Let Engineers place Refineries independently.

You are a true artist deadpool.

 

Everyone: Stop posting anything in the suggestions forum. Trickster disapproves!

Seriously, Trickster, what makes you think people will have better ideas if we actually do get more coders? We may have a huge backlog of suggestions that will never get used for anything, but it's not like people won't just keep making the same bad ones over and over again forever.

I love you too. ove:

 

It's the opposite actually. People will waste suggestions that are good when they'll get lost into the mess, whereas if they hold them back for when we actually have coders, we'll pay attention to them.

 

Just get rid of the CV while you're at it...

 

The problem is that placing refineries is, most of the time, not strategy -- and when the fact that the com has to manually place refineries does become an issue, it tends to become teeth-grindingly annoying to anyone involved.

Shouting "REF PLZ" and not getting a response is beyond unfun. It is, honestly, the worst part of Empires for me (well, the second worst -- the worst is getting to a place where you need a rax and having the comm fail to respond, since that can dramatically change the direction of the game.)

The problem is that right now, many of the 'choices' the comm makes aren't real choices at all. The comm has a list of buttons labelled 'PRESS X TO NOT FAIL' and either they press them and the game is fun, or they don't and the game is boring. (For both sides, mind. When it's obvious that the opposing comm is distracted and failing to drop essential things, I don't particularly find it makes the game fun for me, either.)

I don't feel that "try to distract the opposing comm from doing essential things" ought to be a valid part of the game. Sure, it feels exhilarating for you, maybe, but for ~20 people in the game it's painful and rapidly becomes boring, because there's not really anything you can do about it. It's also the main reason why nobody wants to comm -- comming, as it is now, involves relatively few actual decisions, but a huge number of highly stressful ways to fail dramatically.

I think that the ideal situation is one where it is very hard for a comm to fail completely, but where highly skilled and clever comms can make a huge difference. Comms should feel like they're making big dramatic decisions and contributions that help their team win -- not like they're frantically pushing big obvious 'DON'T FAIL' buttons.

Constantly having to rush to drop a ref when someone on your team commands REF HERE PLZ isn't leading. It's being your team's bitch. That's why nobody wants to comm -- because right now, most of what a comm does consists of being their team's bitch, pushing boring buttons like a good little bitch when their team orders them to.

(Yes, a good comm can make a bigger difference than that -- but it's usually despite all the responsibilities the game officially heaps on the comm, not because of it. The biggest differences a comm can make in a 'fun' fashion beyond simply not failing depend mostly on voice chat and on managing their teams in ways unconnected to pushing buttons.)

I'm not sure what the solution to this is. But while, yes, I agree that comms should spend more time in comm view, the fact is that the reason why comms frequently neglect comm view isn't because they're being distracted. It's because comm view is boring and the things you do in comm view -- such as dropping refs -- tend to be boring. Right now the experience in comm view mostly consists of being your team's bitch; comms boomtank largely to get away from that, not for any other reason.

Comm view and, in general, the mechanical side of comming needs to be made more fun. Part of that, yeah, should be in trying to reduce the "bitch" things a comm needs to do -- anything that involves (95% of the time) mindlessly obeying a command from your team ought to be phased out.

We'd need something to replace it to keep comm view interesting, definitely. But clinging to comm-placed refs purely because it's one of the few ways to force a comm to stay in comm view at the moment (and to penalize comms who stay away away from comm view) misses the point. We need to find a more fun and interesting way for comms to interact with comm view -- comms should want to stay in comm view, and shouldn't constantly feel the urge to escape from it and run around boomtanking. This requires lots of additions and changes, but in the long run, no, I don't think that comms manually placing refs under the current system is a particularly interesting aspect of comming or really the best way to keep comms in comm view (or penalize the team when they're kept out of it.)

It is dull. Deathly, soul-deadeningly dull, both for the comm and for anyone who has to wait for him to respond to a request whose response is almost always mindless. Boredom shouldn't be a gameplay mechanic the way it is now. Comms should stick to the comm view because we've made it fun, not because the game beats their team with sticks if they don't.

 

I Agree

 

Oh shit, this is getting serious. :cute:

 

I knew someone like aquillion would pierce through that argument with ease.

However, it doesn't really matter aquillion, dropping refineries is macro management. This is one of those suggestions that ultimately renders the commander completely pointless in its current implementation, if we would go down this path, we might as well remove the commander, which has been said twice in this thread.

This is not an apologetic argument, I just don't feel like discussing this suggestion at all, it's a matter of opinion as flasche points out, you either like it or you don't.

 

We've had not one, but two threads in Gameplay asking about opinions on how comming should be handled. People like the com distraction mechanic.

I put up a poll about whether the com should profit from sitting in his chair all the time (pressing buttons, doing actually important things, w/e). People thought the com should be in com mode constantly.

Paradox put up a poll asking about whether the com should have more work to do, i.e. be in com mode more. Again, people said yes.

So at least those active in the forums believe that a team should be made or broken by the com being in the CV or not. That doesn't mean that's the best design choice, but it's the most popular one.

That's an excellent point. This is a design choice. It's an opinion. The devs had a choice and they made it. There's no way to call the decision "right" or "wrong", only "popular" and "unpopular".

It's like saying "Empires should have rideable horses and poetry contests." It's not wrong, but it's not right. The devs can simply respond, "We don't want horses or poetry in Empires, sorry." That makes horses and poetry unpopular design mechanics in the eyes of the devs.

 

I think it's already a no. Let's just close.

 

I wouldn't seriously suggest that.

The difference is, generally, that placing a rax is a major tactical choice. Placing a ref almost never is -- the situations where you shouldn't place a ref the instant a team member requests it are very, very rare.

However, some decisions are actual, well, decisions. There are multiple things you can do at any given time that dramatically change what happens.

Placing a ref, generally, isn't a genuine decision.

I think that there are ways to give the comm a greater degree of influence over the overall direction of the game without intruding too much on the team's freedom to run around playing the game as they wish.

At least, I think that that should be the overall goal. I love the idea of having the comm in comm view more often, but the things they do there should involve more thinking and gameplay and less mindless busywork.

Certainly, it's good that you like comming, but most of the time it's hard to find someone who really wants to comm. I think it's fair to say that there's something wrong with comming at the moment. Even if you like it, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that most people view it as a thankless chore, to the extent that it's often hard to find someone willing to comm.

And, far too often, the current comming system breaks down in a way that makes the game unfun for most people in the game. I'm not sure what to do about it, but I don't think F-S-Space is the universal answer to the current problems -- I think that it's possible to get the game to a place where it's hard for a comm to fail so badly that the game sucks for everyone on the server (or, at least, make it so the game ends quickly when that does happen), while still allowing the comm to have a major impact on the game.

I don't think we have to choose between these two things.

You're misunderstanding. I love the idea of the game being made or broken by who's in the CV and by what they're doing in comm view.

However, I think that we can find better ways for the game to rely on the comm than this. Teams with a comm who is doing their job should beat teams with a comm who isn't because the comm lends the entire team a degree of direction and support that gives them a telling edge in engagements. Distracting the comm should be an important strategy for denying your opponents that direction and support.

It shouldn't be "oh, your comm is distracted, now the basic gameplay stops functioning." When the basic gameplay stops functioning, the game is no longer fun. If distraction is going to be a gameplay mechanic, the game has to be set up in a way that makes it continue to be fun even when your comm is distracted. Making it so the game doesn't totally suck when you're losing is hard, yes. But it's an important design goal. Modern games are set up so even when you get killed, it tries not to be frustrating (you respawn at a reasonable rate, near the action, and many games try to convey clearly why you died so you can do something about it.)

Similar for having your comm distracted. It should suck and should make you buckle down to try and help them somehow or to fight twice as hard or something -- it shouldn't immediately devolve into everyone standing around shouting 'F-S-SPACE PEOPLE!' or 'eh, let's just stop fighting back so this round will end' or whatever. If it's a way to lose, there needs to be more thought put into making the game worth playing even when you're losing like that.

And refs fall hard into the 'unfun' things that happen when your comm gets distracted. Successfully capturing a vital ref and then being forced to sit there while your comm doesn't press the "mindlessly confirm capture" button isn't fun. We should find a better way for the comm to make their comm mode contribution than this.

 

Tried it:

And, I made that thread anyway. People agreed with Trickster, but never actually came up with any good ideas that could keep a com's attention.

 

Sorry to ram this train off its tracks, but what is a "ghost" in your context?

Also noticed that you're from Arnold-land, I'm not used non-British Europeans having such good Engrish, lol. You've got an ignorant 'Merican here! And that also explains why all of you guys post when I'm sawing logs...

 

That's a good idea. I would kinda file that under polish. It's not game-changing, but nobody could possibly argue about it. It simply makes sense.

Empires could use quite a bit of that kind of polishing. The game would be a shitload better if somebody had the time to make changes like that one. Alas, the time is probably better spent elsewhere.

"meant as a compliment"

Not quite there, eh? :p

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Would it be easy to allow everyone to see those building "ghosts"? I've seen you mention the idea before, but I've never seen a dev comment on it. I don't know if it could be accomplished with just a little scripting, lol.

I'm just giving you shit, it's all good. You know more languages than me. I know maybe a thousand words in Spanish, it's bad.