I have a feeling there are too many PVErs in here whining about these things.

I play a smuggler. Specifically, I play a sharpshooter which relies on cover and I don't even complain. I've found a way to pvp with it, it works.

The major problem I have with this thread, is the talk about sabo charge. The animation takes forever, but the skill sticks to the enemy the absolute instant you cast it. All you have to do is animation cancel, and blast it. Simple.

I admit flash grenade CD needs to be looked at, and being rooted for performing our stun is a problem, but sabo charge isn't.

You guys need to learn how to use your skills, which skills you have to watch the animation of, and which you don't.

Please, don't tell me you fellow smugglers out there actually watch your quickdraw animation. The instant you fire it, the damage hits and you can run.

I actually haven't even seen the beginning animation of quickdraw for so long, I'm beginning to forget what it looks like.

The more I look into this and the more I read about all of the differences, the more it pisses me off.

 

Why does every single advantage go to the Empire?

 

Can anyone site one difference in mirror class functionality that favors the Republic?

 

From animations, to front loaded damage, to mirrored talents... every single advantage goes to the Empire. That's insane.

 

It's absurd that there are so many differences and they all favor the Empire players. Every base class has at least one mirror discrepancy and they all favor the Empire player.

 

This issue is more than deserving of a letter to the community from someone on the dev team.

 

This is bush-league stuff and it exacerbates the skewed faction populations.

 

And to address this, instead of balancing the class so that they truly reflect each other, they're making more Warzones cross-faction playable.

 

Awesome...

Agreed 100%.

bump

10 chars

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1347418#edit1347418

Just so everyone knows. They admit they messed up on the 60 vs 90 sec cooldowns (but don't say which it should be).

I unsubbed after reading this, does every dev have a red sabre up their ***?

This many issues for only one faction does not happen by mistake...

bump..

yup this is a complete bioware stuff up.. GG

I want to know how they sign off on this crap.. They should be fixing this before they start balancing classes..

There already will be an MMO that does that, it's called Guild Wars 2. I suggest anyone who takes pvp even remotely seriously should just wait for it to release.

this.

Abilities with 'travel times' do their damage at server side up front, even if it doesnt register on the player UI.

Thats why sometimes your standing there trying to cast with plenty of health, getting 'cannot activate while dead' messages, and then half a second later you explode.

Lightning travels at 3,700 miles per second. How fast do you think throwing a giant rock would take?

But, but, but... it's propelled by teh FORCE!!1

So two rocks hitting you in 1, then close to 2 seconds doesn't actually make any difference compared to two shocks hitting you instantly at the moment you press the button? Quite the ignorant way of looking at major problems. As much as i love the "RP" element of throwing rocks, R2D2s and other droid parts at someone's face, project is completely inferior compared to shock. Why? Because i have a 50 sage and i played a sorc in the beta and i can tell you that the difference is HUGE. And all this because of a stupid animation. Basically project is not instant.

 

Watch the difference:

 

 

And this is from 15m. The skill has 30m range. So if you shoot from maximum distance it will actually take MORE time to reach the target. And the funny thing - 4 pieces Champ set bonus that gives Project/Shock +5m more range. So this becomes 35m. And this means it becomes even worse. The longer the distance is, project becomes worse and worse. And you don't see a problem with that? In PvP this is a huge problem since it's one of our main instant nukes - stopping runners, initial burst, finishing off ppl (if i shoot a Shock at you - no potion or shield can save you because it instantly hits you, if i shoot a Project - you can CAST/USE pot and save yourself, because the damn rock arrives in ~2 sec...).

 

So here's one major difference between 2 supposedly "mirrored" classes.

 

 

 

It got caught. They just didn't do anything to fix it. Unless all these "minor imbalances" were intended...

Well, I think this pwns that issues hardcore. Well done.

Abilities with 'travel times' do their damage at server side up front, even if it doesnt register on the player UI.

 

Thats why sometimes your standing there trying to cast with plenty of health, getting 'cannot activate while dead' messages, and then half a second later you explode.

hmm, strange that I dont see the enemies health bar move until the animation actually hits then isn't it.

And I wonder what the devs meant when they said it was an issue they needed to fix, guess they were just imagining it too, they should have asked you who obviously know more than them and all the people reporting this crap on the forums.

Lightning travels at 3,700 miles per second. How fast do you think throwing a giant rock would take?

But, but, but... it's propelled by teh FORCE!!1

Simple: 3,700 miles per second + the time it takes to charge enough Force to release it.

Add charge-up time to lightning and the balance issue is solved.

The devs need to realize that this is in their own best interest if they want to have a job. So much hype was put into this game, they really cannot afford to fail. What really annoys me is that they basically incorporated flawed logic that was a problem in WAR and just passed that disease onto this game.

Just mirror the classes. Period. Please.

Abilities with 'travel times' do their damage at server side up front, even if it doesnt register on the player UI.

 

Thats why sometimes your standing there trying to cast with plenty of health, getting 'cannot activate while dead' messages, and then half a second later you explode.

Delay in Project registers quite nicely in PvE, and nothing is delivered "up front", its quite easy to test it (it has been tested and links posted)

On the topic, can someone do comparison of force wave/overload?

Abilities with 'travel times' do their damage at server side up front, even if it doesnt register on the player UI.

 

Thats why sometimes your standing there trying to cast with plenty of health, getting 'cannot activate while dead' messages, and then half a second later you explode.

No, you're wrong.

These are all documented imbalances and "strangly" enough all favor the Imps. Roll that into the fact that Imps MASSIVELY outnumber Republics on pvp servers and you get a very bad combination.

FIX THIS NOW BW.

Abilities with 'travel times' do their damage at server side up front, even if it doesnt register on the player UI.

 

Thats why sometimes your standing there trying to cast with plenty of health, getting 'cannot activate while dead' messages, and then half a second later you explode.

No, they do not. Here's another example of how huge the difference between Shock and Project is.

Shock/Project are actually quite good dmg dealing abilities and obviously instant (right...). So a lot of time we use them to finish off a target on low health. Sometimes i can get ~3,5-4k from a double project so it's actually quite deadly and major part in my PvP arsenal. Now...

Let's get a stealther. We fight and kick each other arses and... I'm about to finish him off and he knows it. So i use obviously one of my earliest and instant abilities - Project. But, hell no! He sees my silly sage waving her hands in the air, picking up a rock from the ground and... instantly vanishes. Oh, snap! Now few things happen here. You think that because i used an "instant" cast spell with long animation, he actually received the dmg? WRONG! If a stealther uses his vanish or whatever skill makes him go in stealth in combat while i'm casting Project (yes - "casting" Project, not "instant casting") - he does not receive any dmg and you can be sure of that because you will see a friggin ROCK hovering mid-air on your screen. You don't believe it? Ask any sage/shadow here how many times their rocks/droids were floating mid-air because the target vanished in stealth and the spell didn't hit them. And everyone can react to that because the animation is reeealy long. For example when i play vs other republic in Huttball it's quite easy for me to see another sage casting project on me and i just shield myself before the rock hits me and absorb all the dmg thus cutting a substantial part of his burst or saving my a** on 100 hp and healing myself.

Did i also mentioned that even if your target gets in stealth and the rock is floating (thus no dmg was done) you still get a COOLDOWN on Project? Do you also know these nasty 7.9 sec saves on capping an objective? Well, with 2+ sec flying time on project from max distance... yea... good luck.

Or you can just roll an inquisitor and don't have to read this wall of text because your shock just hits the target in a 0,1 sec, instantly as it should be...

I've always hated how Devs fail to acknowledge some problems and that just keeps to frustrate the player-base because they feel they are not being heard.

I always expected problems to exist, but in a game where classes are meant to be mirrors, I certainly would not have thought we see so many problems which favour the Imp.

I just hope that we don't have to deal with devs with corporate bosses who seem to get prideful, stubborn, and Captain Ahab the game into the ground.

We call that Star Wars Galaxies. Nothing would make them admit defeat when it came to the NGE. Not subscription losses, not empty servers. Nothing.

First of all, I would like to say great post to the OP.

I've played a Smuggler, Imperial Agent, Consular and Inquisiter, and have experienced all of the mentioned discrepencies between "mirrored" abilities (Project vs Shock damage delay, Back Blast vs Shiv damage delay, Dirty Kick root, etc.).

All of these problems seem to be caused by differences in animation, and I imagine the Devs are loathe to change them. If that is the case, why not add effects to the "slower" (i.e. Republic) abilities? For example:

Project does the same (delayed) damage, but also causes a "stumble" effect, interrupting casts and activation the GCD - essentially a 1.5 second silence

Back Blast slows the target for 4 seconds (as a shotgun to the back of the head should)

Dirty Kick increases movement speed by 30% (the talent, Dirty Escape, decreases cool down of Dirty Kick only)

Mortar Volley either has a) a wider aoe effect or b) a slow effect within the area of effect for the duration of the cast

These are in addition to the ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED fixes in the Talent trees (i.e. Accomplished Sawbones vs Accomplished Doctor)

Would it break the "mirror" of these abilities? Yes, but in a way that would add utility that make sup for the already broken symmetry, without forcing the Devs to re-imagine and program new attack animations.

so to the OP, if you make them mirrors are you going to give bigger stat bonuses to the agent's offhand? Right now Vibroknife of the same rating is not as good as a pistol.

Just using the Battlemaster's Enforcer for example.

The pistol and offhand pistol both are

Cunning 103

End 126

Exp 51

Pow 77

and the Vibroknife is

Cunning 85

End 98

Exp 51

Pow 82

Plus all through leveling the blaster pistols available far outclass and outnumber the vibroblades available. Pistols come in orange and are easily upgraded... vibroblades do not.

Personally I'm OK with a few differences. I think it would be boring to always be playing an exact mirror match every time I queue a warzone. If you wanted to do that, why even have 2 factions?

Here's some more things that are unequal (I'm not one for conspiracy theories, and I hadn't thought about it before, but it's kinda weird all these things are in advantage to the Imperial side):

Bounty Hunters have a heat bar of 100 units. Trooper has an ammo bar of 12. For every equivelant ability that troopers use 1 ammo for, a bounty hunter uses 8 units of heat.

So with simple math we can count that 1 ammo equals 8 heat, but 12x8 is 96, meaning that Trooper actually has 4% smaller class resource cap than a bounty hunter with the maximum of 100 heat.

Bounty hunter also vents 5 heat per second at maximum regen speed. A trooper reloads 0,6 ammo cells per second at maximum regen speed.

0,6 x 8 is 4,8. So a trooper gains their resource 4% slower aswell.

This means a BH always has a 4% advantage over the trooper for all class resource usage and regen.

Another one:

IA Explosive Probe is instant. The enemy gets the debuff right away. Smuggler equivelant is a thrown grenade that takes about a second to reach the enemy.

This is even worse than in case of Project. The enemy doesnt have the debuff while smuggler's granade is in the air, meaning it cant explode for roughly a second after cast. IA's probe can explode instantly after it's used.

An IA can also cast a snipe and hit the probe instantly as snipe finishes, making the probe explode right away. This gives them a huge burst advantage compared to a smuggler.