Class Roles won't change in 3.0, right?

[Malastare]

I'd be careful in implying that the new system will make the game more balanced than it has been.

 

The system itself isn't a solution to balance. The system makes the math stable, so that game balance stops being impossible.

 

If you have three trees with (for example) 30 skills in them, and allow people to select their favorite 50 skills, there are a number of inherent problems with any attempt to balance them. The very first is that there are a very large number of combinations to analyze. Its certainly not going to be 30*3 pick 50, but its still going to be somewhere in the range of 10-20 combinations per AC.

 

If skills in the bottom half of the trees are useful abilities on their own, then you have to deal with hybrid builds. This ensures the need to balance all of the popular hybrids, and at the same time, the builds are now cross-dependent on each other. You can't buff damage on a low-tier ability without buffing all the hybrids using it. If low-tier abilities provide bonuses for other trees, then hybrids can end up with multiple cross-tree bonuses when they grab multiple low-level skills.

 

That is basically what we have now.

 

If you reduce the usefulness of the bottom tier abilities, and force players to take buffing abilities from the top of the tree to make them useful, you still allow hybrids, but ensure that they're never effective, and to pay for that, everyone is stuck with weaker abilities while leveling until they pass the threshold of a fully balanced hybrid. For SWTOR, that would mean you get no particularly useful skill before level 30-35.

 

If you use tree lockouts, then you're essentially implementing the Discipline system with a false illusion of choice.

 

If you try to balance out the desire for hybrids by making the top-tier skills more powerful, then you've just imbalanced your endgame at the cost of the the early leveling experience, and bribed players into adopting a Discipline-like skill strategy. Content would need to be balanced for the newly buffed top-tier skills at the level one would likely receive that skill (Level 45, currently). Not rebalancing Level 45 content would make the game annoyingly easy. Rebalancing it would make it so that anyone who tried to make a hybrid would be severely hampered.

 

If you try to keep hybrids balanced by completely balancing the damage output of every single level of the tree, then you end up with completely bland skills and zero role identity, as there is no real benefit to fully investing in any single tree. Even then, the balancing is still a difficult mathematical task, since you will actually increase the number of likely hybrid builds, increase the cross-over effects of the trees, and be forced to continuously reduce the difference between abilities.

 

I'm not trying to say that the Discipline system is the best way ever, or that its the only way forward. I'm saying that the current system was inherently difficult to balance, and that difficulty will grow exponentially with the maximum player level. The difficulty of balancing the Discipline system increases far slower, and it is far easier to gather and analyze player statistics.

[MisterBlackJack]

the system itself isn't a solution to balance. The system makes the math stable, so that game balance stops being impossible.

 

If you have three trees with (for example) 30 skills in them, and allow people to select their favorite 50 skills, there are a number of inherent problems with any attempt to balance them. The very first is that there are a very large number of combinations to analyze. Its certainly not going to be 30*3 pick 50, but its still going to be somewhere in the range of 10-20 combinations per ac.

 

If skills in the bottom half of the trees are useful abilities on their own, then you have to deal with hybrid builds. This ensures the need to balance all of the popular hybrids, and at the same time, the builds are now cross-dependent on each other. You can't buff damage on a low-tier ability without buffing all the hybrids using it. If low-tier abilities provide bonuses for other trees, then hybrids can end up with multiple cross-tree bonuses when they grab multiple low-level skills.

 

That is basically what we have now.

 

If you reduce the usefulness of the bottom tier abilities, and force players to take buffing abilities from the top of the tree to make them useful, you still allow hybrids, but ensure that they're never effective, and to pay for that, everyone is stuck with weaker abilities while leveling until they pass the threshold of a fully balanced hybrid. For swtor, that would mean you get no particularly useful skill before level 30-35.

 

If you use tree lockouts, then you're essentially implementing the discipline system with a false illusion of choice.

 

If you try to balance out the desire for hybrids by making the top-tier skills more powerful, then you've just imbalanced your endgame at the cost of the the early leveling experience, and bribed players into adopting a discipline-like skill strategy. Content would need to be balanced for the newly buffed top-tier skills at the level one would likely receive that skill (level 45, currently). Not rebalancing level 45 content would make the game annoyingly easy. Rebalancing it would make it so that anyone who tried to make a hybrid would be severely hampered.

 

If you try to keep hybrids balanced by completely balancing the damage output of every single level of the tree, then you end up with completely bland skills and zero role identity, as there is no real benefit to fully investing in any single tree. Even then, the balancing is still a difficult mathematical task, since you will actually increase the number of likely hybrid builds, increase the cross-over effects of the trees, and be forced to continuously reduce the difference between abilities.

 

I'm not trying to say that the discipline system is the best way ever, or that its the only way forward. I'm saying that the current system was inherently difficult to balance, and that difficulty will grow exponentially with the maximum player level. The difficulty of balancing the discipline system increases far slower, and it is far easier to gather and analyze player statistics.

 

^this x9000

[hadoken]

No one supporting this chnage is saying this will make everything Balance. What they are saying is it will be "Easier" to balance because now the devs can focus on specific trees without worrying about creating a hybrid scenario that makes it OP compared to full trees. Also it allows them to spend less time in balancing and more time in developing content. So would you prefer more content in a given cycle or devs spending more time trying to balance things out due to people making hybrids.

 

Honestly? They really shouldn't be the same people. Maybe that's what this company has come to, though.

[Malastare]

Honestly? They really shouldn't be the same people.

 

They aren't.

 

But that doesn't change the fact that balance was approaching mathematical impossibility if they stayed with the same system. That doesn't change whether its one person working on it or twenty.

Edited October 14, 2014 by Malastare

[Highsis]

Malastare is 100% correct. Disciplines/3.0 will not cause any changes to which roles are available to an Advanced Classes.

 

That is correct. No former Skill Tree Specialization (Medicine Operative is still, in your words, a 'stealthy healer') has had their role or identity changed. The biggest change is some former specializations have had their names changed as there are no longer fully shared specs. For example, in the Live Stream on Disciplines you could see that Madness Assassin had a name change to Hatred, but it still retains its former identity.

 

Thank you. It's very helpful.

[Elyx]

They aren't.

 

But that doesn't change the fact that balance was approaching mathematical impossibility if they stayed with the same system. That doesn't change whether its one person working on it or twenty.

 

although i agree with the mathmatical difficulties, I'm pretty sure the larger motivation is Dev time and Budget vs. reward. It was simply costing them too much in dev time AND budget. I'm pretty sure this is your point as well, but digging into a bit more detail for the arguement.

 

When a company forms a team to accomplish specific results, they need to assign it a budget that includes things such as materials, resources, employees, etc. if you've ever been in higher level management calls, these things are often aggressively fought for, as budgets are often very slim and there's only so many employees and resources to go around. so often budgets, and the accompanying developers and resources, are funneled into the areas of greatest need.

 

Bio realized that their current approach (skill trees) was taking too much resources to balance effectively (even if it was possible). The new approach saves dev time, saves resources, and allows the company to move these resources into other areas. a good example would be to take 2-3 dev's off of the "balance" group and move them over to the "graphics and skins" group. suddenly the graphics and skins group grows by twice it's origional size, and they're putting out mesh and skin reworks at twice the previous number. the overall quality of the game improves, nuff' said.

 

It's like putting 5 thousand dollars into rebuilding an eingine in a car thats only worth 3 thousand. you realize that your putting too many resources in the wrong areas and wasting them. so you go out and by a totally different car with a solid engine for 5k, and sell the old one as parts...and your actually ahead in the game.

[Deewe]

It removes hybrids which is half of the balancing issues

I wonder how they do in Rift cause last time I checked we had like 5 specs slots and quite a myriad of combinations.

 

But then again different dev team.

[DeaconDC]

Withholding most judgment until more class disciplines come out, but the overarching sad thing for me is this intense search for "balance."

 

I think the inherent differences in choosing "free-form" greatly outweigh the decision for balance. At least in a PvE-centric MMO. I love the PvP aspect of MMOs, including this one. But making everyone have the equal statistical chance of success is somewhat disturbing to me.

 

Player skill is only so much of the equation when you have a multi-skill system that depends on rotations, etc.

 

I wonder if that's not why so many more of the MMOs are coming out with a fixed number of usable skills selectable from a wide variety of skill options.

[Malastare]

a good example would be to take 2-3 dev's off of the "balance" group and move them over to the "graphics and skins" group. suddenly the graphics and skins group grows by twice it's origional size, and they're putting out mesh and skin reworks at twice the previous number. the overall quality of the game improves, nuff' said.

 

You had a bunch of good points except for this. Do you really want to be playing a game where the same guy who used to run statistical analyses of game data is a perfect addition to the art team?

 

Simplifying balance does indeed reduce costs, but from what we've heard, there was one person who was in charge of watching the balance and designing/suggesting changes to fix it. That person is absolutely not the one you want to move over to making new mounts. That person's time was likely already shared with other groups via all of the integrations that combat has with the game. The real cost savings here would be in the reduced time spent implementing balancing fixes, and the reduced amount of time spent testing them. Players benefit by having fewer balance changes and hopefully a game that is no less balanced than it was before.

 

You're right that Bioware is going to care about cost reduction and resources, but the biggest savings is likely in testing and development, not the people who are doing the analysis.

[GalaxyStrong]

You had a bunch of good points except for this. Do you really want to be playing a game where the same guy who used to run statistical analyses of game data is a perfect addition to the art team?

 

Between the reskin's, the horrible dye system, and some of the most ugly god awful armor set's I've ever seen, one must ask himself. Is the guy who currently runs statistical analyses of game data already part of the art team,lol.

 

Just saying.

Edited October 14, 2014 by GalaxyStrong

[pquadro]

No one supporting this chnage is saying this will make everything Balance. What they are saying is it will be "Easier" to balance because now the devs can focus on specific trees without worrying about creating a hybrid scenario that makes it OP compared to full trees. Also it allows them to spend less time in balancing and more time in developing content. So would you prefer more content in a given cycle or devs spending more time trying to balance things out due to people making hybrids.

 

 

This

 

I was one of the first to scream NGE disaster but the more I learn about these disciplines the more im excited for it.

 

Identity is great, hybrid is meh

[pquadro]

The system itself isn't a solution to balance. The system makes the math stable, so that game balance stops being impossible.

 

If you have three trees with (for example) 30 skills in them, and allow people to select their favorite 50 skills, there are a number of inherent problems with any attempt to balance them. The very first is that there are a very large number of combinations to analyze. Its certainly not going to be 30*3 pick 50, but its still going to be somewhere in the range of 10-20 combinations per AC.

 

If skills in the bottom half of the trees are useful abilities on their own, then you have to deal with hybrid builds. This ensures the need to balance all of the popular hybrids, and at the same time, the builds are now cross-dependent on each other. You can't buff damage on a low-tier ability without buffing all the hybrids using it. If low-tier abilities provide bonuses for other trees, then hybrids can end up with multiple cross-tree bonuses when they grab multiple low-level skills.

 

That is basically what we have now.

 

If you reduce the usefulness of the bottom tier abilities, and force players to take buffing abilities from the top of the tree to make them useful, you still allow hybrids, but ensure that they're never effective, and to pay for that, everyone is stuck with weaker abilities while leveling until they pass the threshold of a fully balanced hybrid. For SWTOR, that would mean you get no particularly useful skill before level 30-35.

 

If you use tree lockouts, then you're essentially implementing the Discipline system with a false illusion of choice.

 

If you try to balance out the desire for hybrids by making the top-tier skills more powerful, then you've just imbalanced your endgame at the cost of the the early leveling experience, and bribed players into adopting a Discipline-like skill strategy. Content would need to be balanced for the newly buffed top-tier skills at the level one would likely receive that skill (Level 45, currently). Not rebalancing Level 45 content would make the game annoyingly easy. Rebalancing it would make it so that anyone who tried to make a hybrid would be severely hampered.

 

If you try to keep hybrids balanced by completely balancing the damage output of every single level of the tree, then you end up with completely bland skills and zero role identity, as there is no real benefit to fully investing in any single tree. Even then, the balancing is still a difficult mathematical task, since you will actually increase the number of likely hybrid builds, increase the cross-over effects of the trees, and be forced to continuously reduce the difference between abilities.

 

I'm not trying to say that the Discipline system is the best way ever, or that its the only way forward. I'm saying that the current system was inherently difficult to balance, and that difficulty will grow exponentially with the maximum player level. The difficulty of balancing the Discipline system increases far slower, and it is far easier to gather and analyze player statistics.

 

Great analysis

[pquadro]

Between the reskin's, the horrible dye system, and some of the most ugly god awful armor set's I've ever seen, one must ask himself. Is the guy who currently runs statistical analyses of game data already part of the art team,lol.

 

Just saying.

 

 

Or they could fire stats and hire more expensive art people

 

/darkside

Edited October 14, 2014 by pquadro

[LordArtemis]

Explain how this game could have both.

 

Two rule sets.

 

Hybrids are an issue, but they are only an issue because there is one rule set. As long as there is one rule set, the best way to deal with the hybrid problem is probably what they did.

 

But, IMO, the VERY best way to deal with the hybrid problem is to remove the problem by having two rule sets.

Edited October 15, 2014 by LordArtemis

[MisterBlackJack]

Two rule sets.

 

Hybrids are an issue, but they are only an issue because there is one rule set. As long as there is one rule set, the best way to deal with the hybrid problem is probably what they did.

 

But, IMO, the VERY best way to deal with the hybrid problem is to remove the problem by having two rule sets.

 

Which is?....

[Costello]

This seems to be taking a lot of the choice away from players. From what I have seen you work along a pre-determined path of skills and then at certain points get to pick 7 'utilities from a possible 21' only those 21 abilities are shared by the advanced class so 14 of them may just not be viable for your build as you can't purchase any of the other options from the other trees.

 

At a time where players want more choice and an option to 'play there way' BW are going the opposite route in an attempt to balance the game. Now while in PvP balance is great and often sited to account for nerfs and the like is PvP skill balance so important to the wider game.

 

I played a GSF match where the sides were so stupidly unbalanced that there really was no point. Here is a system that is removed from any other aspect of the game where all skills and upgrades are completely available to both sides so skills balance is obviously there. And yet nobody would be foolish enough to think the match was balanced. As such unless you bolster everyones gear, class options and even skill level (or time available to play) balance is impossible. Is is balanced that someone with a job and rl commitments who can play maybe 4 matches a week is up against a mutant that lives in a basement somewhere that plays 10 matches before breakfast?

 

So PvP balance with the best will in the world maybe impossible. And when it comes to PvE is balance really more important that fun and choice? If anything there should be more choice give players more control and if you come up with a build that suits your play style with some amazing combat options great. That is part of the fun and what makes RPG style games so much more complex than your standard fps. Its what made the Kotor so great in that you could build your character how you wanted, its what made the classic RPGs so much fun and why games like Fallout 1 and 2 were so addicitive. Didn't have the wonderful cut scenes or voice acting but you want to play a knife wielding locksmith you could or any other combination of skills.

 

So from what I have seen Class Roles may not change but it looks like any option to specialize your role has and any option to add some skills that complement your play style or even your whimsy has been curtailed.

[archieTevidor]

No one can say for sure until we play it, but with the information we have now, and what you're saying about how you play, I think the Disciplines system is exactly what you'd want it to be: Strong identity with some option to adjust for different personality/playstyle.

What different playstyle?? For PvP - yes, you can choose survival or control (stun, cc), for PvE - no playstyle. You have to take survival utility becouse there is nothing else what you can use. Control pointless since bosses have immunity.

[Darth_Dreselus]

The sound of that I like!

 

Can we please get rid of the must have talents for healers, so they can pick actual utilities?

 

Sorc DPS have 0 required utilities to take. Chain Shock and Tempest Mastery are the only utilities enhancing DPS and Shock is almost never used by Sorc DPS, and Lightning Storm is also situational.

 

Healers on the other hand have at least 5 utilities directly enhancing healing output.

[SnakeSNMF]

does this mean we can get gunslinger tanks in 3.0