Ok, the representatives has been selected

 

Will be interesting to see if it works in this game or not

The goal of the program is to allow a chance for each Representative to start a dialog about what is considered their classes top 3 issues with developers. I know sometimes Classes can feel ignored and this will allow a very direct dialog.

 

Will this guarantee changes are made to classes? Absolutely not, and I do not want to have that expectation in place. I can guarantee you though that our Combat team is very excited about this program to help get feedback directly from the players about each class. They will certainly use these top 3s to help inform future Class balance decisions.

For what it's worth, please make sure that you clearly inform the class reps what you expect to get from them. There appears to be some confusion and uncertainty about what exactly they should or can submit, and what they will get back in return.

 

The Powertech class rep, for instance, started a nice round up thread about the class issues, but he seems to think, and stated in the original post of the thread, that class reps can only pose "questions" to the developers, and not raise "issues" or give "feedback." So it looks like he thinks the class rep cannot just present to you that X ability, which is part of the core rotation, is badly broken, and maybe here are some things that players think would make it work again. Instead, the discussion there has been framed around abstract queries like "What is the role of a DPS Powertech in PvP?" Which, for what it's worth, I don't see that kind of generic Q&A helping anyone out, you or the players.

 

The way you have presented this, and the way you're talking about "getting feedback" here, it seems like this is meant to be a conduit for focusing the dialogue between players and developers in the hope that the biggest outstanding issues with each class will get brought to center stage and given a serious look, with either a serious and reasoned reply as to why things are as they are, or (perhaps) some actual plans for changes made.

 

If this is a correct reading of your plans for this program, then please make sure all of the class reps understand that.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Heezdedjim

I think eric explained the duty of the class rep just fine. the problem is people interpreting it the wrong way.

 

F

The way you have presented this, and the way you're talking about "getting feedback" here, it seems like this is meant to be a conduit for focusing the dialogue between players and developers in the hope that the biggest outstanding issues with each class will get brought to center stage and given a serious look, with either a serious and reasoned reply as to why things are as they are, or (perhaps) some actual plans for changes made.

 

You are right and this is what we are supposed to do. Check out the sniper forums (i made 2 threads related to the class rep job) to foster/facilitate discussion AND figure out

the biggest outstanding issues my class has

and the method i have for determining this is by encouraging the forum people to vote on the questions.

 

Check the 2 Sniper questions discussion thread i started on the sniper forums, which eric has sticked for visibility http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=65

 

Easy access the actual questions submitted by the community can be found on my sig https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtS6aucNXnGndFNtdDN5UTJGLW9ZNGcydEFOUTR2aFE#gid=9

 

Note that the questions are only DRAFTS and whichever the community picks will be edited and fine tuned before submission (for us this is this Friday >____>.. 3 days to get everything done. And to think people are complaining why they didn't go first. We even started 3 days earlier (friday last week instead of monday when the reps were officially chosen), and we still aren't done / dont have enough votes.

Edited July 30, 2013 by paowee

eric are u going to address the fact that half these representatives are pve'ers?

Which would make the other half of them PvP'ers... you really thought that one through.

The goal of the program is to allow a chance for each Representative to start a dialog about what is considered their classes top 3 issues with developers. I know sometimes Classes can feel ignored and this will allow a very direct dialog.

 

Will this guarantee changes are made to classes? Absolutely not, and I do not want to have that expectation in place. I can guarantee you though that our Combat team is very excited about this program to help get feedback directly from the players about each class. They will certainly use these top 3s to help inform future Class balance decisions.

 

-eric

 

Fair enough, thank you for your answer ^^

The goal of the program is to allow a chance for each Representative to start a dialog about what is considered their classes top 3 issues with developers. I know sometimes Classes can feel ignored and this will allow a very direct dialog.

That way you can stop ignoring the dialogue some class been trying to have with Bioware, almost a year ago?

Too little, too late.

6 questions per 2 weeks is extremely little. Especially when there's barely any word from the development team about anything in general. Just how understaffed are you? WoW often indulge in their community and they always voice their reasonings behind the changes that they make. Guild Wars 2, I can't say since I haven't browsed their forums much... but Guild Wars 2 releases content per 2 weeks and might become an E-sport so I would think their communication is good.

Interesting Idea but I have doubts that it will work well. I hate to be pessimistic but to me it just sounds like your are going to select a few people to come up with a very few amount of questions with a limit them on the subjects and then just maybe answer those questions, maybe. It is a way of avoiding all the other questions that are already being asked. Plus you leave yourself a loophole saying that it is all subject to change do to development constraints which just employs that encase the question asked is something that you do not want to answer then you have a way and reason to not answer it.

I think there will be a lot of questions suggested that you all can not get into. So I really see this going no where.

 

That is just what I see this as becoming.

so it's basically pointless. it's just a QnA session besically that won't affect any change or address any real concerns other than "working as intended"

Love how they want us to check out the level of detail in the response. Just think it takes so long to get that level of response that you must give them a month to recuperate.

I was not impressed with the level of detail in these responses.

 

These read like third hand press statements. I'd much prefer several paragraphs of analytics than this schlock. Responding with either "yes, we agree with the premise of your question" or "no, we disagree with the premise of your question" is not helpful, informative, or useful.

my question now is: where do we go from here?

 

now that the dialogue has opened up, is there anything other than some insight into the devs' design philosophies?

 

 

 

for example, it was suggested that focus does the most AOE damage by design, but it is something they want to shy away from, giving all specs some great AOE abilities. personally, i can agreed with that, but what if the community disagrees with this. what it they would like more AOE damage for focus and leave the others as they are?

 

as another example, it was mentioned that laze target could be changed to include a broader range of attacks at the cost of a much higher duration on its cooldown. what if the community actually agreed with this trade-off?

 

 

 

for the future of class balances and changes, will there be some sort of further communication about changes and what the players want or will we simply have to wait and see in the patch notes?

Hey folks,

 

I wanted to lay out the rest of the information about the Class Representatives initiative. Mainly specifying the “calendar” for one each AC will be submitting their top 3 and also which side of the mirror will represent them each time! Here is the current schedule, note that the date listed is when the specific Class Rep will need to post the top 3.

 

Friday 8/2 – Sniper

Friday 8/2 – Sentinel

 

Friday 8/16 – Sorcerer

Friday 8/16 – Vanguard

 

Friday 8/30 – Scoundrel

Friday 8/30 – Juggernaut

 

Friday 9/13 – Shadow

Friday 9/13 – Mercenary

 

Friday 9/27 – Gunslinger

Friday 9/27 – Marauder

 

Friday 10/11 – Sage

Friday 10/11 – Powertech

 

Friday 10/25 – Operative

Friday 10/25 – Guardian

 

Friday 11/8 – Assassin

Friday 11/8 – Commando

 

As always if you have any questions feel free to post them in this thread. I will be in touch with individual Reps as they are selected next week. Remember, polling will close on Monday, July 29th.

 

-eric

 

lol some after 2.4 thats so sad

So then now that the Sorcerer and Vanguard Representatives have asked their questions to the Combat Team at BioWare, when and where (as in, on the thread the Rep's used to submit their questions, or somewhere else) can we expect a response from the Team? I apologize in advance if this sort of question has already been asked and answered a bazillion times before, even in this thread.

That's a great idea! Thanks and keep it up!

Hey everyone,

 

Just wanted to let you know we have posted the answers to the Sorcerer and Vanguard questions - Links below!

 

Sorcerer

Vanguard

I was not impressed with the level of detail in these responses.

 

These read like third hand press statements. I'd much prefer several paragraphs of analytics than this schlock. Responding with either "yes, we agree with the premise of your question" or "no, we disagree with the premise of your question" is not helpful, informative, or useful.

 

Sorry, but these questions are awful. There are no analytics backing up the questions. There's just speculation and guesswork. So why would there be several paragraphs of analytics responding to that?

 

Most of these questions are just pointless too. For example, on the Sentinel/Marauder PVE question, the top question was how come Focus/Rage with its AOE focus doesn't do as much single target damage as the other two trees. Are you kidding me? One is an AOE focused tree and the other two are single-target focused trees. So people are wondering why the AOE focused tree doesn't also do as much single target damage as the other two trees? Ummm, isn't that obvious? There would be no point to having the other two trees if Focus/Rage was on par with them in single target damage AND had it's AOE damage capabilities. With the Sage/Sorcerers, people want these healing classes to keep all of their heals and then also have all of the defensive cooldowns that non-healing DPS classes have? That's ridiculous. Why don't we just give them the best DPS too...and the best tanking ability. Let's just create one superclass that's the best at everything while we're at it. For Vanguards/Powertechs, people basically want the DPS spec to be able to do burst damage on par with a Sentinel/Marauder or a Gunslinger/Sniper. People want the heavy armor wearing AC to do the same burst DPS output as the medium armor wearing AC's? Yeah, that would work out well. Let's just give Vanguards/Powertechs under the DPS tree the full survivability of a tank AND give them DPS output on par with the best DPS in the game. I can't believe that these are the sorts of questions that made the cut as the best, most-important questions.

Bioware gave garbage answers only to serve as an excuse to it. I told they were only making a show, pretending they care about classes. They do not care at all. If you dont want to read those garbage bioware answer i'll make it short:

 

You're wrong and we keep right.

We'll not changin' much cos' there's nothing wrong, you guys that don't know how to play it

The community should make a MEME about this whole situation. ASK players only to deny them and say they're worng and dont know how to play.

Courtney,

 

I know you didn't write the posts in question, but you should make it known to those who did that they were unacceptably rude, condescending, and snarky to their paying customers. Even if we assume (wrongly) the questions by both classes were asinine and did nothing but expose themselves as, term of art, "clueless newbs", more tact was in order.

 

In particular, the people being addressed are the most devoted and skilled of your customers. If by group consensus your best players raise an issue, it might be worth humoring them.

 

Regardless, with the exception of Steve Jobs, this is not how the representatives of a multi-billion dollar corporation address their customers in a public forum.

 

Shayne

The Hodcos @ The Harbinger

 

Just wanted to let you know we have posted the answers to the Sorcerer and Vanguard questions - Links below!

Sorry, but these questions are awful. There are no analytics backing up the questions. There's just speculation and guesswork. So why would there be several paragraphs of analytics responding to that?

 

Most of these questions are just pointless too. For example, on the Sentinel/Marauder PVE question, the top question was how come Focus/Rage with its AOE focus doesn't do as much single target damage as the other two trees. Are you kidding me? One is an AOE focused tree and the other two are single-target focused trees. So people are wondering why the AOE focused tree doesn't also do as much single target damage as the other two trees? Ummm, isn't that obvious? There would be no point to having the other two trees if Focus/Rage was on par with them in single target damage AND had it's AOE damage capabilities. With the Sage/Sorcerers, people want these healing classes to keep all of their heals and then also have all of the defensive cooldowns that non-healing DPS classes have? That's ridiculous. Why don't we just give them the best DPS too...and the best tanking ability. Let's just create one superclass that's the best at everything while we're at it. For Vanguards/Powertechs, people basically want the DPS spec to be able to do burst damage on par with a Sentinel/Marauder or a Gunslinger/Sniper. People want the heavy armor wearing AC to do the same burst DPS output as the medium armor wearing AC's? Yeah, that would work out well. Let's just give Vanguards/Powertechs under the DPS tree the full survivability of a tank AND give them DPS output on par with the best DPS in the game. I can't believe that these are the sorts of questions that made the cut as the best, most-important questions.

You are forgetting a crucial point. survivability for dps in both pvp and pve are more about the cds than the armour especially in pve. You wan't to survive the bursts in pvp until your team can help you and burst the attackers down. It' doesn't matter if you take less dmg over 5 min when the figths in pvp lasts much shorter. What you wan't for that is good cds with short cd, like cloak of pain.

 

For pve it's kinda the same thing but the cd of the defensive stuff is less important, its all about the potency. You need this for stuff were you have to take dmg(Kephess laser, kephess jump, twh adds, enrage/burn phases). Maruaders are extremly good at this today togheter with their high dps. I have seen several fights that was completed due to the fact that a maurder can tank the boss for 5-10 secs after the tank died. Usually if both tanks die the boss will go for the maurder due to their high dps which synergies even better. This is a also without losing any dps. A sorc can't just stand there healing themself and heavy armour won't do much that much but it do help.

 

 

 

 

I do agree that the rage/focus question was pretty weird, its obvious why it isn't single target. All specs need to have their speciality, usually burst, sustianed, aoe, heal or tank. I just hate to see BW bring up the old execute agument again. I really expected some math/logs from the devs to prove their point but atm a troll on fleet argues better than them. They just write "it is like this" without any sort of evidence or arguing at all. The sniper/maurder answers were atleast decent.

Bioware is a *********** prankster. I paid one month and i don't think i'll sub again. All those people here, including the class representative should stop paying this garbage

The community should make a MEME about this whole situation. ASK players only to deny them and say they're worng and dont know how to play.

 

Got a coupe of memes already.