1.2 Healer Change Q&A Response and Feedback

[RuQu]

Really good constructive feedback and discussions in this thread.

 

One thing that's bothering me though, is that people talk about 1.2 as being the last patch ever, and that healing will NEVER change after this.

 

If the healers are suddenly underperforming, despite all BW's calculations - they will buff us..

 

If enough people give constructive criticism on their class and brings decent ideas to the table, I'm quite sure they will be noticed and thought through.. BUT no amount of feedback will end in the game 2 weeks after posting it. Stuff takes time..

 

The things brought up in this thread will probably not see the light of day until 1.4, minor things maybe 1.3..

 

We have had very close to zero Developer communication on the topic of the healing changes. What was said basically translates to "we nerfed you because we think you needed it."

 

Prior to the 1.2 Patch Notes we had lots of ideas and suggestions based on the player perception of the state of the game (see the sticky on this forum for example). The changes do not reflect any of these suggestions, not even in general theme, which suggests that the Dev response to our efforts was to say "aww...that's cute. Look at them thinking they are helping!"

 

We tested the PTS to the best of our ability with the terrible tools BW provided. The results of that testing: a battle rez for CM/BG (apparently to offset the increased deaths) and a 4% reduction in Noble Sacrifice cost. That's it. Not even close to reflecting anything we said.

 

Also keep in mind that the changes to Combat Medics aren't that hard to modify. Ability costs are literally 1 field that needs changing, admittedly across multiple ranks or versions of an ability. We aren't talking about making a new Kolto Cloud here.

 

Also note that they claim these large hits to Combat Medics were meant to increase balance, but any discussion of healer balance will remain an obvious joke to most players while one class has an 8 man AoE that does double the HPS (per person!) of the two 4-player AoEs. That is so clearly imbalanced that any discussion of balance while ignoring it is laughable.

 

Finally, if they actually cared about retaining the healers who are protesting, how hard is it to release a statement such as:

 

"We hear and understand your concerns, but our internal testing and metrics show that all classes will remain viable with these changes for all levels of content, and these changes bring the classes closer into balance. If the changes prove to be too large once we see data from the Live servers, we will reassess the situation and the feedback and suggestions posted on the forum will certainly be taken into consideration in that discussion."

 

It's hard to maintain faith for Patches 1.3 and 1.4 when the hopes and expectations for 1.2 were shattered so thoroughly.

[ErrantMercenary]

We have had very close to zero Developer communication on the topic of the healing changes. What was said basically translates to "we nerfed you because we think you needed it."

 

Prior to the 1.2 Patch Notes we had lots of ideas and suggestions based on the player perception of the state of the game (see the sticky on this forum for example). The changes do not reflect any of these suggestions, not even in general theme, which suggests that the Dev response to our efforts was to say "aww...that's cute. Look at them thinking they are helping!"

 

And bang on the head! It's a concept I'm not sure BioWare understands fully yet, but here it is: When an MMO goes live, some concept of "ownership" of that game is transferred to the community. Part of the drill of charging us 15 bucks a month every month ad infinitum is that you have to produce value, which means that even if you have some vision or direction of how the game is supposed to be, our input matters.

 

 

As has been oft repeated: It's not the nerfing that's the problem. It's the precedent the nerf sets. Communication with the community has been abysmal at best, and that's not limited to just healers, either. Mortar Volley versus Death from Above was a problem in BETA last JUNE and despite months of testing, video evidence, and pleas from the community to make mirror abilities have mirror function, MV vs DFA is JUST NOW getting addressed, and as icing on the "We don't really care what you think" cake, they're only bringing the two abilities in line AFTER significantly nerfing said abilities unannounced (It's effective radius is pitiful now, for you healers that don't keep track of such changes).

 

And that's patently ridiculous. No one was complaining that MV OR DFA was broken in PvP, no one was exploiting it to make PvE encounters trivially easy, we just wanted two mirror abilities to function identically. It's almost like, out of sheer spite, as a cost for giving us something that we asked for, they HAVE to make an unannounced change, because screw us, they know better.

 

 

And I don't want to be treated like that, regardless of which direction the changes are in. Their unwillingness to admit even the slightest bit of fallibility, share with us their mystic metrics, or even release a statement suggesting that anyone has read any of the mountains of work and valuable input the healer community has put in means they want it to be their game, filled with their ideas.

 

And that's fine! It really is! I just don't care to be treated that way, and they're perfectly welcome to fill their game with their ideas. Same as I'm welcome to keep my pockets filled with my money.

Edited April 11, 2012 by ErrantMercenary

[RuQu]

 

And I don't want to be treated like that, regardless of which direction the changes are in. They're unwillingness to admit even the slightest bit of fallibility, share with us their mystic metrics, or even release a statement suggesting that anyone has read any of the mountains of work and valuable input the healer community has put in means they want it to be their game, filled with their ideas.

 

And that's fine! It really is! I just don't care to be treated that way, and they're perfectly welcome to fill their game with their ideas. Same as I'm welcome to keep my pockets filled with my money.

 

On a related note, a guildie sent me a link to TERA's site today. I'll need to look into either a new PC or the implications of running a game from an external HD (anyone know how that transfer rate compares and impacts performance?) since my Windows partition on my Mac doesn't have room for my coding tools, work files, SWTOR, and another game.

 

One of the more interesting things I saw in their FAQ was this little excerpt:

Every game we make meets or exceeds the highest standards of production quality while providing a secure, well-supported, and enjoyable gameplay environment and a gamer-centric approach to community that engages players worldwide."

 

Note the underlined portion...I'm not sure I'd have paid any attention to that line before, but it certainly seems important to me now after my experience with BW.

[Baelish]

...TERA's site...

I don't care how gamer-centric they are, anthropomorphic bunnies and raccoons using greatswords to polevault through the circle of battle means I will not even be trying it out. And again, it's class and level based laziness.

[Sylriana]

Would try to add something to this topic, but the OP pretty much covered all of my concerns.

 

Even moreso than the actual impact of the nerfs on throughput though I'm worried on the design choice. It seems like Operatives were used as the baseline for how interactive and dynamic a healer's playstyle should be, rather than the Commando or even Sage.. which is very troubling even if 1.2 ( or 1.2.1, which I wouldn't be surprised if we see one shortly ) manages to leave the healers in not too bad of a spot when everything shakes out

 

 

Note the underlined portion...I'm not sure I'd have paid any attention to that line before, but it certainly seems important to me now after my experience with BW.

 

Just be careful.. because most people say that. Though I agree BW's been sorely lacking on communication so far... It makes me miss the crab.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Sylriana

[Lileth]

I played Tera this past weekend. It was different from a combat point of view. However, much of the same as far as questing and character progression.

 

I really really liked combat and the graphics.

 

1.2 PTS was nothing more than bug testing. They were not interested in player testing / feedback. They have there own "system" for determining were each class should be.

 

I have 7 days left of my sub to play around with 1.2 live. Depending if I have any friends left playing that haven't already tried pts, I may or may not resub.

[oredith]

I have 7 days left of my sub to play around with 1.2 live. Depending if I have any friends left playing that haven't already tried pts, I may or may not resub.

kinda where i'm at, except i'm on the hook for another 3 months.

 

i'm not sure how many of my friends will still be in game. If nothing else, I'll probably just sit and ride around fleet in circles chatting with Dulfy, instead of IMs - though we'll probably chat in GW2 instead if we get into beta.

 

ultimately, the game has turned from one of great anticipation and great excitement, to one that's just a run of the mill MMO where the devs=god, and we're just minions. i'll play it since i've already paid, but when it's up, there's really nothing to keep me here. I'm not excited about playing my actual toon. the game play is boring. it's the socialization i have with my friends while raiding that keeps me here, certainly not the game.

[Aaoogaa]

Really good constructive feedback and discussions in this thread.

 

One thing that's bothering me though, is that people talk about 1.2 as being the last patch ever, and that healing will NEVER change after this.

 

If the healers are suddenly underperforming, despite all BW's calculations - they will buff us..

 

If enough people give constructive criticism on their class and brings decent ideas to the table, I'm quite sure they will be noticed and thought through.. BUT no amount of feedback will end in the game 2 weeks after posting it. Stuff takes time..

 

The things brought up in this thread will probably not see the light of day until 1.4, minor things maybe 1.3..

 

It will be the last patch ever for many subs. Guilds will be weaker and server population will go down...once the flavor of 1 instance, 1 raid, and legacy has worn off (about a week...maybe two) the subs will start to fall off again.

[Frisemort]

So we got a battle rez?

 

Hurray!

 

Sub canceled.

[Wraithwarr]

They just dont get it. I would wager not a single dev has played a healer in an endgame or pvp role in this game before. The changes to pvp healing have been a really rough adjustment thusfar.

[oredith]

They just dont get it. I would wager not a single dev has played a healer in an endgame or pvp role in this game before. The changes to pvp healing have been a really rough adjustment thusfar.

on the contrary, i bet they have played them before, and then went to play their dps. but their moments of healing normal mode ops probably gave them the sense that the know all there is to know about healing, especially with their metrics.

 

we obviously just aren't as good as the devs, nor understand the greater picture as well as them ..

[XtremJedi]

It's not quite as bad as I expected it to be, but only by a smidgen. My sages and my sorc were the only thing really keeping me in the game any more... and now I really don't want to play them either.

 

I had unsubscribed with 3 months left. I'm going to try to get them to suspend the account, so I can reactivate those 3 months at a later date. If not, it'll be 3 months worth of subs down the drain and that will make me feel even less amenable to returning in future.

 

I'm sure plenty of others will have fun. I'm waiting on The Secret World and mebbe some GW2 thrown in there too.

 

X

[Memnor]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents..

 

I pretty well only PVP and don't really care about many of the nerfs, i can live with them...

It's the new cooldowns that have taken out a lot of the fluidity of the gameplay that is going to be the deal breaker for me. Gameplay seems dumbed down now.

 

I find myself mashing buttons staring at my character while i'm waiting for the cooldown.

[RuQu]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents..

 

I pretty well only PVP and don't really care about many of the nerfs, i can live with them...

It's the new cooldowns that have taken out a lot of the fluidity of the gameplay that is going to be the deal breaker for me. Gameplay seems dumbed down now.

 

I find myself mashing buttons staring at my character while i'm waiting for the cooldown.

 

What class is that? I don't think the Commando/Merc cooldowns changed.

[Giobiwan]

Hated the changes when I read about them...and hate the changes now that I have played with them.

 

Can't say I did not try.

 

They can keep their free 30 days of play time. Healing ain't fun anymore.

 

I just pre ordered The Secret World.

 

Thanks Bioware, for showing me the way...to another game.

[nakoda]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents..

 

I pretty well only PVP and don't really care about many of the nerfs, i can live with them...

It's the new cooldowns that have taken out a lot of the fluidity of the gameplay that is going to be the deal breaker for me. Gameplay seems dumbed down now.

 

I find myself mashing buttons staring at my character while i'm waiting for the cooldown.

 

This is exactly my sentiment. Avatar control feels clunky and very stop-and-go (as a sorc).

[Sala]

What they really did was tell the star wars fans that the player they liked the most (if you were a healer) was going to get nerfed into the stoneage. Not just a tweak here or there but a complete nerf club.

 

The class is almost a complete 180 from what it was playstyle wise.

 

So you have a 4+ month investment into something you've fallen in love with and they just turned off the lights.

 

Not very smart.

 

It's definitely not the way I think they should have done things. Nerf is bad. Improvements to underperformance classes was by far the correct way to go. Now they've just alienated a slew of people, wether we all think the changes were for better or worse, makes no differnece. The perception of those who have played healers is what matters MORE. That was clue number 1 that they were going about this in the wrong way.

[Memnor]

Sorry, I was referring to the Sorcerer/Sage.

 

I haven't pinned down what it is but I can definitely notice the "clunkiness"

[Daiyukie]

Honestly, before making balance changes of any kind, the developers should post several videos showing WHY they make the changes. With commentary.

 

How hard would it be to go into a Warzone, or hell a duel, pick whatever class they're changing and go "So in this scenario here, where the Scoundrel gets the drop on his target-*does it, editing splices in about 6 clips of the Scoundrel's Shoot First with crit numbers*- the damage we're seeing is higher than we initially expected and we are toning it down as a result."

 

No faceless changes, no class-breaking nerfs buried amidst the avalanche of text that was the 1.2 "Jesus Patch" patch notes, no crying and ************ on the forums.

 

Ok, who am I kidding, lots of crying on the forums, but probably half as much as we're seeing now if there was actual developer communication and reasoning/proof given.

[Macknife]

So ever since I saw the 1.2 patch notes I had feared the worst. What came out on patch day was waaay worse than I ever thought.

 

Now I'm not a healer. I tank in PvP alongside my gf who heals. We pretty much run that combo on any of our characters, I tank and guard her, she heals. Before 1.2 came out this was the reason I played star wars, same as we played warhammer before. I loved how we could influence a match by getting stuck in, she'd heal her socks off while I floated around her taunting, stunning and generally doing everything I could to keep her alive, whilst she kept everyone she could alive.

 

Now in 1.2, just feels like its absolutely useless being a tank/healer combo, be better off being tank/dps or just dps/dps. These changes have ruined SWTOR for us both. Which is a real shame as before hand pvp was fun and a challenge, now it just feels like all other games in pvp, dps races to see who kills who the fastest. We've been in around 15-20 warzones since 1.2 hit and so far shes been the only healer, and i've been the only tank on either side in the majority, maybe the odd tank here or there, but nothing like before.

 

All in all I feel as if the healing changes, both to the classes and to expertise have pretty much gimped pvp. I know some folks will argue and thats their right. But as of the end of my sub they can stick that 30 days free while I (sadly) go find another mmo to play with good, challenging and fun pvp.

[Yakito]

Well, I was hoping that GZ had some more logic, but I was surprised.

So if you know that such a heavy nerf will piss us off then why go with it?

And the bigger question - why would you nerf us so badly? Why not nerf us a little bit and then see how the things go? You were afraid that we'd clear your content too soon?

 

Well, perhaps you should design a fight WITHOUT an enrage timer, like every fight you currently have? Enrage timer is the lamest tactic you can come up with and I am starting to think that you have absolutely no creativity there at your studio. Does anybody there comes up with anything worth doing? Honestly... Some resource during the fight that depletes? Perhaps a sequence people have to complete every time or die? There are plenty of other ways.

 

I hate lack of logic, I hate being lied to. I absolutely hate it when somebody's breaking something that didn't need breaking. Healers were OK. I enjoyed my job, I would live with a small nerf, but not nerf this huge, just because you can't come up with any interesting content.

"Oh yeah... we can't buff the bosses... that would be too mainstream! Let's nerf the healers so every person in the Ops blames THEM for the lack of progress! And so the healers feel like the most useless people in the Ops too! Two birds with one stone. WOHOO!! We are genius!"

DERP! HERP FRIKKING DERP!.

 

So as an experienced healer (over 5 years of doing it in various MMOs) I am supposed to bend over for TOR? This is the biggest nerf I've seen in ANY game. You tested it? Have you also tested the possibility of people NOT enjoying healing after this insane move? I had a crisis of faith yesterday. I felt like my role is just there to "attempt" to save the raid. I feel like changing my spec to DPS and staying there but I know there would be 0 progress if I did it because the guild needs a loser like me that just chooses to be a healer, rage, stress out, NOT ENJOY what he's doing any longer, but do it anyway, because somebody has to. And do you think I'll put up with it? I would if I wanted to get a stomach ulcer. I will not.

 

 

Edit:

Healing before the nerf felt dynamic, had flow and was pleasant. You were never really idle, there was always something to do.

Healing after 1.2 is simply waiting for a cooldown to come, and spamming your free heal, because you KNOW that if you use a Medical Probe outside of your rotation you'd screw yourself over and bang - no ammo, people die. You can't use what you'd normally use in a bad situation when a person needs a healing spike. you can just watch them slowly die, and throw some weak heals on them. You know that if you try and save them you'll let the whole raid die, because your resource returning abilities are still on cooldown.

 

I tried everything yesterday. There's not really any perfect "rotation" or magical new way of healing to feel like you matter. Healing is simply both stressful, boring and chaotic. There's no flow, no enjoyment, no feel of "I can do it!"

Edited April 16, 2012 by Yakito

[Drakkip]

Well, I was hoping that GZ had some more logic, but I was surprised.

So if you know that such a heavy nerf will piss us off then why go with it?

And the bigger question - why would you nerf us so badly? Why not nerf us a little bit and then see how the things go?

 

A long time gamer friend of mine and I were discussing this the other day. This is the folley of every MMORPG we have played. As an example, lets take any game and say the game designers feel that something "needs" say a 10% adjustment. We want people to die 10% faster in PvP so we are going to accomplish that by adjusting:

 

-Damage per swing on DPS goes up 10%

-Weapon swings times get faster by 10%

-X PvP stat has a 10% larger increase to dps over heals

-Decrease damage mitigation by 10%

-Heals per heal go down 10%

-Healing cast times increase 10%

-Healing costs go up 10%

-Add 10% longer to interupts

-Decrease interupt timers by 10%

-etc.. etc..

 

So they puff their chests out and say "see we only adjusted everything by as little as 10% what are you whining about? You should only see a 10% difference on your heals!" What they believe to be a 10% adjustment is more like a 50% adjustment by the time you take everything into the account on both sides of the equation. They don't take into account that you get interupted easier, more often and for longer. So in a 1 minute fight where you used to get off 20 heals you can't get off the same number of heals, that are also healing for less, and people are dying faster so the fight is shorter. That 1 minute fight is now 45 seconds long and you only get off 10 heals. That's not a 10% adjustment >.<

 

It's typical overcompensation. I guess this should just be expected to be the norm rather than be surprised that game companies can't figure out how to make small changes over several weeks to bring something in balance. Nerf it big, nerf it fast, nerf it hard!

[Phlem]

When sweeping changes like this that are not well received by the players it causes games like SW:G to fail.

 

I understand tuning heals for PvE, but what I dont understand is why healers right now are next to worthless in PvP. In warzones you use to see people averaging 150-200k heals in the 10-49 bracket. Now you'd be lucky to see someone break 100k heals.

 

I suggest re-evaluating the healing nerfs and their significant impact on PvP. In due time you will probably not see many, if any healers in warzones. As it is right now it's pretty much a dps fest. Before healers could usually keep up with the damage, not so much now.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Phlem

[Edoniltebaun]

The changes, while perhaps necessary, have definitely changed the dynamic. I finally got some time to play over the weekend, and I can honestly say that I'm not too happy abut what has happened. This is from a seer's perspective

 

Healing now feels clunky and rough. There's high spikes that don't disappear quickly before the next potential spike comes in. Cooldowns now seem to work more heavily against us. I finally figured out a decent healing rotation that seemed to work fairly well. Ultimately, it's just really not a lot of fun to be healing anymore (I'm not going to give up, but I'm probably going to be playing non-healing alts more).

 

But maybe the one biggest thing to cause all this is a sweeping change that affected everyone with healing abilities. Not just sages or sorcs, but mercs, commandos and operatives. It's the fact that they altered resource management in a dramatic way. This is also the one common point that all healers in SWTOR have to deal with.

 

Before 1.2 there were options for doing different things. We used to be able to give a little extra DPS and make things die a little faster, which helped beat the enrage timers on bosses. If a spike was hit, a quick couple of abilities could be used and then back to the varied rotations all the healing AC(s) would use. It was fun because we, as healers, were able to add something beyond just keeping people on their feet, we could actually hit back (granted some were better at it than others, but still, we could do something other than hit the heal buttons).

 

That seems to have been taken away from us (all of us, all healers, not just sage/sorc) in the era of the 1.2 patch. Our resource costs have been altered to make them more critical, and we have to hoard our resources like a pirate guards treasure. We can't afford to casually toss in an ability or two to help cause a little damage along the way and feel that we're helping. And the reason is because if we do that, we won't have the resources to heal when we really need it.

 

Bioware removed the wiggle room that healers had. The extra resources that made us feel like we were adding more to an encounter is gone. This was the one thing that really made a healer class fun for me, was that not only could I heal, but I could help out in killing stuff too. But I guess that healers aren't supposed to be doing anything except using healing abilities, and if that's the case, then maybe Bioware should just remove all the other abilities from our bars so we're not overpowered when we take our AC and put points into that healing tree.

[pennstatety]

After raiding the other night I have unsubbed and written them a long explanation as to why. The drastic changes they have implemented are a dangerous design strategy and leave me with little faith in the design team for this game. I still have about 90 days left and will only be logging on to do operations on our designated raid nights so that I don't let my real life friends that I play with down.

 

It only took 1 raid night to feel how hard the hammer really fell. After reading about the changes I had prepared myself for the fact that I was going to mashing RS a **** ton and heat management was going to be a nightmare. Even with that in mind I was still very surprised and very frustrated at how difficult it was to heal content that I was appropriately geared for.

 

If we had other healers that would log on regularly, I probably wouldn't even bother and would just DPS until my time expires, it would be a lot more fun.