How to improve huge scale team play

I am not an avid player of PA yet (i am a beta backer, and i had little opportunities to play these days).So, what i am going to say comes mostly from what i understood from the replays uploaded by zaphod and other players ( it's kinda the majority of videos i watch on youtube these days, since they are quite enjoyable :T ). And that is: huge team battles are going to cause huge headaches.

No great revelations on this sentence. the forum had it's share of complains regarding the shared units feature, that in team battles can create great confusion on who controls what.

And sure, on this game using a vocal chat while playing on a team is highly encouraged, if not a must. Even so, even experienced players usually meet difficulties on working together. And you can imagine the problems for non experienced players. If you think that this latter point can be ignored because that certain player just needs more experience, please reconsider. it's true that PA is thought as a niche game. However that's no excuse to not make it more enjoyable for entry level players, or for someone that is not playing competitively.

There are also concerns regarding griefing, but i believe that a griefer would find ways to cause rage even without this feature. anyway i am not going to touch the griefing problem on this thread.

Other issues simply come from the numbers that PA will show in fact of map space, number of players and number of units. They are ridiculously huge :|

Even now, we can see that this is detrimental for players. It's something that i saw even from alpha, when the battlefield was just a planet. Usually, between good players, when a math goes beyond the 30-40 minutes, the battlefield starts to become something difficult to read. Also, managing the huge army you usually control at that point is quite a task, with the high risk of having a lot of idle units, not quite knowing where to put them, or being unable to swiftly find and defend/attack key points of the planet. And well, i am not really a fan of always scrolling like a madman across the planet to find where to put my attention.

Maybe some of my concerns sound exaggerated. Here's why:

-I am not quite good speaking English ( especially when writing walls of text). Very often i don't use the best words to express my thoughts;

-I am thinking to the future. Right now we are in beta. Most of the matches are still on single planets, since interplanetary game-play is still a heavy WIP. But of course this is not going to be forever the case. Uber goal is multiple planet matches, with a lot more units, planets, players than now. still think my concerns are exaggerated?

Now, you can dismiss all i said with "This is Beta". And i agree. There is a lot of things that will be improved (better notification system, icons, and there is talking of some sort of map system).

Problem is , i did not found a thread that would discuss how to implement a solution to the issues cited above.

So i thought we could do it here. What are your ideas to improve team play? how could we improve the shared army system? how to present the notifications to the players? and all this sort of stuff.

Sorry for all this premise, now i'll actually discuss an idea of mine xD

As i said before, as the game prolongs, players start to become inefficient, because it's difficult to grasp the scope of the game, and to understand what it's going on everywhere. To the players is asked , on top of micro managing, to also do macro management . In a 1 v 1, there's little you can do (unless you can build commanders, more on that later). On a teams game, You need to organize yourself to efficiently control your ground and at the same time have a wider idea of your goals. So what i thought is, do we really need to have all the players doing macro management? why not a chosen player that does that for all the team?

To be more clear, everybody on the team should have voice on what the wider goal is. The general makes sure that that goal is reached by imparting macro commands to the other team mates.

If you think of savage or natural instinct, you will understand where i am going whit this. The general would issue objectives that a commander needs to accomplish. The advantage of this is that the commander would have to focus just on his goal , thus reducing his scope of the battlefield, and the number of thing he needs to worry about. on the other hand you have a single commander that needs to know what is going on globally, and doesn't need to babysit economy or armies .

Now , understand that the general title is just that: a title. generals and commanders have no real difference, if not maybe on ui (and in regard of that, there could just be a hot key that switches between macro interface and micro interface). On the same note ,orders are more like suggestions. Of course if you don't want to follow them, you are able to use your army however you prefer. Commanders and Generals can do both micro and macro management, if they wish so. But well, think about games like DOTA or League Of Legends. Notifications from other players are just "suggestions", and you are free to ignore them. That's probably the best way to lose though.

PA will not be free from trolling players, or from players that don't like to cooperate. that's something you can't remove from any kind of multiplayer team game.

By the way, don't think of the general as something that exists from the start of the game. Players would be able to vote for a general when needed ( e.g. at the 30-40 minutes mark, or when there are a lot of units). There would be a general at the start of a match when the number of players is great (say, from a 6 v 6). It doesn't scale well with a 2 v 2 , and it would not work on a 1 v 1.

However, i have an idea that i wanted to propose on regard of small sized games. As i said above, what if the players had the ability to build another commander? that commander would be controlled by a new player?

on a second thought, it would be a bit crude and off the lore of the game. but what about this:

what if , at a certain point of the game, other commanders are sent into the system. It would require to find a way for the game to identify if and when more players are needed, without making the game unfair for one of the teams (e.g. new commander spawning on a 1 v 1 just before the first commander is destroyed by sniping or a nuke). i believe that it's plenty possible to identify safe game moments when it's fair to spawn 1 or more new players into the game. also, both teams should agree on the game adding new players . Bonus points if the team was able to invite friends to the game.

Now, this is a bit of concerns for the skill gaps that could appear between players, but i bring this up because uber talked about the fact of players joining games in execution ( and also about 6 hours long games, i believe. Not so sure where :\).

Anyway thoughts? more ideas? discussions about how to implement macro management mechanics to the game?

I think this is the perfect time to talk about all these things, since they are near to the point of implementation into the game.

Guido. (yeah Mike, i am copying you)

The issues you're talking about have been discussed on the forums.

The main issue you're talking about is playing with people you don't know.

The Army game type is meant to be played with people you know. Playing a game type that requires coordination and cooperation with random people generally isn't a good idea – no matter the game. Especially with how important coordination and cooperation is in the Army game type.

If I were to guess, I imagine Uber will be implementing a voice chat system. In the meantime, players are using things like Teamspeak, Mumble, Skype, and Google+ for voice chat coordination.

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Honestly, I don't like your general idea.

There's no real way that could be implemented. If a player isn't going to cooperate, it doesn't matter if there's a general giving macro orders, the un-cooperative commander will do whatever he/she wants anyways. All that general would be accomplishing is to have one less person ordering units and constructing buildings.

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Commanders entering the game later on would be too exploitable. Nor would there be any real way to determine who has the advantage. Strategy and player skill is too big of a factor when compared to pure unit count.

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If trolling is really that big of an issue, wait for the Alliances game type. That'll be teams, but not shared economy and units.

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As for macro management, Uber already has some of that in the game and will be adding more. They'll be adding different types of commands to make it easier to focus in the macro.

To be clear, i find that the issue manifests even with peoples you know and are using voice chat. But i digress.
Maybe this is just my opinion, but i believe that developing a game with the assumption that, to enjoy the game, the team matches must be played with peoples you know, is a game flaw. As it would be assuming that player are forced to use voice chat if they want a chance of winning.

Sure, these things should increase your odds of victory, and they would be highly suggested. However, i think that the "use them or get frustrated" scenario is not optimal.

Again, i am considering entry level players. If you take LoL as an example, peoplesare able to enjoy the game even if playing with strangers, even without voice chat. This is thanks to an efficient ping system that lets the team mates notify interest areas with a couple of clicks. You could argue that PA is really different from a LoL, due to the scope of the game. However regarding team play they share a lot of points (awareness of your surroundings, situation of your allies, prediction of where you will be useful, sensibility to the needs of the squad..). and if LoL is in a good part able to respond to these needs with a nice interface, without need of voice and with casual teams, why PA shouldn't?

Well, of course an uncooperative player is detrimental for the entire team, but i don't understand how this invalidates the utility of the general . Also, a player acting as general would discern when it's useful to give macro orders and when to do micro management. if he finds that the scope of the match isn't great enough, or that another hand on a portion of the map is needed, or the team is crudely not listening to him, he can return to build and manage armies like a normal player.

That said, it's true that the general doesn't work if the team is uncooperative. But guess what, that's fine. Players prone to the needs of the team are rewarded, while players that work by themselves deserve to be punished ( and again, i am not talking of small matches where you can somehow manage to work solo for a time, i am talking of matches with a lot of players).

that's a feature brought on the table by Uber, but i don't quite remember where. I am going to search a source, but i guess someone knows what i am talking about?

oh well, assuming it's true they said something similar: i think it would be a neat thing. It's true that lot of peoples are excited about the eSport part of this game ( even i am). However that should not limit PA to that vision. I imagine that having a 1 v 1 game that with time grows to become a 5 v 5 or even more would be quite neat. Also, to balance this feature there could be some stratagems:

-it would be of course an option that you can disable during match making;

-we could assume the existence of clans, and in that case the players that can join the match would be only members of the clans on the match. So that when playing , i don't risk to read "Neptunio and Gunshin joined the adversary team", unless i am aware to be playing against Ballistic Logistics.

but well, that's just my 2 cents in merit, it's not really the point of this thread

Maybe i expressed myself the wrong way. i don't consider it an issue, but more of something that you cant discern from a team game, especially when playing with strangers. but well, since i think that in PA you should be able to enjoy games with strangers, is something that will probably happen. Also, i again chose the wrong way to express myself. More than trolling , uncooperative behavior is the right term.

so yeah, i heard a lot of times that macro management is going to be improved, but i did not find anywhere about ideas on how to do it. I searched around the forum without finding anything specific on how uber wants to implement it, and how us players would like it to be. So i thought this could be a good place to do it.

Just to give you a bit of a heads up, we tried this internally. I made the suggestion a few months ago that having one player keeping an eye on macro strategy with others focusing on micro might be a good idea in team games. Thusfar we have found, despite a bit of playing around with the idea, that it doesn't work that well in practice.

Inevitable, the 'macro' player can and does get involved with micro occasionally, and having one less player to keep their attention on a particular frontline can be a significant disadvantage.

That said, we've not really had a chance to see how this plays out over multiple planets - it might be time to take another look at this when we are able to make players start on different planets.

Ultimately, we just found that the 'macro' player just doesn't have enough to do, and that the micro players are better able to decide what to do with their resources on their own particular frontline - the macro player just gets in the way.

Thanks cwarner for letting me know A couple of question though:

-when you tried this system, how big were the teams?
-was the macro commander effective from the start, or after the game was at an advanced stage?

as i envisioned it, a macro commander would be useful only at a stage where the match is well established. that is, the battlefronts ,ingame units and production resources reach a number difficult to manage efficiently. also, it's something that doesn't scale well with small teams.

But yeah, from what you are saying, maybe having a player only focused on macro, even with these premises, could be inefficient.

An alternative could be a smart way for all the team to assign objectives , or to pin interest points. Similar to the LoL smart ping, where a couple of clicks could be enough to issue a goal.

for example, defend a metal outpost , take control of a thermal source, harass the east flank of the enemy at north, or even more general orders like start an invasion on a certain portion of a planet are, objectives that every player now, and not just a designed one, could issue. Then one or more players, pondering their position and their assets, could accept some of these "quests" and work toward their completion.

I don't know what method could work best, but i am sure that both of them would require lots of players (as it is envisioned for a lot of future matches), and surely a fair lot of experimentation.

Have no idea what you're talking about Chris, I use that strategy every time and it is exceedingly effective.

Well, then, I'd better make good on:

I see the benefit in allowing one player to macro only, whilst everyone else micros. But isn't this already possible?

The reason why this might not be successful is usually due to anonymity, when you know who you are playing with this type of strategy is more successful.

WAIT
It's called waiting. allied victory is on the way, just wait for it. I don't care if you guys all leave team armies for allied victory for awhile I know in time you'll all come crawling back to it because it's never been done before and it's the shiznit!

And it's for the latter case that a nice interface to manage macro teamplay would be useful. I consider a design flaw to suppose that the majority of team matches will have players on the same team that know each other , or that on top of that use vocal chat (as strange as it can sound, not a lot of peoples have the possibility, or the will, of using voice chat). Sure, there will be a part of teams, especially the ones formed by experienced players on a clan of some sort, that will fulfill this share of PA population. But by no means this will be the standard.

Using another time League of Legends as an example, the UI enables you to swiftly inform the team of areas of interest, incumbent ambushes from the enemy, weak points that need assistance and so on. Even when using voice chat while playing LoL, we find ourselves constantly using the smart ping, because it so much faster to notify certain things than saying them loud on the microphone.

thus comes the idea that vocal chat (and/or knowing your team) is surely a nice supplement, but not optimal if left alone.

Wether managed by one player acting as general, or by all the players of a team, there must be an ingame and persistent way to estabilish long term goals on your campaign for annihilation of the enemy.

wat? o.0

I agree that pings are much needed for teamplay. At the moment it's

"Look out, there's a few levelers there, next to the lake - the one that curves around slightly, not the round one. On the east side of it - no, west sorry. Oh wait no I don't have pole lock enabled - it was east. They're not there any more they're north of it. Have you seen them yet?"

can someone please explain to watacoso what the difference(s) between allied victory and team armies are?

i quite know what the difference is, i think. What i did not understand is what you said xD

also, regarding that topic: even on an allied victory mode, the same problems subsist, since you need to coordinate yourself with the allied players in an efficient way. the fact that now you got your share of units controlled by just you doesn't really solve the communication problem

I am not debating your point tatsjub..... i think.... i mean, i don't know, i am sincere when i say i did not understand your point xD

allied victory is what we are used to, it is not in the game yet, by no means is team armies the only option, allied victory will be added down the line, team armies requires no changes.

to me it seems ludicrous that people would spit on team armies

not only that you also spit on massive scale:

If by some miracle you managed to miss the words massive scale in the trailer please tell me how.

This is also the sequel to Chris Taylor (and let's be honest, Jon Mavor's) linéage of games, well famed for pushing the boundareis of what the most a top of the line PC can attain in terms of scale, if not beyond -> c.f. SupCom's engine's limits reached only today.

exaclty what game are you expecting here.

also as a last fact, the game in it's alpha state lacks just about all the features that take under a day to develop, because they can be done last. this includes the game setup in it's quasi-entirety. options such as no-rush and unit-cap (to mention two out of a long list) will be available on launch.

I am sad to see that you took most of my affirmations a lot out of context. I am not even sure if you read all i said, but i don't blame you for that, i am a wall of text creep after all.

but let's throw some light:

-i know what the allied victory system is, and that it's coming into the game at some point. However as i said above while it doesn't present some issues that can happen with shared armies, it doesn't really solve the team play issues i presented. both the systems have the same macro team play problems. And i don't understand why you say that shared armies don't need to change. surely being (i think) the first time an RTS introduces this feature it needs some experimentation to make it more enjoyable?

-Please tell me when i spitted on the team armies system. because i love this feature. And i love the fact that pretty soon we will be able to control thousands of units on huge systems with more players per team that you can count with your fingers on the hands and feets.

What i actually said is that this can get out of hand if there are not some mechanics to efficiently macro control all this stuff inside a team. and yes, this is Beta (not alpha) and these mechanics are on the TODO list of Uber. But since Uber is developing this game together with the players, i believe we got a voice on how we want these mechanics to be (especially since we still don't know a point of view of the developers on the topic). Thus we got this thread, where we can do some brainstorming, and where i exposed one of the possible solutions on which we can work on.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Its not the first. I know that at least Spring has done that already.

oh ok. did Spring have the same mechanics as PA right now (regarding the shared armies)? or did it have some differences?

I watched a zero-k cast the other day and it showed highlighting around which units each player had selected. Something similar would be nice to know which units and areas your teammates are microing.