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Welcome to Onslaught Phase 1.5!


EricMusco

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Hey everyone,

 

Now, onto phase 1.5 of our Onslaught PTS! For those that have been following along in the PTS forum, you will be familiar with what is now available for testing. In this sub-patch of phase 1 you will have everything from before (Warrior and Inquisitor) but we are now adding the Imperial Agent items and some group content with our new scaling tech.

 

Note that this phase is PTS is pretty initial and so there is a lot still to come, which you will see in the coming weeks as we enter phase two. Let's dive in!

 

How to Test

  • Head to the Getting Started on the PTS thread for directions on how to access and download PTS.
  • Once on PTS, please create a Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, or Imperial Agent of either Advanced Class
  • Walk out of your starter conversation, and you will notice a terminal that is labeled "Travel to Odessen."
  • Click that terminal and it will do the following:
    • Take you to the Odessen Base Camp
    • Set you to level 75
    • Give you 9,999,999 credits
    • Grant you your class ship and ship droid companion

On the Odessen base camp you will notice a number of vendors which will sell you equipment, set bonus gear, and tactical items for Warriors, Inquisitors, and Agents. Bounty Hunters and all Republic counterparts are not available in this phase.

 

Balance is nowhere near final and so we are not driving you to play anything specific (except for some areas with the scaling tech). Feel free to play solo content, hit up training dummies, or try to coordinate group content with your friends and guildies. In future phases when we start testing loot drops and balance, we will setup scheduled play times for group content.

 

There are a number of things that are in placeholder states or are not yet fully implemented:

  • New tooltips have been implemented, but they are still a work in progress.
  • All of the Onslaught gear is using existing armor appearances, that is likely to change.
  • Amplifiers are not implemented. If you see them appear anywhere expect that it is fully placeholder and not implemented.
  • Tactical item slots appearance in the character sheet is temporary.
  • Crafting inventory and crew skills are not yet ready for testing.
  • The spoils of war style of loot drops are not yet implemented, that will be a major focus of a future PTS phase.
  • Nautolans are not implemented but you will see a section for them in character creation.
  • None of the new areas or storyline should be accessible during PTS.

Please let us know your thoughts on the Warrior and Inquisitor items! A useful links for you:

We'll see you on PTS!

 

-eric

Edited by EricMusco
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There's a few pieces of information and tools I think are vital to players ability to provide feedback that we're lacking right now.

 

  • Complete legacies - Access to all companion and class buffs as well as field respec
  • Target DPS so we can get an idea of how classes are performing relative to your expectations
  • Relative power of tacticals/set bonus compared to target DPS

 

Currently there's essentially no content where we can adequately test classes in as operations have been reverted to their launch level. If output/playability/desirability feedback is not what you're looking for could you please clarify what it is you're after. As it stands right now I'm not really sure what you want us to test.

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Hey folks,

 

We are going to be bringing PTS offline shortly to deploy a new patch. This patch will do some rebalancing for our scaling tech in Story mode content. It has been made a bit more difficult than it is currently. Please be sure to head to the feedback thread after these changes and let us know what you think.

 

-eric

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Hello everyone,

 

My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes.

 

I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this.

 

First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values.

 

Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums).

 

I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along.

 

That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not.

 

I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through.

 

Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.".

 

Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

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Hello everyone,

 

My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes.

 

I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this.

 

First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values.

 

Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums).

 

I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along.

 

That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not.

 

I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through.

 

Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.".

 

Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

 

Completely agree with this. Hope the devs read this and take note.

Edited by WhiteOsprey
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Hello everyone,

 

My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes.

 

I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this.

 

First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values.

 

Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums).

 

I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along.

 

That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not.

 

I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through.

 

Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.".

 

Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

 

I'd agree. I get that any or all of what we see on the PTS is potentially not even going to make it into the game and they can scale abilities up or down but there is no real guidance as to how they'd like you to test the items.

 

Also, can I add that not knowing when they plan to start and stop testing is a pain in the neck - I downloaded that last iteration of the test server, dressed up my new toon in the various gear and ran out of time... thought to myself, "I'll come back tomorrow and give it a play" only to find that they'd taken the server offline. I don't fancy, loading up the PTS each time afresh only to have them take it back down.

 

Sorry, a bit annoyed too! And I know we don't HAVE to do it but it would be nice to be involved in a productive way.

Edited by hillerbees
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Hello everyone,

 

My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes.

 

I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this.

 

First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values.

 

Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums).

 

I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along.

 

That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not.

 

I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through.

 

Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.".

 

Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

 

Amen fellow swtor brother; much respect to those doing the testing and wholeheartedly agree there needs to be open communication on both sides to make the PTS effective and efficient

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Hello everyone,

 

My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes.

 

I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this.

 

First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values.

 

Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums).

 

I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along.

 

That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not.

 

I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through.

 

Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.".

 

Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

 

Can I + more than one? I was going to snip your post for brevity, and then I didn't because maybe if they see it so many times bioware will take it to heart.

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A relatively minor issue that is annoying the **** out of me on the PTS: how do I remove the "box icons" from over vendor's heads? I can't find any way to do this in preferences. Please tell me this annoyance is not planned for 6.0 live?
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Hello everyone,

 

My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes.

 

I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this.

 

First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values.

 

Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums).

 

I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along.

 

That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not.

 

I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through.

 

Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.".

 

Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

 

+1 and a bump.

 

I get that Bioware is probably busy as hell right now, but devs please don't follow the precedent set on Ossus PTS and just flat out ignore the feedback, which looking back gave a fairly accurate assessment of what the problems have been in live version. Had you taken that seriously, the conversation during Live Cantina about gearing and how you know there were problems could have been avoided, and I'm seeing the same trend here, where there are some major issues that a solid number of PTS participants are seeing and giving feedback on, but feels like we're flying blind right now.

 

We're asking for more communication & info not to be annoying, but to understand the numbers and performance we're seeing a little better, so we can give accurate feedback.

 

Right now set bonuses and tactical items are all over the place, it's really hard to gauge what the goal or 'baseline' is.

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Hey folks,

 

We are going to be bringing PTS down tomorrow to deploy a small patch. That small patch will include the introduction of Bounty Hunters to PTS! Look for PTS to go live once again towards the end of the week.

 

In the interim I will work on getting a list together of the Tacticals and Set Bonuses, look for that post in the next couple of day.

 

-eric

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Hey folks,

 

We are going to be bringing PTS down tomorrow to deploy a small patch. That small patch will include the introduction of Bounty Hunters to PTS! Look for PTS to go live once again towards the end of the week.

 

In the interim I will work on getting a list together of the Tacticals and Set Bonuses, look for that post in the next couple of day.

 

-eric

 

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY :D

 

In the meantime, my interview with the Devs has a preview of a couple of the Set Bonuses and Tacticals - https://mmobits.com/2019/08/01/exclusive-6-0-mercenary-class-developer-interview-plus-tacticals-and-set-bonuses-preview/

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Hey folks,

 

We are going to be bringing PTS down tomorrow to deploy a small patch. That small patch will include the introduction of Bounty Hunters to PTS! Look for PTS to go live once again towards the end of the week.

 

In the interim I will work on getting a list together of the Tacticals and Set Bonuses, look for that post in the next couple of day.

 

-eric

 

Looking forward to testing my Powertech.

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PTS is now offline. Look for more details on Bounty Hunter in the next day or two with the plan of PTS coming back up with BH towards the end of the week.

 

Thanks all.

 

-eric

 

Thanks Eric what phase will this be still 1.5 or 1.7 also what about Republic characters or since they are basicly a mirror will it only be imperial till 2.0 testing ?

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Thanks Eric what phase will this be still 1.5 or 1.7 also what about Republic characters or since they are basicly a mirror will it only be imperial till 2.0 testing ?

 

This is still 1.5. There will be a bigger announcement (blog and whatnot) when we go into Phase 2 as a lot is coming in with that Phase.

 

To follow on to my previous post, PTS is not going to be coming back up today. We are still working on getting the next build together so look for it early next week.

 

-eric

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