A map you can draw on

[IVI4tt]

Subject:
Possible improvements to the minimap system

Description:
Errors in communication can be devastating in battle.

P: destroy his War Factory!
S: Which War Factory, there's three‽.

What I propose is a system similar to that used in Alien Swarm, where players can draw on the minimap for other team members to see. This would make communication and strategy easy to pass on to your team.

P:Attack the War Factory I circled!
S:You got it, tanks on their way!

It would allow easy marking of targets, easy marking of routes and show your allies enemy army movement they should pay extra attention to

Positive Effect:

• Easy marking of targets
• Easy marking of routes
• Mark enemy movement
• Smiley faces to boost morale

Negative Effect:

• Open to abuse (oversized male genitalia and the like) To solve this, all players on a team should have erasers, players could be optionally ignore drawings from other players and drawing could be toggleable
• Can obscure map To solve this, give the lines a lifetime of only a few seconds or transparency

Media:

Me telling my idiot teammates in Alien Swarm a route to follow


Green telling red to get his act together and back him up in KW

[Golan2781]

Didn't the Battlecast Viewer feature something like this for commenting replays? Good idea anyways.

Like with all communication tools, a simple "mute/ignore" button could easily stop abuse.

[MILINTarctrooper]

Well it could be useful, I do agree. But, maybe in combination with icon beacons that would be interesting. Or color coded drawing. The yellow to denote movement, red for attack...blue for defensive movement. The proverbial football playbook marker?

[Plrsvek]

This idea should also work with AI co-commanders like Red Alert 3. But I hope they atleast don't bug these things out again, in Red Alert 3 about 50% of the times I order my co-commander to go that way, he does nothing and is just getting stuck in his base or somewhere on the field

[Commander32]

this is diffidently useful in a good way, but be careful of the trolls and idiots that would abuse this system and just spam crap on the game map :P

like an F.U. on the map :O

[=LEVIATHEN=]

I like the idea,but I think there should also be a button that allows you to highlight targets easily,like in C&C 4 (this along with an ability to actually draw on the map).

[RKTGX95]

great idea ! cant wait for the pornography in C&C.

[Vayjir]

Why not just use a system like for example Portal 2 Co-Op have when you can mark a target and in cnc it could mark up this building with a attack icon above it and enlighten the building or something.
Ofc it could show up on the minimap aswell somehow.

[generals_addict]

I think this will be great! Good that people have addressed the potential for abuse, but that could be worked out (Golan's "mute" or your eraser tool). Another way you might be able to easily highlight important threats and unit movement is to use a comm system kinda like in the Battlefield series. Just look/point to where you see something, select the unit type, and it'll map it for you automatically. Or, have a quick ID system like BF's "Spotted" button so that if your cursor is on top of something important, it will ID the unit type AND map it for you. Tack on a "custom" tool for drawing on the minimap also, and you can plan a war superbowl while you're camping!

[Lauren]

It was also suggested for RA3, sadly they implemented it only so you can press ESC an draw on that map, not that useful but it was a step in the right direction ^^