Poll Question 008 - Do you prefer to play alone or with a squad?

When playing alone, you can progress at your own pace. You only care about yourself thus, you can do whatever you want to satisfy your objective.

When you are leading a squad, everything changes. You have to care about your squadmate, ensure that they don’t get stuck in the middle of enemy fire. You have to do things based on what will offer the best for your squad, rather then yourself. You are forced to babysit people who are not as smart, powerful or resourceful as you. This is often a drag and problematic at best. Games like Quake 4 and SWAT 3/4, however, do this quite nicely.

However, there’s one thing you should add and that is being in a squad, but not leading it. This solves two problems: The need to be in a squad and not the lone hero and the problem of leading a bunch of soldiers which are not as smart, powerful or resourceful as you. If you are in a squad, you are being cared for by someone else. Your only care is yourself and maybe squadmates should they require it. The squad moves as the NPCs move and you follow them. Most (if not all) games don’t do this. However…

[Whorage mode on] Combine Destiny 2 will! [Whorage mode off]

I’d rather be in a squad. I enjoy the aspect of ordering around other people, even if they are essentially useless compared to me. If they were people, I would command them too, if they’d let me.

alone is my preference

I rather play alone, I hate those annoying squad folks in HL2 (I use to kill them by using a console command that allows you to literally “burn down” every single entity in the game)
This is what you have to do in order to fget ride of the squad team:
Bring the console and type:
“ent_setname kindling; wait; ent_fire kindling ignite”
You can bind this command to a key (eg: bind MOUSE3 “ent_setname kindling; wait; ent_fire kindling ignite” ), so next time you feel like killing someone in the game, you just gotta aim at the character and then press the key you previously selected (WARNING: if you kill Alyx, the game may crash to desktop).

BTW, Fluffy, by the lenght of your posts I asumme you have plenty of free time… LoL (just kidding)

As I said in the Wish list post, I’m just tired of the one-man show. I feel there is so much more potential for better character and story development with a properly implemented squad. As Fluffy said, having a squad that is just NPC’s that you’re a part of but don’t command would be much better.
However, in this case the argument of AI comes into play again. Aside from developing a better AI I believe there is another way around this problem. A first person shooter is linear just like a movie. Since they’re linear I don’t see why a designer couldn’t just litter the stage with scripted sequences that are all based off of If-Then statements. For example, something simple could be as follows: “If Player trips this sequence box then send NPC_Squad1 to this spot and NPC_Squad2 to this spot.”
This would completely eliminate the whole NPC’s getting stuck issue and also let you move at your own pace since the scripts would be waiting on you. It gives the Squad its freedom and gives you your freedom. This could also be used to make the game much more cinematic and getting it closer to a “Gamovie.” As things stand now I still vote for squad because it adds another sense of realism to the game. I feel it’s much more fun playing the game with the intention of keeping everyone alive than playing with the “Looking out for #1” attitude.
Hope I provided some insight, now lets get those numbers in the poll leaning more towards Squads! Cheers,
David

I like the squad when ther is a big ambush but if it isn’t there i will do it on my own

i have really no preference

Fluffy The Hamster Said:

BTW, Fluffy, by the lenght of your posts I asumme you have plenty of free time… LoL (just kidding)

You’re right. Not only do I have too much free time, but I rarely play video games, either.

Fluffy The Hamster Said:

Aside from developing a better AI I believe there is another way around this problem. A first person shooter is linear just like a movie. Since they’re linear I don’t see why a designer couldn’t just litter the stage with scripted sequences that are all based off of If-Then statements. For example, something simple could be as follows: “If Player trips this sequence box then send NPC_Squad1 to this spot and NPC_Squad2 to this spot.”

[Whorage mode on] Combine Destiny 2 will do this. Early versions depicted the squad moving when you move forward (They don’t if they have an enemy in sight), the appropriate idea being that you are the point-man. [Whorage mode off]

Also, Call of Duty and it’s sequel does this *excellently*. Up to the point of which the developers could point into everyones faces (and still do) and scream “HAHA! OUR AI IS BETTER THEN YOURS!”

Someday I envision playing an FPS with one, maybe two teammates who berate each other when they run out of ammo, cover each other when they need to reload, know to take out the weakest enemies first, peer round corners, fall back if needs be…

But we’re not there yet. We’re a long, long way from truly realistic AI. And until we finally reach that level of sophistication, I will always stick with going through games alone.

STALKER probably won’t be released in my part of the Middle Of Nowhere, Ireland for a long time.

There’s some squad games with good AI. Games like SWAT 3 (don’t know about 4: never played it) and the Rainbow series. Those tactical-squad-based-shooters.

reading the comments it seems that some like squads and others don’t. personaly i HATE playing in a squad, (for me it’s a reson to NOT buy such a game even!). like you PP, i like to play alone, (even when i have 2 brothers). not only the squad walks sometimes in the way, they also take most of the action away. this was specialy the case with Cod2. you had to run like crazy to get a first shot at a enemie, when you where to slow you only did see death bodies that where killed by your squad. and when i had to choose between leading a squad and being in a squad i obviously prefer leading the squad, simply because i can leave the squad behind and do it myself. but even this doesn’t work always. a month ago i bought Brothers in Arm, wich is a game that makes the most of playing in a sqaud, (very nicely done, that i have to admit). but even there it didn’t work leaving them behind, because when you did that they simply took the leading and run passed you to take credit for all the action again.

it’s realy a shame that game companies seem to think that people like playing in squads, because most of the latest released games seem to have a squad systhem. i think they do this because there is a huge mp community, (playing together), maybe they thought that playing in a squad would make sp gaming more interesting for the mp-community.

leon

Yes and no.

I actually enjoyed Anticitizen One a lot, it’s one of my favourite chapters. True, the squaddies do get in the way sometimes, but they manage to be fairly useful in a firefight while not stealing all of your thunder. Besides, indoors, it’s easy enough to send them to the nearest corner to get them out of the way long enough to get past.

That said, I do prefer to spend most of the game alone. Combat (especially with Overwatch soldiers) is a lot more flexible when you’re on your own, you don’t have to keep track of allies’ locations or status, and if a grenade lands on the ground next to you, you only have to worry about yourself.

So, yes and no. I like lone-wolfing, but the squad sections were a good change of pace and I enjoyed them just as much.