
Originally Posted by
Poorlaggedman
If a team is smart he's already planted in one spot most of the time. Of course that doesn't happen, they're told to continuously jog back and forth to avoid being killed quickly because their importance is not mainly symbolic but mission critical to the very existence of a formation. If any sort of cover is available the rest of the men are usually kneeling behind it while the poor flag bearer is behind standing getting killed over and over. Partly bad tactics, partly design flaws.
Forcing a flag to stay planted to spawn would make fixed cover even more important than it already is. No line would ever be able to form and advance even worse than it is now. Certainly not with a flag in front where it's supposed to be. Having a few players sit out and just act as spawn the whole match would be even more overpowered.
Admittedly a lot of players might think it absurd but I always felt it was a total F-ing disgrace the hatred of flag bearers pre-flag bearer spawn system (when they essentially served no purpose but to act as a banner for the enemy to see). Many times flag bearers would be shot by their own team before October of 2018. It's clear from that culture that the flag should mean something. It still should not be the difference between a semi-fluid game experience and a completely disheveled one where you have to reform in the spawn constantly and do a great deal of walking while units in the field wither and die off.
The game is two entirely different experiences based on the use of the flag bearer role. One is tolerable, at a minimum, and usually has some enjoyable intensity to it. The other sucks horrendously (Hooker's Push is basically unplayable w/o the flag bearer). If I found myself time-traveling to 12 months ago I would not even imagine myself entering a server until the flag bearer system comes out. Since the game has came this far with spawning like that it doesn't seem like an insane leap to me to designate any given member of a formation as the 'flag bearer' while an actual flag bearer merely acts as a bonus while existing within a formation.
This brings up the question of how to choose where to spawn a player and on what formation. The simple solution might be to use NCOs and Officers. The flag bearer should always remaining the quickest solution. Yet the problem with that is that it still violates the practical uses of the roles. Officers and NCOs should have very real roles in gameplay. Make them a requirement though and you've made a leap to a protected status who, like the flag bearer, can't be risked in serious competitive gameplay. They can't fill their real-life roles and still maximize their effectiveness.
Think of Battlefield 2. You could spawn off squad leaders. A good squad leader was not a leader but a spawn point. Sure he had to choose where to place himself but he'd be irresponsible to risk himself. The entire idea of having a squad leader is therefore violated when there is practically a necessity of having one alive. The value of having a real leader is utterly eclipsed by the necessity of having a spawn point in the field.
Just brainstorming but another option for non-flag spawning would be a totally different feature as a way of spawning. Call it rallying. A group of players bunches up and a leader executes a command and as long as that formation of a certain threshold in size is stationary and rallying and not shot at within a certain amount of time then they spawn players, flag or no flag. I'd prefer the game merely track formations of certain sizes and compositions and allow spawning on them all.
I think it shouldn't be limited to just flags is the theme I'm pushing. Spawning is everything in games where you respawn. Games like this aren't a thing without respawns. Features like this are prime opportunities to manipulate player behavior in ways exponentially more effective than any team or personal score system ever could.