Squad Leader Archive
Thread: This Week's Top 5 Prototype Countdown
There are already a lot of good points on this thread I like, so I will only addthe two that are new.
1. Give us more content that actually requires groups to go kill stuff. My Expert BH friend solo's in Dath and clears most of the dungeons up there all on his own. Its disgusting. He groups with me just to be social, but he power levels on his own.
2. Give us access to SL mission terminals similar to theBH missionsexcept they are geared for competent raid sizedteams.This game needs more complex content for good group raids. If content is going to be terminal based, then you need to make SL's the access point to get these missions.
Duncaen Starstriker
Starsider
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1> SYSGROUP: Make it colored different (Yellow/Red/Blue, something), and make it _BEEP_ (like an instant message), so people actually see/hear it. When its white it blends with any other messageup there.. which defeats the purpose of the thing.
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you are able to select the color on your own, why should a SL take a color for all groupmembers with different UI settings, color is an individual thingie, if i group with "strangers" i always tell them to colorize the SQUAD commands,this works well, i think we got some more important thingsto talk about it
I owuld say we have 2 fundemental issues..
1) grouping is broken. Group exp bonus does not exist. There is no loot message. Coin is not split properly, or at all. So when it comes down to it, why would people want to group?
2) novice ranger brings absolutely nothing to the table for his/her group. The only reasonpeople let us lead their groups is out of pityty, or some SLs lie and say we add to group defense already.. which we do not.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=1608
Here's my suggestion for fixing the skill tree. I put some hours into it, so take a look and if you like it you can pass it on to the devs as a suggestion.
1. Fix the group code. This means autoloot, autosplit, groupchat, group xp, etc. Groups are so broken right now there is no incentive to group other than the increased opportunity to socialize.
2. Improve SL access to pets. Squad Leaders by definition lead squads. As such, we should always be surrounded by a squad. This is especially critical in compensating for our reduced combat effectiveness compared to other more combat-oriented professions. Squad Leaders should have easier access to NPC pets than any other profession in the game. Additionally, the other professesions' access to NPC pets should be reduced. It's no fun being a Squad Leader when everyone else can just as easily have a squad following them around.
3. Add more to Novice level. The only difference between my character pre-Novice SL and post-Novice SL is that now I can call myself a Novice SL and I can communicate with everyone in my group. Being that I could already communicate with everyone in my group via GroupChat, the only thing I gained wasa new title. Need I say that this is a bit paltry for having gained an Elite Profession?
4. Completely overhaul our skill tree. Vol has some good suggestions that do not need to be repeated here.
5. Give players the option to display their faction ranks before their names. This isn't strictly an SL revision, but it is important to our profession given its association with military hierarchy.
1) I think the /sysgroup message should appear in a different color so that it is visible over the other messages that appear in that location, such as harvesting and XP, etc.
2) Squad leader XP shouldn't be based solely on how much damage the squad leader does to a specific target, there should be some other method for obtaining the xp.
3) Squad Waypoint. It would be nice to be able to create a squad waypoint that everyone in the squard can see. You could even make it a differnt color, or for easier implimentation the standard blue would be sufficient. This way the entire group can see a destination.
4) Group Messages (such as looting and harvesting) are sparadic and don't always work. This should be corrected since the squad leaders have the ability of enabling these commands.
5) Perhaps a couple bonuses should be added to the novice squad leader other than Sysgroup.
To expand on the "Squad Leader's are here to take care of the mind" issue. I fully agree. I have two possible suggestions for dealing with this.
1) Quicker Mind regen for ppl in group.
2) SL's can heal minddamage for medics. This would be command driven, wouldn't require anything like a stimpack, but would have pretty decent time constraints. Once every 10 minutes or so. That way if you get into a big long fight, you can rally your medics once. This would be for all medics in group. There would be no need to target a player.
I'm only suggesting one or the other here. I think that both would be overkill, but I think that this would better reflect the actual presence of a leader in the field.
Most of the time the groupleader has a waypoint set and is leading the group to it. Allow the SL to share his waypoint automaticly with his group. Ex: A SL has a waypoint made for x,y. You join the group and now you have a waypoint set for x,y. Perfect fo those people you here say when the join a group, "so where are we headed?" or "are we almost there yet?". Sure you could send the waypoint in a group message or email, but it would just be easier if you could set it for everyone via one command.
SL xp should be based on how well you lead you group. A perfect example of how well you lead your group would be how much damage your group dealt to an enemy vs. how much damage the enemy delt to your group. ex: (now these numbers are just made up) your group of 5 kills a ronto that had 3000 hit points. During combat that ronto only dealt 300 points of damage. The SL would then get the base XP plus a bonus of 270 ((3000 - 300)/10). To balance this out you would receive negative modifiers if the enemy dealt more damage than your group did.
I liked this idea so I am going to say it again: Give us the ability to set field ranks with-in the group. Could be pointless as people are going to do there own thing anyway, but also could be very fun. To expand on the idea (this could get people to group again): Lets say a medic is given the rank "group medic", while performing their job as group medic the gain a 5-10 percent bonus to XP. The amount of the bonus could be dependent on the squad leaders level as it were.
A squad leader should be able to make more money off of a mission because they are "more trustworthy to get the job done". As such while in groups give them a bonus to the mission rewards, much like a smuggler can slice a mission terminal for extra cash.
And please for the love of all that is holy, give a SL some kind of bonus modifiers at the novice level.
PS: Please forgive the spelling/grammar mistakes as I am only on my second cup of coffee
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1. Rework the tree. (I know you are all familiar with that thread)
2. Rework the tree.
3. Rework the tree.
4. Make novice squad leader useful.
5. Rework the tree.
Cheese
p.s. If you don't hammer it into Sony, it won't get done.
1. Seeing waypoints for all group members.
2. Group general movement bonus worked into the Mobility line
3. The bonus for Rally etc. aren't worth their HAM costs especially with a chance of failure increase the effectiveness or decrease the HAM cost and take out failures.
4. Novice Definately needs something maybe a +5 bonus to all the other bonuses a SL gives groups.
5. Keep the averaging wounds among a group but add an average dmg among the group command.
Disregarding the issues that are known issues, here are my top 5 suggestions:
1 - NOVICE SQUAD LEADER
Yup. It is useless. We get no abilities whatsoever as everyone pointed out.
2 - /SYSGROUP MESSAGE
Also useless. First, people don't see it as they should. Needs to be improved so it is visible under any circunstances. Even at the heat of a battle, when this ability will be more useful. And second, /sysgroup is very hard to use. Sometimes you need to send out a message to the entire group during a fight and you just don't have the time to type /sysgroup. We need a shortcut for this ability. And I can't say this enough. Something like the CTRL-T for /tell.
3 - XP MODIFIER
This would certainly make the class useful and wanted by groups. Some kind of XP modifier depending on the number of people in the group and the level of the Squad Leader. Very noticeable ability by everyone.
4 - BONUSES
The Squad Leader bonuses are just awful. Some are useless like the mobility line and others are just too small to be noticed... This needs to be reworked as this would be the main reason why people would want a Squad Leader to join their groups.
5 - SQUAD LEADERS?
Last but not least, the way the game is setup right now, you just can't have 2 Squad Leaders in the same group. Can you imagine that? How hard will it be to find a group or get XP when you got a few Squad Leaders running around? Impossible. I can't stress this enough, bonuses need to be stackable or something. And abilities need to work even if the Squad Leader is not the group leader. Maybe only when another Squad Leader is already leading the group. All I know is that you can't limit the profession to one Squad Leader a group. No other profession has a limitation this big. Please understand this.
Cheers!
1. skills - Is this some kind of joke? The aesthetics of this class give it the potential to be awesome with out being over powered. Every group should want a squad leader if they were done right. Why is it this class has yet to see a single fix? WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE QUINTESSENTIAL (sp?) SUPPORT CLASS! Other mmorps have these sort of classes (ever see a DAOC group that said 'Nah, a bard wouldnt really help us'?) Sorry to rant but this is a no brainer, the skills are meager at best and need a complete overhaul.
2. XP - agree completely with the consensus here, this xp system is garbage. If it is going to be based on damage at all then why isnt it group damage? Remember the support thing from above? Ever think that someone might become a Doctor/SL? Why not ,makes perfect sense. In many other games there is a tendency for the healer types to be the organizers/leaders likely because of their pivotal role. Groups get rolling when the healer shows up so they tend to have alot of grouping experience. Another complete overhaul.
3.
1. skills - err give us some! no need to be redundant of all the other posters. Why have we yet to see a single fix? posting 5 is futile give us a single bone here.
2. xp - if this is based on damage at all it should be group damage. lets say your SL has some medic ability ... Should we be tempted to not take the time to heal our squad members when it is the best LEADERSHIP decision to make over spamming full auto 2? It seems obvious the SL should have some combat ability, but obvious good combos like combat medic or doctor /SL are being further penalized by this ludicrous system.
3. see number 1 its enough for all 5 top fixes