Squad Leader Archive
Thread: A Few General Tidbits
I'll hit the others if you like Vemnox, but number 5 is what's hurting me the most.
I'm a scout/marksman on the TC a mere 1.8 total boxs away from the coveted title of SL. My main problem with it is basicly your number 5. What the Master Squad Leader recives in passive, allways on bonuses are what the NOVICE should recive, minimum, along with the nearly worthless /sys command. There is currently no reason to let a novice SL group lead at this point in time other than the kindness of ones heart in offering them SL xp, thanks to it being the ONLY novice profession of /any/ job line that comes bereft of a single stat bonus. It's like choosing marksman and not gaining any abilities in weapons at all, just a command that's mostly benign.
In closing and review. I think the Noive SL should get the whole list of passive bonsuses the Master allready has, and the master probably cranked up some from what it has allready. Come on...give us a reason to really BE a novice squad leader.
Thoughts?
1) In my opinion the formula should be tweaked a bit. I think it's too heavily weighted based on the amount of people in the group (where's the joy of leading a 20 person group) and instead of taking your personal damage into the equation, it should be the group's average damage or the like.
2) I have no idea what you're referring to here.
3) I think we should focus on SL specific issues, not game-wide grouping issues.
4) Same as above. I'm sure we all want all bugs fixed from the game, but these type of issues are being reported by the general population.
5) Spicing up the novice box would be nice. There are dozens of proposals on how to do this listed here: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=9
6) Same as 3. and 4.
-Volan, Eclipse
its called "squadleading experience" not "mydamge plus some multipliers exp"
it should be the group's average damage, because SL gives the group better abilities and/or improvements
I think this is proportional, so the formula to take a "base xp" from the SLs dmg is wrong IMHO
Point 4 is definitly right, i have to klick the PC himself to kick off, grouplist kicking isnt working correctly
The XP system for the SL annoys me more than anything. As I have ranted about before, you are basically penalized for using your SL skills. You gain SL XP by doing damage. Meaning, if you waste time/HAM poolsusing your SL skills instead of using combat skills than you are getting less XP.
SL go up by having very large groups and doing a lot of damage while in that large group. What is best for the SL advancement is ignoring supporting your team and trying to do as much damage as you can while you have as many people in your group as possible.
I would like to see a system that gives you XP for actually using your skills. Much likeMedical XPand entertainment healing XP, SL XP could be based on how effective the skill was. So for Volley, maybe you get a percentage XP based on the how much dmg done by those Vollying. For formup you get XP per person that you heal.
Of course, the problem with this system is that you get NO skills to use at Novice SL so you could never advance. So, we could either have a skill moved/added to Novice SLand solve that problem at the same time.
However it is changed I really hope this becomes a priority. I am worried that it wont change because it is already established, but I really do think it is an absolutely terrible XP system for SL.
-xAdam
I will just comment on question 1:
It is totally absurd to compute SL XP on his own damage and the number of people in group. In any military books, a good leader spend far more time coordinating his people than shooting. with this formula, you got SL rushing for the squad heavy gun (more damage) than welfare.
IMHO, SL XP should take into action the mobs difficulty level, the number of uncap/alive group member at the end of combat and the size of the group (but to benefit small group).
Simple question, who is the best SL:
A/ One who attack a master jedi with 19 "Rancored" CH and win with 18 dead.
OR
B/One who attack a master Jedi with 10 "motley crew" and win with 2 dead.
You see my point?
Any formula should give far more XP to leader B than A!
A try:
Leader XP = (mob XP/group size)x (group size -dead/incap- number of pet used)x relative diff of mob to higher group member
Of course, to work out the detail, I should be a dev. But simply:
The careless zerg horde leader should be penalize in front of a men-thoughfulbut daring small team leader.
Coming from the view of a Tactician/Commisar (Haven't done other 2 tree's yet)
1) Xp reward is good if your a up in the face player but it should not be this way. You should recieve the xp from using the skills/abilities and be affected by the size of the group. Only problem I see with this is that SL's could just run around town and grab a large group and just use the commands and get xp. Not a huge problem since all the skills fail so often and they have such a huge drain.
2) Most group commands are broken or do not work atm. All the /group notify /group autoloot etc need to be addressed ASAP.
3) I would like the ability to have other colors for /sysgroup. Too easy to be lost in the combat spam. I would also like to have the ability to split up my group into sections where I could issue commands to each section.
4) Yes I have and it's fustrating.
5) Something new. I propose adding + to diffrent effects like +5 knockdown def, +5 dizzy def etc. This would help the SL become a more effective leader. Also becoming Master SL does not confer signifigant bonuses. Look at TKA Master they have a ton more bonuses.
6) Sometimes but I've been fortunate and have not had this /bug in a while.
Just my thoughts.
1) Squad leader's combat damage reflecting how much squad leadership xp is given. How do you feel about this? Is the XP reward substantial enough for you?
The formula should be changed. If SL is supposed to be a support role, I may not be concentrating on doing high damage, therefore my SL xp will be low. Change the formula to something on how well the group is doing, maybe average group damage? Otherwise I will have to focus on doing high damage to whatever is being attacked to get better SL xp.
2) Do you think there should be distinct group /slash command confirmation messages?
Not too sure I understand this question. What do you mean by "distinct group /slash command confirmation messages"? I would like to see the SL's sysgroup messages stand out even more...perhaps in a bigger font or different colored font. Right now they can get mixed into the regular system messages and get lost.
3) Do you find the /group info command hard to understand at all? Do you have any ideas for changes to it, or additions?
This needs an upgrade. Sure it's nice to see group settings, but this is not intuitive at all. There needs to be a visible button or pre-defined macro added to the toolbar to bring up all the group management tools. I played this game since Beta 3, and it took me quite a while to discover this actually even existed.
4) Right clicking a name in the group and clicking Kick disbands the entire group. I've tested this several times. Anyone else experiencing this?
Yes. But what I have noticed is that the person needs to be present (targettable) for this to work. For example, you and I group for training with one other person. You train me, and before I leave your sight, you right click and kick me from the group. I've found that this works only if I was targetable. Let's imagine the same scenario, except you try to kick me from the group after I am long gone. The group gets disbanded because clicking on my name could not target me. I maybe my assesment of this is wrong, but it's what I've noticed.
5) Novice Squad leader grants no group-wide abilities and merely the /sysgroup command. Would it be logical to give groups a reason to group a novice squad leader and make him the leader if he can't do any group commands? Should something be moved here? Should a lesser version of something be put here? Or something entirely new?
At minimum, Novice SL needs to grant terrain navigation and burstrun bonuses to the group. Adding ranged and/or melee defense bonuses, and/or healing modifiers for the group would be good too. With that, havinga Novice SL lead the group is an advantage. The more skilled the SL is, the higher these numbers go with mobility training, etc. For you EQ players, the SL is like an Enchanter. They wont do the most damage, or take the most damage, but they make everyone better by making them faster(haste), decrease down time(kei), and do other stuff like crowd control. Right now it's big whoop we get /sysgroup messages, oh joy.
6) Does group chat seem to bug out and stop working after a while?
Yes. It is flaky, just like guildchat and other channels. Sometimes it's there, sometimes not.
Also, I have noticed that in the options window users have the ability to make system messages NOT appear in the middle of the screen, but just in the chat window. Does this also effect the SL's /sysgroup chat? I haven't tested it, but I bet it does.
"1) Squad leader's combat damage reflecting how much squad leadership xp is given. How do you feel about this? Is the XP reward substantial enough for you?"
This should not be the only way we get XP, I don't know, maybe we should get bonus' like if no member died in a battle. Or things like getting XP for the abilities we already are granted. But the reward right now just doesn't seem to be quite enough, maybe boosting it by 1.2x or something just to get that extra little kick would suffice.
"2) Do you think there should be distinct group /slash command confirmation messages?"
No, it would be too much of a hassle I would think. If you had a confirmation box on our /slash commands then every other profession will want one on theirs. Pretty soon every /slash command will have one and people will complain to get rid of them as they are cumbersome.
"3) Do you find the /group info command hard to understand at all? Do you have any ideas for changes to it, or additions?"
I personally don't find it too difficult to figure out.
"4) Right clicking a name in the group and clicking Kick disbands the entire group. I've tested this several times. Anyone else experiencing this?"
Yes that is annoying. That is why I just target the player directly to get around this.
"5) Novice Squad leader grants no group-wide abilities and merely the /sysgroup command. Would it be logical to give groups a reason to group a novice squad leader and make him the leader if he can't do any group commands? Should something be moved here? Should a lesser version of something be put here? Or something entirely new?"
Something definately needs to go here, maybe like putting the group terrain bonus here, but maybe just make it +10 or something. That would make it worth it for people to want to group with a newly trained novice.
"6) Does group chat seem to bug out and stop working after a while?"
I thought this was because of the bug that made our friends list dissapear for a bit.
1) Squad leader's combat damage reflecting how much squad leadership xp is given. How do you feel about this? Is the XP reward substantial enough for you?
SL XP based on damage done is counterintuitive. ASL who uses hisabilities to improve the performance of the group sacrifices his own advancement. This needs to be changed. Perhaps SL XP should be based on a proportion of the total XP the creature is worth - so whether the SL fights, rallies, or handles crowd control, he learns by leading the group to success.
I'm not a squad leader yet, so I can't comment on whether the award is substantial enough for me. Given that there are already people at or approaching Master, it sounds like it's too easy to get SL experience in big groups. Leading a group of 20 is not significantly more difficult than leading a group of 6 - in fact, as long as the group has any discipline at all, it's actually quite a bit easier. There needs to be some modifier to SL XP based on group size (so you can't get full XP in a group of 2), but there should be a point of diminishing returns so you can't just go out and powerlevel through SL with groups of 20.
2) Do you think there should be distinct group /slash command confirmation messages?
For things like notify, autoloot, etc? Yes - whenever one of these is changed there ought to be a system message sent to the leader at least, if not the entire group. At this point, though, I'd settle for getting them to work.
3) Do you find the /group info command hard to understand at all? Do you have any ideas for changes to it, or additions?
I forget which window group info opens. Is it the one that shows usage for the group commands? Yes, that's not very clear. There should be more descriptive text to explain what each command does.
The other group window (/group menu? I don't recall - don't use them often since they don't work), the one with the check boxes, is also frustrating. If I click on one of the check boxes, it changes the setting, but doesn't refresh the display. The only way to see if the change took place is to close and reopen the window.
4) Right clicking a name in the group and clicking Kick disbands the entire group. I've tested this several times. Anyone else experiencing this?
This happens for me too, but only when the group member is out of range, I think.
5) Novice Squad leader grants no group-wide abilities and merely the /sysgroup command. Would it be logical to give groups a reason to group a novice squad leader and make him the leader if he can't do any group commands? Should something be moved here? Should a lesser version of something be put here? Or something entirely new?
Some of the passive skill mods, at least, should be moved here.
It would also be nice if there were an easy way for group members to see that they were being granted passive bonuses, so they would realize the usefulness. Maybe a "leader" icon in their status bar, which would show the passive bonuses currently being gained on mouseover.
6) Does group chat seem to bug out and stop working after a while?
The last several days, group chat hasn't worked at all for me. Previous to that, there was a problem with group chat choking when someone left the group. This can be easily worked around by using /chat refresh.
As an aside, 4 of the 6 questions you asked are about general groupcommands, not SL specific items. One of the points that the SL community agreed on back in beta was that Squad Leaders shouldn't be getting abilities that any group leader should have (such as the ability to set a harvest order, which would eliminate a lot of headaches). Still, it's not likely anyone else is going to get these group issues fixed, so it might as well be us.
1) Yes, SL xp needs to be based on something other than personal damage. Group weapon and combat xp also need to based on more than just personal damage. If I do 50% of the damage to a creature because I have some pretty great pistoleer abilities and my other three groupmates divide up the other 50% they are falling behind me on the xp curve. So I need to tone down my damage, which in turn reduces my SL xp. All xp needs to be reworked, not just SL xp, but because SL xp is based on this broken system it needs to be addressed at the same time. Put in weapon xp caps based on skill level in order to avoid extreme power leveling but stop penalizing medics who can't fire the entire combat but still want to work toward combat medic. So too, stop penalizing people who love to group but do high amounts of dmg. Reworking the xp system will help rework SL xp.
5) the whole class needs to be reworked (there were like 5 SL in Beta right?) But yes, please get us something for the newbie box. As it is I can puta messagein the center of someones screen for all of a second. People sometimes miss it completely or can't read it because the text fades on a bad background and combat spam scrolled it down already. How about a little something so I can at least feel like I have squadleader abilities rather than feeling like i'ma pistoleer with a squad leader title.
In reference to 4 and 6, as people have pointed out they aren't class specific items but being what we are, Squad Leaders, we are the default group advocates and would not be out of line lobbying for changes to groups either, since any changes to grouping will directly affect us.
1) Squad leader's combat damage reflecting how much squad leadership xp is given. How do you feel about this? Is the XP reward substantial enough for you?
I'm generally unhappy with the Squad Leader EXP system as a whole. For me I have almost no hope of gaining ground as a Squad Leader because I stick to groups of 5 to 8 folks and the only real way it seems you can get ahead is by maxing out the group to 20 each time. The problem is I don't know if this could be considered a problem for the profession or for the game, of if it's just a problem for me. Personally I think it's a problem for the game as a whole because it's yet another nail in the coffin of moderate sized groups in this game. I'd rather see a system whereby the maximum benefit for Squad Leaders was achieved at some median value for group size (say 8) and there were deminishing returns after that. (not reduced effects, but the bonus of adding more past that point isn't substantial and the leader then needs to balance return vs the chaos a large group brings). Currently with groups of 5 or so players I've been playing as a SL for almost 2 weeks and have not earned a single box above novice. I feel that is a problem and if it's not fixed I don't see how I can continue to be a SL.
2) Do you think there should be distinct group /slash command confirmation messages?
I wish I could answer this a little better, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. /slash command confirmation for what? For when Rally works and so forth, then most definitly and I think it's nessisary for the group to see the bonus as well.
3) Do you find the /group info command hard to understand at all? Do you have any ideas for changes to it, or additions?
I think it's easy enough to understand but hard to use. Anytime you have a popup window it's a distraction weather you've moving or fighting. What I'd prefer to see if something read to the chat window as a system message, this way you can scroll through it later if you want. Generally I think it's important to keep distrations down when in a group and popping up windows is a distration.
4) Right clicking a name in the group and clicking Kick disbands the entire group. I've tested this several times. Anyone else experiencing this?
Yes I've experienced this as well. It needs to be fixed and there definitly needs to be a way to kick members from a distance. This isn't just a SL issue though, it's a general grouping issue and as such I'm not sure it's appropriate for a focus thread on the profession.
5) Novice Squad leader grants no group-wide abilities and merely the /sysgroup command. Would it be logical to give groups a reason to group a novice squad leader and make him the leader if he can't do any group commands? Should something be moved here? Should a lesser version of something be put here? Or something entirely new?
The answer to this would take more typing than is nessisary. There is already a great thread on additions/changes to the SL profession that I think can address this. The whole profession needs to be rethought IMO and I think it's just rediculous that the /sysgroup command is all you get to begin with. Comparing the novice SL to any other novice advanced profession by any measure answers this.
6) Does group chat seem to bug out and stop working after a while?
Yes, all the time. At least it does for me on Eclipse. It only seems to work about half the time and that's IF nobody goes out of range and comes back, or dies or whatever, then you're about 75% likely to come back bugged on some or all of the group commands.