Squad Leader Archive

A couple of messages already posted about holos update on how they are going to revamp the ranger profession, which can be viewed here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=ranger&message.id=5725

It sounds great what there doing, but what worries me about it is that rangers will now become much much more important in a group than Squad Leaders... why?... as described by holo...

1) /scanarea - At Novice Ranger, the Ranger will receive the /scanarea command. Players familiar with EQ's tracking system will understand how this works. You can search the area for animals, people, or players. As you climb the tracking tree, more options and information (like direction and distance) will appear. This should make rangers effective at completing hunting missions or tracking down a specific target.

2) /track - Higher up the Tracking tree, the Ranger will earn the /track command. The /track command will let the Ranger specify a specific creature he wants to find. Hunting for a Veermok? If you are in a region where Veermok live, you can /track for one. Tracking a creature will lead the player on a small mission to find a creature in the area (or in the case of a critical success or failure...an unexpected surprise). Whereas scanarea checks for already existing mobs in the area, /track can be used even if a Veermok lair (or whatever creature you want to find) isn't nearby.

These skills will be fantastic in a group - the leader of a newly created hunting group can simply say to the group "what do you want to hunt" and they can take them there!

With these skills, anybody would prefer having a ranger as the group leader than a squad leader, simply because they can guarantee that the hunt will consist of lots of big game.

I better start using traps to obtain master scout now....

I would say you should wait for the Dev's response to Squad Leaders before assuming anything. If they balance things well, every group will be dying to have both a Ranger and a Squad Leader.

This is so disheartening. I know they've said "we'll respond" but honestly, what are they going to do for us? Nada. They hardly remember to mention us. I have been thinking long and hard on this subject. If their response is wishy-washy or more of the same then those of us who have made master Squad Leader should pick a time, announce it to the Devs, and surrender the class completely. They can see how many of us are masters in the game. Let them watch as the number is greatly reduced. That is apparently the only way anything class related gets done in this game. I would be sorry to have to lose all that work, but I would consider it well worth my time if it finally got something done.

"We have50 Master Squad Leaders...er make that 20. Why are all the master squad leaders surrendering their classes?"

Yes...Ranger = the new SL. If we ever get a response, maybe we'll be worth having in a group...but we won't know until we get a response. When will that be? Your guess is as good as your dog's. Holo said the responses were "dribbling" out. How much you wanna bet there is another CH response before we get our first?

--Ze'ev

definitely not. IRL there are scouts that are used to find things ahead of time for leaders. Ultimately its the leaders that make the decisions and gain the trust of the group.

They are just filling their roles.

I agree with Nameless. I still see the squad leader being just that , and his trusty Ranger friend being one more tool in the arsenal. I m a novice ranger and BH but may concentrate more on Ranger now.

If roleplaying , the squad leader gives the orders or directs the flow of the fight. Of course they have to fix much of what s broken for your class. Like when squad leader says attack a spinal flap guard and there are like 6 of them one should be highlighted for all to see .

If we yearned to be group leaders we would have been Squad leaders :-)

personally i see the Ranger player and the Squad leader being best of friends

We move silently throught land, taking only what we need, leaving only footprints as evidence of our passing

To me, I see this sort of thing as more before the Squad Leader would come into play. In combat, these don't have much use, (those two abilties specifically), so it's something the unit's scout would want to have. Granted, the scout could be the leader as well, but...

I think the point was that Rangers (with fixes) do more for a group than SLs (without fixes) do so SLs need a fix. Given appropriate fixes, all groups should want both a Ranger and an SL. The truth is, for me, the fixed Ranger is perfect for my safari buisness, so I'm quite happy about it. If SL ever gets attention, I'll be even happier...

--Ze'ev

As a master ranger, I do agree the group mask scent is kind of stupid. If I make someone a disguise, big whoop, how does that somehow silence their un-trained footsteps or something?

But please don't blame another profession, it's SOE's design problem. The reason why SL really doesn't have much going for it even when SL content is updated is because the dev's made this game solo-friendly. Group exp is horrid, so why would anyone want to group? Not to mention the fact that myself (with pistol knockdown and good stim b's) and a master doctor friend (who uses buffs and has knockdown as well) can take out 99% of the mobs in this game as is. There is really no need to have a group bigger then 2. The dev's need to wake up and realize this, or SL's will never really be in demand. I personally hate grouping as is due to the dev's design, as a group of 20 ppl only brings to the table massive spawns/aggro problems and ninja harvest issues. GG Devs.