ICO was a mistake

[ZigZack]

I know, I’m eating crow. I pushed the ICO heavily on all forums, created an entire community around it, etc. But I was wrong. The ICO, while interesting in concept, failed to achieve what it promised.

Now, I won’t lie to myself and say that v5 was peak Squad (it wasn’t). The pinnacle was back before the buddy rally update crept in with many shoddy changes. While v9 was the best, I would even take v10.

Fundamental changes need to be made. And OWI should start by removing the ICO.

[ArtofWar]

More and more people are starting to realize that it doesn't actually do anything but make the game more frustrating than fun. I agree that on paper it sounds good but in practice it just doesn't work. Reason being is the community doesn't actually want to listen to players like me with thousands of hours in the game when I suggest strategies that we should use. As someone who's played at the highest level in competition games of squad, I have seen firsthand what REAL TEAMWORK looks like and that's just not the kind of experience you will ever get in a public match of squad. Players DO NOT want to listen to some guy who wants to micromanage his entire squad telling them where to go and what to do ALL THE TIME like they are in the actual military. No, most players are just here to have fun and kill bad guys and that's it. The teamwork aspect of the game is ONLY on the MACRO level and there isn't a problem with that as TEAMWORK is REQUIRED to WIN games and that is true pre and postICO. That should be secondary to the fun players have just playing the game and shooting bad guys. This is a FPS game after all and the FPS part of the game should be the core of what makes the game FUN not frustrating. That's what made squad great for sooo many years. And yes I agree and so do most squad veterans, v9 was peak squad. It's only been downhill from there with the addition of the commander role which isn't even a commander really, just a TACP at the end of the day, that's all he really is. That is why many people like me felt that squad was supposed to be a bridge between milsim games like ARMA and Battlefield. It wasn't a milsim but it was much more hardcore than Battlefield and of coarse it is, it was literally inspired by PR a mod for Battlefield 2. People claim that the ICO brought us closer to PR but anyone that's played PR can tell you that it's simply not true. In PR you could still be deadly accurate most of the time. Sure it took a lil longer to get on target but not nearly as long as the ICO takes for your character to align his sights to where you can take accurate fire. This also coupled with the fact that in PR you have a larger stamina pool but it also didn't come back as fast as it does in squad. Maps were larger and more spread out unlike Squad(in most cases). Armor in PR is deadly and even have thermals but equally could be destroyed with 1 well placed HAT shot or TOW shot. Even LAT's could be pretty deadly against armor which is not the case in squad. The balance in PR was/is way better than in squad on practically every aspect. Anyone can go and watch Cpt.MikeMei on YT and see how he was able to dominate just like you could in squad.

[ZigZack]

Originally posted by ArtofWar:

More and more people are starting to realize that it doesn't actually do anything but make the game more frustrating than fun. I agree that on paper it sounds good but in practice it just doesn't work. Reason being is the community doesn't actually want to listen to players like me with thousands of hours in the game when I suggest strategies that we should use. As someone who's played at the highest level in competition games of squad, I have seen firsthand what REAL TEAMWORK looks like and that's just not the kind of experience you will ever get in a public match of squad. Players DO NOT want to listen to some guy who wants to micromanage his entire squad telling them where to go and what to do ALL THE TIME like they are in the actual military. No, most players are just here to have fun and kill bad guys and that's it. The teamwork aspect of the game is ONLY on the MACRO level and there isn't a problem with that as TEAMWORK is REQUIRED to WIN games and that is true pre and postICO. That should be secondary to the fun players have just playing the game and shooting bad guys. This is a FPS game after all and the FPS part of the game should be the core of what makes the game FUN not frustrating. That's what made squad great for sooo many years. And yes I agree and so do most squad veterans, v9 was peak squad. It's only been downhill from there with the addition of the commander role which isn't even a commander really, just a TACP at the end of the day, that's all he really is. That is why many people like me felt that squad was supposed to be a bridge between milsim games like ARMA and Battlefield. It wasn't a milsim but it was much more hardcore than Battlefield and of coarse it is, it was literally inspired by PR a mod for Battlefield 2. People claim the the ICO brought us closer to PR but anyone that's played PR can tell you that it's simply not true. In PR you could still be deadly accurate most of the time. Sure it took a lil longer to get on target but not nearly as long as the ICO takes for your character to align his sights to where you can take accurate fire. This also coupled with the fact that in PR you have a larger stamina pool but it also didn't come back as fast as it does in squad. Maps were larger and more spread out unlike Squad(in most cases). Armor in PR is deadly and even have thermals but equally could be destroyed with 1 well placed HAT shot or TOW shot. Even LAT's could be pretty deadly against armor which is not the case in squad. The balance in PR was/is way better than in squad on practically every aspect. Anyone can go and watch Cpt.MikeMei on YT and see how he was able to dominate just like you could in squad.

I agree with everything you said. Hopefully we get another Squad type game in the near future (I don’t think OWI is going to revert the changes unfortunately).

[ArtofWar]

Originally posted by ZackTactical34:

Originally posted by ArtofWar:

More and more people are starting to realize that it doesn't actually do anything but make the game more frustrating than fun. I agree that on paper it sounds good but in practice it just doesn't work. Reason being is the community doesn't actually want to listen to players like me with thousands of hours in the game when I suggest strategies that we should use. As someone who's played at the highest level in competition games of squad, I have seen firsthand what REAL TEAMWORK looks like and that's just not the kind of experience you will ever get in a public match of squad. Players DO NOT want to listen to some guy who wants to micromanage his entire squad telling them where to go and what to do ALL THE TIME like they are in the actual military. No, most players are just here to have fun and kill bad guys and that's it. The teamwork aspect of the game is ONLY on the MACRO level and there isn't a problem with that as TEAMWORK is REQUIRED to WIN games and that is true pre and postICO. That should be secondary to the fun players have just playing the game and shooting bad guys. This is a FPS game after all and the FPS part of the game should be the core of what makes the game FUN not frustrating. That's what made squad great for sooo many years. And yes I agree and so do most squad veterans, v9 was peak squad. It's only been downhill from there with the addition of the commander role which isn't even a commander really, just a TACP at the end of the day, that's all he really is. That is why many people like me felt that squad was supposed to be a bridge between milsim games like ARMA and Battlefield. It wasn't a milsim but it was much more hardcore than Battlefield and of coarse it is, it was literally inspired by PR a mod for Battlefield 2. People claim the the ICO brought us closer to PR but anyone that's played PR can tell you that it's simply not true. In PR you could still be deadly accurate most of the time. Sure it took a lil longer to get on target but not nearly as long as the ICO takes for your character to align his sights to where you can take accurate fire. This also coupled with the fact that in PR you have a larger stamina pool but it also didn't come back as fast as it does in squad. Maps were larger and more spread out unlike Squad(in most cases). Armor in PR is deadly and even have thermals but equally could be destroyed with 1 well placed HAT shot or TOW shot. Even LAT's could be pretty deadly against armor which is not the case in squad. The balance in PR was/is way better than in squad on practically every aspect. Anyone can go and watch Cpt.MikeMei on YT and see how he was able to dominate just like you could in squad.

I agree with everything you said. Hopefully we get another Squad type game in the near future (I don’t think OWI is going to revert the changes unfortunately).

Operation Harsh Doorstop has been scratching my squad itch but it's still a LONG way off from being a true replacement for what we used to have. I commend you for taking the time to at least share your opinion and admit that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Good on you.

[BURNINATOR2]

Thanks for this post, i agree and you said it better than i ever could ArtofWar.

[dongobongo]

Probably the only weapon that handles nicely and normally after the ICO is AKM/various non scoped AKs that used by insurgents/militia and HK-G3. Thats it. The rest of weapons are ruined by insane amount of recoil/bugged laggy scopes.
Before ICO only g3 was pain in ass with insane recoil that was very hard to handle, but now every weapon became like a pre-ico g3 nonsense.
Some layers have a dumb faction balance on invasion/raas now, where no matter how much tEaMwOrK your team have, bunch of non speaking randoms on enemy team can just beat your whole team without any problem since you just dont have enought tikets/vics balance are wrong and its feels like whole game that was designed before ico DOESNT FIT after ico update. Its like a 2 separate worlds in terms of balance.
Therefore, more and more often I see an imbalance in teams on many servers, where all experienced people play on one team and less experienced people are stuck on another team. Because even with 50/50 you can’t normally take the airport with 200 tickets in your pocket, here either you play against noobs and take everything to the main in 40 minutes, or you lose without taking the first objective or you lose on the second because with that ticket balance from pre-ico it is impossible to play with ICO faction balance right now. Its just feels weird and wrong.

[Aegmar]

The one thing they should really do is take another look at the gamemodes. RAAS needs some reworking and there should be more layers for Territory Control.

[orlathebeast]

well i'm glad people is waking up from theyr delusions. sadly, it's too late.

[Zorelnam]

Its good, you guys must be casuals

[leetko]

Kek, just a couple of months later.
Squad won't be back. Removed and forgotten.

[ShotgunRCAF]

Originally posted by Zorelnam:

Its good, you guys must be casuals

If you call 7000 hrs in game prior to ICO casual I would not have a life if I went full time lol.......we are talking about how fun the game was prior to ICO and why most of us gave up on Squad.

[leetko]

Originally posted by ShotgunRCAF:

Originally posted by Zorelnam:

Its good, you guys must be casuals

If you call 7000 hrs in game prior to ICO casual I would not have a life if I went full time lol.......we are talking about how fun the game was prior to ICO and why most of us gave up on Squad.

I decided to check this forum cause my clanmate posted a screenshot of our statistics for how long we are not playing and I'm seeing same faces 8)

And for some unknown reason treads with players not liking ICO still not gone.

[Zorelnam]

Originally posted by ShotgunRCAF:

Originally posted by Zorelnam:

Its good, you guys must be casuals

If you call 7000 hrs in game prior to ICO casual I would not have a life if I went full time lol.......we are talking about how fun the game was prior to ICO and why most of us gave up on Squad.

i am joking, by the way try out galactic contention, its really fun.

[ShotgunRCAF]

Originally posted by Zorelnam:

Originally posted by ShotgunRCAF:

If you call 7000 hrs in game prior to ICO casual I would not have a life if I went full time lol.......we are talking about how fun the game was prior to ICO and why most of us gave up on Squad.

i am joking, by the way try out galactic contention, its really fun.

I made myself a promise that unless OWI reverts the game back to what it was like prior to ICO I won't be playing Squad, I tried the ICO and it was a fail and Squad went from being the best game ever to the worst game I have ever played.

[Slim]

I will never go back to pre ICO weapon handling. It was stiff ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It looked like putting a 2d scope image that's how stiff and robotic it was. This game really feels how it's meant to play now. Like a real modern battlefield.

[Magnum]

Originally posted by Slim:

I will never go back to pre ICO weapon handling. It was stiff ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It looked like putting a 2d scope image that's how stiff and robotic it was. This game really feels how it's meant to play now. Like a real modern battlefield.

V5 was a rambo simulator, V6 is a child soldier simulator with toothpicks for arms and legs.
I think there's a happy medium to be found, with teamplay, realism and strategy first and gameplay second.