Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Goodbye I Quit SL Correspondent Position
StPhil wrote:
You've got it mostly right. Captain had a couple of masterpieces that he had invested a lot of time, effort, and himself in. TH didn't want it. He wanted something simpler. That's where the conflict came in.
Ah okay. I think I can understand being upset spending a lot of time drafting a report and not having it read. Was it long? I can also understand if it was too long it might not have been useable for Thunderheart, considering he's already a week behind on a promise he made to the community and considerably stressed out. It just may simply be he did not have time to look through it all. Or perhaps it was reference that he needed to use constantly. *shrug*
This kind of reminds me of my profession, web design. I typically spend hours upon hours working on designs for clients. With just about every design I make the customer usually comes back, unhappy, because their vision didn't match my vision. Since I cannot see inside people's mind and its difficult to get people to articulate exactly what they want, this happens far too often, despite al the precautions I make. Instead I end up doing what I feel is 'butchering' my masterpieces to make my clients happy, so I can get their vision of the design.
No offense to whomever out there that wants the position, but unless they're listening then it is no use. You can't yell or go at them with long detailed reports, Captain V did that. What's left? Kissing their asses ?
A profession like SL(and DE etc) where there are too many things wrong to be fixed 5 at a time, we won't get anywhere near fixed even if they did 5 per month. Just like people have said, it's not that we're "broken" it's that everything is just wrong.
So if we had to go by 5 issues each month....it'd take us what, 5 or 10 months to be "fixed"?
Lets see if we can do lists by 5, and this isn't counting "content" additions to the profession:
-Terrain Negotiation now given to Combat Medics, making our line not valuable
-Group Defence skill modifiers are too low and have a very low effect(~2%-5%) suggest increasing these defensive skills as you did with most other classes recently
-Volley Fire only causes 1 round of attack for each group memeber, and with no(or even negative) damage modifiers
-Retreat nearly kills the SL just by using it, and also has no real benefit. Not even for travel now as mounts, and soon vehicles, will be in
-Form Up doesn't always work and now healer types also have state heals
There's 1 month, of just broken stuff
-Boost Morale averages wounds across the party, which is near-useless. It is commonly suggested that it should average damage.
-Failure rate for all abilities is too high, SL's can fail a 1/3rd or more of the time
-The SL exp formula was changed, changed, and changed again. It factors only in group size and exp and gives no bonuses for performing SL-like actions
-The bonuses given by /Rally are very small and not very noticable by groups
-Mind costs on ALL abilities far too great, especially with the failure rate as it is.
There's 2 months, still not a single CONTENT addition.
Lets try content additions in month THREE(February-assuming they *can* do all of these in a month):
-Novice Squad Leader only has sysgroup, nothing very beneficial to a group
-MASTER Squad Leader has no new abilities, only skill modifiers
-The ability to change or "paint" the group's target would be nice
-Possibly make it so having a SL in the group allows more passive defence to work, IE: Group Center of Being
-It would be nice if groups travelled progressively faster whle grouped with a SL
Well, Im going to stop there. None of these ideas are original, they all came from off this board, I've just broken them down into 5's. So by that timeframe, it would be around MARCH(assuming that all of our wishes were granted) that we would begin to have some functionality.
Unlike the Devs, the players know there is a difference. There are classes that are broken, and there are classes that dont work. A profession like Pistoleer(yes, Im one too) could get by with 5 fixes a month. If they fixed 5 or so broken abilities, the Pistoleer would be in pretty good shape without much in the form of content fixes. Classes like SL and Chef, don't work. The things they do, there is just little or no use for them, so they need more content fixes than they do bug fixes.
And then there's professions like DE, what the hell do they do? Is #1 on their Top 5 list- "We've got a bug list over a page long"?
So sure, there are classes out there that can be fixed with a Top 5 at a time, mostly Combat professions. But I'd say crafters & support classes have a lot more that needs to be done to them.
Madrox wrote:
Truthfully, I don't think another SL Correspondent will do much good.
No offense to whomever out there that wants the position, but unless they're listening then it is no use. You can't yell or go at them with long detailed reports, Captain V did that. What's left? Kissing their asses ?
A profession like SL(and DE etc) where there are too many things wrong to be fixed 5 at a time, we won't get anywhere near fixed even if they did 5 per month. Just like people have said, it's not that we're "broken" it's that everything is just wrong.
I'm not certain that the problem is that they are not listening. I suspect Thunderheart and the others ARE listening, but we haven't gotten any concrete answer...and I wonder if WE aren't listening properly.
Some things to keep in mind: Very often the developers cannot for legal reasons implement some of the ideas we have. When the requests have been loud and clear enough they CONSIDER them, but history shows that they basically make the overall design decisions internally. Even the Correspondent program is basically a glorified "suggestion box" The Correspondent forum is a new and unique feature of SOE that gives us as a community a chance to be heard and to sometimes get tidbits of the developer's plans before they are implemented so that our opinions MIGHT be taken into consideration before a final decision is made.
Is getting a new correspondent going to force the developers into listening and responding to our pleas for help? Certainly no more (or less) than the Cap'n was able to!
But telling the devs what to do is not ours or even Thunderheart's job. Our job is to play the game and have fun. Our job is to report to the Correspondent the issues and ideas we have, and the Correspondent's job is to report those issues to Thunderheart, who in turn reports them to the developers.
What is left? If we are satisfied that all our issues and ideas have been put on the table...not very much. That is,until weget a response from the developers or some of these ideas and issues are addressed. Judging solely on Thunderheart's quick response to my application for Correspondent and the fact that he's actively working on getting answers for our Top 5 questions, I'm holding hope that some sort of response is soon coming. Even if it isn't, more whining and bickering about this is certainly not helping.
So each one of us is faced with a choice: Continue on the path you are on with Squad Leader being the gimpiest profession in the game, or attempt a new path. IMHO, Squads can be very effectively led by Combat Medic's, Doctors, or any knowledgable player, really...for the"SEA" Bartle types like me, you might enjoyan Elite entertainer position. Dancer's and Musiciansgive great mind buffs after all. Perhaps you might unlock your FSCS in the process! Personally, I choose to carry on while there is stilla glimmer of hope within me. I /salute all those who join me in this endeavor--I think I will need your help. For those that wish to move on, (I don't begrudge you that at ALL as I am so very close to that brink myself) May the Force Be With You and I wish you the very best. ...Regardless of which path you take, please do me one favor: HAVE FUN. Last I checked, this is still a game and the point is not to be the first to unlock FSCS or solo a krayt or whatever...the point is to have FUN.
If you've seen the correspondent system implemented in ANY other game. You'll notice some stark differences. These differences are a direct result of communications flowing from the devs. This is why the program has failed here so miserably so far, and will continue too until that communication flows better.
I've only had the opportunity to see this program work in 1 other game (which did notlock its forums out by the way), and it seemed highly successful.
-Phal
Just curious, what game was that?
Also, when you mention "lock it's forum out" are you referring to moderators locking and deleting threads or that the forum is only accessible to players with currently active accounts? If you mean the latter, I'm not quite sure what bearing that has on anything... Anyhow, I thought I heard Thunderheart say that the forums were going to be unlocked again soon.
Sorry to see you go. I was once a SL, butI needed the skillpoints for things that actually works. I have been watching these forums hoping to one day find a reason to come back... now I guess that wont happend.
Vem,
As it is, I believe you were right. DiLune is also right in his perception of professional / volunteer dynamic.
I'm sorry that all of your wonderful work came at such a frustrating price. Hopefully now you can relax and / or finally enjoy the game.
Capt. Vem I /salute you
I think that after all this time your behaver your is acceptable. WHy? Well you can only hit your head against a wall so long before you crack. Right now I feel that I havetwo positions with this game, Quit being a Master SL or drop my account. Quiting SL is not really and option. I am tired of playing and paying for beta. This game is not as fun as it should be that and I feel that the devs/programmers/etc need some better MGMT cracking the whip.
Sorry to see you leave, always unhappy to see a good community member leave.
Thanks for the post though, it does a lot to confirm my fears about the other broken "elite" professions... I was considering taking up squad leader, so when I saw your post quoted on the bio-engineer board (while I was reading up and ranting on the broken-ness of the BE profession) I had to take a look.
Noting this I'm not sure this game is really worth my time right now, as so far every advanced game activity I have considered has turned out to be nonfunctional or un-achievable. One bad implementation over another piling into a very unstable pyramid of sour grapes.
I'd encourage you folks to read up on the bio-engineer board and the droid-engineer boards... two other majorly broken classes that come immediately to mind.
=-Adun
It is a very sad day. I have been friends with Void since a week after launch or so and worked tirelessly to keep my vendor stocked at the Gorath Galaxy Mall. I almost cried when I read your resignation, because I feel very close to those that I have been playing this game with, and to see one leave the game is like a friend dying.
Void, you will be missed by many. Good luck in the future and I hope to keep in touch with you.
/salute
*the cantina band begins playing taps, durring a 37 Carbineer Salute*
we lost a good man, i cant blame you V, a bit suprized you were abel to stick it out for this long, but you did everything you could and thats all we could ask for.
/salute 
Got the word off the pistoleer forums, I wasn't a SL long but I was incredibly impressed by the Captain as a correspondent. It's too bad that he is stepping down and I hope you all get some love soon.
/cheer Captain
I beileve that the 'corespondents' were never going to be given full weight. Why fix the game if
we will play a broken one? There is no fixing SWG, SOE has made there money and moved on. They
have played the Star Wars franchise card knowing people would accept nicely packaged crap wrapped
in a Star Wars wrapper. The only way is to just leave and hopefully never get sucked
into buying another SOE product.
For what is is worth I thank you for the OBVIOUS PERSONAL ENERGY that you put into this.
You lasted much longer than I would have.
SOE: THESE PROBLEMS ARE -YOURS- YOU ARE TREATING PEOPLE LIKE CRAP.