When people say a gimmick, what is it exactly they mean, a quirk? Tunnel-vision adherence to one personality trait at the expense of all others? Or do they want their CO’s a bit loopy? This is not a criticism on this sort of questions, im genuinely interested to see what is it that people want from CO players? Do they want competence? Or is it inconsequential and just want some random stuff to happen because of CO’s and their quirkiness?
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It certainly would be nice if Sammy could just let me know what they want from me, I’m willing to put in the hours to reapply and grind up more hours but not if its just gonna be met with “oh your not getting CO back cos uhhh i just said so”
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Loopy.
Nothing but straight laced competence… who carrres. This isnt a TDM and everyone playing the same role the same way without end gets borring. Thats what XO is for.
Ive won hundreds of times on marine and can remember none of them.
I do remember the round where windhealer made all of delta and charlie hide in a bush outside lz2 to “ambush” the xenos. (Which worked as well as you would think… marines couldnt even turn all their lights off let alone stand still.)
CO should be like the nightmare variant equivalent of command and have much more lax rules. Make delta a “sword only squad”. Insist on no fob. Deploy half the ship. Just make it interesting.
I guess that would mean that CO isnt open every single round though…
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I think this is the right perspective. Gimmicks should shy away from the edgy stuff and focus on character.
The listed COs had deeper and more nuanced RP than “unga bunga major” or, “coward that gets marines killed and cyros before hijack/mutiny”
Its the same reason I miss yellows queens. Most folks outside of beno tdm mains had fun with the shenanigans.
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Like Predator lol?
Eh.
Look at preds. They are not in every round yet have super stringent rules and still don’t do too much (often because of that). So I don’t really think that would solve much except see them less.
What happened with COs was a rule tightening. Basically gimmick COs (you know the type) getting edged out and even gimmick rounds (the kind of stuff which is more unique to a round than being based around a certain type of CO) being less approved of and more likely to result in consequences™
Some of the my ideas on CO and their role. I based this around my personal experience with it but also with some other hats I’ve played in this game.
In Character Duty:
- Maintain reasonable level of roleplay standards for yourself and those your interact with.
- Lead the marines and operation. Delegate as required. Sometimes the cost of victory is unacceptable - if so… actually roleplay that out.
- Represent the marines. Delegate to someone of appropriate stature if you trust a rep to not screw you. E.G: talking with CL, W-Y, higher ranked officers, foreign nations etc.
- Seek Victory, per your own style.
Out of Character Duty
- Keep the round progressing.
Sometimes, even if you eventually might win, you need to know when to put the operation in a situation that will end things. One way or another. Basically speeding things up. Ex: Ordering a push to get the TCOMMS for nuke despite knowing it’s got poor odds or withdrawing from the planet.
- Try to keep the round enjoyable.
This is a really varied section of responsibility. It goes from engaging the playerbase in roleplay, good leadership, addressing concerns etc to handling a particularly rough appeal processe and assessing if someone was screwed over … or if they deserved exactly what they got. It can get tough sometimes as you bounce back and forth on a variety of comms and in-person discussions and talk on a variety of subjects. On a bad day, lots of running and repeated sitreps on unresolved issues are involved.
- Handle OOC Issues that blur into IC
It’s pretty rare but happens. This may mean treating something as IC despite it breaking the rules and even potentially hurting your feelings. Other times it means reaching out to an admin for assistance, in the interest of the round or playerbase.
- Make the round interesting/varied (Optional)
This is a tough one. Original ideas are hard to come up with and the tested ones can be anywhere from enjoyable to annoying as hell for players. They may also be annoying to get prepped (as plenty require some prep work to start almost immediately after round start). Some may even get you banned or escalate far beyond what was intended so you need to really use good judgement
Maybe I missed something but that’s a bit of my take
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the problem with the WL moving towards less gimmicky stuff i would say that trying to make a game about macho 80s space marines fighting communists’ terrorists and super alien bug death machines is inherently unrealistic and trying to force people to lead a bunch of murder hobos in a realistic way is silly. the best rounds is when Larger than Life COs made plans i can remember my first bob cross op as a split drop that ended in abject disaster but it was fun and not just the same fob → murderball → siege → evac it was unique and memorable
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Just don’t take things too serious
Halo 1 was great at that. Had the right mix of unserious and being funny but also being serious. I think it’s a great mix when you get it right. Everything gets a touch better with a bit of levity.
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If we had a billion gimmick COs again you’d get tired of them and be using the “this should be like space ‘nam not a comic book” argument. The only reason you enjoyed that Bob cross round is because it’s the exception to the rule, if every single round was a 40min dual drop intended failure then you’d get tired and want the exact opposite.
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Very true.
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The community, staff and the state of whitelists doesn’t entirely permit those players like we use to do. Nor does it allow for much growth for that category of CO’s anyway. I think the XO’s who would have fun and interesting gimmicks are constantly fighting verbal gymnastics with anyone that has a whitelist or the councils. I would go as far as to say you won’t see interesting gimmicks of them because they are almost always walking on eggshells because of the standards and expectations they are trying to reach to even get into the whitelist. You can definitely say the overall conduct has increased of those players have increased, the same silly fun you had with an eccentric CO when you first played CM will be nearly alien to them.
It would be nice to see it again. But you must accept that things have changed and that the server is not the same as it was years ago.
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Sad but true.
I think the challenge with quirky CO’s is that the role can cause a massive amount of carnage for the round the Marines and by proxy the Xenos. If we compare a quirky Liaison or even a Synth - their impact on the round is relatively modest. They can focus on roleplay and actually elevate the experience for other players at best, or amuse at worst.
But for a CO or XO - if they’re focused on their roleplay or their quirk there is potentially a lot that is not happening. If there are four SO’s, this is less of an issue. However, in my experience if the XO/CO are investing heavily in roleplay it can easily come at the expense of the round. They aren’t seeing what is happening to the marines, which means the marines don’t find out and wipe. And the Xeno’s then steamroll and everyone gets mad about a crappy round. It can be very telling when the marine front has wiped, and ten minutes have passed and command havent noticed because the there’s some kind of roleplay drama playing out in CIC. Maybe req are still dropping supplies even. I’m a big fan of heavy RP but I see how with a position like CO it can come at the expense of everyone else easily. At least with a deployed CO that puts some of that RP into the field rather than playing out in CIC.
It might be anecdotal, but I’ve noticed with a CO, XO some of SO’s can end up cyro’ing which is a shame. I think CM can be at its best for everyone when a good CO is in the field, there is a SO for each squad, and the XO is tying it all together.
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1 in three of you guys were cooking fr. Don’t let this thread die just yet.
Also I swear some of you asking for more nonmeta or off strategies are the same or probably the same mfs in a round that completely derail or disregard any nonmeta orders and flame COs in dchat or LRC the moment it goes wrong for ‘grief’.
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True. Some can pull off both but not many.
Real. Every time I’ve tried to do a silly off-meta echo squad I’ve gotten like one Marine showing up to the CIC.
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facts
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TRVTHMISSILE INCOMING
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True, i remember long time ago before i had CO WL there was a RP event in CIC made by admins, slight problem was that i was the XO and the only CIC officer online (it was lowpop). I had to pay attention to both groundside and event going on in CIC because i was CO aspirant and i didn’t want people calling me incapable of roleplaying with others. While admins gave me a medal for engaging in RP, i feel like i wasnt 100% engaged with both sides of the round because of the split attention, and marines on the planet could have suffered on the planet because of this.
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I did more non-meta stuff as XO cause less pitfalls with rules plus novadays i cant justify from RP perspective moving directly into caves from solaris ridge LZ without investigating colony proper.
One non-meta order i did as XO was put everyone in bravo and build megaFOB.
Apparently this is against the rules according to certain people novadays (it’s one of those unwritten rules that are passed orally and isn’t anywhere on the rules page, rules clarification page or discord).
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We all know that your non-meta plans were inspired by superior SW caves hive strat on solaris, perhaps i should revisit this to encourage more RP from COs…
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