Squad Leader Archive
Thread: our very own State of the Profession post
Thunderheart seems to be making the rounds posting on all the neglected classes' boards. I believe we're the last one to not yet be chatted to, but I think we'll all agree that's not a big surprise. hehe
So when/if he gets here, I hope he takes a sec to read this thread... let's fill it with our thoughts on the State of the Profession. Yes... I know Capn has done a brilliant job trying to keep the devs up to speed on the state of our class... but recent events (the xp fiasco) have got me worried about the solidarity of our stance. We must have a unified purpose or they will dismiss us as an unruly mob. Again, I must stress that Capn has done a great job on this front... I'm just tryin to add to it.
AT RELEASE: lots of people strove to be a Squad Leader. SWG had what seemed a stroke of genius when they created this class... and the description in the manual that "the very presence of a SL makes any group stronger" (or something to that effect) sparked the imaginations of players who like playing "support" roles.
But, a few of our skills didn't work at all, and the others seemed like they didn't do anything beneficial to the group all the while causing HUGE mind drains on the SL alongside far too frequent fails. People quickly learned that SLs don't actually add anything useful to a group.
A BIT LATER: the correspondent program was started and it seemed that perhaps there would be hope for the SL since perhaps once the devs heard that our skills didn't work/were not useful, they would address some of the issues and simply get our profession to work AS DESIGNED (fix what's there instead of adding new). Unfortunately, our issues were ignored. The ONE skill that anyone ever used on a regular basis to give a benefit to the group, BoostMorale, was nerfed and is now NEVER used (in my experience) except for griefing.
Scores of folks who envisioned a life as a Squad Leader began quitting the class due to many factors: we still didn't offer anything of worth to a group... Star Wars became Pok ee mon Wars where folks just soloed with their CH pets or ATSTs and therefore didn't even need to be in a group... and other classes were doing a FAR better job in a support role (namely Combat Medics).
SOON AFTER: the one and only post EVER regarding proposed changes to the SL profession was posted (I think by Holocron), not on our board, but almost as a side thought on the main discussion board. The post listed several very large changes they were thinking of making for the class, but with perhaps ONE exception (speed march), the SL community as a whole summarily despised the proposal. The proposed abilities would have made us the puppet masters of the players in our groups... with forced orders... and even the possibility of having group members be AFK while we controlled their every movement and attack. A LENGTHY reaction was put together by our fearless Capn, but we have still not heard back about our reaction.
A MONTH OR SO AGO: for some unknown reason, a bug was patched into the game which made our SL skills not realize we were the leader of a group, therefore not letting us use them (granted, nobody hardly ever used them to begin with since they are worthless, but that's besides the point). To add insult to injury, the calculation for SL experience was inexplicably changed which resulted in FAR less xp for SLs. The strangest part about the XP change was that of all of the problems with the SL profession, the original XP calculation was probably the LEAST of our worries. Thankfully the skill bug was fixed.
We, the SL community, cannot be excluded from a little bit of the blame for the XP nerf... we DID submit that we wanted our XP to be calculated by the group's performance instead of ours in our very first correspondent report. BUT! (that's a big but) The devs really dropped the ball in predicting what the changed calculation would do to the RATE of our XP gains. The ideal situation would be that we gain about the same amount of XP as we did originally, but have it not require US to do massive damage, instead letting us do the things a SL should in a support role: crowd control, target designation (with /sysgroup), healing, rally, etc...
A fix to the xp nerf was (too) quickly rushed into a hotfix, but we were still seeing very low gains in small groups of 10 or less. Then came last Friday's fix... which has made XP gain at a phenomenal rate.
CURRENT STATE (ASIDE FROM THE XP ISSUE): SLs are still in the dark as to what might be added to the profession in the future. The number of SLs in the game continues to dwindle, with the exception of holocron Jedi hopefuls. The interesting side effect of the new influx of people to the class is that more and more players are realizing what we knew all along: SL is in fact the most worthless combat/support profession in the game. I would wager that not a single one of the holocron hopefuls will be keeping Squad Leader once they are done mastering it, having tasted firsthand our inadequacies.
MANY suggestions have been made for improvements to our class, none have been commented on. The most popular examples are: mind heal (or at least increase to mind regen for folks in our groups); increased XP, damage, to-hit %, HAM regen, spec success rates for our group members; SL-only Combat Structures like tents that add to a group's defense and combat effectiveness, to name a few.
So Thundy, I think to sum up our situation, the most prevalent wish among the entire SL community is this: we want to be an ASSET to a group. We don't want to be "uber", we just want players to know that in some way, their group is better off while being lead by a Squad Leader. Our current skills don't provide this assurance. We don't have a lot of confidence as a community that even IF our skills worked as designed that we'd be any better off. A revamp is definitely needed, with that central theme in mind: make us valuable to a group.
I would type more... but I gotta get back to work. Please feel free to add comments and suggestions. In no way does this give a COMPLETE history, but it's a start to catch TH up with our situation.
a well writen report, great job
i would like to say that i agree that we should not be come an uber profession, but i think when should have the ability to turn any group into a near uber state. after all these months of neglect i think we deserve to see nerf demands from jelous players that prefer to solo over grouping, even if they have to nerf us after a couple weeks i think it would still be worth it if we could be one of the most desired professions in the game for a short time.
aside from the complete makeover our profession needs, i would like to see one major change made in regards to the responces, or lack there of, that we should be seeing. as far as i am able to tell the only DEV responces the SL has recived have been in regards to the XP nerf/bug. i understand that the DEVs have a lot they are trying to do and they dont have time to get to every single issue but, there has to be enough time at some point in the week, or at the very least every other week, where someone could drop by the professions that they have not talked to and just say something like:
"hello, sorry we havent been able to respond to you guys this week, but we are working on some changes we think you'll like so hang in there"
or
"i regret to say that your profession is just not a priority at the moment, please bear with us and we will do our best to get to all of your issues as soon as we are able"
i cant speak for everyone but I personaly cant stand the fact that SL has gone this long with out any kind of DEV responce to our correspondant reports. the silence is more unbearable then anything else, i would much rather someone just palinly say "we do not consider your profession importatint enough to fix right now" then to just sit here and question whiether or not the DEVs even know we exsist
bad news, good news please just tell us something, ANYTHING.... its better then what we are getting now.....
