mighty harness
As a response to this question:
"Will you implement a party system on PC?
Throughout these questions, I've seen a lot of people ask about a party system on PC. I think this is a great idea and will help people join games with their friends. What I don't want to happen, however, is for players to be in a party but not be able to join the same faction after joining a lobby - so tackling this and really ensuring we have the design of this feature down would be a top priority. - Matt"
I have an idea for how this could work.
Some party rule ideas:
In the lobby you can add friends for a party, with a party size max of 6 (for obvious reasons). Parties with more than 3 cannot join armor squads. Parties with more than 2 cannot join recon squads. I'm undecided on whether or not commanders can be in parties
Party leaders are the only one that can create squads, (if commanders can be in a party, this may need to change) - This is to stop possible griefing via SL's, you really should be playing together if you're in a party.
Some problems (and solutions)
Problem 1: Queuing. If the queue is 5/6 and you have 4 people in your party, how do you do the queue? Here's an idea, Party queue overflow. Basically, it allows parties to join the queue all at once. If a player is not in a party, they cannot be in the overflow queue. If there is enough slots in the queue, then all party members just join as normal. The party leader is always the one in the "real" queue (this is so they're always the first one in the party to join the game)
Problem 2: Joining the same faction. Once a party leader picks a faction, all party members are automatically considered part of that faction. If they're still in the queue, other players can still join that faction as normal, they only automatically join the faction once they're in the game. If the factions are imbalanced, players in a faction cannot spawn until its balanced (once they spawn once, this is removed, they spawn as normal)