Community Q&A Thread Blog Discussion: July 23rd, 2012

[MajikMyst]

Purple does not and should not be a rare crystal... It should be fully craftable by Artifice for various charater levels..

 

Bioware.. You ruined the chance to make them rare by giving them to mobs.. Now fix it by giving them to all..

 

And another thing.. Why on earth are you putting crystals in chests to drop?? When can Artifice get some love.. There is little point to that crew skill.. I would love to see an Artifice schematic drop in an op some time.. Instead of Sythweaving, Armormech, Biochem, and all the others.. Stop exploitng our craft by just giving away things that we should be making for people..

 

Any of the color and black crystals should be rare.. Any solid colors should not be rare.. Simple as that..

Edited July 24, 2012 by MajikMyst

[AxeX]

Purple does not and should not be a rare crystal... It should be fully craftable by Artifice for various charater levels..

 

Bioware.. You ruined the chance to make them rare by giving them to mobs.. Now fix it by giving them to all..

 

And another thing.. Why on earth are you putting crystals in chests to drop?? When can Artifice get some love.. There is little point to that crew skill.. I would love to see an Artifice schematic drop in an op some time.. Instead of Sythweaving, Armormech, Biochem, and all the others.. Stop exploitng our craft by just giving away things that we should be making for people..

 

Any of the color and black crystals should be rare.. Any solid colors should not be rare.. Simple as that..

 

On the contrary, Artifice, alongside Cybertech and Armstech, has the highest money making potential. These crew skills craft the items that are the most rare and hard to learn scematics: grade 26 barrels, hilts, and non slot-bound armorings.

 

My main knows the Might Hilt 26, and has made well over 20 million credits crafting these. I know a Cybertech that has made 10 million from selling Guardian armoring 26.

[Paokzu]

Very good Q&A. Good questions, good answers.

The only thing Id really add is about the regularity of class balancing. When I read the words 'class balancing' I cringe. I started playing MMOs with games like EQ where the classes were drastically different and people knew it, loved it, knew their role and rocked it out. Im not very happy that MMOs haved turned so far from this but, I accept that times change. I love this game but I feel that the continued balancing acts are a bit overdone. I play every Imperial advanced class. The only issues I can see are where the balancing has hurt the classes, like the Mercenary and the Assassin. Sure both classes are still playable and fun, but a bit less than before. Id just like BW to not have its hand poised over the nerf/balance button when a group of players complain about something. Anyway what Im saying is knowing that balancing would be taking place regularly kinda scares me.

[Alavastre]

BW, I know you don't want to talk about the new stuff, unfortunately, that is what the community wants to talk about. I'm interested in the future, not so much the distribution of stats on mods.

[Paokzu]

Really? You want purple to be rare so that only some people can have it, yet more than half of the mobs/NPCs I see while leveling on the empire side have purple color crystals? Come on, I run into sith marauder NPCs half my level that run around with 2 purple crystals! For a game that so highly touts character customization, why all of the arbitrary restrictions on color crystals? If people want white and purple, let them have it! And let artifice craft them for crying out loud. These ridiculous restrictions don't make any sense.

 

Im all for giving artifice the ability to craft those. I do love craftin.

I know Im in the minority to say this but I'll say it anyway. I for one really liked the alignment restriction. I thought it had a much more starwars feel to have the red sabers/sith, blue and green sabers/jedi.

[DarkIntelligence]

Game Designer Face-Palm Quote

 

Here is the quote in question taken straight from the Q&A thread:

 

"Esendis: Can we expect some kind of change to the current pve relics? As it stands now the BIS pve relics for many advanced classes are the pvp ones.

 

Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer): In the long run our intent is to make sure PvP gear is never competitive in end-game PvE situations. Unfortunately, it’s still too early in the design process for us to give an ETA or release any details on what we’re planning for PvP gear.

 

We currently have no plans to change the PvE relics. In theory the active abilities on the PvE relics do not provide quite as much sustained damage-per-second as a passive relic at the same item level. In practice, when used at the correct time they can deliver a huge amount of damage when you actually need it, and can make you much more effective overall. This is especially true when the relic is paired with powerful cooldowns or burst damage attacks. This is the primary reason we changed the PvP relics into passive relics, as skilled players could wipe out their opponents much more quickly than intended, and nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back. On the PvE side we decided to keep that extra bit of gameplay, since it helps break up rotations and adds a extra little optimization element to damage dealing in boss fights."

 

Well let me begin by saying that I am no game designer, or a theory-grapher, or really even a math person, and I consider myself slightly above average casual gamer. Now that I have sufficiently eroded my credibility let’s get to the /facepalm moment. Mr. Attard is suggesting that in practice on-use relics are much more effective overall than their passive counterparts. Well that’s simply not true anyway you look at it.

 

First of all, in order to make full use of an on-use relic you need to remain rooted in place for its full duration, which was difficult enough when the durations were shorter and the bonuses more substantial, and is nearly impossible now that the opposite is true. In both PvE and PvP there are virtually no situations where players can stay in place for such a long period of time and to suggest that players using on-use relics to burst down other players in PvP, where you are lucky to be able to stay in one place for more than aa few seconds at a time, is just absurd and anyone who plays PvP can attest to this.

 

Secondly, while there really is a problem with burst damage, in that some classes have a lot more of it than others, this has nothing to do with on-use relics. It also bears mentioning that players were able to “wipe out their opponents much more quickly than intended” through the use of class skills and adrenals (the reason Biochem adrenals are no longer usable in warzones), again not on-use relics. Now I don’t know if Mr. Attard is confusing on-use relics with adrenals or simply hasn’t experienced in-game combat extensively enough, but with all due respect, neither says much about a “Senior Game Balance Designer.”

 

Lastly, anyone who has played MMOs long enough to have experienced both passive and on-use relics/trinkets/whatever is likely to prefer the former, if for no other reason that reason simply because it is one less cooldown they have to watch and integrate into their rotation. Of course there are many other reasons, but as I said in the beginning I am not the best qualified person to go over those in depth (if someone reading this is, please feel free to elaborate).

 

Sooo…yeah… the fact that a “Senior Game Balance Designer” said something like this is a bit disheartening.

 

What are your guys’ thoughts on this?

 

P.S. In hindsight it seems to me that in trying to fix the ongoing balance issues with burst damage the game’s designers needlessly nerfed on-use relics and unintentionally created passive relics, which are actually great, for all the wrong reasons.

[Achyllis]

My question specifically discussed the need for healers' defensive cooldowns to reset on death. Once marked in a PUG WZ without help from a guard/taunt, three minutes is an eternity. Unless I quit and hide in stealth or on a capped node.

 

Beware PvPers I'm coming and I'm gonna go all out healing on you! For 23 more days . . .

Edited July 24, 2012 by Achyllis
oops

[LarryRow]

What the hell does that even mean? That's not an answer! That doesn't even make sense!!

 

Can someone decipher what he's trying to say??

 

It means they didn't want the main stat armoring to be really easy to obtain - i.e., just rip it out of this piece. They want you to get it from a crafter. The undesired part comes from the set bonus issue. If you want the best armoring for your chest piece and the set bonus, you need to slot into a tionese/columi/rakata.

 

My argument is the same as it's always been: there are 5 pieces to wear and you only need 4 for the bonus. Pick your favorite chest piece and suck it up for the other pieces.

 

"and nobody likes to be killed before they get a chance to fight back."

 

Man this is contraditory to a lot of things in this game's system.

 

If you get killed "before you have a chance to fight back" because you were stunned, you were going to get killed 3 seconds later anyway.

 

 

Regarding the relics, here's what happened: The relics used to be the same for PvE and PvP, but the PvP relics had expertise and a little less stat budget. They wanted to nerf the burst in PvP so they changed the on-use bonus to a smaller full time bonus. Even if the PvE relics have the potential to be situationally better, using the PvP relics is a "set and forget" kind of thing - one less thing to think about when going to town on that raid boss. The simplest way to "fix" it is to decrease the secondary stat bonus and up the expertise bonus on all relics.

 

Personally I am just miffed that my Matrix cube is so far removed from BiS after all the work I did to make it. /tears

Edited July 24, 2012 by LarryRow

[KuroshimaiHD]

We don’t currently have any plans to make those colors craft-able. This might change in the future, but even if we introduce crafting schematics for them we intend for those lightsaber colors (especially White) to remain relatively rare.

Yet another stupid design decision. If you're a fresh 50 artificer, you have a grand choice of FOUR different colors. Utterly insane. Colors like purple and orange should not only be available earlier, but they should be CRAFTABLE.

 

That leads me on to another issue with item modding: why are there still valor requirements on orange pvp shells? The mod system is constantly being touted to allow you to change your characters look, but there's still the insane cost of moving mods and valor requirements on shells. Do Bioware actually play their own game?

Edited July 24, 2012 by KuroshimaiHD

[Ultramanas]

 

Regarding the relics, here's what happened: The relics used to be the same for PvE and PvP, but the PvP relics had expertise and a little less stat budget. They wanted to nerf the burst in PvP so they changed the on-use bonus to a smaller full time bonus. Even if the PvE relics have the potential to be situationally better, using the PvP relics is a "set and forget" kind of thing - one less thing to think about when going to town on that raid boss. The simplest way to "fix" it is to decrease the secondary stat bonus and up the expertise bonus on all relics.

 

Personally I am just miffed that my Matrix cube is so far removed from BiS after all the work I did to make it. /tears

 

For the dps ones, the pve relics had more endurance in exchange for expertise. Your solution doesn't work because pvp players are already near or at the expertise cap (i heard varying information on the exact cap, so don't take my post as gospel).

 

The real simplest fix is to remove the on use and make the pve ones static. It makes the class balance easier has some classes DO have good cooldowns that they can use around the relics, while others don't .... screwing up class balance.

 

I really do not understand the choice by the game designer, as this game already has too much keybind bloat as it is, reducing it would help.

 

Sorry Jason Attand, the solution is really simple, yet to work around it like this ... is silly and inefficient.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Ultramanas

[theeANGELofDEATH]

I still agree with all the QQing over the change to the relics, it makes absolutely no sense. 90% of our guild has moved to using PvP relics while raiding, except for the tank relics, they are still better. Even though I dont PvP. so I cant get a higher grade one, I am using Champion relics on 3 out of 4 of my 50's. . (The 4th is a tank) it cost me a whole 11k to buy each of these Champion relics. They must be kidding, even though they buffed the matrix cubes, they were made nonviable in raiding by they shift in the PvP relics, again, makes absolutely no sense.

 

I ran enough dailies on my trooper to buy 3 Campaign relics, for different situations ( I know, over kill).. Only to have them made obsolete by something that I can go drop 11k credits on. Someone forgot the coffee they day they discussed this change.

 

2 months ago, we would preach to all the new 50s to go run dailies to buy their Rakata Ears/Implants and a Campaign relic.. and of course go on their Easter egg hunt for the shards they need to build their specific Matrix relic.. now we just tell them to go to the PvP vendor and buy those, if they dont already have them, which most do since most people do some PvP while leveling.

 

I personally am not giving up totally on the PvE relics, I switch them out between boss and trash pulls. Some day, someone in Austin will realize that most players are using PvP relics during raids, and change them back to being viable. I like the suggested idea that PvP relics would have more expertise than other stats, maybe that would sway me, maybe. Maybe they will bring those PvE relics back up to the a viable numbers they were before... I seriously dont get what they were thinking when they made these changes. I get that players were using their Campaign relics in WZs to increase their burst damage, and destroying people for that 20 seconds, but you cant to do it for another 2 minutes, ok, 100 seconds for CD after the effect wears off.

 

Bioware has made them to the point that we would rather have a bonus +97 power (+103 for BM or +113 for WH), or the crit/surge bonus of +57 of each, over the clickable bonus that we can get for 30 seconds of burst. Do the numbers, +315 power for 30 seconds every 2 minutes / +97 continuous power (+103 for BM or +113 for WH)... Even a 5th grader could figure that one out. Who cares about a little bonus endurance when you are raiding, that is why we have healers.

 

Plus, like said above in another post, it is just one less thing we have to worry about during the already hectic boss fights. I do think that post was wrong in saying that the player has to remain rooted to use the relics bonus for the duration, but it does seem like the boss knows exactly when you use your relic, as it is a perfect time for you to be targeted by something that will make you run.

[PuntaSur]

We don’t currently have any plans to make those colors craft-able. This might change in the future, but even if we introduce crafting schematics for them we intend for those lightsaber colors (especially White) to remain relatively rare.

 

So the dev statement back when the temporary vendor was in place stating that the colors (other than white) would be available for crafting by artificers is no longer true? That would have changed my decisions back then to acquire enough purple crystals for my future alts, and not to bother leveling artifice on my first character.

 

Can you please consider adding a feature to use a Legacy unlock, even with a long cooldown like 30 days, to allow the transfer of a BOP to BOL? This would still keep things rare, and yet allow us to transfer up to 12 per year among our characters.

[Denyus]

I am dissapointed that there is still no ETA on more character slots i am literly dieing of boredom atm.

 

Give me more slots or cross server Legacy either works for me.

[Callianna]

I still agree with all the QQing over the change to the relics, it makes absolutely no sense. 90% of our guild has moved to using PvP relics while raiding, except for the tank relics, they are still better. Even though I dont PvP. so I cant get a higher grade one, I am using Champion relics on 3 out of 4 of my 50's. . (The 4th is a tank) it cost me a whole 11k to buy each of these Champion relics. They must be kidding, even though they buffed the matrix cubes, they were made nonviable in raiding by they shift in the PvP relics, again, makes absolutely no sense.

 

I ran enough dailies on my trooper to buy 3 Campaign relics, for different situations ( I know, over kill).. Only to have them made obsolete by something that I can go drop 11k credits on. Someone forgot the coffee they day they discussed this change.

 

2 months ago, we would preach to all the new 50s to go run dailies to buy their Rakata Ears/Implants and a Campaign relic.. and of course go on their Easter egg hunt for the shards they need to build their specific Matrix relic.. now we just tell them to go to the PvP vendor and buy those, if they dont already have them, which most do since most people do some PvP while leveling.

 

I personally am not giving up totally on the PvE relics, I switch them out between boss and trash pulls. Some day, someone in Austin will realize that most players are using PvP relics during raids, and change them back to being viable. I like the suggested idea that PvP relics would have more expertise than other stats, maybe that would sway me, maybe. Maybe they will bring those PvE relics back up to the a viable numbers they were before... I seriously dont get what they were thinking when they made these changes. I get that players were using their Campaign relics in WZs to increase their burst damage, and destroying people for that 20 seconds, but you cant to do it for another 2 minutes, ok, 100 seconds for CD after the effect wears off.

 

Bioware has made them to the point that we would rather have a bonus +97 power (+103 for BM or +113 for WH), or the crit/surge bonus of +57 of each, over the clickable bonus that we can get for 30 seconds of burst. Do the numbers, +315 power for 30 seconds every 2 minutes / +97 continuous power (+103 for BM or +113 for WH)... Even a 5th grader could figure that one out. Who cares about a little bonus endurance when you are raiding, that is why we have healers.

 

Plus, like said above in another post, it is just one less thing we have to worry about during the already hectic boss fights. I do think that post was wrong in saying that the player has to remain rooted to use the relics bonus for the duration, but it does seem like the boss knows exactly when you use your relic, as it is a perfect time for you to be targeted by something that will make you run.

 

 

^^^^ agree BW just keeps making bad decision after bad decision, it's getting very discouraging. PvE is apparently not a huge concern of theirs at this time, hopefully they realize that this game needs both types of players in order to survive and smarten the heck up very soon. There's a new expansion coming in the next few months from a different game that boasts 16 raid bosses on 3 difficulty levels, that's right 3 difficulty levels not just 2 with a promise of "soon" on the 3rd level. There are a lot of players that play to raid and if there is no content to raid then they will go where the content is. So please please BW smarten up I don't want to have to play that other game again . Time as the saying goes is to pee or get off the pot.

[Darth-Malice]

Stop nitpicking the most easy questions you can find and start answering the hardest most consequential ones.

[Cupelixx]

So the dev statement back when the temporary vendor was in place stating that the colors (other than white) would be available for crafting by artificers is no longer true? That would have changed my decisions back then to acquire enough purple crystals for my future alts, and not to bother leveling artifice on my first character.

 

That's what I thought too. I can even understand white. No NPC in the game has one that I know of. Purple though? Come on, you screwed that one up since half of the mobs you see while leveling have one (in some cases, have 2 even). At least let us craft purple, cyan and orange, and at all levels. "Look how you want, except you can't have the colors you want" doesn't seem to be in the spirit of having so much gear customization.

[Paokzu]

Im pretty sick of PvPers whining about stuff and BW making changes that screws the PvEers. I wish you guys would make the adjustments in the PvP itself instead of across the board. The assassin defence and health return from dark charge for example. Now the relic issues. If people were doin too much by clicking the PvE relics in WZs, you should have just made them grey-out apon entering a WZ instead of what you did. Maddness I tell ya. BW please make yer adjustments to PvP where PvP is concerned.

[eiramronoele]

Now that the movement of characters from the original servers has been given a deadline, what if the destination server already have 8 characters in it which is already the maximum per server, what will happen to the other characters that are left out in the origin server? (let's just say that they are in a decent level like 20 and above) And some people doesnt want to delete a character to make room for the others?

[dipstik]

In beta purple crystals were available as early as nar shaddaa. Yellow and Orange were obtained on tatooine. White was never there. jedi knights that chose dark options on starter planet had a purple crystal in the cinematic when they crafted their dark side saber. Still waiting on hoods showing over face mask which also was in beta and a very very very nice feature.

 

white dropped off alderaan world boss and tarval V bonus boss.

 

and the hoods+mask thing worked until 1.3 launched, which is odd because masks+hood worked on the PTS while it had 1.3 on it... I know because that is where i found out what i wanted to wear, then they ruined it.

Edited July 25, 2012 by dipstik

[fujeo-finel]

Im pretty sick of PvPers whining about stuff and BW making changes that screws the PvEers. I wish you guys would make the adjustments in the PvP itself instead of across the board. The assassin defence and health return from dark charge for example. Now the relic issues. If people were doin too much by clicking the PvE relics in WZs, you should have just made them grey-out apon entering a WZ instead of what you did. Maddness I tell ya. BW please make yer adjustments to PvP where PvP is concerned.

 

Could always balance for PvP and then debuff boss mobs for certain classes to do more damage than others.

 

Marked for Death = Bounty Hunters deal X% more damage to this target.

Silent Healing = Operatives do X% more healing in this area.

 

Sounds good no?

[Tuscad]

In beta purple crystals were available as early as nar shaddaa. Yellow and Orange were obtained on tatooine. White was never there. jedi knights that chose dark options on starter planet had a purple crystal in the cinematic when they crafted their dark side saber. Still waiting on hoods showing over face mask which also was in beta and a very very very nice feature.

 

White was also obtainable by killing the Alderaan world boss, I also heard that black was obtainable but I forget how.

[DarkwingGT]

So the dev statement back when the temporary vendor was in place stating that the colors (other than white) would be available for crafting by artificers is no longer true? That would have changed my decisions back then to acquire enough purple crystals for my future alts, and not to bother leveling artifice on my first character.

 

I could swear as well that the dev's said that white was going away for sure but the others were going to be craftable via Artifice.

[Kaisernick]

So the dev statement back when the temporary vendor was in place stating that the colors (other than white) would be available for crafting by artificers is no longer true? That would have changed my decisions back then to acquire enough purple crystals for my future alts, and not to bother leveling artifice on my first character.

 

Can you please consider adding a feature to use a Legacy unlock, even with a long cooldown like 30 days, to allow the transfer of a BOP to BOL? This would still keep things rare, and yet allow us to transfer up to 12 per year among our characters.

 

its IMo stupid and unfair to many.

bioware said themselvs after they were gone that most players dont even have over 400k creds so why did they have the vendor that gave them at insaine prices rhen take it away only to have them be next to impossible to get.

 

it slowly becoming clear that bioware plan is to make everything so expensive at end game that you have to grind just to get anything worth while. THIS ISNT END GAME AND IT ISNT RIGHT FIX IT.

[Gwena]

That Q&A was kind of depressing. When the pre-1.2 crystal vendor was around, I (and, it seemed, many others) was under the distinct impression that recipes for cyan and purple ones would be made available to artificers in 1.2. Looking back, I cannot say for sure that they actually came out and said "yes, purple and cyan crystals will be included in the new recipes we are giving artifice". But boy did they ever do a good job of avoiding saying "no"!

 

To think, I actually felt like a bit of a sucker for buying a purple crystal from the vendor; I figured it was a credit sink for people that had a ton of credits, and that if I waited awhile after 1.2, I'd be able to get one for a little less from an artificer. Little did I know, lol!

 

Nothing wrong with rare colors, but maybe people would be a bit less upset about it if:

1) they picked something less iconic instead of purple to be super rare endgame only

2) the devs had been upfront about it from the start - "cyan and purple crystal schematics will not be added in 1.2" - see, easy!

3) there were more colors to choose from while leveling

4) every other mob and their cousin didn't have purple crystals

Edited July 26, 2012 by Gwena
typo

[Comstrike]

These Q&A posts are bordering on useless. Absolutely no questions of any substance or major concern. It only highlights how much isn't being said, despite the good intentions. The powers that be, need to really get their acts in gear, and come clean with what the plans are for this game. Some people may not like what may be coming, but better to just be done with it and start rebuilding.