Nothing says Battlefield 3 like a well organized squad. A key factor in any successful squad is to organize together for one common goal. 
 
So the game mode, Conquest, you may have heard of it (it is the only mode I play). It is the ultimate mode for squad and team tactics. Personally I haven't played a shooter in years that has matched the fun I have had during BF3. Now in order to become more organized as a squad, each member has to be willing to do 3 basic things:  

1. Communicate
2. Know their class/loadout
3. Understand the big picture

Nothing says Battlefield 3 like a well organized squad. A key factor in any successful squad is to organize together for one common goal. 
 
So the game mode, Conquest, you may have heard of it (it is the only mode I play). It is the ultimate mode for squad and team tactics. Personally I haven't played a shooter in years that has matched the fun I have had during BF3. Now in order to become more organized as a squad, each member has to be willing to do 3 basic things:  

1. Communicate
2. Know their class/loadout
3. Understand the big picture

@tekmojo: Hear hear. Well said.

A good squad is one that rolls together and is damn hard to stop when up against even superior numbers. Synthesis is almost better then all out skill. In other words, a good squad of 4 can almost take out double that of "Rambos" you see on the battlefield. I know this because I have been a member of both groups....

@ericdrum: Word.

@Patman99: Yea went face to face with a squad like that last night. It was a nice wakeup call.

A well organized squad can singlehandedly win the game (Just like in BF2). I was part of a squad the other day where all of us were in top 5 and all had over 7k points by the end. We were all different classes and it worked well, I healed and revived, and engaged at longer range with the sniper, support guy always made sure we had ammo and provided suppression fire (that can get you loads of points), the sniper spotted for me and the support, and the engineer helped us deal with vehicles. It worked insanely well. I got 2 flag capture ribbons in that round and it was the game that got me the ace squad dogtag. It's a lot more pleasant to play with than a squad of all lonewolf engineers who try to be heroes and die a ton.

And this would all be more easily facilitated by a decent, working, useful voice/squad system. Pick-up squads in-game are almost impossible, since it seems to require jumping out of the game, dragging and dropping the people you're playing with into a squad (which may or may not require they also be added to your friends list) and then jumping back into a game. Just so you can communicate.

@Branthog said:

And this would all be more easily facilitated by a decent, working, useful voice/squad system. Pick-up squads in-game are almost impossible, since it seems to require jumping out of the game, dragging and dropping the people you're playing with into a squad (which may or may not require they also be added to your friends list) and then jumping back into a game. Just so you can communicate.

Exactly. Why I only use the friends list to see where my friends are playing. Mumble is good enough for chat at the moment, crystal clear audio. I also play window maximized for my video settings so I can manage certain things outside game.

I love rolling with my 3 friends and doing crazy squad strategies. I'll fly a heli over the point, and then we all team dive out, pull our chutes at the last second and lock down the point as we capture it.  
 
Having a well coordinated squad can really dominate games. You can have one member wait in a safe spot deep behind enemy lines, then have the rest of the squad spawn in on him. 4 People can usually roll through whatever light uncoordinated resistance you run into on the way to a point. Its awesome.

This duder know what he is talking about

@tekmojo said:

@Branthog said:

And this would all be more easily facilitated by a decent, working, useful voice/squad system. Pick-up squads in-game are almost impossible, since it seems to require jumping out of the game, dragging and dropping the people you're playing with into a squad (which may or may not require they also be added to your friends list) and then jumping back into a game. Just so you can communicate.

Exactly. Why I only use the friends list to see where my friends are playing. Mumble is good enough for chat at the moment, crystal clear audio. I also play window maximized for my video settings so I can manage certain things outside game.

It's not that mumble isn't a good work around, but that it shouldn't be necessary for a workaround and it still comes with the same requirements above. There still is simply no way to join any server anywhere and be on a squad with random people and just all decide to start working together by voice. The facilities for it simply don't exist. Even on the GB server which has a pretty committed and consistent community of players and a mumble server, maybe only five percent of players use the mumble server.

As for being in windowed mode to tab out swiftly . . . that doesn't work so well on ATI, because Crossfire doesn't work in windowed mode; only full screen. This is also true with SLI in a number of cases.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but on the GB mumble server, are people splitting up into teams/squads? I have it installed, but I still haven't used it because I didn't want to talk if the whole room could hear me (i.e. people on both teams)

@ericdrum said:

I don't want to hijack the thread, but on the GB mumble server, are people splitting up into teams/squads? I have it installed, but I still haven't used it because I didn't want to talk if the whole room could hear me (i.e. people on both teams)

There is no much super serious business commando tactical hardcore talk in it and that's the beauty of it.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but on the GB mumble server, are people splitting up into teams/squads? I have it installed, but I still haven't used it because I didn't want to talk if the whole room could hear me (i.e. people on both teams)