One carrier, multiple players

[Intezar 10]

How awesome would this be? In multi-player we could team up and work different roles on the same carrier; fighting AI carrier(s) or other player teams.

[bfcrusader 10]

In theory this would be a good idea in an arcadish battle for one island. But in the campaign it would be too boring for the pilots to wait while the Carrier Commander gives the go ahead after reaching the next island and so on.

[sic-disaster 311]

Not necesarily, players could form a seperate entity from bot pilots.

They could form their own squad, call it an 'elite squad'. They could keep continueing the fight apart from the commander, but the commander could give them the command over a fighter group maybe.

[bfcrusader 10]

Could you elaborate a little, I am not sure I fully understood what you meant. I do think I like where this is going though.

[[evo] dan 79]

Perhaps we could have a mode simliar to warfare in arma2? Basically, you vote for a team commander who would then oversea construction and command of the carrier, with resources shared equally amongst players which can then be used to buy vehicles and weapons, for them to use as they want.

[Nicholas 5]

What he is saying is pretty basic. Each team will have 1 commander. That commander can give orders to everyone on the team - AI or real players. The players can carry out these commands - or not - and it's basically a team vs team game mode.

But, unfortunately, CC will not have multiplayer upon release.

[bfcrusader 10]

The thought is good but it needs some work.

The biggest problem with such a setup is the fact that, like other games with team vs team concepts, it will have the teamwork issue.

More specifically, the lack of it depending on what players join in the game. There are lone wolfs out there that like these kinds of games but have little teamplay sense. This will result in the commander giving an order but the player ignores it, says no or says yes but does something else despite that.

Then there are players who join in as a group and like to work as a team but only within their group and not with the rest of their side.

Some games, like Battlefield, have implemented score bonuses for completing objectives given and kills/heals/revives within a certain radius of the given order. Though players can still go 'rogue' and do their own thing and get points.

However, for this game BIS should take that concept even further. Since this game is heavily focused on the Commander, much more so than most other wargames, the game should cater more to have the players under his/her command actually want to do what he/she tells them to do.

Short version, much more incentives.

How to go about it? Well, kills made should still yield scores for the killing player and scores for players doing assisting/supporting actions and the like which we can find in Battlefield games. But, they will be drastically reduced if they are made outside the radius of a given attack order on an area/on a target.

Depending on the type of order the Commander should be allowed to adjust the parameters. For example, he could adjust how big the radius around the task center bonus points will be given and perhaps even be allowed to give a timed objective so the players don't dally too long or his strategy might be strained if players die due to trying to get lots of points, and the assets lost because of it hurts the Commanders efforts to take the island.

For example, the commander orders a squadron of Mantas to make an attack run on some anti-tank emplacements before sending in his Walruses to move inland. He places the time limit to 4 minutes and the radius to 300 meters (600 m in diameter) to make sure the players want to keep their operation inside this circle.

It takes the Mantas about 1 minute to get to the location, 1 minute to destroy the main target and thus have about 2 minute to destroy any secondary targets of opportunity before having to go back due to the bonus expiring.

The reason it was only 4 minutes was because the enemy fighters reaction time plus their travel time to the target from their launch point is expected to be 4 minutes.

The Mantas start their return, while at the same time Walruses equipped with various weapon modules (on of them being anti-air) start their advance to the next outpost.

These are my thoughts.

Edited August 19, 2011 by BFCrusader

[[evo] dan 79]

Actually that sounds like a very good idea, being able to give timed objectives to members of the side so that they at least have a path to follow and can know what the commanders intentions are better.

[.Taffy 10]

That sounds like a very effective means of controlling player's actions, but won't that make the position of Commander that of moderator for the game as much as tactical commander? It might make the role unpopular...

[bfcrusader 10]

This game is Commander-centric and thus the game must focus more on that than other wargames that has multi-roles.

In order to make the game enjoyable and fun while still promoting teamwork, this is the solution that I came up with. You get scores while doing assignments and the Commander gets players who work with him rather than against him.

Now, I'm thinking about how many players per side (i.e. per carrier) there should be. I'm thinking that one or max two players should be in control of the Mantas and one or two for the Walruses while there is only the one Commander.

What determines which player gets the commander role or the other two? Well, here Battlefield has another good system. The player that has the highest rank gets the option to accept the position first. He or she can then accept or decline it and then the choice moves on to the next in rank.

If two players are of the same rank then the one with the higher total score get first. If by some rare chance them both are of the same score amount then the one that finished loading in first gets the choice.

What determines which player gets the Manta or Walrus role? Mutual agreement or a random choice by the game. If the Manta and Walrus players agree to it, there should be an option to switch roles in the middle of the game.

What do you guys think?

[Astrus 10]

I don't think you should restrict the players to a Mantas or Walrus as an actual game feature. If we were to limit the amount of players in a game to five (for each team), then that means we've got a commander (perhaps selected by your method, or selected in the lobby by team vote) and four players. Then those four other players could alternate between the eight units at their own choice, depending on what they want to play or which unit is more useful at the time.

There are times where having four players all in one unit type could be useful, or split them up so there's two in each.

And if the team wants to nominate a Walrus/Manta commander, then they can do so, but there doesn't need to be any actual gameplay mechanic lableing them as such.

[[evo] dan 79]

Yes, forcing a player to either have walrus's or to have manta's only would be a bad thing, like I said, divide the resources up between them equally so they can build up their own force without depleting the whole teams resources.

[bfcrusader 10]

Yes, that is perhaps a good idea as well.

[metalcraze 290]

BIS please do this.

Having up to 8 vs. 8 battles on the whole map will be seriously awesome. Basically allow players to grab whatever free vehicle slot there is (and configure the vehicle to their liking perhaps)

Starting from a mere PvP and ending with the ability to play coop on the whole map against AI it will really score the game some fat selling points.

Or maybe several carriers per side which would've been pretty swell as well

Edited August 22, 2011 by metalcraze

[bfcrusader 10]

I think that the Commander should configure the outfitting of the Mantas and Walruses as it is his/her attack plan the other players are going to follow, not to mention that there will be AI controlled (and therefore under the Commander's direct control) units. Players should simply jump into a vehicle they want to play with to either get the kills, repair points or other things.

If Manta or Walrus players are free to customize their vehicles then what is the point of having a Carrier Commander?

[tortoise 0]

Why not let the commander choose which vehicles are locked (commander remote controlled), assigned to a specific team member or free to grab and if the load out is customizable. One of the tasks of the commander would be to make sure that the soldiers have the appropriate weapons equipped and ready to use and taking preferences of the soldier into account might be a good idea anyway, but in certain situations might be too occupied doing something else and wants to delegate the (re)equipping process.

Although with this much power to the commander role there should be a 'fun' game mode available without a designated commander.

Besides the details, a coop mode would be great and the step to multiplayer team battle a logical and nice one.

[bfcrusader 10]

Great ideas Turtle-guy

[Jokubas 1]

It obviously wouldn't be for everyone, but I'd like to see a multiplayer mode where all the players work together to pilot a carrier in various ways.

Some people were disappointed that Star Trek Online didn't do this, seeing as it's sort of central to the shows. I can understand it wouldn't work for something they wanted to be a mainstream MMO, but I think Bohemia could be more daring here. Puzzle Pirates was a lot like how I'd like teamwork in a game where everyone's working on a ship to be like, though hopefully it would have less puzzles and more strategic action.

Hope I got my idea across there, because I don't know enough about this game to apply the idea more directly.

[Intezar 10]

People using up each others resources?

A co-op mode is based on communication and trust. If you're playing with complete idiots you should find a team capable of cooperating.

I know sharing a common goal and a pool of resources must be insanely daunting to some of you Call of Duty fans.

[1LT.Wolf.F 10]

Keep this discussion going, I've been thinking about coop since my first launch. I'm glad everyone's basically got better idea's than I do.

I was thinking, primarily to extend the Telemetry area in single player, was if you have a commander for the Carrier and add a destroyer unit... for the coop players.

This is probably going to far from the original, but a destroyer with 1-2 Quad Guns and a bay for Mantas or this "Spy UAV" from the manual.

[kremator 1065]

This is a great idea. It's a bit like Arma2, where players take a slot. You can decide to play as commander / manta pilot / walrus driver. Voice comms (built in please!) would be great.

More players = harder the enemy AI is.

[Lazyman 10]

I think a good solution would be to have up to 4-5 players total, with the host being able to play the game normally while the other players can "only" access the Mantas, Walruses and maybe the carrier's turrets.

[MrSquid 1]

I like Lazyman's idea. It's simple and straightforward. Maybe give the Walrus/Manta players the ability to equip their units, but that's it.

[kremator 1065]

I'd run all of these good ideas on my dedi server constantly !

[vengeance1 50]

I have been hooked on this thing for days now, I love it! I hope CO-OP is planned.