I've always wondered about the discrepancy between two "mirror classes" with Heat vs Ammo.

 

12 Ammo feels natural...Your abilities are 1, 2, or 3 ammo. 100 Heat just seems really weird, though. Your abilities are 8, 16, or 25 heat? But actually, they're 8.33333, 16.333, and 25 heat? Or maybe your 1 ammo is actually 1.0416 ammo?

 

Obviously, 100 is not divisible by 12. Which means that at some point in the development process, they had to decide to intentionally make either Heat or Ammo a non-integer quantity, simply so that the Mirror classes would not be ~4% off from each other in DPS.

 

How did this come up? Was it like "we have 12 ammo because it feels cool, so we're not gonna measure heat in arbitrary units up to 100, and have some awkward math!"?

 

It just seems....so odd to me. Why not have 120 heat? Or just have 12 heat? Or design everything so that you have 20 ammo, or 10 ammo?

I'm sad this got moved to class discussion =(

They're going to be adressing this soon.

 

As it is now Bounty Hunters have somewhat of an advantage over Troopers because of their resources. When a bounty hunter gets Rezzed they have low heat.. meanwhile that's good for them. When a Trooper gets rezzed they have low ammo. Which is bad for them.

 

At least this how I think it is.

They're going to be adressing this soon.

 

As it is now Bounty Hunters have somewhat of an advantage over Troopers because of their resources. When a bounty hunter gets Rezzed they have low heat.. meanwhile that's good for them. When a Trooper gets rezzed they have low ammo. Which is bad for them.

 

At least this how I think it is.

 

I'm not talking about this from a balance perspective...I'm assuming that (for the most part) everything is number-crunched correctly to work out.

 

What I'm talking about is just how BIZARRE it is that you have 100 heat vs 12 ammo, when (obviously) 100 is not divisible by 12.

It seems pretty clear to me the two factions were developed by different teams. The animation inconsistencies, in this case resource differences, art/polish issues, etc. Wouldn't be surprised if they weren't even in the same physical space. Edited March 14, 2012 by hadoken

It seems pretty clear to me the two factions were developed by different teams. The animation inconsistencies, in this case resource differences, art/polish issues, etc. Wouldn't be surprised if they weren't even in the same physical space.

 

Well duh. This is Star Wars after all, we can't totally deny the laws of physics.

 

Isn't there something about matter occupying the same space in there?

I've thought of this a lot as well. My guess is they designed the bounty hunter with 100 heat first, and then the trooper, which is why they have the odd number of 12, but then I wonder if this is really the cast, why don't troopers carry around 100 bullets like a real soldier would.

I've thought of this a lot as well. My guess is they designed the bounty hunter with 100 heat first, and then the trooper, which is why they have the odd number of 12, but then I wonder if this is really the cast, why don't troopers carry around 100 bullets like a real soldier would.

 

That would mean that they would have to have said "our heat valus will be 8, 16, and....25! No one wants 24 heat!", right?

They wanted something for both Metric and English measurement countries can understand.

That would mean that they would have to have said "our heat valus will be 8, 16, and....25! No one wants 24 heat!", right?

 

That's come to mind a lot too. In the end, I just blame it on Bioware for making this a challenging math problem for me.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Halzerttok

Well duh. This is Star Wars after all, we can't totally deny the laws of physics.

 

Isn't there something about matter occupying the same space in there?

 

I imagine you were attempting humor. In case you weren't, I meant space as in 'office space' or 'building' if you prefer.

as every rep side char,trooper was done after imp and was rushed so imp side have all perfect,no bugs and every animation better than rep side.

i could say that devs favor the imp side but for madure people this is absurd so iprefer choose that imp side was done with time first and then rep side was rushed for the game start and wasnt ready

Edited March 14, 2012 by prochuvi

as every rep side char,trooper was done after imp and was rushed so imp side have all perfect,no bugs and every animation better than rep side.

i could say that devs favor the imp side but for madure people this is absurd so iprefer choose that imp side was done with time first and then rep side was rushed for the game start and wasnt ready

 

It's possible. I've read reports that Plasma Cell's activation is really buggy for Repubic, and often clips the initial tick when you use certain abilities: behavior that doesn't apply to Bounty Hunters. This means that there's possibly a ~100 dps difference between Assault Specialist Vanguards and Pyro Powertechs.

 

An unrelated bug in the Tactics Tree apparently makes a +50% damage to Pulse Cannon apply to every AE (Mortar Volley, Sticky Grenade) without using the buff.

 

So, due to these two republic-only bugs, it's possible that the highest DPS spec for Vanguards is the middle tree, whereas the highest DPS spec for Powertechs is the right tree.

 

Fun, right?

as every rep side char,trooper was done after imp and was rushed so imp side have all perfect,no bugs and every animation better than rep side.

i could say that devs favor the imp side but for madure people this is absurd so iprefer choose that imp side was done with time first and then rep side was rushed for the game start and wasnt ready

 

Then why did Smugglers get the correct healing, but Operatives didn't get any benefit from Medical Therapy (an extremely important talent that increases the healing of Kolto Probe) until 1.1.5? Why do DoT / HoT talents work correctly for Smugglers and incorrectly for Operatives? Why do the stealth talents work correctly for Shadows but incorrectly for Assassins?

 

...your "Empire was done first, Republic was rushed" theory is full of holes.

Edited March 14, 2012 by subrosian

It wasnt a matter of one being done first or not, it wasnt a matter of dev preference for one faction or the other either.

 

During beta, the republic was -much- more polished than the empire. Better fleet, better questlines, fewer bugs, different animations which were (for the most part) on par with empire animations.

 

They went through a 'cleanup' phase towards the end of beta where hundreds of features were removed from the game for no apprent reason (other than to have content stored for later patches). During that cleanup phase, many of the animations changed, many of the polished areas became not-so-polished, and vice versa. In the end, the empire ended up with generally better aesthetics compared to the republic.

 

 

I'm not sure why they changed so much at the last minute, and they certainly arent going to tell us.

Then why did Smugglers get the correct healing, but Operatives didn't get any benefit from Medical Therapy (an extremely important talent that increases the healing of Kolto Probe) until 1.1.5? Why do DoT / HoT talents work correctly for Smugglers and incorrectly for Operatives? Why do the stealth talents work correctly for Shadows but incorrectly for Assassins?

 

...your "Empire was done first, Republic was rushed" theory is full of holes.

 

Have to agree with this. BH's unload also frequently bugs out when you use it just as a mob dies (bugs out = the animation keeps going and going and going...). Never had the same problem with Trooper.

 

The concept of one faction is better/favoured/etc is usually just a case of subjective sour grapes. Yes there are differences but you'd be hard pressed to prove they were intended, mostly just a case of different dev teams producing slightly different results.

Then why did Smugglers get the correct healing, but Operatives didn't get any benefit from Medical Therapy (an extremely important talent that increases the healing of Kolto Probe) until 1.1.5? Why do DoT / HoT talents work correctly for Smugglers and incorrectly for Operatives? Why do the stealth talents work correctly for Shadows but incorrectly for Assassins?

 

...your "Empire was done first, Republic was rushed" theory is full of holes.

 

Most likely the same reason

 

Wounding shot energy talent for scoundrels didn't work.

Flashbang has a 30 second longer cooldown.

Our stun can't be used while running.

We have a longer flight time on sabotage charge.

 

Bugs are bugs

Have to agree with this. BH's unload also frequently bugs out when you use it just as a mob dies (bugs out = the animation keeps going and going and going...). Never had the same problem with Trooper.

 

The concept of one faction is better/favoured/etc is usually just a case of subjective sour grapes. Yes there are differences but you'd be hard pressed to prove they were intended, mostly just a case of different dev teams producing slightly different results.

 

I always saw that BH bug as working as intended. It just feels very Bounty hunter like to be rapid shooting the corpse of a fresh kill. And when you run to the body to loot it, he's still firing. All bounty hunter.

I don't know the actual history, but it feels to me like maybe the original plan was not to have Empire and Republic classes be exact mirrors of each other. At some point in development/testing it seems like maybe BioWare decided that balance between the factions would be unachievable without exact mirrors. They then seem to have looked at their 8 classes and picked the 4 they wanted to keep and then tried to shoehorn those classes' abilities into their mirrors with as few cosmetic changes as possible.

 

Based on the appropriateness of the abilities to the lore and animations/mechanics, my guess is that the classes they kept in their original forms are:

Sith Warriors - Rage and Force Choke are archetypal Star Wars things, Focus and Force Stasis aren't so much (and channeling Force Stasis doesn't really make sense)

Sith Inquisitors - Force Lightning vs. Telekinetic Throw

Troopers - BH heat doesn't make numerical sense without understanding Trooper ammo.

Operatives - Cover for Smugglers doesn't entirely make sense. Also, why would Shotguns be pure melee weapons?

I've seen questions like this... Which came first the chicken or the egg?

 

I think it was the chicken because the egg was an after thought in regards to energy systems.

 

Chicken being Trooper, while Egg being BH.

There is no question that the bounty hunter was developed prior to the trooper. I clearly recall from early 2009 teasers and on the web-sight details about the development of the bounty hunter. The trooper was not revealed for almost another year.

 

The Republic had the development time advantage as far as Jedi Knight vs Sith Warrior I believe, but not by much. This doesn't seem to do them many favors however as the Jedi starting world layout and plot seems more like it was a "proof of concept" that was left as is.

If memory serves, at one point Troopers in alpha or very early beta were quite different. Their ammo mechanics functioned differently and while the basic concept was similar, i don't think they were initially designed as absolute mirrors. Something happened at some point that made BW decide to go full mirror, like it or not.

 

Remember, also, at one point early in development they were going to have 3 factions. So there were a lot of changes along the way that could've created a very different game. I'm pretty sure anyone who likes pvp wishes they had stuck with 3 factions to make things infinitely more interesting... but here we are.

i don't think they were initially designed as absolute mirrors. Something happened at some point that made BW decide to go full mirror, like it or not.

 

I think this is it. The question should be "which came first, the classes or the fact they should be mirrored?" In that case, it was probably classes.

I'm not talking about this from a balance perspective...I'm assuming that (for the most part) everything is number-crunched correctly to work out.

 

What I'm talking about is just how BIZARRE it is that you have 100 heat vs 12 ammo, when (obviously) 100 is not divisible by 12.

 

Well they probably tried to do it in percentages...but they didnt even do that right.

 

For example BH has tracer missile and power shot, without taking talents from the tree into consideration both of those cost 25 heat, thats 25 out of a 100 so 25% of your resource. Now look at the trooper counterpart, IF you were to take the same percentage of 25%, then 25% out of your resource pool of 12 ammo would be 3 ammo. But without talents, grav round and charged bolts cost 2 ammo. So even some of the base abilities arent matching up. This is either a huge oversight on their part, or an attempt to try and balance an imperfect mirror system.

 

How they could fix it?

-make it like EVERY OTHER CLASS/FACTION MIRROR IN THE GAME and make the resource pool a straight 1:1 mirror. Easiest would be to make the ammo counter 100, regen rates can be put at the same point for each. BH heat system can be left untouched.

 

-if they insist on keeping troopers unique and keeping it at 12 ammo, then make the regen rate flat all the way across. I'm not even going to bother with doing the math, researching or even putting my basic observation skills to the test. But i'll just assume that for both classes assuming order of abilities being cast are identical, that eventually they reach a point where regen is NOT equal. Make the regen the same if you are empty and full and you have no problems. that is if BW does insist on keeping trooper ammo at 12, other wise the first option above may be the easiest.

 

I'm sure BW is doing some form of the above, or they have their own solution. Or maybe they plan on nerfing BH damage again so that it balances out the resource disparity...