Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Something to consider for our revamp
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Rarrot
Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:54 pm
#1
Unlike most of the other combat-oriented professions, Squad Leader abilities apply to the entire group instead of just the character that has them. This is something we need to take into special consideration when planning the revamp.
At this time, the devs are in the process of lowering the power level of all players; they've come to be far stronger than was ever intended, and people can make themselves so tough that monstrous creatures like krayt dragons can barely scratch them. To combat this, the devs started by placing caps on how high every defensive ability could get; in truth, every skill in the game is capped at some point, whether by a fixed number (like 125 defense and 100 speed), or by the highest amount that can possibly be earned (like 170 rifle accuracy, not including the food, skill tapes, and FS ranged accuracy, but even those can only provide a maximum ammount of rifle accuracy). Other fixes are coming, like the lowering of armour resists and buff strength, but those aren't as easily related to us. Limiting how high each skill mod can get is the only way to ensure that a given skill isn't raised so high as to be unfair because it 'breaks' the equations the game uses.
This may not seem like it applies to us, because we aren't scheduled for any nerfs, but all of our proposals involve making our abilities stronger. With most professions, it's easy to see the effects of raising a skill, such as raising polearm accuracy by 10; they can look at the difference it would make for the average pikeman and for one with all the accuracy-boosting extras and ensure that it isn't going to cause problems. For Squad Leader, this isn't the case. Our abilities aren't ours (since you can't do much stacking once you've bought Master SL), they boost other people. Complete strangers, with all sorts of templates that are difficult to account for, but we need to look at all of them before any change can be put into Squad Leader.
Right now, we boost our group's defense by 30, and it goes over the cap. This means that someone with capped defense is getting a 24% increase, and that's already a rather large amount. If some of the proposals we have get through (better specials, fortifications, etc...), and they increase that number, it might lead to problems. Even if rally and the best fortifications only give 10 defense each, that's boosting the maximum that a min/maxed character's defense can reach by 50 (a 40% increase), and those abilities still seem weaker than anything we're asking for. However, this kind of increase can be far more significant than it seems. A 10% decrease in someone's chance of being hit may not seem like a lot, but if it's the change from being hit 11% of the time to 1% of the time, they've just become 11 times tougher because of a slight increase in our skill mods.
Another example easily given would relate to the D20 system used in D&D. If a bard's music could give a +10 to their party's to-hit roll (at 20th level), it might not seem to be too much at first glance (after all, it's less than half of a fighter's bonus by that level, and it would barely put the weaker characters on par with a fighter). It would make the rogues and mages go from a poor chance of hitting to a pretty good chance of hitting, and a bonus like that would obviously help the fighter-types, too. Seems nice, doesn't it?
Fighters are much more accurate than rogues and mages. The Armour Class of a monster of the is generally set to be such that a fighter hits half the time with his basic attack (ie. 1-10 miss, 11-20 hit; this isn't always the case, but it's generally close to it). However, with that same accuracy bonus applied to his attack roll, he's gone from a 50% chance of hitting to a 95% chance (it'd be an automatic hit, but a 1 always misses). Such an incredible increase in accuracy would likely be game-breaking, and that's why you need to take the most extreme example into consideration when you look at giving one class the ability to augment others.
Back to Squad Leader, you should be able to see where this can come into effect. Being in the process of lowering player power levels, we're in a strange position. Although it would be nice to give a large bonus to anything, we have to remember that there are people that already have high skill mods, and the bonus we give can't make it much larger for fear of making the equations it's used in break. There are only three possible solutions to this problem (that I can think of, at any rate). First we could get the devs to give us a hard cap on how high any type of skill can go without breaking the game equations (accuracy, speed, defense, etc.), and limit our new skill mods to the difference between those caps and the highest level a player can get them to now (including tapes, FS skills, and food) If we wanted a larger bonus from something new, like fortifications or a fixed rally, we'd have to sacrifice our abilities (like group defense). Secondly, they could limit our skills such that they don't break any caps (ie. someone with max accuracy/speed/defense gets absolutely nothing from us, and we only help weak people). Finally, and likely the most complicated, would be to change our bonuses to give an indirect increase to skills in such a way that they'll provide less of an effect for strong characters than weak characters (like a secondary defense, they'd get a straight 30% decrease in their chance of being hit, irregardless of whether they have 0 defense or 125 defense; if they're hit 70% of the time without, then they're hit 57% of the time with it, but if they're only hit 10% of the time with their own skills, the bonus would only drop that to 7%). This would be extremely complicated to do with every skill we could possibly boost (accuracy, defense, etc) because the change we provide would have to vary with every single person's defense and the accuracy of each attack the enemy used, in short making for a lot more calculations with every shot fired).
No matter what abilities we want, we have to make certain that they won't provide anyone with a stacked template with a bonus that would make them far stronger than they should be. We can't allow Squad Leader to become a tool for people to exploit by finding some combination of abilities that makes them unhittable or some such thing. (between capped defenses, center of being, and squad leader defenses, a fencer's pretty hard to hit. If one of our proposed changes, like an improved rally or fortifications, is the one that makes them go from an 11% chance of being hit to 1% or less, then we're going to have a lot of problems on our hands, and will likely be nerfed so that we're even weaker than we are now to make sure it never happens again. I think it's important that we discuss how we're going to make sure none of our abilities get out of hand (or, more accurately, is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back). Any thoughts?
At this time, the devs are in the process of lowering the power level of all players; they've come to be far stronger than was ever intended, and people can make themselves so tough that monstrous creatures like krayt dragons can barely scratch them. To combat this, the devs started by placing caps on how high every defensive ability could get; in truth, every skill in the game is capped at some point, whether by a fixed number (like 125 defense and 100 speed), or by the highest amount that can possibly be earned (like 170 rifle accuracy, not including the food, skill tapes, and FS ranged accuracy, but even those can only provide a maximum ammount of rifle accuracy). Other fixes are coming, like the lowering of armour resists and buff strength, but those aren't as easily related to us. Limiting how high each skill mod can get is the only way to ensure that a given skill isn't raised so high as to be unfair because it 'breaks' the equations the game uses.
This may not seem like it applies to us, because we aren't scheduled for any nerfs, but all of our proposals involve making our abilities stronger. With most professions, it's easy to see the effects of raising a skill, such as raising polearm accuracy by 10; they can look at the difference it would make for the average pikeman and for one with all the accuracy-boosting extras and ensure that it isn't going to cause problems. For Squad Leader, this isn't the case. Our abilities aren't ours (since you can't do much stacking once you've bought Master SL), they boost other people. Complete strangers, with all sorts of templates that are difficult to account for, but we need to look at all of them before any change can be put into Squad Leader.
Right now, we boost our group's defense by 30, and it goes over the cap. This means that someone with capped defense is getting a 24% increase, and that's already a rather large amount. If some of the proposals we have get through (better specials, fortifications, etc...), and they increase that number, it might lead to problems. Even if rally and the best fortifications only give 10 defense each, that's boosting the maximum that a min/maxed character's defense can reach by 50 (a 40% increase), and those abilities still seem weaker than anything we're asking for. However, this kind of increase can be far more significant than it seems. A 10% decrease in someone's chance of being hit may not seem like a lot, but if it's the change from being hit 11% of the time to 1% of the time, they've just become 11 times tougher because of a slight increase in our skill mods.
Another example easily given would relate to the D20 system used in D&D. If a bard's music could give a +10 to their party's to-hit roll (at 20th level), it might not seem to be too much at first glance (after all, it's less than half of a fighter's bonus by that level, and it would barely put the weaker characters on par with a fighter). It would make the rogues and mages go from a poor chance of hitting to a pretty good chance of hitting, and a bonus like that would obviously help the fighter-types, too. Seems nice, doesn't it?
Fighters are much more accurate than rogues and mages. The Armour Class of a monster of the is generally set to be such that a fighter hits half the time with his basic attack (ie. 1-10 miss, 11-20 hit; this isn't always the case, but it's generally close to it). However, with that same accuracy bonus applied to his attack roll, he's gone from a 50% chance of hitting to a 95% chance (it'd be an automatic hit, but a 1 always misses). Such an incredible increase in accuracy would likely be game-breaking, and that's why you need to take the most extreme example into consideration when you look at giving one class the ability to augment others.
Back to Squad Leader, you should be able to see where this can come into effect. Being in the process of lowering player power levels, we're in a strange position. Although it would be nice to give a large bonus to anything, we have to remember that there are people that already have high skill mods, and the bonus we give can't make it much larger for fear of making the equations it's used in break. There are only three possible solutions to this problem (that I can think of, at any rate). First we could get the devs to give us a hard cap on how high any type of skill can go without breaking the game equations (accuracy, speed, defense, etc.), and limit our new skill mods to the difference between those caps and the highest level a player can get them to now (including tapes, FS skills, and food) If we wanted a larger bonus from something new, like fortifications or a fixed rally, we'd have to sacrifice our abilities (like group defense). Secondly, they could limit our skills such that they don't break any caps (ie. someone with max accuracy/speed/defense gets absolutely nothing from us, and we only help weak people). Finally, and likely the most complicated, would be to change our bonuses to give an indirect increase to skills in such a way that they'll provide less of an effect for strong characters than weak characters (like a secondary defense, they'd get a straight 30% decrease in their chance of being hit, irregardless of whether they have 0 defense or 125 defense; if they're hit 70% of the time without, then they're hit 57% of the time with it, but if they're only hit 10% of the time with their own skills, the bonus would only drop that to 7%). This would be extremely complicated to do with every skill we could possibly boost (accuracy, defense, etc) because the change we provide would have to vary with every single person's defense and the accuracy of each attack the enemy used, in short making for a lot more calculations with every shot fired).
No matter what abilities we want, we have to make certain that they won't provide anyone with a stacked template with a bonus that would make them far stronger than they should be. We can't allow Squad Leader to become a tool for people to exploit by finding some combination of abilities that makes them unhittable or some such thing. (between capped defenses, center of being, and squad leader defenses, a fencer's pretty hard to hit. If one of our proposed changes, like an improved rally or fortifications, is the one that makes them go from an 11% chance of being hit to 1% or less, then we're going to have a lot of problems on our hands, and will likely be nerfed so that we're even weaker than we are now to make sure it never happens again. I think it's important that we discuss how we're going to make sure none of our abilities get out of hand (or, more accurately, is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back). Any thoughts?
Therascalking3
Mon Aug 23, 2004 6:26 am
#2
we arent so much concerned with being more powerful as much as being more useful. The truth is that even if SL became an almighty profession it wouldnt be any kind of FOTM because it takes a certain person to sacrifice their template for the benefit of the group.
One of the best reasons i heard for why we need to include more abilities and active things to SL is the fact that things like GTN and group defenses only require and SL bot. If we have a SL who has to be at the battle field dropping structures and calling new abilities it elminates the fact that our profession can be broken down into a number of macros. Since SL is not a solo profession it doesnt matter if it is so powerful because it effects everyone and any group can have one with the same power. However as it stands now every group has the same SL because most of it is macroed so the playing field is even. If you turn SL into an active profession with new active abilities and forts then the profession changes and the true worth of the SL depends on his skill with his abilities.
The best possible thing we could do for this profession is make it a very active one. The best way to do that is with improved specials and forts. Most of our bonuses are pretty good. Make the active SL better and you have a profession.
(i know this was one of your comments from another thread but) If you believe the combat classes are the only people who do spam or should spam then you have never met a carbineer and have no grasp of what it should take to play this game.
InfluenzaSWTA
Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:45 am
#3
Therascalking3 wrote:The best possible thing we could do for this profession is make it a very active one.
100% agree. I've campaigned in every Dev-posted SL thread for far more ACTIVE SL abilities with both positive and negative aspects to them. Make SL require in-life intelligence and ability!
Rarrot
Mon Aug 23, 2004 3:28 pm
#4
This has nothing to do with any specific proposal for the revamp. I'm just trying to point out that, unlike other professions, we can't just get more bonuses without knowing exactly what effects they'll have.
Until we've gotten the devs to come down and tell us the highest amount we can boost any skill to before it breaks the relevant equation, the only safe proposals we can make will have to include reductions in current skills to make up for new ones. If we want rally to give 20 defense, we'll have to drop our group defense to 10.
(Or we can try to have our skills changed so they don't get past any of the caps (so we can only add accuracy to people who aren't masters, defense to people that aren't capped, etc.; I doubt anyone wants that.)
This is something we need to deal with before any proposals can be put into a real revamp.
Until we've gotten the devs to come down and tell us the highest amount we can boost any skill to before it breaks the relevant equation, the only safe proposals we can make will have to include reductions in current skills to make up for new ones. If we want rally to give 20 defense, we'll have to drop our group defense to 10.
(Or we can try to have our skills changed so they don't get past any of the caps (so we can only add accuracy to people who aren't masters, defense to people that aren't capped, etc.; I doubt anyone wants that.)
This is something we need to deal with before any proposals can be put into a real revamp.
MasterTexiria
Mon Aug 23, 2004 7:05 pm
#5
I agree with you rarrot, I don't think we should get into numbers, but rather give descriptions of how our passive and active skills should affect the group. Like the description in the master box....a group with a master squad leader should be able to rip apart one without provided the combatants in the groups are relatively the same skill / preperation wise.
Therascalking3
Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:27 am
#7
i dont think you guys really realize that this profession will never need a nerf because it wont ever be a FOTM. It doesnt provide solo benefits and isnt something that people would want to do unless they are inclined to leading groups. This profession cant provide personal benefits like CMs and since everyone would be available to the benefits of the SL it isnt unfair to make it awesome.
Rarrot
Wed Aug 25, 2004 4:28 pm
#8
Did you even read my post?
The whole point was that it would be something that could be abused (but wouldn't really be an exploit, because it's all within the rules of the game).
If someone found out that being, say, a master fencer with capped defense, CoB, and grouping with a master squad leader that's using rally and a defense-boosting fortification found out that it made them impossible to hurt (which is exactly what happens with the kind of equations the devs used in this game), then you'd better believe that people would start abusing it. Why bother with any other template when all you need is a master SL to make your entire group of defense-stacking FOTM guys immortal? (Or perhaps making a group of riflemen that, combined with food, tapes, and steady aim, can't possibly miss their target? Even jedi would go down in 3-4 shots, and it could be applied to 20 people at once!)
We can't just propose increases to any of the abilities we use to increase group skill levels until we've got the devs' okay on the numbers (or they give us all the relevant equations the game uses so we can figure it out ourselves, but that's probably not going to happen). Until then, the only bonuses we know are safe are the ones we have now, and we can't increase any of the skill mods we give without taking it from other abilities we already have.
The whole point was that it would be something that could be abused (but wouldn't really be an exploit, because it's all within the rules of the game).
If someone found out that being, say, a master fencer with capped defense, CoB, and grouping with a master squad leader that's using rally and a defense-boosting fortification found out that it made them impossible to hurt (which is exactly what happens with the kind of equations the devs used in this game), then you'd better believe that people would start abusing it. Why bother with any other template when all you need is a master SL to make your entire group of defense-stacking FOTM guys immortal? (Or perhaps making a group of riflemen that, combined with food, tapes, and steady aim, can't possibly miss their target? Even jedi would go down in 3-4 shots, and it could be applied to 20 people at once!)
We can't just propose increases to any of the abilities we use to increase group skill levels until we've got the devs' okay on the numbers (or they give us all the relevant equations the game uses so we can figure it out ourselves, but that's probably not going to happen). Until then, the only bonuses we know are safe are the ones we have now, and we can't increase any of the skill mods we give without taking it from other abilities we already have.
PanzerGR
Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:14 am
#9
without trying to flame you
i thinkt he last thing many peopel want to hear after being broken for over a year and not getting so much as a smiel our way (they didnt even fix the XP after they broke it in october ffs) is "we shouldnt ask for too much".
maybe thats not what you were saying but thats what it felt like. I can understand balance issues.....but to be honest i think SL should eb THE professiont o come to if you want to be mroe effective at fighting battles.....bar none...we should eb the FIRST proff looked at for battles and group outings.....not doctors, not chefs......but squad leaders
our skills should eb good enough to reflect that
Yog-Soth
Thu Aug 26, 2004 4:46 am
#10
PanzerGR , i think alot of that stims from how rare we are.. I've had people that did group with me as a SL , seek me out afterwards.
No matter how strong or gimp we think we are , people i've grouped with say to me anyways , that having an SL is.. may i ? "the bomb"
But untill there are more SLs , people aren't going to want one till they try 1
Therascalking3
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:51 am
#11
I dont understand why asking for something big or alot is really a problem.
-Do you think anything we are asking for even comes close to what the smugglers are asking for?
-Serious do you think that a couple of stats and ability changes and maybe the forts system is even close to the robust smuggler system and everything they are asking for?
And the even if we narrow the survey from the population who knew what SL was a substantial population of the that group would agree that having an SL in their group really isnt that important. It helps if you have an SL bot in your group but it honestly doesnt matter much past that. With the new active role some of us are asking for that would change. People would want an SL in the group not just an SL bot. On top of that people would be looking for good SLs the best leader to lead their team. I could even see a SL being contracted to help groups hunt (as will be more common after buff nerf) and to help groups pvp. I have already been contracted by jedi several times to provide them with GTN and formup so they could hunt more efficiently. Not only did they pay me but i got to harvest rancor meat too
Yog-Soth
Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:42 am
#12
Just curious , but how is better to have a SL-bot , than an active shooting healing/wotever SL ?
And i haven't meet any non-SL's who dismiss our Cap breaking passives. I have consistently had people in public places ask me to lead their group through various theme-parks, wish i had all the time to.
Not being offensive , but i don't think we see ourselves they way Non-SLs see us.
Therascalking3
Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:57 am
#13
Well i only know from my experiences but most people dont know my profession exists. If they do they either dont know what it does or know and realize it is somewhat useful but dont make it the cornerstone of their group. What i mean by SL-bot is just some toon who can spam retreat, formup, and provide the terrain negotiation. The people who rely on SLs for pvp groups usually have an SLbot and prefer a bot because they can remain covert and wont die so retreat and formup will always happen. Also an SL-bot is preferable because it takes up only one slot and will always be running rather than an SL who might not be able to run all of that because they are fighting. No need for the SL character to heal any good group should have several docs on the premise.
If we change the class to include more skills and abilities that require on the site judgement calls and adaptation to situations than a player SL will be more desirable to an SL-bot. Also if we load up the profession with incredibly useful and beneficial skills then it will make SLs a hot commodity for group and actually the cornerstone of any strong PvP or PvE group.
Ultimately imo SLs should be ridiculously useful to any group doing either pvp or pve. However they should be active at the keyboard players.
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