SWTOR Senior Designer on Deception Assassins

[Jorrvask]

People expect too much from games these days, does everybody here believe that Devs are supposed to be absolute wizards at every class or mechanic they design? Or that there is truly balance amongst so many play styles? If a class is designed to behave a certain way, such as "lone-wolf", then that's how it's supposed to be played, don't QQ your hats off because it doesn't play the way you want it to.

 

The way people talk about class balance on the forums makes me believe that they think there is this magical chart that was designed during the allignment of the plants in which an equilibrium is created amongst all classes resulting in universal happiness for everyone. Sadly, not the case, "balance" is letting each class have an edge over someone else, otherwise where would the fun be.

 

In the case of Deception, sustained pve dps may be low, but it's not going to sink your boat. I play PVE as a Darkness Assassin (yea tell me how OP I am, or how bad Darkness tanks are, two contradicting arguments there floating all over the forums), we have a Deception in our ops group (8 man) and I never hear anyone complaing about his low or lack off dps, not even him, I guess he just enjoys it. In the case of PVP, well, I won't even bother, because according to everyone in pvp something is always overpowered or to weak, the complaints are never ending.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Jorrvask

[FodderofCannon]

. In the case of PVP, well, I won't even bother, because according to everyone in pvp something is always overpowered or to weak, the complaints are never ending.

 

While I understand the sentiment of "pvp guys just complain" this is hardly a persuasive argument. PvP is the single most important aspect to balance since every edge, or lack of edge, will determine the victor. PvE is not that hard in this game, "balance" is really not all that important as long as the content can be overcome. The difference in a few points of dps is insignificant in PVE, in PvP it can be the difference maker.

Edited July 19, 2012 by FodderofCannon

[floriwie]

So Devs are saying Deception Sins should search a target walking around alone and a one that will wait there watching we build our burst five seconds then run out of energy in the middle of the burst and probably died in that 5s also.....

 

Yeah, L2P it is more likely, if somebody should die from the hands of a deception sin, he should forget how to play....

 

Considering we can't burst anybody 18K we should always search people with %30 health around....

 

What a joke....

 

I can accept to die in 5s if I can burst somebody in that 5s like 25K....

 

When I finish my rotation with dec sin the target has most the time still %50 life......

[pqgarvis]

The closest comparison for Deception Assassin would be middle tree for (scoundrel/operative), I play both with Full War Hero all modded. People complain about the burst tree all the time for the (scoundrel/operative), I don't see the problem with either, its more about playing them to there strengths, and yes this does include an off the main road style of play. There is a time and place for getting in the mix, but have an escape plan setup before you jump into it, this isn't always possible but taking one for the team so a node isn't capped or door doesn't get bombed or what not is part of it. Void star in particular can be very frustrating with melee of any class, however its the nature of the beast you have to accept and adapt, but there are other scenarios where we absolutely shine.

 

I can hit harder with the Assassin (6kish crits) and my energy management is more efficient to be honest my only real complaint about deception is the opener. I do enjoy playing the Scoundrel more than the Assassin (no matter tank, madness or deception build), but the Assassin can do things my scoundrel cant and vice versa. It almost seems like you guys want to have high burst and high survivability (have your cake and eat it too), don't like it or can't play the tree right then do something you can do well and move on.

[Astarica]

I'd assume 'metrics' either means 'the WZ dummy' or 'if your whole team was somehow devoted to keeping you alive for no apparent reason'. No Deception Assassin comes anywhere near 5% of the average PT at least based on the leaderboard. They don't even come within 5% of the top Tankasin.

 

There's a story I really like about this guy who became an awesome martial artist by studying every martial arts style that utterly failed so he knows what to avoid. Game design is the same thing. It's crazy talk to expect anybody to look at a game with any reasonable complexity and say 'if X and Y and Z happens it's all balanced". Nobody can do that. But just because you can't invent the wheel doesn't mean you can't tell when you don't have a wheel. Deception Assassins are not balanced to other DPS by any stratech of imagination. Perhaps nobody knows of a single solution to fix it, that's fine. But it should be apparent that the class needs to be improved in some way. Balance is an iterative process.

 

Let's say I'm in charge of redesigning Deception. It's clear the class sufferes from survival issues, so say I put a stacking 2% damage mitigation debuff on the surging charge damge increaser and swap Disjunction with the +10 Force. I literally have no idea if this is enough but we got to start somewhere. Maybe a month later I look up RWZ team composition and see more Deception Assassins and pat myself on the back for being awesome. Or I find out there are still no Deception Assassins in RWZ so clearly I didn't do my job, so I go back to the drawing board and think of something else. It's not so much as what changes you make to fix the class that's important, because this is a very hard problem. What's important is that as a dev you know which class is on the wrong side of balanced. It should be obvious Marauder, PT, and Tankasins are on the wrong side of balanced too (on the favorable side), so they should be nerfed some. I don't know how much, but if I can't even tell these 3 classes are a tad too good, then I should not be a dev at all.

 

On a final note, I think you can actually judge balance just by the player composition. For the most part, MMORPG is all about maximizing revenue anyway so it's not like they particularly care if the best player in the world playing an obscure spec is 100% unbeatable because that's just one guy. Suppose Arsenal Mercs are just misunderstood and it's truly a L2P issue, it's not even that important because if your metric says 1% of players in RWZ are Arsenal Mercs, then it means you obviously failed somewhere if your goal is to have something that resembles equal participation of class/spec. So you buff Arsenal Mercs so that they're adequately represented, and now the best player in the world tells you "you guys made Arsenal Merc too powerful, I can now defeat a 2000 rated RWZ team by myself if there don't have a Merc". But even if that statement true it doens't matter because he's still just one guy. Note that if this is something that can be easily duplicated you'd quickly see Arsenal Merc representation skyrocket. If statistics show 5% of the players play Arsenal Merc, then the class must be relatively balanced in the grand scheme of things, and if some guy can solo an entire team by himself, that's just something you got to live with because it's far more important that you keep getting money from 5% of the SWTOR population base as opposed to money from the 1 superhuman guy who can solo an entire team that is now bored with the game.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Astarica

[Boarg]

The closest comparison for Deception Assassin would be middle tree for (scoundrel/operative), I play both with Full War Hero all modded. People complain about the burst tree all the time for the (scoundrel/operative), I don't see the problem with either, its more about playing them to there strengths, and yes this does include an off the main road style of play. There is a time and place for getting in the mix, but have an escape plan setup before you jump into it, this isn't always possible but taking one for the team so a node isn't capped or door doesn't get bombed or what not is part of it. Void star in particular can be very frustrating with melee of any class, however its the nature of the beast you have to accept and adapt, but there are other scenarios where we absolutely shine.

 

I can hit harder with the Assassin (6kish crits) and my energy management is more efficient to be honest my only real complaint about deception is the opener. I do enjoy playing the Scoundrel more than the Assassin (no matter tank, madness or deception build), but the Assassin can do things my scoundrel cant and vice versa. It almost seems like you guys want to have high burst and high survivability (have your cake and eat it too), don't like it or can't play the tree right then do something you can do well and move on.

 

Two things to keep in mind when comparing Concealment dps to Deception dps:

 

Ramp-up

Max sustained damage

 

Deception has ramp-up and almost literally no opener. Concealment starts bursting pretty much immediately. Because of this, Concealment's burst is more likely to occur and more likely to be effective.

 

Deception's resource system is much more forgiving because you can dump resource for burst at any time without consequence to future damage. However, if Concealment manages their bar properly by staying in the max regen range, they can produce substantially more sustained damage than Deception.

[Xanthok]

I started playing as a deception assassin. I leveled to 50 and started raiding and doing pvp. I quickly grew to hate pvp'ing as deception, a combination of being squishy and the absurd amount of time it takes to leave combat when your cloak/shroud are down. Once combat logs became available, I was stunned by how lackluster my dps was. I switched to tanking, then healing/armor were nerfed... and now I'm a raiding marauder and only log on my assassin to use crew skills.

[floriwie]

It almost seems like you guys want to have high burst and high survivability (have your cake and eat it too), don't like it or can't play the tree right then do something you can do well and move on.

 

Nope we are not expecting burst and survivability at the same....

 

We just want more burst then a tank in DPS gear, if I have that burst I can live with that less survivability...

 

As a Deception I need a 5s setup for my burst, Sin Tank can burst much quicker then me if he is lucky, Wither, Thrash, Energized Shock, Wither, 3xHD FL with Recklesness inside 5 GCD 14K.... why should I or anybody play deception if I have such a burst in a tank class...

[pqgarvis]

Nope we are not expecting burst and survivability at the same....

 

We just want more burst then a tank in DPS gear, if I have that burst I can live with that less survivability...

 

As a Deception I need a 5s setup for my burst, Sin Tank can burst much quicker then me if he is lucky, Wither, Thrash, Energized Shock, Wither, 3xHD FL with Recklesness inside 5 GCD 14K.... why should I or anybody play deception if I have such a burst in a tank class...

 

Burst IS higher with deception, I have played all specs, and all I do is PvP.

[Sookster]

Burst IS higher with deception, I have played all specs, and all I do is PvP.

 

The sucky part is that you have to setup to burst with deception, as madness I have access to 4K deathfield, shock that can proc a second shock for half the dmg (great with recklessness) and instant crushing darkness (which is buffed by recklessness as well) so potentially shock for another 3500 and crushing darkness for an initial 2K damage. And assassinate upwards 5.5K after unearthed knowledge and exploitive strikes as well as still getting 3.6K-4K with maul

Edited July 21, 2012 by Sookster

[Nuzzar]

well said OP +1

[Exiled-Phoenix]

The sucky part is that you have to setup to burst with deception, as madness I have access to 4K deathfield, shock that can proc a second shock for half the dmg (great with recklessness) and instant crushing darkness (which is buffed by recklessness as well) so potentially shock for another 3500 and crushing darkness for an initial 2K damage. And assassinate upwards 5.5K after unearthed knowledge and exploitive strikes as well as still getting 3.6K-4K with maul

 

Indeed, ive switched to madness last week after the shocking Dev comment.

And the damage is just great, easy and sustained compared to deception.

[thefishdude]

Indeed, ive switched to madness last week after the shocking Dev comment.

And the damage is just great, easy and sustained compared to deception.

 

The sad part is that a Sorc Madness spec will put out more DPS than you. For PVP, the only truly viable spec is Darkness (or a hybrid thereof). Personally, I'd love for them to fix the Deception tree, because I love the play style, but it's just not viable.

 

 

 

 

p.s. before everyone jumps on me, yes, I've played all three specs in great detail.

[metalfenix]

Ugh...as far as I know, this is an MMO, and MMOs are BASED on TEAM WORK , no matter if it's PvP or PvE. What the crap is that they designed one class to be a "bad team player"?? Even when we play solo, we have a partner.

 

I don't buy this excuse of bad team player, and this comes from someone who plays as a sintank. And please, don't get me started on the sin tank nerf... . Looks like Sith Inquisitors were left behind to be healers, and the sith warriors to be the main tanks and dps.

[bbare]

Its not like the deception tree would be hard to buff, either. A good 10%-15% buff in base voltaic slash damage will put assassins at least respectable to PT's and Mara's.

[Dhariq]

Well any class that have stealth and vanish abilities will be floored as people do not like to see other do that. So in short do expect to do anything decent in pve as dps or tank.

[Astarica]

Well any class that have stealth and vanish abilities will be floored as people do not like to see other do that. So in short do expect to do anything decent in pve as dps or tank.

 

Um Assassins is like the one class in all MMORPG I've played that gets stealth right. We don't even have an ability that does extra damage coming out of stealth. About the most you can possibly do is open with a Maul out of stealth and figure the extra Force regen for 6 seconds covers the cost of using a relatively ineffective attack, though you could always open with your normal rotation moves instead since it's not like Deception is ever worried about having too much Force. Stealth on an Assassin is used almost solely for tactical advantage because it actually offers very little combat advantage, and that's how it should be.

 

By the way if you open up with Voltiac Slash and get stunned, you pretty much just lost all your extra Force regen, so that's why sometimes it's not a bad idea to open with Maul if you suspect you'll get CCed but then it's not like anyone is quaking in fear that you might open with a Maul from stealth on them.

Edited July 23, 2012 by Astarica

[ShadowMudkip]

Dear Mr. Peckenpaugh,

 

I wanted to apologize on behalf of all the Deception Assassins who "dashed your expectations" by somehow managing to contribute to their team's success despite your design direction for this spec. You state that you intentionally designed Deception spec to be "not a great partner", or translated from PR speak: a BAD team player. Unfortunately, all our current PvP content is "Team-Based" Warzones. So, you're essentially saying that you intend for Deception spec to be "bad" at end-game PvP (rated Warzones), and that if we don't like it then there are other more viable Team/Utility specs (darkness/madness) for us to choose from. Don't worry, most of us already figured that out. Check your "logs and metrics" for % of active player assassins who are specced primarily Deception compared to Darkness or Madness (or Both). I’m sure you’ll find that most players have migrated to specs that give them greater opportunity to contribute to their team’s success in Team Objective based Warzones.

 

And that is just the PvP portion of the game, In PvE we have the choice to spec Tank (darkness) or DPS (madness/deception), however it has been statistically proven with parsed combat logs on multiple Ops boss encounters that Madness spec provides better sustained DPS given equal gearing and player skill. So again, why would you choose Deception spec when there is a superior alternative available in PvE? Also, if Deception spec is within 5% of your “DPS Target” (I’ll assume -5%), I don’t want to know what the Marauders are drinking because there’s over a 10% delta sustained DPS between these ACs.

 

I’m not here to whine, nor do I think that my preferred spec is unsalvageable, but hearing “it’s fine L2P” from the Senior Designer is NOT acceptable when enough people are repeatedly asking this question for it to be part of the weekly Q&A. Deception Sins are not looking for a push to the OP FOTM club, we are simply asking to have equal viability in PvE and PvP when compared to the other trees in our AC. Perhaps we could talk about reasonable solutions to the main issue that you mentioned of “being a poor partner”, and rather than change our gameplay style or DPS level we could get a tool we’re missing: group utility.

 

There is currently no reason to bring a Deception Sin over a Sniper or Marauder who have the same or better straight DPS plus group utility (armor pen, trauma debuff, bloodthirst, etc.) Something as simple as modifying Surging charge to place an armor penetration debuff on our target instead of giving this talented buff (via charge mastery) only to ourselves would begin to resolve issues in both PvE and PvP. We would have a group contribution that would benefit the WZ team focusing a target or Ops group fighting a boss, bringing us in line with other DPS with similar group utility benefits like Snipers and Marauders.

 

Also, being a “hit and run” design without the ability to “run” very often seems odd. Why is the talent for reduced CD on force speed and break rooting effects in the Tank tree again? Why is the CD for our “bail/vanish” ability roughly 3x as long as a Marauders? Perhaps if leaving combat during a WZ in order to access our stealth wasn’t harder than downing HM Kephess we would already have the tools we needed. Perhaps giving Deception Sins a 10 min CD that resets our other CDs (think Prep) would give us the tools we need to work this “hit and run” vision without allowing us the OP ability to bring those tools to every encounter.

 

That’s a few ideas right there from a guy who doesn’t get paid to think of this stuff. I’m sure the Assassin/Shadow community and your junior designers can do even better if they try. But, they DO need to try. Deception is very much in the same place that Carnage spec was before it was addressed, when it was clearly inferior to Annihilation, and it was buffed and brought in line and is now a viable choice, although the 2 Mara specs remain unique and have individual strengths and weaknesses. All we are asking for is a logical reason to play Deception spec. If you can do 85% of the DPS, have double the survivability, and gain team utility (ranged IC AOE, guard, pull, IC CC) by speccing Darkness/Madness hybrid why would you choose Deception? If you can DPS Ops bosses more efficiently as pure Madness spec why would you choose Deception?

 

You wouldn’t, which is why I am no longer providing your team with the “metrics and logs” that demonstrate that the spec is fine. Is it because I like Darkness or Madness better? No. It’s because they flat out ARE better for both end-game PvE and PvP, and until Deception becomes a viable choice, your pool of Deception player's data is going to continue to dwindle.

 

Former Deception Assassin

 

 

Sir, your post on the senior designers stupid post was great! You are a hero to shadows and assassins everywhere. I sincerly hope that they wil buff us with 1.4. I think the devs dont want anyone to play the shadow/assassin AC. In 1.3 they nerfed tanking and relics making deception and darkness harder to play. Sorcerers/sages have 3 good specs so why shouldnt we? Shame on bioware for this

Edited July 24, 2012 by ShadowMudkip

[Nuzzar]

bump

[NoTomorrow]

I don't think anybody in his right mind at Bioware will consider buffing "invisibility" specs. This is one, if not the most potentially annoying specs to fight against in PvP. If left too powerful for too long, people will simply hate this class because of how they felt they had no chance to fight back. This is why Concealment ate all those nerfs.

 

Invisiblity grants you the ability to pick who you want to fight and who not. And this thing alone cannot be balanced. It's impossible. There is no way how to make it seem fair. It's either the deception assassin / concealment ops will always win on who they open, or they will always loose. There is no middle ground, there is little room to make this fight seem fair for both sides.

 

So they had to choose. I think sacrificing these both specs, deception and concealment is for the greater good for the entire community.

 

Yeah you may hate it, you may make tons of threads, claim that i have no damn clue about assassins, but frankly, do you really guys thing that players of other classes would be happier with deception buffed? I think not. As a Sniper I am all for buffing my ranged DPS cousins, mercs, as currently they are just free kills for everyone. But in no way i will support Deception and Concealment become stronger.

 

I understand if we had a class that could reliably hard counter invisibility, one that could hunt them down. But currently the Pyro +2 passive stealth detection is quite lacking frankly, and stealth scan is a joke only useful against bad players. You on the other hand got nice and shiny tools like increased stealth skill CD do ensure that you remain undetected and also can go into invis with force shroud grating you 100% safety from DoTs removing your cloak. I understand if that thing only worked against force dots, but hell, you even get to remove the tech dots. Operatives would kill for the ability to remove both types.

 

So, no thank you, i think everyone that is not an assassin is happy now that Deception stays at the bottom of DPS.

 

PS: And i am speaking only about PvP. I don't care about PvE balancing of classes at all.

Edited July 26, 2012 by NoTomorrow

[mrdert]

I don't think anybody in his right mind at Bioware will consider buffing "invisibility" specs. This is one, if not the most potentially annoying specs to fight against in PvP. If left too powerful for too long, people will simply hate this class because of how they felt they had no chance to fight back. This is why Concealment ate all those nerfs.

 

Invisiblity grants you the ability to pick who you want to fight and who not. And this thing alone cannot be balanced. It's impossible. There is no way how to make it seem fair. It's either the deception assassin / concealment ops will always win on who they open, or they will always loose. There is no middle ground, there is little room to make this fight seem fair for both sides.

 

So they had to choose. I think sacrificing these both specs, deception and concealment is for the greater good for the entire community.

 

Yeah you may hate it, you may make tons of threads, claim that i have no damn clue about assassins, but frankly, do you really guys thing that players of other classes would be happier with deception buffed? I think not. As a Sniper I am all for buffing my ranged DPS cousins, mercs, as currently they are just free kills for everyone. But in no way i will support Deception and Concealment become stronger.

 

I understand if we had a class that could reliably hard counter invisibility, one that could hunt them down. But currently the Pyro +2 passive stealth detection is quite lacking frankly, and stealth scan is a joke only useful against bad players. You on the other hand got nice and shiny tools like increased stealth skill CD do ensure that you remain undetected and also can go into invis with force shroud grating you 100% safety from DoTs removing your cloak. I understand if that thing only worked against force dots, but hell, you even get to remove the tech dots. Operatives would kill for the ability to remove both types.

 

So, no thank you, i think everyone that is not an assassin is happy now that Deception stays at the bottom of DPS.

 

PS: And i am speaking only about PvP. I don't care about PvE balancing of classes at all.

 

Imagine that. Some easy mode AP/P PT not wanting any lacking classes buffed.

 

The fact of the matter, for me anyways, I have reached the endgame. I was full WH before 1.3 and reached valor 100 shortly after server transfers. I was so excited for ranked to come out only to find my own guild dosent want me in ranked because of my deception spec. If I've reached endgame and am not wanted because of my AC, then there's no reason for me to keep subscribing.

[NoTomorrow]

Imagine that. Some easy mode AP/P PT not wanting any lacking classes buffed.

 

The fact of the matter, for me anyways, I have reached the endgame. I was full WH before 1.3 and reached valor 100 shortly after server transfers. I was so excited for ranked to come out only to find my own guild dosent want me in ranked because of my deception spec. If I've reached endgame and am not wanted because of my AC, then there's no reason for me to keep subscribing.

 

It's funny how people pick PT to criticize me, but none of them ever dared to accuse me of playing an Easy mode sniper hehe. Well, FYI, My sniper is is my main, i rolled PT only to learn how to counter them as a sniper

[krossjointz]

I do not see a single point in having a Lone Wolf class in this massive team based game, it makes absolutely no sense. Not only that but hit and run mechanics? since when has hit and run worked in PvE please if you are so inclined to tell us we suck at our class and simply cant play it then please do tell how this hit and run mechanic is viable in PvE. Last time I checked when I "ran" in PvE the mob would evade and reset, I would still be dying.

 

PvP Lone Wolf is another thing, I understand 1v1 we should win and yea we should, but only if their undergeared and not a tank/dps hybrid AC like us, because their in heavy armour dishing out stupid damage being more of a Lone Wolf because he doesnt need to worry about 1v1ing and picking his fights. Ive watched powertechs just roll over teams as DPS spec because they were geared. OP has a valid point alot of the deception threads asking for buffs to some abilities are not because we want to be the FOTM we just want to be able to stand on some solid ground with the other classes that share our AC roll.

 

1.3 Nerfs: i understand you wanted to nerf the OP darkness sins in PvP and future PvE content, but im still at a severe loss as to why you nerfed the CLASS and not the darkness tree? Perhaps you can enlighten us on the reason why the other 2 specs had to suffer armour loss on an already light armour class not only that but we are the only light armour class so our other 2 specs had poor armour compared to any other class. Why didnt the dev team target the things that were too strong in the darkness tree and not just slap the AC in the face with the nerf stick.

 

 

The more i try to understand biowares changes to assassins the more i realize id have better luck understanding why pots illegal.

[drummerinthesun]

I'm not so sure your anti-stealth argument about us picking the fight is too valid. Sure, we can decide when to come out of stealth (most of the time), but even if we do take someone on 1v1, we're not even at a large advantage. Our DPS is so low that most people just get annoyed that they've been targeted by a deception assassin. They can survive our short burst of DPS, then when our force regen goes down the drain, they just keep pounding until we're gone and they can get back to whatever they were doing. So, keep our vanish abilities the way they are (and even they aren't guaranteed escapes) and increase some dps a bit, or keep the DPS the same and give us a combat advantage to vanishing. So it comes down to either more DPS or more survivability. I'm not asking for both.

[GeneralShade]

On the PVE side:

 

Does anyone have any parses? I've skimmed this entire thread and couldn't find one. I don't get how we're supposed to be taken seriously if we don't provide sample data to prove it (this would be an excellent post to do this on).

 

I'm not saying that any of you are wrong; I don't have a geared assassin or have seen any parses from one. However, if you want devs to take complaints like this seriously you need to give them data to worth with...just sayin