MAG Developer Tips: OIC

32 1

After a three-week run, we’ve come to our final installment of our MAG Developer Tip series. To close it out Zipper’s training, vehicle and environment designer Ben Jones walks us through the biggest responsibility in the game: being the OIC. As always, we open with a video:

Howdy, Ben Jones here! With all the great tips that have come from other Zippers over the week (particularly all of the leadership-oriented bits that have come out over the last few days), I’m going to impart this small list of tried and true techniques that build upon earlier strategies and maximize your effectiveness as an OIC. Some are obvious, some aren’t, but all are helpful.

Basic Tips:

  • Your OIC abilities can be accessed by using the TCM through the D-Pad or the CNI by pressing SELECT.
  • These abilities are best used while trying to make a push as either an attacker or defender, so try and time their use with changes in the battle! If attackers have opened up their forward spawns try blockading them to give your team time to regroup.
  • Communicating with the Squad and Platoon leaders below you is essential. Maneuver through the comms channels by using the D-Pad and guide your team to victory.

Advanced Tips:

  • If most of your platoons have fallen back from their frontline defenses, consider using “Signal Jamming” to keep the enemies from using their own CNI effectively, while also using the “Blockade” ability to decrease their spawn times. Finally, use “Rapid Redeploy” to increase your own spawn time and finish the job.
  • Speaking of Blockade and Rapid Redeploy, if Blockade is used on you, you can use Rapid Redeploy in return to move the timer to normal.
  • “Tactical Strike” is essential for full-on attacks. With it, you can eliminate immediate wait times on any and all cooldown bars for command abilities within your entire army.
  • Team Broadcast is one of your available comms channels on the D-Pad. Use it sparingly to bolster the morale of your troops and praise them for decisive actions!

Thank you very much, Ben. More importantly, though, thank you to each and every one of our fans who has helped make MAG a big success for us. We hope you enjoyed our tip series and invite you check back again with us in the coming weeks for even more news from 2025.

Comments are closed.

32 Comments

1 Author Reply

  • Please mommy, make it stop!

  • WHOA! Good tips! I can’t wait to become an OIC. I wish everybody had a headset. Then my team would be unstoppable!

  • love leveling up from squad leader to platoon leader to oic, but wish it happened faster! love to snipe mostly with added repair support. enjoying this game since beta – thanks zipper interactive!

  • @1 What’s wrong with Zipper posting tips on the PS.blog? =(

    I think it’s quite helpful to those who wish to learn. And there’s a lot who wish to learn.

  • @#2 I suggest you create your own clan (or join one) and invite others who have headsets. We did and we now have over 100 members and at least 10-20 online at any given time :)

  • It’s nice to see devs post tips. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I’m sure there’s quite a few people that appreciate it, even though I’m not a MAG player.
    5 STARS!

  • does anyone know if Playstation will ever put a update in it’s firm wear so we can play PS2 games on the PS3

  • Isn’t there a MAG website? Why not move this stuff there instead of flooding the blog everyday?

    The blog should be about updates, news, and announcements.

    Not endless tutorials about a game that only a fraction of the community even owns.

    I know I don’t have to read this stuff if I don’t want to (and I don’t) but we still need to stick to some basic Blog principals to retain the integrity of this site.

  • Great that you guys put up the tutorials and I hope people that plays MAG watch these! Love MAG and I hope it sells well so we can see many more games from Zipper! Keep up the hard work and please tell the other guys/girls at zipper for a fantastic game!

  • #7:

    It’ll never happen.

  • Mr. Dunham,

    Why aren’t these tips in the form of an in-game tutorial or instruction manual?

    -ShadOforce

    • These were created after the game had been finished.

      They are going to be available in other places around the web, but we wanted to make sure there were here as well.

  • Hey hater-babies: if you don’t like it, don’t read it. Use those well developed muscles on your fingers and SCROLL DOWN. That’s my “tip” to you.

    12

  • How about making the OIC able to call in air strikes. I found it a bit weird it didn’t.

  • #12:

    Sure, we don’t have to read them, but this blog just isn’t the place for game-specific tuturials. At least not ones that go on for three frickin weeks.

    If MAG can do it, then why not every other game? And then the blog just deteriorates into a mess of nonsense that nobody will want to slog through.

    If they have MAG news, then by all means display it here. But take the MAG tutorials to the MAG website.

  • these are really helpful hints that have actually improved my gameplay so thanks alot =)

  • Off topic much?

    ” wildpens87 | February 26th, 2010 at 8:40 am

    does anyone know if Playstation will ever put a update in it’s firm wear so we can play PS2 games on the PS3″

  • Seems like people have a hard time playing this game. Maybe you guys should’ve made the game easier to learn?

    All these tutorials for a game. What is mag – chess?

  • @ terranwolf sorry man, nothing wrong I guess… it’s their prerogative. However, I believe that # 8 and # 14 sum up the way a lot of us feel. shutin up now.

  • I think it would be awesome if MAG had a game type where you could play 256 or 128 player sabotage and 64 or 256 player aquesition and 128 player domination
    SVER

  • Oh, I See. XD

    Sorry, had to do it.

  • @Zipper

    I wanted to ask this for a while but since MAG is out and enjoying good success, are you guys by any chance working or have another team within Zipper Interactive working on a new SOCOM game for PS3?

  • I just wanted to say that I do not own MAG and these tips have made me reconsider buying it (got more stuff than what I thought). But I think $60 for online only is a bit to much but what do I know. =)

  • Please decide who this game is for. Hardcore or casual? IMO you have made a fantastic hardcore game but sabotage it by trying to make it for everyone. Please reconsider upping the respec points again. Originally too high, but now you went the other way. Most importantly it should take more experience to get to the higher maps and level 8 for domination and acquisition is silly. Minimum should be 15 to 20 so you have a half decent awaremess of role before you enter someone elses squad and ruin their game. Half the people are playing it and don’t even understand basic concepts such as fragos. Players within these huge 128 or 256 battles are extremely frustrated by accommodating allies who don’t understand the basics so the game is not really fantastic for anyone. Let the game be hardcore and too bad for lesser skilled players Let them continue playing pacman. Also, make sure when you do a patch it is one and it is tested. You removed some bugs but now when I lay two mines they still disappear and even worse when placing the second mine with a shotgun equipped the gun automatically fires and so I’ve killed some allies. Get it together or this fantastic game will go out of style fast

  • @22 – I had the same concern as you regarding $60 for an online only game, but I am glad a gave it a shot. This game is great. Also, very few console games offer dedicated servers for online play.

  • This game is great, thank you Playstation

  • Mr. Dunham,

    can you change the weapons back to the way they were before the patch. I have vetted all three factions, and found that the game was perfectly balanced. This patch ruined the game, and is making the hardcore MAG players dislike MAG.
    One way you could keep your “balance” that you have achieved in the 1.03 patch is to give each class a bonus in range,accuracy, and recoil relative to their class.

    MAG in it’s current state is just ridiculous, and an utter shame to the hardcore players.

  • so im gonna through this out there…I really enjoy this game, big fan, and i want to help my team in winning (Raven) and get plenty of xp point, so please, what makes a good teamate? what gains you large amounts of xp points? and why is people saying ‘in this state its a shame?’ what is? and how should it be? thanks yal Raven

  • Being an OIC is a big responsibility. I have led squads and platoons for several times and I gotta say they’re hard as you have to set targets carefully while keep fighting alongside your team mates.

  • MAG flooding the blog is really starting to get on my nerves. Not EVERYONE has and likes this game.
    Maybe invest in your own site?

  • Please help mag quits me out every match because of a sever conection thing or some problem or if there are no problems it doesn’t let me respawn. Also if I am playing and I die I can still run around but I can’t shoot and it is realy anoying. I don’t know if it is my game or my internet conection. THis never happens to other games I have. I would like profesianal help but if anyone knows what to do E-mail me at [DELETED] or post another comment thanks.

  • Think it is really LAME and SORRY that on the Skills TIER 4 you list the Rollins LRSS and the LARGE Suppressor… and they CAMNNOT even be used together, yet there is NOTHING that says this…. And all the other stuff, says, only can be used with the LARGE Sniper… then you use the word LARGE with the suppressor, and list together.. SUCKS… now i have a USELESS SUPPRESSOR and lost skill points… and I used RESPEC CHAR to get this….

    yep i am pissed.

  • bobbyh1 i had this problem and this is how i fixed it. First restart your ps3, then if that nosnt work, wait a day. a new pach may come to fix this problem. call the costomer support line if this dosnt help. there number is found in the back of the manuel.

Please enter your date of birth.

Date of birth fields