Why is Bravo Squad always FOB?

Honestly, All Squads can try to FOB. They just don’t do it because they don’t want to (and they get very angry when they have to)

Many commanders ALWAYS choose Bravo to do the FOB, why don’t they try to choose another squad? There are 4 options and you ALWAYS choose just one? That doesn’t make sense.

Don’t you get tired of Bravo ALWAYS doing the FOB? Or do you just hate change? (useless if you are trying to guarantee the Meta of Bravo always doing the FOB)

I know there is a Bravo Culture always FOB, Alpha Frontline, Delta (or Charlie) Comms, But have you tried? I’m sure you can have a lot of fun if another squad does the FOB.

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I remember a brave XO tried to break this up.

His name was river cherry.

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because people roll bravo CT because they want to be FOB, and people roll other squads because they dont. It doesnt seem like anyone benefits by making people who dont want to sit on the LZ for 2 hours do so when there are players that actually do

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Bravo is the unofficial FOB squad, but its been so standardized that most people play bravo CT to play FOB duty, and even with the last synthetic council, a councilor suggested that I play bravo combat technician during my application.

Its just a tradition that everyone follows.

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Hello

I play Jane Jacobson, sometimes play CO. And sometimes I make other squads play FOB. From SOs to individual marine players, they always bitch and complain.

Womp womp, I don’t care Alpha with 2 comtechs 3 medics 10 riflemen are doing FOB compared to Bravo with 2 Privates, only 2 Privates.

Commanders can 100% make other squads do FOB but I only do it when Bravo has nobody or I’m doing a silly ass plan.

I don’t care for the current game’s culture. We roleplay as marines so act like one.

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Very simple: people always put bravo on FOB, so it became the FOB squad, now people that play bravo do it because they want to go FOB, so now if you put bravo off FOB most players who rolled it and specifically prepared for FOB duty are not going to be happy they’ve been assigned to the frontlines instead of what they were expecting.

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Once upon a time Alpha was FOB squad because it was default for the noobs.

It then magically changed.

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As others have said before, people sign up for their squads BECAUSE they want to FOB/frontline/comms. Squad roles have been mostly fixed for almost a decade now so it’s just expected that if someone rolls Bravo, they’re volunteering for FOB, and if someone rolls Delta, they want to kill themselves immediately by charging into caves.

Setting squad roles chaotically thus fucks things up quite a bit, because people start bringing in loadouts with the expectation of ‘I will be on FOB’, ‘I will frag’, ‘I will support the front’, only for it to be thrown into the gutter (though most people won’t care and will ignore your orders as usual, except for the poor bastards who are OOC rule-bound to follow them, like SLs, FTLs, Specs, SGs).

It’s been tried before many, many times- There’s been numerous XOs over the past decade who’ve tried to ‘spice’ things up- Sometimes it works, most of the times it (obviously) leads to bad outcomes (see: split drops, massed para drops, multi-FOBs, fragmented squad objectives, etc).
Frankly, there’s nothing new under the sun in terms of command in CM. Everything you can think of has been tried before, from hiding the whole platoon in lockers and bushes, to everyone paradropping at caves entrance to hiverush, to splitting everyone to attack the hive from 4 directions (this ended exceptionally badly).

Some people find it hilarious, some enjoy it, some don’t mind, some despise it because their one round a day got turned into slop because of le funny. You’ll always get people pissed at you if you do it since 90% of the time you’re decreasing your team’s chances of winning, so I don’t know if it’s really worth the payoff. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, but don’t be surprised when delta starts rioting.

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This can easily be resolved if the XO announces that (insert squad here) is FOB duty at the start of the round.

This would avoid many problems such as Bravo being ready for the FOB but they are assigned to the frontline

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Still a majority of people would have picked bravo expecting to go FOB, so when they’re told it’s frontline despite picking bravo to go FOB, they’ll be disappointed that their squad isn’t doing what they usually do, if you pick bravo, you’re expecting FOB duty, so when the XO annouces it’s not you’re going to probably cyro as you don’t play bravo for Frontline duty.

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SLs pick bravo because they are used to the FOB SL experience, medics pick bravo because they wanna do QRF, engis pick bravo because they wanna build in peace instead of the hectic mess that the frontline is, RFN go bravo because either they can’t frontline because of high lag/low fps or they join it exclusively to escape the FF fest that the frontline is and they hop into the backline to 1v1 runners, burrowers and lurkers.
Given that SOs will only transfer you for a “good reason” (“I wanna have fun” is not a valid reason in their perspective) unless you are a RFN: People just won’t rely on transfers. Henceforth as a replacement we rely on the metaknowledge and the subtextual agreement that Bravo is destined to build FOB.

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Making any other squad FOB when bravo has the manpower to do it is just obnoxious for bravo and the squad that got FOB, doubly so if the FOB squad does poorly when building it (because they didn’t pack for FOB duty). Announcing round start that another squad will get it helps, but expect half the squad to frontline/ask for transfers anyway.

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Is there a reason you wouldn’t instead, just transfer the comtechs and 1-2 medics to Bravo instead of the whole entire squad being assigned to FOB?..

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Squad preferences are a thing for a reason
If i want to FOB/chill make a megabase i go bravo
If i want to go shoot shit i go alpha/delta
If i want something random i go charlie

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Mui, I really don’t think the “shake-up” of having Alpha/Charlie/Delta on FOB is worth all the trouble. As Blue said, there’s nothing you can do that will fix the fact that people rolled their squads to do X will suddenly be disappointed.

If you have to jump through these hoops to lessen the negative impact of a command decision, I think it’s worth considering whether it’s worth doing it in the first place. Does Delta really need to be on FOB that badly, as opposed to the status quo? Does the potential enjoyment outweigh the potential frustration?

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at least their time isn’t wasted in that case, or if they have limited time to play, they’ll at least be able to commit to frontlining before they spend all their points.

Also, to some degree, you’re expected to fill a role, so it’s not like they didn’t know they’d be using construction mats, sentries, etc, in a combat enviroment, the only thing that really changes is their safety level, and the location they’ll be doing their role

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it’s really simple. It’s just a toxic thing to do if you swap squad fob orders off Bravo. It’s not new or interesting or fun in any capacity. It just makes you look like an asshole to a majority of people.

I don’t care who u are, what u want, or why u want it. It only affects Comtechs, SLs, ftls, corpsmen, and specs, and makes everyone else feel like “oh hey command probably hates me because of my squad color, fuck them I’m never listening to this XO/CO again!” A better way to do it might be to reassign comtechs into Bravo at random if low comtech numbers, and as for fob defense it needs hardly anyone to succeed. If there’s 0 bravo on lowpop, it can be genuinely helpful for the round, but still sucks and should be avoided when possible unless you do a full megafob.

There’s plenty of other things in this game that are actually really fun strats for some people, even if people complain (ie: split drops, paradrops, Juro strats, murderballs) but like, no one likes this. Just don’t do it it can ruin the round for a majority of that squad for little to no benefit. It kinda sucks to hop on a game as time intensive as this and seeing the round and being like “oh this random ass XO decided I’m not allowed to play the video game today.” It adds no variety or new content to the videogame to the point where it should genuinely just not be an option.

A lot of the time, it’s either actively malicious or ignorant behavior which is why people get so upset.

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This just proves my point, Bravo’s culture of always being FOB is toxic. Why should I care what they’re saying about me?

No, I don’t hate any squad because of their color, and why should I transfer all the comtechs to Bravo? I can transfer them to Charlie or Delta and they’ll do the same damn job.

The “Fun” you mention is making the “Meta plans” for the Marine Major, the same LZ because it has a better chance of victory.

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we roleplay as marines so act like one

This is why especially as an FTL aSL or whatever I always dig in my heels and tell my boys to stick with me. Sometimes I designate a fireteam with a Spec, and SG, and a Medic and the Spec’s errand boy if applicable to go to the front, since realistically I only need like 4-5 guys including a con tech to build out the FOB.

I’ll bitch like anyone else, but I believe in the plan of the CO and XO and I’m a MARINE, GODDAMNIT! If they tell me to jump in gonna JUMP unless there’s a goddamn Lurker talon in my sternum pinning me to the ground.

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A long, long, long time ago back with the Nostromo and boxstation Bravo squad was the ‘power’ squad. There was no real “fob” during this time period. And Bravo had most of the engineering minded players (there was no skill system) because power was the singularity engine.

When the new shipmap and original LV was being tested Bravo morphed into the power/FOB squad and eventually just the FOB squad after the droppod/metal egg was quickly deemed to be a deathtrap and setting up power was less of an actual knowledge check.

So thats why Bravo is always FOB. A tradition started before the skill system existed modified for current gameplay continued because every group of officers learned from the ones before them since like 2013 and marines have come to expect it.

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