I think the game may be too mentally challenging for it's playerbase.

I havent read anything but so far the overall thing is that empires the same problem as any other complex tight teamwork requiring game hmm a good example might be dystopia which in this case even is harder then empires then there ONESINGLEDAMNEDNEWB can ruin the entire assault while in empires you can have 2-3 newbs around in each team as long as it is not the commander

so far empires is more newb friendly additional does dystopias decking part increase the chance of a newb at it (uhhprettyshineycolors) which is more equal to having one huge dick up your ass then a comm unlocking everything

and to end this statement im a stacker yes! i have not the slightest intention to play with a bunch of people who do not know what to do, i wont do so in any team based game and cant be arsed to do, because it is no fun, i tell them things when they ask but cant be arsed to answer or help stupidity, i give out orders to people around me (which works better in empires then in dystopia luckily), im one of these that demand at least to take a peek into the manual as that i do so before i even consider a game

 

As long as your noob isn't your decker you should have no problems in dystopia, and I add that decking is much easier than commanding.

 

I've never played with you as a comm so I can't judge you on that but you seem to have this deluded idea that you always know best, in research this is the best way to go but infantry always know their own strengths better than the commander. You can tell one person to get in a tank and defend the base and he will, you tell the wrong person to do that and they will use up 10 tanks and achieve nothing.

How can you possibly know the whole battlefield better than infantry, sure you may have a better overview but if one person has been attacking a specific area then they are sure to know what type of infantry are guarding it, the layout of the buildings and any possible weaknesses.
That's like me saying that because I have a satellite photo of you house I know it better than you do.

If you know what your plan is then instead of ordering people around it may be better to tell people your plan so they know what to prepare for, then give them targets.

I didn't say research to suit the players, I said you have to command to serve the players rather than expecting them to follow your every command, this isn't command and conquer, if you want obedient troops then play an rts not an online strategic shooter.

The view that players don't know shit about commanding is just another stereotype, most players don't know shit about commanding, but then most commanders don't seem to either.

Commanding is a matter of suggesting the better tactics, researching to back it up and hoping your team can pull it off better than the other team.


And can I point out that you can argue all your life that most of the world are retarded morons and be right but it won't achieve anything, if you find the game so frustrating then simply don't play it or find a way to deal with it. You seem to think you are always right yet it seems illogical that you play a game that you are so frustrated with, surely someone of such complete omniscience should be able to find something that can entertain him without bitching and calling everyone stupid.

 

Some people bitch about having nothing to bitch about.... Ya can't win......

 

I'm bitching about him bitching, not the game
Besides empires, bitching is the second most fun multiplayer game.

 

However, if I order you to do something, it's because you're either closest, or because everyone else has their own instructions. I don't want you to decide not to follow my orders, because that messes with my organisation, and causes problems for me, and you too in the long run.

Because I don't have a satellite view of the map, I have a satellite view with all the enemies marked as little red dots, and I can see over walls, on top of buildings, and generally a lot better than you can. I can also see the rest of the map at a glance, and probably have seen it about 3 seconds ago because I move around the battlefield watching over my players, as is my function. I know the battlefield far better than any player does.

I shouldn't have to spend time explaining my plan when I could be giving orders. I don't require you to agree with my strategy, simply to follow it.

The best way I can command to serve the players is to decide what research needs doing, and to direct them where they are required, because as I said, I know where they are needed far better than they do.

So you concede the point, players don't know shit about commanding.

When I find a problem, I fix it, I don't simply drop it. I like the game, I think it has great potential, and I aim to make it as successful as possible. In order to do that I need to make people aware of the problems with it.

 

You want teamwork yet you start every sentence with I, and what your require. You need to be more team oriented to succeed, you are working with people which requires communication. I hate the whole teamworking speech too but in the end it's right, you need to work with your team because you cannot simply control them.

You seem to thing the whole game is oriented around the commander, it's not about what you require, it's about what the team requires. You cannot have a fun game if you are simply following orders to the letter, and I cannot possibly believe that you can follow the battle 100%. There are lots of units and buildings that infantry can see that aren't on your command map.

Things your commander view cannot tell you:
=What skill level players in a certain area are.
=What the attitude of other players is, this is important as you can often annoy other players by repeatedly killing them which causes newer players to attempt revenge, thus wasting a lot of their resources.
=There are a lot of details that you will definately overlook, especially if you sweep every 3 seconds instead of looking for important details.

Also there are probably players that have played the game for a longer time than you and have far better judgement than you, you need to stop with all the egotism and communicate enough with your team that they can actually perform the plan you have.

No, you know where more players are needed, not where a specific player is needed. You don't know if the player is suited to the task at hand, you may know or think that more players are needed at a certain choke point but sending somebody who is not up to the task will simply waste resources and the player you send is far better qualified at judging their own skill than you.


Because most people don't know shit about commanding as you agreed, most people quite sanely do not trust the commander until he proves himself. You have to prove yourself for people to actually trust you, once again people who play this game are not your slaves or robots, if you want a team to trust you and be obedient then they require you to communicate your plan so that they can pick the role in it that's best for them.

Posts like this are not read by most of the people you wish to reform and even if it were it's not possible to raise someones IQ or playing skill by ranting, if it were then the world might be a better place.
There is no way for you to fix it, it is possible that the developers can fix it and they are more aware of the problems than you are and far more capable of fixing them.

You read what I said and I assume you have a decent grasp of English, take it as what it was and don't try to change it as you whined at somebody else earlier.


An example of a player knowing better than the commander would be a player who can take down refs and barracks single-handed with a good degree of reliability. You would never send a player to ninja a barracks or refinery because you wouldn't know the likelihood of success, whereas I and other players that have played for a long time could perform that action which would probably be more useful than any other mission you could send them on.


Summary: You may know what's best for your team but without communicating your plan and getting your team to trust you it's useless, you cannot know which players are skilled enough to perform certain tasks so you can't always be right. In normal RTS games all units of the same type have the same abilities, in empires they do not.

 

As the commander, I am the single most important player on the team. I am responsible for giving the rest of the team the things they need to win, and by extension, enjoy the game. Without my guidance and direction the team cannot enjoy the game, unless you consider being repeatedly crushed by heavy tanks while you shoot at them with your ineffective RPG to be fun.

When I give an instruction, it usually requires people to go to a specific area and attack or defend it, and when I do so it is because it will either give them the ability to more easily destroy an enemy group, or because they are providing the support for the people who are moving into position to destroy that group, either way they stand to benefit from following my instructions, as the first group gets more kills, and the second group gets to survive because the first group killed the things which were attacking them.

I will instruct the groups as to what I want them to do when I give them those orders, that is all the information they require and all I have time to give them. If I have to explain every thought which passes through my head, of which there are a great many, then I wouldn't have time to do anything else.

I can follow the battle very well, I play a lot of RTS games and it is a requirement of them that you can keep watch on a large playing field simultaneously. You would be surprised what I can see in a few seconds of looking at an area.

The average skill of players in an area will be more or less the same according to basic statistics, and I will normally be able to recognise at least one or two players on the team in any case.

I have already explained the impracticality of explaining every plan I make to the team upon forming it. Not least is the issue that by the time I finish explaining it, I will probably have changed it because of a change in the battle.

I wouldn't send individual players to do a task more complex than building something, for one thing, individuals are inefficient, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts in this game, so sending more than one person is always wiser than sending a single unit. This alleviates the issue of skill because it guarantees that at least one player in the group will be capable of following my instructions, and he should be able to lead the other two.

I would ask how I am to prove my merit as a commander if my team will not listen to my commands? The wisest solution would be to do as I say, and then, if that fails, to choose another commander the next round. As all my strategies are derived from examining what works on a particular map in at least five games where my team wins, they are all good strategies, and therefore an experienced player should be doing the same thing anyway, and a new player should defer to my superior knowledge of the game.

If the developers are aware of the issue then why have they not done something about it? And if I assume they are aware of any issue I may have, then why should I report any bugs? The purpose of this thread is not simply to complain, but to present some solutions, as I did earlier in the thread when I suggested that more effort be made to encourage players to follow orders.

I did read it, and I saw you saying exactly what I said, that players do not know anything about commanding.

I wouldn't send a player to ninja a barracks or refinery anyway, because those are not team-oriented goals. I may issue a standing order to all forces to attack enemy refineries when they encounter them, but I wouldn't send an individual player to take out a refinery, I may send a squad to move through and destroy a number of them, which would be both faster and carry a greater chance of success, or possible a tank to do the same job, but individual player infiltration takes too long and tends to fail quite a lot, conventional firepower is much more effective. Any player capable of doing an individual infiltration would be far more valuable to me as a sheperd to the less mentally agile members of the team.

As I said, good players would know that my orders make sense without me explaining them in detail, and bad players wouldn't be any the wiser if I did, so what's the point?

I also don't have the time to learn which players are good at what, and if everybody decides to do their own thing, then I wouldn't be able to direct the team and we would lose quite spectacularly, therefore, the most sensible course of action is to move in the groups I assign you to the objectives I give you, which normalises skill levels and increases efficiency. It also gives you plenty of opportunity to destroy anything coming your way, which I would assume is what you would call fun.

 

Statistics or not your plan obviously fails, the commander position is about dealing with people, not playing an RTS.
If you cannot control your team in a way which causes them to win, when another commander with a near equally skilled team can then the only assumption to make is that your method of command doesn't work and you need to re-think your ideas.
I have repeatedly tried to suggest ways to better command your team from what I have seen other commanders (successfully) do and from what I have (successfully) tried.

Good players do whatever will help the team most, taking out a forwards barracks can turn the tide of a battle and is something an individual can do that a squad often can't.
What do you do with scouts, you can't send them in as a squad because they're basically a lone unit.

If you have ever developed something you will understand that the actual development of an idea takes much longer than it takes to think of the idea. As far as I am aware the only programmer for this mod is Krenzo and he has a massive amount of ideas to implement. You cannot possibly expect him to perfect a game in such a short time period, 2.0 and 2.1 has only recently been released to the public so there's not been much chance to see what problems new players can cause in the game.
Also bugs are unintentional and cannot be found easily by the developer, but when found can easily be fixed. Gameplay issues are nothing like bugs and require the developer to not only discover them (Which I'm near certain they have) by spectating games but also require a significant amount more code and thought to fix than a small bug would.

This is one of the problems you just have to solve to become good at the game.

Now this is where communicating comes in, if you actually tell your team this then I'm sure you would get a better response than simply ordering your units around and expecting them to do it.

You'll notice that I inserted the little word there: "most". You can use stereotypes as much as you like but there's a point where it fails, for a start if I were to treat you like the majority of people then I would assume you were too stupid to listen to advice and I would ignore you.

Also the target of the game (and infact any game) is to have fun, so in that sense there is no "most important player" on the team and you have to deal with that.

 

That is the problem. I don't have an equally skilled team, because as I pointed out, one of the teams on a server is usually composed of people who don't listen, while the other is very well coordinated, If I command the latter, I invariably win, because they do as I say, and can even act on their own initiative if needs be.

Scouts work excellently as squad marksmen, their grenades provide excellent bonuses to a squad's mobility and destructive power, and they can disable turrets and structures to allow the rest of the squad to destroy them faster, and enhanced senses are perfect for revealing ambushes. I always work with a squad as a scout.

I explained quite thoroughly as to why that isn't the case, either stop ignoring me or stop arguing with me. Do not continue to argue if you are not going to pay attention.

 

If your team doesn't listen, put down an iron first and get people to listen.
If that fails, make sure you have one or two other clanners/smart people on your team so you still win.

 

That's only if you find winning the only thing, on public servers the goal is to have fun. It's not fun being ordered around by someone who's determined they are right, but you are determined not to accept anything you say is wrong so infallible chris I give up on you.
You are arguing for the sake of winning, rather than actually discussing the situation.

 

The map is his chess board and the players are his chess pieces. He, as the
chess master is in the game to win. His game. His map, his glory. Does anyone
really think that Chris cares about the players? They are there to do his bidding.
If the team loses, it is not his fault. The chess pieces did not move where HE
thought that they should go. He blames the chess pieces..... He cannot lose....

I wonder how many of the players mute him........ I know that I would if he
became abusive to me. Give respect.......Get respect......................

It's not whether you win or lose,
but how you place the blame.

 

Hmm.

Great coms have great PR.

Great PR involves not insulting them.

Unless they are in boot camp. then it's like normal conversation.

 

I explained that the team has to folllow my orders to get resources and hold ground, which enables me to then research things for them to use to have fun.

Unless you can have fun fighting an enemy which doesn't give you a chance to do anything, you must follow the direction of the commander.

Besides, most people want to win, so whether I want to or not, I am responsible for ensuring that we do.

I don't particularly care about my players, no, but it confuses me as to why they are so unwilling to do what is clearly in their best interests.

Oh and I hate chess, it's an incredibly dull game.

The team can lose because of error on my part, usually because I forget to place MG turrets around the comm and it gets ninjad, that's obviously commander error, because I don't expect people to guard the comm vehicle all the time.

 

commanders command to win. winning when you're losing involves getting the team motivated to win instead of lol around the base and accept defeat.

I can understand when new players say "we're screwed!!!! ", but when commanders tell their team that the team is screwed, well thats frankly gross neglegence of position.

 

I could lie to them and tell them that they are going to win, then they can shout at me for researching upgraded RPGs and turrets so that they have a fighting chance to at least enjoy their miserable defeat, and they can tell me I should be researching composite tanks instead.

 

It's true.... Chess can be incredibly boring......Do some research into the art of getting others to do your bidding.
You may be in the comm, but your assets are out achieving goals. When assigning thos goals make sure that they
are reasonably achievable. Your troops are essentially right off of the street. A tag is one indication that the player
might be experienced. However, with so many new clans forming, a tag might not mean much..... It saddens me to
see that you evidently do not enjoy the game all of the time..... I don't either... When it get to a point where I feel
like a victim rather than a player I disconnect and go watch TV or read a book. Many players do not like to be yelled
at and insulted. No faster way to lose the attention of a potentially valuable player on your team is to be sarcastic.
You set your standards for yourself and learn to deal with others with lower standards... We all can't be Commander.
Learn to work within the environment and make it work for you....Try not to be so condescending .....................

 

We all do it on purpose to annoy you.

 

Cone on Chris, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.