Bingo. ^

 

And now, years later, we see what happens when Developers cater to the lowest-common-denominator (skill wise) transient insatiable gamer , instead of sticking with their original plans (story pillar) and allowing a more appropriate type of loyal & challenge-seeking playerbase slowly (but surely) build their inve$tment for the long-term (10 years) while BioWare kept adding content, QoL , expanded crafting, space exploration, etc. etc.

 

In other words, if you build it, they (STAR WARS fans) will come....and stay.

 

Instead we got: If we RE-build it again & again, some will come & spend (Cartel Market) ....but most will go.

 

Perhaps EA is betting that , because of SWTOR's limited game-engine handicap, the only way to possibly go out with a nice 10th Anniversary *holiday season bang* is to offer the most drastic 'combat revamp' yet.

I think you know what solution I want.. (Obligatory Shill-time)

C L A S S I C

It so clearly solves the constant battle the devs find when having to choose who to cater too.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not what is happening. PvP and NiM raiding are what the devs balance this game's combat around. Frankly, the rest of the content in the game is facerollingly easy. (here's me on a level 23 toon on a level 40 planet https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RMikllrU-DdF9CI6SA7hNXNiM_1DkdpL/view?usp=sharing)

What exactly is the counter argument supposed to be here? Yet again you continue to dodge and deflect without actually engaging in logic and reason. I’m well aware of what they’re proposing to do but it doesn’t change anything or negate any previous statements made. Previous point still stands, PVP is not a valid reason to restrict abilities in PVE or vice versa.

You’ve also still refused to answer the question posed to you previously. If you think the game is so easy, what’s stopping you from taking the so called “cheese” powers off your bars and playing without them? Create your own “hard mode” of sorts. Same concept as people who choose to play certain content with only the minimum gear you can get in the door with even though they can use better. You already have solutions in front of you that don’t have to involve the rest of the community but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for your camp. You complain that the game is too easy, yet refuse to remove the abilities you consider to be cheese powers from your bars.

You may think it’s easy now, and while I would agree leveling is the easiest it’s ever been, that didn’t use to be the case. You’ve got it easy compared to how it used to be. Before some major changes were made, you actually had to put in some work to level up. You also had to maintain a set of gear for yourself AND your companions. If you didn’t keep up with your companion’s gear, may the Force have mercy on your soul. You also had full rotations that were required for story bosses back then. In addition your companions were also limited in the roles they could perform. Some companions were only tank/dps, some were only dps/heals. You didn’t have the jack of all trades companions we do today. The stuff you’re doing in that video you would never be able to do in a pre 3.0 setting. And things didn’t scale you up/down like it does today. So if you went to a level 40 planet on a level 23 toon, you would get obliterated by those mobs. You wouldn’t be saying it was super easy if you had to level up back in those days.

You know, restating things ad nauseam does not make you right. People are only as helpless as they chose to be is a flat out lie, because while you can easily learn what is the most optimal way to play the class (And, by the way, using all of your buttons in both PvE and PvP will usually lead to suboptimal play, rather than optimal one), will be affected by your ability to concentrate, and use your agility in tandem with targeted reaction time. There are four pages of factors that affect those abilities, and most of those are beyond our control. I only touched upon the most extreme ones.

 

Also, I've had a laugh on your "1% can't dictate that the game should be change towards them". You are this one percent. Basically, the only people in this game to ever utilise all 30 buttons are the high-end PvP players, the smallest, most insular part of the player base. In the every other area of the game, and that includes the NiM raiding, to try and utilise all of the buttons is to play sub-optimally. If, playing as either Tank or a DPS, you waste your GDC on Freezing Force, you are playing suboptimally, full stop.

 

What's more, you literally have a problem with ONE, I will say it again, ONE choice at the current state of the PTS guardian. And that's the Lvl 70 choice between Enure, Blade Blitz and Saber Reflect. If all three of those were available on one the builds that focused on picking the active abilities whenever possible, you would have literally no leg to stand upon, unless you really are so adamant that Freezing Force is absolutely necessary for high level PvE and PvP content (spoilers, it's not, and using it in 99% of the situations is going to be bad for your effectiveness). And that one is a casual fix.

 

And if you say that you use all 31 buttons Guardian has constantly, and they are all indispensable to your play style, I will flat out say that I don't believe you, and ask you to produce analysis of the combat logs, which is a casual thing to do for anyone who plays this game seriously.

If someone is intelligent enough to acquire a computer that can play this game and actually get into this game, they’re able to look up a guide, a video of some type, or ask for help from experienced players. So yes, people are only as helpless as they choose to be. I also find it telling that after you were called on your “do it for the disabled people” bit that you’re now singing a different tune and saying “that was just me using extreme examples.” Your entire line of logic on that particular point basically boils down to “I can’t do it, so no one else must be able to do it legitimately.” Since you clearly didn’t watch my video and have asked for the crash course, I’ll be happy to provide it to you below. Otherwise if you had watched the video you would see exactly what I’m doing.

First, I’m not using the standard keybinds, not by a long shot. My first bar uses 1-6 for several powers. My second bar has abilities bound to Q E G V Y B N C H, all of which I am able to execute with my left hand. My third bar uses the shift modifier plus a letter key, so shift-Q E G V Y B N C H R T. The fourth bar is shift-1 2 3 4 5 6 X, with x being the key I engage my mount with. Saber Throw and Dispatch are bound to a couple of mouse keys I have on my Razer Naga. My interface is visible towards the end of my video, or a previous post showing what a 30m range looks like. Been using this setup for 11 years and is one of the things I carried over from my WoW days. Everything is kept within range of my one hand. I also have a Logitech G105 keyboard, and G13 Gamepad that can let me bind even more things if I choose. Right now anything else would just be fluff.

Towards the end of my video I also do 2 combat demonstrations where I cycle through my abilities. The first one is purely to show how the rotation on live is a well oiled machine that can go nigh infinitely with little dead time unless we screw it up. I deliberately fouled up the rotation to show this. For the second demonstration I used Kira as a stand-in for DPS and attacked the dummy as though I was engaging a group of mobs in a run as a tank. I also call out what I’m doing for the most part. So if you want to know what I’m doing it’s not exactly a secret. I also make clear that I don’t always use every ability for every pull as not every ability is needed for every pull. I’m not going to waste ultra powerful abilities on trash mobs when I don’t have to. Some abilities are used more than others but they all have their uses. Prime example of using Freezing Force to slow down foes when my taunt is not available. Is it ideal, of course not, but I’ll take a less than ideal situation and “wasting a global” vs the group dying.

As for your other comments, it’s clear to me that you didn’t watch my video or read the comments of my OP, and if you did you didn’t understand it. That’s perfectly fine that you didn’t. The difference between you and me is that I’m not sitting here trying to force you to place abilities you think are excess on your bars. If you don’t like those certain powers you are not forced to use them and can remove them from your bars. I am saying, you should be able to decide for yourself whether you use those powers or not. You on the other hand are saying you don’t like them and you don’t get how people can make use of all the powers we have, and as such are demanding what YOU have deemed to be excess to be removed. I am saying folks should be able to decide for themselves whether they use those powers or not. You are wanting to make that choice for everyone else and dictate based on your not understanding how certain powers can be used, and your assumption that it’s not possible for folks to make use of all powers. So yes, you are in fact trying to dictate to the rest of the community if you truly believe what you’re saying.

The only targets that get stunned are standard npc enemies, which you'll note don't actually run away from you in this game. Does anybody ever use Freezing Force in a solo context? I can't think of single target I'd ever want to slow that would get stunned by Blade Storm. The stun is nice for solo content, where you run into some enemies that'll actually get stunned by it. The slow will be very useful in pvp and neither is very useful in end game pve. (Just like right now Freezing Force is exclusively used in endgame PvE for its movement speed utility, and even then only very rarely).

Speaking hypothetically for a moment, let’s assume I were to concede the point on the stun and that this wasn’t an issue. It still would not answer the rest of the issues with this proposed change. It’s still completely removing control from me over when it procs by tying it to a rotational ability. From a PVE standpoint it would be throwing what you consider to be an effect that has no use in end game content. So why attach it to Blade Storm? From a PVP standpoint, why would I want this to be on a rotational ability when I can save it for when I need it? Why would I want to have less control over the slow effect? In World of Warcraft as one example, the interrupt for Enhancement Shaman used to be tied to an ability known as Earth Shock. This meant that if I wanted to save my interrupt for a critical moment in PVE or PVP either one, they had to gimp their rotation and damage output, or pray the ability was off cooldown when they needed. More often than not it wasn’t. To give control over the interrupt and prevent issues with rotations, the abilities were separated. It gave better control over the character. Same concept as with Freezing Force in SWTOR and why it needs to remain separate from Blade Storm.

As for it being useless, does no one on this forum know how to kite a mob, be it in end game content or solo content? Slows help to do exactly that. There’s also been plenty of times as a tank where I’ve used slows to help pull mobs off people until I could properly taunt them. No it’s not always perfect but it functions. Slows can also help ranged DPS keep mobs at distance. While it generally doesn’t work on bosses, it does for most trash mobs. It boggles my mind that no one seems to think of this.

We already have a root with that large a range on live right now. Roots are generally a lot better than slows for what Juggernauts will want them for, chasing down targets.

This is the equivalent of saying that we have no need of fire extinguishers because we have fire departments. While fire departments can generally deal with most fires, it’s not always practical to utilize them for every single fire, especially when we can stop it with an extinguisher. If I can throw out a slow really quickly and catch up to my target, this allows me to save the root for another target, or later on in the fight. Or as another example, if I can throw a minor defensive ability to tank a certain mechanic, why would I waste a much more powerful ability when I don’t need to? Or to give a real life example, why would I wrap my whole arm up in bandages for a small cut when I can get the job done just as easily with a band-aid?

The reason I'm coming at this from a PvP perspective, is that if we're talking about slows and chasing targets down, that is already a PvP context. Mobs in this game don't run away from, as a melee character there really never is a reason to slow anything in PvE as far as I'm aware. I'm digging through my memory and I can't think of a single flashpoint or operation where I've ever used Freezing Force for its slowing effect.

Talking about slows and chasing targets does NOT automatically confer a pvp context on something. That line of logic starts with the automatic assumption that there can only be one use for certain abilities, and that’s not the case. Again I ask, does no one on here actually try to kite mobs around? As I said above, it may not always work for a boss, but there are times when kiting mobs is necessary. In solo content, if I can keep a bunch of mobs at distance with slows and nuke them from a distance without having to risk death, why would I not? If I am in a flashpoint that doesn’t have a tank and I am a squishy ranged toon, why would I not kite the mobs?

Well yeah it's all based on what ifs, because we're looking at a completely unfished product. I'm not saying not to criticize it, you definitely should. But it will change, and if we give concrete and useful feedback, it might change for the better. For instance a lot of people (myself included) feel that Saber Reflect and Saber throw are core parts of the Juggernauts identity as a class and should not be optional choices (sometimes forcing players to forgo them in favour of other abilities). And they've acknowledged that criticism. Will something actually happen with that? We'll have to wait and see, but PTS version this early on will definitely change plenty.

No one is saying that this is the finished product, and no one is debating they’re wanting to change things. They asked for feedback on the product as it appears right now. As it appears right now, in my book it’s a hot dumpster fire. Otherwise I hate this attitude that some people have that think we need to know every little minute detail before giving them the feedback they asked for. They made clear this is what they intend to do to other classes and they want to reduce the amount of abilities we have. Based off what they showed us on this first bit of PTS, as well as their own statements of what they intend to do, we can make an informed inference they intend to gut the other classes just like they do the Guardian/Jugg. Again this isn’t just people going on about nothing, but speaking based on the info we’ve been given and their own statements. Dressing it up in fancy language doesn’t negate the fact that we will see less abilities and less customization if this goes live as is right now. You don’t create more choice by stealing choice. I really don’t understand how that’s so hard for some people grasp. If they tell you they’re going to take a bunch of powers from you, their implementation shows they’re stealing a bunch of them from you, and they intend to do it for all classes, how many times do they have to make their intentions clear before people believe them?

As for the ability toolkits, they're likely still working on how exactly to do the interface for picking abilities. Right now we're stuck with the presets, which is very annoying, but we will definitely get the option to mix and match ourselves at some point on the PTS, as this is the clearly stated goal for the update.

Except they’ve more than made clear how they want it to work, and it will largely be presets unless something changes. Again that is not customization, but choosing from a set of pre-determined abilities. Maybe that will change, maybe it won’t, but we can’t go purely off “maybe they’ll do X” as it’s little more than theory. Theory is fine for speculation purposes, but means nothing if those theories never pan out. Again they asked for this feedback and right now it’s a hot dumpster fire that does more harm than it ever could good.

I tried, but I just can't let this thing about Blade Storm go. Your problem with this change as far as ranged is concerned is completely nonsensical. You talk about this in your original post and video, how they're making the slow useful outside of a 10m range. But this makes no sense whatsoever, as Blade Storm's range is larger than Freezing Force, which is what applies the slow right now. Freezing Force is useless if you can't get within 8m of your target. In this one aspect, they are making the ability objectively better. Yet you feel the need to bring this up twice in the video.

 

Also, as a little aside, you keep calling it a melee ability. And maybe this is a US/EU difference in lingo, but I've never heard someone use melee to describe a 10m range ability. When people say melee range they generally mean 4m range, the range of the actual saber strike abilities in this game, at least in my experience. And I think this is a distinction worth making, because that seems to be where the confusion is coming from. If they put the slow on a melee ability, it would be a nerf to the range, but putting it on Blade Storm actually increases the range.

2m isn’t the massive upgrade you think it is, while it is a minor upgrade to Freezing Force, it’s not an upgrade to Blade Storm. 10m is not large distance and regardless of what form it takes. Also they’re not going to let us keep the ability that turns Blade Storm into a 30m range. If they did then that would make the ability objectively the best slow in game. Whether you keep the abilities separate and let Freezing Force be the slow, or you combine it with Blade Storm, if you can’t get into that 10m or 8m range, it’s a dead and useless power.

Most ranged characters can sit well outside the 10m range and blast targets into oblivion. A good ranged person can keep a melee opponent at distance and take them out. If they steal half of our toolkits as it looks like they’re going to do, combining Blade Storm and Freezing Force isn’t going to be worth a thing as half of the mobility abilities will be disappearing with it. At that point it will be giving ranged toons a massive PVP advantage, and severely hampering the chances of melee getting into content on the PVE side of things. If you can have a bunch of ranged guys sit back and just blast things into oblivion, what would be the need for a melee DPS? If you want to chalk this up as 2 competing theories of PVP then fair enough, but it doesn’t change my stance nor does it change the fact that this wouldn’t be the upgrade you’re making it out to be.

I like the idea of faster kill times in PVP. I also miss the days when completing your class story required some basic knowledge of the class and its abilities. So, if the revamp succeeds in reducing survivability across the board, I would be a happy camper.

But, in terms of whether this move makes sense at this point in the game's lifecycle, I don't understand why they would go to the effort. Numbers have been dwindling for years now, and I don't see that changing in a fundamental way. The engine is terrible, the game is outdated, and the only reason we Star Wars nerds stick around is because it's the only game in town.

If it were my call, I wouldn't risk alienating the existing playerbase of a 10-year-old game in a genre that seems to have past its prime. But, here's to hoping the devs know something we don't. I'd love to see this game get popular again.

I like the idea of faster kill times in PVP. I also miss the days when completing your class story required some basic knowledge of the class and its abilities. So, if the revamp succeeds in reducing survivability across the board, I would be a happy camper.

 

But, in terms of whether this move makes sense at this point in the game's lifecycle, I don't understand why they would go to the effort. Numbers have been dwindling for years now, and I don't see that changing in a fundamental way. The engine is terrible, the game is outdated, and the only reason we Star Wars nerds stick around is because it's the only game in town.

 

If it were my call, I wouldn't risk alienating the existing playerbase of a 10-year-old game in a genre that seems to have past its prime. But, here's to hoping the devs know something we don't. I'd love to see this game get popular again.

Reducing kill times in pvp is about reducing healing and tanking/taunt mitigation.

From what I've seen it's more likely that more players will be playing tanks in pvp because they are going to be much better in duels and fights without healers. To an extent those conditions exist now, they are getting worse with 7.0. In the case with more tanks, kill times will not be going down in pvp.

Reducing kill times in pvp is about reducing healing and tanking/taunt mitigation.

 

From what I've seen it's more likely that more players will be playing tanks in pvp because they are going to be much better in duels and fights without healers. To an extent those conditions exist now, they are getting worse with 7.0. In the case with more tanks, kill times will not be going down in pvp.

Eliminating DCDs fits both of those criteria, so I think my original point stands.

Skanks have been around forever. I don't think we have enough information yet to assume it's going to get worse due to 7.0.

Reducing kill times in pvp is about reducing healing and tanking/taunt mitigation.

 

From what I've seen it's more likely that more players will be playing tanks in pvp because they are going to be much better in duels and fights without healers. To an extent those conditions exist now, they are getting worse with 7.0. In the case with more tanks, kill times will not be going down in pvp.

Time to kill is fine at the moment. It gives you enough time to react and employ some type of counter play. This goes double for 8v8s. If we're all dying like it's a match of "one shot one kill" on Call of Duty then tanks and healers are going to become even more important. Even moreso if DPS classes are going to be purged of their utility.

Then comes the monumental task of trying to balance melee vs ranged. If we're all dying immediately and have no DCDs, damage output is going to need to be adjusted for time on target. Accuracy debuff times, ect.

There's no way a rework of this magnitude is going to be completed in 6 months and be any good.

What exactly is the counter argument supposed to be here? Yet again you continue to dodge and deflect without actually engaging in logic and reason. I’m well aware of what they’re proposing to do but it doesn’t change anything or negate any previous statements made. Previous point still stands, PVP is not a valid reason to restrict abilities in PVE or vice versa.

 

You’ve also still refused to answer the question posed to you previously. If you think the game is so easy, what’s stopping you from taking the so called “cheese” powers off your bars and playing without them? Create your own “hard mode” of sorts. Same concept as people who choose to play certain content with only the minimum gear you can get in the door with even though they can use better. You already have solutions in front of you that don’t have to involve the rest of the community but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for your camp. You complain that the game is too easy, yet refuse to remove the abilities you consider to be cheese powers from your bars.

 

You may think it’s easy now, and while I would agree leveling is the easiest it’s ever been, that didn’t use to be the case. You’ve got it easy compared to how it used to be. Before some major changes were made, you actually had to put in some work to level up. You also had to maintain a set of gear for yourself AND your companions. If you didn’t keep up with your companion’s gear, may the Force have mercy on your soul. You also had full rotations that were required for story bosses back then. In addition your companions were also limited in the roles they could perform. Some companions were only tank/dps, some were only dps/heals. You didn’t have the jack of all trades companions we do today. The stuff you’re doing in that video you would never be able to do in a pre 3.0 setting. And things didn’t scale you up/down like it does today. So if you went to a level 40 planet on a level 23 toon, you would get obliterated by those mobs. You wouldn’t be saying it was super easy if you had to level up back in those days.

This is kind of your schtick isn't it? To make long-winded paragraphs across multiple posts touting unfounded assumptions, then refer people to your previous post in another thread that reply to a different poster. Am I now supposed to break down your posts sentence by sentence?

I'm not taking any abilities off of my bars, nor am I removing my gear. When I play a game, I use every tool available to me.

I've been around since launch, so you don't have to tell me how the game used to be. I used to solo the old H2's and H4's to be better at my class(es). And a level 23 on a level 40 planet would have been mobbed by... mobs... at 50-70 meters because high level mobs detect low level toons at greater range. This game is incredibly watered down now, so it's my hope that some revamping of classes might also be coupled with a revamping of game difficulty.

I try to be quick and concise in my posts. You're not obliged to read them, nor am I obliged to read a treatise on nothing, especially on a video game forum.

This is kind of your schtick isn't it? To make long-winded paragraphs across multiple posts touting unfounded assumptions, then refer people to your previous post in another thread that reply to a different poster. Am I now supposed to break down your posts sentence by sentence?

 

I'm not taking any abilities off of my bars, nor am I removing my gear. When I play a game, I use every tool available to me.

 

I've been around since launch, so you don't have to tell me how the game used to be. I used to solo the old H2's and H4's to be better at my class(es). And a level 23 on a level 40 planet would have been mobbed by... mobs... at 50-70 meters because high level mobs detect low level toons at greater range. This game is incredibly watered down now, so it's my hope that some revamping of classes might also be coupled with a revamping of game difficulty.

 

I try to be quick and concise in my posts. You're not obliged to read them, nor am I obliged to read a treatise on nothing, especially on a video game forum.

The only reason the game's easy on lower level planets is because of the garbage bolster. My characters that were in their mid-high level 40s in full blues and purples were having plenty of problems with Corellia and class and world quests and that was with more abilities than they are giving us on test. Of course overleveling story content became easier and easier over the years and without bolster reducing people's levels that was easy too. My point is that plentiful dcds aren't the reason solo story content became very easy.

The only reason the game's easy on lower level planets is because of the garbage bolster. My characters that were in their mid-high level 40s in full blues and purples were having plenty of problems with Corellia and class and world quests and that was with more abilities than they are giving us on test. Of course overleveling story content became easier and easier over the years and without bolster reducing people's levels that was easy too. My point is that plentiful dcds aren't the reason solo story content became very easy.

You should never have problems with world quests. I wear gear every time I level with nothing in the shells, except for my MH/OH which I keep upgraded with green barrels/mods/enhancements from the vendor.

Nothing else is needed to faceroll all planetary quests, and class missions.

As for it being useless, does no one on this forum know how to kite a mob, be it in end game content or solo content? Slows help to do exactly that. There’s also been plenty of times as a tank where I’ve used slows to help pull mobs off people until I could properly taunt them. No it’s not always perfect but it functions. Slows can also help ranged DPS keep mobs at distance. While it generally doesn’t work on bosses, it does for most trash mobs. It boggles my mind that no one seems to think of this.

I've never been in the situation where I wanted to kite an enemy that could be slowed. The only enemies worth kiting as a melee are bosses that are immune to slows anyway. For a ranged character kiting makes sense, for a Juggernaut it simpl does not. Most of your important abilities are 4m ranged. Are you going around kiting random trash mobs just to slow people down? Freezing Force is a waste of a global cooldown in nearly every pve scenario.

This is the equivalent of saying that we have no need of fire extinguishers because we have fire departments. While fire departments can generally deal with most fires, it’s not always practical to utilize them for every single fire, especially when we can stop it with an extinguisher. If I can throw out a slow really quickly and catch up to my target, this allows me to save the root for another target, or later on in the fight. Or as another example, if I can throw a minor defensive ability to tank a certain mechanic, why would I waste a much more powerful ability when I don’t need to? Or to give a real life example, why would I wrap my whole arm up in bandages for a small cut when I can get the job done just as easily with a band-aid?

Please read my post again. You're completely missing the point. I'm not saying we don't need a slow with range because we already have a root. I'm saying that if we already have a root with 30m range, what makes you think it so unlikely that they'll make a 30m ranged slow? Surely if that would be so crazy strong, we wouldn't have something even stronger. (So much stronger that you consider it appropriate comparing it to the difference between a fire extinguisher and a fire department mind you).

Talking about slows and chasing targets does NOT automatically confer a pvp context on something. That line of logic starts with the automatic assumption that there can only be one use for certain abilities, and that’s not the case. Again I ask, does no one on here actually try to kite mobs around? As I said above, it may not always work for a boss, but there are times when kiting mobs is necessary. In solo content, if I can keep a bunch of mobs at distance with slows and nuke them from a distance without having to risk death, why would I not? If I am in a flashpoint that doesn’t have a tank and I am a squishy ranged toon, why would I not kite the mobs?

As a ranged toon sure I guess, but Juggernauts aren't ranged toons. Juggernauts couldn't nuke wet toilet paper from a distance. See if they were messing with slows on say a Sorcerer, sure that'd make sense. But we're not.

Except they’ve more than made clear how they want it to work, and it will largely be presets unless something changes. Again that is not customization, but choosing from a set of pre-determined abilities. Maybe that will change, maybe it won’t, but we can’t go purely off “maybe they’ll do X” as it’s little more than theory. Theory is fine for speculation purposes, but means nothing if those theories never pan out. Again they asked for this feedback and right now it’s a hot dumpster fire that does more harm than it ever could good.

That's simply false. They've very clearly stated the intention is to have you make the choice in every tier, and giving you the option to save your own presets. Right now, because we're in an early testing version, they've made the presets to give an idea of the changes they're making. This is not how it's intended to ship. Bioware stated the following:

"For this PTS phase, you will only be able to choose static builds we have chosen for you. Future phases will allow you to more freely choose various abilities and passives as you level."

The fact that you somehow missed this is somewhat surprising considering the amount of time you've put into this. Maybe spend a little more time carefully reading and a little less just making things up.

2m isn’t the massive upgrade you think it is, while it is a minor upgrade to Freezing Force, it’s not an upgrade to Blade Storm. 10m is not large distance and regardless of what form it takes. Also they’re not going to let us keep the ability that turns Blade Storm into a 30m range. If they did then that would make the ability objectively the best slow in game. Whether you keep the abilities separate and let Freezing Force be the slow, or you combine it with Blade Storm, if you can’t get into that 10m or 8m range, it’s a dead and useless power.

It's not a massive upgrade, but that's missing the point. You are complaining about the range like it's a downgrade. It simply factually isn't a downgrade as far as range is concernd, it's an upgrade (albeit a small one).

Yes sure, Blade Sorm is useless outside of 10m range. That's still better than it is right now on live with Freezing Force, which is dead outisde 8m range. I honestly don't understand how you can even bring up the range thing as an issue with the changes when the range is objectively getting (slightly) better.

Most ranged characters can sit well outside the 10m range and blast targets into oblivion. A good ranged person can keep a melee opponent at distance and take them out. If they steal half of our toolkits as it looks like they’re going to do, combining Blade Storm and Freezing Force isn’t going to be worth a thing as half of the mobility abilities will be disappearing with it. At that point it will be giving ranged toons a massive PVP advantage, and severely hampering the chances of melee getting into content on the PVE side of things. If you can have a bunch of ranged guys sit back and just blast things into oblivion, what would be the need for a melee DPS? If you want to chalk this up as 2 competing theories of PVP then fair enough, but it doesn’t change my stance nor does it change the fact that this wouldn’t be the upgrade you’re making it out to be.

Just let me be clear once again, I never said it's a massive upgrade. I said the range specifically is an upgrade (and it objectively is). So complaining about the range makes absolutely no sense at all.

As for ranged characters being able to kite melee characters. Well that depends on their toolkit. I'm pretty sure ranged characters too will get a changed around kit. They too will lose abilities, and thus be not as good at kiting. Will this balance out entirely to a state where both the melee and ranged dps will evenly compete? Well that will depend on the exact state of the coming changes to other classes.

There's nothing wrong with expressing concern with the loss of mobility and how it'll affect kiting, but to just assume that the ranged dps's ability to kite will stay unchanged is a bit silly.

You should never have problems with world quests. I wear gear every time I level with nothing in the shells, except for my MH/OH which I keep upgraded with green barrels/mods/enhancements from the vendor.

 

Nothing else is needed to faceroll all planetary quests, and class missions.

Since KotFE's broken bolster system, yes. I was referring to when the max level was 50.

 

This game is incredibly watered down now, so it's my hope that some revamping of classes might also be coupled with a revamping of game difficulty.

INTRO:

Tbh, If the combat revamp managed to fix difficulty into a harder range I would support it. However, I don't see how removing player agency through ability pruning can accomplish that in anyway that's fun to play at a high skill level.

Its impossible, 7.0 streamline will only dumb down the already dumbed down combat if it looks like its going to be implemented as in test server. But this time, it will be dumbed down at the functional level instead of being messed up because of mob dmg/health settings aren't tuned well due to broken bolster/lvl-sync system trying to propel everyone to endgame that isn't even that good.

The great skill range in PvP will also be ruined if abilities are pruned/simplified.

Long fight with multiple mobs with many buttons > short fight with less mobs and less buttons.

Multiple DCDs allows one to vary when to increase survivability, Multiple Stuns allows one to do stun management if fighting multiple mobs, etc.

When difficulty was correct, none of these supposedly "bloat" abilities caused any problems, they were vitally useful and still are in actual good GAMEPLAY content.

Depending on the abilities pruned/merged, it will be the ruining of the core high skill combat that is possible in the game but just isn't seen that much because mob difficulty was nerfed ages ago.

If I were to use my Sith Vengeance Jugg for an ACTUAL EXAMPLE, that's a class-spec where I literally use EVERY SINGLE ABILITY. Maybe other classes have useless abilities but I haven't played them extensively since years ago and can really only talk about this as its the one I'm playing rn.

ABILITY BREAKDOWN

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STUNS:

Intimidating Roar/Force Choke/Force Push/Force Scream: 6 sec aoe stun, 4 sec channeled stun, 2 sec push stun, 4 sec stun.

Intimidating Roar: Is great for survivability as it stuns everyone around except the target you attack.

Force Choke: Is great as the channel can be cancelled and an enemy will stay stunned for 4 seconds, can switch to another target in that time and get DPS in or just murder who is being choked.

Force Push: Is a push, vital as its the only push ability for Jugg, self-explanatory.

Force Scream: Works in the Jugg rotation as it does good dmg/crit dmg, can also do a nice stun. Also vital passive that increases it crit over time so that it can charged over for a large dmg atck.

Smartly using these allows a player to fight multiple mobs by switching targets quickly which is fun when accomplished.

Losing any gimps variable combat choice and/or could remove something iconic from the player, IE the Force Choking/Pushing.

STANDARD COMBAT/ROTATION:

Assault: Lvl 1 Basic combat ability, has all the dynamic animations when doing killing blows or swinging. Used to generate rage/hit really low health enemy to not waste rage. Unthinkable to remove.

Viscous Slash: Lvl 1 Basic combat ability, the nice 2-handed overhead slash animation. Early finisher and big dmg ability when early leveling. Used in higher lvl combat when all other attacks on cooldown, def used.

Sundering Assault: The great rage generating and armor sundering attack. Essential. I use this before all other attacks on single-target as it does the armor debuff and gives me good rage.

CORE DMG ROTATION:

Ravage: Large saber damage attack, known by the old cool animation it had. Core single-target dmg-dealing attack to hit when done cooling.

Shatter: Does a DoT and instant damage. More importantly, with right passive, refreshes ravage so you can do Ravage-Shatter-Ravage.

Impale: Another Big Damage Attack, pretty sure does most base dmg as single-target attack.

Used in rotation as Impale-Ravage-Shatter-Ravage or Ravage-Shatter-Ravage-Impale or whenever.

SITUATIONAL/OPENER/CRIT:

Saber Throw: Generates Rage and allows Jug to hit targets and range, lets you kill low health mobs at range. Also iconic animation.

Retaliation: The Jugs unblockable dmg ability. Useful when everything is on cooldown or enemy is on low health and you don't want to miss against an enemy with high defense stat.

Hew: The Jugs critical killer for enemies under 30% health. Also Iconic throw animation that is DIFFERENT from saber throw.

Force Charge: Only Jug ability to close distant from far away, vital for that closing distant and as rage-generating opener.

Enrage: Free Rage generator, great for burst dmg or when you mismanaged your rage-generation in rotation and/or fighting a boss.

Furious Power: Self-buff for more damage, the ability that gives you expendable charges like other classes. Max 4x 25% more damage on next melee attacks. Crucial for setting up your highest dmg rotation.

AOES:

Vengeful Slam/Smash: The Jugg AOE, unremovable.

Sweeping Slashes: The 2nd Jugg AOE, less dmg but can be increased through a utility and is alot more important if you are a Marauder. 2 Lightsabers makes this ability do more dmg so Marauder can do Smash/Sweeping Slashes after each other.

MECHANICAL ABILITIES:

Disruption: Jugg Interrupt. Mechanically essential.

Unleash: Jugg Purge/Breakout from stun ability. Mechanically essential.

DCDs:

Saber Ward: The all important Absorb dmg ability for 12 seconds. ESSENTIAL.

Saber Reflect: The all important REFLECT dmg ability. DIFFERENT FROM SABER WARD as it REFLECTS dmg to opponent and has the ICONIC animation of Reflecting all blaster bolts back to targets. ESSENTIAL.

TANKING ABILITIES:

Enraged Defense: Self-heal for Warrior-Class, useable while stunned so good oh **** pop/when something burst dmgs you. Vital for tanking.

Taunt: Self-explanatory, single-target taunt. Vital as its only one.

Threatening Scream: Group taunt. Vitals its only one.

VERY SITUATIONAL:

Mad Dash: Dashes the character 20 meters forward and does an odd cone attack. I tried to use this for DPS but realized it doesn't generate rage and is very hard to aim for dmg.

However, reading it and the passive that can be attached to it, it is essentially the Jugg's 2nd BREAKOUT ability. The passive "Through Victory" allows it to be used when immobilized and it purges effects.

IE- VITAL ability for good PvP, lets you escape from massive amount of stun/run away from a group of enemies. Also would be a waste to remove this as the custom animation it has is nice, pretty sure the ability was a latecomer to the game in 4.0 though.

Chilling Scream: ESSENTIAL in PvP to slow down nearby opponents. Semi-useful for tanking pve mobs so they can't walk away from you fast.

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ABILITY BREAKDOWN

BREAKDOWN CONCLUSION:

All in all, a fictional rotation for a dangerous single target that's only focused on me ends up being....

Saber-Throw^, Force Charge^, Sunder, Smash/Slam/Slash Aoes*, Furious Power^, Ravage, Shatter, Ravage, Impale, Retaliation*, Choke*, Push*

^Only used on opening/setting up most powerful rotation.

*Only used when situational relevant for mob groups/low health/ wanting stun/pushing off cliff/mob groups.

-Force Scream is used whenever its charged up for a crit with passive/a stun is wanted. It can also do good dmg on its own.

-Hew is priority used whenever its pops as available through a passive or an enemy is below 30% health.

-Sunder/basic attack 1 is used to regain rage/re-debuff enemy armor.

-Basic attack 2 "Viscous Slash" is used when one has excess of rage and everything is on cooldown, this def happens many times in long fight.

-All taunts are used in group content if I'm tanking or see a group member low health against a target.

-All DCDs are used when I situationally want them and gauge how badly I'm being damaged by mob group/boss.

How the **** can a good majority of these abilities be removed/merged without screwing things up? Combat would be even more simple than the supposed super "complicated" rotation above. Some say "Muh more buttons bad combat"

However, unique buttons with various cooldowns, uses, and triggers is what makes for the skill-gap and fun combat.

Obviously there is a point where there is too much and a human can't reasonably press the different buttons in time/choose the right ability in the right scenario, but that is clearly not what we have.

Yes, some people with less skill will have more trouble, but we all started at that stage and should be expected to get better as we play more. The game shouldn't be made dumber because some people refuse to/can't learn.

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Now, I get that some/many Casual "STORY" players only use 5 buttons and thats a 'problem' (ehh not really).

If someone is going to ignore most of the combat system that's honestly their wanted choice.

Its not like the game forces them to learn nor do they want to be forced to learn as many casuals have said they don't like/want "tedious" combat anyway.

Imagine the game was suddenly set to pre-3.0 leveling difficulty, the casual-player uproar would be enormous.

And really, for casuals that is a PERFECTLY VALID GAMEPLAY PREFERENCE/CHOICE, maybe someone just wants to watch cutscenes/rp character and dress them up?

(Very weird to me as someone who wants GAMEPLAY but eh its fine, people like different things)

But, destroying the combat system for all of us that enjoy its little bit of complexity/skill/variability is downright terrible. Especially in the way PTS shows the gating of abilities vs passives, etc.

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Alright, after all that, lets say I considered removing abilities?

What could I even merge/remove on the dev side without making combat too much stupid and simpler?

Maybe they just want the ability bar to be a 'bit' less cluttered so potential new cartel-mar.. *cough*( i mean casuals), are less put off by the oh so traumatizing amount of abilities on their hotbar.

Well ****, its not much to work with.

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POSSIBLITY 1: Remove Tanking abilities from DPS Specs? "broader" (Remove all Tank/Heal-spec abilities from DPS specs)

Jugg Ex: Remove Single-target and Group-target taunts, also Enraged Defense.

What's Achieved? About 3 Hotbar Abilities removed.

CON: Ruins the little ability people have left to Hybrid.

Maybe someone want to be a DPS-Spec-Jug that wears a Shield and can semi-TANK.

Worse than an Actual Tank and tanking, but still much better than DPS-equped spec at tanking, and also does more DMG than TANK-only spec, but not more dmg than Actual DPS-equp-spec.

Sure its not optimal but why do people need to play "optimally"? This sorta stuff ofc worked better when skill trees were still around.

Extend this to other classes as you wish. IE- Remove healing abilities from Mercenary?

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Possibility 2: Remove the Interrupt & Purge/Breakout abilities from all classes and make them innate hotkeys like Action-Combat MMOs with some type of HUD indicator for them.

Jugg Ex: Remove "Disruption" and "Unleash", *maybe remove "Mad Dash" aswell since its really a breakout.

What's Achieved? About 2 Hotbar Abilities removed.

CON: Actually nothing much, this is doable.

However, I would personally still want a hotbar ability as I play very visually with my quickbar.

I might forget to do interrupt/purge if it were just a hotkey without the current greying out of all abilities and pop-up of highlighted breakout lol.

Also its not like this is actually removing any abilities just hiding it beneath a different mechanic.

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Possibility 3: Do 1 & 2.

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Possibility 4: Do what Bioware is doing and ruin combat by haphazardly... gating certain abilities with passives, removing certain abilities outright, and merging abilities without adding a functional replacement for the ability that lost out in merge. Also maybe do this with 1 & 2 for the ultimate streamline and dumbing down.

IE- one I will keep mentioning for functionality loss on a potet merge, merging saber throw with hew would never work because of their different use cases and functions.

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Do everything they are doing above in only 6 months for all classes, enemies and bosses, while balance the entire game around it lol.

TL;DR: Its impossible to streamline combat without ruining any complexity or skill thats left in it, many of us use all our abilities, Casuals don't care for actual combat anyway; why simplify it, who is it being done for but yourselves in some bid to monetize simplified ability-sets/combat styles?

With pruning, will also reduce the great variety of shiny animations/colors/effects we get to see/use in general combat.

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Side Tangent:

[Give me a "Classic Mode" for lvl 1-50 Flashpoints that contain Static Leveled enemies, no gosh darn Health Stations, and unnerfed bosses. I want to be a lvl 8/9 doing the Black Talon and actually have a difficult end boss fight with originally designed 4 PLAYERS or 2 PLAYERS WITH COMPANIONS who are in LVL RANGE difficulty. Lvl 16-17 doing hammer station too, etc. Maybe even no Bolster or ******** lvl-sync but thats a stretch.. Classic Flashpoints could even allow for the reappearance of iconic flashpoint gear instead of whatever that endgame **** is for veteran-mode drops.

I been leveling and noticed veteran flashpoints are stupid and less difficult than pre-4.0, why they ruin difficult content for casuals but then even casuals get a robot-helper mode aswell?? could've just added robot-helper mode thats it.

Also extending veteran/master difficulty options to all class story/planetary arc instances. I would love to play my class missions through a linear path without bolster/lvl sync in a way similar to how it was orig designed because it just worked better and was much more immersive leveling experience. Can't even use good rotations/medpacks against class story bosses. And they are all still hyped up in cutscenes with their taunts as if they were difficulty to fight ruining immersion, infuriating. I'm finishing up Sith Warrior and been disappointed every single boss, can't wait for *********** Baras to die in 5 seconds.

Side Tangent.

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Since KotFE's broken bolster system, yes. I was referring to when the max level was 50.

Still remember when named enemies that dropped some higher quality loot where actually hard to kill and you had to use all your abilities or how being even a couple levels under your story/planet quest made the game really hard.

Now all you have to do is spam aoe and let your walking demi god of a comp do the rest, it's pathetic. And no wonder people don't learn mechanics or anything really, had a group in mm hammer yesterday no one knew what a cleanse is so wipe central first boss, they did know to "run to the drill" because **** actually playing the game amirite.

Spam vet mode hammer to gear up swtor school graduates. Bah

If someone is intelligent enough to acquire a computer that can play this game and actually get into this game, they’re able to look up a guide, a video of some type, or ask for help from experienced players. So yes, people are only as helpless as they choose to be. I also find it telling that after you were called on your “do it for the disabled people” bit that you’re now singing a different tune and saying “that was just me using extreme examples.” Your entire line of logic on that particular point basically boils down to “I can’t do it, so no one else must be able to do it legitimately.” Since you clearly didn’t watch my video and have asked for the crash course, I’ll be happy to provide it to you below. Otherwise if you had watched the video you would see exactly what I’m doing.

Stop with this condescending ********, I've been playing this game as long as you have, and I main Vengeance Juggernaut. This is not my personal problem, this is a biological limitation. The studies show that an average targetted reaction time (which is where you consider what you click, and when, and it doesn't matter if its a keybind, or an icon you click with your mouse) is 450 ms. In the current PvE meta and stats distribution, the GCD for DPS is 400 ms. That means that an average human being is going to struggle with basic rotation, never mind keeping track of dots, resource management, buff management, debuff management, positioning, and DCDs.

This isn't a theory. It isn't something that you can just shrug off with "Well, you can learn that if you want to". It is an actual, existing, measurable, scientifically proven biological limitation. That's why the difference between an average parse and top parse is in thousands of DPS. That's why most people cannot achieve the same results on live bosses as they can on dummies. And it's the reason why most people will never touch content above Story OPS, because if you actually look up those guides, and the likes, all of them will tell you that an absolute minimum expected of a DPS toon is using a 0.4 GDC on a offensive ability, and doing so every time the cooldown ends. Doing just that, and nothing else, is the limit of what an average person can do.

As for your other comments, it’s clear to me that you didn’t watch my video or read the comments of my OP, and if you did you didn’t understand it. That’s perfectly fine that you didn’t. The difference between you and me is that I’m not sitting here trying to force you to place abilities you think are excess on your bars. If you don’t like those certain powers you are not forced to use them and can remove them from your bars. I am saying, you should be able to decide for yourself whether you use those powers or not. You on the other hand are saying you don’t like them and you don’t get how people can make use of all the powers we have, and as such are demanding what YOU have deemed to be excess to be removed. I am saying folks should be able to decide for themselves whether they use those powers or not. You are wanting to make that choice for everyone else and dictate based on your not understanding how certain powers can be used, and your assumption that it’s not possible for folks to make use of all powers. So yes, you are in fact trying to dictate to the rest of the community if you truly believe what you’re saying.

And I'm saying that making some of the now necessary abilities completely gone is good for the community in the long run. You've the most popular large media franchise in the world tied to a system that is, frankly, obsolete, and incredibly hard for new people to absorb.

The only reason the game's easy on lower level planets is because of the garbage bolster. My characters that were in their mid-high level 40s in full blues and purples were having plenty of problems with Corellia and class and world quests and that was with more abilities than they are giving us on test. Of course overleveling story content became easier and easier over the years and without bolster reducing people's levels that was easy too. My point is that plentiful dcds aren't the reason solo story content became very easy.

That's true -- dcd's are not the reason. The devs don't want to bar entry to a potential new cash cow / whale by making the base game too difficult.

INTRO:

Tbh, If the combat revamp managed to fix difficulty into a harder range I would support it. However, I don't see how removing player agency through ability pruning can accomplish that in anyway that's fun to play at a high skill level.

 

Its impossible, 7.0 streamline will only dumb down the already dumbed down combat if it looks like its going to be implemented as in test server. But this time, it will be dumbed down at the functional level instead of being messed up because of mob dmg/health settings aren't tuned well due to broken bolster/lvl-sync system trying to propel everyone to endgame that isn't even that good.

I would think the combat team would have to look at how the new utilities system and passives affect all PVE/PVP and make adjustments accordingly, otherwise they are potentially damaging the base game even further. So if the devs can make actual rotations more obvious to noobs and bads (big IF here), then logically, they should be able the adjust combat closer to what it was originally, in terms of difficulty.

Or maybe it's all just wishful thinking on my part, heh.

Stop with this condescending ********, I've been playing this game as long as you have, and I main Vengeance Juggernaut. This is not my personal problem, this is a biological limitation. The studies show that an average targetted reaction time (which is where you consider what you click, and when, and it doesn't matter if its a keybind, or an icon you click with your mouse) is 450 ms. In the current PvE meta and stats distribution, the GCD for DPS is 400 ms. That means that an average human being is going to struggle with basic rotation, never mind keeping track of dots, resource management, buff management, debuff management, positioning, and DCDs.

 

This isn't a theory. It isn't something that you can just shrug off with "Well, you can learn that if you want to". It is an actual, existing, measurable, scientifically proven biological limitation. That's why the difference between an average parse and top parse is in thousands of DPS. That's why most people cannot achieve the same results on live bosses as they can on dummies. And it's the reason why most people will never touch content above Story OPS, because if you actually look up those guides, and the likes, all of them will tell you that an absolute minimum expected of a DPS toon is using a 0.4 GDC on a offensive ability, and doing so every time the cooldown ends. Doing just that, and nothing else, is the limit of what an average person can do.

 

 

 

And I'm saying that making some of the now necessary abilities completely gone is good for the community in the long run. You've the most popular large media franchise in the world tied to a system that is, frankly, obsolete, and incredibly hard for new people to absorb.

Bruh, can you really not get below 400, are you a trolling? Account #10,691,840 seems like troll

Average human reaction time is not 450ms, maybe 300 but my 60 year old relatives can give sub 300 constantly lol.

https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

And regardless of reaction time, you don't need top tier DPS from every member to win an OP.

Still remember when named enemies that dropped some higher quality loot where actually hard to kill and you had to use all your abilities or how being even a couple levels under your story/planet quest made the game really hard.

 

Now all you have to do is spam aoe and let your walking demi god of a comp do the rest, it's pathetic. And no wonder people don't learn mechanics or anything really, had a group in mm hammer yesterday no one knew what a cleanse is so wipe central first boss, they did know to "run to the drill" because **** actually playing the game amirite.

 

Spam vet mode hammer to gear up swtor school graduates. Bah

That's what I'm talking about as far as solo story content. There is no longer any point to the base game, because there is no need to learn mechanics to complete it. Whether it's bolster or gear inflation, it prevents any sense of accomplishment. Reducing survivability is one way to address that issue, so I'm willing to give this a try.

As far as PVP, I think survivability is too high on average. A superior player should be able to kill a less skilled player quickly, but two or three less skilled players likewise should be able to kill a superior player quickly. I think faster PVP is more fun, so once again I'm willing to give this a try.

That's what I'm talking about as far as solo story content. There is no longer any point to the base game, because there is no need to learn mechanics to complete it. Whether it's bolster or gear inflation, it prevents any sense of accomplishment. Reducing survivability is one way to address that issue, so I'm willing to give this a try.

 

As far as PVP, I think survivability is too high on average. A superior player should be able to kill a less skilled player quickly, but two or three less skilled players likewise should be able to kill a superior player quickly. I think faster PVP is more fun, so once again I'm willing to give this a try.

I don't see how pruning will fix any of this tbh, if they make content too hard they will piss off all the players that are used to being over leveled and carried by comps (let's be honest it's probably the vast majority at this point) if they make it too easy they will piss of people that do actual hard stuff (and I don't know how they expect to balance everything in 6 months either).

If anything I'd like to let stuff as is and tweak cooldowns and utilities rather than **** up the entire game's gameplay, or even make loadouts optional? Wouldnt that be better for people that don't wanna bother learning stuff?

I don't see how pruning will fix any of this tbh, if they make content too hard they will piss off all the players that are used to being over leveled and carried by comps (let's be honest it's probably the vast majority at this point) if they make it too easy they will piss of people that do actual hard stuff (and I don't know how they expect to balance everything in 6 months either).

 

If anything I'd like to let stuff as is and tweak cooldowns and utilities rather than **** up the entire game's gameplay, or even make loadouts optional? Wouldnt that be better for people that don't wanna bother learning stuff?

I agree with you. I don't know why they think it's worth doing this, but I'm hoping they have a good reason. I'm making assumptions about what their motivations might be based on assumptions I have about why other players do what they do, but we all know what value assumptions have. Interesting to see what everyone thinks about it, though.

In the current PvE meta and stats distribution, the GCD for DPS is 400 ms. That means that an average human being is going to struggle with basic rotation, never mind keeping track of dots, resource management, buff management, debuff management, positioning, and DCDs.

How do you get a 400 ms GCD? Every class guide I've read says to stack alacrity to the point where your GCD is somewhere between 1400 ms and 1100 ms. Seriously, there are some world bosses I'd love to solo on my seer if I could increase my output by about 200% without running into serious force management issues.

The studies show that an average targetted reaction time (which is where you consider what you click, and when, and it doesn't matter if its a keybind, or an icon you click with your mouse) is 450 ms.

 

This isn't a theory. It isn't something that you can just shrug off with "Well, you can learn that if you want to". It is an actual, existing, measurable, scientifically proven biological limitation. That's why the difference between an average parse and top parse is in thousands of DPS. That's why most people cannot achieve the same results on live bosses as they can on dummies. And it's the reason why most people will never touch content above Story OPS, because if you actually look up those guides, and the likes, all of them will tell you that an absolute minimum expected of a DPS toon is using a 0.4 GDC on a offensive ability, and doing so every time the cooldown ends. Doing just that, and nothing else, is the limit of what an average person can do.

So first off if you have particular studies in mind please link them, I'd like to see them.

Secondly, "reaction time" depends a lot on the conditions and assumptions.

There's reaction time where you're reacting to a surprise, and have to observe, process, pick a reaction, and the perform the reaction. It's slow, and what you get taught about when learning to drive. I suspect this is the sort of reaction your 450 ms example cites.

There's reaction time where it's not a surprise but you might not have extensive foreknowledge, but you know more or less what the range of reactions might be and are somewhat physically poised to take them. For example a musician sight reading music for the first time, or someone typing a copy of a document or recording a transcript of what someone is saying. This is a lot faster, and times can be on the order of 100 to 250 ms per key press.

Then there's anticipated reaction, where you know what's about to happen and have a sense of when it's going to happen, and are poised to react. In this sort of case reaction times can be in the range of 50 to 200 ms pretty consistently, and if you're willing to risk premature reaction can go down to zero, because your brain is initiating the "reaction" before the event actually occurs.

In MMORPGs a lot of what constitutes "skill" is learning the game well enough so that most of your actions are the second or third types of reaction time. With a GCD of 1.1 to 1.4 seconds putting a hard limit on how many abilities you can use per second, the ability of a average player to press keys once they've learned the basics of the game reasonably well outstrips the limits of the GCD by a factor of 2 to 6. Basically, it doesn't matter if you're not very fast with key presses, because the game limits keypress rate so much that there's not a lot of advantage to being fast at pressing keys. In the settings menu there's an ability queue window setting. Meaning that for every ability that triggers the GCD after the first one in your rotation even if you are waiting on the GCD, you can press the next ability you want to go off up to 1000 ms in advance, and the game will fire it off for you as soon as the GCD expires. So the reaction time needed is to be able to press your next ability at some point inside a 1 second window. Aside from the few abilities that are off of the GCD, being faster than that doesn't do a player much good after the first ability is pressed in a fight.

You have a decent point, it's just a point that due to the design of SWTOR's user interface happens to be almost totally irrelevant to the discussion of whether abilities need to be pruned. Not to mention, that as long as you have at least 3 abilities without longer specific internal cooldowns, that's already enough abilities to saturate a 450 ms reaction time combined with a 1.4 s GCD, so to be consistent that way, you'd need to be asking for the Devs to nerf every class down to a handful of abilities. DPS would be Hit 1, Hit 2, Defend. Tanks would be Hit 1, Hit 2, Defend 1, Defend 2, Taunt. Healers would be Heal 1, Heal 2, Hit 1, Hit 2, Defend 1. So in that approach the whole game should basically only have 12 player abilities total. Reflavored with different names and animations of course, but a total of 12 abilities across all classes in the game is enough to saturate a 450 ms reaction time for all classes and all roles, and the max number any particular role needs is 5 abilities.

If you want an argument that isn't full of giant holes, maybe take the following and run with it:

For a new player there are so many abilities that it takes a long time to learn which ability should be pressed in anticipation of what the game is telling them will occur in the near future. That makes it hard to transition from the very slow "surprise" type of reaction time to the much faster "partial anticipation" sort of reaction time.

You'll still get, a lot of pushback on the basis of "you want to be good at the game without learning to play the game", but at least your argument will be internally consistent and have some actual merit from a game design perspective.

This is figures into a larger discussion of skill floor and skill cap. Skill floor being the minimum competence a player needs to function, and the skill cap being how much room for further development of skill there is after the floor has been reached.

What I think I'm hearing from you is that whether you understand the game mechanics or not, you'd like the floor to be a lot lower than it is right now. Experienced players that have spent a lot of time and effort getting close to the skill cap, don't want it to be lowered, largely because that devalues the effort they put in getting there, but also to an extent because if you know the game well enough to anticipate the next move there's already a lot of down time where there's nothing constructive to do in terms of abilities other than sit there and wait for the GCD to expire and they don't want to spend even more time sitting around and waiting than they already do.

A point that comes along with this, is that skill floor and skill cap (or skill ceiling if you prefer) can be somewhat independent of each other. It's possible to design something that at the basic level is simple, but has tremendous room for growth of skill as you progress. The board game Go is a good example.

If you ask for changes that make SWTOR simpler and easier for beginners, but preserve or even increase complexity and difficultly for skilled players, then it's a lot harder for the skilled players to argue against it, aside from grumbling about not liking change. On the the other hand, if you insist on changes that significantly lower the skill cap, they have a lot of very legitimate things to complain about.

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If you want an argument that isn't full of giant holes, maybe take the following and run with it:

 

For a new player there are so many abilities that it takes a long time to learn which ability should be pressed in anticipation of what the game is telling them will occur in the near future. That makes it hard to transition from the very slow "surprise" type of reaction time to the much faster "partial anticipation" sort of reaction time.

...

I don't have anything to argue about on the rest of your post. To the above I'll just point out that new players aren't dealing with more than a few keys unless they do things to skip the leveling process. I don't care about players that skip the leveling process and then complain about too many buttons. Similarly I don't care about players that "return" for a month or two every couple years and forget everything about their layout. They should give themselves time to relearn the game or stick to story content with just a few buttons or not bother.

I like the idea of faster kill times in PVP. I also miss the days when completing your class story required some basic knowledge of the class and its abilities. So, if the revamp succeeds in reducing survivability across the board, I would be a happy camper.

 

But, in terms of whether this move makes sense at this point in the game's lifecycle, I don't understand why they would go to the effort. Numbers have been dwindling for years now, and I don't see that changing in a fundamental way. The engine is terrible, the game is outdated, and the only reason we Star Wars nerds stick around is because it's the only game in town.

 

If it were my call, I wouldn't risk alienating the existing playerbase of a 10-year-old game in a genre that seems to have past its prime. But, here's to hoping the devs know something we don't. I'd love to see this game get popular again.

This is easily accomplished by restricting the more powerful abilities from use in PVP and can be done without needing to steal them from folks on the PVE side of things. Except we both know that’s not how they’re going to do it. It’s going to be a blanket approach that screws the PVE side over for the sake of PVP.

Eliminating DCDs fits both of those criteria, so I think my original point stands.

 

Skanks have been around forever. I don't think we have enough information yet to assume it's going to get worse due to 7.0.

But we do actually, the PTS showed half of the Guardian toolkit being removed. That’s a nerf of massive proportions to both sides of the game. Folks shouldn’t be dying in one hit in PVP unless they’re getting mobbed by half of the map, but they shouldn’t be nigh invincible on their own either. So where do you stick the balance point? This is why they need to separate PVP and PVE like World of Warcraft did. They’ve more than made clear what they did to Guardians on the PTS they intended to do to all other classes. So that is in fact information to show they intend to gut all other classes. Some will probably be worse off than others, but again it’s still a massive nerf and theft of abilities for no valid reason. If you want to hold the position we don’t have enough info, you’re entitled to that opinion. However for the purposes of the feedback they asked for, they asked for it based on what we had at that moment, which means the “wait and see” approach doesn’t apply in this instance.

I've never been in the situation where I wanted to kite an enemy that could be slowed. The only enemies worth kiting as a melee are bosses that are immune to slows anyway. For a ranged character kiting makes sense, for a Juggernaut it simpl does not. Most of your important abilities are 4m ranged. Are you going around kiting random trash mobs just to slow people down? Freezing Force is a waste of a global cooldown in nearly every pve scenario.

You’re making several very large opinion based and unprovable assumptions here. If a particular mob or boss is immune to slows, the argument doesn’t apply in the first place, so why bring that up when it’s a nonpoint that has nothing to do with the previous conversation? There are plenty of mobs and even bosses that can be slowed, too many for me to list every single one of them here. If a mob needs to be kited or the goal is to kite the mob, all I care about is if the person can actually kite the mob. In my guild if we need to kite a mob, sometimes that role falls to one of our melee guys who is a Guardian/Jugg, because the guy is a veteran player that knows what to do and how to kite mobs. You can argue it would be more efficient if we used one of the ranged guys as that would be a fair and legitimate argument. However simply because it’s not “optimal” doesn’t preclude the possibility of a Guardian/Jugg kiting a mob.

Also I find it telling that you seem to think people choosing to play differently than you do must automatically mean they’re a troll. Folks employing abilities differently than you, or using different strategy than you doesn’t make one a troll, especially if both strategies actually work. The fact you would even trying to bring that point up stinks of gatekeeping and is nothing but a modern spin on the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.

Please read my post again. You're completely missing the point. I'm not saying we don't need a slow with range because we already have a root. I'm saying that if we already have a root with 30m range, what makes you think it so unlikely that they'll make a 30m ranged slow? Surely if that would be so crazy strong, we wouldn't have something even stronger. (So much stronger that you consider it appropriate comparing it to the difference between a fire extinguisher and a fire department mind you).

You didn’t come right out and say it, but that’s where your line of logic ultimately leads. Freezing Force itself is already an AOE slow that can slow multiple foes vs roots which can only root one foe generally, and roots that could hit more than one foe, are extremely limited in range. These roots are also further balanced by the fact they typically have a heftier cooldown to them. In this instance you’re basically asking them to give you a slow capable of hitting multiple targets at once, let you spam it far more often than we could today, PLUS let you do it from a 30m range. That would objectively become the best slow in the game hands down. You’re certainly free to advocate for such a thing, but you’re not thinking it through far enough to see how overpowered that would be. A 30m single target slow that can be spammed that often is one thing, but an AOE slow that can be spammed that often is a completely different ballgame. This would mean that a Guardian/Jugg could keep that slow up 2/3 of the time of that cooldown. If a team has 2 Guardians/Juggs, that slow could be maintained on an entire group indefinitely AND from range. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is. And my second most played class is the Guardian/Jugg.

As a ranged toon sure I guess, but Juggernauts aren't ranged toons. Juggernauts couldn't nuke wet toilet paper from a distance. See if they were messing with slows on say a Sorcerer, sure that'd make sense. But we're not.

See above on this point. Guardians/Juggs can indeed kite, even though it may not be as “efficient” for them to do so. I’ve already explained above why this would be extremely overpowered.

That's simply false. They've very clearly stated the intention is to have you make the choice in every tier, and giving you the option to save your own presets. Right now, because we're in an early testing version, they've made the presets to give an idea of the changes they're making. This is not how it's intended to ship. Bioware stated the following:

"For this PTS phase, you will only be able to choose static builds we have chosen for you. Future phases will allow you to more freely choose various abilities and passives as you level."

The fact that you somehow missed this is somewhat surprising considering the amount of time you've put into this. Maybe spend a little more time carefully reading and a little less just making things up.

Actions speak louder than words. They can say what they want all day long, but their actions are what matter. If they say one thing but do another, then it doesn’t matter what they said because that’s not what happened. They say they want us to use a wider variety of toolkit, yet are massively shrinking the toolkit. They say they want to give us more choice, yet are stealing choices from us. They say they want choices to be more meaningful for our story, yet are restricting the choices and abilities we get to use on our characters. No matter how you slice it, that is factually less substance. You disliking it doesn’t make it any less true.

It's not a massive upgrade, but that's missing the point. You are complaining about the range like it's a downgrade. It simply factually isn't a downgrade as far as range is concernd, it's an upgrade (albeit a small one).

 

Yes sure, Blade Sorm is useless outside of 10m range. That's still better than it is right now on live with Freezing Force, which is dead outisde 8m range. I honestly don't understand how you can even bring up the range thing as an issue with the changes when the range is objectively getting (slightly) better.

I don’t know where the communication breakdown has occurred but there’s definitely one somewhere. My issue has never been about the range as you’re trying to make it out to be. My issue is that this change isn’t adding anything new, it’s simply shifting the source of the slow from one place to another while stealing control over it proccing from me. By tying it to a rotational ability it’s been made so you either skip that ability, or you waste our slow. As to why they made it 10m instead of sticking with 8m, they had to make a choice. Do they do a special bit of coding to keep the slow at 8m, do they reduce Blade Storm to 8m, or do they just call it 10m and a day? Going with the 10m allows them to pretend they’ve done this massive upgrade with the ability when they haven’t. You’re still not exceeding the original specs of Blade Storm, and all you’re doing is stealing control from people by shifting the source of the slow. If you want to call it an “upgrade” congratulations you’ve found a technicality to cling to without addressing the other issues. Doing something new would be combining those 2 powers, and giving us a single target slow. If they combined the abilities together AND upped the range to say 20m or even the 30m at the same time, that would be something new, even if overpowered beyond belief. Yet by the overhyping they’re doing for the Blade Storm adjustment, you would think they actually did make it baseline 30m, but they didn’t. All they’ve done is potentially combine the two powers and steal my control over when the slow actually goes off. It’s no different than if World of Warcraft suddenly recombined interrupts into the abilities they were previously. It’s not an upgrade, but a massive downgrade and a token gesture.

Just let me be clear once again, I never said it's a massive upgrade. I said the range specifically is an upgrade (and it objectively is). So complaining about the range makes absolutely no sense at all.

As for ranged characters being able to kite melee characters. Well that depends on their toolkit. I'm pretty sure ranged characters too will get a changed around kit. They too will lose abilities, and thus be not as good at kiting. Will this balance out entirely to a state where both the melee and ranged dps will evenly compete? Well that will depend on the exact state of the coming changes to other classes.

 

There's nothing wrong with expressing concern with the loss of mobility and how it'll affect kiting, but to just assume that the ranged dps's ability to kite will stay unchanged is a bit silly.

See above, the range was not my complaint but was used to illustrate how it’s not the upgrade they make it out to be. Otherwise saying “these other classes are losing abilities as well” doesn’t make it better and actually proves my original point they’re just wanting to nerf everyone for no valid reason. “Those guys lost abilities as well” isn’t an argument and actually makes things worse.

This is kind of your schtick isn't it? To make long-winded paragraphs across multiple posts touting unfounded assumptions, then refer people to your previous post in another thread that reply to a different poster. Am I now supposed to break down your posts sentence by sentence?

 

I'm not taking any abilities off of my bars, nor am I removing my gear. When I play a game, I use every tool available to me.

 

I've been around since launch, so you don't have to tell me how the game used to be. I used to solo the old H2's and H4's to be better at my class(es). And a level 23 on a level 40 planet would have been mobbed by... mobs... at 50-70 meters because high level mobs detect low level toons at greater range. This game is incredibly watered down now, so it's my hope that some revamping of classes might also be coupled with a revamping of game difficulty.

 

I try to be quick and concise in my posts. You're not obliged to read them, nor am I obliged to read a treatise on nothing, especially on a video game forum.

That right there in blue is your problem and why you have no business or right to complain about anything. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You claim certain abilities make the game too easy, yet you want to continue to benefit from the use of those abilities even though by your own admission, they have a negative effect on your gameplay. That’s like someone using the golden gun in a James Bond game then complaining it kills in one hit, yet continuing to use it. So instead of you solving your problem yourself by no longer using the golden gun, you’re demanding that everyone else in the community must now give up powers and abilities because YOU have decided the game is too easy. Talk about entitlement mentality and trolling. If you’re going to keep using powers you think are a problem, you need to quit complaining because you are the direct cause and solution to your own problem.

As to being around since the start of the game, quite frankly I don’t believe you. If you were really there as you claim, then you wouldn’t be making some of the ridiculous and factually incorrect statements you’ve made.

You should never have problems with world quests. I wear gear every time I level with nothing in the shells, except for my MH/OH which I keep upgraded with green barrels/mods/enhancements from the vendor.

 

Nothing else is needed to faceroll all planetary quests, and class missions.

World quests shouldn’t be so hard that blinking at the wrong times gets you killed, unless of course that’s how someone wants to play it. It should however at least require you to be conscious at the keyboard and aware of what you’re doing. Otherwise I agree with you.

Stop with this condescending ********, I've been playing this game as long as you have, and I main Vengeance Juggernaut. This is not my personal problem, this is a biological limitation. The studies show that an average targetted reaction time (which is where you consider what you click, and when, and it doesn't matter if its a keybind, or an icon you click with your mouse) is 450 ms. In the current PvE meta and stats distribution, the GCD for DPS is 400 ms. That means that an average human being is going to struggle with basic rotation, never mind keeping track of dots, resource management, buff management, debuff management, positioning, and DCDs.

You should take your own advice about being condescending. You are the one who came in here originally trying to play the “but what about the disabled people” card as though it has any merit on what’s being discussed or somehow rebuts anything I’ve said. “What about the disabled people” is not a valid argument or rebuttal in this instance. Next, if you’re going to cite studies, link them here, otherwise it’s little more than anecdotal evidence at best. Since you want to talk about studies, here’s one that says the average reaction time is 273 milliseconds which is far far below your 450 ms. https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

That’s just one of several studies I found with a simple internet search. Here is a second study for you here: https://raiseyourskillz.com/do-older-gamers-lose-reaction-time/

They noted that the average reaction time of a human to visual stimulus is 200ms and the fastest responses every recorded were 100-120ms. The second study I’ve given you also links to other studies that back these conclusions. All in all you should have between these 2 links access to about 5 different studies that simply do not back your conclusions.

99% of the players in this game do not have a disability and don’t have the biological inhibition that you do. They play this game and others daily without having the issues that you do. In my original post and video I gave here, not only did I not have the issues you’re pointing out, I was calling out the names of the abilities as I was pressing them. When I stopped calling out the abilities I was able to engage them far faster still. The problem in this instance isn’t the game, the problem is on your end. Sometimes having a disability means you can’t react as fast as other people, or do some of the things other people can do. That doesn’t make you less than, it’s simply a limitation you’re forced to acknowledge. I’m all for them implementing accessibility features to let folks at least get their foot in the door and play the game, but not at the cost of changing core gameplay elements or giving someone an unfair advantage.

This isn't a theory. It isn't something that you can just shrug off with "Well, you can learn that if you want to". It is an actual, existing, measurable, scientifically proven biological limitation. That's why the difference between an average parse and top parse is in thousands of DPS. That's why most people cannot achieve the same results on live bosses as they can on dummies. And it's the reason why most people will never touch content above Story OPS, because if you actually look up those guides, and the likes, all of them will tell you that an absolute minimum expected of a DPS toon is using a 0.4 GDC on a offensive ability, and doing so every time the cooldown ends. Doing just that, and nothing else, is the limit of what an average person can do.

See above. Your disability doesn’t entitle you to special privileges. As I said before, I’m all for them implementing basic accessibility features so folks can still play, but not at the cost of changing core gameplay elements for everyone else, or giving someone an unfair advantage. What you’re asking them to do is alter the core gameplay for the entire community because you personally are having a hard time. Why should they alter the game when 99% of the playerbase doesn’t have your problem? Your problem is you’re assuming that the average person is just like you and they’re not. You are not the average person as you have a disability that most people simply don’t. That doesn’t make you less than anyone else, it simply means you are going to have to work harder to achieve the same results.

Next your premise on why folks achieve better results on dummies vs ops bosses is completely incorrect and ignores the differences between those 2 measurements.

A test dummy is an example of what people can expect under the ideal conditions if they’re always able to keep damage up on the target. Dummies don’t have mechanics that require you to move or that can disrupt your dps rotation, ops and op bosses do. Ops have mechanics that require you to move around, to switch targets, to dodge certain abilities, that can incapacitate you for a time, require you to hit certain targets, that lower the amount of damage the boss takes from you, and so on. All of those mechanics are going to distort the numbers and are why the damage you do to a dummy is different than the damage you do in an op group. The dummy is a theoretical amount you can do under ideal conditions, the damage you do in an op group is what you do in practice.

And I'm saying that making some of the now necessary abilities completely gone is good for the community in the long run. You've the most popular large media franchise in the world tied to a system that is, frankly, obsolete, and incredibly hard for new people to absorb.

Good for you maybe but not good for the community. We’ve shown several examples of how this has negatively impacted other games, or even shut them down completely. As I’ve said several times, you can lower the skill bar to the floor of the basement level of hell itself and there would STILL be people that couldn’t do it short of giving them an “I win” button. Next your entire line of logic never answers why those new people are having issues. Could there be better tooltips? Did the person use a datacron and skip straight to 70 thus getting the entire toolkit dropped on them at once? Is this class the right fit for this particular person? It just jumps to “I can’t do it, therefore no one can do it, so the game needs to be made easier for me.” Sorry dude but you’re not that important. My previous point also still stands, if a new person wants to learn this game, there are tons of guides, videos, and people who can help. If they choose not to seek help and continue to struggle as a result, that’s their own fault and not my problem. New players in this game are only as helpless as they choose to be.

This is easily accomplished by restricting the more powerful abilities from use in PVP and can be done without needing to steal them from folks on the PVE side of things. Except we both know that’s not how they’re going to do it. It’s going to be a blanket approach that screws the PVE side over for the sake of PVP.

I miss the days of separate PVP gear, and separate PVP balancing would be awesome. But I agree, it's not going to happen.

But we do actually, the PTS showed half of the Guardian toolkit being removed. That’s a nerf of massive proportions to both sides of the game. Folks shouldn’t be dying in one hit in PVP unless they’re getting mobbed by half of the map, but they shouldn’t be nigh invincible on their own either. So where do you stick the balance point? This is why they need to separate PVP and PVE like World of Warcraft did. They’ve more than made clear what they did to Guardians on the PTS they intended to do to all other classes. So that is in fact information to show they intend to gut all other classes. Some will probably be worse off than others, but again it’s still a massive nerf and theft of abilities for no valid reason. If you want to hold the position we don’t have enough info, you’re entitled to that opinion. However for the purposes of the feedback they asked for, they asked for it based on what we had at that moment, which means the “wait and see” approach doesn’t apply in this instance.

The italicized text is more the point I was trying to make. We don't know how the game is going to be balanced when they're done, so I don't see how we can predict that skanks will increase post-7.0.

And I'm not telling people not to give their opinions. I'm giving mine, and I like reading what everyone has to say. Hopefully BW is reading and it's helpful to them. I'm just saying, as of now, none of us "know" how this is going to turn out. That's why I'm waiting and seeing, even as I'm giving my opinion.

You're at a restaurant. You order food. The waiter climbs onto the table, drops his pants, and squats over a plate. "Hey, why are you pooping on my plate!?" demands the reasonable person. "How do you know it's poop, smart guy, it isn't even out yet!" responds several in this thread.

I just don't know how many PTS, betas, early access phases, etc. people need to see before they understand what's going to happen, and what isn't. Pattern recognition is meant to be a pretty big part of the human brain, but it seems to be malfunctioning, or missing entirely in so many here. Yes, "it isn't finished", and yes, it doesn't need to be in order to make reasonable extrapolation and judgement based on what we have. If you seriously believe they are going to make sweeping, foundational changes to their direction, I don't know what to do for you.

^^^ This.

Nothing we do or say will change ANYTHING.