I'm starting this topic because of how in every game I've played in recently, there's always one squad per team, and everyone joins it. There's no point to squads other than to join and get the free skill. It wasn't evident until the squad panel was implemented, and the squad panel could easily be reduced to two buttons: [join Alpha squad] [leave alpha squad]. 1. I want to limit the amount of players to each squad to 4-6. This will force people to have multiple squads and might keep them together better. 2. Squads currently get points that go to the whole squad (the number at the top of the squad HUD next to the squad name is how many points the squad has accumulated). The only thing they're good for is that every 2 points gives every squad member a point. Instead of this, I'm going to make it so that the squad leader can use these points to use squad skills. The one skill I plan to add is a call reinforcements one where all dead squad members will be instantly revived at the squad leader's position. This is not like BF2's squad leader where the squad leader has a constant spawn point. This requires a conscious thought on the squad leader's part to say "a few or all of my guys are dead" and then press a button to instantly bring them back (call in reinforcements). It will use up the squad's points making it a limited use skill.
Nice. 1. I think, 5 players per squad is quite a good amount for it. 4 is not enough, 6 are to many in my opinion. 2. I like the idea. But I would like to see the squad being forced to play together. It's still, that you can join a squad and being at the opposite end of the map and still benefit from it. Think of something like an aura(?) for either only around the squadleader (30ft or something like that) that increases accuracy, damage and health a little bit. Or an aura for every class, so that it is important to have one of each class in a squad. Riflemen could have something like increasing damage, Engineers regenerating health etc for all squadmembers around 30ft. Or the aura depends on the skills, that were choosen by the squadmembers. For Example: If someone takes Regeneration it gives regeneration to all squadmembers within 30ft, but at a lower regeneration rate.
Proximity bonuses would encourage team-work I think, and I agree that 5 is a nice number for a squad. I'm not so sure about the reinforcements skill. It just seems like a bit of a cheat to me. I can imagine it being very frustrating for a squad leader to infiltrate your base alone and then *bam* 4 guys come out of nowhere. It doesn't make sense to just have players appear. Maybe they could spawn at the location they died at, or he can call them all to a single spawn point (without the usual 10 second delay).
5 per squad is perfect. 1 officer and 4 peons. Squad points go bye bye?! well ok. So for this new "skill" does he have to actually get the skill or is it just part of being the squad leader. If it takes up a skill slot then no ones gana want to be squad leader after they can fill all the slots with skills. As for aura's We have discussed aura's before, and it flopped. I however do like the idea. Something like all the skills the squad leader has works on the peons if they are close to him with an 80% reduction(except no revive). For the points to count up they have to be close to squad leader for him to gain that point when they make one. Not like next to him close but, in the auras effective range or a bit outside of it. That way they arn't half way across a map and squad leader gets a point. Maby even allow a daisy chain aura effect. Say like the squad is in a line. (P)eon (S)quad leader () red = squad leaders aura range () white = virtual aura peons have (P (P S P) P) Say like far left peon makes a kill. As long as he is within the second left peons fake aura range who is in range of the Squad leaders aura, the squad leader gets the point. And I don't think he meant re-enforcement as in boom 4 more guys there. Im sure he meant they revive where they died. ZOMG never ending district!!!:cry:
5 seems fine Reinforcement thing is a good idea (though I could bet it would be seen as copying Insurgencies SL reinforcement ability by some, even if it is a little different) Would be cool to have a few squad leader abilities that affect the whole squad or something.
Auras wouldn't be difficult to throw in too. Rifleman = more damage aura. Grenadier = more armor aura?. Scout = stamina recharge aura?. Engineer = healing aura.
Rifleman = better aim or maby armor. this seems better for this class Granader = more damage scout = faster movement? Engineer = healing
Engineer: Healing Rifleman: Accuracy Scout: Speed Grenadier: Damage 5 is a good number, I think. I would also like to see stacking skills in vehicles, so if you had an engineer passenger, you would slowly heal over time, grenadier could give a small amount of increased armor etc.
Healing for the engineer seems kinda pointless: if you've got an engineer nearby, surely he should be healing you anyway?
How about heal infantry, auto-repair vehicles? Ofcourse, a slow repair, and perhaps only hull is auto-repaired, unless you have repair upgrade, which could allow armor repair.
The good thing will be is if you have a bad squad leader you and the rest of your members could just leave to start a new squad, and using the 'C' menu it will be easy.
can the commander be in a squad? whilst in the ideal world of having full servers it may matter less, if you need someone to jump into the comm chair to drop anything or to do some research (because you cant afford a full time comm) then its a pain to be forcibly de-squaded. That'd matter less without the free skill point obviously but its still a pain to have to rejoin. What would happen with squad leaders if the leader left the squad? I assume it'd go to the next longest running member? would you want to have any penalty for having 5 spread out members rather than say a group of 2 and a group of 3? no reason (apart from people going in large squads for the squad points) why you would I just wondered as currently any squad mates will do.
I don't like the respawn idea. I think this is just very unnatural and not very practical in the game. Can the commander select units per squad at the moment? If not, this would be the most important thing to add. I would like some features to improve the commanders control too. He could maybe have the possibility to choose, which unit classes (engineer, rifleman etc..) have to be in a squad and how many of them. Or maybe the Squadleader could do this and the commander would have to select the squad leaders. The commander could give orders to the squadleaders, who will give more specialized orders to his soldiers. This would propably make the game more tactical, because at the moment, the commander seldom gives much tactical orders to his units. You could even allow the squadleader to build some predefined buildings (like turrents, walls, armory, completely new ones (bunker?), or whatever). the commander could restrict the squadleader's resources or the buildings, he is able to build. Another idea is to give the squadleader some special abilities like calling a napalm bomber, a cruise missle, a "call for transport" (air units arrive and transport the whole squad to another location), setup a kind of base which acts as spawnpoint etc... Just a few ideas, awaiting comments EDIT: An Example: The commander gives the order to capture a resource point to commander alpha and allows him to build one refinery and as much turrets as he wants. Squadleader alpha then orders his rifelman and grenadier to secure the resource point, places the refinery and some turrents and orders the engineer to build them.
I think the biggest reason that the squad system is not utilized as intended is because it was never implemented as intended. Skill sharing within squads within radius of the squad leader to encourage groups to work together, the ability to create and manage subsquads, speed bonuses such that all players moved at the same speed to stick together, multiple methods of squad creation (including allowing the commander to do so), are all features that were once planned which haven't been implemented. At the moment the only benefit to joining a squad is the free skill, because all the other benefits were being held off on while more important things were coded in (read, the base gameplay). I still think these are the best options to follow. A point against a harsh limit on the number of people allowed in a squad (though previous discussions had suggested a cap of 10) is the dynamic with large numbers of players as is (was?) the goal. Playing in GC in the 1942 days (organized competitive community) the base squads regularly exceeded even 10 players. Still everything was organized; it provided the possibility to break into small groups or push a major assault as nescessary. This is the flexibility the squad system needs to provide. The best way to do that is by allowing squads to form subsquads, and to give this structure a good system of communication. This of course goes hand in hand with the other planned bonuses, which encourage people to join squads for the sake of teamwork. As soon as a hard cap is placed on the number of squad members you limit the tactical choices that are given to the players. ----------------------- In response to metalhead, From what I see the good commanders do. Excellent ideas! Perhaps we could even add aircraft, and let players fill those roles!
For people who dislike the squad leader spawn idea MetalHead and others: As long as the auto-spawn isn't too overpowered, it would make an interesting addition to gameplay. My knee-jerk reaction to Krenzo's first post about the ability is that it'll be a bad thing, but that was my knee-jerk reaction to APCs being spawnpoints. When this change was first instituted, I thought making an APC a spawn point would be too exploitable and much too strong in a game, and would make barracks useless. But as we can see, it's become easily balanced and in no way nullifies the use of a barracks. So I'm confident that a squad leader spawn can be balanced as well. It may take a couple of revisions, tweaks, and adjustments, but it'll be do-able. Response To Metalhead: What Falcon X said, but: As for your other ideas, we DONT want to make squads to complicated. If it takes 5 minutes just to plan out and balance your squad, nobodies gonna do it, they're just gonna rush the refs. You could have people organize squads during commander voting, but the newbies will just get bored and pissed by this. And remember, each ability that becomes automated is one less ability for players to use-- making a napalm strike should be something that a player can do when aircraft are implemented. (edit: I read FalconX's stuff after I typed this. I know I'm just echoing him.) Also, dropping buildings is a commander function. Making/dropping buildings is an engineer function. Spotting things (like the airstrikes or arty strikes) or marking areas for transport pickup are scout functions. Joining a squad should give a NEW or original function that can't be easily imitated by other gameplay mechanics, or what's the point of joining the squad? Auras and other stuff They sound fine, idk what each class would give in an aura. Here's a thought--somehow link rank and points (skill system) to squad leadership. It would be a pain in the ass to make this idea work right, but it just bugs the crap out of me that a Master Sergeant would be taking orders from a private.
