Recent reviews by FrDave

Vlog !!!!

Thank you OWI for giving me a Free Pack. Blessings to the team that worked on this fabulous addition.

Bad Game :( but cant stop playing.

I am still playing help.

This dlc is just arma 2 assets that you can just get from a mod called cup so not worth the money or the time. The maps ok tho

The upcoming ICO makes me sad. It's incredibly polarizing to a game that I have enjoyed since 2019. The game itself is not what brings me back, but the communities that have made squad what it is. If it weren't for the people and communities that make squad what it is, I'm not sure I would still be playing. I do not think that changes that have such a stark polarizing effect on the overall community are a good thing and I have serious questions as to the rationale behind quite a few of the changes. The past few weeks I have thought about Squad, the ICO changes, the goals of the ICO, and what I think will happen by looking at the different purposes/changes OWI will be implementing on the 27th.

"Return to it's Original Vision"

Considering that this comes right on the heels of releasing microtransactions I find it hard to believe that they truly care about Squad's Original vision. No microtransactions was a promise that OWI was known for and adhered to for a LONG time (right until Tencent got involved). While it's clear the announcement of the ICO is rife with PR speak, I think it should also be clear that they are primarily focused on generating profits more than anything. This makes me think that such a drastic 180 turn from it's current state is not out of a desire to return to the "original" vision, but more a ploy to generate further sales and increase units sold.
"Playtests, QA, & Feedback"

I participated in all of the playtests (excluding 5 and 8 - I think 5 was the one they cancelled?) and it's pretty clear that OWI have a QA problem and non-sensical approach to addressing changes. For those of you who did not participate, OWI had a form to fill out with each playtest which was supposedly used to gauge feedback. However, each feedback form contained different questions for each playtest. That would make gauging player feedback virtually impossible playtest to playtest as there was no baseline to draw from. There was no way to look at results and say in PT1 players felt that Suppression was too high and in PT2 players said Suppression was just right because the questions they had each PT were different. There should have been a set base of questions asked after each playtest to measure feedback that would actually be useful for measuring participants after each playtest. That practice is pretty standard when making incremental changes and wanting feedback from customers. This is also glossing over the fact that there was no form in the last playtest; so are they really interested in feedback from players or cherry-picking statistics that fit a narrative they want and planning to do whatever they want without taking into consideration what fits to make a good game.
I would also wager that they are struggling massively with QA and probably do not have set industry standards for QA'ing products before release. They essentially fully cancelled a playtest due to bugs making it unplayable. The fact that a build with such widespread problems was approved for release tells you that the product was either inadequately QA'ed or there are inherent problems in their QA practices. This is in addition to the numerous mis-aligned sights and other significant bugs (some of which I encountered and reported) present in the playtests that should be easily corrected. And while they can be corrected, it begs the question why such simple errors were present to begin with. I strongly strongly doubt that when the ICO releases those problems will be fully resolved. I hope they will, but for every aspect they change it feels like two more break. Also if anyone has QA experience OWI is hiring a QA Lead & a Senior QA Tester. If you do get hired, please fix.
"Combat System to Observe the Battlefield, Analyze the Situation, Communicate Effectively with Squadmates, and take purposeful Action"

This already exists in the live version. Quite literally this exists. Good SLs with a solid grasp of gameflow already have infinitely greater impact than people who have the highest kill count in a round. Any veteran squad player would agree with that. While being able to kill swathes of enemies helps, the real difference maker in a teams success each round is the SLs understanding of how the round will flow and anticipating what needs to be done. Placing habs and creating flanks wins matches more than some guy with a large K/D. Smaller units hunting down enemy radios and cutting their ability to reinforce. Communication has always been a big part of squad. The ICO really does not change that and I do not think communication will magically be different between SLs once the ICO drops. You will only be punished slightly harder for not communicating; that's really it. There is increased incentivization, but it will not change how the wider playerbase plays.
The stated goal of the ICO is "to provide the most fun, immersive, and authentic experience one can achieve in a tactical shooter while remaining approachable to a wider audience."

I find both those statements to be the antithesis of one another. The broader subtext to this is we are making weapon handling unrealistically difficult and poor in the hopes of somewhat leveling the playing field between experienced and non-experienced players by adding elements that amount to rng engagements. Does OWI want a hardcore game or do they want a more casual game that is assessable to a large audience.
Squad is already a niche and it contains very little in way of introduction for game mechanics to new players. All these posts about coordinating suppressing fire, with tacitcool flanks, while screaming "break break" over comms make it sound so simple and normal. Those people must only play with experienced players OR they are over exaggerating the events that really happened. The average new player does not coordinate, because they do not know how, do not have the experience communicating effectively, or don't care. Sure you can kick them from your squad, but that does not solve the underlying problem that new players simply do not have the experience or game knowledge to be relied upon. You can teach them, but that should really be OWI's responsibility. You train 1 blueberry and get them to a point where they are competent, awesome!! Now do that 500 more times and see if you're burned out from the stubborn players that will continue to do whatever it is they want each round.
Nothing in the ICO will change how individual players play and there are no new introduction systems in place to help alleviate that. If anything you will end up with a degradation of gameplay because coordination is more important, but still will not happen. There will be an even heavier reliance on experienced players to carry rounds. That's assuming the experienced players stick around for the change. The immersion and changes may bring some fresh blood into the game, but ultimately after the shine and novelty wears off I think a majority of them will move onto the next shiny thing. Whereas those who have been around awhile will have left with new frustrating game mechanics and continued issue of little to no introduction to core gameplay elements for new players.
Gunplay & Gameplay Changes (or lack thereof)

Personally, something I really like about live version of squad is how tight the current gunplay is. Shooting feels good and you feel some control over your performance. While there are for sure some people who are far better at shooting than me, a majority of gameplay you can win with game knowledge, positioning, and gameplay experience. That agency and control is a good thing. Taking away that control and adding elements of random outcome lowers satisfaction. As for the changes to MGs and the like, I honestly believe that with how little control you have it just makes situations where skill is secondary to luck. I'm sure that players will learn to game the system, but it's gimmicky and utilizing the weapons now does not feel nearly as good as it does in current

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These guidelines apply to all places in the Steam Store and Community where users can post content. This includes, but is not limited to, discussions, comments, guides, product reviews, screenshots, artwork, videos, tags, Steam Workshop, and Steam Greenlight.

bad game

This is a great game stop right now and get this game