Commander needs changes

[Corvin]

As a person that spent hours as CO in public games, clan skirms and tournaments i always found commander role being treated badly. I played other milsim, tactical shooters and always loved to be commander there (from Red Orchestra, to Rising Storm, Hell Let Loose, Post Scriptum and ofc Squad) but in PR that role currently is just unfun.

I am really worried of lack development for that role and actually downgrading it compare to the past.

Here are my main point what is bad currently and what could be changed:

1. Commander role currently is not profitable for players playing it at all.
-Kills from area attack aren't counted to scoreboard but teamkills somehow yes.
-You don't get many points from your actions if any and building FOBs as commander currently is just pure pain
In the end commander even if he get kills usually ending with terrible KD which pushing lot of players away, teamplay factor was also highly decreased when lasing ability was removed from CO and i don't understand that change.

Solution:
-let area attack kills (and other) finally count for CO. Those are really rare anyways and can happen only once per 30 minutes + require other squad leader to cooporate
-bring back lasing ability

2. Rework current Commander rally point.
Is that even thing ? I can't even find word about it in Manual. It supposed to be useful tool for commander taking role at battlefield but in fact i am not sure if i have it used even once since 0.5 and majority of the players probably never heard about it.

Solution: Highly increase area required number of players is needed. Currently it is just too small to get all needed players within circle

3. Introduce new call-outs - unique for factions, maps or layouts
Diffrent and new area attack types:
-light MLRS barrage (high spread, low accuracy)
-small artillery salvo with shorter re-use time
-smoke barrage
-bring back JDAM at limited number of 4km maps with a bit of nerf to its damage and range (coolest thing about old PRs i miss)
If thats too much effort - just decrease calling times and nerf damage if needed, 30-20 mins currently is just way too long

4. Remove visual effect on thermal UAV or rebalance it depending on faction.
It just make no sense that modern UAVs have such bad quality of thermal optics with that radio wave effect on them - it making current main role of commander - being UAV operator just harder, annoying, unpleasant

In summary - commander need some touch finally, for me it is whatever if he will get back lasing ability, radio wave visual effect will be gone or call outs will be more useful - just do anything because there is HUGE potential for CO that is wasted for years and other games have proven how good this role and fun can be made.

[Gerfand]

thing with Area Attack is that people usually hop in as Commander, accept it and go back to the Squad, if theres no "Spotter Commander"

[puffkiller]

I hope the commander can drop supply crate to make it easier for people to build fob

[cabalistik]

Definitely agree with the point number one. It's very unsatisfying to play as commander at the moment when you know that at the end of the round you'll have 0 kills and X deaths no matter what. Many times I have considered playing as the commander during the start of the round, but then decided against it. To the people who argue that "commander should stay near the UAV vehicle and not be on the frontline". What about maps without UAV? Or what if the UAV is refuling and you have just enough time to drive a logi to the frontline to build a fob and encounter enemies along the way?

Regarding getting kills from area attack: perhaps make it so that the commander can only get kills from an accepted area attack if he has been playing as a commander for longer than 10 minutes? That way people couldn't just jump in and claim a bunch of kills without any work put into it.

Edit: Also it would be an awesome moment for the whole friendly team to see how many enemies got killed during a successful area attack after the round ends.

[Risiko94]

More points/kills for commander:
From personal experience, the kind of people that care about their K/D are usually not the type suitable for playing commander. I'd rather have the area attack award no kills, to prevent random people dropping them just for an easy K/D boost.

Lasing ability:
That was stupidly OP. With reasonable teamwork with cas, you could kill everything groundbased from beyond viewdistance, and with basically no warning (unless enemy commander happens to watch the same place with UAV, and even then counterplay is limited). I am happy they removed it, and i don't even play assets.

Commander rallypoint:
From the manual:

The Commander Rally Point can be used by the entire team. To establish this RP the Commander needs at least 6 players near him (one of them must be a squad leader) to place the RP. This RP is not available in the skirmish mode and at least 12 players must be on the commander's team. The RP will stay active as long as the commander is within 100m radius of the rally point. All other rules described in the Squad Leader chapter about rally points also apply for the commander rally point.

Add new/different abilities to commander dependend on faction:
That seems like it requires a lot of work.


Personally i would like to see the overlay for the commander reworked, but thats a lot to ask for.

[cabalistik]

More points/kills for commander:
From personal experience, the kind of people that care about their K/D are usually not the type suitable for playing commander. I'd rather have the area attack award no kills, to prevent random people dropping them just for an easy K/D boost.

I mean at least for me it's not even caring about the K/D, but more about being curious how good of an area attack you placed and how many kills it netted your team. And like I said before, having a 10 minute minimum timer before getting kills from arty would fix the K/D boost problem.

[AFG]

1. The spotting mechanic for the UAV can often be very unreliable and frustrating, and it got to the point where I had to heavily depend on my map knowledge to pick up what I see and mark it on the map. Since you can't directly pinpoint something when using the UAV try making the contact marker more consistent and reliable.

2. Add the ability to hover around a enemy main base. It makes sense to allow a UAV to hover over an enemy main base and quickly relay crucial information to your team about enemy assets. In the game, you can "technically" do it by placing your UAV very close to their main and letting the UAV rotate, and you can easily see everything inside of their main base.

3. Being a commander for a redfor faction on some maps for insurgency is pointless because the bluefor coalition force gets access to a UAV and area attack on most maps, which makes the majority of games very unfair. There's no counter to that being an ARF, Hamas, Taliban, or insurgent faction besides being a civilian and delaying intelligence points.

4. Add UAV to Masirah, Zakho, Kozelsk, Grozny.

5. Show kills from area attack only at the end of the match.

6. I don't know if you guys are aware, but the radius for deleting emplacements and fobs is significantly too big, making it easy to accidentally delete two fobs that are 200 meters apart. Additionally, since SLs will frequently request a mortar and tow removal, you won't need to destroy fobs any longer. Simply reducing the radius will make things much easier.

[cabalistik]

All good points AFG. Regarding point 3, on maps with insurgents without UAV the commander can place waypoints (A, B, C, etc.) on the map, which then automatically notify the commander if there is enemy presence nearby. If placed smartly around the caches, they are actually a pretty good way to predict where the enemy will be attacking from. I believe you can place up to seven of those.

[Arab]

1. The spotting mechanic for the UAV can often be very unreliable and frustrating, and it got to the point where I had to heavily depend on my map knowledge to pick up what I see and mark it on the map. Since you can't directly pinpoint something when using the UAV try making the contact marker more consistent and reliable.

2. Add the ability to hover around a enemy main base. It makes sense to allow a UAV to hover over an enemy main base and quickly relay crucial information to your team about enemy assets. In the game, you can "technically" do it by placing your UAV very close to their main and letting the UAV rotate, and you can easily see everything inside of their main base.

3. Being a commander for a redfor faction on some maps for insurgency is pointless because the bluefor coalition force gets access to a UAV and area attack on most maps, which makes the majority of games very unfair. There's no counter to that being an ARF, Hamas, Taliban, or insurgent faction besides being a civilian and delaying intelligence points.

4. Add UAV to Masirah, Zakho, Kozelsk, Grozny.

5. Show kills from area attack only at the end of the match.

6. I don't know if you guys are aware, but the radius for deleting emplacements and fobs is significantly too big, making it easy to accidentally delete two fobs that are 200 meters apart. Additionally, since SLs will frequently request a mortar and tow removal, you won't need to destroy fobs any longer. Simply reducing the radius will make things much easier.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I have fixed 6. for next update.

The rest may need input from the other devs.

[Gazuu]

Commander is quite well as it is but good commanders and teams working together as a cohesive unit with the commander is less common.

One thing though that would be a nice add on is a commander quad copter drone. But this only if it could be packaged with couple of new things and changes.

-Commander getting quad copter (can be lost) with one or two dropped munition. Only way to make it fun and somewhat fair is to have wind deviation built into the drops.

-New kit! FPV drone operator, primary ATHEAT/ALT AP charge. Key things again would be (if possible) some backround work even if static, a set value and direction for wind with a randomizer. And making the singnal and picture poor (look analogue) plus not being able to open map while flying...
You may ask how is the pilot ever going to get to target or know what direction to take?
Well there comes the last little change. Spotter radio being able to key commander, we'll finally get use out of the spotters radio and it encourages team work and communitcation with these three together.

[bad_nade]

on maps with insurgents without UAV the commander can place waypoints (A, B, C, etc.) on the map, which then automatically notify the commander if there is enemy presence nearby.

That information is delayed by 5 minutes, IIRC. Useful for detecting heavy enemy presence but not so much for catching small fast moving teams.

[cabalistik]

That information is delayed by 5 minutes, IIRC. Useful for detecting heavy enemy presence but not so much for catching small fast moving teams.

Really? Feels like it's less than that. Can any of the devs confirm this?

[Suchar]

Really? Feels like it's less than that. Can any of the devs confirm this?

I checked it for some discord discussion some time ago

Suchar — 26/08/2022 00:56
other than that, the required number of enemies is 4, informants only report intel after 60s have passed since setting a waypoint and the intel itself has a 15 seconds delay
factions which use this feature are insurgents, talibans, hamas, arf, fsa

[cabalistik]

I checked it for some discord discussion some time ago

Ok thanks, yeah that's what I thought. The delay didn't feel like it could be more than a minute.