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Manweth

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Everything posted by Manweth

  1. Well, I think enough people read this thread and a few contradicting points have been presented, so I'm stopping to follow it as well. As a closer, I'd like to say I will probably come back. To the game, that is. In short bursts, a few days at a time. Simply to drop by and check on in some friends. I know I won't be coming back full time, because this is the exact same feeling I had when I quit SWG for good. And that was the whole point of my thread. The 'feel' of the forums, the 'feel' of the server (TRE) and the game itself. It's far too similar to a game that shot itself in the head and then took years to die. I don't think there are many 'people like me.' There are certainly a few, the old guard who remembers SWG, and some of us even have seen other disasters like warhammer online and such. Granted, there is only a few, but if you were to accept life experience in an issue counts for something, veteran MMO players can get the 'feel' and tell you how it is going downhill. Some have less severe views than I do, still hanging onto the game, and that is also a valid point of view. Most I know already quit the game after 3.0 itself. Seasonal player fluctuations is something we are all very familiar with. This is not it. Because it started way back in january. And many of the issues causing it have been lingering on for two years now. Last time the game's downward trend was this bad, they launched F2P to turn it around. It worked very well. Now that cat is out of the bag, so how will they turn it around? I don't think the majority of the devs see this game as little more than a chore. A few, certainly, still works hard. But the hints and small bits of insider info we can glean off show how Austin studio is just keeping the game running and have little ambition, if at all. P.S.: 'Overly flowery' language to you is just the normal way to speak for me. And I'm not even a native English speaker. So the problem is most certainly not on my end, Mr. Writer. And I write too. Mostly academic articles, but what do I know... I have no additional points to type down here. I think I covered almost all that I thought. If you can read what I really wanted to say here, you will see that I loved and still like this game as an idea. I poured in a lot of hours and effort. I enjoyed myself immensely and got my money's worth, certainly. So, only speaking for myself, I elect not to stay and watch how a SW MMO dies. I did that once before, and it is not fun. For the last time, goodbye and May The Force be with you. P.P.S: My 'stuff' is secure in my vault. We wouldn't want an unnecessary inflation by pouring in valuable items into economy without no return now, would we?
  2. For one thing, there is not an unsub button. At least for me. I use game time cards, so when they run out, it's out. For another, I pretty clearly outlined a process of slowly dying. Over years. It's certainly not dead yet. See, people like you are the 95% I don't expect any insight from. 21st century f...d up humanity so bad, it's not even funny anymore.
  3. I will follow this thread for a day or two to clarify a few things that might not have come across well in the first post. In this case, you think I don't like the game anymore. The real tragedy? I still do like it. But that is not enough to keep even someone like me, a diehard SW fan and an avid MMO player, on this property. That is basically what I'm trying to say. The real failing of 3.0 is not making people hate the game. It's losing its soul and its body at the same time, turning into a soulless F2P game. So even though I still like it, I can't bear to watch the slow death of a game I used to love so much. It was excruciating in SWG, I can't go through that again. That does not mean other people can't enjoy the game and / or to stay on the game for a variety of other reasons. These are what I felt, but I sincerely think, as a Bioware fan, as a SW fan, and as an MMO player with almost 13 years of various game experiences under my belt, that my opinion should account for a certain point of view. I at least think these are all written with a certain clarity. The downwards trend I see is something I've seen before. As some would say, 'this is not my first rodeo.' As such a person, who also values objectivity, I needed to make my thoughts known. Yes, many would not know me from another generic person. But I am not some generic player just leaving after his class got nerfed or he had a bad guild experience or whatever. I believe I am doing this for the right reasons with the most objective state of mind. Henceforth, that is the reason for my initial post. Those reasons must be made public as it just might catch the eye of some players who might want to stay on and push for a real change with devs. Truth of the matter? I know many won't understand. There has always been blind fanboys of the game within these forums, as there has been many bblind haters. I'd say only %5 of the forum posters are actually reasonable, objective people. This thread and my posts are for that %5. They were what made this game great. They were the ones who wrote guides, who did calculations, who contributed socially and who tried to improve the game. Many of them left before me. Some may leave further after me. Those who remain have my fondest farewells and I leave them with the aforomentioned thoughts.
  4. NOTE: Taken and edited from my post to Guardian/ Jugg forums. It felt appropriate to post here after a little bit of rephrasing. For a time, I've been dabbling in other games, other genres, and the prospect of playing SWTOR got less glamarous. Now, after a good introspection (nodding to all good Knights out there), I've come to a decision. I've been here since the beginning. Beta, Early Access, events, F2P launch, the ups and downs of the game, the expansions... I've been here. But as all good things must come to an end, so too this venture. This is the last time I'm posting on forums. Why is this the last time? Simply put... SWG. This game is now SWG. It is dying. I'm very objective when it comes to the quality and the playerbase of a game, even when I love it to death. SWTOR is a good enough game in a genre that is itself dying. MMOs are stagnant stale beasts of a decade long gone now. ( Early 2000s, that is.) It's gone and it won't come back. Until the advent of true virtual reality, MMOs are cursed to be mediocre. SWTOR is about one of the top five MMOs in the market. But that is saying very little. The game's population has gone down tremendously since SoR, and even tho Bioware / EA might be making good money from it, it doesn't change the fact that the game has declined. It started its slow path into death. An MMO of this scale takes years to die. But quality drops inevitably. This game has had the Star Wars Galaxies post-NGE feeling for a while now. The devs are disillusioned. Even Musco can't hide it now, no matter how hard he tries. All the new hires of Bioware Austin are working on a secret project that is unrelated to SWTOR. There are about a team of 50 ppl that is employed in Austin office but not listed anywhere in SoR credits. It will take time. Maybe five or six years. But still, it won't prevent this game from devolving into Knight Online while the slow death progresses. Players have THREATENED devs and their families. Devs have openly cursed at players. Communication between camps is breaking down. The gameplay has gone to **** with 3.0, and I'm not seeing the effort they were expending back when they did after 2.0. Back then, devs were trying. Now? Now they are just keeping the game afloat. With this; my final thoughts on guardians. It was a dream. It was a good dream, but a dream nonetheless. For the longest time, I saw that dream. The dream to be the best at an odd job, holding your own in DPS while doing other extraordinary stuff. To be a valued player recognizable by skill and class both. That dream is dead now. I could be the freaking 'God of Games and All That is MMO' and that would not make a difference. Some of us are really hardworking people, who try hard to excel and excel. Because even though this is a game, this is who we are. We are semi professional athletes in a sense, with a profound mind for excellence. When a game actively squashes excellence in favour of mediocrity, it means that it is time to exit the stage. Real life rewards mediocrity well enough. People without merit can hold positions higher than they should because of familly ties, money, friends or simple favoritism. I can't stand it in real life. I certainly can't stand in a game, a world where I come to enjoy myself. This is beyond simple class balancing or fight design at this point. Bioware Austin has failed on every single aspect of the game with 3.0. 1) Story is bland and stale. Unimpressive end to an iconic Star Wars character. Uninspired story. 2) Gameplay has devolved into a button-rotation from its previous state of priorities and reaction-time mechanics. Whereas it was a thinking AND training man's game in PvE, now it's a soulless mash-fest. 3) PvE combat design has failed completely. When your own developers fail to notice how classes play, and consequently design fights favoring a single class, that's when you know the game is not a priority even for said devs. Bugs are abound and fixed very seldom, and new ones are introduced on a patch- basis. 4) PvP, once a valued member of the gameplay trifecta, is now a stealth fest. Leaderboards are dominated by one or two ACs at a time, and it is no fun for anyone. 5) Even the game aspect that receives the most attention and work, THE CARTEL MARKET, is failing. The new packs and items inside are unimpressive, bland and useless. Gone the days of inspired item sets from SW lore, now all we see are reskins. SWTOR was a good dream. That dream is dead now. Goodbye all good people that is reading this. My sub is running out in a month, and with it, I will be gone as well. I said this exact same thing back in SWG forums a long time ago as well. Like back then, I hope to see true SW fans in the next SW-MMO alongside. May the Force be with you all.
  5. Bioware should shut down their entire Combat and Fight Teams immediately and form new ones with new blood. I don't think anyone at Austin wants to work at this game anymore after the whole 'threatening a dev's family' sitch. ( Thanks sent/maras)
  6. Let me make this one thing clear. Dxun has accomplished a kill. They deserve praise for downing a still-very-tough fight. That fact aside, the others are right. The game's progression race was first RIGGED by bioware, then nerfed by bioware, then now KILLED by bioware. If you are looking for a culprit as to why this feels like the NGE days of SWG, you can directly look at Bioware Austin. ( Edmonton guys, I love you. Austin... Not so much) SWTOR is slowly being drained and murdered by a collective effort from combat and ops devs. Do not fight each other people. Realize the true enemy. Edit: Forgot to add Cartel Team to the list, since, well, they have more manpower than the rest of the teams combined.
  7. To sum it friends.. This is SWTOR's NGE.
  8. Combat devs still try to balance the classes around a PVP component game is not built upon. They fail, horribly, as they usually do. When asked for feedback, an equivalent to H2F or L2P argument was given to sentinels. Now this is normal. Here is where it gets interesting. Sentinels are not like us Guardians or poor sages. They don't take that lying down. Sent / Mara community has always been the most toxic of all classes. When presented with the cookie cutter response, they flip out. They flip out like the world ended. They track the personal accounts of the developer who posted the feedback about new changes to sentinel. They track his family members' accounts as well. They harass him to no end. They basically cross the line in a monumental fashion. Musco finally had enough and said "cut the crap or you won't ever see another dev post on forums again." It is telling that this kind of behaviour finally happened when it happened to sentinels. We don't look so terrifying anymore, do we Eric? Ask your combat team how they feel about singling out Guardians and Sages on purpose now. What crime did those two classes commit that Sentinels have not? Guardians and Sages get nerfed every single patch, no one bats an eyelash. Because it's all within the 'plan'. Sentinels get nerfed and suddenly everyone goes mad.
  9. M&B is easy as hell when people know what they are doing, but it takes about 50 wipes for everyone to get every little detail so... As a guardian, I found that fight ridicilously easy, even though I take a full 20 stack from master's laser on purpose. (It's doable with some healing, and all our cooldowns) That fight is mostly a tank challenge, with a serious healing check at the end. Rule for DPS there is survive first, dps second. DPS checks are very light. Just be careful while leaping or Guardian leaping, that tends to go wrong at most inopportune moments as bombs come up and stuff. That's why keeping blaster in focus target and watching its castbar is a must.
  10. I am now playing Infinite Crisis. Why? ( Aside from using Flash as an assassin is awesome, that is.) Because we are useless. Not just us Vigi Guardians people. We ALL are useless. All the Jedi specs. All of them. From Combat Sents to Balance Sages. If you have a lightsaber in this game, you are f.....d with a capital F. You are f...d if you have an assault cannon. You are f...d if you have a single blaster. You are only safe if you carry a blaster rifle. All the rest is just *****. Developers like it that way. Hurray for Rifles. I would play Battlefield 4 if I was a fan of rifles, Musco. Just sayin'. I've seen this movie play before, and it was called SWG New Game Enhancements. I don't want to see it again. Peace out.
  11. *Master ClassBalance drops his cane, hearing the cries of countless Guardians,Sentinels, Shadows and Sages across the Force.*
  12. More or less what I meant, since DR curve for alacrity is very soft, whereas it is a monster drop for surge. Some specs ignore the curve and go higher if they want. I don't think guardians will benefit from that though. Maybe combat sentinels? I dunno. What we know is dropping below 2 pieces of surge is suicide since DoTs and crit blade storm drops dramatically if you don't get at least that much. We have no similar clear cut data for alacrity, as testing for the speed of damage significantly requires more runs to establish a base minimum or a maximum point.
  13. Do not go above 600 alacrity. I'm running with 1x198 quick savant + 9xalacrity augs and it gives an exact 7.00% speed boost. Anything higher than 600 enters alacrity's internal DR curve anyway. Only certain specs in game benefit from that much alacrity, and we don't. I had one 4.9 on 500k, and one on 1M dummy. Gonna post when I FINALLY get a damn 5k parse. ( So far didn't havemuch chance to do parsing) I'm guessing you guys would want a 1M parse? (1.5 is too long, and I'm lazy.) Confirmed finding: Alacrity is not an instant +300 dps boost like some ppl might hope, and your average only jumps up slightly when you gear for it. Real positive is that consistency skyrockets. Whereas finding 4.7 was a problem with consistency with no alacrity uild, now I'm finding it %90 of time. Baseline dps jumped up and real fight consistency skyrocketed as well. Proposed tests for all guardian theorists: 1) Someone needs to check if going no crit / full power would increase overall dps with a set amount of alacrity. I'm running 24.55 to 25.89 crit ( switching one mod occasionally). Getting Deft 38 mods is a pain in the ***, so we need to find out how many we need before gearing completes 2) If anyone has the time, try to see how our DPS acts when alacrity is incremented by one augment at a time, from 120 alacrity (one 198 enhancement baseline) to a possible of 692, maybe even 744 total rating. I've had only very little testing time to see how high I could go, and 588 was an immediate result, not an extensively tested one. 3) All of the above was tested with 360 surge, at soft cap limit. I've heard a sage saying that using 2x198 surge + 1 surge augment and instead taking 1 alacrity enhancement could give better results, but had no chance to test it. Sidenote: Theoretically, having a faster rotation benefits DoT classes more as a rule, and even moreso when said burns crit. Other classes rely on dot crits more than we do, and we only have 3 burns, so it's debatable if using a certain amount of crit is good or not. I myself have a healthy amount of crit, but there are two outlying extremes of either zero crit or pushing it to a neighbourhood of 350-ish total crit rating ( where it starts to lose out to power for sure). If anyone wants, they can check that as well. But I suspect anything more than 140 crit is a dps loss. Damned bioware devs put in crit alacrity all over vindicator set, so I can't get my hands on a proper Deft mod to save my life......... Edit P.S.: Using that much alacrity requires a good connection (somewhat) ANd most importantly, having a seriously damaged obsessive personality. You'll be mashing the keybinds like a crazy person, you'll be killing yourself every 8-ish secs to clip MS juuuuuust at the right time (harder to do with faster cast) and your internal mental clocks will go out of sync in almost all the real fights while counting Globals and running calculations of upcoming rotation. Or maybe it's just me that is so damaged, that is also possible. P.P.S.: I'm suspecting that alacrity gearing is more useful when Revanite gearing, I had run a similar test with resurrecteds back in Xmas time when someone said it could be useful, but it wasn't giving nearly the same results. Possibly the surge and crit numbers weren't high enough without revanite upgrades back then. Also, I did not have a Quick Savant 38 as well, that makes a difference while gearing for alacrity. Doing it purely on augments is very prohibitive.
  14. Just killed full ravagers (HM), and my DPS at least stayed same, but went up in a lot of tries. I got hits off in scenarios where I couldn't, for example, got an extra hit on Torque just as he knocks you back with Rage, whereas I couldn't before. One of the many upsides of alacrity. It works on parsing, bbut it works much better in fights. Initial numbers may show low if you don't crit good, but it balances out in fights and you grab top DPS eventually. ( Provided that you don't die.) I'm telling you guys. SPEED! We must all do SPEEEEEEED!!!!!! *Crystal meth usage optional* *Summons a Speed Guardian with 5 energy, next two rounds will activate with Guardian attacking first* Edit Note: Jaws of Hakkon just launched on DAI, so I might not be around for a few days. Gonna get to the promised land of 5k deeps laterz. Peace out.
  15. 588 alacrity ( 7.00 percent speed), 24.55 crit, 69.19 surge. Finding 4.6 as a baseline, hit a 4.9 earlier. GOnna go for 5k and let you guys see the parses... But I can tell SPEEEEED is the way to go. Above 7.00 it seems to make you lose deeps though.
  16. TBH, my guild killed Cora and we are gearing up for Revan, and I'm one of the 3 to not switch to a trooper, so I 'might' get a shot as well. Trying out full alacrity augment build, gonna let you guys how that plays out.
  17. Q number 2. Did you guys figure out any final number on how much crit, surge and alacrity we gotta have or shouldn't go above? My itemization is a total mess right now.
  18. I return to playing after weeks, do a few parses and can't *********** get above 4.7 to save my life. Furthermore, I can't clip MS like I used to.. Did we get a nerf while I was away?
  19. Ranked? *Looks at the LEGIONS UPON LEGIONS of sins and shadows* Yea... No.
  20. My raidleader everyone He has good points, as the unforgiving nature of the spec. But even he doesn't deny one class or spec shouldn't have the 1) Best mobility 2) Best Survivability 3) Best DPS at the same time. I had read the massively's article on endgame raiding, and I agreed with many of the stated points. One thing that article doesn't cover or ignores is the MMO market is incredibly.... stale. It won't change........ Without a dramatic increase and // or change in hardware(s) we use. Hence, the hopeful wait on new VR systems like Oculus rift. If done well, such things can alter the landscape radically. But for now, we have raiding. And we will have it for the near future. LotRO stopped making raids, and for a game of that age, it's a good decision. But it's far too early for SWTOR to take that route. We have enough emphasis on Cartel market as it is.
  21. Someone to take ion cutter from Master. Ability to take damage from intentional grenade blast if needed. Superior positioning advantage if you can grab the spot behind the boss. Srsly, that fight is a bit grp-oriented to comment on a certain class's use. One thing I noticed, even if you take 4 ranged, 2 of them needs to roleplay a melee at any case because of the repositioning needs. So, why wouldn't you go for a nice vanguard or a guardian who can put out more dps on the move while dancing? One slinger sniper is good enough, though two of those at the same time is simply unnecessary. If you are that lone sniper in a grp, your only way out is to convince someone else to play ranged and you also would need to prove you can do higher or equal dps in guardian. See, that's what we mean when we say guardians require a lot of time to foster. Your grp is so alienated to the idea of using it, and you probably never had many chances to show your worth at it. You need to start small and work your way up in a powerful raid grp. Of course, if your raid grp is an average one, it's easier. You will train like hell, and then you'll crush everyone else at Parsec and then leave a smug silence in the air, so they can feel your contempt wafting off of the teamspeak. Let's see if they can keep up their grp comp. stacking ways then. Humiliation is often the best tool in a raider's arsenal, along with preparation and an ability to think ahead in short time frames. ( Chess and fencing helps.) As for the comment of RDPS must be keeping up, well, most of them should, but no fight in these new instances are a good measure really. Everyone has different roles and little jobs to do, no one has the time to look at parsec and measure their dps. Well, red kephess ( malaphar? I think) is a bit of a measuring pole, but you can get top spot along with a TK sage there due to the excellent aoe capabilities, even that fight is not a balanced competition. Due to the easy-to-pickup, but very tough to master nature of our adv. class, and also due to the 3 year old stigma associated with the dps numbers on a previously bottom of the barrel class, I suspect we will never be more than a small community. And I kinda prefer it that way. Widely used specs are more susceptible to dangerous nerfs. ( Gunslingers send their love with Flyby. ---- "ooh, 2k, that's a good hit." )
  22. I hate to be that guy for everyone, but I will be that guy. TRAIN more. Excellence is your only way out. Also, 1 melee and that will be always mara / sent? *Laughes hysterically as he watches vanguards and guardians beating down puny doublesaber users* Yeeeeaaa...No. They are not a PREREQUISITE anymore. They are just, 'they'. No more no less.
  23. True that. Also, these utilities and cooldowns also allow us for to do higher DPS in certain instances. I feel more useful than ever before, we were just good offtanks before, now we have more. Quick question to those who have tried it, did anyone try out a certain skill in Master&BLaster HM to be useful? I've been thinking of reflecting the Ion Cutter of Master, but I didn't get to have a long enough instance to try to see if it worked.
  24. I honestly don't know what you are referring to. Elaborate so we might have an intelligent discussion. --> I did not expressly know that Reflect worked on vent fire on Torque. I suspected a bit, because a few times it coincided with my reflect usage, I have seen a lot more reflects than there should be. Nice to have a confirmation on the issue. Now I'M thinking of speccing into longer saber reflect and just stand in fire for 5 seconds each minute.
  25. Why unnecessary? I gotta say, with all the AOEs, some tries he was pulling 5k numbers, he didn't get it on kill, but a TK sage is a fearsome weapon in that fight.
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