More ICO tweaks please

[formal oak]

But we can disagree, it's been a pleasant discussion, thank you for that.

Good discussion is hard on Discord due to the short nature of the messages back and forth.

[robust thistle]

No you can’t. We’ve all played games which lack most of squad’s ICO mechanics. In a game where there is no suppression mechanic and little to no weapons sway, the standard response for a player being shot at by a MG is simply to shoot back. Why? Because the game mechanics allow for that sort of behavior. Those games are more about FPS skill than they are about teamwork and tactics.

Squad is first and foremost a game about teamwork; it uses over exaggerated mechanics to encourage a certain style and mentality among players. ICO may not be fully figured out, but it is a primary reason why Squad is viewed differently from most other games.

[formal oak]

Hard disagree. Squad is and has been viewed differently from other games since Alpha, ICO had nothing to do with it, and teamwork and tactics were greater right after alpha than they are now. Apologies I have to get back to other things, have a good one.

[robust thistle]

The term ICO didn’t exist, but even from its origins with Project Reality, Squad was more focused on team-based play at the expense of FPS-oriented gameplay. The intent and design vision was always there.

And if you think teamwork is currently lacking in this game, find a better server or group to play with. The potential for teamwork is as high as it’s ever been, you’re just unlikely to reach that potential when playing with a bunch of randoms.

[formal oak]

Played PR from .3 I think, POE (another BF mod before that), ran PR and Squad servers. There was an extreme level of teamwork where I played. The level of play has cratered across the board, but I suppose that's relative to personal experience. I'm not alone in that opinion, but it is just that, an opinion. Right, I'm done lol, glad you're still enjoying the game at least.

[robust thistle]

I’m not alone. Thousands of people are enjoying the game. Player counts have gone up, not down, since ICO was implemented.

[cloud bison]

Clash of Clans has >50 million monthly active users, is clash of clans therefore a better game than Squad? Don't use popularity alone as a justification of mechanics changes

[vocal orbit]

Dang its almost as if Squad is an amazing game and framework for communication and teamplay hidden underneath some poorly thought out gunplay changes. Im more interested in player retention than player count given how often sales have been happening and the downward trend of sale prices. Squad was like 15 bucks a couple weeks ago.

Hopefully i dont have to explain why driving off veterans and pumping the community with new players who dont stick around isnt healthy.

[vale elbow]

just played a round, how is this still the state of the game

[merry flame]

https://tenor.com/view/mujikcboro-seriymujik-gif-24361533

[robust thistle]

Agreed that quantity does not necessarily quality. But Squad was and still is a niche game with a specific target audience in mind. If ICO truly was as bad as some players claim, you would expect to see a decline in player counts, not a jump. The game is first and foremost about teamwork; the FPS enjoyment was and still is secondary to the former. A good portion of the player base enjoys Squad because of the mechanics which emphasize the teamwork.

[broken socket]

Teamwork game already exists though homie. Hop on https://store.steampowered.com/app/505460/Foxhole/

Steam

Foxhole

Foxhole is a massively multiplayer game where thousands of players shape the outcome of a persistent online war that lasts for weeks. Players ARE the content in this sandbox war game. Every individual soldier is a player that contributes to the war effort through logistics, base building, reconnaissance, combat, and more.

Massively Multiplaye…

Price

$29.99

Recommendations

39159

▶ Play video

[cloud bison]

There are a million reasons not directly related to the ICO that Squad had a population bump post-ICO. More content updates afterwards, bigger sales, heck even the social media engagement that the ICO controversy drove played a much bigger role than the update itself.

[robust thistle]

Tell yourself whatever you want to feel better. The fact is that Squad is differentiated from other FPS games, and ICO (or ICO-lite) mechanics are a major reason for that differentiation. If players want smooth gunplay and point-and-click accuracy, there are a dozen other games which are better optimized and with larger player bases compared to Squad.

[broken socket]

If players want teamwork coordination, strategy, logistics and tactics without worrying about being good at FPS, there is the one game I linked which is better optimized with a large enough playerbase compared to Squad. Why we making an FPS game not an FPS instead of just logging into Foxhole like chads, when we want what Foxhole is. Just get over the 3rd person perspective and you're gucci,

[robust thistle]

Buddy, if people want to play foxhole, they'll go play it. WHy are you pushing a game that literally has nothing to with this discord and community?

[broken socket]

? The game is exactly what you're wanting to play though homeslice.

Why push for something that already exists amigo.

[sly crown]

Look, most people consider me an ICO shill who sucks Offworld off for money, and I'll say that while there's some truth the game didn't die because of ICO, you can't attribute all of that growth to ICO when the game expanded into Russia and China as well as having lots of free weekends and sales.

If your argument that ICO good because player increase you're simply cherry picking

[robust thistle]

Yes, we can. Because if a feature truly sucks, it would drive players off and discourage sales...that didn't happen after ICO was implemented. Also, the idea that anyone who enjoys ICO is an OWI schill is petty and stupid. There is plenty that needs to be fixed/optimized with this game, to include parts of ICO.

[sly crown]

My point was to make it clear I'm not even trying to dog on the ICO. By most people's standards they would say I'm proICO. It's simply incorrect to say the growth is solely or even majorly due to ICO

[robust thistle]

You and others are literally cherry-picking when you say that player growth after ICO was due to a whole bunch of unrelated factors. You're allowing your own bias and opinion to form a narrative. My point is simple: if a game has good mechanics and offers a good experience, people will continue to play it and new players will continue to join. ICO as imperfect as it initially was, didn't drive off players in aggregate, it drew in more.

[sly crown]

I would say that the notion that it would "discourage sales" is also silly. Sales are often run when sales are stagnant. They move units.

[sly crown]

That's a mighty strawman you have there buckaroo. My point is that no one can attribute the growth to a specific element.

It'd be just as wrong to say that ICO grew the game as much as it would be to say it didn't grow the game at all.

None of us can measure that data, it doesn't exist.

The one thing we can say is that it did not, in fact, kill the game.

If you think ICO is solely responsible for the growth that occurred after the release of 6.0 you are simply going delulu my friend

[robust thistle]

There is no single element for game success, but there is at least one prerequisite that must be true: the game needs to be perceived as "good" for players (new & old) to want to play it. If the game is bad, players dont play it. Simple as that.

[sly crown]

Lots of long time players did absolutely stop playing after the release of ICO.

What's your response to this phenomena?

[cloud bison]

The game just needs to be better than the other available options to be popular in a niche

Squad remained good in terms of comms, spawn system, teamwork mechanics outside of ICO so people kept playing

[robust thistle]

Buddy, the game has been out since 2015. Why is anyone surprised that there has been some player churn? And how much of that churn is due to ICO or just due to shifting preferences and habits? People have changing priorities over the course of a decade.

[sly crown]

A significant amount is testified by the very people who left who said they did not enjoy the gameplay of ICO.

You can find steam reviews corresponding to the release of 6.0 to back this

"Buddy" I'm a kickstarter, I have played this game longer than you I know when it released

[robust thistle]

That's what certain echo chambers claim. Your evidence is anecdotal. It's hard to quantify exactly how many players left and for what reasons.

[sly crown]

No shit, I'm not saying its easily quantifiable. My point is it happened and you pretend like it didn't.

[robust thistle]

Then quantify it and provide numbers and sources. How many people can you verify actually left Squad player base because of ICO?

[sly crown]

Are you stupid? I just agreed it isn't quantifiable. That's the whole fucking point.

You are attributing all this growth to ICO without being able to quantify it and yet you stubbornly sink your heels in and say I must quantify the thing I'm telling you is also unquantifiable?

Come on now, take a step back and think about what you're saying.

I promise you're not going to find anyone more charitable to the argument that ICO was a positive direction to the game than me

[robust thistle]

Im attributing the growth to the fact that a certain number of new players considered the game good enough (w/ ICO) to be worth their time.

[sly crown]

That's just blatantly incorrect to do

Taking a note from your 'argument playbook', quantify it then

[robust thistle]

I think you're not actually paying attention to what I'm saying. I'll leave you to it.

[sly crown]

I don't think you understand what you're saying, unfortunately. Kind of just rambling.

[robust thistle]

The steam charts quantify for it for me. It shows you the player count changes over the years and months.

[sly crown]

That can't possibly quantify the growth that is due to ICO.

What growth is specifically due to ICO?

How many players were gained as a result? Come on, you can quantify it!

[merry flame]

ICO stan vs ICO stan

[robust thistle]

Re-read my statement. It's not as much about ICO as it is about how players perceive the game.

[sly crown]

Yeah he's literally being so argumentative over an indefensible point to someone who could not be more charitable to his argument

[cloud bison]

The steamcharts as always are much more highly correlated with sales & major content releases not inbetween/mechanics/QOL patches

The "ICO bump" people talk about didn't even happen til the fall sales a month after 6.0 dropped

[merry flame]

When was it Aug of what year?

[sly crown]

There are historic trends following releases, every major release brings in new daily active users for a period and they tail off to an extent. 6.0 release did the same.

No spectacular growth resulted from 6.0 alone--very much in line with previous major updates.

Additional growth occurred as aidan said following sales in I believe late october/november

I would absolutely agree with the statement that "Some people came (back) to play specifically because of ICO"

But it's completely incorrect to say "all the growth in this period is due to ico"

[cloud bison]

September 2023

[sly crown]

The argument that ICO killed the game is just as daft as the argument that it saved the game or something.

It's just an update. Some people didn't like it, some did.

[robust thistle]

The people on here are habitual complainers. The game has hit its highest peak player counts ever in the last year. Squad and its community is healthy and alive, despite their being ongoing optimization and tweaks. If you want to spend your time as a Squad community member talking about issues and problems, most of which are never going to change, have at it. Most of the community won't read these posts as they're too busy playing the game.

[sly crown]

Not sure what that has to do with anything

Yeah there was maybe a month or two before the next major sale. The typical post-update player spike happened and was already starting to level out and decline by the time the fall sales hit.

[merry flame]

Huge spike

[sly crown]

That spike wasn't spectacularly different compared to previous major updates.

[robust thistle]

Average player count is also higher now (post ICO) than it was pre update. The game is doing fine. You and others here don't have to agree. YOu also dont have to play the game.

[merry flame]

Bc of sales

[sly crown]

You're so illiterate

[merry flame]

And free weekends?

[merry flame]

#1340434012359098479 message Take a look at the chart

[sly crown]

I nor anyone you're talking to right now has made the argument that the game is dead or that we are involuntarily playing the game

[cloud bison]

So glad that this is the best the ICO extremists can offer

Really helps their arguments

[robust thistle]

Sales get people to buy the game, they don't keep players playing it.

[merry flame]

Correct, Nor did ICO

[sly crown]

Nobody here disagrees with basic objective fact regarding the growth of the game. However your complete inexperience in this realm is showing compared to 3 people who have actually been tapped in since and before ICO.

[robust thistle]

People who use that kind of language really have a problem. Do you even play the game anymore?

[merry flame]

He does

[sly crown]

Probably plays more than you do.

[robust thistle]

So a whole bunch of players who hate ICO are keeping steam player counts high?

[sly crown]

That's not how logic works

[merry flame]

https://tenor.com/view/psp1g-what-gif-23713811

[sly crown]

Sledge, the game grew significantly in global audiences in a similar timespan to the release of ICO

[robust thistle]

People tend to play games only if they enjoy playing them. You guys are bitter and like to talk about it. AA or group therapy might be a better venue for your frustations than this discord. No one really cares what is being said here.

[sly crown]

Russia and Chinese playerbase exploded

[edgy mantle]

Tbf a lot of the modded servers have severely reduced ICO like ge Galatic contention etc I assume they all went there

I assume any anti ICO went there

[sly crown]

You literally could not be making a less effective argument saying that to someone who has defended the ICO, and better than whatever the fuck you think you're doing here.

[robust thistle]

Most populated servers run vanilla.

[sly crown]

Those mods also exploded in growth after ICO.

[edgy mantle]

Top popular severs in battlemetrics are GE mods lol

In squad

[sly crown]

Well, there are only a few of those and the GE author keeps trying to kill all the competition so idk about that

[merry flame]

But there are substantial modded servers, some months the Star wars mod had 1000 players

If the mod goes down thats deff -800 players

GE super popular RN

[sly crown]

There are far, far more vanilla servers hosting a larger number of active players at any given time comparatively

but GE definitely has a dedicated base, and at least some of them play specifically because of the ICO related changes

[edgy mantle]

True more vanilla then modded servers

[merry flame]

But modded holds a chunk deff

[edgy mantle]

Looking at BM top server right now is a Russian one that is GE

Then bloody bucket ge

[merry flame]

12 popped GE servers on that list

Server browser is dumb and will probs not show some

[edgy mantle]

Then you have steel division and then supermodded servers

[merry flame]

1.5 star wars

Super mod maybe has 2

Idk how people sleeep on it so hard

[broken socket]

Have u played Foxhole tho?

[merry flame]

SD has 4 popped

Oh crap I am only looking at NA

14 Moded/ GE servers popped that my browser decied to show

4 SD

1.5 star wars

math

1,800 playing modded that show in my browser at the moment

Steam DB says 9k ish

[robust thistle]

out of how many total players?

[merry flame]

Can we assume I missed RUS or Asia servers?

How many people are playing there?

So 1/4 of playerbase is currently playing without or no ICO

[vocal orbit]

Half the server browser was ge until AFAIK that mod got dropped by most servers for pretty justifiable reasons

[merry flame]

Yea and GE still pulls 1K+ pop

[vocal orbit]

Also not to necro a 20m old discussion, all the post ICO spikes were due to major sales

[merry flame]

Also Modded is harder to seed so I am comparing Vannila which is hard to seed rn to modded which is impossible unless people show up for it

[merry flame]

Correcgt

https://steamdb.info/app/393380/charts/

take a peep yourself

[cloud bison]

I still play Squad because 1- I don't hate every aspect of the ICO, and 2- nothing else has the same combination of strong teamwork mechanics so it's still better than the other options right now.

I continue to play in spite of the ICO not because of it. I did take a ~9 month break after ICO release though, which was good because they stepped it back a fair bit.

[robust thistle]

Average player count is higher compared to pre-ICO. People only keep playing a game if they actually like the experience it offers.

[merry flame]

Brother?

[vocal orbit]

It was relatively flat until major sales and turk update. Less of a spike than prev updates the april prior

Playercount really stagnated because of a lack of good content all summer, planm was bland and smurfy and vdv was pretty meh

[robust thistle]

i dont know what you're getting at

[merry flame]

Its a 2 day spike of 2,000 players and it goes right back to the same number monday

Moday before

After update

[spice summit]

all this yap to get baited by a milsimmer gg

[merry flame]

These charts show no substantial change

Can we look at this chart?

[robust thistle]

Player count now versus player count versus pre-ICO. Which is higher?

[merry flame]

By 1,000k players which is not substantial

The modded GE community is larger

Also

[robust thistle]

No idea where you're getting a 1k delta.

[merry flame]

oh my bad 2K

If you look at peak and after

[merry flame]

I am looking at This chart

[merry flame]

And this one

[robust thistle]

Pre-ICO

Post ICO

Player count delta is great than 1k. Players counts have gone up since ICO.

[sly crown]

2-3k increase

Again, this growth cannot be attributed to solely ICO.

[robust thistle]

a lot better than a 2k-3k decrease

[sly crown]

Ok, and?

Nobody here is arguing it decreased.

The only thing people are trying to get through to you is that ICO isn't responsible for some explosive growth that saved the game. Just as much as it didn't kill the game.

Some people left, some people came.

[robust thistle]

No they're arguing that ICO ruined the game, and that it was a whole bunch of mods and secondary factors which helped keep the game popular.

[sly crown]

That's not incorrect either

Mods absolutely grew in popularity after the release of ICO for those who wanted to maintain the older mechanics.

Growth in Russia and China absolutely did help keep the game popular.

For some people ICO really did ruin their experience.

[robust thistle]

Entirely subjective, with very little backing

[sly crown]

What's the problem?

It's observable fact that mods grew in size as did global audience

The only subjective statement there was that ICO ruined it for them, which like who are you to deny them that opinion?

[merry flame]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1204273943545122837/1337663600969384016/rb1jQrC.gif

Waiting for this post to get locked

This is like the 7th one?

[sly crown]

ICO was a divisive update, some long time veteran players left, some players returned, and new players joined the ranks. Pretending that it was all bunnies and rainbows is just as dumb as to say it was doom and gloom.

[robust thistle]

Well deserved at this point. Nothing productive happens here.

[sly crown]

At the end of the day it's just another game update. People have left from previous updates and they'll leave for future updates too. Just as much as some people will come back or join after certain updates.

UE5 release? Gonna lose some people with outdated hardware or that lose FPS, gonna gain some people who are excited for the new visuals.

None of them are silver bullets to success or failure. It's all cumulative.

[merry flame]

Who knows maybe the driving will be less fun too

[sly crown]

🤷🏻‍♂️ I like the driving more overall but we will lose some tokyo drifting which while unrealistic was fun

[merry flame]

Reduce all the good game mechanics to the comms and spawn system

This message was sponsored by the doom and goom chat

[vocal orbit]

Helps to debunk the "vocal minority" talking point

[sly crown]

I don’t think that debunks vocal minority at all lol

Vets with 1k+ hrs are the minority and most invested in the game.

I don’t think it’s wrong at all to say the average squad player barely understands or cares

Most of them are drunk playing music on voip by putting their phone speaker up to the mic while backcapping

[vocal orbit]

Sure but if you have a high turnover rate of new players who mostly go to ge, sd or, gc thats no indication that the vocal minority thing is true either

[merry flame]

This game runs on the vocal minority literally

Like without SLs that understand the game its just walking sim

[robust thistle]

Isn't it funny how you consider yourself to be in the majority

[sly crown]

Vocal minority isn’t necessarily some super own in the marketplace of ideas. It’s true that few people are as experienced and invested

It’d be like saying counterstrike pros are the vocal minority that are unhappy with the CS2 changes and should just suck it up

Of course they’re a minority, but they are also more acutely aware of how these things affect gameplay at that level compared to the avg gold nova player

[broken socket]

Why are we so caught up in majoritys and minoritys tho. The majority of INS players don't main the Mosin because they're wrong. All that really matters is BoH or not. Have you tried Foxhole Sledge? Or are you just ehvying out your ass here?

[sly crown]

Bill we all know he boh

[vocal orbit]

Im mostly frustrated about the sway that bs had in the early days. Every 20 hr johnny was saying that everywhere for the first 6 months post ico. Bygones be bygones and all, but it sure is funny seeing things 2 years later play out exactly as we were saying pt1

[sly crown]

Some people are insanely stubborn

[robust thistle]

Difference of opinion = stubborn?

[sly crown]

When the foundation of your opinions and arguments rely on flawed logic yea

Again you argue with me like I’m not on your side regarding ICO lol

I like ICO overall just realistic about its shortcomings and what would make it even better

I’m just not delusional to attribute a year of growth to ICO alone or even primarily

[robust thistle]

I like how this narrative has evolved so eloquently in just a few lines of text.
We started with: ICO is horrible and the game didn't grow after ICO.
And from there we went to: Fine, it grew after ICO, but only by 1k players.
Okay it grew by more than 1k players, but most of the players play GE exclusively.
Okay GE mod doesn't account for the majority of players, but....

[sly crown]

You should look into farming. You’re great at setting up strawmen

[robust thistle]

I'm regurgitating what was said by you and others in previous posts

[sly crown]

Nobody has made any of those arguments lmao

You're arguing with schizophrenic hallucinations, not anyone here

[robust thistle]

I'm arguing with disenfranchised keyboard commandos who are hell-bent on making a last stand that no one will remember.

[sly crown]

No, you're high as a kite fighting ghosts.

[vocal orbit]

Squad is my favorite game, ofc ill be stubborn

[sly crown]

Here are some statements I think anyone reasonable here can agree with:

• ICO was divisive. Some people really did not enjoy the changes. Some people did.
• Some of the people who did not enjoy the changes were players with significant investment in the game (1k+ game hours) which lead to a "brain drain" effect on the community due to the loss of mentors.
• ICO did not staggeringly change popularity of Squad in any particular direction
• Many sales and updates since have also contributed to growth; it is difficult to segment how much of growth is from what sources; cumulatively, Squad has grown, but ICO did not contribute to this growth proportionally more than any other major update, and sales have a demonstrably larger effect on growth than updates do.

Also, it's hard to get specific numbers on this because Steam doesn't publish regional user counts, but as NA server admins we have observed a loss in the scale of this region's playerbase while also noting many new RU and CN servers and population growth.

[robust thistle]

You're unreasonable for thinking all of the above are true statements

[sly crown]

OK, tell me where you think I've gone wrong

No, please tell me in your words which bullet points you disagree with, please.

Let's work this out so I can better understand where you're coming from.

There's an easy way to solve your inability to post what you're trying to post. But I'm not interested in solving it because I can't have you just rely on links to other posts. Just tell me what you disagree with and I'll help you fix your posts.

[robust thistle]

Numbers went up drastically since ICO. The popularity of the game has changed in one direction. ICO was and still is an underlying factor

[sly crown]

So can we agree just for simplicity's sake that Squad has grown 3k average active users since ICO?

The highlighted segment here is the growth period coinciding with the release of ICO, 6.0, on September 27th.
All I want you to note here is the scale of this spike growth compared to the spikes further along.

Do you think it's unreasonable to say that there were growth periods after ICO that were larger than the release of ICO?

For additional context, here's the release of 5.0 (June 21st 2023) and 7.0 (Dec 12th 2023)
Just eyeballing it, do you think that ICO's growth was proportionally larger than the two major updates surrounding it's release?

[merry flame]

Oh this guy most be those AI that are in the new Discord TOS

The AI cant use the images yet

[sly crown]

Here's how to fix your inability to post links since you at least typed a single sentence of your own words.
Go to #rules-and-roles and get the link posting role by clicking the corresponding button.

[broken socket]

Pro ICO Stan AI bots, we're not ready.

[sly crown]

I would estimate 5.0 as having grown peak users from ~14.5-16k to 18.5k; Free Weekend occurred right before this release so tough to narrow exactly how many users diff. But somewhere between a 2.5-4k growth
6.0 from ~14.2k to 17.8k, 3.6k growth.
7.0 from 15.2k to 18.7k, 3.5k growth.

Frankly, ICO's contribution to the user count is very much in line with most of the major updates. Historical trends can be observed in Squad's user activity history that indicate the largest effects on the size of the playerbase are free weekends (which fall off rapidly the following period as most won't convert to sales), followed by sales.

Major updates have a fairly predictable growth pattern that does absolutely bring in some players especially returning ones, but Sales have a much larger effect on the playerbase and take a good deal longer to fall off.

Again, I like ICO (though I don't think it was or even now is perfect), but the idea that 6.0 was some god given update that skyrocketed Squad's popularity is simply not true and I'm not sure where you get this idea.

It's just another update. Some people didn't like it, some people did. One thing that I think is important to note is the second point. There's a real argument to be made that even if ICO has contributed to popularity significantly that in the short term it harmed the playerbase as the average player shifted towards less experienced as more experienced players left and many more new players bought the game. A lot of us believe this game shines at it's brightest in experienced play, that silly "teamwork" thing the devs keep talking about being important, and that there was a noticable decline in the quality of matches after this period. Even if we were to say ICO is fundamentally better and the playerbase larger, the loss of experience in the community has a notable effect.

Some people lost the game they enjoyed playing, and didn't really get a say in it. I think that's reasonable to have some sympathy for, at least.

[merry flame]

Can we say that ICO increased teamwork?

I hear that claim thrown around with “go play cod” and I don’t see how ICO increased teamwork

People say “oh you have to cover and play with your team more” but you already could do that more ICO didn’t really change that formula.

[sly crown]

I think there's an argument that it made the average player rely on their teammates more because they were less capable of getting kills on their own. Some people would call this teamwork, and on some level that's true, but I think it's not a very compelling form of teamwork. It doesn't require very much coordination, merely traveling together, and there was already an advantage in numbers preICO. It's also very small scale teamwork when we're talking about a game that wants 50 players per team.

The strategy layer was largely unaffected by ICO. No changes really affected Logistics, Radios, HABs, or Rallies. The largest issues with teamwork in Squad are getting all of these 50 people united on one goal, and I wouldn't say that ICO moved the needle at all on this, and worse alienated an experienced group of the playerbase that did have a greater understanding of the larger strategy. I think that the loss of veterans contributing to lowered teamwork on average is a strong argument.

I think Offworld's messaging around the ICO was really the worst part of it. They spoke of it with lofty goals and nonspecific means of getting there. They definitely represented it as some huge shift in teamwork that I don't think panned out the way they thought.

I think it's fair to say that ICO

• Slowed down the pace of the game with direct nerfs to infantry movespeed, stamina use and regen speed.
• Made people on average less accurate, extending the length of firefights
• Encouraged people to fire more rounds in firefights for the suppression effect, both extending and increasing activity during firefights.

I don't think these are inherently bad changes, but I can agree that it made some aspects of the game laborious and had some quirky results in gunplay.

[lost kindle]

Now, we can't. amount of teamwork now is same as pre ico. Game just become slower and slightly cinematic. That's it

[long plover]

It severely punished and decreased lonevolfing, that's for sure. Also reduced an effectiveness of single soldier.

ICO is half implemented because suppression by infantry MGs (the core part of infantry tactics ICO tryed to implement) does not exist

[tranquil basin]

It didn't I see 100s of marksmen everyday solo transport trucks into nowhere. It has infact increased.

[broken socket]

Lonewolfing got buffed by ICO though that's just simple mental calculus

[tranquil basin]

Yes, lonewolves don't get suppressed due to being alone.

ICO rewards stationary gameplay, unless you are a knife main.

[merry flame]

MGs were more lethal and very strong, now they cant hit crap

[burnt flint]

A properly set up mg with a good player was deadly pre ICO, punished sloppy movement and bad aim. Now mgs merely blur my screen.. they are useless

[pliant forge]

the most fun squad has ever been was ICO initial release. Anyone who disagrees is mad, bad, and sad

[sly crown]

It was an exciting time, but each subsequent patch has improved upon it.

[lost kindle]

it's funny that now you can do more solo coz majority of time you play against unexperienced players even at primetime hours. (Wait for answer about PrOpEr servers)

[cloud bison]

There are no more proper servers after the last 2 big sales

Half the vet players are hiding and the other half are so diluted down they're barely noticeable

[maiden nova]

I am sorry but the most fun i had in squad was when there were no big big vics just apcs. Inf squads could kill all vics without needing to many rockets from normal lat. The teamwork and generaly vibe was better. People actually trying to play and not just play giga slow most of the time. The gunplay being not to arcady but not as complete wonkie as now. Maps actually being somewhat balanced nowadays alot of map layouts and the voting make for some really unbalanced layers. Or the lack of maps in rotations because just a certain amount of maps are being played. Nowadays the average Knwoledge of a blueberry is way lower then ever even before the sales. All these things paired with a gun system that is wonkie and some optics like the susat and insurgent ak optic and milita ak optic that gives you kinda the same gunplay as preICO because for some reason its complete different atleast for me.

[burnt flint]

squad was peak pre vics ...

[vale elbow]

simpler was better

[robust swallow]

Just imagine how many players in squad are actually WarThunder players 🫠

[pliant forge]

That's not true each patch made it worse. They didn't even fix the most annoying bug, the binocular sensitivity bug

[sly crown]

What specific changes do you think made it worse, exactly?

[pliant forge]

The teamwork was better because back then it was populated almost entirely by PR players

[sly crown]

There was definitely a significant portion, but almost entirely is not correct. Lots of people saw the kickstarter and the early access steam release.

[pliant forge]

They made it so stupid people could shoot accurately again. I liked it better when stupid people couldn't hit anything

[sly crown]

Do you consider yourself, then, someone smart who can hit things?

[pliant forge]

I could hit things when ICO came out, many could not

[sly crown]

Can I ask what mode and kit you most commonly play?

[pliant forge]

Invasion and raas and medic, although I play a lot less now because they made it too easy to shoot again to please the stupid people

The only problem I had with ICO release is that MGs on a bipod should have been stronger. Rifles were in a beautiful place

I played squad almost every day during initial ICO release for all those months

It was the most I played squad since the pre vehicles days

[vale elbow]

@broken socket we've got a foxhole player

[sly crown]

Not to stereotype, but if invasion is your most played mode you're dealing with a lot of static fights where you're being less effected by stamina effects.

[pliant forge]

Stamina is just a basic competency check lol

One of many mechanics that made it so stupid people couldn't hit anything

[sly crown]

I wouldn't agree with that primarily on the basis that there was very little instruction to players. Unless you were frequenting community discussions you probably wouldn't have been really aware of how stamina works.

[pliant forge]

75% will drain their stamina for zero reason because they forgot to use the brain tissues. Just keep your stamina between 80-100% always except for major emergencies and it's so easy

[pliant forge]

You can spend 2 minutes on test range to figure out how stamina work

[cloud bison]

except it wasn't? the stability penalty from literally just walking was 90% of the issue with earlier ICO builds

[sly crown]

I mean, you seemingly don't even know the breakpoint for when stamina actually effects you.

[pliant forge]

I had no problems hitting targets in ICO launch build

[pliant forge]

Send me screenshots of you getting lots of kills with rifleman or medic from pre tweaked ICO

[sly crown]

I'm not anti-ICO.

I like it, I just think it also had (and has) sizable flaws

[cloud bison]

balanced opinions are not accepted here

extremists only

[pliant forge]

The worst parts of the game are unrelated to ICO imo

[sly crown]

Oh, I've always been labeled an offworld glazer by morans

[vale elbow]

this has to be rage bait

[sly crown]

I checked his profile out of curiosity and he did have like a 2.0 K/D

[pliant forge]

The way they handled spawn ammo is a bad mechanic they should have never done that

[sly crown]

My concern is that particularly when considering invasion that's not necessarily impressive on it's own

[pliant forge]

Move the decimal it is closer to 200

[sly crown]

Well that's just a funny joke

your stats are public

I don't doubt you were able to be effective, it's not a bad K/D, but that's not the only thing that makes an effective squad player is all.

[pliant forge]

You can draw a diagram of when squad was most fun and the peaks are pre-vehicles and like the first month of ICO

[pliant forge]

It would be true if they let me have iron sight mosin on every faction

[sly crown]

lol

They're bringing back the carbine in UE5

[robust swallow]

Dude 2kd is huge for squad considering how many ppl and up with 0 kills with that “immersive experience”

[pliant forge]

I will try the game with significant time when UE5 comes out maybe

[sly crown]

It's well above average certainly!

I'm not trying to knock it.

[pliant forge]

The current tweak of ICO is not actually that bad I'm mostly trolling, but I do think it was more fun originally. My actual biggest issues with the game are everything around vehicles and the supply system

Not to be a PR elitist but PR has the perfect system for the relationship between spawning and supplies

[sly crown]

I played since 0.4 so I get it

I remember the same chaos and as divisive 0.8 deviation update lol, the original ICO

[pliant forge]

You always spawn with full ammo, but you can only spawn with basic kits. And special kits like engineer, hat, sniper you have to spend fob supplies to pick up after you spawn

So much better than what squad did

It means that you can play still play the game if your front line has no supply, you will just not be able to use any specialist kits

[pliant forge]

Is that the one that came out in like 2019? I already mostly stopped playing by then

[long plover]

I quite like the idea of sieging a well-defended fob, or needing to worry about resupplies when playing of tge raly point.

Supplies are fairly cheap right now and can be easly brought to the non-surrounded point. 2k ammo is enough for solid 15mins of active combat. Helos bring supplies, vehicles have 300-600 supplies

[pliant forge]

U can still siege because if they run out of supplies on PR they don't get any specialist kits and they can't shoot any of their fob weapons like tow etc

Also attackers can destroy supplies because they are physically in the game which is cool

If you see where their supply pile is you can have the jet pilot try to strafe it or bomb it

[cloud bison]

so basically rallies are completely useless and you favour a fob spam style gameplay?

because that's the practical implication of what you're asking for

[pliant forge]

no

[sly crown]

0.8 was like 2008

[pliant forge]

oh your talking about PR lol

I started playing 0.96

[sly crown]

Yes PR. 0.8 radically increased the deviation of weapons and introduced the stability pips we now see in Squad after ICO

[sly crown]

They've prototyped this for Squad. Nothing concrete but it's possible that (some day) they may revisit it.

[broken socket]

I like how in PiratePengus world. Getting reemed by Armor you can do nothing about is playing the game normally and nbd.

[pliant forge]

everything involving vehicles is the worst part of the game

[sly crown]

hot take vehicle balance is great except that layouts get fucking 4 ifvs

if we were talking like 1-2 IFVs then it'd be fine

replace em with more light vics and apcs

[broken socket]

Realk unmeme talk though, what about "ICO Launch" presumably the playtests made it better and what did they change that made it worse.

[pliant forge]

I mean when ICO went to live build, not the playtests they were kind of buggy

[broken socket]

so what was good about the first live build

[lost kindle]

Nothing good. Only 8.2 made ico enjoyable

[long plover]

Hard disagree. Vehicles are way to survivable. 5-7 LAT shots with 5s stabilisation each to destroy an IFV should not be the norm.

I prefer more vehicles (say 3 IFVs + 2 APCs), but with much less survivability

Like, 3 LATs or 1 HAT on IFV to make it burn, 5 LATs or HAT+LAT on MBT to make it burn
1 LAT on MRAP for 70% dmg so 2nd destroys it

But each vehicle with faster respawn timer (5-7 mins, not 10-15)

[next frost]

AT stabilization times are fixed in UE5, which is the biggest issue currently

[long plover]

Still, infantry squad lacking HAT can't reliably kill IFVs right now. Too little required by vehicle crew and too much for inf. Not to just resupply those lats, but revive wounded, maneuver around, deal with enemy inf and etc.
IFV just shoots and white smoke with HE and is mostly fine

[next frost]

an infantry squad can still neutralize an IFV with LATs.

and vehicle gameplay is more demanding than AT gameplay. The people who actually use vics effectively dont just drive around the map, they have hundreds of hours of game experience to enable them to be that effective. The average IFV squad has only like 15 kills and killed 2-3 vics max.

[long plover]

In theory - yes. But it feels like a chore, especially if you are playing of rally point and your resources are limited.
It just does not deel satsfying to lunge 5 LATs, wasting 5-10 minutes to destroy an armored vic you have ambushed

[next frost]

I agree that LATs should be stronger, but the current balance, especially with the UE5 tweaks work.

[long plover]

If you have HAT - it's fine. But vic HP + HE damage and suppression + ammount of carried and spare LATs make it feel bad dor infantry squad as a whole.

Maybe AT has it easier as a single player, but for inf squad it's much harder than for vehicle squad.

I'd even say that right now squad meta is heavly favoring vehicles

[next frost]

If it would be the other way around vics would be useless given that they are facing 4+ inf squads + enemy vics.

I agree tho that it would be worth a try to buff LAT damage so that it takes one less hit to kill 1000/1250 hp vics, and reduce the HP of NATO IFVs to 1250 as well.

The wheeled APC/IFV meta to CQB with enemy inf is just stupid imo, this vics should be more fragile.

[long plover]

Yup, agree on this

[sly crown]

2 LAT, Riflemen, rally on edge of FOB radius with ammo crate, or rally with light vic (truck or mrap).

Easily solved problem

[frosty gull]

I agree the process is "easy" in the sense that it is straight forward. But I think the effort required to pull it off is out of line with the payoff, and it isn't particularly fun on either end.

[sly crown]

When there's another full health one, or two, around the corner, you're right. Otherwise, it's extremely simple for any SL to organize.

[frosty gull]

Basically 2 - 5 guys have to commit to a specific course of action, with multiple moving pieces to kill a vic that costs 10 tickets and comes back in 10 minutes.

[sly crown]

Worth it every time

[frosty gull]

I don't think it is complicated, I think it becomes arduous when you have to do it for basically every armored vehicle in the game, with the possibility of it becoming very difficult if they're good.

LATs really should be more "anti-tank" and less "light" if almost every subfaction is going to putting out 6 - 10 armored vehicles.

[lost kindle]

There are hat kits for it. Literally 1 lat and 2 hats needs to destroy tank. You need just 2 or 3 people.

[frosty gull]

You only get 2 HATs per team.

Unless you pick certain subfactions that get more.

[lost kindle]

You can shoot twice if you have rifleman....

[frosty gull]

(They get more for a reason.)

[lost kindle]

Just 2 people, hat and rifleman= 2 hat shots

[frosty gull]

You can, but every infantry squad can't have a HAT. Almost every match is going to have more than 2 infantry squads.

[sly crown]

see:

[sly crown]

.

If I had the magic Offworld wand my wish would be to remove an IFV from every unit and replace it with an APC or light vic

[lost kindle]

If hat kits don't play at front or dont hunt mech - there are bad players. Easy solution - to create first squad and lock hat as sl before noobs will pick it

If you play non-public - there's no problem

[frosty gull]

I don't think it is just IFVs that are the problem. IFVs stand out because, like you said, some subfactions get a lot of them, but the super-tanky APCs are awful about it as well, or even factions having huge numbers of junk vics that you have to constantly kill, that are in constant rotation.

[sly crown]

The threat of a "super tanky APC" is not nearly as frustrating

[lost kindle]

Lav should have less hp, no discuss there

Also brdm either

[sly crown]

IFVs are the problem not because the number but because of the sheer fighting power they bring particularly with HE rounds and coax.

[lost kindle]

Other vehicles have balanced hp and firepower conditions

[sly crown]

Tanks are "top of the food chain" but actually kind of shit

IFVs are by far the strongest asset most teams have access to and they get them in insane numbers

[lost kindle]

Tanks literally don't live more than a 10 minutes in avg pub

So 15 min cooldown help to save tickets as much as possible

[frosty gull]

I'm thinking about the AAVP, and the various cheeseboxes with RWS/enclosed turrets as well. The ones with tons of armor/HP that just soak damage.

[sly crown]

Shit I know it, but AAVP is less impactful than a LAV in almost every way.

Boxer is like one of the only ones that's actually notable (and partially because the Warrior is absolute dogshit)

[frosty gull]

Boxer?

[sly crown]

brit tracked

fv432?

[frosty gull]

Yeah, that is the other one I'm thinking about.

BUlldog

[lost kindle]

Warrior mb?

Or bulldog

[sly crown]

oh yea bulldog mb

[lost kindle]

I don't think lats should have more damage. Will be more optimal to balance vics hps or remake vics dmg system

And make lat stab time like it's not a joke

[tranquil basin]

It takes alot of lat shots to kill a tank. I soloed a tank once with rpg7 it took me 18 shots to kill it shooting in the back. This was a long time ago not sure how many lat shots it takes to kill a tank these days. It is however possible to shoot of the tracks and call in airstrike.

[broken socket]

Whether or not you're someone who deepthroats the current lat damage values. LATs objectively aren't even ammo efficient most of the time against light armor. Bare minimum a light anti tank kit should cost less ammo to destroy an APC then the alternative or you overload hat workflow.

[tranquil basin]

If they lower the health HATs will probably become too powerful? I think lat damage should be adjusted to make the kit more rewarding. At the moment I only use it for infantry instead of wasting rockets on vics.

[long plover]

Sadly no. Because for even softest ifvs you need at least 4 hits to destroy, while at guys have 1 shot before rearm. Ifv sprays in general derection of very noticable white smoke with HE and boom - one of your ATs is down.
If anything goes not ideal for infantry - ifv disengages, or just yolos into you, destroying your rearm vehicle, your infantry and your rally.

Again, then plan and idea might be straight forward, but the execution should be flawless. Which is a huge gap between vehicle gameplay and possible mistakes allowed

[tranquil basin]

Waiting for rocket launchers to stabilize takes too long these days too. I feel most bad for AR and LMG players though.

[broken socket]

Pro ico stans trying to copium explain why machine guns are actually good still despite having no upsides is my favorite type of pasta

[long plover]

ICO ment to take away lazer beam accuracy from MGs, trading it for suppression. And then ICO MG suppression got butchered too. And so MGs became worthless

[broken socket]

When did MG suppression get nerfed

[tranquil basin]

Probably when the twitch shooters adapted to the blurr and flinching lmao

[next frost]

Thats not really the issue since it also takes 2-3 players to operate the vic + the logistics support it needs to be effective.

[robust swallow]

Vehicle fun exposed 🤣

[broken socket]

Well he is German so he does love his Panzers that said he's also a known BoH so it's 50/50 whether his takes are bad here because he's an armor player or because he's just Bohing it up

[sly crown]

50% is a generous success rate for his takes.

[broken socket]

you misread I said there was a 50% chance his bad take here was just because he an armor main and the other 50% chance was because he's Der Shredder

[sly crown]

I did in fact not read, consider me an idiot

[frosty gull]

The issue isn't in doing it. The problem is the amount of effort to deal with something, not that it can't be done.

This is something that has to be done constantly to deal with the amount of armor in play, it shouldn't be a Russian ballet production for infantry to kill IFVs with LATs.

[sly crown]

I don’t think dumbing down AT gameplay is necessary or a good direction

AT is a role that has skill expression that is worth preserving. Dumbing it down by making them do more raw damage may “balance” the interaction with vehicles but really guts the interesting part of AT.

There are certainly good reasons to still give them quality of life adjustments, like reducing the time to stabilize in ideal conditions (full hp, stamina, unsuppressed). This would particularly effect ranged shots, as short range shots can be made via intuitive aim or snapping with front sight, whereas ranged shots often require not only more stable sights but also careful ranging which will delay firing time as is.

Being able to more effectively engage vehicles at range will be helpful particularly with the increased ranges UE5 will have.

[frosty gull]

I'm not asking for HAT-type damage, only enough that "lighter" armored vehicles don't require a full orchestra and writ of mandamus to kill.

I don't think being as tanky as they are is particularly desirable, because that's most of the what allows them to intrude on MBTs' domain. IFVs (and the tankier APCs) being hard to kill, makes the distinction between them and full on tanks narrow enough that their weapons will often put them ahead of them in terms of value.

[sly crown]

I don't think that's a good idea, though. It makes all vehicles more vulnerable.

I think that finer adjustments would create a much better balance overall rather than trying to hammer out the problems with a flat damage increase.

[broken socket]

I mean you can make vehicles as vulnerable as you want them, you don't just have to up the damage flat out on the launcher itself. You could tweak heat, make a new damage type be a tryhard, probably just tuning HEAT to be slightly better for lighter vehicles wouldn't cause too many problems. The only other heavy hitter that shoots heat are tank rounds, which people also complain about not dealing with light armor very good at SPG-9

hypothetically we make heat enough to tip BTRs to say 4 hits to 3 like olden days. so we need 960 x (X) to equal at least 333. So for BTRs that'd be a change from 0.25 to 0.34. This changes tank heat rounds to 714 which doesn't change breakpoints, and changes SPG-9 to 646 also not changing breakpoints

[frosty gull]

I don't think the increased vulnerability would change things very much for things like tanks or the heavy IFVs. Reducing the number of LAT hits to kill them from 45 to 36 (or whatever the number is) would be a big change in the mathematical sense, but how often are vehicles like that actually being chipped to death by LATs? In terms of gameplay the relationship would probably still be "LAT tracks tank and something else kills it."

[sly crown]

My point is the opposite: the effects it would have on light vehicles.

[broken socket]

At the same thing you could rebalance ammo costs to a lower value making HEAT rounds more economically viable for dealing with Light Armor to further encoruage their use. if HATs cost nearly the same and take less time people will just use hat

[sly crown]

Targeted damage balance changes like Bill's stating are... understandable, but I think kind of boring.

Not necessarily bad, but just not very interesting.

[frosty gull]

Oh, that's the change I wanted.
I want light vehicles to be seriously threatened by even LATs.

[sly crown]

I do not think that trucks and MRAPs should be more vulnerable to LAT.

Engined in one, killed in two.

I should clarify though, I don't think the vehicle itself should be more vulnerable. I don't necessarily think that HEAT performance against crew in light vics is the best

[broken socket]

thats fair since it's the only things LAT can actually kill xd

[sly crown]

+, I think ammo rebalance could make sense. Though I do think that it starts to get into the questionable territory of how 1 Rifleman is able to hold so many.

[unkempt kayak]

Bring back leaning with lats and hats but reduce the amount of lean.

[frosty gull]

I don't think the threshold should necessarily change, but I'd prefer if one hit got them just in to burning threshold with a second needed to secure a kill outright. Right now they burn after 2 shots, but if you miss the engine they're unaffected by the first hit except the HP damage.

I think making infantry AT play more deliberate, with a focus on predicting and preparing is fine, but when even light vehicles can just YOLO through a LAT that is doing all those things it feels pointless.

[sly crown]

These weapons aren't that strong irl.

Here's something we might be able to agree on, though--I think that damage to occupants could be better.

If you hit the front cab of a transport/logistics truck, that should give the driver a very bad day

Same for MRAP cabins. A shrapnel/spalling effect that can more reliably injure and incapacitate could help the AT feel more effective without altering the damage/hp calculation

I don't think though that hitting the truck cab or the engine should set the vehicle on fire and potentially explode all the other occupants, that's just a no go for me.

[frosty gull]

I think it should. Even if they have to bootleg it by making the cab an object that transfers damage to the occupants, rather than actually calculating the path of the blast.

[sly crown]

I mean I’d certainly prefer if they could, I don’t know, trace a few rays in a cone shape on impact within the vehicle and deal damage that way.

I actually have various ideas on things that I think could be tweaked that I can try to expand on later

[frosty gull]

But yeah it might feel better if passengers were affected by the attack. Right now, dealing with light vics feels almost pointless. It'd be fine if AT gameplay was super casual low-floor low-ceiling gameplay, but making it relatively high effort, and somewhat more difficult than normal gameplay means that the payoff doesn't match what you're putting in.

[sly crown]

I think there are better ways to solve the problem than dumbing it down

[frosty gull]

I think that putting light vehicles into burning with one shot wouldn't change a lot as long as long as the occupants don't panic, and jump out, and drive off to repair. Right now the second shot takes them deep enough into burning that they don't actually have time switch kits and repair, but if one shot took them just into threshold.

[sly crown]

I do not think that making light vics more vulnerable is a good change at all

Like, 2 LAT ambush is still a thing and now it would instakill a full logi

[frosty gull]

I think it already does.

Or something very close to it.

[sly crown]

It still allows dismounts

Just as you said, they can continue driving and dismount shortly

But in your world it makes this kind of movement even more vulnerable—now it only takes a single LAT to do this ambush

Very bad not good idea

[vocal orbit]

all you need to do to rebalance lats is just bring back the general feel of 5.2 aiming. damage is fine, ammo count is fine, just need to not have to take a 30 second nap before shooting when chasing down armor. less missed shots, more damage done, less ammo used no need to fix more stuff that isnt broke

[sly crown]

Aiming is not the only thing wrong with the current vic-at balance.

[frosty gull]

The problem isn't the aim time.

[sly crown]

I'd actually argue that ammo count is not fine, and one of the more interesting aspects that could be adjusted.

[vocal orbit]

the only thing id change about ammo count is make the rifleman bag capacity and at rounds all divisible by the same amount but thats just qol annoyance

[vocal orbit]

it is. having to run to get an angle, then having to wait for stam on top of the completely unchanged from 6.0 sway, then having the added noodliness of armor's he/50 suppression is a huge nerf to inf at.

[lucid pivot]

I think the suppression is a way bigger issue compared to sway at least when it comes to AT.

[frosty gull]

There have been far more impactful changes to the vic-infantry balance besides 5.2.
Faction/Map-voting, new factions with more dangerous vehicles/weapons, the ATGM changes....I'm missing something....

Oh yeah factions with no HATs (or greatly restricted access to HATs).

[vocal orbit]

i dont disagree with you that all of these are issues, but the sway, stam, suppression and movement speed is a big elephant of a nerf

[frosty gull]

That isn't the most impactful change by far.
For me the bigger "nerf" was that emplaced ATGMs became marginally worse at medium-long range, and much worse at short ranges. There is a much bigger range band for them to play in to get inside the effective range of an ATGM now, and you aren't assured hits at range either.

For someoen else getting A-town stomped by 4x LAVs or 3x BMPs is their salt mine.

[vocal orbit]

yea the atgm changes were annoying, but atgms arent the only tool inf has, and it isnt doing most the armor killing either. hand held at is far more impactful than atgms. Though atgms are certainly important. just not to the same degree

[frosty gull]

They aren't the only toll infantry has but the changes have holistic effects.

[lucid pivot]

Inf ATGM is and has been Useless in most situations even pre-ICO.

But the vehicle ATGM nerf basically completely nerfed any tracked vehicles ability to take 50-50 fights.

[vocal orbit]

@frosty gull im not arguing with you that the atgm changes were bad, im not saying they didnt have any effect. my point is that at kits being nerfed has a greater impact than atgms. Between the two changes and mg kits being pointless talil is insufferable to play on as inf

[sly crown]

I think that giving most LATs a second round would be good for a number of reasons.

First: It's realistic. While it's technically accurate, for example in US doctrine, for an infantry squad to have two rifleman each carrying one launcher, that's not always the case; if a mission demands it, a squad may bring additional anti-tank equipment. There are handfuls of examples of US soldiers carrying two M72 LAWs. Similarly, it's not necessarily the case for foreign militaries; from what I understand of the Russian military they'll commonly have an RPG carrying 2 rockets with an assistant carrying 3 additional. These launchers are not excessively heavy: the M72 weighing 8lb loaded; the RPG-26, 6.5lb, the RPG-7 launcher around 14lb with the PG-7VL modern HEAT round weighing under 6lb. It would be reasonable to carry multiple when the situation demands. We even see it done in-game, with the LAT kits for TLF, MEI, and IMF, as well as one of two kits for each of VDV and WPMC.

Second: It will alleviate the logistical demand of anti-tank weapons on the squad. While a single Rifleman may technically carry up to 3 LATs worth of ammo, they are actually competing with the Rally Point, an asset both more expensive and more powerful than a LAT. I'd say it's common for a squad to have 0-2 riflemen, and to consider half of their ammo bag (50 pts) reserved for the rally. When considering only the ammo leftover, that's really just 1 LAT round per rifleman carried. With APCs/IFVs taking around 4 hits to destroy, this can take literally all of the squad's anti-tank load to deal with, leaving you completely vulnerable should you find yourself under attack by even a Light Vehicle with RWS.

Third: It will make more squad loadouts more viable. There are few cases where you would want to go without 2x LAT in your squad right now, with the threat of vehicles being so high. IMO, the ideal squad loadout is the same almost every game: 2x Medic, 2x LAT, 2x Rifleman with 2 flex slots for HAT/CE or Grenadier/AR/MM. This change would reduce the demand of both the LAT and Rifleman kits allowing you to flex them for other options without completely hamstringing your ability to deal with enemy vehicles. It increases the flexibility of squad loadouts without increasing the number of headaches Open SLs have to deal with.

And last, it'll allow for more follow-up shots, which I think is particularly important both for new players and for shots made at range. Obviously new players miss more often, so giving them another shot doesn't linearly increase their power when they do hit, but does give them the opportunity to make up for a miss at a critical time. Additionally, the reliability of the first shot in many cases is not high, even for experienced players, especially at range. By giving an additional shot to LATs, you give them an opportunity to properly adjust their aim and land their second shot more reliably.

automod hates long msg.

[frosty gull]

"These launchers are not excessively heavy: the M72 weighing 8lb loaded; the RPG-26, 6.5lb, the RPG-7 launcher around 14lb with the PG-7VL modern HEAT round weighing under 6lb."

I don't disagree with any of that but...
8lbs on top of your existing load is fucking brutal man lmao

[vocal orbit]

sorta kinda depending on the situation, on large maps yeah, but on any forest map no, lats tracking and hats killing has always been the dynamic duo

dont really play armor so i couldnt give an informed opinion on the armor atgms

[sly crown]

More or less brutal than your wife getting to meet some very nice men in uniform at your doorstep? Jokes aside sure but it’s obviously done when it’s needed, and it may not be something they carry from sun up to sun down but rather as part of their dismount.

We don’t have selective kits/weight simulation so we’re obviously fudging things a bit with this being universally applied but I think in practice it’s not all that noticeable.

[vocal orbit]

this is quite the wall of text, yea i can see 2 lat rounds being good, it is kinda silly hats get 2 rounds but lats dont. I shoulda phrased it better i was talking about the cost

[sly crown]

I think it is a genuinely VERY slept on, very beneficial change

[frosty gull]

Yeah, it is done.
Only issue I can think of is that a lot of those LATs with 2 rounds got them for other balance reasons.
Like MEI and IMF have them because a lot of their other kits are comparably worse than BLUFOR/REDFOR counterparts.

[sly crown]

I don’t disagree, and I’d definitely want to give more thought about how they are balanced in consideration to this—but I don’t personally think it should be a blocker for this change.

There’s also a possibility that this could be considered as a specific tweak for some matchups. Just like IRL loadouts vary per mission, it would make sense for conventional forces to bring less AT against non-armor forces, whether that be just MEI/IMF, or maybe even conventional units like AA, LI, etc

But I don’t think this is strictly necessary as LATs aren’t that much more powerful with this change when considering matchups where there actually isn’t much armor

The AT4 is an exception worth mentioning as well because it would be actually pretty impractical to carry two, and I think a damage adjustment could be warranted. Particularly because it’s actually supposed to be a disposable Carl Gustav launcher (A T 4, eighty four, 84mm, get it) but meanwhile the Carl Gustavs in game are HATs that are twice as effective.

Also also, Rifleman IRL are the ones carrying the anti-tank launchers to begin with. Kinda weird that we made that into two roles to begin with.

(Hot Take: Kill the ammo bag. Make kits more self-sufficient. People already don't want to play rifleman, and every kit is justified based on it's utility compared to the best item in the game.)

(This is still bad because irl squads still have 2 rifleman FTLs whereas this would just mean more people take SAWs and Marksmeme)

[lost kindle]

In Russia military there's no actually a rifleman w different ammo. There is a anti tank crew, where's number 1 carry rpg and number 2 carry cumulatuve grenades. Same as mg crew. But in combat it can be anyone and ammo also can be on position

[sly crown]

I mean, if anything that's closer to what Squad is trying to depict compared to the US mil.

[lost kindle]

9 man squad is literally us army platoons structure

[sly crown]

Yes, but there is no such "rifleman" and "anti-tank" role. It's one person. The rifleman is who carries the AT.

See the asterisk for rifleman

Whereas the russian setup, with 1 gunner carrying the RPG-7 and 2 rounds, and the assistant carrying 3 rounds in reserve.

[lost kindle]

In Ru military there's. As i remember 4 lat/hat/etc per platoon.

[sly crown]

This seems more in line with how Squad thinks AT works, if you just pretend the rifleman is carrying specifically AT rounds

[lost kindle]

That makes sense, even in Hollywood films second guy always help to load at

Xd

[sly crown]

Yeah. Weird for disposable launchers, though!

[lost kindle]

Also it pretends more teamwork. You just can't shoot at many times by yourself if it's no ammo crates near

[robust swallow]

Remind me what this thread was about

Oh I see ICO 😭

[robust swallow]

It’s for 2023 did anything change for 2024-25?

[sly crown]

Don't think so.

Has been pretty static for many years now

[frosty gull]

Their "AT" guy would be the one qual'ed on the Javelin.
Also lmbo at guys who don't need pistols getting them, while SAW gunners and DM just gotta wing it if they go into a building or dugout.

[frosty gull]

I do want to see various LAT/HAT differentiated more.

The only difference is the Russian disposable LAT being better than the US one. They took away the AT-4 one-shotting helis.

[sly crown]

That would be a Weapons Squad, though. Not a Rifle Squad. US Weapons Squad is SL, 2 MGs + assistant gunners, 2 Javs + assistants

Rifle Squad is using LAW/AT4, just assigned to bog standard riflemen

[sly crown]

RPG26? It's very similar to LAW iirc.

[frosty gull]

It's a direct copy, lol

except I think the Russians used a larger warhead or redesigned it for more penetration.

Like they did with the AT4, the actual blast was deliberately widened to have better through armor effects at the cost of penetration. Which was done because it was becoming very unlikely to penetrate a tank's front armor while the side and rear armor of Soviet tanks is exceptionally thin.

[sly crown]

I meant in game, but yeah. I think the only difference in game is higher pen.

[sly crown]

Somewhat interestingly, USMC Rifle Squads are actually planned to have just 1 M3 MAAWS each (with the Weapons Squad attachment operating Javelins)

[broken socket]

I think the funniest OWIism of all time is definitely having two different kit choices, but usually just having one be straight up worse. OWI out here like "YOU GOT THE DUD!" only recentlly adding side options for based factions like MIL. The cherry on top being it thematically and game balance wise makes sense for a kit like LAT that has the LAW choice, a worse LAT, to get two LATs because that's literally what they were designed for, and you get either 1 good LAT and some Opdicks or 2 less good LATs, somewhat more of a choice.

[long plover]

Later ICO Playtests AFAIK. MGs in 6.0 came already butchered.

[long plover]

While i agree on increasing amount of LATs per player as a possible solution, hitting 4+ LAT shot on lightly armored 113 of BMP2 feels bad from players perspective.
Player does not feel he does damage while jumping threw hoops with stabilisation, repositioning and suppression

[next frost]

It would be better to increase LAT damage instead of giving every LAT a ridiculous amount of them.

[sly crown]

No it would not as discussed prior

Bad suggest

[next frost]

okay nvvy being a clown again

[sly crown]

Look it ain’t my fault you both had a bad take and didn’t read

Increasing damage has knock on effects that are bad

[next frost]

I am not even finished writing, and you already start being toxic

[sly crown]

Tawksik

Sorry disagreeing is toxic I’ll keep that in mind

[next frost]

Its not that you disagree, its how you express yourself

[sly crown]

Okay, cry about it ig. There’s nothing ridiculous about carrying 2 LAWs its already in game

Bad suggestion is bad, sorry buckaroo

[next frost]

So anyway, carrying additional LATs is already presented ingame by the rifleman which provides 3! additional LATs

[sly crown]

If you could read what you’re replying to you would know this is addressed

[next frost]

I am not even replying to you lol

[sly crown]

You literally are

I brought it up, the post is above

Whether you realize it or not you are joining halfway thru the discourse without knowing what came before

[next frost]

I replied to Kitz, but if it makes you feel important just imagine that I am replying to you. Idk.

[sly crown]

Look at Kitz’s post one more time Durr Shredder

[next frost]

I dont care that he replied to you. I dont engage in discussions with you in this dc, since you are incapable of using counter arguments and bring up "bAd tAkE" instead like a 5yo.

[sly crown]

I mean you can shout into the void all you want be my guest but you’re literally just responding to my content without any of the context

So when you say something silly because you chose not to read don’t be surprised to get told so

Increasing LAT damage is bad, LAT not need kill light vics more effectively, LAT need kill big vic more effectively. You introduce bad side effect by make blanket damage increase.

[long plover]

Sorry but i have missed where?

Increasing LAT dmg by 40% will still result in 2-shot kill on light vehicles light MRAP and truck, but reduce shots-to-kill on larger vehicles

[next frost]

Nvvy is the take police, when he says it is a bad take, then it is a bad take, just accept it.

[sly crown]

basically starts here

[sly crown]

This will mean 2 shots instakill MRAP/Truck, not the same thing

Remember LATs don’t exist in a vacuum. 2 LATs can hit a vic at the same time in an ambush.

[long plover]

He got a good take an LAT amount and economy changes. It's possible and make inf-vehicle balance better
I'm just more concerned on feel of hitting AT for AT player. I don't want to see cheapening of AT launch gameplay wize (if i did correctly conveyed it in english). I got lot's of questions from new players playing AT asking questions like "why the fuck do i need to hit that BMP 5 times to destroy it? It has no armor"

[long plover]

tbh i see it as a good thing. light vics are already oneshotted with HAT, and i see no reason why they should be put to burning with 2 LATs

IMO hitting 2 LATs to alpha strike light vehicle requires high coordination and cooperation from ambushing ATs, thus should be promoted

[long plover]

ty

[sly crown]

I think it is important not to succumb to the desires of people who have been taught by movies that rockets go super duper mega boom. IRL these vehicles won’t just erupt from such damage.

That kind of ambush is already rewarded. The vehicle will almost certainly be on fire at that point, but it does have some counterplay in being able to drive a short distance and dismount.

(Mowing down the dismounts is even more rewarding 😈)

Consider also that while a HAT can definitely instakill, that is (usually) only 2 assets per team with that capability whereas a team will likely have 6 or more LATs in play.

Moving with light vehicles in such a meta would be extremely vulnerable

[tranquil basin]

Transport trucks and logis should take more damage from lats tbh. Atleast a direct hit should kill some of the occupants.

Matvs are easy enough to kill with lat, ifvs are easy to disable (if devs are capable of making a vic with disabled engine unable to roll) ue5 might fix that.

[sly crown]

I actually also already agreed with you above, specifically: “a direct hit should kill some of the occupants”

I do think that the behavior of HEAT is really lacking against light vics. It would be nice to see a cone of fragmentation damage directly behind the blast do damage to occupants.

[sly crown]

.

[tranquil basin]

Yeah trucks are in a weird spot, all it need is some adjustments.

Increasing damage alone wont fix anything, but create alot of other balance issues.

[broken socket]

Takes Der Shredder Sized hit from the bong What are breakpoints guys? Just increase LAT damage nothing will be impacted Exhales

[next frost]

IRL a single LAT can take out any of the IFVs and APCs we have ingame, and most MBTs with a hit from the side or rear. The damage potential of ingame LATs is a joke. The consequence for gameplay is that it takes 3 LATs/Rifleman to take down a simple APC and 2 LATs/Rifleman for an MRAP/Scout car, assuming that it just sits there and waits for the ATs to ream and hit it again. So the only realistic chance for a vic kill is when the vic drove into the own squad without support, got immobilized, and waits for each LAT to hit it 2-3 times in a row without killing any of them. When the vic is not that stupid, or is wheeled, it will most likely escape and kill half the squad in the process.
There is of course a 50% chance that the Squad has a HAT, which would allow it to defeat the vic, but since two HATs have to protect 4 Squads from 4+ enemy vics, infantry often relies on LATs to kill vics, which they are not good at.
Buffing LAT damage would reduce the dependency on two players to effectively deal with armor and improve overall infantry vs light vehicle balance.

[broken socket]

so whats your proposed buff champ

[tranquil basin]

A mixture between fun and immersive. Tweaks of time to aim, slight increase in damage to certain vics added health for tracks etc. Ofcourse with testing to find the sweet spot between fun and balance.

[broken socket]

pilert = der shredder alt confirmed he forgot to change accounts

[next frost]

time of aim already has been fixed in the UE5 build.

[sly crown]

In most cases they cannot destroy the vehicle, but could incapacitate the crew. We don’t model crew injury and death in game and I think there is good reason not to.

[tranquil basin]

Wrong Der Shredder hates fun

[sly crown]

A flat damage increase is literal goober brained moves. Specific adjustments to vehicle-AT health-damage ratios is certainly possible and reasonable but doing so across the board is simply a bad solve

[broken socket]

https://prnt.sc/QCrVeLeGgDp- checkmate atheist the numbers dont lie

[tranquil basin]

Yeah wouldn't work, there is alot of things that needs tweaking.

[tranquil basin]

I don't agree with him? Read again maybe?

[broken socket]

Of course because you're not him Wink

[tranquil basin]

I understand that you like that it takes 20 lats to kill a logi truck, but oh well.

[next frost]

IRL there are no LATs and HATs with different damage stats. Damage depends on what components are hit by the warhead. When you hit a T-72 ammo rack with a LAW it is just as likely to detonate as with a CG tandem heat round or a tank APFSDS shell.

Everything hit by a HEAT jet is most likely destroyed by it. Larger HEAT warheads cause a greater thermal effect and higher pressure damage inside the target vic, but the difference between the warhead sizes is not that big and can hardly be used as an argument to justify 2-6 times higher damage.

[vale elbow]

AT being in a worse place is the same as infantry being in an overall shit place, a rising tide lifts all boats

[sly crown]

That’s not correct either. Launchers have different beyond armor effects. Please stop making things up.

[broken socket]

Classic der

[next frost]

So perhaps you can provide evidence for your claims.

[sly crown]

You made the claim, the erroneous goofy ass claim that all antitank devices are identical and the only thing that matters is what component it hits

[next frost]

No, this was the counter argument for your claim that "LATs" cannot knock out APCs and IFVs with a single hit.

[sly crown]

Literally the development of the AT4 coined the term beyond armor effects because of the post penetration effect of the warhead being more effective at damaging the interior and occupants of the vehicle

If you think that all warheads are the exact same you’re being very silly

Using the same principles to create superheated jets does not make them perform identically

[next frost]

You just disproved your own argument here

[sly crown]

lol ok

[next frost]

If a AT4 has more post damage effect than lets say a LAW, why do they have the same damage ingame? Makes no sense. Yet you use the "But in real life" argument here to justify low LAT damage.

[sly crown]

Talking with you is always a fun exercise in trying to decipher meaninglessness

You are the one making a claim that there is no distinction between launchers irl

That it’s only the component hit that makes any diff

Please think before you talk to me, I already have a migraine and you’re making it return in just a few sentences

Also they don’t have the same damage so stop being utterly wrong

[next frost]

Not really #1340434012359098479 message

[next frost]

Damage does not work like this IRL, you know.

A LAW hitting the ammo or crew compartment can knock out an IFV easily with one shot, while a 105mm tandem heat warhead hitting the engine block only disables the engine.

Trying to justify any of the ingame AT damage with real life is flawed.

[sly crown]

You should become a farmer

Really good at setting up scarecrows

Better known as straw men

You in your own argument state that hitting the engine block with an even bigger round should only disable the engine, which I think is fair to extrapolate that it should not damage the crew or hull, but it does damage the hull directly in game.

Your justification for increasing the damage is that there are actually ways to damage these vehicles more effectively via crew damage for example, and I agree. However we don’t model crew damage in game, and I think there are good reasons we should not do so. Thusly what you are suggesting is actually that hitting noncritical components should just do more damage to the hull

My whole stance on this is that doing more damage to the hull is not realistic, so just flatly increasing damage is a very bad idea from both the perspective of realism and because of the knock-on effects it would have to other vehicle types like trucks and mraps.

There are absolutely particular instances where I believe that the vehicle health to warhead damage does not seem good, I’m not saying there is zero ways to improve balance with selective damage tweaks, but doing so as a flat increase is beyond stupid

If anything I want to explore more ideas about how to integrate the physical concepts of crew damage into the game, without the very frustrating and counterproductive introduction of actual crew deaths

[next frost]

My justification for increasing LAT damage is that it would be better for gameplay.

Your argument with the crew damage vs hardware damage is not relevant for the outcome, which LAT weapons which are designed to defeat light armor are way less effective ingame compared to what this vehicle types should take, which is not only unrealistic, it also makes vehicles which are primarily supposed to transport infantry and provide fire support into effective tools to CQB brawl with infantry without having to rely on support, and causes demands a significant effort or take this vics down under non ideal situations.

There is also no necessarily to increase damage to all vehicles evenly. Damage to unarmored vics and MRAPS could stay unaffected while damage to APCs and above is increased. Reducing damage resistance of light IFVs/APCs from 4 LATs to buring to 3 LATs to burning and all medium IFVs to 4 to burning would force those vics to be more careful and rely on friendly support more, while infantry require on one less rifleman/LAT to kill those vics and HATs become less critical which improves balance consistency overall.

If we get a vic overhaul sometime, all those vics could receive ammoracks as well to reward aimed shots. Crew damage could be handled by a crew module which functionally works similar to an ammorack which also allows to kill vics in less shots. Those modules could functionally replace a damage buff.

[sly crown]

Your own argument was for a blanket damage increase, you specifically called out damage increases to light vics earlier.

I’m glad to see you’ve updated your position to reflect this, I guess.

I still don’t necessarily agree that damage adjustments are the best or even necessary options for balance but this position is at least slightly more rational.

[hollow valley]

You guys should get a job

[frosty gull]

This is my job.

[sly crown]

In this economy?

[broken socket]

This village guy doesn't know professional discord shitposter is a job, get with the times Village.

15 years ago it was you can't just play video games for a living. We're on the cutting edge village. keep up grandpa.

[lost kindle]

You're more stupid that i expected

[lost kindle]

It will be great, but it's just hard to implement for many reasons: from what status should decrewed vics be (destroyed or just abandoned) and problems w inside models hitboxes (that war thunder stuff when crewman can deflect an 105 ap projectile)

[vale elbow]

over 1600 messages, i think this is a new ICO thread world record

great work team

[tranquil basin]

Recoil isn't that bad currently, but sway and the dots moving apart. It is worse on scoped weapons due to many reasons like fps drops and zoom. Walking penalty is gone, low stam penalty is very harsh and is managable by either using knife or finding cover to regain stamina. Hopefully devs will find a way to improve pip performance.

[broken socket]

yeah those dots moving apart amiright

[tranquil basin]

You know which weapon doesn't have the dots? The best weapon, the knife.

[vale elbow]

oddly enough sway is the least of the problem for me

stability and recoil misalignment make absolutely no sense, in both design intent and implementation

it's all a monotonous clumsy mess

[lilac acorn]

The OP made absolutely dogshit take, you can smell the bad gameplay from miles away. The only valid opinion is AT-HAT handling, the rest is a CoD player sucking at better games

In my experience MGs only issue is that they either have no zoom at all or way too much zoom and that's still a skill issue

[sly crown]

Machineguns are in the dumpster right now.

And zoom has zero to do with that.

[vale elbow]

i remember when rage bait was good, those were the days

[edgy gate]

Mg is the worst kit in the game

[tranquil basin]

Yup, it's the kit with the worst recoil ingame even when bipoded. Can't hipfire properly because the gun isn't pointed forward. Someone did say they made mg better in ue5 though

[burnt flint]

Ue5 version is a great time to walk back all the broken stuff. Most would fly under the radar if it plays well.

[tranquil basin]

Hopefully ue5 will improve performance, alot of the issues with scopes are performance related.

[burnt flint]

I’m hoping for stamina buffs and sway/misalignment reduction!

[tranquil basin]

Would be nice, waiting for the gun to align properly after a light jog is boring.

[lost kindle]

They won't find the way. Coz pip scopes itself decrease performance, and if it's no non pip implementations there will be always fps drops

[burnt flint]

I wish they could get it to the point u don’t need stupid dots to know whether you can shoot or not.

Stamina bar shld suffice. Green good, yellow meh, red bad !

[lost kindle]

You don't need them now, scope shows your sway by itself

[vale elbow]

chatGPT summary of how ICO feels to play

[nova canopy]

tell me you dont understand that those dots are only a visual help without telling me

[burnt flint]

Tell me ur reading comprehension is bad without telling me.

[broken socket]

What are the dots Arnoldio, what do they mean man.

[nova canopy]

Also in regards to AT damage, imo the disabled/critical damage threshold should be lower but "longer?", so a decently placed shot with disables a component really quickly and instead of orchestrating an AT hit squad, a lone AT that isnt completely braindead can do enough damage that it makes the vehicle go away or unable to return fire. There you go, skill is involved, you can still do the orchestrating part to get completely rid of the vic.

[sly crown]

They shouldn't exist regardless. They're a holdover from a system that couldn't physically represent any of these effects. We can literally see sway

They're relying on bad UI to smooth over issues with the lack of intuitive response

[sly crown]

This is already kind of the case regarding turret hits. If you want to stop and kill an IFV, aim for tracks/wheels/engines. But if you want to make the IFV leave you alone best bet is to hit the turret. Even the LAW, weakest LAT, can pen most/all spots on most/all turrets. They don't all full kill turrets, but it only requires 50% damage to disable stabilizers. This can either force the IFV to stop for stable shots or be less accurate, and the slowed rotation speed can also make it more difficult for them to swing and engage AT targets outside of the gunner's direct line of sight leaving them more vulnerable. Perhaps there are some adjustments that could be used to that part of the system, but the general idea does exist.

[burnt flint]

Can’t believe I actually agree with nvvy!

[sly crown]

https://tenor.com/view/i-am-always-fucking-right-gif-10413992

[broken socket]

Did that Arnoldio guy ever explain what the dots mean? Let's get this thread to 20k

[tranquil basin]

I think the 2 dots represent the duality of mankind. It represents that what represents something binding like magnets.

[vale elbow]

1655

[robust swallow]

I just found out about Steel Devision moded servers and they are no different from vanilla in terms of team-play 🤣

[frosty gull]

The dots mean nothing.
They just took various numbers related to weapon handling and threw them together in a UI widget.
There is no "stability' it is Pavlovian conditioning.

Big Suppression has pulled the wool over your eyes.

I know

[vocal orbit]

those dots arent really that big of an issue honestly, its the stam values that hurt gameplay. If they wanna have pr dots for nostalgia thats cool

[sly crown]

As a very nostalgic PR oldhead, fuck no

[vocal orbit]

Its a very minor cosmetic ui widget. Is it really that impactful?

[broken socket]

super impactful bro

Empires have risen and fallen based of the whims of those two well they're not even dots really those 2 white lines

When Khublai Khan first decided to brave the waves and invade japan he first consulted the stability bars which were very close together so he proceeded, but then his movement threw them very far apart to the point of catastrophe. As we all know Hurricane Kamikaze hit and wiped their fleets, all because of those two white lines.

[tranquil basin]

It's true

To make progress we have to get away from useless obsolete systems. PR players play PR, squad players play squad and not PR.

[sly crown]

Yes; not because the pixels are offensive, because it's a crutch for poorly designed systems. The reason for their design was to make up for shortcomings of the BF2 engine. They make no sense in Squad except to excuse unintuitive gameplay. Explaining clearly will take a bit of history, so tl;dr?: there was not a clear vision behind the changes and this indicator only exists to excuse unintuitive handling.

In BF2 players were never perfectly accurate due to deviation, literal RNG bullet spread. The meta was dominated by going prone immediately in a fight to get a significant accuracy bonus without losing control of your weapon, as well as sprinting, jumping rapidly, and turning sharply to avoid getting hit. Doing this repeatedly was called Dolphin Diving as it made your player model flop around being hard to hit while also being extremely accurate yourself.

In the v0.8 update the PR developers attempted to nerf this meta as part of creating more tactical and realistic gameplay. Sprinting speed was lowered, repeated jumps slowed you down. By significantly increasing deviation while you were walking and a short period afterward, they effectively made dolphin diving obsolete as you would be equally inaccurate for a moment after moving regardless of your stance, though prone still offered better accuracy after that period, preserving it's usefulness in other scenarios. It accomplished their goal of making combat feel more realistic comparative to the bunnies on crack that was vanilla. However, it was extremely unintuitive. Your current deviation was normally shown by the size of your crosshair, but PR had long since removed it. The developers had put a lot of work into improving the scopes from simple black overlays with no periphery, they were unable to implement weapon sway or bob in the ancient engine. Players were beginning to get frustrated, feeling like they couldn't hit anything. Finally in 1.3.5 they implemented the deviation indicator to show your stability. It was only visible when you ADS, and was only affected by movement and recoil.

Squad on the other hand had weapon sway and bob in the damn prealpha! The developers correctly avoided the awkward problems and were no longer limited in solving issues like the Dolphin Dive. In fact, they could now solve that problem by simply changing the prone animation to take away weapon control. Now, deviation is static and is used to configure a weapons accuracy completely independent of the player's actions, to reflect the real limitations of the firearms. There is no need for a deviation indicator in this system, so why would it be there? Well, it's here because the ICO attempted to copy the gameplay effects above without critical thought about the purposes they served. They wanted to address what had become the "dolphin dives" of Squad: lean spam; parkour; run-n-gun. They nerfed these directly by slowing lean, limiting ledge grabs, and lowering sprint speed. They also wanted to capture that realistic firefight feeling, so they tried to reinvent the weapon inaccuracy systems of PR. However, they introduced many more sources of instability. Not only did walking and recoil affect stability but so did changing stance, leaning, raising and lowering sights, vaulting, stamina, and even just moving your point of aim. On top of that, the maximum inaccuracy was far greater than that of PR. Cumulatively this made achieving stability a chore. Even just stepping to a corner, leaning, and ADSing created enough instability as to force you to wait several seconds for reasonable stability.

So now we have intuitive stability represented via sway and weapon bob, but the way to manage that stability is so unintuitive they revived an obtuse interface element to justify it. The very existence of the stability indicator is, to me, a very clear indicator that the ICO leads did not really understand the source material and why the changes were made back then, nor did they seem to realize how severely they were stacking nerfs to movement of all forms.

[burnt flint]

It was when they brought in that new dev that was a modder can’t remember his name maybe meathead ? but if you notice he has been given a back seat now and norby is front and centre … I think he lead them down the wrong path plus he was very disparaging when the community pointed out the worst of the ICO.

[tranquil basin]

Fuzzhead, yeah he has done alot of damage to squad.

Not sure if he was involved with ICO, but some of the other weird things implemented was him. Hab proxy ranges etc.

1 way camo nets was probably fuzzhead too due to him getting angry from getting shot out of emplacements.

[sly crown]

Fuzzhead was an original PR dev, and I think part of the original deviation updates. Baronvonboyce was the lead designer during the time of ICO, though.

[tranquil basin]

I've been in fuzzheads squads many years ago and he is the type of player that mutes every other SL. And he likes to build super FOBs. He doesn't like that a CE can destroy his paper castle in an instant so he made it so the CE had to shovel radio slightly. Then when CEs shoveled before C4 he made radio bleed.

[cloud bison]

something something pontiac aztec

Nvvy knows

[sly crown]

I do, unfortunately 😭

[tranquil basin]

The car?

[sly crown]

Unfortunately, I think you would find yourself disappointed the same ways with the developers of many, many other games. I don't think this problem is unique to Squad

People that are actually in tune with the game balance are pretty rare and usually get lauded as lubed up gods, like the IceFrogs of DOTA

[tranquil basin]

I like many of the other devs, they don't mute the game and actually have game sense and basic understanding of their own game and it's mechanics.

[cloud bison]

I think the critical difference here though is that when there are design disagreements between the developers and the community, usually the communications don't break down to a level where a lot of players interpret the dev's actions as basically telling them to fuck off and get out of their game

I don't think I'm misinterpreting things when I say the animosity went both ways

[burnt flint]

Yeah vonbryce that’s him … backseat SL now !

[burnt flint]

They basically did say that though when ICO dropped !! it was parroted from their streamers too.

Can see this thread getting locked soon ..

[vocal orbit]

Yeah this is all true, but if the underlying root issues are addressed the dots can be a nod to pr regardless of how pointless they are. I mean, i dont have a dog in this fight my gripes are listed in the original post, they can take them out for all i care. Like you said you just pay attention to the actual gun swaying. Theyre just so inconsequential i dont care if theyre left in, its purely cosmetic.

[sly crown]

Yeah, I mean again the point isn't that the pixels aren't offensive. But there's simply no purpose for such an interface. Nobody is nostalgic for the fucking dots, I promise you.

[frosty gull]

Hab proxy range is good.
It could stand to be increased a bit, but it has a good impact on the game.

[vocal orbit]

Yea, but proxy range shouldnt be increased its in a good spot where it keeps superfobbits in check. Camnets and engi c4 were also gud. Camnets arent truly 1 way and make mg bunkers not totally pointless. The real egregious engi change was getting rid of mines for canada and gb.

[frosty gull]

As far as radios not bleeding, I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy who has to sit and stare at the radio for 20 minutes to stop a random CE from blowing it up. Especially when SLs can't just drop them casually and have to work with others and use specific vehicles for it.

[vocal orbit]

Yea it takes some proper planning to solo a radio not just plop a c4 and sit in a corner. Also gives a balanced amount of time to react if youve stretched your hab

[tranquil basin]

Radio bleed allows people to not think about radio placement and results in same people losing the radio regardles.

If you place it indoors CE will just put razorwire preventing people to save their own radio.

[sly crown]

I sure can't speak for how he acted in your squad or even what his current opinions are given how little we hear from him these days... and to Aidan's point, perhaps that is part of why we don't.

But I have a hard time being quite as critical of him in my experience. He was known for being a pretty good SL during the PR days. His changes were contextualized somewhat regularly between the SquadChats and public posts. Like the Radio bleed out changes you mentioned were rationalized as encouraging teamwork by using the opportunity created by the sneaky CE to then push in with the team to take. He was also vocally against buddy rally, and for rallies being inventory items. Vocal about broken helicopter flight model.

I wouldn't say he's perfect, but I don't think every take he's had is bad either.

[vocal orbit]

Post noise changes though theres no reason to do anything but plop it next to the hab

[sly crown]

It was always best not far from the HAB, tbh

[frosty gull]

I have never lost a radio to a razor wire (or sandbags) that a CE placed. I have lost them to my own team's SLs/FTLs barricading it behind hesco though.

[tranquil basin]

I do agree that rallies shouldn't be an inventory item, atleast they shouldn't cost ammo, but supplies instead.

[vocal orbit]

I love when the enemy does this. Free radio kill

[sly crown]

I meant that he was for them being inventory items and resupplyable; at least, with the other options being buddy rally, 9 lives rally, or timer expiration rally.

[tranquil basin]

Yeah, that is a classic, I have taken radios and seen people not able to reach radio due to 1 CE shooting people trying to dig down his razor

[tranquil basin]

FOBs and rallies still feel like placeholder items until they find a better system.

[sly crown]

I would also like to see a changeup to the spawn meta, but I do think we're still in a better spot than buddy rally hell

[tranquil basin]

Imo rallies shouldn't burn when someone is 30 metres away.

[sly crown]

Yeah, there are a million things we could nitpick.

[vocal orbit]

Depends. Fitting 2 or 3 habs in by stretching or sneaking a closer hab for attack when you didnt hear the radio from a mile away worked if the situation called for it.

[tranquil basin]

Rallies making sounds is also silly and adds confusion to new players since only your team can hear it.

[sly crown]

Getting away with it is not the same as it being a good idea, I'd say.

You can get away with a lot of bad radio and HAB placement on pub servers.

[tranquil basin]

The sound it makes can be heard from 20 metres, but the enemy wouldn't know since it disappear when 30 metrs away.

[sly crown]

Yeah. That's probably a relic that was never addressed after the burnout mechanics changed/were introduced?

[tranquil basin]

Iirc it was always removed by proxy the sound got added later.

[vocal orbit]

Cant argue with results, if youre good at throwing off the people running around the edge of the blue looking

[sly crown]

To be clear my point is certainly not that spawns are perfect but I actually think Fuzzhead was a fairly good figure for at least a good portion of PR and Squad's history. Maybe that wasn't always the case. Now, I know for certain he held a lot of ideas that would later be implemented into the ICO (concerns about parkour, suppression) but it's unclear exactly what his role is in it as Baron seemingly acted as lead during that period.

[vocal orbit]

But yeah going to the max is a guaranteed radio l if youre not protecting it

[tranquil basin]

I do like the idea of adding different weapon archetypes to make the guns feel different. And by the looks of it they are fixing the issues that were brought with ICO slowly.

Personally I would add ledge grabbing back for the same ledge you are standing on to prevent silly deaths/fall damage.

[sly crown]

I think there is absolutely a middle ground that could be reached with things you're saying that would please most people.

[vocal orbit]

Ive been saying since like pt2 they should have left midair grapplying but just add a velocity check so if youve fallen more than 4 feet you cant grapple

[frosty gull]

How often do you accidentally walk off of buildings and ledges rofl?

[vocal orbit]

No parkour, no walls that are 1 imch too high to climb, everyones happy

[sly crown]

Often enough! There are some rocks on Harju that seem fairly close to the ground when walking off of them but disguise a steep drop right at the base

Personally, I wish the maximum height you could fall would be extended. I don't mind getting hurt for taking a fall which would already potentially cause it to be harder to aim, maybe require you to bandage yourself, but it seems so often to go immediately from "oops i rolled my ankle a little" to "my spine crumbled to dust upon landing"

Which is basically how I think ICO should be regarded overall. The mechanics fixed some cheesy tactics, but was poorly tuned, heavy handed, and created enough new problems that left people frustrated.

[tranquil basin]

Yeah, I agree or add fall damage like normal so you can't survive 4 meter drops.

[tranquil basin]

Very often, sometimes I boost people on top of roofs they don't get to. Other times I boost people on top of trees that also aren't accesible.

[sly crown]

I will say it is very funny looking back at alpha-1.0 era squad balance commentary. Seeing people talk about how the sway and recoil back then ruined the game is very funny with our knowledge today.

[broken socket]

Yeah true fuzzhead and Boyce definitely teamed up to 9/11 the game pretty hard

[broken socket]

I mean that's kind of a special scenario since Icefrog wasn't "good" at balancing he just understood the fact that balance in a Moba is impossible, the real aim of any moba "balancer" is just to implemenmt unique fun ideas every now and then to shake up the meta and rotate out meta heroes since the game falls off once the meta is fully established. So he was excellent at just putting whacky stuff in every patch that made you want to try the new hotness, or revisit an old fav.

[broken socket]

Also naw the one good part of early Squad was that assaulting Fobs felt like assaulting a base. Since we don't really have the player count or AI to just sit on a fob to make it more of a challenge, we kinda had to circumvent that with easier respawning. The only single problematic thing brought about by the old FOB system stemmed from bad map design. Buildings with only one entrance easily fortified, weaker penetration, and easier grenade spamming, and of course no role like the combat engineer, or heavy strikes to delete mass quantities of deployables, making deployable block and spam grenades a viable strategy. HAB Overrun reinforces as people call it the "HAB Spam" meta by encouraging FOB redundancy, and very one note gameplay that never has any shifts in pacing. You never really run into any tough resistance in Squad that lasts very long since the tap just gets shut off you wipe the 4-5 guys who spawned in before the tap got shut off, collect your 20 tickets pass Go and go onto the next spawn.

There's nothing bring that crazy intensity that arose from pushing an Alamo Fob on Chora against heavy heavy resistance, and finally getting enough of your Squad together to push in and disable the spawn the hard way.

Plus even back then it's not like it was preferable to just sit on your defense FOB unless again bad map design that allowed you to do so. Since the respawn timer penalty reduced the flow of reinforcements allowing attackers to win a battle of attrition.

Replace HAB Overrun with the old spawn timer penalty, turning Hab disable into timer penalty, sole exception being an enemy literally on top of the hab, and we get back fun fights and eliminate spawn killing all in one. Sure a lone guy could come in and sit in the hab and turn it off, but unless he has buddies now you instantly know you just gotta frag the hab to get it operational again.

[smoky vigil]

What is the range? 80m?

[tranquil basin]

90m with 9 players

[sly crown]

I mean that’s part of being a good game designer for a moba for sure. He’s not an infallible god of balance or anything though people sometimes glaze him like one, but he did keep his fingers on the pulse and would regularly be tweaking items and abilities that were outstanding

[sly crown]

I don’t know that this would be very different tbh. I don’t really disagree with it but in my experience most of the time you’re relying on getting into the 2 man radius anyway.

[broken socket]

Well it's a little different in where it puts the onus. In a hab overrun scenario the onus is on the defenders of the hab to push out and find the enemy Squad before it's too late, and the attacking Squad can theoretically find somewhere nearby post up and wait for reinforcements to attrition the hab. Rarely happens in practice cause that shits way too tryhard but it's still on the defenders to clear the area or eventually fall. With the spawn penalty you can keep reinforcing, and if the attackers aren't pushing you, you're eventually regain full strength at the hab, so the onus is on the attackers to either make it to the hab and try for a hab camp overrun, and hope reinforcements arrive in time before being cleared out, or ball up more attackers until you can hit with overwhelming force. In the past this was heavily cheesed because the games alpha but game ain't alpha no more even if the spawn system swapped today you still wouldn't want to just sit on your superfob with all the tools available today. It just creates a slightly harder point if there's equal numbers in a long term siege scenario.

[sly crown]

Maybe, I just have a feeling that in practice the results will remain the same in a lot of scenarios.

I don’t think it’d be a bad change, I just don’t know if it would actually have a big impact. Could be changing stuff for the sake of change.

[broken socket]

Yeah it won't change much but it'll make the game make a bit more sense incentivizing attackers to attack with game mechanics probably good

[frosty gull]

It's the same fight, just one is spread around the radius of the FOB, and doesn't involve grenade spamming a pillowfort.

[broken socket]

Yeah but those don't actually work anymore. And the fight is different if attackers don't attack the fob they don't get any significant value instead of currently where they can totally do something.

[frosty gull]

I think standing close enough to proxy is the same thing as before, just without having to stand on the hab itself like you're playing KotH.

[sly crown]

I think there are bigger issues around spawns than the overrun mechanic t b h but imo 2 man in 20m is the only rule that matters

[broken socket]

Eh a lot different functionally compared to the old system. Old oldschool overrun used to trigger at 30m as well, which realistically is still a decent enough size circle when you get down to it. But area wise it's 11% the size of the current radius a hab can stop working and stopping working with competent teams spells death. When your fob can stay operational for a bit allowing you time to rotate your forces to intercept the attackers, you can actually defend it. I know what you're thinking Bill aren't you anti-kill meta. True but I'd rather at least have fights over fobs than fobs being glorified spawn points with ammo. Meta building was fun, towers of power fobs were fun. If everyone hates HAB spam meta and wants less habs, the habs that do exist gotta have some meat to them, or the games going to get even more boring when the enemy team ain't spawnin' in.

[sly crown]

Eh, I actually think I’ll disagree with you there; I don’t think being able to spawn more when under siege will solve that problem and there are better ways to solve emplacements being shite

[broken socket]

Well on its own it's not going to do anything what it does do is buy time. A popular V9 strategy was the honey pot. You'd put a jebait FOB on something tasty say Trains Station on Fools Road, and get 2 Squads on the periphery patrolling. The potatoes would walk in and notice the superfob like moths to a flame while your patrols mopped them up from the hills. Thing is there's still attrition in the fob compound itself so if the spawn just shuts off, it's going to fall, but with a trickle you can hold for those vital minutes for others to reposition.

[sly crown]

I think a natural consequence of fob overrun and bleedout has been rally retake meta which I think accomplishes the same goal

But radio ticket cost is probably more responsible for bait radios being impractical

[broken socket]

Rally retake meta is pretty much the epitome of cope though when you have to use a spawn tool designed to rally the Squad closer to the front to defend your weak ass radio lol.

[sly crown]

eh? I think it’s obvious to both of us that patrolling and not stacking on the hab directly is superior. The rally just gives reset if they break through. Which imo is thematically consistent as QRF reinforcements.

And we can debate the placement of radios if you want but I think we both know that indoors and consolidation of your critical area of defense with the objective and radio within proximity being best.

If you want bait radios then the problem is obviously that a 20 ticket risk does not have good payout even compared to two squadwipes. I’m not sure how many people want that to be meta, though.

[burnt flint]

The number of players though that stack a HAB to defend it is ridiculous… block themselves into a barn and then wonder why they lost the HAB and radio not to mention the logi they parked outside !

[broken socket]

I think the main thing is in the decision making process. How you fight well in Squad is always going to be the same due to how the games setup no matter how hard Bron and Co try and 9/1 it, but the spawn system changes shift the decision making tree.

Say for the sake of argument you got 2 Squads minorly separated bearing down on one FOBBIT Squad defended by some potatoes, with one leet mlg Squad defense Squad somewhat nearby. In Modern Squad you probably just wanna bumrush the FOB asap, as soon as your boys get in range the flow of reinforcements stops and eventually Squad 2 catches up and the FOB is overrun quickly. In Old Alpha Squad Squad one barrels in maybe both sides lose a few guys and now the Defense is alert.

Squad two pulls up but as they do some of the Fobbits are back and the attack slows down long enough for xXxTripleXrateDefensexXx to pull up and clear the attackers in time. In Old Squad you're rewarded for making deliberate intentional actions and the classic blueberry favourite drip feed combat everyone knows so well is nerfed. Now granted the metas shifted a lot since then buffing defenders on the micro scale which is kinda bad but the general idea remains.

Also if we're getting into the thematic argument it's kinda weird that a small Combat Outpost FOB whatever you wanna call it has like 5 sentries nearby it maybe and just gets bowled over and is often not even much of a speedbump. If we instead compare it to something like the goated Fhole that has AI defenses. Running in with 5 guys with low tier PvE equipment is not gonna do much, but if you pull up with the boys you can level a Conc meta base in record time, and if the enemy reacts in time you can get a good battle that lasts awhile over the fort. Socrates approved Fort fights we're fun

ngl

[vale elbow]

i'm fully onboard with old (pre-v12) overrun being the better mechanic

the whole topic of "FOB spam" is really simple to solve, OWI kept making FOBs and HABs weaker. you can't have your game be based heavily on spawn mechanics while you also make these spawns weak as shit.

[vale elbow]

can't really blame the playerbase for wanting to stay put post-ICO, the game will hiss at them for trying anything proactive

[vale elbow]

squad is a mess of conflicting design and anti-player sentiment at this point, my boy has been massacred

[sly crown]

I wouldn't say that Socrates has ever let the meta define his insane FOB constructions lmao

[sly crown]

I think it's obvious that the reason Socrates-FOBs aren't meta has little to do with spawns, and far more to do with the efficiency of build supply usage as well as the vulnerabilities of the radio and tech structures.

With the radio costing 20 tickets and being vulnerable to .50 cal, IFVs, and Mortars, outdoor radios are simply not viable any longer. Any competent team will get the radio position scouted, get mortars built, and continuously pummel it bringing it to bleed and preventing it from being salvaged until it disappears. HillFOBs, RoadFOBs, etc are very weak in the current meta because of this vulnerability especially. Best case scenario is exploiting the build system somewhat to get some cover over the radio, like the indirect fire structures. The meta has instead shifted towards radios only really being placed under a roof, whether that be an apartment building or a shipping crate, because it provides significant safety against this vulnerability. Similarly the HAB being placed outdoors is vulnerable to the same assets camping the HAB exit; a 1 exit building is still going to have that exit pummeled with mortars preventing anyone from getting in or out until friendlies can get within overrun distance, stop the mortars, clear the building and get radio on bleed, and then simply resume the mortars until bleedout finishes.

The build cost of emplacements also just doesn't math out. Any competent FOB requires a HAB, at least one ammo box, and a Repair Station, costing 1100 build and you'll usually want to reserve about 2-300 build for vic repairs. This is all of the build of a standard 1500/1500 Logi, with 2000 supply logis like TLF trucks and VDV's BTR-D not carrying enough to supply both a reasonable amount of ammo and these essentials for their FOBs on rollout or in one supply run. You need an excess of build supply to justify building additional structures, and even before getting to more defensive structures mortars should probably take precedent at 300x2=600 build and come with a notable ammo usage requiring a higher ratio of ammo to build delivered to sustain them. The next most useful emplacements are almost certainly the observation towers, costing 600x2=1200 build. So after a combined total of 2900 supply (with some reserve for vehicle repairs) you can finally start thinking about the lesser emplacements.

Emplacements were originally designed with allowing you to augment the landscape to your advantage anywhere, but changes over time have shifted their usage away from open-air FOBs towards reinforcing existing structures. If you want a return to HillFOB meta (which... I don't know that we do, frankly), I think you'd need to address these two problems in particular, not the spawn mechanics.

I do think there is a loss in not being able to sculpt terrain to your advantage, as I do think that was a big initial appeal of the emplacement system, but simultaneously I think that superFOB meta was pretty detrimental to gameplay when you would have a whole 9-man dedicated to building these monuments as well as additional blueberries spawning there. It encouraged significant portions of the team to stay "in the wire", and often seriously hampered your team's ability to maintain objective control.

Not only that, but it often resulted in the attrition of significant amounts of tickets as these superFOBs still just got pummeled by larger assets like .50 cals, IFVs, Tanks, and indirect fire support. It's tough for me to think that this would be an improvement to the systems we have now.

[frosty gull]

You're describing the the "spawn-run-die" loop.
Being forced to grind through bodies, with more bodies, until one side runs out of steam. There is no other play you can make besides, "shoot them gooder" once both sides are continuously feeding bodies into a fight as fast as Squad allows.

[burnt flint]

And the shooting gooder part has been nerfed with a heavy handed ICO. great stuff!

[proper copper]

It pains me the gunplay is still so bad

[tranquil basin]

The biggest flaw imo with current gunplay is that it is very static and still punishes movement. It's worst with AT.

[broken socket]

Yeah that's why I'd rather have the defensive advantage baked into the spawn system like it used to be instead of baked into every player.

It worked way better when a good assault had a chance of working if the attackers coordinated properly.

[broken socket]

Yeah exactly at equilibrium this should happen which is where the outplaying begins when you have a spawn system that doesn't immediately die. You get the forever war loop because as soon as you lose momentum and let them push too close to the hab, hab shuts off and you lose. You wanna reward tactical plays by making HABs live just a little bit longer so people can react to habs being assaulted before they have to hopelessly try to clear them with rally spawns and probably fail since one sides on rallies with no ammo and the other sides comin from the hab with ammo.

[broken socket]

I mean yeah you could farm superfobs before you always could, kinda on the defenders ability to realize they're getting giga farmed and call it always was even back then. The only thing making super fobs win like that back in the day was shit cap layouts enabling large superforts to exist and have enough space to shelter entire teams and no ways to break deployables. So even if they were operating at a loss defending the fort, they would still manage to hold the cap and win by bleed.

Meta building on Storage when surrounded didn't usually go ticket positive, but as long as you got the cap off, all you needed was some guys prone at the top of the one staircase with a few grenades and a hesco protecting counter nades and you were gucci.

Only thing spawn changes does is force the attackers to actually push inside to disable the spawn giving defenders more time. Time is ehvy in Squad sometimes and can make the difference.

It's kinda weird in a game as slow as Squad for the disabling of spawns to be as quick and final as it is.

Especially the ones that are supposed to be "Bases"

[tranquil basin]

I'm not a fan of current proxy mechanics either, all you need is 2 people to crash into a hab to block it.

Back when habs were stronger you had to dig it down to disable it, you needed 1 inside to make sure no one spawned and the other digging.

Requiring more teamwork than driving into hab and holding f

[vale elbow]

as bill has said, when both sides reach a macro stalemate the fight is resolved with micro. i don't understand what your issue is with this?

it's also a very realistic outcome (see ukraine)

[frosty gull]

I don't think the game should be set up to create such stalemates as easily as removing the hab proxy radius does.
If they were going that direction, then the game would be better served by spawn points being created automatically.

[vale elbow]

i don't think you're understanding my point entirely

really the logic bill is applying is the same as what OWI have tried to apply to squad's FPS mechanics with ICO but it's multitudes better when applied to the macro of the game, because then it makes sense

so you're in favour of mechanics that slow down and produce micro stalemates more often but slowing down the macro and maybe having more stalemates is bad?

[frosty gull]

Yes.

Slowing down gameplay at the micro-level means you have more viable options for play and counterplay. They could improve the specifics of the implementation, but generally having the ability to act, and react, beyond shooting better means there is more breadth to the interplay between teams. Also even on release, the odds of two groups sitting in stalemate with each other during an actual gunfight, not the match overall, was low. They might have ended up running their magazines dry at 15m and trying to kill each other with pistols or knives, or resorting to throwing grenades at each other's feet or w/e, but rarely were people unable to end each other.

At the macro level assuring a team the ability to spawn a horde of defenders, limited only by individual respawn timers and the team's ticket pool, means that even if someone makes a good move the outcome is probably going to be a grinding stalemate of gestalt action. It isn't even good action because it encourages the kind of defensive turtling that game doesn't handle very well, and highlights the seams in the design that come from abstractions like players spawning out of a hab. It diminishes the impact of good decisions, by both attackers and defenders, because the game is ultimately about getting more dudes standing inside a circle and being able to feed in more dudes continuously trumps things like the (effective) use of rallies, smart hab placement (for both sides), pulling off difficult or high-risk actions, better coordination (both between squads and teams), etc.

[broken socket]

Wait this reads that you're anti turtling but are you? A pro ico position is usually mutually exclusive to an anti turtling one.

[sly crown]

I don’t think that’s true. RAAS mechanics, specifically lack of bleed, encourage a turtle meta regardless of the effectiveness of infantry

[vocal orbit]

not really raas encourages snowballing momentum

[sly crown]

That’s completely off base

Not only does RAAS not encourage two teams in equilibrium to shift the scales, fog’s entire purpose is to make it difficult to stage for their backcaps ahead of time

[vocal orbit]

wut punishing movement and does the opposite of opening more options on a micro level, it forces you to be static

[vocal orbit]

it prevents backcap rush (or at least it used to until the lanes were infantilized), but otherwise the core concept rewards you in trying to beat the enemy to their defense and snowballing over digging in unless youre worried about tickets

[frosty gull]

Didn't say anything about punishing movement.

[sly crown]

That makes zero sense.

[vocal orbit]

slowing down gameplay = ico = punishing movement

[sly crown]

There is a micro and a macro level, always has been

ICO did not change RAAS mechanics which do incentivize turtling if you can follow the logic even a little bit

If you are at equilibrium with another team in tickets there is very little incentive at all to change that.

[vocal orbit]

that was aimed at poaw, also how so, maybe not in comp but this is the reality of the average casual server

[sly crown]

So for example take third point and dig in. Your enemy takes midcap. If you can secure just 20 tickets worth like killing one of their radios you are at equilibrium and you can win purely by attrition

There is no incentive at all for you to make a change to this if you are confident you can win via attrition. And the natural response of your enemy will often be to turtle up themselves so as not to lose by attrition.

This rarely happens at the very start of a RAAS game, but happens very often near the end.

[vocal orbit]

if you properly communicate (which is sadly usually enough to be at a massive advantage on most servers) you just leapfrog as far as you can gobble up all the 60 tickets you can until you roll or hit a wall

[sly crown]

RAAS mechanics support turtling, as you are only at risk if you begin attacking

[sly crown]

You’re mistaking the strategy of speeding to the next obj because you can capture before they have set up with the actual mechanics of RAAS

That strat relies on spawn and logistic mechanics which are the same for any mode

[broken socket]

Yep and there's another update that removed ticket bleed and tried to ICO the game. It was called v10 that ain't coincidence. Updates like ICO that try to slow the game down require things like 0 ticket bleed for flags because any significant compensation for objective meta is antithetical to the entire ICO philosophy. That's why it's always been the kill meta versus the objective meta they exist on a spectrum. You can't have an objective favored meta with something like ICO which is why it was weird paow was saying anti turtle rhetoric when he stans what helped create it.

[sly crown]

I don’t think that logic follows at all. You can have ICO and not turtle RAAS mechanics. There is no intrinsic link.

Whether the devs did both does not mean they are intrinsically related or required of one another.

[vocal orbit]

i mean if you have two hypersweat teams yeah youre right attacking will likely end in losing more tickets and playing the attrition game is better. but in the average casual experience, comms and leapfrogging is how you get the most success in raas. if it doesnt happen most the time the game will devolve into whichever team has more morale blueberry waving and the defending team eventually getting surrounded and choked out.

[sly crown]

I play enough of both, it holds true in pubs

Having a bunch of lemmings shift+w’ing off a hab does not change how the mechanic works

AAS bleed forces the side down to make a move. RAAS doesn’t. Plain as.

Turtle meta existed before ICO

[broken socket]

They're related because you need time to EU flank like an ICO lover wants. If an mlg peo team can just afford to rush B because they don't have peanut butter on their shoes the ICO Stan gets stomped and mad because their mlg maneuver tactics and bounding fire didn't work

Sure but it existed a lot less overall there was always attack and defenders by virtue of bleed deciding the match

[sly crown]

There have always been issues with objective distance. Was better to transport via vic for these objectives before and after ICO

Right but bleed wasn’t there preICO

[broken socket]

Attacker v defender is not the same as defender v defender

[sly crown]

You’re talking about ancient mechanics but this was the case from alpha v10-v5.0

[broken socket]

Yeah coincidentally when objective meta was more popular

Funny that

[sly crown]

Yes things were different when bleed existed I agree

But you’re off rocker to suggest that RAAS mechanics don’t already encourage this

Slight infantry run speed boost doesn’t change the math at all

[vocal orbit]

bleed should be brought back but bleed is minor enough you can still turtle and win. having two separate objectives that divide teams promotes putting pressure and trying to start that momentum

[sly crown]

RAAS is still shit, from the lack of bleed or other incentive to shift equilibriums, to the way flag lanes don’t support movement very well with >600m gaps between objectives almost guaranteeing a turtle

If you want to solve the meta and macro problems you can’t focus on the micro of ICO

AAS doesn’t have turtle meta like RAAS

This should be like, blatantly obvious

[vocal orbit]

that gap comes down to the poorly designed lanes. Weve already been over that i think starting with the first 2 caps would work better (it does in supermod) but the midcap being a tossup does a better job of focusing the fight around the objective rather than map control which is repetitive. RAAS in its current iteration isnt good, but it was better and has the potential to be better again

[sly crown]

I mean what did I just say? Yes the lane design creates those gaps. Those gaps were a problem preICO.

The change to 7 flag standardization was perhaps good spirited to create a more balanced mode overall but in practice it meant that these objectives ended up further apart in many instances

ICO works without turtle in AAS and TC. Has it’s own problems for sure, but turtle meta is a gamemode problem

[vocal orbit]

tbf the 6 point layers werent ever that fun

[sly crown]

Yeah some might be better some might be worse.

[vocal orbit]

owi has always placed points in built up areas even if it makes the flow bad, they should put more points in the woods for the sake of how the map flows, ie matrenino or novo ridge

[broken socket]

I mean yeah how RAAS works is super basic and part of the puzzle but it's not really a solveable issue when it comes to RAAS. That's intrinsic to the game mode itself. But the thing is, is that everything else can still be changed and has an effect on the end result. The sole reason that the Developers way way back in ICO version 1 AKA V10, removed bleed from the game. Is they accurately recognized that the more "slow methodical" gameplay they desired. Could not happen if the sole decider of the winner of a match was based on who could get to the objectives and capture them, or more accurately the first one that mattered. That's why everytime we see ICO like patches we get shit like removing ticket bleed, in this case from RAAS the more popular immersion lord sponsored game mode. Sure we can't change the nature of RAAS which is why I don't really touch on it, but we can change the other stuff to hopefully get a more dynamic meta. Even with just simple ICO stuff it's pretty easy to directly correlate the ease of shooting an enemy player with a lower movespeed, and conversely a higher movespeed making offensive moves an easier more viable option. When Attacking is harder, we lose more tickets doing it further reinforcing the already latent preferable attrition meta. If it truly was a game mode problem then we'd never would have had an objective based meta way way back, but with the help of 5 flag layers we did. Sure the optimal move after winning the mid flag was to just turtle for sure, but that still means we get an initial clash where both sides are on even footing and most importantly, attacking. The only condition there being maps have to be made balanced enough which wasn't the case.

That's why we talk about ICO Tweaks and shit because that's the easily fixable problem, sure there could be a new primo game mode that solves AASes built in problems but until then we can do a bunch of things to alleviate the turtle meta and bring back the objective meta that once existed.

Main problem being that they probably don't really care about the objective meta because most pub immersion lords love the slow paced do whatever you want meta that's only possible in an ICO sponsored kill meta.

That's why it got changed in the first place, immersion lords were gettin rush meta rolled.

And instead of adapting to playing the objective they infiltrated Baron and Fuzz into the team to fulfill their dark fantasies.

No bleed and ICO style patches are linked though and you can't prove me otherwise until the day Baron changes ticket bleed back to -4 a minute per cap in V 9.0.

No balls you won't OWI

[sly crown]

Devs choosing to implement both changes does not make both changes intrinsically linked. There is nothing stopping reintroduction of RAAS bleed without changing ICO mechanics.

[frosty gull]

I wasn't talking about turtling on a macro level when I wrote that; I was talking about the kind of micro-level gameplay it produces.
"It isn't even good action because it encourages the kind of defensive turtling that game doesn't handle very well, and highlights the seams in the design that come from abstractions like players spawning out of a hab."

Removing the proximity mechanic, or otherwise making it difficult to shut off a hab, means players can cluster around the hab itself and makes it very easy to force the attackers to grind down either the defenders tickets or their will to keep spawning and dying. Which is a taxing way of playing the game on both sides.

That's why I think it is bad.

[broken socket]

True but it'll likely never happen since they logically support each other. It's like technically any class could call me a slur when I kick them from the Squad but we all know 90% of the time I do get called a slur the kit will be marksmen.

[sly crown]

I don’t think you’re wrong that its unlikely we will see this stuff changed, just that if we were changing it that’d be the thing to do.

[broken socket]

Also there's no way I'm current Squad you could turtle on a fob with old gob take down mechanics and not be punished so idk why u scared

[formal oak]

Sorry to single you out @frosty gull but the above wonderfully encapsulates the lack of understanding of 'shooting better' vs 'make shooting ineffective equals more tactical' position that has infested and corrupted squad. These same beta's will study squad lanes to try and basically run/drive as fast as they can to a point because someone told them it was meta but can't execute basic infantry stuff, can't aim, can't fight, can't manoeuvre etc. The 'good players' in Squad these days are people who can remember the vehicle load outs on the 3 trillion layers of poorly thought out maps.

.

Being able to murder squads across multiple scenarios/maps etc takes map understanding (not map knowledge, that is past tense, this is basic understanding of terrain), good fundamentals in terms of the weapon handling and ballistics systems, good comms, good positioning, good movement, tactical understanding and patience etc. Alternatively you can just suck at everything above, fail and bitch that it's the game's fault that you died running across and open field because the gun's are too accurate and something Bobby Kotick and COD blah blah.

Jesus, I remember not caring what layer/, map I was going to play next nor what vehicles I might face because it was exciting and I was fully confident the lads in the squad could adapt and deal with anything that came their way. Why. because it's actually, in a proper game, about execution. You can have the best plan, have studied the map, worked out or copied the best roll out and deployment on versions 3.978 of whatever map and still fail because every time you run in the open. every time you fail to clear a building or structure properly and die you can blame the other person. Hell one of the most telling and important skills you need is the ability to read the map and the briefing and adapt from there.

Personally I don't think OWI understand that butchering basic systems in such a clumsy way to achieve an unnatural outcome when taking into account the tenets of the game has such a profound affect on the entire combat ecosystem, ie the game itself that you render it pointless, it's tragic.

I feet sorry for new players joining Squad noisy incompetence simulator now, they won't get to play with decent players and won't grow as players, a shame for them, a death knell for the game.

[sly crown]

Unit system/voting was a travesty but that seems to be most of the point you made in those 400 characters.

Happy to summarize for you ig

[frosty gull]

I'm torn between addressing what appears to the be the point you wanted to make (I think), or the one you spent most of your words making.

[sly crown]

Having known Wicks since TGPR, par for the course

[formal oak]

Lol if only people knew hey

[sly crown]

People confuse the concept of ICO giving a “defenders advantage” to what contributes to a “turtle meta” frequently

[formal oak]

Defenders in any scenario should have the advantage by nature, its the inabilty of poor, lazy players to execute that lead to things like Ico

[sly crown]

This isn’t nature. Peekers advantage is common in shooters.

Old lean used to provide that.

[formal oak]

Another thing that didn't help the game in terms of gameplay and tactics was mortar spam.

Right stop, lean spam lets address that first

That was a developer induced problem that had a very easy fix. However instead of implemeting that easy fix, ie slower lean/lesser degree of lean, greater sway during lean, infanty combat got butchered if we assume rampant QE spam was an issue.

An interesting point is that if you are dying a lot to someone who is qe'ing you than maybe you could flank that person or a squad mate could (while you wait for the Developers to fix things etc).

[sly crown]

ICO was a product of many disparate changes. They did infact implement slower and lesser degrees of leans. It was one part of many.

Just because you can kill people who abuse hitboxes doesn't make it a beneficial or desirable game mechanic. Obviously people didn't care much for it in what was supposed to be a 'realistic' and 'tactical' shooter.

You'll find that I can still maintain a nuanced opinion here, I don't think lean is perfect now either. Slowing and syncing the hitboxes was more important than reduction in angle or removal from M249 SAW

and some other heavy weapons (maybe understandable on AT, undecided)

[broken socket]

Probably because increasing the strength of the defenders advantage increases the prevalence of the turtle meta because they linked.

[formal oak]

I am aware, the implementation of most if not all of the changes related to inf combat have been terrible, heavy handed, lacking nuance and with seemingly no understanding as to how various things either interact or are exponential.

The game shouldn't give defenders the advantage the map, terrain and scenario should if the defenders are not brain dead.

[sly crown]

I can point to issues I have with most game systems, unfortunately there are questionable design decisions everywhere in this game. Something that I unfortunately accept as the result of having an Indie AA studio trying their best to manage a deeply complex project and maintain a business particularly through some of the weirdest times of any of our lives.

[sly crown]

Yeah I certainly understand the compounding effects and how that makes gameplay feel—but the turtle meta is quite straightforwardly only a RAAS problem. It is not a problem in AAS, nor TC, nor Invasion. All of them have varying degrees of pressure on one side to advance.

You could absolutely argue that ICO makes more assaults fail, or be more frustrating, or cost more tickets. The assaults will still occur in any other gamemode. Only in RAAS will you really see two sides with >50 tickets both sit on their flags waiting for the game to end

[vale elbow]

1886 we're almost there

I'll read up on this wall of text throughout the day

[frosty gull]

The shooting in Squad isn't ineffective. As in, you can still kill people, even with the absolute worst weapons. It is just slightly slower than before.

That the increased time to actually put someone down once you've seen them crossed a bunch of thresholds is what allows for people to do more things at the point of contact to influence the outcome. Before the ICO it was important to set things up prior to a gunfight, the devs wanted people reacting and making meaningful and interesting decisions within the gunfights themselves. Which meant giving players space to take in information, process it, make a decision, communicate and act.

[vocal orbit]

that would work in a game like arma where you can spend hours in a 1 life operation. In a gamefied halfway point between battlefield and arma where matches only last 40-50 mins though...

Trying to make squad into something it isnt hasn't worked

not that it should be super arcadey either, Squad should be Squad

[sly crown]

ICO has increased game lengths somewhere between 1 and 10 minutes on average.

https://tacticaltriggernometry.com/TT_survey_4.html#ICO__Round_Duration

[vocal orbit]

this is really interesting

wild people like black coast and mani over goro and yeho

[frosty gull]

Players being able to do things within a fight that affects the outcome is not at odds with Squads intended place as a middle ground between battlefield and Arma. It isn't about the degree of verisimilitude in the gameplay or mechanics.

[sly crown]

The question is phrased as "what maps should we play more of", for what it's worth.

[vocal orbit]

gotcha, just read the title skimming through the doc

[vocal orbit]

No, but if we're talking about slowing combat down its at odds. Using exaggerated hypotheticals, with both aas and raas based around two points its not as if you can spend 20 minutes doing the immersion dance and expect a fun and dynamic back and forth game under an hour. With the actual pace of 8.2 ico it definitely plays into encouraging turtling.

If we're talking about people having the ability to take action I don't understand how slowing combat increases peoples options. If youre making the individual less effective and slower with heavy penalties for any movement wouldn't that limit the options the player has?

[cloud bison]

Unfortunately mortars make that almost completely untenable

You need at bare minimum one spot with cover for the defender FOB

They could make a lot more objectives in general though, on many maps there are POIs that would meet that bare minimum requirement which IMO is ok for backcaps 1 & 2

[frosty gull]

The pace of actual combat is agnostic to the overall pace of the game. Everyone knows of games that have instantaneous combat resolution and are still slow-paced.

Slowing combat increases options because you have time to do things. For example, in most shooters you will never have the opportunity to hear a weapon firing, identify critical information based on that, then formulate a specific response to it, communicate that to your teammates, and act on it. The timeline is too compressed in most cases to even make the attempt. All of the decisions and play/counterplay happened outside of the fight itself.

Stretching it out meant you could have fights where people were better able to make a deliberate decision that matters. Even if the early iterations of ICO had results which were were goofy (the grenade meta in early PTs).

[cloud bison]

I feel like we've had this discussion 1000 times, but I honestly believe this is just theorycrafting nonsense that never plays out in an actual game.

The first ICO playtest, which some people say was the best because the mechanics forced slow play due to how horrible the shooting mechanics were?

I knifed 19 people in a row during that playtest. They just couldn't do anything when I moved and used aggression. All of this fancy planning falls apart the moment your opponent knows how to play fast, even against the mechanics.

That's really the critical error people make when assessing the ICO and its ideals, aggression and violence of action is simply so powerful that it will run roughshod over any delicate tactics you try to do, if you don't also employ aggression and speed

[tranquil basin]

Be careful so they don't 9/11 the knife too. It's the best weapon.

[frosty gull]

It is not going to play out like that perfectly. The example is supposed to illustrate the answer to, "How does slowing things down give you more options." I even pointed out that early iterations created goofy results.

[cloud bison]

But did the theory of combat slowing down to give more options ever actually come to fruition? Because other than encouraging a bit more nade spam I haven't seen that.

Of course there was a period post-ICO where the mechanics heavily punished any movement, which did slow things down... but not in a way that gave anyone more options. Things were just slower.

It's a nice theory but I never saw more options, or more contemplation etc happening

[frosty gull]

For me, yes.
For you, probably not.

[tranquil basin]

I don't see more of this so called teamwork. When I look on the map I see more blue dots than before, very frequently I see marksman lonewolfing the logi preventing the team on setting up FOBs.

Giving marksmeme supressors is also a fun decision encouraging lone wolfing.

[vale elbow]

For example, in most shooters you will never have the opportunity to hear a weapon firing, identify critical information based on that, then formulate a specific response to it, communicate that to your teammates, and act on it.

poaw wants this all to happen in one life, one instance or interaction but for this to be a possibility you must have mechanics that intercept natural player interaction and massively delay the time it takes for an interaction to close. those mechanics lead to this the vast majority of the time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohl5SQ-o-UA)

the premise presented is also completely wrong, i can't think of a single FPS where you can't identify anything useful to communicate posthumously

[frosty gull]

The mechanics did not make you stay in the open and try to out-trade someone who had already shot you rofl.

How do you think that should have played out?

[vale elbow]

it should have played the out the exact same way in 3 seconds or less

my entire points is it doesn't

you must have mechanics that intercept natural player interaction and massively delay the time it takes for an interaction to close.

[frosty gull]

Oh.

[vale elbow]

it's really simple, preICO he shoots me dead and i call it in local to my team. if nobody is in local i tell my squad "there's a guy east, top of the hill" and they deal with him and work towards reviving me. instead i am treated to a ridiculously drawn out interaction where neither player can overcome the mechanics that are forcing the interaction to extend beyond what it naturally should be. both parties are frustrated and nether are satisfied with what is ultimately a randomised encounter (aim punch, misalignment, stability loss are all randomised values)

[frosty gull]

You know you could have lived there right?

[vale elbow]

and ironically if he has been using a 7.62 weapon or something larger got involved my screen would have been so illegible i may have not even seen the player shooting at me, ICO would have actively denied me access to the critical information that would have allowed me to communcate effectively and formulate that plan you want

[frosty gull]

I'm not trying to make this a big "skill issue" thing but you were a medic and there was a tree right next to you.

[vale elbow]

this tree doesn't save me

[frosty gull]

PreICO that engagement probably sees you getting dropped immediately, but with ICO you have enough time to get to cover and put yourself in a better position to win. Or just survive significantly longer.

[vale elbow]

the only thing that saves me is shooting generally towards him with enough volume that he cannot overcome the effects of suppression, this still artificially extends the interaction beyond what it should be. again my points is that ICO extends what it shouldn't

[frosty gull]

You go on the other side of the tree, not the same side he is on.

[vale elbow]

the last thing i need explained to me is angle geometry in FPS games

[tranquil basin]

Actually you climb the tree so he doesn't see you and then you one tap him and jump down and die to fall damage making your teammate revive you.

[vale elbow]

you're fine with the inflated interaction durations ICO creates and i am not, we fundamentally disagree

[sly crown]

You’re literally standing still and barely returning fire, why are we using someone else’s skill issue as an argument?

This isn’t really even that strong of an ICO moment, they’re stationary and plinking around you

[tranquil basin]

He is using the bushes as soft cover, other guy has a better position from what I can tell.

[sly crown]

He’s basically standing in the open towards the shooter

Barely concealed to the right

Like idk does this guy have irons and was injured?

[vale elbow]

my right isn't a threat

[tranquil basin]

There are 2 shooters?

[sly crown]

Yes, hence you are standing in the open towards the shooter. The bush does nothing

[vale elbow]

you're completely missing the point

[sly crown]

No, I just think its silly

This is a stationary shooter with an advantageous position

You have not even concealment to speak of

And he lands like 1 in 5 rounds

Seriously, is he injured and using irons?

[tranquil basin]

https://youtu.be/AEsWnFEnTCY?si=AaknUqSeb0uGTqiM

The 2nd guy is in the open too

[frosty gull]

Might have been getting flinched in his optics, or low stamina or anything.
Or using a red dot and not able to actually see him very well for whatever reason.

[tranquil basin]

Knife is a better weapon than bandage. Don't bandage until you have elimininated the threat.

[vale elbow]

fantastic planning and teamplay pilert

now what to do for lunch

[tranquil basin]

Milkshake

[tranquil basin]

Thanks https://youtu.be/SB6aUW5DNeQ?si=hWUFaPqoONCBL8Ws

[merry flame]

Guys there are only 2k messages here, we gota pump those numbers up before the thread gets locked

[vale elbow]

you're absolutely right

[nova canopy]

It extends the firefight, yes. Otherwise you would have your head clicked even sooner, respawn because ticket count is just a unit for pp length and on top of that, you would know where he was because MP games have magical memories from past lives and then you go to click his head. If it was 1998 i would be amazed at these mechanics, but its been 30 years.

[broken socket]

So called possessers of nuance when RAAS is in the question. Like don't get me wrong I'm not saying the RAAS game mode doesn't contribute a great deal to why things are they way they are, but it's still only a part of the puzzle. What the meta is, is set by the players themselves. Perfect example of this would be the Alpha 9 Meta Game. Now on paper A9 was just cap up to the equilibrium point on the map and stalemate in a favorable position. In practice though we all know that starting in V7 and becoming widespread by V9 a ton of pub games were predicated on the so called "Rush Meta" V9 was probably the purest version of Squad we've ever gotten and it didn't just suggest teamwork it demanded it. If you have one Squad of numpties who weren't with the game plan you lost the game. So it was pretty popular to rush 2nd or 1st caps if the transit distance allowed you to do so. Much more so it was imperative to do as quickly as possible and have a good rollout. Of course as we know what often happened after a successful rush was instead of responding with an appropriate force to capture or just sitting on the middle cap and turtling such to not reach bleed. Potatoes would roll off the midpoint to try and recap their first caps, lose the mid point, trigger bleed and cop an L. The Rush meta was essentially a solely player created meta that wasn't really due to the game mode itself just poor player judgement. In the same alpha 9 we saw a completely different meta in Comp player all really dependent on the layer being played. Both sides being aware of the deficiencies in their positions often still played turtle meta strats on some layers or safe strats and attempted to make up the difference when the sides swapped. At the same time though teams that weren't as skilled at the turtle meta would also come up with wild strategies to try and win with objective meta.

For instance Kohat V1 was a well known turtle map with RU on the backfoot. They had an arguably worse vehicle loadout, and a less good map position.
In one game we were going up against the Mumblebeans who were better shooters no doubt, but also had mastered the mortar at the time where as our mortars were shit to mid tier.
Needless to say if the match went long we all knew we'd be taking an L. So the strategy was a normal US Side turtle and a balls out Russian strategy to get us enough tickets to
somehow win on overall ticket count. The only way we were gonna do that was by abusing objective meta and rotations.

Essentially the plan boiled down to a small rush with one of our good vehicles along a nutty but known Chakar Rush route in the hopes of forcing an overreaction to the rush and in the
time that it took for forces to be pulled to get the chakar capture through, to roll into Malak Abad with the bulk of our force and against all odds hopefully overpower the initial cap zone
defense. At the same time one Squad with the rest of the vehicles would try to just get enough people onto Mohd Zai to force the capture at which point they'd hopefully be able to spawn shift to
Malak. In the end it nearly worked but we copped a rollout error that would live in infamy lost crucial seconds at the main wave died like the boys at Gallipoli in the fields of the River Valley.

The point being that this wasn't an isolated incident there were many cases of different sub metas per map that weren't really due to the game mode, but what the players decided was good
and decided to do, or what they decided they had no choice but to do.

All of which just don't add up if the majority of the meta is set by the game mode itself.

Another great example of this is SC BW. After decades without any significant balance patch one would assume the game would more or less settle into one spot, but they kept the game fresh with no changes
to the game itself, and rather rotating different map pools in that brought in different eras of the game.

Also a side unrelated anecdote but there's actually kind of a funny thing that happens in the objective meta as the capture zone increases in size. I always used to clown on Tactical Gaming clan
because they made this mod that was pretty much a layer pack I believe, but the layers it contaned had ginormous capture zones. And even with the substantial bleed of the time they kinda became turtle
fests because no side ever had enough man power to be able to clear the entire zone and cap so it kinda stagnated the game that way.

There was also kind of a goldlilocks zone as well most notably on Yeho Storage Site as the capture site itself was sufficiently large enough to fit an entires teams worth of players, but just small enough for teams
to have a need to push towards the enemies spawn location lest they be eventually be fishbowled and spawn killed. It was interesting because while there still was a general incentivize to push the capture
zone to trigger bleed and pretty much autowin the game. There was also a need to push smartly as the capture zone itself would tick towards any team that started to get a lead on alive players in the zone.

Even with 30 second respawn times, every second spent down on players ticked the capture zone towards defeat, so there was incentive at the same time to play slow as well. Honestly one of the most
interesting map metas, and low key kinda what ICO stans are yearning for but can only really be found in an objective meta.

Incredibly long ramble aside, the point is that every single change made to the macro and micro can have effects to the game itself and while you aren't wrong that we get the turtle meta because of no
bleed RAAS being bad something I've fought against every time it's introduced. You're also lacking the nuance you claim to possess to just blatantly ignore things that do actually still matter to some
extent.

[vale elbow]

i still remember that kohat match

we rushed a BTR down in to the river to counter clown-car logi strats

[broken socket]

The rage when the logi got caught on something was legendary

teamspeak got real tense

[vale elbow]

teamplay was better in v9, it's heavily anecdotal but everything came together in those matches that resulted in tense focused games where the win was hanging in the balance for a lot longer

[broken socket]

I think one thing that helped was the amount of 5 flag layers sure when you eventually won the cap it was pretty hard to lose, but those first battles that decide that cap the back and forth were pretty massive.

Idk how many odd numbers are left but I feel like they've been phased out

[vale elbow]

v9 had plenty of jank but design was coherent and pushed players forwards towards each other

[broken socket]

Also with bleed being so massive even though turtling was strong i feel like there was some encouragement to maybe try and get the cap if you could since you'd set yourself up for an easier 2nd half or what not.

[vale elbow]

but the team that lost the mid-flag HAD to try and retake it, it mattered who held the bleed flag

https://streamable.com/bivoc

from ISK2 season 2 semi-final

it even has a meta building FOB

[broken socket]

Also I guess to some extent if you think about it logically ticket bleed being a larger % of total tickets lost is an easier metric to track how down you are. Adding up every single asset loss is a bit harder than remembering when you lost the flag and multiplying by 4

[vale elbow]

the amount of time we put in to countering meta building openings and retake options if we lost it, so much time

[vale elbow]

i think the emphasis being on PTFO was healthier than the asset sniping the game became in comp after v12, i still think it's better to balance assets by respawn time than tickets lost

[broken socket]

Definitely looking at an Invasion after action report to see why we lost on the 3rd flag was because we lost 20 technicals that cost 5 tickets each. Well serves us right for playing as insurgent lol?

[vale elbow]

but OWI seems scared of players having direct or even sustained conflicts over objectives (including FOBs), they want fights to progress but they also release ICO with counter mechanics that enforce a playstyle of stagnation

it's odd that macro can progress very quickly but micro feels like wadding through mud infested with needles

https://streamable.com/oxgew i believe this was the first tournament after mortars were added

featuring a very energetic swede

https://tenor.com/6SsX.gif

[vale elbow]

am i mad for believing that light transports shouldn't have a ticket cost?

[tranquil basin]

Notice how he counts to 20 after mortar calls that mortars are stopped.

Squad became a more casual game

[broken socket]

the only possible argument one could make would be that i guess you could strap bombs to them as INS but they kinda just seem like a necessary part of the game so kinda weird for them to have a value

[vale elbow]

i'd apply this logic to all light transport, armed or not

i don't think our dream of objectives being a thing of value will come true however, OWI aren't ones to walk back on their work

[tranquil basin]

I kinda miss the objective meta, would be better if they could make a better blend between objectives and kills tbh. Right now you don't really have an incentive to cap mid flag, and even if you do you don't lose anything when you lose the flag.

Successfully capping a hostile flag gives your team 60 tickets, where the defenders lose 0 tickets. Sometimes you lose more attacking than defenders

[tranquil basin]

motorcycles and boats cost 1 ticket, I think only logi vics should be worth tickets. Giving them value

[vale elbow]

risk/reward has been off balance for a long time

[tranquil basin]

They don't want people to take risks like rushing first and second flags. They are trying to prevent it from happening by doing weird changes like not being able to see how much has been capped etc.

[vale elbow]

it's sad pilert

[tranquil basin]

Before you could even capture back a friendly flag that wasn't active after the team had capped the next flag to prevent enemy team from leap frogging in case you lost the flag you just capped.

[vale elbow]

OWI talk about tactical options, strategic choices but then they design themselves a game that has only limited those choices further

[tranquil basin]

Flag rushing being as effective as it is, is mostly due to bad layers and probably map design.