Why Class Representatives won't work.

[Kitru]

The Sniper community already knew who we wanted a rep and was already pre-emptively organizing questions before the class rep voting even started, so I'd ask us first too.

 

You act as if the Shadow community didn't already have all 3 of the likely reps talking to each other and putting together lists of questions that all shared the same concerns. The only question amongst the Shadows was *who* was going to be asking the questions, not what was going to be asked.

[helpmewin]

If you had problems PvPing as a shadow before 2.0 then you have bigger problems than your spelling and grammar.

Hm..ok! What if i say that shadow didn't have any problem with spikiness and all this threats is L2P and gear. In fact to me easier to tanking with shadow then with other tanks? Cause shadow need hands and brain and this is not 2 buttons class. Why i supporting all this threats? Buff is very good. So i say shadow tank is normal. L2P and gear. No more support.

Edited August 3, 2013 by helpmewin

[Icebergy]

Hm..ok! What if i say that shadow didn't have any problem with spikiness and all this threats is L2P and gear. In fact to me easier to tanking with shadow then with other tanks? Cause shadow need hands and brain and this is not 2 buttons class.

 

I would say this was true pre 2.0. Shadows were BY FAR the best tanks pre 2.0, even with them constantly being nerfed every single patch they were still far superior to the other two tanks.

 

Honestly I kinda feel like shadows are a bit spoiled from pre 2.0 and now that they know how the other tanks felt when shadows were so much better, they don't like it one bit. Guardians and Vanguards, but specifically Guardians, had to deal with issues like Shadows are facing now for over a year and it was not fixed until 2.0, so your cries of them not fixing or responding to it in a month kinda fall on deaf ears here.

 

I am not arguing that shadows don't need some love post 2.0, but lets not lie and say shadows have had it rough in the past...

 

I do genuinely hope you guys get fixed soon, but again lets not lie and say they are 'suddenly silent' with this issue. Or that this issue is taking them longer to fix than others, that is just a laughable statement.

[oaceen]

The Sniper community already knew who we wanted a rep and was already pre-emptively organizing questions before the class rep voting even started, so I'd ask us first too.

 

a lot of class forums did that.

 

the reason i found it funny is because sniper (and gunslinger) is probably the most well-off AC in the game right now, which was Kitru's entire point basically.

Edited August 3, 2013 by oaceen

[helpmewin]

Ofc they was better pre 2.0 40% DR, best threat/dmg, best self healing, best defence. And now when they re-balanced shadow community crying. Need to L2P with this class, pre 2.0 u can close content with broken hands and now can't. Re-roll to guardian most easyest class in the game and stop crying. This class need hands and brain. Edited August 3, 2013 by helpmewin

[chuixupu]

But Snipers are just more awesome. This is a well known fact, chronicled by Mighty Book of Awesomeness. It Is Known.

[branmakmuffin]

But Snipers are just more awesome. This is a well known fact, chronicled by Mighty Book of Awesomeness. It Is Known.

You must have an out-dated edition.

[chuixupu]

You must have an out-dated edition.

 

2010 is the latest edition, don't pull my leg!

[ArchangelLBC]

The difference is that, with the class reps, they've at least *promised* to respond rather than leaving it open-ended, which has always been the problem. The problem that I have is the order of the ACs chosen: they chose the ACs with the fewest problems first rather than ACs that actually *have* major problems, which doesn't really suggest that they're interested in actually doing anything about the classes that are actually *going* to have questions that won't be answered easily.

 

That really is the only difference, but a promise made without an ability to deliver is worse than no promise at all, and at this point, I don't think the dev team is constitutionally capable of delivering on Eric's promises. Never mind getting actual changes, I think most people aren't expecting that much, but I doubt at this point we can get satisfactory answers even.

 

Easy enough to say wait and see. And honestly, I'd love for them to prove me wrong. I dare t hem to prove me wrong. If the answers come back as "we looked into that and our metrics say it isn't a problem", that's more or less proving my point as a non-answer is only marginally better than utter silence.

 

For those who say I'm comparing two different things, please tell me exactly what two things I'm comparing. To my mind the issue is the dev team taking a serious concern from the community about some facet of class balance focusing on a specific class, and meaningfully addressing it. They have promised to do this at a rate of 6 issues divided between 2 ACs every 14 days.

 

The example here used shows them unable to deliver an answer, not so much as a "we've looked into this and are working on ways to fix it", not even a "working as intended", on an issue supposedly brought to the dev team for a serious in-depth discussion (Eric's words, not mine), after 31 days.

 

They have promised something which all history, including the most recent possible history, has demonstrated they are incapable of doing.

 

If they can't deliver on their part of the dialogue, then the class representative system is not going to work.

 

Prove me wrong devs.

[helpmewin]

Last I will say what i think about this game and the class balance. Guardians are OP in all trees especialy focus tree. Whine from kinds makes this class OP. Shadow infitration OP in PvP 3-4 GCD kill is not good. Shadow tank is normal and what he need is 3-4% DR to be good, he almost always been node guarder, but his hybrid DPS specs was OP. Pre 2.0 shadow tank was OP in PVE, guardian tank was not competitive cause he have low threat/dmg. Healers in this game is mockery u don't need hands or brain to be usefull for ur team especialy 2 butttons unkillable healer oper. Almost all patches buff marader became a super unblalnced class, 2 tanks(vanguard and shadow) didn't have so good DEF abilitys as marader have and they are tanks, and marader is DPS with better def cd's then tanks. Range DPS became very very good and all whines is kids crying, they are very cool. And most balanced class in this game is PT. Edited August 4, 2013 by helpmewin

[paowee]

Also keep in mind a very small % of the gaming population posts on the forums

 

but its kind of not related to this topic at all >__>

Edited August 4, 2013 by paowee

[helpmewin]

The best solution i think is remove shadow wrap ability remove project accleration with force potency(this 2 solution almost kill shadow tank with DPS gear) and give shadow tank 3-5% DR( not increase armor raiting, increase all DR) or something else for survivability. Shadow tank have enought threat/dmg without this 2 things. Edited August 4, 2013 by helpmewin

[Panzerfire]

Actually not all issues are as big as the Assassin class failing to achieve equal or close to equal performance in all aspects of the game except node guarding. Hell if you look at the questions you can see why for some classes it's a complete farce because they're already perfect. Snipers want more offensive cooldowns and they want their scatterbombs to hit small targets and plasma probes to stick to people so they can do the 3600+ dps they can on dummies in actual raids. Sentinels want better single target dps for Focus builds so they're viable in raids as well. I've seen a marauder argue that Smash spec needs a buff because ranked teams only take 1-2 smashers per team (I think he wanted 8 smashers so they could all drown together in stupidity).

 

The joke is that for most AC's there are no concerns, they're fine, they're better than fine! But they still get equal and even earlier (perceived) priority. The devs won't be able to answer our questions because they haven't done so in the past few months. As someone in a different thread mentioned all they want now is time before the Assassin/Shadow questions come up to get to know the class in the field since they know they won't be able to get away with *our metrics of TTK show that Assassin tanks are the best* anymore.

 

It would have been better if the questions were only for Shadow/Sin Vanguard/Powertech Sorc/Sage Merc/Commando, classes which need help whether it's in pvp or pve but then the other AC's would've thrown a temper tantrum.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Panzerfire

[Ansalem]

You realize what is going to happen right? The class reps will post their 3 things eventhough some class/specs have way more than 3 major issues with them. BW will spit out generic response of "we will investigate" etc etc etc blah blah blah like usual. Nothing will happen until they get all the feedback from all the specs. After months of waiting they will apply maybe 1 of the suggestions in game but they will find a way to break it or alter it so its not what the players actually asked for. Then when its implemented it will break something in game then we will have to sit through 3 patches while they try to fix it. By this time if anyone is actually left they will be so fed up they will have rerolled another class/spec

[Icebergy]

Last I will say what i think about this game and the class balance. Guardians are OP in all trees especialy focus tree. Whine from kinds makes this class OP. Shadow infitration OP in PvP 3-4 GCD kill is not good. Shadow tank is normal and what he need is 3-4% DR to be good, he almost always been node guarder, but his hybrid DPS specs was OP. Pre 2.0 shadow tank was OP in PVE, guardian tank was not competitive cause he have low threat/dmg. Healers in this game is mockery u don't need hands or brain to be usefull for ur team especialy 2 butttons unkillable healer oper. Almost all patches buff marader became a super unblalnced class, 2 tanks(vanguard and shadow) didn't have so good DEF abilitys as marader have and they are tanks, and marader is DPS with better def cd's then tanks. Range DPS became very very good and all whines is kids crying, they are very cool. And most balanced class in this game is PT.

 

The hypocrisy is strong with this one.

 

If you think focus spec is OP, you need to learn to strafe.

[Panzerfire]

You realize what is going to happen right? The class reps will post their 3 things eventhough some class/specs have way more than 3 major issues with them. BW will spit out generic response of "we will investigate" etc etc etc blah blah blah like usual. Nothing will happen until they get all the feedback from all the specs. After months of waiting they will apply maybe 1 of the suggestions in game but they will find a way to break it or alter it so its not what the players actually asked for. Then when its implemented it will break something in game then we will have to sit through 3 patches while they try to fix it. By this time if anyone is actually left they will be so fed up they will have rerolled another class/spec

 

Since they only accept 2 AC's every 2 weeks it would be logical to at least assume that they'll answer the old questions by the time the new questions come out. But logical and the skeleton crew working on SWTOR doesn't fit together.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Panzerfire

[BrianDavion]

I used to play Age of Conan. one of the Bear Shaman class advocates in that game happened to be my guild leader. from him I ehard eneugh that I have absolutly no confidance in a "class rep" set up.

[chuixupu]

I used to play Age of Conan. one of the Bear Shaman class advocates in that game happened to be my guild leader. from him I ehard eneugh that I have absolutly no confidance in a "class rep" set up.

 

Explain.

[ArchangelLBC]

Actually not all issues are as big as the Assassin class failing to achieve equal or close to equal performance in all aspects of the game except node guarding. Hell if you look at the questions you can see why for some classes it's a complete farce because they're already perfect. Snipers want more offensive cooldowns and they want their scatterbombs to hit small targets and plasma probes to stick to people so they can do the 3600+ dps they can on dummies in actual raids. Sentinels want better single target dps for Focus builds so they're viable in raids as well. I've seen a marauder argue that Smash spec needs a buff because ranked teams only take 1-2 smashers per team (I think he wanted 8 smashers so they could all drown together in stupidity).

 

The joke is that for most AC's there are no concerns, they're fine, they're better than fine! But they still get equal and even earlier (perceived) priority. The devs won't be able to answer our questions because they haven't done so in the past few months. As someone in a different thread mentioned all they want now is time before the Assassin/Shadow questions come up to get to know the class in the field since they know they won't be able to get away with *our metrics of TTK show that Assassin tanks are the best* anymore.

 

It would have been better if the questions were only for Shadow/Sin Vanguard/Powertech Sorc/Sage Merc/Commando, classes which need help whether it's in pvp or pve but then the other AC's would've thrown a temper tantrum.

 

I dunno that I'd say that most classes have no concerns. But sniper and sentinel certainly have the least pressing concerns. After all, by your own list at least half of the ACs have issues. I'm not surprised that they deliberately put the classes with the fewest concerns (sniper/sentinel) first. They only have 6 weeks though until merc and shadow come up though. I hope they are prepared.

 

You realize what is going to happen right? The class reps will post their 3 things eventhough some class/specs have way more than 3 major issues with them. BW will spit out generic response of "we will investigate" etc etc etc blah blah blah like usual. Nothing will happen until they get all the feedback from all the specs. After months of waiting they will apply maybe 1 of the suggestions in game but they will find a way to break it or alter it so its not what the players actually asked for. Then when its implemented it will break something in game then we will have to sit through 3 patches while they try to fix it. By this time if anyone is actually left they will be so fed up they will have rerolled another class/spec

 

 

I do realize that that is what's likely to happen. That's what I define as "not working".

[branmakmuffin]

I used to play Age of Conan. one of the Bear Shaman class advocates in that game happened to be my guild leader. from him I ehard eneugh that I have absolutly no confidance in a "class rep" set up.

Those who most desire to be class reps are by definition least suited to the task.

[Phrase]

It won't work, because it's already evinced itself as very "high schoolish." (e.g. this thread; my post included )

[Sir-Coffee]

Class Representatives won't work because of two things:

 

1). People are bribing others to vote for them

2). BioWare condones this and they are too lazy to monitor the polls

[AGSThomas]

You have to ask yourself. Why does Bioware need/want a class representative that only represents forum users who are supposedly the vocal minority?? Is it because they (EA) wont hire 8 more people to know each class intimately, therefore, pushing the "work" on us?

 

It makes me wonder if they even have anyone over there who knows what hell is going on during a particular day. Like, "WHAT? Assassin tanks are getting hit too hard? This is the first we've heard of that! We will get the "guys in combat" on this right away!!" I'm willing to bet there are no "guys in combat" I'm willing to bet their whole development system since F2P is outsourced with the exception of the Cartel Market.

 

Thinking about this stuff pisses me off that they ruined this game!

Edited August 5, 2013 by AGSThomas

[Kitru]

It makes me wonder if they even have anyone over there who knows what hell is going on during a particular day. Like, "WHAT? Assassin tanks are getting hit too hard? This is the first we've heard of that! We will get the "guys in combat" on this right away!!"

 

I always thought it was *more* than a bit hypocritical of them to say that they read the class forums and pass on concerns to the developers whenever, if you actually *asked* them about discussions that had taken part over the last month, never dropping off the front page and accumulating over 10k views, they would have no clue what the hell you were talking about (I asked both Amber Green and Musco about the Shadow tank spikiness issue back during the May M&G when the debate had been going on for longer than a month with several threads specifically addressing it; neither of them had the *slightest* clue about it, nor did Jesse Sky, who *should* have had an idea but was apparently oblivious since they only test content with Guardian tanks). The community team doesn't read the class forums, and the devs don't even know all of the ACs or even specs. They prove that by having no clue what we're actually talking about there and only ever using metrics without *any* kind of practical knowledge about the specs they're talking about.

 

The class rep system is, at the very least, the community team's admission (whether a self-admission or forced upon them by their bosses) that they have paid no real attention to the class forums and lack the capacity to actually pass concerns beyond the most basic bug reports to the people that can do something about it. Hopefully, it'll also be an admission by the combat team that they've got no clue about some ACs and specs. Basically, it's an admission by the entire dev team that the player base knows more about their own game than they do, which is just a sad state of things.

[LordArtemis]

It has worked in some games, not in others. I say we should wait and see. If it does not work it's not likely set in steel.