Re: BF3, Why there's no Commander/SL roles

**Zhohar** · 09-23-2011, 01:23 AM

The idea of a chain of command evolved in our species across time, space, cultures, religions, languages, and socio-political conditions for one simple reason: it is an effective and efficient way to organize human beings.

I want the CO position for several reasons. "SL consensus" simply does not produce an effective group of human beings.

1. Jobs that no one wants to do, are actually done. No one wants to defend a back flag on Heavy Metal, as crucial as it is to winning, so in a consensus situation, everyone will think it's someone else's job.

2. Jobs that people generally don't mind doing, are actually done. When AT mines need to be in 4 positions, VADS manned, recon balls and ammo down, and AT tracers ready for the Russian hind at the start of Arica Rush - everyone know this ought to be done. But 90% of the time, most of those are not done because "someone else will grab it". A CO ensures crucial roles are actually done prior to round start by either asking for them or assigning them.

3. When there are several competing good options, the CO picks one, and the whole team goes at it. At any given point in a Conquest round, when down a flag, the missing flag can be gotten in any number of ways. BF2142's Belgrade is the prime example. It's tough to imagine a situation without at least three options. Three squads doing three options makes three ineffective pushes and 18 lost tickets. One push with 3 squads to one flag (because the CO calls it) stops bleed, gains a flag, improves morale, and loses very few, if any, tickets. None of those three options need to be better than the rest - just making sure that everyone does the same thing matters.

There are many more reasons for having a CO in BF3, and none of them have to cause the envy people feel "OH, he can send artillery strikes and I can't? That sucks".

The argument that DICE puts forward is a complete strawman. I doubt any people who tried and excelled at COing in previous BF titles actually think that the tools are what makes the CO role so important. The CO role is crucial only in organizing and creating an effective group of human beings on the battlefield.

**MeatCleaver** · 09-23-2011, 01:34 AM

99% of the servers don't behave like TG. No one needs or wants to listen to the CO in pubbie servers. You can still designate a specific squad leader as the CO if you want I suppose. Knyghtmare made a script that will could automatically put squad leaders in the same TS channel in addition to the ingame's default teamwide voip.

**kilroy0097** · 09-23-2011, 01:48 AM

To be honest I wish there was the ability to make an 8 man squad if you wanted instead of 4 being the max. Plus given how often mortar rounds were used by recon in BC2 I guess they are going to do something similar in BF3 though maybe not recon class and instead the SL calls in Mortars or Arty or Missile Strike ala JDAM (PR Rules!) etc. As in BF2 there could be an icon show up on the minimap of another SL calling in the rain. Or may even a VO on the "radio" saying incoming arty strike near your position if you are in the proximity. I'm guessing though.

**Specterr** · 09-23-2011, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by Zhohar

There are many more reasons for having a CO in BF3, and none of them have to cause the envy people feel "OH, he can send artillery strikes and I can't? That sucks".

I agree...but I think if we start a habit in the beginning of when we get the SL's together in one channel, electing one SL as the "commander" for general strategy.

None of what you described can't be done in BF3 if we as a community choose it.

**inrobert** · 09-23-2011, 09:08 AM

Originally Posted by HiTest

you can chat with him either by VOIP or in-game chat and ask him to clarify his orders

Can't chat with anyone not responding.

Originally Posted by HiTest

Next round take the commander role and show him how its done.

What if I don't want to show off?

And if I don't want to command only to prevent bad CO from doing it?

Originally Posted by Tarenth

Its easy to say that you believe the decision was right when you only have part of the picture and not all the facts. It is the Commander's job to have the whole picture and all the facts. If they do that job well or poorly is not up to the individual soldier in TG, but it is our job to make sure those orders are followed to the best of our abilities while we hope and pray that they don't have their head up their backside.

There is nothing against the rules about being a bad Commander. There are clear rules against insubordination to a Commander's orders.

Well, I suppose you can imagine situation when CO goes wrong and individual soldier can see it. About "whole picture" thing – bad CO's don't have the whole picture as they utilize SatTrack rarely, put UAV on the edge of the map, spot in not important places, etc.
It's especially common on smaller maps with smaller number of people, when SL can see the whole picture as good as CO or maybe even better, as di1lweed suggested, especially in BF2142 where NetBat (especially Otus) was giving SL info CO not necessarily had.

As for rules: yes they're clear. However in many situations admins didn't enforce them even if they were in squads where SL was saying he's "not gonna follow CO bad orders" or sth similar. Hell, I even remember those admins saying it. And hail to them, as this is not penalty law – those are rules to make pleasure from game and if in certain situation enforcing rule is going to ruin game then don't eforce it.

And finally – I'm not comletely against CO position. I remember many good times with extremely helpful CO's. Unfortunately there were as many extremely harmful ones.
Zhohar made good points about leadership as efficient method of organising people. However to make it efficient you need to choose CO in reasonable way – I couldn't see it in BF. Why SL should listen to CO who doesn't even know game mechanics (bleed, etc)? Maybe there should be some test for CO

Also to make it balanced both teams need CO. In practise it was too common (like over 50% of times – BF2142 since 2009) that the team started without CO.
So for me it's not that bad DICE resigned from CO if they didn't find any good way to choose CO's in reasonable way. I'd swap CO for good in-game VoIP options including SL to SL channell.

**Amplitudo** · 09-23-2011, 10:05 AM

I take a different approach than Zhohar on this (as he well knows). I believe that the consensus to complete objectives as a team is what makes us TG. We don't need to be forced to to take the dirty job to help the team win. As TG we want to do this, we embrace it.

We should not need the commander to be able to play the TG way. If we depend so much on someone having to force us to do what must be done to benefit the team, I would argue that we should reassess what it means to be TG.

The best games I have played with TG were when we were all unified in the common goal to win as a team. When someone suggested a dirty job needed to be done there were too many volunteers, there was never the need for a commander or SL to force someone to fill the role.

This is why I don't mourn the loss of the commander position. The TG ethos is bigger than the mechanics of any one game.

**HiTest** · 09-23-2011, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by Amplitudo

I take a different approach than Zhohar on this (as he well knows). I believe that the consensus to complete objectives as a team is what makes us TG. We don't need to be forced to to take the dirty job to help the team win. As TG we want to do this, we embrace it.

We should not need the commander to be able to play the TG way. If we depend so much on someone having to force us to do what must be done to benefit the team, I would argue that we should reassess what it means to be TG.

The best games I have played with TG were when we were all unified in the common goal to win as a team. When someone suggested a dirty job needed to be done there were too many volunteers, there was never the need for a commander or SL to force someone to fill the role.

This is why I don't mourn the loss of the commander position. The TG ethos is bigger than the mechanics of any one game.

+1 rep. I concur.

The 19th will be happy to take and hold the back flag.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 09-23-2011, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by Specterr

I agree...but I think if we start a habit in the beginning of when we get the SL's together in one channel, electing one SL as the "commander" for general strategy.

None of what you described can't be done in BF3 if we as a community choose it.

Keep in the CO SL wouldn't be able to devote all that much time to being a CO. Given he has a squad of his own now, his time is at best divided in half, and at worst, he has fleeting moments in which to command at the "big picture" level.

Honestly, I liked how the dedicated CO was in previous games whereby I didn't have the worry about leading squad on top of taking call for fire missions, supply drops, etc as a CO.

Well as a plus, at least now we won't worry about a "playing commander", as literally we will have one that contributes at the squad level. Although given that each SL has the same options available to him or her, the CO's role would be reduced to overall strategy.

**Specterr** · 09-23-2011, 03:27 PM

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

Keep in the CO SL wouldn't be able to devote all that much time to being a CO. Given he has a squad of his own now, his time is at best divided in half, and at worst, he has fleeting moments in which to command at the "big picture" level

Well my argument to that is that a CO SL wouldn't need to devote all that much time to being a CO. Maybe peoples experience with commanders (and being a commander) is vastly different than my own, but when I remember being a commander the vast majority of my time was spent responding to asset request, and spotting on the map. Managing squads took up maybe 10% of my time (excluding the initial pre-game strategy overview I'd give to all SL's). I definitely think a good SL could manage the extra duties without too much trouble, especially since most of the strategy will be discussed before the match even starts.

90% of my time playing BF2142 (I never commanded or SL in BF2) was as a SL and I can count the number of games on one hand that the commander actually gave me instructions more complicated than "attack/defend this flag" or "support X squad".

I could see if BF3 was like PR (and to a lesser extend BF2) the exclusion of a commander would be a huge deal. The pace of those games is much much slower than BF3, and it allowed for more complicated "big picture" strategy to develop. BF3 will be somewhere between BF2142 and BC2 pacing, so I just don't see the need for a dedicated commander for it.

In BF3 I think the commanders role will to assign SL's objectives, and its up to the SL's to figure out the best way to accomplish that objective.

**Iamthefallen** · 09-23-2011, 03:31 PM

The only thing we really need are SL to SL tools.

If you could do nothing but VOIP and maybe place map markers visible to all SLs, you'd have most of the needed functionality.

**Ven** · 09-23-2011, 03:35 PM

I think we can all quit with the discussions of why we like the co. We need to try the beta and see whst we get out of it. Afterwards we have 2 weeks to find solutions to any problems we have found.

Sent from my SPH-P100 using Tapatalk

**Beatnik** · 09-23-2011, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by Iamthefallen

The only thing we really need are SL to SL tools.

If you could do nothing but VOIP and maybe place map markers visible to all SLs, you'd have most of the needed functionality.

This is all that really matters. Arguing CO vs. no-CO is moot, since there's going to be no CO's. Even being able to see other SL's objectives would be a huge improvement over BF2's system, but yeah I'd love to see a discreet SL VOIP channel.

**glycerin** · 09-23-2011, 05:31 PM

I have to agree with Ven's suggestion. Let's play the best we can and then figure out how we can implement a solid solution once we know the facts.

**YdoUwant2know** · 09-24-2011, 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by Amplitudo

...We should not need the commander to be able to play the TG way. If we depend so much on someone having to force us to do what must be done to benefit the team, I would argue that we should reassess what it means to be TG....

An interesting argument, and to an extent I agree with you... The thing that you are missing... that a lot of you are missing... is that there are many of us that LIKE to play the role of commander. Commanding in bf2 and 2142 was a completely different experience from the rest of the game that personally I really enjoyed.

So for me, this announcement is a very sad one. It means that the game I have been looking forward to for a long time now will not include one of my favorite roles. Regardless of perceived need of a commander, not having one is a disappointment. Especially for those of us that were looking forward to dawning the Command role once more.

**SharinganTH1422** · 09-24-2011, 08:54 PM

Originally Posted by Specterr

Well my argument to that is that a CO SL wouldn't need to devote all that much time to being a CO. Maybe peoples experience with commanders (and being a commander) is vastly different than my own, but when I remember being a commander the vast majority of my time was spent responding to asset request, and spotting on the map. Managing squads took up maybe 10% of my time (excluding the initial pre-game strategy overview I'd give to all SL's). I definitely think a good SL could manage the extra duties without too much trouble, especially since most of the strategy will be discussed before the match even starts.

90% of my time playing BF2142 (I never commanded or SL in BF2) was as a SL and I can count the number of games on one hand that the commander actually gave me instructions more complicated than "attack/defend this flag" or "support X squad".

I could see if BF3 was like PR (and to a lesser extend BF2) the exclusion of a commander would be a huge deal. The pace of those games is much much slower than BF3, and it allowed for more complicated "big picture" strategy to develop. BF3 will be somewhere between BF2142 and BC2 pacing, so I just don't see the need for a dedicated commander for it.

In BF3 I think the commanders role will to assign SL's objectives, and its up to the SL's to figure out the best way to accomplish that objective.

Can't rep (must spread) so yes, this.