Here's the thing, our activities with Arma are struggling. While we have players that are interested, we are never able to gather all of them at once. Most of the time we just end up being 2 or 4 players. While i can easily say that Arma is my favorite game. However, taking our current player numbers and activity levels into account. I believe that there is a better option then Arma. That game is Squad and the reason why i'm suggesting this is because i believe that Squad will be able to deliver a better experience on a more regular basis then what we currently have with Arma. So, what is Squad? Squad is a realistic fps that focus on teamwork. While not as hardcore as Arma, it's still more realistic then Call of Duty or Battlefield. It tries to bridge that gap between arcade shooters and military sims. It's an early access game, currently Alpha V10.1. I know that this will make some people sceptical but there is nothing to worry about. The game is in a better state then some AAA games are at release. The devs have a clear idea of what they want, competent enough to deliver it and they are keeping up good communication with the playerbase. Most servers are set up for about 70 to 80 players split into 2 teams. The players on each team split up into squads, each squad can take 9 players. The more players a squad have the more roles become avaible. Some roles are limited in number within the squad and some roles are even limited to how many it can be per team. There is a medic system. Everyone have 2 bandages in their inventory except the medic who have 6. If you get shot and start bleeding, you equip the bandage and start applying it to yourself to stop the bleeding. After that you need to find a medic who can heal you up to full health. If you take to much damage then you will become incapacitated. If that happens you have to wait for a medic to come to you to first apply a bandage and then heal you or if that is not possible you will have to respawn. Note that you can apply your bandage to other players and that it might become necessary from time to time. Especially in longer firefights where the medic might run out of his bandages and is unable to resupply. The game uses an inbuilt voip system to communicate. You have 3 channels. Local for speaking with team mates in close proximity. Squad, for speaking with everyone in your squad no matter where they are. There is also a command channel that only Squad Leaders have access to in order to coordinate. There are several different game modes. Most of these are about capturing control points which usually have to be captured in a specific order. The one game mode that stand out is "Insurgency". The objective of "insurgency" is to destroy randomly spawned caches of the insurgent team. The game also relies on a ticket system where as if your teams ticket count reaches zero, your team will lose. Tickets bleed over time based around how many control points you or the oppsing team control. Respawning is 1 ticket and losing a vehicle is even more. For example a BTR-80 is 20 tickets. This should give you a very basic idea of how the game plays, if you have any more questions about Squad or how it compares to Arma just ask and i will answer to the best of my abilïties. Now, for the question itself. Should we switch from Arma and start with Squad instead? This is a decision i'm not gonna make without hearing what everyone else think. I don't want to make the mistake of saying that we are switching only to realise that no one is actually willing to switch. The game cost 39,99 USD and i know that people are not interested in spending money on it if we are not gonna stick with it. Therefore i ask you to make a post here about what you think and if you are willing to switch or not.
I'm here for the people. Specific games don't make a huge difference to me. If Squad ends up being the game I'll pick it up.
My time is very limited lately, so I'm going to hold off on voting. My question is if you're having trouble getting people together for Arma, will that same issue carry over into Squad?
I'm down for Squad. Big maps, hotdropping in/out of matches, faster pace for action, SEVEN game modes with both respawn & no respawn, large player count limit: seems perfect for our community. Found this video I thought was very informative: TLDW: Seems like ARMA and Squad get compared a lot, but Squad is generally a better game for either casual players or communities with smaller player counts. Squad seems to play a lot like conquest mode in the Battlefield games.
Squad is a good game, from my experience though it is only fun if you have a good squad leader, It all goes to shit if you don't. I be up for Squading with you guys.
I have Squad, can't say I can commit to a regular sched (and I honestly haven't played it in about a year) but I'm down to jump in
That is fine and it's one of the reasons as to why we are considering to switch. We wouldn't be as dependant on everyone showing up. The game was good in the past but it became even better after the release of alpha v10
Short answer: No, it will not be a problem. Slightly longer answer: Squad is a game very suitable for groups of 2-9 people. Any larger and you will have to split into 2 squads and you also get the problem of trying to get everyone on the same team. This would be a very good fit for us as we normally have been about 2-6 players.
As usual, my limiting factor is also time. I also need to have a reasonable degree of certainty that I will play a game before I buy it (this is a new policy I am trying out after I realized how many games I bought on launch and still haven't played), but it is definitely encouraging that so many people already have the game...
So far it seems that people either want the change or they will go where everyone else goes. I know of somr people who haven't answered yet. If anyone want to see some gameplay, I will be trying to stream some this weekend.
I may pick it up.. but I am not sure to be honest. I love Arma, and while I am not sure that I ever have time for it, I am not sure I would enjoy Squad nearly as much. I am not sure I can even tell you why, I think part of it is just the flexibility to be silly, to have fun to be serious and to have a big playground to mess around in.
The problem with Arma and our group is the massive amount of effort required to do most anything with it. It requires a level of dedication we just can't muster right now. Aspius can attest to this as he's been at every meeting and knows exactly just how disorganized we are for the average Arma day. Squad is a lot more pick-up-and-play friendly. You can load Squad up and within just a few minutes jump immediately into the action and the controls are much more streamlined and intuitive for anyone who has played an FPS.
I believe that you will like Squad. If you will enjoy it as much as Arma? Hard to say, Arma delivers a unique experience and there is nothing like it. Squad is the closest you will get. I personally feel that the experience i get from Squad reminds about our own sessions within Arma.
