Focus of the thread is to highlight solutions to some of the difficulties commanders may have trying to manage their players.
This thread assumes the usage is for all types of command, whether they be voip/text/ or anything in between/combination of those. For the most part though we will assume that all the players involved use all types of communication available when they command.
1. The map: We need to be able to put markers directly on the map screens. Currently we have dedicated 4 markers we can use on this map screen (attack/defend/rally/wp), but those are very arbitrary and this list needs to be expanded. The 1-8 object and 1-8 terrain markers can only be applied ingame, yet they showup on the map. There should be a way to put these symbols directly on the map from the map screen….this would allow you to highlight positions and objectives more easily to your squad without you having to physically “go” to those locations first.
2. Markers: Correct me if I’m wrong (I was) but you are unable to delete the markers once they are placed without deleting ALLLL of the markers. The only way around this is to go to your map and manually click markers to disable them. This process is clumsy/distracting though when you are fighting ingame. Additionally any object markers placed on targets now “disappear” if the commander moves too far away from them….this needs to be fixed. The get around is to appoint lieutenants and have them put squad markers on stuff that they are near….but even they need to stay near them for them to stay. Honestly we could also use ‘more’ markers, but I realize if this seems unreasonable. A final suggestion is to make some of the markers less arbitrary. For example the first green marker could be a more easily read “rally here” type of indicator rather than some random symbol among 7 other random symbols.
3. Chalkboard: You ever notice how you can draw white lines on your minimap? You ever notice how the tag is able to draw lines that “everyone” can see? I propose a markup overlay for the map that commanders can utilize should they choose. Basically, enable a chalkboard overlay on the map of everyone in the squad. Commanders/squadmembers may disable this overlap in their map at anytime. And the commander/lieutenants can draw attack plans all over the map so people have a physical copy of the plan in question, and anyone joining the squad can immediately know what is going on. One of the limits of teamspeak is the lack of physical plans, everything is just words that are easily forgotten, misheard, or not heard at all. Physical plans are key to commanding large groups of people.
4. Tag colour/symbol roles: Was another thread on this. But the idea is that tag colour specifies to the role the tag wants to play on the maps rather than some arbitrarily
chosen colour to identify its person. A followup to this is the ability to choose slightly different tag symbols so players can more easily identify role based on shape of tag rather than colour.
5. Tagging down: presently you can either hand the tag to some1 else, or you have to leave the squad in order to get rid of it. THis isn’t cool at all. I get the intent is to keep a tag up at all times…but this isn’t the right way to go about it. We shouldn’t have to leave the squad and rejoin just to tag down. This also is at odds with tag culture which is deserving of its own thread but I’ll leave it out atm (devs limits tag functionality so they function in a specific way, but how they are ‘actually’ utilized by the playerbase is very different and at odds with the intended usage).
6. CLosed/Tagless squads: First off, closed squads perpetuate a feeling of exclusion harder than any invisible squad will. Whoever is working on this mode needs to seriously re-examine ‘how’ they are trying to foster inclusion to all players on the map….cause its having the opposite effect. Heck I can make an entire thread of ways to make them game “actually” inclusive to all players and it could be shipped out to the community in a day’s time rather than 2 years. Closed squads shouldn’t exist at all imo. They should be tagless if they are going to be closed…OR they should be a special symbol squad like its listed in (4).
…… Continued below There are 6 more suggestions in the list (ttl of 12) You have to wait 30 minutes though since flood control only lets me post once every 30 minutes regardless of any number of posts I make and char limit is 5k.
The Tiny Yuno Sniper of Ebay [EBAY]
(edited by Cerby.1069)