Squad Leader Archive

Look I doubt the devs will even bother to listen to us but it has to be pet...er I mean putdown on the offchance they might!

SOE/DEVS whoever designs or updates andimpoves/fixes the skills - LISTEN to what the squad leaders are saying in these forums - most of these guys are Intelligent Gamers - Taking a profession which does not Empower them individually but gives benefits to others. This isnt the creature handler profession (which I am getting close to be master in) but a selfless profession designed to benefit others...so you might listen some of the EXCELLENT posts done in here.

A good start would be to actuallyFollow around a competant Squad Leader someone who can actually lead well and take control of groups. You will immediatly see that all the abilities are used generally already via /sysmessage and clever macros!

Like I said follow them around and LOOK for Skills and ideas we NEED we dont need stuff we can do already/take for granted - thats just crazy talk.

The best thing I can compare what you are doing to Squad Leaders is going onto the Creature Handler Forums and saying - update to profession when you reach taming lvl 2 instead of 10+ to taming vicous creatures it is now the command Tame Vicous creatures - Totally pointless and something the profession can do already without being told we can.

So why give the profession something which somone with 0 points in Squad Leader Proffession can do already?

You need to ask yourself - what abilities can we give Squad Leaders that cannot be emulated via Clever Say macros, what can we give the class that they need but dont have, that will make people want to be lead by a squad leader?

AS it stands people who WANT to be squad leaders and lead groupswould be better off going Ranger for example as they can do all the abilities The squad Leader will be given, except hardly noticable increase in defense and attack via -Say macros and pep talks before hunting at the cost of 0 skill points, but they can also Find Specific creatures from tracking and such - they are now handy to a group people will want to group with them.

So instead of giving us abilities we take for granted and are requirements for leading a group well evenwithout the squad leader skill tree (how you think we managed to leadwhile working towards squad leader LOL!!)

Why not give us skills and abilities with functionality instead of what looks good on paper after a 5 minute brainstorming session but in practice Can be done without spending 70 odd skill points (which can be put into something else useful to a group) and Give us something USEFUL instead of beingPlayer Pet handlers !

/smoke-if-you-got-em

*you cannot use this skill as you have no players in your group - people are currentlygrouping with a useful leader profession like combat medic with some good /yell macros*

This is why I cancelled my subscription. I'm not paying them to sit on their ass.

There has to be a mixture of what the devs propose and what the players are asking for. I like anything that gives the group a tangible bonus, i.e. +10 to hit, +10 defense. I know they do not want to replicate an action that can be done by another class, so I think they should modify the "smoke em" command so that it only heals battle fatigue. If they did this every long range hunt would want a squad leader. Think about it squad leaders should have some type of inspirational ability. The ability to lighten the load of the troops with a good "you are doing great soldier" is a critical component to real life army squad leaders. Also the leadership bonus that humans are suppose to get should be in here somehow. I chose human to get that advantage and something needs to be done about it.

1. What about some type of ability which allows a temporary battlefield structure to aid the squad.. Such as a pill box which provides cover and and accuracy bonus. This could have a timer on it like say 2minutes.

2. Create a temporary mortar that can be fired by the squad leader to spray the enemy with some form of damage. Again with a timer.

3. Whatever the move is though they need to work all the time. At the first box of a tree they can be of marginal effectiveness but they should always work!

Mik-Kael,

The complaints come from the fact that we have been posting suggestions for abilities. Even in your postyou state you already do this stuff this will just make it easier. If you can already do it then so can every other profession,'making it easier' will do nothing to help us be more useful/wanted in groups.

Breydan,

Giving us an ability to create a structure even if only temp would not help us get groups. Maybe if they add a new profession Combat Engineer that will be a good ability for them. The rally command is more in line with what a SL does. Maybe add to that ability to put those that are prone enter cover giving an additional def bonus.

Devs,

Some of these abilities are ok such as assigning positions and the stances. The force marched thing if works like EQ SoW then that will be ok to speed up travel to missions and such. The smok'em thing needs to be changed to either be in combat or if going to be in camp only then change to in conjuction with an entertainer it allows battle fatigue to be healed. You really really need to look at the posts by the SQUAD LEADERS and see what they actually want.

I do think we have a problem with lack of usefulness in groups,a Medic is a staple of every large hutning group, a SL should be as well. I agree with an above post on this forum, we should be able to either heal mind damage durring combat, or should be able to heal battle fatigue. this is something a SL would have the capablity to do, they are motivational artists, experts at rallying unwilling men into dangerous/deadly situations.

I still think we should get some defensive structure ablity, I see your combat engineer profession, and like the idea for advanced structures. But a Squad Leader should be able to order his men to "dig in" (burrow holes in the ground for his men to take cover in and fire from) or possibly at an advanced level at least get his men to pack sandbags around themselves or rocks or something. That should be part of the tactics branch, defensive posistioning.

What exactly is with all the complaining? I'm very excited about these new ablities, and my guild member are excited that they'll be comming, they've been begging for a way to organize and increase efficency of our squads in battle and this is just the way to do it. Calling ourselves PC handles is somewhat of an exageration. We simply control the start and stop of battle, something I do anyways using verbal commands, this will make it faster and easier.

You wanted passive ablities, well now you can put your team in a formation, greatly increasing their battle effiecney and movement rates. You can put them in a defensive or offensive stance. Thusly either boosting power or resiliance. What more did you want? Maybe if you could specifcally list what changes you'd like to see instead of just bashing the changes in generall while offering no alternative solution for the devs. The only thing I'd really like to see, is more group oriented special moves. Like group area bombardment, that'd lay down a wide spray of fire from all members of the group. And an ability to cause all group members to focus on the same ham pool. Other than those two items, I am very excited about the changes and can't wait to utilize them in battle.