and elite rifle men and SMG only 3 clips of ammo. Make that the maximum that they can carry. And make it so that they have to get more ammo by going to the squad leader and pressing control.

Just.. No.. no no no..

4: Make it so that people people near squad leader do not have to bandage, get a slightly more stamina and can last longer and be more effective in "bleed out mode" IE make them able to stumble around a bit, last a bit longer before they die, and let them reload their weapon.

Not have to bandage.. no.
Slightly more stamina, might work.. maybe 10% (inspired by their leader!)


5: Make it so that someone who makes no progress at all towards an objective the SL has set for x amount of time can be executed. With the exception of Machine gunners of course. How this would work is if the SL sets an objective somewhere, and the player under him do not get any closer to it at all, like not even 5 feet closer to the objective in say a 35 second time span, a target will appear above their head and the SL can execute them at no cost to reinforcements and they will respawn as a riflemen. The timer will of course be reset and the target removed once they've made progress. This gives the SL discretion and control as he can determine if his squad is pinned down and not execute, or if there is some dirty coward camper that needs some motivation.

No..
This will be abused.. badly.. but in a way I wish it could be done.
I have bashed some campers to death as SL xD

Not all these things have to be implemented but if even one was I suspect it would encourage far greater squad unity.

With some work, maybe it could?
Click to expand...
asdf
 
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#18
Y'see its the 'forced teamwork ' approach in L4d that was one of the things that made me despise the game. Dont get me wrong, I try to play as a team player all the time, so this is not coming from some desire to be a loan wolfer. What I am getting at is the games design to weaken each player to the point where they have to keep other players around for necessity, some might jump on this and say "Aha it works!" but it really is more of a nuissance and an annoyance. ( in particular here I am refering to things like the smoker's tongue, if you are pointed towards him and get roped you are turned around the other way so you cannot kill him )

It really removes so many more possibilites and opportunities that involve teamwork, in the name of creating teamwork.
 
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#20
Colt .45 killer - I don't quite get it.

People needs to work together as a team to achieve certain goals. L4D series made each team member vital for the survival of the team as a whole and by doing so it encouraged people to work together. Because lone shoter has no chances against the infected. You still can run and gun alone, don't help your teammates and such but you'll end up dead or kicked by those who won't like that kind of playstyle.

Why is that "a nuissance and an annoyance" to you? What am I missing?
 
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