Recently I have been reading a lot of posts complaining about a lack of teamwork in BF2, and for the most part I agree. I got this game the day it came out and I played in the beta as well. I got bored about 2 months after I started playing. I would run around by myself or even in a squad and no one would work together and no one was on mic. I almost stopped playing, but I came up with a solution - at least for myself.
1. I learn to squad lead. I won’t bore you with my opinions on how to SL as there are many posts with good recommendations. (If you want to see something scary, take a look at my stats and the number of hours I have as SL.) You will probably not get as many kills/points as SL, but it will be more fun in the end.
2. Make sure your mic is working. It is very hard to type orders and a decent headset with a mic is only $25.
Eventually, (if you play on the same few servers most of the time) you will run across some players that follow orders, stay with you and have mics. If you are a decent SL and your orders make sense, they will join your squad every round that you create one. After you play with that person for a couple of days, exchange Xfire account names. For those of you who do not know what Xfire is, you can do a search on these forums and there is a lot of information about it. Basically, it allows you to find friends that are playing and join their BF2 server without them having to give you an IP address. Once you have their Xfire name, you can find them in any server. I tend to pick other ground-pounders, because I think that is the most fun.
After a few weeks of doing this, I had a good squad of “regulars” that I always played with. When they joined the server, I made room for them in my squad and told the players that I kicked “thank you for playing in my squad, but I have to make room for a regular. If you see room the next round, please try joining again.” /kick. I NEVER picked a player because he was really good. I picked players that played as a team. Although, I have noticed that their stats have gotten much better since we started playing together (but so have mine). We have great medics, AT and support guys.
Some of you may think, “Hey that sounds like a clan.” Well, to me a clan implies practices and matches and whatnot, and I am just not into that sort of stuff.
Now, when I play, I always have a full squad of people I know, and on Fridays/Saturdays we have two or even three. One thing that is nice about consistently playing with the same players is that no matter how good you are, there is someone who knows something about the game that you do not. I learn new things all the time from the people I play with. There are little tricks that only players who play many hours with a certain kit know. I just recently discovered that the “TV missile” in the bomber is automatically guided once you get lock. I am sure that anyone who spends time in the jets would know that, but since I am never in one, I had no idea. Another thing is you will develop your own lingo. We have names for almost every strategy we use. Example: Trojan Horse is where 4-5 of the 6 man squad attack or defend a base that I deem less important, and the SL (and maybe a medic) sneaks into a different base to cap it. Once the SL is in position, the other players spawn on him as they die. This prevents the entire squad from getting wiped out by arty or a tank on the way to take a flag instead of just one person. So, I will say something like, “Attack the train station and I will Trojan Horse into the Gatehouse.” It’s fun because everyone knows what I am talking about now. BTW, Wiggan<NuG> came up with the name for that strategy, not me. I have to give credit where credit is due.
I DO have one advantage that many of you probably don’t have. I have a very fast connection that allows me to set up and maintain a separate TeamSpeak server so that I can talk to multiple squads at one time and we can joke around between rounds. When I play with a person long enough, I create a TS account for them which makes in game communication even easier. Currently I have 41 accounts, but only about 25 are actually used regularly.
These are just my opinions, but I hope it helps some of you. You might even try giving each other your Xfire names in a forum post so that you can find like minded players.
Thank you for reading,
KangarooSalesman
1. I learn to squad lead. I won’t bore you with my opinions on how to SL as there are many posts with good recommendations. (If you want to see something scary, take a look at my stats and the number of hours I have as SL.) You will probably not get as many kills/points as SL, but it will be more fun in the end.
2. Make sure your mic is working. It is very hard to type orders and a decent headset with a mic is only $25.
Eventually, (if you play on the same few servers most of the time) you will run across some players that follow orders, stay with you and have mics. If you are a decent SL and your orders make sense, they will join your squad every round that you create one. After you play with that person for a couple of days, exchange Xfire account names. For those of you who do not know what Xfire is, you can do a search on these forums and there is a lot of information about it. Basically, it allows you to find friends that are playing and join their BF2 server without them having to give you an IP address. Once you have their Xfire name, you can find them in any server. I tend to pick other ground-pounders, because I think that is the most fun.
After a few weeks of doing this, I had a good squad of “regulars” that I always played with. When they joined the server, I made room for them in my squad and told the players that I kicked “thank you for playing in my squad, but I have to make room for a regular. If you see room the next round, please try joining again.” /kick. I NEVER picked a player because he was really good. I picked players that played as a team. Although, I have noticed that their stats have gotten much better since we started playing together (but so have mine). We have great medics, AT and support guys.
Some of you may think, “Hey that sounds like a clan.” Well, to me a clan implies practices and matches and whatnot, and I am just not into that sort of stuff.
Now, when I play, I always have a full squad of people I know, and on Fridays/Saturdays we have two or even three. One thing that is nice about consistently playing with the same players is that no matter how good you are, there is someone who knows something about the game that you do not. I learn new things all the time from the people I play with. There are little tricks that only players who play many hours with a certain kit know. I just recently discovered that the “TV missile” in the bomber is automatically guided once you get lock. I am sure that anyone who spends time in the jets would know that, but since I am never in one, I had no idea. Another thing is you will develop your own lingo. We have names for almost every strategy we use. Example: Trojan Horse is where 4-5 of the 6 man squad attack or defend a base that I deem less important, and the SL (and maybe a medic) sneaks into a different base to cap it. Once the SL is in position, the other players spawn on him as they die. This prevents the entire squad from getting wiped out by arty or a tank on the way to take a flag instead of just one person. So, I will say something like, “Attack the train station and I will Trojan Horse into the Gatehouse.” It’s fun because everyone knows what I am talking about now. BTW, Wiggan<NuG> came up with the name for that strategy, not me. I have to give credit where credit is due.
I DO have one advantage that many of you probably don’t have. I have a very fast connection that allows me to set up and maintain a separate TeamSpeak server so that I can talk to multiple squads at one time and we can joke around between rounds. When I play with a person long enough, I create a TS account for them which makes in game communication even easier. Currently I have 41 accounts, but only about 25 are actually used regularly.
These are just my opinions, but I hope it helps some of you. You might even try giving each other your Xfire names in a forum post so that you can find like minded players.
Thank you for reading,
KangarooSalesman
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