Another Leader Suggestion

[Lightfoot]

Something to add to the list of ideas on how to solve the leader problem.

Have a two to five minute organizational phase at the start of a skirmish. No one can leave the spawn area during it. Everyone logs in as privates. Let people who want to be Officers, NCO's, and flag bearers put themselves in nomination. Then everyone votes. Could make vote for each open office or just prioritize highest to lowest with highest getting Officer slots, next NCO's, etc. Then at the end of the time period have the game change the people selected to the proper uniform. Make it happen as efficiently and as fast as possible since it will occur every new round.

This should give the edge to those in companies since they know who they are suppose to vote for. But it also allows others to get a chance especially if they get some recognition as people who know what they are doing. And, it is very historic since most officers below Generals were elected by their companies.

(I included flag bearer because I've noticed sometimes the game starts with no one volunteering since it tends to be a very short job. This way you always will have a flag bearer at start.)

[McMuffin]

This really is just overcomplicating this situation and not going to solve it. You're going to have inexperienced people who simply need to learn the game, so what? If you care so much about winning all the time then only play on organized events where the leaders are basically set. Why is everyone so wrapped up in only having people who they deem as worthy to lead and winning?

[Lightfoot]

Because many of the people who just decide they will be officers because they like to run around shooting a pistol are taking these positions. While the other players quickly realize they are idiots, there is no way to fix the situation other than quitting the game and coming back later.

The danger of such players is they can ruin a game to the point people stop playing. I have been playing MMORG's for some twenty years and have seen many of them fail simply because they couldn't find a way to stop players who just want to ruin the game for everyone else. Be it by jumping into character slots that need experienced people, ramboing, using the voice channel to be obnoxious, or in the case of many of the games camping spawn areas.


The system I proposed is probably a little complicated for the developer to implement. But it has advantages. It still allows inexperience players to be leaders but if a Company has gone to the trouble to get it's players on at the same time they can elect their officers for the skirmish. And, if the inexperienced leaders don't perform the players will have an opportunity in the next skirmish to not elect them.

[A. P. Hill]

Simple solution:

No one has said you must follow these people. If you have enough guys from your unit on the server, just separate yourselves and you're good to go.

There's nothing written in stone that sez you gotta follow a guy wearing officer's clothing.

By the same token, I understand company officers and their want of wearing rank appropriate uniforms.

One the other hand, maybe the guy in officer's clothing may be an officer from another unit. Who is anyone here to deny that officer's right as well?

[Lightfoot]

When the only choice is not to follow them but they still occupy the officer slots, the game is over as far as winning is concerned unless the other side is just as poorly lead. If I am playing just to shoot my gun I just as well log into a drill server and shoot at targets. Usually, if they don't go away I don't continue playing after a couple of skirmishes.

The danger of allowing people who aren't really interested in trying to lead as officer or are just really bad at it, is when the game goes live they can destroy the public servers. Just like the rambos who run use up the tickets, they can ruin the game for everyone else. And, that ultimately leads to going out of business and no one has public or private servers to play on.

While the game is in Alpha this really doesn't matter. That is what Alpha and Beta testing is for. Identifying these kinds of problems. But hopefully the developers can come up with a workable solution other than everyone being on private servers with passwords locking it.

[Shiloh]

If you care so much about winning all the time then only play on organized events where the leaders are basically set. Why is everyone so wrapped up in only having people who they deem as worthy to lead and winning?

You don't have to be concerned with having to win all the time to want to play organized events. I know I like organization in a battle but it's not always about winning but rather about the experience of fighting with lines and skirmish units and organized tactics which is more typical of Civil War battles than random people running all over a map with little to no cohesiveness. I think most people just want someone who is somewhat competent and if they're not, it's a bloody mess out there although it doesn't always matter how good a leader someone is. They will rarely get a full side of pubs organized toward a common goal as many single players are going to just do what they want regardless.

[Sox]

This really is just overcomplicating this situation and not going to solve it. You're going to have inexperienced people who simply need to learn the game, so what? If you care so much about winning all the time then only play on organized events where the leaders are basically set. Why is everyone so wrapped up in only having people who they deem as worthy to lead and winning?

If any of the above is true, then why do you have a rank? Why do ANY of the formed Companies even bother with rank? We didn't create this situation, Campfire Games did. They gave us the tools to form Companies, to assign ranks to the people we trust, and then they made ALL of that basically pointless in the game itself. How many Officers does a Company have via the Tool, how many NCO's? All of us based our units on that, and then when we go to get in the game it means nothing because you simply cannot replicate it.

I'll give you an example. Your own officer, LaBelle, is one of the most immersive Officer personalities inside the game, he becomes a Confederate Officer and he's one of the few people I've seen who actually manage that. However, when he can't spawn an officer visually, he just appears to be just another fool shouting for the sake of it. I know who he is, but to pubbies it means nothing.

It's not about winning or loosing, it's about organisation and simplicity. Too much of War of Rights is like a job, because of the poor mechanics.

[Leifr]

If any of the above is true, then why do you have a rank? Why do ANY of the formed Companies even bother with rank? We didn't create this situation, Campfire Games did. They gave us the tools to form Companies, to assign ranks to the people we trust, and then they made ALL of that basically pointless in the game itself. How many Officers does a Company have via the Tool, how many NCO's? All of us based our units on that, and then when we go to get in the game it means nothing because you simply cannot replicate it.

The company tool will eventually be linked to the game, it has been repeated several times and as far as I am aware that hasn't changed.

[Sox]

The company tool will eventually be linked to the game, it has been repeated several times and as far as I am aware that hasn't changed.

That's great, and all good, but it should be a core mechanic.

[Leifr]

That's great, and all good, but it should be a core mechanic.

Sure, if you would have been happy to wait another six months whilst it's implemented. Inverse to what you have said Sox, the Company Tool means sweet Fanny Adams in game and out of game - it's only there for flavour and roleplay. Worry about it when CG are approaching the time to connect the two, I'm sure it'll open up a host of new issues none of us could have properly foreseen.