Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Idea: Make Squad Leaders be the humanoid 'creature handlers'!
What we can talk about is how big is our influence to the pets! Do our attack or assist commands (if they come one day) also count for the pets of the members?! or other commands like formup, boostmorale and so on
The only argument I see to have the ability for take 10 pets as sl is: run around solo with a strong group... maybe even the strongest and this is why the devs will never implement this and why this discussion is useless.
We need to keep beating this horse. This is a great discussion with great points on all sides.
I could have been biased and excluded it from the list of proposals but I think you have just as much right to support this idea than anyone else has with another. So make sure there are no personal flames and keep it constructive.
Ok back to the debate....
I am all for players being able to control more than just one... or more than even three faction pets. But these NPC's are faction perks... you have to earn them. Creature pets are not perks. They are a tool to be used by the player and can be made/tamed at almost any time. CHs earn the right to have multiple pets, pets that have nothing to do with a galactic civil war.
Now you may say that it shouldn't be a "faction" pet but just simply ahuminoid NPC pet, so as to give something to those who are not part of any faction. But this is just creating a new form of pet for neutrals which in turn takes away from the current pets being perks. You join a faction to get these perks.
So since these pets are tied to faction what can be used to determine the amount of pets you can have. Well because there is no faction specific class you can't use a profession to figure out how many you should get. Best solution? Base it off of your rank in that faction (yeah the rank issue again 
). As you raise up the ranks you get the ability to command more or better troops. This ties in the faction item and the leadership item. This way you can still have your "job" but your rank will determine your place in the factional military. The higher you are in your factions military, the more perks you get.
Sorry about the ramble... but its late. I tried to keep everything understandable.
Mike, you never did go out with 3 stormtroopers/rebel troopers to 'hunt' 'solo' did you?
solo as in with not CREATURE pet, no other player, no DROID. Just the npc pets. If you had you'd know that those 5k ham npc faction pets die as easy and are as effective as a player with just a box4 in marksman. Thats it.
The flip side is, if the SL can have 10 while others have just 1, then he does get an increase in his firepower, but any, and I repeat, ANY elite combat class will make quick work of the SL and his pets.
"Now you may say that it shouldn't be a "faction" pet but just simply ahuminoid NPC pet, so as to give something to those who are not part of any faction. But this is just creating a new form of pet for neutrals which in turn takes away from the current pets being perks."
First of all I don't really consider faction pets to be "perks." When I think of a perk I think of something free that comes with the job, like a CEO getting a limousine and chauffer. Faction pets don't fit this analogy because you're having to pay in faction points for them. Anyhow, I disagree that "this is just creating a new form of pet for neutrals"that would somehow take away from the current pets being perks. As I stated before I don't really think they're perks, and ony Squad Leaders (very high in the skill tree to prevent exploitation by dabblers) should be able to control them. They should be unique in appearance (like CorSec) from the faction pets, and easily identifiable as such. They don't even have to be as strong as say, a Dark Trooper, but the point is that we get something, ANYTHING, which actually makes the SL a tangible and observable benefit to the group.
"This way you can still have your "job" but your rank will determine your place in the factional military. The higher you are in your factions military, the more perks you get."
My problem with this is that it completely ignores the Squad Leader's Dev granted role to provide numerous powerful benefits to leading personnel on the field of battle. There is nothing in this game that qualifies an Imperial Colonel over a Master Squad Leader as far as being worthy to control faction personnel. All the Colonel did was grind hundreds upon hundreds of faction missions....Squad Leadersput skill points behind it and make it their profession, their goal for their character.
If you are wandering around and come across an imp base then you couldrecruit a stormtrooper if you had a high enough skill. I was thinking of a system scaled like in Creature Handler where all the bonuses to max creature level are dispersed evenly in the skill tree to prevent abuse.
I never bothered with battlefields, don't really know how they work. Was this back in beta?
Keep in mind that to be fair to the non-aligned Squad Leaders I interpret faction as being CorSec, FedDub, Jabba, Trade Fed., etc.
Yeah Im still against the whole "humanoid creature handlers" thing... but if we had the ability to temporarily control the NPCs of a PC base It would make raids that much more interesting.
This might a compromise between the two sides... LOL
As long as they couldn't be used to attack non-factioned targets, and probably couldn't travel a certan distance from their spawn point, I think it could be a great tool for SLs, and add some deapth into faction bases.
How long would they stay in the Datapad, and how many would one be able to control at a time? Would they have set commands, or would you have to train them? How would this work with multiple Squad Leaders?
I don't see being able to put them in your datapad or anything... They would just respond to your commands within the radius of the base.
And since they are factional and only operate within that radius they couldnt be used to attack creatures or NPCs.
Though... I can use NPCs to help me kill mobs currently. If you have good faction with them and you get attacked they will help you out. So how to still keep that and have this system... I don't know.
And the multiple SL thing has me baffled too. As of right now it wouldnt be much of a problem but SL might get more popular and we would see more of them.
irott wrote:
Or do you mean... You are wandering around and see a NPC imp base and you recruit a stormtrooper to join you?
Hm. I kinda like this... Instead of "taming" NPC's into your datapad like pets, perhaps extend some Squad Leader commands to affect aligned NPC's within range. This would be a great advantage for Squad Leaders trying to defend a player HQ because we could add a bit of intelligence to the local defense forces so they don't do stupid things like getting kited away from the real battle.
Sheuset wrote:
The problem with only allowing them to be controlled in the vicinity of a faction base is that it ignores non-aligned Squad Leaders. If we get a bonus, we have to make sure it applies fairly to everyone. Letting us recruit our own pets gives us greater flexibility rather than fettering us to bases in order to use our skills.
The "humanoid" Pets are only, and should only, be used in factional battles. Even if they add in more factions... would they be restricted to the opposing faction? And what about the neutrals? They have no one to fight so why would they get pets?
There are just too many flaws in a humanoid pet handler system.
its a simple matter. faction pets are for faction fightsand non rebel/imperial humanoid pets for non faction.
in essence, you could have a stormtrooper and a criminal faction pets out , order them to kill a durni , the stormtrooper will just look at you with a sneer while the criminal happily shoots the critter.
The problem with only allowing them to be controlled in the vicinity of a faction base is that it ignores non-aligned Squad Leaders. If we get a bonus, we have to make sure it applies fairly to everyone. Letting us recruit our own pets gives us greater flexibility rather than fettering us to bases in order to use our skills.