Well, It was fun while it lasted...

[Ancaglon]

Lots of folks quit over that stuff, too, but the wheel comes around eventually.

I can only hope your turn to be roadkill real soon now.

[Marb]

I don't really know what to say. Nobody writes walls of text like Kitru, I'm going to have to read a book or something now. Have you considered starting up a blog? Edited July 3, 2013 by Marb

[Kitru]

Have you considered starting up a blog?

 

I have. Since I'm going to be focusing very heavily on PnP stuff now, I might start one up focusing on my own home brew development and, if I ever come back, my own theorycrafting/class design/fixing ideas (I still have a 65% done other class idea that I may/may not finish).

[AMulls]

You will definitely be missed! I can't tell you how much I've learned reading your posts (along with those of KBN and Dipstik). You are a great asset to the community and all you've done cannot be replaced. So, I'll just say Thanks!

[Master-Nala]

Because of this.

 

Like I said, if there wasn't a Shadow fix coming in 2.3 or sooner, I was gonna quit the game. Since there's nothing in there about class fixes, I'm sad to say that I'm following through on it. The game just stopped being fun when I could be RNG gibbed because of bad content design and only got worse when the developers refused to do anything about it, much less do anything to admit that it might be a problem.

 

The community here was awesome. I loved the math, the camaraderie, and the discussions, but, at the end of the day, I played the game because it was fun. For those of you sticking it out, I applaud you and hope that, eventually, the devs decide that they actually need to balance PvE and respond to the PvE community rather than ignoring it. Maybe you guys will see me around somewhere else.

 

If something changes, I might come back, but, honestly, I doubt it. We did almost every conceivable thing that *could* have been done to elicit change, and it fell on deaf ears.

 

I'm sad to go, but, honestly, it just stopped being fun.

 

Your resignation is not accepted. Get back to work.

[Aediar]

Heads up, the devs just posted something about looking into shadow/assassin tank spikiness

 

 

Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness | 07.03.2013, 12:39 PM

Hey guys,

 

Apologies for the silence on this. I wanted to pass this back to the combat guys and make sure we had an in-depth conversation about Shadow/Assassin tanks before coming back to you guys. What I can say is that we are investigating the Shadow/Assassin tank’s performance against hard-hitting Operations bosses. I have no timeline on any potential changes right now but I at least wanted you guys to know that we are aware of your concerns.

 

-eric

.

[Kitru]

Heads up, the devs just posted something about looking into shadow/assassin tank spikiness

 

That was actually in my own thread on the topic but I'm still waiting to see if they actually *do* anything about it. My sub is still cancelled until such time as there's actually some movement, rather than just "investigating" and "no timeline".

[kennethdale]

Perhaps I am in the minority and (I know I'll be hated for the WoW reference) but this seems to go back to pre-WotLK balance in WoW. Every class had a specific role that they filled. Most fights needed a Warrior tank, true, but Hyjal? Couldn't do that without a Paladin tank. Magtheridon? Feral Druids were just plain better due to high dodge. It wasn't just in tanking either; I was a Holy Paladin and as such my main role was tank healing. There were fights where I could throw out heals on other targets, sure (heck, I still have a Kil'Jaeden kill video where I completely outpace every other healer in the raid) but if I wasn't tank healing I was wasting mana and heals. This forced raids to need specific classes and not simply specific roles. You wanted to keep your casters casting? You need a Shadow Priest.

 

Then WotLK hit, they started trying to eliminate that role-type playing, and the game lost its savor. In truth that is one of the things that has kept me from being all too enthralled with SW:TOR. Sure there are always going to be classes that do better DPS, are better tanks (obviously that is not meant to give credence to the degree to which Shadow/Assassin is currently broken), or are better heals but the truth is you don't *need* any one AC to complete a raid.

 

Put another way, think of your favorite food. Right now, I'm thinking of my home-made veal meatballs. If I were to put in whatever spices I felt like or had lying around, the fact that I cooked them the same way and have some skill would mean they were still largely edible. They might even be deemed palatable. What they won't be is delicious because it takes all different kinds of things to make something good. Translate that into SW:TOR....

 

Sniper/Gunsliger is currently able to push the highest DPS of any class, Juggernaut/Guardian is currently able to hold best threat and has the best mitigation, I'm sure there is an argument saying that one healer is better than others (I apologize but I haven't done a lot of research into healing as its something I shied away from after 6 years of doing it in WoW). Why not simply build a group of skilled players in each role and have them play one of those three ACs? That is the best raid comp you can get because its the maximum threat/damage mitigation on tanks, maximum AE/Single target DPS, and best heals. There is simply no reason to play any other class but the current most powerful.

 

I realize I've gone off on a tangent and I do realize and appreciate the contributions made by Kitru, its just the call for ultimate class balance removes the need for any diversity and truly makes a game boring. No matter how well the system is "balanced" there will be an element that unbalances or breaks it in the future and it takes the need for people who are interested in and good at playing a specific role and not just being a Tank, DPS, or Healer.

 

tl;dr

[KeyboardNinja]

its just the call for ultimate class balance removes the need for any diversity and truly makes a game boring.

 

Not really. You countered this argument yourself. Every class should have specific strengths and weaknesses within their respective roles. Pre-2.0, shadows had the best mitigation and threat, but suffered in multi target and fast-hitting pulls, as well as representing the spikiest mitigation profile by far (though no where near as bad as it is now). Vanguards had the worst mean mitigation, but they felt the best to heal because of how steady it was. They had decent threat and utility. Guardians had some great utility, solid mitigation and a smooth profile, but they suffered in the threat department.

 

Personally, I don't think that threat should be a metric around which tanks are weakened. All tanks should do the same DPS and threat. Where tanks should be differentiated is in utility, mitigation and spikiness. Bringing a different set of utilities per class is sufficient in that department, so long as the utilities see roughly even usage across content. In to mitigation department, you can trade slightly better mean mitigation (efficiency) against slightly higher spikiness (ease). Higher active mean mitigation with high spikiness gives you a tank with a high skill ceiling (from tank and healer) and commensurately good results to match. Lower passive mean mitigation with low spikiness gives you a tank with a low skill ceiling that is still viable, but perhaps not as good as you can get with a really skilled set of players behind the other classes.

 

In other words, I do think that TOR's tank balance is on the right track, it just requires a bit of tweaking. Shadows are so far into the spike department that no amount of skill can save them in certain cases, which is a problem. They should still be very spiky, just not "RNG death" spiky. Additionally, guardians have too much mean mitigation for their spike level, which means that they're still the best tanks by far even if shadows were fixed.

 

In other words, it's all a set of rock/paper/scissors trade offs, just like anything in a game of balanced but asymmetric roles. (mathematical trivia: the healer/tank/DPS trinity works off the same principle, which means that there is a similar "trinity" with five distinct roles, but provably *no* other role distribution will be balanced)

[jasonthelamb]

Have you not learned? Its all about the $$$ with Bioware/EA now, they're busier with new cartel packs than they are with actually fixing the game. I'd rather they stopped content and fixed the content and classes they had, then started moving forward.

[kennethdale]

Not really. You countered this argument yourself. Every class should have specific strengths and weaknesses within their respective roles.

 

Ah you misunderstood my point. I am speaking less on small diversity meaning that obviously a Shadow/Assassin Tank is different from Vanguard/Powertech Tank and they will each have strengths and weaknesses. Instead I was referring to *massive* differences for example (I apologize for going back to WoW) pre-WotLK you could not be a main tank for a guild as anything other than a Warrior because there were fights you could not tank. I should offer some insight into my stance, I suppose. In those days, the vast majority of players rolled the hard-hitting, flashy classes because that is what most people want. That left the core of us others who were committed to playing a "support" role. As a Paladin I rarely beat out Priests or Shamans just because they healed more people than I did, yet I still found it fulfilling because I was doing something vital for the raid that no other class could do as well. In general, this is no longer the case in most games (obviously, excluding the fact that Shadow/Assassins can't tank certain encounters).

 

My point was that this "broken-ness" adds a challenge to the game; how many guilds/groups out there that were getting ready for NiM content had main tanks who were Shadow/Assassins? Now these guilds/groups have to try something different to get through the same content. It forces you to change what you're doing for a reason other than for ***** and giggles. Again, perhaps I am completely alone in feeling this way. Also, I didn't mean to hijack Kitru's thread so I won't respond again. Best of luck, Kitru.

[Kitru]

My point was that this "broken-ness" adds a challenge to the game; how many guilds/groups out there that were getting ready for NiM content had main tanks who were Shadow/Assassins? Now these guilds/groups have to try something different to get through the same content. It forces you to change what you're doing for a reason other than for ***** and giggles. Again, perhaps I am completely alone in feeling this way.

 

It's bad design because the idea is that people should be allowed to play the class/spec that they *want* to play (as long as it's not some absurdly wonky hybrid or role the contradicts spec) rather than a class/spec that they *have* to play.

 

I'm quite familiar with how content was designed in WoW pre-WotLK. In vanilla Naxxramas, you *had* to have 4 Shadow Priests. It was *explicitly required* because one of the fights required 4 entities to be Mind Controlled, something that only Shadow Priests could do at the time. If you didn't have 4 Priests with maxed out hit chance, you were *screwed* out of doing that entire wing. In TBC, there were fights where you *had* to have a warlock or a mage to tank a certain boss thanks to a specific ability that that class got (the Felstalker pet for locks and Steal Magic for Mages). I've heard *plenty* of stories from players (I didn't do TBC but pretty much all of my friends did so I ended up hearing story upon story upon story) of players having to swap out to a specific alt for a certain boss because their default composition didn't have the *specific* class needed (and this was when said alts had to get properly *keyed* for the given content so they were forced to do all of *that* on an alt to satisfy comp requirements).

 

Just because it *was* done doesn't mean that it *should* be done. It was a *terrible* design and, while some people thought it was awesome because it was pretty lore-interesting and/or challenging, pretty much everyone I know of, even those that *liked* it, still admitted that it sucked a *lot* because it didn't allow them to bring the characters that they wanted to play. Certain people were *forced* to play certain specs. If you were playing with a group of *people* rather than recruiting specifically for the content, people got screwed into playing stuff they didn't like.

 

There's a *reason* that the devs changed how WoW's content and class balance was done post-TBC. The recognized that it *wasn't* a good design: it created challenge by making things *less fun*. Yes, some people found the challenge itself to be fun enough to somewhat offset the decrease in fun, but it was still bad design *and the developers recognized it*. WotLK removed the hybrid tax, balanced out the classes so that all of them could do *all* content, and removed explicit class/ability requirements from said content. It actually allowed groups to bring *players* rather than classes and allowed players to bring the class they *wanted* rather than the class that was *needed* (assuming that it was the proper role).

 

As it stands, yes, Shadows do perfectly well on about half of the fights, specifically those that aren't tank checks. However, it's not the same the other way around. As such, it's not like there are fights where you *need* a Shadow and fights where you *need* a Guardian/Vanguard; there are just fights where you're screwed by bringing a Shadow and Guardian/VGs are perfectly fine for *everything*. If there *were* fights where Guardians/VGs got screwed, there might be some legitimacy to your claim, but there isn't. Even then, it's pretty much a unique condition to the tanks (you *could* argue for DPS because any place where you need AoE damage, you're penalized for bringing Shadow DPS because they've got no real AoE damage) so it's not like it's a consideration for more than *that*. The healers are, now, all perfectly workable for all content (thanks largely to the Commando AoE heal fix) and the DPS requirements on all of the fights are low enough that even if you bring 4 *bad* DPS (i.e. Shadows and VGs), you'll *still* beat the enrage timer. The *only* place where the arbitrary class imposed challenge exists, assuming that's what is *intended* rather than Jesse Sky simply being oblivious to anything except for what Guardians can do, is for specific fights where Shadows and *only* Shadows are demonstrably substandard.

 

WoW abandoned the "required classes" a long time ago. Most other MMOs have as well (in fact, I can't recall *any* recent MMO that does). *Role* is what matters, rather than class, which provides people with *options*. Assuming the developers actually *balance* the classes within the roles, it's *perfect* since it allows people to play what they want rather than what the *developers* want them to play. Right now, if you want to play a Shadow, you have to *really* want to play a Shadow because it's a *massive* chore to do so thanks to the current content/class design. That's *not* a good thing because it's, essentially, the developers telling the community that playing a Shadow is going to be punished (and playing a Guardian is going to be rewarded) so you have to choose between playing the class you *want* to play and playing the class that will actually be functional. That's *not* a decision that players should ever have to play.

 

If you present the players with an option, it should *always* be functional. Right now, it's just *not*, and I'm leaving because I'm tired of being punished for playing the class I want to play rather than the one Jesse Sky likes playing.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Kitru

[kennethdale]

Not really. You countered this argument yourself. Every class should have specific strengths and weaknesses within their respective roles.

 

Ah you misunderstood my point. I am speaking less on small diversity meaning that obviously a Shadow/Assassin Tank is different from Vanguard/Powertech Tank and they will each have strengths and weaknesses. Instead I was referring to *massive* differences for example (I apologize for going back to WoW) pre-WotLK you could not be a main tank for a guild as anything other than a Warrior because there were fights you could not tank. I should offer some insight into my stance, I suppose. In those days, the vast majority of players rolled the hard-hitting, flashy classes because that is what most people want. That left the core of us others who were committed to playing a "support" role. As a Paladin I rarely beat out Priests or Shamans just because they healed more people than I did, yet I still found it fulfilling because I was doing something vital for the raid that no other class could do as well. In general, this is no longer the case in most games (obviously, excluding the fact that Shadow/Assassins can't tank certain encounters).

 

My point was that this "broken-ness" adds a challenge to the game; how many guilds/groups out there that were getting ready for NiM content had main tanks who were Shadow/Assassins? Now these guilds/groups have to try something different to get through the same content. It forces you to change what you're doing for a reason other than for ***** and giggles. Again, perhaps I am completely alone in feeling this way. Also, I didn't mean to hijack Kitru's thread so I won't respond again. Best of luck, Kitru.

[ThePasserby]

I agree wholeheartedly with Kitru's point about WoW's change in design philosophy to one which is "bring the player, not the class". Sadly, even as the developers of SWTOR try to ape WoW in so many aspects, they've failed to learn the important lessons.

 

I, too, am considering dropping my sub. Bioware has clearly decided that the Cartel Market gives better return on investment than putting in resources to create a fun game for everyone to pay a subscription for. I just don't know how to break it to my guild yet.

[Kitru]

Bioware has clearly decided that the Cartel Market gives better return on investment than putting in resources to create a fun game for everyone to pay a subscription for.

 

Actually, I've got *no* problem with the Cartel Market. It's an *excellent* way to quickly monetize your art department (which is what they're doing; the combat/etc groups have very little interaction with the Cartel Market since it's not content; it's art assets) and get high turnover high return on development investment. In fact, as long as such system provide only cosmetic benefits, I'm all for them. They provide an excellent and fast return on investment for a genre of game that is notorious for the cost-based risks and long investment time. Hell, in many games, systems like that saved the game from being shut off (and, in the case of TOR, actually took the game from being "not making money" to "Wow, this is making a lot of money").

 

Of course, it *should* be stated that the only way for the Cartel Market to *maintain* said levels of profitability is when you actually maintain the population. The population doesn't stick around for cosmetic benefits. They'll pay *more* for them while they're playing, but, first and foremost, we're playing a *game* rather than Star Wars Barbie. The monetary benefits of creating a balanced game construct are abstract. A properly built game maintains and/or grows the population. It provides the population base upon with the microtransactions can generate money. You need to have the *both* of them for a game to be a profitable as possible.

 

Pre-2.0, the two of them worked *very* well together. The game was (mostly) balanced so the population was steady and interested and the Cartel Market had plenty of people to sell to. Now, the game *isn't* balanced, people are leaving, and, regardless of how kewl the stuff the Cartel Market has (I actually *really* like the Cathar Warstaff...), it is going to be making *less* money because the population will dwindle thanks to a bad core game.

 

It's one of the most perturbing things about what they're doing. You *have* to continually invest in the core gameplay so that people *continue to play the game*. You can't sell the Cartel Market to people that are no longer playing the game. I doubt *anyone* would come back to the game if they heard that a new race or set of armor was being released for them to pay more money for. I'm *damned* sure that people would come back for new content and/or proper class balancing. No one quits because their armor wasn't pretty enough, especially since there are *so* many options for armor/gear/etc in TOR. People quit (and are thereby no longer multiplicatively monetized by the Cartel Market) because the fundamental *game* is flawed and, right now, they're letting the core game languish thanks to the terrible state of class balance, which is losing them subscribers.

[hunterraaze]

Well Kitru, I can honestly say you are the first unsubber that actually leaves me sad. You have me helped me in so many ways, both directly and indirectly. I really hope you reconsider and stay with us. I wish you luck though, hopefully you find something worth sticking to. You will be missed.

[PifferPuff]

Well Kitru, I can honestly say you are the first unsubber that actually leaves me sad. You have me helped me in so many ways, both directly and indirectly.

Ditto on this. ^

 

I'm in full agreement with you Kitru. I was just as disappointed as you with the changes to how my Shadow tank's survivability shifted during the 2.0 Beta Test and then later on live. At first however, I took a balanced look at seeing if the DR nerf was really detrimental to it's overall tank survivability. I even tried to see it as an L2P issue at first, since it had a revamped play style and a new skill tree to get accustomed to. But, no amount of good play mechanics can offset the massive health spikes due to unlucky rolls in the more challenging PvE end-game content. And this class - as it is - as we all know now what it is - is a luck-based tank: it's lucky if you survive a boss encounter -- regardless of tank skill or healer skill.

 

Though I know I'm preaching to the choir, I will recite a tank motto for the benefit of non-tanks (though not ubiquitous, and purely speculative on my part, it does make sense IMHO): "As tanks, we have only 2 things that we must do, and do well: (1) Generate, maintain, and keep threat off of the group... and (2) Don't die."

 

As it stands, Shadow tanks have a very difficult time with number (2), as compared to the other tanks. Which can be frustrating, and lead to a not very fun play experience. So, Kitru, as a fellow Shadow tank, I fully understand and appreciate your feelings and your decision, and I wish you well in your online travels.

 

With luck, it won't take BW too much longer to realized their blunder, and correct it (though I'm not holding my breath). If that happens, I hope to see you back. Otherwise, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (er...helpful tidbits of gearing/build/leveling/math/ops mechanics/tricks/tips/etc advice you have provided on the forums).

Edited July 9, 2013 by PifferPuff

[paowee]

I thought they were looking at shadow tank spikeyness already? There was a post about it somewhere round here...

[PifferPuff]

I thought they were looking at shadow tank spikeyness already? There was a post about it somewhere round here...

 

Yes, they are looking into it, but that doesn't mean that they will do anything about it: "investigating," and realizing their blunder and correcting it are two different things. The post you are referring to is here.

Edited July 9, 2013 by PifferPuff

[Brittaany_Banks]

Because of this.

 

Like I said, if there wasn't a Shadow fix coming in 2.3 or sooner, I was gonna quit the game. Since there's nothing in there about class fixes, I'm sad to say that I'm following through on it. The game just stopped being fun when I could be RNG gibbed because of bad content design and only got worse when the developers refused to do anything about it, much less do anything to admit that it might be a problem.

 

The community here was awesome. I loved the math, the camaraderie, and the discussions, but, at the end of the day, I played the game because it was fun. For those of you sticking it out, I applaud you and hope that, eventually, the devs decide that they actually need to balance PvE and respond to the PvE community rather than ignoring it. Maybe you guys will see me around somewhere else.

 

If something changes, I might come back, but, honestly, I doubt it. We did almost every conceivable thing that *could* have been done to elicit change, and it fell on deaf ears.

 

I'm sad to go, but, honestly, it just stopped being fun.

 

Use the opportunity to play and master another class till you feel they have fixed Shadows.

 

Don't sit there and tell me you have played all classes to end game perfection.

[Maelael]

I wish! I would settle though for a little bit of a two-way street with the developers. Kitru, dipstik and I have done a ton of work on tank balance, especially recently. We've developed models which almost certainly exceed the power of those that BioWare employs internally, and some of which addressing questions for which BioWare has admitted to not even having rigorous answers. A "thank you" would be conventional about now, and maybe a little discussion might be in order.

 

I once told a game's designers I'd bring my (bleep) retentive ability for getting stuck in places and knowing how to exploit pathing to work for them for a discount off my subscription, or the subscription waved. No one would even have to know.

 

I ended up as guide and pre-beta tester. It was harder work than the time I analyzed census data where you had to sign and date everything you submitted a change on. I made 2 friends in the industry due to that, and met a third through another hobby. I get tagged to do the same style of testing on their games as they need it. (Of course, thats also why I get very *** with all of the stuck issues in this game)

 

Moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for - it will be work, but it will improve your hobby.

 

Lord knows if BW can do so, or cares to do so.

[Kitru]

Use the opportunity to play and master another class till you feel they have fixed Shadows.

 

Don't sit there and tell me you have played all classes to end game perfection.

 

I've played every single AC to 50 and the non-RotHC end game content and half of them to 55, all of them in multiple specs. Shadow tank is, by far, my favorite and the main reason I play the game. The other classes are fun, but the reason I play the game is my Shadow.

 

I've *got* the breadth of experience necessary to know whether I would enjoy playing any other AC and none of them get close to my love of the Shadow tank.

 

It's also not just an issue of "I don't want to play my Shadow any more because it's borked". The bigger factor is actually the developers. I'm leaving because the developers are either almost completely oblivious or absurdly apathetic concerning the community and inter-class balance and are *terrible* at actually *interacting* with the community, especially the class community *which they admit is one the best sub-communities they've got*. If there were actually *some* movement after the 3 months and *huge* amounts of effort that has been invested by the community in demonstrating and quantifying the problem, I wouldn't be leaving, but, as it stands, the only "movement" we've got is the barest bit of recognition that they now realize we think it's a problem (and they're not even sure if it *is* a problem). There hasn't even been the slightest movement on the PTS to represent them actually trying to get players to test out some potential fixes.

 

I would keep playing were it not for the devs we've got. They're slow to react, oblivious to reality, ignorant of some *very* fundamental aspects of balanced game design, and punish good behavior while rewarding misbehavior. Until they show that they're actually *taking care* of those negative traits, I'm going to be gone (if they don't fix it soon).

[Shadowseve]

Hate to see you leave Kitru. You and KBN could always be counted on to keep up the maths on shadows/sins.

[Kitru]

So, yeah. The devs decided to make specific movements to address the stuff I had problems with, so you guys ain't getting rid of me that easily.

 

I'm resubbed.

[hunterraaze]

So, yeah. The devs decided to make specific movements to address the stuff I had problems with, so you guys ain't getting rid of me that easily.

 

I'm resubbed.

Yes!