Damage Dropping In 3.0

[Levram]

This frustrates me. I was hoping for NIM mode 55's to be easy enough so the good decorations would become available. You know, like the 50 ops are today and any group can do them. Now, it sounds like they will be done no more easily than they are today.

 

This is a question I ask my nightmare progression group every so often when we've just cleared some crazy new nightmare fight. "When do you think an average Fleet PUG is going to be able to clear this operation?"

 

By "average Fleet PUG" I mean those groups of strangers who today go in and roll through Karagga's Palace NM without many, if any, problems.

 

Our consensus is "not any time soon," considering that nightmare Explosive Conflict is still generally avoided by average Fleet PUGs and the game is now, what, six gear tiers past its recommendation (156, 162, 168, 174, 180, 186)? The Tanks and Kephess in nightmare Explosive Conflict have some excellent mechanics, and there are similar roadblock bosses in nightmare TFB and S&V that are at least equally challenging. Nightmare Dread Fortress and Dread Palace (especially Brontes and Council) are completely out of the question for an average Fleet PUG clear for the foreseeable future.

 

That is one trend that my guild has noticed in the Operation content. The mechanics of the nightmare bosses are becoming more intricate as additional Operations are released, including more one-shot mechanics, either individual or group-wide, that can never be out-geared.

 

Nightmare Operation One-Shot Mechanics

 

Eternity Vault (1)

• Soa - Falling (individual)

 

Karagga's Palace (1)

• Bonethrasher - Knock-off (individual)

 

Explosive Conflict (4)

• Tanks - Double Destruction (individual)
  
• Colonel Vorgath - Minefield (individuals)
  
• Kephess - Breath of the Masters (individual), sub-60% player deaths (group)

 

Terror From Beyond (7)

• Kelsara - Marked For Death (individual)
  
• Operator IX - Color phase failure (group), Color Deletion (individual), wrong color clear (group)
  
• The Terror From Beyond - Hypergate Beacon (individual), falling (individual), Scream (individual)

 

Scum and Villainy (3)

• Thrasher - Sniper turrets (group)
  
• Operation Chief - Infiltration timer (group)
  
• Styrak - Box 'o Death (group)

 

Dread Fortress (10)

• Nefra - Nightmare Twin Cleave (individuals), Droid explosion (individuals)
  
• Draxus - double Mass Affliction interrupt (individual), Dismantler Strong Swipe (individual)
  
• Grob'thok - Magnet (individuals)
  
• Corruptor Zero - Concussion Mines (group), Unified Beam (individuals)
  
• Brontes - Electric Reaches (individuals), Clock 'o Death (group), Six Finger knockbacks (individuals)

 

Dread Palace (15)

• Tyrans - Simplication debuff (individual)
  
• Calphayus - Inevitability (individual), portal entrance timer (individuals), Seed death (group), Seed plant position (group), Empowering Power (group), crystal destruction timer (group), Seed alter placement timer (group)
  
• Raptus - Knock-off (individuals)
  
• Council - Bestia Deadly Weakness (individual), Bestia four-stack (individual), Deathmark (individuals), Styrak Heptagon o' Death (group), electric Fingers (individuals), Clock 'o Death (individuals)

 

Personally, I predicted to my team that nightmare TFB and S&V wouldn't be part of the average Fleet PUG rotation until late 2015. With today's announcement that there will be no initial power creep with the launch of 3.0, I think it will now be 2016 until nightmare TFB and S&V start to be cleared by average players as nightmare EV and KP are today.

 

Nightmare Dread Fortress and Dread Palace will be 2017, if then. Several of their bosses come as close to requiring "no mistakes from anyone" as have ever been put into this game. For example, depending on the exact strategy used, clearing Council commonly requires a perfect tank swap every twenty seconds for minutes at a time. The "mandatory" mechanics of these latest fights are putting them completely out of reach of what average Fleet PUGs are capable of performing no matter their future gear.

Edited October 31, 2014 by Levram

[tdmaha]

I know, and we'll have to get used to it I suppose, but I personally like seeing numbers going up with new levels/gear, not down

 

Well I take it you don't play WoW people went from doing 500k dps to 50kdps and not being able to solo old raids. The complaining over there is rather entertaining at the moment. Lots of quitting/refund threads (I see we now have a refund threads here lol). Some get way to worked up over stuff...sometimes I think these people just need negativity in their lives.

Edited October 31, 2014 by tdmaha

[Pietrastor]

All these changes make me think about 1 thing - Oricon, on fresh/gearing 55. It's aready hard enough and relies extremly heavily on fat damage and interrupts, entire planet was designed like this. Are they're gonna redesign the planet too lol?

[tdmaha]

I'm so f****** pissed to hear this news right now! Why did we WASTE our time grinding and gearing our current dps chars.....only to re-grind 5 more levels and countless raids.....to get the same power back that we ALREADY had? This my friends is total BS!

 

Hey why don't you just go create a thread about demanding a refund! Oh wait you already did...

 

Hey why don't you get all emotional over something that isn't even finalized and about a month a half away? Oh wait you already did....

 

The only thing BS is somebody blowing up over this...like you are...

 

Good thing you don't play WoW the dps over there went from 500k dps to 50k dps...I couldn't imagine how you would have handled yourself with that type of change.

[tdmaha]

All these changes make me think about 1 thing - Oricon, on fresh/gearing 55. It's aready hard enough and relies extremly heavily on fat damage and interrupts, entire planet was designed like this. Are they're gonna redesign the planet too lol?

 

They don't need to do a redesign anything. It's called a simple stat squish. WoW just did it but at a level 100X greater than Swtor is doing. Some of you just need to step back go outside and breathe!

[LordArtemis]

The nature of a stat squish is actually to adjust almost everything in the game related to combat, not just damage output.

 

So actually asking if the game is being adjusted as a result, if this is in fact a stat squish is a valid question to ask IMO.

 

To answer the question, I believe they are making adjustments in the world, they mentioned for the leveling process and other points of note, though I don't remember specifics.

Edited October 31, 2014 by LordArtemis

[ZETA_SCORPII]

They don't need to do a redesign anything. It's called a simple stat squish. WoW just did it but at a level 100X greater than Swtor is doing. Some of you just need to step back go outside and breathe!

 

Where have they said that today's level 55 content will get "squished" to coincide with the drop in dps?

[Ryuku-sama]

Where have they said that today's level 55 content will get "squished" to coincide with the drop in dps?

 

They paraphrased it to : "We are putting the bosses fight where we think they should be." Meaning they're going to adjust everything to a point where they think we can kill a given boss in a fight during x sec.

[Darth_Advent]

Where have they said that today's level 55 content will get "squished" to coincide with the drop in dps?

 

Good question. Considering the street talk about how badly Blizzard crapped the bed with their stat squish, I'd like to know more details about Bioware's plans for accommodating performance in obsolete content if any.

[SgtJeremy]

It just means I can live longer in PvP, am I right assuming this? Please tell me I am.

[Ryuku-sama]

It just means I can live longer in PvP, am I right assuming this? Please tell me I am.

 

Are you a baddie? If not, probably, if you are, no. You will still be globaled by people understanding their class.

[Kissakias]

A week after 3.0 hits, we will all have forgotten what numbers we used to be hitting (not really, but close enough) and I don't think anybody will be bothered by it.

 

from a guy that dont have time to do Ops Hm and NiM wearing oricon set and trying to finish achievements this will be very bad.

Im trying to finish all lvl 50 FPs in SM, and since i cant find ppl to run them im trying solo which make them still impossible. I was expecting this update to finish them solo, if its true im doomed for another 2 years ://

[Halinalle]

As long as:

- I can still steal aggro from tank with my opening burst

- things die

 

I don't care.

[LordArtemis]

By the way, there is a good synopsis on what the "stat squish" entailed in WoW, since folks are using that as a comparison....

 

http://wowpedia.org/Stat_squish

[Levram]

Just so that everyone can be on the same page, here is the transcript of the discussion between Eric and Rob on this topic. (1:41 in video)

 

I am also going to put this into a separate topic, as it is likely to get lost appearing in the middle of this thread.

____________________

 

Eric: Why don’t we start right at the basics of the combat changes that are in 3.0, which is you guys are adjusting, a base adjustment across the game of DPS numbers.

 

Rob: …the biggest thing I think is we wanted to look at how the damage was globally on, like, all the Classes, especially how they interacted with in the end-game stuff, like the nightmare mode Operations, especially, you know, Dread Fortress and Dread Palace. And sort of what we decided is that the Classes had kind of started to exceed the baseline values that we originally had set-up for everything, and since we’re going through and doing this big Discipline reorganization anyway, we decided to take the opportunity to get the Classes back to what the Operations expected.

 

Eric: Just so I can, like, put it in super-simply terms, you guys basically have “maths” that you use…

 

Rob: We do the “maths.”

 

Eric: …you guys do “maths,” which ends up on, like, a chart of, like, these are the targets we’re aiming for so that we can tell how long it’s going to take a boss to die based on what our values are that we think they should be.

 

Rob: Sure.

 

Eric: And what you’re saying is that those numbers were creeping up a little bit higher than they should have been.

 

Rob: Sure. “Creeping up a little bit higher” is a good way to put it. So when we came through and I was talking to George, the Operations guy, we decided that we were going to get everyone back to where they’re suppose to be, come 60. So the end result is that players at Level 60 are going to actually end up about where they are right now at Level 55. Of course the off-shoot of that is that Level 55 guys will come down a little bit and they’ll come back up to where they’re suppose to be at Level 60.

 

I know that’s a little weird, and I’m certain something we’ll get asked is, “why don’t we just increase everything so people can go up from where they are?” And we actually talked about that, doing that. The real answer is “there are a ton of systems that are sort of built on all these numbers, and since we already knew we were going to do a Class-balance pass, it was sort of the way we thought it was natural – just to change the Classes and put them back to where they’re suppose to be then rather to try to change the whole rest of the game to support effectively where the Classes were.

 

Eric: So what you should expect is basically when you get into the game when 3.0 launches, you will notice that when you’re at 55 you’re going to be doing slightly less damage than you did the day before 3.0 came out.

 

Rob: Yeah, I mean, that is true a little bit, by the same token because Disciplines are coming and all the Classes are all shook-up anyway, things are just going to be a little weird. You’re just going to have a lot to get used to and so I guess part of it is “don’t be surprised if in getting used to it the end result is you’re doing a little less damage.”

 

Now the trick of course is, tangentially related to that, in the lower-level game, something that we wanted to do is we’ve sort of always felt as time has gone on, that the game, especially the (because the game’s more mature now and players tend to play the higher level), that we could speed up the low-level game. So one of the things that we’re doing is, effectively, all the mobs from, like, level 50 on down, all the mobs that you see out in the planetary content and in your Class missions, that kind of stuff, they’re actually all going to die faster. So it won’t be quite such a “slog,” is the word we’re used a lot, so you get through the game a little faster.

 

[Omitted brief interjection from Eric about “slog.”]

 

Eric: So as part of that, do you want to talk a little bit about, I think something that people are probably going to point to a bit is nightmare Dread Fortress and Palace and what impact this will have on those.

 

Rob: Sure, so the trick with that, of course, is relative to the players doing them now, they might be getting a little more difficult, and that’s true. We will make some adjustments to counteract the Class differences, [omitted interjection of nightmare rewards / end-game philosophy topic].

 

Eric: Right, because based on the changes that we’re making with damage and some of the other stuff we’re going to talk about today, our expectation (we’re still working out exactly the difficulty there), but nightmare Dread Fortress and Dread Palace are going to be actually pretty difficult even at 60, they’ll still be fairly difficult.

 

Rob: Sure, Yeah, yeah, I mean, basically because of all the other changes, the difficulty level of the nightmare mode is still relevant, so we might as well keep it in the content channel. I mean, if it’s still a challenge, let’s reward it.

Edited October 31, 2014 by Levram

[KTap]

snip

 

You're crazy for typing all of that, but we appreciate it!

[Levram]

You're crazy for typing all of that, but we appreciate it!

 

Thanks! Just trying to be helpful.

 

I get bothered when the Community is discussing an obviously important topic, where the Developers have made a statement (verbally in this case), and then people start paraphrasing, and mis-remembering, and relaying second-hand "facts" that they read in some other thread without ever being exposed to or referencing the original Developer comments.

 

Now if people want to hammer away at this topic, they can at least use direct quotes from the transcript to relay information and support their positions.

Edited October 31, 2014 by Levram

[BuriDogshin]

I'm so f****** pissed to hear this news right now! Why did we WASTE our time grinding and gearing our current dps chars.....only to re-grind 5 more levels and countless raids.....to get the same power back that we ALREADY had? This my friends is total BS!

 

You get pissed a lot, I notice. The game may not be the actual source.

[OlBuzzard]

a FEW observations:

1. If you play a lot on your own .. the game will slow down and be difficult (possibly).

2. Some design features may be to "encourage" people to join guilds or do more "group" or team work.

3. Understanding our class might have some thing to do with it ... but not so much as understanding that those classes now work better when applied with another in order to be "balanced'.

 

I'm sure there are other aspects to this. We just need to sort it out and see what works best for each of us. It should be interesting to see what new "packs" are released to support the new 3.0

 

BTW... this is just a small fragment of things to look at.. I just don't have that much time this AM.

 

(Yes, I've purchased the 3.0 and am looking forward to it!)

Edited October 31, 2014 by OlBuzzard

[xZarquon]

I know they kind of explained this in the stream, but perhaps someone can help me understand a bit better...

 

With the changes coming to dps output, cleanses, and accuracy it seems like the dev team will need to go back and re-balance a whole lot-thus creating a lot of seemingly unnecessary work for the devs. They've already said that they're fixing leveling content, though people have raised good point about mobs using high damage cast abilities (ex: terminate, ravage, spinning strikes, death field, force storm), but the changes they will need to make to current end game content is going to be large as well. Even without a stat re-balance, simply removing 3% accuracy and 6-9% mainstat from most dps specs will bring the dps down as people will need to swap out surge for accuracy (according to how they phrased it in the stream it sounded to me as though we'll need at least 1-2 more enhancements for accuracy). Additionally, if the changes to alacrity make it useful, people are going to have less enhancements to balance these stats, which seems a strange decision.

 

According to the stream, it sounds like nim DF and DP will actually be getting relatively harder for players at level 55 and not appreciably easier for those at 60. (For example, if dps number increased from 4-4.5k for most classes to 5-6k, meeting the 4k dps check on council would be much easier meaning mechanics don't need to be properly followed for as long). Thus, rather than making content more accessible to casual players, it will actually not change. Basically my point is, if they're going to scale everything down, what's the point of doing it at all (at this stage) as it simply creates a large amount of work and balancing for content that is already relatively fine (only top few guilds are clearing nim). And, if they're not going to fully re-balance all the content (not saying this is the case), it will simply make it so current content is less accessible to players. Just seems like a lot of man-hours to fix something that isn't really broken.

[Quraswren]

Can't say I'm particularly happy about paying $20 for 5 levels just so I can stay the same and BW can keep 2 worn out OPS relevant to only a few gaming guilds.

[fede_mendi]

I never post here but i really hate what they did to the game

[Nothematic]

Can't say I'm particularly happy about paying $20 for 5 levels just so I can stay the same and BW can keep 2 worn out OPS relevant to only a few gaming guilds.

 

You mean, aside from the 2 new operations and 5 levels of story content?

[Foambreaker]

The only way to balance arenas, which no one wants anyway.

 

Make the spread between hit points and damage really large so that the difference between skilled players and failures is reduced.

 

It is a watering down of the game.

 

WoW did it too, only they adjusted the ratio by making hit points really large.

[Drockter]

Actually, I think this is a good thing.

 

If the devs saw the damage going higher than they expected/planned for; that means that the content was easier than they had intended. So I don't believe that any change to the existing content would be needed. They are bringing the damage numbers down to what was intended for the content.

 

Not many will be pleased with longer fights... but I personally have no issue with it... i prefer a challenge.