http://forums.empiresmod.com/showpost.php?p=40046&postcount=32 ^it's a bit further up, and would work, right?
Automatic squads would be handy for newer players I guess, but I would find it annoying to die and suddenly be part of the engy squad that is back at the main base building stuff, and I have to go back to my own squaddies on foot or with a vehicle. I will probably have already left the engy squad in the meantime, and I now only have the minimap to see where my squadmembers are. It seems a bit annoying, tbh
I still think the best way would be the commander making the squads, and the free upgrade should be be deattached from squads. That way the commander could switch people to squads more relevant to their position/situation on the fly. Also the free upgrade with a squad is just pointless, is it because it encourages teamwork? Being in a squad already has advantages, and with features still to come it'll be even better. Squading up, and getting your free skill after, is a big waste of time and tedious to do (having to communicate about something simple as that aswell), the beginning is imo the most important moment of the game. I know the pre-game phase that is going to be implimented will fix this, but why should making squads rely on this, the commander might aswell make squads in the pre-game phase and tell them what to do. But then again the devs have probably already thought about this, just my 2cents.
@ beerdude; currently, your "squad" doesn't really mean anything; your squad can be anyone. if what you're looking for is respawning at your squad, thats something entirely different. as for suddenly becoming part of the engy squad at base, this wouldn't really be bad. i guess what is bad is if your comm suddenly thinks your one of the defensive engy's. but other than that it would make squads no less than what they currently are.
area based squad bonus instead of free skill is the way to go, along with 1 min pregame time to squad up and vote a com
That is indeed not the problem, but if you move out of their area of, umm, squad-influence (:p), do you automatically leave their squad? You will then have no squad at all, and will have to go look for your regular squaddies.
i guess a good solution is that if you leave a squad (ie, get more than 50 m away from the squad officer), then you can press a button ("find squad button") that draws a client side line from you to him. you would also get sounds warning you when you are at 40m away (about to loose squad) and 50m (have lost squad.) the find squad button would work only for 60 seconds, and to be used any time. sound ok?
I like this "soft squad" idea, bonanis for staying close to team members, but then it would be like the entire team is onr squad and you get bonisis for staying close, not nesiserily a bad thing...
Well I see this as a way for squads to actually be squads. As it is currently must people squad up at the beginning to get the squad bonus then run off by themselves. With auto squads you'll get a bonus as long as you stick together. Also with this is a nice replacement for the current squad system where you have to find a squad member in order to join in. Instead all you have to do is get near someone on your team. As an add note make it so that an teammate near the comm becomes member of the comm squad.
I find the automatic squading thingy ok, but the automatic leaving thingy seems more of an annoyance. Maybe have it that you have to leave your squad the traditional way?
Automatic squads sounds great, I think some HL1 mod had this to some extent. When you were close to your teammates you accuracy increased etc, and some helmets popped to your HUD to indicate how many teammates are close to you. Automatic leaving and entering sounds both good to me, so you can concentrate to playing the game, instead of playing with the menus.
but if you don't automatically leave when you get far away then it defeats the purpose. the soft squads idea means that you get squad bonuses when you actually function as a squad.
I am all for bonuses when squad mates are near eachother, but taking the control over what squad you are in out of the player's hands (making it automatic) seems to be too restrictive. What if the squad has to break up for a certain task (assaulting a base from multiple directions?) before regrouping? It should definately be up to the player who he squads with. If some kind of warm-up period at the start of a round were implemented (this suggestion was welcomed in another thread) as well as an improved menu system, then setting up squads really wouldn't be that difficult. This is Broccoli, asking you to say NO to automatic squadding!
the thing is, you would NEVER assault from different angles in this game, and if you did; you would be doing it as seperate squads, not individuals. take in mind that the squad leave area would be quite far off; it's not as though you would actually have to stick right together; just be in the same basic part of the map.
i like automatic squadding, but would like it more if it was something like if you were near a squad leader you would get the bonus. nvm, then the problem of who will be squad leader is left. auto squading for the win
An interesting idea would be the have it so that different classes adds different bonus to a squad. ex and squad of only engineers would have only like faster building, but add in a rifleman and you'll also get increase accuracy.
