Unfinished: Squad 01/15/2016

2016 GOTY best name: SQUAD

I'm genuinely fascinated by stuff like this. Are there any good videos out there of people playing this (or Arma or whatever) and working together like a well-oiled machine?

SQUAD!!!!!!

I often think Drew would enjoy Insurgency, did they ever look at that on the site somewhere?

Jeff Gerson

@beachthunder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOpZ2CVMY4E

I was in this match. I got rekt hard, but it was fun nonetheless.

Been having a lot of fun with this game. More approachable than ARMA but just as fun.

@drewbert You tried to give him the wrong sort of medicine. You use the patches (AKA field dressing, everyone gets those) to heal yourself and to be able to revive others, and the medic bag (as the Medic) to heal others (and also yourself).

You also didn't have to spawn back at base, you could have spawned at one of the FOBs (triangle icons on the map), which is something that the SL can create.

100 players is the target, but right now 72 player is stable and what they're supporting. Also, Project Reality has had vehicles for ages and it worked great, so I don't think there is any need at all to worry about balancing or whatever. The devs know what they're doing.

Back in the army I fell asleep while my squad mates were shooting full auto about 20 meters from me. I did have ear protection on and I was dead tired but I can agree with Jeff about gunfire sometimes being oddly relaxing.

Whohoo, may Project Reality 2 turn out to be a good game!

Frankly if someone just remade the old thing with new graphics, it would be good enough for me, which is kinda what this looks like.

so I guess he didnt figure out you can press 5 or 6 again as a medic to pull out alternative items, like a medic pack or the E-Tool, you can only heal with the medic pack, you gotta stop bleeding with the field dressing.

Huh, wasn't expecting a Squad unfinished. The game is pretty rough around the edges, the netcode is kinda spotty sometimes, and performance is not the best around, but there's almost nothing like it out there. It's pretty fun.

this looks kinda cool

That dude turning down the medical hahaha.

This game actually looks pretty great. I love ARMA in ways but others it's a little much. This looks like a nice mix of that and Battlefield.

@beachthunder: Dslyecxi has a lot of videos from Arma 2 and 3 running missions with his team that really got me into looking into a group to do this kind of stuff with. I have only participated in one so far but its really fun.

@beachthunder: yes, plenty. Check out the Squad forums, and the hundreds of videos on youtube

Drew needs to try Insurgency! It's this but slightly more approachable maybe

Apples and oranges. Insurgency is small scale

@thornbush: The Giant Bomb PC gaming hub used to run ARMA nights. It was really really fun to play that game semi seriously with a group of people. But sadly I don't think they run them anymore.

you should get a mic and do some serious gaming. this was too short!

I am fascinated watching these kinds of games...but only watching. Even something as approachable as this is still impenetrable to me. But I'm dumb and old, so...

@mister_v: that would have been awesome, but i have only really been getting into these games pretty recently.

Although on topic with Squad, a Squad night wouyld be pretty cool too

A better explanation for this game is: Project Reality is a game that takes Battlefield 2 in a very particular direction. Like, if you play it and understand it you will see how similar it's actually to BF2 and Squad is very much the same to PR.

So really, Squad is an evolution of what Battlefield 2 became with PR on top. Squad's goal is to bring everything the devs accomplished in PR to a better engine and then add on top of it (helicopter ropes, better UI and all).

I'm surprised this video came this soon after the UPF segment, I hoped you guys would've waited for the vehicles to come in, because that's when the real fun is going to start with this game.

@drewbert: I'm up for to play with you if you want. We can even hop in PR if you want to get a real taste of things to come and just how organized things can be and as a result enjoyable. I've been a fan of the Battlefield franchise for over a decade and with the direction it took after BC and particularly 3 I knew I had to get into this after watching you play PR many months ago on UPF.

Really, PR is the best BF has to offer, no matter how convoluted or ugly looking it might be.

@foeaminute: I seriously recommend to anyone interested in this to check out PR. There are people willing to help, you just need to be communicative with them. Nobody hates people more than those that are just silent and get you killed because they didn't communicate to you a danger they saw.

Still bummed this isn't a Waka Flocka Flame video game

This is not for me but I do appreciate they're making games like these.

would you say your squad has an common objective, something that brought you all together? some squad... goals, perhaps?

edit: lol. typical online chat.

@beachthunder:I don't watch enough videos of games like this to recommend but there was a point where I watched a few and one of my favorites was of ARMA 2 Hostages Rescue Gone Wrong. It's kinda long but it's crazy how serious they take it. Idk if I'd say their a "well-oiled machine" though, given the name things obviously go wrong but it's still pretty interesting to watch.

I have been playing this game since the very early access back in the spring. It has come a long way and will continue to get better. Once they add vehicles its going to be amazing. It has some of the most intense gun fights I have experienced in a game. It is still rough right now but still fun.

Having played extensive amounts of ARMA and Project Reality in the past... I'm of the opinion that Squad/Project Reality are actually a fair amount more realistic. ARMA has a lot more detailed mechanics, but when it comes right down to gameplay, Squad is miles ahead. Vehicles were really well done in Project Reality too - I can't wait to see how they're done in Squad.

Kinda reminds of GRAW 2 in the way it straddles the line between Arma & BF how's the controller support or did I miss them mention it

God I miss the days United Operations still ran ARMA 2 and had a decent sized community. Shacktac is the shit but they dont let people into their group, UO was open to the public for the most part. If you play ARMA 3, UO still plays it and has a decent group on the weekends that I heard was pretty good

There's no controller support and I can't imagine they're ever going to even consider it. This is not a game that would ever even remotely work with a controller.

@simkas: huh I didn't notice any complex operations systems seems like a pretty straight forward fps hard to believe they couldn't just add any necessary inventory menus etc. What with having a map always readily available seems like a natural function. But hey no 3rd person or freelook, you might be right sounds WAY to complex for a controller

Yeah agreed. Its certainly not as convoluted and ridiculously technical as ARMA, but its absolutely not a game you'd play with a controller.

@warpig87: yea I guess but I didn't see anything that looked to complicated that a 16 button config couldn't handle.

I guess my point is that a game based on tactical teamwork & communication you're depending on an active & involved community for the game to be played at its ultimate potential & enjoyment. I feel like limiting it to mouse & keyboard when it's not necessary will only limit the amount of people in the player pool & hinder the growth of the game.

Which frustrates the hell out of me cuz I'm a huge fan of tactical military shooters but having found anything since GRAW that struck the right balance for me & while I see a lot of things I loved about it in SQAUD, without a dedicated & growing player base it doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment of my time or money.

#squadroles

Brett Gerson

Good screen selection for the background. It has a hint of MGS3...

The Squad says Know your Role and Mute your Mic! If you smell-lllllll-l-l-l... what The Squad, is cooking!

Strange to think about the price tag affecting the community. If this went on sale for 5 dollars on Steam, how quickly would the community turn into a shit show of racial/sexual slurs.

@drewbert I have heard you say you wouldn't know how vehicles affected the pace of the game. There are a ton of vehicles in Project Reality and they are great. It can be intense when you are playing as an insurgent and the americans come in with an APC and you have to scramble to get a guy with an RPG to have any hope of surviving. Also, the maps will be much larger and there will be dedicated transport helicopter squads and stuff.

I imagine Drew would be a lot less worried about vehicles if he knew that FOBs existed.

@cornswaggle said:

These are the controls of Squad. As you can see the numpad is reserved for talking to the rest of the squads alone, depending on their squad number. So yes - keyboard and mouse is necessary, this game will not work with controllers.

Also - no PC shooter was ever hindered by not supporting controllers. Especially ones like this.

This seems pretty rad. It'd be real interesting to see some real military dudes playing this using real small unit tactics and such.

Apparently Fernando Alonso is playing SQUAD.

Games like this seem 1 million times more fun than Call of Duty "Run forward and shoot them in the head first" gameplay

@halidyusein said:

@cornswaggle said:

@warpig87: yea I guess but I didn't see anything that looked to complicated that a 16 button config couldn't handle.

...

I feel like limiting it to mouse & keyboard when it's not necessary will only limit the amount of people in the player pool & hinder the growth of the game.

Which frustrates the hell out of me cuz I'm a huge fan of tactical military shooters

...

These are the controls of Squad. As you can see the numpad is reserved for talking to the rest of the squads alone, depending on their squad number. So yes - keyboard and mouse is necessary, this game will not work with controllers.

Also - no PC shooter was ever hindered by not supporting controllers. Especially ones like this.

Those are Arma's controls, no watch or inventory in Squad, and the compass is always visible.

Squad does use the numpad for single SL to SL chat, most people can't use it because they aren't an SL, and most SLs don't even use it (preferring SL all chat)

Also, like every other PC game, there's Steam Controller support, here's the most popular config, haven't played with it yet. Seems like excellent use of the gyro though. Squad chat is B mode shifted by LB.

@dsi1: Whatever man, the game still has more than 30 buttons.

@halidyusein said:

@dsi1: Whatever man, the game still has more than 30 buttons.

I just posted how this game can be played on a controller, I'm not even sure what your point is.

If you really wanted to get down and dirty with how awesome the Steam Controller is, add another mode shift for LB to switch the left pad from a d-pad to a touch menu. 16 new buttons right there, one for each equipment slot (you could even make icons for the menu from the equipment slot icons themselves!), depending on the details of how the touch menu works (not working on this config in-game right now, just out of game) you might even be able to do single SL to SL chat and not just SL all chat. RB is worthless because there is no alternate cameras in Squad, make that another mode shift button. LB+LP = touch menu of each equipment slot, RB + LP = touch menu of comms with each SL.

I'm also not certain on how exactly in-game typing works, but you could probably throw in J, K, and L too (up to 16 buttons on each iteration of LP and we're using only 10 at most, throw them on the SL comms iteration for consistency's sake) and get literally every single binding on there.

Oh, I forgot, vehicles will exist. When those get in, LB + RB + LP = touch menu of switching seats in vehicles. Awesome. You'd need to move the default bind of LB of use to a mode shift on the button pad or something though, don't want to hop out of vehicles while trying to switch seats.