Sometimes Lone Wolves are a headache to play with, not because of the people but because of the missing pieces to help them work with the rest of the team. How can this be solved? Should it be solved? From the perspective of an online multiplayer commander or squad leader the answer is "yes".
My main suggestion is to give the Commander "Squad Leader" functions for the loners. Anyone not in a squad is in the command "squad" by default without having to join, they can't be allowed call for supplies like a squad leader or VoIP the commander but he can VoIP them. Most importantly commanders can send verbal game commands from his menu, like the "Artillery, your area" that is used before a strike. Currently you can select all squads and warn them of an Arty strike but the lone wolves eat steel when the rounds hit. I know the U.S. and Chinese military are "teams within teams" and lone wolves are rare and usually CIA or something. lol
Why doesn't everyone join a squad? One reason is they don't know how. Next is they are too polite to join a squad without an invitation. Some may not like to fight in a squad and haven't figured out that they are cutting themselves out of the info loop. Maybe they think all the squads are full of noobs. Could be they hate taking orders. Or maybe they think that as a sniper or pilot they don't need to be in a squad. Lone Wolves are often repeatedly spawnpoint-killed because they can't find a squad to spawn with. Any or all of these reasons may be true at some time or another.
As a squad leader you try to invite people into your squad so you can deploy a sizable force at some point. As a commander you have no way to task or warn them effectively, just typing. The "Shot Over" should signal the LW that arty is near and check their minimaps for the impact area but that fails too often. During battles you notice people in a gaggle and you can't yell at them to move out. Before they changed the commander artillery kills it was the loners that most often got killed by the artillery in my experience and then punished the commander.
So giving the commander one-way VoIP/menu message access to Lone Wolves solves a bunch of troubles. I have seen some suggestions that a commander be a Spawn Point like SLs, this could be part of the Lone Wolf management also. Finally if the Commander can't be made the "default" squad leader/spawn point then provide a tag below the squad tags to allow warnings to the LWs or let the commander to place all lone wolves into a squad or to task them individually ( this would be insanely hard in a 32 player team).
My main suggestion is to give the Commander "Squad Leader" functions for the loners. Anyone not in a squad is in the command "squad" by default without having to join, they can't be allowed call for supplies like a squad leader or VoIP the commander but he can VoIP them. Most importantly commanders can send verbal game commands from his menu, like the "Artillery, your area" that is used before a strike. Currently you can select all squads and warn them of an Arty strike but the lone wolves eat steel when the rounds hit. I know the U.S. and Chinese military are "teams within teams" and lone wolves are rare and usually CIA or something. lol
Why doesn't everyone join a squad? One reason is they don't know how. Next is they are too polite to join a squad without an invitation. Some may not like to fight in a squad and haven't figured out that they are cutting themselves out of the info loop. Maybe they think all the squads are full of noobs. Could be they hate taking orders. Or maybe they think that as a sniper or pilot they don't need to be in a squad. Lone Wolves are often repeatedly spawnpoint-killed because they can't find a squad to spawn with. Any or all of these reasons may be true at some time or another.
As a squad leader you try to invite people into your squad so you can deploy a sizable force at some point. As a commander you have no way to task or warn them effectively, just typing. The "Shot Over" should signal the LW that arty is near and check their minimaps for the impact area but that fails too often. During battles you notice people in a gaggle and you can't yell at them to move out. Before they changed the commander artillery kills it was the loners that most often got killed by the artillery in my experience and then punished the commander.
So giving the commander one-way VoIP/menu message access to Lone Wolves solves a bunch of troubles. I have seen some suggestions that a commander be a Spawn Point like SLs, this could be part of the Lone Wolf management also. Finally if the Commander can't be made the "default" squad leader/spawn point then provide a tag below the squad tags to allow warnings to the LWs or let the commander to place all lone wolves into a squad or to task them individually ( this would be insanely hard in a 32 player team).
Last edited by OpsChief (2006-01-18 13:03:23)