Medpacks... are you kidding me?!?!!?!?

[islander]

Not hard for you, not hard for me, but hard for some people. You know there are people in swtor that are in their first MMO right? Wow this thread has some over the top elitists in it.

 

Just because its not your strategy, or even a good strategy, doesn't mean the person doing it isn't having fun. Sure it might not work in an OP, not everyone will ever play in an OP.

 

Do you really want SWTOR to have fewer subscribers? Think hard about that, fewer subs means fewer dollars, fewer dollars means fewer people that BW can put to work making cool stuff for us. More fun for all, more dollars, more cool stuff for us. The math is simple here.

 

I will be pissed if BW pisses away their subscribers, and 1.2 is bad for casual type players, which is bad for the bottom line at BW, which is bad for raiders/hardcore types. This is how an economy works people.

 

I agree that they probably need to continue working on multiple difficulty levels for this MMO. Not just normal and nightmare.

 

The reason single player games sell so well, say FPS'ers, is because even the mostn00b player can pick it up and learn on an 'easy' level. Heck, some people like me never play FPSes past normal level.

 

MMORPG's have been gearing in this direction for some time now, but it needs to continue. It's a slow process though.

[schnopsnosn]

How about letting Biochems use them more than once per fight? Where is the draw to a profession if you remove the benefit of the profession? Biochems should be able to use their re-usable rkata medpacs every 90 secs. Everyone else? Make it once per fight. You want to use more than once in a fight switch to Biochem. I see the devs heading down the wrong path with these kind of changes. Your going to dilute the crafting skills altogether making changes like this.

 

That would make Biochem the only valuable crewskill in endgame.

[Unkknownsith]

Can't speak for the first 2, but WoW failed because Blizz listened to all the morons who wanted access to everything, regardless of effort, skill or commitment, which trivialized the game deeply.

 

If someone was upset with Blizzard, it was the true hardcore who had fun when being able to play your class was not about topping the damage meter, which normally requires nothing more than 4-6 buttons and enough play time to farm enough consumables to chain-pot.

 

Sorry to say that is the biggest pile of horse maneur I've seen expounded in a post.

 

Blizzard catered to the "elitist of the elite" player base with cataclysm, have you seen their latest efforts to retrieve the hemoraging account base. A faction mount, anyone accepting a resurrection scroll their character will automatically be forwarded to Level 80 and they are given a mount as well.

 

Blizzard practically fawned over the "elitist of the elite" to the tune of a WHOLE expansion of HEMORAGING accounts.

 

A friend of mine expounded it best, he was an "elitist" tank in a big raiding guild and he cancelled his account 4 months after expac launch. NOT because the content wasn't challenging, he loved the changes to Cata. So what caused him to quit, well his whole family use to play the game, his 3 kids, his wife, his brother and his wife.

 

So what happened while he was reveling in Cata's hardcore content, everyone else mentioned didn't raid but puttered around the game doing a whole myriad of other things. In wrath this was easy because there was just so much to keep them occupied, tourny, 10 man 25 man raiding, pvp, the sword quest. In cata none of that was there and his whole family, got bored and all of them cancelled their subs leaving HIM the only one in game.

 

He use to go and do things after the raids with his family, 2 months into cata after he finished raids he just logged because there was nothing and NO one to do anything with.

 

So did Blizzard win, they retained ONE (1) hardcore elitist player and lost SIX (6) other subscribers.

 

They didn't quit because the content was too hard, they quit because they were left with NOTHING to really do in the game. Raiding is fine but there is MORE to an mmo than just raiding.

 

So NO Bliz didn't fail in Wrath because people only left at the very END of the expac is where Blizzard saw their drop off in subscribers, Cata they've been HEMORAGING after 3rd month of release - that says catering to the 'ELITISTS" cost the company big money.

 

So sorry to say your horse maneur isn't baffling brains this time, but nice try!

Edited March 23, 2012 by Unkknownsith

[Shzwinnng]

PvP?

 

What PvP fights are you in which last over 90 seconds? Healer vs healer? ROFL.

 

Maybe in Voidstar, as defender, I can see you being in combat > 90 seconds if you are amazing and never die. Maybe.

 

This change is a complete non-issue for PvP. This affects PvE Boss Fights tremendously, however.

 

Thats bs

 

As a pvp tank i can be in combat for at least one entire half of voidstar while defending if i have a good healer. Thats at least two WZ medpacks and 5 rakata medpacs.

 

When you take 372k damage in one match, prevent 280k damage and only die twice, thats a ******** of time in combat, and i rely hugely on medpacs to get me out of the tightspot while my healer is stunned.

[khsolo]

As a Sentinel i dont recall when i have need it a medpack more than once in a fight really but controlling it by game mechanics imo not very productive better is to buff the bosses and champions instead Edited March 23, 2012 by khsolo

[gothmogs]

I agree that medpac's on a 1 per fight basis is complete BS. Unlike the jug/mar , assasin and other classes that dont have a heal its not an improvement because honestly how often do u come out of combat in pvp especially like hutball where its close corners.

 

use the WZ adrenals instead?

[schnopsnosn]

use the WZ adrenals instead?

 

What would be the point of that?

[rymah]

Restricting the use of medpacks to 1 time per fight is a bad move, make the fights more difficult or add better mechanics to the encounter, but don't screw over the players who use that clickable heal every 90 seconds to take some stress of your healer or to survive aoe's.

[Blattan]

2) IF an existing encounter really needs to be retuned, rest assured it will. Sooner or later.

 

IF only I could believe that. If, and only if, the story mode/class quests were balanced to solo play (and I am not suggesting they were, nor that they should be) at launch they have shown that they have a higher bar set than many people can reach for solo play.

I am a good gamer. Not the best by far. But well above average. And I hit roadblocks in the class quests that requires me to either find help (and on my varied schedule occasionally means convincing one of the other 3 people on planet to help) or out level the encounter.

 

So why do I not think the encounters will get retuned?

 

The developers are busy. New content can never wait. That is the business model. I think it is foolish to keep adding code onto "bad" code (code that needs fixing)... But I do not run the business. So new content always needs working on. Old content always needs repair. All of that is already keeping them from balance work in the game right now. Why should I expect that to change in the future?

 

Add to that, just where are players supposed to bring up badly tuned encounters?

 

On the forums? Where posters will berate them for QQ'ing, and "doin it wrong," and "learn to play the game?" Yeah, that will happen.

Bug reports? Shouldn't those be saved for game glitches and bugs? Stuff that needs fixing, rather than stuff that would be really nice if they got around to? Well, I guess in this case it just might be something that needs fixing since it was a deliberate change that "broke" it.

 

I just don't see the encounters ever really getting tuned. Especially since they are being tuned around "elite guildies" rather than "paying customer" level.

 

 

Seems like this change allows people to play smarter, not harder.

 

Not "allow." Force. Now the usual response is "adapt or die," or "evolve or die." But when applied towards paying customers, it almost always changes to "cut my nose off to spite my face." For example:

6) Moar Skillz is required!

 

When is this ever good for a game? How many games have increased sales/subscriptions from making their customers work harder? Note the distinction. I am not counting games that provide harder challenges for those that want them. I am talking about games that require every player to already be high enough skill level or to train up.

 

This does not mean the game should be made easier. (X=NOT[Y])

 

But why does "learn to play" = "best business practice?"

[westfelt]

One medpack per fight is a bit much of a nerf imho Edited March 23, 2012 by westfelt

[Urkanan]

Sorry to say that is the biggest pile of horse maneur I've seen expounded in a post.

 

[...]

So sorry to say your ******** isn't baffling brains this time, but nice try!

 

Sheeeeeee no hard feelings but lol at your rage rant, mate. I wonder what offended you so deeply.

 

In any case, I do agree with your whole explanation of why WoW failed subscription-wise with Cata. My lol is because I was more talking about when it failed at being a skill-challenging game, which was during WotLK.

 

You actually explained it yourself: you must cater for both the casual and the hardcore (hardcore in skills, not in lack of social life) to win in an MMO market.

 

For that to be possible, the casual need to understand that a certain bit of the game will always be unatainable to them.

 

I am not arguing about "wife and kids" type of players in your example having stuff to do. I am arguing against them thinking that their place belongs in the hardest end-game just because they pay, which means it needs to be tuned down for them.

 

People just get game content confused with best gear WAY TOO often.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Urkanan

[Urkanan]

Originally Posted by Urkanan

2) IF an existing encounter really needs to be retuned, rest assured it will. Sooner or later

IF only I could believe that. If, and only if, the story mode/class quests were balanced to solo play (and I am not suggesting they were, nor that they should be) at launch they have shown that they have a higher bar set than many people can reach for solo play.

 

[...]

 

But why does "learn to play" = "best business practice?"

 

Oh I wholeheartedly agree with your reply. My post is written from the perspective that hopefully now that BW is done putting out what they surely intended to ship with, I expect to see a change in adressing existing problems rather than adding more. If you are right and this goes on, I'll be disappointed.

 

About the More skill required, I am happy with the game introducing means to crop the good player from the bad, maybe because I dont care enough about the game for it to bother me if I clear HM or NmM, or if I have Rakata or Columi. as long as I can log on for a chalenging night with guildies, on Story Mode if that is what we are doing, I am fine. I find it hard to blame BW for my lack of: playing time, willingness to farm, skill, or any combination of them.

 

I also think that exchanging the need to carry 90 medpacks to an OPS and gaining the challenge of deciding when to use my one time only is hardly a way to make me "work harder", as long as fights are tuned for that conditional. Again, purely high hopes I guess.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Urkanan

[schnopsnosn]

Thought about the situation a bit and I have to say Georg stop making excuses.

As if it's hard to tune fights for 90s-medpacs. It's not harder than to assume you can only use it once. Instead you can use it four times.

 

Where's the difference? I have been quiet about complaining but it's really getting out of hand.

The way you are changing the game and refuse to communicate with us without trying to sell us some bs WILL drive a lot of people away.

 

So far I was a believer in the dev-team. Each time I read the patch-notes and recap the Guild Summit it is becoming more and more obvious that you are helpless and have no clue what to do.

[Selethar]

Not totally unexpected as the "other" game went to this a while ago. It's not earth shattering in the least. The second you are able to drop out of combat it should reset.

[Unkknownsith]

Sheeeeeee no hard feelings but lol at your rage rant, mate. I wonder what offended you so deeply.

 

In any case, I do agree with your whole explanation of why WoW failed subscription-wise with Cata. My lol is because I was more talking about when it failed at being a skill-challenging game, which was during WotLK.

 

You actually explained it yourself: you must cater for both the casual and the hardcore (hardcore in skills, not in lack of social life) to win in an MMO market.

 

For that to be possible, the casual need to understand that a certain bit of the game will always be unatainable to them.

 

I am not arguing about "wife and kids" type of players in your example having stuff to do. I am arguing against them thinking that their place belongs in the hardest end-game just because they pay, which means it needs to be tuned down for them.

 

People just get game content confused with best gear WAY TOO often.

 

The only reason Wrath was given the "e Z mode" flag and as a raider you should acknowledge this fact, Wrath HAD NO GEAR RESET. You could keep your BC Sunwell gear right up to ulduar with out having to replace it.

 

My guild did, they kept all their premium gear from sunwell and blew through everything, made naxx look like a 5 man dungeon. Was only when we got to Ulduar that we started changing the gear out.

 

So yeah with No gear reset forcing you go go back to greens and build your gear base through the expac, of course it was going to be E Z mode.

 

I'm sorry man I get SO tired of this fight between the (perceived) lesser capable and the elitist, really makes my teeth ache. Especially when half the elitist's I see posting don't have 3/4 of the hard content achieves done.

 

It's the equivalent of a Olympic Athlete showing up to his venue, then never leaving the starting blocks but claiming the venue was to easy.

 

Lastly, you want hardcore, you want challenging -then do it, when my guild wanted challenges we made our own; we didn't demand the game developer screw everyone else for just us.

 

Case in point we went into Ulduar when we had it on farm and took half our armor off to do the fights, you want challenges there is ways to do it. Don't come up with crap to screw up the rest of the population base.

 

Last comment and this needs understanding by all raiders, on my old wow server we saw a hell of a lot of "casuals" suddenly up and leave the game. Now here is where it gets very interesting, potions, flasks, food suddenly got very scarce on the auction houses or became ridiculously expensive. I heard more grumblings from my guild about not being able to buy "their raid necessities" why because guess what the casuals who use to put em up on the auction house were not there anymore.

 

In other words worry about your own performance, not the other guys.

 

Other players contribute to the community, they may not be the "elitist" but their contributions still are there. Personally I hated logging into Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, and being able to yell in a city and hear an echo come back. If you really enjoy this game as you say you do, stop contributing to population drops by picking on other players who may not be as "elite" as you.

 

Bioware won't thank you in the end if you force their new mmo into the free to play category.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Unkknownsith

[Jugerot]

how many fights outside of operations last longer then a minute and 30 seconds anyway...

[Urkanan]

Thought about the situation a bit and I have to say Georg stop making excuses.

As if it's hard to tune fights for 90s-medpacs. It's not harder than to assume you can only use it once. Instead you can use it four times.

 

[...]

 

I don't mean to bash on you, but the explanation is rather simple: if you (as a Dev) want to design tight fights, while accounting for people using medpacks up to every [insert any number of seconds] cooldown, the tightness is limited by whether or not / how much you force people to mandatorily use those medpacks.

 

This drives a Dev to the joint where they either make chaining medpacks a more or less soft-requisite for raiding, or leave the door open for those who are actually chaining them to effectively/partially negate a certain mechanic. Mechanics we all demand they put more effort in.

 

In all honesty, I kinda like the change, and I think introducing something like bandages (slow, channeled heal that you can perform in combat while not busy/gettng hit) would help with things like SoA falling damage, etc.

 

I honestly believe this is a good step into better fight designs. BW really need to move away from the enrage mechanic as a staple (Molten Core much)

[Unkknownsith]

I don't mean to bash on you, but the explanation is rather simple: if you (as a Dev) want to design tight fights, while accounting for people using medpacks up to every [insert any number of seconds] cooldown, the tightness is limited by whether or not / how much you force people to mandatorily use those medpacks.

 

This drives a Dev to the joint where they either make chaining medpacks a more or less soft-requisite for raiding, or leave the door open for those who are actually chaining them to effectively/partially negate a certain mechanic. Mechanics we all demand they put more effort in.

 

In all honesty, I kinda like the change, and I think introducing something like bandages (slow, channeled heal that you can perform in combat while not busy/gettng hit) would help with things like SoA falling damage, etc.

 

I honestly believe this is a good step into better fight designs. BW really need to move away from the enrage mechanic as a staple (Molten Core much)

 

Yep Guild had Molten Core on farm add nauseam, got so dull GM at the time told everyone to get their blue gear back out of the banks, put it on and we'd go do Molten core in blues again.

 

I know what your saying, you kept your blues. Was a mandatory with the raiding guild I was with, if you didn't have your blues you either went and farmed them PDQ or risked being removed for the raids for the the entire month.

 

I've seen both sides hardcore raider and casual side, the biggest reason I defend the "casual or softcore" raider. In my terribly unforgiving A type personality raid guild I was in, we had a few "softcore" raiders who helped out with alchemy needs, food, there was this one hunter was an okay player always, ALWAYS had extra pots and flasks in his bags and ALWAYS made sure healers such as myself and others were always provided for. Can't tell you how much that hunter pulled emergency aggro off me when a big heal peeved off an npc mob in a raid, sometimes he actually died saving me so we could loot the phat loots.

 

A good portion of our successes were his generosity and sacrifices, when he left there was a HUGE chasm left in our raids, less laughter happened on vent and the atmosphere became quite toxic.

 

All because one of the "elites" couldn't keep his big mouth shut, in the end that big mouthed elite who cost us such a valuable contingent in our guild, he got healed last. When he complained I told the GM tell him to make bandages, that or roll a healer I could always use a break.

 

You getting what I'm saying yet?

Edited March 23, 2012 by Unkknownsith

[Neamhan]

You exit combat in PvP 8 seconds after the last hostile action. DOTs do not refresh this status.

 

You're playing very unusual games of Huttball if you never drop out of combat. Especially given that the ball resets to the center after someone scores, moving the action quickly.

 

After who's last hostile action? Certainly not your own because I've been stuck in combat for well over 30 seconds at a time just standing behind a pillar not doing anything but waiting for the stupid combat to drop so I can heal myself or stealth.

[schnopsnosn]

I don't mean to bash on you, but the explanation is rather simple: if you (as a Dev) want to design tight fights, while accounting for people using medpacks up to every [insert any number of seconds] cooldown, the tightness is limited by whether or not / how much you force people to mandatorily use those medpacks.

 

This drives a Dev to the joint where they either make chaining medpacks a more or less soft-requisite for raiding, or leave the door open for those who are actually chaining them to effectively/partially negate a certain mechanic. Mechanics we all demand they put more effort in.

 

In all honesty, I kinda like the change, and I think introducing something like bandages (slow, channeled heal that you can perform in combat while not busy/gettng hit) would help with things like SoA falling damage, etc.

 

I honestly believe this is a good step into better fight designs. BW really need to move away from the enrage mechanic as a staple (Molten Core much)

 

Stealth classes can do it twice now, giving them an advantage.

 

Also like I said as long as some major bugs(360°-swiping by Bonethrasher) aren't fixed this is a ridiculous change.

 

edit:

I should clarify that I believe the fights should be harder with less randomness(Soa: ball lightning, then whirled for example).

To me it still seems that BW are simply overdoing it right now with the changes and nerfs, mostly due to PvP.

Edited March 23, 2012 by schnopsnosn

[Raeln]

Not a problem. What I'm actually saying is not that stupid players bolster the argument, but rather that Bioware doesn't want players to have to use the number of medpacs they are currently using to "perform well." Nor did I suggest that medpacs alleviated the need for healers.

 

To clarify: Bioware probably saw something like this:

1. Team A (in PvP) has several players that are using medpacs on CD, Team B does not. Team A also plays less coordinated matches, uses poorer strategy, and perhaps has worse gear than Team B. Team A always beats Team B.

2. Ops group A uses medpacs on CD, Ops group B does not. Ops group A cleared HM EV without wiping once, Ops group B did not.

 

The concern is that being able to "spam" medpacs trivializes content and makes PvP less about the player and more about the resource pool (how many medpacs you have going into the match.) While you could certainly argue that the player without the medpacs is "stupid," you could also choose to see it as a slight decrease in the number of medpacs everyone needs to carry around. Going into an Op or WZ without medpacs is still sub-optimal, but now you don't have to bring 300 for a good four hours of warzone/Op.

 

I have trouble believing that being able to "spam" a 5k medpack every 90 seconds trivializes anything.

 

There are better ways to reduce the effectiveness of medpacks during combat without completely removing their usability. For example, a DPS/Healing debuff of 10% for 30 seconds after using a medpack forces the player to really examine whether or not they should use it - without creating a strange and arbitrary rule limiting their usage to 1 per combat cycle - which makes no sense whatsoever in story/game mechanics terms.

 

It will be interesting if this medpack limitation ends up extending to adrenals. If it doesn't, then I suppose it won't be that bad. It's still lame that they are following WoW's design methodology here though.

[Jengie]

Originally Posted by GeorgZoeller

You exit combat in PvP 8 seconds after the last hostile action. DOTs do not refresh this status.

 

You're playing very unusual games of Huttball if you never drop out of combat. Especially given that the ball resets to the center after someone scores, moving the action quickly.

 

These kinds of comments from devs make me shake my head. They really dont know how their own game works.

When i run defence in my premades in huttball i keep mid and the ramps around it clear of enemies. I almost never drop out of combat. I used my already nerfed to the ground medpacks to stay up healthwise and the occational self heal, now i dont even know why i still have Biochem.

Implications are pretty bad for me, but more so for people without self heals in pvp.

especially if they dont have a healer.

******** excuse that you cant make good encounters with a 4.5-5k heal availeble to people every 90 seconds.

[SpaceJ]

Just for information, I have a Sith Jugg. Immortal Spec. with BioChem as his crafting skill. Level 50 toon with maxed crafting.

 

I'm not going to claim I'm leaving the game over this, but I will guarantee that I will be taking both my toons that have BioChem as their crafting skill and putting them into CyberTech.

 

Why you ask?

 

Because there's a greater variety of craftable items that actually sell for money, and it still comes with a 'bonus power' in the form of a reusable grenade.

 

All BioChem had going for it was a reusable heal pack. Sure, I can craft some Implants and maybe sell them for some chump change. At the end of the day BioChem has been nothing but a giant money sink for me for very little reward. Especially since this is at least the second big nerf to my chosen crafting profession.

 

The people who are going to be really complaining about this change a few weeks from now? Every healer class except for the Sorcerers and every tank out there. They can't keep up as it is with an entire Operations group given that they have terribly limited AoE healing, but I guess the SWTOR Beta will chug along merrily dispite having one less viable crafting tree.

 

BioChem medpacks filled the gap for healing classes with lack-luster AoE (read: Everyone but Sorcerers) so they could rotate their healing between various single targets. Sometimes they get slow or low on power. Since the in-combat rez is laughable, dying means the end even if the rez is up. Ergo, the Medpacks filled that gap for classes that require constant strong healing (I.E. Tanks.)

 

Honestly, just remove BioChem completely from the game. It's been nothing but troble, and obviously ruins BioWare's entire 'balance' pipe dream with stims, adrenals, and medkits. If they don't remove BioChem, it's going to be nerfed every update. Mark my words, it's already been the whipping boy from launch. Next I suppose it will be the Stims that get the nerf bat.

 

(For those who say I should try out the changes on PTS, I'd love to but I'm unwilling to relevel the exact same toon I use as my main with the exact same crafting skill. Until character transfers are available to anyone PTS is and will continue to be a joke of 'invite only' testers. Especially since it's limited to guilds only who have their own agenda's and opinions as to how the game should be. I guess only former WoW players with hardcore guilds matter to BioWare, except for the fact that their game as it was envisioned was never going to be popular with WoW kiddies. Just my $0.02, take it or leave it I don't really care.)

Edited March 23, 2012 by SpaceJ

[Raeln]

This just makes it so you can be less stupid in PvE. Don't stand in bad sh*t and win, it's not hard.

 

I agree with you that people shouldn't stand in the bad crap but what about boss bugs and weird positioning issues where you are clearly out of the cone of the frontal swipe but still get hit anyway?

 

Raid boss abilities are not reliable enough for this medpack limitation, at least not yet anyway.

[Urkanan]

It's the equivalent of a Olympic Athlete showing up to his venue, then never leaving the starting blocks but claiming the venue was to easy.

 

Lastly, you want hardcore, you want challenging -then do it, when my guild wanted challenges we made our own; we didn't demand the game developer screw everyone else for just us.

 

In other words worry about your own performance, not the other guys.

 

I still don't know why you keep replying to my posts when we argue for the same thing lol. I never said I want challenging, what I want is for the game potential not to be brought down just because some don't understand how this is a good step towards fight design, and want their mediocre skill level to be the one that matters.

 

I am a heavily casual raider, I get the feeling you believe otherwise. Maybe that why you so intent? Funny enough, our guild is still struggling at early HardMode EV, and nobody seems to care about this change. We will deal with it, cause it means more game depth.

 

I am happy with running Story Mode, and simply don't understand how people mix all this BS about Nightmare difficulty, game content, subscriptions and why if they nerf medpacks they are going against your ability to enjoy the game. It is just a huge joke, a little kid's tantrum. After all, there are WAY more people posting here than have bothered to roll a new toon on PTS and try to run a mid-lvl FP with the new medpack system like some in my guild did.

 

Oh my god we better listen to them or they will go away and we won't have the game anymore!

 

That is just as counterproductive for the community as your a**mouth A player was to complain about softcores in your A-level guild.

 

Again, either you get me wrong or I am missing something here.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Urkanan