I was reading the recent community Q&A and found the following section to be of interest -

Gangawolf: I am curious about the cost of repairing gear, particularly in the end-game. When I die, I find that the cost to repair my Bounty Hunter's gear is just under half what if costs my Jedi Consular (and they are similarly geared in terms of level of gear). Likewise, my Smuggler falls somewhere in between the two. Again, not a scientific sampling, but it seems like heavy armor sets are cheaper to repair than medium armor sets which in turn are cheaper than light armor sets. Why wouldn't repair costs be the same across the board for similar level gear?

 

Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer): Repair costs are tied to the percentage of durability your items have lost (in addition to item level and quality). Currently heavy armor has a higher durability score than medium or light armor, so it degrades more slowly in combat and it is thus cheaper to repair over time. This was put in place fairly early in development to give tanks a bit of a break on their repair costs (back before we had lightly-armored Shadow/Assassin tanks). With the introduction of Adaptive Armor in Game Update 1.3 this design decision is definitely getting dated, so there’s a good chance we will normalize the durability of all armor types in a future update.

My issue with this is (unless I'm missing something) that now we can no longer exit area during combat in an Operation everyone dies at more or less the same time, unless they can go stealth in mid-combat.

The point being that Tanks are no longer in a position whereby they are taking a significantly greater durability hit by virtue of dying more often than the rest of the Op therefore a normalisation should go hand in hand with removal of "Exit Area" in mid combat in an Op.

In short....please switch it back on

Why would you exit an operation during combat? Between bosses yes, in combat no.

You exit area if it becomes clear that you are about to Wipe, it saves time and repair costs.

An example of this might be if both healers are dead, the tank can keep going for a short time while everyone else gets out.

You exit area if it becomes clear that you are about to Wipe, it saves time and repair costs.

 

An example of this might be if both healers are dead, the tank can keep going for a short time while everyone else gets out.

It's a team effort. The Op group is a whole. If even one part of the team fails, the whole team should fail.

It's a team effort. The Op group is a whole. If even one part of the team fails, the whole team should fail.

This is besides the point, however I would argue that the if exiting an area saves time (and it does) then the whole team benefits more than if people incur costs and time hits unnecessarily.

You may not be able to exit area anymore but you can do a /stuck and it will kill you automatically. so you don't have to wait to die or if you are stuck in the mind traps on SOA and your group wipes.

You are quite right of course, my understanding however, is that you incur item damage when doing this (I'm not 100% on that though).

This is besides the point, however I would argue that the if exiting an area saves time (and it does) then the whole team benefits more than if people incur costs and time hits unnecessarily.

That was not beside the point. Risk vs. Reward is a VERY LARGE point. DPS and healers being in the position to jump out quick and easy removes a lot of the risk.

This is besides the point, however I would argue that the if exiting an area saves time (and it does) then the whole team benefits more than if people incur costs and time hits unnecessarily.

You're in a fight and shouldn't be able to leave the area during that fight. It's just like in WZ's people who commit to the queue shouldn't be able to leave without getting a debuff before the game has finished!

Its folks who think leaving an area during combat is ok that had the vendors removed from WZ's because they were using them as their personal vendor dump/repair unit and then leaving WZ's straight away meaning that teams had less players at the start.

Exploiting a game mechanic is exploiting and if they're fixing it... good on 'em!

That was not beside the point. Risk vs. Reward is a VERY LARGE point. DPS and healers being in the position to jump out quick and easy removes a lot of the risk.

Now we are almost on point. My Original point is driven by the fact that those in heavier armour incur lower repair costs and thus do not take an even split of risk for the same reward. I don't know the stats for sure but if someone in heavy armour takes half the amount of item damage for dying then it can be argued that him taking a death while those in lighter armour escape is something of a balance.

Why would you exit an operation during combat? Between bosses yes, in combat no.

Clearly you don't do many Ops!

That was not beside the point. Risk vs. Reward is a VERY LARGE point. DPS and healers being in the position to jump out quick and easy removes a lot of the risk.

There's no more risk involved.

There's just a larger degree of time sink involved. The risk is still the same.

You're in a fight and shouldn't be able to leave the area during that fight. It's just like in WZ's people who commit to the queue shouldn't be able to leave without getting a debuff before the game has finished!

 

Its folks who think leaving an area during combat is ok that had the vendors removed from WZ's because they were using them as their personal vendor dump/repair unit and then leaving WZ's straight away meaning that teams had less players at the start.

 

Exploiting a game mechanic is exploiting and if they're fixing it... good on 'em!

I don't PVP much so have never really encountered that problem, not something I know enough about to comment on. I'm not certain this counts as what I might call an "exploit" like say credit duping for example because that is something that has damaging and far reaching effects. This issue is really about an unnecessary waste of time as much as a disproportionate credit sink and I'm not convinced that the game is in any way well served by the change.

I don't PVP much so have never really encountered that problem, not something I know enough about to comment on. I'm not certain this counts as what I might call an "exploit" like say credit duping for example because that is something that has damaging and far reaching effects. This issue is really about an unnecessary waste of time as much as a disproportionate credit sink and I'm not convinced that the game is in any way well served by the change.

Everyone knows that if you're planning on doing an HM FP/Ops run, you need to set aside time to do it. You can't have it both ways "Oh we're wiping better activate the 'exit area' thing now.... I've been in situations where the boss has been down to the very last lot of it's health and two DPS have kited until its dead with me healing them. Yes that would normally consist of a wipe but wipes are part of running OPs/HM.

If you're worried about time sinks then you guys should go back to the days of EQ and FFXI, especially the latter where practically everything had to be done as a group and you'd be forced to engage in the economy and other social activities until you could find a group In FFXI I used to earn money teleporting people around the world as there were no main flightpaths ready made, you'd have to get ships with connections and long times waiting on board those ships to reach their destinations.

In fact, the only way to get out of an area mid battle would be to have a black mage on your team with "Escape" once cast the entire team would be ported out to the enterance Maybe Smuggler or another class should get an ability like that but a mechanic that's supposed to be used when a FP has been defeated to make it easier on players should only be used for the purpose in which it was designed.

Everyone knows that if you're planning on doing an HM FP/Ops run, you need to set aside time to do it. You can't have it both ways "Oh we're wiping better activate the 'exit area' thing now.... I've been in situations where the boss has been down to the very last lot of it's health and two DPS have kited until its dead with me healing them. Yes that would normally consist of a wipe but wipes are part of running OPs/HM.

 

If you're worried about time sinks then you guys should go back to the days of EQ and FFXI, especially the latter where practically everything had to be done as a group and you'd be forced to engage in the economy and other social activities until you could find a group In FFXI I used to earn money teleporting people around the world as there were no main flightpaths ready made, you'd have to get ships with connections and long times waiting on board those ships to reach their destinations.

 

In fact, the only way to get out of an area mid battle would be to have a black mage on your team with "Escape" once cast the entire team would be ported out to the enterance Maybe Smuggler or another class should get an ability like that but a mechanic that's supposed to be used when a FP has been defeated to make it easier on players should only be used for the purpose in which it was designed.

I'm not convinced by your argument. It seems as though you are saying two things -

1. Because things use to be a certain way then we shouldn't suggest they be different now, I used to play EQ and now I play SWTOR with my son and frankly Id rather have our time spent doing more of the good stuff and less of the bad for my time commitment. (Don't worry, we go outside and play football together too)

2. That because this mechanic had another intention it should not be considered useful and cannot by definition be considered "good" for another purpose.

Apologies if I have misunderstood the thrust of your point here.

I would petition the devs to add the ability to exit area from OPS back into the game with one alteration.... make it so that if you exit area DURING COMBAT ONLY that it degrades your armor condition the appropriate amount as if you had been killed anyway.

This will speed up the process of resetting when a wipe is known to be imminent and no circumvention of game mechanics will occur.

I would petition the devs to add the ability to exit area from OPS back into the game with one alteration.... make it so that if you exit area DURING COMBAT ONLY that it degrades your armor condition the appropriate amount as if you had been killed anyway.

 

This will speed up the process of resetting when a wipe is known to be imminent and no circumvention of game mechanics will occur.

This seems reasonable, although I think that until they have normalised the repair cost disparity between armour types that it should be put back in place as was. Otherwise there is little difference between this to using the /stuck command to get out fast and still take the durability hit (I'm told this is the case but have never actually done it).

seriously folks? This seems like such a completely irrelevant issue - are you people actually saying you CARE about the amount of money it costs you to repair your armour? Seriously? Money has zero meaning in this game given you can generate cash so quickly doing dailies or any other number of activities.

Wow, get your priorities straight

so you lose a few minutes in an ops because you can't 'exit area' - who cares?

You have to pay to get your amour repaired - who cares?

You should be mad at the silly amount of travel time it takes to get anywhere in this game INCLUDING to the ops starting points and in ops run back to the bosses AFTER you wipe

I don't want devs spending 2 minutes trying to 'fix' this given the wackload of serious game breaking problems they should be focusing on

seriously folks? This seems like such a completely irrelevant issue - are you people actually saying you CARE about the amount of money it costs you to repair your armour? Seriously? Money has zero meaning in this game given you can generate cash so quickly doing dailies or any other number of activities.

Wow, get your priorities straight

so you lose a few minutes in an ops because you can't 'exit area' - who cares?

You have to pay to get your amour repaired - who cares?

 

You should be mad at the silly amount of travel time it takes to get anywhere in this game INCLUDING to the ops starting points and in ops run back to the bosses AFTER you wipe

 

I don't want devs spending 2 minutes trying to 'fix' this given the wackload of serious game breaking problems they should be focusing on

Well it's clearly irrelevant to you but since this is the only post of its nature amongst all the other replies I'm guessing that other people decided it wasn't irrelevant either.

With regards to money being of no value I think it's relative, I don't get lots of playtime and therefore have difficulty finding time to do lots of dallies or play the market to generate cash, I have a wife, a job, a child and indeed, other hobbies. So, to me, money is of value. For the very same reasons, time is of high value to me.

I understand your personal preference being that developers spend time working on things that are important to you, but don't I have the same rights as you?

On the matter of travel times I think we agree, although I think that you should probably start your own thread on that matter rather than use this one to voice your own particular concerns.

thanks for contributing though.

You wipe, you die, you have to pay repair bill. This is how wipe works. Exit area intended use isn't preventing repair bills, so BW disabled this, just as they disabled vendors in WZ. If they wanted to give you opoprtunity to not die, each time boss kills someone there would be popup "Someone just died, it could be wipe, do you want to run away screaming like a little girl?"

I actually quite like the idea of a "Wipe button".

A compromise that is not too dissimilar to something someone suggested earlier in the thread might be a "Wipe button" that ports everyone out of the instance but you still take a durability hit.

The trouble with the situation when you know a raid is going to wipe is that you often have to wait for the boss to get around to killing you, your alternatives are to simply hit him ineffectually (if enough of your team are dead) while you wait to be killed or to /stuck (Not that I've attempted this, I'm told its effective though)

Equally, The durability hit isn't the problem, it's the fact that it is different for different armour types and my suggestion was to switch back on the "exit area button" until they have normalised this.

 

If you're worried about time sinks then you guys should go back to the days of EQ and FFXI, especially the latter where practically everything had to be done as a group and you'd be forced to engage in the economy and other social activities until you could find a group In FFXI I used to earn money teleporting people around the world as there were no main flightpaths ready made, you'd have to get ships with connections and long times waiting on board those ships to reach their destinations.

 

you leave Vana 'Diel out of this!

tele-whore...

Must admit there are plenty of times where the "Exit Area" button is nice and helpful and I'm not sure how avoiding repair bills is a bad thing especially if they are not distributed disproportionatley.

Especially considering that crappy Enrage mechanics often makes it pointless to carry on trying e.g. you lose DPS early in the fight - theres no reason the rest of the group had to die apart from the fact that you'll hit the Enrage timer. Exit Area was handy.

Ah well c'est la vie

It's a team effort. The Op group is a whole. If even one part of the team fails, the whole team should fail.

Hmm then when you die in PVP you should have repair cost. Its a group effort if one your team fails to kill the opposing player he or she should have to pay repair cost you did die after all. not to mention that you should also loose valor when you die in PVP.