Just curious what others think would work better than 4-man squads, which aren't near large enough in my opinion.
I'm leaning towards 8-man squads myself due to the 128 player size.
Of course with all the "legacy" squad features like locking squads and kicking squad members and such.
Oh yes and the ability to go solo if you wish.
Anyway what are ya'll's thoughts?
@Ironhead841 wrote:Just curious what others think would work better than 4-man squads, which aren't near large enough in my opinion.
I'm leaning towards 8-man squads myself due to the 128 player size.
Of course with all the "legacy" squad features like locking squads and kicking squad members and such.
Oh yes and the ability to go solo if you wish.
Anyway what are ya'll's thoughts?
Yeah I agree the larger the better, squad play is currently pretty much non existent in BF2042.
Due to the missing legacy squad features you mention above I feel like I am playing as a one man army most of the time.
Even when playing as squad leader most of the time I can't even mark the flag to capture as that feature seems bugged and it just marks it as a location rather than a flag. Has anyone else noticed that. ?
The ability to change squad is also badly needed for obvious reasons, and not being able to switch is currently hindering squad play.
Anyway overall to answer your question either 6 or 8 would work for me as long as they add back in all the missing legacy squad features.
Let's hope we see big Squad improvements in the next update.
@Ironhead841
I would prefer bigger squads and 4 is definitely to few for 64 vs 64, but the maximum I see is 6, maybe even 5 for 64 player matches.
The reason why bigger squad sizes might be TOO big is that this would cause an imbalance and less fun for players that don't have a clan they play with but only have one or two fiends to play together with and be able to communicate.
If they -- even with an squad filled with four other random blueberries -- then encounter a squad of say 8 players that work in a coordinated fashion, they stand as much of a chance to win this as the Ukrainian army has in repelling the Russian invaders.
I personally would love having 8 man squads going against other coordinated 8 man squads from a different clan (or also our own). This might be fun (once the game is fixed and has content), but I see that the chance is higher that the other squad would consist of many uncoordinated or at least less well coordinated randoms that would not be having fun getting steam rolled.
So, there needs to be a balance and I guess 6 is the maximum that would improve the situation but would still be fun for everyone (and maybe just 5 for 64 player matches).
8 man could be good for the 128 player modes, to give more spawn points etc, or even just over all game modes.
Good stuff fellas.
Yes, changing squads should be a must as well as the ability to go solo and lock squads. Invite/Kick options too.
Adding VOIP is going to help of course as well. Changing scoring to encourage squad use, as you point out could also help.
@DuaneDibbley I can see the argument for 6-man squads for sure I don't think 5 is enough personally but that's just my opinion.
I concede it probably wouldn't be very fun for random players to get rolled by 8-man squads filled with clanmates.
@Ironhead841 wrote:Just curious what others think would work better than 4-man squads, which aren't near large enough in my opinion.
I'm leaning towards 8-man squads myself due to the 128 player size.
Of course with all the "legacy" squad features like locking squads and kicking squad members and such.
Oh yes and the ability to go solo if you wish.
Anyway what are ya'll's thoughts?
Personally, I think 8-man is too large without changes to spawn mechanics - we can already spawn on any active squad member and an 8-man squad could easily equip 2 spawn beacons without losing anti-vehicle effectiveness - 2 beacons, 1 SOFLAM, 5 M5s and 1 Angel (supply drop and quick revive!) That's 30 M5s with lock-on capabilities before the crate cooldown. Moreover, it would be almost - if not outright - impossible to wipe a squad and send it back to base. It would turn every match into a Grind weekend.
As it stands, I think that before we can really assess the effectiveness of 4-man squads, we need VOIP. I suspect that a small increase to squad size (say to 5- or 6-man) with VOIP would address many of the frustrations.
A 6-man squad with only-squad-leader-spawn would be my preferred option.
Honestly...does the game have to be 128 though? What about reducing sizes to 100, freeing up some CPU overhead for more map complexity and other things, and slightly larger squads of say, 5? That allows for 10 squads per-team, closer to the 8 squads per-team in 64 players than the 16 squads per-team in 128.
Fewer squads overall, a 25% increase in squad size to allow for more teamplay and slightly larger groups of friends, and slightly less players overall in the game while still staying closer to 128 vs. 64. Obviously would require revisiting the 64 player cap on smaller maps as well. But like, it seems BF2042 is critically looking at a lot of the "core" concepts in BF including classes and the 64 player size to begin with, so why not keep the questions going?
They'd still need to allow for multi-squad support so you could play with more than just a single squad worth of friends though.
6-8
Yeah I admit I hadn't really considered that in my initial pitch for 8-man squads, you and @DuaneDibbley make excellent points and as I said in a subsequent post, I conceded 8 was probably too many.
We absolutely need VOIP, which I understand is supposed to be coming.
I think increasing it to 5 or 6-man squads is a good idea, WITH squad management options. I like the idea of the squad leader being the only squad- member to be able to spawn on other than spawn beacon.
