I'd love to see a strategic map where the AI actually plants the arrows to designate heavy troop pushes after the fact. Perhaps it updates every 24-hours. Just so people have an idea of what's happened when they log in the next day. As for the Council - they should designate priority targets. Notes would be great, but, yeah, if the person that writes it isn't VERY precise, it could screw people over. I've learned never to presume anyone that I don't know will be as precise as I would like them to be.
Someone else who see's the failings of CoD Team Deathmatch... I promote calling anyone not doing as they should, in a teamwork heavy environment... Cod.
Something fairly important is that the messages displayed to players from their commanders should look like ordinary parts of the UI. In a single player game (or even a very quest-/mission-driven MMO), the objectives are displayed very clearly on the screen. Orders from commanders should essentially look like quest objectives. This creates a sense of expanding scale as you get deeper into the game. If you choose to "solo" by ignoring other players and going quest to quest, you'll actually be following orders from leaders and supporting the team without attempting to do so. As you learn the game more, you'll discover more ways to help your team and possibly eventually give orders yourself. GW2 is an example of how not to do this. To follow commanders, a player has to check the map and look out for commander icons. Following commands should be the "default" directions given to players. To top it off, becoming a commander has a requirement of nothing more than 100 gold, which means it's more likely a dungeon farmer than an actually PvP veteran giving orders.
i would more like it if the war council would just manage the factions ressources and giving rough commands like placing 3 different marks on the map which points to attack or to defend and how many soldiers they want there for example 300 soldiers the first 300 which reach the area will get bonus XP while the 301th soldier will not get any bonus so he might chose the other marked area where 150 soldiers are needed so now the strikeforce commanders come into action they see the targets of the warcouncil and now cordinate their strikeforce how to attack/defend which target for example: "squad 3, 6, 8 attack from this side and squad 5 cover their back. while squad 1, 2, 4 attack from the front and the rest go to this point and defend it at all costs" the the squadleaders turn is to cordinate their team to do what the strikeforce commander want them to do this way we would have a command structure which would be kinda cool ^^ lonly squads or soldiers will just do as they want, they see what the warcouncil wants and will need to cordinate them selfs
Something poped to mind while reading all this... First of,am i correct when i say that you can have more then one saved character/account,for example a SM and an Ork? So day one you might feel all glory like and play SM,the next day you're like,'Nah,ill go Orks today'. If this is already wrong,please correct me. Then,assuming that was right,i imagne the overhead-world-view where the council does there planning on. From that point of view,you see the intire frontline spreading accross the continent. So the council marks where on this frontline to strike next,could be the fort down south,or the hill way up north. You as player of this faction will also see where they want you to go,chould you choose to follow of corse. But the enemy faction will not know where you strike next,and visa versa. So now the ectual question, What will keep some douche from playing Space Marines and see where all there war-movements go,so he can then switch to his Ork account and know perfectly what will go where,or how much,etc...?
i think we will just get 1 character at launch cause spying would be really really easy if we can just swap factions as we want to and whats the point if 1 race wins a campagne and everyone is happy cause all have a char in that faction? i could imagine you can swap your faction at the start of your camagne and have to life with it until next campagne and that you need to pay if you want to change or get a free one if you are extremly high ranked at the end of a campagne
That's the big issue of having just 1 huge server... you can't force someone to choose buy a new account or delete your main character if you want to try other faction, so if you want to "spy" it will be really easy.
I highly doubt things will be that tactical that a battle can be turned by knowing the general direction of the attack. And even then what stops people from different races from communicating ? What stops people from having two sets of the game ? Nothing.
The system sounds very promising, but there's one thing I really care about: What about the solo players? If I choose to walk around alone I would like to have the opportunity to set private and public way points. The private way points are only for me to see and the public way points should be some sort of help for the council: I show them what I'm going to do. So even if I go lone wolf I can still be of value to the team for I can provide intelligence (spot things on the map) or cap small points. Don't "force" people to follow orders but give them the opportunity to contribute to victory no matter how they choose to play. Communication can perfectly work both ways.
The prospect of spying just makes it more interesting. The War Council will know that whatever they put on the map and the objectives they set are going to be seen by the enemy. So, it leaves it to them to create a second layer of planning. The onscreen orders could be the main effort or even ruses.. the War Council will give secret orders to the elite/trustworthy in the game to carry out the missions that they do not want the enemy to know about. This actually allows for some guilds/chapters/clans to fill the niche of Spec Ops.
