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On May 08 2012 17:40 bored01 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 08 2012 16:44 Rah wrote:
Star Wars is where it's at, and where it's going to be at for MMO's at least for a while. The last MMO I got into was EQ. WoW I felt was bad. People liked it because it catered to noobs, and most players started WoW as MMO noobs. I know that won't be a popular opinion because people talk like vanilla WoW was hard, but it was nothing compared to MMOs before it. Star Wars does the same catering to noobs at first, but the story and gameplay's interesting if you pick the right class, and the PvP is a huge improvement in the end game. Huttball especially has a lot of depth to it for MMO PvP.
Guild Wars 2 isn't even out yet and Tera has only been out a short time, I've already seen a lot of complaining about them and things that need to be fixed, bandwagoners will get bored of them just like every new game and it will turn into the new thing to complain about, they don't have the funds to fix things like Bioware does, especially with the GW2 model. Star Wars is continuing to offer free content upgrades to players, both pvp and pve, and the content they're already building on is very strong, and complimented by the legacy system. Hate it if you want, but it's the best option for the MMO genre right now. The game's got style mang. I wouldn't call it "free" content when it's subscription to play. Also, Guild Wars 2 has an in-game microtransaction store from what I've seen and if games like TF2 and LoL can get an income based on in-game microtransactions, I don't see why GW2 couldn't. So to say a big release like GW2 can't support updates or expansions (whatever GW2 decides to do) is just silly. Anyways, SWTOR was really not my thing. Saw gameplay vids and my brother play. It really felt like a single player game with the generic mmo styled combat and the occasional co-op. I guess this would play out differently with a very large guild though (hopefully).
End game content for PVE worries me for guild wars 2, only 8 dungeons in the game , and only 3 of them are end game dungeons. Although I havent experienced a dungeons so i dont know how diverse they actually are , ive heard people say that you will rarely have the same experience twice in a dungeon thanks to dynamic events they added in there and multiple paths. I think with guild wars 2 though i will beable to get into the PVP fromm what ive seen and heard the WVWVW looks very satisfying and i could see myself getting into it. PVP content is alot easier to develop though as no matter what (since yoou are playing against other players ) you will never have the same experience twice making the replayability practically infinite.
Look how long people have been playing that same 1 map in LOL for.
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On May 08 2012 16:44 Rah wrote:
Star Wars is where it's at, and where it's going to be for MMOs at least for a while. The last MMO I got into was EQ. WoW I felt was bad. People liked it because it catered to noobs, and most players started WoW as MMO noobs. I know that won't be a popular opinion because people talk like vanilla WoW was hard, but it was nothing compared to MMOs before it. Star Wars does the same catering to noobs at first, but the story and gameplay's interesting if you pick the right class, and the PvP is a huge improvement in the end game. Huttball especially has a lot of depth to it for MMO PvP.
Guild Wars 2 isn't even out yet and Tera has only been out a short time, I've already seen a lot of complaining about them and things that need to be fixed. Bandwagoners will get bored of them just like every new game and it will turn into the new thing to complain about. They don't have the funds to fix things like Bioware does, especially with the GW2 model. Star Wars is continuing to offer free content updates to players, both pvp and pve, and the content they're already building on is very strong, and complimented by the legacy system. Hate it if you want, but it's the best option for the MMO genre right now. The game's got style mang.
"Free" ?? I mean, yeah, they gave a free month to active subscribers in admittance of them screwing up. Props to them for that. But it certainly isn't free. The content they are building on is not that strong either. Legacy was a huge disappointment with the majority of players unable to afford any of the legacy unlocks, as well as uninterested in paying extremely high prices on minor vanities. The game does not have much style beyond WoW - and lacks some essential features that would have prevented so many people from quitting the game and so many servers dying.
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On May 08 2012 17:49 Executor1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2012 17:40 bored01 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 08 2012 16:44 Rah wrote:
Star Wars is where it's at, and where it's going to be at for MMO's at least for a while. The last MMO I got into was EQ. WoW I felt was bad. People liked it because it catered to noobs, and most players started WoW as MMO noobs. I know that won't be a popular opinion because people talk like vanilla WoW was hard, but it was nothing compared to MMOs before it. Star Wars does the same catering to noobs at first, but the story and gameplay's interesting if you pick the right class, and the PvP is a huge improvement in the end game. Huttball especially has a lot of depth to it for MMO PvP.
Guild Wars 2 isn't even out yet and Tera has only been out a short time, I've already seen a lot of complaining about them and things that need to be fixed, bandwagoners will get bored of them just like every new game and it will turn into the new thing to complain about, they don't have the funds to fix things like Bioware does, especially with the GW2 model. Star Wars is continuing to offer free content upgrades to players, both pvp and pve, and the content they're already building on is very strong, and complimented by the legacy system. Hate it if you want, but it's the best option for the MMO genre right now. The game's got style mang. I wouldn't call it "free" content when it's subscription to play. Also, Guild Wars 2 has an in-game microtransaction store from what I've seen and if games like TF2 and LoL can get an income based on in-game microtransactions, I don't see why GW2 couldn't. So to say a big release like GW2 can't support updates or expansions (whatever GW2 decides to do) is just silly. Anyways, SWTOR was really not my thing. Saw gameplay vids and my brother play. It really felt like a single player game with the generic mmo styled combat and the occasional co-op. I guess this would play out differently with a very large guild though (hopefully). End game content for PVE worries me for guild wars 2, only 8 dungeons in the game , and only 3 of them are end game dungeons. Although I havent experienced a dungeons so i dont know how diverse they actually are , ive heard people say that you will rarely have the same experience twice in a dungeon thanks to dynamic events they added in there and multiple paths. I think with guild wars 2 though i will beable to get into the PVP fromm what ive seen and heard the WVWVW looks very satisfying and i could see myself getting into it. PVP content is alot easier to develop though as no matter what (since yoou are playing against other players ) you will never have the same experience twice making the replayability practically infinite. Look how long people have been playing that same 1 map in LOL for.
There is no "end game" in GW2 in my opinion. And I don't say that in a negative light. What I mean is, there is no gear grind. There is no new tier of gear every expansion. You only do dungeons and the likes because you find them fun. Sure, you can get rewarded with newer looking gear, but there is no grind that you NEED that gear to clear content. (Similarly for PvP, there is no chasing carrot on a stick incentive).
GW2 is substantially different than any other MMO out and thank god. So many players are tired of the grinds. Whenever I play GW2 it is going to be for the reason I play any other non-MMO game - just for some fun whenever I feel like it. And there's no subscription fee behind it either to make me feel like I need to play it x hours each month to get my money's worth.
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Today's patch just a desaster Patch again^^
every equipped matrix cube gone D:
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RIP SWTOR, it could have been such a great game but BioWare FAILED SO HARD!
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On May 08 2012 22:57 Flyingcookie wrote:
Today's patch just a desaster Patch again^^
every equipped matrix cube gone D:
although I haven't been playing this game since february, not much seems to have changed in the quality of their patches
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On May 08 2012 23:27 MaGariShun wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2012 22:57 Flyingcookie wrote:
Today's patch just a desaster Patch again^^
every equipped matrix cube gone D: although I haven't been playing this game since february, not much seems to have changed in the quality of their patches
Yeah, every patch has introduced at least one minor nuisance, a big issue or the patchnotes mentioned a thing which wasnt actually in the patch.
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On May 08 2012 22:02 EscPlan9 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2012 17:49 Executor1 wrote:On May 08 2012 17:40 bored01 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 08 2012 16:44 Rah wrote:
Star Wars is where it's at, and where it's going to be at for MMO's at least for a while. The last MMO I got into was EQ. WoW I felt was bad. People liked it because it catered to noobs, and most players started WoW as MMO noobs. I know that won't be a popular opinion because people talk like vanilla WoW was hard, but it was nothing compared to MMOs before it. Star Wars does the same catering to noobs at first, but the story and gameplay's interesting if you pick the right class, and the PvP is a huge improvement in the end game. Huttball especially has a lot of depth to it for MMO PvP.
Guild Wars 2 isn't even out yet and Tera has only been out a short time, I've already seen a lot of complaining about them and things that need to be fixed, bandwagoners will get bored of them just like every new game and it will turn into the new thing to complain about, they don't have the funds to fix things like Bioware does, especially with the GW2 model. Star Wars is continuing to offer free content upgrades to players, both pvp and pve, and the content they're already building on is very strong, and complimented by the legacy system. Hate it if you want, but it's the best option for the MMO genre right now. The game's got style mang. I wouldn't call it "free" content when it's subscription to play. Also, Guild Wars 2 has an in-game microtransaction store from what I've seen and if games like TF2 and LoL can get an income based on in-game microtransactions, I don't see why GW2 couldn't. So to say a big release like GW2 can't support updates or expansions (whatever GW2 decides to do) is just silly. Anyways, SWTOR was really not my thing. Saw gameplay vids and my brother play. It really felt like a single player game with the generic mmo styled combat and the occasional co-op. I guess this would play out differently with a very large guild though (hopefully). End game content for PVE worries me for guild wars 2, only 8 dungeons in the game , and only 3 of them are end game dungeons. Although I havent experienced a dungeons so i dont know how diverse they actually are , ive heard people say that you will rarely have the same experience twice in a dungeon thanks to dynamic events they added in there and multiple paths. I think with guild wars 2 though i will beable to get into the PVP fromm what ive seen and heard the WVWVW looks very satisfying and i could see myself getting into it. PVP content is alot easier to develop though as no matter what (since yoou are playing against other players ) you will never have the same experience twice making the replayability practically infinite. Look how long people have been playing that same 1 map in LOL for. There is no "end game" in GW2 in my opinion. And I don't say that in a negative light. What I mean is, there is no gear grind. There is no new tier of gear every expansion. You only do dungeons and the likes because you find them fun. Sure, you can get rewarded with newer looking gear, but there is no grind that you NEED that gear to clear content. (Similarly for PvP, there is no chasing carrot on a stick incentive). GW2 is substantially different than any other MMO out and thank god. So many players are tired of the grinds. Whenever I play GW2 it is going to be for the reason I play any other non-MMO game - just for some fun whenever I feel like it. And there's no subscription fee behind it either to make me feel like I need to play it x hours each month to get my money's worth.
I guess so, i think thats just another "hype train" thing by arenanet. A kind of "it depends on your skill not your gear" that certainly isnt the case while leveling though you can get undergeared pretty quickly. And at the same time they have said that explorable dungeons (hard mode dungeons) will offer a greater challenge but also greater loot. I know that you just get gear tokens off boss's that you can trade in for anything (at least thats how i understand it) so i guess in some sense the gear grind is diminished but i beleive it will still be there, it just wont be a very deep gear progression system.
Honestly though i think that is one of the things that really hurt TOR, was the extremely linear gear progression. When there is only 1 piece of loot at the pinnacle of the end game thats viable to you, you dont feel like you have much choice stats wise etc. And there is only so many variations you can get from replacing mods. I know Guild wars 2 is a dilfferent game, but alot of the excitement involved in running the same content dozens of times revolves around gear progression its still fun, but its fun because it feels like your progressing your character which i think is one of the main reasons MMO's have become so popular IMO, its that sense of progression and personalization of a character that is solely yours.. So i really hope Guild wars 2 doesnt miss the mark too far on that one.
In swtor I dont even know how they could have missed the mark any further, your average player (especially now that FP's and raids take group composition into account) will take only maybe 2 weeks to get full Columi most likely much less than that if they are running multiple FP's everyday and running Normal EV / KP i got my full columi set (sans main hand) within 2 days of when i ran my first hard mode flashpoint. Now i really like the the flashpoints in swtor i think they are well designed and the bosses provide a decent enough challenge but a week after getting my columi set and finishing up helping my friends get their final pieces that was it, the excitement of gear progression was gone and all that was left was to do something for the sake of doing it and I think that is fine for PVP because your experience in PVP will be different everytime since your opponents are players but in PVE with the experience being very similair everytime you need incentivization I think its extremely important for MMO's.
People have always said in the forums " I just feel like this game is missing something, i dont get that excitement I get from playing wow and other mmo's". Im pretty sure they are talking about the bland and linear gear progression they just dont realize it. Their is something very exciting about getting something thats best in slot that is a rare or unique item thats not part of a set (keep in mind every end game drop in swtor is part of a set, which i think is a problem in itself) or getting a side-grade that has stats that are more suited to your player and gives him/her a different look at the same time or knowing that yoou got an item with an extremely low drop rate and yoou have been waiting and waiting to see it drop. On top of that the bosses in my oppinion drop too much loot which takes away from the fun even more, 4 pieces of loot or even more for an 8 man boss is pretty ridiculous and unecessary, 10 mans in wow dropped 2 pieces and i never ever saw a problem with that or heard anyone complain about it. Im not even saying that they should be making gear harder to get im saying thatthey should be adding ways to further incentivize their content which they did do in a way with Nightmare KP(after 1.2) and i liked that, but they need to do it for hard mode flashpoints to make it so PVE players have something they can do/run on a daily basis that will give playing some meaning.
Like ive said many times in the past in this thread, and i will end with this. There is a problem / it looks lazy when all of your content drops the same gear, hard mode flashpoints share loot with commendation vendors / normal mode Ops/ Hard mode ops share loot with normal mode ops and comm vendors as well but add rakata on top of that. Pretty much all the content shares loot either completely or partially and it makes things rather dull for one of the most important parts of the end game in a game like swtor where your only form of progression is gear progression (heck they dont even have a real acheivments system in place) Even the new content shares that exact same loot from launch , story mode EC drops Rakata, and normal and hard mode lost island drops tionese/ columi for normal and columi / rakata for hard making the content almost useless for players with full columi (which any pve player whos been playing for a month in a raiding guild should most likely have)
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I read on gamespy today and there was an article about upcoming mmo's and the pitfalls of recent mmo's and one of the main things they said about swtor was how the lack of end game gear and the ease of getting it made the endgame significantly shorter and less replayable then it should be. Id like to add like I said above, it really doesnt help when on top of it being realy easy to get gear, they give you many avenues that are equally easy to get the EXACT same gear. So many things I like about swtor it just sucks they failed in one of the most important parts about end game. I also dont see the thought process behind "hey lets add new content, but lets give players the exact same gear they where getting before from running it" (im looking at you lost island and story mode EC) Even the new supposed "tier 2" from Hard mode EC doesnt give you a new set bonus it has the same set bonus as tier 1 (rakata columi tionese)
Its so frusterating, I loved this game for many months, but i hate the direction they are taking it. Adding in custom outfits through orange gear doesnt change the very linear gear progression system. Its nice because it changes the looks but it does nothing to prolong or deepen the progression system. I understand that they are trying to make the game casual but honestly when wow was at its peak in subs it appealed less to casuals then it does now. Casuals proclaim they want all these things to give them gear faster easier etc but it gives them less to work towards and gives more dedicated players very little to do. Devs like developing for casuals though because it essentially means less work for them.
My best raiding days where in wrath of the lich king, gear progression wise that expansion was where its at. They added hard mode raids with their own loot (sort of same loot different stats, still it was nice though) and both 10 and 25 mans had their own loot (they dont anymore i rejoined wow a few months ago and was dissapointed stopped playing pretty quickly) and the raids where reasonably challenging but still very accesible. It had something for everyone really and the raids where also quite long naxx had like 12 or so bosses ulduar had almost that many as well and TOTC was our first glimpse at a shorter raid but despite its like of actualy ground to cover i think it was quite well done and the lich king raid was a challenge at least for my guild we raided every week and would progress a little further every week or 2 it was the perfect balance for progression.
TBC was also great for raiding but i just feel like WOTLK offered something for everyone and the gear progression was spot on. Its the one thing i wish swtor would copy from wow, its gear progression is terrible and maybe PVE players dont realize thats why they quit (they say they just felt bored) but most likely its the reason
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oops quote instead of edit
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On May 09 2012 18:00 Executor1 wrote:
I read on gamespy today and there was an article about upcoming mmo's and the pitfalls of recent mmo's and one of the main things they said about swtor was how the lack of end game gear and the ease of getting it made the endgame significantly shorter and less replayable then it should be. Id like to add like I said above, it really doesnt help when on top of it being realy easy to get gear, they give you many avenues that are equally easy to get the EXACT same gear. So many things I like about swtor it just sucks they failed in one of the most important parts about end game. I also dont see the thought process behind "hey lets add new content, but lets give players the exact same gear they where getting before from running it" (im looking at you lost island and story mode EC) Even the new supposed "tier 2" from Hard mode EC doesnt give you a new set bonus it has the same set bonus as tier 1 (rakata columi tionese)
Its so frusterating, I loved this game for many months, but i hate the direction they are taking it. Adding in custom outfits through orange gear doesnt change the very linear gear progression system. Its nice because it changes the looks but it does nothing to prolong or deepen the progression system. I understand that they are trying to make the game casual but honestly when wow was at its peak in subs it appealed less to casuals then it does now. Casuals proclaim they want all these things to give them gear faster easier etc but it gives them less to work towards and gives more dedicated players very little to do. Devs like developing for casuals though because it essentially means less work for them.
My best raiding days where in wrath of the lich king, gear progression wise that expansion was where its at. They added hard mode raids with their own loot (sort of same loot different stats, still it was nice though) and both 10 and 25 mans had their own loot (they dont anymore i rejoined wow a few months ago and was dissapointed stopped playing pretty quickly) and the raids where reasonably challenging but still very accesible. It had something for everyone really and the raids where also quite long naxx had like 12 or so bosses ulduar had almost that many as well and TOTC was our first glimpse at a shorter raid but despite its like of actualy ground to cover i think it was quite well done and the lich king raid was a challenge at least for my guild we raided every week and would progress a little further every week or 2 it was the perfect balance for progression.
TBC was also great for raiding but i just feel like WOTLK offered something for everyone and the gear progression was spot on. Its the one thing i wish swtor would copy from wow, its gear progression is terrible and maybe PVE players dont realize thats why they quit (they say they just felt bored) but most likely its the reason
What is mentioned is only a problem for pve only players who are set on sticking with one character. The people who like to run the same raid mini games every week for a small chance of winning their loot lottery would have a problem with how easily good loot can come to you. Not to dismiss them because I used to be one. However you're not mentioning best in slot enchancements which can be pretty hard to get a full set of. This game is great for 2 other types of players right now. Competitive pvpers because Huttball is rediculously fun with a smart premade, and the other 3 wzs offer what you'd expect for PvP in an MMO. Ranked WZs will only make this better. In PvP I actually prefer a shorter gear grind because it leaves more room for skill to carry players rather than time played. Only thing this game is lacking in the pvp department is world pvp, and that's the fault of the players all zerging over to the sith side. When world pvp was attempted, republics didn't stand a chance.
The 2nd way to play the game which I think they originally felt was more important is maxing out some alts to explore the classes and their storylines. They've given a lot of reasons to play this way between the high profile voice acting and legacy upgrades. Having other class buffs and presence stat bonuses on all characters in your legacy can be helpful. The short gear grind makes it easier to get multiple characters fairly geared up. I originally played an operative hardcore, completing the raid progression and the BM grind before it was made shorter, and I didn't even touch an alt for the first couple months. When I got my operative maxed out I started an alt and I've been having fun with a couple of those now. I was a player that beat mass effect 2 three times to check out the different classes though.
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The most recent end-game raid is fairly decent, the Hard-mode isn't particularly difficult. The guild I'm in killed all content in sub 20 hours of work, something like 10th in the world on a 3 day schedule.
However, the foundation is there for Nightmare mode to be a good challenge. The bosses are all pretty well designed and should offer a good challenge if the numbers are tweaked correctly.
I see only a few real problems with the game at this point, the first being that we're already hitting a point where they have to get creative with bosses because Tank mitigation scaling is too good.
My Shield Tech PowerTech has 26k health buffed, 55% shield, 67% absorb, 15% defense. Those numbers are unreal, we're already beginning to hit a point where bosses will have to deal Elemental Damage and completely bypass mitigation. On hard mode bosses in EC, 3 of the 4 encounters have bosses who deal damage which can't be mitigated by normal defensive stats. 2 of those bosses deal Elemental damage, the final boss has a huge portion of his damage come from a DoT, and then a 1 shot mechanic if a Taunt isn't hit by the other tank in a 1 second window.
There's only so much they can do to keep Tank damage reasonable, and they're exhausting those options pretty quickly. I am looking forward to how creative they are capable of getting though.
In PVE, Tank threat is literally a joke. Tanks have to abuse the fact that Taunting a target that's already on you still increases threat by 130% over the first place(yourself usually). Outside of Taunting, Tanks deal roughly 900 threat per second tops to DPS 1400+ threat per second. I'd like to see them fix threat generation for tanks vs DPS, probably by increasing the threat modifier on Tank stances, as increased Tank class damage could be game breaking in PVP.
As for PVP, I have two battlemaster characters, and am leading the PVP group of my guild, but two of the Warzones are flat out poorly designed for competitive play(Civil War/VoidStar), Huttball is plagued by Z-axis desync issues(although it's still amazingly fun), only Novarre Coast is reasonably well designed. Class balance in PVP is actually decent right now, but DPS PowerTechs might be a little bit too strong, they're tough to peel without using grips that are ideally used elsewhere, and do more damage than any class in the game. This also shows in PVE DPS as the class is literally untouchable by all available metrics(combat logging/parsers).
Overall though, the class is enjoyable, although that might be a result of the people I play with. We all quit MMO's after clearing all content in WoTLK, and some super casual(2-3 nights a week) play for 10 mans in Cataclysm for about 6 weeks or so).
Redlol
Recruiting, Melee, and PVP officer of Might
Mightguild.com
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On May 09 2012 19:43 Redlol wrote:
The most recent end-game raid is fairly decent, the Hard-mode isn't particularly difficult. The guild I'm in killed all content in sub 20 hours of work, something like 10th in the world on a 3 day schedule.
However, the foundation is there for Nightmare mode to be a good challenge. The bosses are all pretty well designed and should offer a good challenge if the numbers are tweaked correctly.
I see only a few real problems with the game at this point, the first being that we're already hitting a point where they have to get creative with bosses because Tank mitigation scaling is too good.
My Shield Tech PowerTech has 26k health buffed, 55% shield, 67% absorb, 15% defense. Those numbers are unreal, we're already beginning to hit a point where bosses will have to deal Elemental Damage and completely bypass mitigation. On hard mode bosses in EC, 3 of the 4 encounters have bosses who deal damage which can't be mitigated by normal defensive stats. 2 of those bosses deal Elemental damage, the final boss has a huge portion of his damage come from a DoT, and then a 1 shot mechanic if a Taunt isn't hit by the other tank in a 1 second window.
There's only so much they can do to keep Tank damage reasonable, and they're exhausting those options pretty quickly. I am looking forward to how creative they are capable of getting though.
In PVE, Tank threat is literally a joke. Tanks have to abuse the fact that Taunting a target that's already on you still increases threat by 130% over the first place(yourself usually). Outside of Taunting, Tanks deal roughly 900 threat per second tops to DPS 1400+ threat per second. I'd like to see them fix threat generation for tanks vs DPS, probably by increasing the threat modifier on Tank stances, as increased Tank class damage could be game breaking in PVP.
As for PVP, I have two battlemaster characters, and am leading the PVP group of my guild, but two of the Warzones are flat out poorly designed for competitive play(Civil War/VoidStar), Huttball is plagued by Z-axis desync issues(although it's still amazingly fun), only Novarre Coast is reasonably well designed. Class balance in PVP is actually decent right now, but DPS PowerTechs might be a little bit too strong, they're tough to peel without using grips that are ideally used elsewhere, and do more damage than any class in the game. This also shows in PVE DPS as the class is literally untouchable by all available metrics(combat logging/parsers).
Overall though, the class is enjoyable, although that might be a result of the people I play with. We all quit MMO's after clearing all content in WoTLK, and some super casual(2-3 nights a week) play for 10 mans in Cataclysm for about 6 weeks or so).
Redlol
Recruiting, Melee, and PVP officer of Might
Mightguild.com
Very nice info on the PvE there. I didn't know taunt worked like that in this game. I think that powertech damage isn't too harsh if the group keeps a decent spread compared to say a sniper. You might be overlooking some tactics that can be played out to make Voidstar results less random, but I agree that Civil War sucks.
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On May 09 2012 20:30 Rah wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 09 2012 19:43 Redlol wrote:
The most recent end-game raid is fairly decent, the Hard-mode isn't particularly difficult. The guild I'm in killed all content in sub 20 hours of work, something like 10th in the world on a 3 day schedule.
However, the foundation is there for Nightmare mode to be a good challenge. The bosses are all pretty well designed and should offer a good challenge if the numbers are tweaked correctly.
I see only a few real problems with the game at this point, the first being that we're already hitting a point where they have to get creative with bosses because Tank mitigation scaling is too good.
My Shield Tech PowerTech has 26k health buffed, 55% shield, 67% absorb, 15% defense. Those numbers are unreal, we're already beginning to hit a point where bosses will have to deal Elemental Damage and completely bypass mitigation. On hard mode bosses in EC, 3 of the 4 encounters have bosses who deal damage which can't be mitigated by normal defensive stats. 2 of those bosses deal Elemental damage, the final boss has a huge portion of his damage come from a DoT, and then a 1 shot mechanic if a Taunt isn't hit by the other tank in a 1 second window.
There's only so much they can do to keep Tank damage reasonable, and they're exhausting those options pretty quickly. I am looking forward to how creative they are capable of getting though.
In PVE, Tank threat is literally a joke. Tanks have to abuse the fact that Taunting a target that's already on you still increases threat by 130% over the first place(yourself usually). Outside of Taunting, Tanks deal roughly 900 threat per second tops to DPS 1400+ threat per second. I'd like to see them fix threat generation for tanks vs DPS, probably by increasing the threat modifier on Tank stances, as increased Tank class damage could be game breaking in PVP.
As for PVP, I have two battlemaster characters, and am leading the PVP group of my guild, but two of the Warzones are flat out poorly designed for competitive play(Civil War/VoidStar), Huttball is plagued by Z-axis desync issues(although it's still amazingly fun), only Novarre Coast is reasonably well designed. Class balance in PVP is actually decent right now, but DPS PowerTechs might be a little bit too strong, they're tough to peel without using grips that are ideally used elsewhere, and do more damage than any class in the game. This also shows in PVE DPS as the class is literally untouchable by all available metrics(combat logging/parsers).
Overall though, the class is enjoyable, although that might be a result of the people I play with. We all quit MMO's after clearing all content in WoTLK, and some super casual(2-3 nights a week) play for 10 mans in Cataclysm for about 6 weeks or so).
Redlol
Recruiting, Melee, and PVP officer of Might
Mightguild.com
Very nice info on the PvE there. I didn't know taunt worked like that in this game. I think that powertech damage isn't too harsh if the group keeps a decent spread compared to say a sniper. You might be overlooking some tactics that can be played out to make Voidstar results less random, but I agree that Civil War sucks.
Yeah, the Taunt/Threat mechanics really irritate me, Threat is nearly impossible to keep without abusing Taunt on cooldown. Threat and Taunt have even created situations where we have to math out exactly where to Taunt in the first 30 seconds of a fight or so, past the 3rd Taunt in a fight threat is almost a non-factor, but there's this window of time between about 15 and 19 seconds into a fight where DPS can pull. It's not like we can tell DPS to back too far off either because the enrage timers are relatively tight. Although the enrage timers are getting pretty easy with how DPS is scaling right now as well.
Healer scaling is the only one that's relatively well done, but healers have their own issues. PVE Healers are locked into very strict rotations to maintain their resources, if a Tank gets low either a Healer blows through their entire resource pool or a tank cooldown is required so the Healer can keep up their rotation. It's not an ideal use of tank cooldowns because a lot of the bosses do have phases where they do extremely high amounts of damage.
Basically, both DPS classes and Tank classes have absolutely ridiculous scaling at the moment, and while Healers aren't going to run into scaling issues where they're blatantly overpowered, their lack of "oh shit" buttons and their ability to change their style on the fly to fit fights might be a problem down the road.
Despite these issues, the design team is fairly competent and creative and I really am looking forward to seeing how they handle these problems.
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It's funny that they mention "casual players" leaving the game at the same time they give a free month to everyone who reached level 50.
Not to mention how stupid the excuse is despite that, you want casual players. Those are the most important ones to the longterm success of an MMO.
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They literally don't understand that it's not the casual players leaving. It's the hardcore raiders and the serious players first and foremost. The casuals still aren't 50 yet much less have set foot in any raid instance. The casuals still think the game is awesome and fun and that there is so much stuff to do and that their second character will totally play differently and they'll get to see "all the content they skipped to L. 50". What a joke.
The game is a piece of crap and Bioware does not want to admit it.
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On May 09 2012 19:25 Rah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 18:00 Executor1 wrote:
I read on gamespy today and there was an article about upcoming mmo's and the pitfalls of recent mmo's and one of the main things they said about swtor was how the lack of end game gear and the ease of getting it made the endgame significantly shorter and less replayable then it should be. Id like to add like I said above, it really doesnt help when on top of it being realy easy to get gear, they give you many avenues that are equally easy to get the EXACT same gear. So many things I like about swtor it just sucks they failed in one of the most important parts about end game. I also dont see the thought process behind "hey lets add new content, but lets give players the exact same gear they where getting before from running it" (im looking at you lost island and story mode EC) Even the new supposed "tier 2" from Hard mode EC doesnt give you a new set bonus it has the same set bonus as tier 1 (rakata columi tionese)
Its so frusterating, I loved this game for many months, but i hate the direction they are taking it. Adding in custom outfits through orange gear doesnt change the very linear gear progression system. Its nice because it changes the looks but it does nothing to prolong or deepen the progression system. I understand that they are trying to make the game casual but honestly when wow was at its peak in subs it appealed less to casuals then it does now. Casuals proclaim they want all these things to give them gear faster easier etc but it gives them less to work towards and gives more dedicated players very little to do. Devs like developing for casuals though because it essentially means less work for them.
My best raiding days where in wrath of the lich king, gear progression wise that expansion was where its at. They added hard mode raids with their own loot (sort of same loot different stats, still it was nice though) and both 10 and 25 mans had their own loot (they dont anymore i rejoined wow a few months ago and was dissapointed stopped playing pretty quickly) and the raids where reasonably challenging but still very accesible. It had something for everyone really and the raids where also quite long naxx had like 12 or so bosses ulduar had almost that many as well and TOTC was our first glimpse at a shorter raid but despite its like of actualy ground to cover i think it was quite well done and the lich king raid was a challenge at least for my guild we raided every week and would progress a little further every week or 2 it was the perfect balance for progression.
TBC was also great for raiding but i just feel like WOTLK offered something for everyone and the gear progression was spot on. Its the one thing i wish swtor would copy from wow, its gear progression is terrible and maybe PVE players dont realize thats why they quit (they say they just felt bored) but most likely its the reason What is mentioned is only a problem for pve only players who are set on sticking with one character. The people who like to run the same raid mini games every week for a small chance of winning their loot lottery would have a problem with how easily good loot can come to you. Not to dismiss them because I used to be one. However you're not mentioning best in slot enchancements which can be pretty hard to get a full set of. This game is great for 2 other types of players right now. Competitive pvpers because Huttball is rediculously fun with a smart premade, and the other 3 wzs offer what you'd expect for PvP in an MMO. Ranked WZs will only make this better. In PvP I actually prefer a shorter gear grind because it leaves more room for skill to carry players rather than time played. Only thing this game is lacking in the pvp department is world pvp, and that's the fault of the players all zerging over to the sith side. When world pvp was attempted, republics didn't stand a chance. The 2nd way to play the game which I think they originally felt was more important is maxing out some alts to explore the classes and their storylines. They've given a lot of reasons to play this way between the high profile voice acting and legacy upgrades. Having other class buffs and presence stat bonuses on all characters in your legacy can be helpful. The short gear grind makes it easier to get multiple characters fairly geared up. I originally played an operative hardcore, completing the raid progression and the BM grind before it was made shorter, and I didn't even touch an alt for the first couple months. When I got my operative maxed out I started an alt and I've been having fun with a couple of those now. I was a player that beat mass effect 2 three times to check out the different classes though.
I fall into the second category as i have a bunch of alts sitting in their 30's and early 40's i have a 37 commando a 42 sorc and a level 25 Knight oh and i almost forgot a level 28 bounty hunter that i havent touched in forever. Unfortunatley after the GW2 weekend i stopped playing them entirely ( i was playing my sorc quite regularily before then)
In the past 2 weeks everyone in my guild including the co-leader (i am the other leader) hasnt logged on at all except to show up to raids everyone seems to be kind of burnt out on running alts, the main problem (especially on the republic side which is our main side) is that there is just no one to level with really at all, im on a medium server that used to have a very high population it was heavy even after they doubled the server population a few weeks after launch until about february then it was in the high medium and now it is id guess at low medium, during peak about a month and a bit ago we had 130 ish on republic and close around 200 on imp during peak hours, now your lucky to see 40 people on republic during peak hours and certainly under 100 on imperial. The server pops have dropped substantially. I would be so happy if i could transfer to harbinger (the highest pop westcoast server) but with all the mid to high level alts and my geared smuggler i hardly want to start anew. Also i think the population of players that prefer the gear progression style of play (real dynamic gear progression not linear 1 set or half a set in 1.2's case, per patch progression) i mean the game has certainly sold more than 2 million copies by now (2 million where the numbers for early february) so keeping that in mind its lost pretty close to 50% of its player base. Some of those players are probably disgruntled PVP players but if you pay attention to the community you would know how many raiders and raiding guilds have given up on this game.
Also im pretty sure the numbers are far worse then we think, as any 50 with an active subscription during 1.2 would still be in their free month when the 1.3 million numbers came out, i could easily see those numbers being a million or slightly less once that free month is up ( i geuss we wont know until next quarter though). Alot of people where dissapointed with 1.2 , it was hyped far too much by the community as the "jesus" patch and it didnt deliver on many fronts the worst perpetrator being the exclusion of ranked warzones, if you go back to original announcement there are several hundred pages worth of "unsubbed" reply's just to get an overall feel of what the forum community's (adimittedly its not the best representation) general response was towards that exclusion.
Altaholics will only last for so long anyways, you said this game appeals to that variety of player, but i think most people will get sick of it before they reach their 8th toon and then that leaves them with the sub par PVE end game which you didnt even deny was present.
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On May 09 2012 21:37 Jinsho wrote:
They literally don't understand that it's not the casual players leaving. It's the hardcore raiders and the serious players first and foremost. The casuals still aren't 50 yet much less have set foot in any raid instance. The casuals still think the game is awesome and fun and that there is so much stuff to do and that their second character will totally play differently and they'll get to see "all the content they skipped to L. 50". What a joke.
The game is a piece of crap and Bioware does not want to admit it.
Yea i think they underestimate the amount of non casual players that play this game.
It was funny because in an interview a few weeks ago daniel erickson straight up lied and said that the sub numbers have stayed steady and not dropped since their last announcement of subs. He said the main problems where that players where not logging as much now that the game has been out for a while, but they are still subscribing. He said they need to give reasons to get players back into the game for longer hours and for more days out of the week. Which is funny because BW seems to have been specifically targetting casual players fromm the getgo and now its those same players that are leaving 50+% of the servers desolate wastelands ( i consider most medium servers desolate, mine certainly feels that way)
They need to realize also that when the hardcore players leave, the rest will follow. Not even neccesarily hardcore really as that probably applies to a smaller group then what im talking about. Their are plenty of players that got to level 50 within a month or so and maybe leveled an alt or 2 to 50 since launch and casually raid that arent neccesarily considered casual or hardcore that are frusterated with the content and have left as well. Its like the 2-5 hours 5 days a week crowd which i think makes up a pretty large chunk of subscribers. Giving casual players something to aspire to is very important in my mind, they may complain that they want to beable to get gear/ level etc more easily but when its given to them they are left feeling the same as the more dedicated players and the more dedicated players have already left because the game was made too easy for casuals.
I havent cleared all the raid content or anything, but thats mostly because of lack of attendance, we have 3 raid days scheduled each week and usually only have enough attendance for 1, i have messaged every person without a guild on my server multiple times and we are tapped of players to recruit for the most part and these days we never have our full group of rakata geared players showing up all at once we always are left with a spot or 2 that gets filled up by a PVP player who gets dragged along with pretty much no PVE gear or a reasonably fresh 50 but those players never show up enough to get caught up on the loot enough to make a difference, our guild has 90+ actual members and most of them havent logged on in 2 weeks. Guilds falling apart like this because of people quitting is just going to lead to a snowball effect of more people quitting ive seen countless guilds on my server fall apart over the past month and i dont expect its much different on other servers.
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On May 09 2012 18:00 Executor1 wrote:
I read on gamespy today and there was an article about upcoming mmo's and the pitfalls of recent mmo's and one of the main things they said about swtor was how the lack of end game gear and the ease of getting it made the endgame significantly shorter and less replayable then it should be. Id like to add like I said above, it really doesnt help when on top of it being realy easy to get gear, they give you many avenues that are equally easy to get the EXACT same gear. So many things I like about swtor it just sucks they failed in one of the most important parts about end game. I also dont see the thought process behind "hey lets add new content, but lets give players the exact same gear they where getting before from running it" (im looking at you lost island and story mode EC) Even the new supposed "tier 2" from Hard mode EC doesnt give you a new set bonus it has the same set bonus as tier 1 (rakata columi tionese)
I disagree honestly. I never stepped into a raid (ok 2 times EC Storymode with a random group which failed to defeat the 2nd boss) - therefor my only access to gear is 5man (I PvP so War Hero the obvious other choice^^).
So something like Lost Island with Rakata is good for everyone who's not raiding (and using the guild summit number that's ~66% of the playerbase - though that has likely changed until now).
I dont know what drops in EV/KP normalmode. If it's Columi I think it's also ok that EC drops Rakata.
HM EV/KP drop Rakata (right?) so it's ok that EC HM drops Campaign.
They only need to add a 3rd tier for the Nightmare progression.
I dont see why you would need 3 different gear options for each raid. If you're a hardmode guild - get the hardmode gear, you shouldnt be doing storymode in the first place so they disincentivize it (since it would lead to repetition of content - so faster burnout, remember Colosseum). You can try NiM, but it's probably too hard for you anyway - so it's unlikely that you will have full NiM gear when the next content hits (so next contents HM mode will be upgrades).
I personally also hated it in WoW, when you run an instance for 6months+ and still need items from it. But that leads me to: They need to add other stuff beside raiding (and pvp) which people can do. Space is fun, but I honestly only do 3-4 missions / week. There's no depth for space. Dailies are fun but also only for 2-3 times a week.
The rakghoul event was fun - but it was too short. Imho they need to have events 1 week / month. So if the rakghoul event was the event for april & may - it should've lasted 2 weeks.
Also something which would incentivize the use of a companion would be great.
Setbonus I agree. Also they're not really adding new custom orange gear. 1.2 only added Warhero & BM as well as campaign/bh. Not a single look from world drops / social gear / low flashpoint sets is available in 1.2
And that's my main problem with them: They do small things in a lot of different fields - but they do nothing right.
Looking at the latest minipatch (ok... the one from yesterday^^):
"Custom (orange) moddable items that have no modifications installed can now be reverse engineered"
corrected to:
"We have some more details about this patch note - this change made more Custom (orange) items available for reverse engineering, but it currently does not include crafted Custom items. We will be adding the ability to reverse engineer crafted Custom items in the future, but that functionality was not included in this change. Sorry for the confusion; we're updating the patch note right now"
corrected to:
"As some of you have mentioned, endgame crafted Custom items (like Campaign and Black Hole gear) CAN be reverse engineered. Non-endgame crafted Custom items and social gear cannot be reverse engineered at this time - sorry again for the confusion; we'll make sure the patch note reflects this. We do still plan on allowing non-endgame crafted items to be reverse engineered in the future."
No one seems to have a fucking clue what the other teams are actually implementing. And that's my main issue with the game atm.
Could write more ... but I'm "mad" enough :D
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EPT
