Not Happy. Taugrim From Pro Guides,Pro Gameplay On Patch 1.2

[Chromius]

He makes valid points. The only other thing I felt need toning down was CC as there is to much loss of character control, and with the damage resist lowered it makes it worse.

 

I have seen these Fan-Bois who are calling Taugrim a whiner destroy many MMO's the DEV's listen to them till the server are empty and it goes FTP. They probably made up most of the PTR, I have seen this happen the same way in other MMO's that would and should have been far more successful. Just as Swtor has the capability to be. They actually want you to unsub and leave them to play it the way they like it and are a minority.

 

True Story.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Chromius

[cuteypie]

He is spot on, everything he says is true from multiple viewpoints.

[ChazDoit]

I have seen these Fan-Bois who are calling Taugrim a whiner destroy many MMO's the DEV's listen to them till the server are empty and it goes FTP

 

I'm a big fan of the game and even I have to agree with 80% of what Taugrim said,

[Auliga]

good read. i dont agree with everything he said but overall good critique. Bump for more readers

[LoKiei]

Taugrim can be unhappy. I am on the other hand very happy with the changes so far to PvP and the reduction of healing has made it far more fun.

 

No longer are groups of healer hybrids unkillable. No longer do warzones degenerate into healing contests.

[Lina_Inverse]

Taugrim might be many things, but at the end of the day his opinion isn't invalid and a lot of people are on his train.

 

When it boils down to it anyone who's dissatisfied with anything and expresses that opinion anywhere to anyone is by internet definition a whiner. He just puts it in a format that is accessible to many other people to observe.

 

Like most people, I would say I share his opinion on a lot of points. I also understand how he arrives at his conclusions for others but disagree with him as I do not arrive at the same conclusions.

 

1.2 let a lot of people down. Some people, namely that select group of people that is still happy farming warzones for valor/comms in half-premades (I think we'll call them semi-casual pvp'ers or hardcore casual) are happy with the pvp in 1.2. They have a new gear grind and a new warzone to keep them occupied. For me it's a new skin on the same problems that 1.0 launched with.

 

No competative/rating/premade system.

Broken World PvP.

Buggy combat/PvE/PvP.

 

 

I challenge you to tell me what 1.2 brought to PvP that was more than just an extension of the less than stellar style of pvp gameplay in 1.0.

[Chromius]

I'm a big fan of the game and even I have to agree with 80% of what Taugrim said,

 

Thanks for that, I fully plan on coming back for Pvp if they can fix it up. I think swtor could have some really decent pvp even if classes are not perfectly balanced and have counters.

 

Getting people to illum or world pvp would help even more.

[vermura]

Just a side note, shortly before servers went down I went into a Huttball with a team like this:

 

2 * Sin Tank

1 * Sorc Healer

3 * Marauder

2 * Sorc DPS

 

By chance, this was me joining as a pug with a premade of people I tend to play with anyway along with a couple of other good pugs. Effectively, this was an 8-man team.

 

3 marauders, with op wide predation, orgainized = ?

 

Permanent predation. I had predation for the entire match - which was over *very* quickly

 

6-0.

 

A taste of things to come.

Edited April 13, 2012 by vermura

[Ahhmyface]

Wait, he thinks balance is the worst?

 

You have to be joking. Never. Been. Better. It's nearly the best balance in any MMO ive ever played.

[Crawelc]

Stopped reading when he said mara/sent got buffed, that dude has no clue, but I guess him having a blog means that people will actually listen to him.

[ChazDoit]

Wait, he thinks balance is the worst?

 

You have to be joking. Never. Been. Better. It's nearly the best balance in any MMO ive ever played.

 

Well, I can certainly appreciate the fact that now I can f*cking kill a Commando Healer.

 

Before they patch I could throw everything I had at them with my scoundrel and they would just heal themselves until I run out of energy, the only way to kill the was doubletapping, which is no longer an option now.

Edited April 13, 2012 by ChazDoit

[Twor]

yep.

 

Taugrim relies on whining to attract the sheep. If he just posted good things no one would care, but he taps into the whining crowd for page views.

 

It's the oldest trick in the book.

 

Taugrim has written great guides for Rift Warriors and SWTOR Vanguards. The guides are easy to understand -even for new players probably.

He does not only mouth his oppinion- you are doing that, the difference is arguments and examples which he is providing.

The blog has them, you are just stating things you can state with your buddies after your 6th beer.

You do not have to agree with what he is saying, but to say "Nah he is wrong, I don't need arguments for that but hes wrong" is not a mature thing.... eerr I forgot we are in the PvP forums "taugrim pwnz u suxx0rz" better that way?

 

*edit*

And he is spot on with what he says. Sadly

Edited April 13, 2012 by Twor

[Phaedrynn]

2 Cents. I agree with everything that taugrim wrote.

 

MY 2 CENTS on the Expertise differences and the Much shorter TTK (time to kill)

 

The 1v1 healer debate has long since been hashed and rehashed. Balance is focused on group pvp and not 1v1 anywho but I think this nerf came down to the fact that 2/3 and now 3/4 of the pvp maps can be COMPLETELY dominated by a good healer with a decent team. If you had 2 or more healers the balance became even more ridiculous. The amount of time a good healer or mutliple healers can stay alive was ABSURD.

 

It seemed like the pvp in this game got to the point where dps and tank roles did not have ANYWHERE near the impact of a good healer. It's like taking the quarterback role out of the superbowl and just putting in anyone else and tell them to get the ball down the field..

<<THE ROLE OF HEALER BECAME TOO MUCH OF AN IMPACT ON WARZONE OUTCOME>>

 

POINT BLANK this is a nerf to the end result of whoever has the better healers or any healers almost ALWAYS won...

 

 

 

I think the change in expertise was to end the problem with healers being 2 powerful but it had a VERY detrimental effect on the TTK and took away a lot of the tactics a longer time to kill brings.

 

This^^

 

Expertise having the same benefit across the board to healing, damage, and mitigation was problematic. While people are blowing up now much faster than before, it is simply a matter of tweaking the numbers some. Going back to 1.1.5 isn't the answer.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Phaedrynn

[FizzGigg]

Read this before I even came to forums.

 

Glad to see someone posted this in hopes BW listens to atleast some of his valid points.

[cashogy]

This&^^

 

Expertise having the same benefit across the board to healing, damage, and mitigation was problematic. While people are blowing up now much faster than before, it is simply a matter of tweaking the numbers some. Going back to 1.1.5 isn't the answer.

 

the problem is that these changes went to live with little to no testing. PTS is a joke, and bioware clearly doesnt have a proper system for internally testing their content.

 

when a patch goes to live, most of the quirks should be worked out already. if you look at the original 1.2 PTS notes, and the notes they put out yesterday, there are hardly any differences. there should have been a ton, as 1.2 PTS was FAR from perfect.

 

this is not how a big name gaming company develops a game. i dont know who is in charge of things at bioware for swtor, but they are doing an awful job

[Blurps]

It takes time to work kinks out in mmo's, Warcraft was not finely tuned it's first year, and even after TBC.

 

The probably most important point in the linked blog entry is that Taugrim feels several aspects of PvP are moving from an excellent starting point into the entirely wrong direction and I happen to agree completely.

[clickonce]

Great minds think alike.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=405659

 

Our lists were pretty similar.

[iceperson]

well said

[EchoTwoOmega]

1. If the focus of testing is level 50 content then:

+ Allow character copy (and/or)

+ Allow players to created new level 50 characters on the PTS.

 

2. I Am optimistic that the shadows/assassins, sentinels/marauders and the ally pull will be tweeked in the very near future.

[Kaze-Yama]

The shadow assassin imbalance isn't really an issue of the class being OP its just the fact that the gear system and damage mitigation properties allow you to stack DMG out of proportion to stacking defense making it better to take a small hit to HP or defense for a large boost in damage output.

 

Although I honestly think that a much simpler answer is simply switching some talents around so it is harder to have all the benefits of a tank without going full spec. The last thing I want to see is the tank spec get nerfed since that really isn't the issue as I am fully spec in tank tree with tank gear and the damage I do is really pretty bad.

 

Some of the other stuff I have to play more. I honestly don't think the increased damage/time to kill is that major of an issue. The game is still tactical you just have to make decisions a bit faster and you no longer have to deal with a tank or healer taking 5 minutes to kill.

[belialle]

What testers? You mean the select few high-end guilds that got selected and rushed off to Explosive Conflict to make sure they'll get their server firsts?

 

Yes, exactly. I'm not sure how good the testing can be when the PTS is handled the way it is currently.

 

As for the OP's link:

 

1. "Ranked Warzones were delayed"

 

I don't mind waiting for them, personally. The issue here is that they must have known that they would be delayed. It looks bad that they waited until the last minute to post this change. I'm sure they would argue that it would have looked bad if they had posted it early.

 

 

2. "The PVP commendation rewards are out-of-whack with the cost of PVP consumables"

 

Yes, I agree.

 

3. "11 of the 14 War Hero gear slots require the corresponding Battlemaster piece"

This doesn't bother me too much, except that the WZ rewards seem a lot lower now. They seemed fine the way they were.

 

 

 

As for class balance concerns....I am curious to see how all of these changes will pan out. Marauders, for instance, were already strong and were buffed, yes. But it was my understanding that they were pretty much all running the same spec because one of their trees just wasn't as good. How do you balance that with their kick *** raid utility though? I don't know. Maybe they'll have to make it so that people can only benefit once every so often for the marauder raid buffs or something.

 

As a healer, I wasn't too thrilled when I looked at my PvP stats in my expertise gear......but when I actually played, it felt fine. I'll have to test it more. It seems like my overall healing output is maybe a bit lower. I wasn't hitting the 5k medal very often. I only played a few rounds late last night, though.....and everyone else was also playing healers, apparently. So I didn't get focused nearly as much as I normally do, which made things easier, I'll admit.

 

One thing I was very happy to see was that the WH gear has some pieces with nice enhancements.

 

On the whole, I think that the melodrama over this patch is over-blown.

 

Edited April 13, 2012 by belialle

[Otega]

The shadow assassin imbalance isn't really an issue of the class being OP its just the fact that the gear system and damage mitigation properties allow you to stack DMG out of proportion to stacking defense making it better to take a small hit to HP or defense for a large boost in damage output.

 

Although I honestly think that a much simpler answer is simply switching some talents around so it is harder to have all the benefits of a tank without going full spec. The last thing I want to see is the tank spec get nerfed since that really isn't the issue as I am fully spec in tank tree with tank gear and the damage I do is really pretty bad.

 

I agree and disagree with you a little here. One of the biggest problems I see (I play 27/0/14 shadow) is that when i am actively guarding (meaning staying within 10 meters of my guard) and detaunting, most players continue to bang away at the person I am guarding, which inflates my protection numbers. Rarely do i see players turn and start banging on me instead, or at least, passively get me down to 50-60% health via banging on the guard, then turning to finish me off BEFORE they try and take down the healer who i am guarding.

 

Part of that problem is that all buffs and debuffs are clustered randomly on one bar, so people either don't recognize when they have been detaunted or just don't know what that icon looks like. Part of the problem is that too many players believe that they should just kill someone if they beat on them long enough. Part of the problem is that many, many players let shadow/sin tanks run around un-checked because they are so focused on healers, they lose sight of other classes that help to mitigate the dmg to a healer.

 

Even though taking down a healer first has always been the best way to go about winning any given engagement, sometimes it pays to search out and take down the support classes that make the original goal impossible.

 

Every class has so many tools to give themselves windows of opportunity, and most are just ignored. So many people want to just stun lock the primary target, then once they do that, and the primary target is still alive and kicking, they have no clue what to do next.

 

PvP in this game, since day 1, has been much more about playing smart than playing hard. But people still have yet to grasp that concept.

 

It's a shame really, cause it leads to what we have now. Lots of QQ about op'd classes, constant nerfs, etc.

[Beardliest]

What I find funny about this thread is that the people that are calling Taugrim a whiner just so happen to play the classes that are currently wreaking havoc in the WZ's.

[Sytholis]

Taugrim's post was spot on imo. Well put and thought out. Not everything in 1.2 is horrible, my wife actually noticed a significant increase in responsiveness on her computer. The UI is pretty easy to use and works for me. In no way did it seem Taugrim was whining, it was well put and all should read it instead of jumping on the bandwagon and flaming every post.

[TheronFett]

The Good

- 1. The UI customization is excellent

- 2. Game performance seems significantly improved

- 3. The addition of Recruit PVP gear provides a viable option for fresh 50s to get decently geared quickly

 

Agreed. I wouldn't call the UI customization "excellent", but it was much needed. I would've rather they focused on snap-to frames (also mentioned by Taugrim) and enhanced features over putting silly class icons above player's heads. Game performance was never an issue for me, personally.

 

The Bad

- 1. Ranked Warzones were delayed

- 2. The PVP commendation rewards are out-of-whack with the cost of PVP consumables

- 3. 11 of the 14 War Hero gear slots require the corresponding Battlemaster piece

 

While I'd like to see ranked warzones, I'm more interested in 8-man queues, which SHOULD have been implemented regardless, and wasn't. Totally agree on PvP comm rewards, though. While winning teams should get more rewards, losing teams shouldn't get the shaft. Implementations like that will quickly kill PvP as players will go find better things to do.

 

The Ugly

- 1. The quality of the PVP experience experience has suffered due to much lower Time-to-Kill(TTK)

- 2. Class balance is heading in the wrong direction

 

I agree with Taugrim in that overall I feel that class balance (was) very good in SWTOR. Heal specs needed a nerf, but that aside, everyone has a role and a class that counters them well. Light armor tank/DPS hybrid specs need to be nerfed, and hard. They have addressed hybrid tank/DPS specs with other classes, so why this was left untouched is beyond me.

 

I also agree that classes need some tweaking, but BioWare opted for the 50lb sledgehammer and implemented wide-sweeping changes. This approach is notorious for killing games, as Taugrim states. Personally, I think BioWare is in over its head here, especially on the PvP side of things. They're hoping to ease the pain by offering a free month's subscription while they (hopefully) sort it out.

 

1.2 is a hot mess as far as I'm concerned. Over-promised and under-delivered. With other games lurking on the horizon, they'd do well to get things fixed super quick or there will be a mass exodus by those looking for something better. And right now, that wouldn't be too hard to find.

Edited April 13, 2012 by TheronFett