Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Focus Thread: One Quick, Easy Change
I'm so bugged on the forum today... threads keep submitting themselves...
Anyway...
The purpose of this thread is to identify the changes that can be made to Squad Leader very quickly and without much developer effort.
Post one single change you would like made to Squad Leader that would both be useful, uncontroversial, and exceptionally easy to implement (ie, like 15 minutes or less of developer time).
We'll send the best ones off and get some immediate fixes coming our way, while we all hash out the big difficult issues.
- Make %TT work in /sysgroup
- Move a Group Melee Defense +5 down to Novice Squad Leader
Not quick enough changes, I think, Merlinmast 
Great ideas, but not easy enough to do 
I disgree, you can already do almost all of them, but with more commands such as:
Target what your leader is targetting. Select leader, /assist. all they would have to do is make /assist leader a single word command. The waypoint one is easy too. You can already make waypoints using /waypoing XXX YYY so they simply need to call the location of a target (which im sure they know hot to do) and waypoint it. It would work EXACTLY the same as /find only it would be more like /highlight and it would 'find' the enemy that you have selected.
I have not yet made novice SL and I did not play in beta so my opinions are clearly largely uninformed, but I'm not letting that stop me having opinions. The one point about SL that bugs me the most is the way XP is gained. From what I understand on this forum, SL gains XP by causing damage. This bugs me more than any of the other issues people have raised about SL. SL is about leading a group...so XP should come either from using SL commands or from group actions.
Now, IIRC, you get nothing other than /sysgroup at Novice SL...I can't imagine giving XP for using /sysgroup, so either
1) some of the bonuses should be moved down the tree and XP given based on how that helps the group in combat (essentially, give XP for how much damage you saved the group or XP for how much extra damage the group did because of you)
and/or
2) give XP for how much damage the group does
On first blush, #2 seems kind if silly...but as I think about it, it isn't so bad. Creature Handlers get XP for their pets doing damage, so it makes sense that a Squad Leader would get XP for their group causing damage. I think the ideal would be to have a mix of BOTH things giving XP. Sort of like Musicians get XP for playing and then a little extra for flourishes. So, I think SLs should get XP for the damage their group does and get some extra XP when they use commands like /rally, etc.
How the XP is determined for the group damage would seeminly make sense to have some bonuses for the size of the group, but I wouldn't think it should scale linearly. As you add people, the extra XP you get should get smaller for each person added. For example:
a) Fighting a 1K hp creature with a 2 person group might give you 300xp (just a random number here, not meant to mean anything specific)
b) Fighting a 10K hp creature with a 20 person gropu probably shouldn't give you 3000 xp (which would be if it scaled linearly)...I would guess it would give you more like 1000xp or so.
Exactly how this scaling should work would be something for the DEVs who know more about the internal game mechanics to determine.
My main point is that someone leading a squad should gain XP for how the SQUAD does, not for how much damage the leader does. Bonuses should be given when the leader improves the squad whether that is with active commands or with his passive bonuses. If you were to make CHs work like SLs do now, CHs would get creature handling XP for how much damage the CH does instead of how much damage the pet does. The beauty of SWG is how the XP you get makes sense in most cases...in the case of SL it appears to not make sense.
To me, this is the biggest fix possible since it makes the game more coherentand should be pretty easy to implement given that CH code already exists and I would imagine should be relatively easy to modify for SLs.
--Ze'ev
Merlinmast...I like what you are after with your suggestions, but I think the /volleyfire command is already supposed to do this. I think it makes more sense for a commander to call targets and make his squad fire on the target (i.e./volleyfire)rather than the squadies having to watch where he is firing and then make sure they fire at the same target (i.e. your /focusfire or /assistleader). So, while I agree with your sentiment, I would suggest the right path to take would be to push for /volleyfire to do what it is supposed to.
I think I once saw Vol argue that /volleyfire shouldn't control members of the squad...I believe his arguement was even more general and said that no SL commands should force people in the group to do anything. I strongly disagree...in a techonological age, it is not surprising that a weapon system would have higher control levels than just the person wielding the weapon. I think Vol was also worried about griefing etc. which I cannot imagine given that anyone can leave a group at any time. If you don't like how a SL is using you, leave the group...easy.
Anyway, I very much like the idea of /volleyfire, so yeah Merlinmast, let's make sure it works.
--Ze'ev
/volleyfire provides an extra NORMAL attack turn.
So instead of the entire team switching targets to the /volleyfire target, they all in unison fire one normal shot at the target that does not take up an attack turn. I STILL think the SL should have a command that makes any group member not in combat fire on the intended target, but MAKING a person switch during combat is usually a bad idea. A good SL would map out targets by priority before any engagement.