Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Official Discussion: Strategy
I love this idea. The only thing that I could consider changing is perhaps bringing the basic /steadyaim down to Novice Squad Leader so that a Novice has an active ability from which to earn xp... Shifting everything else down a notch (but leaving the Master skill as a Master skill) would leave Strategy IV available for a status changing group maneuver like the previously mentioned /coverfire...but for this strategy to work, you would instruct your team to, rather than focus their fire on a single target, have each member target a different aggro enemy because the next volley will powerup with a posture change, and or KD/Dizzy.
This is probably SL's most useless tree. Steady aim only lasts for one round, and only provides a small bonus. For the cost and failure rate, this is not a worthwhile ability to use often, especially since rally essentially does the same thing before for a longer time period.
Volly Fire is especially useless as it doesnt allow people to target specific HAMs or utilize special moves.
This tree should focus on SL granted abilities to the entire group. These abilities would be useable by anyone grouped with the SL. Some examples could be as follows:
Cover Fire: Target your teammate to use cover fire, this removes one aggro from your teammate, and causes that creature to take cover, effectively changing their posture one level lower. The creature's aggro is now on you.
Flank: Provides an accuracy and/or damage bonus to all attacks when the flanking requirements are met. This would mean that two or more teammates would have to be targetting the same mob, and be separated by an angle of 60 degrees or more.
High Ground: Provides an elevation bonus to accuracy.
Having these types of abilities wouldmake SL lead groups 100 times more effective than those without, as it would essentially give an elite version of the ranged support tree from marksman to all members. These all also fall under the strategy and tactics theme of things a SL would be doing or ordering his troops to do.
/Steady aim: fine for a level 1 skill considering it's application is pretty much limited to commandoes and the one or two other lowaccuracy high damage classes.
/Volley fire: fubar'ed in it's current state. This skill significantly reduces the damage output of the groups next attack by forcing a basic auto attack. You lose not only the damage modifiers of specials but also the state changes. These skills could be completely removed and replaced, and should be. Or at least altered dramatically from their current implementation to include some form or combination of increased damage, targetted damage, or state changes.
I think /painttarget should be put in instead of Volleyfire move the improved Volleyfire up to Volleyfire2 slot.
too many different ideas i think.
HOWEVER they ARE all good ones heh.......so much to choose from, its like a kid in the candy store.
Since they seem to have focused on aiming and volleyfire (target cohesion) in this here are my thoughts:
Get rid of steady aim...completely. Its worthless.
INSTEAD keep it simple. GIve a squad leader another passive skill for accuracy. Give them accuracy Mods for ranged and melee. So box 1 +5 accuracy to everyone, box 2 +10, box 3 +5, box 4 +10 a total of +30 accuracy. Maybe a bit strong, but then Masterful SL's should be giving large bonuses to groups. With passive accuracy modifiers you wotn need steady aim.
PLUS if you ask me....no SL worth his salt is going to waste a Combat Que slot, HAM, and time for using an advanced form of the "AIM" command. I certainly wont.
Next... Volleyfire.
Standard Volleyfire should be given at Box 2, it is not an "insanely" powerful skill. Allow volleyfire to target everyones next attack on your current target, using default attack with a 2x or 3x modifier of what it currently has. Basically, current system with a large modifier on the attack
Box 4: Advanced Volleyfire. Everyones next attack hits the target youve called for an attack on WITH THEIR SPECIALS HITTING. In effect, current system except everyone hits with whatever special they have Que'd up. Imagine 3 Smugglers hitting with last ditch at the same time or riflemen with advanced strafe hitting the target at the same time.
alternatively the SL could punch /advolleyaction and the volleyfire would go off with the default+modifier on the targetted HAM pool.
so u have a choice with advanced volleyfire. Hit with specials, or hit targetted HAM with base damage modifiers.
I also like the paint target concept. It goes along with things ive posted before about SL's being able to give targets, put WP's on the map, etc.....its that kind of useful.
box 1 shoudl give /paint and allow for up to 3 priorities. Since red is already used for enemies..dont use that one. Use Green for priority 1, yellow for priority 2, and blue for priority 3.
i think 3 should be the max....otherwise it is #1 too bulky, #2 too time-consuming to paint all that anyway, #3 too "powerful" for a box 1 skill. The ability to paint a target and focus your atatcks on those targets is indeed a strong ability. Ofc anyone who uses TeamSpeak, like I attempt to do, wont mak emuch use of paint.....but still youd hav member not on TeamSpeak, server coudl be down, etc.....this could be a useful skill
im summary:
passive accuracy modifiers instead of /steadyaim
/volleyfire with damage mod
/advvolleyfire with special's hitting or alternatively HAM targetting with damage MOD
and /paint to set priorities on targets.
Ok my ideas
Steady aim is nice...for one shot, but i agree with the others behind this that it should eather last awhile like Rally or have it do more dammage b/c how it is now its not very usefull..Yes it would be nice to move it down to Novice but i didnt think doing specials added to ur xp u get
Vollyfire. This is a great idea in theroy but its not very practical in the game. One, there are so many specail shots, hits, ect.... So you cant really choosea special shot like fan shot or body shot because each guy wont have that shot. so for me i would eather give the SL a Special shot/move that all types of ppl can use, eather be rifle, brawler, pistol, carbine, or anything else.
The target painting sounds ok too
Im also saying maybe giving the SL a higher Radar Scope or something so he/she can organize better if he so chooses to,
the only problem with giving SL a "better" radar, is that the way the game spawns MOB's, once you go past the 128m mark on the radar.....you really wont see much of anything in advance to make it worth having.
if anything Master Squad Leaders (i say master because this is a VERY powerful tool thta a novice should not get) should be able to purchae equipment from a DE or Master Artisan that allows us to jam enemy player radars within a 128m radius of the SL. In other words....they cant see anyone in your group on their radar if they are within 128m of you, theyd have to use visual sighting and manual targeting.
Yeah, you gotta watch out for those rancors that have radar.... ^_^
But I did have a similar idea a while back. The skill mod was "Field of View" and it increased by like 5m each tier (I had it in the Terrain branch). But then I thought that it was more of a Ranger type skill even though they already have areatrack.
We have to remember that SL is neither PvP or PvE specific. Any active or passive skills need to include both methods of play. Some make work better inPvP but they still should be able to be used in PvE.
I do like the idea ofsharing Radar information by a new /designatePointman ability. Rather than simply making Squad Leaders have a greater Radar than anyone else, it wouldinstead be the ability to gather and shareintel which is a legitimate Squad Leader function.
Thulium wrote:
I do like the idea ofsharing Radar information by a new /designatePointman ability. Rather than simply making Squad Leaders have a greater Radar than anyone else, it wouldinstead be the ability to gather and shareintel which is a legitimate Squad Leader function.
This would be an excellent Idea. Although it should apply to every member's radar, not just a single pointman. This would be helpful in PvP, especially if we were able to have Buildings block the radar signals when grouped with a Squad leader. Make it easier to hide around corners...
Can you imagine the PVP battles when you don't know what's around the corner? Should make things more interesting, more like a real battle. This way you can actually set up ambushes, which is impossible now unless you sit right next to the starport and attack them before they finish loading...
Mavhawk wrote:
which is impossible now unless you sit right next to the starport and attack them before they finish loading...
If you don't know already, this is going away with the next big publish. Overts will become Covert for 60seconds while loading. This would be a good thing except that it means you should watch your backs because if someone finishes loading before the 60sec timer is up, they may not be where you expect them to be when they go Overt.