Is Commanding Fun Or Not?

if you remove the commander, you take away a very large foundation of the game. There are not many games that incorprate RTS with FPS as well as Empires. If I want to play a team deathmatch game that has vehicles, I might as well find another more well funded, balanced, and long standing game then Empires. Having a commander variable adds dynamics and strategies to the game. It adds unpredictability which increases entertainment value.

 

They shouldn't remove the commander, but remove everything he could do wrong, e.g. make it idiot-proof.

 

Yeah, have it on auto-pilot

 

Removing the commander is a pretty bad idea. How would your research? How would you manage resources?

Take in account all the newbs who don't have a fucking clue and realize what a disaster it will be without a designated commander.

 

There are many parts of commanding which can be automated or removed with very little loss to game play.

• Removing mass target spamming or automating it will free up time for the commander to communicate to the players and reduce the ways a commander can screw up. Fighting an enemy who has permanent wall-hacks is not easy or much fun.

• Allowing engineers to place refineries would mean that the commander can focus more on the front lines and allows a team with a poor commander to be able to get their refineries up quicker and their vehicles rolling out.

• A research queue would mean that the commander would not have to stop in the middle of something to manage research.

By trimming off the extraneous and pointless parts of commanding while streamlining the UI and the remaining areas you can make commanding easier to get into, harder to fail at and more fun.

 

The comm absolutely should stay. It gives Empires a flavour like no other game. However, targets really should go. They're a stopgap for better commander abilities, imo.

Comms ought to be able to affect the battle, but not directly. Ideas:

Sensor sweep - see enemies through walls, a la L4D
Repair nanites/bio crap - repair all tanks in an area slowly
Mine drop - drops a pile of anti-personell mines in a small area

That's just scratching the suface. As a comm, I would like to be able to do something during battle other than watch helplessly (and giving wallhax).

 

Removing the commander is a bad idea.

The correct thing would be to remove the stupid abilities (wall hacks) and provide strategic ways they can influence the game instead of just dropping buildings and research. I heartily support a kind of scanner sweep.

Just NEVER any direct damage. Getting killed by mysterious dude in sky = not cool. We have Arty strikes for that.

 

They should give the commander a mana bar that lets him activate special abilities based on buildings the commander has.

let's say you have a 100 point mana bar and it regens at, say, 1 a second. Then give him powers like this:

ammo drop - drops an ammo crate. 20 mana. requires armory

instant heal - heals all units for 50 hp within a small radius of the specified location. 40 mana. requires armory

satcomm sweep - pings an area and reveals all targets to nearby infantry. 25 mana, requires radar

precision airstrike - deals damage in a similar radius to grenadier squad arty with double the damage at the specified location - 60 mana. requires air control tower (new building, costs 800 res, would be disabled with a scout sabotage)

airdrop tank - drops a tank of the commander's choosing at the specified point - 100 mana and double the res cost of the tank, requires air control tower and vehicle factory.

this is only a concept, i don't necessarily think it should be added as-is, but i do think commanders need something else to micro, especially in the mid-late game when boomtanking is not a viable option.

 

I actually like this idea.

 

No need for new buildings, we have a radar.
But yeah, that's good. I'd make it a bit more on some things, a target paint every 30 secs is cool, but an airstrike a minute... maybe not. Also don't get ammo crate, we have engis. Why not though, perhaps. I'd quite like to see things like 'squad' hides (hide within a radius) and tank damage reductions.

 

You change the game so they aren't neccesary.

The point of research is to slowly progress technology, and the point of resources is to limit the number of tanks on the field and the rate of progression of technology.

Give everyone a personal bank account and personal unlock tree.

Voila, same progression, no comm input required, also people get to pick what they want to use rather than what the comm wants them to use.

I don't know if you've noticed but empires does not incorporate RTS and FPS very much, and doesn't do it very well where it does.

Everyone other than the commander is playing a pure FPS, they shoot people, they get tanks, they shoot people some more, it's basically battlefield.

The commander more often than not breaks the game by being bad, or if he is good, the team doesn't usually obey his orders any more than they do the instructions of anyone with a microphone.

You could probably replicate the experience perfectly by using the objective system from quake wars with a randomly selected research path while playing occasional HSM clips over the mic and dropping buildings in predefined locations on the map when lots of players gather there.

Empires is still about capping refs and blowing stuff up in custom tanks, it just doesn't need a comm to make them possible.

 

There are 4 games that even have a semblance of the RTS/FPS genre.

Natural Selection
Savage
Savage 2
Empires


NS by far has the best blend although has a huge skill gap, Savage 2 is closer to a RPG/RTS, and Empires is... well.... FPS w/ tanks and buildings.

 

Hrmmm

have you ever played an rts and wished that you're soldiers has some intelligence rather than none at all?

Empires is designed for you to be thankful they are dumb AI's.

 

Only insofar as it allows them to better do exactly as I tell them.

I have problems with the AI in dawn of war 2 being too intelligent, they keep trying to find better cover when I specifically placed them there because they are covering an area or because that cover has another advantage like being within healing range of a relay beacon.

 

NS is almost exactly the same as empires, most of the team don't play an RTS and the commander only exists to perform utility functions which should be done by the game itself. The only difference is that you tend to get a tolerable commander more often in NS because NS is more popular.

 

I used to play one a long time ago when I was a kid on 56k. It has a sequel that still has a community, but I haven't picked it up in ages. "Wulfram" Really cool concept, hovertank combat.

This was all before any of those 4 games.

 

Tolerable or a pussy to tactics? I fucking hate commanders in NS because they don't really do a damn thing other than drop supplies. "Oh yay, armor and grenade launcher, thanks Commander now fuck off :D "

Empires is different in the size and scope, and any commander who acts as mearly a dispenser will get his ass whooped by a commander who's actually commanding(not that there aren't certain occasions, but as whole, this is how it is).

Hold the phone...you want to turn empires into a BF2 clone? Listen bud(not that you're my bud), Empires is made to be an FPS/RTS hybrid, and that's it. Saying empires would benefit from having no commander is imossible because Empires would.not.be.empires. without the commander. As I said, it would turn into an average 2 sided FPS clone. There are already plenty of them out there. BF2, BF2142, TF2, Quakewars, Insurgency, America's Army, CoD, Etc... See, those games have thier unique elements, but when you boil it down they are the exact same thing. Who cares who has more ironsights, and who has immolation. You'll find something fun out of a multiplayer FPS game, but you'll never find the same thing in an RTS/FPS. Empires fills that Niche, and if you removed the role it plays, you in essence destroy the very foundation of its existence. And that sir, is why you are NOT my bud. You do not care about what's Empires is, you only care what empires isn't.

Shame.on.you.

Not really. It just means that commanders who barely get by will be useless, but those commanders are shit anyways.

 

I'd command more if I liked using a mic - I don't and it's hard to communicate quickly and efficiently without one. I think commanders do generally direct things well (if they know what they're doing and have a mic).

Removing the wallhax targeting would leave the comm without tonnes to do on the battlefront - but an active comm can do a nice job just telling people what to do and where to go, 'watch for the three chaps to the left' etc.
Some way of letting the commander have even more knowledge of the battlefield than the troops do could be interesting. The commander should be all about strategy/tactics and the troops about following that, it's not far off currently but can be very annoying

 

There are times when I wish I didn't have targets as it really gets crowded on the HUD and it fucks up my sights. Targets are only good for me if you don't know where the enemy is.

 

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I fail