Hello everyone,

 

Please discuss this week's Community Q&A blog in this thread!

Hello everyone,

 

Please discuss this week's Community Q&A blog in this thread!

 

Incoming rage.

 

Not from me though. I actually appreciate reading some of the feedback on where the development team is at. I just want to see more actual information of things to come and have something to be excited about rather than the "SOON.TM" pr line.

 

Telling us information about what's to come has it's negatives and positives but hearing our opinions on that information BEFORE you waste precious resources//time on it is absolutely more important. It's really the only thing that will keep this game on the radar for those that have left and keep those that are subbed actually subbed. Your policy on "not releasing information unless you're sure of it" has -hurt - this game and anyone that has left would acknowledge that. Games that take a lot of internal information // feedback based on what the development team asked of the community will always be more accepted and adored than anything else.

 

What you guys did a few months ago by asking the community what we wanted to see in the "new" space content is a prime example of the "right way". Talking// listening to your community is one thing... ACTING on what is the vastly accepted change for the future is yet to be seen. ((character slots // Space // Dynamic events etcetc.))

Edited July 6, 2012 by veyl
Adding more information:

Nice info about why BW made come of the class changes. I do wish that more FAQ was answered weekly, though!

It seems like the Q&As have been getting shorter and shorter lately. I hope that just means Bioware is busy. I know there have been lots of other questions I'd love to see the answers to (why are re-modding costs SO HIGH?!) I was happy to see some comment on Tank companions b/c if you ask anybody but a Healer about their Tank companions, they'll probably tell you they're worthless.

 

On the topic of new species, I would give my left arm for playable Togruta. I want to roll a Togruta Sentinel badly.

"Austin: Resolve is meant to put a lid on effects that take control away from you, the player. It's meant to limit the effectiveness of chain stuns, sleeps, and knockbacks. However, it is not meant to impact the ranged and melee (kiting and anti-kiting) balance of the game. This was a very deliberate measure taken to separate these two different aspects of control. I won't say that we won't limit the "chainability" of roots in the future, but given the amount of skills and abilities that break and cleanse roots and snares at the moment, it's not something we're very concerned about. Of course, we will be keeping an eye on how ranked warzone teams use the tools they have."

 

Soz but maybe thats ok for some of the classes like assasin and sorc's which the devs seem to love so much but my sentinals a nightmare in pvp, stun stun stun, some of the stuns can last ages.. With no way to break out of it.

 

Before you say resolve... it has a 2min cool down...... Now think about how many times in say a hut ball or voidstar you can spawn and die in those 2mins. if you use it thats it 2mins and you basically getting chain stunned.

 

If im playing hutt ball i just have to never use resolve just incase i get to make a break for the goal line, and get hit but 5 diff stun affects and then a punt into the fire just for jollys. They have enough time to aim and take a run up im stunned for so long, 3 points sentinal in the fire.

 

Everyones so fixated on sents power which tbh is rubbish at lvl 50 and a PITA to get any where near enough expertise to make pvp enjoyable.. They often forget that we have zero funky moves to do anything with, the only thing we can rely on is the power and tbh im half battle master with my biggest hit only ever being 2k and about 200 dmg a sec.

 

I have lots more fun on my sage or guardian alt.. i mean the guardian not having to channel force stasis for a start, verses sentinals stun which does nothing as 95% are immune or have a full resolve bar. verses the guadians slow down move which effects ALL and helps the team out loads more than sents limp no affect stun.

 

Guardians moves i can activate while being near a target, same as sentinal in pve.. but sentinal in pvp the moment the enenmy is even slightly on you you have to move to get off the next shot. and if your watchmen spec you need lots of little small moves to build up the damage, they only have to move slightly on you and you gotta keep moving and click a hundread buttons. Yet guardians not got the issue they could switch behind me and i can still activate the moves just like sent in pve. In fact i find im bring my sents constant moving and pace on to my guardian always keeping target in front and its so over kill and not needed, guardians a breeze by comparison.

 

I suffer through boring defeats just to get the daily, being battered around like a cat toy by players with war hero. already, so that maybe some day i get the privialage of cuasing the same pain to some other poor suspecting guy in recruit or battlemaster gear thinking he has a chance.

 

everyone says pvps good till lvl49.. maybe we could learn from that.. find which ever dev come up with expertise and kick him square in the nuts.

bw seems to be picking lame questions to answer like repeatedly answering the same questions and doing it just as vaguely as the last time or answering questions by saying they have no answer. And ignoring questions people keep asking about tank damage reductions or character re-customization or chairs that work or any other number of quality of life things.

 

Why waste time with a Q&A if you are not going to actually provide answers to questions? Especially when you are selecting the questions. Please stop answering the same questions and especially stop providing the same answer as before, maybe provide a Q&A Sticky in the forum so people can see all previous questions.

Wow, the last 2 Q&A Post they have had has been a bit disappointing. Communication has gone downhill. Hope things pick up soon. Edited July 7, 2012 by Aus_Jedi

people are still reading this? couldn't care less, bioware's dodging all criticism / questions about stuff that actually matters anyways! Edited July 7, 2012 by Rikeryo

Clymene: Are there any plans to buff companion tanks? Currently they are barely any better at survivability than dps companions, especially poor Xalek, and don't hold aggro very well.

 

Austin: I'll bring up the issue with the rest of the team and see if increased survivability and threat is something we can afford to give them. Without me revisiting our goals for what tank companions should do, off the top of my head, it certainly sounds like they could use some adjustments. Thanks for raising this issue.

 

Are you *********** kidding me?! If they can "afford" to give it to them!? Are we playing the same game Bioware!? Xalek can't tank for ****! Kaliyo folds faster than a paper plate! T7 is USELESS! Were 8 months in and people have resorted to using DPS companions to tank for them because the tank ones can't do the job properly!

I liked the question that asked about new playable species' if the Cathar are popular, which ones can we expect to see and such.

 

Answer: We look for pros and cons!

I liked the question that asked about new playable species' if the Cathar are popular, which ones can we expect to see and such.

 

Answer: We look for pros and cons!

 

I read that as almost everyone needs to unlock Cathar for us to add more races.

I liked the question that asked about new playable species' if the Cathar are popular, which ones can we expect to see and such.

 

Answer: We look for pros and cons!

 

Yes, the answer to this question made no sense. I have no idea what idea they were trying to communicate, but none of the words were star wars races.

 

I don't think they understood the resolve question about roots. It explained why roots aren't part of Resolve, but they didn't really seem to understand how Resolve is viewed by the community, particularly in Huttball. They focused on the melee/ranged aspect of it.

I am pleased to finally get, or at least for me... to see... a dev response on the root issue. I agree 100% with how it works currently. My Gunslinger and balance Sage use their roots wisely. Leg Shot and Sever Force are very useful. Yet, they do not prevent the enemy from doing damage. If you do not want that GS or Sage rooting you, then perhaps you should assign someone to take them out. I know I have had many Ops & Assassin's constantly on me in warzones. They did their jobs well. And many times they prevented me from doing my job in preventing the enemy from escaping.

Leg Shot and Sever Force are very useful. Yet, they do not prevent the enemy from doing damage.

 

Unless the enemy is a melee class, in which case a root is functionally the same as a stun or a mez and should be treated as such, instead of the chain rootfest which goes on now and that was completely missed in the answer given.

These specs are also highly cover-dependent, and it has been a difficult task to communicate to players that in most cases they're better off holding their ground than kiting like a Sorcerer or Sage would. Of course, even that depends on having chosen a good cover spot to begin with. We face the issue of rewarding clean shots from cover while not making extended stays overpowered.

 

Gunslingers need some sort of an escape ability, since staying in place is only viable on 1 vs 1.

 

If there's 2 vs 1, you're completely toast, since you can't stay in cover and can't kite.

 

Take away the cheap shot (completely useless) and give us 4 seconds stealth with a 2 minute cooldown.

 

Soz but maybe thats ok for some of the classes like assasin and sorc's which the devs seem to love so much but my sentinals a nightmare in pvp, stun stun stun, some of the stuns can last ages.. With no way to break out of it.

 

This post is dead on. Everyone focuses on Sents (potential) power. Prior to 1.2 we dominated the top of the leaderboards, but since then this is not the case. Sents are at a serious disadvantage in PvP since 1.2. The stuns and roots work well for almost every other class b/c every other class has ranged weaponry. If you are constantly stunned or slowed and cannot close the distance b/c leap is on cd or you've already been knocked back then you are straight up out of the fight. If I take 25% dmg just trying to get to the opponent due to them having ranged damage then I'm already at a serious disadvantage when I've closed that distance. Now at 75% in a 1v1 I should still win that match, but if I get an add I'm dead almost every time unless a healer appears out of nowhere.

 

imho due to the fact that this class is melee only, the damage per second should obliterate everything else in the game. Keep the stuns the other classes have, keep the cc we have now, but buff dmg. This is without argument the hardest class to manage in the game. Reward the Sent that can close the gap and stay on target and properly manage his abilities and cc's. This is the only way to balance not having ranged and allowing the other classes to keep Sents in check.

Edited July 7, 2012 by Dawginole

Regarding tanking companions, I found on my Healing Commando that I was FAR better off tanking myself with a Healing Companion than trying to keep a Tanking Companion alive with my healing. That suggests a companion balance issue to me.

Austin: Resolve is meant to put a lid on effects that take control away from you, the player.

Are you really saying that the devs are in the extreme minority of people who actually does not consider snares and roots to be forms of crown control?

 

f the worry is that if snares and roots on resolve would make it too difficult for kiting classes, then in my opinion at the very least something needs to be done about roots, and one possible solution would be to turn them into snares when resolve is full.

 

but given the amount of skills and abilities that break and cleanse roots and snares at the moment, it's not something we're very concerned about.

No where near enough, especially since one of these abilities is the long cooldown CC breaker, which breaks CC, which is what snares and roots are. At the moment we are now required to save the CC breaker for only the types of CC which you have randomly decided to include in resolve.

Edited July 7, 2012 by Rassuro

and for at least the third week in a row, the question regarding the missing and bugged codex entries was ignored...could we please get that answered in next week's Q&A?

Community feedback for what races are wanted?

 

I'm not too sure Cathar was what the community really wants, but then I cant really speak for everyone, that's just my impression from in-game chat.

 

I do know that anytime togruta are mentioned as a wished-for playable race a wall of text appears from so many people agreeing.

 

So thats my input for what race I and many people like me, want: Togruta.

Sorry but are people honestly complaining that tank companions are not good enough? I leveled my agent to 50 with Kaliyo as my companion, as a healer it was quite easy to keep her alive while I chipped away at the opponents health. On my Sentinel I used T7 for most of the time, spent some time with Rusk when I got him and now mostly use Lord Scourge, again no issues, they do their job they hold aggro and essentially give you double your health, once your companion dies as a DPS character you should have no problem finishing off the current batch of enemies before you die.

 

If you are a tanking class using a tanking companion then sure you might have issues but that would reflect your companion choice not the companions ability.

 

Please leave the tank companions alone, if you have any kind of presence bonuses from your Legacy at all they are very strong. It takes a little bit of effort right now to level, making sure you are using all your abilities properly to get through fights in decent order, taking that out by buffing the tanks would make the leveling process nothing more than a time investment and supremely boring.

Unless the enemy is a melee class, in which case a root is functionally the same as a stun or a mez and should be treated as such, instead of the chain rootfest which goes on now and that was completely missed in the answer given.

 

Roots can be dispelled fairly easily, call it out for your healer to deal with if its a situation where its important (trying to interupt a cap etc)

 

It's not as if melee are struggling in pvp atm

Edited July 7, 2012 by Dafroog

Greetings,

 

We just wanted to jump in here and let you know that you can see what topics have been covered in previous Community Q&As by checking out our Community Q&A Archive. We hope this helps as you decide what question to submit for the July 13th Q&A!

 

To read all our previous Community Q&As, go here.

 

Edited July 7, 2012 by Parali

Taitsuo: Would you guys consider adding root effects to the Resolve bar? At the moment, 3 well-coordinated Gunslingers could permaroot someone (5secs duration, 15 secs cooldown). With ranked warzones, that could mean a lot…

 

Austin: Resolve is meant to put a lid on effects that take control away from you, the player. It's meant to limit the effectiveness of chain stuns, sleeps, and knockbacks. However, it is not meant to impact the ranged and melee (kiting and anti-kiting) balance of the game. This was a very deliberate measure taken to separate these two different aspects of control. I won't say that we won't limit the "chainability" of roots in the future, but given the amount of skills and abilities that break and cleanse roots and snares at the moment, it's not something we're very concerned about. Of course, we will be keeping an eye on how ranked warzone teams use the tools they have.

Guess you guys are still far away from the reality check.

 

.......PvP in TOR is named STUN WARS for a reason.

 

The resolve idea (and I mark my word: idea) is nice but implemented badly.

Not only the roots should affect the resolve bar, but once stunned a player shall not be stunnable at all for at least 30 secs.

 

The way you implemented it makes it so too often we find ourselves with our keyboard taken away while being ganked. It's fun neither for the people kiting others nor for the people that just can watch their character being killed, without even being able to shoot once.

 

As soon as you are removing the keyboard from a player you are doing something wrong and btw TOR does this way too often.

Edited July 7, 2012 by Deewe

Marksman is discussed in PvP terms, nice, as I don't PvP.

 

Tanking Companions, such as Xalek, well, he is based on the Assassin Darkness tree, so don't expect too much for him.

 

I've asked about the Enhancements and the discrepancies as they change from one level to the next. I even suggested that they use the 20 + "double" / same spec Enhancements to use for the "Working as Intended" different spec Enhancements, thereby changing their "copy and paste" Enhancements that are the same spec with a different name. Thus they could leave the Enhancements (such as Bastion) in the same spec as it levels rather than change the stats all around and take the "new" spec that it turns into at the next level and put that onto a "Double" / same stat Enhancement and thereby take care of their copy and paste doubles, of which there are a good 20+ same stat Enhancements.

 

These copy and paste doubles can be found all over the game in supplies and items that you can purchase or create.

 

This has been going on from the start, but may not be worth it in the long run as the crafting system is broken any road.