The casual-friendly approach to squads and platoons is teaching players to be idiots.

I agree with OP... and I'm 90% of time a solo player.

But when I join a squad I know that the leader expects me to follow the orders !!!

If I don't want to (or can't most of the time) follow the orders anymore I leave the squad.

Effective squad leaders are key to successful platoons. The problem is that there aren't even basic tools given to help. Leaders should be able to see the % cert level for every item for selected players. Being able to turn off the ability to buy ESF and Libs is a feature that shouldn't bother anyone except the kinds of people who are ruining squads currently.

And yet this thread is full of people who think being able to turn off squad XP rewards on players who aren't playing as a team is tyranny? The slap command might be over the top, but it was a feature that worked for adminning Counter-Strike servers.

"I'll tell you how to get a toon. Prove to me you know what you're doing as a soldier. Prove to me you know how to use other soldiers. And then prove to me that somebody's willing to follow you into battle. Then you'll get your toon. But not bloody well until." -Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Whether or not you actually know enough about the game to effectively use the troops under your command makes no difference if you aren't charismatic enough to get them to do what you want them to. You can try making a platoon where you kick anyone who doesn't enjoy your micromanagement, but frankly good luck getting beyond 3 players. All I see in this thread is ranting from an egotistical jerk who wants to be able to ruin the enjoyment of other players who, and this is important, are playing the game to have fun.

I like OP's suggestions. A bit extreme on the slap/blind someone thing, but it could work. When creating/joining platoon you could set/see a "Strict" or "Casual" flag. Some might prefer strict, others might prefer casual. Outfit I'm in usually runs more than one platoon at a time, I can see one of each type running concurrently.

Restricting air vehicles/ground vehicles is a good idea. Sometimes you want people to only pull sunderers or be infantry to take a point. Again, that's in case of several platoons. One often needs to be strictly infantry.

Rating thing might be a bit much, but could work if it's also opt in type of deal. You want to be rated, enable it. You don't? Stay unrated.

Option to blacklist someone and prevent them from joining should be in regardless. Trolls occasionally join open platoons and there is no way of keeping them out. You kick them, they just rejoin a few seconds later.

Though personally I don't support the OP. I see where he is coming from. But I'm going to argue that the problem in those cases are not the fresh meat BR2's but the higher level players who are more experienced. After about 30 levels you get to the point where you start thinking "oh I can do that better" and go off on your own tangent. Fresh meat is stupid easy to get to walk in line. Just tell them to follow the guy with the star ahead of his name. The game is not stupid complicated, if you go to a base you own, it's a very good chance you'll either be defending it, or moving out from there. Sure you want to tell them in advance what where and how. If the base is an enemy controlled base, then I doubt there's much more to do there then to attack.
The high level players get ideas. They think they can win the battle by being the lone-wolf 117 supersoldier who pulls a victory out of his ***. So they go off to set their "plan that can not fail" into motion. And if the squad has a few of those... well. Good luck. And when the plan inevitably fails, they blame the tools (both his and the enemy's) the enemy and finally his team for not backing him up, because his plan was oh so painfully obvious without saying a single word.

I play in a heavy-teamplay outfit. Before we move out we make sure that everyone has their assigned classes and roles within the squad. Even putting down some basics on what rocket launchers to bring and AI or AV turret. Etc.
But we can't and don't expect this from any sort of pub squad. Simply because you have no knowledge on what the people outside of our unit have certed into, what are their gameplay preferences, how familiar are they with various bases or if they can even speak english.

Enacting a strict punishment system would only do the game harm. It would not just further some of the elitism that people might have, but it would be too easily exploitable for trolling treasons.
We already have everything in place to manage our squads and platoons. If you won't try to make contact with your squad members, then you are the problem. If they are deliberately ignoring or even bothering the squad, then kick them.

1) Quoting fiction from a raging anti-semite who has zero experience in any military is meaningless.

2) If you don't find working as a cohesive unit and sticking with teammates 'fun' WHY ARE YOU IN A SQUAD? Make your own squad where casual tryhards can join if you don't want a squad leader upset with you because he said 'get to your waypoint' and you decided you should be allowed to go where you want.

Seriously I've asked this question of you people three times and none of you responded. If you don't think you should have to follow squad waypoints and obey basic orders, why the hell would you join a squad?

This isn't about making all squads tyranny, you thickos. It's about allowing squads to be effectively managed when you're dealing with autistic teenagers who think being told to take out the garbage is child abuse and have never had a responsibility in their lives. Nobody is MAKING squad leaders slap you when you're hanging around the bravo waypoint when you're in delta squad. It's so after being told - and you ignoring it - that they can give you a noticeable warning.

Like I said, I adminned multiple CS servers. A slap function gets people's attention immediately, especially the type of oblivious sperg-burger who plays completely ignoring everything except what HE wants to do. When you aren't following basic squad commands you're letting down all your teammates. If you're scared of 'being told how to play' then you can uninvite yourself. Nobody's making you stay.

I know leading is stressful OP. Remember though that there is so much information a new player is trying to figure out.. what class/weapon sets suits them best to start with. Learning what to do in their current situation... and what things like nano weave does.

Be patient with people and take the time to actually lead.. don't assume everyone knows what to do.. truth is very very few have been trained and will be much more loyal to you for training them if done with respect and over all decency.

This aint the military, and i dont care if hes General Patton. He shouldnt be leading casual public platoons. Its like having a drill sgt. run into a day spa and start screaming at the patrons on how to relax. Its a game, fun is the priority. Try hard control freaks need to find their own kind as was stated earlier in the thread. His style of leadership obviously doesnt appeal to the masses or he wouldnt be here raging about casual pubbies.

You... uh. Well. You're either trying entirely too hard to troll, and it's not even very amusing at that, or you should probably stick to games like ARMA and play on the try-hard servers with the other try-hards.

Planetside 2 is one of the last games I would look at for "tacticool squad/platoon play". You gonna rouse your little group of "inglorious basterds" and take a few bases, then go back and take those bases back again when they get ghost capped? Should probably have a Benny Hill soundtrack to go with it.

What I think pro-OP people are missing is the fact that players don't join PUBLIC squads for hardcore tactical gameplay. That's what OUTFIT squads are for. Public squads are more of a social than tactical feature, and unless he advertises his squad as "Follow me to the letter or don't bother joining" people won't know what level of input is expected of them. By default - they join to feel a part of the team even if it's nothing more than having a laugh over voice comms with a guy on the other end.

If you want people to play the way you want them to - let them know in advance what they sign up for. Ideally that means making an outfit and recruiting like-minded people, who are experienced at the game (because newbies sure as hell won't follow unless you explain everything step by step and encourage them, something OP doesn't seem keen on doing) and playing with them. Expecting random people to follow a complete stranger who traets them like disposable garbage because they OMG want to have fun will never work.

Booting players from a platoon teaches them nothing? Punishing a player for not performing to some guy's arbitrary standards teaches them that there is a jerkass leading a platoon.

Frostiken confirmed to be a dictator. May I shine your boots sir? Bottom line is your in the wrong game, go to arma and preach the ways you strategically kill people. K thx bai, abort thread.

First of all let me say this, I pay a sub to play this game and i will not tolerate some idiot leader. Now on to common sense. If you have an open squad invite you get what you get. If you throw out blind invites you get what you get. If you don't screen people before you invite you get what you get. If you don't explain to people your rules you get what you get. Leadership has responsibilities and if you want to be a leader it takes a little work. You can't just throw together a squad and presto your a leader and people will follow. Different people run their squads differently. Get over your selves and do the work and you will get what you want.

Once upon a time you used to be able to join a public Tribes server and have 32 randos working together fairly well.

Now you expect people to just follow a waypoint and you're compared to Hitler.

Casuals.

Frostikan confirmed to be overly occupied with planetside. Needs two doses of lighten the heck up. TL;DR do you even fun bro?

Sorry, just can't buy into all the harshness of the OP.

I would like though:

1. Ability to list desired squad/platoon loadout. If people choose the desired classes, awesome. No need to force though.
2. Ability to ban a player from a platoon. This isn't about cohesion, it's about griefing. We've all seen incidents and a kicked player can just rejoin unless you turn off recruitment altogether.
3. Ability to mute a player at platoon level.
4. Ability to mute all but SLs at the platoon level.

Just about everything else can be accomplished with a simple kick.

If you require yelling and whipping players to get them to follow a waypoint then Hitler has nothing on you.

OP's highest level character is BR 34. No wonder it seems like he's spouting nonsense.

Lose fifty pounds and join the real military.

Much rage, much wow. Needs the calm down treatment. Make sure any platoon he joins is super casual. Get some popcorn and watch him rant.

You mean the two characters I don't play anymore except to log on and get the daily reward? One of which I thought I straight-up deleted? I'm sure you found all those other characters I have that have names completely dissimilar using your brilliant deductive skills.