The real problems with the current state of PVP

[Harsh]

Uh, is this perhaps a matter of latency? I play a Sith inquisitor, have a stupid amount of abilities I need to cycle through for optimum dps, and I never have noticed unresponsiveness. The game has a global cool-down which is plainly apparent, but I've never felt clunky or unable to use my abilities.

 

I've played every MMO in the business, and in terms of actual responsiveness this is no worse than the other top mmos.

[Ahhmyface]

To the OP points

 

1. A metric is a standard of measure, not something that is made up without even attempt to define how the values are assigned. WOWFARM is at worst useless and at best distracting from any conversation, not because of WOW in the term, but because its presented as a defined quantifiable measure when it is obviously anything but.

Also, going through "rotations" requires no responsiveness. It is cycling through scripted moves timed with a combination of GCDs, gaming hardware, connectivity, and server side hardware. Execution of rotations depends upon several variables which are on the user side of the equation. If there were large server side or software variables that were changing erratically, then all players would experience them. Several posters have stated that they do not. Take it as you will. Others have suggested changing settings to attain desirable results.

 

2. As previously pointed out status notifications do exist. They may not be presented in the UI in a way that is most favorable, that can be debated. Their existence cannot be.

 

3. Targeting a specific player in the midst of a large group is more difficult than some other games is true. But it is your opinion that this is a negative. One might also suggest that it is a positive.

 

4. Your opinion of "too much CC" is not supported. If that is your belief, please give useful examples. Others have pointed out resolve as one counter. The statement of 2v1 being a "complete lock" is an exaggeration, not to mention 2v1 is not a balanced situation to begin with.

 

 

What one calls "vital", another calls "easy mode". Target of target assist training IMO is easy mode. One could suggest that no target of target, coupled with small "hard to target in groups" boxes, makes for more interesting PvP.

 

 

Finally, some posters appear to have experienced some lack of responsiveness; however, it seems unclear as to the source. What has been presented thus far is not clearly attributable to the actual game design. If (as suggested) there were an underlying problem in the design, wouldn't that by definition imply that the level of responsiveness would be universally poor, not intermittent in nature? Such intermittent issues imply connectivity or server load issues, which may well need to be addressed.

 

Excellent post. But I would like to point out that "target of target" does exist in some fashion. Check your preferences.

[cheddar]

I know exactly where you are coming from with this whole "responsiveness" deal. Not sure how much I like your acronym but I too have had problems with abilities just NOT going off, ESPECIALLY my interrupt! I will literally be staring at it, obviously off cool down, and just mash the hotkey. The button itself shows the feedback of being clicked (lights up a little) but does not actually trigger the skill! Then you miss interrupting that latest force lift and find yourself in the air for 8 seconds with nothing you can do.

 

I also definitely agree with you on making your target more obvious. Unless you're right in the middle of things, trying to pick out the ball carrier in a group in huttball, and then making sure you've actually got hte right person selected, is extremely difficult.

 

While I like the "Resolve" solution to CC DR, it isn't very hard to abuse this system pretty hard and lock people down 100-0%. For most classes it gets better later as you get various skills(talents) to deal with this, but still. Either add a 3 second immunity to your break-free ability or diminished returns, like 50% duration on stuns.

[Windrush]

To the OP points

 

1. A metric is a standard of measure, not something that is made up without even attempt to define how the values are assigned. WOWFARM is at worst useless and at best distracting from any conversation, not because of WOW in the term, but because its presented as a defined quantifiable measure when it is obviously anything but.

Also, going through "rotations" requires no responsiveness. It is cycling through scripted moves timed with a combination of GCDs, gaming hardware, connectivity, and server side hardware. Execution of rotations depends upon several variables which are on the user side of the equation. If there were large server side or software variables that were changing erratically, then all players would experience them. Several posters have stated that they do not. Take it as you will. Others have suggested changing settings to attain desirable results.

 

2. As previously pointed out status notifications do exist. They may not be presented in the UI in a way that is most favorable, that can be debated. Their existence cannot be.

 

3. Targeting a specific player in the midst of a large group is more difficult than some other games is true. But it is your opinion that this is a negative. One might also suggest that it is a positive.

 

4. Your opinion of "too much CC" is not supported. If that is your belief, please give useful examples. Others have pointed out resolve as one counter. The statement of 2v1 being a "complete lock" is an exaggeration, not to mention 2v1 is not a balanced situation to begin with.

 

 

What one calls "vital", another calls "easy mode". Target of target assist training IMO is easy mode. One could suggest that no target of target, coupled with small "hard to target in groups" boxes, makes for more interesting PvP.

 

 

Finally, some posters appear to have experienced some lack of responsiveness; however, it seems unclear as to the source. What has been presented thus far is not clearly attributable to the actual game design. If (as suggested) there were an underlying problem in the design, wouldn't that by definition imply that the level of responsiveness would be universally poor, not intermittent in nature? Such intermittent issues imply connectivity or server load issues, which may well need to be addressed.

 

I could not agree more. WoW now hands away free loot All you have to do is showup in the BG or instance. It's not that theyw are ignorant. It's that they too lazy to read up, study up, or look up at their characters abilities and the massive amounts of combinations they could create. I remember Vanilla WoW the first duels when I used to loose so much until I won 90% of the matches because I knew every type of characters abilities , cooldowns, etc.

I feel confidant now that I have the clear knowledge when I'm outclassed due to spec abilities and so on.

Just couple of days ago in a pve instance(flashpoint), a healer rolled on melle items with strength which was a huge upgrade and also with another guy who was a tropper rolling on strength gear only for the fact that they saw heavy armor on it. These guys clearly did not do the first thing any gamer should do which is look at what stats you need to PPP(pawn,pillage, and plunder) enemies. GO *(&) learn your @)(&)($)% toon before stating comments.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Windrush

[Mackuss]

Pertaining to your "EDIT" section...

 

It really sucks OP but you're gonna have to appeal directly to the devs about this. People are, for lack of a better term, dumb, and unfortunately - 70% of people who PvP think they're gods at it ON TOP OF the game being perfection and have NOTHING wrong with it.

[Leneux]

What I'd like to know is exactly how the OP got the number 6/10. Cause I got 8.5/10, check your math. Edited December 20, 2011 by Leneux

[Kronus]

What I'd like to know is exactly how the OP got the number 6/10. Cause I got 8.5/10, check your math.

 

Lol. You can pick whatever number you like. That's the fun part about tongue-in-cheek arbitrary scales. The point is that there is a notable lack of response and fluidity in the game. When I click a button and I'm not on GC I want the spell to go off. When I fly off the launching platform in huttball I don't want my character to teleport around the map because I charged somebody and got my character animation stuck while doing it. When I die or am killing someone I don't want us locked in animation for an extra 2 seconds wondering whether the person is actually dead yet. The lists goes on and on. There is no way this game has 85% of the fluidity and responsiveness we've seen in other mmos that have done it right.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Kronus

[Leneux]

And WoW wasn't the day before it came out? There could be a lot of reasons for this "lag" but I don't see it being that big of a deal that it can't be simply fixed in a patch. Edited December 20, 2011 by Leneux

[Bioteks]

1) The WOWFARM (World of Warcraft Fluidity and Responsiveness Metric) is a 6/10 at best. It is incredibly frustrating to go through your spell rotation even in a PVE scenario only to find out that 1/2 of the spells didn't go off because of poor responsiveness. This will push pvper's away from this game fast if not addressed. You see it as the number one concern time and time again as was demonstrated in games like AOC & Warhammer Online that had particularly bad WOWFARM ratings.

 

2) Status notifications are non-existant. Whether you're snared, rooted, stunned or otherwise impaired most spells don't have obvious status indicators. This would go a long way toward improving the WOWFARM score in and of itself.

 

3) Targeting is made difficult by small selection collision boxes. You have to be extremely exacting in clicking on a target. This problem exists in PVE but is more of an issue in PVP. The indicators for your selected target are also pretty poor. In a group of people it's often hard to tell which one you've actually targeted.

 

4) There is too much cc. No matter what class you are, if you've done any pvp, you know all about getting locked and rocked in this game. It's worse even than it was in AOC and that's saying something. A cc breaking skill with a long cooldown and no sustained cc immunity does not fix this problem.

 

1. WoW had a certain speed to the combat that many, many players loved, myself included. However, a difference in combat speed isn't the same as unresponsiveness. The timing in TOR is a little slower, and the skill queue can assist somewhat. It's more a matter of using the skills with a deliberate timing rather than mashing the button until happens. WAR in particular used to punish button mashing by starting/stopping activation with multiple key presses. Once adapted to the timing all was good. I haven't had any responsiveness issues yet in TOR, beyond the camera behaving strangely in certain situations.

 

2. I quite agree here. It can be incredibly difficult to keep track of debuffs.

 

3. The targeting is a problem for sure. A simple arrow over the selected target's head would likely fix the problem.

 

4. I agree completely. I'll never understand how TOR got through beta with this CC design in place. It's a poor system that fails to alter any given encounter most of the time. Like you said, a 2 min CC break with no duration doesn't help even a little bit. WAR achieved better balance via immunities, in my opinion. I realize CC used to be a big deal in MMOs, but I think more and more players are finding that they'd rather be able to play a game instead of just watch it.

 

I'd add to that by mentioning the rather awkward terrain in WZ, archetype imbalance, and lack of WZ queue options.

[Leneux]

I get the reason for the Warzone queue being as it is... to prevent one warzone from being overpopulated while others stay barren, as was the case in WoW over many years, esspecially in the lower levels.

 

The do need more vibrant spell effects for debuffs. Or they need to give more customization options for FlyText.

[Finis]

I totally agree on the responsiveness, I can't tell you how many times I've stood there mentally screaming at the screen waiting for an interrupt to go off that would stop a heal, or a cc, only to have the ability go off anyway And burn my interrupt.

 

The UI needs HUGE improvements, not just for PVP, but for player feedback in general. I know they were going for a minimalist feel, but this is ridunkulous. Let me decide what I want and where I want it, please? And how big or small I want it to be on my screen. And if I'm experiencing no latency, I expect an Instant ability to go off the Instant I activate it.

 

If you want to keep the amount of CC that's in the game in for PvE (which is a good amount, every class should have a bit for soloing, which you do a lot of here.) then there needs to be diminishing returns in PVP. after I've been stunned for 5 seconds once, the next 5 s stun needs to be for 2s, and the third one I need to be immune to until I haven't been CC'd for 20-30 seconds. And my Ice-age long cool down for CC breaking either needs to be 75% shorter, or make me immune to other CC's for 10 seconds after hitting it.

 

But honestly, right now, my biggest problem with PvP? isPlaying Imperial. It seems like every one and their mother on Republic is playing a Sage, or Scoundrel, or whatever the trooper healer is. I look at the scoreboards at the end of a match and 3/4's of the Republic team has some kind of a healing score, and Imperials? maybe two guys. A good match is three, but not uncommon for only one, or even none at all. And that's not really Bioware's fault, that's just the IP working it's magic on the fan base. Not a lot of healing role models on the Dark side

 

I wish I didn't find all the Republic story arcs to be boring as hell. because right now, it's just awful trying to get a heal on the ball carrier redside.

[CHRISGG]

Uh, is this perhaps a matter of latency? I play a Sith inquisitor, have a stupid amount of abilities I need to cycle through for optimum dps, and I never have noticed unresponsiveness. The game has a global cool-down which is plainly apparent, but I've never felt clunky or unable to use my abilities.

 

I've played every MMO in the business, and in terms of actual responsiveness this is no worse than the other top mmos.

 

I do not mean this as an insult, but unless you're actually fast enough both with your hands and your brain to notice, you won't. There is a MASSIVE difference between World of Warcraft combat and SW:TOR combat despite the core systems being so similar, and trying to explain it to people who do not notice it right away is utterly pointless.

[Repefe]

I do not mean this as an insult, but unless you're actually fast enough both with your hands and your brain to notice, you won't. There is a MASSIVE difference between World of Warcraft combat and SW:TOR combat despite the core systems being so similar, and trying to explain it to people who do not notice it right away is utterly pointless.

 

It's one of the things that 5% of playerbase notice and rage about ? I have no lags or unresponsiveness either ... one ability every gcd + the ones off gcd fire on time.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Repefe

[Modecrypt]

Why are we comparing games to WoW when WoW looks like a low res cartoon that benefits from an extraordinarily mature game engine?

[DarrkLore]

1) Can't say I've experienced this myself. I haven't had a problem with abilities not responding fast enough.

2) Status notifications are not non-existant. There are icons above your health bar that tell you what active effects are on your character.

3) Agree 100%. This is especially evident in hutball when trying to cc the ball carrier when they are in a group of people. I often end up cc'ing the wrong person.

4) I don't think there is too much cc, but I see what you're getting at. A cc immunity after being cc'ed for around 3-5 seconds would fix this problem. It isn't that people have too many cc abilities, it's just that players are getting smarter and learning to chain CC by waiting for the current CC to finish before using another one.

 

 

I agree with this. I haven't noticed any problems with my abilities responding too slowly. I definitely think their targeting system needs work! It's so hard to click on the person you want when everybody's clustered together. I also don't think there's too much CC going on. I've gotten CCed a few times in PvP but nothing gamebreaking.

[hammarus]

1. agree though not gamebreaking...i think some of this has to do with timing....and a lot of ppl have gotten used to the 1.5 sec gcd yet

 

are spells Q'd? ive noticed that things i hit a while ago are still going off when im trying to cc or break a cc but i cant because its still running through spells i hit several seconds ago

 

2. agree

 

3. agree

 

4. def agree but could work its self out at 50 just dont know yet....

 

 

I agree, but my biggest BEEF with any game including this one, is the "it all changes at 50(max) level. Or its balanced for level 50 play, level up. What a load of crap. I play the game from 1 THRU 50 not 1 then 50.

[Paganini]

I've been a hardcore pvper in MMOs since 2005 and I strongly agree with every point (except for the CC one). I get the impression that the responsiveness of combat is lacking because of Bioware's forced "cinematic combat" where every animation has to play out. This is why bounty hunters are effectively superior to troopers because their animations cast faster.

 

This is also why sometimes my abilities don't work in succession. This not devastating in PvE but it absolutely essential in PvP when dealing with interrupts that have to hit a quarter second window or else you're screwed. If these very basic issues aren't corrected then I don't see how any hardcore PvPer could convince themself to continue supporting this game.

[Livianicen]

Why are we comparing games to WoW when WoW looks like a low res cartoon that benefits from an extraordinarily mature game engine?

 

We're not comparing graphics.

 

I get the impression that the responsiveness of combat is lacking because of Bioware's forced "cinematic combat" where every animation has to play out. This is why bounty hunters are effectively superior to troopers because their animations cast faster.

 

Mortar Volley can be "cancelled" after the second shot (when the cast bar is done) by strafing, and the third shot is fired mid-air. It looks stupid, and isn't very intuitive, but it seems possible to get them to behave the same way.

 

Also, going through "rotations" requires no responsiveness. It is cycling through scripted moves timed with a combination of GCDs, gaming hardware, connectivity, and server side hardware. Execution of rotations depends upon several variables which are on the user side of the equation.

 

None of this pertain to the actual engine responsiveness, though. Whether you're using rotations, mashing buttons, or bouncing in circles, either the game is responsive or it isn't.

 

2. As previously pointed out status notifications do exist. They may not be presented in the UI in a way that is most favorable, that can be debated. Their existence cannot be.

 

They exist, but they are horribly under-communicative. When you're not sure if you were rooted or you took your finger off "W", that's bad telepgrahing. Force Choke is an example of this done right - you're lifted in the air, there's lightning all over, you shake furiously, obviously something is up. A lot of the roots are terrible in this regard, sadly.

 

3. Targeting a specific player in the midst of a large group is more difficult than some other games is true. But it is your opinion that this is a negative. One might also suggest that it is a positive.

 

You're serious? Even if the game was incredibly responsive, if you can't effectively target an enemy healer, that's a big problem. Difficulty shouldn't rest on bad targeting systems.

 

What one calls "vital", another calls "easy mode". Target of target assist training IMO is easy mode. One could suggest that no target of target, coupled with small "hard to target in groups" boxes, makes for more interesting PvP.

 

By interesting, you mean massive and undefeatable ranged zergs supported by untouchable healers? That's pretty much the only result of a combination of bad targeting+hard-to-land interrupts. When you're unable to direct train fire or burst key targets, you'll end up with a massive AoE spam.

 

 

Finally, some posters appear to have experienced some lack of responsiveness; however, it seems unclear as to the source. What has been presented thus far is not clearly attributable to the actual game design. If (as suggested) there were an underlying problem in the design, wouldn't that by definition imply that the level of responsiveness would be universally poor, not intermittent in nature? Such intermittent issues imply connectivity or server load issues, which may well need to be addressed.

 

It isn't intermittent. It's persistently bad. Okay, not bad. It's not like it's horrible. It's average. Maybe above average, but that's sadly all it is. There's no snap response to spells, there's some animation issues (e.g. Mortar Volley) with others. The lack of sound or notifications (clear animations, well telegraphed skills, good sound communication etc) has nothing to do with server issues either, it's by design. One of the things WoW has done well is telegraphing, aka telling you what's going on by sound and visuals. Kidney Shot is an example of a sound that really cuts through the noise of combat. Even things like the placement of debuffs (big squares at top right vs very small squares at bottom left) help with showing you what's going on.

 

Now there are some issues that appear to be lag-related, such as entering a death state before visually doing so (i.e mobs heal to full, you freeze, then suddenly, poof dead) etc... but that doesn't pertain to the responsiveness of spells, which has more to do with the engine/netcode than lag. To give an example of good responsiveness in TOR, a sniper is able to fire an explosive probe after a snipe, before the projectile lands, and get extra burst damage. Lag can negatively affect that (and make it impossible), but the responsiveness is there as a baseline.

 

It's also worth mentioning that most users probably won't notice the issue. Since most people are using WoW as a reference point (because it has the most responsive combat of any MMO right now....sadly) people who haven't played it won't know the difference. Likewise, people who didn't do a lot of PvP, especially at a high level, won't really know the difference. People who generally don't play fast, or don't PvP extensively, won't know the difference, etc. But if you've played WoW for years and gotten used to the responsive nature of the PvP, especially advanced tactics like baiting interrupts (fake casting), rapid tab-targeting to cast clutch silence/cc etc, you notice a very quick and sudden drop. And it's not to do with the pacing of combat either.

[Mooserm]

I think we need to differentiate between two categories. Firstly, there are the balance problems with PVP, which we really cannot fault anyone as it is very much early days for TOR. Things like a bit too much CC are simply class imbalances and can get fixed easily over time.

 

The second and more important category are the game engine issues. The OP mentioned 3 of these: casting responsiveness, buff/debuff notifications, difficulty of targeting. In the long term, these issues are generally more game making or breaking than the balance issues. I feel these issues are even deserving of their own thread but I will post about them here first.

 

Engine issues vary in difficulty to fix. For example, being able to target enemies by clicking on their nameplates is a relatively easy change that we don't need to discuss. Buff/debuff notifications also do not need a complete overhaul to make it clear which debuffs on the enemy are your debuffs. Responsiveness is probably a lot harder to improve but I will not speculate since I am not a game designer.

 

A few other game engine issues I'd like to add that were not mentioned in the OP. They may have been mentioned in the last 17 pages but I'm not going to flip through them all.

 

1) Macros - not really a gameplay 'issue', but still a HUGE part of gameplay in games that have them. Are there any plans to implement them? In 'that other game', macros play a huge part in pvp. I don't mean one-button macros; I'm talking about macros allowing you to cast something on focus/mouseover targets, etc.

 

2) A self-target key - this is especially annoying for healers, but incredibly easy to implement that I'm surprised it hasn't already been. A setting so that whenever you press a certain modifier, your spell is cast on yourself instead of your target.

 

3) Target of target - seeing who your target is casting on is pretty important. Shouldn't be too hard to implement.

 

Class imbalances are certainly on BioWare's mind and they will be paying very close attention to rectify any problems. But are they ready to change or alter the game engine with regards to the above? A simple 'yes' regarding this question would pacify many players. It would certainly make me very happy, for one.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Mooserm

[Modecrypt]

We're not comparing graphics.

 

No, you're comparing the overall feel and flow of combat. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Modecrypt

[Baradin]

I agree with the OP 100%. PvP in this game is very unresponsive. Edited December 20, 2011 by Baradin

[Azurewind]

I have to say I wonder if the people who claim they don't have issues with responsiveness have tried healing in PvP. Or DPSing via channelled skills/abilities

 

I can see how possibly Jedi melee classes might not have run into it, but the problem becomes readily apparent when you're trying to chain multiple channeled abilities together.

 

It feels like you're constantly trying to hit an imaginary "sweet spot" at the end of your channel that keeps shifting such that the keystroke for your next skill won't just magically get lost in the ether, leaving you doing nothing.

 

This combined with the random amounts of lag that seem to be prolific in the PvP instances eventually makes me lose my patience and start mashing the key repeatedly to make 100% sure it goes off.

 

Also 100% agree with the targeting issues. PvP healing is without a doubt the most headset-slammingly frustrating thing I've done in this game because of targeting.

 

Nine times out of ten, the raid frames don't accurately reflect player's health, leaving you to rely on the floating health bars. This sucks because usually you can weed out the 6 people who aren't at low health just by looking at the bars in the raid frame and focus on the ones that actually are low to find the person you're looking to heal in a split second.

 

Instead you're more or less reliant on clicking the player who is actively jumping and hopping around his enemy like a rabbit to heal them, which is ridiculously hard to do with the small collision boxes. When you DO have them selected, the only visual cue you get is a tiny tiny miniscule green indicator around their feet that is impossible to see.

 

Then if you happen to be in a rush to heal them, you'll click them, think you have them targeted, heal, then watch them drop dead because you targeted the enemy they were fighting and healed yourself instead.

 

As for the targeting indication problem, the solution is already in the game. Try targeting a random npc or player at a long range. You'll see you get a nice unobtrusive green/red (depending on their relationship with you) reticule that hovers around them, until you get closer. Just make this persist even at close ranges.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Azurewind

[Iggster]

Umm... Is it just me or is there no level range for warzones?

 

If thats the case then I don't think its that fair to put me (level 10) against a level 28 who has so many more moves than I.

[Wrathin]

I hope the devs are reading this thread carefully.. because it has many gems of wisdom that can save the PvP in this game.

 

GO COMMUNITY!

[Mooserm]

I just remembered one more thing. In 'that other game', the ability of the community to contribute to the game via programming addons was a huge reason of its success. What are BioWare's plans regarding addons? Edited December 20, 2011 by Mooserm