Mmm... The key issue with Disiciplines was that in the "simplication" effort a lot of secondary and thirthiary orders of effect built in the game were lost. Allow me to explain... Think of any class and role, they have skills and what is the most important thing you must do to optimize the performance of your alt? Learn your skill rotations! Now think, how did the skill rotations came to be? If you think about it, and went to your class trees, you will see abilities that are modifiers or bonus givers, many are passive in nature. For instance some say you get +5 critical chance and surge, this ability is not an attack but it makes a difference, other abilities may say using a particular attack twice raises a stance value, seems like nothing, but another benefit you could buy say when the stance value is 5 your next discharge damage is doubled and your endurance recharge is boosted by 25% for the next 5 seconds. While this last benefit is not a power, it makes quite a great deal of a difference. If you look at Disiciplines the nugget abilities went as a whole "poof". Now some did make it to the right box choices, but not many, and really not the truly significant ones either. So there it is in a nutshell Sue

Mmm... Choice or no choice with Disciplines... Frankly it is inaccurate to state that Disciplines does not offer choices, they do. Yet it is also innacurate to try to insinuate Disciplines provides as many choices as the trees did. It is also a inaccurate to state that the developers through Disiciplines picked and chose the best abilities from the trees so you would naturally end-up with the best min-max character, for that is not the case. Also what one thinks is best or not: Depends on individual play style and preferences. It is true that some of the changes made through Disiciplines meant to balance classes among each other, especially for PvP purposes, how successful the PvP balancing effort has been implemented is yet to be determined, time will tell. The ability of players to differentiate with each other in Disiciplines versus Skill Trees is moderately reduced, after all the only choice one have is the selection of abilities that can be found in the right boxes, and then based if you are PvP or PvE oriented the choices available to you halves as much and there are not that many choices to begin with, so you really do not have much of a means to differentiate yourself from the masses. At the end, the decision if the update is good, bad or indifferent is subjective, and the decision is truly a personal one. For instance you have very good players that find going to Oricon with their 55s and being able to obliterate anything in the heroic area as inappropriate for there is no challenge, for that frame of mind, the changes through the discipline system was very successfull in making Oricon challenging again, which is good under that perspective. Others will not approve at having their performance robbed, and under their perspectve the upgrade was a bad thing; once more its all a matter of perspectives. Perhaps I am old, so I don't take change in stride and thus I am unhappy; while the young simply shrugs their shoulders and gracefully accept anything done to them without complaint, and all is fine with world... Once more I wish you fun in your conquests and best of luck Sue

Hi! As promised yesterday I ran one of my alts and compered her performance against last week's benchamrcs at Oricon. I used a Madness Sorceress tree alt and thus went the Madness Disicipline route so the comparison would be apples to apples. Initial observations after the conversion: 1) Critical Chance dropped by 5% 2) Surge Chance dropped by 5% Went into battle with a benchmarked trash mob group located on the right side entrance as you stand before the heroic area as a reference, hugged the wall to avoid the first group, and engaged them from the side the second trash mob group protecting a shuttle. Last week: I wiped them with little challenge and had slightly over 75% of my hits at the end of the battle. This week: I wiped them, barely, had under 5% of my hits at the end of the battle. Mining the Parsec data... It showed about 26% to 27% reduction in DPS, but frankly I can not say the reduction was as large because I had to heal myself more in yesterday's battle. Given that I healed about triple as muc as I normally did, I would estimate the DPS drop is more along the lines of 20% which is still very drastic. I also noted my ability to soak damage was not nearly as good as it used to be, I estimated my damage soaking ability to have deteriorated by as much as 15% (possibly more,but I did not thought about benchmarking that, so take my estimate with a grain of salt) and the main reason for my needing to heal so much more, since a Sorc is lightly armored. I also noted that the new heal skill ability received in replacement of my original while being an insta cast as opposed to a casted one, the performance is merely cosmetic and overall in an OPS noticeably drops my ability to provide back-up healing. Further deductions from the data and game observations over time: Once you achieve level 50 and gear properly, use your rotations correctly, I experienced about a 5% gain in performance each level. So if my 20% drop estimate is accurate, by the time you reach level 59 you would have caught-up with the performance a level 55 had last week; by the time you make 60 your overall performance should be 5% more than a 55 had last week. I must confess at being annoyed at having to buy skills at the trainer for this benchmark test, for it was the developers who originated the change, not me. The developers removed skills from me that I had paid for and replaced them with skills I had to buy; that is simply tacky in my opinion. I admit at being disappointed at having my hard earned performance being arbitrarely robbed, and then have to work for 4 levels to regain what I had, not cool. I recognize my distinct annoyance at players being able to gear-up with 186 gear without having to have done a single HM or NiM OP at all, I feel my efforts to have earned and gained that gear to have been trivialized. I also noted how "Overload" received a great deal of mods choices to it as if the developers wanted this ability to be used a lot, it angers me that was done because in an OPS the worst thing you can do is disperse the mobs for it makes it very hard for a tank to keep the aggroe and for AOEs to be efficient; Overload is the Raid Trolls favored tool and now the developers given these trolls a much longer list of excuses for them dispersing the mobs. Last night after I struggled with the Trash Mobs at the heroic area, I did not bother to go after a Commander for I knew well that if I struggled with the easy stuff, I would have no chance with the Commander with my present build. I am sure someone has a character class and build that was perhaps not nurfed nearly as much as mine had and could handle the commander and whose brags will soon be posted after this post. After the battle, I left Oricon to go to my fortress, and then crunched the numbers and tried to understand what happened? After the data had been mined and studied, I logged off the game. Happy adventuring and good luck to you all Sue

Mmm... Tacky is the word that comes to mind if this is true, so Bioware throws away skills I learned and paid for, and then replace them with skills I obviously did not have and learn, and thus now since they are new, I have to pay? Don't my lost skills merit a refund? In fact i would contend a player would in a "zero sum gain" situation would have lost as many skills as they gained; thus there should be no cost experienced during the convertion. Sue

Mmm... Since information was not provided in sufficient detail but limited glymses with not effective context to decide if the changtes are good, bad or indifferent; I decided to cancel my subscription which ends in 2 days, and thus it let me try the game with its changes and decide for myself if the changes are good, bad or indifferent without compromising me into a full month payment for service that I would likely not use if dissatisfied with the product. I will be logging on in a few hours and find out for myself how my dps is going to be affected, for I took time to benchamark each of my alt's dps against a number of commanders at Oricon which I can solo with some easily and others with great effort, but I can solo them with all my alts, let's see how it goes tonight. While I suspect all the classes' build sare going to turn into cookie-cutter builds, with vanilla flavored skill modifications to performance; it may be possible that the cookie-cutter is actually a good template which delivers good results as opposed to mediocre or inferior ones. Wish me luck :<) Sue

Mmm... I been looking at the character customization characteristics of Dragon Age III, another of Bioware's products, and wonder why could they not "upgrade" SWTOR to use the same capability? Sue

Hate to tell you, but that ship already left... You gonna get what the devs decided you would get long ago... Sorry Sue

I support this, I had posted a few weeks ago in a thread, during the rackghoul infestation, that there should be a decoration to allow for everything we do at fleet and pre-empt our need to physically be at fleet at all. Sue

Mmm... Probably the nurfs talked about will be ok PvP wise, since all the classes are getting the nurf-bat with a passion, so the playing field should remain the same in a relativistic manner, but for PvE its an entirely different story, after all how else could the developers make level 60s fight level 55s and have a challenge giving me an impression there is not going to be much material to enjoy at 60 proper? Sue Ps: Too bad the developers could not make new expansive content in sufficient quantities so they would not had the need to nurf the classes and walk away from the well accepted and liked system they "had", really pathetic that my future 60 will be inferior to my present 55...

Mmm... Nurfing the OPs healer, gonna hate being in the first few OPS with them, its going to be extraordinarely painful... Sue

Hi: I have noticed when I place companions associated to one alt in a room, and then switch to another alt in my fortress, the companions are no longer solid and have the blueish holo lile look. Same has happened with items I have purchased and placed, they remain solid with the alt that instlled i, but not for the others. Sue

Would be nice, Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC) does that, perhaps Bioware over time will catch-up with other competing game companies good practices... Sue

Mmm... I have been advocating through several threads for legitimate information in wirtten with details, such as tree vs discipline performance benchamarking, gearing changes, etc. The truth is, it will not be released, and Bioware is perfectly happy with us making things up and having wishful thinking. The only way you will learn what the reality of 3.0 is after you played it, some of us purchased the upgrade in advance, in good faith, but frankly in my case I made a blind, unresearched purchase and if its a bad buy, frankly its all on me for being simply dumb; of course it was not entirely a bad deal, for I got the x12 class mission boost. This reminds me of the movie "Excalibur" where Merlin was trying to explain to Arthur the dangers of marrying Guenevere, and said something along the lines that love is like a cookie, and the only way to know if its good or bad, is by eating the cookie, but then of course if turns bad, is too late, you already ate the cookie. The expansion is much like the cookie, only way to tell is after you ate the cookie... Sue

Mmm... There are several benefits to the OPs solution, but perhaps this would be overcome by events if bind to character would become bind to legacy, and thus no need for work arounds. Once instance in my case, I want the look of the Prystine Inquisitor Set, the chest piece is Bind On Pick up, while others are bind on use. I wanted this set for its looks for my inquisitor, my assassin specifically. As hard as I have gone todo HM FPs to get one chest piece, I simply does not drop or some jerk group mate wins it and then wants to sell it to me, despite that I made it clear the only reason I did the frigging, pointless, HM FP with them was for the piece. I have 6 other alts, and 4 of them have the chest piece, go figure... Sue

Mmm... A very large number of MMORPGs already provides this feature, eventually Bioware will catch-up with the rest of their competition... Sue

Mmm... There is no right answer here, beyond a "depends". If you want to tank, and be really good, the Juggernaut is the way to go. If you want to have high DPS, do it at range where it is safe, then the Merc is the way to go. It all depends what role you want to satisfy the most... Sue

ok you win... I will make uninformed decisions... Sue

I do not recall saying class balancing was easy, but I do believe it is an effort that must be done and not avoided because its difficult. I do not believe the developers are less than professional, and that is the reason the benchmarking work must have been done, and thus my asking for the information which by default would exist (since they are professional) and thus what I am asking for is nothing new that would need to be generated. While I agree that there are the "unique" circumstances where a particular class and build would likely do best than others, once more would hardly justify not bothering with Benchmarking efforts. But a generic, rather plain engagement can be ran to get an idea of how a build/class would perform, which in general is common practice. Frankly, I do not believe what I am asking for to be Earth Shattering difficult to provide, for surely the work has already been performed (professionality argument) and really all its needed to do is to publish it for the customer to assimilate. Oh btw I read a post in this thread that indicated performance is getting nurfed, while it is a possibility, I have seen no data or official posts by developers indicating that is the case; once more that is the reason I am asking for benchmarking information which would allow for an informed opinion based on fact and not speculation. Sue

Bingo! If work was done professionally, there would be no superior class and thus no flavor of the week, it would instead a personal decision based on play stile and risk aversion. If Bioware is gonna mega nurf us, so they don't have to make new OPS and can use the same old stale ops instead, well that would be sad, and yes, absolutely do not post the information and make it readily obvious of what is going to be done to the customer, I sincerely hope this is not the case and reason for the secrecy. When I look at class balance, it has much more to do with how classes addresses situations, mostly combat. I can attack from far away, and be away from the great majority of negative effects the mob produces; but agree to have reduced damage, I would even do less damage if I am also heavely armored where the few effects get to me are even less significant. Conversely I would expect a class that has to be in the face of the mob, endure all the mob effects cause range is not there,and I fight in light armor, I should justly expect to do the greatest damage. So at the end, what one would see are the various variants of performance versus range, area effects and armor. By having this information, its not nearly at the level on how to best farm, but actually on the lines how to best pick my class and specialty in a better informed manner, after all these choices are permanent. Sue

Mmm... I have a thread in general forums asking for benchmarking information, as stated in it, I don't want to base my opinion on hear say or assertions by developers out of a total unifying context as its done in the streams, which are at beast misleading in either direction. I want to see the benchmarks for each class specialization and tree choices versus the equivalent discipline and see if the change was good,bad or indifferent. The question is why is Bioware enduring the results of their own created anxieties over the player customer population, by not posting relevant detailed information? I believe posting benchmarks will answer the questions many of us have over the changes due to disciplines, benchmarks that any reasonable developmental organization would do if anything to check for balance issues and quality control (did the software actually did perform as intended as opposed to whatever was coded passes as for intended). For example take the Assassin DPS, it can be deception or madness... Why not give us a Parsec or equivalent value for a standard situation (defined and explained) and post the data Note values below are fictitious and only for illustration purposes, so no need to go crazy making anything out the numbers please. Assassin Deception HM Nefra Parcec DPS: 2750 Assassin Madness: HM Nefra Parsec DPS: 2670 Assassin Discipline: HM Nefra Parsec DPS: XXXX Ironically a class balance check can be easily done as other classes are benchmarked... (More fake numbers for illustration purposes) Sorceror Lightning: HM Nefra Parsec DPS: 3750 Sorceror Madness: HM Nefra Parsec DPS: 3560 Sorceror Discipline: HM Nefra Parsec DPS: XXXX Note that by having data presented this way, one can pragmatically evaluate what is going on within class choices and how balanced or not are the performances among classes. For myself I have exception with a game design that does not balance performance with risk: As in the greater the risk the higher the performance; in some instances Bioware got it backwards. Take a Mercenary and compare it to an Assassin. The Merc attacks are ranged, and medium armor; the Assassin are melee ranged and light armor; you would think since the Assassin has to be right on the mob's face and endure the short ranged AOEs ever present, that the Assassin would do considerably more damage than the Merc, but that is not the case and its just the opposite. A quick observation on class balance, as a tank what is their list of what class to guard first, I bet the Assassin is at the bottom... The Marauder tends to be #1 melee with very high damage, followed by merc (ranged), Sorc (ranged), BH (Hybrid), and lastly the Assassin. Think on the past OPs you been, when was the last time a tank chose to guard an assassin and why? Thus the benefit of benchmarking performance and paying attenton to the data can help the developer set performance thresholds with a semblance of common sense, and a player to choose professions with a semblance of a choice between performance and risk. Sue

Mmm... Given that Bioware has limited funds to do things, and that there are products in the free market that provides for this function, it would appear to me that precious development funding could be used instead to fix bugs, and do new things rather than develop an integrated chat system. Sue

Good point But pragmatic data has to be available by now, since we are two weeks away from delivery of a product; test data that benchmarks tree performance versus discipline has to be available, and I would like to see it. I used parsec as a suggestion on how it could had been performed, but simulated is fine as well, but I want to see the results of the testing and have a no kidding way to see what the developers had set as game balance, how the within class and across class balance has been set at, and what changes in performance if any has been designed into the game. Sue Transparency is such a rare thing now days

I understand NDA, but I am not asking a player to disclose, not even a developer to disclose as a rogue element... I am asking BIOWARE as a company to disclose: Big difference. I want to see the statistical data from testing, if the outfit is professional at all, should had already been performed. Sue

Hi: Much has been said about Disciplines and it is difficult to assess if they are good, bad or indifferent. In Engineering, a very common way to determine if a change is good, bad or indifferent is through "Benchmarking" Since SWTOR recognizes PARSEC as a tool to record player's dps, heal, threat and other very interesting statistics. Why not run every class DPS/Heal/Tank performances on a standard set-up, say TFB first boss and use Parsec to benchmark the performance with standard optimized tree (Noxxic build for benchmark purposes, while not thebest it is acceptable) and then run the same Parsec on the same class with the disicipline, and post results so we can evaluate the performance of Disciplines vs Trees. A simple table looking like this would be great Parsec scores Tree Discipline Assassin Deception Value Value Assassin Madness Value Value etc Obiously for DPS you would put the DPS scores, Healers would place the heal scores, and Tank would have the Threat scores. Since it is a benchmark, gearing is not relevant as long as the same gear is used fo benchamark the tree and discipline performances. If different armor/mod/enhancements/augmentations/crystals are different in any piece of gear it muddies the results, same goes for ear piece and implants they all must be the same. For testing purposes you need the same group of classes and players used for the tree benchamrk than discipline, no alterations or the benchmark is compromized. That is if tree group had a sorcerer, don't go a replace the sorcerer for a merc for the dicipline group, that will ruin the benchamrk. This way at a glance per class and specialization we can see how the two systems compare. Thank you Sue Perhaps this has been already done by the developers as, what I would hope, standard quality assurance testing used for balancing and what not, so maybe providing the data may be as simple as posting it.

Hi: Despite that the OP of the day changes every two days, with the week end ones lasting three days, players with few alts do the one of the day, and have much diminished chances to get on other groups to do other OPs, especially since many players are busy going through the two-day op with their half a dozen or more alts. Another problem is the ability and availability of player to form 16 person ops versus 8, in the first day of the two days of the OP forming 16 player OPS is not that difficult, but in the second day the difficulty becomes quite notable, all this is also above and beyond time of the day. So this is what I recommend: In the queue section, you have the HM FPs which are selectable, and if you do one randonly you get bonus ultimates. While I would like to see a similar mechanic, it is not practical for 8 or 16 player collected randomly is much more difficult than the FP's 4, so needs to be done diffeently. The way I see it, the queue has OP 8, and OP 16. Both have all the OPs available TFB, S&V, DF and DP. You organize a group on the side, and the leader then queues the group by selecting the one OPS they want to do, and of they go to the races, if they complete the queue, they get the 30 ultimates. Once a character gets the 30 ultimates they are flagged for the day, and the OP they did is locked out for the week as is now. Notice the group leader chooses and set instance for or 8 SM or 16 SM. All other rules and nature of prices remain the same. Would also would like to see OP 8 or 16 for level 50s (KP, EV, EC), just like the above, completion of one OP under the system results with 15 Ultimates instead. Notice that doing it in SM does not award you the weekly classic which requries it to be HM or NiM. Another suggestion to raise the bar... Above and beyond the OP 8 and OP 16 SM level 55; add an OP 8 and OP 16 HM queue with successfull completion providing 45 ultimates instead. Also the OP 8 and OP 16 HM level 50 would reward 15 ultimates plus the ultimates acquirable by the Classic weekly. By doing this, the availability for players to enjoy OPS more consistently during the week is made possible, and also allow for choices between 8 and 16 person OPs. Sue