Hey everybody,

I've been thinking about this and i wanted to get everyones opinion on it. I've heard from a lot of people that queue times for dps in this game are pretty bad. I havent done any FPs in SWTOR yet, but i've done lots of 5 mans in WoW (mainly as a tank, but also on some of my DPS).

But anyways what do you guys think about going to a 5 man system or maybe even a 6 man grouping system (like in LOTRO)? Would the benefit of lower queue times for dps be worth the change? would if even be affected? should they do it now or wait for the next content push or level cap raise?

Current +2 and +4 heroics can be retuned or left alone, w/e. But the real reason for me suggesting it be done is for the FPs. I'm trying to think of all the changes and it seems like 1 change would lead to other which would lead to others. I know you cant simply add 2 player and everything will be good. Mobs and loot drops will have to be adjusted. Below are just some of the things i can think of that may be affected. Feel free to add your own.

-5 or 6 man party

-increase loot drops or modify loot system

-increase mob hitpoints

-increase damage taken by party?

-increase healer output and/or healer regeneration

-increase player hitpoints?

-pvp unbalanced due to increased healer output and bigger healthpool?

-add buff that increases player damage in pvp environments XX.X% to counteract increased healer output

-adjust OP's to 18/20/24/25 man group

-adjust OP mobs

- ....

-create time machine

-go back in time to when SWTOR was in the planning phase

-tell developers to go with a 5 or 6 man party system instead

but anyways what do you guys think?

I agree...worst idea having a 4 man grp. By adding another spot for dps would be all positives.

Except that then the tanks and healers would have to deal with another DPS, which is the worst part of queuing for randoms and why we never do it.

To be honest, I find this would take more work for no real benefit.

I can see the advantage for dps classes as one extra means dps'ers will have to wait less time on a queue. But everything has been scaled down to groups of 4 people. Increasing this would require a whole change of everything. Ok, i'm not a programmer or anything so I have no idea how much work actually needs to be invested in such an endeavour.

I have a dps, it's a long wait indeed but that's where the social bit of the game comes in a bit. It's not about just sitting and waiting for the queue but contacting people, using friends and guilds and maybe even that random stranger you meet to form up a 4 man group and go on a flashpoint, heroic, operation, etc...

Also, they are testing out a neutral-role queue on the PTS so lets first see how that goes. If they can manage to introduce a neutral role queue up then no dps will be left behind anymore (except maybe with being the last 3 in the queue, tough luck then )

To be honest, I find this would take more work for no real benefit.

 

I can see the advantage for dps classes as one extra means dps'ers will have to wait less time on a queue. But everything has been scaled down to groups of 4 people. Increasing this would require a whole change of everything. Ok, i'm not a programmer or anything so I have no idea how much work actually needs to be invested in such an endeavour.

 

I have a dps, it's a long wait indeed but that's where the social bit of the game comes in a bit. It's not about just sitting and waiting for the queue but contacting people, using friends and guilds and maybe even that random stranger you meet to form up a 4 man group and go on a flashpoint, heroic, operation, etc...

 

Also, they are testing out a neutral-role queue on the PTS so lets first see how that goes. If they can manage to introduce a neutral role queue up then no dps will be left behind anymore (except maybe with being the last 3 in the queue, tough luck then )

Thats why i suggested it be done during a content release where they raise our level cap again. A lot of things will get re-adjusted when the cap gets raised...talents, abilities, pvp, pve all have to be rebalanced if we were to go from 55 to 60. In addition they would just have to rebalance for the new group size. If they manage to do it all right, then it should hardly be noticeable. When you gain 5 levels all you know is you hit harder, you heal more, and you have more hp. Would you really notice if your stats were retuned to 5-6 mans if we went to 60?

Look at how much WoW stats have change over the years. I dont think all of the changes were good a idea, but health pools were in the single thousands in vanilla, then 10-24k for TBC, Wrath i think it went to 33k, then 80-100k, now with Pandas you have dps sitting at 300-400k health pools with tanks at 500-600k. The numbers might be off, but the point is look at how the numbers increase with each expac. Not to mention in vanilla they were changing instance sizes and whatnot in the middle of vanilla. Just from what i've heard, one of the instances used to be 15 man (UBRS) but then it got retuned to 10 man. I was only there for the 10man, so i cant verify the 15 man part. but there was a change during vanilla that affected group sizes for the dungeons (WoWs equivalent of an FP). But i do know that there were also raids, meant for 20 man groups and 40 man groups. In TBC they went down to 10 man and 25 mans. And also in Pandaland they've been doing scenarios which dont require specific roles. Their reasons for going from 20/40 to 10/25 may have been different. But i was just using all the above examples to show that is has been done before.

4 man is fine.

5-6 man would force them to rebalance all the content. That takes a ton of time. Time during which they could be making new content instead.

If DPS are pained by long queues, perhaps they should take matters into their own hands and roll & learn how to tank or heal. I know it's the obvious answer but it's really the best solution.

Heck, that would even make them better DPS!

4 man is fine.

 

5-6 man would force them to rebalance all the content. That takes a ton of time. Time during which they could be making new content instead.

 

If DPS are pained by long queues, perhaps they should take matters into their own hands and roll & learn how to tank or heal. I know it's the obvious answer but it's really the best solution.

 

Heck, that would even make them better DPS!

this.

if you don't like long queue times as a DPS..then make a healer or tank. simple as that. Every brainless person can DerPS (yes I mainly DPS..but I do have tank and heal characters too)...

they have to wait so long because most DPS players are lazy and just want to mash buttons and kill stuff..so there is a TON of them around.

increasing the group size really wouldn't alleviate this much, if at all...just means more DerPS would be around

again..if you want shorter queue times...roll a tank and/or healer. If you choose to DPS and take the brainless route (which again, is what I mainly do so I'm talking about myself as much as anyone else) then deal with the queue times

Thats why i suggested it be done during a content release where they raise our level cap again. A lot of things will get re-adjusted when the cap gets raised...talents, abilities, pvp, pve all have to be rebalanced if we were to go from 55 to 60. In addition they would just have to rebalance for the new group size. If they manage to do it all right, then it should hardly be noticeable. When you gain 5 levels all you know is you hit harder, you heal more, and you have more hp. Would you really notice if your stats were retuned to 5-6 mans if we went to 60?

 

Look at how much WoW stats have change over the years. I dont think all of the changes were good a idea, but health pools were in the single thousands in vanilla, then 10-24k for TBC, Wrath i think it went to 33k, then 80-100k, now with Pandas you have dps sitting at 300-400k health pools with tanks at 500-600k. The numbers might be off, but the point is look at how the numbers increase with each expac. Not to mention in vanilla they were changing instance sizes and whatnot in the middle of vanilla. Just from what i've heard, one of the instances used to be 15 man (UBRS) but then it got retuned to 10 man. I was only there for the 10man, so i cant verify the 15 man part. but there was a change during vanilla that affected group sizes for the dungeons (WoWs equivalent of an FP). But i do know that there were also raids, meant for 20 man groups and 40 man groups. In TBC they went down to 10 man and 25 mans. And also in Pandaland they've been doing scenarios which dont require specific roles. Their reasons for going from 20/40 to 10/25 may have been different. But i was just using all the above examples to show that is has been done before.

It might have been done before for reasons we don't know specifically but the question remains: Is it worth doing it here?

You mentioned scenario's in WoW, that I would like to see here. I've played WAR when it was released and I loved the Public Quests where everyone can just jump in and join the fight and where your loot was awarded through a roll system but with a bonus depending on how much effort you put in defeating the Public Quest. I'd love to see such a thing come to TOR, either in the form of open Public Quests or like WoW with scenario's for which you queue up, and for all I care they may change the required number of people to 5/10/20/...

4 man is fine.

 

5-6 man would force them to rebalance all the content. That takes a ton of time. Time during which they could be making new content instead.

 

If DPS are pained by long queues, perhaps they should take matters into their own hands and roll & learn how to tank or heal. I know it's the obvious answer but it's really the best solution.

 

Heck, that would even make them better DPS!

I dont think they should do it here and now, a lot more work would need to be done. On the other hand if they waited for a gear reset or level cap raise they could kinda just 'sneak' the changes in there, along with all the other changes that normally come with level cap raises.

Also, i dont believe in the solution "if queue times are too long roll a tank or healer". If the queue times are too long, then they need to be made shorter (sadly easier said then done). The non-role system seems to be a step in the right direction. WoW Pandaland expac has 'scenarios' which lets any 3 people queue up regardless of role. Personally though i didnt like the scenario system...they were all too easy, and when i heard that they were not releasing any more 5 mans and instead were releasing more scenarios that kind bummed me out. But hey! at least my dps queues were instant.

It might have been done before for reasons we don't know specifically but the question remains: Is it worth doing it here?

 

You mentioned scenario's in WoW, that I would like to see here. I've played WAR when it was released and I loved the Public Quests where everyone can just jump in and join the fight and where your loot was awarded through a roll system but with a bonus depending on how much effort you put in defeating the Public Quest. I'd love to see such a thing come to TOR, either in the form of open Public Quests or like WoW with scenario's for which you queue up, and for all I care they may change the required number of people to 5/10/20/...

The scenarios i mentioned actually sound like the 'non-role' system you mentioned in the PTS.

It's an instanced event meant for 3 people, roles dont matter. A lot of the events are actually kinda fun and interactive, but i found them to be a bit too easy. I guess they try to offset the 'easy' part by having all the fun stuff you can do inside of it. It's not a simple dungeon run, kill this pack, CC this, boss time, collect loot. It's hard to describe, but pretty much youtube 'WoW scenarios' if you want to see what it looks like

I dont think they should do it here and now, a lot more work would need to be done. On the other hand if they waited for a gear reset or level cap raise they could kinda just 'sneak' the changes in there, along with all the other changes that normally come with level cap raises.

 

Also, i dont believe in the solution "if queue times are too long roll a tank or healer". If the queue times are too long, then they need to be made shorter (sadly easier said then done). The non-role system seems to be a step in the right direction. WoW Pandaland expac has 'scenarios' which lets any 3 people queue up regardless of role. Personally though i didnt like the scenario system...they were all too easy, and when i heard that they were not releasing any more 5 mans and instead were releasing more scenarios that kind bummed me out. But hey! at least my dps queues were instant.

Why do you think they could "sneak" a complete re-structuring of existing flashpoints in with a gear reset (which they've never done) or a level cap raise? It's still just as much effort, just specifying the timeframe it's in.

I don't want our precious, limited development resources wasted doing that. In the time it would take them to do that, they could produce plenty of new content for us to play.

The devs are already introducing tech for the 2 new flash points coming in 2.3 that lets groups of 4 "any's" do story mode, so that wish of yours is granted. Hard mode? Still needs tank + heal + dps + dps.

If DPS are so opposed to rolling a tank or healer, maybe they should sit back and be very happy about their wait times. I mean, it's a simple trade-off. Do you want to figure out how to tank or heal (which are atrociously easy in this game, trust me, I do plenty of both) or do you want to wait? It's the player's call, totally.

Stated slightly differently, in the immortal words of Kindergarten Cop, "Stop whining!"

Actually for existing HM55 the only change required would be to Add HP to all the mobs/bosses. That is it.

Because we are adding in a 3rd dps class. You take the average dps expected to complete an encounter by the 2 existing dps, then multiply it by .5, and add it to the current health of the boss.

You gotta remember that none of the encounters are really tuned to a specific number of people (FPs not OPs)

So by adding a dps, while you might get another CC off for trash, really all your doing is increasing the total dmg output of your group, therefore yo ujust need more to dmg.

Lets put some numbers to it.

If you tank does 1k dps, and your dps dous 3k dps each, then adding a 3rd dps just means you need to increase HP by 3kdps. So in a situation where a boss had 7mil HP, it is expected that the tank will do 1mil dmg, the other 6 mil dmg come from your 2 dps. Adding a third dps means the Boss needs to have 10mil HP.

Now if you wanted to scale other aspects, like how many healers, thats when you look at dmg output by the boss. So say the output dmg of a boss is 10kdps. The combination of the tank mitigation added to the HPS of the healer should equal roughly 10kdps. So say the tank mitigates 5k, the healer needs to then have a 5k hps.

So by adding a second healer spot, the bosses dps should be raised to 15kdmgs, so that 5k is mitigated by the tank and 10k is healed by the two healers.

One also needs to take into account that by increasing dmg, you dont increase the burst too much, but rather the sustained dmg. This is because if one attack is designed to do 20k dmg, but is only used once every few minutes, players are built to withstand it, but increasing it by 50% to make up for another healer, means 30k hits and players arnt built to withstand that.

Tuning for 2nd tanks is a bit harder as it generally requires unique mechanics that either require multiple bosses to tank, or switching tank agro due to debuffs or whatever the mechanic is. It is the only part that is difficult to rebalance on the fly.

All in all, adding another dps slot is easy, adding another healing slot is doable. Adding another tank slot and you might aswell just spend your time building ops at that point.

Why do you think they could "sneak" a complete re-structuring of existing flashpoints in with a gear reset (which they've never done) or a level cap raise? It's still just as much effort, just specifying the timeframe it's in.

 

I don't want our precious, limited development resources wasted doing that. In the time it would take them to do that, they could produce plenty of new content for us to play.

 

The devs are already introducing tech for the 2 new flash points coming in 2.3 that lets groups of 4 "any's" do story mode, so that wish of yours is granted. Hard mode? Still needs tank + heal + dps + dps.

 

If DPS are so opposed to rolling a tank or healer, maybe they should sit back and be very happy about their wait times. I mean, it's a simple trade-off. Do you want to figure out how to tank or heal (which are atrociously easy in this game, trust me, I do plenty of both) or do you want to wait? It's the player's call, totally.

 

Stated slightly differently, in the immortal words of Kindergarten Cop, "Stop whining!"

OK last things first, i'm not whining...i play almost entirely tanks, and as mentioned i havent even tried running any FPs (yet)...so this isnt an issue for me. The 4 man group concept is just one of the things about SWTOR that made me scratch my head when i first saw it. When i played LOTRO after having played WoW i though "6 people? isnt that bit too much?" but SWTOR goes the other way...i though 4 people? isnt that too little?

I'm looking for a bit more of a discussion then: reroll, stop your QQ, alt+f4, or ohh you know that little button? the one in options? the one that comes up when you hit escape? yah the one at the top? yes it says quit game, just hit that.

Now if you wanted to scale other aspects, like how many healers, thats when you look at dmg output by the boss. So say the output dmg of a boss is 10kdps. The combination of the tank mitigation added to the HPS of the healer should equal roughly 10kdps. So say the tank mitigates 5k, the healer needs to then have a 5k hps.

 

So by adding a second healer spot, the bosses dps should be raised to 15kdmgs, so that 5k is mitigated by the tank and 10k is healed by the two healers.

 

One also needs to take into account that by increasing dmg, you dont increase the burst too much, but rather the sustained dmg. This is because if one attack is designed to do 20k dmg, but is only used once every few minutes, players are built to withstand it, but increasing it by 50% to make up for another healer, means 30k hits and players arnt built to withstand that.

This was actually the part i was concerned about the most. Adjusting mob hp higher for an extra dps or two is easy. But then i thought, that is now 5 or 6 people total that a healer would have to heal through fights. If this game has lots of unavoidable damage then healing would have to be adjusted. Either higher healing output, a change to aoe healing mechanics or slightly lower damage so heals can keep up without running out of resource.

Thats what i meant by one thing leads to another. If healing changes cant be avoided then you end up having to change the next thing in line. I would imagine a change in healing mechanics to allow for a 5 or 6 party system will end up affecting PVP too.

OK last things first, i'm not whining...i play almost entirely tanks, and as mentioned i havent even tried running any FPs (yet)...so this isnt an issue for me. The 4 man group concept is just one of the things about SWTOR that made me scratch my head when i first saw it. When i played LOTRO after having played WoW i though "6 people? isnt that bit too much?" but SWTOR goes the other way...i though 4 people? isnt that too little?

 

I'm looking for a bit more of a discussion then: reroll, stop your QQ, alt+f4, or ohh you know that little button? the one in options? the one that comes up when you hit escape? yah the one at the top? yes it says quit game, just hit that.

OK, maybe you're not whining... but group size is what it is, it would take an inordinate amount of developer effort to change it, and DPS who are unhappy with their queue times do have the alternative to roll a tank or healer. And if they do that, they not only are helping themselves by getting faster queues, they're also helping everyone else get faster queues, too.

With my suggested approach, developers to make more content for us to enjoy instead of wasting time rehashing old content, DPS who roll as tanks and heals get faster queues, and other DPS get faster queues too. That's the rare win-win-win. What's not to love?

This was actually the part i was concerned about the most. Adjusting mob hp higher for an extra dps or two is easy. But then i thought, that is now 5 or 6 people total that a healer would have to heal through fights. If this game has lots of unavoidable damage then healing would have to be adjusted. Either higher healing output, a change to aoe healing mechanics or slightly lower damage so heals can keep up without running out of resource.

 

Thats what i meant by one thing leads to another. If healing changes cant be avoided then you end up having to change the next thing in line. I would imagine a change in healing mechanics to allow for a 5 or 6 party system will end up affecting PVP too.

Your overcomplicating things. I cant think of a single lvl55HM boss that mechanics (if done correctly) would make it harder to heal a 5 person group over a 4 person group. Now up that to 6 people and things change a bit because your makeup isnt going to usually be ideal for 1 tank 1 healer and 4 dps. Usually with 6 you go 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 off healer/dps, and 3 full dps.

I'd like to see 5 mans, I dont know so much about 6 mans, too close to just going full 8 man ops.

Your overcomplicating things. I cant think of a single lvl55HM boss that mechanics (if done correctly) would make it harder to heal a 5 person group over a 4 person group. Now up that to 6 people and things change a bit because your makeup isnt going to usually be ideal for 1 tank 1 healer and 4 dps. Usually with 6 you go 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 off healer/dps, and 3 full dps.

 

I'd like to see 5 mans, I dont know so much about 6 mans, too close to just going full 8 man ops.

Operative/Scoundrel's AOE heal is capped at 4 people. I think the same is true as well for the Merc/Commando. The easiest fix would just be to increase the cap, but unless Ops were also bumped up to 10 and 20 mans, then the damage output in Ops would need to adjusted since Operatives and Mercs just got buffed essentially. There would most definitely be some healing/damage rebalancing going on.

Personally I don't mind the group size too much, pretty irrelevant to me. I'm betting BW thought the small size was very casual friendly, since this was back before there was an LFG. LFG is what really makes the group size seem too small for the DPS population. If all groups were still forming in guilds/general chat and they were willing to do the work to form them, they'd likely find a set up pretty quick.