I think there should be more control over your AI squadmates so it feels more like you’re commanding your squad rather than using them as extra lives.
Some of the main things I think are missing in terms of AI control are the following:
-AI Fireteams where you can command smaller groups of AI so your squad is more flexible
-Being able to have your squad or fireteam suppress an area
-Stance control
-Moving individual AI to windows/cover.
-Movement modes such as combat, stealth, hunting (moving between cover/concealment whilst searching for the enemy), and moving (moving without stopping to engage enemies).
-Formations would be nice, but not really necessary. Ex: line, column, file, wedge, echelon, staggered column, etc.
-More complex commands like bounding (one fireteam moves, while another provides suppression to the enemy), assaulting a position (a fireteam would advance on a position and use grenades and small arms to destroy it), and setting up a base of fire/overwatch (a fireteam would setup a defensible position and provide fire support to any maneuvering elements).
Some of these things are not really realistic with the current scale of the game, I think the maps would need to be a bit bigger for some of the more maneuver warfare type stuff, but I wanted to suggest them nonetheless.
I notice for example often when active as sniper, that I’m well positioned and hidden, but my team does stuff in the background and gets killed in the process, just because they don’t take cover and wander around. Or - in that same situation - you switch to another soldier (e.g. an engineer who should place some ammo supply), then when you switch back to the well positioned sniper, he has wandered off doing something else.
So, yes, better control and more commands would be very helpful, and could be done in different degrees:
Additional commands (“Take cover!”, “Stay put!”, …, or even “Engage enemies!” and “Don’t shoot!”…)
Direct control of individiual soldiers (maybe by key combos where you indicate soldier and action while pointing at the ground or a zoomed in section of the minimap):
[shift + 1], C => soldier 1 takes cover at indicated spot
[shift + 2], F => soldier 2 fires at targets at indicated spot
[shift + 3], B => soldier 3 (engineer) constructs object (which was previously selected when controlling that engineer) at indicated spot
I feel like the radial menus that they have are a good base, and that they just need to add more options or a few other menus for individual AI control or group control, etc.
I also long for some BiA-style commands. It’s great that we are getting the three commands of Fire-At-Will, Seek-Cover-And-Fire and Return-Fire-Only and possibly the Fire-At-Will will make AI better in close quarters as I would think that the reason they are clueless in CQB is because they have some reaction time + seek cover first, which makes them unusable.
Now with BiA, the world objects were set in a way that the AI would stick to them and that is way to complicated for a HiFi game like Enlisted as each and every object would have attachment points assigned to them, plus there is high walls, crooked walls, rubble etc. I believe the best and easiest compromise would be to have Infantry squads split into two fireteams, the assignment system stays the same as now with limits on which classes can be in a squad and how many of them and of course how many in total, which is 9 I guess. There could be either 2x5 slots (or 1x SquadLeader + 2x4, but that is more complicated than it needs to be.), or just a simple assign to FireTeam A or B option so there is more variations like 2+7 or whatever people prefer.
This way you can control a whole squad like now, or the fireteams separately. Another important feature would also be “face to” command, so they are focused on a certain direction instead of just randomly moving about.
As for the suppressive fire or throw grenade commands, that is another story. Suppressive fire doesn’t really work in respawning environments so its a waste of ammo more or less and throw grenade option could only be done via pointing and ordering the command, as with the cursor turning to a grenade symbol that would actually mean “lock onto enemies I didn’t even see”, like with vehicles but those are clearly visible if they are in grenade range so that is not really a “wallhack” of sorts.
tl;dr Along with adding three squad firemodes (already worked on), create an option to divide squadmembers into FireTeams and enable a “face-to” command so the focus on a specific direction at the cost of awareness.
