No, it doesn't work like that. Prior to 2.0, you need 5 stacks of Heat Signature in order for your HSM to deal +25% damage. After 2.0, you will need only 1 Heat Signature to achieve the same +25% effect. Also, Tracer Missile only ever applies the 1 Heat Signature. Heat Signature no longer stacks, it reduces armor by 20% all at once, and it lasts 45 seconds.

 

What this change does is remove the "build up" at the start of a new fight. There are still "build up" mechanics in the Arsenal tree, but none that affects the TM and HSM relationship. The effect is marginalized by longer fights, but it should be noticeably more awesome in short fights (soloing, non-boss fights, and PVPing).

 

Also, I triple checked this, but HSM does about 16% more damage in 2.0 than it did prior to 2.0 (from a coefficient of 2.39 to a coefficient of 2.77). I believe this change went undocumented. In any case, HSM won't be getting any stronger than it already is, which is very, very strong by the way.

Why is there only one person in charge of implementin class balance? Not very smart allocation of staff.

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.

Enjoy solo guarding! I know I will.

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.

Very well said!

Umm you quoted him directly. Did you not see the part where it says "subject to change"?

History has borne out that any changes they don't explicitly announce won't happen. They rarely reverse a decision once made, at least not for months and months (hi2u bubble stuns).

History has borne out that any changes they don't explicitly announce won't happen. They rarely reverse a decision once made, at least not for months and months (hi2u bubble stuns).

Unfortunately have to agree here. "Subject to change"... We've been waiting about a year for a "change". It took an expansion to even see any significant class change, and it still failed to solve any of the issues the class had (and possibly adding one or two in the process)

The dev strategy appears to be to buff snipers like crazy in order to have them be a counter to Smash Monkeys. And then stealth dps are the counter to snipers. Rocker, paper, scissors for the dps classes as it were.

 

They need to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock to at least give us a chance.

They need to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock to at least give us a chance.

ahahahahaha

Umm you quoted him directly. Did you not see the part where it says "subject to change"?

The only subject to change part happened with rated warzones

Other than that, nothing ever changes.

The only subject to change part happened with rated warzones

 

Other than that, nothing ever changes.

this.

i wouldnt say i am enthralled with what we are getting in 2.0, but i wouldnt say i was highly disappointed either. there were several good steps in the right direction, and now that we will hopefully start seeing smaller changes to classes more frequently, imo things are looking up. if AP continues communicating with us, only good things can happen imo.

and AP, if you read this, i realize we give you a load of crap constantly. its not b/c we hate you; its b/c we have an investment in this game and we would like it to succeed. we do appreciate you addressing some of our concerns, and we hope that you continue to engage us in discussion and help us help you make Merc/Mando a viable class

Back from my ban. W00t.

I have dumped over 200 dollars into this game. Just like all the founders have. Not slighting other subs or the F2Pers just making a point. When we have literally everyone playing an AC crying out about the issues that class has for over a year, a dev response isn't just being a decent human being, it's good business sense.

Do you want to make money? Do you want people to play your game? Then FIND THE TIME to take ONE or TWO HOURS to outline WHAT you're doing and WHY. It's not hard, and it's a basic thing that you would have to do in ANY other INDUSTRY.

I mean, tonight the waiter at Denny's came out to say 'uh hey the coffee's going to be a bit/' So far the combat devs have failed to even approach that level of service. What scraps we've gotten, and they are SCRAPS have been three comments totallling about 200 words or less representing a YEAR of class development? And those words? It'd be the equivalent to my waiter bringing me lukewarm coffee and saying 'What are you talking about

? It's hot!' or just failing to acknowledge me after failing to bring my food out for over an hour.

Eric, I know your job has to absolutely stink. People call you out as if you were a dev, give YOU crap because the devs won't respond, and act as if you have any real control other than your and your team's marvelous and impressive attempts to improve communication. But I'm asking you, we're ALL asking you, to see what you can do to get the Devs not to simply to communicate changes, or give half-hearted responses but to CLEARLY and ARTICULATELY explain the reasons for why they do what they do.

Eric, I know your job has to absolutely stink. People call you out as if you were a dev, give YOU crap because the devs won't respond, and act as if you have any real control other than your and your team's marvelous and impressive attempts to improve communication. But I'm asking you, we're ALL asking you, to see what you can do to get the Devs not to simply to communicate changes, or give half-hearted responses but to CLEARLY and ARTICULATELY explain the reasons for why they do what they do.

And what their view/role for the class is.

The change was never in the patch notes on the PTS either, so it's probably still happening.

I can confirm that the set bonus has NOT changed from what it was previously on live. We still have the heat reduction on our Rail Shot.

How is the talent in the arsenal tree? Still only 6 reducation as on PTS or 8 as it was on live? Ie, does Railshot now cost 2 heat or ?

Mostly curious (won't be able to log on for a few hours, if my patching issues have resolved themselves), as the difference is marginal.

How is the talent in the arsenal tree? Still only 6 reducation as on PTS or 8 as it was on live? Ie, does Railshot now cost 2 heat or ?

 

Mostly curious (won't be able to log on for a few hours, if my patching issues have resolved themselves), as the difference is marginal.

Rail Shot costs 2 heat.

EDIT: Apparently the Arkanian set bonuses have the 8% damage on Rail Shot, not the -8 heat. Campaign and lower still has -8 heat.

Why is there only one person in charge of implementin class balance? Not very smart allocation of staff.

By putting one person on class balance you get one person with perspective on everything. This approach has its advantages and disadvantages.

By limiting class balance to one person, you eliminate miss-communication between developers. There's no one else to miss-communicate with.

However, it means that a full pass will take longer

Besides, he says that he's got support which, I'm guessing, means he's got a few people helping him model classes and run analysis grunt-work while he tries to solve an impossible puzzle.

By putting one person on class balance you get one person with perspective on everything. This approach has its advantages and disadvantages.

The combat system is far to complex to allow one person have a coherent perspective on all class balancing. That's why BW has relied so much on its in game stat collection system. It was supposed to fix the need to have a lot of human labor hours put into class balancing. Needless to say, the statistical underpinnings of the system were flawed.

The problem for BW is that the conventional methods of involving the player base are also badly flawed. Look at these forums. During PTS testing the class gripe thought to be the second most valid gripe was by Assassin dps who believed they were nerfed (coming in second to the Merc dps griping as the most valid it was supposed). But now look at what is actually transpiring. Assassin dps is hands down the best single target pvp dps class. Better than Vanguard/PT. Better than Operative dps. Only Sniper dps can compete and then only vs. a melee heavy opposing team. Bottom line - the devs can NOT rely on forum griping to provide an accurate look at class balance.

Fortunately there is a solution. One that uses BW's automated data collection. And player involvement. Yes, it's true Virginia.

THE SOLUTION - measure player class useage when they win. This automatically corrects for the problems with the current stat collection system which overweights bad players, particularly in pvp. So for pvp, BW needs to collect data on the subclasses used by each team that wins a ranked pvp match. If a player uses a tank class in one half of a Voidstar and a dps class in the other half, half credit should be applied to each subclass. Then simply count which subclasses are used most often. Those are the subclasses that are OP. Those least used are underpowered. Ignore the normal wz matches. The subset of data provided by winning ranked wz team composition is the best proxy for which classes the best players believe are most effective. It avoids the problems inherent with damage or K/D ratio analysis that can not account for classes used as defensive guards or offensive scouts. The only weakness in using data this way is that it doesn't give a good view of tank v. healer v. dps dynamics. But it is the BEST way to look at balance between the three tank classes. And between the 3 healing classes. And between the dps classes.

For pve the same methodology can be used w.r.t teams that finish the final boss in the hardest operations run available. These are the best pve teams in the game. Measure the success. Stop measuring the average players and start doing what should have been done from the start - manage class balance based on best practices for each class. Which is what your are approximating by seeing which subclasses are winning.

The combat system is far to complex to allow one person have a coherent perspective on all class balancing. That's why BW has relied so much on its in game stat collection system. It was supposed to fix the need to have a lot of human labor hours put into class balancing. Needless to say, the statistical underpinnings of the system were flawed.

 

The problem for BW is that the conventional methods of involving the player base are also badly flawed. Look at these forums. During PTS testing the class gripe thought to be the second most valid gripe was by Assassin dps who believed they were nerfed (coming in second to the Merc dps griping as the most valid it was supposed). But now look at what is actually transpiring. Assassin dps is hands down the best single target pvp dps class. Better than Vanguard/PT. Better than Operative dps. Only Sniper dps can compete and then only vs. a melee heavy opposing team. Bottom line - the devs can NOT rely on forum griping to provide an accurate look at class balance.

 

Fortunately there is a solution. One that uses BW's automated data collection. And player involvement. Yes, it's true Virginia.

 

THE SOLUTION - measure player class useage when they win. This automatically corrects for the problems with the current stat collection system which overweights bad players, particularly in pvp. So for pvp, BW needs to collect data on the subclasses used by each team that wins a ranked pvp match. If a player uses a tank class in one half of a Voidstar and a dps class in the other half, half credit should be applied to each subclass. Then simply count which subclasses are used most often. Those are the subclasses that are OP. Those least used are underpowered. Ignore the normal wz matches. The subset of data provided by winning ranked wz team composition is the best proxy for which classes the best players believe are most effective. It avoids the problems inherent with damage or K/D ratio analysis that can not account for classes used as defensive guards or offensive scouts. The only weakness in using data this way is that it doesn't give a good view of tank v. healer v. dps dynamics. But it is the BEST way to look at balance between the three tank classes. And between the 3 healing classes. And between the dps classes.

 

For pve the same methodology can be used w.r.t teams that finish the final boss in the hardest operations run available. These are the best pve teams in the game. Measure the success. Stop measuring the average players and start doing what should have been done from the start - manage class balance based on best practices for each class. Which is what your are approximating by seeing which subclasses are winning.

I'm ArchangelLBC and I approve this message.

Although the shadow pvp dps being so high is a direct result of their gripes being addressed (and perhaps overaddressed).