Commander is just not fun to play as. Placing buildings and researching are the only things the commander can really do, and the commander is constantly being commanded to do what his teammates ask to (unless their com threatens to either grief or leave.) Commander activated abilities should give the commander the ability to not just lose the war, but help enough for its success. Can also break the initial rush so that the war is not determined in the first five minutes of the game. Limitations like certain buildings and commander points can help balancing. Ideas: BE: Air Strike (lots of balancing though) NF: Off Map Artillery Barrage (same) BE: Airborne reinforcements (a forward spawn point that lasts a few seconds or a limited amount of players) NF: Additional Regiment (more tickets) Class of commander should affect troops. Rifleman = better infantry Scout = better detection/surveillence Grenadier = better tanks Engineer = structure integrity/ improved defense + More people will want to be commander. (SERIOUS IMPROVEMENT. NO ONE WANTS TO BE COMMANDER. besides nick and wattskai) + Commander will have a more integrated role on the battlefield. + More strategies - Complicated - Balancing up the wazoo - Pipe dream (sigh)
I fucking hate it when people suggest shit like "lol invisible temporary spawn point". OK, here's a very very large rage post: DO YOU FUCKING KNOW HOW MUCH TIME I SPENT MAKING SURE THAT NOBODY GETS IN? DO YOU KNOW THAT I SET UP TURRETS EVERYWHERE SO SOME DUMBFUCK DOESN'T NINJA ME? DO YOU KNOW THAT I RECYCLED BACK BARRACKS IN ORDER TO FOCUS IN THE INFANTRY IN THE FRONT AND THUS BEING POWERLESS WHEN A NINJA GETS IT? DO YOU THINK THAT I WANT THIS STUPID FUCKING SUGGESTION TO BE IMPLEMENTED? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT...... BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE, IF YOU ADMIT THAT THIS SUGGESTION IS STUPID AS HELL, I'LL STOP RAGING! /billy mays. That is all
I dislike the idea of adding extra things for the commander to micro as this will just stretch the gap between experienced commanders and non experienced commanders even wider. I can see this putting off more people being commanders as it just adds more ways for a commander to mess up and screw his team over. If the abilities are powerful enough to make a difference then they are just going to favour the better commander more. This won't stop the game being decided in the first 5 minutes, in fact it will just mean that the team with the less experienced commander gets crushed quicker. The specialisations depending on what class you are had better be self evident to the new commander and even then if the improvements are noticeable the commander will get yelled at because he should be 'X' so that the player can get the associated benefit. Personally I enjoy commanding although the interface is buggy and target spamming gets boring. You can either lead your team and take an active role of you can do a more passive role and let your team make most of the decisions for you.
I'm just saying this because Valve had also confronted the same task with Team Fortress 2 when I was listening to the Developer Commentary. They originally had a commander within the game, but could not find the balance between a good commander and a bad team vs. a bad commander with a good team. Ultimately it was decided that they should remove the commander. I got this off the Orange Box 360 ver. on one of the three maps. I forgot which one.
Direct damage from the dud in the sky = bad. Invisible spawn point = bad. Better abilities: AoE buffs, scanner sweeps, dropping ammo/health crates.
How is a missile strike bad? We had a "constructable missile silo" thread somewhere. Many other RTS games have direct damage weapons, that the commander uses. Why can't Empires have that? What is wrong with a researcheable, costly nuke?
i once made a suggestion like this but gave each building a power, so you had to have them built to be able to use them personally i found that to be way better
The problem with commander abilities is that if they are powerful enough to be useful then they are powerful enough to make you lose if you use them incorrectly or don't know how to use them.
So are tanks, but we still have them Melarion. And so is research. A bad commander can fail the entire team as is. Why not add some direct-damage abilities? I see absolutely no disadvantages with this. Blizzerd here is on the right track, building off something that already exists, each structure having a Power associated with them. I like it.
wow yep thanks for copying my idea. though i guess i didn't patent it. either way i'm 100% in support of this. I just kind of doubt it's ever gonna be implemented.
Commander dropped arty and such isn't counterable like SL powers, so it would either have to be relatively weak or ridiculously easy to avoid.
Direct damage is too easy to fire on random spots in the map. There would have to be solid warning so that people could avoid. Or do so little damage it's useless. Also, I would hate to have one comm suddenly bombard the enemy base with an all-ranged nuke and take down the barracks (or multiple strikes). That's just one possible shenanigan of direct-damage comm powers. Arguing that RTS comms have them isn't valid because that's in an RTS where the "comm" controls everything anyways. And I still hate them in C&C, except for the lolz. Even StarCraft required a ghost to be there to mark the target, and the little red dot. Although that dot is kinda puny.... As far as making them powerful enough to turn the tide, I'd say make them half-useful and supportive. Making the comm the hinge that determines all engagements is a BAD thing. Adding some tactical interaction could be a good thing if done right keeping the comm more interested in the battles. However, the current comm has enough on his plate, so we need to remove some of the busywork (target spam).
I don't like the idea of having nukes or something like that, just look at emp_snowbound with its superweapons. They're cool and all but they definitely don't add more to the game. I think more passive abilities would suit the commander, giving more control over short term and long term strategy not more control over battles. If you remember CnC generals, you could build a strategy center which gave you access to better upgrades and let you activate on of three strategies which directly affected your units. You could get "hold the line" which gave troops and buildings a defensive bonus, "search and destroy" which gave troops more range, and something else which gave troops an attack bonus. This added a lot of depth and a lot more strategy. If the commander could access something like this, say after dropping a radar, it would make the commander a lot more strategic. The commander could make and enforce a strategy without begging his team to go somewhere. It might take a while to switch between strategies and might cost res to activate them, and it would have to be balanced pretty well or comms would always get the same one.
squad arty is counterable by killing SL. Also, it's limited in range since a gren SL has to be in the vicinity. It's not a great example, and personally one of my more hated squad abilities, but not as bad as having a comm have squad arty powers. Target spam needs to go. It doesn't add much and is mostly a way to keep comms busy and give wallhacks.
Your comment is as unconstructive as it is ignorant. I do have a mic, and the only thing I find cool about commander is that I dont die when I win. And the bullshit suggestions I made about the NF and BE powers is just that: bullshit. I'm just throwing out ideas that may or may not be viable according to the dev's. It is their job to recieve and review our feedback for their next update, and according to their future actions I may/ may not continue playing Empires, and will be one less player on their game. Their objective should be to gain a player, not lose. That is to say that I'm not trying to be an asshole saying that its my way or the high way, I'm just stating the truth. Plus, even if everything stayed the same I would still play it. Constructive ideas now. An air raid alarm or a smoke could signal an ever immenint commander power, or drop pods from the sky may signal forward spawn points. By the way, I made previous comments about the ninja barracks, so if you didnt read my suggestion about buildings in proximity to one another I suggest you dont criticize that idea in that argument. And the commander class influence should be very miniscule, as it affects everyone in the team. But still, that should amount to a noticeable difference, not in individual but in group effect. Plus the idea of having a nuclear silo or such could end the ever boring ticket stalemate where both sides have almost next to none tickets and refuse to use them up; stalemates are never fun to be in nor are fun to watch. Counter to BE Airstrike: Player controlled anti air vehicles or units kill the slow moving planes/ helicopters. Counter to NF Artillery: Mobility. People can see the smoke laid down by the scout (smoke grenade maybe?) and are able to move. Can't destroy a base but is able to do a noticeable amount of damage at the cost of the commanders resource amount. Guys, if we manage to make Empires an actual success, we can make Empires the game that Valve could have done with Team Fortress 2. We can pick up what Valve left off. We can make a concept that Valve couldnt make succeed into a fun game that the general audience would find as innovative.
What's wrong with that? I think it would be fine if it's extremely weak and dead easy to avoid. The point isn't to make it so these abilities make or break the game -- that wouldn't be fun and would just make the comm more high-pressure. The purpose would be to make them fun to use, so more people would be eager to comm in order to get them. I think that most players would enjoy dropping missile strikes, even if they gave a huge red indicator on the ground 10 seconds in advance and did no damage to structures or the enemy CV. I'm not saying that that's necessarily the best route. But the point is, looking at the big impact this could have on the game is the wrong approach -- we want a minor impact, enough for the comm to say "Woo, missile-strikes" and for players to say "woo, thanks commander" and the enemy to say "woo, we escaped, we're awesome", without really having a big impact. If done right, everyone is happy. Basically, it's a trick.
