Discussion about Squad size

(bontsa) #1

I feel that there has been quite a while the last time this aspect has been brought into discussion, and since the last time we’ve had 2 mercenary classes filled (for now), with all in all 4 new mercs joining the roster. With the introduction of Phoenix and Stoker, Medic and Fire Support classes are having all the options familiar from earlier testing enviroments, and with Phantom and Red-Eye our recon class has more variety to it now too.

How do people feel about current squad size of 3 possible mercenaries to pick while in heat of battle? Personally I think we don’t need to go all the way to how it apparently has been in earlier testing versions, where one could be able to choose 1 merc for each class (Medic, Fire Support, Engineer, Assault, Recon), but rather add the squad size up-to 4. With possibly even the ability to choose same merc with simply different loadout.

As a player who doesn’t take pubs, least in my own opinion, too seriously but still want to be use for the team, I have found with our current 3 merc squad I’ve gotten increasingly often the feeling of “Oh darn, I wish I had X in my list here now”. For competitive matchmaking’s and real competitive’s meta I have no clear idea what this type of change would do.

Also with increasing amount of mercs, having missions with certain merc in your squad can lessen your options to choose while in game. This is arguable though, since said missions are supposed to be hinting one trying out certain mercs, but theres lot of us that have gotten those “Get X amount of gamemode XP with Proxy in your squad” missions and just cringe because thats 3rd time in a row we’ve gotten that, and seen dozen of games with Proxy rushes already.

With 4 merc option we could adapt to different situations more and maybe add diversity, more complexity into individual matches phasing, as people can switch classes with more variety. It also wouldn’t restrict new players so much if they pick e.g 2 Fire Supports at once without realising it. Discussion ahoy!

(TheAcidpiss) #2

I wouldn’t mind another merc to choose from ingame

(Faraleth) #3

Yeah, I’ve been asking for a 4th squad slot for a looooong time now, but the developers are pretty set on the “pick 3” system, sadly :frowning: And I don’t think it will change any time soon, as much as I’d like it to.

(Haki) #4

isn’t the whole point of only having three mercs in your squad not being able to cover all classes ?
Of course I’d enjoy having a fourth slot, but I would probably end up using the same four mercs because I’m just so used to that combination, since they cover all abilities needed.

Let’s say I have Sparks, Fletcher and Skyhammer in my squad and i have to use Nader for a Mission. This means that I either have to get rid of an “essential class”(imo medics&engis) or lose the potential to take out an EV in one go.

These are just my thoughts and worries but I honestly wouldn’t mind having more slots available :smiley:

(MarsRover) #5

4th slot for pub - I don’t feel the need but I’m also not opposed. I’d be satisfied if I could choose two loadouts for 1 mec out of the 3 - switching between Blishlock and shotgun Fletcher gets boring very fast.

(DMaster2) #6

I’d like to see a 4th option. Since Vassili is my main he’s always (unless i get 3 merc missions all at the same time) in, leaving the rest of the two between medic, engi, assault and fire support. Sometimes i really wish i have another option so i can cover a bit more.

(GiantGiant) #7

I was thinking about having two different squads, one for CDA and another for Jackal. It would be nice to see it especially on pub objective games when you don’t know if you will be on attacking or defending side. Then I could use for example Aura as when in defence or Sawbonez when attacking or Bushwacker/Proxy …

(Jostabeere) #8

I can quote myself: “We need teamplay and not one-man-heroes who can pick every merc on their own”
You are NOT supposed to have everything, as @Haki mentioned, so you rely on your team.
To be honest, it looks like a thread about missions and not the “ability to play more mercs” to me.

(bontsa) #9

My intention was not to highlight the subject solely through mission arguement, but rather add it as one extra reason why people would feel like extra squad slot could be meaningful. Pardon me for bringing it up so that it seems like getting too much attention.

One’s merc choises can differ somewhat lot when being on attacking or defending side. This could definitely be addressed by like @Giant suggested, having 2 possibly different 3 man squads that swap depending on team you’re currently on. If executed so however, I see UI needing quite a change and lobby times need revisiting too since now people would need tad longer time to pick their mercs for 2 squads. I feel that having 1 squad containing 4 mercs would too give just enough options for both attacking and defending side.

It is a very good point that the class based games are indeed built around the idea of one player not being the absolute carry as an one-man army, excelling at doing everything needed during the match. That was not the driving point of the thought of having extra slot however, since even with more mercs at your disposal you can change them only at the next spawnwave, when the situation you “would’ve needed merc X just now” is already over. So even if your current roster includes medic, fire support and engineer, adding e.g. assault there doesnt really make anyone god-amogst-men. If you picked assault for some spawnwave and C4 blew up, didn’t really help that you had the engi in your roster. However joining a lobby and noticing no one has engineer in their 3 man squad, you really wish you didn’t just switch your Bushwhacker for Fragger when the timer starts ticking down. 4 man squad allows one to react to different situations better, but thanks to current pick class - respawn mechanic, no one can really do everything at once.

I think teamplay arises from other aspects than limiting option variety too greatly. I dont think this suggested change would bring any more or less teamplay. The way I feel people best learn the gets and goes of the game, is simply making them get the basic knowledge through some more organized way (tutorial and/or more guiding towards low level servers) and after that dropping them into “deeper water to try out swimming”, but that’s discussion for another thread(s).

Just wanted to find out if such thoughts has passed other player’s minds and what seems to be overall opinions on current squad size.

(3N1GM4) #10

When playing in a well organized 5 stack, the pick 3 system isn’t bad. When solo queuing and you have about 2 seconds to make your merc decisions AND navigate a laggy menu.

I hardly ever have enough time to switch out my squad and usually when I do, so does my team, which negates my choices.

“Oh, we have 3 skyhammers, I’ll take a nader or fragger”
… Swap out my skyhammer and come back to the lobby …
“WTF, we have 3 vasillies and now no skyhammers?!?”

Also, why does the “Game starts in” counter go from like 0:35 -> 0:05 as soon as the swap time is finished. Lets go with one ACCURATE timer, not two timers where the “main” one is completely false.

(HoopleDoople) #11

The problem with squad size limited to 3 is that it doesn’t allow a player to take a merc of each vital role (everything except recon, which can be useful but isn’t required). In theory it shouldn’t matter because your allies should be able to cover any role you are lacking. In practice it is not uncommon to find pub teams lacking anyone playing a specific role or willing to switch to it.

I find this most problematic on Stopwatch maps that have an EV. In most other cases you could skip either the Fire Support, Engineer, or Assault role without sacrificing too much. But a Fire Support is desperately needed for disabling the EV, an Engineer for repairing it, and an Assault for the furious battle over the final objective.

Increasing the squad size to 4 would certainly be one good option to solve this problem. If the devs are set on limiting the squad to 3 some alternative options could be considered. Perhaps pubs could use a bounty system to encourage players to cover missing roles. For example, if a team had no medic for a couple minutes the game would auto-detect this and then identify a player who is playing a redundant role and has a medic merc in his squad. This player would be offered a large experience bonus for switching to medic (switching to another role while still the lone medic would negate this bonus, switching when other players are covering medic would be fine).

(watsyurdeal) #12

Imo the pick 3 is pretty flawed when you consider the fact that there are free rotations, merc specific missions, and new updates with a new merc each month that everyone wants to try out.

If they want balanced games, THIS is where a change would absolutely help. Because nobody is going to pick the mercs best suited for their team, they are going to pick the mercs they do best with. In my case, I’ll pick Fragger with an M4, Sawbonez and Bush with an SMG 9, and start playing. But I miss a support and recon, so if we need those, we’re boned. Plus certain mercs STILL need a lot of love because if anything, they are annoying but hardly balanced. Arty, Phantom, and Rhino come to mind.

So, I think 4 instead of 3, or any 5 cards you want would be nice. This way you could have 2 cards for the same merc but different guns or augments depending on the situation.

I think there’s a lot of room for variety, and I think the whole “more than 3 will make it unbalanced” argument is a load of crap. plenty of class based games have all classes available at any given time and there is no major balance problem except class spam…which we already get so it’s a mute point.

(retief) #13

The point of the squad system is to balance the game for free to play players/newer players. Unlocking more mercs doesn’t give you additional options once the game starts, which means that unlocking additional mercs doesn’t give you as much of an advantage. Increasing squad size gives more of an advantage to people with lots of mercs unlocked.

Fragger/bushwacker/sawbones is already stronger (arguably) than the skyhammer/proxy/aura that a new player would probably be using this week. However, at least the experienced player has to give up access to an important class if he wants to bring fragger along. He can’t just bring fragger along for free.

With 4 slots open, an experienced player can bring someone like fragger or nader while still covering medic/engineer/fire support. New players, on the other hand, have to double up on fire support or medic this week. That extra versatility gives a significant advantage to the more experienced player.

(bontsa) #14

@Retief you brought a very interesting point into discussion right there! I never thought of it this way, but now I can see more clearly the thought process behind developer’s decision to stick with 3 for now.

However I think adding one more to roster still does not bring too much of an advantage, as you’re still able to use only one at a time and change for the next spawnwave. More interesting and relevant the squad size discussion will become whenever we get clear answer to do we or do we not ever get one Engineer free for everyone like Skyhammer and Aura.

(signofzeta) #15

[quote=“coolFortress;107593”]@Retief you brought a very interesting point into discussion right there! I never thought of it this way, but now I can see more clearly the thought process behind developer’s decision to stick with 3 for now.

However I think adding one more to roster still does not bring too much of an advantage, as you’re still able to use only one at a time and change for the next spawnwave. More interesting and relevant the squad size discussion will become whenever we get clear answer to do we or do we not ever get one Engineer free for everyone like Skyhammer and Aura.[/quote]

So far, the free rotation always has one engineer in it.

(watsyurdeal) #16

The point of the squad system is to balance the game for free to play players/newer players. Unlocking more mercs doesn’t give you additional options once the game starts, which means that unlocking additional mercs doesn’t give you as much of an advantage. Increasing squad size gives more of an advantage to people with lots of mercs unlocked.

Fragger/bushwacker/sawbones is already stronger (arguably) than the skyhammer/proxy/aura that a new player would probably be using this week. However, at least the experienced player has to give up access to an important class if he wants to bring fragger along. He can’t just bring fragger along for free.

With 4 slots open, an experienced player can bring someone like fragger or nader while still covering medic/engineer/fire support. New players, on the other hand, have to double up on fire support or medic this week. That extra versatility gives a significant advantage to the more experienced player.[/quote]

Maybe, but that only proves that the default 2 mercs are simply not enough, there needs to be 1 of each type AT LEAST for new players to be on an even footing.

Personally I don’t see why they wouldn’t.

(signofzeta) #17

The reason why it is one medic and one fire support is because of the healing and ammo ability more than anything. I guess Splash Damage didn’t want a situation where there a bunch of new guys who picked a class that didn’t heal or give ammo.

Thunder, Turtle, and Aimee can be the free mercs from the remaining 3 classes, provided Turtle has an SMG. Then all free classes from the start can have one of each weapon type.

Thunder has LMG
Aura has shotgun
Turtle has SMG
Skyhammer has assault rifle
Aimee has sniper

Or maybe new players get Aura and Skyhammer for free, but they have to do some stuff like play a certain number of matches, get a friend to play this game, or do some other stuff just to unlock Thunder, Turtle, and Aimee for free.

To be honest, it is too late now, but I’d rather have no free mercs, and have 5 mercs on free rotation, one of each class.