Squad Leader Archive

I know we've been waiting for a Dev response to our plight, and I am glad we got one. And I hope the Devs don't feel annoyed with us for being so down on them. But it's kind of like waiting all year for Christmas and then finding out that what Santa brought you was a root canal.

Most of these skills are centered around the concept of a Squad Leader being in charge of a group full of morons. If I am in a big hunting party and there is one guy that is consistantly not paying attention, not attacking what needs to be attacked, drawing other MOBs and being a jerk, I kick him. I don't send special commands to him to make him play nice. Forcing group members to obey isn't useful.

Formations are an awesome idea that won't work. Sorry. They won't work. As laggy as the game gets in combat and as frequent as teleporting MOBs and "sliding" players. formations are going to be nominally useful at best. You know it, I know it.

The problem is that I see nothing on this list that would make people WANT a Squad Leader. We still don't have any skills where someone says, "If we had a ****ing Squad Leader this wouldn't have happened!" I'm already getting people who are angry with ME because of the proposed changes. I have people complaining that I want to just have a bunch of Pets instead of other players. . . it's absurd. People are already up in arms over how much they DON'T want us to have these skills.

And we're the angriest of them all. We waited, we were patient, we leveled the bad skills with the bad XP system in hopes of seeing some improvement. We watched other Professions get the attention they needed and knew we'd get our come-uppance. Then we saw what the Devs had in mind for us and we were sorely reminded that they never play their own game.

I will keep these assinine Squad Leader skills until the changes go in, only because I figure that the flame-fest the Devs receive will be enough to make them re-rethink Squad Leader. Let them pick he best ideas from our boards. Let them actually READ what we asked for and understand that we want to be Group Buffers, not Puppeteers.

Yes, having a skill to get people to attack a certain target would be nice. But don't just give us a skill where we make everyone retarget. Maybe it's in the best interest of our team to not have EVERYONE hit that target. Give us a /flag or /mark so we can indicate which ones are primaries. My Squad Mates will respond properly, or they won't be my Squad Mates. I don't want to lead obstinant children, I want to lead Soldiers.

I want to Lead my Squad.

I have slowly progressed up the Squad Leader Ranks.

Working on hunting trips with my guild, smaller groups with my friends. Then coming in here and reading, hoping that our profession will get the recognition that other professions are. Everyday I read, hoping, and everyday I see no response on the status of our profession besides "We are looking into it".

I was talking to a couple of my guild mates and discussing the aspects of the Squad Leader profession, and I quote one of the members stating "What a waste of time".

Now, I agree with him, but I am stubborn and hopeful that this profession will soon get the recognition and resolution that the other classes are getting, but how long can one wait?

I've been trying to figure out WHY the Devs would give us skills like this, and so far the only thing I can come up with is that they really DON'T understand Squad Leaders. And I don't just mean from a Profession standpoint.

It seems like these skills are there to FORCE our groups to obey us. But I have got to be honest, for the most part, the groups I lead automatically defer to me. Maybe it's the title above my head. I don't know. I've never had trouble keeping order. When I do I swiftly boot the troublemaker and everyone else is happy. I don't need to FORCE my players to perform actions. I have to help them know what to do and let them make the judgement calls.

Like I told you before JD, aside from the 7k combat xp it takes you to get novice squad leader, all squad leader xp is out of its own pool, so you're not really losing anything by doing it unless you're only grouping strictly for squad leader xp. I personally would group with people, even if I was going after weapon/combat xp, so the fact that I'm gaining3 types instead of 2at the same time is just icing on the cake. If I'm not happy with the profession down the road, I'm not really out anything because my play style wasn't noticeably changed by becoming a squad leader and since the xp is different from weapon xp, I don't lose anything by surrendering all my squad leader skills.

While that is true, I am more annoyed by the time I wasted trying to form groups in town and bring them all out on missions. The honest truth is that if you don't have PA buddies to run these with, you spend half of your time keeping the group together. I could have honestly made more XP soloing. And besides that, I wasn't able to explore any other Professions because I had skills either tied up in or reserved for Squad Leader.

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DeepProgress wrote:
Aside from the 7k combat xp it takes you to get novice squad leader, all squad leader xp is out of its own pool, so you're not really losing anything by doing it unless you're only grouping strictly for squad leader xp.

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How about the three days of Camp Grinding I had to do to get all that Survival XP? It's hard enough fighting over Camping rights in groups, and equally annoying to grind that Survival XP out on your own. And then add to it all of the meaningless Explore XP I had to build up (and yes, I was getting Rifle XP, but I had to solo it to avoid ninjalooters from swiping all of the harvests). That's a good week I completely blew getting the other pre-requisites for Squad Leader. I could have been doing something more useful, like earning and then surrendering Business I over and over again.