Squad Leader Archive

I am puzzled by your reasoning. We SL's currently HAVE to be Group Leader in order for you to get your bonuses and to apply our stuff. I have searched throughout the whole forum and I have yet to come upon anyone saying that they want that changed. So I ask you, why is it that you have a problem with us being Group Leaders now? If you play with a Squad Leader on your Server, you already have to make us your Group Leader. How and why has your opinion never been brought up before? It seems that you just want to pick a fight with us because you can. I myself have followed as Group Leader. Following as Group Leader is how I got my Bolotaur. It just makes no sense that after 2 years you have a problem with us being Group Leader. It makes no sense that I have yet to see any thread of this very topic. It makes no sense that we SLs have never heard of such a problem before (at least not myself anyways). The only problem I have seen is those selfish people who did not wish to give up lead because they ground out Jedi and the rest of the group didn't.

To all of you who are non-SL's please enlighten me and the rest of us SL's to why this has never been brought up before.

My (sarcastic) comment in it is: they now see the power of dabbling into SL and want to be able to do so. Our suggestions to balance the profession of course interferes with those (understandable) desired.

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Sylow wrote:
My (sarcastic) comment in it is: they now see the power of dabbling into SL and want to be able to do so. Our suggestions to balance the profession of course interferes with those (understandable) desired.

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I think there is more truth than sarcasm there Sylow. There is one post that I saw that was right in those lines actually. That poster had no problems pointing out that our want was imposing on his dabbling. I believe his claim to it was that he pays money to play as well and that our opinion was not worth more than his. True, but now I want to dabble in BH and get full BH marks and dabble in Smuggler to smugg..er nvm.

My current observations lead to that you two so far are right.

The dabblers are interested in "our" skill/skill mods as well as "our" abilities to enhance their own template for more power. They want to have access to these not to enhance their group, but themself. The enhancing of the group for those, at least to my current observations of the discussion, is only a nice sideeffect.

Although dabblers have their place in this game too, they shouldnt not get their power on the expense of the overall profession and the overall balance.

As KJFett3 already pointed out, they only want to have "our" buffs but do now want to lead, since they dabble our profession mostly for their own benefit, what again contradicts the initial design and concept of a squad leader. Sacrifce yourself (in terms of skillpoints and abilities as well as dedication behind the keyboard) to enhance the group.

Although those abilities are not "our buffs", but they should reflect the skills, abilities and virtues of a squad leader in the Star Wars Galaxies Universe, mimicing his abilities and responsiblities.

You play a squad leader since you want to see/play/exprience/be/roleplay a squad leader and bearing this in mind the abilities and restrictions as well as advantages should point the player into the direction what a squad leader would be like as well as what he should be responsible for in the star wars universe.

Again you dont give somebody strawberry icecream if he want to experience chocolate icecream just because its ice cream too.

A dabblers strength should lie in the variety, but at cost of the strength of his abilities, while a Master should truly be a master in his chosen profession but at the cost of his flexibility.

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_scout_ wrote:

Although dabblers have their place in this game too, they shouldnt not get their power on the expense of the overall profession and the overall balance.

You play a squad leader since you want to see/play/exprience/be/roleplay a squad leader and bearing this in mind the abilities and restrictions as well as advantages should point the player into the direction what a squad leader would be like as well as what he should be responsible for in the star wars universe.

A dabblers strength should lie in the variety, but at cost of the strength of his abilities, while a Master should truly be a master in his chosen profession but at the cost of his flexibility.

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Exactly...

Except, as its on TC, with the exception of Called Shot, none of our abilites have upgrades or a power curve to them. Someone who goes SL 0002 for Tactics and Toughen can do those two as well as a Master.

I never had a problem with the current requirement of SL bonuses only applying if they were the group leader, although it did seem arbitrary to me. However, when the new system proposes that multiple SL's (whether they be masters or not) can add multiple buffs to the group, and those buffs can add a lot of pretty cool benefits, there is a "sudden change of circumstances". This change is the reason why suddenly there is renewed interest in the SL profession, and you are suddenly hearing new opinions. I can understand that it would suck to wait forever for this revamp to come and then not be happy with the implementation, and even feel some contempt for all the new blood coming in that doesn't really know the profession like you guys do.

From the perspective of someone outside looking in (I've been a SL before, but never master) this whole mess seems strange to me too, but for the opposite reasons. It seems to me that your camp has a strong attachment to the group leader position, even when that stance would limit the power of this revamp given to your profession (an extreme oddity indeed, lol). When I was a SL, I accepted the fact that I needed to also be the group leader, because that was the mechanics of the implementation. I never have felt that being the group leader means anything other than granting the mechanically-oriented powers to add/remove members and change loot options. It doesn't really signify anything with regards to true leadership, at least not to me.

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AlienEntity wrote:
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The only problem I have seen is those selfish people who did not wish to give up lead because they ground out Jedi and the rest of the group didn't.

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I don't mean disrespect by this, but this statement could very easily be switched around and directed at the "SL must be GL" camp. It does seem from my perspective that you could be selfishly clinging to the GL position, because you ground out SL before it became the "new hotness" and the rest of the group didn't. I know that sounds like a flame, and I really don't intend it to be, I'm just trying to tell you what this all feels like from my (and I think many of the others as well) perspective.

Just for fun, I'm going to make an analogy out of this. And just to mix things up, I'm not going to compare it to real life military situations (which I have no firsthand training in, but respect those that do greatly), but to something I know a little better: sports. Specifically, hockey. In hockey, the coach sets up lines. They pick 3 forwards and 2 defensemen, and stick 'em on the ice together to see what happens. The coach is sorta like the group leader. On the other hand, among the players that are on the ice there are some that are capable not only of performing well themselves, but of enhancing the performances of their linemates. Stick Wayne Gretzky in a line with 2 mediocre forwards, and he'll make them look good. In my vision of a sports analogy to SWG, Wayne Gretzky is a Squad Leader.

Now, to take it a bit further, lets imagine that you could have a line with a "Wayne Gretzky" in at center, and a "Bobby Orr" in at defenseman. Our hypothetical Gretzky is going to ramp up the offense, generated not only by himself but by his line. Our hypothetical Orr is going to improve the defense of the entire line, also. Suddenly we have two "Squad Leaders", working together to achieve mutual gain. This is, in my opinion, the intent of the SL revamp we see on Test Center.

Problems could arise when you make your fantasy line composed of Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Joe Sakic, with Orr and Scott Stevens playing defese. The ol' "too many cooks" problem (oh crap, I just made an analogy in an analogy!). There would be some difficulties with those players, each used to leading their entire team, suddenly trying to work together. I feel like this is comparable to the extremes of the currently proposed system on TC. However, I think that an organic solution to both situations would be best -- there is no reason to *disallow* the arrangement entirely when a resolution will work itself out naturally.

OK, I think I'm done with my rambling, lol. Again, I really don't mean to sound like I'm picking a fight, because that is honestly not the case. I'm just trying to do what you requested and explain my opinion. Also, I realize that my analogy and arguments could have some holes or be turned around to promote the other point of view. My main reason for writing them was to try to explain my point of view in a detailed way that would be relatively easy to follow. At the end of the day, you can ignore me, think that I have an interesting viewpoint but disagree with me, or think that I'm completely cracked... Your choice, lol.

/salute

I see the issue of dabblers as being separate from the GL issue. I do agree that there needs to be rewards for getting master, both in terms of increased effectiveness of the early skills, and access to powerful master-only skills.

And from what I've seen of the skill trees on TC, there is a problem with this. Having a leadership mod work like healing efficacy for docs sounds like a reasonable idea to me, although it would need to be balanced so that the skills are worthwhile at low levels, just significantly more so at master... Right now you get poison at novice CM, but you have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting it to stick to anything, which I see as a problem. A snowball's chance in Florida might be justified, though.

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KJFett3 wrote:

Gah! I demand all hockey analogies outlawed from the SL forum! I haven't a clue what you just said....all I know is osme guys hits other guys with his stick more than he hits the little black flat ball into the net. It might as well be football with swords.

anyway, I would just like to point out to everyone that the SL=GL doesn't mean that the SL revamp would be watered down and useless. It means the Dev would take it back to the drawing board and make SL just as effective with the understanding that the SL had to be the GL to do his job and insure order in the group. In the end, SL would benefit their groups just as well if not better because all the commands come from one single not so confused player.

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Heh heh, I tried to make the hockey stuff fairly generic, but if you want to ignore that part, no worries.

I agree that SL=GL wouldn't make the revamp worthless, but it certainly would make it less powerful than it is now, without further coding. I would certainly say that it would be much better for the devs to say "Hey, we want to do a SL revamp, throw us some ideas and comments before we start working on it". You'd think that after the group xp fiasco they'd learn.

What you've been almost missing in your first comment on the GL = SL issues and your hokey analogy is that between the players there is a clear chain of command, who is captian who is defense or attack.

Some SLs dont see the problem as they play mostly within their guild, but again this is a prettty close environment where there are socials positions giving a natural chain of command between your friends. YOu know not to hit your smugglerfriends target, and rather assit your tanke while your SL volleyfires it.

But in an open environemnt like the MMORPG you also have ppl who play with random ppl, and although Im guilded I do that a lot.
My guild has pretty good alliances with other guilds and I have a very high rate of changing ppl, but at least they know me, which also again gives a chain of command.

Now what would happen with two total new SL in one group who dont know each other? And both are strongheads not going for a compromise. Among the variety of players there are ppl who dont mix well. Even among squad leaders.

In that case there is no chain of command, there would be an open opposition.

This fact some of us want to avoid with

(a) the old restriciton of being the group leader (What as well could reintroduce the SL xp what was bound to groupleder)

(b) the limitation of SL per group

(c) the set 2nd set 3rd command to multiple squad leaders if we have to accept this as fact.

I still await a DEVs comment on this as this would clarify a lot.

I ll be back later for more ...

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Actually, you see, in your example all your players mastered the Hockey Player profession. Thus it is just nice and fair if they are able to dominate the game.

But imagine that theywere challenged by Jack, Joe, Jim, Joseph and John Doe. Jack only learned the part of iceskating and never cared for anything else. Joe, on the other hand, learned how to actually hold the hockey stick and shoot the rubber thing around. Jim took the effort to learn how to actually get into the Hockey Player outfit,Joseph learned the rules andJohn looked up how to read the scoreboard.

Isn't it strange that they now together are able to play Icehockey as well as the team of professionals? Or even do it even better, as the time they saved by not learning all there is to be known about the game, they spent in Gym to build up their muscles, did some brawler training to be even better in beating up the other side and take steroids, just in case.