Squad Leader Archive

As we've talked about the proposed Squad Leader changes and what we'd like to see done with the profession, I've seen many people comment that we need more passive (or "always on") skills. Personally, I don't think that's a very good idea.

Passive abilities have their place. It makes sense that as I improve my carbineer skills, my accuracy with the weapon improves, for example. The current SL skill set includes some of thes type of stat modifiers (+Steady Aim and +Volley Fire). Some of the proposed SL rebuilds include similar "always on" modifiers to SL abilities (for example,the Leadership tree in this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=1072 )

However, there are some skills and abilities that are not appropriate as passives. Let's consider a simple (and perhaps somewhat extreme) example, based on some of the ideas that have been tossed around this last week. Imagine for a moment that our defensive modifiers worked as advertised... Then add a passive group HAM reduction modifier... and a group mind regen bonus. Sounds great, right? Maybe not. There are two problems I see with this scenario:

1) Passive abilities encourage AFK squad leaders. If all of the abilities listed above were always on, a group with a squad leader would benefit from them whether or not a player was actually present. We'd realize our vision of a SL in every group - but many of those squad leaders would be PA controlled AFK-bots set to /follow the de facto leader, along for the ride to give stat boosts only. That situation isn't much better than puppetmaster groups.

2) Every SL is the same. SL A, B, and C all grant the same stat boosts, all the time. If our abilities are always on, we don't have an opportunity to actively influence the effectiveness of the group, other than by whatever leadership abilities we as players bring to the game. That's not much different than where we're at now.

Rather than passives, I'd like to see what I'll call persistent abilities. The concept of a persistent ability is that when it's used, it stays on until the SL turns it off, or some other condition is met.

A good example of how a persistent ability could work is the concept of Stances (also refered to as Formations in thethread linked above). The developers proposed two stances, but there could conceivably be many more, each confering a different combination of bonuses. The HAM reduction modifier might be granted in one stance, and the mind regeneration bonus in another, for example.

The tradeoff with stances is that you can only be in one stance at a time - so in this case, if you're getting the HAM reduction, you're not getting the mind regen, and vice versa. This puts the player back into the SL profession. Every SL has the potential to provide the same bonuses to the group, but it falls upon the player to choose the best stance for the situation. Presumably all of the stances would be useful enough to be worthwhile in various situations, so the choice is a meaningful one.

When it comes to balancing, the fact that characters can only benefit from one stance at a time means the bonuses that those stances grant to the group can be greater than a bunch of "always on" abilities.

Another application for a persistent ability is /rally. Currently rally uses a hefty chunk of the Mind bar and runs for a fixed duration. This ability could be modified so that instead of requiring a large initial cost, it instead puts a smaller mind "bleed" on the SL, and allow the SL to turn off the ability at will. The SL could then start rallying his squad as they entered battle, and turn it off when the battle was wond, or his mind dropped too low to be safe. Or he could incap himself to squeeze out those last few seconds of /rally to push the squad to victory.

I don't want the squad leader profession to turn combatinto complicated button mashing (like an EQ bard twisting songs), but I do want the ability as a player to be able to actively influence the effectiveness of my group. Passive abilities would take that away from me.

Very nice. I'm liking the idea of toggleable/switchable stances/bonuses. Makes a lot of sense really, and keeps Squad Leaders in the gameplay both in attacking and in actively working for their group.

I loved the bard class....but it was a little too high matenance for many people. I agree passives should have a on off button, but I'm afraid the DEVs will start attaching high HAM costs to them then.....They seem to be overly heavyhanded with HAM costs when giving the SL their skills. It doesnt make sense to kill yourself everytime you make a leadership decision or move.

If they do make passives on and off switches fine, but I would like to see more than one be able to be active at one time.

There are a lot of good points here. I was thinking bard until the last line, hehe.

I don't think there is anyway of getting around an AFK 2nd box bot. Its going to happen. Once we get mind regen or healing in any form,we will be on top of the bot list. I can't think of anything we can do to change this.

I do think we need to mix up the passive buffs with some utilities like /forcedmarch and some one shot kind of active abilities. The stances concept might be the way but I would take a moderate increase only without the negatives I associate with combat stances.

I just read Holo's post. Who knows, we might get some loving some time soon. Fingers crossed.

Actually, come to think of it, the only way to make it so we cant be effective bots is to turn us into bards! That is probably why bards do have to keep up their different songs everyfew seconds or so.

It's just hard to be a group leader giving out directions when you are typing 1,2,3,4..1,2,3,4.. Lol.

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Shuyunh wrote:

Actually, come to think of it, the only way to make it so we cant be effective bots is to turn us into bards! That is probably why bards do have to keep up their different songs every few seconds or so.

It's just hard to be a group leader giving out directions when you are typing 1,2,3,4..1,2,3,4.. Lol.

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I like this idea. A lot.

I confess my ignorance regarding bards/minstrels, as my only longtime MMORPG before SWG was good old Ultima Online, and that was years ago. But it sounds like one of the big problems people are seeing with this is mashing the same combo of buttons to keep all of the song effects going at once, or close enough to at once.

I propose a possible solution.

Why not call these buffs "Orders," for the sake of my typing, and say that a SL can only keep so many Orders active at once. Maybe theres one for MeleeDefense (Stay on your Toes) and one for Ranged Attack (When you see the whites, greens, or reds of their eyes!) and all the combinations in between (melee attack, ranged defense, movement, etc). And say thata squad leader cannot turn an order off for 30 seconds after its been activated.

This way, as I see it, a SL is all about keeping your group optimized for the situation at hand. You don't want to waste Orders on movement buffs when you're in combat, and you don't want to be really good at shooting things when you're trekking to the attack site and there's nothing good to shoot. Complicate things by adding penalties to some of the more advanced orders (ie. Blast 'Em- A ranged damage bonus with a penalty to hit.) Then SL's need to have multiple Ranged orders up or deal with the penalties incurred.

One rough and vague idea for the skill tree. Novice SL gets3 Orders when he begins- a slight movement bonus, a weak Ranged Defense bonus, and a weak Melee Defense bonus. He has 1 Active Order slot. He has the all powerful sysgroup.

As a Novice SL, you can buff yourself vs specific enemies, albeit minutely, and tell your troops to march. You have a role, but you aren't too powerful.

Advancing up the specific skill trees adds effectiveness to your existing orders and adds newer, more powerful and complicated orders, and adds more Order slots to play with. Soon the SL canprecisely tailor thebuffs he gives to the exact situations.

Andonce you hit master, you'll be in command ofa wide variety ofdifferent orders with very decent buffs and the ability to have 3 or 4 active at once. You'll still need skill, and the 30 second penalty on removing anorder means you'll need to be decisive, but you'll also enhance a party very significantly. A good SL will be in HIGH demand.

Some ideas for Orders (without going into details- obviously some of these need the aforementioned penalties to balance them out): Ranged Attack, Ranged Defense, Melee Attack, Melee Defense, Stealth (Not sure if stealth should be like a weak group maskscent or something to take us off enemy player's radars- either way it needs a penalty), Terrain Negotiation, March (speed buff), Ranged Damage, Melee Damage, Camping Regen Rates (mind or otherwise), and my choice for the Master SL Order - Armor Piercing (Shoot for the Gaps!)

Critique and thoughts welcome.

Jynn Asaeba

Fearless Leader of the Liberation Army of Naboo

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Jynn_Asaeba wrote:

Why not call these buffs "Orders," for the sake of my typing, and say that a SL can only keep so many Orders active at once. Maybe theres one for MeleeDefense (Stay on your Toes) and one for Ranged Attack (When you see the whites, greens, or reds of their eyes!) and all the combinations in between (melee attack, ranged defense, movement, etc). And say thata squad leader cannot turn an order off for 30 seconds after its been activated.

Some ideas for Orders (without going into details- obviously some of these need the aforementioned penalties to balance them out): Ranged Attack, Ranged Defense, Melee Attack, Melee Defense, Stealth (Not sure if stealth should be like a weak group maskscent or something to take us off enemy player's radars- either way it needs a penalty), Terrain Negotiation, March (speed buff), Ranged Damage, Melee Damage, Camping Regen Rates (mind or otherwise), and my choice for the Master SL Order - Armor Piercing (Shoot for the Gaps!)

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Orders are a good term, and I think the examples you list are all good starting points.

I'd like to see these work in concert with the ability to subdivide a squad into fire teams (the proposed "Assign Position" command): each subunit should be able to receive a separate order.

As we've discussed elsewhere, the ability to break the squad into subunits is one that scales well with advancement. So as a squad leader advances, he gains the ability to use more teams. Parallel to this, as the squad leader advances his orders become more effective, providing new and/or larger bonuses. So an advanced squad leader not only has a diverse array of effective orders at his disposal, but he can also issue different orders to the multiple subunits under his command, giving him the opportunity to create specialized focused teams within the squad.

I really like the idea of a toggle on /rally (and other active/persistant commands like /steadyaim) that slowly bleeds mind (instead of heavy upfront costs),especially ifthat would also allow stacking with any other persistant commands as long as you've got the mind for it.

-Psquire

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Shuyunh wrote:

It's just hard to be a group leader giving out directions when you are typing 1,2,3,4..1,2,3,4.. Lol.

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I like your ideas.

I think that AFK SL's wouldn't happen if the XP system stayed the same because in order to advance and even earn those 'passive' buffs, a Squad Leader would need to be blasting away with his best shots until he/she mastered the tree that gives the best buffs. But, I suppose I don't know much about AFK players except when I run to get water or pee it out.

I suppose I fall into the "wait and see camp" mostly because I'm an optimist, but also because no change is going to be the Panacea that we all want to see, and a certain level of flexibility is required.

I really like the toggle-able Rally idea. might this also work for the skill (can't remember name) that gets everyone to fire at one target. It might be cool to have everyone aim at something for two or thrww rounds and then let them get back to their other targets instead of everyone on one target for one round, or everyone on one target until it's destroyed.Though, I guess this goes back to the other players as pets debate.

Other than that, I wish I could feel like these discussions really had any meaning in the grand scheme or what will actually happen to our class.

Chose optimism,Squad Leaders. It feels better.

Occamz