The C&C unit

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Shall the C&C unit be overall commander for the other units.

Yes, it worked well.
34
54%
No, dont keep this.
20
32%
Yes, keep it if BE still distrubates unit specific missions.
9
14%
 
Total votes: 63

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The C&C unit

Post by Berget-events » 03 Jul 2012, 10:45

This year BE did not give unit specific missions, the C&C unit structure was reinstated (Last used B5) which meant that missions where given to the C&C and then to the other units.
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Post by wormbyte » 03 Jul 2012, 11:26

Without any shadow of a doubt .... YES YOU HAVE TO KEEP THEM!!!!

But what needs to change is the micro-managed level mission provided by the gamemasters. These low level mission do not support large force multi-op missions.

The small timeboxing around these mission did not help as well.

For example, lets say NAF was given a mission to extract the blackbox from the cargo plane crash site. If this was a BE mission we would have been given maybe a few hour to do it and it might have been assigned as a Ranger mission.

1. Ok maybe Brigade HQ (GM) knew we had a limited time window because the Poldavians were aware of the crash and they were sending troops to the site.

2. But Brigade HQ should never be dictating what missions should be served by which units. The should provide missions to the "battlegroup" ie. Poldavian or NAF C&C, and the C&C should then work out which units are needed, or which units should work toegther to achieve the objective.

If I was given the above mission then perhaps I would send in a recon team to assess the area around the site, followed by an infantry unit to create a secure perimeter around the crash site. A Ranger unit would have then gone to the crash site and retrieved the blackbox and given it to a waiting mech unit at a designated RV ready for immediate extraction. Once thats done then all units could return to base for tea and biscuits while sitting around a camp fire shooting the shit and celebrating the success of the mission.

To drop C&C and go back to individually assigned missions to individual would be a grave mistake.

However for C&C to really work then it needs a full suite of command staff. Radio operators, intelligence officers, base security officers. All of these should be offered as "free" places. You can not expect someone to pay 100 euro's and travel hundreds of miles and all the expence of travelling to then sit in the CP for 3 days listening and responding to radio traffic. Its simply not fair. But until this is addressed then you will always find the HQ's under strength which then makes it impossible for the HQ to function properly. All of this boils down to poor missions for the players, which can then leave you with unhappy customers.

Thinking that you are saving money by not offering free places to command staff is simply false economy.

But to re-iterate: please heep C&C, just give them more support though!
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Post by JudgementDay » 03 Jul 2012, 12:05

The poll options above do not offer correct answers.

Chiming in with Ian here. C&C is a good thing, but missions need to be much less unit-specific - if C&C is implemented, it should be in their authority to decide which unit is tasked with what mission.

Although, to handle mission placement at all, Berget still (and that has been a permanent issue for years now) has to improve their information policy and the flow of communication, so that missions can be handed out in due time, and commanders have all the information required to make a decision. Players' request/demand that Berget crew personnel with a direct link to GMHQ is present in the player bases at all times to provide this information on short notice, as well as take care of local GM issues, is nothing new, and is in my opinion still absolutely necessary.

As Ian also already said, staff personnel for the commanders is an absolute must. Whether this is provided by BE (crew and GM personnel as mentioned above) or by players having to pay much less or nothing at all for their tickets might be worth discussion, although I personally think it should be a good mix of both.
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Post by WhiteAce » 03 Jul 2012, 13:13

Wormbyte and Judgementday give an excellent explanation of what I said to the crew on the day of arrival. Pre-plotted plans on co-working between the batallions was a primary objective of mine. I never got that chance... :(
Later, as time traveled on and the beginning of the game came closer and no intel was given at all about what we should do and no orders given, the time left was not workable for the C&C unit as it should have, besides the fact that a C&C unit should have enough people involved in it and have substantial freedom in executing given mission objectives.

I say keep it, but give that freedom to plot things inside that C&C unit. You told me not to micro-manage things, yet you did it instead :(

It is more milsim like to have a C&C unit coordinating 3,4 or 5 batallions. Like Tom said on the FH issue, trust your players!
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Post by Mr Black » 03 Jul 2012, 13:26

I cannot pick any of the poll options above since none of them offer a correct answer.

I agree with JudgementDay. No need to post the same thoughts.
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Post by Scarface » 03 Jul 2012, 13:39

wormbyte wrote:
If I was given the above mission then perhaps I would send in a recon team to assess the area around the site, followed by an infantry unit to create a secure perimeter around the crash site. A Ranger unit would have then gone to the crash site and retrieved the blackbox and given it to a waiting mech unit at a designated RV ready for immediate extraction. Once thats done then all units could return to base for tea and biscuits while sitting around a camp fire shooting the shit and celebrating the success of the mission.
How simple is. NAF this is it. Thank you Wormbyte. May be I will come next year If all commanders think like this.
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Post by Blackwolf » 03 Jul 2012, 14:32

Hello

I disagree with C&C it did not work.

Last year BATT CO got together on 2nd day and it worked like a charm together.

We would sit in the HQ together and wait on mission result and usually it was a success.

If back up was needed we always had a unit ready either MECH INF or Rangers
wormbyte wrote:

If I was given the above mission then perhaps I would send in a recon team to assess the area around the site, followed by an infantry unit to create a secure perimeter around the crash site. A Ranger unit would have then gone to the crash site and retrieved the blackbox and given it to a waiting mech unit at a designated RV ready for immediate extraction. Once thats done then all units could return to base for tea and biscuits while sitting around a camp fire shooting the shit and celebrating the success of the mission.



Thats how it should be done but it was not done.

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Post by Puma » 03 Jul 2012, 15:10

JudgementDay, that all sounds like maybe asking a bit too much.

For what I undestood from posts by Tiger1, was that commanders didn't even have complete personel rosters 3 weeks before game start. The first step of filling neccessary positions in the military organization is knowing what personel you have, and what personel you still need to procure. You can't work in the dark.

My two step solution to this problem of not knowing is simple:

1. Get rid of ticket lockdown
2. Give commanders realtime read-only access to player database of their own faction immediately upon their comission.

This would give commanders a whole lot of time to get their personel organized, and assign ticket holders to various command and staff positions. And if no volunteers are found among ticket holders, then it would give commanders time to whine to BE about the lack of personel. And at the end of lets say March, BE could give commanders free tickets for the command and staff personel still needed. And said commander could then give those out to people based on his discression.

Another maybe even easier solution would involve selling tickets based on faction and task, rather than just based on faction. For example, lets say we have a faction of 300 players. Organizing that amount of people in to easily controllable units would require roughly 10 platoon leaders and 10 platoon sergeants (not to mention handfull of company commanders and a whole bunch of squad leaders). Finding 20 volunteers for those positions among 300 random airsofters seems extremely unlikely. However if one would sell those tickets from a separate ticket pool, the likelyhood of those positions being filled with tiket buying motivated volunteers would increase dramatically. And one could even sell tickes from those pools with reduced price to further increase that likelyhood. Everybody would win. The commanders would get their staff and subordinate commanders. BE would get money. Pleople intresed in command and staff work would get their tickets. And ground level players would get more direction and substance to their Berget-experience.

But as I said, this might be asking a bit too much, as it is completely opposite to the direction that berget-games have been developing.


wormbyte, as for the timeboxing and unit specific missions, I think there is a very specific reason why that is done. And that is to ensure that a conflict happens or not happens, and to control the size, proportions and location of the conflict that happens. It is a form of game scripting.

If we give objective X to unit A, at certain time, and at the same time give objective of preventing A from achieving X to unit B at the same time, one essentially ensures conflict between units A and B at a certain time at a certain place, maximising game fun for players of both units. Yay!

But if you give free hand to centralized command of in-game commanders, that are all trying to kick the shit out of the enemy and to achieve constant predetermined objctives, then literally anything could happen. It would be chaos. A platoon of 30 men sent to secure an objective could be faced with 300 strong joint operations group, and it would be a slaughter. And no-one would have any fun at all. =(

By limiting the resources available to commanders BE is guaranteeing a level of game quality for the average player, as it limits unpredictable a chaotic battles from occurring, and makes the game follow roughly a sort of script. And we all want a script right? You wouldn't watch a movie that has been made without a script.

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Post by Panzergraf » 03 Jul 2012, 15:18

Puma wrote:And we all want a script right?
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Post by Redmenace_tv » 03 Jul 2012, 15:22

Blackwolf wrote:Hello

I disagree with C&C it did not work.

Last year BATT CO got together on 2nd day and it worked like a charm together.

We would sit in the HQ together and wait on mission result and usually it was a success.

If back up was needed we always had a unit ready either MECH INF or Rangers
Lol, with the greatest respect blackwolf last year i was run off my arse establishing that communication :) I do remember the good old porch times we had though :)
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Post by JudgementDay » 03 Jul 2012, 16:00

Puma wrote:For what I undestood from posts by Tiger1, was that commanders didn't even have complete personel rosters 3 weeks before game start. The first step of filling neccessary positions in the military organization is knowing what personel you have, and what personel you still need to procure. You can't work in the dark.

[...]

This would give commanders a whole lot of time to get their personel organized, and assign ticket holders to various command and staff positions. And if no volunteers are found among ticket holders, then it would give commanders time to whine to BE about the lack of personel. And at the end of lets say March, BE could give commanders free tickets for the command and staff personel still needed. And said commander could then give those out to people based on his discression.
I like that idea a lot.

To be honest, I skipped my prime demand this time, because I've said it too often by now, but you are of course right: BE needs to provide an adequate flow of information pre and in-game.

This includes, among other things:
- Selecting the Batallion Commanders early enough. And if they don't have enough applications to find a good commander, inform the players that they need applications.
- Giving up-to-date information to Batallion Commanders about which players will be attending so they can organize. Personally, I have been working with the playerlist that BE keeps on their website and have checked for updates on a regular basis. It was, to be honest, no more or less exact than the roster we were given 3 weeks before game start (more exact on some players, less exact on others). I also established contact via the forums, PMs, Mails, Skype and whatnot with at least one representative player from each team in my unit. I have to admit though that I was in the lucky position of having to take care of only about 60-70 players, so this was relatively easy, and I'm not sure it would work on larger groups. For the last few times, ignoring BE-provided information and talking directly to the players involved has, sadly, been more efficient.
- Giving out a clear list of what they expect Commanders to do, maybe get all Commanders from both sides together for a talk pre-game. I know there was one scheduled this year (as had been done in previous years, I understand), but that was either prior to my election as Commander, or never happened at all.
- And definitely: Maintaining a regular flow of information with all Commanders about rules additions, missions and maybe even mission requirements and basically just everything happening in and around the game from BE's side.

Only with that provided can we even think of running a C&C, and yes, I completely support your idea of the Commanders being able to hand out free tickets at their discretion (if Commanders are in a position of trust, BE should trust them to select reliable staff personnel with these tickets, and not just bring in some more armed goons for free). Because to be honest, I don't think any Commander will be able to convince a sufficient number of players who signed up for Berget and paid a ticket to an Airsoft game to do a radioman's job or run around playing the messenger instead.

I'm not sure about removing the lockdown, though. The way I see it, ticket lockdown is a necessity for both BE as well as Commanders to be at some point able to tell how many players will attend or not. Cancelling lockdown would mean that right up until gamestart, all player lists and preparation would be pure guesswork; I know they always are to a degree, because some players might just not show up for various reasons, but a ticket lockdown at least provides some degree of certainty.
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Post by wormbyte » 03 Jul 2012, 16:23

Puma wrote: wormbyte, as for the timeboxing and unit specific missions, I think there is a very specific reason why that is done. And that is to ensure that a conflict happens or not happens, and to control the size, proportions and location of the conflict that happens. It is a form of game scripting.
Agreed to a certain extent. However, when it conflicts with battlegroup planning, and that's what we have here people..."battlegroups", then heavily scripted plots do not offer enough flexibility.

I can understand the intent, but the execution did not work.

There are other ways this can be achieved without compromising top level planning and without making evident to the players.

In summary, yes you do often need a script behind the scenes, but this should be seen to restrict game flow.

Guide commanders down paths, don't force them along against their will.
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Post by Brujo » 03 Jul 2012, 18:07

On Poldavian side it was a professionally set up team with high motivation to manage players before, during and after each mission. C&C was a perfect buffer between clueless BE crew and players in units who needed specific missions.

Keep it and maybe upgrade it with the power that C&C can actually propose missions to BE.
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Post by wormbyte » 03 Jul 2012, 19:29

Brujo wrote:On Poldavian side it was a professionally set up team with high motivation to manage players before, during and after each mission. C&C was a perfect buffer between clueless BE crew and players in units who needed specific missions.

Keep it and maybe upgrade it with the power that C&C can actually propose missions to BE.
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Post by Mad Dog » 03 Jul 2012, 22:14

It was my first Berget and I was amazed how “thin” the NAF HQ was. Well I suppose that nobody want to stay in HQ - but anyhow – even if it is one air soft army – it is still need some staff to make the things to happen. IMHO HQ need as a minimum:
Personnel or administration (1) in that case S 1 officer
Intelligence / security / information operations (2) in that case S 2 officer
Operations (3) in that case S 3 officer
Logistics (4) in that case S 4 officer
Communications and/or IT (6) in that case S 6 officer
CIMIC (9) in that case S 9 officer
That means 6 extra “officers” in the HQ. If it useful they will prepare warning and combat orders – for some people this smells like “bureaucracy”, but for others will help to be in the “movie”.
One well structured HQ can cover the “gaps” in the scenario and –most important to make that “in game”.
Last edited by Mad Dog on 03 Jul 2012, 23:41, edited 1 time in total.

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