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Update 1.2 Class Balances and the Nitty Gritty Details


Coldin

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One thing that I was really hoping would come out of the Guild Summit was more information on what class balances would be taking place in 1.2. There's been some hints here and there that changes are coming. IGN even reported that Jedi Knights will be receiving some new skills, while Bounty Hunters will be receiving a nerf. In fact, entire skill trees are changing so greatly they're actually refunding our skill points for free.

 

However we have yet to see any details about this. With 1.2 being pushed out to early April, it's becoming more difficult for me to remain patient. In particular with the reduction to damage to Scoundrel Scrapper damage, and the relative silence of Bioware to concerns about the classes effectiveness in Operations and PVP. I'm not eager to have to wait another month to find out how classes will be changing to become more balanced, and I'm sure many others are becoming impatient as well.

 

All of the other 1.2 changes and additions sound great so far, but they won't mean much to me if certain classes are still inherently better than others. Let's hear some information about what 1.2 will be doing to classes in particular, and don't skimp on the details.

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One thing that I was really hoping would come out of the Guild Summit was more information on what class balances would be taking place in 1.2. There's been some hints here and there that changes are coming. IGN even reported that Jedi Knights will be receiving some new skills, while Bounty Hunters will be receiving a nerf. In fact, entire skill trees are changing so greatly they're actually refunding our skill points for free.

 

However we have yet to see any details about this. With 1.2 being pushed out to early April, it's becoming more difficult for me to remain patient. In particular with the reduction to damage to Scoundrel Scrapper damage, and the relative silence of Bioware to concerns about the classes effectiveness in Operations and PVP. I'm not eager to have to wait another month to find out how classes will be changing to become more balanced, and I'm sure many others are becoming impatient as well.

 

All of the other 1.2 changes and additions sound great so far, but they won't mean much to me if certain classes are still inherently better than others. Let's hear some information about what 1.2 will be doing to classes in particular, and don't skimp on the details.

 

 

APRIL?!?!? WTH wow..I am suppose to deal with the game in it's current state for that long? FFS..

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One thing that I was really hoping would come out of the Guild Summit was more information on what class balances would be taking place in 1.2. There's been some hints here and there that changes are coming. IGN even reported that Jedi Knights will be receiving some new skills, while Bounty Hunters will be receiving a nerf. In fact, entire skill trees are changing so greatly they're actually refunding our skill points for free.

 

However we have yet to see any details about this. With 1.2 being pushed out to early April, it's becoming more difficult for me to remain patient. In particular with the reduction to damage to Scoundrel Scrapper damage, and the relative silence of Bioware to concerns about the classes effectiveness in Operations and PVP. I'm not eager to have to wait another month to find out how classes will be changing to become more balanced, and I'm sure many others are becoming impatient as well.

 

All of the other 1.2 changes and additions sound great so far, but they won't mean much to me if certain classes are still inherently better than others. Let's hear some information about what 1.2 will be doing to classes in particular, and don't skimp on the details.

 

We'll see what happens with a PTS. Of course, without premades / character copies, a PTS for balance issues would be worthless.

 

That said, I actually think the balance in this game is pretty good.

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APRIL?!?!? WTH wow..I am suppose to deal with the game in it's current state for that long? FFS..

 

Yep, April. I was a bit shocked myself. I had originally been thinking they'd hit early March. I guess they really want to make sure all the bugs are gone.

 

We'll see what happens with a PTS. Of course, without premades / character copies, a PTS for balance issues would be worthless.

 

That said, I actually think the balance in this game is pretty good.

 

That's true. Though they are planning to import some guilds manually to the PTS. Still, even without directly playing, having a set of patch notes will go some ways to addressing concerns. (Or...not addressing them, if there are no major changes.)

 

Trooper/Consular/Inquisitor/Bounty Hunter all seem fairly balanced. Knight/Warrior/Agent/Smuggler can feel a bit lacking. I suspect this is partly because these classes are the only ones that have a pure "Damage" specialization.

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Quite a pickle BioWare is in. If they work extra long to make sure their content is solid, people complain. If BioWare puts out content without taking extra time to make sure the content is solid, people complain.

 

Actually I wouldn't call it a pickle. I'd call it a catch. ;)

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I guess they really want to make sure all the bugs are gone.

 

Replace "bugs" with "customers" and I think you'll be closer to the truth. People playing horribly unbalanced classes (Operatives and Scoundrels, especially) aren't likely to stick around for an extra month in the hopes of getting a fix, especially since they haven't told us what any of the fixes will be. This isn't a single-player game where you can just mothball it for a month until a big patch comes out to fix it; we're paying monthly subscriptions here and once we stop paying, we're not coming back.

 

While I can understand them wanting to take as much time as needed to get everything the way they want it, they really shouldn't have held back on the fixes like they are now. For instance, take the Force Bending double-cast issue; they know there's a massive problem, they've said they've fixed it for 1.2... and yet we're going to have to spend another month with it affecting the game, when they could have added that fix to 1.1.4 or 1.1.5.

 

And delaying their big patch to April has two other downsides I can see:

> More chance that betas (or at least more info) will come out for potential competitors like GW2, encouraging unhappy players to jump ship

> Most players bought the game between mid-December and early January. One free month and a 3-month subscription puts you in mid-April to early May. So if someone's not happy with the announced changes at first glance, they're not going to have any time to try things out to see if the game has actually improved before it's time to decide whether to pay forty bucks for another 3 months.

 

But what's done is done, they're not going to move the timetable up now. At best, they could make a 1.1.6 patch on the PTS that starts the process, making some changes now and hinting at what is coming.

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Quite a pickle BioWare is in. If they work extra long to make sure their content is solid, people complain. If BioWare puts out content without taking extra time to make sure the content is solid, people complain.

 

Actually I wouldn't call it a pickle. I'd call it a catch. ;)

 

It's always a challenge, especially with a game where customers expect constant updates, to maintain a consistent quality and quantity on a regular basis. That said, I would expect that Bioware would have had it easy to make timely content updates within their first six months. I can understand a delay to early April. If 1.2 takes till the end of April however, I will be wondering what set them so far back from their original March release date

 

I would rather wait a month with a stable game than have a rushed patch that makes the game unstable for the next 2 months.

 

After running into the many bugs with Eternity Vault, Taris causing computer lockdowns, and other issues, I'm inclined to agree.

 

Right now, I'm just asking for some more information about what 1.2 will have beyond all the new features coming down the pipe. How will my characters be affected by the skill tree changes? If I'm not satisfied with how a class performs, should I expect improvement, or am I just wasting my time and should find a different class?

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APRIL?!?!? WTH wow..I am suppose to deal with the game in it's current state for that long? FFS..

 

Yeah! I am sick of waiting to play my monk! How many times are you going to push diablo 3 back? I- What? Oh. Wrong forums.

 

 

 

video game stuff is always being delayed.

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Replace "bugs" with "customers" and I think you'll be closer to the truth. People playing horribly unbalanced classes (Operatives and Scoundrels, especially) aren't likely to stick around for an extra month in the hopes of getting a fix, especially since they haven't told us what any of the fixes will be. This isn't a single-player game where you can just mothball it for a month until a big patch comes out to fix it; we're paying monthly subscriptions here and once we stop paying, we're not coming back.

 

While I can understand them wanting to take as much time as needed to get everything the way they want it, they really shouldn't have held back on the fixes like they are now. For instance, take the Force Bending double-cast issue; they know there's a massive problem, they've said they've fixed it for 1.2... and yet we're going to have to spend another month with it affecting the game, when they could have added that fix to 1.1.4 or 1.1.5.

 

And delaying their big patch to April has two other downsides I can see:

> More chance that betas (or at least more info) will come out for potential competitors like GW2, encouraging unhappy players to jump ship

> Most players bought the game between mid-December and early January. One free month and a 3-month subscription puts you in mid-April to early May. So if someone's not happy with the announced changes at first glance, they're not going to have any time to try things out to see if the game has actually improved before it's time to decide whether to pay forty bucks for another 3 months.

 

But what's done is done, they're not going to move the timetable up now. At best, they could make a 1.1.6 patch on the PTS that starts the process, making some changes now and hinting at what is coming.

 

I pretty much agree. I do think a lot more could have been done with the weekly patches, and right now a great many things are being held back for 1.2. I understand the reasoning, especially from a marketing point of view. 1.1 was rather tiny compared to everything they have planned for 1.2.

 

Personally, I'm hoping the next thing on PTS will be Update 1.2. Apparently people at the Guild Summit are playing it right now, so why not let the masses play with it too? Or at least start playing with part of it.

 

It's a little disappointing to have to wait till the end of next week for the next Q&A answers as well, but generally the info in those is more fluff than substance.

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I am shocked that BW released a game that requires a full skill reset within 4 months. I had much higher expectations for Bioware and the fact that this game was in development and beta testing for so long.

 

This game has legs to stand on and I don't see it failing completely but I do believe that the 6 month subscription level will be a huge disappointment to EA.

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I am shocked that BW released a game that requires a full skill reset within 4 months. I had much higher expectations for Bioware and the fact that this game was in development and beta testing for so long.

 

This game has legs to stand on and I don't see it failing completely but I do believe that the 6 month subscription level will be a huge disappointment to EA.

 

Not just the full skill reset (though we don't know how severe yet), but also the major changes that were done to buff stacking in warzones, and the changes to surge. With as long time they had in development, one would expect that certain things like that would require only small tweaks after launch. Instead we've seen major shifts within the first three months.

 

Perhaps after 1.2, we'll see only small tweaks and changes when discussing stats and skills, but that is anyone's guess.

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In fact, entire skill trees are changing so greatly they're actually refunding our skill points for free.

 

I'm not really sure getting a free skill point reset means all that much. It's already free to reset your skills for most people. (remember, it increases each time you reset, but if it's been 7 days or more since the last reset, the cost resets back to 0)

 

That being said, removing a single skill would probably require resetting the trees anyways, at least for all those who put any points into that skill. It could be (and probably was) the point that unlocked a higher level of skills, so they can't just free up that one skills points.

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I'm not really sure getting a free skill point reset means all that much. It's already free to reset your skills for most people. (remember, it increases each time you reset, but if it's been 7 days or more since the last reset, the cost resets back to 0)

 

That being said, removing a single skill would probably require resetting the trees anyways, at least for all those who put any points into that skill. It could be (and probably was) the point that unlocked a higher level of skills, so they can't just free up that one skills points.

 

It may not be that big of a change. In terms of class balance, I don't think many large changes are required. That said, Jedi Knights are supposedly getting a new skill, which may be considered a large change.

 

 

(Heh. I should stop making threads in general discussion. Topics move so fast, and threads fall off the first page so quickly.)

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I have gotten to the point where this game has become a past time for me til GW2 comes out. It's sad too. I have been following this game since day 1 when the forums launched for this game in '08. Don't get me wrong, I like the game plenty. The balance getting pushed back to April ticked me off. Not a huge deal, but I expected BW to have their biz in order, and they didn't.
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Quite a pickle BioWare is in. If they work extra long to make sure their content is solid, people complain. If BioWare puts out content without taking extra time to make sure the content is solid, people complain.

 

Actually I wouldn't call it a pickle. I'd call it a catch. ;)

 

I wouldn't call it either. I'd call it 100% par for the course with the MMORPG player crowd and proof of Lincoln's famous "you can please some of the people all the time and yuo can please all the people some of the time, but you can't lpeaase all the people all the time." The corollary to all of that, of course, is that some people can never be pleased. EVER. And THEY will be the most vocal of all because they view the world as against them and live in a constant victimhood echo chamber bubble where every single little slight theyfeel to their wants and desires is another confirmation that everyone and everything is out to screw them.

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It may not be that big of a change. In terms of class balance, I don't think many large changes are required. That said, Jedi Knights are supposedly getting a new skill, which may be considered a large change.

 

 

(Heh. I should stop making threads in general discussion. Topics move so fast, and threads fall off the first page so quickly.)

 

I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb and guess that they're getting a REPLACEMENT new skill and will not have one extra skill compared to everyone else. We'll just have to wait and see though I suppose. I'm also assuming that you keep saying "Jedi Knight" but also mean "Sith Warrior"...after all, it's supposed to be for balance.

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I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb and guess that they're getting a REPLACEMENT new skill and will not have one extra skill compared to everyone else. We'll just have to wait and see though I suppose. I'm also assuming that you keep saying "Jedi Knight" but also mean "Sith Warrior"...after all, it's supposed to be for balance.

 

 

Yep. Jedi Knight was just specifically mentioned in the IGN news story. I would expect Sith Warrior to receive the same treatment.

 

It may be a replacement skill. I'm not actually sure. Do all classes have the exact same amount of skills?

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I have gotten to the point where this game has become a past time for me til GW2 comes out. It's sad too. I have been following this game since day 1 when the forums launched for this game in '08. Don't get me wrong, I like the game plenty. The balance getting pushed back to April ticked me off. Not a huge deal, but I expected BW to have their biz in order, and they didn't.

 

Do you really believe GW2 won't have many of the same growing pains?

 

I'm looking forward to GW2 as well, but I have no illusions that the game will be flawless or anything close.

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There are balance adjustments to all classes in Game Update 1.2.

 

Details should be available as soon as 1.2 hits the Public Test Server.

 

I will abstain from discussing details before that happens for the simple fact that without having the big picture (e.g. the sum of all changes), discussion is moot.

 

-- Georg

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There are balance adjustments to all classes in Game Update 1.2.

 

Details should be available as soon as 1.2 hits the Public Test Server.

 

I will abstain from discussing details before that happens for the simple fact that without having the big picture (e.g. the sum of all changes), discussion is moot.

 

-- Georg

 

Thanks for the response Georg. Can you answer how soon is soon for 1.2 being on the PTS?

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There are balance adjustments to all classes in Game Update 1.2.

 

Details should be available as soon as 1.2 hits the Public Test Server.

 

I will abstain from discussing details before that happens for the simple fact that without having the big picture (e.g. the sum of all changes), discussion is moot.

 

-- Georg

 

This is the kind of thing that will drive subscribers away in a hurry. I already suffered through the SWG Combat Balance/Combat Upgrade/Combat Revamp and then the NGE. I watched as all of my items were "balanced" several times over. I was forced to "respec" upon logging in how many times?

 

Have we already forgotten why the previous MMO with the Star Wars IP failed? Let me repeat that again. A MMO with the STAR WARS IP. FAILED. MISERABLY. Remember why? Should we just start working on another EMU?

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This is the kind of thing that will drive subscribers away in a hurry. I already suffered through the SWG Combat Balance/Combat Upgrade/Combat Revamp and then the NGE. I watched as all of my items were "balanced" several times over. I was forced to "respec" upon logging in how many times?

 

Have we already forgotten why the previous MMO with the Star Wars IP failed? Let me repeat that again. A MMO with the STAR WARS IP. FAILED. MISERABLY. Remember why? Should we just start working on another EMU?

Name a single MMO that balance has not been an ongoing issue in, particularly class-based games. Your abilities will change over time, this is not only the nature of playing MMOs but basically the nature of playing any game online.

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