I can count out the number of people that actually care about respect towards authority, namely most of the commanders, people on the CO council, and a rare few marine players. You would think that playing as a lieutenant or commander would be fun because you have the power to change rounds with your power and influence, when in reality you have to make a decent compromise between what you need done and what the marine players would accept doing. Instead of give orders, you give suggestions that you hope the masses would be pleased in doing. This rings ever so true near the end of the rounds when marines are scattered and need to rally up to clear out the remaining aliens. As a commander you order these marines to rally up and finish off the aliens, but you're ignored because it's funner if they just walk around and see if they can find anything to shoot for themselves. I can't think of any other scenario as dire as that one where the power of a commander would be paramount. Sadly, in that kind of situation nothing happens; you're just shouting blank orders and no one listens. Playing commander, SO, or any kind of leadership role seems cool at first because you think you have the power to do things, but you slowly learn that it is a hollow experience that doesn't live up to the role title.
General interactions between leaders and marines are extremely painful as well. Nothing makes me wince more than a commander giving a brief whilst one marine farts, a pair starts fist fighting, and another calls the commander a faggot. These people are given a "slap on the wrist" by being sent to the brig for a punishment, only for the next round to start and for them to do it all over again. If I ever feel like punishing myself by playing a leadership role, I just learn to look at these moments and die on the inside a little because there is nothing I can do. Regardless of the fact that some of the marines may have enlisted on their own terms or they may have been conscripted, they have ALL been through basic training. Basic training breaks you down and rebuilds you until you're an effective person who can follow orders. Almost all of the bad behaviour of current marines are behaviours that would have been rectified in basic training, and if they weren't rectified, they would have failed basic training.
The saddest thing about all of this is that no one cares. It's defended by the fact that players "want a game where they can point and click aliens" and not a military role playing game. It's sad to see all of this intricate content based towards having the game be a military role playing game yet have all of it sweeped into the trash by how the rules keep it in place.
Even if it were changed, the game would subsequently die because 80% of the playerbase come in to do whatever they want, LRPing and meming all of the way. If we changed things so where that 80% can't fuck around and do what they want instead of following orders, the playerbase would die. So the end result we have is a bunch of cool looking roles, chains of commands, and systems put into the game that look fun at first, but truly are "hollow" and mostly meaningless in the end.
Now here's some food for thought: Marines in real life actually behave just like that 80% of the playerbase I mentioned. They simply just follow orders and fuck around when their superiors aren't around or aren't looking!
Every Goddamned Marine wrote: If command thinks that I am going to follow orders and defend the FOB while others are out there shooting shit and having fun, they can go fuck themselves.
