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Thread: Making the Officer Role sustainably useful

  1. #1

    Making the Officer Role sustainably useful

    The officer class basically means nothing right now. People sort of listen to people in the officer roles but it’s really a joke. Nothing makes you special because you grabbed the officer slot. I hope the future isn’t just going to be purely first-come first-serve. Most games use classes in that meaningless function.

    You can do a few things to make class worthwhile. One would be with this mythical syncing of the company tool and the game. However, I vehemently disagree with the idea of using the ‘company’ ranks or anything like that. Any system needs to work so that a server can still host events with pre-planned officer roles even if the chosen people are a private or a nobody.

    The best thing I can envision is something I’ve imagined for a good while and goes as follows

    The company tool is synced with the game. There exists a separate ‘scoreboard’ for your team than just a list of players which is interactive. It allows you the option to upvote and downvote people on your team regardless of their current role. These votes go to your permanent profile. Players of a certain upvote superiority can bump the officer class.

    Alternatively…. The officer class is something you can only spawn in once (unless teamkilled). The players with a higher upvote number can spawn into it sooner (or whenever they want to spawn as it next). Allow them to go to the flag bearer and immediately de-spawn and re-spawn to speed the process up unless they want to be skipped. Lower players have to wait if higher players elect the officer class (max of two at a time or whatever). This way… the class isn’t used as much as a kamikaze class when you get one shot at it per round.


    There should really be a short 90 second ‘warmup’ period for all maps. Where players can spawn in but not go anywhere far. At the end of that warmup the round restarts with the roles/classes finalized whether there was any system like this or not. It’s silly for players to always have to sprint to the objective first thing rather than talk for a minute and wait for the slow pokes to spawn in.


    Important: Downvoting does not ‘remove’ an upvote it just shows up on your company profile. Why? Because the lack of upvotes will speak for itself in the ranking system. And, having lots of experience leading teams, if you’re a good leader you will make enemies for good and bad reasons. Plus you don't want people trying to climb over each other to get officer roles by downvoting. Downvoting shouldn’t be able to take away the praise of others. Servers can filter out or have a lower TKing threshold for people with a low reputation on top of marking their company profile which cannot be duplicated without another purchase of the game (also very important). Servers can also turn the company tool sync off.

    Also important... you need to be able to upvote/downvote anyone not just current officers. Else you'll have superstars with the officer class and others won't get a shot.


    example.jpg


    Upvoting or downvoting also leaves a record on your profile as the giver as well as the receiver and can be edited later and comments can be added. If you really want to do it right... you could have the tool keep track of how long you played with players in the same team but don't weigh the votes on a scale to that or else clanmembers will be able to make each other seem awesome by spending a lot of time in servers together! Just have that information there so that recruiters and vetters can see patterns of misconduct or irregularities.


    Imagine the potential of actually having a reputation in a game rather than having no freaking idea who you're playing with and always having totally random people behind steam names.


    A far more basic system would simply be elected officers. Each teammate gets 10 votes and gives as many of them as he wants to any given players (except himself). You can vote for any player, whether they try to choose an officer class or not. So a hierarchy is built and players can serve as the officer in that order (if they so choose to serve). If the player quits the game or leaves the team those votes are erased from consideration. This can be settled in your 90 second warmup.
    Last edited by Poorlaggedman; 11-11-2017 at 04:25 AM.
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  2. #2

    CSA Captain

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    I would not enjoy a voting system. And I believe each company that spawns in together has the right to manage themselves. For each company even the small ones this should be not only a test phase but a learning experience as well.
    Eventually every company should be building themselves up for the later battle mode. Again just my opinion.

  3. #3

    USA General of the Army

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    Agree with Dutch
    Voting Systems are notoriously corrupt and elitist. They seldom work as intended.

    Once the Company Tool is synced with the game and Private Servers are created we will alleviate much of the current problem.
    Only to replace them with others, methinks. heh
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  4. #4

    CSA Major General

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    Quote Originally Posted by Poorlaggedman View Post
    The officer class basically means nothing right now. People sort of listen to people in the officer roles but it’s really a joke. Nothing makes you special because you grabbed the officer slot. I hope the future isn’t just going to be purely first-come first-serve. Most games use classes in that meaningless function.
    Depends who takes the officer slot, if it's just a random guy ... it will be hard to be taken serious.
    If it's a person from an active regiment with rank in his name, it might make a difference. (people tend to follow)

    In 'Blackwake' you need certain experience (rank) to be able to select the officer class, and there is an ingame voting system.
    Some games have votekick/voteban and sometimes it works well, but in same game it's a menace and totally misused ... just an example that a voting system has it's flaws.

    The 'company tool' and the pledge awards.

    I'm not sure how exactly this will be finalised, will the pledge awards be just cosmetic except for the riflles ?
    The devs did a good job not making it pay to win ... the J.F. Brown target rifle might have a slight advantage for wrecking havoc, but it's for a select few.

    We also know that people who got on early started a regiment/corps ... and they are the officers.
    The downside here is officers aren't active the company tool doesn't get updates (sure it's alpha and most people aren't active)
    If people are unhappy they will leave, some might stay because they want to be in a certain regiment.

  5. #5
    Nobody says you have to follow an officer. But if you're going to have an officer class why not make it mean something? Being a 'company' officer in a clan doesn't mean anything. It means you have friends or acquaintances in the game. That's literally it.
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  6. #6

    USA General of the Army

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    Being as how this is still in alpha mode and the fact that the Company tool has not as yet been integrated into play, Officers will mean something when that dynamic is instituted.

    In the mean time, with a pick up force, yeah, yer going to have people who have no clue what they're doing as officers, and just took the officer position because it was available, and being an officer gives them a false sense of superiority. Or should an actual group get in game, and the officer is known to the group then all should be fine.

    If you're spawning in as an unassociated player with no present group around, it's really going to be up to you as a player to either decide to play with one of the current 4 groups or not.

    I don't know that, as things are now currently, there is any way to select officers via programming.

  7. #7
    I am totally opposed to having any status of any clan propagated into a private server. Not all clans all created equal. Just because you have ten guys on a roster doesn't mean you're a qualified leader. Neither does having a steam tag. That's never going to change. Heck. I find in realism units it's often the privates who'll step up as often as anyone else.

    Someone said they were against the idea of private servers, which is utter insanity in the highest degree, and that won't work either. There is no utopia awaiting through top-to-bottom micromanagement of who get's what roles in a server. If there's going to be selections, it should be by the players who actually play the game in a server on your team.
    Last edited by Poorlaggedman; 11-12-2017 at 10:39 PM.
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