Squad Leader Archive

Hello fellow Squad Leaders

I've just posted this on the IC forum as my take on SL. I'll post it here too. If you want to comment on this, please take the time to put your own thoughts on the IC forum too. If lots of people say YAY then it's more likely them dev people will take some of it.

Please note that this is not intended as a complete be-all and end-all. It is, instead, what I would like to see. Which parts get added in and which don't are up to the dev's. My failing to include an idea here doesn't mean I immediately hate that idea - just that I like these ideas better

Not all of these ideas are mine. Most aren't. Credit is due to the clever people on these forums who came up with them.

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Having given this quite a bit of thought over the last few weeks, here's what I'd like to see in SL if we get our revamp:

-- PASSIVES --
SLs having group passives is nice. This concept should stay. However, I think that:

* A SL should benefit from their own passives when ungrouped

* A SL should benefit from their own passives if not a leader of a group which has no SL at the helm.

* A SL should get the passive benefits of the leading SL of the group if they are not the leading SL

* All members of the group (including all pets) should benefit from the passive bonuses a SL grants when they lead a group

At the moment the SL requires Ranged Support, Exploration and Survival as trees to become a SL (like you didn't already know that). I doubt this will change.

As such, I think most (if not all) SL abilities should in some way or another derive from these. Suggested passives are:

* + Terrain Negotiaon
* + Aim bonus
* + General To-Hit bonus
* + Ranged Def. and + Melee Def.

I also think a SL should grant damage mitigation as well. After all, a SL's job is to help members cover for their weak areas. A SL should not (ever!) grant group damage mitigation 3. However, granting group damage mitigation 1 in the appropriate tier-IV trees and group damage mitigation 2 at master would seem appropriate.

Any player who already has damage mitigation should get the benefit of whichever is highest - either their own or the group. They should not stack.

-- ACTIVE ABILITIES --
I think the current set of active abilities for the SL is a bit poor. I would instead do the following:

/sysgroup This is useful, but I don't think it's worth a 'cookie' - as the same thing can be achieved with /groupchat

/formup As it is now, only with intimidate curing too.

/boostmorale EITHER make it spread damage OR make it spread all wounds (not just primaries). If this spreads wounds, it shouldn't include pets. If it spreads damage it should.

/designatetarget Instead of both /steadyaim and /volleyfire. This sets a current designated target for the squad. A big, obvious UI targeting reticle appears over the target that everyone in the squad can see clearly.
This also includes a passive to-hit bonus which anyone who attacks the designated target gets when attacking. Anyone who chooses not to attack the designated target does not get the bonus.

/charge Call it /retreat if you like. Much like it is now. However, not having the SL yell would be nice - since spamming it does sometimes cause people to complain (and could be seen as a breach of EULA). If I want to yell while calling /charge, let me write a macro.

/airlift Essentially an uber-retreat. After a set duration, the entire group are shuttled to the last shuttleport the SL arrived at. On the fantastically slim chance that a SL has never, ever used a shuttle, the starport in their starting city is used.
This should probably incur some nasty mind wounds on the SL. A cooldown timer may also be in order.
The reason the SL doesn't get to pick the 'port is to help prevent its use as a taxi service. It could even move the group to a randomly selected 'port on the planet - which could occasionally lead to some hairy GCW situations!

/rally So far I've noticed Rally seems to improve the survivability of someone getting attacked. I could be wrong, but there you go. The negatives of not being able to do lots of actions are very irritating. Either these should be removed, or only people currently engaged in combat should get rallied (meaning the doc who is healing/dragging/rezzing doesn't stop). With the addition of auto-harvest droids, these droids would likewise be allowed to harvest while their owner is rallied - even if the owner themselves isn't.

-- CAMP-LIKE THINGS --
SLs have as part of their tree survival - or making camps. As such, it would make some sense they have something that is a little akin to this - though without stepping on the Rangers toes.

Personally I feel the E-Web idea (mentioned alot already) makes the logical choice here. This is my take on it:

The E-Web is built by a weaponsmith. The power droid that you also need to operate is built by a droid engineer. SL does not get the schematic for the E-Web. Nor does the Commando.

The E-Web or crew-served weapon is effectively a camp. It is deployed by anyone who has one in their inventory with the approprite +camping skill. Thus, an E-Web can be deployed by a SL, a Ranger, a Bounty Hunter, a Master Scout or anyone else who has some ranks in Scout: Survival.

Once deployed, the E-Web can be 'mounted' (like a vehicle - complete with you can't use your own attacks while mounted) by a gunner. Commandos and SLs are certified to use it as a weapon - anyone else using it uses it uncertified.

The E-Web itself is indestructable by normal attacks. Like a weapon it degrades with use.

In order to fire an E-Web, a power droid must be within the 'camp range' of the E-Web's location. The power droid forms the weak link in the chain - if someone can destroy the power droid, the E-Web shuts down until another power droid is within the camp radius. Smart people will have two or three droids deployed for redundancy (requiring a group, obviously).

The E-Web does not count as a camp for healing or pet-calling.

SLs should get passive bonuses to using the E-Web (which are group passives). Both SLs and Commandos should get specials - the SLs being mostly AoE extensions of the Ranged Support tree, while commandos get more single target slaying specials.

And finally, the E-Web can be un-deployed - which would return it to the inventory of the person undeploying it. If that person has no inventory space, the E-Web will not undeploy and the person is notified by an error message.

I've avoided the idea that two people are required to operate the E-Web, because I think filling the power droid's role would be exceedingly dull.

-- PETS and NPCs --

A SL who has pets (SL/CH or SL with faction pets) should grant any and all abilities they have to grouped pets too. This makes the SL/CH a formidable solo profession for those who wish to go that route. It also makes anyone who uses faction pets able to get more bang for buck out of their faction pets. Currently the system is biased towards factioned SLs - faction pets get a bigger share of the SL benefits than CH pets do at the moment.

I feel that faction pet number should be a factor of faction rank. However I understand lots of others disagree. If SLs do get pet handling, I'd prefer to see the rule that SL abilities apply to pets staying.

NB: A master SL/master CH would have a rather hefty army if able to call NPC pets. This is my main reason for suggesting that the SL shouldn't get pet handling. Yeraze points out a number of ways to get a group consisting of only pets using the current system in the SL IC forum.

If I were only allowed one thing from this post, I'd pick /designatetarget from Active Abilities

good ideas, but the commandos will want the E-web all to themselves lol

I like it..

All except the part about passives working while un-grouped...