1.4 Nerfing classes for PVP reasons, impacts PVE.../sigh

[Timias]

Overload and Force Wave, for example, now reach 15 meters in front of you. This is almost twice the previous range. The extra reach is quite a bit of fun and quite useful all around.

 

Yes, for the Sith Warriors and Jedi Knights who will now be knocked back to a range in which they can just jump back in and Smash you down to finish you off.

 

Now we have no way to knock away AI Mobs who don't have an Aggro Table, or lose the tank's taunt when they stealth out to jump in behind us.

 

Allison, please pass this along to the Developers in that nice Diplomatic way you have in dealing with us regular people:

Quit messing up PvE.

 

(And a note for the PvP'ers who have been posting in this thread. Read the thread title. This is about PvE, not PvP. Your opinions are yours, but have nothing to do with the topic, and I for one have treated them as such.)

[EvilCoatrack]

Now we have no way to knock away AI Mobs who don't have an Aggro Table, or lose the tank's taunt when they stealth out to jump in behind us.

 

Face them and press the button.

 

Then cast your new free self-heal to make you feel better.

 

I need to stop reading this thread.

[Timias]

Face them and press the button.

 

Then cast your new free self-heal to make you feel better.

 

I need to stop reading this thread.

 

Okay, I have to turn (not DPS'ing and still taking damage) or Sprint and Turn (same result), knock him away, and get back on what I was trying to take down in the first place. Oh wait, I can toss a piddly self heal on myself and do even less dps in that time period. Good idea

 

I will gladly give up a useless self only heal, and a quicker cool down on a sprint I rarely ever use in Opreations anyway, and the boosts to the Healing Spec that I don't use because my Sorcerer is DPS if they'll just quit nerfing classes period.

 

As I said in another thread, the only thing I saw as useful in the 1.4 changes, was giving the Mercenary an Interupt.

[Jamus_Divinus]

This is way too much crying for something none of you have tested yet.

 

Have some common sense and complain when you have data to back you up. All this theory-crying is pitiful.

 

I may hate these changes, I may love them (SI Healer here) but I'm not going to know until these changes hit the PTS.

 

 

C'mon BW, let us test this already!!!

[EvilCoatrack]

The only time you have to actually move (not turn) your character to use the knockback is if two or more mobs are coming at you from two or more different directions. If that is happening, and you can't survive it, more is wrong with your group than your knockback. That might be a good time for a Force Speed, I think. But you don't like moving at all, apparently, so we'll try to avoid that.

 

You do not have to change targets to use a frontal cone interrupt. All you have to do is turn your camera (hint, use your mouse) to face whatever it is, hit the button, and turn your camera back to face the thing you want to dps (that you still have targeted). The exact same time was lost from dps as it was with the old knock, unless you are really, really, ridiculously bad at turning your character with your mouse.

 

This is SUCH a minor thing for PvE, and if used correctly, it's actually BETTER for it (you can knock the target back before it even gets to melee range!) if you use just a tiny amount of thought when doing it.

 

I'm done with this.

Edited September 6, 2012 by EvilCoatrack

[Mektig]

 

So you lose the range of cyro for your "emergency" links, or people being dumb with threat, etc. Tho now you have the ability to be useful with interupts a sure loss to compensate for "control of a battleground".

 

 

This amazes me. He says that Vanguards/Powertechs don't get anything in exchange for the stun range reduction, and you quote changes to Commandos/Mercenaries. They aren't the same. The ONLY changes to Vanguards and Powertechs is the range reduction on the stun. NOTHING ELSE.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Mektig

[SilentKitty]

From the patch:

 

So you lose the range of cyro for your "emergency" links, or people being dumb with threat, etc. Tho now you have the ability to be useful with interupts a sure loss to compensate for "control of a battleground".

 

sorc/sage healers were in PVE lol.

 

I believe that the person you responded to where mentioning how this would affect his tanking with a vanguard. The interrupt that you mention is awarded to commandos, healers. Not the vanguards.

[H-aTreD]

 

I need to stop reading this thread.

 

 

Me too... But I can't stop laughing at all the crying about something so trivial as this and trying to blame PvP for somehow "impacting PvE" lol.

[Amodin]

Me too... But I can't stop laughing at all the crying about something so trivial as this and trying to blame PvP for somehow "impacting PvE" lol.

 

Because the dev in charge of these changes, has directly stated it.

[H-aTreD]

Because the dev in charge of these changes, has directly stated it.

 

Seriously, what exactly do you think is making it worse for PvE?

[Shouku]

http://www.swtor.com/blog/developer-update-class-changes-and-balance-game-update-1.4

 

As seen here, there are a slew of serious nerfs coming to certain professions. Why? Because the PVP aspect of this community is complaining (as they will ALWAYS do, no matter what the situation is) about imbalance.

 

So, to fix it, for the sake of making PVPers happy, they are nerfing PVE skills in the process.

 

Common mistake for MMORPG developers.

 

This was the reason SOE put out the "Combat Upgrade" aka, the CU, which, only second to the NGE, was a huge mistake.

 

Now... what impact is this going to have? Are you going to make the PVP gamers happy? NO! They are just going to see a new class as the FOTM overpowered class and complain about that.

 

Nerf-bat-to-hell sages, and then some other class becomes OP in WZ's...

 

I implore you devs... that if you are going to smash a classes play style, because of imbalance in PVP, that maybe you give some thought to how it is going to impact PVE players.

 

Thanks.

 

 

PvP is really messed up, the imbalances is what ultimately led me to cancel my sub. My main was a tank spec JG, FULL tank spec and FULL pvp tank gear. Not hybrid (meaning no CC immunity whatsoever), not partial geared, FULL. Needless to say it didnt work out well. Switched to shadow, way better class, much easier to play and much more viable, but now the gear grind just got to me. BM is not much of a problem but a full 2nd set of WH just turned me off so badly I canceled and joined the rest of the crowd that left for various reasons.

 

That said, I agree with OP, but they could have done things much better, for example:

Stick threat gen on Freezing Force instead of fu**ing up guardian slash for added AOE threat.

Give some form of CC immunity equivalent to unremitting on a 5th piece of PvP tank gear as bonus.

Give JG some extra End to equal the other tanks.

 

ETC. They can easily accomplish their goals to change PvP and PvE without one affecting the other. Not only that, but these would actually have been small changes and requiring much less work then what they have done. But instead they just keep coming up with stupid stuff and disappointing time and time again and screwing either PvE or PvP in the process.

[anstalt]

Seems to me that overall, these balance changes are providing much more positives than negatives.

 

The negatives pertain purely to CC skills. Mostly, a few skills got a range reduction WHICH HAS NO EFFECT ON PVE. The big one was changing force wave from an 8meter 360 knockback to a 15meter cone instant knockback. This is a sidegrade. In PvE, the only time this will affect anything is when you're leveling solo and screw up a trash pull and have 15 npcs on you. It won't affect operations or flashpoints at all. However, being 15m and instant, that will actually help in the majority of cases where players need to use this skill. So, imo, its a sidegrade, not a nerf.

 

But then we have the buffs! As a shadow, I'm extremely happy! Infiltration shadows are getting a massive buff which might finally put us level to other DPS specs in PvE. Commando's are getting a buff to healing AND an interupt. Sages get their new free self-heal.

 

There are far more buffs than nerfs in this patch, virtually none of the nerfs affect PvE, but they will have a minor positive effect on PvP. Also, PvP is a hugely popular feature in this game so to all of you screaming about pvp, screw you and your self-entitled opinions! Stop being so selfish and see the bigger picture. A game with both pve and pvp will have a larger, healthier population as many, many players enjoy both activities.

[LogicalPremise]

Because the dev in charge of these changes, has directly stated it.

 

And the PVP players have repeatedly stated "we didn't request any of this!!"

 

Before you keep blaming the PVP Community for this, kindly find me the thread where we wanted Overload nerfed into the ground, or stuns range-shortened.

 

Just because the Devs claim this is due to feedback has zero to do with reality or truth, frankly. Given that they are using people leaving to justify F2P when the issue isn't "paying a sub" but "paying a sub and getting zero value for it", I suspect they similarly were creative in "interpreting" player feedback to reach this decision.

[Cakellene]

Seems to me that overall, these balance changes are providing much more positives than negatives.

 

The negatives pertain purely to CC skills. Mostly, a few skills got a range reduction WHICH HAS NO EFFECT ON PVE. The big one was changing force wave from an 8meter 360 knockback to a 15meter cone instant knockback. This is a sidegrade. In PvE, the only time this will affect anything is when you're leveling solo and screw up a trash pull and have 15 npcs on you. It won't affect operations or flashpoints at all. However, being 15m and instant, that will actually help in the majority of cases where players need to use this skill. So, imo, its a sidegrade, not a nerf.

 

But then we have the buffs! As a shadow, I'm extremely happy! Infiltration shadows are getting a massive buff which might finally put us level to other DPS specs in PvE. Commando's are getting a buff to healing AND an interupt. Sages get their new free self-heal.

 

There are far more buffs than nerfs in this patch, virtually none of the nerfs affect PvE, but they will have a minor positive effect on PvP. Also, PvP is a hugely popular feature in this game so to all of you screaming about pvp, screw you and your self-entitled opinions! Stop being so selfish and see the bigger picture. A game with both pve and pvp will have a larger, healthier population as many, many players enjoy both activities.

 

So leveling up soloing isn't PvE?

[Iron_Lord]

Seriously, what exactly do you think is making it worse for PvE?

 

First off when I'm on my sage and a mob is attacking me from all sites I use force wave to knock them back, in 1.4 this will no longer be a 360degree effect, so effectively leaving the backstabbers right there (behind my back), not a good thing.

 

Second, reducing force stun from 30m to 10m makes it useless to stun ranged targets.

 

To compensate for all of it now, I have to run and turn around all the time to have the same effect as before thus making me move more... But wait, while moving I can not heal as I have to be stationary to cast the spells... so effectively nerfing more than just 2 small things. Sages are most vulnerable already, this just makes them even more a clay pigeon...

 

Just my 2 cents

[Yogol]

stuns that now have a 10-meter range are irrefutably worse, we've taken measures to correct for this loss by adding a few new tools and skills to the affected classes

 

It's beyond my comprehension how you can justify a nerf in one ability by saying you added another ability, knowing this game already has the highest number of abilites to use. Only the most hardcore of hardcore players use all those skills and you're now adding one, to compensate for the nerf.

 

That is the exact opposite of the direction you should be going.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Yogol

[Yogol]

in 1.4 this will no longer be a 360degree effect, so effectively leaving the backstabbers right there (behind my back), not a good thing.

 

Second, reducing force stun from 30m to 10m makes it useless to stun ranged targets.

 

You can't argue with these people... I admire that you try, but you simply can't. For them, changing the range from 30m to 10m is not a nerf. 120° instead of 360° is not a nerf. It's impossible to argue with these people.

[Yogol]

PvP is a hugely popular feature in this game

 

Euh... have you ever looked at the population of the PvP servers and compared the PvE servers? Every counted how many warzone groups there are and compred witht he number of FPs & OPs groups?

 

But sure... go ahead... keep thinking PvP is equally important. Just don't cry when EVERYONE left the game.

[aeterno]

Seriously, what exactly do you think is making it worse for PvE?

 

It's gonna be marginally harder to punt the mobs off the cliff in EV just before you get to the 2nd boss.

 

Oh and there are 2 mobs in EC that ninja in behind healers on occasion. I reckon wipes on trash will go through the roof now.

Edited September 6, 2012 by aeterno

[Yogol]

Because PvP PUGs are not teamplay. All they are is X random strangers grouping just to get in the door and then blowing off any cooperation or care for team success or safety. If you play in that environment, then it's up to you to watch your back against stealthers NOT Biowares job to nerf them out of your existence. Play with people you trust and know IMO. It's what guilds are for, or for the more hardcore it's what premades are for.

 

This is part of the mentality that got this game in the mess where it is today. Nicely summed up in one single post. That attitude comes down to: ''don't listen to what the majority of players say, don't listen to the feedback of casual players, only listen to what hardcore have to say''.

 

Ever thought that that not listening to your custumers maaaaaaaaaaaaay be bad for business ?

[aeterno]

Euh... have you ever looked at the population of the PvP servers and compared the PvE servers? Every counted how many warzone groups there are and compred witht he number of FPs & OPs groups?

 

But sure... go ahead... keep thinking PvP is equally important. Just don't cry when EVERYONE left the game.

 

PvEers really need to get off your high horse, for the good of the game. Who do you think is hanging about fleet nightly, even on pve servers? It's mostly pvpers. Christ my guild does both and the vast majority of time we pvp, on a pve server. What else is there to do at max level when you get decked and don't have to grind FP dailies anymore. The raid team breezes through their raid in one night. Only other endgame content is PvP. I dunno how you envision TOR without pvp, I see ghost towns except on raid night. How exactly would that be good business?

Edited September 6, 2012 by aeterno

[Melva]

I talked to Senior Designer Austin Peckenpaugh and Senior PvP Designer Rob Hinkle about the concerns that developers allow changes made that primarily affect either PvP or PvE to negatively affect the other part of the game.

 

While it's true that some changes may be motivated by design requirements in one gameplay mode, we never make a change without confidence that it's fun and appropriate in all gameplay modes. We think it's natural for players to think of the game as two different sub-games and to dislike changes made for a sub-game they don't participate in, but that mindset couldn't be further from the case for us. We only ever look at the game as a complete package, and it's always our goal to deliver one cohesive and coherent gameplay experience. If, during our playtesting, we find that one experience suffers at the cost of another, we revisit our design goals and our options and reassess our approach.

 

Overload and Force Wave, for example, now reach 15 meters in front of you. This is almost twice the previous range. The extra reach is quite a bit of fun and quite useful all around. Similarly, although stuns that now have a 10-meter range are irrefutably worse, we've taken measures to correct for this loss by adding a few new tools and skills to the affected classes. From our internal playtesting and feedback, we're confident that the new experience is more fun. Ultimately, we want you guys to be able to tell us what is and isn't fun, so we're looking forward to players actually testing these changes in-game on the PTS and giving us good, constructive feedback that is based on playing with the changes.

 

Frankly, I don't believe this to be true. While most of the changes being made in 1.4 won't affect me, as a healer having one of my potential tanks no longer able to short-term CC something that might have peeled at range is going to be mildly annoying. It's not game-breaking, it's not the end of the world, but as far as I can tell you took something from Powertech/Vanguard and didn't give them anything in return. This is why I loathe PvP and wish there were MMOs without it. I'm sick and tired of having my play negatively impacted because of it.

[KyaniteD]

PvEers really need to get off your high horse, for the good of the game. Who do you think is hanging about fleet nightly, even on pve servers? It's mostly pvpers. Christ my guild does both and the vast majority of time we pvp, on a pve server. What else is there to do at max level when you get decked and don't have to grind FP dailies anymore. The raid team breezes through their raid in one night. Only other endgame content is PvP. I dunno how you envision TOR without pvp, I see ghost towns except on raid night. How exactly would that be good business?

 

Yep. Go and make TOR PvP only already, so I can spend my money elsewhere.

 

What irks people is that while the changes were made with a sole focus on PvP, they also affect PvE (and not for the first time). And there is no indication the those effects were considered. There is no high horse, there is just the wish to be considered as part of the player base.

 

And not everyone is decked out, not everyone even has the time to play to be decked out anytime soon, let alone on 8 characters. And there are people who don't PvP at all. If anyone is on a high horse it's you, who thinks your situation and focus is/will be inevitably the situation and focus of every player.

 

On my server people are complaining pretty often that everyone is in Ops and Fps. PvPers spend their on the fleet because too few want to PvP.

 

I don't want TOR without one or the other, but the effects of changes must be considered for both sides, and those consideration must be communicated. Otherwise one side will feel left out, and that's never good for business.

[RowanThursday]

PvEers really need to get off your high horse, for the good of the game. Who do you think is hanging about fleet nightly, even on pve servers? It's mostly pvpers.

 

So, uh, what you're saying is that, if the endgame PVPers get fed up, it'll be possible for people playing through the content and levelling up- i.e. the primary focus of the game for most casuals (i.e. the majority with the money, and where most of the game's development focus was) to be able to get to the space station that functions as a flashpoint (PVE) hub, the marketplace for commendations (levelling tool), and an occasional class-quest thoroughfare, not to mention the GTN main location... without getting unnecessarily lagged out and having NPCs who one actually *needs* to interact with not rez in for ages because the place is cluttered up with hordes of bored level 50 players droning around on their silly overdone speeders?

 

Y'know, I think I could live with that, actually

 

I've played about three operations, incidentally, just to see what it was actually like. Concluded... boring chaos, not for me, no development, no story, just people leaping around keyboard mashing and uninterestingly killing each other... so, yes, i'm biased. Who isn't, one way, or another?

 

I've yet to note the effect in game of these changes. Messing with Overload/Forcewave does sound like a bit of a bad idea... but so long as it can still be used to knock surprised gangsters straight over the railings and down into gravity's embrace on Coruscant, it's unlikely to be a game-breaker.

[aeterno]

Yep. Go and make TOR PvP only already, so I can spend my money elsewhere.

 

What irks people is that while the changes were made with a sole focus on PvP, they also affect PvE (and not for the first time). And there is no indication the those effects were considered. There is no high horse, there is just the wish to be considered as part of the player base.

 

And not everyone is decked out, not everyone even has the time to play to be decked out anytime soon, let alone on 8 characters. And there are people who don't PvP at all. If anyone is on a high horse it's you, who thinks your situation and focus is/will be inevitably the situation and focus of every player.

 

On my server people are complaining pretty often that everyone is in Ops and Fps. PvPers spend their on the fleet because too few want to PvP.

 

I don't want TOR without one or the other, but the effects of changes must be considered for both sides, and those consideration must be communicated. Otherwise one side will feel left out, and that's never good for business.

 

And make it pve only and a decent chunk of the population will feel the same way.

 

I'd like you to use the same argumentation when pve people moan about wanting new ops. "But not everyone has even done EV hm". That's besides the point innit.

 

And lastly, they have communicated that they've considered both sides and approach all changes with both in mind. It's just people like you intentionally ignoring the yellow post again moaning how pvp ruins pve in mmos and that devs are playing favorites with pvp of all things. Please...

 

The entitlement of the pve crowd is just mid boggling. So much so that we have a forum revolt and a lynch of all things pvp simply cos tweaks to a skill bumped some people slightly out of their comfort zones.

Edited September 6, 2012 by aeterno