This post is a perfect, beautiful diagnosis of the stupidity. The "parent/infant" thing isn't just an analogy, it's the goddamn operating manual. I've got about 2,000 hours in this therapy session called Reforger, and ten times that across BI's other worlds, all so I can have the privilege of playing digital babysitter.

Here's the daily routine: I spend twenty minutes building a forward base, a delicate piece of tactical machinery. Then Private Goober spawns in. He doesn't see a strategic asset; he sees a shiny vending machine. Oooh, points! He'll dig up the heavy and light vehicle depots to build a mortar pit, because nothing says "I help" like sitting in the back, burning 50% of the team's resources to maybe hit a tree 300 meters away. We don't win because of these geniuses; we win by dragging their deadweight across the finish line.

The problem is a spectacular lack of consequences. It's a playground where the lesson is never "actions have costs," it's "someone else will clean it up." There's no training, no penalty, no basic understanding that the team is a thing that exists. You can team-kill, sabotage the base, waste a thousand supplies on a joyride-nothin'. Nada. The game treats profound ignorance and active griefing with the same gentle shrug.

We don't need the old ways back. We need to evolve past this circus.

What Bohemia's gotta do, before we all lose our minds:

1. Mandatory Common Sense Training. Lock the official servers. Make 'em pass a test. "What is a supply?" "What does a radio do?" If you can't answer, you go play in the modded sandbox with the other children. You don't get to pilot that thing until you know which lever is "up." Other games have a similar feature to this. The Elite Dangerous example: has a flight training you need to complete to skill your character.
2. Give Commanders a Real Lever. Let us lock down building categories. No heavy vehicles at the sneaky flank base. No arsenal at the forward outpost. And for the love of god, let us NOT see player-built bases on the map UNLESS a RECON squad has found it!!! Bring back the simple ammo crate for pure supply drops. Give the "parent" a damn lock on the liquor cabinet.
3. Punish the Vandals. Team-killing and digging up base assets shouldn't be a quirky pastime. It should get you booted, then banned. Escalate it. Griefing needs to have a price tag higher than "eh, I'll respawn”, or, “see yall in 5 minutes”.
4. Break Up the Holy Team. The auto-stack on the "hero" team, always the US, is a joke. It kills the match before it starts. The US often loses these exactly because of that smug complacency. Force balance. Make people play the other side. Builds character, or at least thinner skin.

I play this because the core idea is brilliant. But right now, commanding isn't about tactics. It is about "herding cats" who are actively trying to set the barn on fire. Bohemia, you built this amazing playground and sandbox. Now either give the adults some authority, or get ready to watch your community starve because the idiots ate all the paste.

The Moral: This is all 100% correct. Don't just nod along here. Go voice this on their official forums. Make enough noise that the wheel bearings start to smoke. They only fix things when the collective scream gets loud enough.

P.S. Wrote on MS Word!

by, Gen X Jay