Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Official : Informing the Dev's of Our Thoughts on the New Abilities
Save your money and buy yourself a new brain. Look at it this way: If you use a headshot on someone, and you miss, it still hurts your puny shrivled mind (pool). Why should it be any different for an SL skill? Don't whine just because you're skills don't allow you to be the most uber player in the game.
Qjahe wrote:
And for crying out loud if rally fails dont take off the MIND jezzus.
just my 2 cents.
Yriah
I share in the opinion that the squad leader should NOT be a puppet master. Some people made the argument that the character class is based off of the idea of being like a military commander, but this is a poor metaphor. In real life people in the military AGREE to follow orders. THEY DON'T HAVE THEIR FREE WILL TAKEN AWAY.
Dealing with PCs who don't listen could add a certain level of realism to the character class... Might be fun for role players and what not.
With the exception of the forced march command, I think the proposed abilities blow chunks. The stances and group assignments could be cool if they were tweaked (ie so that there won't be a strong disadvantage to the stances).
I became a squad leader because I wanted to be able to support my group members and make our actions more cohesive (through improved communication etc..). As such, I'd really like to see more passive group bonuses, abilities like steady aim, etc.
Two abilities I'd really like to see are: 1) a /painttarget command, to aid in communicating which target to go after. 2) a detailed /consider command that would allow us to make more detailed strategies abouthow to attack an opponent or structure. Both would be great!
Thanks for reading.
Laeorac Edami
Squad Leader/ Rifleman
Valcyn
Here's another idea: Why not make a reconassance droid to which only squad leaders have access. You could set it up to give a report on a given area of space including number of enemies in the area, their relative strength whether they are aggressive or not, etc...
I feel like this kinda of thing would make Squal Leaders MUCH more valuable on a tactical level (particularly before attacking a large base).
What do you guys think?
Laeorac
Like most of you, I am also strongly opposed to the puppet-master changes proposed for Squad Leaders. I dont think I should find it necessary to promise my group that I will NOT usemany of myskills. The people I play with, and I assume any players out there, do not want to sit back and let someone else control their character. (I hated that kid in the arcade whonever hadmoney and always asked "Want me to get you past this level?").
I like the general idea of the skills, but I do NOT want to force them to action (unless I'm usingthe Jedi Mind trick to do it). Ipersonally would like to see a system implemented similar to Xwing vs Tie Fighterin which youcould issue commands to your teammates (Attack my target,Cover me, etc) and thenTHEY pressa key to accept the command. I understand that this may be difficult to implement however.
I think you should probably email them before the Test Center implementation to let them know our basic concerns before they finish developing them. I am also all for testing them before we say we hate them, but letting them know our concerns in advance should help them decide what action to take before finishing development.
Also, I still thinkthe most important thing to change is the XP system, which rewards youonly for fighting, not leading.
I don't agree with any of the puppeting typeskills. I do however, like "forced march" and "smoke em" very much. Those are 2 good skills that should go with a class like SL. They should just do more LIKE those.. and not try and make squad leader directly control people like puppets.
I personally, would prefer more passive bonuses, or aura-type bonuses. The squad leader should have communication priveledges and lots of bonuses for combat.. not control players like pets. A "REAL" squad leader can have people under control by just having natural talent for communicating with players, hence respect from players naturally, not artificially. If you can't do that in the first place,DON'T BE ASL.
SOE really needs to NOT add in the puppeting skills, its useless for real SL's, and its going to make bad SL's highly annoying to people.
-Z
As to the "making people resent our class" and whatnot, if a person doesn't like a group they are in, they can leave the group.
And they will...
These changes are horrid. They are complex,difficult to code, and will never work in a laggy environment. Considering the successes of the existing skill lines, these will not work as described, have tremendous costs, and will be very poorly received. Many other alernatives have been presented and ignored on these forums.
That the community, within and outside the profession, resents these changes, should be a portent to the devs.
I'm in favor of a simple static buff, like our (non-working ATM) defensive bonuses, burst-run effeciency, and terrain navigation. More simple buffs like this, for offense, damage, healing, xp, etc, should be introduced. This is easy to implement, calculate, and adjust.
The tone of this response was uncalled for. Your disagreement with his point is fine (I concur), but the cost is excessive (which is the source of his complaint, more than likely), and didn't warrant a personal attack by you. Please apologize.
ob194 wrote:
Save your money and buy yourself a new brain. Look at it this way: If you use a headshot on someone, and you miss, it still hurts your puny shrivled mind (pool). Why should it be any different for an SL skill? Don't whine just because you're skills don't allow you to be the most uber player in the game.
This thread was brought to my attention by a PA mate...being a non squad leader I haven't really read through all the abilites though I have been given a quick resume of them...I would like to say as a member of a group some of these abilites are very cool in my view...Things like the group attack...this isn't saying we have to keep on attacking something if we see something that needs a warning shot to keep it away from the group, but having us all attack the same thing with no confusion will kill things faster...surely the squad leader should be able to assign targets..he's the LEADER! assigning positions gives better tactics and such...I believe that these are things that a group leader should be able to do...it's real life...if you were in an army squad you **edit** well do what your squad leader tells you! I'm not opposed to these abilites, if as you say it benefits less experienced players then I say that's a good thing...keeps them in line! I know not to attack everything that moves as we run along, but less experienced players may not realise that it just slows us down as a group, plus it can be dangerous if they don't realise a certain animal is social/pack!
Far from excluding players it helps less experienced players join in with the more experienced player and encouraged group play...if these abilities get put in I will be more than happy to join a group with a squad leader in it...as long as that leader doesn't abuse the power...if he does abuse the powers then I won't group with him again...simple as that! But in the hands of a good leader they will help keep the group together and that should be what a squad leader should do!
Thank you for the post David. It is good to see that not every potential groupmate is horrified by these abilities, and that you can actually see some upside to them.
David said...
"If he does abuse the powers then I won't group with him again...simple as that!"
exactly right.
Thanks,
-Psquire
I'm sure you all know where I stand on this issue, but for the record here's my two cents: The proposed "improvements" are a joke. They have nothing to do with what we want to do in this game and they don't represent the changes that WE recommended. Despite what some people say on this forum, this is OUR game, not the developers (after all without our money there would be no game). WE should be in control of what happens to our character class and the only way for that to happen is for us to TELL them. The developers just need to be there to keep things balaced.
Vem, I say fire off your letter of protest immediately and let 'em have it. Back it up with links to these threads here and reinforce our previous "Top Five" lists. We know what we want. We've stated it over and over. I don't think its to extreem and I don't think it would make the game inbalanced. I just think the devs got the wrong message or are trying to figure things out on their own (or more likely they're trying to figure out how to make us happy using command libraries and objects that already exist in game code). Well that don't cut it. SL is worthless now, and the new changes don't add a **edit** thing.
Serial Killer : Kauri Server
Psquire wrote:David said...
"If he does abuse the powers then I won't group with him again...simple as that!"
exactly right.
Thanks,
-Psquire
And where do you draw the line between human error of hitting the command at the wrong time, or maybe not seeing that add and ordering everyone to attack a certain target, or maybe you accidently have the wrong sub group attack and now all your medics are dead?
Good to know I'm going to have my reputation trashed because I accidently lost one of my human pets.
These types of powers willattract the wrong people to become SL's. All it takes is a couple of bad apples and the whole profession can easily be put under the "undesireable" category.
Psquire wrote:
David said...
"If he does abuse the powers then I won't group with him again...simple as that!"
exactly right.
Thanks,
-Psquire