Squad Leader Archive

I just skimmed several other boards and I am surprised about the vivid support that our class gets from other professions: Almost all agree that it would be a great addition for squad-leader to have several faction-pets out. While I tried to play the advocatus diaboli in some of these threads by pointing out that some SLs don't understand themselves as NPC-puppeteers but want to lead humand players I appreciate the interest in making Sl useful.
I have recently acquired some faction-pets just to see how it is like - and you know what: My vanity feels somehow flattered when I march through town with three NPC-soldiers following me and my fellow guild-members remark: "There comes Mille and his private army!". It is meant half mockingly of course, but nevertheless. As I live in Europe and most of my fellow GENs (that is our PA: Generations) are american it is not always easy to get a hunting-group going on weekdays. Having some faction-pets allow me to solo at need and *still* feel somehow as squad-leader. The inert danger of course is, that people will rally to SL just because they want to solo - and as there is no such thing as a neutral-faction SLs that want to remain neutral are in a severe disadvantage if one of the squad-leader-columns would be "+number of faction-pets". These are therefore my proposals (compiled from suggestions from other posts as well as some of my own ideas):

1. Make the rank of faction-pets dependant on *your* rank: A Colonel can command faction-NPCs with higher HAM or higher resists than a Lance Corporal
2. Make the number of pets you can have out dependent from the SL-tree:
Novice-SL: + 0 NPC
*entire* Tier 1: + 0 NPC
*entire* Tier 2: + 1 NPC
*entire* Tier 3: + 1 NPC
*entire* Tier 4: + 1 NPC
Master-SL: + 1 NPC
for a total of 5 faction-NPCs for Master-SLs
3. introduce faction-NPCs for neutral Players, perhaps you may acquire some Valarians, or Jabba-faction-NPCs or whatever.

This is a slap in the face for those of you who want to lead humans, not NPCs, I know and I understand your argumentation but I am in a predicament here: I want to see our profession improved but I see no chance to satisfy both sides...

CU
Mille

I still say, screw the idea of NPCs we lead PEOPLE! Real People!

We should be valuable to a group for what we bring out in the people we lead.... Not because we have heavy hitting pets.... WE ARE NOT CREATURE HANDLERS! WE LEAD PEOPLE! REAL PEOPLE!

AT-ST nerf and SL's are different issues. Faction pets should be able to be used by anyone, and the amount and/or stats of Faction pets NEED to be based off of rank.

We are not NPC trooper handlers nor are we AFK PC handlers. We are leaders. We support. We never leave a man behind. We fight the good fight. We are Squad Leaders.

I think it makes a great deal of sense that the Imps can call out AT-ST's - even more than 1 at a time - because in the time that the game is set, the Imp's are the strongestmartial force in the Galaxy and I believe this is mirrored in the fact that they can get such powerful firepower.

I play a Reb on the Bria server and an Imp on Eclipse, both of whichare challenging, though all PvP seems to end in death andthose combatants often display little honour. Whereas in the Beta we'd knock someone down to almost nothing, heal them, bow and that would be the fight over. I've found that its the players who lack imagination who complain the most about so and so having too much of this or the other.

Things change so very much all the time in SWG - well everything except for the fact that the only way to get anywhere near your FSCS appears to be by being a combat based character who has a lot of IG friends to from groups with to go hunting for Holocrons, that or you have to have an eBay account and then you can either just buy Holocrons there or buy the credits IRL to use to buy the Holocrons IG-that most things aren't worth getting out knickers in a twist about. And in the immortal words of the Goo-Goo Dolls - a band from a few years ago now for the younger among us...lol - "What's the use in always shouting? No-one's listening anyway..."

We'd all like to think the Dev's listen to the things we say, but the cold fact is that 99% of the stuff up here is complaints and take it from someone who works in the IT industry and deals with complaints and broken software/equipment all day every day; CONSTANT COMPLAINTS only serve to to annoy the technical people who put their heart and soul in to their job and therefore in to the work which they produce. We - the technical people - feel bad enough when we're told about an issue in the first place, but to have our noses rubbed in it day in and day out just makes us wish we'd never bothered in the first place and in the end we don't work as hard for our user base as we could because they all seem like ungrateful gits who look for problems just to get their jolly's off. *grrr*

UnderstandthatI'm not having a go at anyone in particular, it was just that this was the 15th post in a row that I've read today that didn't have anything good to say and if all we do is focus on the negative then the quality of the game will be further ruined for all of us and we may as well all bugger off and play EQ, but then again not a lot of good things are being said about that at the moment either... *rant over* *phew* lol

Play hard & dirty my friends...