Hello everyone,

Please discuss this week's Community Q&A blog in this thread!

Esendis: Can we expect some kind of change to the current pve relics? As it stands now the BIS pve relics for many advanced classes are the pvp ones.

 

Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer): In the long run our intent is to make sure PvP gear is never competitive in end-game PvE situations. Unfortunately, it’s still too early in the design process for us to give an ETA or release any details on what we’re planning for PvP gear.

 

We currently have no plans to change the PvE relics. In theory the active abilities on the PvE relics do not provide quite as much sustained damage-per-second as a passive relic at the same item level. In practice, when used at the correct time they can deliver a huge amount of damage when you actually need it, and can make you much more effective overall. This is especially true when the relic is paired with powerful cooldowns or burst damage attacks. This is the primary reason we changed the PvP relics into passive relics, as skilled players could wipe out their opponents much more quickly than intended, and nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back. On the PvE side we decided to keep that extra bit of gameplay, since it helps break up rotations and adds a extra little optimization element to damage dealing in boss fights.

sounds like they are nerfing PvP relics, since they have no plans of making PvE relics better than current PvP ones.

the only classes that would want to use on use relics are tanks and healers, unless you are dpsing in phases like soa phase 3 or kephess walker/bombadeer.

What was the reason for the delay for those answers.

Nothing there seems very indepth or new. Given the delay I was thinking there was something big that was going to be answered and need more time.

What was the reason for the delay for those answers.

 

Nothing there seems very indepth or new. Given the delay I was thinking there was something big that was going to be answered and need more time.

I doubt it this is at the top of their list of things to do each week - or someone that had to sign off on it was sick on Friday

White crystals were BoP and 2.5 million credits pre-1.2, and should they become craftable I'd prefer if they remained BoP and had a material/time/difficulty cost associated with creating them that reflected their previous sale price. Purple crystals are easy to come by, just run HM EV and grab any columi weapon token from Gharj or Soa.

I'm looking forward to the change to upcoming item sets' stat allocation. Maybe I'll finally be able to min/max without holding onto my rakata shells finally. You can only take so much of looking like a cybernetic ladybug.

I'm also liking their stance on PvE relics. It gives players more options to choose from fight-to-fight. For instance as dps I use an activated relic for Toth & Zorn, the minefield, and Kephess while I use 2 passive relics for Stormcaller & Firebrand.

Not liking the idea of constant class tweaks. It's bad enough learning a new rotation every couple of months when a new content patch comes out, having to adjust rotations to 'tweaks' every week or two is going to overcomplicate things. And with Bioware's track record of breaking something for every 'fix' they make, the servers will be offline for maintenance constantly.

the only classes that would want to use on use relics are tanks and healers, unless you are dpsing in phases like soa phase 3 or kephess walker/bombadeer.

During Toth and Zorn an activated relic during Toth's berserk phase is higher dps than 2 passives as a ranged dps because you can stand still through the duration while during Zorn's phase you're moving quite a bit anyway.

The minefield you may or may not want the additional burst from an activated relic for the first/third droids and then the boss as suits your preference. Personally for that fight I use a relic on the first, then adrenal on the second, then the relic again on the third or fourth, then both on the boss and come out slightly ahead of 2 passive relics.

Are there any plans on making Purple, Cyan, White crystals craftable by Artifice?

 

Jason: We don’t currently have any plans to make those colors craft-able. This might change in the future, but even if we introduce crafting schematics for them we intend for those lightsaber colors (especially White) to remain relatively rare.

Really? You want purple to be rare so that only some people can have it, yet more than half of the mobs/NPCs I see while leveling on the empire side have purple color crystals? Come on, I run into sith marauder NPCs half my level that run around with 2 purple crystals! For a game that so highly touts character customization, why all of the arbitrary restrictions on color crystals? If people want white and purple, let them have it! And let artifice craft them for crying out loud. These ridiculous restrictions don't make any sense.

Really? You want purple to be rare so that only some people can have it, yet more than half of the mobs/NPCs I see while leveling on the empire side have purple color crystals? Come on, I run into sith marauder NPCs half my level that run around with 2 purple crystals! For a game that so highly touts character customization, why all of the arbitrary restrictions on color crystals? If people want white and purple, let them have it! And let artifice craft them for crying out loud. These ridiculous restrictions don't make any sense.

It's that way because they're status items. Pretty much all games have them. Live with it.

It's that way because they're status items. Pretty much all games have them. Live with it.

I like how they misled us about the purple crystals in the Sith Inquisitor videos pre launch.

I didn't really like the relic answer. I mean that's fine if they want us to trend towards on use relics for PVE, but the fact is PVP is now BIS. Maybe that will change, but it doesn't give much insight into why it is this way today. Introducing a PVE relic with stats like the War Hero and then having an activated PVE relic as an alternative would make more sense.

Seems like an easy fix to just release a new PVE relic with the same stats at the War Hero PVP ones. That can't take long, right?

What was the reason for the delay for those answers.

 

Nothing there seems very indepth or new. Given the delay I was thinking there was something big that was going to be answered and need more time.

Replacing questions answered by the people that have been let out by the people still in.

That being said:

Sang: Several months ago class balance changes were made at a smaller and more frequent rate, however, since 1.2 all class balance changes have been made within or around the major game updates (1.2 and 1.3). Will this pattern of class balance changes occurring every few months within the major game updates continue or will we see a return to some more frequent, albeit smaller, changes?

 

Austin: In the weeks immediately following launch, we had planned and scheduled for as much bug fixing and emergent balancing as possible, and faster class/balance updates were more feasible as a result. Smaller, more frequent class changes proved to have an overall positive impact on the game, so yes, we hope to get back into that kind of rhythm soon.

Not to question the size and frequency of the updates, though seems to me the feedback on class "balance" hasn't been really positive on how you tweaked the classes.

White crystals were BoP and 2.5 million credits pre-1.2, and should they become craftable I'd prefer if they remained BoP and had a material/time/difficulty cost associated with creating them that reflected their previous sale price. Purple crystals are easy to come by, just run HM EV and grab any columi weapon token from Gharj or Soa.

Republic Columi weapons have a cyan crystal. Guess that goes better with their potato sack armor

Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer): In the long run our intent is to make sure PvP gear is never competitive in end-game PvE situations. Unfortunately, it’s still too early in the design process for us to give an ETA or release any details on what we’re planning for PvP gear.

We currently have no plans to change the PvE relics. In theory the active abilities on the PvE relics do not provide quite as much sustained damage-per-second as a passive relic at the same item level. In practice, when used at the correct time they can deliver a huge amount of damage when you actually need it, and can make you much more effective overall. This is especially true when the relic is paired with powerful cooldowns or burst damage attacks. This is the primary reason we changed the PvP relics into passive relics, as skilled players could wipe out their opponents much more quickly than intended, and nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back. On the PvE side we decided to keep that extra bit of gameplay, since it helps break up rotations and adds a extra little optimization element to damage dealing in boss fights.

So seeing as how you have pointed out it's no fun when you don't have a chance to fight back maybe it's about time Mr. Senior Game Balance Designer takes a long hard look at the resolve system and the overwhelming amount of stuns in this game. Not to mention the TTK in relation to those stuns.

I like how they misled us about the purple crystals in the Sith Inquisitor videos pre launch.

Agreed, everyone thought it was going to be:

Warrior - Red

Knight - Blue

Consular - Green

Inquisitor - Purple...

Then they.... In fact i dont know why they changed it, makes no sense

"and nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back."

Man this is contraditory to a lot of things in this game's system.

Resolve makes exactly the opposit of it. Without diminish returns, once you spent the CC breaker, the resolve system makes you die exactly without have a chance to fight back. Specially if you dont have any defensive cooldown and wear a light armor.

Jedi Knights using the rotation of charge, knock back (reset charge), charge again, against sage make's exactly the opposite of what they said they want to do, this stupid rotation makes you die even without take a action.

A class that's paper made and supposed to be a "glass cannon" but cannot survive enough to even begin to do a real damage is exactly the opposite of it.

So such claims of "nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back." seems empty when the own system do not allows it. if you want to people have at least a chance to fight back, bioware need to re-think a lot of stuff.

With resolve the only way this work is the CC breaker ability (specially on classes without defense and/or light armor) have a much lower cooldown, like 60 seconds or else it's a fail this thinking

David Hunt (Systems Designer): It’s an undesired interaction between the distribution of the mods and the move to set bonuses on the armoring. Future gear provides set mods will use the primary stat over Endurance for all DPS classes.

What the hell does that even mean? That's not an answer! That doesn't even make sense!!

Can someone decipher what he's trying to say??

"and nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back."

 

Man this is contraditory to a lot of things in this game's system.

Resolve is indeed a good idea still not that well implemented.

Purple crystals are easy to come by, just run HM EV and grab any columi weapon token from Gharj or Soa.

Empire side only. Absolutely no gaurantee that weapons in future item tiers will have higher rated purple color crystals. Same goes for Republic and Cyan crystals.

Hello everyone,

 

Please discuss this week's Community Q&A blog in this thread!

What is the point in playing a Jedi or a Sith if I can't have a violet lightsaber like Jaina Solo or Mace Windu. >.<

What the hell does that even mean? That's not an answer! That doesn't even make sense!!

 

Can someone decipher what he's trying to say??

Yeah I puzzled over that one... it really doesnt make any sense at all. Total garbage response.

And that bit about not being any fun to not have a chance to fight back... geez has he even played this game?

I can understand and even agree with abilities not resetting on death, but with one exception. The cc breaker ABSOLUTELY should reset. This game is stunwars enough without dealing with that little hell.

What the hell does that even mean? That's not an answer! That doesn't even make sense!!

 

Can someone decipher what he's trying to say??

Its real simple if you followed the patch notes up till now.

Originally, based on the design, certain mods were bound to the item and not the custom mods you can swap - its why on raid armor, older sets have the bonuses attached to the armor. Newer sets have the bonuses attached to the armoring mod, but it had the unexpected side effect of auto-generating mods that were more endurance-focused than class skill-focused.

They'll be correcting that in the future.

But if you don't raid, no surprise the question is over your head - most raiders will get what he said.