Officers, Officer Rambos...

[A. P. Hill]

I guess the big thing about this whole thing is .... the difference between real life and only one life to live verses the reality gaming world where you have an infinite number of lives no matter how many times you die.

That's why, when you say, "Players should be paranoid when isolated so that they choose to fall back rather than fight-to-the-death. Countless are the real-life scenarios where skirmishers occupying buildings would run or surrender rather than put up a fight to enemy closing in.", the first paragraph applies, there is no paranoia. UNLESS it is induced by game mechanics ... i.e. a player who finds himself isolated should be denied access to player controls and the AI forces him to run like a scared rabbit. There is no threat of mortality, like there is in real life.

Really not sure how to over come that lack.

[Redleader]

I see comments like gunslinger says: "I just wiped out 4 enemy!" "I got 6 with 1 shot apiece."
.

I get what you're saying A.P. Hill, also note that 'enemy numbers' should be reported. On knowing the enemy position and their numbers you can device an effective strategy to follow.
Luckily in this game the whole 'look at my stats, look at my KDR' isn't going on.

[Redleader]

I guess the big thing about this whole thing is .... the difference between real life and only one life to live verses the reality gaming world where you have an infinite number of lives no matter how many times you die.

That's why, when you say, "Players should be paranoid when isolated so that they choose to fall back rather than fight-to-the-death. Countless are the real-life scenarios where skirmishers occupying buildings would run or surrender rather than put up a fight to enemy closing in.", the first paragraph applies, there is no paranoia. UNLESS it is induced by game mechanics ... i.e. a player who finds himself isolated should be denied access to player controls and the AI forces him to run like a scared rabbit. There is no threat of mortality, like there is in real life.

Really not sure how to over come that lack.

I agree it's a game and you can't implement the horrors of war and the psychological effect men had to endure those days (I would say thank God we don't have to relive that).
In real life no 'Rambo Officer' would charge alone unless he's feeling suicidal, sure an all or nothing charge would make sense sometimes ... but that's different.
Only thing you can do is dying out of line give some sort of personal disadvantage, when outnumbered make aim worse or misfire (some sort of stress situation) ... but some act better under stress ... just thinking out loud

[Poorlaggedman]

I prefer non-gamey solutions that offer strong incentives. The flag bearer and officer being forced to remain in-line just feels gamey. If a flag bearer does run off and desert and be eliminated for desertion... okay? So is the rest of the formation supposed to all move to go recover the flag? If he ran in a straight line 20 seconds away then one person can't pick it up very easily and return without facing the same fate potentially, especially if the guy ran towards the enemy. This is where the game would really benefit from a reputation feature built in for electing / selecting special roles if you're going to make certain roles important as many want (the company tool isn't going to cut it because of malicious rivalries and bad organizations). You just can't rely on random players to fill a critical role without very careful planning. It puts the whole gameplay at risk of being a juicy target for any derivative of the above trolling. An officer having to stay close to his people is okay until his people dissolve, scatter, or otherwise decide to go their separate ways from the formation and kill him.

How many deaths are going to be from desertions in a round and what is the cost going to be for the team morale? If it is high then (again) it only hurts the team. If it is low then why not send the officer forward for 20 seconds to scout and if the enemy dont get him then his desertion death will count little against the team.

Really not sure how to over come that lack.

Players will change their behavior if the rules are changed after they figure that out. Experienced players would understand the futility of making a stand or advancing in small numbers against a larger force and opt against it, instead redeploying to continue being effective in some fashion. If you want to succeed and not get forced to surrender then you're going to adjust the way you behave and be conscious of enemy getting close. Changing the rules does make a difference. If you make fences completely transparent to gunfire then guess what, people's behavior will change. They won't bother sitting behind them for cover. Ideally, autosurrender would be something that seldom happens in a round but is a significant deterrent. It's the threat of it that makes the difference, the confidence in moving with numbers and the uncertainty of not.

I'm not seeing the issues being raised. The distance is debatable. It could be gradual chance based on distance with a maximum range. I've seen plenty of officers miss at close and medium range, but not when they come right up behind your line and shoot you in the head. He can fire away at distance but savvy riflemen seeing him coming will bum rush him even if their rifles are not loaded. Meelee is not a sure thing, and really shouldn't have to be used anyway. Too often that is done but clubbing him or stabbing him can't be done fast enough for him not to kill 2-3. Plenty of officers have taken out private after private charging him. The officer is getting the jovial experience he set out for, 'out of line' death or not. Officers are running up when you're reloading and taking out 5 guys. It's ridiculous and nobody should have to suffer for it but the fool who does it -- with being put at the major disadvantage of being eliminated without a shot being fired when in proximity to enemy like that.

IMO to trigger an autosurrender you'd want a player to track how many friendlies he has in proximity - line or not - vs how many enemies are close. Then you need a ratio of foe vs enemy... which can be tweaked and distances that can be tweaked. The result is larger forces can mop up smaller ones in close quarters. Yes, people will run. That's part of what makes it most exciting because that's not been accomplished through anything other than a players' role playing. It would absolutely be a clusterfuck at first, but the hardcores working in formations will hardly notice a thing even in close range except as a mop up when one side becomes diminished. The charge will have to change to be more organized and close quarters rather than a mad dash free-for-all like it is now if it is to be done effectively.

Individual morale would be better requiring some trigger to inflict morale hits so that a player can be deduced to involuntary surrender in that situation even if the hits are from a literal surrender demand command. Individual morale is always the context I've imagined Autosurrender being used in. In the case of being in close quarters, heavily outnumbered (or having your morale heavily shot) getting a surrender demand, it's almost a sure thing. I don't think individual morale is required to make it work though.

As for indoors, buildings are clearly the exception and not the rule. As I said, any real force using a building for cover is going to understand it's in their best interest to know when a larger force is closing in. The players are their own best friend here. If they don't, that's their fault. A scout checking out a building and running into a large force can expect to be captured easily. Any scout can be excepted to be easily captured if he's not careful with what he's stumbling into. If you want to move to contact you should move together. That's what's desired, right? I have never wandered into enemy lines unknowningly, just my experience. If you're surprised, you're surprised. You get a message that says you were "captured / bagged - where was your unit?" Move with friendlies next time. Perhaps a musket aiming at you, unloaded or not, could initiate an autosurrender check at close range? I don't even like that, just a thought.


If you want to make an officer stick with his guys then make his ability as a killer less useful alone. Make any player's ability to be effective on their own less than at present. That way the killer which set out on his own will understand that in order to be an effective killer he'd better stay with teammates than face the uncertainty of being autosurrendered. Don't punish the whole team is my point. Make the flag bearer just as it is planned except offer a bonus for a formation's spawn time that he's in. Don't make it absolutely necessary to having a spawn at a line. More confusing, results in more lines, and more things to track but it'd be worth it to keep a flag bearer from being a nightmare waiting to happen as it is now.

[Shiloh]

If you read a bit back on this thread you will see that we are, in fact, asking for more ideas from you gents.

We have several ideas (both from you guys in this thread) and our own currently on the table. They range from a costier death when out of line as an officer, demoting officers to privates when having been killed out of line a set amount of times, create a global auto surrender mechanic to initiating a countdown timer whenever the officer is out of line (upon 0 move the officer back to spawn with the message of there's no use for him in the field without men to lead).

Once one (or several, multiple could work as well) is found to have the correct effect in diminishing the rambo officers we're quite open to increasing the officer numbers or introduce reloadable revolvers.

- Trusty

Regarding the spawn message popping up for the Rambo... it can be shorter at maybe 10 seconds so that officer won't have time to do any damage on their own. I've seen people do plenty of damage out of line in 20 seconds. I like the idea that they'll be sent back to the spawn area with that message. Nothing is worse in a heated fight then to have to respawn and run 2 miles to get back into the fight and I can see how that would discourage people.

What happens though when an officer is left alone after a bloody skirmish, or with just a few guys? It's easy to get out of line when there's only a few guys around you and you're a bit spread out.

[Gamble]

What I personally would like to see is that officers still have the opportunity to do something "alone", but at a VERY high cost and risk. It should probably the absolute last resort.
Imagine a line capturing a point towards the end of a round, most of the privates die (so it's probably 2 privates and an nco left) and the officer is moved back to spawn because he has no men he can lead. If his death would "just" be a hard hit on moral, he still has a choice if he wants to try to desperately hold the ground until reinforcements arrive or to pull back and to rally his men to attack another time. If he decides to just go rambo and does nothing of the above mentioned and his team looses because of him he will have to face the anger of his team. Combined with an option to votekick somebody out of his role (not the server!) the players probably have the power to counter possible trolls (trolls will happen no matter what countermeasures are implemented, but it probably will become much less standard). Rising Storm 2: Vietnam's community is probably a good example, there are a lot of servers where the playerbase reacts in a very allergic way when it comes to players who don't play their role properly, and while the game still lacks a lot, the teamplay is often quite outstanding.

[sal_tuskin]

i had this idea for rambos either officers, flag bearers or just riflemen, you get 3 free deaths then after the forth you have to wait 15 sec to spawn back in, so now you have died 4 times that is a lot then after the 5th you have wait 1min to spawn, then after the 6th 2min and so forth and so forth so after the 6 death you are basically out of the game, this is fair for both sides and and doesnt affect the team morale other making a person wait to spawn in who has died to many times

this system doesnt penialize the team just the player who wasnt playing any how if they are just ramboing and just dies or and over, this is simple easy to implement and fair to both teams so if a player wants to do his own thing he can till he dies 5 times so that is fair to him also

[Dutchconfederate]

I don't know if that would work.

System would have hard time to recognize if your a rambo. Your platoon gets shot into pieces your, left out of formation when does the system recognize you as a rambo? So you survived your alive your running back to get in formation, you get shot your now pinned as a rambo?Maybe the system would have to calculate how far you are away from any team mates to qualify you as a rambo.

[Gamble]

I think having a longer spawntime for officers overall wouldn't be the worst thing (at least the pistol wielding variants). If the respawn timer is 5 minutes (probably a tad too much XD) a lot of players who just want to go in and wreak havoc would think twice if they really want to choose officers, and it would make proper officer players a lot more cautious not to die, but to lead from behind. Players still could choose officer at the beginning of a round, rambo, die, and then choose another class.

[Redleader]

So far I like following options :

• Two pistolshots to get a kill (unless it's a headshot), a slow reload for a pistol (manual)
• Longer respawn if killed out of line. I fully agree with 'Sal' (don't punish a team for behaviour of a few individuals)
• Restricted to 'certain lives' linked to being out of line or skirmish (you rambo to much, you get demoted)
• For 'Forest', CQC and 'Corn' let the officer wield a less effective pistol. (slower, only 5 shots, less range ... you name it)
• Some sort of 'stress/fearsystem' when outnumbered in close proximity.

But that's all sort of a 'Nerf' or 'Punishment', I like to see a more positive reward system.

• A morale boost (or less loss) if an officer is around.
• More accurate aim, faster respawn (just slight) on the flagbearer (in BF2 I believe a commander could speed up the respawn process) ...
• Faster recovery for people when marching/running with an officer near.

The goal is that the team 'likes' a good officer and the game/team 'dislikes' a loner.

How do certain games reward 'good' players ?

• Counterstrike : if you play well, you get more money to buy weapons each round.
• Other games : play well, get promoted, get acces to better gear
• Day of Defeat gungame : stay alive, get a kill, get a better weapon ... you die : lesser weapon respawn
• Hidden & Dangerous II : one life only (means certain roles are important to keep alive)
• ...