Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Squad Leader Top 5 Issues & Response
Fellow Squad Leaders,
As you all know, our profession has been in need of developer attention for a long time. Our "Top 5" issues were submitted by Captain Vemnox and I am proud to present the results of this process. I can personally affirm that the developers have heard our concerns and suggestions, and will be working with us as they develop a complete overhaul of the Squad Leader Profession. I will need everyone's help to collect and compile our ideas and vision for the future of the profession. I am assembling a new "State of the Profession" report, that I will be emailing in full, directly to Thunderheart so that everyone's ideas will be seen.
Throughout this process I would like everyone to bear in mind a few things: Development takes time. Presuming everything goes without any major problems, anything that the developers create NOW would be sent to Test Center in January, so it would not be Live until February. Certain changes and fixes can come in the form of "hot-fixes" published to live in just a few days, but please be patient for any major changes--even in the best case scenario, we are still looking at 2 months away.
Squad Leader's Top Five Issues & Response
1. The HAM costs for Squad Leader abilities are far too high. When paired with the fail rates (see below), it creates more of a nuisance than assistance and causes Mind bars to be quickly drained to zero.In addition, the fail rates for Squad Leader abilities are extraordinarily high. It seems to everyone that the fail rate is higher than the success rates. Suggested fix: Lower the ham costs and drastically decrease or eliminate the fail rates.
- The new HAM system allows HAM points spent on special moves to regenerate at a much faster rate, so even with higher-than-average HAM costs, Squad Leaders will no longer be debilitated by their own abilities. Expect this change to happen in the next publish in January. Following that, Squad Leaders are on a very short list of professions due to receive a full Revision with the Professions phase of the Combat restructuring.
2. Squad Leaders are not an asset to a group, are not sought after, and do not have sufficient abilities to be an actively desiriable class to play or play with. Suggested fix: This is a broad topic that will take some time to completely resolve. Groupwide HAM cost reducer, groupwide XP bonuses, and groupwide unique profession ability unlocking are some of the better suggested ideas. Increasing passive bonuses and implementing a movement speed bonus would also be terrific additions.
- The Squad Leader Profession is unique to groups with group benefits. In the upcoming Revision, the development team will be working with the Squad Leader Correspondent to ensure that the community has a voice in the upcoming changes.
3. Squad Leader XP was inadvertently and unexpectedly changed about a month ago and became phenomenally lower. It was then changed again and again and at this point is rewarding so much that it is possible to get Master Squad Leader in less than 5-6 hours time. Although there is not a specific formula I can personally recommend, I am content that it should count: group size and the use of SL abilities. Suggested fix: Rework the formula again to account for group size, the use of SL abilities, and combat XP from the group.
- In keeping with the community responses from Squad Leaders, the Squad Leadership Experience gain will be reduced by approximately one-half to improve the challenge of the profession and give players a greater sense of accomplishment.
4. More than one squad leader in a group promotes a lot of arguing and fighting over whom should be the group leader. Either allow co-leaders or allow both SLs to get XP.
Suggested fix: Allow there to be multiple Squad Leaders or allow SLs to perform their duties without being the leader of a group. Also, implementing a raid party Squad Leader would allow one person to /sysgroup address many people.
- Part of being a leader is the ability to quickly make a decision and carry it through. Sharing leadership experience or having co-leaders would detract from this. However, during the coming profession revamp, we will be considering suggestions like the Role Designation concept and Raid party abilities.
5. /boostmorale should balance damage, not wounds, as it is described to do in the manual and in-game. Suggested fix: As stated.
- The BoostMorale issue is not functioning as intended and has already been turned over to the Quality Assurance department
Thank you for bringing this to us, Thulium. We know you're working hard.
In light of the amount of ambiguity concerning the most important aspects of our profession in this response, however, it is going to be very important that we come up with a new, less generalized, more specific Top Five which should be the focus of our coverage from the Development team.
AllI see in this response is that our XP gain is being cut in half and nothing givento really balance that out. Our ability-use cost is halfway justified in light of the new system. This worries me. Just because I can't kill myself with my abilities anymore doesn't make them work any better or even any more often. I don't want to be one of those guys that sounds like he isn't happy with anything, ever, because I am thrilled that we got any attention at all, even if it was by default and lumped in with all other professions. Again, Thulium, I thank you for your hard work. But basing any sort of reworking of our profession off of this Top 5 is a terrible idea which will have terrible (and immediate) consequences.
That said, I'm glad to hear the implied promise that the Devs will be working with the Squad Leader community to bring us new goods. This is important but it is even more important that we fight hard to be made a useful profession, and to not be meek in our requests.
The Top Five program is not what the revamp is based on. The purpose behind the Top 5 is to basically give each profession a chance to be heard. Rest assured that WAY more than 5 issues will be addressed at once.
What you can glean from these responses, IMHO, is that the devs ARE looking at us for some very signifigant changes. The new HAM system will help us in a big way. The XP system is getting taken care of (hopefully once and for all, I'm sick of that). Boostmorale is gonna get fixed (and soon!).
Butjust between you and me and everyone else in here, I structured my new Top 5 specifically with an upcoming revamp in mind. Basically what will happen is everybody will throw all their ideas at me (like has basically already happened), I'll try to put it all together as neat as I can manage and throw it at Thunderheart who will throw it at the devs. The devs will try to give us as much as they can, but inevitably some things will be thrown back and some things might have to wait a while for more intense development. Don't look at me as the guy to fix the profession, look at me as your representative to the devs as to what WE want. Just because we want something, doesn't mean we'll get it. But the clearer and more reasonable our requests, the closer our vision of the potential for the profession will be to reality.
Excellente!
Say it with me, its such a happy word!
Excellente!
Absolutely get involved 
Im working with Thulium so he can collect everyone's best issues and then email them to me. I've set up a special email box so Correspondents can "correspond" with me more directly. By opening up a direct access point, Thulium can raise important issues with me.
I look forward to hearing your input on this.
PanzerGR wrote:
i dont think i liek the answer to #1 very well.
The HAM costs for Squad Leader commands are extremely high...id have to say the highest of any proffession (except perhaps a efw pikeman moves).
EVEN WITH enhanced HAM regen, it hamstrings us (no pun intended) with having such an extraordinary cost. If I cast 2 SL abilities for a total of 500 mind (as OFTEN happens, especially when im in armor) that is more than HALF of my entire mind pool.... two-thirds in fact. I do not care HOW fast the HAM regeneration is, having HAM costs that debilitating can have us incapped in 2 seconds.
Case in point, durign a recent PvP attack I used 2 SL abilities which depleted my mind pool by 480 some points, that is literally half of my mind. I got poisoned, and in 2 ticks of the poison and a blaster shot i was on the ground.....it had not even been 15 seconds into the fight.
No sir, the HAm costs MUST be reduced by an appreciable amount if Squad Leaders are truly going to be abel to be effective. I cant say anything els eon it...it simply must be reduced, extra regen or not.
Dude, the entire profession is getting a revamp, overhaul, redo, do-over, reset, rebalance, fix, patch, repair, adjustment, amendment, change, conversion, fine tuning, metamorphosis, correction, modification, mutation, recalibration, shift, transformation, refashion, remodeling, renovation, revision, reconstruction.
They'll fix the HAM costs.
Panzer... Its actualy a new system thats comming for all combat professions. Im not sure if we will get it or not.
Instead of your HAM bars dropping like when you are damaged, when you use specials your max HAM will drop... sort of like a wound but with a quick regen. So this means two things.
One, medics wont be able to heal you from you just using specials. Two, HAM costs are going to change.
Thulium wrote:
The new HAM system allows HAM points spent on special moves to regenerate at a much faster rate, so even with higher-than-average HAM costs, Squad Leaders will no longer be debilitated by their own abilities. Expect this change to happen in the next publish in January. Following that, Squad Leaders are on a very short list of professions due to receive a full Revision with the Professions phase of the Combat restructuring.
gentlemen. I know it was not implied nor intended...but I am not a dolt and I have been playing this game since Beta. I usually know what im talking about.
Yes, I understand we are egtting soem sort of an "overhaul" and I do realize the HAM changes etc that are being made.....i read enarly EVERY forum EVERY day (being a college student is wonderful for free time, heh)
WHat I am referring to from this reponse is the lien that states: "so even with higher-than-average HAM costs squad leaders will not be debilitated by their own abilities."
To me, that implies we are not going to see a major change in HAM. It makes it sound liek they dev's believe this miraculous HAM regeneration technique (that they didnt put in this patch liek they were going too because it was funked up and they needed to play with it more.....which already gives me a hesitant feeling about it) will be the save-all for high HAM costs.
i do not believe it will be. 450 points or mro eout of a HAm pool will get u incapped in 5 seconds flat...and ims ure the HAM regeneration wont eb THAt spontaneous. If im leading a squad, rally my men twice and then someone shoots me in the head, it is not going to matter one bit of difference how much "HAM regeneration" i have...ill be ont he ground in a puddle of blood because i couldnt be healed .
in short the HAm costs have to coem down, and i have seen nothign yet that tells me that are HAM costs will definately with 100% assurance be dropped to a much more reasonable level.