Why lead a squad?

CuddlyChud · 2011-12-22, 07:04 PM

I was playing BF3 the other day, and something occurred to me. Who would want to lead a squad? Its a huge responsibility, and without equal payoff very few will want to lead. More often than not, in a pub server you'll see half your team un-squadded. I'm sure there are a couple reasons for this, but I think mainly its no one wants the responsibility of starting a squad and being squad leader rather than not wanting to be in a squad.

Without CEP or CR, there's no incentive for the vast majority of players to lead squads, as shown by the battlefield series. I think BF3 tried to alleviate this problem with squad spawning and q-spotting orders, so squad leaders didn't feel as pressured. While I thought this was a good idea, it wouldn't really work for Planetside 2.

Planetside used the OS and the backpack/kneepads/armpads as incentives. But since the CR system is out, that's inconsequential.

Resources wouldn't really be an effective incentive unless the multiplier for squad leaders vs. squad members was huge (i.e. squad leaders got x3 or something).

The mission system might alleviate this problem a little by simple forcing squad creation, but that could just as likely lead to musical squad lead as each successive squad leader tries to pass the burden.

The dilemma I see is that either you make it so that minimal organization is needed to play the game (ala Battlefield 3) or in the other extreme you get the Planetside CR5 OS where being a commander has very powerful (and annoying) abilities/benefits.

Do you guys think this will be a problem? If so, what kind of incentives could be in the game to promote more squad leaders?

basti · 2011-12-22, 07:13 PM

I dont want any in game direct reward for leading.

I lead, because i can, because im good at it, and because i am capable of leading the Vanu to victory.
Thats all the reason i need.

Zulthus · 2011-12-22, 07:13 PM

Because there are people that enjoy leading.

SKYeXile · 2011-12-22, 07:17 PM

The incentive is leading a group of people to winning. In planetside, in pugs the squad leader never really lead the squad they just spammed invites out and took the CEP. With PS2's system we will see people who want to lead, lead the squads.

while ill probably invest very few points in squad leadership ill still likely lead lead some squads because..well im good at it and there are times when you need to focus and play as a group with 1 -2 people leading and not running around in the general proximity of eachother aimlessly.

Bittermen · 2011-12-22, 07:19 PM

There are leader certs in PS2.. right?

CuddlyChud · 2011-12-22, 07:30 PM

Because there are people that enjoy leading.

With PS2's system we will see people who want to lead, lead the squads.

My question is, are there enough relative to the number of people who want to play in a squad but don't want to lead. Without the added incentives, how many people are there really who would want that burden. My experience with the battlefield franchise would tell me not that many. At least not enough. Of course, its true that PS1 never really needed squadwork, you just had to follow the zerg. That being said, at least the CEP and CR system gave an incentive for people to, at the very least, form squads.

There are leader certs in PS2.. right?

But now they're tied to BR and training time I think, so that they directly compete with combat skills.

Lonehunter · 2011-12-22, 07:35 PM

With NO incentives what so ever I would still want to Squad Lead.

in simple terms, 9 minions with a boss is better then 10 minions

Shogun · 2011-12-22, 07:36 PM

commander certs are already confirmed, but we know almost nothing about them.

if the OS gets into the new game again, i hope they renew it, so you can only use it while you are actually leading a squad, and the timer starts for the whole squad instead of the individual soldier. if not, we will have the infamous OS rain again in one or two years.

so if there are real advantages to commander certs, grey them out until the commander really leads a squad.

SgtMAD · 2011-12-22, 07:45 PM

so now it was a " we will have the infamous OS rain again in one or two years.",
it took three or four years before it became an issue and the real problem was that after approx 8 years of playing it was weird if you DIDN'T have a CR5 or 2 or 5 LOL

Graywolves · 2011-12-22, 07:45 PM

I used to lead because I wanted to lead.

I could care less about being rewarded for it. Feeling somewhat responsible for victory makes me jizz my pants.

CuddlyChud · 2011-12-22, 07:47 PM

I must be the only person on this forum who doesn't like to squad lead...and yet I still managed to get to CR4.5 somehow.

Anyway, I made this post when I was starving and hadn't eaten dinner. Now that I have, I can't remember exactly what my thought process was when I wrote the OP

Anyway, I still think its gonna be a problem, but maybe not a big enough problem for its own thread.

All I was trying to say is that I don't think 1 out of every 10 Planetside players enjoys leading, so what kind of added incentives are there? Its all well and good that you guys lead because you enjoy leading, but your not exactly representative of the Planetside populace in general. You're the hardcore-ish players who have followed the game on and off for 8 years.

sylphaen · 2011-12-22, 07:53 PM

Natural leaders do not need in-game benefits to lead.

The key part of that statement is "natural".

ShockFC · 2011-12-22, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Natural leaders do not need in-game benefits to lead.

The key part of that statement is "natural".

This is very well said.

Graywolves · 2011-12-22, 08:33 PM

Dark Skyes had a leadership training program once.

Xyntech · 2011-12-23, 12:39 AM

Originally Posted by CuddlyChud

I must be the only person on this forum who doesn't like to squad lead...and yet I still managed to get to CR4.5 somehow.

I don't really like leading either. I'm not horrible at it when I put my mind to it, I just generally don't like doing it. Telling people what to do doesn't give me any kind of power rush and having to worry about much more than myself, my objectives, the enemy, and watching my team mates backs just gets to be annoying for me.

There are tons of vets here on the forums who love to lead though. I'm sure the percentage will drop in the beta and even more in the full release, but there will always been a fair amount. Outfits will undoubtedly try to make sure to have a lot of leaders and motivate their members to learn and take up leadership. A decent percentage of new players who never played the first game will probably gravitate towards leadership for the same reasons that some of these diehard PS1 leaders did.

In the end, we may be shorter on volunteer squad leaders than in the first game, but is that really a bad thing? I bet you that the number of squads with ACTUAL leaders will go up significantly. What's the use of having a squad leader who doesn't lead? Just go solo, especially in PS2 where you will be able to take on missions.

I'm sure some people will still group together without a real leader if there are still experience perks to being in a squad, but how will that be much different than PS1? The only difference is that someone will have to start that squad without any reward of CEP to motivate them. If someone wants the XP perk of being in a squad badly enough, I'm sure they will start a squad. Just make it so that you can have an open squad that anyone can join freely without permission. That way a slacker squad leader doesn't have to spam to get new squad members. Less spam, better leaders, everybody wins.