Spreading out > Squad?

so often, it seems that spreading out is better than working in a squad. perhaps it's the open nature of the maps, but if the enemy is only using 3 men to give your 5 man squad hassel taking down a barracks, then the other 2 can be off being useful and overall, though they eventually lose the barracks, the other two will have killed a couple of your unguarded refinaries or some other useful task.

This is more of an open discussion than a proposed solution.

do you guys feel the same way at all?

 

I kinda agree. The problem is, one guy can easily kill an undefended structure, or build a rax/ref in an uncontested location. It's generally much smarter to send one guy to each of six different res node than it is to send six guys to one res node, or to send one guy to attack every enemy outpost -- unless you can kill the enemy comm or destroy their main base here and now, the benefits of attacking an undefended location far outweigh the benefits of sending overwhelming force to one point. And generally, people only attack the main base after they've already spread out and gotten a huge advantage that way.

On top of this, there's the infantry/tanks issue -- if you send six infantry, they can still get killed by one tank. So, since they're going to get killed if they meet tank resistance anyway -- why not send one person to each res node? That way, the guys who don't encounter a tank will accomplish something, instead of everyone dying.

I'm not sure what the solution would be, though. One possibility would be to make it much harder to both build and destroy structures -- but the thing is, that would make it much harder to do anything in a contested area, so it could backfire by making it even more important to attack uncontested points...

Neutral defenses scattered over the map is another option. With that, teams would be encouraged to work together to overcome neutral defenses quickly -- without them, you're encouraged to spread out as fast as possible at the start of the map, because it's not like an undefended res node can slow you down.

...honestly? You know what? I really, really hate to say this, because I'm glad it's gone and don't want it back, but nonetheless, bear with me... in other games, snipers are a major factor in encouraging teamwork.

Seriously, for real. In most games, sending one lone guy to achieve a task is pointless because he'll just get sniped. In your 'typical' game, you need medics to revive people who get sniped and infantry-types to flush out enemy snipers after they've revealed themselves, as well as engineer-types to achieve your goals. Snipers benefit from cover and supplies. And so on.

The thing is, nobody in Empires sticks together, nobody uses revive on comm maps, and the way comm-placed structures work makes it hard for a sniper to prevent someone from building them because they provide cover. Snipers are the logical people to rely on to make the 'one engineer rushes to every res node and builds there' strategy ineffective, but Empires' scoped rifle was never effective at achieving that.

Sniper rifles in Enemy Territory were very powerful, but they weren't actually that annoying, because if your team is doing its job someone will rush in and revive you whenever you get sniped.

I'm not saying Empires should have snipers. But the way those mechanics work in other games are something to consider -- Empires needs a game mechanic that makes wide open spaces dangerous for lone infantry or vehicles. Right now, there's no such mechanic, so the logical thing to do is to send one or two lone infantry to every important place on the map as soon as the game begins.

 

It's squad multi-tasking. What's pointless is joining a squad and just doing your own thing in some corner of the map, especially when everyone in the squad does their own thing far away too. You waste the aura bonuses and the squad points. Might as well drop from the squad when that happens, unless it's just a respawn issue.

 

Playing in squad is super fun, especially if you have great communication like in Agent Baldwin's Yankee Squad.

 

2 man squads. 1 person groups don't work too well, as you lose everything if they die.

2 man cells can at least have a reviver or something.

 

As a general rule of thumb 3 good players are better off doing their own thing then trying to work together unless its killing the cv.

 

if each good player had 2 not so good players following them around with revive and turret upgrade or something like that, you'd be better off.

 

goodie player for killing resistance, 2 engis to revive him / destroy buildings / provide defense.

perfect setup.

if one of the engies die the other one is backup

mix in a "ok" gren aswell and u got the ultimate squad

 

I think it depends on the situation. If your early-game rushing refs (such as the A4 or F4 ones on mvalley) then you only need one person. Squads are better at taking/holding chokepoints, which is why you see more teamwork on escort/urbanchaos/district

 

Wouldn't that be fun?

Unfortunately, you need to join a squad to get your first skill; by doing this, the game absolutely insists that the mechanical fact of being in a squad with someone else is non-optional.

And since that means that just about everyone else in the squad is there to get a free skill, it makes squads useless most of the time. For this reason I still think that the first skill should be awarded automatically, without the need to join a squad.

 

not true, you get 1st skill free no matter what.

 

yeah, they actually fixed that

now squads are only used by players that stick together, so that means nobody uses them anymore

 

what are you talking about? ppl use squads all the time... for the first 5-10 mins of a map.

 

that's odd

I never see people stick together

 

Um, you get your first skill free man. Playing 2.21?

 

It depends.

All that really matters is that your team kills more people than the enemy team, and that they control more of the refinery spots than the enemy team.

How they do that is up to them, there's no set method which always works best.

 

From situation to situation a few small covert op 2 man groups sappin mah refpoints to full scale tank pushes can be most successful

the fun in this game is that its not always the same strategy that wins, even if the same stuff get researched more then others, sometimes a commander who does the most done researches loses against a commander with a totally new approach, or just one with a good team that didnt do the most common research path

 

On maps like canyon squads that revive and push with walls are very effective.

On maps like mvalley lone wolf infantry has more success

 

I hate it how people join squads at the start, then don't go where they're fracking told to. Why not just wait until you spawn and decide where you're going then join a squad which is all there?!

There is absolutely no benefit to joining a squad, then not following the leader.

 

I tend to go solo as an engineer and just kill the enemy refineries, assuming people stop voting me for Com.