Squad's Unsolvable Problem

Hey guys, I know this is the second video I made criticizing squad, so I just want to say: I love squad! I’ve been having a blast playing it. I don’t want to give the impression that I am a hater. This will probably be the last video I make on the topic unless something new comes out. I’m already working on a new faction guide so make sure to check in soon! And lastly thank you for all the positive comments and support. i know i might sound cheesy, but it’s worth its weight in gold. P.S. don't understand why some vocal minority are claiming that i like battlefield( i haven't even touched a battlefield game in years), or want to casualize squad, or want to turn squad into battlefield or HLL. those who say these things clearly have not watched the video. i explicitly say i do NOT want squad to be dumbed down, and praise it for it's complexity and depth, while borderline admonishing HLL for it's simplicity. please actually watch the video before making wild assumptions like that in the future. thanks.

Squad lives and dies on people being able to communicate and coordinate. OWI lies in the bed they made if they fail to make a game that fosters good SLs that communicate and coordinate.

OG americas army had these requirements. You had to sit through a no shit first aid class and pass a test, in order to play medic 😂

clan kids and admins ruined this game, all the things you said in this video 100%. the amount of mute players is insane I feel like I'm playing with bots sometimes.

I don't think Squad will move towards casualization. More complex systems that were announced will make it harder to play, especially for BF zergs. I don't want to casualize it either, I want more people to learn and enjoy the complexity. Hopefully it's possible.

As someone who has never played battlefield and finally has gotten a full interest in squad, I feel like you are focusing too heavily on new players and assuming they all play the same and expect the same thing outside of squad, lots of people will find squad through various means and not all comes from the same place. But also, most people find games through videos of the games, lots of squad media poses squad as how it is played and supposed to be played, so I don't think Squad attracts the wrong people. I personally do notice that just about every time the team loses, and by a lot, everyone quickly notices, it's because we didn't do the necessary things like get up more fobs around the objective so people do get better at the game every match, and learn the teamwork aspect pretty damn fast. As long as people pay attention to the map, squad leaders can quickly find out what is going wrong and how to fix it in future matches. Squad definitely isn't for everyone too, people who play cod, battlefield and those games religiously probably won't find interest in these kinds of heavy teamwork games anyways because squad obviously isn't a run and gun game, heck even lots of ARMA players don't like Squad because it isn't realistic enough (heard this from the most recent Squad newbie that plays ARMA I met). Now one issue I see, is that Squads retention is also heavily based on community, which as the game continues to get larger, is an issue, because people start to only play a couple servers, then the community kinda splits on things because everyone gets their eco chambers unintentionally, which I assume you have found yourself in considering you think everyone is a battlefield veteran. I don't personally see how Squad will die outside of a shit rework.

Me and my homies in my unit all got Squad and started playing it pretty regularly, we decided that we wanted to be a mortar squad for the night so we get set in. After we got set up and started hammering the objective we were stopped by a random admin who flew noclipped in like it was Gmod. He said "You guys cant just mortar the objective because how is the other team supposed to defend?"

I feel like I've never encountered the problems you expose on this videos. Where I play (South American servers) I rarely see SL's being silent and unresponsive. It has happened of course, but it's not as frequent as I suspect being like in other servers. What I feel Squad's missing is in the "Combined Arms" aspect as tanks and other vehicles are rarely seen on the frontlines and most of the time they just roam around the map chasing other vehicles.

Every time I've played HLL I've never really had the chance to coordinate or work with a squad because no one talks, it's worse than squad in my opinion simply because I haven't had the chance to work together with anyone.

It's not optimised My pc is way higher than recommended settings yet some servers freezes so much ...

The situation is worse in Europe, you either find a full group on Discord or it's everyone yelling in their own languages.

Its really a bizarre phenomenon how the more popular it gets the more we see its flaws. I do remember how old squad was better but, it was flawed as in graphics and infantry mechanics were not up to par as it is now. Totally with the work you described could totally change blueberries behavior. The only actual "old squad" experience right now gets tied up in discord events by the different better servers. Maybe Moidawg's Epsorts.

The major issue in Squad is Laziness of the players XD

Squad leading is in a weird spot right now. Limiting the role isn't necessarily what I'd like to see from this design problem. I think the key to this is FTL and Commander reorganizing and to spread features out from SL exclusive actions to offload a bit of the burden from every capable SL, like allowing more flexibility with who sets down repair stations, MG and AGL emplacements, etc. The map marking system needs a usability overhaul, Lazing targets needs to be implemented in some manner, the DEPLOYMENT screen needs to be readjusted to disallow kit changing after staging phase entirely to prevent ammunition drain. I'd say Squad is way less intimidating of a sim game than Tarkov and ARMA, but it offers something incredibly special compared to them. I ultimately found HLL to be exhausting after a year. I'd regularly had play commander there because all you're really doing is serving up assets and managing spawn locations. Asset management was so much less tedious there. Now in Squad I'm seeing 1,000hr+ SLs just throw assets away and how fucking dare I ever question a really questionable plan. I can make a plan and I'll have at least a handful of people trying to simply stop my version of a plan in command chat to give themselves a priority (?) in the chat. There's a lot of egotism in this game it's probably the worst thing about the role of SL. Having to listen to the gripes of absolutely delusional SLs and team members just playing slots until they have a good time, magically, with no effort, will probably end my enjoyment eventually.

Man you got me in the first half I was so worried this was gonna end with “and that’s why squad needs to dumb down mechanics like HLL” But absolutely yes. Improved tutorials are absolutely needed. Lock HAT, LAT, etc behind special kit specific tutorials. Lock the “Create Squad” button behind a tutorial as well.

To anyone watching right now, please know that Squad 44 is still alive, and currently boasts 900 players active right now. It is being fed regular updates, with a hinted Pacific update later in the year

i only bought and started playing squad christmas of 2020, but since then i've definitely noticed a shift in playerbase in general. back then i would join a server and it seemed like all 50 players were talking and communicating, or at least cooperating. nowadays even when I try to squad lead and keep it as simple as possible so many people are just unresponsive or ignore you. it seems like the majority of players arent there for the strategy part just the action. and its not entirely new players faults, ive seen hundreds of veterans simply refuse to teach new players or just be edge lords and order people around like they're below them. i tried getting a friend into the game about a year and 1/2 ago but it always felt like i had to hold their hand because no one else was kind enough to help them. i couldn't ask him to just ask the guy next to him bc they just wouldn't help him. super odd how self destructive the squad community is

squad needs to stay a niche game , thats why it is getting more players , because it attracts a precise kind of gamers

PS also had the issue of, and while I hate the word but it fits here, toxicity. Not mean words, but people actively booting people because they were “the wrong clan”, not being in a clan, and general elitism and other shit.

I watched the entire video and my ARMA reforger mods are still installing