Bioware, is there a chance you can assign a rep for each class?

[Individual]

It would be nice if we knew we had someone we could talk to regarding issues and handling about individual classes. You guys say you listen, but most of the time it seems like our ideas or opinions are just being lost here in the class forums. I've barely seen any Bioware reps get involved in any of the individual class discussions. Furthermore, if you guys really do want to better balance the classes, I think this would be nice step in the right direction. Just tossing the idea out.

[Octom]

Hi. You must be new here.

[Darth_Dreselus]

Well it is in a strange part of the forums

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=659814

[Dominoris]

I thought it was a scarcastic remark by someone who was not happy with their rep, possibily for lack of communication from the person chosen.

[Kitru]

I thought it was a scarcastic remark by someone who was not happy with their rep, possibily for lack of communication from the person chosen.

 

I actually think the OP is asking for a specific *developer* appointed to be the representative for the AC, i.e. one dev is in charge of Shad/Sin, one dev is in charge of PT/VG, etc. I still find it really perplexing that only Peckenpaugh does the class balance stuff (though I seriously have to wonder if his "seat" was vacated after RotHC since it's not like there have been any class balance changes since then).

[Avicii]

I am curious have you guys seen the reaction and comments that threads get that someone from BW posts in?

 

If I was them I wouldnt want to put myself out there either. Plus if they say anything people perceive it in different ways and either take it to be gospel or start slamming them for it. If the community acted more like you would if you were talking to a person face to face it might help a lot.

 

People dont have any idea of what it takes to maintain a programming schedule and how far things can be thrown off when bugs show up or the level of effort that goes into making some changes or fixing things. No program will every be flawless or bug free, regression bugs happen its just the way it goes with programming it also doesnt help when you are understaffed (if they are). A little understanding would go a long way in particular for people that have no idea what goes into maintaining a code base of this size. It's a 2 way street if they are more responsive then people need to be more understanding and realize somethings aren't plausible without major work and minor things dont take precedence over larger issues just because they think this QoL issues is uber important.

 

Granted there are going to be some trolls that cant be helped but most of the time people are just dbags because its the vogue thing to do on the internet these days. Point being its on us as a community to make them want to respond with good ideas and questions and a little understanding when something they say doesnt occur or when they make a mistake and say something that is incorrect.

 

Also for the OPs idea, you cant seriously expect them to assign someone to talk to or address everyones class ideas because frankly a lot of them are asinine as they dont think of balance as a whole and how it effects PvP, PvE and other classs and mechanics in the game. In addition some of these people just arent that skilled, they think because they play rage and put up awesome AoE dmg in WZs that Carnage sucks bad and needs a major buff, while a skilled player can spec to carnage and wreck shop. The game needs to be balanced for the upper echelon of players. Maybe not the top 1% but the top 10%. If you balance for the median range skill, you will have the top skilled players just destroying these median skilled players in Regs then they will start complaining and asking for nerfs. Balance is tough in that way.

 

Look at Sins/Shadows in PvP, its difficult to balance Deception because in Regs when you can exit combat regularly against non min/maxed conq or even partisan players you can destroy them quickly with little skill involved, yet in RWZs that is not the case.

 

So what do they do? If they just added sustained DPS without raising the skill cap to achieve the sustained DPS in PvP Regs will be a nightmare with median skilled players being a force and the top 10% would be monsters completely wiping teams (maybe an exaggeration but you get the point). The only way to go about it is to raise the skill cap to achieve the additional DPS.

 

In addition to all of this you have to consider how does this effect PvE? Can this be used to increase Sins DPS in raid environments to get them on par with other DPS classes? How does the change effect mechanics in FPs and OPs, does it work? Does it make it so you can stack sins and cheese some mechanic in an encounter?

 

You get the idea.

 

Sorry for the rant and thanks to anyone that reads it. Just some things that have been on my mind that I really wish people would take in to consideration all the factors that play into changes in the game. I know its unrealistic and its more likely that I will see the Tooth Fairy on my way some from work.

[VaticanWarlock]

The problem is there is only ONE guy that does class balancing and PVP. This is just a stall tactic by bioware and we will still only see class balancing and new PVP content once a year.

[Kitru]

The problem is there is only ONE guy that does class balancing and PVP. This is just a stall tactic by bioware and we will still only see class balancing and new PVP content once a year.

 

Peckenpaugh is the one guy in charge of class balance, but there's an entire PvP *team* focused on that side of the game. The development team (rather than the backend bug/functionality engineers who are a completely separate subset) are dividing into a PvE team, a PvP team, and an art team, which all have separate development schedules. Presumably there are a few floaters, but it's not like Peckenpaugh is the *only* guy that has anything to do with class balance or PvP; he's just, presumably, the guy that has the final say on class balance as a whole (the community team has said that it's more than just Peckenpaugh that they're sending the class balance questions to; they've specifically mentioned the "combat team", which is likely a group that draws from both the PvP and PvE development teams lead by Peckenpaugh).