Exterior wrote:maybe it is possible to have a squad leader comm.. like how all squads can talk to commander, make one for just squad leaders too? i
I believe this has already been suggested, and isn't possible within BF2. However, mumble provides this, and there is a public PR mumble server that is every easy to use.
As far as team cohesion goes, except for insurgency maps, I much prefer that squad leaders figure it out among themselves. The PR commander is now much more of an intel/FAC officer than a leader, and the reality is that most people don't want to go commander if they're going to be required to tell everyone what to do all the time. As an SL, sometimes it's nice to see the comm get people back in line and focused on the objectives, but ultimately that's a task for admins, not the commander.
The good servers are the ones, like TG and T&T (and others of course, those are just the 2 that I play on the most), where the people leading squads know what they're doing and get things done. The problem is when the team is obviously doing poorly on servers without good administration, and SLs just do whatever they want, generally leading to a crappier game for everyone.
Commanders SHOULD stay back at main and COMMAND. There is absolutely NO valid reason for the commander to leave his tent IMO (driving a logi truck to a squad if absolutely no one else is capable of doing it being the only exeption). A commander should command, not running around "helping to cap flags" or other ****.
This is completely wrong. A commander's job is not to micromanage his team, especially now that SLs can do everything except operate the UAV and send area attacks down range. A commander who is sitting at main is keeping 1 body off the field that could be used more effectively to help the team win. If you're an SL on a server, get on mumble, in the SL channel, and talk to the squadleader of whomever is driving the APC. A commander is not a telephone operator or a secretary, they're playing PR for fun. The reason so few people played commander in past versions is because he was tied down to a boring job in a game that's all about fun.
2 examples of how having a mobile commander helps:
First is from the PRT: Our commander was never in his command post (for multiple battles), he simply expected his SLs to get things done (admittedly with much more planning than goes on in any pub game). Much of the time he wasn't even in the commander position, he was leading a squad instead, often a specialized squad with a HAT or other special weapon, or placing FOBs in strategically useful places. We never won a battle by less than 200 tickets (out of 450), and the total time we played for the last 4 battles in the campaign was less than 4 hours. Now, there were a lot of reasons other than him being outside the command box all the time, but having an extra body on the field, especially one who is putting up spawn points or destroying key enemy vehicles, was a huge advantage.
Second is from playing on the T&T server today on Qwai: I went comm, primarily because all squads were full. Immediately, one SL in particular starts telling me I need to be telling everyone what to do, need to communicate more, etc. At that moment the team had very good momentum, were moving towards the second to last flag, had well placed FOBs, everything you might want from a good team. I saw no reason to interfere with that, so I didn't. During the course of the game I soloed 2 enemy FOBs, delivered supplies to that same complaining SL, and set up one of our FOBs in a strategic location (which turned out to be a waste, but could have been useful). If I had sat in the ACV all game we would have lost, but as it was we barely scraped out a victory.
Too many people are stuck in the mindset that the commander is in fact in charge. If the SLs aren't already on the ball, no commander is going to get them there. However, if those SLs are working together, a good commander who knows where to put down FOBs, or is willing to fight next to his squads, can give them the advantage they need to win over a similarly good team, whose commander is busy sitting in the box.
As a caveat, there are maps where the commander really does need to be in the box most of the time. All the insurgency maps really need the comm to keep the team focused on staying together, staying alive, and he needs to be constantly using the UAV to find the enemy caches. But in conventional warfare, that kind of recon is fairly useless, because the UAV is slow, has a limited field of view, and keeps the commander from doing more useful things, like setting up spawn points.
