Tartantyco

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?

It would do nothing to encourage the use of transportation, so no.

I suspected this when they announced wave spawning would be introduced, and have seen it somewhat confirmed already: People are giving up quicker now. When you have the potential chance of respawning in 20 seconds on the RP, it seems most people are willing to take that bet. If you don't give up instantly, the timer may be just close to rolling over to the next wave, and so waiting is a gamble that can mean it will take a minute more to spawn in. People are just giving up instantly instead because there's nothing to lose by doing that. You either get lucky and get a fast respawn, or you have to wait for the next wave, which you would have anyways if you waited a little longer. When timers were individual, you were never in a hurry to give up because it wouldn't take any less time anyways. If you laid around waiting for a minute, you'd spawn in instantly afterwards. If you gave up immediately, you'd still have to wait a while. There was no incentive to give up quick, and there was no potential penalty to waiting for a revive. Now there is. Reason nr. 362 for why wave spawning sucks.

And the Medic class is a way to force you to depend on other players, everyone should have medic bags to heal themselves, blablabla. You're just using the word 'force' selectively and applying it to things you disagree with. Fundamentally, all game mechanics 'force' behavior, that is their purpose. This is an entirely useless discussion that I have no interest in engaging in. I simply think that transportation should be a viable option to spawning on FOBs and RPs, and that must be done by making these three things more equal in terms of how powerful they are. Giving players more points for transporting people, for instance, is not going to make the fundamental act of transportation any more powerful. People aren't going to choose to transport their squad because that gives the driver more points if other options are more effective. And people aren't going to run Transport squads just because they get more points if that entails sitting around doing nothing for 70% of the match. You need a game mechanics that a) keeps transport squads occupied for a substantial duration of the match, and b) makes the transportation option a viable method of deploying on the battlefield, on par with other options(FOBs and RPs). And no, this does not mean taking people out of the action more. People often choose to spawn on a faraway FOB and walk to their objective instead of spawning at main and driving there in half the time or less. This happens because most of the time transportation is not the most effective deployment option, so there's no dedicated transport squads because the demand is too low, and so players are conditioned to think of FOBs and RPs as their options. And even if they choose to use transport from main, since there are no dedicated squads it ends up being a one-off thing. The squad spawns at main, jumps in the truck, drives to their objective, and leave the vehicle there. This depletes the vehicle availability at main, and soon enough there's no transport vehicles in main. It's an unsustainable option. As for your list of "Transport buffs", those things will have practically no effect on the viability of transportation as a deployment method.

People need to stop reading "Squad and PR are similar games" as "SQUAD NEEDS TO BE A CARBON COPY OF PR!" Squad and PR are similar games in the same way that Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander are similar games. They have the same basic philosophy of encouraging teamwork and coordination, they share the same objective of large maps, combined arms combat, and a squad-centered team organization system. They also share a lot of similar game mechanics(Specifically because Squad is a spiritual successor to PR). I've been accused of being a "PR Purist" by people here, but if you read any of my suggestions, you'll quickly find that what I'd like to see from this game is very far from what PR was. So people need to stop throwing around that useless talking point that's only ever used by people who don't have actual arguments. Because of the shared genre, game design philosophy, and player base, experiences learned from PR are very much applicable to Squad. Doing so does not mean you want Squad to become a copy of PR.

I think everything it would do is restrict the options available to players, make the gameplay more shallow, and reduce the lifespan of the game for absolutely no gain. The reason that you don't see them used much outside of Mortar/TOW FOBs is precisely because of the reasons I previously stated. There's no need for supplies, a logistics squad requires more manpower to function than there is workload to go around, and the FOBs are too valuable ticket-wise for you to deploy them in any other fashion than for necessary spawn FOBs and backfield Mortar/TOW FOBs. There are plenty of other FOBs that I would like to deploy during a match, but I don't because it's either too difficult to get done due to current restrictions, and because the FOB is too costly in terms of tickets. Except you can do that in Squad, as well. If somebody's doing shit logistics, you can just set up your own Logistics squad and do Logistics yourself. It's not like people are hogging those assets as it is. There's nothing about the squad system that prohibits good logistics, it's all the other factors. And there's nothing prohibiting shit logistics players from taking the logistics squad slots in PS, either. As you say yourself here, the individual players can do logistics themselves, and that is all you need to introduce in Squad. Not restrictive squad types. As a logistics-focused player, I would severely disagree with this. The problem is simply that FOBs require 3 players to place, but logistics does not, so to be an effective logistics squad you need two other players who are willing to be dead weight for most of the match. Players are standing by to start doing good logistics, but the game won't let them because of arbitrary restrictions that were outdated in v9. All the good logistics players don't do logistics precisely because it's not viable with the current game mechanics. I think you get the players you design the game for. If you design for the lowest common denominator, you'll get the lowest common denominator player and the lowest common denominator gameplay. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Both in PR and Squad I've had high-coordination teamwork in matches, so I don't believe this "public players can't do it" rhetoric for one second. Well, that is kind of what I've been talking about here... You need to make them more necessary so that there is constant need for logistical service, which means that a dedicated logistics squad has something to do, which means that you shift that responsibility away from squads that are focused on other things.

The thing here is that it isn't the dedicated squad that makes it "work". It's the fact that they've just lumped all the logistics game mechanics onto that squad. It's the game mechanics, not the "This is the Logistics squad. It does logistics things". I once again reiterate that dedicated squads are already a possibility in Squad. It's just that the game mechanics do not necessitate a dedicated Logistics squad. Here's the current situation in Squad v11(AAS): Start of the game, people make squads, rush for the central flag(s), usually drop one FOB there, maybe drop a backup FOB, drop some more FOBs as they advance or get pushed back. Beyond that there's virtually no need for logistics. You don't need them to spawn, you spawn with a full kit on both FOBs and RPs, the game gives players more than enough ammunition to not run out during the average player lifespan, and pretty much everything else that consumes resources is basically useless. That's why there's no logistics squads. Not because there's no cookie-cutter squad type called "Logistics squad". If the game simply makes logistics a necessity, you will see dedicated logistics squads pop up all over the place without needing to make fixed squad types that reduce gameplay and meta-game variability. The biggest issue is the FOB itself. It's a ticket-asset, meaning that if you lose it, your team loses tickets. That instantly makes the deployment of almost anything that requires a FOB a bad investment. Many times, you may want to throw down some fortifications or an MG nest on a temporary position, but to do that you need to drop a FOB, as well. The presence of those emplacements also notify the enemy team that there is a FOB nearby. This means that if you leave that area, they are going to come by and take out that FOB if you don't tear it down. And if you get wiped off the position, which is more likely, you also lose that FOB and the associated tickets. Next is the three man requirement to place a FOB. If you try to make a dedicated logistics squad in v11, you'll need two more people with you. The gameplay experience of those two people will be 90% sitting around in a truck, 10% shoveling. Nobody wants to do that. They don't have any agency, and they experience little to no actual gameplay. And they represent 5% of your team's manpower. If you try doing a solo Logistics squad, you are completely ineffective. You can try to get other squads to place FOBs or peel off two guys to go place a FOB with you, but it rarely ever happens. Other SLs are too busy doing their jobs, they almost always operate in active combat areas that are neither safe for FOBs or trucks, and usually too close to other FOBs for you to be able to place them. And every other SL is in just the same location fighting over the same flag, so they can't do anything either. There's a host of other issues, such as RPs being too convenient, there not being any substantial resource sinks in the game, and so on, although some of this is addressed in the v12 update. And it's all of this stuff that makes dedicated logistics squads in Squad non-functional, not whether or not there is a fixed "Logistics" type squad. The solution is very simple and spelled out in my Universal Logistical System thread: 1. Remove ticket cost for the FOB, turning the current radio into a logi truck-droppable Supply Dump instead. 2. Remove the 3-man requirement to place FOBs/Supply Dumps. 3. Introduce more resource sinks in the game(Somewhat addressed in v12). 4. Give the SL a shovel(Or introduce an Engineer/Engineer SL kit. Whatever). Just with these small changes, that are implementable right now with almost no work(Ignoring the truck-droppable SD, just keep the radio and remove ticket cost and 3-player requirement), you will see dedicated Logistics squads in Squad straight away. If you absolutely need something to have a ticket cost, put it on the HAB. These changes will allow a dedicated logistics squad to keep itself occupied building spawn FOBs around objectives, Repair FOBs near the front line, and provide supplies to squads at the front line. It will allow other squads to fortify temporary positions and make use of offensive emplacements without fear of losing tickets, further requiring logistical support. Build it and they will come.

@CptDirty That may be your experience, but it is not mine. I have literally never heard anyone say that at the end of a round more than ten times or so. That may simply be a reflection of what kind of servers we play on, which may also be why we have different experiences. And once more, even if you have so many people saying that at the end of a match, that does not mean that they were incentivized to play the way they did to maximize scores. As said, if you want a lot of points, you should build a lot of FOBs. That is not reflected in how people play, so it is a fair assessment that people are not incentivized during play to do the things that give them the highest score(Which is a good thing, because then everything would go to shit). By your own admission you find it hard to even get people in your squad to do logi runs, but that shouldn't be a problem considering the score they get. See next round if you can coax more players to do logi runs by telling them that they get a lot of points for doing so and report back to me how that works out for you. And nowhere have I said that I am opposed to it. I have said that it is useless for the aforementioned reasons. It simply does not incentivize people to do the task, and I have yet to see a scoring system that not only incentivizes players to do what's best for the team but also accurately reflects the impact of those tasks in the team's performance. Simply put, scoring systems are extremely inaccurate, do not incentivize good play, and are a complete waste of development time. What you want is for tasks to be intrinsically rewarding in that they are directly important for success. Transportation must be a superior alternative to spawning on RPs or FOBs in many cases for that to be the case, and you must do that game mechanically. You cannot simply slap more points to a task and call it a day. Fine by me.

I'll respond once you remove the claim that I'm lying @CptDirty.

Barely ever? Like, maybe ten times in all my hours playing Squad. And then, half the time it's sarcastic. Regardless, those squads didn't play to optimize their points. The SL didn't go "I'm going to do the things that give me the most points". And if points were so important for people, the best way to get points is to do logistics, but you don't see that, do you?