Tartantyco

The inherent problem with these kinds of ranking systems is that they don't reflect what they are intended to. There's no game I can think of where I have ever gone "Oh, this guy is a rank X, that must mean he's good". No. It just means he's accumulated the necessary stats to unlock a badge. It doesn't actually say anything about that person's capabilities I've played with people who have SL'd for ages who still don't grasp the most basic concepts of Squad, people who play armor all the time and still manage to lose every vehicle they get their hands on. Any kind of in-game stats you choose to use(Time played, time SL'd, K/D, time in vehicles, etc.) will fail to actually gauge the capabilities of that player, which means that nobody's going to pay any attention to those ranks as they're completely inaccurate. It's like trying to decide the best performing squad in a match by looking at the scores. A ranking system in itself may not be bad, but a simple stats driven one will never be able to be a true representation of that player's experience and abilities. That's why I have previously suggested a player-driven ranking system in which nothing has any inherent value, so the value comes from what the players put into it.

That's me: Adequately accurate.

No, the underlying stats show that the stable peak player count per month has gone from 1,500 to 3,000, the seeming downward trend is just because of new updates, free weekends and sales skyrocketing the player count, as well as peaks during summer. I'm sure it's not the growth they'd like to see, but it would be hard to misconstrue this as a downward trend.

Because it's midday there and people are at work/school.....

This will just incentivize squads to clump up for no discernible strategic or tactical reason, which is a negative reinforcement. The "near FOB/Near Flag" suggestions I think would also serve to restrict the viable strategic and tactical options. Your suggestions also heavily dissuades smaller squads.Overall, your suggestions would incentivize squads making sub-optimal strategic and tactical choices to reduce their respawn time, substantially reduce the viable play space on the map, limit the viable strategic and tactical options available to the team, and cause more manpower waste than is already the case in the game. The Rally Point stuff is just a jumbled mess of complicated rules that should have no place in a game that is already overly complicated and is in need of streamlining.

You cannot spawn on the objective, but you can place a FOB/HAB on it if you wish.

No, the players themselves place the objectives and controlling a majority of terrain is not the objective.

Basically, teams will place their own objectives on the map and defend those, while attacking the enemy placed objectives. All figures are pretty arbitrary and not really balanced, so don't get hung up on those. You lose tickets constantly from the start of the game. Each team starts with 1000 tickets and a 50 per minute ticket bleed. This pushes teams to move out quickly. The battlefield is divided into multiple zones, and you can reduce ticket loss by placing objectives within those zones. Dividing the map into four zones, your team would not be able to place objectives in the zone closest to your Main Base. Placing objectives in the remaining zones would reduce ticket bleed by 10, 20, and 30 tickets per objective. Ticket reduction cannot go beyond 0 ticket bleed(If you place two objectives in the 30 ticket zone, you don't start gaining 10 tickets per minute). Objectives cannot be placed within 500m of each other. Just to ensure that there's no excessive clumping up of objectives. Gain tickets by taking out enemy placed objectives. Taking out an enemy objective will gain your team 50 tickets. The enemy team will not lose any tickets. I'm just using an idealized flat map for the explanation, but zones would be adapted to suit the map terrain. I'm also using a four zone division, but this could be increased and follow the grid system to more accurately reflect the difficulty of holding a certain position. Placed objectives would be visible on the map to the enemy team and would be a non-destructible emplacement separate from FOBs. It would create a capture zone just like flags in AAS, and upon capture it would disappear. They are Squad Leader deployable, but require some construction supplies and shoveling to activate.

Putting the team first. If something isn't being done and you can't get someone else to do it, you do it yourself.

Vehicles not being in the same squad does not stop them from working together...

I'll have to disagree with you on this, @Quadro. The core of the game is teamwork, not teamwork specifically between 9-man squads. In fact, I find 9-man squads to be more of a detriment to gameplay most times, as the vast majority of squad leaders are incapable of managing a squad of that size. As long as the different squads work together, and as long as it is not detrimental to the team's ability to win the match, it shouldn't matter what size the squads are. When you have just a few large squads, you often end up without any kind of inter-discipline combined arms teamwork. When a 9-man squad has an IFV, they generally just use that IFV for their own purpose, and the SL is unable or unwilling to support other squads with it. When the IFV is in its separate squad, all SLs can directly communicate with it, and it has the latitude to deploy where it wants to. Plenty of times, I've tried to get fire support from a tank or IFV, or transport from an APC, that is embedded in a larger infantry squad without success. The SL is either too busy to act as a go-between or is just using it for their task, even if that task does not require it. When I contact a dedicated IFV or Tank squad, I usually get an instant response and the fire support I require. Even as pure infantry squads, 9-man squads are usually inefficient. If there is a task, a 9-man squad usually takes all 9 players to complete that task, even if the task only requires 1 or 3 people. Backcapping? 9 people. FOB building? 9 people. Defending a flag that's not under attack? Let's put 9 people on that sucker. I've had situations where several 9-man squads couldn't even build and supply a single FOB, while I set up six FOBs with a 4-man squad. I think a reason why small squads are seen as negative is because people only have awareness of the area of the map they're in, and to them what is going on there is the most important thing in the match. When they see a small squad doing something away from their little area of the map, they just instantly think they're just messing around. I've had SLs ask that someone go take out the enemy mortars so we can take a cap, gone and done that with my 4-man squad, and then have those same SLs ask what I'm doing in a "pointless part of the map". They think that because they don't know what a squad is doing, it must be doing something pointless because the most important place on the map is the place where they are. I think smaller squads are just as enjoyable for players, and lead to a team that communicates more and makes more effective use of their manpower resources and vehicle assets. And if they have a bad SL they're just wasting 4 or 6 players instead of a whole quarter of the team. Ideally though, I think a mix of both is best, with a few big squads supported by smaller squads and dedicated asset squads that allow for logistics, transportation, fire support and more to be available to the whole team across the entire map instead of being tied to single 9-man squads.

Just let it die.

I'm pretty sure it's got more to do with the face that logistics trucks can carry ten people now.

Listing random crap that has no impact on the viability of transport is not compromising. How about we compromise by adding explosive fishsticks that players throw like a boomerang to the game? Oh, you don't think that's relevant to the subject of transport? Why won't you compromise, CptDirty?

Nothing. Short enough for you?