Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Why fixing Squad Leader can fix other professions too.
irott wrote:Well john... here is how I see the /aimfor command working (Thulium might have a different view ^_^ ).
Say you have a group of 5 people in your group including yourself. 3 of your squadmembers use pistols while one uses a carbine. The pistols are dropping the Health HAM bar but with with carbine packing more of a punch its dropping the Action HAM at almost the same rate as the Health. So do a /aimfor on the action or leg or whatever it would be set as and watch that green bar drop. All it is, is a /vollyfire (one use) that targets a specific HAM bar. Its not high damage so its not going to be overused. It just gives a tactical advantage in certain situations. SLs need to know their groups abilites so they can direct... and lead.
Thule you might want to explain your version in detail if it is different than mine.
It sounds to me that if a squad leader should know the attributes of the people in his group, then he should also be aware that the carbiner should be attacking someone different than the pistoleers.
I had a similar situation come up last night as I was the only pistoleer in a group with two riflemen and a carbineer. One of the other players (rifleman) mentioned that he thought I was doing the group little good by attacking someone on my own (with my huurton hound, which I use primarily as a distraction to draw fire away from someone who is low on HAM) as they were getting their collective butts kicked. I made the point that my attacks didn't do any good to them either way and that my pet was doing its best to absorb the attacks, but the one gentleman persisted in arguing about it. Then, the lone carbiner (who was the most powerful marskman in the group...I was second, and the two riflemen were the least powerful) defended me saying that I was simply doing a good job in delegating roles as a squad leader (or, rather, simply realizing where my attacks were needed and letting the others do what was needed elsewhere).
Frankly, I think recognizing the differences in damage between the different combat classes and trying to figure out a way where each can do the most good is essential to being a good squad leader. I'm still new at it, so I have a long way to go.
Now, if we are talking about a command that executes a single shot from each player towards a specific HAM attribute, I wouldn't have much of a problem. However, the combat classes that are going after a HAM stat that is not the normal point of attack for that weapon should have a severe penalty on accuracy as well as damage.
If you guys really want to know the key to us getting attention, its this:
Not so much getting the Dev's to think about us, but getting the player base to think about us.
Yes, fixing Squad Leader and giving us some class-interactive stuff would definitely be able to aid some other professions in their efficacy. But if the player base were to realize that the more stuff we get, the cooler everyone becomes, well, there you'd have it.
I have seen many arguments on this board about how such-and-such class is more useful to a group than we are. In many cases these opinions have been right. If I had to choose between a Master Squad Leader and a Master Creature Handler for krayt hunting, and I could only have one or the other, I would probably pick the MCH. That being said, if we just had something to offer that is comparable to what an MCH, or a Master Commando, or even a Master Bounty Hunter can offer a group, but only we did it for EVERYONE, well, quite frankly, people would freak out. People would want us badly.
Here's an example for you. I am able to use/retreat at the Imperial Base on Naboo to hunt holocrons. It makes my group far more effective than other groups at getting to the spawns first and doing the most damage, thus earning us the kills. People who that have been in my group that aren't in my PA and used to this are amazed at how great it works out, and how much it helps. Then they never ever leave me alone, want me to come out there every time they are hunting.
If we could do something like this, only more generally useful in far less specific situations, the player base would freak out. If there were a noticable increase to damage and defense provided by being grouped with us, people would lose their minds and love us.
Here are some good things and bad things about this situation:
Good: Who in their right mind would call for an ability to be nerfed when everyone can benefit from it? No one, that's who. If we could provide something like this, it would last forever, or until the dev's began to think we were overbalancing PvE, in which case I don't know what would happen. But you wouldn't see any individual class calling for us to be nerfed because most likely, they would benefit from our services and become even more uber than they already are.
Bad: We don't have any abilities like this yet, so no one is going to freak out and say how much they love being grouped with us.
Now here's the rub: we have to convince all of the other classes that they need (or would find very very useful) anything we can get out of the Devs. Its a long shot, I know, but if everyone wanted us to be better (thus in turn making all of them better and cooler as well) then I think it would be difficult for us to be denied.
So, cast your nets, O Hyperborean Wanderers. Think big. Don't be afraid to ask for anything, no matter how ridiculous or overbalancing it might seem, because you can't overbalance everyone but giving everyone the same potential thing. I'm sure everyone would like to be more effective at everything they have to do out in the field, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to provide that.
And besides, they're going to have to really start the war sometime, and we should fight tooth and nail to be the leaders in that war. Its what we're built for, and believe it or not, it starts here.
u know the only thing good in SL is just novice... that's all...
getting the system chat... you can make system chat macros
instead of /volleyfire (requires you to attack to do it)
use /sys The Squad leader wants you to attack %TT
What does this have to do with how fixing squad leader can fix other professions?
::edit:: I mean, o rly? 
use /sys The Squad leader wants you to attack %TT
So you end up with: "The Squad Leader wants you to attack a gubber"
WHICH ONE DO I ATTACK!! ^_^
ok sorry.
Just a few thoughts, I like the idea about bestowing skills to characters as long as they are in a group, like you pick some guy/girl in your group and select them as the sniper, this would give them a great bonus, perhaps even a damage multiplier, to that skill, naturally, the best choice for this would be a rifleman, on whom these buffs stack, and then assaulters (carbineers) get something comparable, and so forth. Structure the team so that a squad leader leads a squad, instead of a motley crew of people that are in a group to ninja loot or to see who needs a heal for xp.
Make some sweet action SL animations. make a queue of targets, make a spiffy mad crazy cool gun that people led by SL's get a certificate for, make SL's have auras of command instead of aura;s of "RUN AWAY!"
Just give us some lovin' PLEASE!
I think quite a few great ideas have come from this thread. As a Master SL I of course would love to see the profession worth half my skill points. Lets all first admit that a SL will always get owned in a duel with a combat class like BH or commando. I didn't take this prof. to do battle one on one. The point of the SL is to make a group an efficient fighting machine. As someone pointed out, some of our abilities do more damage than good. With that said, here is my holiday wish list for the developers working on the SL.
1. Make our abilities work. Seems obvious, but why does rally and vollyfire have a chance to fail? Make them work all the time and place a delay on them. That way we can rally at the begining of an encounter then pay attention to the battle to direct group members etc . . . Don't make us feal useless by having us fail to rally our troops repeatedly.
2. I like the idea of having an "/aimfor command, but i understand that this would take awaysome ofthe individuality of group members. On the other hand, we are talking about a one time shot, not a complete overide of peoples individual abilities. Maybe add this as an improvement on vollyfire, automatically selecting the target's lowest current HAM value. Because honestly, volleyfire is useless and it was the ability I was most excited for.
3. One word "/painttarget" BOOM! This is what being a squad leader is all about. An efficient way to communicate to your group who to blast next. Make em glow, put a WP on them, anything. Maybe even three different color coded glows to seperate fire teams. The last post also featured the idea of a target queue that sounded excellent, maybe one that apears on all member's screens, or that automatically jumps painttarget to the next target in the queue.
4. Someone mentioned a wp monitor for group member's mission wp's. This would be useful and make for much more efficient hunting parties. Just a directional arrow, distance, and the name of the member would suffice. I know Dev's, it's a pain in the a$$ line of code, but I have faith in you.
5. Heard this one on a thread about declaring overt faction. Let someone /declare within 50m of a SL leading their group. Talk about Navy SEALs, how about walking into an enemy base undetected then launching a devastating surprise attack. This one ability would make every PvP addictout there want a SL at the helm.
I wanted to be a SL the moment i baught the game, being there i ama bit disapointed in how the much anticipated commands actually work. I hate having people hyped up to be led by a SL into PvP, only to feel useless when my rally and vollyfire fail.
Beeve wrote:
I think quite a few great ideas have come from this thread. As a Master SL I of course would love to see the profession worth half my skill points. Lets all first admit that a SL will always get owned in a duel with a combat class like BH or commando. I didn't take this prof. to do battle one on one. The point of the SL is to make a group an efficient fighting machine. As someone pointed out, some of our abilities do more damage than good. With that said, here is my holiday wish list for the developers working on the SL.
Although it is true that a SL would and should lose in a duel to profession designed for it like BH and Commando, our profession is the ONLY profession specifically designed to enhance and support group play...so we SHOULD be the best at what we do bar none. How can we test this? Theoretically take 2 identical groups of 10 players and add a Squad Leader to one group and a player from any other profession and then tell me who wins....If the Squad Leader wins every time regardless of who he/she is up against as a leader for the group, we are where we should be.
As it stands currently, a Chef would beat us in this situation... It's possible that the group is WORSE off with the Squad Leader than without.
When we are at least more effective at our jobs than any profession that costs LESS in Skillpoints (everything but Bounty Hunter and Commando), then I'll be satisfied. Even then, it'd still be arguably unfair but at least justifiable. The current state of affairs, however, is a crying shame.
I think it is funny how doctors are more of a part of battle then the squad leader is. Shoot, dancers get more action than we do. I feel like a trinket. Ooh, neat, now put it down, you might break it if you use it.
Later later
-Rogue9
A truly wise man never plays leap frog with a unicorn
You too 
Ill be around (though Ill be stuck on a 56K line and my folks place...ack)
Im spending a bunch of my free time to spend some casual time with you guys.
TH,
I'm glad to see a Dev actually posting in this forum. Its quite a rare thing, but your response is not substantive. When are you going to respond to our Top 5?
Thunderheart wrote:
In the coming weeks and months, we'll be giving a lot of attention to the SL profession, and I have set up an email box so the correspondents can get me your wants, needs and desires for future development.
Its too early for me to be able to give you a dependable date, but please work with Thulium as his questions to the SL community will most likely be driven by me asking him questions about what you folks want for the profession.
Does this meanSquad Leader is going to bepassed over again whileyou addres the SLissues. Its been 6 months and we have yet to get a response to any of our correspondents' submissions.
