Squad Leader Archive

This is a "vision" post. I'm going to try to wrap up the discussions we've had here and some ideas that have been rattling around in my head to paint a picture of what the Squad Leader profession should be. I'm going to propose some fairly radical changes, so I wouldn't expect to see them overnight, if ever. However, I hope this post will get us moving in the right direction.

The Role of the Squad Leader

The Squad Leader is the ultimate group support class. The Squad Leader's primary function is to make his group more effective. He accomplishes this through the use of passive and active abilities that enhance the existing skills of the group members, and by directing and coordinating the group.

Is this true today? Not really. By and large, the squad leader abilities gained form the skill trees have little impact on the performance of a group. The players pursuing the squad leader profession may enhance their groups performance, but that is primarily due to player skill rather than character skill.

Following is an examination of each skill tree, what's wrong with the existing tree, and ideas to redesign the trees.

Novice Squad Leader

There is one big problem with Novice Squad Leader: it adds nothing to the group. Since a novice squad leader must find and lead a group to advance beyond this point, he must have something worthwhile to offer to the group. Currently, whatever a novice brings to the group is entirely dependent on player (rather than character) skill.

After I go through the various skill trees, I will suggest possible changes to Novice Squad Leader.

Leadership

What's wrong with Leadership:

- Formup is of marginal usefulness

- Group Melee Defense is very useful, but other players don't notice the benefit, because they can't see the modifier

- /boostmorale, by many accounts, is overpowered and exploitable

Suggested changes to Leadership:

- Remove all existing skills/abilities from this tree. They're not consistent with the new vision.

- Re-introduce the leadership stat. Each skill box in leadership would improve the squad leader's leadership stat (by +10 or more). This tree would function like the Techniques trees in the various crafting and entertainment professions. The leadership stat would be used by all other squad leader special moves to determine either a) chance of success, b) HAM cost, or c) level of success. This creates an interesting mechanic for Squad Leaders, who when advancing must choose whether to improve the effectiveness of their existing abilities (by training leadership), or gain new abilities (by training another tree). It also gives Squad Leaders a visible means to improve their special abilities as they advance, and makes the human +10 leadership bonus useful.

- Add a (small) discount to faction pets at the top of the tree. It makes sense for faction leaders to entrust these valuable resources to the people who are best able to put them to use. There is already a precedent for profession based faction bonuses in the Smuggler.

Strategy

What's wrong with Strategy:

- The name. Strategy, loosely, is "the science or art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations." That is beyond the scope of the squad leader profession. (This is mostly a pet peeve of mine; most people don't understand the difference between tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war).

- The special abilities are of marginal utility.

- The skill modifiers only have a minor impact on abilities of marginal utility.

- The entire tree is worthless to melee professions

Suggested changes to Strategy:

- Change the name to Morale. An effective leader must inspire confidence in his followers. (Requires a new specialist title)

- Remove all existing skills/abilities from this tree.

- Move morale-affecting abilities to this tree (/rally, /boostmorale, or the equivalent).

- Add passive group defense bonuses vs. state and posture changes (stun, dizzy, knockdown, etc). A soldier confident in the abilities of his squad and squad leader can shrug off otherwise devastating effects to help his team.

Tactics

What's wrong with Tactics:

- Ranged defense bonus isn't apparent to squad members (they can't tell they're getting it)

- /rally is a Morale effect, not a tactical decision

- /retreat is currently exploitable (4x run speed with burst run)

Suggested changes to Tactics (lots of possibilities here):

- Move /rally to the Morale tree

- Remove passive ranged defense bonuses (wait! they'll be back - see below)

- Move /steadyaim, /volleyfire or their equivalents to this tree. (These need to be more effective, too)

- Add melee-centric special moves that are the equivalent of the ranged moves above.

- Add a targeting ability (/designate or /illuminate, perhaps). This would highlight the Squad Leader's selected target to all members of the group.

- Add the ability to create fire teams. Fire teams are sub-groups that could each be given separate orders (A SL could have one of his special moves affect one fire team but not the other, for example). I imagine this would be fairly difficult to add, as it's probably a major change to how groups work.

- Add HAM pool targeting. Some people have suggested an ability that would allow all group members to specifically target a pool - I think that would be overpowered. As an alternative perhaps something like /aimlow and /aimhigh could be used. These commands would decrease the accuracy of your squad members, but improve the odds that their untargeted shots would hit the legs/action (/aimlow) or head/mind (/aimhigh).

Mobility

What's wrong with Mobility:

- The Terrain Negotiation bonus is wasted on most group members, who probably already have at least some skill in exploration. Only riflemen need a crawl speed boost.

- Burst Run efficiency is of very limited usefulness: when you want to burst run, you either have plenty of HAM, or it's already too late.

Suggestions to improve Mobility:

- Change the name to Formations. This tree will now focus on granting group bonuses through formations.

- Remove all existing skill modifiers.

- Add new formations at each skill box.

How Formations work:

Formations are most akin to bard songs in EQ. A squad leader can only use one formation at a time (he should be able to use his other specials while a formation is active, though). Each formation provides statistic boosts while the group members are in range.

Each formation should affect a different, distinct set of characteristics. One might improve travel speed, another ranged defense, and a third melee defense (The passive defense bonuses moved out of the other trees ought to be placed in formations). One might be most useful between battles, and improve the recovery process. There are many possibilities here.

When a formation is in effect, all group members should have some sort of status icon on their screen to show what formation they're currently in. These icons should display the numeric skill bonuses gained when moused over.

The key is that using formations should be a tradeoff. By gaining the advantages of one formation, you are not using the others. So for example a squad leader that chooses to put his squad into an improved movement formation doesn't gain any defensive benefits. Each formation needs to be useful enough in the right circumstances that they will all be used. This puts the burden on the squad leader to choose the best formation for the situation at hand, and makes a matchup between opposing squad leaders an interesting dilemma.

Novice Squad Leader

Suggestions to improve Novice Squad Leader:

- +X Leadership (assuming the changes to the leadership tree above are made)

- Move the targeting ability (/designate) suggested under tactics to this box

- Some minor passive stat bonuses

Master Squad Leader

Master Squad Leader should cap off the profession in a notable (but balanced) way.

- +X to Leadership (makes all of the special moves more effective)

- Add some passive stat bonuses

- Add a final special move or formation

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There you have it - that's my vision in a nutshell. Please add your comments.

(Incidentally, I've had a bear of a time posting this... Whenever I try to use bullets, indents, or other formating, I'm told I'm not allowed to post HTML. If that's the case, why give us the tools?)

I love this thread.

Its a design thread, and thats my love.

I'll start crafting my "vision" tree immediately, and we can contrast and compare.

I love the idea of the Techniques branch.

(P.S. The key with indenting is to not select stuff and hit indent, just place the cursor in front of the line, and hit indent, that should give you no errors (I know because I post huge threads with that type of formatting often, and fight with thoseerrors constantly))

Unfortunately, MMORPG developers never change an entire profession. All we can really realistically expect them to do is improve the skills and characteristics a Squad Leader already can posses, and maybe add a skill and a few bonuses here and there. The addition of new skills is even going too far really.

I cannot see the developers change the SL profession, or any profession, to an extreme that has been suggested throughout the boards.

This is how I would design the Squad Leader tree, if I was tasked to do so. Notice, this makes Squad Leader much more "full" than any other profession, but in theory when all professions get work like this, they would all end up as "full" as this tree would be.

Novice

• /sysgroup - Same as now


• +5 Group Melee Defense


• +5 Group Terrain Negotiation


• +10 Group Defense vs. Intimidate


• +10 Leadership - Decreases Specials Fail Rate, HAM Cost, and Increases Specials Bonuses


• +1 Group Understanding - Increases all XP by 1% (one percent per point)

Formations

Formations I

• /formation spread - Bonus to Ranged Defense, Penalty to Melee Defense while in this formation


• +20 Group Terrain Negotiation - Same as now

Formations II

• /formation tight - Bonus to Melee Defense, Penalty to Ranged Defense while in this formation


• +25 Group Burst Run Efficiency - Same as now

Formations III

• /formation column - Bonus to Run Speed, Penalty to Accuracy


• /retreat - Same as now

Formations IV

• /formation encirclement - Bonus to Attack Damage and Accuracy, Penalty to Run Speed

Morale

Morale I

• +10 Group Defense vs. Stun


• /concentration - Gives temporary bonus to Defense vs. Stun and Dizzy

Morale II

• +10 Group Defense vs. Dizzy


• +10 Group Specials Efficiency - Decreases the cost of everyone's special usage by 10%


• /determination - Gives temporary bonus to Toughness

Morale III

• +10 Group Defense vs. Posture Change


• /inspiration - Gives temporary bonus to Weapon Damage

Morale IV

• +10 Group Defense vs. Knockdown


• +10 Group Specials Efficiency


• /boostmorale - Same as now

Tactics

Tactics I

• +10 Group Attack Accuracy


• +20 Group Ranged Defense


• /volleyfire - As is, one pot shot from everyone at selected target

Tactics II

• +10 Group Attack Speed


• +15 Group Melee Defense


• /hurryup - Gives temporary bonus to Attack Speed

Tactics III

• +10 Group Attack Damage


• +20 Group Ranged Defense


• /rally - As is, large bonus to Accuracy

Tactics IV

• +20 Group Melee Defense


• /focusfire - What /volleyfire might have originally been designed to do: switches all combatants (as specified in group options menu [new addition obviously]) to the specified target

Leadership

Leadership I

• + Command Colors (blue) - Allows /sysgroup in Blue


• + 20 Leadership - Decreases Specials Fail Rate, HAM Cost, and Increases Specials Bonuses


• /formup - Same as now

Leadership II

• + Command Colors (green) - Allows /sysgroup in Green


• + 20 Leadership


• + 2 Group Understanding - (3% cumulative XP bonus at this point)

Leadership III

• + Command Colors (red) - Allows /sysgroup in Red


• + 20 Leadership


• Faction Pet Cost Decrease - Self explanatory

Leadership IV

• + Command Colors (yellow) - Allows /sysgroup in Yellow


• + 20 Leadership


• + 3 Group Understanding - (6% cumulative XP bonus at this point)

Master

• +10 Group Melee Defense +10


• +10 Group Ranged Defense +10


• +5 Group Specials Efficiency


• +10 Leadership


• +4 Group Understanding - (10% cumulative XP bonus at this point)


• /targethealth - Creates an increased chance for all attacks to hit Health Pool


• /targetaction - Creates an increased chance for all attacks to hit Action Pool


• /targetmind - Creates an increased chance for all attacks to hit Mind Pool


• /formation staggered - Bonus to Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, Attack Damage, Penalty to Specials Efficiency

Final Skill Mods of a Master Squad Leader:

• + 100 Leadership


• + 10 Group Understanding


• + 50 Group Melee Defense


• + 50 Group Ranged Defense


• + 25 Group Terrain Negotiation


• + 25 Group Burst Run Efficiency


• + 25 Group Specials Efficiency


• + 10 Group Attack Accuracy


• + 10 Group Attack Speed


• + 10 Group Attack Damage


• + 10 Group Defense vs. Intimidate


• + 10 Group Defense vs. Stun


• + 10 Group Defense vs. Dizzy


• + 10 Group Defense vs. Posture Change


• + 10 Group Defense vs. Knockdown

Thus the disclaimer at the top.

However, most of the changes proposed above aren't all that extreme, but a reorganization and refinement of what's already there. With the exception of fire teams, the things that are new are all based on existing game systems, so the technical effort required to implement them is much less than some completely off the wall idea.

Professions do change, but not overnight. If we want them to change in the direction we'd like, we need to make sure the developers hear our concerns and desires.

Vol i'm in love

Looks great

I must say...this is the best conceptual overview of what this class COULD be, if redesigned and rearranged a bit.

After reading a number of other posts, I had becomed discouraged with the pursuit of this class. However, with a few relatively simple moves...some solid and potentially effective changes this class might be not only successfull, but rather entertaining to play.

Well put Tychus, and Vol...nice overview of the skills as they are broken down along the skill tree.

Volatris, that skill tree you posted looks GREAT, that's exactly what our skill tree should have been like in the first place. I really like the idea of a Group Understanding bonus. My only concern is that the melee/ranged defense bonuses seem a bit extreme. +50 Ranged and Melee defense could make people virtually unkillable...I would bring that down a bit, and along the line add more bonuses to Defense vs. Intimidate and other effects.

Volatris, very nice work on the skill tree, I was very pleased with some of the options, especially:

>"+1 Group Understanding - Increases all XP by 1% (one percent per point)"

I like the idea of the group directly benefitting from the Squad Leader, giving the group a good reason to group them. I believe it would be good to make it variable, though.

Perhaps something along the lines of:

Total XP Increase = Group Understanding Level + (0.1 * Number of Group Members)

What do you guys think?

+50 is nothing. With master marksman and master pistoleer I would have a total of +130 to hit with my pistol. Cutting that down by 50from being a master SL isn't out of line. (this ignores the BH with only pistol lineadded to the master pistoleer/master marksman build, their bonus to hit is even grosser.)

Fantastic job on the skill tree Volatris. That tree of yours simply makes me not want to see the currentimplementation of SL skillstree again.

I very much like the way how passivedefense/offense bonuseshave been turned into active ones so that it's up to the SL to determine what's best for any given situation.

-Volan, Eclipse

/agree

this is how a SL tree should look like

Guh!

Nice work guys. Can't really add anything other than that! Nice work.