PVP consensus Balance Thread

[Larry_Dallas]

What if the use of thermal detonator AND sticky grenade had a 100 percent chance to make the next power shot instant cast OR unload at full damage but half cast time?

 

So you could thermal det > DOT > RS > instant PS > (if proc) RS ?

 

Now THAT's a fair merc buff.

[Rambeezy]

bodyguard - kotto missle gives 3% increased healing to everyone within so many meters, each use applies a stack buff to self, at 3 stack lets us vent 10 or 15 heat.

 

ps arena is needed in this game

[RankorSSGS]

I personally find TTK acceptable, and if any changes were to be made, I'd vote for making it even shorter, not longer. Why? I'm looking at this from the perspective of ranked warzones, because regs are far too random to judge nearly anything. Lets look at how ranked plays out on each map.

 

Civil War: Basically a giant stalemate in mid that is decided in the first 15 seconds of the game by whoever got their side node first. When you stick 8 coordinated people, with 2 skilled healers in that map, there is practically no way for equally skilled teams to ever wipe each other and actually capture mid. It's totally static. Boring as F***.

 

Novare Coast: Same issue as CW, but due to the fact that you need 2 turrets to even start damaging the bunker, this stalemate goes on and on and on. It doesn't end until everyone's fingers are too numb to play properly, and they make a mistake allowing the enemy to cap. Boring as F***.

 

Voidstar: See previous issues. Comes down to kills because no one can cap a door. Boring as F***.

 

Huttball: Little better than the others, but give a tank the ball and put 2 healers and a guard on him, and nothing short of a well done fire pull will kill him before he scores. It all comes down to who can get the ball at mid when it respawns. That mid fight can be interesting, but anywhere the ball is related, it becomes largely moot.

 

Ancient Hypergates: This one is actually fairly well done IMO. 6 second cap time means some interesting node guarding plays, and the fact that even 1 kill gets you some points means its not really a stalemate. But even here, watching the best teams on my server face each other, it all comes down to kills, because nobody ever can grab orbs. But since even 1 kill helps, the map is still competitive, unlike CW and NC.

 

Class balance wise, the usual smash nerfs, merc and operative and sorc dps buffs. Minor tweaks to trees such as Vigilance, Tactics, and Infiltration, those that are good specs, but not good enough to justify playing over the FOTM.

[Totaltrash]

I personally find TTK acceptable, and if any changes were to be made, I'd vote for making it even shorter, not longer. Why? I'm looking at this from the perspective of ranked warzones, because regs are far too random to judge nearly anything. Lets look at how ranked plays out on each map.

 

Civil War: Basically a giant stalemate in mid that is decided in the first 15 seconds of the game by whoever got their side node first. When you stick 8 coordinated people, with 2 skilled healers in that map, there is practically no way for equally skilled teams to ever wipe each other and actually capture mid. It's totally static. Boring as F***.

 

Novare Coast: Same issue as CW, but due to the fact that you need 2 turrets to even start damaging the bunker, this stalemate goes on and on and on. It doesn't end until everyone's fingers are too numb to play properly, and they make a mistake allowing the enemy to cap. Boring as F***.

 

Voidstar: See previous issues. Comes down to kills because no one can cap a door. Boring as F***.

 

Huttball: Little better than the others, but give a tank the ball and put 2 healers and a guard on him, and nothing short of a well done fire pull will kill him before he scores. It all comes down to who can get the ball at mid when it respawns. That mid fight can be interesting, but anywhere the ball is related, it becomes largely moot.

 

Ancient Hypergates: This one is actually fairly well done IMO. 6 second cap time means some interesting node guarding plays, and the fact that even 1 kill gets you some points means its not really a stalemate. But even here, watching the best teams on my server face each other, it all comes down to kills, because nobody ever can grab orbs. But since even 1 kill helps, the map is still competitive, unlike CW and NC.

 

Class balance wise, the usual smash nerfs, merc and operative and sorc dps buffs. Minor tweaks to trees such as Vigilance, Tactics, and Infiltration, those that are good specs, but not good enough to justify playing over the FOTM.

 

Summary - "Screw objectives - I'm a lolsmasher and I want deathmatches!"

[madtycoon]

Tanks are the problem.

 

Make the game healer/dps and discourage tanks in PvP imo, except as like ball carriers or node defenders. Nerf gaurd and taunt.

 

Give dps and healers a lot more abilities. More spammable mez CC. More CC immunities/breaks. More defensive cooldowns. More escapes. Add mechanics like offensive dispelling.

 

Double health pools to increase survivablity.

 

The game is only fun right now when both sides have a balance of tanks, healers and dps. Eliminate tanks and give people more tools to work with and the game won't be as role dependant.

[CharterMonkKent]

Tanks are the problem.

 

Make the game healer/dps and discourage tanks in PvP imo, except as like ball carriers or node defenders. Nerf gaurd and taunt.

 

Give dps and healers a lot more abilities. More spammable mez CC. More CC immunities/breaks. More defensive cooldowns. More escapes. Add mechanics like offensive dispelling.

 

Double health pools to increase survivablity.

 

The game is only fun right now when both sides have a balance of tanks, healers and dps. Eliminate tanks and give people more tools to work with and the game won't be as role dependant.

 

Delete this post I can't believe someone is asking for more CCs and is complaining about tanks.

Edited January 16, 2013 by CharterMonkKent

[Anosa]

i think adding a like 45% chance to a 0.2 second root to lightning strike would fix it a lot

[Raansu]

No, TTK'es are insane right now and needs to be toned down. The only way of doing that is to nerf. By buffing new AC'es, to keep them on par with the power houses, we'd only make things worse. Longer TTK'es would be an indirect buff to certain AC'es since it would give them time to use their entire arsenal. One problem atm is just that, that abilties are useless in battles that only take 5 seconds. Just look at some of the dots in the game, far longer durations than the average fight.

 

Needs to go back to patch 1.1.5 where TTK was pretty reasonable. Fights had respectable length to them back then imo.

[Invictusthetaru]

Some interesting ideas. I think we need to focus more on balancing what we have rather than implementing completely new ways PVP can be played.

 

Let's be honest, getting these buffs to certain specs would be amazing; having them remove this this and this and add this just for PVP, after having played this game since launch...I just don't see it happening.

[RankorSSGS]

Summary - "Screw objectives - I'm a lolsmasher and I want deathmatches!"

 

That is about the farthest possible conclusion from the point I made, I commend you sir on your incredible ignorance. And FYI, I'm not a smasher. I main dps shadows/sins, and my mara alt is carnage, my guardian alt is vigilance.

[NoTomorrow]

Needs to go back to patch 1.1.5 where TTK was pretty reasonable. Fights had respectable length to them back then imo.

 

Unachievable, in 1.1.5 you had ppl running in centurion gear mostly, some champions and only a limited number of battlemasters. Old balance with relics and adrenals and new gear doest mix well. And they will never nerf the already existing gear sets,

Edited January 16, 2013 by NoTomorrow

[Sowwy]

Needs to go back to patch 1.1.5 where TTK was pretty reasonable. Fights had respectable length to them back then imo.

 

Agreed. That was swtor at its best, in fact, it was some of the best pvp I had ever played. But arrogance corrupted BW, and still does, and they decided an overhaul was required. Obviously they were wrong as it was 1.2 that accelerated the player hemorrhaging.

 

I keep hoping they hire someone with a proper grasp on things.

 

TTK is way too high. Good pvp affords players the chance to be clever, and reward creative play. The current TTK and CC suppresses tactics. A far less entertaining and far simpler form of pvp. A monkey could compete in today's pvp. In fact, I can think of a few from my server.

 

 

 

Unachievable, in 1.1.5 you had ppl running in centurion gear mostly, some champions and only a limited number of battlemasters. Old balance with relics and adrenals and new gear doest mix well. And they will never nerf the already existing gear sets,

 

Do you think they're snatching these values from some objective place, that current pvp factors are material and immutable truths burned into very universal fabric? Yea, get a grip. They can manipulate the values in any direction they choose. Stop giving them an excuse to maintain or further the status quo.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Sowwy

[Invictusthetaru]

Agreed. That was swtor at its best, in fact, it was some of the best pvp I had ever played. But arrogance corrupted BW, and still does, and they decided an overhaul was required. Obviously they were wrong as it was 1.2 that accelerated the player hemorrhaging.

 

I keep hoping they hire someone with a proper grasp on things.

 

TTK is way too high. Good pvp affords players the chance to be clever, and reward creative play. The current TTK and CC suppresses tactics. A far less entertaining and far more simpler form of pvp. A monkey could compete in today's pvp. In fact, I can think of a few from my server.

 

In ranked matches TTK is actually quite slow. How can you balance both?

 

The fact is taunts and guard exist. If you pop your defensive CD (25 percent hard mitigation) and I taunt the guy on you, that's 55 % less damage you are taking....while you could be getting healed, etc.

[Sowwy]

In ranked matches TTK is actually quite slow. How can you balance both?

 

The fact is taunts and guard exist. If you pop your defensive CD (25 percent hard mitigation) and I taunt the guy on you, that's 55 % less damage you are taking....while you could be getting healed, etc.

 

 

Just tossing ideas around, but I've long thought the cap times too strongly favor defensive positions. Decrease TTK as well as cap times.

 

Besides, don't underestimate player creativity. If TTK were adjusted, we'd adapt and every match would still produce a winner and a loser. Just as it did before. I cant speak for your server, but prior to 1.2, swtor had attracted enough pvpers from other games to ensure competency on both sides. We weren't slackers, we were on voice comms, and still everyone match resulted in a loss or a win. And we're not even discussing the god-mode combat medics and healy sages that were plentiful supply at the time.

 

Was a perfect system? Nah ..it needed adjustments. But overall, it was far superior than todays pvp.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Sowwy

[Totaltrash]

That is about the farthest possible conclusion from the point I made, I commend you sir on your incredible ignorance. And FYI, I'm not a smasher. I main dps shadows/sins, and my mara alt is carnage, my guardian alt is vigilance.

 

Aha, then lets go through your post in detail:

 

TTK is too long - apparently killing people in more than 2 GCD's exceeds your attention span.

You find CW, NC and Voidstar "boring" because there might be a stalemate, which could easily be broken with some strategy - but nooo, we don't need no stinkin' strategy in wzs!

You think Huttball is more interesting because of "controlling mid" - which is only "interesting" to brawlers and has nothing to do with the objective of the wz.

You think that AH is well done, because kills give you points.

 

All of that screams deathmatcher and scoreboard junkie - even if you aren't a lolsmasher, you talk like one.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Totaltrash

[RankorSSGS]

Aha, then lets go through your post in detail:

 

TTK is too long - apparently killing people in more than 2 GCD's exceeds your attention span.

You find CW, NC and Voidstar "boring" because there might be a stalemate.

You think Huttball is more interesting because of "controlling mid" - which is only "interesting" to brawlers and has nothing to do with the objective of the wz.

You think that AH is well done, because kills give you points.

 

All of that screams deathmatcher and scoreboard junkie - even if you aren't a lolsmasher, you talk like one.

 

Ok you can read. That's a start, now lets try understanding. It's a bit more complicated, so I'll go nice and slow.

 

TTK is indeed too long for objective based pvp. 2 GCD's to kill someone is a gross exaggeration and you know it, hyperbole will not help you. Killing one person is not the issue, its killing enough people to be able to cap the node. I'm complaining because ranked games already are a deathmatch. I do NOT want deathmatches, I want to play the game and win by capturing turrets and nodes. The long TTK is what makes this impossible. Read my first post, I'm saying that those maps are boring BECAUSE they are deathmatches. Deathmatches are bad, but that's what we have.

[JP_Legatus]

Just an idea but time to cap/score can also be considered. Novarre has a huge time to cap and hyper gate has 6s. Huttball goals can be as simple as 2 leaps and/or a pass.

It makes more sense to look at those I think than to nerf/buff and negatively affect pve on a pvp basis.

Edited January 17, 2013 by JP_Legatus

[Sowwy]

Ok you can read. That's a start, now lets try understanding. It's a bit more complicated, so I'll go nice and slow.

 

TTK is indeed too long for objective based pvp. 2 GCD's to kill someone is a gross exaggeration and you know it, hyperbole will not help you. Killing one person is not the issue, its killing enough people to be able to cap the node. I'm complaining because ranked games already are a deathmatch. I do NOT want deathmatches, I want to play the game and win by capturing turrets and nodes. The long TTK is what makes this impossible. Read my first post, I'm saying that those maps are boring BECAUSE they are deathmatches. Deathmatches are bad, but that's what we have.

 

 

Are you new to the game.? TTK were much lower before and still we managed to win and lose. Look at cap times for a culprit, not kill times. Short TTKs suppress tactical creativity and the long cap times have a defender bias. 8 seconds to cap a node or plant a bomb is the biggest contributor to stalemates. Don't let that slip your attention before making an *** of yourself.

 

Personally I'd like to see cap times cut in half on CW and reduc by 2 secs on VS. NC is a good system. But what's the odds of that happening

[RankorSSGS]

Are you new to the game.? TTK were much lower before and still we managed to win and lose. Look at cap times for a culprit, not kill times. Short TTKs suppress tactical creativity and the long cap times have a defender bias. 8 seconds to cap a node or plant a bomb is the biggest contributor to stalemates. Don't let that slip your attention before making an *** of yourself.

 

Personally I'd like to see cap times cut in half on CW and reduc by 2 secs on VS. NC is a good system. But what's the odds of that happening

 

Been playing since launch actually. I am quite aware that the TTK was longer pre 1.2. I watched about a billion posts of people crying like their firstborn child had died. The other thing is, there were no ranked warzones back then. I am not talking about regular warzones, I never have been. Regular warzones are fine, because even with premades, there is still the random element to it, so that things change. The problem is in ranked, where an entire team is so coordinated that nothing happens.

 

Reducing cap times would be an acceptable band-aid for NC, CW, and VS, but what about HB? IMO lowering TTK is still a better solution, and that's what I said in my OP. People were saying that TTK needed to be raised, and so I replied with why I do not see that as a viable solution. Raised TTK would destroy the already hurting ranked scene. I just want people to consider that before asking for raised TTK.

[Invictusthetaru]

Been playing since launch actually. I am quite aware that the TTK was longer pre 1.2. I watched about a billion posts of people crying like their firstborn child had died. The other thing is, there were no ranked warzones back then. I am not talking about regular warzones, I never have been. Regular warzones are fine, because even with premades, there is still the random element to it, so that things change. The problem is in ranked, where an entire team is so coordinated that nothing happens.

 

Reducing cap times would be an acceptable band-aid for NC, CW, and VS, but what about HB? IMO lowering TTK is still a better solution, and that's what I said in my OP. People were saying that TTK needed to be raised, and so I replied with why I do not see that as a viable solution. Raised TTK would destroy the already hurting ranked scene. I just want people to consider that before asking for raised TTK.

 

To be fair quite a bit of the current slow TTK in ranked has to do with the bubble stun.

[Jherad]

There are plenty of merc/mando idea threads so I'll avoid talking about them directly - but a more general approach would be:

 

1) Autocrits need to die in a fire. No class should be able to stack one or two stats at the expense of everything else for maximum efficiency. While you're at it, look at the need for accuracy with classes that use white damage vs those that don't.

 

2) The whole ranged vs melee mechanic. Ever wondered why RWZs are stacked to the gills with melee classes Bioware? Yeah, you're probably the last to figure it out. If you make ACs dependent on range, you're playing a cruel joke by giving every melee class ways to negate it instantly (and then giving them more damage to 'compensate' for being melee).

 

3) Speaking of more damage. I seem to remember something about a 'every class being within 5% of every other' model. Hah. When (naming no names) one DPS class, played by the absolute top players caps out at about 800k in a warzone (with AOE, when all the stars align), and others have a forum thread full of people DOUBLING that, then your 'metrics' are a complete mockery. Fix that.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Jherad

[Sowwy]

Been playing since launch actually. I am quite aware that the TTK was longer pre 1.2. I watched about a billion posts of people crying like their firstborn child had died. The other thing is, there were no ranked warzones back then. I am not talking about regular warzones, I never have been. Regular warzones are fine, because even with premades, there is still the random element to it, so that things change. The problem is in ranked, where an entire team is so coordinated that nothing happens.

 

Reducing cap times would be an acceptable band-aid for NC, CW, and VS, but what about HB? IMO lowering TTK is still a better solution, and that's what I said in my OP. People were saying that TTK needed to be raised, and so I replied with why I do not see that as a viable solution. Raised TTK would destroy the already hurting ranked scene. I just want people to consider that before asking for raised TTK.

 

 

You think increasing TTK would "improve" the ranked scene? Man, I have to disagree with this. How quickly do new teams, guilds dipping their toes in rated WZs or pugs last against your comp? My guild obliterates them and we're not even the guys ensuring an A-team every game.

 

And I think the most painful part of entering ranked for the first time isn't the loss, it's the fact that they just spent the better part of the game respawning again an agin. If they had the luxury of say living for more than half a second, perhaps they could at least have fun and thus queue again.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Sowwy

[RankorSSGS]

You think increasing TTK would "improve" the ranked scene? Man, I have to disagree with this. How quickly do new teams, guilds dipping their toes in rated WZs or pugs last against your comp? My guild obliterates them and we're not even the guys ensuring an A-team every game.

 

And I think the most painful part of entering ranked for the first time isn't the loss, it's the fact that they just spent the better part of the game respawning again an agin. If they had the luxury of say living for more than half a second, perhaps they could at least have fun and thus queue again.

 

I tire of explaining this, PLEASE READ MY FIRST POST. I specifically stated "equal teams." I am talking about having the two top guilds on the server facing each other. A roflstomping by a superior team is going to lead to lots of deaths, that's a given in any game, ranked or regular. As for new teams getting owned, I know it sounds harsh but I really do not think there is anything else to it than learn and get better. Tanks and healers are just as accessible to the new teams as they are the veterans. High warzone rating does not give any buffs to a team, the difference between the roflstomp giver and receiver is either gear, or skill. Gear can be gotten easily in regular warzones, and skill only comes with practice. If your face ends up in the dirt while you practice, then that's how it has to be. Those scared to lose should not do ranked warzones.

[Sowwy]

I tire of explaining this, PLEASE READ MY FIRST POST. I specifically stated "equal teams." I am talking about having the two top guilds on the server facing each other. A roflstomping by a superior team is going to lead to lots of deaths, that's a given in any game, ranked or regular. As for new teams getting owned, I know it sounds harsh but I really do not think there is anything else to it than learn and get better. Tanks and healers are just as accessible to the new teams as they are the veterans. High warzone rating does not give any buffs to a team, the difference between the roflstomp giver and receiver is either gear, or skill. Gear can be gotten easily in regular warzones, and skill only comes with practice. If your face ends up in the dirt while you practice, then that's how it has to be. Those scared to lose should not do ranked warzones.

 

 

Bad news man, you are not so special that people will go hunting your posts. They just won't, k?

 

We're just going to disagree, I prefer a greater emphasis on strategy than raw horsepower, which is not the current environment. You want raw killing power to be deciding factor. I'm assuming you have a FPS background? Don't answer, as I don't care.

 

Either way, swtor pvp has a much smaller following than it did pre 1.2. It is not a coincidence.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Sowwy

[Darth_Precursor]

Why everyone suggest boost to immortal/vengeance Juggernaut ? WE'RE PERFECTLY FINE. Only thing bother me is PT/VG flameburst and railshot. Its not really fun when all ur defensive stats totally useless vs flameburst and railshot

 

Powertech's and Vanguard's range for most core abilities was just nerfed 20m. Shut up, l2p, adapt, etc. Not EVERY class gets defensive cooldowns against every type of damage. Sheesh.