Squad Leader Archive
Thread: FEEDBACK: The Group Leader Issue
Message Edited by BlueGlowy on 09-08-2005 06:08 PM
BlueGlowy wrote:
"Found it interesting someone on my server posted that the SL buffs are over powered (Im sure he means the new ones)"
You mean the Group Leader aspect of the changes, or just each of the individual buffs?
Message Edited by BlueGlowy on 09-08-2005 06:08 PM
The buffs we will be giving out, it was a list of enahcement items.
Keldarin wrote:
why should only one Squad Leader in a group be able to provide the benefit?
From a game mechanics point of view, maybe you're right, but from a "realism" (I know, bad word for SWG) point of view, it makes perfect sense to have only one Squad leader.
What if one squad leader says "fix bayonets and charge"and another says "dig in"? Leader means Leader....there can be only one person giving the orders.
Um, are you just starting to play this game?
Obviously people migrate their characters to the most powerful positions they can.
That's what FOTM (Flavor of the Month) is all about. and it's always what happens.
Don't make one class, or one classes' single tree more overpowered than every other profession, and you avoid having to swing the nerf bat later on.
Keldarin wrote:Nearly every other profession in the game can stack in a meaningful way when multiples are added to a group. Eight Rifleman in a group means eight times the damage output, eight Doctors in a group means eight times the healing potential why should only one Squad Leader in a group be able to provide the benefit?
That's good to hear and I hope you manage to attain it
. While a tad off topic (my appologies for that), I'd just like to pick on this point and bring up crowd control/mezzers. All those you listed do stack well in groups and hopefully SL will do the same, however, when you get 8 CC/mezzers in a group, the stacking does not (at least some people's experience) work well.Is this symtpomatic of the CC/mezzing role, or something that could be better implemented?
Going more on topic, I'd love to hear your view on the suggestions that seems to have been batted around of Squad Leaders that are the group leader receiving a boost to their skills and also the suggestion of allowing Squad Leaders to better co-ordinate between groups as part of their skill set (especially in space, as the 8 man group limit there is perhaps even more of an issue than on the ground).
WesBelden wrote:
Going more on topic, I'd love to hear your view on the suggestions that seems to have been batted around of Squad Leaders that are the group leader receiving a boost to their skills and also the suggestion of allowing Squad Leaders to better co-ordinate between groups as part of their skill set (especially in space, as the 8 man group limit there is perhaps even more of an issue than on the ground).
Keldarin wrote:
Hey guys,
Lots of great discussion here. Honestly I'm a bit surprised and encouraged that this is the biggest issue most of you have with the new Squad Leader enhancements. Hopefully some insight into why I changed the group leader requirement will help. (Not that I expect everyone to agree with me.
)
The primary goal of the changes was to make Squad Leader into a profession that was exciting and rewarding to play. Ideally every single profession skill set should have something exciting and rewarding about them that makes everyone want to try playing that profession. In that situation we would not longer have people playing a profession simply because it's the most powerful or best but because they personally prefer the playstyle offered by that profession.
Which is one of the reasons many of us feel that at least one SL in the group should be the leader.
Squad Leader has two primary roles that of group leadership and that of group enhancement. The previous focus on group leadership seemed to cause some perception problems with Squad Leader that turned players away from even trying the profession. There is also the problem that true leadership is not something that can ever be granted through character skills but is something almost intangible that is possessed by the player regardless of what character they are playing. These observations made me decide to concentrate on the group enhancement role of the Squad Leader profession. Group enhancement is a game mechanic that benefits everyone and really gives a solid strength and purpose to the profession. The concept of group leadership is still important and specific abilities that assist in that role were given but that is no longer the primary focus of the profession. This means that players can have a rewarding purpose and enjoy playing a Squad Leader regardless of whether they are the group leader or not. This also means that multiple Squad Leaders in a group can continue to benefit and enhance the group the same way multiple Riflemen or multiple Bounty Hunters do.
Leadership can not be granted through skills but the practice of leadership can be enhanced and leadership learned through the usage of skills. SL is a leadership role and while we do enhance the group - the majority of those who have played SL bring one thingthat is leadership. removing that factor just turns SL's into buff bots with no real role other then to say "hey heres a buff", not the current "Hey this is the way we should do this because it is most effective"
Leadership should be the primary focus of the profession. It is the reason 90% or more of the current SLs took up the profession. The name even implies leadership. It is like saying Smugglers should never ever smuggle - completely insane.
The removal of the ability to add or remove players from the profession is disruptive from a SLs point of view.
I've read all the great reasons for keeping Squad Leader abilities limited to the group leader and for the most part agree with many of them. The problem though is that a group leader restriction is too limiting and will prevent a large portion of players from being able to enjoy being a Squad Leader. The reality is that not having the restriction does not prevent any experienced and qualified Squad Leader from taking the leadership role that they desire and in fact can perform better due to the tools available to them, while still allowing players with Squad Leader skills to join a group in a support role that benefits everyone in the group and is rewarding to play.
If you agree with many of them please please rethink this idea. It is not that we are saying that onlyone SL should work in the group but that at least one SL has to be the leader of the group. A clear chain of command - SL is a leadership profession and leadership does require a chain of command. A GL that is not a SL creates a situation in which there are 2 equal leaders. Most current SLs would think that the ability to have a second SL with a more limited set of commands would be just about perfect but groups of SLs is completely out of control. We would rather have powerful limited specials then specials that are weak individually and have to be stacked multiples of times to get any benefit.
Forgive me for skimming, and no I'm not a Squad Leader. But the "group leader" discussion interests me. I've seen plenty of times within a group that the player's personalities themselves point out who the group leader is, not the pink dot on my radar. So where a "group leader" isn't necessarily the SL by personality, they are of course given the opportunity to lead to improve the group via their "aquired skills". But on to my real point.
The title Squad Leader puts myself, and many others under the impression that they are leading the group, how profound. So to us, it makes little sense that you would make it advantageous to have 8 players all leading a group, and providing it with the profession's skill bonuses. What military, if any, would group up an entire unit of their commanding officers? Yes multiple other combat professions can be in groups and those groups can benfit from their combined attacked. But you are talking about grouping a bunch of grunts together and asking them to fire at something.
Quite frankly I don't see many full groups of Doctors,none in fact. Sure they could buff and heal all day long, but where is their offense? And while we are on the subject of a group of doctors, do their buffs stack? I don't think so, no.Physically it can be done, but should it? No.
If anything you have one Squad Leader to act as a group leader. The group can benefit from his or her skills at full potential. Any other Squad Leaders in the group can use his or her skills, if say, the one leading the group were to fall (ie. incapacitation or death) and be unable to give commands. This could alsoinclude being out of range from the group. But for no other reason should 8 people be able to run around stacking accuracy bonuses and the likes. From where I am sitting it sounds like it could be unbalancing in PvP. And we all know, if it can be taken advantage of, someone will surely do it.
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness." Major" Motoko Kusanagi.
Message Edited by VegaDeath on 09-08-2005 09:41 PM
jphillips1868 hits it right on the head im my opinion
the reason people didn't play squadleader is not because of the set up or restrictions, its because the abilities were few if they even worked at all.
Thats the whole problem with the proposed change. It doesn't makeSL about supporting the leadership playstyle, it turns it into one more generalized combat profession. You might as well just rename the profession to white mage or paladin.
Darth_Sushi wrote:
I am able to get over the group leader hurdle if I view our role from a different perspective, that of "group enhancer" rather than "group leader." Real world military examples tend to break down at their implementation in an MMORPG, so we must concede to think in terms of abstraction (and anyway if I wanted true-life tactical simiulation I'd be playing Ghost Recon, not SWG). Imagine, abstractly, the scenario where a team is being led into combat by a relatively "green" Lieutenant, but on the team are one or more grizzled and battle-hardened Sergeants.
Message Edited by Darth_Sushi on 09-04-2005 06:18 PM