Squad Leader Archive

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Aden_Nak wrote:
That's so unacceptable it makes me violently ill.We need skills that make people WANT us, not HATE us.

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Thats exactly how the news of SL "upgrades" effected me. I was so upset, all I could see was RED!

As is my custom, I am now going to disassemble the proposed changes, reducing them to their useless, fundamentally value-free components. I normally try to be much more constructive, but Holy Flaming Poop On A Stick these changes are beyond awful. I want to emphasize that I am not flaming here. I am being brutally honest. These skills are worthless, and here's why.

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-Follow Me:
Everyone in the group enqueues /follow on the leader

We have this skill already. "/sysgroup All follow me"

-In formation:
Using code similar to AI's followOffset: the group follows the leader in column, wedge or line formation

I made light of these skills when they were suggested and I will do it again now. Between the lag, the teleporting and the sliding these will be worthless. Repeat. WORTHLESS.

-Hold Fire & Fire At Will:

We have this one already, too. "/sysgroup STOP SHOOTING"

-Group Attack:
Anyone not already in combat will enqueue an attack vs. the leader's look-at target

What a horrible idea. Does that mean all of our healers will be forced to perform an attack, also? What we wanted was a way to "flag" or "paint" a target as a primary, and instead we got a Puppeteer skill. You know, come to think of it, I believe we already have this skill, too. "/sysgroup ATTACK LEFT STORMTROOPER"

-Cease Fire:
Everyone in the group enqueues /peace.

And this is different than Hold Fire how? Wait, let me check the current tree. "/sysgroup PEACE"

-Assign Position:
The group leader can assign group members to "Front Line", "Support" or "Ranged" squads. Group Attack, Cease Fire, Group Cover, OffensiveStance, DefensiveStance, Hold Fire and Fire At Will can then be directed to these individual squads

Essentially, what this allows us to do is to pass commands to sub-sections of our Squad. I can see how this might be useful from a management standpoint, but I am pretty sure I could /sysgroup my commands and allow my Squad Members to figure out if they are a Brawler, Healer or Gunner.

-OffensiveStance:
Gives the group a temporary bonus to damage. The bigger the group the better the bonus, lowers defense.

So, just to be clear. The only good combat skill we get has to have a built-in debuff?

-DefensiveStance:
Gives the group a temp bonus to defense. The bigger the group the better the bonus, lowers damage.

Wow, the exact same thing as the previous one, but in reverse. You know, we asked for specific buffs to things like speed and defense and accuracy. Instead we got a buff and a debuff at the same time. No one is EVER going to want us to cast this on them because it will lower their XP.

-Group Heal:
No, it doesn't heal the group: It changes the look-at target of anyone assigned to a support position to the leader's look-at target, and gives the system message "You have been ordered to heal ". Used by the leader to tell his healers who to heal. So you still have to push the button yourself (because he might not need a heal - he might need /firstAid or the like.

Once again we asked for the ability to "mark" or "flag" a target (this time a team member) and we got this instead. Let me see, we might have something like this. . . "/sysgroup HEAL ADEN"

-Group Cover:
Enqueues a /assist for the group vs. the leader's look-at target. i.e. if I want everyone to shoot what Dan is shooting, then I look at Dan and enqeue Group Cover.

I've been over this. More Puppeteer skills. Give us a "mark" or a "flag" or something. "/sysgroup ATTACK LEFT STORMTROOPER"

-Forced March:
Non-combat group burst-run sort of thing. Broken as soon as anyone in the group engages in combat.

The description is vague. Do we have to be in formation? Do we have to all be set to follow? Is it just Burst Run? Didn't we already have a skill like this that no one used?

-Smoke-em-if-you-got-em:
In a camp, out of combat, everyone in the group gets a mind regen bonus. The bigger the group the bigger the bonus.

The only benefit here would be to healers, so they can stitch the group up faster. What we needed was a Mind Regen all the time. It's doubly worthless since everyone will ditch a Squad Leader in favor of an extra Doctor/Combat Medic considering the rest of the skills we have.

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I can't say this enough times. We don't want to be Puppeteers. We don't want to have player-controlled Pets. And no one wants to have their strings pulled like this. These changes couldn't suck enough. I sure as hell hope they left us /sysgroup since it's still the only active Squad Leader skill I will use. I'd be of MORE value to my group with Novice Medic. That's sad.

My main point is that in the entire top 5 list we sent them, it was completely thrown out the window and this (insert your choice ofajective here) new (insert your choice of noun here) was given to us.

**edit** straight. I'm glad to see our Profession Corespondant isn't being complacent about this! Far more than 75% of our "skills" are for Squads of morons with no gaming skills, and can be duplicated with /sysgroup. That's so unacceptable it makes me violently ill. We need our issues addressed. We need skills that make people WANT us, not HATE us.

>"Far more than 75% of our "skills" are for Squads of morons with no gaming skills"

You hit it RIGHT on the money. That's exactly what it is - forcing the idiots to do the things we tell them to. It's sad we've come to this.

It is sad, Vem. It's sad if you NEED these commands to keep order. It's sad if you have to force people to follow your commands.

The problem with Squad Leader now is that you are given commands that, if you know how to use them, you don't need them. And if you DON'T know how to use them, you SHOULD NOT have that much power over the players in your group. If you actually NEED these commands, you have no business doling them out to your group.

I hit Novice Squad Leader last night and took out a group on Endor. I find that simply with /sys (which is rather convenient) I can manage the group pretty well and have us perform focused and effectively. But that's the point, I just had /sys. What I brought to the group was a skill and talent for leading, but I took up this profession hoping for either passive or active abilities to complement that, and now instead I'm getting abilities which I find playing the role of things I can already do.

I agree with you Aden, there should be no necessity to use these commands if you intend to play SL. As an effective Squad Leader your talent alone carries you and your group along in terms of leadership. The focus on new skills shouldn't be on controlling the players and group management (coming into this profession you should be able to handle a group without hard-coded skills), but rather on enhancements and buffs (both passive and active) that we can use to increase group productivity (in both PvE and PvP), making our profession desirable and giving us an opportunity to lead.

So let me get this straight... We get shafted from launch, dont get any attention from developers at all... and now we're just bending over and taking it like some prisoner's girlfriend? This is unacceptable. I'll stick with squad leader just because I'm the only one the Guild I'm in Has. (which makes sense, it's a useless hybrid profession, it should be on the same level as bounty hunter in effectiveness.)

Give us some REAL benefits, show us that the melee and range defense actually works...

Lagamiso, I'm glad more and more people are getting my message. Specificly, that these commands would be LESS effective for me than commanding my group directly. Maybe it's just because I type 80 words per minute. Heh. Squad Leaders are not for the faint of heart, nor for those that hunt and peck.

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Angel, yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Although what really burns my biscuits is when I see one of the Devs talking about improving Bounty Hunter. Because unless by improving they mean making Eyeshot reasonable or actually giving them Player Bounties (which I am completely in favor of. . . as long as they make Eyeshot reasonable), how do you tweak that class anymore?

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Yeah, when I started SWG, I wanted to be a Master Squad Leader, because I thought it would be really cool, and beneficial.

Then, I started doing a little research, and said... well, that's a lot of points... it'll still be good if I take 3 of the 4 lines, and pickup some combat. If they improve it later, I can quickly change back b/c I'll have the XP.

Then, I started seeing how powerful flexibility was, in how other team-mates and guild mates would take a bit of this prof and another, and create a powerful and versatile character. Reconsidered the third line, now planning on two.

Then, I started reading this "concept" of leading a team via micromanagement. I can already do that with droids and faction pets... (and am imperial, so I can get some decent pets too!). Reconsidered 2nd line, maybe I'll get the ranged def line... just to help my pets out.

But more than likely I'll just sack the 4th line, sack novice SL, sack wilderness survival xp, and continue to train in medic so I can do something useful...

... LIKE HELP MY TEAM.