Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Concept Thread Squad Leader Profession in Post-CU SWG.
I have held off for about a week before posting this, mainly to see what other threads/posts etc emerge. However I feel the time has now come to act. The rumours from Fan Fest and subsequent discussion here about a possible merge of Ranger and SL has got worried. I personally would not like to see this happen.
It seems now is the perfect opportunity for us to present our view of what our profession should be.
Collectively we need topool our ideas to present a coherent, rational and professional view of where and how we see our profession developing post CU.
We need to sell ourselves not only to SOE but to the other professions as well, otherwise we will could face a merger that many of us would not want.
Let's be realistic and sensible in our approach, providing ideas with substance that are achievable within what we know and understand of the games mechanics. If we act professionally and sensibly I believe we stand more chance of influencing our own future than any rants or protests would ever get us.
We all have ideas, so lets hear them.
To get the ball rolling I have spent some time putting together a "draft" document of my concept for the Post-CU Squad Leader profession. Please be aware that these are my thoughts, although influenced(with acknowledgements)by many of you. This is a draft document for discussion, but I hope that even if you dont agree with the contents, you will at least agree with the professional angle that I have tried to approach this from
I would respectfully ask that Darth_Sushi sticky this so that we can keep it focusedupon, and that any comments you all care to make are constructive.
Short_Timer wrote:
Fellow Squad Leaders!
Penti A'scari - MSL/MRM
added clicky...
stubborn clicky...
Message Edited by Loki_Ashaman on 06-14-2005 10:43 AM
did you forget to hit 'edit as HTML' at the bottom?
I had a problem with it, cause there was no "http://" at the beginning, kept trying to link to the a broken link with the forums.
What I agree with:
1) The positives you stated.
2) The role expansion we need (Melee, Range, Medic). [Nicely illustrated, too
]3) Terrain Negotiation for the Group - Yeah, good point. Why do we have it? Unless it is to represent in an in-game fashion the fact that we push our group to their limits (kick them up the backside, as you so eloquently put!)
4) Scout Pre-Reqs - Yeah, Exploration tree would be more realistic - we need to be able to run all over the battlefield directing our troops. But I also see that being able to deploy a forward position is also beneficial.
5) Formations and Artillery Barrages - yup, completely pointless if you ask me, and very difficult to code. Artillery Barrages should be a special given in the GCW, not directly relating to SL.
6) Reinforcements, Militia Leader, - Nice, but again should be part of the GCW, not SL. (It reminds me alot of BomberStrike, the imperial pilot skill).
There are a few things that I would like to disagree with you on, however.
1) Squad Leader Vehicle - Even if it comes in the shape of a hum-vee, with no defensive bonuses, no turret, but can hold an entire group I say we should have it.
2) Overhead Map - This could easily be adapted from the current building placement code, and would be greatly beneficial. The only problem I see is how to represent things like group members, enemies, targets, health on targets/groupmates.
3) Dig-in, Alert, Lead from the Front - Fantastic idea.
Other things:
1) Could you elaborate on the Medic! idea?
2) Something I really think should be added is melee mods to go along where ranged mods currently exists. This opens up Melee SLs as a more viable profession. And because of this, remove the Ranged Support as a pre-req, and change it to Exploration. That way both melee and ranged SLs have the same reqs and mods.
3) We should have more bonuses for the medic professions. We currently provide mainly passive defensive, with active aggressive skills, but nothing to help medics in the group. I actually find it easier at present to heal my groupmates whilst sitting at the back directing the battle (CM4xxx FTW) even though we have a TKM/Master Doctor with us - it is usually more beneficial for him to attack than heal (especially with aggro as it currently is).
I realise that not all of these ideas are yours - I'm just pointing out my view on them
Hmm... the way of independent document has pros and contras. Perhaps DEVs will actually read it, while they ignore the forum, you can at least hope. Anyways, it's a bit harder to comment on it.
The first 7 pages i simply skip, for people who know the SL profession it's redundant info and while being official, it doesn't meet the hard facts of the game code in several ways.
On the positives, it's rather short but fully correct, i would say. On the negatives i only have to comment, the part with /formup was not player-tested yet, still is an open issue. So the problem is probably true, but not confirmed.
Going further, i see the Special Skills passage on page 11. While i understand that you dismiss some things, i have to comment on some of the suggestions.
- SL Vehicle: Make it unarmed, just have 8 seats, look cool and move with decent speed, not such a slug as the current "Minivan". (Movement like X-34 or Speederbike would be perfect... )
- Reinforcement: Gives us NPCs. This will not come, and i prefer if it will never come. We're here to guide players.
- Dig In: While sounding nice in theory, your team will not see the positive but will tear you to pieces for snaring the team. Some other way of balancing has to be found.
- Alert / Stay Sharp: Modifiers for block/dodge and nothing else? Would already have been a bad idea before CU, as it would have helped only a few professions, after CU these modifiers don't exist any more, so won't work.
- Militia Leader: good thing, straight ahead. Doesn't even require changes in timing, the normal recruiters will still be needed for people who don't have a SL along all the time. Not to mention to gain faction rank, faction gear, troops... (I know, not interesting for non-factioned SLs, but still it would be nice...)
- Lead from the Front: Sounds acceptable, if the SL uses it well (and it doesn't generate agro) it's a free bonus without disadvantage.
- Medic!: Great idea in theory, but the stat breaking when fightingwould make it useless. No player would just sit there and have no attacks going on, just in case that the SL assigns you as team medic. As long as the person has an auto-attack set, the ability, the way it is described, will never work. Rather i'd just give the targetet teammate asmall buff which improves healing efficiency for something like 30 seconds, without any drawbacks included.
Anyways, if we already go speculative on abilities, what would you say on an abilitly like:
- Assault fire: The next attack of each team member has a 20% chance to knock down the target.
- Barrage fire: The next attack of each team member puts a small snare on a target. Either the snare has a chance of 50% to be applied, or has a durability of 3 seconds and the durability is cummulative. (So a 8 man team can apply a 24 seconds snare.)
Additionally, i personally still would like to have flash grenades and concussion grenades in the SLs arsenal, so the SL would have the ability to apply blind or stun on enemies.
My next comment refers to the Terrain Negotiation part of "Bonuses and Skill Modifications". While i understand that group terrain negotiation would make sense on a ranger, i simply see the problem: a group can only have one leader. So what to do if you fight in rough area, the ranger leads, so the team can move fast, but SL bonuses and abilities get lost? The SL leads, so all abilities are available, but terrain negotiation gets lost? I foresee a struggle of team control between rangers and SLs, which i don't really want to happen.
And on the last passage, while i'd in some way love to have more of SL available in space than the /sys, i also dare to say, no other profession brings anything into space, it's completely seperated from ground-play, and i think this is fine enough. We better enhance our planetside performance and leave space the way it is.
Message Edited by Sylow on 06-14-2005 06:27 PM
4) Scout Pre-Reqs - Yeah, Exploration tree would be more realistic - we need to be able to run all over the battlefield directing our troops. But I also see that being able to deploy a forward position is also beneficial.
True... give me anything but camping... even hunting would be more beneficial, while not more logical. The reason why they did it like that probably are BHs, they already have the Exploration branch as requirements. If SLs would have the same, MBH/MSL would be extremely cheap in skillpoints.
6) Reinforcements, Militia Leader, - Nice, but again should be part of the GCW, not SL. (It reminds me alot of BomberStrike, the imperial pilot skill).
True forreinforcements, but the leader thing makes sense. If you're not factioned, you'll simply not be able to use the Militia Leader part... doesn't hurt, you still have it as option if you decide to jointhe GCW.
1) Squad Leader Vehicle - Even if it comes in the shape of a hum-vee, with no defensive bonuses, no turret, but can hold an entire group I say we should have it.
Aye.
2) Overhead Map - This could easily be adapted from the current building placement code, and would be greatly beneficial. The only problem I see is how to represent things like group members, enemies, targets, health on targets/groupmates.
Complete Aye.
2) Something I really think should be added is melee mods to go along where ranged mods currently exists. This opens up Melee SLs as a more viable profession. And because of this, remove the Ranged Support as a pre-req, and change it to Exploration. That way both melee and ranged SLs have the same reqs and mods.
Hmm... if you insist... but generally this change would bepainful for all present SLs,they'd have to invest more skillpoints inthis concept. (Very careful withwhat you wish... this suggestion makes us gotowards the way of the ranger. I oppose that idea.)
3) We should have more bonuses for the medic professions. We currently provide mainly passive defensive, with active aggressive skills, but nothing to help medics in the group. I actually find it easier at present to heal my groupmates whilst sitting at the back directing the battle (CM4xxx FTW) even though we have a TKM/Master Doctor with us - it is usually more beneficial for him to attack than heal (especially with aggro as it currently is).
Indeed, while reading this text, i came to wonder if we could have a "group healing efficiency" modifier? And, are there other combat-related professions which we perhaps forgot to support yet?
@ sylow - firstly thanks for the feedback also. I was a little dubious about detailing what we are, but while writing it I honestly wondered how many players and devs really know what we are about etc. The document is not meant to stand independently, but is something we can maybe all input into and then forward with a hope of actually making some progress. We need to "sell" our usefullness to other professions so I honestly felt that detail on what we can currently do, needed to be fleshed out, though perhaps I am wrong? Its easy rectified of course 
The skills I suggested were merely to provoke some discussion. I realise they arent perfect, far from it Between all the players here we should be able to come up with a workable profession with skill, mods etc, but we do need ot start somewhere? I will have a look and possible rethink the initial skill ideas because you make some valid points, however I'm still not sold on the SL vehicle anymore.
I've taken some of your comments on board, so watch this space
Fair point on the map aspect as I had honestly forgotten about that, maybe it wouldnt be so difficult to code, but in the heat of combat how effective could/would it be? Worth looking at in more depth and exploring though.
For everybody doubting the value of such a map, i advise to take a look at the HL-Mod Natural Selection.
If you still have HL installed on your computer, just give it a try. If you don't have HL any more or don't want to invest the time, i'd still advise just to take a look on the game concept and then take a short look into the forums there. We're speaking here of a FPS with one person in team coordinating via a dedicated map-mode. (A good commander won't use his weapon through the whole game, but rather stay in the command station.) Still people generally agree, a battle is won (or lost) by the commander, the quality of the rest of the team is of lesser influence, although this is an FPS, the influence of good coordination should be even bigger in SWG.
Message Edited by Sylow on 06-14-2005 07:04 PM
I was a little dubious about detailing what we are, but while writing it I honestly wondered how many players and devs really know what we are about etc. The document is not meant to stand independently, but is something we can maybe all input into and then forward with a hope of actually making some progress. We need to "sell" our usefullness to other professions so I honestly felt that detail on what we can currently do, needed to be fleshed out, though perhaps I am wrong? Its easy rectified of course
I think you were right in putting all the info there. As i said, for somebody who's familiar with the profession, this info is redundant. For many players, it is not, and i repeatedly get the feeling, the devs also can use the info very well... 
The skills I suggested were merely to provoke some discussion. I realise they arent perfect, far from it
Aye... a huge pile of good ideas going around all the time... and they were gathered up even already in some thread, but it got lost in the run of time. (Or rather, the thread "disappeared", can't find it any more, even when search is working...)
The idea to gather it all up and pack it into a PDF-document is great, and i appreciate the work you put into this. It's nice to read, won't be cluttered with comments (like my babbling), won't get "lost", as it's hosted independently, and can be presented the Devs in a nice way. (And we then hope that they actually take a few minutes to read it. It's the very first version and already way better than everything the devs offered us for quite some time. I guess it'll really be a gem in the end. )
Thanks mate, I really appreciate the comment I think if the SWG community as a whole took a more professional and object view of the problems in the game then maybe we would all get our respective professions fixed.
I felt that in light of the Fan Fest report a lot of people seemed to have given up on the possibility of a revamp, judging my the sudden fall off of threads of this ilk?