Game mode identity and encouraging more proactive gameplay - AAS and Conquest

These are my personal ideas and thoughts that I've been collecting over the years of playing Squad. I enjoy game design, although it's not my focus in game development (most experienced in art). Feel free to point out any oversights and discuss things. Strap in, it's a long one.

It's no secret that the game modes in Squad are all about ticket bleed and draining the enemy of tickets in order to win in all game modes, even when it's not the primary method of winning. Several game modes such as Invasion, Conquest and Insurgency, are great concepts that provide opportunities for different game play compared to AAS, but they are held back by the fundamental game mode mechanic of losing tickets. Additionally, right now a team can win a game mode like AAS simply because they can't be matched in terms shooting (K/D) and there's no flag bleed except for mercy, so there's no real incentive to committing assets and soldiers to grind over a defended objective. This is completely fine, but it doesn't give the game mode any unique flavour or provide a different experience outside of its limiting factors. Sure, strategies and tactics play a part and they're a huge factor in victory but at the end of the day you can still brute force a win by having 100-200 more kills than the enemy team. This isn't to punish players and teams that have great shooters, it's to simply make the game modes feels something other than a TDM on the surface. I want to put emphasis on objectives but they should have positive aspects instead of focusing on the negatives. For example, instead of thinking about how many assets and tickets you'll lose to capture an objective and whether it's worth it you should be thinking about the best way of taking the objective, what assets to use and what advantage it gives you after you capture it (map control, ticket gain towards winning etc). As you'll see later on, player kills are still as valuable as playing the objective, but in a different context. If your team is super great and gets high K/Ds, great! It's still in your best interest to take objectives and not give up the middle objective.

Tickets are great and they make sense however, I personally feel like subtracting them (bleed, asset loss, deaths etc) forces the player base to play in an extremely conservative and overall less proactive manner to the point where players are reluctant to use assets or even push objectives. We are too worried about losing the asset so we don't bother using them, which has a knock on effect of the overall game play experience and it can often feel shallow and repetitive, something that I consider a shame because Squad can be experienced in so many different ways and can provide some unique moments. The point here isn't to encourage people to waste assets and use them improperly, it's to make them feel like actual assets that are valuable and can sway the battle for your team. Improper use of them is punished simply by the fact that your team has less of a fighting chance versus the enemy assets which are being used correctly.

Currently, it feels like we're all wanting to win so we're playing as conservatively and carefully as possible. I would love to change this mindset so it's more proactive. We should be playing to win by executing strategies on the fly in-game instead of at the start of the round only and to also try different approaches to capture an objective instead of trying once or twice right now and calling it off because we lost too many tickets.

Below I'll list some adjustments that could change AAS and Conquest to a more proactive and full combined arms experience that is unique to each game mode in order to give them an "identity".

AAS should be focused on head to head engagements and gaining ground in order to win. Conquest should be focused on mobility, cohesion and holding as many objective as possible in order to win.

Advance and Secure / Conquest

These two game modes are what I like to call "conventional" game modes. Everything here should be as much of an even match up as possible and under no circumstances should there be Insurgents unless there's some magic voodoo super balancing going on here, or they're fighting Militia (unconventional/irregular faction). Personally, I'd like these to be standard conventional factions vs each other in an even field. There will be obvious differences in terms of layout and equipment but overall it should be a head to head in combined arms warfare.

The reasoning for this is because the whole of Squad requires some focused and intentional game modes, factions and maps. Simply trying to make a map that fits 4 different games with all factions being playable is great for replayability but I personally believe that design should be focused and catered towards a specific game mode and that factions should also be tied into this. Insurgents on AAS is tricky as it is and it requires some off hand balancing methods that generally make the game mode lose its overall purpose - for example focusing on their mobility and giving them loads of technicals/bikes just means they won't be able to stand toe to toe on the actual objectives when it comes to fighting and they'd always be split up. Simply put, it's an unconventional faction trying to fight a conventional war. Militia is a little different and it can work (as it does in-game right now) because of their assets but this would generally need tightening up in another area.

1. Win condition: Reach X amount of tickets instead of 0

This one is a straightforward flip. Instead of starting with 300 tickets and the game ending when you get to 0, you start with 0 tickets and work your way to 300 tickets in order to win.

2. Asset Value

Vehicle assets should be an asset, not a detriment and possible method to accelerating your defeat as it currently stands. We've all been there. A game is extremely close and some dudes roll up the most expensive asset and lose it, game over. On the flip side, your team is low on tickets and you're not sure which way it's swinging so you just let everything sit in main base.

In order for the next section to make sense I will just go ahead and outright say that all assets should not have a ticket cost for the sake of promoting their use and giving them a proper role out in the field instead of being seen as these fragile assets that people are reluctant to use, especially when they are on the back foot.

Vehicles with offensive capabilities should be seen as a "force multiplier" (not an entirely accurate use of the term for the vehicle available, but the concept is the same) to infantry and they should be used in their intended roles to a certain extent. Currently we lack all asset types so we end up seeing things like APCs being used as IFVs and IFVs end up being used as MBTs. A team should use APCs to transport and support infantry as much as possible, not when the APC decides to come down from the hills of Kohat after trying to long shot targets way out of the effective range. An IFV should be used to support the infantry and deal with other vehicle threats more often. The key is to support infantry more often and promote proper teamwork, not splitting the combat types into their own separate mini games.

Simply seeing APCs and IFVs be used at the start of the game is not enough for me. The fact that they cost tickets right now and the win conditions are based on losing tickets means that nobody wants to have a full squad in the back and then risk dying . An IFV + a full squad in the back getting shredded is too much of a loss for people to want to do this more than once at the start of the game and in general it "feels" wrong if you actually want to win.

If a team loses their IFV, they've lost an important asset that could be helping them push objectives or handle vehicle threats. If the IFV was lost because of an inexperienced crew taking it deep into the objective while it's hot without support then the outcome doesn't change - they've just wasted an asset and that in itself is enough of a punishment. I don't believe in punishing the whole team even further by making them lose tickets. Standardised and consistent respawn timers across asset types is something I'd like to see as well.

This links back to encouraging more proactive game play. I personally want to see assets in use in every situation where available instead of them being something you see at one point in a game and then it gets shelved because a team is on the back foot. Spawning an infantry squad at main to jump into an APC for a different approach, or spawning at a FOB and being picked up by an IFV should happen more often but due to the current mechanics and win conditions it rarely happens.

Things like the FOB could still subtract 20 tickets away from the enemy as a way to slow down the game and also make it an even more meaningful objective. I think if the objectives and FOBs give tickets then balancing could become a pain. Who knows, this is something that needs further development in terms of thinking and would benefit from feedback and testing.

3. Objective Value

Simply changing the win condition and keeping everything the same isn't going to magically transform the game. Standardisation is key in game modes (both for design and for players who want to understand game modes) and there should be a formula that is followed whether there's a 5 flag or 9 flag AAS layer. I won't dive too deep into number crunching because that could be discussed to death but, in my opinion, AAS layers should be odd in numbers of objectives to ensure that there's a middle tie breaker objective and that it be split across 5, 7 and 9 objectives. All objectives would give the same amount of tickets regardless of amount but the required amount of tickets to win could be increased for balancing round length instead of individual objective numbers. Yet again, consistency and standardisation.

In this example both teams at the start of an AAS round have 0 tickets. The middle objective will grant the owning team 10 tickets per tick. A full AAS round where the middle objective is the hot zone and has one owning team would result in the minimum round length being 30 minutes. With the recent surge of long games, I believe a minimum of 30 minutes sounds like a good length for a straightforward game. On the flip side, if a team capture all 5 flags that means they get 30 tickets per tick meaning the game would be over in 10 minutes. No need for mercy bleed as owning all flags automatically makes the game fairly quick. Number crunching can be done, maybe the middle flag gives 10 tickets per tick and the consecutive objectives give 5 each resulting in a total of 20 tickets per tick - 15 minute "stomp" with no resistance.

Conquest is fairly straight forward - nothing revolutionary here either - and it could be the same across all 3 flag CQ layers and for the sake of consistency and standardisation I would say all Conquest layers should be 3 objectives. For example, owning each objective will give you 10 tickets per tick (60 sec). If your team owns all 3 objectives you gain 30 tickets every 60 seconds which gives you a nice and easy way to also balance round lengths purely based on observation and feedback from players without having dozens of other variables in play like what vehicle do you put on this layer, how many of them and how many tickets and flags there should be. So if every Conquest layer has the win condition set to 500 tickets, a team that owns all 3 objectives without interruption would result in a minimum play time of ~16 minutes. This is an unlikely scenario but kills also factor into it, not to mention the distance between flags.

4. Soldier Value

Killing a soldier (kill, not incap) would reward you with 1 ticket. It's important that soldiers have some sort of ticket value that contributes to the overall progress of the round as it also means people wouldn't be giving up all the time. If you give up, you reward the enemy team. Nobody wants that, it's a no brainer. Additionally, right now it's better to give up if you're out of ammo for special equipment such as AT, bandages for Medic, 40mm grenades etc. On the other side of the spectrum, if you give up right now you lose a ticket and people aren't as caring about that. Psychology is pretty important in game design and although people might say it won't change a thing, there's always an underlying impact. I don't think it would change much on its own, but coupled with all the other changes it could very well have a positive impact on the game and how people treat their life. This will obviously change all the values I've talked about so far and they may not add up, but that's why balancing and testing exists. Nobody makes a perfect game mode without making shit ones first. I just want to get the concept out there!