Squad Leader Archive

The Devs seem to be having some problem figuring out how Squad Leaders should be balanced in respect to other professions in the specific context of group size. Below, I'll lay out the basics of how I think the profession shouldwork (please not it currently doesn't work at all) in various situaitons.

Solo - A Squad Leader by himself should always be weaker than another character who has spent an equivalent number of skill points on purely combat skills. This is because the Squad Leader, by his very nature, sacrifices solo ability to be better in groups.

Small Group (2-3) - A group of 2-3 lead by a Squad Leader should be roughly equivalent to a group of 2-3 pure combat characters. In other words, whatever bonuses the Squad Leader confers should make up for his lack of personal combat ability, making it so the two groups are more or less equal.

Medium Group (4-9) - A medium-sized group lead by a Squad Leader should be more powerful than a group of 4-9 pure combat characters. This advantage shouldn't be absolute, but should be telling enough that in a straight-up brawl the SL Group will win 75% of the time, +/- 5%.

Large Group (10+) - A large group lead by a Squad Leader should be incomparable to any large group without one. There should be no question about which group is superior; in a direct comparison, the SL Group should win 90% of such conflicts, with the other 10% accounted fo by a combination of human error (ie, bad leadership) and dumb luck inherent in SWG's combat system's use of random number generation.

Please note that these examples are given assuming "maxed characters". In other words, a Master Squad Leader who has spent all other skill points on combat skills, while assuming all other characters involved (including those in the Squad Leader's group) has spent all points on combat skills.

If the Correspondant would like to post something to this effect for the Devs to take a look at, feel free. I think they need something like this, a reminder of just where we expect to be in the pecking order - we don't want to be solo gods, we just want to have our own niche (groups, especially large ones).