About resolve, TTK and the tsunami of QQ!

[LenrocNewDawn]

I think it's clear for everyone now that the changes that 1.4 made to how resolve and CC works in the game are viewed by a good portion of the player base as (let's use an euphemism) unfortunate . Don't get me wrong, I'm a long time defender of the resolve system, I know how the system works and I like the layer of complexity that the said system adds to the game.

But, because there is always a but t, the way that resolve, CC and short TTK mix together leads to many very frustrating situations. Situations in which one comes out of the spawn area just to be killed in under 8 seconds (duration of two hard stuns when you have CC breaker on CD) and send back to spawn. Yes, good team-play or situational awareness can significantly reduce those situations, but one doesn't always have the luxury of a good team and situational awareness don't really account for cloakies . And yes to be stunned for 8 seconds requires two enemy players swinging at you at the same time which means somewhere on the map one of your team members is free to move and help create numerical superiority. But that is a logical, rational thought which is powerless in the face of the emotional frustration if your toon being slaughtered like a helpless chicken .

In conclusion very short TTK combined with the CC/resolve meta-play may result in a very frustrating, unsatisfactory game-play about which a good number of players are complaining currently.

 

My suggestion for improvement would be to find a way to make the TTK longer. You can easily do that by boosting everyone's HP when entering the WZ (except for hutt-ball) and switching from a activation type capping/planting to an area objective activation (5 pubs, 3 imps; 5-3=2 pubs counting towards capping the objective and characters in stealth don't count). Hutt ball , love it or hate it, it's about control and not kills so i think it's OK the way it is now (I've lost hutt ball matches in which my team did 3-4 time the damage and kills of the other team).

 

P.S. I'm yet to see, in-game or recorded, a case in which active resolve (white bar) doesn't mitigate a CC effect. Root and snares are of resolve so deal with it .

[JackNader]

That's basically it in a nutshell.

[Soljin]

I agree TTK needs to be adjusted...Bolstering health (In WZ's) will not help in the long run especially if World PvP events ever happen or are put into the game...

 

They need to Remove the Resolve change for the time being...and actually test it on PTS while adjusting it...With actually geared level 50 PVP'ers...Crazy notion I know...But it just might work...

 

On a serious note...Its inexcusable putting all these abilty bugs, and Resolve changes into the game when People were very vocal about not being able to test the changes....

 

Bioware if you cant figure out how to character copy players of all kinds into your PtS to test the changes...You shouldnt be making changes...Your designers are not qualified in this case...Nor are you managers....for allowing it to happen.

[LarryRow]

No, you cannot raise TTK for these objective-based warzones, or no one will ever get any, you know, objectives. Say goodbye to interesting matches and hello to:

 

1. Voidstars where no one makes it past the first door unless they extend the fence all the way to the spawn and you have to die to switch sides.

2. Huttballs where lowest latency wins, because you get the ball and survive the whole trip to the goal

3. Civil Wars where mid is never capped and whoever clicked their natural first wins.

4. Novare Coast spamcap-fests.

 

Again, just no.

[anstalt]

The longer the time-to-kill, the more epic each fight feels and the more you feel like it's come down to personal skill and teamwork, rather than who has the cooldowns. Longer time-to-kill also helps even out the difference between burst and sustained DPS.

 

The problem with long TTK is that healers *could* become overpowered, and warzones *could* become boring.

 

Healers becoming overpowered is simple to fix. There is already a -30% healing debuff when engaged with pvp so the devs can just alter this debuff until they find an optimum solution. Similarly, increasing TTK is very easy by adjusting the defensive portion of expertise. Instead of getting -19% damage reduction atm, make it -40% or something. Tweak as required.

 

 

The real issue is that of boring warzones. Long, epic fights are great and everything, but if TTK becomes so long that you can always make it back to the node / door before your team dies then no1 would ever cap anything! To alleviate the problem, you either need longer respawn / speeder times, shorter cap times or some other sort of redesign. Redesigning warzones to cope with longer TTK takes the devs quite some time, time they simply dont have at the moment. Also, because we don't have open world pvp atm the problem of short TTK isn't as obvious. If we ever get open world pvp, the current TTK will ruin it for everyone except ranged people with AoE....

 

 

(For the record, I want longer TTK. I think optimum fight time is ~30seconds for a 1v1, so 2-3times longer than now).

[LenrocNewDawn]

My suggested solution was given with the factual state of instanced PvP in mind. If you want to do world PvP and go in there alone like a snowdrop flower after a hard winter then I have no sympathy for you when you QQ about being stun-locked to death. Go prepared, with a team (tank, healers, the whole shabane) and you shouldn't be CCed to oblivion.

I was taking into account that the match making for instanced PvP is the most rudimentary one I've seen (no consideration for class, valor=experience, gear, pug VS premade) and that is translated, sometimes, in very uneven teams, when I proposed that (temporary, agreed) solution. I thought that allowing someone to fight a bit even if death was unavoidable will mitigate some of the frustration.

 

And I'm sure there are better ways to adjust the TTK upwards but since I don't have any hard data I wouldn't venture into proposing other class changing modifications.

Edited October 1, 2012 by LenrocNewDawn

[LenrocNewDawn]

No, you cannot raise TTK for these objective-based warzones, or no one will ever get any, you know, objectives. Say goodbye to interesting matches and hello to:

 

1. Voidstars where no one makes it past the first door unless they extend the fence all the way to the spawn and you have to die to switch sides.

2. Huttballs where lowest latency wins, because you get the ball and survive the whole trip to the goal

3. Civil Wars where mid is never capped and whoever clicked their natural first wins.

4. Novare Coast spamcap-fests.

 

Again, just no.

 

Larry if you would have read the entire post (maybe u did but didn't payed close attention), you would have noticed that I've proposed to change the objective acquiring method to match the longer TTK (that's the whole point in changing the way objectives are met). And I like Hutt Ball the way it is now (no health stims for u) I think I've wrote that down too

Edited October 1, 2012 by LenrocNewDawn

[LarryRow]

Larry if you would have read the entire post (maybe u did but didn't payed close attention), you would have noticed that I've proposed to change the objective acquiring method to match the longer TTK (that's the whole point in changing the way objectives are met). And I like Hutt Ball the way it is now (no health stims for u) I think I've wrote that down too

 

Yes I read it. It sounds like you're saying as long as more people from one team are standing around an area, they get credit towards the cap. This does two things I don't like:

 

1. Favors classes with higher survivability - when just being there accomplishes the objective, surviving > killing other guys. But killing enemy players is what's fun about warzones

2. Depending on the specifics, forces players to abandon strategically sensible positions in order to be in range for the objective (example: voidstar pillars)

[Sowwy]

The longer the time-to-kill, the more epic each fight feels and the more you feel like it's come down to personal skill and teamwork, rather than who has the cooldowns. Longer time-to-kill also helps even out the difference between burst and sustained DPS.

 

The problem with long TTK is that healers *could* become overpowered, and warzones *could* become boring.

 

Healers becoming overpowered is simple to fix. There is already a -30% healing debuff when engaged with pvp so the devs can just alter this debuff until they find an optimum solution. Similarly, increasing TTK is very easy by adjusting the defensive portion of expertise. Instead of getting -19% damage reduction atm, make it -40% or something. Tweak as required.

 

 

The real issue is that of boring warzones. Long, epic fights are great and everything, but if TTK becomes so long that you can always make it back to the node / door before your team dies then no1 would ever cap anything! To alleviate the problem, you either need longer respawn / speeder times, shorter cap times or some other sort of redesign. Redesigning warzones to cope with longer TTK takes the devs quite some time, time they simply dont have at the moment. Also, because we don't have open world pvp atm the problem of short TTK isn't as obvious. If we ever get open world pvp, the current TTK will ruin it for everyone except ranged people with AoE....

 

 

(For the record, I want longer TTK. I think optimum fight time is ~30seconds for a 1v1, so 2-3times longer than now).

 

The game had reasonable TTK until 1.2, the system wasn't perfect but it was pretty close. But here's the point I'd like to make. Even with the much increased TTK of earlier builds, and the same cap-times for objectives, games were still ending with a winner and a loser; I do not see a reason for adjustments to anything other than TTK.

[Sweeet]

If you read the bloggs by all the once reputable players, and the multitude of "I quit" threads post 1.2, they all pretty much say the same thing. The demise of SWTOR in their eyes began with 1.2 and the decreased TTK across the board. I feel that way, all my friends feel that way - everyone I speak to feels that way. 1.2 is what put the majority of PVP players off SWTOR and namely because of the decreased TTK.

 

You would think that something so profoundly unanimous would get the message across... PvP pre 1.2 was pretty much perfect, everyone says it, the only real complaints were the way in which you geared up - that was it. Since 1.2 the only real complaints have been the TTK. Resolve would have been fine just the way it was if the TTK wasn't so damn short.

 

Which brings me to the resolve change in 1.4....what a joke, do they seriously not think about the consequences before making such game-breaking changes? Since when were people NOT going to abuse the fact they can now coordinate and stun-lock people... Of course they were. But no, we want the terrible PUG players who were wasting their stuns to get stun-locked to death instead! Just another terrible joke in the PvP fiasco...

[PlagaNerezza]

I think it's clear for everyone now that the changes that 1.4 made to how resolve and CC works in the game are viewed by a good portion of the player base as (let's use an euphemism) unfortunate . Don't get me wrong, I'm a long time defender of the resolve system, I know how the system works and I like the layer of complexity that the said system adds to the game.

But, because there is always a but t, the way that resolve, CC and short TTK mix together leads to many very frustrating situations. Situations in which one comes out of the spawn area just to be killed in under 8 seconds (duration of two hard stuns when you have CC breaker on CD) and send back to spawn. Yes, good team-play or situational awareness can significantly reduce those situations, but one doesn't always have the luxury of a good team and situational awareness don't really account for cloakies . And yes to be stunned for 8 seconds requires two enemy players swinging at you at the same time which means somewhere on the map one of your team members is free to move and help create numerical superiority. But that is a logical, rational thought which is powerless in the face of the emotional frustration if your toon being slaughtered like a helpless chicken .

In conclusion very short TTK combined with the CC/resolve meta-play may result in a very frustrating, unsatisfactory game-play about which a good number of players are complaining currently.

 

My suggestion for improvement would be to find a way to make the TTK longer. You can easily do that by boosting everyone's HP when entering the WZ (except for hutt-ball) and switching from a activation type capping/planting to an area objective activation (5 pubs, 3 imps; 5-3=2 pubs counting towards capping the objective and characters in stealth don't count). Hutt ball , love it or hate it, it's about control and not kills so i think it's OK the way it is now (I've lost hutt ball matches in which my team did 3-4 time the damage and kills of the other team).

 

P.S. I'm yet to see, in-game or recorded, a case in which active resolve (white bar) doesn't mitigate a CC effect. Root and snares are of resolve so deal with it .

 

Its all about resolve. When you put healers into 8 second mezzes, followed by a 4 second stun of course the TTK is low. Add in that you can still root and slow the healer and interrupt them even with resolve full.

 

The notion that resolve is functioning is my issue and if it served its purpose of giving players time of immunity that was felt people wouldn't QQ about it and TTK would go up.

 

The addition of a buff to CC with 1.4 makes that gameplay feel even worse. Add in the horrible latency, lag that the last patch added and I am disgusted.

 

Oh well. I don't predict sticking around as a pvper much longer.

[Kontraz]

No, you cannot raise TTK for these objective-based warzones, or no one will ever get any, you know, objectives. Say goodbye to interesting matches and hello to:

 

1. Voidstars where no one makes it past the first door unless they extend the fence all the way to the spawn and you have to die to switch sides.

2. Huttballs where lowest latency wins, because you get the ball and survive the whole trip to the goal

3. Civil Wars where mid is never capped and whoever clicked their natural first wins.

4. Novare Coast spamcap-fests.

 

Again, just no.

 

This sums it up. Every now and then I find myself in matches that has 4 or so healers per team (not often at all, but it happens). The match becomes an utter bore because nobody dies. We all just stand there above 75% health. Even if we try to focus someone down, the healers are able to just pop them right back up to full.

 

Increasing TTK will only make these events achievable with less healers

[Soljin]

This sums it up. Every now and then I find myself in matches that has 4 or so healers per team (not often at all, but it happens). The match becomes an utter bore because nobody dies. We all just stand there above 75% health. Even if we try to focus someone down, the healers are able to just pop them right back up to full.

 

Increasing TTK will only make these events achievable with less healers

 

Everyone is so black and white about everything....There is a middle ground....Dont take TTK back to where it was but rather adjust it slightly to find a more reasonable level.....It doesnt have to be Imortal vs. Insta gib....It really doesnt.

[Kontraz]

I agree, but I fail to see how this is "insta-gib". I've heard a few healers mention it is harder to keep someone alive when they drop below 10%, but that in no way seems deal breaking.

 

From what I've seen, the death count at the end of warzones is more or less the same as it was before.

[DashaAdair]

I think development needs some sort of effective standard to gauge the state of the game. While not being able to act is bad, there is a place where, face it, you should just die under stun. The question is, what is the benchmark? How many resources should it take to kill one unaided player where all they can do is hit their stun break, then die? Is it four on one? Five? How many should it take for dying under two stuns? Once that's defined, it's far easier to dial in the amount of resolve, stun, and stun breaking that should go into the game.

[Kontraz]

I think its fine as it is. If a healer isn't able to keep you up while you're stunned, they probably wouldn't be able to keep you up if you weren't stunned. The only difference is a few attacks you'd get off on ONE of the guys focusing you down.

[jstergar]

Nobody mentioned what will happen to guarded healers if TTK was increased. We have a tank shadow and commando duo that can hold a node against 3 enemies indefintely. I've seen a few jugg/merc duo's do the same thing. It's a royal PITA to take either of them down with anything less than 3 allies bursting them down.

[Soljin]

I think its fine as it is. If a healer isn't able to keep you up while you're stunned, they probably wouldn't be able to keep you up if you weren't stunned. The only difference is a few attacks you'd get off on ONE of the guys focusing you down.

 

Actually they would be able to keep you up if you were NOT stunned. You could actually use one of your defensive CD's, or you could move to LoS some of the DMG, or Vanish/Intercede or crazy idea drop an AoE Mezz of your own to let your healer recover...Which is wht they should be used for...not to chain together with 2 other stuns to completely shut someone out of the fight...Its not a spectator sport.

[Soljin]

Nobody mentioned what will happen to guarded healers if TTK was increased. We have a tank shadow and commando duo that can hold a node against 3 enemies indefintely. I've seen a few jugg/merc duo's do the same thing. It's a royal PITA to take either of them down with anything less than 3 allies bursting them down.

 

See this is kinda where I might land off a bit....But a Tank healer combo IMO should be able to take on three others...Not four but definatly one more then their own number.....And if its 3 DPS and they are really good...they should take them out....But not just a random three players...But once again I play DPS and believe A Healer with a tank should not be able to kill quuickly but should last a consideraly long time together.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Soljin

[Kontraz]

Actually they would be able to keep you up if you were NOT stunned. You could actually use one of your defensive CD's, or you could move to LoS some of the DMG, or Vanish/Intercede or crazy idea drop an AoE Mezz of your own to let your healer recover...Which is wht they should be used for...not to chain together with 2 other stuns to completely shut someone out of the fight...Its not a spectator sport.

 

If there are 3 or 4 people focusing stuns on you, then there are 3 or 4 people that are also focusing dps down on you.

 

By all logical sense, you shouldn't be able to survive half a team beating on you.

[DashaAdair]

I agree, but I fail to see how this is "insta-gib". I've heard a few healers mention it is harder to keep someone alive when they drop below 10%, but that in no way seems deal breaking.

 

From what I've seen, the death count at the end of warzones is more or less the same as it was before.

 

I think the issue most people are talking about isn't how many times you die, it's how you die. That is without the ability to take any action. That's the problem. How many times does it take dying without being able to do anything or very little before the game is no longer fun? That's the real issue.

Edited October 1, 2012 by DashaAdair

[Elear]

But that is a logical, rational thought which is powerless in the face of the emotional frustration if your toon being slaughtered like a helpless chicken .

In conclusion very short TTK combined with the CC/resolve meta-play may result in a very frustrating, unsatisfactory game-play about which a good number of players are complaining currently.

People complain, this will never change. Never. Some find getting killed in stun frustrating, some getting killed itself. You can't really balance game around "feelings", because they change from person to person. This is why logical, rational thought is more important than momentary frustration.

 

 

 

Longer fights are more epic? Maybe, untill you realize it's all 3 healers spamming heals on everyone, and everyone else just swinging their weapons aimlessly.

Some classes are build around killing enemy during short advantage they have(due to range or stealth/stun), and prolonging TTK coild make them much weaker. That could be balanced out by giving them more staying power, but it's still and issue that has to be adressed nonetheless.

 

PvP pre 1.2 was pretty much perfect, everyone says it, the only real complaints were the way in which you geared up - that was it. Since 1.2 the only real complaints have been the TTK.

I'm afraid you've played [re-1.2 on "My Imaginary Game" server, and carefully avoided forums. Or played a healer and choose to ignore everything you didn't like, I don't know.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Elear

[Letallis]

In 1.4 when see I people saying extend TTK it means only this to me. My time laying on the deck being stunned just last a little longer to sort of equal out with the time spent in the spawn area.

 

To me it seems you have two choices.. One is complain (my personal favorite)

 

Two.. Get with some other pvper's figure out the best strat for your classes to beat this new system and work on it.

 

Obviously the devs are not listening so we can adapt and survive or give up and get rolled. The only other option is find another MMO that actually listens to the people giving them their 15 bucks a month.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Letallis

[Sweeet]

People complain, this will never change. Never. Some find getting killed in stun frustrating, some getting killed itself. You can't really balance game around "feelings", because they change from person to person. This is why logical, rational thought is more important than momentary frustration.

 

Longer fights are more epic? Maybe, untill you relize it's all 3 healers spamming heals on everyone, and everyone else just swinging their weapons aimlessly.

Some classes are build around killing enemy during short advantage they have(due to range or stealth/stun), and prolonging TTK coild make them much weaker. That could be balanced out by giving them more staying power, but it's still and issue that has to be adressed nonetheless.

 

 

I'm afraid you've played [re-1.2 on "My Imaginary Game" server, and carefully avoided forums. Or played a healer and choose to ignore everything you didn't like, I don't know.

 

Maybe you should check my posting history, I was actually most active right after 1.2 went live. 1.2 killed PvP, and subs took a nose-dive shortly after. I play a Sentinel, and went from fights that were tactful and could swing both ways at multiple points, to fights that would end up being me bursting down the other player in seconds, or vice versa. Yes healers were a problem, but shortening the TTK was not the solution.

 

All they needed to do was buff the nerf to PvP healing, and that would have solved everything. Yet no, they reduced the TTK which ending putting the backs up of hundreds of thousands of players as PvP just wasn't as fun anymore.

 

These forums were literally filled with essay upon essay, explaining why people were no longer having fun and what Bioware needed to do in order to retain their subs. Yet they ignored everyone and lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers who avidly enjoyed PvP pre-1.2 in the process.

 

I'm not trying to bash the game, I want it to be successful, of course I do. The formula for success is a simple one, what do people find fun and what do they not find fun? Getting burst down in seconds whilst barely being able to react = not fun. Fights that are drawn out, can swing both ways and are heavily reliant on player skill = fun. Bioware needs to take what makes PvP fun, and balance healing/sustained damage around that - not balance healing at the expense of what makes PvP fun for people in the first place. It's not rocket science, and when you get the backlash that 1.2 caused, you are definitely doing something very very wrong. It was crystal clear what Bioware was doing wrong and what they needed to do to fix it, yet they ignored everyone - not much you can do about that apart from un-sub, which is what most people did.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Sweeet

[DarthSabreth]

Meh... this new system is deplorable, ive never been stunned so long and rooted so many times and mesmerized / blinded so many times like i am now after 1.4. I do think the idea that they had was sound to keep peoples resolve bar fill due to team mis-encounters. but.... it simply is not feasable the way its currently set up. i think that it sould be tested by geared players on the test servers. I do think that if the Devs do not know how to copy and paste toons to the test servers then they should hire someone whom knows how.

 

PRE 1.4 a majority of the complaints comming from players was about stunns / loss of control of their toons. In my opinion they inadvertantly made it worse instead of better.