Squad Leader Archive
Thread: To All who have problems with Squad Leaders being Group Leaders: (Not Slam or Flame)
_scout_ wrote:
LecheHombre wrote:
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(a) The position as a groupleader is not arbitrary as it seems, it gives control of the group/squad and the measures to organice the group and deterimine the mix of ppl, as in that he can decided who he wanted invited or kicked in the group or not.
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(b) the current set point slightly into the right direction though the duration isnt suitable for a squadleader in combat. As a squad leader I would rather have short term buffs to adapt to the current battle situation. These long term buffs are just long term buffs and with those we are jsut buff bots. A player who would like to play a squad leader isnt forced to lead aka decided what buff to use in what situation. He just picks one more ore less randomly in the worst case and thats it.
(c) Having multple squad leaders in one group using their abilities is in my humble opinion not very close to being or mimicing or playing a squad leader. No matter if the player has any real leadership abilties or not.
This fact that allows multiple squad leaders in one group is also conected in a certain way to the groupleader = squad leader issue. Pls read this post
A) Your example is a good one, but I don't really think that it necessitates the GL requirement. The SL is certainly a good candidate for group leadership in that situation, and this doesn't prevent them from being one, it just wouldn't require it. Really the only *bad* resolution to the situation is to have the recon cloaker jedi being the GL, leaving the rest of the group high and dry in terms of adding members, and this problem is pretty easily predicted and avoided.
B) I agree that the buffs need to be able to be changed on the fly as the situation demands. Having large-effect short term buffs is one way to do this, but that might conflict with the SL's ability to have a constant beneficial effect on the group, which I wouldn't like. I would prefer if the buffs weren't timed at all, but you could only activate one at a time and it would only apply to members of the group who are physically close to the SL. So, for example: the SL joins the group, and activates an offensive buff. Later, the situation changes to be more favorable to a defensive bonus, so the SL hits their button for the defensive buff and the offensive buff automatically shuts off and switches to the new defensive one. This would possibly require a warmup to prevent extremely rapid switches.
The physical proximity requirement would resolve the "buff bot" issue, and a player that correctly responds to the situation by activating appropriate SL buffs would just be better at utilizing the abilities of their profession than one who constantly uses the same skill. This is quite similar to every other profession/template in the game; the best ones effectively use all of the strengths and skills available to them.
C) Having multiple SL's in a group doesn't clash with my vision of leadership, as I can deal with leaders of varying extent power or varying areas of expertise/specialization over the whole group. In fact, to me it seems like it is a better mimic of true leadership, and a better reward of skillpoints invested than the current system...
As for the problems that you noted in your post in the focus thread, I agree that those *will* come up and the devs need to acknowledge them. However, I feel like those are better addressed with other means. Proximity and being in the group with the SL (buffs immediately cease if you get out of range or leave the group) would be one needed step. Giving SL's bonuses to all their skills, including the low-level ones as they progress through the trees would be another, to make mastering more attractive over muliple dabblers. And finally, some limitation of the power of buffs when more than one is applied is also probably necessary.
Hopefully the devs figure this out, and ideally resolve the potential problems *before* it goes live and possibly gets nerfed.
_scout_ wrote:
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(d) VERY bad idea. what if a novice opens a group and a MSL joins later? there has to be if you want to code a chain of command a way of implementing this. currently the group is created and controled by the groupleader, why not use these already existing codings to create this chain of command?
(e) the /sys msg only works when you are groupleader, this command is tied to the grouping coding. so to gain benefit of the MOST used and IMPORTANT squad leader ability you have to be groupleader anway. Again these are coding mechanis already in the game, which are NOT bad or contradicting to the profession. Why drop them? Its like docs dont earn XP while they work in a med center - oh we have that already, so should we destroy the Squad leader profession to with this revamp? (over exagerated I know)
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D) I said default, not the only means of determining CoC. Something else could be coded in, but as you said, you could use the existing functionality and simply reform the group to determine CoC, which you already have to do in instances of a SL joining a group after it has formed.
E) /sys is the most used and important SL command?! No wonder SL has been at the very bottom of the astromech stats! In all seriousness though, /sys has always freaked me out, because I personally am infinitely more likely to see direction issued through groupchat than /sys. The flood of system messages detailing xp and other non-essential information results in me completely tuning that stuff out, even with fancy color codings. Plus, if /sys is the professions most useful command, then isn't the entire profession trumped by the use of voice chat?
LecheHombre wrote:
D) I said default, not the only means of determining CoC. Something else could be coded in, but as you said, you could use the existing functionality and simply reform the group to determine CoC, which you already have to do in instances of a SL joining a group after it has formed.
E) /sys is the most used and important SL command?! No wonder SL has been at the very bottom of the astromech stats! In all seriousness though, /sys has always freaked me out, because I personally am infinitely more likely to see direction issued through groupchat than /sys. The flood of system messages detailing xp and other non-essential information results in me completely tuning that stuff out, even with fancy color codings. Plus, if /sys is the professions most useful command, then isn't the entire profession trumped by the use of voice chat?
D) must have missed the part with the default. sorry
E) over exagerated
, I know , rally and volleyfire are pretty good to as well a retreat. XP doesnt get on your screen as sys msg anymore and have you ever seen colored /sys msg ? Most of the SL I know use them and they are heavily more reliable as groupchat, though this is due to the different environemnts we play. I play with a lot of different ppl each day especially in PvP and somehow some i****s never watches groupchat running off like leroy jenkins. Two or three well colored /sys do the trick pretty good. I can even SPAM them to a certain extend getting more attentino without cluttering spatial/group or anything else.And yes with voice chat /sys gets trumped but in my open environment not all are on ventrilo/voice chat and even with voice chat, discussing with my group what is next usually make the final call along /sys msg so all know that was/is the finaly decision I have made. This way I can hold discussion in groupchat about our current /next tactic objective but when I think i had enough input i just put out a /sys msg and make the call, no further discussion and explantion needed. I AM the leader in that case. I make the call and decision.
Further you can make excelent /sys macros in conjunction with volleyfire if you take advantage of the %NT / %TT wildcards wich will insert the name of your traget. It also helped me after the CU to teach and promote to assist by targeting their groupmembers what automatically would make their groupmates target to their target even more focussing the fire on that target. Volleyfire also works with assist so even if in a brawl I cannot distinguish what target my pointman is fighting just putting a volleyfire with a colored /sys msg where %NT will be replaced with his name appearing on all groups screen will focus fire.
EDIT
p.s.
/sys is the most universel and strong ability the squad leader gets in terms of LEADING.
well outlined and used /sys msg differ between a novice and a MSL although the ability is gained at novice lvl.
With time th novice learns how to use /sys to his most and best benefit, have a look at the FAQ for its multiple purposes and its strengths as captainsarcasmo just posted
Message Edited by _scout_ on 09-07-2005 03:41 AM
I would like to know what these mythical detrimental things are that an SL dabbler could do to "ruin" a group?
As identified in another thread (post by _scout_) the dabblers that we are afraid of are most likely to take either the tactics branch or the strategy branch, however I fail to see any potentially detrimental skills in those branches.
I assume the detrimental effects we are all worried about are the aggro management of Verbal Assault or Combat Feint, or the Retreat/Charge and their associated negative effects? None of which are in the most attractive looking lines.
Maybe I am missing something obvious and would be grateful if someone would point out if I have missed something blatant. I am always willing to concede a point well made and I am not firmly in one camp or another, however I do believe that we need to look at what would be best for the profession as a whole, rather than what we would like for ourselves individually.
I assume the detrimental effects we are all worried about are the aggro management of Verbal Assault or Combat Feint, or the Retreat/Charge and their associated negative effects? None of which are in the most attractive looking lines.
You very much recognized already what we were refering to. Especially retreat, with action and mind of the complete team set to zero, is a quick way to the cloner when not used properly.
When used correctly, it can be a mighty tool, though. Now, i dare to say that, while being mighty, it's also a great tool for a griefer. (For the Jedi-Crowd, imagine this szenario: You are just in your hunting group when a BH comes to take you down. As if this wasn't bad enough already, one of the people in team is, unknown by all, a SL. He knows that the BH has you for a mark and triggers retreat. Sure, you now can run fast, but that's the absolutely only thing you can do...)
For the non-jedi crowd, just imagine that your team is making a stand, things are rough but you are just about to win when somebody decides to run. Burstrun he already used a moment ago, but decided to return again to see how you are doing. So he uses retreat for his own escape. Isn't it nice that the rest of the team goes to the cloner due to that?
I by now accept that most of the buffs can be accessible to every SL in team. I like the concept with the efficiency modifiers throughout the profession branches a lot, this makes sure that a 0001 dabbler can't give the same defence-bonus as a master SL for example.(Dabbling will be possible, but the master will have some value, too.) If you invested an appropriate number of skillpoints, you should be able to get the full power of the profession, but a dabbler should be weaker, and the current buff/nobuff situation doesn't really reward the invested skillpoints for somebody who took more than the essentials.
Anyways, i also think that a selection of abilities should be reserved for one person. I would tie the following abilities to the group leader position:
- retreat
- charge
- verbal assault (more agro)
- combat feint (less agro)
- sys
- called shot (team coordination in terms of attack)
- paint target (team coordination in terms of attack)
- rally point (team coordination in terms of location)
´This might look quite limiting, butroughly 60% of all abilities will still be available to every SL in team and several of the here mentioned abilities don't appear very attractive, anyways. Leave those to the people who really want to coordinate the team, other buffs (higher accuracy, critical hit, armour, defence, etc...) have more general use. Many people consider them to be the more attractive ones, anyways, as they are useful at any time and not only in certain situations.
Message Edited by Sylow on 09-07-2005 02:08 PM
Message Edited by Sylow on 09-07-2005 02:10 PM
I agree with you to a point, but I still dont see dabblers taking anything more than the 2 lines suggested, whichrules out most of the skills u would like tied to GL status.
The /sys ability can be useful for multiple SL's within a group eg 1 SL controls offense while another controls healing, however I can see the grief/annoyance factor in potentially having 8 people capable of sending messages.
The essence of our profession is leadership but too many of the arguements for and against the SL=GL issue forget this. In the situation where I'm leading a group that has 2 or 3 players with SL skills I would identify who they are and give them specific roles to play eg Player A is responsible for keeping aggro off the main healer, Player B is responsible for assisting the tank etc etc. This plays to both our strengths as leaders irlplus the strengths of our chosen ingame profession.
The inference that because we are Squad Leaders we MUST lead is a misnomer. Its been acknowledged in many threads that we are prepared, under the current game mechanics, to be a GL whilst deferring actual group leadership to someone we acknowledge as more skillful than ourselves, so why is their such vehement opposition to allowing other SL's in our group to contribute. The potential overpowering and dare I say "exploitation" of this is whats got us worried. Having waited so long for some attention we dont want the exploitation to draw the attention of the dreaded nerf-bat, knocking us back on our rear-ends and returning us to a gimped state.
The only viable solution I have seen so far is the "leadership" idea. Maybe some of the more senior MSL's here could explore this idea in a little more depth so Darth_Sushi can forward it to the developers? If they can see that we are all behind a particular proposal aimed at preventing exploitation whilst not restricting SL's in groups we may actually achieve a compromise?
The idea is to get attention to the issues while we have dev envolvement. Not 4 months from now when they nerf us and don't discuss the changes with us and then leave us so badly nerfed that we need to wait another year for a dev to be able to focus on us again. We have the dev attention, we need to act to insure the profession is fixedto to prevent further nerfing...because once this goes in , the devs will move on and the only visitor will be the nerf bat.
BlueGlowy wrote:
For what it's worth, since I have been scouring this forum for info (towards building my own personal revamped 'Ranger' that doesn't waste points in the actual Ranger profession that is currently implemented), I can honestly say I've read (and looked) for a reply to my 'perspective'.
My perspective, without all the color commentary evident in my prior post (above), is this:
To ask for a nerf at this stage is absurd.
I don't think I've seen a reply to that perspective. So I'm left with having to assume the thought process behind arguments that support pre-testing nerfs to SL. I may be mistaken, but I think the logic goes something like this:
If we're deemed too potent in the theoretical example of a group of SL dabblers, we'll be nerfed.
Therefore, we may as well ask to be nerfed now, before we get nerfed later.
The flaw that I see, is that the theoretical example is just that...theoretical. In practice, it defies both logic, and experience, that the frequency where you'd see this type of player group form would come even remotely close to being unbalancing or game-effecting in any meaningfull or harmful way. Simply put, a group of 8 (of any profession/template) can do some major butt-kicking using inherent skills and/or 'dabbler' professions skills (except perhaps Ranger, but I digress..).
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BlueGlowy wrote:
For what it's worth, since I have been scouring this forum for info (towards building my own personal revamped 'Ranger' that doesn't waste points in the actual Ranger profession that is currently implemented), I can honestly say I've read (and looked) for a reply to my 'perspective'.
My perspective, without all the color commentary evident in my prior post (above), is this:
To ask for a nerf at this stage is absurd.
I don't think I've seen a reply to that perspective. So I'm left with having to assume the thought process behind arguments that support pre-testing nerfs to SL. I may be mistaken, but I think the logic goes something like this:
If we're deemed too potent in the theoretical example of a group of SL dabblers, we'll be nerfed.
Therefore, we may as well ask to be nerfed now, before we get nerfed later.
The flaw that I see, is that the theoretical example is just that...theoretical. In practice, it defies both logic, and experience, that the frequency where you'd see this type of player group form would come even remotely close to being unbalancing or game-effecting in any meaningfull or harmful way. Simply put, a group of 8 (of any profession/template) can do some major butt-kicking using inherent skills and/or 'dabbler' professions skills (except perhaps Ranger, but I digress..).