Squad Leader Archive
Thread: FEEDBACK: The Group Leader Issue
Sylow wrote:
I dare to point at this passage from the first test-center report:
Group Buff Observastions
- Group Buffs last for 30 Minutes and can be applied by any SL in the group.
- The same type of Buff does not stack, however more then 1 group can be applied, if more then 1 SL is in the group.
- Example - 2 SLs are in the group. SL1 applies a Blaze of Glory Buff. SL2 applies a Tactics Buff. Both buffs will be active.
- If SL2 had also applied a Blaze of Glory Buff, the buff timer would have been overwritten, but the buff bonus will still be 50%.
This means that a 8-man group with 8 SL-dabblers is able to keep up 8 different group-buffs all the time. Now take a look at the described effects:
- Steady Aim - Adds 150 points to Accuracy. This bonus does not show up on the Character Sheet. This information is only listed on the Bufff window.
- Call to Arms - Adds to the groups Armor Effectiveness. Initial testing suggests that the buff adds +1000 to current armor. Non-Armored group members appear to gain approximately 10% damage reduction.
- Tactics - Adds 150 points to Defense. This bonus does not show up on the Character Sheet. This information is only listed on the Bufff window.
- Blaze of Glory - Adds 50% chance to Critical Hit.
- Double Time - Reduces cool down timer on all Macros/Abilites. This does not effect item cool down timers. The reduction appears to be between 10% and 25%.
- Boos Morale - Adds a 10% Action and a 10% Mind regen buff
- Form Up - Adds a 50 points to Terrain Negotiation
- Retreat - Publish note = Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. My Impression = I can run circles around you for approximately 90 seconds. This Buff is a lot more effective then 4xxx Scout Burst Run AND it can be used along with Burst Run, making it so that you can almost keep up with a speeder, with 4xxx Scout. Using this Buff comes with a price. All Action and Mind is drained to 0
- Charge - Publish note = Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. My Impression = I can run circles around you for approximately 90 seconds. This Buff is a lot more effective then 4xxx Scout Burst Run AND it can be used along with Burst Run, making it so that you can almost keep up with a speeder, with 4xxx Scout. Using this Buff reduces the defenses of the SL.
This means that a group, if they want it, can have a permanent boost of +150 accuracy, +1000 armour, +150 defence, +50% chance of critical hit +50 terrain negotiation, +10% on action and mind regeneration and shorter cooldown on all abilities. The last SL will, apply charge to the team to keep them burstrunning all the time with the price being decreased defence for himself.
Now please somebody tell me that this is not overpowered and we should not expect to be hit badly by the nerfbat as soon as you see the first teams doing so. I personally think that some people will play this game for a short while and then the buffs will be drastically reduced so each of them only gives a very small advantage. As i don't want that to happen, i again vote to allow only one (or perhaps two) persons to apply the buff to the team or that buffs given by a non-groupleader only has 20% of the effect of a groupleader buff. (Due to detremential effects of some buffs, i would really prefer the groupleader only approach.)
Thats all very true, but how often do groups come together all with a template based around one profession? How many people would drop the skills they have now, for something they haven't invested anything in.
You could say get 8 pistoleers or smugglers and chain link roots, that makes them unbalancing. Get 8 Swordsman and Armor break, that could be devastating too.
How often would those groups come up? Never. Simple fact is people play what they like, very few migrate with a new revamp, especially not to the extent people have been expecting. Even Pre-CU when Rifleman/CM was clearly the best template, the day you saw a group of 8 of them all doing there thing is about as likely as SL getting a revamp (whoops
).I can sympathise with the reasoning people have for SL's needing to be GL's to work. But SL is going to be a more popular profession after this revamp. Like it our not the people are gonna come, and having them being usurped by they're own profession just isn't fun.
But thats not even the biggest reason why the GL change is good for the SL profession, the biggest reason is, it makes the profession more playable. More fun. The idea of a Rifleman not being able to fire his rifle if another Rifleman is in the group is ludicrous, the idea of a Swordsman not being able to use his Armor break because there's another swordsman is ridiculous. So why should SL's want to punish themselves in this way?
The only thing i think should be GL specfic is Painting a Target, the rally point and system messages. This will give the SL in GL position a leadership role, ordering his men and designating targets, but other SL's in the group should still be able to use they're buffs.
I feel that the key group commands should not work unless you are group leader. These are rally points, /sys command, paint target, called shot, retreat and charge. If you let non leaders use these abilities they will get abused, cause a negative impact on our community and could eventually lead to nerfs.
I think that a group doesn't need anymore then 4 groups applied, i think 8 is although welcomed, not balanced from the game mechanics. This WILL eventually lead to nerfs. Imagine having our steady aim reduced from 150 accuracy to 40 as an example. Right now the skills are balanced if used properly.
Give a perk for mastering our profession, as there isn't a reason to under this new system. All it does is encourage dabbling and not anyone to take up the full profession. Master BH gets perks, they are allowed to hunt player jedi. Master SLs should be able to apply 2 group buffs and just toggle them on depending on the situation.
Higginsis wrote:
Thats all very true, but how often do groups come together all with a template based around one profession? How many people would drop the skills they have now, for something they haven't invested anything in.
Everybody does that EVERY month, and its named FOTM, flavour of the month. Example: MBH MCM. As soon as some ppl found a strong tactic to take out jedi with this template everybody either resepcted or regrinded that, some even WITHOUT KNOWING how to play that template. The alpha class had a hard time to beat those and still have depending on their template but still.
Another thing. Dabblers.
A lot of players build their template solely around root from pistoleer or now CM 4000 for the heals. Dabblers all over the server, the master box should distinguish such a player from a dabbler. Nobody knows what the pistoleer can do besides root because they all build their template around this skill.
...But SL is going to be a more popular profession after this revamp. Like it our not the people are gonna come, and having them being usurped by they're own profession just isn't fun.
The old timers just want to make the profession enjoyable for all players, since with SL being able to affact other players toon (EG set action and mind to zero for everybody in his group) some things need to be addressed
But thats not even the biggest reason why the GL change is good for the SL profession, the biggest reason is, it makes the profession more playable. More fun. The idea of a Rifleman not being able to fire his rifle if another Rifleman is in the group is ludicrous, the idea of a Swordsman not being able to use his Armor break because there's another swordsman is ridiculous. So why should SL's want to punish themselves in this way?
By letting the squad leaders not being able to lead?
Its just are two commands what the squad leader as groupleader needs to take care of invite and kick so where is the limitiation? Also as I stated before the squad leade is able to AFFECT OTHER ppl Characters, with retreat no mind and no action will be left. In leeroy jenkins scenario, aka a commando using areas in the DWB you still would be able to fight heal and run. this leeroky jenkins, NOT as grouplader but just as DABBLER could have killed the group instantly. The group had the choice of either follwing him and or letting him die alone, as Squadleader and not groupleader in the new system they never would have had any choice.
The only thing i think should be GL specfic is Painting a Target, the rally point and system messages. This will give the SL in GL position a leadership role, ordering his men and designating targets, but other SL's in the group should still be able to use they're buffs.
So your saying that there is a need of a chain of command, something that distinguishes the real leader from the others as well as limits the useage of squad leader abilities?
So why not tie it to the groupleader position?
Thats all very true, but how often do groups come together all with a template based around one profession? How many people would drop the skills they have now, for something they haven't invested anything in.
With a mere 36 skillpoints needed to dabble in one line of SL for the most frequent non-Jedi profession around (you guess it, it's notDroid Engineerbut Bounty Hunter) this is something which can and will happen very frequently. Each and any of those buffs is valuable and very helpful for the team, and this news will spread fast, you can bet your right hand on it. (And, hell, i WANT those buffs to be valuable. But if they are so strong, there must be some limitation on them, and being used only by the group leader, so only one buff is active, is a very easy to implement and logical restriction.)
You could say get 8 pistoleers or smugglers and chain link roots, that makes them unbalancing. Get 8 Swordsman and Armor break, that could be devastating too.
Now, don't claim that chain-rooting never happened. It's the reason why the angry and enraged states were implemented, they reduced duration of successive roots on the same target, they implemented that after the third time being rooted, a target is immune for the effect for some time... thus i dare to say that unrestricted rooting was an issue. And i already now see that unrestricted application of our new buffs will be an issue and i just try to push the things into the direction where i see the most benefit for the profession by itself. The number of SLs might be a bit lower with groupleader requirement, but the actual value of the profession is higher with it.
And as a small sidenote on armour break, either armor is broken or not, no stacking, as far as i know. So, one swordsman or eight of them, the effect is the same.
How often would those groups come up? Never. Simple fact is people play what they like, very few migrate with a new revamp, especially not to the extent people have been expecting. Even Pre-CU when Rifleman/CM was clearly the best template, the day you saw a group of 8 of them all doing there thing is about as likely as SL getting a revamp (whoops
Never under the current situation of SLs around. There will be plenty of people testing it and there'll be plenty of stacking the stuff... and, oh... before CU the rifleman/CM was seen pretty often, but melee characters were superior. And you easily were able to find a group of 10 or 15 of them... of course, you rarely saw all of them, as each of them was doing his own missions, but they were there...
I can sympathise with the reasoning people have for SL's needing to be GL's to work. But SL is going to be a more popular profession after this revamp. Like it our not the people are gonna come, and having them being usurped by they're own profession just isn't fun.But thats not even the biggest reason why the GL change is good for the SL profession, the biggest reason is, it makes the profession more playable. More fun. The idea of a Rifleman not being able to fire his rifle if another Rifleman is in the group is ludicrous, the idea of a Swordsman not being able to use his Armor break because there's another swordsman is ridiculous. So why should SL's want to punish themselves in this way?
- the current buffs WILL be nerfed as soon as dabbler groups (which sure will come) are "optimizing" for their combat power. The modifiers i mentioned above are just too tempting, they can't be ignored by the BH crowd. (Especially considering how cheap they are for them to get...)
- the setup of the profession discourages from going to be master SL but fully invites for the dabbling.
- it will be very frustrating for anybody who tries to lead a team by a second, third or whatever SL in team, who just (perhaps without any realcommunication) tries to suddenly change tactics and press his approach on the team, leading to immediate wipeout.
- it will be even more frustrating for the players, if they get messed up by a second, third or eigth SL in team, whonever announced himself but just used retreat for his personal benefit when need arrises and sacrifices the team for it.
- the profession, after a very short number of incidents like that, might actually result in everybody who admits to be SL to be immediately thrown out of any pickup group since they possibly are a higher risk than benefit to them. (Especially after buffs are nerfed to be balanced when eight of them are on the group... we'll be down to weak buffs with significant drawbacks, now, THAT will be fun, right?)
I am sorry, but i can't follow your highly optimistical approach, i know that if something can be abused, it will be abused. And i know that devs then will have to act quickly and not be able to implement a highly sophisticated mechanism to control the abuse. Right now, the thing is still on testcenter, we can discuss improvements and Devs can take some time to adjust mechanics to avoid the most obvious pitfalls. We do our best here to point them out, hope the system gets adjusted in a way to be at least somewhat balanced (complete balance will take time, but rough balance can be implemented before pushing it life) before non-testcenter players get to tear it apart and just use it to walk around in godmode.
Just my opinion.
Blackferne wrote:
One thing to consider on the FOTM fears(which are very valid) is that there isn't one line that is so much better in every situation than another, so if dabblers are picking up a line, the chanceds they are group with 7 other dabblers for maximum effect is rather low. Also For every SP they invest in SL, that is a SP not invested in something else. People may try out SL at first, but long term I don't believe we will be like CM4000.
Just my opinion.
We stand a very good chance of seeing the dabbling when people figure out thata HE shirt and medic0400 is just as wel in most combat situations as CM4000. Heck, Medic0010 with the right HE shirt can heal for 1K every 6 seconds. My jedi temp heals the same. The CM4000 is a waste of SP and people are going to start looking for other places to stick them.
To me, the whole group leader issue is very small. About the only things that the group leader position is good for is identifying the TRUE leader of a group and adding/removing players from a group. Sometimes, the real person leading a group isn't even the GL.
I think the removal of the GL condition is a good thing because it allows multiple SL's to function within a group and it is less constrictive in terms of delegating person adding/removing, which can be a logistics problem on the battlefield better suited to someone other than a SL.
I also like the removal of it because it allows two SL's to be more effective at leading a group, i.e. one calls targets and buffs while the other handles squad messages and buffs.
I do not particularly like the stacking of multiple buffs of the same type on one person, however. Very, very bad.
In the end, the GL position is the same as it always will be: a meaningless position that is an annoyance to carry.
Ternque01 wrote: a meaningless position that is an annoyance to carry.
There's only one scenario where true stacking will occur. The elite group pvp guilds who actually build GROUPs and not individual templates! This seems to happen VERY rarely. People are just too worried about being bada$$es solo.
Sylow wrote:
lotsa stuff
let me clarify my point: