I played a few hours as a squad member, and a few hours as a squad leader, and here are my impressions of what needs to change to make this effective:



1. "Press F4 or F5 to accept or deny": Squad members shouldn't be given the option to accept or deny anything. It should default to accept, that is how real military works. And, furthermore, accepting as default will allow the chat area to not be spammed with two lines of code explaining that your squad leader is giving you orders (over and over, repeatedly ad nauseum). And, it doesn't make sense to have to accept or deny every single order that the Squad Leader gives you. Accept should be default. F4 or F5 is nonsensical.



My roommate and I tested out how the Squad Leader and Squad Member interacts, here some impressions:



2. Officer Indication: the Squad Leader needs to have some greater indication that he is indeed "my" squad leader (chevrons in the name or just blatant "Squad Leader"?) It's too vague as to who a Squad Leader is, and who is MY Squad Leader.



3. Press T for Tactical Overlay: This should be a toggle. Not a press. Also, the icons should be smaller. I believe that the tactical overlay should be able to be left on, and not hinder the player, should he/she leave it on (for a short period, or forever). This is especially important to understanding where your squad leader wants you to be, and where to attack and defend, while moving or the like. Toggle is a better choice.



4. Tactical overlay inclusion: Squad Leader's current position. It would be nice when out of sight with the squad leader, that one can find him by using the tactical overlay. This is important because when the Squad Leader is yelling out "Follow me!", chances are that you don't know where "me" is!



5. Mini-Map: The mini-map should be square, and should be adjustable ala both zoom +/- and physical size. I remember I have yet to use the mini-map to do anything. It is in my opinion that the mini map is pointless at this point. I feel like the developers are stuck on using it as a compass, but it's not working, and the compass graphic just uses up extra real-estate that could just as well show more mini-map. Keep it simple! The mini-map should be used at all times! To see where your squad leader is, squad members, waypoint, and attack defend points. The mini map is also way too busy. I would nice to only see squad member info, not the entire 32 players.



That's all for now.



Edit: More)



6. Squad Leader should have TWO squads, not ONE: if we're talking about real WW2 squads, it doesn't make any sense to have one large "Fireteam". There should be two squads for every leader: A Fire team and Assault team. MG and certain other (non-assault) members shouldn't be apart of assaulting an objective, they should be laying down suppression, hence fireteam. the Assault team should consist of... well, people who you want to assault, such as SMG and semi-auto rifles. It doesn't make any sense to give blanket orders to your entire squad when in reality, you don't want your MG to charge in with you!? It would be nice to have two teams per squad leader - Fireteam and Assualt Team (i.e. FT1, AT1, FT2, AT2, etc). Brother's in Arms has already, imho, achieved a near perfect way of executing this.



7. XP for Completing Objectives: 2142 had some of the best squad objectives. Plus you got points for following your commander, and in turn squad leader's orders. Maybe if this would be the case here, that would help. Also the minimap and large map should show clearly, the objective your squad is attempting to take.



8. Commander and Macro Management Relationship with Squad Leaders: The way I see it, a commander should never have to leave a forward operating HQ. The commander should be able to make all decisions via the map info, and be able to assign a specific squad to a Capzone (again, no accept or deny BS). Let the Squad Leaders then determine how to best attack that point. At this point.... i'm seeing how nearly impossible it is for this game to achieve a somewhat respectable squad system before launch.