Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Official: Your Comments on the New Abilities
So in reality I am directing 4-5 "units" it's just that those "units" are made up of multiple players. And I think of them that way. Ranged 1 and 2, Melee 1 and 2, Healer. Though very often because of how the game is biased right now it's Ranged 1, 2, and sometimes 3, Melee and Healer.
But my point is that I never micromanage 20 people. It'd be a waste of time. I would either get killed or never be able to fight as my own character. But by sizing up what needs to be hit when and handing those orders out to my entire group, the job gets done pretty **edit** quickly. Subgroups would allow me to throw commands at my 4-5 "units" and let them understand and achieve those goals without my micromanagement. Maybe I demand a lot of my groups as a Squad Leader, but I have found that even casual players will rise to the challenge when you give them a bit of structure buffered by a lot of freedom.
Though reminding them about Warning Shot never hurts.
Aden,
Let me give you an example of how we handled sub groups in my old guild.
There would be a Main Cleric who I would assign. He would create a chat channel for the clerics and assign duties for them. If there needed to be a chain CH rotation he would set it up, etc... We also had a healer lead everyone of our 6 man groups in EQ, so we knew that everyone hadhealer support.
I would assign a Main Tank. He would coordinate the other tanks. Assign a 2nd tank, 3rd Tank, etc... He would let the clerics know them, and they would have all of the tanks hottbuttoned so they can switch targets and heal them at a moments notice. MT would usually be in the same group at MC, 2nd tank with 2nd cleric, etc... The rest of the team would be spread out to the other groups fairly randomly. It didn't matter which group people were in for the most part, but most of the raid leadership was in group 1.
We had a Buff/Debuff coordinator. He would make sure all the buffers were assigned buffing details so that everyone had their specific buffs in place. He would also coordinate the timining of the debuffs. For example, dispell happened first, then tash, malo, slow, etc...
I would assign a pulling team. The main puller would coordinate how we would get to the target and draw mobs to us as we came across them. He would also specify the camps and we would essentially hop from one camp to the next. The main puller would have a healer to keep him alive and possibly others to do tag pulling, etc...
Someone would be in charge of crown control He would get the Cc team and determine who was going to hand which adds so they did not overlap. You take left of MT, and I take right, etc...
If you tried to do all of these things yourself, an large raid would never get off the ground. This is just the tip of the iceburg as well. There are tons of other things you have to keep track of. The key to a successful large raid encounter is having a core team that is working off ofthe same page who can bring this large mob into some semblance of order.
Having a front line, support line, and range line sounds interesting but I don't see it coming together. Maybe if they expanded their concept I would have a greater appreciation for it, but I am hesitant to support it at this time. Plus its so early in this game that its hard to tell what organizational structure is going to make the most sense. You will need to have tankleadership, healingleaderhip, range weapon leadership, and a half dozen other categories as well depending on the type of encounter you might come across. It all comes down to people, and thats what makes MMORG's great IMO.
My main focus, if theseare what we're getting, what can we do with them?
I understand that point of view.
However, at this point I think it's more important that we demonstrate why these abilities are not what we want, rather than figure out ways to live with them. There will be plenty of time for that later if we get stuck with them.
Of course, it will probably be other people doing that, because most of us will give up on the profession.
TychusTM wrote:
...at this point I think it's more important that we demonstrate why these abilities are not what we want.
Valid point.
I'm operating under the assumption that nothing I say on here is going sway a dev one way or the other.
So, my question is, are we reallysure we don't want these abilities on their own merits? I suggest putting asideall othercommunity proposedskills and abilities and fixes and how-it-works-now-isms for a moment and opening a frank discussion on the pros and cons of just these abilities, albeit with the very limited knowledge we have. For all we know Offensive Stance might be an uberMaster SL ability that grants a massive2 x #groupsize speed and damage increase to the group and the def penalty might onlybe 10%, I think that alone might outweigh all cons, but who know's we're all just speculating. So based on what we do know why might these skills be of use or not?
I've done my best to spark a discussion on useful tactics for the "might be useful side", I'm not sureanybody else will be contributing to that side,so I'll leave it as is and turn to the "might be detrimental side"...
The biggestnegative (and only truly detrimental thing I've seen other thanblanket redundant/useless/suck statements) I've seen discussed is the many griefing avenues this opens up. This is a very valid concern. But, every player in the group has a counter to such grief.Issue the /leavegroup command and *poof*grief free. High profile griefer/abusers will,I think, be quickly identified and shunned just as many exploiters cheaters are today. They will be /ignored by anyone that matters. My fear is that greifer types will then prey on newbies. Thisis a bad thing. A newbie that gets griefed and riduculed and quits because of it isjust plain bad for the game.
Even worse, beyond that, if a slew of l33t kiddies flock to Squad Leader to grief (something I've been vocal againstencouraging since I became a SL) they will tarnish the profession as a whole and it's going to be that much harder for us good hardworking leaders to earn a reputation and the trust of potential groupmates. This is a very very bad thing. If this is the end result, and I suspect it might be, then I think SLs will be a truly dying or deadbreed. If the communityperception of greif 
outweighs the community perception of usefulness 
then SL is doomed (I think given the buzz at the moment that grief has a 10-1 lead).
So, I think if/when these come down the pipe, and they sound like they're coming hell or highwater, the responsibility will besquarelyon us, the upright Squad Leader brigade, to educate the community rather than scare the community. If enough of us use the skills responsibly, effectively, and successfully then the few bad seed greifers that follow will hoepfully be written off as the exception, not the rule. If these are going to exist we are going to need good PR and quick, or else we're going to all see a steady stream of /leavegroups and /declineInvites in our very nearfuture.
Or, maybe I'm wrong and Holo will see the outcry and halt these changes. Even so, I myself wouldrather test drive thesenow rather wait than 3-6 months forcooler, totallyreworked skills. It's something new at least.
-Psquire
Okay I think its pretty clear that both [tab]bing to find your target and trying to click a moving target inthe dark with our reticle are both horribly ineffective methods. Assuming that they wont do the right thing and say...have tab reset to either the closest target or the target closest to the center of your screen, then they should use the urge to have the squad leader target for everyone to partially fix this problem.
The squal leader selects a target and marks it as /nexttarget. After that, when anyone in the party who uses [tab] to locate a target, they go to his marked target first, and then go on through the normal cycle.
Alternatively, the squad leader could mark targets as /safetarget and they would be skipped by [tab] for everyone in the group.
Here's my official comment on the "New Abilities":
Do not give us this freak-show grab-bag of things to do.
Fix what we already have and I bet we'll be fine for a while.
There, now I've said it officially.
I really hate it that people don't seem to like Group Attack. Please don't tell them not toimplement that, Vemnox. Setting everyone's target to the same thing would be the single most important Squad Leader ability for me. I was doing SL in the first place because I thought that's what Volley Fire did.
Maybe the autoattack part of it is wrong (I dont think so, others do), but having a target-setting ability makesa group with a Squad Leader much better than a group without one, which is what everyone wants, right?
Everyone, please realize, that if /assist worked properly, almost all of these abilities would be worthless...
Shuyunh wrote:Belce wrote,
"/cover is way better than hoping 18 people will maybe quickly find and /assist the correct group member."
This is not true. Ask anyone who has played a MMORG game where /assist worked propertly and they will tell you the same. If /assist worked everyone could click one button and they would immediately have the target of the Main Assist (MA) targeted (You determine who is MA at the start of the raid and just hardcode your button to read /assist "Main Tank"). This is much faster then having the SL find the target of the MA and then doing /coverfire. Plus you want the MA to engage first so they take the agro of the mobs, the healers are setup to heal them, and your CC have an indication of where the mobs are headed. If everyone fires at the mob at the first shot, then there is no agro control at all and the wrong person, someone who can not handle the agro, will die. Right now, in SWG most mobs are weak, even if they are red. This will change if they ever get serious content in this game, at which point agro control will become very important. This is in addition to the other objections I have with healers attacking mobs, Crowd Control attacking mob,etc...
Why do I like "/sys ALL ATTACK TUSKEN CAPTAIN ON LEFT" better than /cover and the all fire and such commands?
1) I don't want my support rolls/healers attacking when they shouldn't be
2) This may sound half assed, but I'm glad that not 100% of my group listens and attacks the tusken captain. More often than not there will be an add or two during the fight, and usualy a couple of people will break off to tank/hold or even sometimes solo those adds so we don't have them wiping out our support. Sometimes even myself, I attack something different than the main group because I'm a TKA and pretty proficient at tanking 1-2 things long enough for the rest of the group to get X dead and then help me.
Palitrine wrote:
Why do I like "/sys ALL ATTACK TUSKEN CAPTAIN ON LEFT" better than /cover and the all fire and such commands?
1) I don't want my support rolls/healers attacking when they shouldn't be
Then assign the healers to a non fighting sub-position ala "Support" and only issue groupattacks to the "Ranged" and "FrontLine" positions.
2) This may sound half assed, but I'm glad that not 100% of my group listens and attacks the tusken captain. More often than not there will be an add or two during the fight, and usualy a couple of people will break off to tank/hold or even sometimes solo those adds so we don't have them wiping out our support. Sometimes even myself, I attack something different than the main group because I'm a TKA and pretty proficient at tanking 1-2 things long enough for the rest of the group to get X dead and then help me.
I think this is a good point. I've described elsewhere how you could structure the groups with Crowd controlers in one position and for lack of a better term "puppet attackers" in another. But even so, I think a lot of situations will come up where you only need about 1/2 the muppets to attack your target and the rest to consentrat on their duties. Perhaps in these situations you skip doing /groupattack and just issue the /sys order like you describe above. It's all about situational awareness.
Thanks,
-Psquire
These auto-attack muppetmaster commands seem to be the ones most folks are up in arms about. I think one thing people are neglecting is the HAM costs of these. I suspect if the devs do their job playbalancing (no guarantees or waranteesexpressed or implied) that no one will be able to mindlessly spam these commands. I do not yet have/volleyfire can anyone tell me roughly what HAM costs are for that? is it spammable?
-Group Attack:
Anyone not already in combat will enqueue an attack vs. the leader's look-at target
My question is how will this actually play out?
1) Will you issue the command, everyone takes a single, non-special poke at your target and then return to what they were targeting before? (isn't this exactly what volleyfire does? please enlighten me)
2) Or will it enqueue (?) an attack by all groupies and STAYTARGETED on my target until dead?
All costs being equal option 1 will require more HAM because you'll have to issue itoften to keep firepower on target, spamming option one will likly drain your mind very quickly. option 2 would be in danger of being a puppet master "fire-and-forget" skill, unless they make it's cost high(not asbrutal as /retreat is now, but much more than /rally). That said, I'd prefer option two, mainly because after the first round of. Of course, maybe it'll be implemented some totally different way instead.
-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.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I interperet /assist here is that the group will attack Dan's target until it's dead (like option 2 above). Maybe it'll work like option 1, not sure. But I think the same HAM costs should apply to match the options above.
I happen to like this conceptof cover more than group attack. It will allow me to stay out of firing range and dictate strategy in relative safety by being able to assign dynamic spotters as needed. Withsmart subdivisions usingassign positions and I could focus the firepower of three different groups over three different areas with ease. I know I know, simple matter to pick a main assist person and have everyone macro him to an /assist key. I agree and most big battles should start out with such plans in place. But people, including myself, are lazy and aren't guaranteed to make that macro, nor will they always have time to dynamically adjust when the bodies are piling up. Not to mention if my first 3 preselected main assists go down then I'd have to rely on people seeing and comprehending /sys /assist on the fly commands while blaster shots are flying by. All I'm saying is a lot can happen out there, and smart use of these skills could help bring order from chaos.
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Finally, to everyone suggesting these would be obsolete/redundant if /assist and the current skills actually worked. I'm not dissing your tactics. In fact I plan on starting to use a lot of them this weekend. I just ask you to consider how these skills can be used to augment and enhance your current tactics and help your teams reach higher levels (which admittedly don't really exists yet...but that's another thread). Take for example either a PvP or PvE battlefield. I suspect the first half will be governed by a predetermined battle plan, main assisters, pullers, healers, the whole nine, everyone working in concert. If all goes well great, you win. But if people start dropping suddenly there's holes inyour and you'll need to readjust. Perhaps you've planned for these and your personel are quick to respond, but perhaps not. It is inthese situations that I see the most value in these so called "puppet" skills, not in controlling /afk player minions.
Are these auto attack commandskiller apps? remains to be seen, but probably not (I'm hoping the Offensive Stance buff is thebig winnermyself). But I do think it can add depth and flexibility to strategy, especially in PvP where the other side is anything but predictable. I'd really like to see people think these thru before jumping on the bandwagon, and declaring them useless.
-Psquire, still crusading
Psquire wrote:
Take for example either a PvP or PvE battlefield. I suspect the first half will be governed by a predetermined battle plan, main assisters, pullers, healers, the whole nine, everyone working in concert. If all goes well great, you win. But if people start dropping suddenly there's holes inyour and you'll need to readjust. Perhaps you've planned for these and your personel are quick to respond, but perhaps not. It is inthese situations that I see the most value in these so called "puppet" skills, not in controlling /afk player minions.
-Psquire, still crusading
From my experience, if the doodoo doesn't hit the fan every once in a while then the raid is to trivial for the group and everyone gets bored. Its when the going gets tuff thatyou need the flexibility that a good team brings to the table the most. Your teams ability to respond to crisis is what makes a group great. Not only will trying to puppet master your way out of it likely fail, it takes away from the enjoyment of being in a group and playing the game in the first place.
Squad Leaders should not try to be the hero. The hero's are the tanks fighting off the mobs, the pistoleer who peals off an add to give us more breathing room, the medic thattimes the heal just right so you can continue to fight on even though 5 other people are getting whacked at the same time and they are all still fighting it out. SL's simply provides an environment wherehero's can step up and show their mettle. That's what its all about, IMO.
"Not only will trying to puppet master your way out of it likely fail, it takes away from the enjoyment of being in a group and playing the game in the first place."
Exactly.
I don't play this game for fast, efficient, easy XP. I want a challenge! The most exciting and memorable encounters are the ones where the outcome is in doubt until the very end. Where everyone ends up wide eyed and high on victory, amazed that they survived.
As a member of a group, the knowledge that my actions made a difference in the outcome of that fight made a difference make me feel good.
As a leader, there's no way I'd take that feeling away from the group by trying to dictate their actions. I'd rather get wiped out.