bs - if you want to play with dense teamwork, play scrims - on pubs the commander shouldnt be given too much power (and this is where this would be "needed") you all cry about noobs and how we dont have enough players - THIS IS THE EXACT REASON. this game is nowhere close to be a game you can play for 1-2h. you miss a big player base because of that. im not saying turn it into a dumb casual game, but you need to let ppl play their own metagames ... any of this things should be hints for this players (thus ~what dizzy said), you might provide bonuses as incentive to follow orders - but the player has to have the feeling that is HIS OWN DECISION what he does.
Only thing empires has going for it is the niche gameplay it offers of rts/fps and the teamwork/seudo-rp of playing in squads. Your right though. Most players would rather play some free form FPS. But empires will never be good enough to compete with any decent fps. That's why I don't play it hardly anymore. Edit: Empires attracts players for it's niche gameplay. We should be improving it's strengths. Not trying to make it like CS:S.
You dont wanna make this shit to complicated with prioritizing, you want it to be easy, understandable and fast. Atm the commander needs more stuff to do, cause now it's just boring sitting in the cv doing jackshit, especially as a new player.
i'm actually having fun while commanding. its like spec but you get to determine the outcome of games
Coms can already grief. By definition, coms can grief. Denouncing a mechanic just because it allows com griefing is just silly. If we use such a premise for game mechanic judgement, every single com mechanic is off the table. Research, building placement, VF locking, all of it is gone. That said, I think controlling spawn-points is a pretty cool idea. I never thought of it, but it's a good idea.
spartacus as much as i may want you in my bed you often make me face palm deeper than dante could ever imagine
These one liners don't say anything, Your suggestion is more complicated: Situation A, there are 3 barrackses and an apc, the comm wants his players to spawn in the APC, which is located in the enemy base. Restricting method: Comm has to disable 3 seperate barrackses. Nobody is able to spawn from these 3 barrackses. When the APC dies, no one can spawn anywhere until the commander enabled the barrackses again. Conclusion: Takes 3 steps to prioritize APC, high probability of there being moments where none of the spawns are enabled (when apc dies). Players have no overview to know whether the spawn is disabled or destroyed. Also takes another 3 steps to enable barrackses again, thats 6 steps and a window of problems inbetween. Priority method: Commander prioritizes the APC, players can still spawn anywhere, but if they do not select a spawn, they spawn in the APC. Conclusion: Takes 1 step, no spawns are disabled and it doesn't require any actions from the players. When the APC is destroyed, priority dissapears automatically. Situation A also shows that prioritizing is faster (less steps), easier (less steps) and more understandable for players (no spawns are disabled, no window of error when apc dies). Your suggestion has many problems where situation A is just a single example of, prioritizing fixes most of them. Also, I'm trying to help by improving your suggestion paradox, you should embrace the fact that someone likes your idea and is working it out for you into something that actually is implementable. You might also want to read my last post: ( http://forums.empiresmod.com/showpost.php?p=366917&postcount=18 ) where I gave a very simple use case of the situation. Prioritizing is intuitively easier to understand, because the concept of prioritizing is not ambiguous. Once players spawn at a location that they did not select themselves, there might be some confusion, however, there is no other feature or possibility of this occurring in the game, it can not be mistaken for something else. It will become clear that it is the priority spawn. However, disabling is easily confusable, because it is the same functionality as having a barracks being destroyed. Intuitively this makes a lot less sense, especially for a commander to disable a barracks to be able to prioritzie another barracks. In essence, that is what you are doing, prioritizing by disabling other options. Disabling is an ability the commander already possesses, its functionality is that of recycling. You're not giving him more control, as it can be as temporary as recycling and dropping a new barracks. I have already outlined some of the other problems that your suggestion has. So if you are against prioritizing (which is the gist of your idea), then its easy to reject your idea, because it creates more problems than it fixes.
Prioritizing would be very cool. It would finally solve the noob spawning problem. When you join a game, you could skip the spawn picking dialogue and automatically use the priority spawn. One less confusing menu for the noobs to dig through. And it could also help casual players. If my spawn if set to an APC and the APC blows up, it could automatically move to the priority spawn. If I'm playing casually, I would feel comfortable letting the com pick my spawn in such a situation. Seems like a neat idea.
People are too stupid to understand priority spawn and it would just be a completely un-necessary complication... Ffs people can't even figure how to spawn with the current system. Commander needs to be able to lock all raxs except one. None of this other bullshit. As for apcs. Commanders cannot restrict all raxs at the same time. They have to always have one rax enabled even if there is an apc enabled.
I get that you want to help my idea, and your intrested in it. But I won't budge with my point of view, that using prioritization isn't going to help that much + make the game complicater. A safelock on your E.G. with the apc and rax is, that 1 rax must always be open for spawning I said that in a previous post, or just 1 spawnpoint. example: 1 apc 3 raxes. 3 raxes = locked apc = open Apc dies,,, 1 of the raxes get auto opend as a safeguard, the safegaurd rax is always the first rax built, and if that one gets destroyed its the 2nd one built, and if that one gets destroyed the 3rd,,, etc etc etc.
cool, so if the comm is unattendive/distracted/dropped when your apc blows up, everyone NEEDS TO spawn back at main base - i start to like this idea also theres a limit of 8 ppl that can spawn in an empty APC, whats happening to the rest of the 32 players on your team? aaaaaaaand, if this wouldnt be enough. if you apc-rush, you probably wont just use a single apc either ... and finally, players should NEVER EVER be able to force a playstyle upon other players. i repeat myself, empires - as it its atm - already has issues with that, thus why you are just screwed if you get a newbie commander (or jerk). hints are good (=dizzys suggestion of prority), force is bad, it drives people away and we dont have a playerbase where we could say, "hey, just ignore them". just because you grasped a glimps on what is possible with tight teamwork, doesnt mean you have the right to enforce it onto others. ESPECIALLY not in pubs ...
Internet cookie for the man in the red sweater! What if when you joined a server you didn't have to pick a spawn? The game just automatically picks the priority spawn by default. And presto, noobs always spawn where the com wants help. Not to mention noobs will never have trouble spawning. Like it or not, that is still an enormous problem for noobs. Eventually, they learn the game and figure out how to manually change their spawn. Or maybe they get used to using the priority spawn and want to continue utilizing it! You could have a check box (like VF locking) that forces everyone to spawn into the priority spawn. That would solve the "Omg, I need everyone to spawn in Z9 immediately!" Commanders could make a list of spawns by priority. If the top priority spawn dies (rax blows, APC dies, etc.), a new priority could automatically pop up using the list the commander previously made. BTW- Sorry, I'm not really trying to be rude, but you managed to hit on all the reasons why this priority spawn mechanic would rock. Second internet cookie for the man in the red sweater!
Since your new I'll explain how suggestions work... They need to be simple, non-complicated, and effective. - When you select a barracks/APC you have the choice to disable it's spawn. There would be a icon showing a spawn disabled, for the commander. - One barracks must always be enabled to avoid griefing. APCs don't count. - If all the enabled barracks are destroyed then all other spawns become open, and must be re disabled if the commander wants. ^ A suggestion more simple, less confusing to new players, and allows more strategic options than yours. Problem is you either have all spawns are only one. It is better to disable/enable each spawn individually for better control of the flow of assets. Spawns being destroyed and priority spawn changing is honestly too complicated for most individuals to comprehend in game under 3 seconds. And players should not automatically have their spawn chosen for them. Even if spawns are locked they should have to select the one that isn't. Players need to learning spawning before they get in game. All that aside. People seem to want this game to be a more free form FPS like CS:S so restricting spawns will most likely never be implemented.
I appreciate the primer, I admit I only skimmed the last few pages. Why is it better to individually manage spawns? If you try to direct players to more than one spawn, you aren't controlling anything. What happens if everyone just picks one spawn? Maybe that's ok, but what if that one spawn is the least important of the three that are picked? Then you're in deep shit. I think it's better for the commander to be able to list every spawn from most prioritized to least prioritized. You could communicate this to the player using the size of the orange/blue spawn dots. A bigger dot is more important. But that also fixes the problem of spawns being destroyed. If you have a list of spawns by priority, spawns can drop off the list and the priority function still works by itself. The less buttons for the com to fiddle with, the better. As veteran Empires players, we have a pretty deep understanding of the game's mechanics. No, we all aren't master strategists or twitch aims, but we know how Empires functions. That said, it can be hard to really understand how difficult it can be to learn Empires. I constantly hear complaining about spawning. It's poorly communicated to the player and as a result, newbies can't even get their feet on the ground. So I see absolutely no problem with letting newbies "cheat" spawning for a few days. Empires is pretty hard to learn. There are more important things than spawning. Think about it, using a priority spawn is listening to your commander. Why wouldn't we want noobs to do that? And after a few days of aimlessly pressing buttons, people will learn how to switch their spawn. However, I wonder how many would prefer to use the commander's priority spawn even after learning. If we want Empires to be free form, we should allow normal players to drop buildings. Also, research should be scrapped. Right now, both mechanics control the entire tempo of the game and who controls those mechanics? Jesting aside, Empires restricts its players, but it's that restriction that makes them feel part of something bigger. Not many FPSs evoke that feeling effectively. BTW- I really do apologize for sorta picking your post apart. I really hate it when people do that to me, so I figure it carries negative connotations for everyone. I do value your input and I enjoy the mature discussion that we have. .)
I just wanted to respond to paradox. First of all on the "leave 1 spawn" necessity. It's flawed. I'm not going to argue the finer details of why it adds insult to injury, saying you don't want to budge in a discussion is like saying you're thick headed, so I won't bother. My earlier posts should have been enough to showcase that your initial suggestion is about prioritizing.
Alright, lets keep this in mind. What's the purpose of disabling? Isn't it clear that the only purpose of a barracks is to spawn? If nobody spawns there, it's disabled by itself. If it's recycled it's disabled. My point here is, this feature isn't aimed at a problem and doesn't add anything. It's just another feature. Word has plenty of features, do you use all of them? Features should be made for common usage, never rare usage. Especially not in a game, and frankly there is no reason to have this feature unless it solves a problem. In this case, the problem can be solved more effectively, less complicated (in procedure as well as detail) and is far more simple for the end user, which is where the simplicity would be. Powerful, yet simple. One barracks doesn't signify importance, or that it will avoid griefing. Flawed failsafe, for an idea that has so many problems that it requires a failsafe, which is a flaw in itself. First of all, you would have to outline these new "strategic options", and especially those that cannot be achieved by either recycling and rebuilding, without the "boohoo needs engi calc". It's not a new strategic option that is being created, and you will not find a single common strategic option that this creates that cannot already be achieved. The question is whether these strategic options require hardcoded features to support them, or to achieve them. So in short, it's not about whether the suggestion can support more, but whether the "more" can be justified. I would also like to note that having "more" options in the way you have described is the opposite of "simple" and "less complicated". Which are your own claims. I ignored those terms at first because you're throwing them around as if they're buzz words. They don't stick when you can't back them up sadly. Just read your own post for a second here. If you drew out diagrams of both scenarios in a use case, yours would be hugely more complicated and would require far more exceptions etc than the whole suggestion of priorities! There is absolutely zero way you can make this out as "simple" or "less complicated". I'm not even sure whether I really understand your addition, why would all spawns be enabled? Why not just 1? There doesn't seem to be any reason to do this. Let me explain "simple": One. Example: 1 priority spawn. Let me explain "less complicated": One. Example: 1 priority spawn. Your example for "simple": Disable, enable, 1 spawn failsafe, destroyed spawn re enabled disabled spawns. List goes on. Your example for "less complicated": Exception for spawns because of possible griefing, enabling and disabling for every individual barracks. Exceptions for destroyed spawns. List goes on. You have no excuse for this nonsense, if you really want to take this on, I'll simply whip out one of my many books on fucking interaction and just throw terms at you until you start sounding like her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_CidIS8YM I'm not sure what you mean with "either all or only one", but both solutions aim at better control of player distribution, yours doesn't do it more efficiently as the core of the idea is that it directs players to a spawn point, not change the nature of the spawn point itself. What you're trying to say is that it gives you more strict control, it's not necessarily better, that's a shallow term. Again, it would need to be justified whether this problem requires such strict control, however as others have pointed out, it adds a lot of problems and it also does not add more control, just more strict. As I've said a few times already, commander already has full control, the features already exists, this does not add anything new. False, it already exists in the game, when a barracks is destroyed, you need to choose another spawn. Priority spawn doesn't change, it's removed. Seems to me you don't understand the concept of prioritizing. There is nothing to comprehend, there either is a priority spawn or there isn't, both do not conflict with the existing spawn selection method. There is nothing here to be "complicated". Also a logical fallacy by stereotyping. Argument is completely invalid. This isn't much of an argument, you're simply dictating they shouldn't, you also make a distinction based on a mere detail, not the concepts itself. Why exactly would this detail make any difference? It doesn't. Logical fallacy, you can't speak for "people", you'll have to show empirical evidence. Also, restricting spawns already exists.
