ArenCordial
-
Posts
397 -
Joined
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Posts posted by ArenCordial
-
-
Legends (Pub) on Harbinger.
We are pretty much expecting KotET to be a bust. About 60% of our raid team has already started leveling toons in FF14. Its a real shame most of us have been together since launch or shortly after.
-
RotHC stands as my favorite cycle so far. We had SO much content introduced and to play. KotFE was just a disappointment to me on all levels... they promised us story and it fell short of what it should have been.
RotHC despite not being the best story they've had was pretty good. The storyline didn't put you in a position of power only to take orders from your subordinates and for your choices to be second guessed by the rest of the NPC's.
And not only did it give us story, it gave us GROUP CONTENT that can be played more than once without wanting to tear your eyes out...
This. RotHC era was the high point of post launch content. The story was much better, even if KotFE has the edge in cinematics. Faction story > the single Zakuul story. The raids were great. I pvped the most in the 2.x era. The only I would have changed was Oricon requiring the raids to complete the story. SoR approach with Revan was better in that regard.
-
Only 8% of the people was doing ToS HM during SoR. THIS is why they stopped to make new raid content.
Just a couple of points I feel the need to make here. If BioWare is using this as an excuse to not pursue further raid content then its one of their own making.
ToS/Rav HM was a significant step up in difficulty from prior tiers. That's why it was popularly called hardmare. It was probably way over tuned for your average hard mode guild as if trying to appeal to both the NiM and HM raiding crowd. Heck even some casual SM focused guilds were having problems with the SM version. While I can appreciate the sentiment of extra challenge I'm not sure it did those ops any popularity favors for such a large difficulty increase. They needed to make some adjustments sooner than they did.
Secondly certain fights like HM Revan overwhelming favored exactly 1 raid make up, Hunters or Troopers, due to the mechanics. That is absolutely terrible in design, for HM guilds that may not want to run FotM classes but still wanted to clear HM. To this day I'm not sure if any guild downed Revan before the first nerf that didn't include an overwhelming make up of Troopers/Hunters or players of other classes that legacied over the main hand. If there was its a very small list.
Third bugs, bugs, bugs. Underlurker was a constant problem in the first few weeks and Torque's repair droids getting stuck on players was another terrible nightmare for raid groups trying to do progression.
Finally the Rav exploit going on for weeks didn't help.
Frankly the fact that 8% of players were going in and bashing their heads against that isn't a bad stat. Add in story mode and I'm sure a significant chunk of players were doing the new content.
-
It might actually. If you have mobs such as the Left4Dead style rackghouls that can yank someone out (originally the one could yank snipers out of cover even, I wish they still could). Give some mobs infinite mezzes...(not a mez locks both you and your target, otherwise it is not a mezz)...that require your allies to save you. AI that actively avoids being corralled; yes, AI that ignores aggro and/or actively attacks whoever has the lowest aggro.
Hell, can even make successful completion a lot box of random NEW shells and weapon shells. Taking down bosses (with 100% randomized abilities) earn you mods to slot those shells or your current ones. It would work well. It would also be the challenge so many say they want. After all the raiders and such constantly harp they want REAL challenges...making abilities of enemies totally random means you cannot strategize for the fight ahead of time, perfect challenge!
I think you are vastly overestimating BioWare's ability or desire to provide meaningful PvE content. If they can't design a single operation to make KotET's launch and give raiders exactly what they were asking for you think somehow they will have randomly generated bosses? Please.
Secondly I think you are underestimating progression raider's ability to categorize enemies and abilities even if they somehow came up with encounters like you think. BioWare wouldn't have an unlimited number of mechanics to work with so you'd just look for and identify which mechanics a boss would have then just take the appropriate counter/action.
Finally where did this idea of a horde mode come from, seems far more likely to me that uprisings are simply 5.0 star fortresses with different backdrops to avoid the "sameness criticism" of the existing star fortress content.
-
Mentioned the Holostatues. I'll grant the story 'crons (though, technically, they story 'crons have no mechanical benefit, solely cosmetic) and the Slot Machine. Treek is a (minor) mechanical benefit, but, as you said, she can be bought via credits without being sourced from a pack (you can buy her contract per-character for some ridiculous amount of credits), so she doesn't count. (She's still a mechanical benefit even post-4.0, for the crafting). The combat pets are a minor example, because they cannot be used for crafting directly; they only benefit you if you have less than or equal to your mission limit, based on your level.
It's still a literal handful of item types.
I wasn't actually debating you on that point just providing a list of what could qualify, just to be clear.
You know, ME3 multiplayer is still FILLED with players, be it 6pm on a week night or even 3am on a week night.When something is good, it's good heh.
A horde style area with objectives that make you have to come up with strategies ont he fly could actually be fun in an MMO...shake raiders out of complacency of "this encounter requires this strategy and deviating from it means we will yell at you, hate you, and kick you...mostly in that order".
Honestly I don't think that will translate the same to an mmo. ME3 multiplayer was fun but to keep it fresh what did they do? Adding new weapons, new classes, new playstyles etc. TOR really isn't in a position to do that unless they pull out some kind of fixed build classes that aren't the PC classes kinda like GSF ship classes which would be dumb.
In the end the horde-meta would probably revolve around using the most mobile classes to kite and avoid damage to clear the higher levels if damage gets too strong and until then tanks would probably just be responsible to round up the horde to AoE them down. It would take a lot to bring in some interesting mechanics that require smart play and frankly KotFE has been pretty light on that.
Put hey all those Snipers that think Suppressive Fire on repeat is the ideal rotation will be vindicated.
-
Posted this earlier but not sure if you saw, in Colossal Monolith orange circles aren't reflectable. You'll die to lingering whatever its called. Curse and Ground Slam still work.
-
Other than what, 3 examples (the holostatues) I can't think of anything in the CM packs that have been anything but cosmetic. (The combat pets are a half-example - they free up one companion to craft, but only one; and they're expensive or annoying to rank up in influence)
-Holostatues
-Shroud's Datacrons (minor story)
-Cartel Gambling Machine (can't remember the name)
-Treek (she's an example where she was just plain better than normal companions.) Granted you could just buy with credits but thats the same as most things through the GTN and she was available for direct buy.
-Combat Pet Companions
There might be more but you can say a minimum of 5 non-cosmetic pieces.
-
Also pretty sure you can't reflect the Orange circles in CM 4.0. Tried twice last week and died both times.
-
Not exactly related to this topic but I thought I'd ask since I've noticed this on parsley and dongo's video. Is it now preferable to sunder then apply dots before ravage? I used to always Sunder > Impale > Rav > Sh > FS. Been kinda out of the game for while but figured I'd ask. I do notice Ravage doesn't seem to be as high as % of dmg anymore.
-
Pretty sure what you're looking for doesn't exist. I've been watching the GTN for years looking for the exact same thing. Nor have I seen one encountered as a world drop.
-
So you don't think that the monthly chapters or EC count as content then. How interesting.
Can we please stop the round robin of 'this is content/not content' ? Or if some one uses 'we' can we just interpret that the speaker means 'myself and like minded people.' Too many threads have been pointlessly derailed by this sort of thing.
Yes KotFE chapters are content as is TEC but for the purposes of this thread people are clearly talking about traditional group content such as Flashpoints, Operations, and Warzones.
-
OP most of this has been said but really pulling good numbers in HM ops is just about.
1.) Learning the fights then learn to anticipate. Since we are melee and like Brady said BW hates melee start planning out where you need to be. Uptime is the name of the game. If your ranged dps are solidly out parsing you when you start pulling something new don't let it get to you, you'll need some pulls to figure out where you need to be and you should see your numbers rise.
2.) Unless mechanics absolutely prevent it always be attacking.
3.) If there are adds dot spread then cyclone slash like mad. Very few disciplines have AoE that can compete with Vigilance, use it to your advantage.
4.) Look at Torvai's Saber Reflect tips (been meaning to say thx for that for a long time Torvai!). SR is limited in its use but if you can use it then its the best offensive cooldown in the game.
5.) If necessary talk to your tanks. Basically if your tanks can do some minor things to help your dps ask them. This may just be pug trauma but too often I see tanks think that kiting is a race they need to win (also why its important to anticipate), not stacking adds properly, or doing something facepalm worthy like making the dps break channels to move in front of the tank for double destruction. This may not be necessary for your group but if you do see something that could help you out communicate it as long as it doesn't interfere with them doing their job.
-
- Vital shot
- Shrap bomb
- Hem. Blast
- wounding shots
- dirty blast
- Filler
- Speedshot
- wounding shots
- Filler
the filler are dirty blast (db) / Quickdraw (qd) / flurry bolts
Just start safe and use on every filler spot flurry bolts. Than start learning when you're able to put in db or qd. Normally you want to use db under hem shot and qd outside or when you need to move.
I just picked up my GS again after a long time and I've been doing the 2 WS rotation since I seem to have an easier time with mechanics thanks to this. I was wondering for the first filler while Hemo is up do you have certain energy levels where you think ok above this level DB + DB or if I'm below this level DB + QD or RS?
-
I've been thinking about how to word this for some time. I don't want to make it sound as if I am attacking Bioware, but I feel this post will be a lot more aggressive than I intend it to be.
There is one major problem I have with Bioware. It's not so much on Eric. He is only the messenger. He's being told what to tell us. The problem is with the people telling him what to tell us. I'll word this question as careful as I can:
Do you think we are retarded?
Guys, you can cover a pile of sh*t in as much cologne as you want. It will be a pile of sh*t all the same. You are trying to sell us a pile of said substance, while at the same time trying to make it sound as if it is the most awesome thing ever. Like...the MMORPG industry has never seen something that awesome before!
Let's go over a few things which happened recently:
NiM operations don't drop nightmare gear.
There is no reasonable explanation for this. The only explanation is that you are trying to increase the time spend gearing up our characters. You have not delivered sufficient (new) content. Now you are trying to artificaly increase the old content. It's just that simple. Instead you're trying to tell us that NiM is only relevant for titles and decorations. And where would that imply that nightmare gear should not drop? Does dropping titles and decorations in any way invalidate the need for nightmare gear?
You know the answer. It doesn't. It's a desperate try to increase the grind and artificaly blend over the missing (new) content. The most disturbing thing about all of this is how you went back to the blog in question and edited it to make it sound as if that was always intended. Guys, at least own up to it. We can read page history and code. You've screwed up big time, but you don't want to admit it.
Subscriber rewards
It's not special. You advertised this as "interesting for loyal customers.". No, it's not interesting for loyal customers. Loyal customers are the people who stuck with this game through the worst. Ravager exploit. This recent exploit. The 14 months PvE drought. The two years since the last PvP map. The "short and unrewarding patch" that was "Rise of the Emperor". The people who stuck around for the incredibly bugged launch of SoR.
Your loyal customers are the people who already spend money on this game for the past years. You weren't rewarding your "loyal" customers. Let's not pretend this is in any way a reward. This is a retention meassure. You aren't rewarding loyalty. You are rewarding throwing money at you when there is nothing to justify 15€ a month. Not for quite a few of us anyway. Not a majority. Not "many" per se. But quite a few.
Yes, I love free stuff. Give me free stuff when you can. But don't give me free stuff when there is an apparent need to work on the game. Don't use the ressources you spend on the HK-55 chapter, no matter how minor they may be, on something as this. Use the manpower and money to actually make content. Free stuff is nice and dandy, but it can never be the sole reason you subscribe. Never. It's flavour, but content is substance.
You are perfectly aware that the content for the next months is thin. That's why you try to sweeten the deal with those "rewards". That is a serious sign of trouble. Are you actually that unconfident in your product? You believe you need those "subscriber rewards" to keep us around? Take that as a lesson. Focus on actually making the game worth to subscribe to.
You know what's happening. I know it. Everyone who is currently disliking the rewards does. Even you wouldn't subscribe to the game in it's current form, not as a veteran. Even you are seeing the flaw and the mess. You can't openly admit it, but it's there.
The mute conversations
This is a feature to remind you about KOTOR my "rear". This is a cost cutting measure. We both know it. Don't try to spin this as anything else. It's not a "KOTOR easter egg". A KOTOR easter egg would have been something like on Corellia: The quest where you activate the holos. Or the crashed Endar Spire. Not a feature that can magically decrease development cost.
Those are just some examples of my current issue. I'm not tired of my guild. Not even about Eternity Vault and Terror from Beyond either. I'm tired how you treat us customers like we are idiots. How you're trying to sell us every screw up and every lie as something amazing. That's why my guild is p*ssed. If you want to sh*t on my yard, just run away. That's bad. But trying to tell me that's a nice thing? That's downright insulting your communities intelligence.
Don't say one thing and then do the other. Don't hype stuff beyond compare, espescially when we know that isn't the case.
And for gods sake, work on the game. I couldn't care less for playing as HK-55 for 89.99€. Make the game worth paying 89.99€ over months, for each of the four pillars of the MMO. During release you spoke about those four pillars. How they were very important. Now you abandon three out of four.
At this point, dealing with Bioware is like dealing with a hypocrite. At this point, waiting for a screw up is not a question about "if" it will happen. It's just "when". And then you'll sell it to us as something "amazing". Or even a "new feature", like with the NiM gear. Yeah, right.
Thank you very much for some how voicing the frustrations I've had in coherent manner.
-
As nice as a change of this policy would be, I can't but fear its too late and the damage has been done. Even if they changed course two weeks ago it would be far too long by the time we actually saw an operation and we know theres not a chance before Season 1 of KotFE is done. PvE by its nature can't be treated like PvP has been in TOR and go 2 years at a time without new content.
Also to talk EA/Disney into getting the money for the new blur trailer they clearly had to create a pitch and clearly the new story behind reoccurring subscription was the sales pitch. BioWare Austin is committed at this point.
-
A) Force walking is a difficult ritual, and the average Sith cannot bind the dead. The average Sith Lord will simply fail and die. That's a fact. "Even the great Tulak Hord didn't tangle with ghosts"- Khem to the SI.
Most sith lords would simply die. Most likely, all the other PCs would die to, they'd never be able to bind the dead due to it being a dark side ritual that demands "a rare pull amongst ghosts", as Kallig describes it.
B) as an acolyte, he defeats a dashade in single combat, which is actually incredibly impressive. This is much more impressive than the feats the JC, SW or JK had at similar times, and he had less training than all (even though it's natural to assume that the SI spends much more time than the other 3 at the starter planet, as he goes through the academy normally, the SW does not and the jedi are already "almost fully trained."
C) Nox, as an apprentice on the first planet he arrives at, has the most feats toO. He kills every single apprentice of Skotia, as well as a Sith Lord, before killing a Darth as well. But surely, he's "an average sith lord" before he binds the dead, even though he's capable of destryoing an entire powerbase at this stage. Wrath never did something close to that at this stage;Neither did the JK or JC before later in their careers. But the apprentice that destroyed an entire Darth's powerbase at this early phase is "an average Sith lord".
Nox also managed difficult rituals like mind healing and dream walking.
You may not like Nox, but Nox isn't even a tiny bit weaker than the other PCs. Not even without the ghosts. Thanaton is shown as one of the most powerful sorcerers in-game; by the way, as you can see in the SI-ending. Much more impressive than let's say, Baras. Much more. Thanaton is actually a master of the Dark side.
Also; Thanaton didn't "bother to check" because he could feel the darn SI being dead, because he was indeed dead for a moment. He didn't think that the SI had force-walked, because, nobody force-walks; people don't dare try and everyone that tries fails. *Valkorion being the only other person that we know of thasn't failed. -See the conversation("Dream of Empire"- "I always hoped I'd add you to my collection" -SI "I could say the same"- Valky
Saying that Nox is close to an "average sith lord" without the ghosts is simply comical. It's like saying that the Wrath is "just the average muscle, found at every corner, nothing special to see here, luckily for him some big people pushed him in the right direction, could've been anyone!"
Please edit this to make it more easily readable. You make decent points but you make a lot them and its a pain to get through.
A.) Forcewalking is a rare talent, and the Inquisitor's predisposition to it is the source of the Inquisitor's path to power. Like you said the Inquisitor can be assumed to have less training than the Jedi and probably the Warrior thus Forcewalking is the way the Inquisitor was able to even the playing field. Frankly I think it lead more to the Inquisitor breaking through training barriers so the PC's natural strength could manifest more easily in lieu of serious training.
Second I doubt guys like Tulak Hord frankly gave a rats behind about Forcewalking. There's a lot of risks with little pay off. As Ergast said you don't bind more than one ghost and lets face it most ghosts are but shadows of the power they held in life. One ghost doesn't amount to much so why take a potential distraction if you're not going to get a decent bump in power. The only reason the Inquisitor binds more than one ghost is simply because he didn't know better.
B.) Defeating Khem is impressive but not that impressive given the state you find him in. More impressive than the other acolytes who are the Inquisitor's competition? Sure. As far as Skotia is concerned Zash handed it up on a silver platter so the Inquisitor could take the heat if necessary, given the ease his minor powerbase was destroyed its a feat but lets not make more of it than it is.
C.) I think the point the other person was making is not that the Inquisitor is a "3" without the ghosts but rather by the end of Act 1 is a 3. The Inquisitor is as powerful as the other Force Using PC with or without the ghosts so a 5 on that scale. By the end of Act 3 I don't see any evidence that the Inquisitor gains much from the ghosts now. The Inquisitor's power has grown enough they matter less and less. Its kind of like having 5 cups of water. Sure it makes a difference when you pour them into a barrel, but when you pour them into a lake nobody notices. The Inquisitor over the acts grows from a barrel into a lake.
-
I think some people are overestimating Forcewalking.
It doesn't grant true immortality, just seems to bind the Inquisitor's spirit to their body so the Force can heal themselves. It pretty much the exact same thing as what Valkorion does with the Outlander if you lose the duel with Arcann. Sort of like Force CPR. Destroy the body, stab the heart with a lightsaber, cut off a head and nobody is coming back from that. Hence why the Inquisitor's class mission on Rishi is about whether or not they are going to pursue immortality foolishly as Talos puts it.
Honestly the Inquisitor's survival is a more a testament to Thanaton's carelessness than anything else. The guy is supposed to be an expert in Force lore and rituals and he just doesn't seem to be able to put it together with how to react to the Inquisitor until the Inquisitor has the upperhand.
-
I decided to call it and hit the unsub button.
The NiM Loot + Eric's statement convinced me of what I knew to be true. The PvE end game is done. KotFE has already devastated my progression guild, guys that I've been raiding with since practically launch. On the expansion's launch we had 4 people on. FOUR. Not enough to run one op let alone multiple teams.
On a good night we can get 5-6 players leaving us to pug the other 2-3. For progression? Forget it. So basically we have the choice of joining another guild and throw away all the work and effort we did for our Guild ship just to run the same content we've been running for over a year or calling it.
Its time to call it. At this point all we are doing is going through the motions anyway.
-
It honestly is really a shame. If reps left the game, new ones should have been appointed. I think I even remember posts from Eric asking for the community to appoint reps.
Essentially BioWare started to do it because it was good PR to talk to the community but it ran into 2 problems.
The first was the PR backfired after things like 'H2F' and 'make them pay,' which came off as L2P you idiots.
The second was the system basically dissolved into a 'here's why you should buff us' phrased as questions.
The system had some merits because I think a lot issues ignored on the classes were put in front of the devs that they had to think about, but ultimately when it comes down to 8 AC each asking to be buffed and turning them down tended to lead to a PR backlash they scrapped it.
-
Ya done goofed, BW. Good luck recovering from this... it's "Heal to Full" all over again. "Well, we don't intend for NiM gear to drop from NiM"
Honestly I fully expect them to do a 'we hear you' post and reverse this decision. Frankly though if the development team can't come to the blindingly obvious right decision here on their own, I've got no more faith or patience to wait around for new operations content. Half my progression guild has quit since KotFE launched, people that I've been with since practically launch, and I just don't have the heart nor the inclination to find a new group.
-
So... ah... you guys seen the new balance patch?
snip
Get rid of that link. Do you want to get this thread deleted?
-
Mostly this, some NiM checks can't be done unless you bring the proper group composition. DPS ranges by a considerable amount right now and PT not only does better than most specs in dummy but it can actually parse higher in actual fights because of reflective armor.
Can't be done? Is that really accurate? Maybe Rage|Fury would have quite a challenge I suppose, but is there legitimately a dps check that can't be made by one of the disciplines?
-
I think this thread has somewhat gotten off track by talking about the state of Juggs. Frankly this isn't just a Jugg issue. To me the real issue is there seems to be a complete lack of a design philosophy when it concerns what spec should be able to put out what. Remember how on the pre-3.0 live stream they wanted DPS potential to be balanced like this: mdps sustained > mdps burst = rdps sustained > rdps burst, with hybrids (Carnage|Engineering) being in the middle of burst and sustained?
What happened come 3.0, the ranged absolutely dominated.
In 4.0 what do we have. Just look at Snipers alone and you see nothing resembling a design philosophy there. The hybrid spec is the top dmg potential spec in the game and the burst spec out sustains the sustained spec. That's hardly the only case. AP (a burst spec) deals far more sustained damage, has greater burst, is more mobile, and more defensive than Pyro. The only thing Pyro has going for it right now is better AoE. Rage and Fury's sustained are a joke while I think some other burst specs could compete with burst potential and still deal higher sustained. Vengeance, a sustained spec, is outclassed by 6 different burst or hybrid specs.
The only design philosophy we have seems to be try to get the top spec and bottom spec within 10% of each other then buff/nerf those outside of that. It doesn't appear to matter if a burst class sustains better or even comparable dps to a sustained. This can make entire specs essentially devalued in certain areas of the game. Whats the point of Virulence if Eng can do better AoE and sustained? Whats the point of Fury in PvE if Combat offers good burst and far better sustained? Why bring a Veng Jugg along in place of in place of many other specs that can out-burst and out-sustain them? And don't say taunt because both off tank burst specs rank above them.
Look if some of the above listed things are intended then fine but we ought to have an idea whats behind that reasoning and how they want to see these classes balanced in terms of raw numbers.
-
I suspect its because they believe they won't sell otherwise (or at least won't sell as well), as the standard model is so small that unless you are zoomed in and actively looking, you won't notice what saber hilt someone has anyway, so making the blade longer (or shorter) is the only real difference available.
And yet they seem to realize how ridiculous they look. Notice in the Outlander trailer the Jedi is wielding a normal launch size saber.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please lets get some more normal ones.
PvE - Best use of Saber Reflect
in Guardian / Juggernaut
Posted
Sure thing.
http://parsely.io/parser/view/203702
At the end of the log popped SR and died to lingering destruction.