I have been wondering why there isnt any discussion on operations regarding melee friendliness. Anyone who has done any of the operations and some hardmode flashpoints can see that this game just hates melee.

 

I think the most obvious examples are Soa and Bonethrasher. Both of these fights might as well be done without bringing any melee at all.

 

As an empire player I really do not see any use for melee in operations other than bringing some marauders for their group buffs. Assassins are quite useless as they bring no buffs and their survivability is weak. Powertech DPS has no mobility to speak of, the same goes for Operative DPS.

 

To me it feels this should be a large outrage about the end game design. But are people just so used to melee getting shafted when it comes to raiding, that people do not even bother to comment on it?

I have been wondering why there isnt any discussion on operations regarding melee friendliness. Anyone who has done any of the operations and some hardmode flashpoints can see that this game just hates melee.

 

I think the most obvious examples are Soa and Bonethrasher. Both of these fights might as well be done without bringing any melee at all.

 

As an empire player I really do not see any use for melee in operations other than bringing some marauders for their group buffs. Assassins are quite useless as they bring no buffs and their survivability is weak. Powertech DPS has no mobility to speak of, the same goes for Operative DPS.

 

To me it feels this should be a large outrage about the end game design. But are people just so used to melee getting shafted when it comes to raiding, that people do not even bother to comment on it?

 

No mmo in history has ever been melee friendly, get use to it and there's nothing to outrage or cry about, the mechanics on these boss fight that are supposed to be so un melee friendly are a joke, Soa is laughable and so is karagga the unyielding, and only bad players come plain about something that's been happening in mmo's for over 13 years.

No mmo in history has ever been melee friendly, get use to it and there's nothing to outrage or cry about, the mechanics on these boss fight that are supposed to be so un melee friendly are a joke, Soa is laughable and so is karagga the unyielding, and only bad players come plain about something that's been happening in mmo's for over 13 years.

 

Well this does show the point quite well. Just because something has happened in the past, doesnt mean that there isnt a better way to design it.

 

And we arent really even talking about small differences between melee and ranged dps. Currently there is almost no reason whatsoever to bring melee over ranged to any encounters. This might change if we get combatlogs and see the actual dmg each class does, but somehow I doubt we will see larger numbers from melee.

Yup, you are right certain bosses are not melee friendly and bringing all ranged dps do make things easier.

 

That being said, we run 2x melee dps along with 2 ranged dps and have no issues in defeating all of hardmodes on 8 man (havn't tried nightmare yet). So it is certainly doable.

Yup, you are right certain bosses are not melee friendly and bringing all ranged dps do make things easier.

 

That being said, we run 2x melee dps along with 2 ranged dps and have no issues in defeating all of hardmodes on 8 man (havn't tried nightmare yet). So it is certainly doable.

 

We have done the same with nightmare as well. We normally have 3 ranged and 2 melee, everything is doable. But it does not remove the fact that everything would be easier with 5 ranged.

Are you new to mmos? This melee friendliness has been happening since ever, hence i rolled range in this game and never looked back! Learn your lessons from the past.

half our group are melees, and we still got 10/10 nightmare, but you are correct, there are bosses that are to punishing toward melee, and that would be fine if there were bosses that were equally punishing for ranged, there however is not.

You know - the argument "It has always been like that" is a really poor one to repeat in a new MMO. Just because the others are doing it, "we" should as well?

 

I see no reason not to make melee less "frustrating?" than a ranged class. Surely it shouldn't be your distance, but your ability to do damage that matters?

 

Making bosses completely range "neutral" is probably harder than what is worth, but I don't see why we shouldn't have bosses designed for melee (Like having less hazards closer to the boss) rather than ranged - at a 50/50 kind of balance thing. Homogenizing can go too far (see WoW and the recent "Everyone should have raid buffs so that noone is left out, ever" effect)

The reason back in the day bosses where designed to be anti-melee was MDPS was given a larger damage edge then their RDPS counterparts since RDPS had kiting, range, and superior CC. In most MMOs without any anti-melee mechanics MDPS glass cannons would omgwtfpwnbbq bosses making them far too desirable in a group to make range worth taking.

 

However, in SwtOR the traditional paradigm between melee and range is broken in that range has only a small disadvantage in damage giving absolutely no incentive to use melee at all over range since RDPS can continue to project damage most of the time leading to better actual DPS since there are no to few drop off periods where as melee may spend upwards of 15-25% of a fight avoiding a anti-melee mechanic. This leads to the opposite problem in TOR that range is far more desirable in raids than melee tot he point where if I where to put together a group given the choice of any classes I would never ever take an MDPS for any reason.

 

However, it should be noted that all content is clearable with MDPS heavy groups it just takes more effort and leaves less room for mistakes. I humbly request that future bosses either punish range as much as melee or that some bosses that are very anti-range be added in the future just to balance out the encounters. Also, to be fair OP bonetrasher is anti-everyone have you seen a sniper try and do something in that fight, it's kinda funny.

Edited January 29, 2012 by kainsec

The Devs are clearly clueless about their range to melee balance. Melee DPS doesn't put out more damage than ranged, so that blows the traditional excuse for any anti-melee sentiment out of the water. The melee aren't particularly more survivable either, blowing another excuse away. Lastly, the melee can not self heal. That's the last straw. The devs just like screwing over saber wielders that actually use their saber. This game was clearly meant to be "Sorcerers and Tracer Missile Spammers Online". Get with the program and reroll.

True, Bonethrasher is anti everyone.

 

To me it feels that at this point of MMO development, people should have grasped the basic ideas behind creating encounters that do not punish being melee. Especially as melee does not gain any real benefits in this game as pointed out by kainsec.

 

For example, skills that hit only melee range have to always be balanced with skills that only affect ranged players. As each ranged and melee have slightly different weaknesses, this would allow creating more interesting encounters.

 

It is few skill designs that just completely show how little the operations designers understood about the problem. The clearest example is Gharj as a whole, both Frenzy and Pounce are just ridiculous for melee. I know the encounter is a joke in difficulty, but it does not remove the fact that it is just poor design.

No mmo in history has ever been melee friendly, get use to it and there's nothing to outrage or cry about, the mechanics on these boss fight that are supposed to be so un melee friendly are a joke, Soa is laughable and so is karagga the unyielding, and only bad players come plain about something that's been happening in mmo's for over 13 years.

 

True, but at least other developers try to offset this by making melee top DPS. In this game, it's not even close. Mercs/snipers/sorcs and their equivalents just **** all over melee DPS.

Edited January 29, 2012 by Havocx

One boss I like I think exists in Boarding Party. He's a droid that frequently grappled people past a certain range and randomly repositions them.

 

He's still not very challenging, but as a ranged DPS at least I felt like I was actually a part of the fight.

make every encounter unfriendly to everyone, problem solved.

make every encounter unfriendly to everyone, problem solved.

 

Tell that to the devs.

So sad, but true.

It is few skill designs that just completely show how little the operations designers understood about the problem. The clearest example is Gharj as a whole, both Frenzy and Pounce are just ridiculous for melee. I know the encounter is a joke in difficulty, but it does not remove the fact that it is just poor design.

 

The Mythic team who worked on WAR did some interesting things with their higher level dungeons, where bosses tended to alternate being horrible to melee and horrible to ranged - if you brought an all-ranged group then some bosses were faceroll easy whilst others gave you no room for mistakes. Having a balanced group smoothed out the extremes.

 

TOR has already shown some anti-ranged 'fun' on various enemies and encounters which happily interrupt you, pull you out of position, force you to run around a lot (not good for RDPS turret spec), debuff your damage if you get too far out of range, etc.

 

If they take a leaf out of Mythic's book, expect bosses that will drop aggro and charge the furthest party member away, mechanics that alternate the cone / AoE close ranged attack with a mass AoE two-shot kill on anything that isn't within touching distance, etc.

 

Its a bit unfriendly to melee at the moment, but there's more than enough time for that to rebalance...so, erm...careful what you wish for, eh?

Edited February 2, 2012 by Kanthric