Warning. Huge Wall of Text incoming in one... two...


We all know the moment, you start as a random in some match, when your entire enemy team shares one Guildtag, you start to feel the coordination, Points suddenly guarded, Vehicles taken out quickly or in short: You are screwed and your team most certainly will loose.
Are those people more effective than randoms? I guess we can agree on a YES here.
Is it fun to fight against them? Sometimes yes, if you like the challenge, sometimes no, if you spend more time on the Respawn screen than in the game.
Are you as Player, upon buying Eternal Crusade required to join a guild? Many people stated "Well, if you don't like it, join a guild yourself!" but i don't think this should be the only way to play Eternal Crusade, otherwise send application forms out with every sold copy of EC
I doubt successfull guilds have a lot of fun in their 5 minute matches, barly any resistance or XP. Maybe the first matches are fun, but the rest is kinda... well... lame then. If you win all the time, it's nothing special any more i am sure.

The Problem are not the guilds i feel like, but the Pug's. And when we want to tackle this subject, we have to give them more tools to cooperate.

So hear me out, this is what i think needs to be done to make a temporary Guild out of random Pugs!

Disclaimer: Yes, i know some people just don't want to cooperate. And there is barly anything you can do to prevent this. But i would like to give them incentive to work in a team, not punish them for not doing it.

So let's get into it:

Re-enable VOIP.
Most guilds use 3rd Party VOIP Software. And why? To coordinate. If you have to stop and type "Enemy Rhino!" you may allready be gunned down as you are a sitting duck while typing. And getting the first bullet hit your armor is a deciding factor in EC. The groundstone of Successfull PUG Cooperation is a ingame Voicechat.

Expand the VOIP.
Gobal-Team Voip is good to have, but with 32 Players in one channel it get's cluttered much too fast. So i suggest there beeing
3 Channels:
Global (Everybody on the Map) [Maybe restricted? Eg. only squadleaders / Warlords can talk, but everybody can hear it?]
Squad (Only talking to squadmates)
Close (Whoever is near you, hears you)

And it should be audible wich is wich. Maybe we could take up a long lost idea of voice-modulators? static and voxy voice for global transmissions, a distinctive BEEP at the beginning of Squad Transmissions, and nothing at all for close-quarter transmissions (as you just shout them out)
Also, show who is talking with a Symbol and his name. Both on the Screen, and with a Speaker-Symbol above his head
This is to prevent someone saying "BEHIND YOU" on global, and the whole Team turns around.

Make Squads Great again.
Right now, your Squad is just 5 dudes who got a blue color. If they spawn a rhino, you can get into that one too. And one of those dudes gives some kind of buff. If you don't know wich Standart he has equipped, you don't even know what buff exactly you have right now. And that's bad. I mean, People never really seek out their squads. The most underused feature in Eternal Crusade, allthough it could change so much i feel.

Squad-selection:
I suggest once you spawn, you are not automatically in a squad, and nobody is squadleader by default. Upon spawning, you see the existing squads before you, and you can either choose one of them, create a new one, or stay without a squad.
In my dream, you could even give a short description, something like "Only JPA please, harrassing enemys" or "Sorcerer needed!" "Dakka boys get ere!" "Stealth-Scorpion Squad" and so on (But as this comes to consoles as well... i don't think that may happen )

Squadleader:
If you make a random dude Squadleader, as it is now, chances are high he doesn't even care about that at all.
But if people are willing to apply for squadleader, they are more likely to stay with their squad and lead them into battle.
And once people realize those people give direction to success, they are more likely to follow them, wich in turn makes the whole squad more effective.

And if your squadleader is always without you, he should loose his status after a while, and upon the next respawn, you are back in the selection screen (Unless you have choosen "No Squad" at the beginning)

Squad-Bonus:
Also, you should see with one look, what classes are allready in the Squad (Maybe also with Weapons). Is a healer needed? Mo Dakka? Are they really all just Raptors? 3 Tacticals, do we have a Melta?

Additionaly, you should instantly see on that icon above your armor-bar, and in this squad-selection menu, wich buff your squadleaders gives of. A Sword Icon for more melee damage, a Shield for Damage mitigation, a crosshair for more accuracy and so on.

The Bonuses you get from your Squadleader should be something you can totally feel and see.
Toughness Aura? "Jeah, i survived what normally instagibbed me barely! Must be that green circle around me"
Accuracy Standart? "Wow, suddenly shooting fells much better! I can even see my crosshair getting smaller when i am with my squad! Certainly has something to do with that purple flame on my weapon"
Melee Damage increase? "What's that glimmer around my weapon? Oh, he got the Khorne-icon!"

And sometimes if you can see something, you allready feel better, even if you don't change any values at all (wich i would still suggest to make more potent) Of course, don't clutter the vision or anything, and if it's just a mild glow, as long as you and your enemy can see it, it counts!
And with such an incentive, you would be more likely to work in a team then without. Also your enemy would stay more inside his team and work... just like a splinter of a guild. You are more effective, harder to take down, and have more fun i am sure

Also, give incentive to stay inside that squad! We allready have XP Bonuses, but clearly communicate them to new players! If i am just hungry for XP, and i know that with my squad i get the most, it's not really a question what i am going to do, or?

Squad-Squad Interaction & Warlords:
So once Squads internally are better, start working on the Squad to squad Interactions. As said, if the global voip is just for squadleaders, they could communicate, discuss what to do and where to strike. Best would be if Warlords were included soon to stand even above them, guiding their team and supporting them until victory is near.

For example, things like this:
http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/squad-way-points-shown-globally.58387/page-3#post-1259220

So once people can talk, are a little buffed when together (just as now) + the obvious benefits of teamwork, we have a true Team-based shooter! And not a single nerf to guilds, as they can use all those tools as well! No seperation of players! Win - Win?

Nothing i suggest here wraps the game totally around, so i don't think it would take a lot of time or ressources. Some new UI Elemts, some new screens (Squad-selection), some visual effects and some number Tweaking. But i am no game programmer, so this is just an assumption

Imagine a new player coming to the game, getting into his first match and the first advice is "Stay with your squad" He does so, feels the teamwork, get's his first successes? Many people i talk to are saying "EC is full of bugs... broken promises... balance not good..." and if you ask them if the game is fun they say "Jeah, when playing with friends, it's still fun"
And if none of your friends owns this game, but everybody is a battlebrother/sister or anotha git whoz smashin 'eads with ya, don't you think this would "emulate" friends? Keep people coming back? Making game ratings better, as also newbies get this feelin?
And if it is so easy to find squadmates and do stuff with them, wouldn't it allready feel like an MMO? Not the best one, but one?


So what do you think?

I think that this is a far better discussion tha the "nerf guilds" threads. The focus should be on expanding tools for casual gamers, not restricting those who group up.

Now that quib is out of the way, the most important thing IMO is the return of Voice Chat ASAP. Expanding it into a more complex system isn't as important as it simply being there. I was frustrated last night because we were losing games due to losing one point and essentially the entire team rushing it and losing more points i tje process. Text takes too long, gets interupted easily by enemies or spawning, and is easier to ignore. A simple audio suggestion can and does do wonders, I can't help but think we'd have won a few more games if we'd just har more accessible communication.

Secondly, the squad waypoints would be a great idea. Right now only guilds know what more than one squad is supposed to be doing (assuming they are running more than one squad) so only they can know if the team is overdeploying. Simply being able to see where other squads are theoretically going to go means competent squad leaders can focus their efforts where they are actually most needed.

Thirdly I think the comms rose could use a few more shortcuts. Not sure exactly, but there must be a few more crucial quick responses we could add for the mic-less.

I'm sorry but I still do not think voice chat is going to make the tiny bit of difference - space marine had voice chat and the most requested feature after game launch was a mute all for voice chat since a large number of players don't want to listen to someone screaming over there microphone the entire battle or the background noise from the dude that hasn't enabled push to talk so there mic is open the entire match

I'd also suggest that the majority of people that do want to use voice chat are also the same people that are in guilds and so will not use it as they have a 3rd party solution already so we are asking for development time to be devoted to something that won't be used

The match maker having a preference for matching large war parties verse large war parties would be my way to go and then leave it at that and the player base will actually have to grow a pair and maybe discover that a guild premade is not actually unbeatable - I've been in pug's where we have done it

Personally, I am deaf. So I don't have much I can contribute team wise there. What I DO have is a suggestion. A suggestion guilds only interested in farming helpless pugs always try and make look terrible, end of the game kind of stuff.

Seperate ques.

" but-but then I and my friends might have to wait longer! " But it is OK that the other team gets to spend 4 of their 5 minutes respawning?

Make the default que open. Anyone who does not care either way can be in any match. Make a seperate que for single players. No teams. The majority of players are single. Give THEM some tools to succeed.

And for those people that make a war party for there friend on steam and player as a party of 2? wouldn't consider that a premade

What about 3? 4? 5?

Voice Chat makes a world of difference, even amongst pugs. It was very readily apparent when it was in the game too. Mute all and/or mute specific players shouldn't even be an argument against it, it should be a default feature.

A nice suggestion for Voice Chat would be to copy how Battlefield 2142 did it. Back then Titan Matches were 32 vs 32.

Each squad had their own channel and could only speak amongst themselves. - Squad Channel

Squad Leader could talk to the General to ask for support (bombardment, supply drops etc...) - Command Channel

General could talk to Squad Leaders only and his own squad. - Command/Squad Channel

This gives flexibility without being too cluttered. If squads stick together they can do great things.

Ahh BF 2142, good memories

In the general que for 2+. But if it's 2 guys they are likely to be together anyway. 3+ and you are still trying to game the system for advantage.