Leading a Public Squad

The modern gamer loves big arrows that tell them where to go, so oblige your gamers by setting a squad waypoint. The average pub squadmate won't read your text or listen to your garbled voice chat, but they will follow that arrow right off a cliff.



Always keep that green arrow on the map, and if you're on the offensive then make sure to have a new location marked right before your team caps the one they're already at. Squaddies love it when they open up their map and the next objective is already listed.

You're a spawn dispenser first and a commander second.

Your first concern should always be supplying a spawn point for your squad, so use that beacon. The higher the rank, the better. If you or someone else brings a sunderer into the area then you're certainly better off, but don't neglect the beacon just because you've got an RV parked nearby. More spawn points are always better. Spread them out so the enemy won't know where to focus their attention.

And be creative when choosing a hiding place for a beacon. Take a Flash to find somewhere remote and out of sight, or suit up as a light assault and stick the beacon on a hard-to-reach rooftop.

Your beacon should always be deployed, even when you're defending. For example: perhaps you're doing a good job holding the A and C points, but B is too fortified to reach. Just drop a beacon behind B and it's as good as yours.

You're playing to win territories but your soldiers are playing to shoot people in the face, and these are two entirely different games; so while it might make tactical sense to capture a bunch of empty bases, your squaddies will be bored to tears and wondering why they aren’t playing Battlefield before the progress bar is halfway finished with the capture.

You always want to head towards enemy activity. Always.

Capping empty territories along the way is fine, but make sure to promise a big fight over the next hill. A huge fight. The war to end all wars. Squaddies like that stuff, just so long as they win.

Does your squad actually need a huge fight to be satisfied? Hell no! Sending a rag-tag pub squad against an organized platoon is pure insanity. Avoid hot zones like the plague. All you need is some enemy activity. Not a lot. Just a single, wily infiltrator can hold an entire squad's attention the same way a laser pointer holds a cats attention, and when they finally take down that Rambo with overwhelming force they're all going to feel like Rambos themselves, because your squaddies don’t care about a fair fight unless they’re the ones being overrun. Remember that.



Also, keep an eye on the continent pop. Planetside 2's default filter is the world pop, which is absolutely useless; so change it over to Continent and see just how big your faction is compared to the other two. If your guys are vastly outnumbered then do whatever you can to keep your team inside of your own territories because that'll give them the best possible advantage against the incoming zerg. Nothing causes a squad to disband faster than a crushing defeat. After a big loss, pub squaddies don’t regroup at warpgates for an organized counterattack. They quit.

Always keep your squad full. Whenever you see another player from your faction who isn't part of your squad, aim at them, hold down Q, and select 'Invite to Squad' from your radial. This is an efficient mode of recruitment in the field, but if you have some downtime (either because you're at the warpgate or dealing with an extra-long cap) type in '/who' to get a list of every friendly in the region, then just start punching in '/squad recruit NAME' like a madman. You'll be amazed by the number of players running around without a squad who will be more than happy to join up with your crew.

The easiest way to fill up your ranks, though, is to just make sure that your squad is set to public, not private. All newly formed squads default to private. This includes squads within a platoon, so just because alpha is public doesn't mean that bravo is, too.

Trim the fat. Periodically go to your map and check the other two continents for squad members. If they aren't fresh recruits heading towards your team then '/squad kick NAME' right away so you can get someone on your team who's actually going to fight with you.


If someone is blasting music through voice chat for a laugh or TKing on purpose, the faster you kick them out of the squad, the better. This might sound obvious, but I've been in a lot of squads where the SL completely ignores managing their team. Even if you're in the middle of a firefight, stop shooting, start typing, and get that poison out of your squad's system as quickly as possible.

Communicate! Answer questions, especially ones about how to play the game, because those happen a lot in a public squad. If someone says they're leaving then make sure to say goodbye. Don't know who they were? Doesn't matter! You're the squad lead. Make everyone feel welcome and they might actually listen to you when it counts.

Probably not, though.

- Best class to play: medic. It's a great hang-back class that allows you to jump in and support your squad during the more dire situations without having to commit to the moment-by-moment action. There's nothing more satisfying than having a medic pull you out of a staring contest with your deployment screen. Your squadmates will be grateful you're around.

- DO NOT get tunnel vision, and what I mean by this is that you don't want to get hung up on the micro details of Planetside 2, like the shooting and piloting; the fun stuff. As a squad leader, you're in charge of the macro details. Reading the map, calculating enemy movement, and establishing spawn points; the boring stuff. Keep your responsibilities in perspective or you’ll just be another squaddie.

- Squad bloodlust is something you have to worry about, because once you find a territory ripe with action and you send your squad in there, those guys will not pull out until every single available spawn point within two kilometers is gone. Every surrounding territory can be lost and the enemy can grossly outnumber and outgun them, and it won't matter. Retreat is not an option for a pub squad. They're going to ignore the waypoint marker, ignore your texts, and ignore your mic, because they found what they're looking for: faces to shoot, and that's where they'll want to stay.

- The most demoralizing form of assault comes from the air. When a single ESF is having a field day rocketing your squad to oblivion with almost zero reprisal, your soldiers are going to get frustrated really fast. Just one form of anti-air, even if it's just a max with a single AA gun, can be all you need to scare off an air attack. That, and make sure your squaddies know that their small-arms weapons will damage(but most likely piss off) ESFs.

- DUPLICATE COMMANDS - repeat commands in squad voice AND squad text chat - lots of people keep in-game voice muted.

- Duplicate Text - Hit enter then press up to cycle through any text you've already sent (and send it again).

- Make sure your squad knows they can hit Q to spot a target. That way, everyone on your squad knows where to shoot.

If you read the title 'advanced tactics' and thought that you were about to learn complicated strategies for your team to execute then you obviously don't understand how a public squad works and I’ve failed in teaching you anything applicable to the actual game.

Give them a big arrow to follow, give them a spawn point, and give them something to shoot.
That's it. That's your job. You're not leading soldiers. You're herding cats.