How Squad's Community Devolved

As a PR veteran and someone planning to buy Squad due to ICO, this video is amazing. One thing though. Turn up the volume.

cod and battlefield players who have no concept of teamwork, that's what ruined this game, hopefully the ICO fixes the damage

2006-Current PR player, SQUAD competitive player. I am still a part of the PR dev team, in a much more reduced role. But did alot of the map balancing for a number of years. But was also around for the birth of squad. While I agree that the marketing has been a contributing factor to the games current state. Its more of a systemic issue that has existed from the birth of SQUAD, that it was this divergences from the core to appeal to the masses. Some of the decisions make sense in hind sight, the targeting of Milsim communities in the early days etc. But the first buy in from OWI's marketing/public relations/community managers of attracting and targeting a competitive community, to then latter abandon and shun said competitive community/player lead to this more individual pub stomp style of people(Bit of a tangent). Squad lost its direction for a number of years. Hopefully it will come back to the pseudo realism rewarding gameplay along the lines of PR.

Literally wvery game now is me running logi alone with maybe 1 other dude, i see many squads with no squad leader, just 8 infantry running around with their heads cut off

"One guy will never beat 3 people in a group" Let me show you a Pr0Gamer move *throws a granade

You won’t like hearing this but the extent of strategy in most squad servers is just good hab placements that are close enough to the objectives for a sustained push, and also hidden and / or in some sort of cover. Bonus points if your infantry tells your armor where the enemy armor is and keeps the markers accurate. Coordinating between squads for attacks is almost always impossible. You can usually only hope to control hab placement and armor communication. Otherwise once the (hopefully well placed) habs are set up, the game is now off to the infantry bumrush races. Both teams will have 100m radius spacing and rarely revive teammates as they all try to Rambo their way to the next attack point. Also most squads are silent. This game essentially plays out like call of duty with clunky acogs and excessively large maps for a company sized engagement.

I used to squad lead during the early days (The 1st HMMVWs). I loved moving up as a group just dumping mags in the enemies general direction. All the while closing a pincer movement with another squad who mostly moved uncontested due to us making such a racket lol. You cant do that anymore. Now you have to spread out into small groups or your entire squad will be killed by 1 guy who has a 25mm, m240, m249 shooting over their heads. I am in a clan and i keep seeing "dead game when infantry update". I always keep telling people that im excited for when open top hmmvw, tigr, mrap, g-wagons have another use rather than just an ammo resupply for a HAT or LAT ( I am also guilty of this aswell due to these vehicles NEVER being used). I want the abandonment of an open top hmmvw to be just as taboo as leaving a logi in the middle of nowhere. Being able to use a .50 cal or an m240b to supress the enemy so you can maneuver is exactly what those systems are used for. But right now a .50 cal could be shooting at you and you just go back to csgo. Stop Flick Shoot. Trust me, ive abused the broken suppression mechanic to kill tanks, squads, and HABs. I also died to a 1 tab from a person who is jiggle leaning behind a tree that ive shot half a belt at. I think the change will be mostly good.

The classic no one is defending but everyone is attacking and then it becomes a double neutral situation.

I seriously think a huge step in the right direction would be making the commander NOT be an SL. If he can play the game like an RTS watching the map and coordinating the squads, it would be incredible. Being an SL is already overwhelming, but I'm having to figure out everything on my own like where to go or whether to defend or attack, while the Commander is herding the cats in his own squad and not communicating. Basically the Commander is just an SL that can call fire support, that's literally it right now

This’ll probably get buried but, when I first joined squad 4/5 years ago, I was hooked. I loved the experience and immersion of being under immense pressure and working with a team to pull through it. I even joined a unit - 1/1 marines and got to know a great group of guys who I’d play with. I loved the team work; and I eventually made my way to becoming a squad leader in the unit, and started sl-ing in normal games. But over time, the unit died. The squad community changed as you said. And between the ICO play tests and now this video, I’ve come to realize that I’ve devolved into one of those battlefield players. I’m ashamed to admit it but the skills and confidence I developed over those years made me change my play style to a kill farming lone wolf. Over the past year, I’ve played very sparingly, maybe a match every week or two. And In those matches i regularly get in the top 3 for kills - which is all that’s come to matter to me. What I mean to say is, that love of teamwork and coordination died for me, and I’m ashamed of that fact. I very sincerely hope that the ico will revive that love in me, and not drive me away from one of my favorite games.

One of the main issues is manpower scale. I mean even in the trailers they pump out, they’re isn’t enough infantry on one side to even do what happens in the marine trailer. There are so many angles to the game. Vic’s, air, logi, infantry, and HQ with commander, but not enough dudes to even fill a quarter of the slots. It usually ends up with 2 inf squads about half full (on a good day), a tank or Bradley, 2 helis, and IF YOURE LUCKY a guy to do logistics. They either need to scale back on vehicles and capsize or increase the amount of players on each team. Also some actual command structure would be an improvement. HQ squad needs to be a thing and actual abilities to command squads. Commander is honestly just JTAC. I’d also appreciate a revival of proper fireteam use. Idk that’s my rant 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Great video. Some good takes. Considering making a response video to this. There's definitely a demand for coordinated teamplay. Everything I'm seeing from OWI makes me think they've course-corrected and are going to put genuine effort into steering Squad out of the gutter and into glory.

I got into this game because I was a battlefield fan. I can say I wasn't experienced with any milsim style game prior to Squad and was hooked after the experiences I had with other teams full of people who would bullsh*t and chill and then suddenly start shouting orders and compass degrees. Now that the ICO gameplay is out I can definitely see where the teamplay is paramount here and absolutely love it. Even tonight, I had one of the best games I've ever played. 80% of the squad leaders didn't speak to one another in the game until we were at a roadblock and HAD to cooperate. It was only then that we won. I think more battlefield players SHOULD play Squad. I think a lot of people who play, don't realize they're yearning for something more. Once they get that team that is down to earth, that is chill and doesn't mind mistakes, they'll see that the game has a ton to offer. Then, as they're getting hooked to the team play, they'll see that artillery barrage or mortar fire and say "Battlefield what?"

The only gripe I have is the level of scope blackout. It's frustrating in close quarters to try to aim, but see nothing, hipfire inaccurately and miss because they're a bit too far, empty mag and run away. While the other guy did the exact same thing.

Its crazy seeing old gameplay of squad in contrast to where it is now. Really is amazing how far its come. When the teamplay comes together, it really is an awesome experience!

I've noticed a lot of the people that seem the most mad about the update are people with multiple thousands of hours. To a degree I think a lot of it is just suddenly needing to learn things again, but a lot of them really seem to have lost the plot over time. I've recognized some of those names and they were not good players to say the least. Like they got good kills, but just didn't seem to engage with anything else. Squad leaders that didn't even try to lead or even tell their squad what was going on. And honestly while there are some frustrating things with this update at times, I feel like if we loose those players we are just loosing dead weight. They've lost the plot and just see squad as something different than what it's supposed to be. Squad is dead, long live Squad!

It is really nice that ru servers are staying strong. Precise communication, awesome teamwork, squads working together in order to effectively destroy a tank, apcs coming to helping out infantry the moment they ask for help. Me and my friend are apc mains and having whole map planned out with awesome communication of enemy movement is truly bizzare

In fact, this problem is just in American servers, you get into French and Spaniard servers (if you speak the language) and everybody prioritise staying together and follow leaders instructions. In American servers I see always the main tanks being destroyed because they wanted to go solo amidst enemy lines. Instead of being among friendly infantry following only commander instructions. Come to European servers! (no UK, also they are very "solo COD operator style" ).

i am also glad that battlebit came out too, which means the individualistic players have a chance to switch there if theyre not willing to adapt

Business wise, if OWI make a bet of shrinking their player base but really owning it, it could works. Like being king of your own little pond. Maybe getting those who dream at ARMA3 but can't put up with the difficulty of it, and also on the other side, those who like BF but feel it could be a big more tactical.