Squad Leader Archive

Irott

Great topic...I do fall into your characterization of a current military member who enjoys SL. Mainly because leading troops is what I know. I am a "squad leader" in real life (albeit a different title). I found that since this is my first online game I lack the gaming experience and dont' have the time to bother to learn all the little nuiances about what weapon is more effective against what armor, etc etc...so I don't make a very good solo player. But I do know how to lead and organzied, so my SWG character took the shape of my real life personality. Now, as to what the SWG SL should be depends on the vision of the Devs for the "military " aspect of our characters. I remember a post a while back from a dev who said that player characters were NOT a part of the real military but were merely citizens whose faction indicated what side we were on. Those that fight are part of a loosely organzied militia. Basically, we are the fans watching a football game, NOT the actually football players. All the "uber" PvP'ers are those crazy fans who paint themselves blue and jump around the stands but in the end are still just fans. Now the recent emphasis on faction rank perks and uniform items seems to clash with this "only militia, not the real imperial/rebel army" idea.I bring that up, because I am interested in peoples reaction to that idea, but the role of the SL shouldn't matter much whether we are militia or army.

The skills should benefit the group and be obvious and make a clear difference to that group. I personnally don't like passive buffs alone. I dont' understand them and don't have anyway to validate whether they do anything. Plus they dont' require me to do anything other than show up. A SL should have an ACTIVE part in making his group better. That means button pushing and activating abilities. This forum has been great in coming up with ideas. Things like: target designation, waypoint marking, specific HAM targeting, Airstrikes, Artillery...are all fantastic ideas. Itsa shame we have never had any feedback from a Dev as to whether they have even seen these ideas.

Touching for a minute on my RL SL abilities. I am not the best shot in my team, nor am I the fastest or strongest. What I bring to the fight is my big picture view and my knowledge of where we are going and what we need to do. I know how to deploy men to maximize there fire, I know where an enemy is weak to take it out as fast as possible. I give direction to the team so that they understand what they have to do and arrange then according to their strenghts. I also have the ability to call in help in the form of fire support or reach back to subject matter experts. Most importantly, I have the trust and respect of my men, which means that when things go wrong, they know they can look to me to come up with a solution and get us out of a jam. So how do these skills translate to SWG?

In the order that I listed them above, the in my opinion, the comparable SWG SL skills would be: Big Picture: a special /examine ability to see armor types, weapons equipped, weak points, etc. Direction: Designate group targets, show waypoints to whole group, assign group positions that give specific player bonuses, target specific HAM pool. Help: NPC reinforcements, airstrikes, artillery, shuttledrops/evac. Trust and respect: Mainly comes from play time, but here passive buffs work as well as the abilties like /rally and resists against intimidate, dizzy etc....

I almost dropped all my SL the other day because I had finally become tired of wasting all those skill points. It is posts like this and the occasion request for my SL services that keep me energized in this profession that has so much potential.

"Strength and Honor"

Irot great thread!

These first two posts hit the nail on the head!

I love the smell of a thought provoking post in the morning.

Unfortunately the posts here are so good I'm not actually coming up with much to improve upon at the moment. Since this is an open discussion let me throw out what little semi-relevant opinions I have.

I am of the opinion that SWG is first and foremost a game. There is a vast array of player types and personalities out there and to me the absolute most fundamental point of being a squad leader is to make a group more fun. Period.I'm not much of a socialite in real life but i truly enjoy helping my squad mates have a great time doing things they could not do by themselves. That is what the heart and soul of squad leading is to me.

Some of these playersmay prefer military style leadership,some may not.

I see successful squad leaders in SWG mimmicking a wide variety of leadership styles that I also see in real life. I think this brings up a great point: give us tools to do our job REGARDLESS of our style. Since it is a stated definition of the developers that this game be 'classless' then do not make us haveseparate 'military style squad leader' and a 'hunt style squad leader' professions.

If you define us too much, we dont have the flexibility that makes this game fun.

As I like to say in all my posts, this game should be about OPTIONS. If we are given the OPTION to define our particular class how we choose in game, then we will all be much happier. Give us a wide range of abilities, both military and non, that allow us to run hunts and missions how we feel.

That's a half thought out post... so bear with. As for backgrounds, I'm an ex-military enthusiast who somewhere in his college career left the ROTC and a military future to become a network engineer, novelist and buddhist. Go figure.

Thanks for the support and feedback guys. Great posts here.

And I agree damocles... it is hard to expand on this. But I think I will follow up on what you posted.

I have seen a lot of mimicry leadership even from players who are not Squad Leaders. I happen to be one of those mimics, as all of my leadership styles are derived from TV and movies. But im not sure if that makes me an effective leader. Am I missing out on something that these RL leaders have? Do these RL skills even play a part? Well, you bring up a good point.... It shouldnt matter. This is a RPG last I checked and, although I could RP (as in filling the role, notacting the role)a Dancer or a Weaponsmith ingame while not knowing anything about those skills in RL, I should be able to RP a Squad Leader by just using the skills provided in the game.

My brain doesn't want to keep working so I will come back to this thought. Keep this post alive. ^_^

There are people who are willing to take responcibility and people who do not want it.

The big problem is the flaw the DEVs created when making SL. You can not take 'reality' for a 'fantacy' game. You can not die in this game, your using incredible technology that has little to no basis in our 'reality'. They created a military class of a profession that does not have the backing of a military. They ask feedback from RL people in a military organization. Well guess what, I don't own a chopper, a bomber, nor a morter team in RL. I have to be a military officer to have these tools used onmy behalf. In the game, I don't own a shuttle, a Star Destroyer, or a TIE Bomber that have nothing better to do then pick me up or bomb a critter to the moon whenever I give the call. I would have to be a memeber of the Imperial Army/Navy to get support like that.

Don't confuse Faction perks that should only be gained through a faction for a Profession's abilities.

I have said this once before, we are a Profession that in my honest opinion shouldn't be able to be unlocked till you reached a certain rank in a faction. I say this because that is the best fit for a military 'leader' who is then part of an actual military. This would have solved alot of head-aches. Also makes Faction rank worthwhile if it unlocks Professions. Course I am the same guy who has made posts on the need for Neutral factions for the neutral SL. I still believe in that. Fact is that they can't do that now, but I bet that would have pissed off the holo grinders if they learned they needed to be a Warrent Officer to be a SL.

I am afraid that SL is still a vauge concept in the mind of a few DEVs that are inspired by a few SW characters that were military leaders or became military leaders. We as players have the chance to change that, if they read our imput, or if they actually want it.