Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

[Prince]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

Since when do you come back alive from being killed anyway other than in a game? :p

[Jesse]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

The correct term isn't "exploit" --- Its called "TACTICS". Using the SL system to its full power allows for incredible tactics in matches....you have to make sure an area is completely clean before capping a flag, and in 5v5 infantry matches we've been able to pull off things with the SL system that have allowed us to get to flags faster than our opponent / etc...

The correct term, well, phrase, is "another features EA/DICE didn't think through". The problem with clearing an area, is you can kill all the soldiers in a squad, yet they continue spawning by shuffling the squad leader position. There's absolutely no way to tell if you've cleared an area unless the commander puts a UAV there for you, and more often than not they won't when you request it. Spawning on a squad leader also cheapens the lives of the squad members because they now have the ability to ignore their own life and suicide like a complete moron to take a flag instead of having to keep the integrity of the squad intact. There's no fear of the assault failing, no need to prepare anymore. People just take tactics and throw them out the window for a cheap feature instead.

[ScOpE]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

I agree, its just plain annoying, not to mention stupid. Before you all go into "its only a game u noob" stuff, half the fun in the game (for me anyway) it actually taking time to think how your gunna pwn the other team. Running in n having the whole team respawn is just retarded cos its not a "tactic" as some of u guys put it. Plus it virtually destroys the point of a squad system cos all your doing is run n gun'in not givin a damn bout your "squad". If you wanna do that go play cs or something where you dont have to think bout teamplay cos u obviously can't do it if ure usin this expolit. If you wanna do it be my guest, just more sniper fodder for me! :p.

[m0nsterm@sh]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

Sadly (?), I find that people don't play in squads activley enough to even use this exploit.

[TGL|Badlizzard]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

This is only effective when clans are playing in a server. As someone said before Teamspeak and Ventrilo make this easy enough. In competition every clan does it, you reinforce where needed when you can.

This is what makes competition so exciting, you have to have a good commander who helps you find every last opponent in an area and the squad members and squad leaders have to communicate well with each other to make sure the threat is down.

If you want it removed from Pub play because it isn't "fair" to non clans, I don't see any reason why pub players shouldn't learn to play smarter. We all learn by example. We aren't playing a sim here, it's a game and this is part of it. Bunny Hopping, grenade launchers, c4 throwing, nade spamming.... what else?

How many times have you joined a squad to see that the squad leader is flying in a single seat plane, or a sniper camped on a roof top? Now do you whine and moan that he shouldn't be squad leader, or do you look around the spawn screen to see which squad could use some help? If you don't do the latter, then you aren't playing smart.

That is a single squad hop, what is wrong with doing that each time you die? It's not stat padding it is a way to help your team win by maximizing the numbers attacking or defending a flag.

[MrBrown]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

I am talking ONLY about clan matches ATM.

Let me make clear what I want: I want a 1 minute delay after leaving a squad and joining a new one, before you can actually use the squadleader as a mobile spawn point.

I don't think Squadhopping is "unfair". I am not afraid to loose because of this, I and my clan can do it. It's not rocket science and I am not stupid. Everyone can do it.

But the people in this thread already gave some arguments how the exploitation affects gameplay in a negative way:

Spawning on a squad leader also cheapens the lives of the squad members because they now have the ability to ignore their own life and suicide like a complete moron to take a flag instead of having to keep the integrity of the squad intact. There's no fear of the assault failing, no need to prepare anymore. People just take tactics and throw them out the window for a cheap feature instead.

OK that one is too radical for me, I want squadleaders, but I want them to be something SPECIAL. I don't want that EVERYONE one the map can act as a mobile spawn point, if he wants to. But squadhopping enables such cheap tactics.

And at the same time, you have a squad full of suicidal idiots running at you not caring if they die, because their well hidden squad leader is a spawn point to them and they know they can just come back there instead of the last flag. The value of teamwork on the assault on a flag is lessened because people know they can spawn back at the flag they don't own yet if they die.

Same as above: Squadleaders are okay, as long as there aren't 8 Squadleaders running around in a clanwar.

[00SoldierofFortune00]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

If they kep coming at you on a flag, keep killing them. It is likely that if you are well implanted in a position, all you have to do is kill them as they attack and they will lose points quicker. It can't be considered an exploit because that is what the squad system was made for, and if you were really good along with your team, you would be able to repel them. I see this a lot on pubs and I just say there repelling their attacks and they eventually lose points because they suck anyway if they do this kind of tactic. This game doesn't cater to the Cal or competitive community either and most of them use dirty tactics anyway so don't talk about fair when you talk about them.

You have a commander and if you are a good team, then you will use him to scan areas where there are many supposed enemies. This is just not a problem which needs as much attention as the noob tube or bunny hopping issues. Most people are going to agree just because they bitch a lot about everything else in BF2. You have the commadner abilities which combats it and thats why it is there. What else more do you want because with the commander it is already easy enough.

If you really have an issue with this, I don't think it is the game you should be blaming but yourself(no offense). The best player can fight off waves of enemies if he is behind adequte covering. And I doubt you won because you used this tactic, but the other team just wasn't very good. I have yet to see many players actually be good on the ground which is probably the problem here.

[BurnTheWeed]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

Personally, I see nothing wrong with it. In fact I think it helps the game, because you can get to points much quicker if there is a squad leader nearby.

[MrBrown]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

Well, if you see it that way, DICE should just implement a way to disable the squad system for clanwars and let everyone be a mobile spawnpoint instead. Well OK everyone but the commander
Because that's the way it's played at the moment. Just remove the Leave/Join hassle then, which is completely irrelevant to clan games.

Perhaps the whole thing would seem less stupid to me if I wouldn't have to do that Leave/Join Combo all the time.

It's not like it's destroying the whole game, but if you HAD to plan the way you layout your squads before your war, that would add some tactical depth I am missing. It would planning make more easy AND more rewarding at the same time, as you have less critical positions for less experienced players and more critical positions (squadleaders) for the more experienced players. Otherwise you wouldn't gain that advantage you can now simply get by just using everyone as a squad leader.

Oh yes, please stop accusing me of being afraid of losing because of this squadhopping, that's a lame argument! I don't want this changed (or better: an OPTION for a delay, like "sv.spawnDelayAfterSquadChange") because I want to gain an advantage, but because I think the matches could be more interesting then.

[BigBadBob]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

Tactics should be about REAL team coordination, not about learning all the secret exploits not mentioned in the manual (because the developers never intended it to happen this way). These exploitation tactics aren't even covered by that official Prima Game Guide.

IMHO tactics should not evolve around the secret knowledge of some exploits, but around REAL teamplay, well coordinated attacks, etc.


The deal is, this is a great disadvantage to those using the VoIP system.

And if tactics rely on knowledge about exploits, that's always a bad thing.

This problem could be solved easily by introducing some spawn delay after you change squads. This way the squad system could still be used and it would still encourage teamplay, which is one of the greatest things in BF2 IMHO, it's not like I want to lose that part of the game. But with some kind of spawn delay after changing the squad the gameplay would evolve more around "real" military tactics instead of exploit knowledge.

the ingame VOIP is overrated. We use TS to communicate. So no matter which sqad we're in, we can say cycle, meaing leave until the person who said it is leader or until the last person alive is leader.

[parish]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

IMHO if you're the squad leader and you die, your squad is out of luck until you can get to them again. You don't leave the squad and then re-join it. I take the squad leader position to be the leader and use the people in my squad to win. It's not a real tactic to just leave and swap squad leaders every time someone dies. It does work out for me well when someone else is doing it. I get lots of kills all in the same spot. Ty for that.

I used to think I was a pretty serious gamer. I may only play the game for a few hours per week. I go days without playing sometimes. I never play for more than an hour or two at the max if I do play. I don't bunny hop. I don't dolphin dive. I don’t prone spam. I don't use the grenade launcher as a primary weapon. I guess I am in the minority? I am beginning to think I am one of the few people who don’t use these as part of their style of play in the game.

I would consider an exploit to be something in the game that detracts from the gaming experience in a manner that any reasonable person would consider to be outside the norm for those who are NOT professional players. This only applies to public servers and not in clan or CAL matches. Sometimes, the following styles are permitted in that environment. This would include, but not be limited to:
Finding yourself sitting inside a building where you’re not supposed to be able to go and no one can see you because you somehow "slipped" through the wall or roof, and you're killing people as they walk by, you're using an exploit to your advantage. If you’re throwing C4 down four at a time and detonating them, while being 2 feet away and not dying in the process, you’re using an exploit. If you're shooting someone point blank with a grenade launcher and not taking damage, you're exploiting a game glitch. In any other fashion that grenade would hurt or kill you in-game.

Calling something a “tactic” does not legitimize the use of it in my mind. I also don’t consider something a hack unless you’re changing the code from either the client or server side. This does, in my mind, also include super-sizing your name and changing the color of your name in the game because you are adding a bit of “code” in the prefix to accomplish this.

[MrBrown]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

the ingame VOIP is overrated. We use TS to communicate. So no matter which sqad we're in, we can say cycle, meaing leave until the person who said it is leader or until the last person alive is leader.

Well I thought about cycling too, but what I call hopping ist just more effective, as you have up to 6 mobile spawnpoints to choose from (considering an 8vs8 war, -1 for the commander, -1 for yourself, -x for all who might be dead right now).

Everyone opens up a squad in the beginning, and if you die:

1. Leave your own one-person-squad
2. Join the person's squad you want to spawn at
3. Spawn
4. Leave the squad again
5. Open your own squad again.

(Alternatively just spawn at a flag instead of following these 5 points )

This way, you never need to coordinate that cycling. Everyone just needs to memorize these 5 points above and act accordingly. It takes absolutely no skill or team coordination to perform these 5 steps, that's why I refuse to call squadhopping a "tactic". DICE should either give us the ability to prohibit squadhopping (by introducing an optional spawn penalty if you leave and join another squad), or just let every single person on the battlefield be a mobile spawnpoint and remove the squadleader status completely. If you play according to the 5 points above in a 8vs8 Clanwar, then every player is a mobile spawn point already yet, there's no real separation between squadleaders and members in a clanwar. But this seperation would add more tactical depth IMHO.

In my clan we still give certain people certain jobs. Those supposed to act together closely go into a seperate TeamSpeak channel. But they can still talk to all the others by using push-to-talk. This way I kept that hierarchical communication system which VoIP would offer "for free", without the hassle of setting up seperate channels, channel commanders, and push-to-talk keys in TeamSpeak.

Well, but TeamSpeak has better voice quality, you can talk while the game is loading etc., no need to discuss this. I just pointed out the VoIP argument to show that squadhopping was not intended by the developers. As Jesse pointed out correctly:

The correct term, well, phrase, is "another features EA/DICE didn't think through".

[WarGimp]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

What annoys me is when these "tactics" are used in pubs.

I really couldn't care less what happens in comp matches. That's not what makes or breaks a game. It's the pubbing experiance that drives a game. When you see clanners coming in and totally unbalancing what could otherwise be a good game, it's just fugging annoying.

[MrBrown]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

What annoys me is when these "tactics" are used in pubs.

I really couldn't care less what happens in comp matches. That's not what makes or breaks a game. It's the pubbing experiance that drives a game. When you see clanners coming in and totally unbalancing what could otherwise be a good game, it's just fugging annoying.

Well but it's not as if this exploit couldn't be used easily on public servers.
It's easy for a clan to pull off those 5 steps on pubs.
Still it will be hard to find a random team of pub players who will understand it that quickly if they never thought about it before.

What could be better than a patch which improves the public experience AS WELL as the match experience? EA/DICE should listen to both sides.

[MrBenis]

Re: Why exploiting the BF2 squad system sucks

So you're saying... that if there was a squad on the opposite side of the map, taking a pounding; you die where you are and are in a squad.. you wouldnt switch and join that squad??

Wow you really need to sort out your priorities in life mate. This is a facet of the game, use and abuse every second of it.