RE: Squad Battles not dead if I can help it!!
In my opinion, SquadBattles suffer from one thing in particular:
It's not attractive for multiplayer due to the lack of a custom battle mode. We're stuck with scenarios and these severely limit the options of the defender which is typically played by the AI. In most cases, all the defender can do is to stay put in his cover and choose his fires. That's no fun. For the attacker, by contrast, most scenarios are puzzles that need to be solved (find the correct avenue of approach...).
Things would be completely different if there was a custom battle mode, in which players would need to fight over terrain objectives on a map in fixed roles (attacker/defender) and were otherwise free: They could pick their own forces (and obstacles/mines, etc) and - most importantly - deploy them on the map as they see fit.
As an improvised remedy, it would be cool if there were more scenarios designed for PBEM in mind. Both sides need to offer interesting gameplay.
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Apart from that, SquadBattles is severely lacking in very basic quality of life features (disruption markers on counters, half effective range indicator), suffers from the apparent refusal to hire a proper artist/UI designer (white text on light blue background...) and its mechanics for vehicle combat which are not liked by everybody.
As someone who is replacing the sub-par unit graphics with my own adaptions, I also have to say it's a pity that "soldier" and "officer" images are used mixed up in the game (I'd like to use full figure graphics for soldiers and portraits for officers, so that the difference is also indicated by the type of picture, not just by the shape of the unit box...).
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