Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Official: Your Comments on the New Abilities
The following thread will be your in-depth response to these issues. I will forward the entire thread, along with some recourring (spelling?) ideas. Meaning, if I keep hearing people say something about something, I'll make sure to emphasize that. I cannot formulate an official community response until we get a nice chunk of replies. Please post here your comments. I'll go ahead and tag my personal thoughts below them, but PLEASE REMEMBER they are just my personal opinion and not at all what's going to SOE. God I know someone already stopped reading 2 lines ago and is going to miss that sentence.
Squad Leader
We’re looking at adding a fairly large amount of functionality to Squad Leader, and because of that, it won’t make this update. The stuff we’re looking at:
-Follow Me:
Everyone in the group enqueues /follow on the leader
This is decent and something that is needed. Something that could easily be exploited, though.
-In formation:
Using code similar to AI's followOffset: the group follows the leader in column, wedge or line formation
Highly requested of the community. Although I think it will make little difference and few will use it, it's there for those that asked for it.
-Hold Fire & Fire At Will:
No one in the group is allowed to initate combat, although they can defend and can defend vs. anyone attacking a member of their group
Once again, exploitable, but also very good if used properly.
-Group Attack:
Anyone not already in combat will enqueue an attack vs. the leader's look-at target
"Anyone mind if I go AFK for 20?" "Anyone mind if the GROUP goes AFK for 20?"
-Cease Fire:
Everyone in the group enqueues /peace.
Eh? You tell me.
-Assign Position:
The group leader can assign group members to "Front Line", "Support" or "Ranged" squads. Group Attack, Cease Fire, Group Cover, OffensiveStance, DefensiveStance, Hold Fire and Fire At Will can then be directed to these individual squads
Kind of blury on this whole thing, seems confusing.
-OffensiveStance:
Gives the group a temporary bonus to damage. The bigger the group the better the bonus, lowers defense.
Good.
-DefensiveStance:
Gives the group a temp bonus to defense. The bigger the group the better the bonus, lowers damage.
(i.e. Assign your tanks to "Front Line" and enqueue DefensiveStance on the front line group, then assign the ranged guys to "Ranged" and enqueue OffensiveStance on that group, etc.)
Well I guess that expmlains the Assign Position. Defensive Stance is fine just like offensive stance, but it will be rarely used.
-Group Heal:
No, it doesn't heal the group: It changes the look-at target of anyone assigned to a support position to the leader's look-at target, and gives the system message "You have been ordered to heal ". Used by the leader to tell his healers who to heal. So you still have to push the button yourself (because he might not need a heal - he might need /firstAid or the like.
"Healer has left the group!" --- already see it coming. As if the SL isn't doing enough just trying to get as much damage in to get SL XP on the poor XP system.
-Group Cover:
Enqueues a /assist for the group vs. the leader's look-at target. i.e. if I want everyone to shoot what Dan is shooting, then I look at Dan and enqeue Group Cover.
Fine I guess.
-Forced March:
Non-combat group burst-run sort of thing. Broken as soon as anyone in the group engages in combat.
Does this mean speedsong?! If so, win! People will be SL just for that.
-Smoke-em-if-you-got-em:
In a camp, out of combat, everyone in the group gets a mind regen bonus. The bigger the group the bigger the bonus.
In camp out of combat? For all the times you SL's are in a camp out of combat. /sarcasm
Basically favor ORGANIZATION over CONTROL.
They involve adding the following status markers to players:
On Report
On Point
In Front Line
In Ranged Line
In Support Line
Hold your Fire
Direct Supervision
Squad Leader
/Onpoint PlayerName on|off
->Player 'Player Name' is marked on point.
/FollowOnPoint
->Everyone in the Front Line, Ranged Line or Support Line enqueues /follow on the player marked on point.
/FollowInFormation wedge|line|etc
->Player on point is followed in this manner. This is set by the player on point or Squad Leader.
/HoldYourFire
->Players in ANY line gain the 'Hold Your Fire' marker if this player fires it is marked 'On Report'. This command is available to the Squad Leader and the Point Man.
/DirectSupervision take|give PlayerName
Player may not fire themselves, only under /AttackTarget for a leader or point man.
/OffReport
->Players report marker is removed.
/OnReportEject on|off
->If a players is placed on report and already on report they are ejected from the group.
/FireAtWill
->Players in ANY line loose the 'Hold Your Fire' marker. This command is available to the Squad Leader and the Point Man.
/MarkTarget front|ranged|support
->Players in line look at target become the look at target of leader or point man. Available to Squad Leader and Point Man.
/AttackTarget front|ranged|support
->Players in line look at target become the look at target of leader or point man. Available to Squad Leader and Point Man.
/CeaseFire
-> Everyone in the group enqueues /peace.
/StandDown
-> Everyone in the group enqueues /peace. Players with warning shot or similar fire if creep are still attacking, until they flee.
/AssignPosition front|ranged|support PlayerName
-> The group leader can assign group members to "Front Line", "Support" or "Ranged" squads.
/PlaceMeIn front|ranged|support
Open to all players, puts them in the chosen line.
/OffensiveStance front|ranged|support on|off
-> Gives the group a bonus to speed x2. Incoming damage hits x4.
/DefensiveStance front|ranged|support on|off
-> Creeps hitting a defensive stance player will not focus on them, but are likely to randomly select another player in range.
/GroupAssist front|ranged|support
/Enqueues a /assist for the group vs. the leader's look-at target. i.e. if I want everyone to shoot what Dan is shooting, then I look at Dan and enqeue Group Cover.
/ForcedMarch
-> Non-combat group 2x burst-run sort of thing. Stops as soon as anyone in the group gains and 'attacking' marker.
/AtEaseSoldier
->In a camp, out of combat, everyone in the group gets a mind regen bonus. The bigger the group the bigger the bonus.
/Assembleon x y
->Leader sets the x and y cords of the assemble point.
/AssembleOnMe
->The assemble point dynamically changes to where every the SL is. If the SL is killed, the assemble point becomes fixed at this location.
/AssembleWhere
->Any player can enter: Returns the cords of the assemble point.
/AssembleWaypoint
->Any player can enter: Returns the cords of the assemble point and creates a waypoint to it.
NOTE: The following is STILL NEEDED:
#1) Unqiue SL abilites, not just action triggers.
#2) Group missions.
#2) A system of protecting the SL from SOME amount of harm. Either via actions or defensive bonuses.
IF YOUR PROBLEM IS: The changes will give SL's too much control:
Look we have all asked for the ability to designate a target right ? If you can do that all a player has to do is press ~1 an they start firing? So our idea was that people would get a message, fire at this, they would hit some key and start firing. Why make them do that? They just sit and press key A when they get the attack message and F when they get the follow message. The problem is YOUR NOT DOING ANYTIHNG in combat ANYWAY. You just hit attack and zone out. I realized that the only REAL task is hitting tab 50 times to lock on to who the group leader wants. Take that away and there is nothing for people to do in combat. The solution here is making stance, position, firing angle, weapon selection and special selection have a much larger roll in combat. None of which the SL has ANY control over. Not fearing these SL abilities just because they expose the lack of any real user input or thought in SWG combat.
Again, I state, how can we comment on abilities that noone has used? Am I the only rational person posting on this forum? Commenting on effectiveness of skills that don't yet exist is like me soliciting advice from this forum on decorating my house that noone posting here has seen before.... Think -- it ain't illegal, yet!
Lew
Novice Carbineer/Novice Squad Leader/All around good guy!
My initial response is "well, thank God they're actually thinking about us."
My more in-depth response is not overly negative, but neither is is overly positive.
1. Follow Me
Extremely marginal usefulness. If the people you're commanding can't follow people on their own, then they deserve to be left behind. We have a radar screen and distance indicators to tell you where all of your group members are, and failing all of this, you can always send a "Hey, wait up!" to groupchat, or a /tell tothe SL.
2. In Formation
I'm not familiar with the usefulness of formations as they relate to SWG; perhaps someone could enlighten me?
3. Hold Fire / Fire At Will
If "defend" means that you can fight back against attackers with whatever move you want, then I guess this is okay.
4. Group Attack
The only time I see this as useful is when initiating combat; you can make sure everyone is targetting the same mob, and all attack at the same time. Once mass combat against multiple mobs starts up, however, people will be in combat with different mobs, and you can only select targets for people NOT already in combat, so the effectiveness will drop off dramatically after that first target. Very marginal usefulness.
5. Cease Fire
I can't even think of a situation where this would be helpful at all. Can anyone help me out here?
6. AssignPosition, Defensive Stance, Offensive Stance
I group these together because they're obviously supposed to be used in combination. This is probably the most interesting idea in here, but I see a problem: if your Front Line (your "tanks") are in Defensive mode, and are dealing less damage, will they not receive less xp? Will they be happy about this? Will they be happy that the Ranged people, safely away from harm, are dealing extra damage, and thus getting extra xp?
7. Group Heal
Absolutely worthless. You need to trust your medics and doctors to know what they're doing; I have almost always been pleasantly surprised at their effectiveness without any need for direction. If people need healing, they should call for it. I imagine it would be rather disorienting if I were trying to heal someone, then got my target suddenly switched to someone else, possibly way out of my current healing range.
8. Group Cover
If enqueuing /assist means that it will permanentlyswitch everyone's current combat targets (not just for one action), then this seems like it might be the best of the combat-related abilities here, because it would allow the group to focus on a single priority mob even amidst multiple attacking mobs (see above, where Group Attack is of limited usefulness because it doesn't switch targets of people already engaged). I have been at the Tusken Fort and seen many groups destroyed by an inferior Tusken force simple because they didn't concentrate their attacks. Three mobs at half-strength are just as powerful as three mobs at full strength. However, in my opinion, Group Attack should accomplish this same thing, as that would be easier for the SL to wield.
9. Forced March
Any boost to overland movement on those long treks is welcomed. I assume the group would still get some Terrain Negotiation so that they could stay together and make full use of this enhanced speed?
10. Smoke 'em
Amusing, but ultimately of no practical value. 5 or 10% less downtime, only if in a camp (where you're already planning on significant downtime)? Who cares? Though, it might be worth it if thereare actual animations of all the characters breaking out cigars, though.
Summation:
I'm generally of the opinion that comes out against treating PCs like pets. Yes, in a realistic military situation, the troops should only act on the orders of their commander. This, however, is a game. If we have all these commands to direct our squad, we may as well follow the argument that SLs should be given bunches of pets, and do away with the need for PC involvement in our squads altogether.
Also, I don't see a lot here that would be making people think "wow, it sure is great to be led by an actual Squad Leader!" Assigning positions and stances seems likean administrative nightmare, especially in a large and constantly-changing group. I fear that it will be a lot of fuss for a minimal effect. Most people aren't going to understand the abilities (just like I don't understand a lot of abilities of other elite professions), and so won't really appreciate (or be patient enough for) all the trouble that must be gone through to achieve the bonuses. Squad Leaders may even be avoided because of all the hassle they cause.
The Best: Group Attack (if changed to switch current targets, otherwise Group Cover), Forced March
The Worst: Cease Fire, Group Heal
Left Out: What about our current abilities? Are these supposed to supplement them, or replace them? If the former, then our current abilities still need to be fixed to be made useful. If the latter, then what I see here is not enough to make a viable profession; other bonuses or skills need to be added.
I see very little here that a well organized and disciplined group cannot accomplish anyway. A good hunting group, one that has hunted together before, can function fine without 90% of our new "abilities." Forcing people to perform actions will quickly grate on peoples' nerves without providing any tangable effects that people will apreciate. It will quickly grow annoying fighting with squad leaders who over-use these abusable abilitiesit will becomedifficult to find people willing to group with a squad leader, thus depriving us of most of our XP opportunity.
There have been some MUCH BETTER suggestions made by players on this very forum. Why did the devs decide to come up with their own, largely useless abilities for our profession when we've been making valuable suggestions for the last two months? The only three abilities that look remotely useful are the Stances, Smoke 'Emand Forced March, and even still I'm skeptical about these. I'm sure the Devs will find some way to nerf the heck out of theseabilitiesand make them equally useless as everything else we're about to get.
Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em.
Very cute title, I'm sure it will offend someone's mom somewhere and get renamed. The trick to this is it accelerates the healing of the mind pool of the healers, which in turn accelerates the healing of all pools and wounds in a camp. A much more usefull ability would be to allow the healing of battle fatigue in a camp, instead of having to return to a cantina, but it's still nice.
Forced March.
This would likely be the best addition to our new repetoire IF done right. What I fear is that the devs will make it instantly worthless by either costing way too much HAM for the Squad Leader (thus rendering him unable to actually do anything until he heals, negating the time advantage of accelerated travel), or by making it tire everyone out so that they have to wait 10 minutes to burst run again. It sounds like a Song of Travel type ability, but I'm sure that the devs will find someway to make it much less valuable. Oh, like vehicles. . .
Alright, here's my overall views on the supposed new skills.
Follow me: Worthless. If the person can't select autofollow on their own, or don't, chances are they don't want to. Personally I hate the autofollow command. I, as well as others I know, find it most annoying when suddenly combat breaks out and you move to a better posistion to attack but get dragged back because the auto follow didn't shut off and the person moved. All this command does is promote AFK.
In formation: Again, another worthless ability. It has not strategic nor practical value. I've used this command several times on pets, and it does nothing. Only thing it appears to do is make them move slightly closer to you. If you're ranged and using this, you'd more than likely piss off your melee combatants who suddenly rush to stand next to you 40m out.
Hold fire/fire at will: Are they serious about this? I find this more of a form of punishing a group rather than a useful skill. Only time I could ever see this worth while is punishing someone for agroing everythign they come across. Over all though, worthless. People will just leave you group to get around it anyway.
Group attack: Marginal usefullness. If you can't designate another target after everyone's in combat, what's the point? Sure you can have everyone target the most dangerous mob right out, but what about that second one? By the time the first goes down, at least 3 other people are have been agroed by the other 3 mobs that rush to aid the first. Overall, just a waste of skill space.
Cease fire: Again, just another form of punishment, or on a worse note, possible explotation by the squad leader. A squad leader can attack a target then force everyone else to peace and he just fires again so he does most damage on mob. Also, other players can get around this anyway. All they have to do is hit an attack ability or attack target again and they go right back to fighting. Not to mention the fact that a lot of the mobs will still attack you even if you did peace on them.
Assign position: Worthless. If your group can't figure out where to be in a fight, then chances are they don't know the basics of combat. Your medics are always going to run to the back with the ranged, and your melee will always run to the front. Forcing someone to take a position that they're unfamilar withwould more than likely do more harm than good anyway. Only purpose I could see of giving this is for applying the differnt stances to differnt positions. However, I'd rather not have to force someone some where to do that.
Offensive stance: I like this. I'll gladly give up some def(which appears to be broke anyway) for more damage. And I'm sure the rest of the group wouldn't mind taking outthe mobs fasters as well. Of course, the medics won't be pleased with taking more damage......
Deffensive stance: Like offensive stance. Great on those big hit mobs. Would also be great in helping your medics live longer, as well as anyone under heavy fire. However, the lowered damage might be a serious problem. How much lower are we talking? If you get a group of newbs together armed with nothing but a cdef or novice brawler, they'll be going from crap damage to practically no damage. It'll have to be tried out, but overall the idea is rather appealing I think.
Group heal: Just more spam on the screen. As stated before, a good medic keeps an eye on everyone's ham anyways. This could prove more harm than good. Suppose you've got someone who needs healing at a range out, but your medic is up close keeping your tanks alive on those one hit mobs. You use the command to tell him to heal the one person who's well out of harms way, taking his target off the tank. Well, in the instant it took the medic to reaquire his original patient, he gets downed by the mob. Now your medic is there alone with the mob. You just lost two members all because you felt like telling him to heal the only guy with noticable damage. In conclusion: Another pointless waste.
Group Cover: Marginal usefulness. It's great that you can get everyone to assist Dan. But what if you've got the target that needs downing fast? You have to tell Dan to target your target, then target Dan and input the command. Overall, not a bad idea.
Forced march: Sounds good, but what about this skill are they not telling us? Such as, will everyone be tired after using it? Will it take a drain off group member'sham to use? If not, then SLs will be sought after if for nothing else than to get everyone to the target's faster. Very useful if you're making runs to raids rather than shuttling in.
Smoke-em-if-you-got-em: I like the idea, but really of marginal use. Generally everyone's mind damage is full by the time you get to the next target anyway. Only time groups I've been in camp is for when we've got major wound healing. Sure, this helps out medics without healing packs, but that's about it. That, and it could possibly exploitable. Does this skill work on everyone in the camp, or does only the squad leader have to be in the camp? If the latter, then it would allow squad leaders to just sit in a camp somewhere afk while the rest of his group mows down the mobs nearby enjoying a good mind regen.
In conclusion, I belive that most of what we're getting is not worth the time it would take to program it. Sure, some of them sound good, and others could prove very benificial. However, the rest just encourage players to be AFK or punishes a group. Also, if these are replacing our current skills, then I say to hell with these. I wouldn't trade my group terrain bonuses for any or all of these skills. It's simply not worth it to me and my groups.
I would first off like to thank Holocron for posting the update, and to all the devs for the work they put into SL. This is a huge revamp of the SL abilities and is going to completely change us. I for one agree that we shouldn't make any judgements on the new abilites until we can try them out. I think they are great, I discussed them with my PA and we are all in agreance that these are some awsome changes and will have a GREAT inpact on the group game play and make the SL a true support class that is a definate force multiplier. It really sickened me to see some of the weaker SL so fast to trash talk the changes and start to complain about them before they are even in the game. We should be thankfull that SOE did such a major change for us when they could have just did a few slight adjustments and left us like that for 3 months. so from all of LFD (Left For Dead: Bria server) we thank the DEVs and hope they keep up the great work these changes to the SL and grouping as a whole.
Master Squad Leader/Master Ranger
This is really disapointing most of these things CAN be done in a good working group, Im also hoping this doesnt mean we loose defensive bonuses and such - what about giving Squadleaders extra Faction Pets or Mercenary Pets or something?
First thing Alot of these abilities better not use HAM to do - if it costs harm to tell people to change target Id laugh my self silly!!!
Devs you got to remember if we are hunting or out in a group we are going to constantly be using the abilities which means HAM problems for us :/
DEVS we can do most of this stuff now, like others have stated I refuse to make players into Pets, we got enough pokemon in the game atm.
If squad leaders were starving men we would have just been given a cracker!
Why not give us a proper meal HUH HUH HUH?
/dissapointed
I am inclined to agree that PCs should NOT be treated as pets. All these abilities to be able to control other players or simply "autotell" someone to do something is a waste. This could all be obtained by a SL who simply is not afraid to give ordersor acreative use of macros. Though a lot of these abilities may be appealing on paper, but realistically how effective would these be in combat? In my opinion I think the focus should be more on passive abilities that would benefit the group and a few abilities that we could activate at those crucial moments to pull our squads through.
From this line I do like the idea of the "Forced March" as I do think that we need a better mode of movement other then "Terrain Negotiation" which only influences movement over rough terrain. "Smoke-em-if-you-got-em" does bring up an interesting idea. Even though I disagree with this ability to give a mana regen as it really takes away from the entertainers, I believe we need more abilities that we can do inbetween combats. Being able to infuence artisans who are harvesting, smugglers slicing, etc... What I am trying to say is that as a SQUADLEADER we may be able to assist in more things than just combat as this game is not strictly combat based. If this ability stacks with that of the entertainers then it would follow the guidelines of what I am suggesting. I am not recommending that you replace our combat abilities just that we squadleaders could take one a larger role then simple combat.
The Squadleader is a profession/class that is unique to SWG, so in turn I figured alot more thought would have gone into its creation. Please DO NOT just slap a bunchof confusing abilities into this profession that could just as easily be performed through good ol'fasioned roleplaying. If you want a few good ideas pleaserefer to this thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=2823