The changes and enhancements are all intended to better allow a Squad Leader to enhance and lead their group. Lots of new abilities have been added and most of the existing abilities have been changed. The most useful of the existing abilities have stayed the same though their names may have been changed to keep things a bit more cohesive. The Squad Leader skill set concentrates solely on group enhancing abilities, while they do include a full set of combat skill mods (defense, accuracy and speed) a Squad Leader is still strongly encouraged to pick up another combat profession skill set to flesh out their combat abilities.
All the passive abilities of the Squad Leader have been removed and changed to active buff abilities. This will make it easier to understand exactly what benefit is taking affect when. Also Squad Leader's no longer need to be the group leader for their abilities to take affect. This allows them more flexibility to benefit the group even when they are not the "official" leader as well as allowing multiple Squad Leaders in a group to combine their abilities.
Squad Leader New Group Buffs
The buff system has been enhanced to allow group buffs. The core of the Squad Leader abilities are based on these new group buffs. Any group buff that a Squad Leader has active will automatically take affect on all the members of the group. The Squad Leader group buffs have been designed so only one buff can be in effect at a time so care will need to be taken by the Squad Leader to make sure the most important enhancement is active when it is most needed. Multiple Squad Leaders can have different group buffs active and they will all stack.
Steady Aim (Strategy I) - Enhances group accuracy.
Call to Arms (Strategy III) - Enhances group armor ratings.
Volley Fire (Strategy IV) - Gives group members the chance to bypass enemy armor.
Tactics (Tactics I) - Enhances group defenses.
Blaze of Glory (Tactics III) - Gives or enhances the chance to score a critical hit.
Double Time (Tactics IV) - Reduces cooldown times for group members.
Boost Morale (Leadership IV) - Enhances group Action/Mind regeneration.
Form Up (Mobility II) - Enhances group movement speed.
Retreat! (Mobility III) - Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. Prevents all other combat actions.
Charge! (Mobility IV) - Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. Places the Squad Leader at heightened risk by reducing their defenses.
Squad Leader New Individual Buffs
In addition to the ability to enhance overall group performance a Squad Leader can choose to place their attention towards a single group member to give them even greater benefits than the general group enhancements. Like the group buffs these enhancements are designed to only allow one to be in effect at any one time though multiple Squad Leaders can combine their abilities for increased enhancement.
Toughen (Tactics II) - Increases the armor rating of a single group member.
High Yield (Strategy II) - Increases the damage output of a single group member.
Verbal Assault (Leadership II) - Increases the amount of aggro generated by a single group member.
Combat Feint (Leadership III) - Decreases the amount of aggro generated by a single group member.
New Squad Leader Abilities
Finally a few completely new abilities have been added to the Squad Leader repertoire to flesh out their combat utility plus a couple of the original Squad Leader abilities have remained while others have had their names or effects changed slightly.
Group System Message (Novice SL) - Sends an on screen system message to all group members. (Same as previously.)
Called Shot (Novice SL) - Significantly increases the accuracy and damage of the next attack to the designated target. Only works for one attack and then must be reapplied. The accuracy and damage bonus increases as the Squad Leader learns more skills.
Rally Point () - Creates a waypoint for all group members. (Functions similar to the /waypoint command.)
Paint Target (Leadership I) - Increases the accuracy and damage for all attacks to the painted target in the next 20 seconds (Same as old Volley Fire.)
Second Chance (Master Squad Leader) - Equalizes all damage and wounds across all group members in the area. This ability has a very long recharge time.
Please take a look at these new Squad Leader enhancements on Test Center and give us any feedback. We want Squad Leader skill set to be as useful and fun to play as we all know it can be.
We are improving the variety of attacks available to NPCs in SWG. We have heard feedback from players, asking for more variety and strategy in NPC behaviors (for instance, having Dark Jedi and Night Sisters use force powers), and agree with that feedback 100%. NPCs that use appropriate tactics and strategy will make the combat experience in SWG the best it has ever been,
The changes going to Test Center in the near future are designed to address this issue. Force Sensitive NPCs will use force powers, basic NPCs will use special attacks more intelligently, and high-level NPCs will use high-level special attacks.
Now that it is on Test Center we want your help in evaluating it. We'll tune the baseline difficulty based on play testing and community feedback before releasing it to Live.
Key to this effort will be the playtest and feedback from Test Center - to ensure that the game difficulty does not substantially increase (except perhaps versus those very high-end Boss and Elite encounters). We're planning on adding several new and interesting loot items into the game, to coincide with the increasing challenge of some encounters, while balancing the baseline damage ranges from normal NPCs to ensure the overall difficulty level of the game does not increase. Please help us gauge the effect of these changes by jumping into Test Center and posting your feedback on the feedback thread created specifically for this issue.
