My definition of a good game is when everyone uses a microphone, screws around and jokes, but still gets the game done. One game when i was with a bunch of friends, we did that: we managed a LT race, a mowtah contest, and win the game. great times: people on the team were just screwing around good naturedly, but when something needs to be done, we do it.
I just read the first part of the discourse but I think the reason why its a pain to comm is because no matter how newblet your team is they will always B**ch at what you do irrespective of anything. For example there is always someone who wants plasma and complains the WHOLE game that you didn't get it even if you can't afford it or went another route. Also as comm you usually get blamed for the outcome of a game, an unfortunate side affect of leadership not limited to Empires. So in summery... you get a lot of unwarranted ABUSE when you just want to have fun playing. Its hard on my delicate Psyche.
I spent all day reading so I may have missed some of the last of what you said. So I will just make a little addition as to why I love and sometimes hate comming. Love: 1. POWER! ULTIMATE POWER! 2. The ability to lead the team in research and where structures go. I often find turret placement could be better, or a base could be set up in a better way and its little things like that, that make me like comming. 3. Also I am tired of bad comms or comms that are just plain mean, when they don't have to be, or they expect what can't be done "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU COULDN'T TAKE DOWN 5 HEAVIES WITH A JEEP!? GTFO MY TEAM" 4. DID I MENTION ULTIMATE POWER!? EDIT: 5. I also loves mah Regenerative armor bcause you can spin a medium like a pinwheel and never run out of armor. But people always insist on getting reactive which always seems to get two shotted off me and I play gren for defusal.. Otherwise minefields suck. Hate: 1. Some people tend to shout orders at you, and not let you speak. Such as "ZOMG RAX COMM RAX AT X , Y" and you only have 15 resources. 2. You give people a simple plan to follow and they don't do anything close, often times run the other way (AKA bad team). 3. Being blamed for everything regardless of if it is your fault or not "COMM YOU SUCK! You let me die!" "First off, you were in the middle of their base as a scout without hide yelling in the normal chatter that you were in their base and they couldn't find you, second.. I TOLD YOU TO COME BACK TO THE BASE!" 4. the general stress of being responsible which tends to lead into accidentally falling off a cliff or in a puddle of water that destroys the CV. Because you were being chased by Grens with the RPG upgrade who took out your entire left side with one shot. Overall I like Comm, but I can't chain command or I burn out. Hope this was slightly productive or if nothing else slightly humerous!
yeah, comming every once in a while is fun, but i HATE that people don't listen me: "come on people, we can build meds with reflective, fission reactor, .50 and ER cannons, go spam them" team: "NO, W3 WUN7 T3H 1337 H34VY T4NKZZ WIT R41LZZ"
i like to mix up my research path too. i have a CRAZY successful research path on crossroads. also pretty fun to command on the training server. on normal servers though, winning is priority. mass attack orders, turret seiges, APC rushes, wall spamming over enemy territory ref nodes. do what you have to do to win. then you don't just use these techniques, you get very very good at them. you exploit every weakness and overpowered technique in the book. not all cannons were created equal, plamsa will never be a better research than HE unless the game is changed. any players than want to be winners should read this: http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm
Yeah thats exactly why most empires players fail to win. Thats why scout sucks and thats why those score whores that refuse to change to engi and build something the comm askes them suck too. But I dont think you can get that in their heads. LOL, like all those pro-sniper-rifle guys that write in every post how much they own with the rifle Hahahahahahha so funny
I think he meant winning as a team. Didn't read the thing so if it was a joke link then sorry >.> I always find it funny when you're trying to work with you're team but they don't listen to you at all. "Hey guys I have an APC behind their base lets GOOOOOO" "Hey guys I just built a barracks behind their Main base and walled in their comm but I will need a little more help to kill him!" *gets shot* *gets yelled at for sucking* *watches as no one respawns at the barracks*
Well, about those apc rushes, get people to spawn in it BEFORE you rush in, often on escort I see a lot of people raeging for people not spawning in it. Get people, then rush.
I know a good way to make commanding more fun. Less crap maps. I get bored in Slaughtered due to massive stalemate. I know I have had this problem in other maps.
That is an issue. Stalemates are much much more dull for the comm than for their team -- the team is getting to fight an epic battle on the frontlines, trying to push through, maybe trying to sneak around... The comm is doing nothing but entering research they probably already decided on a while ago, and giving wide-area attack orders (sometimes) over the one chokepoint. Keeping a map interesting for the comm requires many routes of attacks and strategies the comm can try to use. If it's just "push this chokepoint, repeat 100x", the comm will get bored real fast.
I rather like these moments of commander calmness, to think of new strategy's and to check what players are worth my time and useful and what players i should just send as cannonfodder also i would like to add that rewarding your team personally as a comm, even by praise will increase cooperation by tenfold the next maneuvre/build/attack/game when you are still comm i mean nothing like "good game team" or "we did good" but like: Hey emp_recruit, i really liked how you took down that heavy tank when we were in a pinch, thanks for that! Hey emp_recruit engineer, thanks for assisting me in getting that rax up, it really helped the whole team! saying your team is disrespectful to the comm in my eyes just means you didn't treated your team with the respect it wanted (this does not mean its the respect they deserved) Ive made bad comm decisions, but i admit them BEFORE my team complains about them, BEFORE the game ends.
I too like it when it's a calm stalemate, because I know every little action I take can give my team the edge to push through, it also gives me time to chat a little while I fortify the base and research.
Many of the ideas in this thread can be found in other games (at least I know them from other games)... you could check those out to get an impression. I didn't read all of the 16 pages, but many of them. This is a summary of some (not my) ideas (--> [text] = my comments), I think it's useful overview Earth 2150, 2160: customizable buildings, turrets (select weapons, shields, etc) --> In empires upgradeable turrets or building could be interesting. For example it would be useful to have some "extra" armor on a vehicle factory in some sides which can be attacked by the enemy. Turrets could be upgraded to use some better weapons (but they should be less powerful then their tank equivalent. Imagine 20 Nuke or Railgun turrets, lol) FPS view of a unit World in Conflict / Command & Conquer Generals: "Tactical Support" / "General Skills" like instant repair in area, supply drop, nuke/air/arty strike, mining area. They require Points/a Skill. (C&C only) Ability to place mines around your own buildings to protect them (as commanders, ofc) Empire Earth 2 "War Plans" Ability to draw on the minimap Allow multiple commanders on one fraction --> I like that one Other Ideas: Allow the commander to take part in the field (with a special Commander/General model), giving a bonus to the team but still allowing him to command without having the risk to lose the CV.
Don't be organising ideas by a game they are found in, we aren't copying other games, and a lot of ideas were thought up on the spot, not from looking at games and going 'EMPIRES NEEDS THIS'. It also gets everyone angry.
I wouldn't oppose things from other games being in this. I am aware this game isn't trying to copy any other game, but by adding or taking out ANYTHING you would be copying something someone did somewhere regardless of if you know it or not. HOWEVER, the ability to program things like drawing on the minimap and such may be a little more difficult.
its only called copying if you are copying it from something, if 2 painters would pain an identical painting, without knowing anything from eachothers painting it would be 1: a mathematical miracle 2: not copying, since its only copying if you are trying to mimick someones work/look/etc... however! i do feel if you are going to implement something like that you do need to know how the "other guys" did it, some things cannot be improved, others can be improved but you will never know unless its to late if you don't at the very least look not, in fact it should be pretty easy to do, as long as everyone on your team has the SAME minimap (don't ask why i say that)
Eh depending on how the minimao thing is implemented I suppose. About the copying thing I would find it hard to believe that the developers of this particular game hadn ever played a battlefield game. However I would say this was done on a scale that kicks Battlefield square in the groin =D I think the biggest thing really is that the comming portion of it is hard to get into, no one anywhere wants someone who hasn't commed before, Even on the Training Server lol.
a better comm hud "could" solve this, and i believe they are working on a great new comm hud atm if you want to see what i mean go play the hl2wars beta, it has a very professional and easy to use huds even though a lot of information can be extracted form it
What about a building that you can use to call in various strikes or possibly one really powerful strike. The comm vehicle is also given a anti strike system so for a radius around the comm where enemy strikes can't be used comm to (prevent game ending base devastation) little bit more tactics. Maybe give the comm the ability to mount weapons. (later in the research tree so the comm could act as a support vehicle.)
Hehehe. That gave me the most awesome idea ever: EMPIRES + SPORE! The comm designs not only the buildings, but their team's bodies. "Comm, we need eyes!" "Arms plz!" "Comm, don't make us look like giant penises! Again." Yeah, ok. I'll get serious. Well, it's not bad to look at what makes other games work; no FPS or RTS is built entirely in a vacuum. Deliberately leaving out some small, major improvement to an aspect of the game that is sweeping the FPS or RTS genre simply because "it's been done before" is stupid; we should be trying to make Empires as good a game as possible. Empires isn't suddenly going to become (say) Quake 2 just because we recognize that that game did something right that applies to our problems, too. Of course, just because an idea works elsewhere doesn't mean it will work in Empires... Empires is unique in a lot of ways, and it particularly isn't much like an RTS, so it can be dangerous to try and translated RTS ideas into it (although with that said, its comm interface could use some improvements based on what makes 'typical' RTS interfaces work.) We shouldn't include ideas just because they've been used elsewhere, but we shouldn't reject them out of hand, either. With interfaces in particular, another advantage to looking at how other games do things is that it makes it much easier for Empires to be a 'pick-up-and-play' game... for instance, every other FPS uses WASD, and every other RTS has the ability to form and hotkey groups of units. But it's good that Empires uses those, too, since that makes it easier to pick up and play. Anyway, to get to the specific ideas suggested: The problem here is that it could require that the comm take their attention away from the battlefield; unlike single-player RTS games, we can't pause things while the comm designs their turrets (and unlike having, say, one soldier designing a tank, having the comm's attention occupied for an extended period of time is probably bad.) It could work, possibly, but it would have to be done carefully (I'd avoid comm-oriented 'designer' interfaces like the tank one we have now. Maybe have 'upgrades' the comm drags-and-drops onto buildings on the map, or something.) What do you mean by this? You mean just seeing through one of your soldier's eyes for a moment? I'm not sure that would help too much... and, again, I'd be worried about anything that takes the comm's attention away from the big overarching map; we should try to make it possible for the comm to do everything without leaving the central interface, or at least minimizing the time they spend away from the central interface. I suggested something like this way back at the start of the thread, but the problem many people have with it is that it takes things away from the soldiers on the battlefield (both yours and your opponents, who are facing basically 'magical' comm powers they can't really interfere with.) Hmm. If you look at how buildings are constructed at the moment, though, it's a bit like this: Comm drops it, engineers finish it. Maybe comm powers could work the other way around, somehow... a unit on the ground sets it up, and the comm activates it. For instance, a soldier launches, drops, or constructs some sort of 'targeting beacon'. Then, as long as the targeting beacon isn't destroyed, the comm can click on it to use a comm power at it. (At the cost of some sort of regenerating comm points, or res, or whatever.) Say, what if instead of dropping ammo crates like they do now, engineers had 'support-request flares' that are used to request supply-support from HQ? When one is set off, the comm gets a message, and they can then (at the cost of some resource) drop ammo or possibly health crates at the location specified, at the cost of res. These would take a little time to arrive, to limit abuse (especially if health was included.) There could be similar mechanisms for other sorts of comm powers. This prevents the comm from just magically using powers anywhere... they could have things a bit similar to Enemy Territory's airstrikes and arty strikes, but limited by some resource of the comm's (possibly res or separate 'comm points'), and would require comm confirmation. Of course, there would be a delay that would let most enemies escape... they'd be most useful against people who are turtling or whatever. This would avoid cutting anyone 'out of the loop', and defenders would have a chance to prevent it by killing the enemy trying to call for it or destroying the beacon. Dunno how fun that would be, though...
