Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Squad Leaders: Top 5 Issues
Hello,
As you have seen by now the there is no top 5, the class in whole is broken.
/sysgroup Is about the only nice thing to have when 1/2 the people in the group doesn't watch there chat window
/steadyaim ooo, ooo let me push the aim button for everone and use all my mind to do it? Does this make me a Jedi? This skill needs to be changed so the the aim gives an addtional +20 on top of the other players aim and should last 2 combat rounds. Also shouldn't the SL benfit from the inceased aim as well?
/ralley hmm, nice thought but is so rarely used because it basicly takes the SL out of combat. By the time we get it up, we have no mind left and find ourselfs sitting on the sidelines or sniping from afar. This does not seem to make an effective SL. The length that it last is nice, but you might consider just making it a passive skill. at least this way it could be used!
/formup the rarest of all used SL skills. It is used is use so few times. I wouldn't miss it if it got replaced by something else. you could try and patch this skill by adding more effects to cure, But in the long run if you did that you might as well make ent and medic pre-req instead of scout and marksman
/volleyfire very nice idea but needs help. for the moment I only find it usefull when there are at least 15 or more people in the group and there are more then 6 targets to kill. Is not even close to useful if you have less people or less mobs. And talk about the failure rate, by the time i do get a volly the mob is almost dead, or is dead. I don't suggest using a special aready qued up, a player has already qued it or the current target and would get upset if there intended target did not recive the special. what may need to be done is select the most damaging special based on range and stance. Say a pistoleer at range 2m would use point blank single 2 and if he was 30m he would use body or health shot.
/boostmoral ha ha ha, I know what you intended it for but it just doen't work. The most use I have is to distribute mind pool wounds from our combat medic. But that doen't stop him from having to wait 20min in a camp because most ent don't travel into battle. The most we ever have is a novice ent. I would like to suggest making it so that it did all wound damge and battle fatiuge not just pool points. I think this would do what you intended it to do. Thus we could stay in the field longer with out making a camp every 5min to wait 20min for the combat medic to get his mind back. Also wound healing would be so much quicker. Now we are all in this together. If were all healing a fraction of the wounds we would only have to be in camp a few min vise the 20min that promote AFK's more then anything else!
/retreat ya right, most people don't even watch there chat box while in combat and those that do are stuck on the combat window. This skill will never be used as intended. Its currently being used for troop movement over terrain. And why can't the SL run too?
I have heard many good suggestion in this set of post so I will not waste my time repeating them. Most of them I find would be a welcome change to the SL class. I would however like to suggest fomation moves. While I know some of you are offened by this. Think of it this way, If a SL can set a person as point, and call up formation, there would be no requirement for the SL to know all the waypoints, just follow the person that is point. From my experiance most people just set to follow anyways. Very few people are found not following. Being in formations would also get rid of the follow lag. You know the one, where some people follow the point, others follow those that are following point and yet others are following those people. Of couse the player always has a choice. If a formation has been called, and they decide to ue the follow command then they would be placed in the formation. If they break follow then they would be removed from the formation.
Question why at master SL I have a group terrain movement of 60, do people without the scout class fall behind? I though 50 was max and anything over went to crawl? And why can't I crawl any quicker? Do I not get this bonus as well? I have scout with a +50, I should be a crawling superman! As I wold have 110 and the max has been said to be 100
Also If were so good at combat, why is it when im all armored out, can a comando or BH kill me in like 2sec with out even a responce from me?
I think even if were not in a group we should still have our passive skills working. Why would we be a chagned person in a group vice not in a group. I am the same person right, i don't magicly transform do I into a combat god just because im grouped with 1 person that doesn't follow orders be cause he is off planet? Granted the commands would not be worth using with out a group but the passive bonus would be?
Here are my top five:
1. /boostmoral Change this skill to be a group heal mind damage. We are taking about boosting moral here, raising our soldiers fighting spirits, not spreading wounds to the whole group. Wounds are not ammo, we can't consolidate wounds and give and equal share to everybody, who came up with that idea? Smith's arm is broken, so I will halfway set it and fracture Joe's arm thehalfway. Huh? The ability of a squad leader to keep his soldiers'motivated and fightingis woefully unrepresented. Is mind damage simply blunt force head trauma or is it a representation of a reduction in the fighting spirit? When I become incapacitated from mind damage, is it because I have a concussion, or because I have become paralized by my fear of death?
2. Many people areasking for Squad Leaders to reduce the HAM costs of the squad. Give squad leaders a passive buff that raises all secondary stats (Strength, Constitution, Quickness, Stamina, Focus, and Willpower) by a small amount. This will have three effects, the increased str, quick, and focus will reduce HAM costs by a small amount,the increased con, sta, and wil will increase the regeneration rate of the HAM bar by a small ammount, and the increase in stats will allow squad members to wear their full set of armor more easily. This increase would represent the squadleaders duty in checking his soldiers and making small on the spot corrections to increase their efficiencyas well as his knowledge as a combat leader on the proper use and wear of military equipment.
3. Reduce failure rate and mind costs of our abilities.
4. Make the passives we do have mean something. From what i have seen, the only people who would benefit from our passives are newbies and people with no combat skills but only when fighting low level critters. Perhaps make the passives scale with the abilities of the class that is grouped with us to avoid making the SL the powerleveler of SWG, which seems to be why all our abilities are so crappy. Also scale the passives from novice to master, so that group members actually receive some readily tangible effect of grouping with a squadleader. Also let them know what benefit they are getting, and make sure it works!
5. The ability to paint a target or mark it in some way so the group can find it quickly without having to hit tab and go "Which grand wrix am I supposed to be attacking? There are five of them and three of them are taking damage." A squadleader targeting que that players can hit a key to tab through would be ideal. The squadleader could add targets to the que and the squad members could hit a key to switch to the next target in the squad leaders que, instead of tabbing to the next farthest away target from themselves.
As most people have already pointed out, there are no top 5 issues, as the profession's broke. Yadayadayada. I know the community won't get what it deserves, at least in a timely fashion. But beinga programmer, I understand how hard it can be to impliment new features. However, it isn't AS hard to fix things that are already there. Therefore, here are the top five realistic things you could do for us that would help.
1. Lower HAM costs and failure rates.
2. Make boostmorale apply to damage, NOT WOUNDS
3. Make our "plus whatever to whatever" modifiers a number that at least has a chance of being noticed by our group.
4.Also, many SLs have pointed out we have nothing for ourselves when we're solo. How about this: All of our "plus whatever to whatever" modifiers apply to us alone even when out of a group.
5. Here you've got possibly the most mature, well-written, non-1337 group of people, and yet they get the least attention. So my last suggestion is when we ask to be thrown a bone (at least let us know you're reading... PUBLICLY), then, by all means, throw us the frickin' bone.
Snugglecat wrote:
As most people have already pointed out, there are no top 5 issues, as the profession's broke. Yadayadayada. I know the community won't get what it deserves, at least in a timely fashion. But beinga programmer, I understand how hard it can be to impliment new features. However, it isn't AS hard to fix things that are already there. Therefore, here are the top five realistic things you could do for us that would help.
1. Lower HAM costs and failure rates.
2. Make boostmorale apply to damage, NOT WOUNDS
3. Make our "plus whatever to whatever" modifiers a number that at least has a chance of being noticed by our group.
4.Also, many SLs have pointed out we have nothing for ourselves when we're solo. How about this: All of our "plus whatever to whatever" modifiers apply to us alone even when out of a group.
5. Here you've got possibly the most mature, well-written, non-1337 group of people, and yet they get the least attention. So my last suggestion is when we ask to be thrown a bone (at least let us know you're reading... PUBLICLY), then, by all means, throw us the frickin' bone.
Consider what is communicated when we say we don't have a top 5: If we can't make a list of the 5 most important issues to our profession, we must not have very many real issues. ...Alternately you might consider that it means we've been to lazy or unwilling to prioritize our issues.
But I don't think either of those is entirely true, I think the core problem is that we have so very little to work with and maybe THAT is what we need to communicate to the developers... Since we never received a response to Vem's initial reports we're basically working blind. The truth is, although we may have our individual visions of what Squad Leader should look like, that may or may not be remotely related to what the developers have in mind.
Having said that, I think this top5 is pretty valid. The only one I take issue with is #4...Personally, I *like* that the Squad Leader skills only work when we are the leader of a group because it emphasizes what we are SUPPOSED to be doing. Yes it is a limitation, a very severe one at that. However, I think that Squad Leaders were designed to encourage group play, and this limitation would encourage group play...if our skills were worth having in the first place! If you REALLY want your Squad Leader skills for solo, buy a mount and group with it....but again that defeats the purpose. I say, leave that one aspect of Squad Leader alone so that no matter what uber skills we are given, there's no reason to call itunbalanced!
Sure, but the Terrain negotiation is basically worthless to us anyway. Before we can get Novice Squad Leader we have to get Exploration IV from Scout... Any additional terrain negotiation only increases our prone speed...couple that with the addition of mounts and Terrain Negotiation means NOTHING to us from a self-sufficiency standpoint. Basically the mobility line helps us help people who are neither scouts, nor combat medics and who don't have a mount or vehicle...a rather limited pool.
Hey, I donno about you, but I like being able to crawl around like some sort of crazy bug.
But anyway. Well, what -could- we have by ourselves, then? The reason I said have our current modifiers be what we have by ourselves, is because that way they don't have to create anything new. Little work as possible.
However, if they were by some longshot to address allll fiiiive of my suggessstions... -goes into a daze... snaps out of it- ... Then that would be perhaps too much of a solo bonus for us.
So how about this: All of our modifiers apply to us when solo, but at only one half or one fourth of the effectiveness.
It should really only work with Other PC's, or maybe Faction pets. But probably just PC's.
I would like to see some uber bonuses tho. Like automatic 2x damage inflicted, 0.5 damage taken, double speed attacks, etc when grouped with a squad leader.
Sure, we'd all like to see some uber bonuses. I'm just trying to give them a list of something they MIGHT do SOON.
'cause if I had bothered to write an actual "Top 5", it'd be summed up in two:
1. Fix what we do have.
2. When done,give us what we should have.
See. I'm just trying to give us a nice top five that will support number ONE on that list. If they can prove that they could do that, then we can start realisticlyhoping for these illustrious uber abilities.
Also, I'd like to add to my top five, that Volleyfire should inflict triple damage a regular attack. HAM cost should not be reduced as a result, but failure rate SHOULD.
When that has been discussed the hell out of, I will update my top 5.
My top five issues with Squad Leader Profession:
July
August
September
October
November
without any kind of correspondence from SOE regarding the issues that our correspondent has supplied many times.
New entry to our list:
1. TH Running off a hard working, dillegent, professional, positive, and thoughtful correspondent.
If I didn't get the SL bonus for being in a group with pets (including a mount - though none of my SL abilities and probably defensive bonuses work while mounted) I wouldn't be a SL. Much of my concept is built around flexibility and PvE gameplay. I'm not a creature handler either - I've got a Gurrcat, a Kaadu mount, and a small army of probots (that I can only use one at a time). My time's spent tracking down waypoints for resources that clients, or my surveying partner, give me - usually solo and in very dangerous places. Sometimes I do work with a group of players in PvE GCW missions and adventures but this is the exception and not the rule - besides SL abilities are not all that amazing. If they didn't work at all for solo PvE with pets and NPCs then I'd ditch the class in a heartbeat
Mandash Grim
Commissar
1) Rally seems only marginally effective and remarkably unreliable and HAM expensive - even with a character customed out to reduce HAM costs for action and mind.
2) Boost Morale does not have any real value - to be effective it needs to rearrange damage not wounds.
These are my main issues at this point as part-time Squad Leader.