Part 3: More Basic Principles

Now that we have a better idea of what people are likely to be doing in the absence of good leadership, it’s important to take a look at some of the things that will always go wrong even with a good leader. Friction, in this context, is a combination of the delay and error that builds up to separate a commander’s orders from the actual results of those orders. Put another way, Friction is everything that keeps your army from carrying out your commands. This can range from someone taking a bathroom break and missing the order to someone else falling off a cliff and having to respawn.

There will always be a lag time between issuing an order, and that order being acted upon. Most of the time, people like finishing what they are currently doing before they start a new task. Who wants to run from a 1v1 duel to follow an order? The point is that you can’t expect an army to turn on a dime. Further, the delays we are talking about are much longer than you may think they will be. I’ve found that it can take 2-3 minutes to execute basic commands in an AV game. This delay needs to be built into your plan.

Difficult vs. Easy Commands

If you recall from part 2, there is some simple default behavior that you can expect from your troops. They will tend to run towards the nearest enemy and attack. Trying to get them to do something else is increasingly difficult as your desired behavior grows more different from their default behavior. Put another way, ordering the team to run towards the nearest enemy and attack is an easy command. They will probably do that without your telling them to. Telling the army to run away to gather strength is a difficult command, as it forces the players to do something other than what they would naturally do. The delay and difficulty that you will encounter getting people to act on your commands will vary depending on how much those commands differ from what people would naturally do.

Read Part 4: Basic Tactics 1
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