Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Why Squad Leader is the perfect choice for Healing Mind
ZOGMrBill !
Entertainers are not a combat class. They heal BF and take care of peopl after a battle.. and nothing durring.
Squad leader is front line group buff type .. suppose to make a difference while in lead position in battle.
Right now mind is seriously in need of a way to heal in combat ..not outside of combat... we are fine there with entertainers ( entertainers shouldgive a small regen bonus to all stat pools while not in battle at a camp or cantina or house).
But as you well know.. entertainers not a combat class in any way.
I LIKE the idea of mind regen/buff/damage healing.
- There is obviously a problem when COMBAT professions have migrated their stats so that they haveas much or more MIND thanany other profession. I saw a PvPer last night with a Mind bar twice as long as both his other bars COMBINED. Most of the PvPers I saw last night had more in Mind than either of their other two bars, and who knows where their Mind stat migration will end. I wonder what their Mind support stats looked like.
- The argument that entertainers will be hurt has no basis: wounds and battle fatigue still require an entertainer. There will be no decrease in Cantina populations.
- Riflemen may in fact need LESS help from the Devswhen mind healing is added back to the game. As it is, Combat professions are upping their Mind stats, making Riflemen less effective relative to everyone else. I think the devs intended for Pistolto be a little stronger than Rifle or Carbinebecase they intended for Combat professions to needbiggerHealth bars and less Mind bars.Therefore, Riflemen should be as effective as Pistoleers if the HAM bars were correctly balanced.
- The argument that their should be no mind healing is falacious. There is Health and Action healing, and there should be Mind healing as well.
- The effect of allowing mind damage to be healed will only restore a capability that the designers intended to be present from the beginning. It was only removed because of the 'medic exploit'. It must come back, and in terms of roles, the SL actually makes more sense than medics, not to mention SLs need a lot more reasons to exist than they have now.
Kupe wrote:
I like where you're going with this idea Sundown. Is there any guarantee that two (or more) SLs in a group together can't just rotate the lead position via the /makeleader command thus exploiting the mind healing capability you're suggesting?
Yep, it's mentioned in the post. Just add a 60 second (or whatever's appropriate) timer to prevent any SL from being mind healed after he's been the leader of a group. Done, whap, fixed. No exploit.
Squad Leaders healing mind damage in no way makes the Entertainer "useless". It already speaks volumes that there are many, many, more entertainers than there are Squad Leaders. However, Squad Leaders should NOT be able to heal mind wounds. In fact, it would be a great idea for Squad Leaders to incur BF and mind wounds when he himself is mind healing, as someone mentioned. So that over time, Squad Leaders would really depend on entertainers both between battles and between trips into the wild.
I don't know why Entertainers would feel slighted for another profession being given a newability that they never had, simply because it's called "mind"... but if implemented properly, we can create even *more* dedicatedcustomers for Entertainers... in the form of tired Squad Leaders with BF and wounds to heal. But to do this, we need to make Squad Leaders useful and hence plentiful in the first place.
I agree that therenow may beissues with Riflemen, since being able to hit an unhealable pool was one of their biggest boons. The profession will need to be adjusted a bit and balanced for gameplay, either by reducing their HAM costs, increasing their damage rates, or something else to improve their overall effectiveness. But allowing them to damage an unhealable mindpool is simply a bad gameplay mechanic, made worse by BH's who don't even drain mind to hit mind.
This brings us onto the next point... The fact that BH's don't drain mind to hit mind will make them the most feared one-on-one opponent, evenunder this system... to all classes AND to riflemen. We could adjust the rifleman's damage so that he does slightly more DPS than the bounty hunter on mind... but would still lose to a bounty hunter in a one on one situation, simply because the BH isn't damaging his own mind. And we could give riflemen greater penalties to shoot when moving fast... to make them easier to catch up to in a one on one situation, while the BH can keep somewhat more mobile and stay somewhat more accurate with his smaller, more maneuverable weapons. But riflemen in a group, properly supported and kept out of harms way, will be able to dish more damage than the BH.
This gives us the exact balance we need, and something close to the game's supposed vision:
Master Riflemen are better than Master BH'sagainst and in groups (due to better DPS, but only if he's kept out of harms way and doesn't need to move around much).
Master Pistoleers are betterthan Master BH'sagainst and in groups (due to better DPS in pistols)
Master Carbineers are better than Master BH'sagainst and ingroups (due to better DPS in carbines)
Master BH's are better than Pistoleers or Carbineers in one on one (due to targetting unhealable mind in solo).
Mater BH's are better than Riflemen in one on one (due to targetting unhealable mind, *and* being able to catch up to the rifleman and get within minimum range,due to larger riflemanmovement penalties,plus not having to use mind to target mind... while the rifleman drains his own mind even as he target's the BH's).
JerynChoicewrote:
Our presence could allowbattle fatigue clearing by entertainers in camps, perhaps. Let's give those dancing marksmen and artisans a place in the field, huh?
The real problem isn't mind healing or BF in camps, or after a battle. It's mind healing during a battle. By giving SL leaders mind healing abilities in battle, we fix a gameplay mechanic/balance many have been complaining about... *and* give SL something that's sought after. Helping entertainers heal BF in camps does nothing about mind damage.
Shuyunh wrote:
The problem with this scenario is now the SL can not be a melee tank class. He can only be a ranged combat profession. There are few enough SL as it is. SL'sneed to have an ability that everyone in the group benefitsincluding himself.
I see SL's not being a tank class being a good thing. Squad Leaders in real life tend to try to stay alive in order to support the group, and this might mean positioning himself where he's less vulnerable. I'm not sure it makes sense in the first place for a Squad Leader to constantly throw himself into the front to be gnawed on by Rancors or Kimos.
I agree that the SL needs abilities that benefits himself, as well. But these benefits should be handled by other SL abilities. If they're given mind healing abilities, it doesn't mean that this will be the only or primary thing they can do. Although it would be infinitely valuable to everyone in the group.
Musicians are already able to boost mind states, including regen and drain rates. I'm not sure if they'd enjoy us stealing this ability from them. This *would* actually be a "nerf" on the Entertainers' part. But mind healing, something they can't do anyway, wouldn't.
RagatholVaynard wrote:
In a group of 10, against a tough lair, my group had 3 very capable combat medics. It is very frustrating then, that when we got some adds from a nearby lair, we all died. Why, you might ask? Every single person in the group was incapacitated by their MIND bar.
Doesn't that seem a little skewed to you? We have 3 medics, working furiously to keep us alive, and then we all suddenly keel over because we are too mentally exhausted to continue. (And ironically, the Medics, who use their mind bar to heal, were the last to die. I think one or two actually got away.)
When you are fighting monsters that do 200 points of damage through your armor, you dread the 3-5 random hits that will eventually incapacitate you because they are unhealable.
Exactly. This is exactly what happened last night on Lok with a capable group. We all died from mind wounds. And not the medics. Those random and partial hits to mind in a group, when going up against really tough mobs, add up very quickly, even when they can't target mind specifically. These are mobs we would never go up against solo, but in a group, they're doable.
But they always end up bringing us down because of the minor, random, but unhealable mind hits.
All we Squad Leaders could do in the group was curse at the blue bar, wishing there was some way for us to heal it... and spam the group with /sysgroup to keep the medics alive.
We are all fully buffed, main tank had spice, composite armor and etc etc. A rather large group with CM, 3 doctors and a CH.
We still get owned by mobs that BAF against us, not because we couldnt take them on but because of all those silly random hits on our mind bars.
Eventually we call out pets to tank for us, unfortunately thats why Combat in SWG are so reliant on pets , becos real players cant tank even if they are a melee char.
Although I personally don't like not having the mind heal for myself, it's only fair for balance and have to agree.
On a lighter note, this change would make the SL's rarer even moreso than we already are. (title-wise for pvp =P now to just get rid of my reputation of leading groups... )
Sundown6 wrote:
I see SL's not being a tank class being a good thing. Squad Leaders in real life tend to try to stay alive in order to support the group, and this might mean positioning himself where he's less vulnerable. I'm not sure it makes sense in the first place for a Squad Leader to constantly throw himself into the front to be gnawed on by Rancors or Kimos.
Sundown, your kiling me. Squad Leaders go and do whatever they have to do to win. If its tanking, then thats what they do. No one is going to respect a leader in a small group who won't step up and fight when necessary. In fact the good officers (Lt's not generals) are oftenthe first to die in a war.
Not that we have to mirror real life. Lets just keep it to gaming. If we are the only one in the group who can heal mind, well guess what. That is all we will be allowed to do down the road. We will be full time mind healers, more so then the HA medic healers. You can have 2 or 3 or more of those. We will be so caught up in the mind healing game, that we wont get to fight at all, if its a serious encounter. This would make us valuable, but Ididn't get into the profession to play that role in a group.
The only way we can fight and heal mind dammage is if its a passive regen ability. If they make us proper mind healers like you have stated, then they should rename us to Group Counciling Therapists. In which case I can dump my SL skills and do something more interesting with them.
This subject came up on my PA message board last night, and here was my response comparing the pros & cons between Entertainers & SLs getting it:
1) Entertainer:
Pros:
-Entertainer is already the "Mind" healers in the game.
-This would give them something to do during combat.
Con:
-Easily Exploitable (check out Yueh's post... right on the money).
-Would, asthetically, look rediculous... think about this scene: A large firefight with some musicians playing cantina themes and/or a dancer strutting his/her stuff
2) Squad Leader:
Pros:
-The exploit Yueh mentioned wouldn't happen, since only 1 Squad Leader can use his/her ablilities (since they have to be the Leader).
-This Mind Heal is actually a "Group Buff" which is (or at least, it supposed to be) the realm of the Squad Leaders.
Cons:
-Squad Leaders are rarer than any other profession (other than Jedi) and it SHOULD be like this, since groups can only handle 1... this ablility is too important for that rare of a profession, and will bring more people over to Squad Leader than the game can handle.
note: The "Yueh Post" was a post that mentioned the "2 Entertainers healing each other" exploit
"On a lighter note, this change would make the SL's rarer even moreso than we already are. (title-wise for pvp =P now to just get rid of my reputation of leading groups... )"
Lol! How true. But give SL powers uniqueanimations and let the smart players figure it out for themselves.
---
I'm all for Squad Leaders getting the ability to heal the entire group's mind pool by 50 (for novice SL) - 300 (for master)points a pop, with a 5-6 second timer on the action. This should be fairly balanced with the upwards of 3k one-shot heals doctors and CMs have.
As for the heal timer on the /makeleader command. I think this could be accomplished with a simple timer on the /makeleader command. Leadership can't change hands more than once every 120 seconds sound fair?
As for back-up leadership? Well, actually, at least in the US military, the entire squad is back-up leadership! In decending order of rank, of course, so this makes perfect sense. best SL is the leader, second best is the back up (except I believe you can /makeleader while incappacitated, anyway).
This, and a Song of Speed-type ability is all we really, really need to become at least playable. We can worry about the rest later.
Shuyunh wrote:
Sundown6 wrote:
I see SL's not being a tank class being a good thing. Squad Leaders in real life tend to try to stay alive in order to support the group, and this might mean positioning himself where he's less vulnerable. I'm not sure it makes sense in the first place for a Squad Leader to constantly throw himself into the front to be gnawed on by Rancors or Kimos.
Sundown, your kiling me. Squad Leaders go and do whatever they have to do to win. If its tanking, then thats what they do. No one is going to respect a leader in a small group who won't step up and fight when necessary. In fact the good officers (Lt's not generals) are oftenthe first to die in a war.
I don't equate tanking as beingabsolutely centralto "doing whatever they have to win", at least in my vision of the Squad Leader. And not tanking isn't my idea of "not stepping up and fighting" either, although you almostseem toimply thatan SL'sslacking on the job if he's nottanking, or not a brawler. The Squad Leader is firing his weapon, doing his specials, and pretty much the same as the rest of his team, if not more. We're actually required to do significant damage in order to even gain Squad Leader XP.It doesn't make him any less of a leader and any guilty of not "stepping up", just because he can't tank.
I agree good officers lead by example. And good officers put themselves in harms way. A good example of this is Richard Winters of Easy Company. But good officers aren't reckless, either.
Anyway, I agree that tanking isn't necessarily a reckless behavior in SWG, as it would be in "real life", and I made the mistake of comparing that silly mental image of a Squad Leader throwing himself at a Rancor's maul with myideal of the decisive, risk-taking,but calculating Squad Leader... and it just didn't seem right to me.
But as far as the game goes, you do have a valid point regarding SL's turning into solemind healers, and being relegated to doing only that. SL's need to be given other significant abilities, like bonuses and tactical advantages, in addition to mind healing.
And you do have a valid point regarding SL's not being able to tank (as well as others) for notallowing their mind to be healed... butrealize that as soon as you have another class able to heal mind, you open up the door for nearly infinite healing. Every chunk of mind is worth many times that in both H and A, with a decent stimpack (usable by novices). By allowing the SL's mind to be healed, and assuming that it costs the SL mind to heal mind (passively or actively) he in turn willallow the group to go onnearly indefinitely. Just as two medics able to heal each others' minds would. Either the SL or the Medics (Entertainers healing mind in the middle of a battle is sillyIMO) in that case need to incur some sort of wound when mind healing, so that there is a limit to how much healing can be doneover an extended period of time.
With SL's being the only mind healers, you already extend the battleworthyness and endurance of a group *several* times fold. With medics being able to heal the SL's mind, you in turn extend the longetivity of the group *several* times *that*, unless some major wounding action is in order for either the SL or the Medic, or both.
Shuyunh wrote:
The only way we can fight and heal mind damage is if its a passive regen ability. If they make us proper mind healers like you have stated, then they should rename us to Group Counciling Therapists. In which case I can dump my SL skills and do something more interesting with them.
Entertainers already grant that ability in the form of Focus and Willpower buffs. And they already think we're stepping on their supposed toes for even suggesting that we be able to heal mind damage. And for the record, I don't think Squad Leaders should *only* heal mind. They should give all those tactical bonuses that they were supposed to.
If mind healing is entirely passive, then it needs to be balanced carefully. If it generates too fast (and if it generates our own, or allows someone to heal our mind) then we end up having the problem of infinite healing for all 3 pools. If it generates too slowly, then it's effectively useless. A rifleman can knock down a good chunk of your mind pool with just a few hits. And the way to address that is to allow for focused, burst healing, like the medics can do with their stimpacks.
A slow gradual heal could allowfor further issueswithout fixing the real problem:
Riflemen and BH can bring down the mindpool quickly- a slow heal does nothing to counter that effectively (which is one of the major problems and reasons mind heal is being asked for in the first place).
A slow gradual heal would allow for nearly infinite healing in the other pools, making mind an even more viable target.
A fast gradual heal would eliminate the first problem, but would essentially make riflemen worthless,and make the infinite heal problem greater.
Having an SL have to actively heal mind in a stim-like way adds additional gameplay and rewards the alert Squad Leader... and it uses the tried, tested, and true mechanics of stim healing like the Medics have. It completes the trinity of pool healing with symmetrical means.
But I do agree that I don't like the idea of being occupied with only healing, like some Medics often are. Perhaps allowing for mind healing to be able done regardless of what's in the Queue, withfew range limitations, andwith little delay would work, since there's only one of us for an entire group, and allows us to keep attacking. This doesn't solve the problem with the SL's own mind. But again, if we allow someone to heal the SL's mind, then we'll need to devise an entirely thorough system that limits the total in-group healing that can be done... because any healing of the SL's mind-- again, assuming the SL's use mind to heal mind--will allow a group to go on many times longer than it would have otherwise.
Dustin_Asche wrote:
As for the heal timer on the /makeleader command. I think this could be accomplished with a simple timer on the /makeleader command. Leadership can't change hands more than once every 120 seconds sound fair?
As for back-up leadership? Well, actually, at least in the US military, the entire squad is back-up leadership! In decending order of rank, of course, so this makes perfect sense. best SL is the leader, second best is the back up (except I believe you can /makeleader while incappacitated, anyway).
While a delay on the /makeleader command would simplify things... it also prevents the backup leader from giving command back to the primary leader once he's up in the allotted time. And if the 2nd goes down quickly, the group's really in a hole... especially if we get rid of back-up leadership and just use /makeleader.
/makeleader while incapacitated would work fine... but it'll take the downed leader to be on the ball. And I had fears that the backup would somehow refuse to give command back even when the original leader was ok again. Squad Leadership XP is a very tempting thing.
Sundown, your kiling me. Squad Leaders go and do whatever they have to do to win. If its tanking, then thats what they do. No one is going to respect a leader in a small group who won't step up and fight when necessary. In fact the good officers (Lt's not generals) are oftenthe first to die in a war
Duncaen- I have great respect for you opinions in this forum, but I must dissent onthis topic.
As a Squad leader, one of the two required skill sets is ranged weapons support(which tookthe longest in the marksman tree for me to get). It is imperative for me to assume acombat support role so I canuse my abilities to monitor my troops; WSing anything off of my guys and trying to make sure everyone has their head in the battle and stays alive.
I took the general U.S. militaryLietenant model for my character, specifically WWII and Civil War, but to also include current military standars (X-mil myself). I have pistoleer anda bit of CH (not standard mil, I know, but I was thinking about it like I had a horse...:smileyhappy
. I offer my pet to tank and I use my pistol since it doesn't tax me too much to move around because that is necessary in the heat of battle. The only thing I don't have is a valiant steed with which to keep above the fracas.A tank who is also a leader seems more like a Sargent to me and usually does not have the ear of higher officers who control reinforcements and air strikes, etc. Not that this is relevanet to the convo at all.
I agree that 'you gotta do what ya gotta do', however, I have found that I am most successful as a leader by being the main puller and using my pet to tank, not by being the main fighter. I could never tank myself and when I have melee folk in my squads I pull and then after getting the MOB to a decent locale, send in the tanks. This protects my weaker fighters and helps keep other mobs off. To do thisI expect a decent amount of discipline from my squads, but that is where my real skill lies.
I would like to see some sort of mind buff/pool-heal becasue 1) it is the only thing that can't be done yet and 2) from a morale boost and battle focus aspect it fall in line with what a good field commander should be capable of. It will definitely need to be balanced, but by adding BF or timing it, it could be an effective skill that doesn't unfairly over do the class.
I might also suggest that it could be a mind pool balance across the groupor even something that can only affect troops in combat.This would avoid healing medics who are running around healing, or people who are resting to regain their HAM by sitting. I only suggest not healing non-combatant (currently INVOLVED in combat) medics because then you still have a bit of a balance against medics so they can't heal and poison without regard to their mind pool. To clarify: If they want to get the mind pool heal, they have to be fighting.
I would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, like to see something related to the mind pool in the Squad Leader skill tree. Even if it's only minor.
I remain,
Occamz SL/R/CH Tarquinas
I might of been a bit sensive in my response. I don't like the idea of melee classes not being a viable option for SL is all.
I have been a long time advocate of mind regen of some form. I just don't want to turn SL into a full time mind healer. Hopefully the developers will give us the appropratiate kind of love in this area.
I will be more optimistic when they start responding to the correspondents, hopefully on a regular basis.