Hey,

 

We're perfectly aware that this difference exists.

 

It's because, shockingly, Agents are not Inquisitors.

 

The mirror class for the Agent is the Smuggler, the mirror class for the Inquisitor is the Consular.

 

Just in case it wasn't clear: We have different classes in the game - that means they actually have different abilities, energy systems, costs, etc. In short: It's working as designed.

 

Georg

 

 

edit: fixed a typo where "Consular" should have appeared!

Zing!

well all know Bioware has a magic wand that they can wave and instantly fix every bug, class issue, and give us all the new amazing content instantly.

so why don't they do it?

i mean, come on, this game has been out since LAST YEAR !!11!

wave the fix everything magic wand bioware, you're my only hope.

(this post is for entertainment purposes only directed at people who complain about everything)

Hey everyone; class balance conversations can be inflammatory and easily spin out of control. I'd like to ask everyone to keep on topic here and not allow the conversation to become too vitriolic.

 

Georg has posted multiple times on class balance and our views on the discussion of class balancing. As a general rule we don't comment too much on changes before those changes are playable, usually on the Public Test Server. Changes have been made to Imperial Agents including Operatives in Game Update 1.2, as Georg has mentioned before. You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

 

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best.

 

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

Thank you Stephen. This was the kind of post I was hoping to see. I do hope 1.2 gets on the PTS sooner than later though. Maybe this week?

Edit: Actually, as someone else mentioned, it's going to be difficult for me to really test out the changes since I only have a level 10 scoundrel on the PTS. Unfortunately, not many of my guild was interested in signing up for testing, since that involves downloading 20 gigabytes to test content.

Hey everyone; class balance conversations can be inflammatory and easily spin out of control. I'd like to ask everyone to keep on topic here and not allow the conversation to become too vitriolic.

 

Georg has posted multiple times on class balance and our views on the discussion of class balancing. As a general rule we don't comment too much on changes before those changes are playable, usually on the Public Test Server. Changes have been made to Imperial Agents including Operatives in Game Update 1.2, as Georg has mentioned before. You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

 

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best.

 

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

Georg's comment was regarding healing. Sadly, because Scoundrel/Operatives share both a healing and a DPS tree, commenting on one of those is grouped as addressed the AC as a whole and it isn't.

The nerfs impacted DPS and per Georg's comments in that interview, he comes off as laissez-faire with his attitude regarding Smugglers and Imperial Agents. He writes off the fact that we are the lowest played classes being due to not being iconic and not shooting "lightning from our fingertips". He ignores the fact that any reason someone would play that class, healing or stealth or ranged, can be done better by one of the other class/AC combos.

Addressing healing does not address the class as a whole, nor does it address the AC as a whole. The Operative/Scoundrel DPS community has some very legitimate concerns regarding our abilities, or lack thereof, and those do seem to be getting ignored.

You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

Are you going to add Level Up NPCs and Free Gear vendors so that players can get 50 and do some testing? This is something LOTRO did/does, so that players can test different level ranges and areas of their game.

Hey everyone; class balance conversations can be inflammatory and easily spin out of control. I'd like to ask everyone to keep on topic here and not allow the conversation to become too vitriolic.

 

Georg has posted multiple times on class balance and our views on the discussion of class balancing. As a general rule we don't comment too much on changes before those changes are playable, usually on the Public Test Server. Changes have been made to Imperial Agents including Operatives in Game Update 1.2, as Georg has mentioned before. You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

 

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best.

 

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

Sir, is there any chance we can get a character copy to PTS server for testing?

Georg's comment was regarding healing. Sadly, because Scoundrel/Operatives share both a healing and a DPS tree, commenting on one of those is grouped as addressed the AC as a whole and it isn't.

 

The nerfs impacted DPS and per Georg's comments in that interview, he comes off as laissez-faire with his attitude regarding Smugglers and Imperial Agents. He writes off the fact that we are the lowest played classes being due to not being iconic and not shooting "lightning from our fingertips". He ignores the fact that any reason someone would play that class, healing or stealth or ranged, can be done better by one of the other class/AC combos.

 

Addressing healing does not address the class as a whole, nor does it address the AC as a whole. The Operative/Scoundrel DPS community has some very legitimate concerns regarding our abilities, or lack thereof, and those do seem to be getting ignored.

Dude, until you see the patch notes, you are making an assumption that nothing else was tweaked, and I think we all know what happens when you assume things.

Hey everyone; class balance conversations can be inflammatory and easily spin out of control. I'd like to ask everyone to keep on topic here and not allow the conversation to become too vitriolic.

 

Georg has posted multiple times on class balance and our views on the discussion of class balancing. As a general rule we don't comment too much on changes before those changes are playable, usually on the Public Test Server. Changes have been made to Imperial Agents including Operatives in Game Update 1.2, as Georg has mentioned before. You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

 

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best.

 

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

Thank you for communicating with us. I hope to see more of it in the future

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game.

Actually this is the one which frightens me.

Having in mind how exactly you have been "interested" for us since beta can you ignore us this time please?

Hey everyone; class balance conversations can be inflammatory and easily spin out of control. I'd like to ask everyone to keep on topic here and not allow the conversation to become too vitriolic.

 

Georg has posted multiple times on class balance and our views on the discussion of class balancing. As a general rule we don't comment too much on changes before those changes are playable, usually on the Public Test Server. Changes have been made to Imperial Agents including Operatives in Game Update 1.2, as Georg has mentioned before. You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

 

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best.

 

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

how are we supposed to test these changes on the pts if you refuse to give us character copy/premades or just an npc that gives our new character a ton of exp?

how are we supposed to test these changes on the pts if you refuse to give us character copy/premades or just an npc that gives our new character a ton of exp?

May I suggest more constructive commentary?

Let me rephrase:

"I have considered testing out the new features on the PTS, but it is way too much of a hassle right now. I have read that there will be character copying to PTS coming soon, but until then I would recommend a simple fix - add NPC's that can level up a character so I can test various parts of the game quickly."

May I suggest more constructive commentary?

Let me rephrase:

 

"I have considered testing out the new features on the PTS, but it is way too much of a hassle right now. I have read that there will be character copying to PTS coming soon, but until then I would recommend a simple fix - add NPC's that can level up a character so I can test various parts of the game quickly."

Can you help Georg with his posts, too?

Apparently having a gm monitor test bed and look for new players coming in and boosting their level is asking way too much.....

How can this be such an issue?

May I suggest more constructive commentary?

Let me rephrase:

 

"I have considered testing out the new features on the PTS, but it is way too much of a hassle right now. I have read that there will be character copying to PTS coming soon, but until then I would recommend a simple fix - add NPC's that can level up a character so I can test various parts of the game quickly."

However you describe it, making new level 50 characters seems to cause problems. Your companions come from plot, your quests follow in a long class sequence. You could quadrupole the XP from class quests and have people level that way, but just handing them a pile of XP doesn't actually solve the mostly broken character you'd get out of it. If they could copy characters properly they could just level a character manually and make copies of that one to hand to you.

It's not that I don't like the idea of having level 50 premade characters to test with, it's just that their whole game is built around you actually leveling the character to 50, trying to skip that causes a lot of development headaches trying to solve problems, most of which don't really apply to the live game so it's effort purely for testing.

"No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best."

Non constructive post piece.....

This is really laughable at best. Anyone who played the Republic first then tried the Empire I believe would more than likely agree with me.

Also it's not like this hasn't happened in other MMO's where the dev team is obviously favoring a class or faction, so please don't act like you and your team is immune to this.

Constructive post piece....

I agree for the PVP portion that we need to either be able to transfer our characters to the PTR or at least be able to have a premade 50 that we can choose, beacuse like a lot of others have stated leveling a character just for the Test Server is really not optimal.

However you describe it, making new level 50 characters seems to cause problems. Your companions come from plot, your quests follow in a long class sequence. You could quadrupole the XP from class quests and have people level that way, but just handing them a pile of XP doesn't actually solve the mostly broken character you'd get out of it. If they could copy characters properly they could just level a character manually and make copies of that one to hand to you.

 

It's not that I don't like the idea of having level 50 premade characters to test with, it's just that their whole game is built around you actually leveling the character to 50, trying to skip that causes a lot of development headaches trying to solve problems, most of which don't really apply to the live game so it's effort purely for testing.

Pretty much, allowing players to just "be level 50" breaks down the testing of the class balance while REACHING level 50.

Unless future plans are to allow everyone to be level 50 without actually playing their characters than this is a bad idea... everyone is not 50 yet, and new players are still joining. So to appease the level 50s we just ignore everyone else? (yes I am 50). Players who are 50 tell other players who are NOT 50 all the time... "If you aren't 50 then you dont know" but doesn't this same "logic" hold true for those lower levels if you only test balance at level 50?

I am completely against the idea of allowing anyone to just "make" a level 50 on the PTS. But I am totally FOR the idea of transferring existing characters. The PTS is about testing your current level of content, not about testing end game content only.

I dunno about the fairness but...

how can you survive a melee if you wear light armor and you get charged from the same guy over and over and over all the time. And you can't get rid of him.

Other idiotic thing some melee have pushback that throw you farhest then ranged. Why in hell a melee need to toss sombody too far? This should be the opposite, the ranged should toss them farthest to give them some survival and time to deal with melee that can stun you, slow and root you all the time. Plus charge all the time.

This amout of charge make the positioning almost irrelevant, no matter if you reach a high plateu, a position behind a rock, or far from the fight, if a melee can jump on you all the time from the same distance you can fire on him.

Hey everyone; class balance conversations can be inflammatory and easily spin out of control. I'd like to ask everyone to keep on topic here and not allow the conversation to become too vitriolic.

 

Georg has posted multiple times on class balance and our views on the discussion of class balancing. As a general rule we don't comment too much on changes before those changes are playable, usually on the Public Test Server. Changes have been made to Imperial Agents including Operatives in Game Update 1.2, as Georg has mentioned before. You'll be able to see those on PTS before too long; we'll probably provide more detail on the rationale behind those changes after we see some feedback from yourselves based on PTS play. (And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

 

No class in The Old Republic is being 'ignored', but every class is examined and balanced with an eye to the overall balance of the game. As many of us play one class to the exclusion of others, it's easy sometimes to think that your class is being unfairly treated. It's not a deliberate strategy. Any suggestion that a class is being deliberately ignored in favor of another class (or faction) is unfair, at best.

 

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

There's no point arguing or debating the 200 or so bitterman that always feel opressed.

Don't fall into the trap of every other MMO - WoW included - and make knee jerk changes.

Classes are just fine, on the whole.

There's no point arguing or debating the 200 or so bitterman that always feel opressed.

 

Don't fall into the trap of every other MMO - WoW included - and make knee jerk changes.

 

Classes are just fine, on the whole.

Dr. Evil: Our early attempts at class balancing went through several preparations. Preparations A through G were a complete failure. But now, ladies and gentlemen, we finally have some new class balancing, which we shall call... patch 1.2 or "Preparation H".

[scott snickers]

Dr. Evil: What?

Scott Evil: Why don't you just call it operation ***-cream, you ***.

Dr. Evil: I'm sorry, did you say you want some ice cream?

Scott Evil: Yes, I'd love some chocolate ***-cream.

Dr. Evil: Perhaps later.

Number 2: Dr. Evil, I love your plan.

Dr. Evil: You do?

Frau Farbissina: Yah. It's a really good plan.

Dr. Evil: Yes Frau, on the whole Preparation H feels good.

Pretty much, allowing players to just "be level 50" breaks down the testing of the class balance while REACHING level 50.

 

Unless future plans are to allow everyone to be level 50 without actually playing their characters than this is a bad idea... everyone is not 50 yet, and new players are still joining. So to appease the level 50s we just ignore everyone else? (yes I am 50). Players who are 50 tell other players who are NOT 50 all the time... "If you aren't 50 then you dont know" but doesn't this same "logic" hold true for those lower levels if you only test balance at level 50?

 

I am completely against the idea of allowing anyone to just "make" a level 50 on the PTS. But I am totally FOR the idea of transferring existing characters. The PTS is about testing your current level of content, not about testing end game content only.

In a previous post one of the Devs, I believe it was Stephen Reid, responded to a complain about imbalance at low levels by saying (paraphrased) "classes are balanced at 50. Low level comparisons will vary considerably."

If they want us to test balance and provide feedback, they need to provide us with a way to test level 50 characters. Level-up vendors who give huge XP, character transfers, anything.

If they want us to test the entire game from 1-50, they should have pushed to PTR in mid-February. You can level faster than that, but rushing means skipping content, which means untested content.

Clearly, due to the short PTS duration, they want level 50 feedback, so give us the tools to do it right.

In a previous post one of the Devs, I believe it was Stephen Reid, responded to a complain about imbalance at low levels by saying (paraphrased) "classes are balanced at 50. Low level comparisons will vary considerably."

Perhaps you're referring to this one:

Please understand that comparing damage between classes at an arbitrary level (16) is not going to yield any useful insight into power differences between classes.

I like to keep it tucked away somewheres in my recent posting history whenever I can work it in and still be relevant in a reply.

It's all the more appropriate because it was one of the handful of posts in the Imperial Agent boards.

The development team read the Forums and act on feedback here (as well as many other sources, including a lot of data from within the game). Your feedback has helped shape Game Update 1.2 and it will definitely help shape the game in the future.

So how did you guys come to the conclusion that somone who doesnt invest a little game time each day to do daily quests to work thier way from cent -> champ -> bm, deserves to skip those levels and wear the same gear as a high ranked players in pvp?

Perhaps you're referring to this one:

 

 

 

I like to keep it tucked away somewheres in my recent posting history whenever I can work it in and still be relevant in a reply.

 

It's all the more appropriate because it was one of the handful of posts in the Imperial Agent boards.

That would be the one.

So how did you guys come to the conclusion that somone who doesnt invest a little game time each day to do daily quests to work thier way from cent -> champ -> bm, deserves to skip those levels and wear the same gear as a high ranked players in pvp?

Probably by listening to the same feedback that made them separate 10-49 from level 50...that players with lots of expertise destroy players without any.

They also specifically said during the Guild Summit Livestream that they actually have metrics on win/loss ratios and streaks for players, and find that a new 50 who gets a rapid string of losses is far less likely to keep playing PvP because all they do is die.

Adding in rapid PvP gear progression means more people play PvP. More people in PvP means less Huttball.

Are you playing for the PvP or for the loot? Cause if you are doing it just for the loot, you are doing it wrong.

(And we would highly encourage you to play 1.2 on PTS. We're already getting early feedback from in-house testing, but the more we get, the better.)

If you want to encourage us let us copy our characters to the PTS (and not just once, but every time again when a new patch comes, to reflect all our character development from live servers to the PTS). You can't realistically expect us to go their en masse if all we can do is start a new character at level 1. By the time we reach 50 (assuming, even, that we would want to level the same character again, solely for the sake of the PTS!) the patch would hit live and the entire effort will be mostly moot anyway, except for future patches if those characters are not being wiped.

The very notion of presenting a PTS without the option to either copy characters from live to there or to make pre-defined characters of all ACs and level ranges is, in my humble opinion, preposterous.