I think if anything, this farce speaks volumes about BW's real thoughts on the long term viability of SWTOR. 1 single dev handling all of class balance (badly) and punting issues down the road for many months at a time is not the behaviour of a studio with confidence.

 

I was under the impression that the cartel shop was making a lot of money and turning around the subscriber situation, but this is more like a game in its death throes - no matter what the 'state of the game' fluff is saying.

Sadly, you are 100% right with this observation. The fact that it takes MONTHS to get minimal changes made is just ludicrous. The lack of effort is blatantly obvious...

Hey Austin, thanks for the communication! My opinion of you has ticked significantly upward over the past few days, though I still think you can do a much better job and I think you should take cash's advice and engage members of the community who've proven they aren't idiots to help you out.

For my part, while I understand that this deadline, and your small staff, has forced you to put off much needed class balance for the last 6 months, that dog won't hunt, not anymore. More frequent class balance updates are crucial going forward. Some say, with good reason, that after a year we've perhaps waited enough. You can't change how long we've waited, but going forward I would hope and expect that you throw yourself into correcting some of the more glaring issues the community has.

I think if anything, this farce speaks volumes about BW's real thoughts on the long term viability of SWTOR. 1 single dev handling all of class balance (badly) and punting issues down the road for many months at a time is not the behavior of a studio with confidence.

 

I was under the impression that the cartel shop was making a lot of money and turning around the subscriber situation, but this is more like a game in its death throes - no matter what the 'state of the game' fluff is saying.

I have to agree with this. I think Austin probably lost most of his staff before the Cartel market hit though, and either they haven't gotten around to hiring more staff, or they aren't going to because EA is just gonna leverage the cash shop for all it's worth. I hope it's the former because using some of the influx of money to get class balance back on track will really help the longevity of this game and ultimately lead to more money for EA.

If they're only looking for the short term gain though, then I fear death throes may be right.

Uh, you do realize that you always had to skill Improved Vent and it was nerfed with 2.0?

I never selected Improved Vent in 1.7 and never had a heat problem. Indeed rarely ever used Vent Heat in the first place. If you already needed to use Vent Heat/Improved Vent in 1.7, then yeah you are going to have problems with heat in 2.0.

I never said that the average player should hit the ceiling. My point is that the class is much tougher to play now which will on average result in us falling further behind.

Well, I interpreted your statement to be a complaint that average Arsenal players will fall further behind top Arsenal players. And as I implied before, I think that is a good thing. Right now there just isn't a lot of separation there. Now if your complaint instead is that average Arsenal players will fall further behind average melee dps players, then I agree that should not occur.

I think if anything, this farce speaks volumes about BW's real thoughts on the long term viability of SWTOR.

I thought the exact same thing. I wonder if they are really just trying to delay what they view as an inevitable sinking ship. What may be happening:

Bioware lost a ton of money on this MMO. Everyone responsible resigned or was fired. They went F2P in a last ditch effort and now they have poured most of their limited resources into the cash shop trying to salvage a profit. They put a skeleton crew on everything else to keep the game afloat. The goal is to make as much money possible while putting out limited filler content until the game loses its appeal - giving the company the most reward at the lowest cost. Makeb was probably mostly done before this whole debacle occurred. Time will tell the real truth.

If SWTOR woudn't be profitabel, than they would close the servers today. The time after the resign of the CEO was never better. Shut it down, write off the costs at once and give the new boss a good start without the burden.

So my assumption, SWTOR is profitable, but as long as EA hast problems gaining profit the will keep the cost low.

We're also discussing the viability of introducing class changes without relying on major updates (like 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc). There are a lot of factors at play and this is still an internal discussion, so no guarantees, but know that we'd love to be able to get class changes to you guys as quickly as we're making them.

If I can give a bit of feedback on this point, I think that small-scale, iterative class changes are a *really* good idea. As you say, class changes can be iterated forever, and the faster you see how the meta-game shifts in response to a change, the more rapidly you are able to move to balance things. Keeping the iteration cycle short also allows you to make smaller changes, which are psychologically more acceptable to the majority of the community than a single large-scale drop. Early in TOR's update cycle, class changes were expected nearly every patch and were nearly always comparatively minor in nature. I think this worked well, and I was sorry to see the development team move away from that cadence.

Regular, small tweaks to classes also gives the community confidence that the development team is being responsive to problems/complaints with class balance; a confidence that is (sadly) lacking at the moment. While I think the more level-headed in the community are aware that the development team is watching the forums and watching the state of the game, it is hardly a universal sentiment. Moving to more iterative class updates will help address this perceptual issue, since the community would no longer need to endure 3 months of silence on an issue which seems glaring before seeing a response.

If I can give a bit of feedback on this point, I think that small-scale, iterative class changes are a *really* good idea. As you say, class changes can be iterated forever, and the faster you see how the meta-game shifts in response to a change, the more rapidly you are able to move to balance things. Keeping the iteration cycle short also allows you to make smaller changes, which are psychologically more acceptable to the majority of the community than a single large-scale drop. Early in TOR's update cycle, class changes were expected nearly every patch and were nearly always comparatively minor in nature. I think this worked well, and I was sorry to see the development team move away from that cadence.

 

Regular, small tweaks to classes also gives the community confidence that the development team is being responsive to problems/complaints with class balance; a confidence that is (sadly) lacking at the moment. While I think the more level-headed in the community are aware that the development team is watching the forums and watching the state of the game, it is hardly a universal sentiment. Moving to more iterative class updates will help address this perceptual issue, since the community would no longer need to endure 3 months of silence on an issue which seems glaring before seeing a response.

There are not words in the english language, nor the capability within mathematics to quantify (and believe me I would know) how much I agree with and support the above post.

Implying the majority of DPS help their healers?

 

They need to buff players, not classes. Give 'em a guide to L2P because half of them don't know how.

Not implying that, but I usually only PVP with guildies in Mumble - so, I can hold DPS off long enough for one of them to help me. :-)

Unfortunately, players don't respond as well to buffs as classes do. Should classes be buffed to the point where idiot players can do top DPS? No. But there's a difference between "average players" and those of us who are doing great in 1.7 but having serious problems with the DPS in 2.0.

If I can give a bit of feedback on this point, I think that small-scale, iterative class changes are a *really* good idea. As you say, class changes can be iterated forever, and the faster you see how the meta-game shifts in response to a change, the more rapidly you are able to move to balance things. Keeping the iteration cycle short also allows you to make smaller changes, which are psychologically more acceptable to the majority of the community than a single large-scale drop. Early in TOR's update cycle, class changes were expected nearly every patch and were nearly always comparatively minor in nature. I think this worked well, and I was sorry to see the development team move away from that cadence.

 

Regular, small tweaks to classes also gives the community confidence that the development team is being responsive to problems/complaints with class balance; a confidence that is (sadly) lacking at the moment. While I think the more level-headed in the community are aware that the development team is watching the forums and watching the state of the game, it is hardly a universal sentiment. Moving to more iterative class updates will help address this perceptual issue, since the community would no longer need to endure 3 months of silence on an issue which seems glaring before seeing a response.

give this man a medal

I was wonderging, since we will have to cast 1 Tracer Missile for the 20% debuff, what about Power Barrier and Tracer Lock passive skills? I would really like for them to have their full effect also applied with only 1 Tracer Missile, it would really help.

I think they've said you'll still need multiple casts to stack those up.

I think they've said you'll still need multiple casts to stack those up.

Well, **** this class then, I'll be using my tank powertech as my main from now on.

Can't have everything sadly. Nor even all that much. That would have just been too good. Plus it would have made Gravity Surge talent completely useless and they can't be arsed to think of better talents to give us as evidenced by the change to special munition.

replace it with this: "Mortar Salvo has a 50% chance to make you immune to interrupts for 5s. This can only occur every 12s"

and make it a 50% chance per round (so 2 chances per Mortar Salvo).

OR

this: "Mortar Salvo has a 30% chance to reset the cooldown of Tech Override. This can only occur every 20s"

replace it with this: "Mortar Salvo has a 50% chance to make you immune to interrupts for 5s. This can only occur every 12s"

 

and make it a 50% chance per round (so 2 chances per Mortar Salvo).

 

OR

 

this: "Mortar Salvo has a 30% chance to reset the cooldown of Tech Override. This can only occur every 20s"

Nope! They just can't be arsed. Also we'd need a cost reduction in missile salvo >_<

It's a lost cause believing that all these constructive feedback will actually turn into some changes. In reality, that **** happens once in a lifetime if at all.

Be grateful. At least this class along with Shadow/Assassin got some sort of YELLOW response.

We collectively can't seem to get a BW response to ANY of the Sage/Sorc class feedback that was made on PTS about that class group issues.

There was another thing, before PTS closing down BW decided to change the proc rating of Combustible Gas Cylinder, with a nerf damage ofc, now with the fire proc having a 90% chance to proc with rapid shots, what would have been then the use of the whole revamped Missile Blast in the pyro tree, you know, the one that gave you a guaranteed 100% proc? A chance to waste our skill points and heat into something THAT useless?

I forgot which dev mentioned he was leveling a "healer" merc, but I hope there's a least one dev with a lvl 50/55 dps merc so they would see the HUGE FLAWS on this AC.

Be grateful. At least this class along with Shadow/Assassin got some sort of YELLOW response.

 

We collectively can't seem to get a BW response to ANY of the Sage/Sorc class feedback that was made on PTS about that class group issues.

be grateful that his response was I'm going to do almost nothing of any consequence then blow smoke up your asses about it?

No response would be...no response. his response was a straight up insult and admission of incompetence.

There was another thing, before PTS closing down BW decided to change the proc rating of Combustible Gas Cylinder, with a nerf damage ofc, now with the fire proc having a 90% chance to proc with rapid shots, what would have been then the use or the whole revamped Missile Blast in the pyro tree, you know, the one that gave you a guaranteed 100% proc? A chance you waste our skill points and heat into something THAT useless?

 

I forgot which dev mentioned he was leveling a "healer" merc, but I hope there's a least one dev with a lvl 50/55 dps merc so they would see the HUGE FLAWS of this AC.

I didn't understand that change either tbh.

I didn't understand that change either tbh.

its what happens when you upgrade the nerf bat to the nerf cruise missile. theres a lot of collateral damage

I don't get why they'd try to make like a rebalance by changing the proc rate when that was a complete nonissue for either AC in 2.0. Or was it a way to nerf skill points too?

Well played BW

I don't get why they'd try to make like a rebalance by changing the proc rate when that was a complete nonissue for either AC in 2.0. Or was it a way to nerf skill points too?

 

Well played BW

well by they you mean AP. since hes the only one making class changes. would love to hear his logic on the AP/Tactics nerf tho. the class was underpowered to begin with lol

I know I'm going to cry when 2.0 comes out and that my guildmates/former guildmates will never take me to rateds.

Of course they'll still take my assassin though. Not that I really want to play him.