DICE explains why Battlefield 3 has no Commander
DICE explains why the "Commander" role isn't making an appearance in Battlefield 3.
Battlefield 3 won't include the ability to play as a "Commander," after developer DICE decided its implementation in Battlefield 2 was "a bit flawed."
One of DICE's core problems with the Commander role "is that only one person per team could play it, and it was always the highest ranking one." On top of that, "they basically spent the whole match lying on the ground on some obscure corner of the map, hoping not to get knifed in the back and trying to support people."
Squad leaders and gadgets will pull in much of the functionality previously relegated to the Commander role, such as the ability to launch artillery strikes. Things like mortar strikes (a multiplayer unlockable), and gadgets like the UAV drone and others that could be deployed to reveal enemy activity were also mentioned.
"We've tried to push this down into the squads so they can both fill the roles that the Commander had, but then also be an active soldier on the battlefield," DICE's Karl Magnus Troedsson explained at Eurogamer Expo.
Battlefield 3 launches for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 25, and an open beta for the game begins on September 29.
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replyJeff Mattas posted a new article, DICE explains why Battlefield 3 has no Commander.
DICE explains why the "Commander" role isn't making an appearance in Battlefield 3.-
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They could have made a mini HQ shack or something that could take damage and yet kept the Commander safe.
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Indeed. Just nuking it altogether seems a bit lame. Some people really enjoyed the role.
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Having the Commander play an Engineer and ride #2 in most vehicles worked well.
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I don't see where DICE is coming from. Personally I hated the commander because there was no stealth in the game but really I haven't heard anyone else complain. Everyone else loved the commander, now they're making it so each squad leader is the commander? So now there's going to be 10x the amount of motor strikes (hated this in BC2) and 10x the amount of UAVs.
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I loved the idea of the commander and I think when all the parts fell in place (competent squad leaders etc) it was a great role to have available and really added a lot to the game. I do think that it didn't always work in practice though, thanks to pub games. Half the time people wouldn't listen to the commander at all and so the role would end up being a boring game of 'put the uav here' or 'drop artillery here' all of which had cool downs so the commander ended up staring at the screen half the game.
I think with their current points system they could have worked out a way around some of those issues by giving a squad extra points for killing enemies or completing objectives at a location designated by a commander's order. The commander also could have received points if the squad he ordered did those things. Then (perhaps) people would have listened more, but I'm sure there it would still be a problem. -
everything they said is true, im glad commander class is excluded
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...it has no commander because RTS layouts don't work very well on consoles.
I played BF2 quite extensively and I thought it worked out quite well, especially when squads listened to your orders. The only part of it I thought was extremely stupid was the marking people from commander. That was repetitive and mundane... a lot of 'good' commanders had a hack that did it for them whenever they scanned, extremely easy to tell and a testament to how hacked out the game was. -
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That's not how it is in BF3, from what I've read the squad can only spawn on the squad leader but the squad leader can spawn on anyone in the squad. It sounds like a good compromise.
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I think they might have changed this but I am not sure.
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boo-urns
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They changed it :(
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it's spawn on leader only now
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Not according to this http://twitter.com/#!/L_Twin/status/103562550167355392
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Heard this was based on Alpha which was only Rush. It's not good for Conquest IMO. Apparently the attacking team was always getting decimated and losing horribly so they felt this would fix it. I hope they look into how this affects Conquest. Really changes the dynamic of flag capping and defending. Kind of hoping they reverse the decision, particularly since once people learn the game and maps more the unbalance they saw in the Alpha might no longer be valid.
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I dunno, I thoroughly enjoyed the commander role and it could make or break your team sometimes. Observing where other players on your team were going, seeing if they needed any sort of support (vehicles, ammo) was cool, zooming in on the map to spot enemy inf/vehicles for other players or calling in arty was fun in itself, and it was generally a cool experience to "play an RTS" where the majority (if playing on a pub) of your units were unresponsive - making it that much more challenging to "corral" players.
Plus watching a match unfold from a birds-eye-view was pretty awesome. -
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I'd be interested to see how this will work, though I think it's an unnecessary move. A good commander didn't have to just hide and 'command'. It was the servers with 'Command can't fight' rules that started all that garbage...
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Nice, I'm all for them giving the abilities to squad leaders.
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I loved Commander mode, but those are valid points.
That said, the game breaking hacksploits griefers would pull usually came in the form of Commanders. From the spam spots, betraytillery, cartillery, and of course the infamous "rain humvees and crash the server" routine.-
Spam spots are done by a hack and they call out everyone on the map so you can see them... It's not like there was no benefit to calling out people...
Betraytillery? Cartillery was funny, but hard to do and pretty pointless... There are a lot better ways to grief players in the game... Like taking the assets constantly and blowing them up... or taking the chopper and killing your co-pilot with the edge of the map... or revive spamming someone who was in the field of fire to rack up points... better yet when the medic on your team is friends with the enemy team and they just sit there and rez you then kill you to get points.
I never saw the 'rain of humvees', but I heard about it and that was fixed.-
Betraytillery : Look on satellite map. Scan for impending point capture. Set arty on point. Await, commander kick vote.
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Chain of command was one of Battlefield's major contributions to FPS. It was genuine innovation in the gameplay space that helped to define Battlefield and make it stand out in the market. It is a mistake to remove commander mode and I don't believe these reasons were the chief reason. DICE removed commander from BF3 to keep the game accessible, especially since they are courting CoD gamers. A lot of players do not want to bother with the commander or take orders. They want to be off doing their own thing and they don't want to be hassled by other players telling them to squad up. It's less a factor for 32 player rush but I say it is borderline essential for 64 player conquest matches. Plus, it is a wholly unique experience for those that have the patience to fill the role. And no, a single teamspeak/vent channel is not a valid substitute for the chain of command.
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That's disappointing, I loved the commander role in BF2. When you had a good group of squad leaders with competent squads, the commander could be a devastating force on the battlefield.
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I think its something along the lines of all the babies that played BF2 couldnt handle someone having the oportunity to drop some serious shit on their heads. Babies ruined BF2 in my opinion. Always whining when someone had a slight upper hand that they couldnt control. Go play CS or COD, where it's always the same and you can master the small map and know every angle and be the master of your little map. Well BF is a different dog, and I hope the babies dont ruin BF3, because a lot of us have been waiting for a very long time for this. Dice knows what I'm talking about they just have to answer to all the babies emails and crying on the forums about how unfair and unbalanced the game is... K I'm done, bring on some 64 player all vehicle goodness. Daddy has been waiting since 2005.
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If they implemented it properly, it could have been awesome.
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Check out Nuclear Dawn if you want a commander mode. Comes out this week I think.
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Note: I didn't play many of the BF's so I don't know if nuclear dawn has the same commander mode as BF.
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