Squad Leader Archive
Thread: The REAL problem is NOT the new SL abilities.
When reading the new SL abilities I got a pang of fear in me. Lockout commands preventing players from firing? The ability to have different squads target and engage different creeps? People follow you around at the touch of a button? I have a couple pets and I use 2 commands, Follow and Attack. Being able to direct other players into these actions seems to make it possible to convert them into semi-automatic pets. This would clearly make groups MORE effective at combat. Hopefully these abilites would only ALL be available to Master Squad leaders and optional for each group memeber. Hopefully we are all sane enough to only use them as management not mind control. Still there is the fear now group members now need to do nothing.
But THE NEW SQUAD LEADER COMMANDS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.
Look we have all asked for the ability to designate a target right ? If you can do that all a player has to do is press ~1 an they start firing? So our idea was that people would get a message, fire at this, they would hit some key and start firing. Why make them do that? They just sit and press key A when they get the attack message and F when they get the follow message. The problem is YOUR NOT DOING ANYTIHNG in combat ANYWAY. You just hit attack and zone out. I realized that the only REAL task is hitting tab 50 times to lock on to who the group leader wants. Take that away and there is nothing for people to do in combat. The solution here is making stance, position, firing angle, weapon selection and special selection have a much larger roll in combat. None of which the SL has ANY control over. Not fearing these SL abilities just because they expose the lack of any real user input or thought in SWG combat.
These changes are fantastic because it turns the Squad Leader into an actual commander over his group. Have you ever been inside a group that has about 15-20 people before who do not really know each other? Hardly anyone knows what to do it seems, and they hardly ever work together as a team. Now with these changes a Squad Leader will be able to ensure that everyone in his group works as a team, effectively, by taking his own knowledge and putting it into action.
I love these changes. Heck its only been 2 months so we will see further changes between all the professions but this one here gives me high hopes for my SL profession.
I have little to no problems with this. As long as my Group Ranged Defense modifiers get fixed, and these group defense and offense bonus's actually work and are worthwhile, I'm a happy man.
And if you fight without thinking about what your doing then you are one of those group members I talk about who simply do not know what to do.
Every single fight I get into as a Pistoleer requires thought about what moves I will be using.
While as the second poster mentioned, there are stupid followers who get the party killed, I've been in groups where the leader was a moron and got the party killed also.
So yes, there are stupid followers, but there are also stupid leaders...
I think I'd only join a group like this if the squad leader was well known (maybe someone I knew in Real life, etc..) otherwise, I'd rather keep my freewill...
Just my two cents worth..
if im leading a group
and sum1 in the group doesnt listen to a command i give
i boot them..end of story. I know how to lead, i knwo tactics, i know whatim doing....if peopel cant follow that then they are gone
these command smake it much much easier for me to do what im supposed to do.....lead
as i read the changes, i think they cold be very useful. you split your group into squads. you give 1 group defensive bonus to pull the mobs. you give the offensive squad the attack bonus. you keep the medic squad out of the loop so they are not affectd by the forced fire commands.
it seems to me, an SL with these abilites (If they are effective as implemented) can take a group of strangers and make them much more effective. I just dont see very many well-coordinated groups of any sizein this game.
as for the heal thing---now the medic can concentrate on healing and not finding which guy needs it the most.
as long as the SL XP is not based on personal damage. it seems to get use out of these commands, you must spend your time directing fire,healing, etc. not shooting
the main problem with SL is that 1/2 the people who play this game are 12-16 and in the "rebel against all authority phase of their life" (despiste the fact that they still dont have to buy their own food orshelter yet)
and they wont stand for "being told what to do" and they can just "go solo much better". what i really like about the SL profession is that to be good at it, its not just your ability to skip class and uber-level that determines your character's effectiveness, but how well you can relate to others and coordinate things in the heat of battle.
what we need are some mobs that uber-leet-min-max players can't defeat without a little planning and coordination.