Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Why do we have to group?
"Some players aren't good leaders, but if they want SL to give em bonuses more power to em."
Then they shouldn't be squad leaders. Ok...novice players get into the game and try to group. Pretty soon they realize that some groups suck because the leaders suck. So they turn towards the SL's....hoping for some better leadership. That is the name of the proffession: "Squad LEADER". People should be able to look to them for good leadership while in a group. However, if a SL gets all of his points by commanding NPC pets....then he has had no interaction with real human groups. He doesn't know how to LEAD real groups. Thus, he should not be a Squad LEADER. He should just be in a faction with a high enough rank and points to get pets.
i have to add this. I don't think any class except the bounty hunter is made to solo in this game. I mean every classi know of profits more from PC interaction than without it. Classes in eq such as the necro or the druid are almost "made to solo" if you will, but in this game (excluding the bounty hunter), there is no classthat doesn't profit from each other, the most profiting being the squad leader.
I agree with both Manheim and DiLune (i love the natty selection line, and i can't wait for it to fall in). Fact is i think one who wants to solo with NPC pets would benefit SO much more from being a Bounty Hunter. They are much more powered and much more deadly. The only reason to be a sl is desire, a desier to be a leader. I think the only way to lead is to lead through understanding and feedback. The understanding comes in when you watch people and learn what they do. The feedback comes in to make you a better leader, such as learning what skills someone has or what they don't.
You can't do this to the extent that it was meant to do with NPCs. It can't happen. You can't strategize correctly.Three of the skill tree's names are Strategy, Leadership, and Tactics. I think although we don't have any skills from sl, we should have the greatest skill on the battlefield, a tactical, strategic mind. With this, we don't need any skills, we just need others to lead. This is why i think there can be no great interaction with NPC's. They can't think for themselves. They are great helpers, but crappy players.
There is my 2 cents again.
DiLune has hit the nail of my argument squarely on the head.
The only other slight permutation comes from the fact that I and a few others were originally under the impression that this profession was going to involve leading NPC pets into battle. I thought that this was going to besolely a power of the SL and not an ability shared by all professions. As it stands now, we can lead NPC pets into battle while simuletaneously leading a group of players. I do it all the time. It just kind of bugs me that everyone else can too, but as I said before, this is a whole new discussion.
I think what we can take away from this thread is that two camps seem to exist within Squad Leader. There is the camp that believes productive groups (i.e. ones that produce xp and benefit from SL abilities) require the membership of players, and there is the camp that believes that any group, no matter the composition, should be productive. I place myself in the latter camp, for reasons I have stated above. I respect the former camp's opinion; I just happen to disagree with it. That doesn't make them horrible people (well, it might, but for the sake of diplomacy, we'll say it doesn't). Anyhow, before this descends into an all-outflamefest, let's move on to something else.
I feel I really need to apologize to PIB, so I'm going to hit this thread with a mildly unrelated post. I shouldn't, and actually had no intentions of attacking him. As compared to a lot of people (myself included), he has been incredibly polite and reasonable throughout the thread. Kudos to PIB! Especially after getting so many flames on the forum.
In honesty, the whole idea has been ticking me off since I first started seeing the likes of it on the forums. It's not cool, IMHO. Squad Leader is unique in that it only applies to socially active people. I think that's why this class is here, and why it has such odd (IMO, again) requirements to get in. (Also, yes, Commando has some pretty odd reqs, too... like Unarmed... I'm still trying to figure that one out...) I think they made it as obvious as possible to show that Squad Leader is social. I haven't read the manual through front and back, but I looked up and read through pretty much any section that seemed related to classes I would be interacting a lot with. I don't even remember SOE putting in the book that we'd be able to *have* faction pets. I don't really remember them going too in depth into any of the elite classes, either, unless I managed to miss that part. And I may have missed all this. If I have, someone please tell me.
I'm going to relate this to something that some people may be able to connect to and some may not. Has anyone ever played a Bard in 3rd Ed. Dungeons and Dragons? The most common thing I've heard is, "<Expletive>, those guys suck!" That could be substituted with any number of foul names that I'm not going to go into here. The main reason for this is that most people like to be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to keeping oneself from harm. And I mean *most*. I've played a Bard, though, and up through high levels. And when people see those bonuses they claimed they could recreate with magic equipment start *stacking* with that equipment... well, they tend to make fun of my profession a good bit less. ;P
The point of that little tangent was that not many people really care to have a profession that requires other people to support it. Some do, though. Not many. Which is why I think out of this forum, there are a lot of players that should not be Squad Leaders. The problems with that theory are:
A) I could be *entirely* wrong about what the devs were thinking when they designed Squad Leader. But I think if I were, something as severe as having pets in a skill tree would have been at least in the game (even if broken) from release.
B) If there are that many players that are Squad Leaders that simply will not change to another class, SOE is going to be in a very difficult situation. It will be either change and virtually remake the class to make sure it's a viable profession and at least *ranks* on the pie graph of people who play it... or remain true to those who believed in the group-oriented version of Squad Leader (I will assume those who first began playing as one, sicne the beta-testers obviously didn't make too much a fuss) and end up with a ridiculously low percentage of players playing the profession with a constant number of people who will complain about things.
C) I'm going to get called a narrow-minded, weak-minded <expletive> for not voting for the ability to let players play how they want to. The way I see it, players can play how they want to entirely. They're allowed to pick their profession. They're allowed to change their profession. I think that's pretty nice liberty, myself. But that's just me.
Ok, and before I drop off this post, I don't think it's a bad idea to raise faction pet prices for other classes. Not much. And, that leaves neutral SLs out, and that's not too great an idea. Aligning yourself with a faction isn't profession-related, so that would have to be worked out pretty well before it was feasible. And again, PIB, sorry for going off. Didn't mean it as a personal attack. :}
This is great! In the Pistoleer forum Pistoleers just duke it out with BH's (and vice versa). In the Squad Leader forum you guys actually fight each other!
Where's the popcorn...
I find it important to lead a squad, made of pc's or not. However, I find it prioritized to lead other REAL people. There should be some emphasis on leading REAL people, maybe a % bonus to xp gained for the party based on how many people are in the squad at the time, provided an SL is the leader. And a penalty to sl xp gained when grouped with pets only. That way it is still possible to level with pets, but much more difficult and only the most stubborn would level that way.
In diablo 2, the new patch is releasing with an item that can increase xp gained by %5 if you are equiped with it. Perhaps SL's should be similar? Perhaps they would become much more sought after.
Being a squad leader you do sacrifice individual power, being that people will gladly do almost anything for power it is a sad state of affairs and there is an obvious reluctance to have faith in the Squad Leader profession.
Alright. Steppencat gets my vote for best post of the forum...
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Why penalize Squad Leaders who are grouped with NPCs by reducing their xp when there is absolutely nothing in the instruction manual that says "Squad Leaders are intended to lead people groups only?"
What harmcould it possibly do to this profession to allow one more uninfringed way to earn SL xp? Haven't we been hurt enough already?
Sheuset,
The manual for Star Wars Galaxies doesn't say a lot of things. In fact, it saays some *wrong* things.
The excerpt for the Squad Leader profession is:
"A soldier whose very presence in a group provides benefits to all group members."
Maybe it's just me, but that's pretty bare-bones. In contrast, here is the Rifleman excerpt:
"Marksman who is skilled using blaster rifles and other large firearms."
...Which mentions absolutely *nothing* of sniping, sneaking, and one-shot kills, all very key points of the profession. Instead, I had to go through the individual skill lists in the game to discover whether I wanted to become a profession or not. So no, the manual does not directly link SLs to people groups only. But then, it seems like the single-sentence descriptions in the manual are meant only to give the vaguest idea, too.
And for examples of how it would hurt our profession... look all throughout the forum. No point in repeating them all here. ^^
I think the current problem with SLs wanting to solo with pets instead of group with other players stems from the fact that our XP is based on how much damage we dish out...
If we had an xp system based on how much damage the whole group dishes out, then this would make grouping with other players MUCH more preferable to soloing.
Current xp system: CombatXP * NumberInGroup * 2
better xp system: GroupsTotalCombatXP * 2
yields in similar advancement, yet doesn't penalize us using Squad Leader abilities instead of combat abilities.