So I was playing for the first time as a commander on the GiantBomb server, and doing pretty well I think. Won the game, and thought "Hey, that was pretty fun, but I think I wanna go back to shooting dudes in the face."

Next map loads up, and I am automatically the commander. There was no way to bow out of being commander before the map loaded. I hit esc to see if I can just switch back to a squad and the only option I have is to resign the commander position, which boots me from the server.

On a full server, this fucking sucks. The game takes long enough to load anyway, now I have to go through it again just because I wanted to play shooty face..

Does anyone know a way around this? Maybe I am just a moron and missed something. I understand they don't want people dropping in and out of commander position for the sake of consistency, but then you should not be automatically made the commander every time a new map loads.

--EDIT also I understand your squad leaders can vote you out, but that never happens. Even when you ask them to.

No you are not missing anything. That's how it works and probably will work unless they decide to change it.

I believe the reason you have to leave is because the commander position does not actually take up an infantry "slot". so you can have the exact same amount of players in "shoot your face off" mode with or without the commander who is separate. So if there are 2 full teams and one has a commander it's basically 64 vs 64(+1).

So when you want to quit being the commander it just removes you instead of making it 64 vs 65 (although I believe that even if your team is not full you get the boot).

At least I believe that's right.

At least that makes some sense. Did not think about that. Hopefully they add the option to, I dunno, bid for commander mode after each map or something?

It's not actually setup that way for fear of uneven teams (or extra infantry) if you were to switch. Believe me, a really good commander makes a hell of a lot more difference than one extra foot soldier. That being said, it works that way because each server can have 64 infantry, 2 commanders, plus spectators (like how the GB server is setup). So if you're a commander on an server that's full up on infantry, you can't just switch over. Also, even if it's not full, when you're the commander, behind the scenes the server handles your connection a little differently and on you computer it loads up an entirely different setup. So to switch over would mean the game having to unload and reload (and probably doing something funky with your connection) anyway so you'd still have to wait.

Don't forget, this game and it's code is massive. Some may think that it should be just as easy as switching teams to leave the commander position, but there's probably a lot more to it than that.

Yeah that does make sense, but I still think it would be nice to opt out before a map loads. Maybe in the post screen people could apply for the position? It's just frustrating to have to reload when you have been queuing for a server for a while to get in to begin with, then waiting for the game to load if you dont have an SSD. Plus, when you are in shooty face game and there is no commander position. you can just jump right into it seamlessly. I dont get why you just cant jump right back out, but hey, I am not a game developer.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I wish it were better as well. Who knows, maybe one day after they workout the initial round of bugs and optimizations.