Squad Leader Archive

1. every SL in team, no matter of position or anything, is allowed to give group buffs to the team.


2. buffs which are applied by a non-groupleader will be noticeably weaker than a buff given by the leader.


3. buffs which can negatively affect the group and thus only make sense to be applied in certain tactical situations can only be used by the group leader.

And here comes my reasoning for this concept:

Point 1:

No SL in team will be useless, each and any will be able to use his abilities and help the team with them. A dedicated SL will try to get to the leader position and coordinate the team (see following points for more detail) and a dabbler can just add his buffs to the team and care for little else.

Point 2:

Asingle SL who leads a team knows that his buffs really make a difference while at the same time, all of the additional (weaker) buffs give a small edge to the team so they add up to some advantage without completely unbalancing the group.

Having the two different kinds of buffs at hand group-leader and non-group leader, balancing one kind won't affect the other kind, so it should be much easier to find some balance. (I don't want more buffs in the skills list, the buffs should by themselves when being triggered decide if they give the stronger or weaker version.)

Point 3:

This way, the leadership is connected to the group leader. The risk of griefing is seriously reduced due to only one person being able to use the abilities which can negatively affect the group. Tactics of the group are defined by one leading person and can't be countered out by a random SL-dabbler within the group. It gives maximum control for those who want to actually lead, for those who don't want to lead the group leader position is just a bonus to make their buffs stronger. (For somebody who doesn't want to lead and is not interested in tactical coordination, the abilities charge and retreat should be of limited interest.)

I have quite good concepts of leader and subleader here already, but they are complicated and might be hard to understand for young SLs. Additionally, they would require massive additional coding. I hope that this concept is rather comprehensible (after all, you just have to remember the first 3 points) and also only requires limited coding.

And from a psychological point of view, the power scaling has to be readjusted... the weaker version, not applied by a group leader, should be known as the "normal" buff to the players. The stronger version should be known as "group leader bonus" on the buffs. This way, nobody will feel set back, they just don't all gain the bonus.

Feel free to comment on the concept and let me know what you think are flaws and need improvement, any (constructive) feedback is welcome.

Message Edited by Sylow on 09-05-2005 06:13 PM