Completely Removing the map with friendly positions for infantry

[Tannhauser]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]fuzzhead

farcry 2 had a really cool way of doing this..

Oh god yes, even tho seeing a garmin on every frickin vehicle, crappy old or shiny new all together, it's awesomeness in form of a 3D moving map object & GPS that doesn't look as aggressive as a permanent hud threatening to burn-on your plasma screen if you play too long.
Ubisoft is awesome isn't it?

But about the 3D model map, forget it, low quality textures will screw it up first for anyone who has low/medium graphics in PR and second, I don't think animated-dynamic-networkable texturing is possible for BF2 Python. It's possible for BF2142 tho, only problem is if your graphics are low, you're screw.

if we have to remove all green-blue icons as I guess BF2 won't let us individualy set them as usual, then let's do it? I think whatsoever it'd be a great challenge, but a great improvement and step towards realism.
And gosh, finally the commanders will be vital components.

Will need new markers for marking friendly positions. Perhaps even a variety of friendly markers that vary in broadness.

Best in that case would be markers for each numbers of squads from 1 to 9 and movement arrows, maybe lines?

[Solid Knight]

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

Best in that case would be markers for each numbers of squads from 1 to 9 and movement arrows, maybe lines?

I was thinking along the lines of just friendlies and what they were doing.

Like a blue shield for a defending squad, a blue sword for an attacking squad, and a blue circle for a squad position.

[ChizNizzle]

I tottaly support topographical map with only your marker on it and mybe SL's too. I dont care if weapon or normal map as it is now. The problem with map in wepon slot is (probably) that it cannot change textures, therefore only CO could see which flags to attack in AAS, and where are the crates positioned in insurgency...

Nice feature would be if you place the map as an weapon, you can throw it on the ground, so the whole squad could get a good look at it with their weapons ready, and then you could pick it back up like the grapple.

Another the prob is, how bad the texture would be if played on a low-end computer.

[AnRK]

There was a suggestion before the one you mentioned a while back, anyway in it I suggested that perhaps you could have the map have nothing on it but your squads location and the SL style numbers for all the other squads.

What you could then do with that is make the squad icons remain static, and then SLs would have to update their location ala deploying a rally point, something you would be hard pressed to do under fire, and perhaps something you could put a 30 second-1minute or something like that cap on, so people can't spam it all the time. Could also make this apply to friendly assets i.e tanks. I dunno how stuff works in real life, but I imagine squads report in their position in a similar fashion every few minutes.

As for the knowing what each squad is doing surely that would just promote the commander role, something it could do with.

[McLuv]

Thank you all for the replies, with the positive feedback as well as the constructive criticism. It's true that this has been suggested before, under varied terms and conditions, and only in piecemeal form. I decided to sum it up and give explanations on how it would most likely effect gameplay in a very positive, if a little hard-core, manner.

cyberzomby, you provide good points, and I thank you for it. Before we can implement this, we must find all the possible negative effects and figure out a way to minimize them. I believe that while this may seem to become more "hard-core", it won't actually be that apparent. Why? Because people will adapt, in fact people have to adapt, to every change featured in every release of pr. Removing the spawns off the SL and the mini-map for infantry was seen as too hardcore, although both had less positive feedback from the community than this iirc.

As to the question about spawning, I've thought about it, and I've decided that perhaps the spawn screen should show the spawn locations, as well as (if possible) the SL position, though that might not even be needed. This will require squads to stick much closer together, while at the same time keeping their spacing. I"m not suggesting taking off the 3d sights (though that could be addressed at some point ), so those makers could still be used to coordinate the squad (though I wouldn't want the markers to show up on the map).

I really hope to see this implemented to promote closer teamwork, more immersion with fewer artificial and unrealistic HUD, and to promote the purpose of the commander as more necessary for, well, commanding. I can assure you, if SLs don't have the complete information of the battlefield, as they don't irl, a commander would be able to command properly. Currently, he has very little purpose since everyone knows what to attack and defend, and can use team-chat to request pick-ups, etc...

[Spec_Operator]

1. How do you select your spawn point? Do you have a black caps-map with only the spawn points visible?

2. Make the map tossable and with unlimited ammo - but only one tossed map can exist in the world at once. This is to give the SL the option to show others the maps and explain something.

3. Have static maps at all spawn points so players at least know where the enemy is. (Note: The enemy as in, the enemy base, not the soldiers themselves of course)

[Solid Knight]

You'd select your spawn point the same way your currently do--there's no way around that.

[White Rock]

Originally Posted by McLuv

I really hope to see this implemented to promote closer teamwork, more immersion with fewer artificial and unrealistic HUD, and to promote the purpose of the commander as more necessary for, well, commanding. I can assure you, if SLs don't have the complete information of the battlefield, as they don't irl, a commander would be able to command properly. Currently, he has very little purpose since everyone knows what to attack and defend, and can use team-chat to request pick-ups, etc...

The problem of this is that the removal of the markers and no changes applied to the current commander situation will make a commander INDESPENSBLE while at the same time extremely boring for the majority of players. It will be go back to 0.7 again, where someone HAS to go commander or the team dies. And sometimes no one went commander in 0.7, when you needed one to build firebases.

And when you do not get a commander for your team, then you get a totally disorganised team that has to ask 5 times in a row where everyone's heading, not knowing if a whole squad or just a squadleader is at a position and having to rely on the squad screen to try figure how many troops are in squads 3 squad and where they at and what kits they have and so on.

Not many will go commander even if you try to make em to.

[McLuv]

Originally Posted by White Rock

The problem of this is that the removal of the markers and no changes applied to the current commander situation will make a commander INDESPENSBLE while at the same time extremely boring for the majority of players. It will be go back to 0.7 again, where someone HAS to go commander or the team dies. And sometimes no one went commander in 0.7, when you needed one to build firebases.

And when you do not get a commander for your team, then you get a totally disorganised team that has to ask 5 times in a row where everyone's heading, not knowing if a whole squad or just a squadleader is at a position and having to rely on the squad screen to try figure how many troops are in squads 3 squad and where they at and what kits they have and so on.

Not many will go commander even if you try to make em to.

I know, but unfortunately, the reason the commander doesn't work is because he has no use, everyone knows what they're doing. So the only thing the commander can do is wait an hour and allow an area attack. while in 0.7 you had to have a commander, at least you had them. Of course they were only mandatory for FOBs and such, but they were still much more useful. I'd like to find a compromise between making the commander absolutely necessary, and making the commander not necessary, but extremely useful and has a purpose. besides, there are many people who would like to command like this, including myself, but it's ruined by the fact that every SL knows what to do completely.

It's like playing AoE, but all your units act on their own, disregarding or compromising with your suggestions often because it doesn't agree with their own tactical plans.

[00SoldierofFortune00]

Terrible idea. It has been raised countless times too.

Minimap= awareness. This isn't real life, you aren't already briefed on where to go, you don't have communication with other squads or fireteams, and you are not moving in a large formation such as a platoon. How are you supposed to know what and who is around you when moving? Even if your squad saw everyone in your squad, what about if they wanted to heal someone or were told to help out with another squad or something? There are too many opportunities for this to backfire because most players lack awareness already.

The minimap is even more important for when you have no commander. Face it, no one likes going Commander anymore, and even if people do, you can't place the outcome of a game solely on 1 person.

When I am SL and want to coordinate with other squads, how do I do it? Check my minimap and tell my squad to form up with another squad so we can move together. If all I see as a SL is just another SL, how am I to know he even has a squad there with him or if they are scattered across the map????