Platoon leaders are the lifeblood of the game. Give them something of their own.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Angry Scientist, Oct 17, 2014.

  1. Angry Scientist

    Leading in this game is so slammed in the direction of 'too much hassle' that it's ridiculous. Only recently do you even get acknowledgement of the trials of herding cats in the directives, and it's kind of a lackluster thing. All things considered, anyways.

    For enduring with the responsibility of other people, their fun, the choices you make potentially having repercussions on your whole faction, and the one most people care the most about: lowering your cert rewards.

    The tools handed to leaders are mediocre at best and functionally all amount to markers on a map. The beacon is the most interesting tool, and people just two man squad to use it and screw platoon level usefulness. Not to say it isn't used as a platoon tool, but most don't bother.

    We can fix this, however. Leaders are what make the fights. They guide the newbs and veterans alike, allowing faction forces to be stronger. Leaders shouldn't be playing completely the same game if they don't want to be. Some like to be on the frontlines, leading with their gun blazing. Others prefer to be the general in the shadows, leading from afar. We can give tools that can be used by one or both.

    Introduce the Platoon Leader screen, aka 'Commander Mode'. A visitation from Battlefield, but where Battlefield tried to make it seem pompy what with their mere 64 on a side battles, leaders here would be making choices effecting hundreds.

    The platoon leader despawns. They have no background noises to contend with. To facilitate this change, platoon player limits is raised to 50. The platoon lead position and second in command, who of which is given lead should the platoon lead disconntect or crash. Instead, the platoon leader is given the map. All of it, with all spotted information from their platoon members, which includes enemies they spotted and that have been spotted around them.

    Allowing drawing on the map, too. That'd be useful.

    But the real crux is the addition of a 'Platoon resource' that can be spent on tools, advantages, or support. No, not orbital strikes, but things that can be deadly in the right hands. The cap of these resources is dependent on how many members there are in the platoon, as well as gain rate. More members means more cap and gain. This is to prevent two man squads from having access to the same tools and rates as a full platoon.

    Resources build anytime a base is captured/defended, per member, an objective is taken/defended (CP, generators), a deployed sunderer is killed, or the like. Any objective based action is rewarded. Killing and support XP helps towards those things, too, but would likely make it too hard to balance gain. Would punish low level fights, too, probably.

    But what could such things be spent on? Some examples:
    -For a minor cost, the platoon leader can spawn a recon drone to personally survey the field. It can be destroyed, C4 does not stick to it, and it simply clips enemies. It's meant to be a surveillance tool, not a trolling tool.
    -Recon strike, revealing all enemies in an area on the map for a duration.
    -Grant resources to platoon members for their use or spawn your own vehicles for their use. Platoon leader personal resources could go towards that, instead, perhaps, to give them a use while they're in leader mode.
    -Spawn platoon beacon, which forces a whole squad IA. The beacon may need to be placed or can only be used in specific circumstances. A return to steel rain in a way that's balanced. Why bring it back? Because it was a very impressing moment to be droppodding with an entire platoon onto your enemies.
    -Resupply pylons that can allow a one time use to restore grenades/switch loadouts.
    -Resupply drops to rearm tanks.
    -Airdrop tanks/sunderers/etc

    And another major use: mission generation.

    The mission system was always promised to be player driven. What better way to instigate its use? And the payment as such? Even pubbies want XP, and rewarding your platoon members to do what are otherwise thankless jobs (lattice re-linking aka ghostcapping, sunderer guarding, etc)

    Missions would have a basic structure at first, mostly based on an area of effect and a certain type of XP generation event rewarding a bonus. An example being a mission area being put onto a known enemy sunderer. A small AOE, its reward can be cranked up at an curving cost (to prevent abuse or statpadding between friends). The mission would state vehicle destruction rewarding more XP in that area only.

    Mission areas could be small or wide, with wider ones costing more, naturally, which would demand lesser XP rewards. But it'd be entirely possible to mark vehicle or AV nests, AA nests, etc. Objectives of importance. Locational information can be used to mark the death area of anything inside the mission area to give the reward. It'd be needed to support, say, aircraft striking that known sunderer position. As the mission area would be small, aircraft would nearly certainly be outside of it, but would still be contributing to that particular objective, and should be rewarded appropriately.

    Later versions can include more sophistication, such as escort, deploy a sundy here bounty, ANT runs, setting up nests of a particular type, or a bounty on capturing a base. Missions could be made platoon only or public.
    • Up x 19
  2. CipherNine

    If Planetside is actually an RTS game with real players as units masked as an FPS then we should give platoon leaders RTS-like user interface which would allow them to micromanage players which essentially means select individual player and give him his personal waypoint. Platoon leaders should get their micromanagement tools so they can better communicate elaborate tactics to individual players.
    • Up x 8
  3. Cest7

    Ya. I wanted a title that was "Commander" but... your suggestions go a long way.

    Some quality of life additions would help with platoon leading like an "Invite All Outfit Members" or "Invite All friends" buttons. I have to click TWICE one every single outfit member to invite them, making it approximately 196 clicks to fill a platoon...

    Platoon beacon to summon squad leaders?

    I thought the mission system was going to be dynamic instead of automatic. Being able to Q-Target things like Sunderers, Vehicle Terminals, Galaxies, etc. and assign SPECIFIC missions to EACH SQUAD would go a LOOOOOooooong way:
    Alpha mission: Capture A Point (+15% XP in capture area)
    Bravo mission: Destroy TR Sunderer (+50%xp on kill)
    Charlie Mission: Hack Vehicle Terminal (+100%xp for hack)

    Something along these lines... with a notification to platoon leader of "Mission Complete; Alpha Awaiting orders"
    • Up x 7
  4. BetAstraal

    Great idea.
    Then there was that part of suggestions asking what if we had race / faction leaders system. Thoughts on that?
    There's another online game (some mmorpg) with this system implemented which classes them in 3 categories, as faction leader, some commanders and some sub-commanders, each with their traits and features. Maybe that would instigate players to use the command chat and other tactical tools to better efficiency levels and even make the regular solo or lost players actually work for real objectives, not just 'let's go shooting with a gun for a bit'.
  5. Alan Kalane

    Definetly yes!
    Cooperating squads are the main force in this game. Lonewolfs only make the game chaotic, unmanaged and zergy. Joining a squad and leading/following orders should be well rewarded and the leaders should be given additional tools to do their job.
  6. TheMish


    They can still do that. Buzzcut used to lead like that. Controlled his troops like it was an RTS. To the point that he even decided what they used, and when and where they will shoot.

    You just have to be a trusted, strict leader. And skilled.

    Most are just trusted, that's why there's not many good outfits anymore.

    A lot of the big leaders left I think anyway, or just barely get involved anymore.

    The only interesting new leader is AngryJoe for the Emerald TR, but I doubt he's much of a hardcore platoon leader, probably more of a casual gamer.

    But more things that the platoon leaders can do would be nice.
  7. Angry Scientist

    Lone wolves have their place in the game and will always exist. The mission generation system would have the byproduct of helping them, with gentle shoves towards helping the faction as a whole.

    Giving leader better tools leads to better leadership which leads to better players which leads to less burn out which leads to better leaders which leads to...you get the point. This is why it's very important to give leaders more tools and abilities, and reward them for the hard work they put in to boot.
    • Up x 3
  8. Tetholin

    Personally, I'd be happy with additional XP being given to those who follow orders.

    Example:

    Platoon/Squad Leader sets the Platoon/Squad Waypoint on a Biolab Mission Marker.
    Platoon/Squad gains additional XP on a point by point capture basis, maybe 20% or more.
    Platoon/Squad gains a larger chunk of XP for either a successful capture of defense of a point.


    It would give players an incentive to actually listen to leaders. Instead of wandering off and doing their own thing, players would get more by teaming up.
  9. Crashsplash

    The way PS1 encouraged leaders was to have an alternative progression alongside battle rank which was command rank. As you progressed from command rank 1 - 5 you got extra abilities. Example: if a platoon leader was at least CR2 they could draw battle plans on the map but especially if you were cr5 you gained access to command chat, ability to 'global' (the equivalent would be acccess to orders chat) and got an Orbital Strike (which would be very useful in ps2 clearing out concentrations of tank zergling).

    This had upsides and downsides. Fundmentally it worked and did encourage and reward platoon and squad leading, as a CR5 you felt like you were part of an elite, even though you may not necessarily have a good k/d. Also, cr5's talked to each other and worked of empire strats and priorities. It all worked.

    As a CR5 you felt like you were part of two teams where one team was the CR5 team working on cooperation, like at a horizontal level looking across the whole of auraxsis but the second team was you own platoon/squad working vertically on achieving your own objectives.

    However there was a downside. Because gaining CR5 gifted you the 'big gun from the sky' which nearly everyone wanted some people simply sat in a squad LEader spot gaining command experience points but didn't actually lead, in a sense they exploited.

    On the whole I think it was a good thing.


    ps the command map I think is a must which I've proposed quite a few times now, however I'm not in favour of micro managing your squad using it. Where I think it would be useful is cooperating with other platoons/squads that you don't and can't control. If you had a map that gave you an indication of which outfits were fighting where (e.g. on their way to recering a base under attack) if would think be very useful.
  10. Silsila

    As a Squad leader of a smaller outfit of 8 players I must say the number one thing I lack is multiple waypoints.
    We've ben forced to actaully split up into a platoon with 2-4 guys in each squad just to be able to do some decent large scale coordination.

    By doing this we break two other aspects of our squadplay, Spawn beacons and Galaxy support. Since we're split up into different squads just to get the waypoints, we can no longer utalise one spawn beacon nor Squad spawn in the Galaxy/sunderer. That is really frustrating, especially with the (for me) slow map which can take up to 10 seconds to load some times.

    So what I would like to see is more waypoints and an ehanced way of issueing orders. Like in PS1 where you hade not 1 voice menu but 3. Or for that matter, use the command wheel you get when you hold in the mark button over friendlies, but allow it to trigger any where in the world for easier, on the spot, placement of waypoints.
    • Up x 1
  11. DrPapaPenguin

    +1. Squadplay isnt my style but these are good suggestions.
  12. Thesweet

    I think they should be able to call in air/artillery strikes. Maybe with a low level outfit they get small strikes but as the outfit levels they get more stuff. Maybe like a tree cert for an outfit, spec ops(more stealth options), assault (more infantry stuff), vehicles, air(get more air stuff). I think they need to work on this because it adds longevity to the game.
  13. Silsila

    We allready have that. It's called liberator support.
    Get some of your squad mates in a Liberator, make sure you destroy any AA and then set a target for bombardment by placing a waypoint.
  14. The Rogue Wolf

    I'm honestly against any sort of any sort of application of force that isn't directly delivered by a player using a weapon.
    • Up x 3
  15. Tetholin


    Not particularly on topic, but I'd kill for a hand-based Mortar ala Tribes Jugg Fusion Mortar :eek:
  16. Rentago

    Honestly, I expected them to allow you to unlock things like supply drops, light vehicle drops, designate targets for pilots to attack (something that will make them render the target from farther away), have influence on instant action people by designating regions that need people and hopefully having those people if at the time using instant action end up over there rather than random.

    I also expected base upgrades to have been a thing by now, outfit claims a base, can invest outfit points (earned through individual outfit members doing various things to add to a collective) into upgrading turrets, like having faction specific upgrades to a base to give them better turrets, add more barriers along walls to make them more like solid hallways, adding "doors" to block multi door access to certain buildings.

    Honestly, I would like each doorway to have one of those metal door plugs as a thing you can hack as to cut off areas, but that may never happen.
  17. Thesweet

    That is why when the platoon leader of that outfit calls in an airstrike it is given to a near by air unit.
  18. The Rogue Wolf

    Ah. Then I misunderstood- when I read "airstrike" I thought of something you'd see in an RTS where rockets or whatnot just streak in from off the map.
  19. Thesweet

    What
    What if air was given much more firepower but their ammo was severely reduced and they couldn't see ground units?

    This would reduce the rendering needed for air, targets designated from the ground would then be considered bby the server as kills for the person who targeted the target, that way the ground unit is doing the rendering and their targets are being hit. But then instead of giving that person the kills they just give the kills to the pilot/gunner and the targeted gets assist or some sort of points for designating.

    Because air cannot render ground anymore they should get more warning systems for lockons and flak. Maybe a warning on the mini map of where it is coming from as well as the current warnings they have now.

    This gives commanders something to do, maybe the SL have the ability of calling in smaller air strikes but PL can call in things like Carpet bombing. And to be considered a SL you need a 60-70% full squad.

    Counter for strikes is advisable laser during targeting or a flare/smoke marking the area. And the usual AA.

    Outfits could maybe unlock specialty bombs like cluster and phosphorus if they added in outfit levels or maybe a skill tree for outfits. Maybe like a spec ops tree that improves clandestine ops and air power and assault ops tree that improves infantry and vehicles. Can only be used if you are in that outfit.
  20. Rentago



    I still would like to see the orbital strike make a return, the only issue is, with the way BR works and there is no CR, it would be hard to prevent everyone from unlocking it.

    They should reimplement command ranks which have to do with leading a squad in order to level it up.