Squad Leader Archive

Don't worry, I plan on spending at least a good 12+ hours ther.

Squadleader revamp!

/cheer!!!!

/cheer!!!

But on a more sour note. Does anyone else wish they'd lock anyone new from joining our profession?
It just feels not fair that people can just join the prof and grind it now that it's gonna be good, which will leave us SL's who've waited years for this and patiently stood by the profession through al the brokenness in the dust of the mad SL rush,b being forced to answer all the newbie SL questions.
/sigh
I don't mind the love,but I do hate that we'll end up being the new profession that everyone rushes to(like BH's during the respec period,being mobbed by newbie m-bh's,or in our case m-sl's, with questions that anyone with the Master Title should know).

Message Edited by Shamonue on 09-03-2005 03:49 AM

Message Edited by Sylow on 09-03-2005 11:05 AM

my only fears

- how long will those buffs last?
- where are the passive buffs?
- why the hell did they give SL so much skills to use? Do they want us all to become commando in order to be able to set every icon in our shortcut bar? (as a SL/Rifle/CM, i already have 2 full shortcut bars)

/runs around in circles

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

/poke Darth Sushi

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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heh heh heh... im already liking the idea of /combat feign self

Hopefully the changes on TC are just an outline at this point to be picked from and will only be put to live in a reasonable form. I'm also worried about a swell of born-again SL's that will use our profession as a buff bot and dround out the real leadership. I fear we might find ourselves beinglead bythe rambo sort, newly armed with the new abilities, surounding themselves with jedi in a spam fest lacking in tactics andstrategy.

I'l have hope that since it seems they have taken into accountmuch ofour ideas and feedback that they will make sure to not let this revamp be overblown or half done. If worse comes to worse and pvp ends up a bunch of kids spamming SL commandsto a horde of unoriginal tempates then atleast I have my old buds whom I've played and laddered with for years to group with. Still, I do feel a little reassured. Not because we finnaly got attention, but for show of detail in that much of those possible changes are clearly from the minds of all you stubborn old SL's on this forum.

Okay where are we as Squad leader community are going to discuss this in on our forum?
Other wise I just copy and past everything everywhere , anyway here my post in the Focus thread:


Okay after screaming now some issues and concerns with the current squad leader revamp

• The emphasis on leading is getting lost when ...
  (a) the Squad leader doesnt need to be the group leader anymore
  (b) when multiple squad leaders are allowed in one group without any chain of command.
  
  I can see multiple distracting and contradictin commands blinking up on the screen from different squad leaders all commanding something else. This is not good.
  If you want to allow multiple squad leaders you need a chain of command, as well as to avoid confusion you need to streamline the possibilities to set this up.
  
  Move /sys into the master box would at least give the MSL the dedicated commant tool in the game. Make this also useable only as groupleader to streamline the chain of command more.
  You need some restrictions regarding who is leading and who is not!


• Overstacking Part I: Group buffs....
  We are in danger to become a pure dabbler profession where each groupmember takes one tree to stack as much as possible buff on top of each other. Stacking buffs for SL is again contradicting the original idea of a Squad leader. There can be only one leader per group, not two nor three nor four nor eight. Although an interesting game mechanic this makes us to more buffers not leaders anymore.
  
  Again here is a chain of command high priority to streamline the commands given. Subgroup leaders although once as a intersting idea PRE CU where groups could have 20 ppl, within a 8ppl group there is no need to have multiple squad leaders within one group anymore.
  
  Drop the multiple squad leader thing in one group and make it that the MSL can apply two or three buffs while the other only can apply one and skip the multiple squad leader in one group thing at all. This would also avoid overstacking and dabbling


• Group terrain negotiation/ remove of passive buffs ...
  I will realy realy miss this. I dont see the need to remove it as it wasnt unbalanzcing, though i appreciate it, that it was an attempt to make SL skills more visisble and clear to the non Squad leader community, BUT putting everything into active abilities is going a bit to far.
  
  One simple buff icon for the SL passive mods would have done the trick as well as adjusting some minor skill mods. Putting everything as active ability is heavily reducing the playability of the squad leader profession since
  (a) the toolbar will be overcrowded
  (b) takes away attention from leading the group


• Squad leaders vs Paladins from D2 ...
  This attempt revamping the Squad leader looks very much like the paladin from D2, though these game mechanics might resemble each other (passive and or active buffs applied to the whole group) the concept of both profession type (Squad leader vs paladin) is totally different.
  
  Paladins are to encourage and inspire the masses to charge into the battle as heroes or as elite combat group increasing the groups effectiveness as an example of how to fight.
  
  Squad leaders are there to commmand others and tell them what to do increasing the effectiveness of the groups combat abilities maximizing and optimizing.
  
  While one is giving an example the other commands you to do so, thats why mulitple paladins can stack their effect (as a group of heroes charging in first) but squad leader commands should NOT (since multiple leaders shouting for different directions e.g. is confusing).


• Overstacking Part II: Singe player buffs....
  Although again interesting this is misleading in concept. Multiple squad leaders should NOT stack their buffs within one group but the Squad leaders should be each leading their own squad coordinating their single player buffs, so each group has a seperate task to fullfill, requiring coordination between the groups.


• Overstacking Part III: How strong are the buffs ...
  Cooldown timers, strength of the buffs and the duration will be very crucial in defining the value of the SL dabblers and the MSL. As long as multiple squad leaders are allowed in one group, the stacking of multiple effects might heavily unbalance the buffs.
  
  To counter this the buffs probaldy will have a very low effect, but in this case the ideal case there there is one squad leader per group will make the squad leader again pretty useless.
  
  With this system in effect ppl will be trying to get more squad leaders into one group to stack their effects, rather than try to get one squad leader in each group to coordinate the overall attack what again is totally against the original concept of squadleaders.
  
  Again do not allow multiple squad leaders within a group but allow the advancing Squad leaders to turn on more buffs to increase the groups effectiveness.
  


• Exploiting the system...
  Being needed as groupleaders as well as being part of the squad as well as limiting the range of Squadleader buffs to 128m or 256 range will avoid the squadleader buff bot stored away in a house.
  
  Take care with coding that all SL abilites only apply while grouped and as soon as the members leaves the group will loose the buffs, watch out for jedi/BH teff that these abilities do not interfere with the current jedi/BH duel or otherwise both profession will come here and whine and nerf the just recently introduced buffs.


• Squad leader XP ...
  Should be reintroduced

These are my objections, concerns as well as issues with the current squad leader revamp. Im very happy to see that my choosen profession is progressing within the game as well as that some ideas of the squad leader community have reached the developers ears.

I currently dont have a MSL toon on TC so I cant test these things very well. I hope that my concerns and objectsin will be taken into consideration and would wish that the DEVs keep an open mind regarding our (=SL communciteis) considerations with this revamp, so we might be able to help shaping the Squad leader profession with this revamp into something we like to play.

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I created my char on TC, configured the controls and then TC went down.

Hope we manage to test this a bit before it goes life... i still heard nobody saying that he got an SL on TC...

/scream

Squad leader for a year, and I just gave up on the profession and went pure melee. WHY MEEEE???

Message Edited by DarkHelmet-TIO on 09-03-2005 07:42 AM