Is BW basing Classchanges on avarage math?

[Jengie]

Hey fellow gamers,

 

I want to start with a quote from the Bioware podcast, because it has me worried on how they do things. After that quote i want to go into the reasons why im slowly loosing faith in how BW approaches classchanges and buggs.

You may not agree with me, but im interested how others think about this, because the feeling im getting atm is not good. So, the quote:

 

we make coffee, one of us comes in, saying this class is lacking this or has too much of that. Then we argue about it, make a theory about wether the arguement has merit or not, run some tests, evaluate our assumtions based on "math" and, you know, design goals. and then compare it to "our" experience playing the live game. make some test changes see how they play out. we do some duels and run some content and we get a good feel for what we should be doing.

Yes, we have lots of argueing.

 

I've seen someone say something about perspective being everything in pr for a company. Well the perspective i get from the above of bioware as a company is not a very proffesional one.

What math are you using? The avarage numbers people crunch out ( the stuff you get from your metric system )or does the metric system actually look at the max potential classes have by looking at the players with the highest outputs.

 

Why buffs to the strongest 1v1 class baffle me:

 

Why am i worried you guys are using the avarage numbers? an example:

In PVP (and to an extent in pve as well) the skilled Dps Knights and Warriors (both sentinals/marauders and guardian/juggernauts) dont need any buffs, they might even need a small nerf atm (the sentinals in my guild that push out 600-700k in long warzones agree with me on this).

 

What are we seeing in 1.2 atm? they get substantial buffs. So you are buffing your strongest 1v1 class in pvp into OPness even more. Is this based on the best players/the 100% potential of the class, or are you basing these buffs off the avarage player.

If the last is true (which i assume, because there is no other way to understand this particular change) you are doing it the wrong way round.

 

A class should always be buffed or nerfed towards its Potential. The players that reach that potential is what you should look at. Because those players will be wrecking people to death in seconds in 1.2, while the poor quality knights and warriors will need more buffs even after 1.2. A bad player will remain bad, no matter how much you buff something.

 

Changes to commando troopers, same story:

 

In the same line of thought the changes to combat medic healing and gunnery grav round can be mentioned.

i read somewhere on the forum that your main reason for nerfing grav round was because you wanted to give commando's incentives to stop using it so much.

But while saying that you leave the inner workings of the commando the same, and with that the reasons why troopers will still use grav round in 1.2. Just with less damage, but they still have to build up their buffs with grav round.

So you fail your goal there, not only making gunnery less viable by nerfing a good portion of its damage, but also taking away a good portion of its survivability by cutting the grav round debuff shield from 10 to 5% and making the cooldown on concussion charge longer.

making one of your weaker 1v1 classes in pvp even weaker.

 

Again i dont understand which "math" or metrics you are using to justify these changes. Are you only looking at dps numbers? or are you actually knowing the inner workings of your own game?

Because changes like the above leave skilled pvp players scratching their head.

 

The changes to the combat medic has several of my healers worried as hell, especially combined with the nerf to reusable medpacs. I understand balancing of healing is important, but from what i've understood of the numbers my people told me the nerf to actual availeble ammo for combat medics per minute is going to be huge. Maybe even close to 30% less. This is worrying, because you're making content in PvE much harder in the meantime. Changing lots of classes at the same time.

 

Changing to many core things at the same time:

 

I guess my point is that you are changing too many things at the same time. And you are doing it, from my point of view, based on the wrong kind of numbers.

Thats the perspective me, and lots of players i talk to, get from some of the Classchanges you are pushing in.

Some of the example changes to classes i use above illustrate that it seems you dont know what your doing. And sure you can tell me and other players that its all based on good math and carefull decision making, but what im telling you bioware is that it doesnt come across as such.

Me and my guildies (we've cleared 10/10 NM mode in both 8 and 16 man, and we have dozens of battlemasters/war hero's) have discussed the changes to all classes to a large extent, and we just cant figure out some of these changes that will make balance worst, not better.

 

Like i said, any skilled sentinal/marauder will admit he doesnt need a buff, maybe might need a small nerf to be balanced out against most classes.

And it is these kind of chances that leave me, and many others with me confused and full of questions.

 

Some more explanation from your side BW, might clear it up a bit.

 

Im still trying to keep faith/trust, but i must admit that even in me its waning.

 

Jeng

Edited March 31, 2012 by Jengie

[Aurich]

I didn't read all that, but here's what I learned from the portion I did happen to read: You put "quotes" around specific words of the developers' dialogue indicating you don't think those words were particularly qualified in their use. This is necessarily an assumption you have made based on extremely limited information and your own bias.

 

 

 

 

 

See what I did there? Anyone?

[Puppup]

It isn't a 1v1 game.

[Electroflux]

I didn't read all of that, because I'm a typical unintelligent forum lurker, but some things I got out of it were about things being 1 v 1.

 

This game, by no means, is based around anything 1 v 1. That can literally go for nearly every MMORPG. You pick a class, you have a role. You can't expect to have abilities that counter every class. If this were the case, most abilities that were used to counter certain classes will also be unbalanced with PvE and other classes all at the same time.

 

I don't see any MMORPG ever going to completely balance classes around every aspect of the game; it's impossible, unless they create a very complex system of ability management in which certain abilities are only used for certain situations, but that even seems unbelievable.

[kyuyu]

It isn't a 1v1 game.

 

So based on team play? How does sentinel and shadowtank miraculously suck in team play?

 

Usually 1v1 strong class won't suck in group play either.

 

It's almost cliche to say we don't care about individual class, it's team game!

 

Then why do game developers even care about class adjustment? Just let 16 players zerg together and all will play out fine!

[Ivonichke]

The bigger concern is there's a fool at BioWare that thinks commandos/mercs not having an interrupt is a good design decision. With design decisions like that, how can you possibly have any faith in their math as it relates to design decisions?

[OGsam]

Watchman/Annihilation is being nerfed, I repeat Watchman/Annihilation is being nerfed.

It may be a minor nerf, but it's a nerf none the less. How are people not getting their heads around this? Oh right I forgot, people who know nothing about a class are expert when it comes to dishing out the nerf bat.

[kyuyu]

I didn't read all of that, because I'm a typical unintelligent forum lurker, but some things I got out of it were about things being 1 v 1.

 

This game, by no means, is based around anything 1 v 1. That can literally go for nearly every MMORPG. You pick a class, you have a role. You can't expect to have abilities that counter every class. If this were the case, most abilities that were used to counter certain classes will also be unbalanced with PvE and other classes all at the same time.

 

I don't see any MMORPG ever going to completely balance classes around every aspect of the game; it's impossible, unless they create a very complex system of ability management in which certain abilities are only used for certain situations, but that even seems unbelievable.

 

 

It's one thing it's impossible to have perfect balance, but it's another thing that developers will try to balance all classes.

 

Balance doesn't mean 1 class has counter to everything. It means a class should have certain strength and weakness. All classes should have similar amount of weakness and strength.

[KaKiMi]

So basically your arguement about BW's 'math' is that they're wrong by buffing Sith Warriors, and also wrong about nerfing Commando's.

 

Okay so now we know what class you rolled, and what class facelift's you.

Is there anything else you'd like to point out?

Edited March 31, 2012 by KaKiMi

[vulup]

I am starting to lean towards the its not a 1v1 game

 

I dont stand a chance against a healer of equal gear and skill and put myself at great risk while on a healer - if dps or even a tank notices - because i need to use my cc/interupts/trinkets to burst the healer down

 

If i happen to be the only one on a healer

 

cross-healing is too powerful but that is another topic and one they have to look into ( Think they are in 1.2) if 1v1 is nothing we should worry about - i cant kill anything, they cant kill me very fast, making most pvp matches pretty dreary and boring

 

tab targeting needs to be looked at if swotor takes a team-centric approach to pvp

 

and macros...please for crying out loud - i could also go and buy a naga instead

 

hard-switching can but usually doesnt work because everyone has a "oh **** card" in the form of cc/or a damage reduction cc/speedburst type ability

Edited April 1, 2012 by vulup

[Dee-Jay]

You seem to ignore the part where the developer said he spends roughly 50% of his time staring at spread-sheets.

 

I assume these sheets are mainly compiled of class-performance data.

 

 

What does have me worried however is that well-performing niche-specs are more likely to get nerfed than well-performing popular specs.

 

Just as an example:

 

I dare say, for every 50 Guardians on a server there may be twice as many Sentinels (they are much more popular after all).

 

Now of those 50 Guardians, maybe 30 participate in PvP on a regular basis. Half of them play as tanks. the other half as DPS. Now of those 15 who play DPS, 5 may play Vigilance while the remaining 10 play Focus DPS. Of these 10 only about 5 have full BM gear and only 3 have really bothered to optimize their gear.

 

So when looking at class performance in PvP your sample seize is very small for a Hybrid spec when compared to a "pure". See, 1/3rd of all Focus DPS players will actually try getting the most out of their class, screwing their average performance significantly.

 

With Sentinels it's different.

 

Of those 100 Sentinels, 60 participate in PvP on a regular basis. Most of them play as Watchman, while some play as Focus. Say the divide is 40/20. The 40 player sample ensures that even a handful of exceptional players won't screw the averages too much. This cannot be said for Guardians where even a single exceptional player on each server can have a significant impact on the classes average performance.

[Electroflux]

It's one thing it's impossible to have perfect balance, but it's another thing that developers will try to balance all classes.

 

Balance doesn't mean 1 class has counter to everything. It means a class should have certain strength and weakness. All classes should have similar amount of weakness and strength.

 

How are the classes right now not having similar weakness and strengths? If you adapted every class to have the same strengths as eachother, then ranged classes would be particularly more overpowered then they already are since melee would have to be on the same page as them. Ranged classes need abilities to control to survive and melee have gap closers and mobility to stay on the target.

 

Also, gear is a factor.

[Ivonichke]

I didn't read all of that, because I'm a typical unintelligent forum lurker, but some things I got out of it were about things being 1 v 1.

 

This game, by no means, is based around anything 1 v 1. That can literally go for nearly every MMORPG. You pick a class, you have a role. You can't expect to have abilities that counter every class. If this were the case, most abilities that were used to counter certain classes will also be unbalanced with PvE and other classes all at the same time.

 

I don't see any MMORPG ever going to completely balance classes around every aspect of the game; it's impossible, unless they create a very complex system of ability management in which certain abilities are only used for certain situations, but that even seems unbelievable.

 

Everyone always says games aren't balanced around 1v1, but it's always a factor in balance. Not keyed to the point of "Everything needs to be equal 1v1" - but to the point devs have to make sure characters gain strength accordingly in groups.

 

Some classes in game have a much more significant performance increase in a team than others. The measuring stick is making sure that in a team most classes are close to equal without severely skewing the numbers for the rare 1v1 situations. No one wants to hear, "Someone, well, everyone... might stub their toe while kicking your *** if they catch you alone, but don't worry! Once you're in a group, you'll be as capable as they are!"

 

That's why 1v1 matters now, and will always matter. I don't want/need to dominate, but I need to know that if I get caught solo while I'm returning to my team, it's not a foregone conclusion I'm going to end up dead and repeating the cycle.

[LosMartonos]

try a class and read the full patch notes and understand it before writing on the forums because the other clueless kids will believe you.

true story

[LosMartonos]

I fully agree with the 1.2 changes

I'm an operative

[vulup]

read through parts of your post

 

I really dont think commando troopers are weak

 

like i said i am starting to stray away form a 1v1 philosopy with swotor and commandos are extremely potent in a group setting

 

They may struggle in a 1v1 situation but put two of them on a chat-server to focus fire properly and they shine

 

I do think given them an interrupt would be a nice quality of life change

Edited April 1, 2012 by vulup

[FourTwent]

Hey fellow gamers,

 

I want to start with a quote from the Bioware podcast, because it has me worried on how they do things. After that quote i want to go into the reasons why im slowly loosing faith in how BW approaches classchanges and buggs.

You may not agree with me, but im interested how others think about this, because the feeling im getting atm is not good. So, the quote:

 

 

 

I've seen someone say something about perspective being everything in pr for a company. Well the perspective i get from the above of bioware as a company is not a very proffesional one.

What math are you using? The avarage numbers people crunch out ( the stuff you get from your metric system )or does the metric system actually look at the max potential classes have by looking at the players with the highest outputs.

 

Why buffs to the strongest 1v1 class baffle me:

 

Why am i worried you guys are using the avarage numbers? an example:

In PVP (and to an extent in pve as well) the skilled Dps Knights and Warriors (both sentinals/marauders and guardian/juggernauts) dont need any buffs, they might even need a small nerf atm (the sentinals in my guild that push out 600-700k in long warzones agree with me on this).

 

What are we seeing in 1.2 atm? they get substantial buffs. So you are buffing your strongest 1v1 class in pvp into OPness even more. Is this based on the best players/the 100% potential of the class, or are you basing these buffs off the avarage player.

If the last is true (which i assume, because there is no other way to understand this particular change) you are doing it the wrong way round.

 

A class should always be buffed or nerfed towards its Potential. The players that reach that potential is what you should look at. Because those players will be wrecking people to death in seconds in 1.2, while the poor quality knights and warriors will need more buffs even after 1.2. A bad player will remain bad, no matter how much you buff something.

 

Changes to commando troopers, same story:

 

In the same line of thought the changes to combat medic healing and gunnery grav round can be mentioned.

i read somewhere on the forum that your main reason for nerfing grav round was because you wanted to give commando's incentives to stop using it so much.

But while saying that you leave the inner workings of the commando the same, and with that the reasons why troopers will still use grav round in 1.2. Just with less damage, but they still have to build up their buffs with grav round.

So you fail your goal there, not only making gunnery less viable by nerfing a good portion of its damage, but also taking away a good portion of its survivability by cutting the grav round debuff shield from 10 to 5% and making the cooldown on concussion charge longer.

making one of your weaker 1v1 classes in pvp even weaker.

 

Again i dont understand which "math" or metrics you are using to justify these changes. Are you only looking at dps numbers? or are you actually knowing the inner workings of your own game?

Because changes like the above leave skilled pvp players scratching their head.

 

The changes to the combat medic has several of my healers worried as hell, especially combined with the nerf to reusable medpacs. I understand balancing of healing is important, but from what i've understood of the numbers my people told me the nerf to actual availeble ammo for combat medics per minute is going to be huge. Maybe even close to 30% less. This is worrying, because you're making content in PvE much harder in the meantime. Changing lots of classes at the same time.

 

Changing to many core things at the same time:

 

I guess my point is that you are changing too many things at the same time. And you are doing it, from my point of view, based on the wrong kind of numbers.

Thats the perspective me, and lots of players i talk to, get from some of the Classchanges you are pushing in.

Some of the example changes to classes i use above illustrate that it seems you dont know what your doing. And sure you can tell me and other players that its all based on good math and carefull decision making, but what im telling you bioware is that it doesnt come across as such.

Me and my guildies (we've cleared 10/10 NM mode in both 8 and 16 man, and we have dozens of battlemasters/war hero's) have discussed the changes to all classes to a large extent, and we just cant figure out some of these changes that will make balance worst, not better.

 

Like i said, any skilled sentinal/marauder will admit he doesnt need a buff, maybe might need a small nerf to be balanced out against most classes.

And it is these kind of chances that leave me, and many others with me confused and full of questions.

 

Some more explanation from your side BW, might clear it up a bit.

 

Im still trying to keep faith/trust, but i must admit that even in me its waning.

 

Jeng

 

If you listened to the podcast you would know the answer already.

 

Saying they're changing too many things too fast is false when they told you(in the podcast) that these changes have been in the works for a while. They wanted to have them in for the launch, but they were still testing.

 

They did say they used math calculations including 'variables'. So while on paper you think ppl will activate X ability Y times within a 1 minute fight. However in real world testing it turns out they only use it Z times.

 

This Z variable is widely open to interpretation but whatever it's set at is what Bioware is comfortable with(remember they're targeting the game toward casuals more than the hardcore so your Z variable would be different than Bioware's)

 

edit - why does it matter if they buff strong 1v1 classes? the game isn't balanced on 1v1. and i hope they dont introduce arenas so that they have to start balancing based on 2v2 or 4v4 or whatever. keeping the balance at 8v8 makes things like buffing a strong 1v1 class not that big of a deal(who knows what buff you're talking about, if it's sentinels/marauders they're only buffing the weak specs. . .the ones no one uses

Edited April 1, 2012 by FourTwent

[FourTwent]

Just as an example:

 

I dare say, for every 50 Guardians on a server there may be twice as many Sentinels (they are much more popular after all).

 

Now of those 50 Guardians, maybe 30 participate in PvP on a regular basis. Half of them play as tanks. the other half as DPS. Now of those 15 who play DPS, 5 may play Vigilance while the remaining 10 play Focus DPS. Of these 10 only about 5 have full BM gear and only 3 have really bothered to optimize their gear.

 

So when looking at class performance in PvP your sample seize is very small for a Hybrid spec when compared to a "pure". See, 1/3rd of all Focus DPS players will actually try getting the most out of their class, screwing their average performance significantly.

 

With Sentinels it's different.

 

Of those 100 Sentinels, 60 participate in PvP on a regular basis. Most of them play as Watchman, while some play as Focus. Say the divide is 40/20. The 40 player sample ensures that even a handful of exceptional players won't screw the averages too much. This cannot be said for Guardians where even a single exceptional player on each server can have a significant impact on the classes average performance.

 

this example is bad since they already said they dont use warzone metrics for class balances. it works in another way, since specs are still more popular than others. . .but saying that they dont have enough 'data' because not many ppl play pvp is false

[PRSturm]

You win some you lose some.

[Jengie]

So basically your arguement about BW's 'math' is that they're wrong by buffing Sith Warriors, and also wrong about nerfing Commando's.

 

Okay so now we know what class you rolled, and what class facelift's you.

Is there anything else you'd like to point out?

 

That's not my point. Its examples.

My point is their decisionmaking, and which kind of numbers they use to base these decisions on. If you take all the data, from all the players it may seem that a class needs a buf, while it is actually fine (like the warriors from my example)

 

Warriors are actually one of the harder classes to play to their full potential ingame atm, and thus a bigger portion of the players that play them will perform bad on them (and they do, i've seen atrocious marauders and sentinals in battlemadstergear doing 150k'ish damage in warzones, where my guildies on their sentinals did 500k'ish in the same warzones, time and time again).

 

BW doesnt seem to look at this. That is my biggest concern. They seem to make unfounded decisions time and again. Like the one when they chanced to global cooldown ui into a disaster when there was nothing wrong with it. Or the staggered entry to the game which was a complete disaster, or the guildplacement system that would balance population that went completely wrong.

 

All those glitches and bugs along the way, that shows how green BW is at making mmo's. Until now, where we have come to the point where the 1.2 patch is the make or break of this game. So much hangs on this, and i feel they are again making some very weird decisions, not based on anything me nor my guild full of veteran mmo players can comprehend.

 

My doubts have nothing to do with my class receiving a nerf mate, its the reasons they present for the nerf not matching with the changes they put trough, that has me feeling they dont have a clue.

 

And that makes me sad. Because i may well be the biggest Starwars/BW fan out there.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Jengie

[Dee-Jay]

this example is bad since they already said they dont use warzone metrics for class balances. it works in another way, since specs are still more popular than others. . .but saying that they dont have enough 'data' because not many ppl play pvp is false

 

I don't get what you're saying,

 

My point was essentially that a single player pushing this to the limit (like say Lucelia did with Guardians) will have a much more significant impact on a specs average performance than say...an exceptional Marauder.

[Jengie]

That's why 1v1 matters now, and will always matter. I don't want/need to dominate, but I need to know that if I get caught solo while I'm returning to my team, it's not a foregone conclusion I'm going to end up dead and repeating the cycle.

 

This reflexts how i feel as well.

Atm, against a well played sentinal, vanguard, guardian or shadow an equally geared/skilled commando is in trouble, big trouble, but we still have a chance to win if we play perfectly and the other makes mistakes. With these classchanges any well played sentinal/marauder will kill me.

 

Its fine haveing classes have their nemesis, but even with that they should still have a sliver of a chance against this classes. And the job of the developer is to make sure the gaps dont grow too large, what we call balance.

 

I think the current changes make the balance worst then it was, and i think that isnt a good development.

I think its pretty obvious that sentinals/guardians are being set up to dominate rated warzones (intended or not), and will be stacked by competative teams.

[Teabaker]

Well, Watchman/Annhilation gets nerfed, so your argument isn't valid :X They buff the other two trees though, which is okay because they are bad compared to Watchman/Annihilation.

[Ozzone]

we make coffee, one of us comes in, saying this class is lacking this or has too much of that. Then we argue about it, make a theory about wether the arguement has merit or not, run some tests, evaluate our assumtions based on "math" and, you know, design goals. and then compare it to "our" experience playing the live game. make some test changes see how they play out. we do some duels and run some content and we get a good feel for what we should be doing.

Yes, we have lots of argueing.

 

Reminds me of politics - say a lot without saying anything concrete. That way everyone can argue what they really mean which deflects the real problem.

 

If we only knew the truth. Instead we get the chance to make up our perception of the truth. Here's mine:

 

we make coffee, the unlucky dev that got stuck with monitoring the forum, comes in, saying that one class is getting picked on for being OP. Then we laugh about it, make a theory about whether the QQ'ers are sufficient in number, look at resub numbers, evaluate our assumtions based on the "bottom line" and, you know, resub goals. and then compare it to "our" established quotas. make some test nerfs and see how they play out in the PTS forum. we do some duels because the true test is 1 vs. 1 and run some Ilum crate ganking content and we get a good feel for what we can get away with.

Yes, we have lots of laughter.

[cycao]

There "math" is based on the amount of forum posts wanting class nerfs. So I am guessing that is why ops/scoundrels were nerfed, sage/sorcs are getting nerfed and based on the amount of QQ about shadow/'sins going on now they are next.

 

 

Thus the cycle will continue, its sad.