What I Want Marauders to Be

[ThisGuyThat]

In this post I'll be comparing SWTOR to DotA (and any DotA-esque game) for PvP purposes (not because the two are especially similar, but because they should be more similar). My thread with changes I wanted to get closer to this is here

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=173588

 

Also if it's too long to read, scroll down to the break

 

 

I see a lot of posts about how marauders do good damage and have strong defenses, and others about how we don't do enough damage and don't have enough mobility, but clearly these aren't going anywhere: while I personally blame a lack of consideration with regards to the overall marauder experience rather than just YOUR experience vs other players who may or may not be as geared/leveled/skilled, I feel that a disparity in how people feel the marauder should be is also a contributing factor. I'm going to post what I wish they were, feel free to respond with what you imagined them to be (a good/decent response would be a Warrior in WoW or X from another MMO/game, a bad response would be "stronger")

 

When I think of MMO PvP I think of prediction and reaction. These are the core of all human vs human interaction: what is he going to do? How do I respond? On this level the enemies of prediction and reaction are predictability and lack of fluidity: one's character must have a diverse set of options at any given time, and also a number of responses to what the opponent does/is expected to do at any given time.

 

This does not mean that there need to be hundreds of abilities and talents: rock, paper, scissors is, technically, a flawless human versus human game. Winners of rock, paper, scissors championships often go on to place highly again, evidence that there is some level of skill in a game with only 3 options. However, the best video game experience I had with regards to prediction and response was DotA (and HoN later, though not to the same degree). In this game any given hero had only four abilties. It was through the diverse effects of these abilities (slows, stuns, invis, +movement speed, +damage, tele, aoe, skillshots, etc.) that the game became complicated, combined with making teams of heroes and selecting items and skill builds to suit the occassion. WoW was a natural jump for me as the feel was the same as DotA (Warcraft 3, no coincidence there), and on some level the gameplay was similar: prediction and reaction. however the added elements of character progression and continuity between games made MMO's my preferred genre.

 

Now I've played a lot of games since then but DotA has remained a favorite, and thus I love seeing remnants of its style in other games. to this end SWTOR has been something of a disappointment, and that is, finally why I'm unhappy with the marauder and why I want it to change

 

break

 

The marauder does not have enough tools to feel like DotA. He gets a force leap that I love, an interrupt I love, and depending on the spec a couple other tools. But what I want is a game where, like DotA, there are 3 general levels of play: there are the noobs who make mistakes, and the game needs to be sufficiently complex and difficult that such mistakes can be made. There needs to be average, a level at which the mechanics of the game are understood and used sufficiently well that an onlooker cannot say "you messed up there". And there must be pro. There simply must be a level of exceptional skill and understanding of both the marauder and the game where moves are performed that "wow" people. WoW had this to some extent, but DotA and HoN had it in spades. From perfectly timed teleports and invulns to an earthshaker PK'ing out of nowhere for a 5-man combo, watching any pro game of DotA is exciting. Not so for SWTOR...

Now obviously there are several limiting factors like ability lag and warzone fps that make this more difficult in SWTOR, but fundamentally there are a lack of tools on many classes that prevent this skillful prediction-reaction gameplay that I and DotA players crave. I don't want damage adjustments to the marauder: not yet anyways, nor do I want more generic damage abilities (we have enough). I want more abilities like annihilation-buffed force cloak, which grants 5 seconds of invulnerability. The options with this ability alone are limitless, and with more abilities like this the game would be, in my opinion, improved vastly. But since Marauder is the only class I've played to (legit) valor level 60, it is the only one I feel comfortable making suggestions for. And so I do make suggestions: I want to add more CC (and not just slows and snares, but Force-blocks (like silences) to the carnage tree, more bleeds in the Annihilation tree (to diversify rotations), and more ways of setting up smash in the Rage tree (because as-is every rage marauder uses such a cookie-cutter combo on every single enemy encounter that it makes me sick. I want these things because they will gives us the opportunity to raise the skill ceiling, which is now so low that even sitting up rather than laying down on the skill floor causes one's head to bang against the ceiling. I want these things because I want more pro moments where I see a player perform a split-second reaction that saves him from an opponent's otherwise will-timed execution, rather than yet ANOTHER undying rage @10% that protects from the tracer missile that would have killed boringness (and the frustration that comes from the mistake of NOT doing that, despite there not being a pro option (and to do this our opponents also need more diverse rotations and tools, though I can't comment on what would make sense for other classes). I want to be able to watch a pro on Youtube and think "wow that was amazing" rather than "wow their gear is amazing" (because while gear is certainly important there should be a skill factor totally independent of the gear).

 

Oh and to pre-empt the "give the game time to mature" claims I should point out that a trademark of games which require skill but have simply not yet had time for the playerbase to understand that level of skill is rapid changes in what is considered the best spec/rotation/move/class, etc. Though annihilation has recently come to shine, this is by no means new news (rage just got overhyped), and there is currently almost no consideration regarding what move to open with in each spec and so on. Sure we can't be sure yet whether our exact rotation is currently the best, but we know it's close and that there's very few other options to choose from, and they're very similar.

 

TTLDR; SWTOR combat feels slow and clunky not just because of ability lag and fps drops but because it is a rinse and repeat mess wherein player skill is more about perfecting a rotation than reacting to a situation or predicting the opponent's next move. To this end I want changes to the class that reflect this rather than just damage and health adjustments.

 

For those of you who stuck with me through that thanks. Do you disagree? Were you expecting what we got, and are you happy with it, or were you expecting something different and not what I was hoping for?

Edited January 19, 2012 by ThisGuyThat
Typo!

[memoriesofprey]

At least when it comes to Annihilation and Carnage, I disagree. PvP seems highly reactive and situational- in terms of when you're timing your defensive cooldowns in regards to your opponent's abilities, as well as your interrupts and the crucial use of Unleash. In fact, I often feel like I'm playing Slark (a none overpowered version, obviously) in either of those talent trees.

 

However, the lag caused by the glitches and bugs take a lot of this away. It's more apparent to me in Open World, since I personally have fewer of the lag issues there. If they can make warzones a smooth experience, I think we'll start to see more of this kind of dynamic among the melee classes.

 

I'm not sure if we'll ever see it with the rest.

[Camryyn]

Brilliant. Can I has your babies?

[ThisGuyThat]

At least when it comes to Annihilation and Carnage, I disagree. PvP seems highly reactive and situational- in terms of when you're timing your defensive cooldowns in regards to your opponent's abilities, as well as your interrupts and the crucial use of Unleash. In fact, I often feel like I'm playing Slark (a none overpowered version, obviously) in either of those talent trees.

 

However, the lag caused by the glitches and bugs take a lot of this away. It's more apparent to me in Open World, since I personally have fewer of the lag issues there. If they can make warzones a smooth experience, I think we'll start to see more of this kind of dynamic among the melee classes.

 

I'm not sure if we'll ever see it with the rest.

 

Maybe, but imagine you were watching your screen. Just picture that your gameplay was on Youtube. When you see that marauder pop his saber ward or undying rage: are you impressed? Or is it just typical, more of the same, regardless of the technically correct timing of the move. When you see him cycle through deadly saber, rupture, battering assault, annihilate etc. do you consider it skillful? Or is it just, again, typical? I won't deny that there is, perhaps, some skill to the use of defensive cooldowns (I refer you to my force cloak example in the op), but this game lacks the tier which I have designated as pro for lack of a better term. In HoN I would sometimes stop a replay and watch it again. and again, and again. Not because I couldn't understand what happened: an understanding of the game mechanics by any mediocre player is more then sufficient to understand the plays of the pros (and this is extremely important: making a game that caters to pros does not mean making it brutal to noobs like DotA was/is considered to be, it just means raising the ceiling and letting those who reach it fight others who have also reached it rather than those stuck on the floor. It also means making top tier play understandable to lower tiers: if it reaches a level of complexity that is impossible to grasp without being there, then it will be hostile to new players. This means less mechanics/moves, but those that remain should interact in a deep way). I was just amazed by the quality of the play, of the teamwork, or even just of the incredible coincidence that had led to the play. Not so with SWTOR as is, and never so without serious alterations to the class, I'm afraid.

 

 

 

As a throwback to my FPS roots, it's kind of like that heavy 180 noscope in Halo, or the 4-man clutch in GoW. Even if it's the same thing every time and not absurdly uncommon, it is still incredibly fun to watch, thrilling to do, and requires focus/skill to perform.

Edited January 19, 2012 by ThisGuyThat
Typo

[memoriesofprey]

It would be nice, but I doubt we'll see large steps taken that way any time soon. We'll have to settle for creative defensive pairings as a gauge for 'skill'. Another issue is that it's still a very conventional MMORPG, and that means, at the moment, that equipment settles a large portion of the fight.

 

Sure, it would've been nice to see, say, Riot Games' take on an MMORPG's PvP system, but, at the moment, it's a niche dream.

 

Anything that promotes competitive mind games and a greater depth of strategy is a plus as far as I'm concerned, but it's all about demand, and I'm not sure the players actually want it.

 

Though take a look at STMP's streams. I think you'll find a large difference between the choices he makes mid-battle and that of the average Marauder. In addition, a lot of it seems to come into play when you engage in duels with sub-par equipment.

Edited January 19, 2012 by memoriesofprey

[ThisGuyThat]

Firstly, I'd hate to see a Riot Games MMO. It would have hundreds of characters and crappy balance. It's a personal opinion, but I hate what they did to DotA to make it casual-firendly, as it lowered the bar for skilled players too but drove people away from HoN and DotA until many good players had no reason to stay. Looking forward to DotA 2...

 

 

On topic, that attitude is exactly what will doom us. The game just launched, NOW is the time to say what we want. If we tell Bioware to wait it will never happen: the long-term changes you're referring to happen only in a world where we make that long-term our goal now. Also, I have seen many, many marauder streams and never any impressive decision-making. Just a bunch of adrenal-popping and dot-dropping. Experience is important, not really "skill", except in the generic MMO sense of the word, one I'm not a fan of. With that being said there is a difference in how good and bad marauders play... it's just not especially interesting to watch...

[Swarna]

How I'd love to see that type of change! Sadly, it will never be. Bioware has implied they are going the opposite route with the Marauder in homogenizing the performance of good/bad/average players even more. Case in point:

 

Our attention to the class obviously won't stop here. Balancing MMOs is a never ending endeavor and we're in for the long haul. For example, we are certainly aware that the Marauder and Sentinel are very gameplay intensive classes with some of the most complex rotations in the game. While we are currently looking at quality of life and usability improvements to increase the class' playability without compromising the unique aspects of the class, we don't have anything specific to announce just yet. We do however anticipate that some of the combat responsiveness improvements (AKA 'ability delay' - more on that here) being worked on by our engineering team will specifically aid both Marauder and Sentinel.

 

[ThisGuyThat]

Well, for now there are serious "quality of life" adjustments that need to be made. This does not necessarily exclude changes that would raise the skill ceiling, though it would set them back.

[Kibaken]

I don't see how timing an Undying Rage, Camo, and Predation to **** isn't considered a "pro" move to be honest. Most "average" players don't think to do that.

 

Also, I see where you're coming from, however MMOs and MOBAs, while kind of similar, both have way too many things going on to be balanced in similar ways.

 

How can you expect to balance a game with 4 classes similarly to a game with more than 15? The only MOBA I've ever played enough to be considered good at is LoL, and I can tell you the characters I've played definitely have a "rotation." The problem is, playing a Marauder where you have 6 skills that are only used in certain situations with the rest of your damage coming from auto-attacks is boring.

 

Also, if you're playing PvP with a set rotation to begin with I start to wonder how you can consider yourself a PvPer to begin with. Take Carnage for example: Massacre spam for normal damage prioritizing Gore/Scream/Ravage. There's no way you're going to be sitting there doing a full PvE rotation on someone. You're going to be spending Rage based on what they're doing. Starting to run? Crippling Slash. Getting healed? Deadly Throw. Guarded? Switch targets. Getting overwhelmed? Intimidating Roar + ****.

 

ToR's combat, like it or not, is heavily influenced by WoW's combat. WoW's PvP flows very similarly - minus ability delay and such - to ToRs and timing your abilities right can bring around the "pro" moments you seek. Knowing when to pop your cooldowns, knowing when to engage and knowing when to dip are all based on the skill of the player. Average players run in guns blazing with all their cooldowns up. Smart players pick their targets after other players have already engaged.

 

 

As far as changing rotations around: Annihilation plays more than fine in a PvE setting and the "rotation" (it isn't one) works perfectly fine as is. The same goes for Carnage. Adding more abilities to rotate into a "PvP Rotation" won't cause "pro" moments to happen. "Pro" moments come from timing CCs, defensive cooldowns and damage into close-call kills.

 

The class in general needs a stun as well as a global interrupt lock-out, but trying to balance an MMO in similar fashion to how a MOBA is just doesn't add up the way you'd want it to.

 

Adding more buttons to weave in isn't skill. Look at the top WoW Arena players versus an average player and you'll see the definition of skill difference. Playing a class and playing a class exceptionally well is all about, as you said, prediction and playmaking. That's where skill is; not how quick you can hit more buttons; that's facerolling.

 

 

Edit: added a few lines.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Kibaken

[ThisGuyThat]

As an extreme example, what if the current marauder and all other classes had, say, 6 abilities all with varying damage and cooldowns, but that was all they did. They did damage then went on cooldown, no slows or anything. Now there is certainly a skill that would be applied to using these abilities properly, and based on the opponents play you would not always use the same abilities in the same order, but in general you run in and cast ability after ability in fights that will always feel bland and boring. There's no ability interaction, no fight control, just managing cooldowns. You know what, that's what I'll summarize my point as: currently SWTOR feels like fighting cooldowns more than enemies (op opener? Is your trinket cooldown up? Can he pull off the fourth move as the global cooldown comes up?). Their ability to prevent me from executing my 'game plan' and my ability to prevent theirs is very limited, apart from stunning for a couple seconds (essentially just a stall). I'm really fighting cooldowns, whereas in WoW fights are all about control and denying the opponent his plan. As in DotA, as well.

 

 

After writing it the only part I liked was above, but feel free to read the below if you find it unsatisfying (though I doubt what's below will fare better)

 

 

I worry you've taken my word rotation a bit too literally, though it's my fault for using it. I didn't mean you run in on someone in PvP and execute the same moves to finish him off every time: there are loads of abilities you only use when prompted to, like disruption, crippling slash, etc. PvP is by nature dynamic and fluid simply by virtue of being against other players.

 

My problem is that what made WoW and DotA great (I exclude LoL as a personal preference, as in all honesty it's weaker in this than DotA by miles, though better than any MMO) is the complexity derived from your class's mechanics and the mechanics of others.

 

Mages faking spells to prompt an interrupt that disables the wrong tree, warriors predicting the turn-away of mages to set up a blink and running away themselves, getting the distance for a charge immediately and denying the opponent any time, mages perfecting the follow-up to the freeze proc expecting the vanish cancel from a rogue (I loved playing mage)

 

These are complexities derived from a broad set of abilities with various intertwined abilities in that class, factored in with the abilities of other classes. This is not what SWTOR has.

 

SWTOR has talent trees that make X ability to X more damage, or adds X effect. Each class has a unique aesthetic to abilities that are very similar, like force cloak/saber ward. SWTOR is not set up to allow for the depth of combat these other MMOs have, the infrastructure is all wrong, and that is my concern. I've been around for the launch of many competitive games, and though none start with meta equivalent to the meta they end with, the successful ones all have one thing in common: a foundation for complexity, skill and meta. The unsuccessful ones tried to rip-off these mechanics on the surface (sound familiar?) but fail to grasp the internal interactions of the abilities.

 

I know I'm rambling but it's hard to pinpoint. SWTOR, in my opinion, lacks the foundation for a game which reaches a deep metagame. The interrupts are dull (locks out of ability, not school) the class abilities are too similar (where are the blinks/freezes unique to one class? The powerful DoTs that only one class/spec can access fully (affliction lock)). These are not here. This game comes off as bland, and that is my concern. You'll notice in other threads I write that I don't ask for buffs or nerfs, I'm very careful not to. The reason for this is that buffs and nerfs are crippling to meta. What I ask for is additional complexity without simply adding a trillion abilities or effects, but rather by diversifying existing abilities and taking the same effects and, rather than giving them to all spec, restricting them to one or another. I want to build meta by adjusting currently bland abilities, not cripple it by giving the marauders only "6 abilities" or a billion.

[Kibaken]

The meta game we have is extremely similar to what was in Vanilla and Early-mid BC. Talents are relatively bland, but given the games early stage I have to disagree with you and say that we have a relatively good foundation to eventually expand upon. For instance, if the interrupt system is tweaked that will bring fake-casting into play.

 

I have (possibly misplaced) faith in BioWare that they'll eventually add new flavor to not only Marauders but all the classes. They all play differently - some more than others - and I for one am definitely pushing for school-lockouts from interrupts and a knockdown/stun.

 

 

And, of course, robes with hoods.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Kibaken

[joysauz]

Personally i would love for bioware to take advantage of the lightsaber throwing mechanic more with marauder. I agree with you that the class could benefit from some small changes. At the moment there isnt as much dramatic fighting to it as with the other classes, just alot of shouting and glowing.

 

My suggestion, Two lightsabers should equal two all round useable lightsaber throwing abilities. In my opinion the marauder should feel like your playing a martial artist sticking and weaving fluidily, getting in close to build rage and than dumping that rage were ever the opponent is weakest.

 

At the moment like alot of people are saying we are easily kited or cc'd and i think this would address that by diversifying the playstyle the marauder can adopt, giving that reactive playstyle you were refering to.

 

It would also help the class find a spot in pve as a substantially better off tank/dps as it'd be able to use its saber throws to catch agro'd creatures before they attack healer or it can distance itself from boss's aoe damage and still maintain constant steady damage if it banked rage appropriatly. eg saber throw, saber throw, force scream and than force leap back in.

 

A fun example ability would be throw both lightsabers in a cone out in front, doin damage with % to proc some sort either dot or slow. A more realistc one and the one i'd suggest would just be to remove the need for the opponent to be below 20% health on vicious throw.

 

TLDR - remove the need for a target to be below 20% health on vicious throw, by way of a perk in one of the trees. Allows the marauder two constant saber throws and a way to mitigate the extent it can be kited/cc