Master Mode FP scaling is unbalanced. Every MM FP I've done, no matter the group, has had every boss hit enrage. Same for TFB Vet mode - that was also very unbalanced. We hit enrage there too.

Too add to that -- Originally tried solo MM red reaper. Got past droid after a few tries, mostly from comp dying. But always hit enrage on Ikoral - this was with both 306 auged and 320 unaugmented.

Might try it with 322+ augmented for acc since the threshold is way too high but I'm really not eager to revisit after the cheevo grind.

I wasn't sure if Iokath was needed for the titles so I didn't skip to Onslaught after KOTET and went through this story bit. It ends with a boss fight (inside a walker against 3 tall droids) which already had balancing issues at one point.

And once again this fight is near impossible without dieing. You take too much damage and deal too little. The best strategy (standing in middle and using stomp to damage the 3 droids) doesn't work anymore because you take too much damage from the AOEs and you need to move around. So you have to kill the droids one at a time but you don't have enough HP for the 3rd one. Had to rez and finish it off.

I wasn't sure if Iokath was needed for the titles so I didn't skip to Onslaught after KOTET and went through this story bit. It ends with a boss fight (inside a walker against 3 tall droids) which already had balancing issues at one point.

 

And once again this fight is near impossible without dieing. You take too much damage and deal too little. The best strategy (standing in middle and using stomp to damage the 3 droids) doesn't work anymore because you take too much damage from the AOEs and you need to move around. So you have to kill the droids one at a time but you don't have enough HP for the 3rd one. Had to rez and finish it off.

That one was already made harder on live when they "fixed" walker damage. I'm not sure if player gear matters but I was in 306 gear and ended up with one sliver of life afterward.

Those droids need to be nerfed big time.

Overall i felt weaker when doing simple content like heroics when compared to live. Using Virus sniper i felt like i was sluggish in killing enemies that i straight up delete in main. It's also worth mentioning that, as much as the new passive abilities are good and useful, the removal of other, situational abilities hurts the gameplay.

I shouldn't have to choose between a CC and an aggro drop, or an AoE and a shield for my group. It feels wrong and the classes feel gutted because of it. Would be amazing if when 7.0 goes live, this changes to, instead of having to pick between 2-3 actives, the choices boil down to passives and keep the active abilities available to everyone in that class.

With game scaling now available, we would like to compile feedback based off of your experience with the Combat Styles currently available.

 

Please answer the following questions:

 

• How does this experience compare to live?
  
• Do you feel too strong or too weak? Please explain why.
  
• Do you notice anything off with your stats?
  

 

Please keep in mind the following:

• Game scaling is available only for planets, daily areas, story mode Flashpoints, and chapters.
  
• Game scaling is NOT available for old operations (Ops outside of 7.0), or Veteran and Master modes in Flashpoints
  

When providing feedback, please let us know what Combat Style you've chosen, and describe your experience in as much detail as possible to help us understand your thought process and line of thinking.

 

Thank you!

Bioware I feel too dang weak. Seriously I got your 320 armor and I am playing story content, heroics and story flashpoints and I can easily tell that the NPC's are buffed and I am nerfed. This is the exact same content I've been playing for years and now it's suddenly more time consuming? There is a difference between too easy and too damn hard. Especially Heroics. Usually I used to breeze through heroics for dailies. Now I can easily spend a couple hours doing one or two planets when I could do two planets worth in a half hour. I work for a living guys...I don't want to waste two-three hours doing dailies when I was able to do them in 30 minutes in 6.0. The balance is that bad. You used to have an iRating buff that came with doing story level content. That's gone now and I don't understand why. The combats style I chose was a Sith Juggernaut and Sith Assassin. I seriously see two big solutions to many of our problems. Take a second look at the scaling and balance of 7.0 and see if you can improve based on our feedback and second, do away with content based gearing. I can promise you 95% of the player base does not want to touch the toxic environment of Master Flashpoints and Nightmare Operations. People just want to play with the best gear. That's it. Remember people who play MMO's will always want the top of the line gear. Even if they don't need it. People didn't need 306 unless they did endgame content yet they still wore it doing story content and veteran flashpoints. Why? Because it was FUN. You had a slight boost in stats. It makes doing veteran flashpoints much more fun and easier. If you put a barrier in front of us. A requirement for people to play a specific kind of content. Then people will leave the game cause once they reach the max rating in veteran flashpoints. They will have nothing more to play for and not want to bother. They'll go elsewhere.

Bioware I feel too dang weak. Seriously I got your 320 armor and I am playing story content, heroics and story flashpoints and I can easily tell that the NPC's are buffed and I am nerfed. This is the exact same content I've been playing for years and now it's suddenly more time consuming? There is a difference between too easy and too damn hard. Especially Heroics. Usually I used to breeze through heroics for dailies. Now I can easily spend a couple hours doing one or two planets when I could do two planets worth in a half hour. I work for a living guys...I don't want to waste two-three hours doing dailies when I was able to do them in 30 minutes in 6.0. The balance is that bad. You used to have an iRating buff that came with doing story level content. That's gone now and I don't understand why. The combats style I chose was a Sith Juggernaut and Sith Assassin. I seriously see two big solutions to many of our problems. Take a second look at the scaling and balance of 7.0 and see if you can improve based on our feedback and second, do away with content based gearing. I can promise you 95% of the player base does not want to touch the toxic environment of Master Flashpoints and Nightmare Operations. People just want to play with the best gear. That's it. Remember people who play MMO's will always want the top of the line gear. Even if they don't need it. People didn't need 306 unless they did endgame content yet they still wore it doing story content and veteran flashpoints. Why? Because it was FUN. You had a slight boost in stats. It makes doing veteran flashpoints much more fun and easier. If you put a barrier in front of us. A requirement for people to play a specific kind of content. Then people will leave the game cause once they reach the max rating in veteran flashpoints. They will have nothing more to play for and not want to bother. They'll go elsewhere.

Seriously if this is the way it is you may lose people I agree with this poster. If I cant solo heroics anymore without spending hours you will lose me too. A challenge is fine a chore is not welcome.

Bioware I feel too dang weak. Seriously I got your 320 armor and I am playing story content, heroics and story flashpoints and I can easily tell that the NPC's are buffed and I am nerfed. This is the exact same content I've been playing for years and now it's suddenly more time consuming? There is a difference between too easy and too damn hard. Especially Heroics. Usually I used to breeze through heroics for dailies. Now I can easily spend a couple hours doing one or two planets when I could do two planets worth in a half hour. I work for a living guys...I don't want to waste two-three hours doing dailies when I was able to do them in 30 minutes in 6.0. The balance is that bad. You used to have an iRating buff that came with doing story level content. That's gone now and I don't understand why. The combats style I chose was a Sith Juggernaut and Sith Assassin. I seriously see two big solutions to many of our problems. Take a second look at the scaling and balance of 7.0 and see if you can improve based on our feedback and second, do away with content based gearing. I can promise you 95% of the player base does not want to touch the toxic environment of Master Flashpoints and Nightmare Operations. People just want to play with the best gear. That's it. Remember people who play MMO's will always want the top of the line gear. Even if they don't need it. People didn't need 306 unless they did endgame content yet they still wore it doing story content and veteran flashpoints. Why? Because it was FUN. You had a slight boost in stats. It makes doing veteran flashpoints much more fun and easier. If you put a barrier in front of us. A requirement for people to play a specific kind of content. Then people will leave the game cause once they reach the max rating in veteran flashpoints. They will have nothing more to play for and not want to bother. They'll go elsewhere.

You know exactly that the balance is unbalanced, when Shae Vizla is not only able to kill Khem, but also the droid, and you end the fight with 6 % of your hp. (Yes, I'm talking about Bloodhunt in story mode.)

So, I agree with your post.

Combat styles:

Smuggler Scoundrel Scrapper (stealther)

Jedi Shadow Infiltration (stealther)

Sith Assassin Deception (stealther)

[*]How does this experience compare to live?

MUCH WORSE!

None of those three classes was enjoyable. Abilities were missing. Rotations got broken. Energy management is worse than before. DPS is lower than before (or enemies have more HP). Defensive possibilities got limited.

It takes much longer to kill enemies. I just needed 2+ minutes on my assassn to kill the boss of the Belsavis heroic "Freeing the Fallen" with a level 50 companion healer. Over two minutes! On live I need less than one minute for that. That's not enjoyable. It just doubles the amount of time I need to do things.

[*]Do you feel too strong or too weak? Please explain why.

Definitely weaker!!! And how could this be a surprise, since you took away so many abilities. As an example, my shadow doesn't have Spinning Kick anymore. It was my favourite ability and the opener of my rotation.

And as mentioned above: less abilities, less DPS, less defensives, worse energy management.. You massively nerfed all my chars I tested, and then you ask if I feel stronger? I return the question:

Why do you think I should feel that my chars are stronger than on live? What have you changed to make them stronger? You neither changed the classes for the better, nor the game scaling.

[*]Do you notice anything off with your stats?

I haven't checked my stats, but my DPS output seems to be much less on my chars, so naturally I dislike that change. If you want people to play the same content they played for years, you shouldn't make it taking double as long to finish those contents. It's counterproductive in achieving your goal (if that is your goal).

describe your experience in as much detail as possible to help us understand your thought process and line of thinking.

I mean, my line of thinking is that you analysed how I and many other players play this game and you came to the conclusion that you don't like that we play your game the way we like, and then you decided to change the game in such a way that you punish the game styles you don't like, or make them even almost impossible, while emphasizing the game style YOU want the players to take on.

Fair enough.

It would have been easier though to just send an e-mail asking me to please quit my subscription.

I don't feel welcome in your game anymore. That's my honest feedback. And that's not hyperbole. What is currently on the PTS is a game that is not for me. Maybe I should be happy that you force me to play less and save money. I spent too much time on your game. For that I should thank you, I suppose. Feels weird anyway.

Data: Leveled a Bounty Hunter: Mercenary>Arsenal from 1 to 80, through all 3 chapters, Makeb, Shadow of Revan, KOTET, KOTFE, Ossus, & Onslaught. Had a Powertech as my 2nd combat choice, but couldn't easily figure out how to switch, so I didn't pursue it any further. This review pertains to PVE only.

• How does this experience compare to live?
  

Overall, the TTK for all PVE enemies is considerably longer on PTS. I understand that I'm doing this in subpar gear, but I'm very familiar with arsenal merc rotation, so I feel this balances a bit. Champion mobs seem to take a REALLY long time to kill. Damage output of mobs seems OK. Makeb is the only exception here. Makeb in its entirety is very easy. Enemies across the board melted like a lvl 80 killing mobs on Hutta.

• Do you feel too strong or too weak? Please explain why.
  

I feel very weak. My companion, at any level, would deal considerably more damage than I would, which is not a good feeling. I understand maxing out gear will help, but I was running full 322 w/ 2 326 set bonus implants, and some champions in Heroics STILL took a long time to kill. Again, damage output of mobs feels ok, but my output is underwhelming.

• Do you notice anything off with your stats?
  

2 things.

1. Not getting any meaningful abilities until level 23 makes 1-23 feel mindnumbingly simple. It's literally missile blasts and rapid shots until 19, when death from above comes in, but still nothing until 23. We do get rail shot at 15, but that brings up point #2....

2. Arsenal Merc has nothing to proc Rail Shot until 23, making it unusable for 8 levels. To use Rail Shot, the enemy needs to be incapacitated or have periodic damage. The only thing Arsenal Merc has prior to 23 is missile blast for a knockdown, but half the time the enemy resists the KD or there isn't enough time to proc Rail Shot, so it most sits unused until level 23 tracer missile, which can apply the heat signature for use.

Hope this helps!

Well first I finally have a positive to say about 7.0 as I enjoyed the uncapped content in Flashpoints. Its a shame that the gear/loot system you guys put in place. Removing a sense of reward from content is definitely gonna kill the desire to replay these levels again... Even if the combat felt enjoyable. (I do agree with above post it is jarring to feel weaker at 80 with all the fun skills locked behind choices or removed all together. Its strange the Devs decided to remove options that allow players to utilize tactics and get creative)

On the other side, you're completely ruining planetside. The two common complaints during my livestream were:

- The gear/loot system is awful and a lot of players felt it removed all point of playing. Who really wants to grind for scraps? People like looting, not getting the same generic 320 pieces. And upgrading thru an excessive amount of materials was literally the "I'm cancelling my sub" reaction

- capped Alacrity on Planets. Who on Earth made this decision? Punishing players with extremely low gcds for what reason now? Most people stated they simply wouldn't do planetside content anymore bc who wants to deal with constant timing changes?

In general its another round of common sense mistakes that could be avoided.

7.0 PTS while improved from earlier iterations still feels like a punishment and downgrade. Even the positive things like outfit designer/loadout come with the drawback of that horrid UI/Char screen, and the inventory screen with every highlighted empty box...

Oh and the new Flashpoint was universally trashed during the stream as well. People were expecting Secrets of the Enclave quality and instead we got a clicky grapple section.

All n all, guys are extremely far from putting out something that people seem to want still and the consensus is it just feels like you're punishing players who love the game.

I think this is related to scaling. Sorry if it's been mentioned already, but why do stats like accuracy, crit, and alacrity scale down when you go to lowbie planets? I have a full set of 322 gear, accuracy is at 109% on fleet, and drops to 104% on Nar Shadaa for example.

If there are three stats that should never be scaled, it's alacrity, crit, and ESPECIALLY accuracy.

Why oh why did you decide to scale tertiary stats?

Accuracy, alacrity, crit, and I'm sure the tank stats are the same way. Those should not scale. EVER.

We need 110% accuracy at ALL TIMES in PVE content to ensure each shot hits. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to hit a level 1 mob 100% of the time as a level 80 scaled down.

Many moves are dependent on crit, such as the Seer/Corruption Healing channel ability which each crit gives you a free resource regen ability charge. DPS classes have similar situations as well.

Alacrity impacts the GCD. It would be absolutely horrid to have 1.5 gcd on lowbies, 1.4gcd on mid planets, and 1.3gcd only on max level content.

This is an absolutely horrid decision and makes me feel like the devs aren't even playing the game when making these changes. Look at any PVE discipline guide online, Vulkk, Merlyn, EVERY SINGLE ONE SAYS TO GET 110% ACCURACY and to at least get 1.4gcd.

I sincerely hope you do not plan on releasing this gear/level scaling in it's current state.

Why oh why did you decide to scale tertiary stats?

 

Accuracy, alacrity, crit, and I'm sure the tank stats are the same way. Those should not scale. EVER.

 

We need 110% accuracy at ALL TIMES in PVE content to ensure each shot hits. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to hit a level 1 mob 100% of the time as a level 80 scaled down.

 

Many moves are dependent on crit, such as the Seer/Corruption Healing channel ability which each crit gives you a free resource regen ability charge. DPS classes have similar situations as well.

 

Alacrity impacts the GCD. It would be absolutely horrid to have 1.5 gcd on lowbies, 1.4gcd on mid planets, and 1.3gcd only on max level content.

 

This is an absolutely horrid decision and makes me feel like the devs aren't even playing the game when making these changes. Look at any PVE discipline guide online, Vulkk, Merlyn, EVERY SINGLE ONE SAYS TO GET 110% ACCURACY and to at least get 1.4gcd.

 

I sincerely hope you do not plan on releasing this gear/level scaling in it's current state.

Heck you'd think that 100% accuracy would be enough.

But I completely agree.

I'm not sure they play their own game.

Why oh why did you decide to scale tertiary stats?

 

Accuracy, alacrity, crit, and I'm sure the tank stats are the same way. Those should not scale. EVER.

 

We need 110% accuracy at ALL TIMES in PVE content to ensure each shot hits. There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to hit a level 1 mob 100% of the time as a level 80 scaled down.

Is there a specific place you are getting scaled to lose accuracy %?

I took a level 80 with 110% accuracy to the starting planet of Ord Mantel then the starting planet of Tython and in both cases I was changed to 1031 raw accuracy rating with a result of 129.75% accuracy.

e.g. https://i.ibb.co/xMZt7c0/tmp.png

Master Mode FP scaling is unbalanced. Every MM FP I've done, no matter the group, has had every boss hit enrage. Same for TFB Vet mode - that was also very unbalanced. We hit enrage there too.

I think we will see a lot of words when 7.0 goes live about how much damage players actually do and how that is affecting the ability to do content. Partly its what the spec can do and partly its what the player is competent at doing and finally it's the gear being used.

The reason there will be... words... is because everyone's damage and healing will be visible in numbers due to changes in combat logging. Currently and since it existed it reported what YOU did only and to see someone elses numbers you needed to use a program that synced combat logs across the group and that did nothing if people didn't want to join.

7.0 reports everyones numbers in the group to everyone else in the group automatically.

Scaling in operations is screwed up but MM FP I don't think so. I've seen MM FP bosses enrage at maybe 100khp but it was factual that one dps was doing half what another was. So is it right to say the MM scaling is bad or can we say something else? It is after all the highest tier of flashpoint not veteran or story mode.

Like I say, words will be said when all numbers are visible in all group content.

Numbers from a Marauder to compare: (306 gear is a crit/alacrity build while 320 is green garbage)

Level 75 (306) Gear

Korriban

Accuracy 240 (102%)

Alacrity 6

Critical 126 (24% chance)

(58% multiplier)

Ship

Accuracy 240 (102%)

Alacrity 775

Critical 3451 (43% chance)

(70% multiplier)

Level 80 (320) Gear

Korriban

Accuracy 14 (102%)

Alacrity 10

Critical 11 (17% chance)

(52% multiplier)

Ship

Accuracy 1326 (106%)

Alacrity 999

Critical 1490 (27% chance)

(58% multiplier)

Is there a specific place you are getting scaled to lose accuracy %?

The example I wrote down was having a full set of 322 gear, accuracy is at 109% on fleet, and drops to 104% on Nar Shadaa. Didn't write anything else down specifically, but I noticed it especially when doing the Tython heroic.

Madness Sorcerer does negligible damage at H2+ Star Fortress on Voss with the Andur Malor fight.

Every time like clockwork at around 80-70% he instantly kills you. This needs to be tuned WAAAAAAY back.

Also, The Eternal Championship round 9 on a Madness Sorcerer is impossible. You cannot kill the drones fast enough.