How to succeed as a squad

Guides are almost always a work of personal opinions and thus results may differ.

Here is a small guide-line for smaller to bigger squads on how to make their gameplay more successful.

Pretext

For a Squad or Faction to succeed - the biggest deciding factor is how well you play together, with a somewhat equal amount of basic game-knowledge. While having better gear / builds help a fight - the knowledge as well as how well your squad plays together, will almost always be most beneficial in a given scenario.

Leader

Designating a leader who voices commands and following them should be one of the first priorities of a Squad. Without a leader, you will fail. In team versus team based combat, it is vital to not run around like headless chickens and be picked off one by one, because everyone has their own interpretation on what to do in a given scenario. Even if you do not agree with a leader's decision on how to handle a particular fight, you may notify him, but if he insists, follow his orders regardless. There will always be room for improvement, but the worst thing that can happen is if people start doing their own stuff because 'they know better' and thus ultimately split the squad - at which point everything falls apart. (Personal opinion: I believe, it is almost always better to follow a bad plan, then no plan at all.)

It might also be beneficial to create a namecolorization config (available in the game's folder) and share it with your squad - in which you have colorized your squad-members depending on their role in-game. You could highlight leaders, as well as your medics, so that everyone knows where they are at all times! You could also highlight other classes you think should be highlighted. Once you find out who of your enemies is often a priority target (for example enemy medics or leaders) you could even colorize them! Although the usage of camouflage by your enemies will make this specific tactic meaningless.

Classes / Roles

Designate, or have people designate themselves as to what class or role they want to play. Classes should be somewhat spread out, and optimally not change a lot. While you can play almost every class on the fly, builds still matter. And someone who skilled into critical hits should keep playing a weapon that can actually critically hit. Of course, once people unlock second or even third buildslots, they can start leveling up other builds to have different classes, depending on the need of the squad. Ideally, you should not act selfish and try to fill up gaps in your composition. If the leader decides to play a long-range tactic and he requires more snipers - make sure you actually get more snipers in your team. Of course, you should still play what you most enjoy - but it would be advisable to have at least 2 classes you can switch back and forth to that you like, and perhaps not pick a sniper as your main class when almost everyone did so already.

Marks / Scouting

The marking feature exist for a reason. You will have teammates with lower perception, that can not see very far, yet have weapons that might outrange their vision-range, simply because they have to dump into other stats. For that matter, pinging enemy locations for example can help them out greatly to still burst or fire in the direction of active enemies. If you play a Sneaker, this feature becomes even more important, as pinging the current enemy location can help the leader do better decisions in or out of combat - for example on how to position your squad.

Flood

A lot of times a leader's commands might go under a mass of flood from other players. This might include personal discussions, backseat gaming, frantic screaming, unnecessary callouts and other. Especially during a combat situation you should keep chatter to a minimum and only relay the most important information you think the leader, or a fellow teammate in need might need to know. This helps the whole squad immensely, as not only the leader has to filter out less information thrown at him, but your whole squad can notice and listen to leader commands much more effectively.

Establishing a keyword that notifies your squad to clear comms can be beneficial. This can be something like a simple 'Clear comms!' or 'Check, Check, Check!'. Everyone should know to shut up after that.

Especially in a bigger group of people, talking in voice might sometimes be less effective then typing in game-chat. This is especially useful when requesting something. For example, if you shot out all ammunition of your gun, instead of saying 'Give me 9mm ammo!', you can instead type in-game 'I need 9mm ammo!' - this has a multitude of benefits. Your teammates will immediately know where the ammo is needed, as they will see the message above your character. And should people not know your voice, they will still be able to identify you. This also keeps the voice communications clear of flood. (Personal opinion: Typing has been proven to be more effective to get something from your team then requesting via voice, especially during combat.)

Bases

Living together has a lot of potential benefits. If you have different classes living together, weapons you might loot that you can't use, suddenly can be used by your teammate and vice versa - effectively increasing the amount of gear you have available for use. You can also split tasks among yourselves. For example, one person sorts newly acquired loot. Another crafts and decrafts. A third guy goes out to get more materials. A note should be said, that living together can also come with its own downsides, especially once you start inviting more and more people.

Ask for help

Whether on Discord, or more experienced Squad Members. It is normal that not everyone has the same game-knowledge. I mean, how else are you supposed to know that running around makes you bleed out faster then standing still? A lot of knowledge in the game is gained by 'mouth-to-mouth propaganga' so to speak.