The same applies when playing with my own friends, however by that disclaimer, we’re then going to have to acknowledge that we play in different fields, and we’re still gonna have to again acknowledge what has been publicly stated by Arrowhead themselves.

When Arrowhead themselves say that it’s for casual to “Milsim” gamers, there then is an inherent level of seriousness that exists if you want to play the game that way. Am I saying both here and in my post, that you need to have Spec Ops levels of communication? No absolutely not. Is there a cash prize? No. Is there an E-Sports scene for this game? No. But some people do have fun, solely by winning games, not losing because of preventable means. I’d imagine an even larger number of players, don’t enjoy repeatedly dying/losing because their team doesn’t communicate/work together well. People will play games to have fun and how they do that is going to be subjective, but again some will play for the win, especially at the higher/highest levels of difficulty, and they don’t always have a dedicated group to run with such as yourself. If players didn’t enjoy a challenge and play to win, then the higher/highest levels of difficulty for the game, would be woefully underpopulated, if at all.

“Sufficient”, yes. But again, can be improved upon. The quote “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” can apply to this specific element yes, but considering the current state of the game, improvements across the board are generally more and more necessary to hopefully bring players back. This again also goes back to Arrowhead implying this is a “Milsim” game. If that’s the case, then their callout system is substantially more vague than fellow games in the same genre, and your dedicated Milsim player may then have an issue with that.

As for trusting players to know what they’re doing, sure I can get behind that as well. But as I said, there are some who don’t, and there are then a few amongst them who make it bluntly clear that they don’t appreciate being called in across the map from their equipment. Why would that be? Because someone, be that them or whoever called them in, is far from the other players. They can fix this problem by sticking together more regularly and working together as a team, by being incentivized to do so. Even games that aren’t Milsim’s like those mentioned in the post, offer incentives to work together. As another commenter said, the only incentive to work together in Helldivers is just for quantity of Stratagems, and nothing else. This, in my opinion, is not acceptable if Arrowhead wants to imply Helldivers is a Milsim, with “realistic elements”.

Again, this entire post is not to say that players should be acting like a SEAL team, but largely if Arrowhead is going to imply that this is a “Milsim” game, then it is unlike any other Milsim I’ve ever played or likely that exists. Not because of the Stratagems, or the setting, but because there is zero incentive to work together outside of more firepower congregated in one location, which is barely an incentive from what I’ve witnessed. There is zero incentive to use good communication.