I don’t know if devs wish to meddle with soldier roles ever again, but if so, I believe an interesting choice to introduce would be a squad leader.
Such a role could be assumed by any trooper or assaulter (since you’ll always have at least one in your squad), always one per infantry squad, and could perhaps allow for more complex orders for your AI (for example, Build rally point here, throw grenade/smoke here)
Since dynamite is so valuable to have on every soldier, perhaps the squad leader could automatically carry a smoke grenade in addition to the chosen one. As smokes are quite awful in their current state, this wouldn’t affect balance much.
I don’t think there should be any incentive to play the squad leader compared to the other soldiers stat-wise, since that would just cause people to keep switching them to level up. As such, the squad leader role would not affect any raw combat stats or XP gain.
Additionally, albeit optionally, depending how such balance is perceived by the community, it could also be the class allowed to carry a bit stronger weapons. By stronger I don’t mean MGs or anything like that, but rather ones such as the FG-42 or AVS-36, as otherwise the game will devolve into teams full of squads carrying a singular type of weapon sooner or later. If this gameplay is what the community wants though, this point might be redundant.
I appreciate the modesty, but to be honest there’s not a lot you’ve got going for the Squad Leader idea from what you’ve suggested. It doesn’t seem like it would warrant its own class. Also it is a bit weird to limit expanded AI control to the squad leader, and it’d be frustrating if he catches the first bullet and you can’t use the commands anymore.
Slightly off-topic, but I’m all for limiting the amount of heavy weapons to 2 per squad.
Yeah honestly it’s less of a role idea, and more of a subclass.
Trying to be realistic cause I doubt Darkflow will add a completely separate class in the future, as such this semi-class would be an easy yet cool addition. Since the game uses segments to assemble soldiers’ models, it would also just require new shoulderpads/collar tabs, visually.
To that I might answer with a question, isn’t that the same what happens when your squad’s engie dies? Suddenly you can’t make spawn points or ammo, so I doubt people will see much of an issue with that.
Having the first person in your squad have Squad Leader insignia/uniform sounds kinda cool. Don’t know how that will influence being able to differentiate players from AI though, just wondering, but I like the idea.
Weeell, to be fair it is quite different. Build orders, sure, but that’s limited to the engineer class anyway. The second example you gave, “throw grenade/smoke here”, is the kind of AI control people would want in general, and I’m not sure why you would limit it to a specific role or class.
For context, I’ll often spawn in with a squad and get blasted or shredded and be left playing with a random guy in the squad. If the first guy had special AI control that’d be a little frustrating, I think.
I guess that’s a good point. But there could be some actions that could be less basic, and more situational/specific for such a subclass to allow for, like an order to reload all your weapons, it would certainly fit the class, or an order to stfu (stop screaming) or to switch firing modes. Though it’s rather subjective what one would consider as a “basic” order here.
But yea, now you’re talking more about expanding AI control (engage/do not engage would be crucial, especially when flanking). To have a squad leader role able to give many more very specific orders is quaint, but it just doesn’t seem very consequential to the gameplay.
It doesn’t seem like it would warrant its own class. Also it is a bit weird to limit expanded AI control to the squad leader, and it’d be frustrating if he catches the first bullet and you can’t use the commands anymore.