Interview with Alex Modny and Eric Musco on Bad Feeling Podcast

[teclado]

Alex, I think I love you. Awesome job. Thanks for dropping by and communicating with us!

 

Overall, I really like the sound of this. Personally, I've never had more than half of a ranked set, even though I've been playing since launch and have never run a single operation or flashpoint outside of a few 50HM back in the day and the occasional KDY grind for leveling. In other words, I am here for the pvp and even I have never had a full ranked set. I have always thought that the ranked gear was way too expensive. Obviously, I haven't done much ranked, mostly due to inconsistent pops and the players (it's always somebody else's fault when ya lose). Just the overall atmosphere makes me go "eh, no thanks."

 

I think that the ranked tokens idea is a good one. Add rewards for participation while still keeping unique ones for higher rating. Maybe we can get more pops going and more players who are there for fun above all. Maybe this will help improve the atmosphere problem.

 

One last thing. I know this has been mentioned a bunch and I'm sure you guys have seen it, but I really think that making solo ranked into a single queue for both factions is essential. There is way too much looking to see who is online on both sides and queue accordingly or queue on that other faction at odd hours going on. Everybody plays that one dominant faction (usually imp), thereby killing the queue for the other side. I've seen (as I'm sure you have as well) instances of a given player having gold tier on one faction, then bronze tier on the mirror of the other faction. That tells me that faction is more of a factor in rating than a player's skill.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading and chatting. :brofist:

Edited May 28, 2015 by teclado

[Jadescythe]

If you think six guys spam Zerg capping every door is 'fun' then I have to disagree. Oops, you didn't target spam cap guy seven fast enough. He took it.

 

AOE's make a team actually turn around and earn what they're trying to take.

 

What next, are we going to let people cap from stealth or CC?

 

If you have 6 people shooting at 8 people and can't stop them, I think you're going to have problems with multiple aspects of the game tbh. If it ends up that targeting becomes an issue with 8 people standing on top of each other, then this solution might not work, but its worth testing. AOEs make it so you can be braindead and keep 8 people from capping. Force Storm being the #1 reason this change even appears necessary.

 

Sure, some teams will attempt to just cap and hope the other team is bad enough to not hit someone. But it really isn't that difficult to tab target to the person closest to capping and shoot them once. Teams with 1 person guarding doors/nodes will, however, be punished by this if their team doesn't rotate in time. It will encourage both defending and attacking multiple nodes at once in theory, but it will have to be tested to see if it accomplishes this.

[Brunner_Venda]

I would like to second this. Healers have too much survivability sans guard. The meta is trying to separate a healer from their tank, but it doesn't work if nobody even has to guard them for them to facetank half the enemy team.

 

The new capping change will make it so that all it takes is 8 pairs of grabbing hands to take an objective if the other team can't cycle targets fast enough.

 

It's a dumb idea.

[CaptMurphy]

I understand why the sniper AOEs should not interrupt a node channel because neither orbital nor probe require the caster to maintain the ability with a channel. ergo, their AOE itself cannot be interrupted. but BH and sorc aoe can be interrupted. smash and sin and PT AOE all require the player to stand right on top of the cap.

 

Not quite, but I like where you're headed with this. I agree that the fire and forget aoe's should not stop a cap. On the other hand, snipers also have suppressive fire, which should be allowed. It's nowhere near as easy to stop a cap as it was pre 3.0 when all we had to do was aim and shoot. Snipers/Gunslingers now need to get into cover to activate this, which doesn't sound like much, but it's nowhere near as quick as it was. An argument can also be made that we can't be interrupted if we're entrenched, but anyone who was in a solo ranked match with a sniper/GS can tell you that even if they toggle all their DCD's they're still dead in about 4-5 gcd's when focused.

 

By the way, LOL at the ranked sniper "metrics" mentioned in the pod cast. Team ranked (which is practically non-existent in comparison) I can understand. Solos? Come on, who are they kidding?

[Klintrin]

This looks very good, major kudos to the BioWare team for actually doing this. Listening to the community for once!

 

Will definitely keep my sub running until I mess around with the stuff in S6.

[foxmob]

Honestly, I think it will improve multiple warzones. I'd like to see more than the first room of VS without it being a massive stomp. Currently the warzones heavily favor the defenders because a single player can fend off multiple opponents in most circumstances simply by AOEing the door/node. VS and NC will be the ones impacted the most and are the ones that most often end with no one taking a door or no one getting mid. It may not work out well, but I think it's well worth testing to try and make warzones a bit more fun and lot less boring.

 

you know...it's extremely difficult to cap doors on vstar. extremely difficult relative to other wz. and with remotely competent teams, novarre and cw mid and ahg are equally rough. but disarming a bomb in vstar happens VERY fast. to disallow aoe looks really really dumb in vstar.

[raidlegend]

One thing I didnt see mentioned in the notes (I havent had a chance to watch the podcast) was the ranked enhancements/mods for min/maxing. Obviously ranked comms will be gone, but will the price on these drop or will the unranked comms portion of the price become the "new price" per mod/enhancement or will the price be reworked?

 

Thanks

[Jadescythe]

you know...it's extremely difficult to cap doors on vstar. extremely difficult relative to other wz. and with remotely competent teams, novarre and cw mid and ahg are equally rough. but disarming a bomb in vstar happens VERY fast. to disallow aoe looks really really dumb in vstar.

 

I'd almost be tempted to just remove the ability to disarm the bomb. How often does it happen today with AOEs? Like 1 in 50 games maybe? I agree that channel is too fast to stop spam capping without AOE, however.

[Savej]

If you have 6 people shooting at 8 people and can't stop them, I think you're going to have problems with multiple aspects of the game tbh. If it ends up that targeting becomes an issue with 8 people standing on top of each other, then this solution might not work, but its worth testing. AOEs make it so you can be braindead and keep 8 people from capping. Force Storm being the #1 reason this change even appears necessary.

 

Sure, some teams will attempt to just cap and hope the other team is bad enough to not hit someone. But it really isn't that difficult to tab target to the person closest to capping and shoot them once. Teams with 1 person guarding doors/nodes will, however, be punished by this if their team doesn't rotate in time. It will encourage both defending and attacking multiple nodes at once in theory, but it will have to be tested to see if it accomplishes this.

 

How long does it take to cap a node? How many globals do you get in that amount of time? Everyone's tab starts with the first capper, who's going to cycle to the end of the list first? But then how does the attacker team stop the 6 from disarming? Oh yeah, I remember now, not aoe dmg but... a o e cc... some classes can practically spam that. Sins just became the best cappers and guards all over again. I don't really care, though - voidstar doors are the least of the problems with pvp atm.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Savej

[Fellow-Canadian]

Honestly, I agree with all of the changes except the one where AOE doesn't stop a cap.

 

This is going to make annoying 4-5 man spam cap fests common. That's annoying. Reconsider this one. AOE's are an effective counter to Zerg capping, and it should be.

 

The problem with stalemates is the tank/multi healer meta. Fix that if you want to change that, come up with something else.

 

Calling AOE effective at stopping caps is an understatement. Spamming AE is 100% total area denial and while it's going on nobody will be able to cap at all. It requires no skill at all and no line of sight.

 

With this change now you will see a separation of good and bad players. The good players will find a way to stop those caps and the bad ones who relied on AE won't.

 

This is a good change for PVP.

 

If you really can't live without AE interrupting caps then roll a class with an AE cc ability/knockback or just keep plenty of cc grenades on you.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Fellow-Canadian

[MaximusRex]

So, I never involved myself with PTS... I think I want to be a part of this if that's one way to have a bigger impact on what gets changed and what does not.

 

My question is, how do you know what is being tested on PTS, and when it's being tested on PTS? Where do we find this info?

 

Maybe if it was easier to find this information more people would be a part of PTS?

 

It's in the Dev tracker every time they bring up PTS and what the patch notes for PTS are.

[Elracor]

Howdy Force_Seeker,

 

The XP and Credit change does not impact Valor.

 

Ranked Comms will be converted automatically at a 1:1 ratio when 3.3 goes Live. In addition, the Warzone Comm limit is being raised to 200,000. And if some player has more than that then there will be a soft cap where the comms will be added but more can't be gained until under the cap. For players in this extreme situation they can purchase the new Warzone Comm Legacy Lockboxes detailed in the podcast to get under the cap on a certain character if they have no gear, medpacs or vanity items they wish to purchase.

 

How would you ever have more than 200,000 previous to 3.3? Am I missing a joke here?

[Oginator]

Aoe's not stopping the caps would ruin the warzones. Getting a group of 8 pugs to spam cap is much easier than getting 8 pugs all pick one target and keep hitting it so they can't cap.

 

Also, I realize this is an unlikely scenario, but just one person would not be able to stop 7-8 people spam capping at the same time because of gcd timers. That just doesn't seem right.

 

Have you considered something like interracting with a node puts you in combat so you can't be cc'ed for 16secs before you can actually fight the person just so they can stealth out and cc you for another 16secs before someone else comes.

In my opinion this makes team with a stealther willing to guard have the upper edge just because of class unbalance and punishes people for not playing a stealth class in most cases.

[MaximusRex]

Overall these look good. i'm on the Fence about about AOE damage not breaking a cap, I can see where it might be good, but also how it might be bad.

 

With better gear progression I might try playing more again, but I still don't like that Arenas are part of the Unranked queue.

 

Fix the terrible controls in GSF and I might play that too.

[BigDumbViking]

Calling AOE effective at stopping caps is an understatement. Spamming AE is 100% total area denial and while it's going on nobody will be able to cap at all. It requires no skill at all and no line of sight.

 

With this change now you will see a separation of good and bad players. The good players will find a way to stop those caps and the bad ones who relied on AE won't.

 

Which is fine if you are allowed to queue 8 so that you don't have to rely on the swarms of PVE <1k expertise conquest'ards...

 

Getting rid of spammable AOE's from stopping caps, and fire and forget AOE's like orbital strike I'm all for... but canceling all AOE's from stopping caps is rough.

[Oginator]

How would you ever have more than 200,000 previous to 3.3? Am I missing a joke here?

 

Didn't you learn basic math at school? 2750+4500=200,000

[Jadescythe]

How long does it take to cap a node? How many globals do you get in that amount of time? Everyone's tab starts with the first capper, who's going to cycle to the end of the list first? But then how does the attacker team stop the 6 from disarming? Oh yeah, I remember now, not aoe dmg but... a o e cc... some classes can practically spam that. Sins just became the best cappers and guards all over again. I don't really care, though - voidstar doors are the least of the problems with pvp atm.

 

I'm not sure what you are saying is what they mean. AOE CC being things like the PT or Mara AOE stun, not something like Jugg AOE slow. If it stops your actions, then it would stop your cap.

 

Most caps are 6-8 seconds if I remember correctly outside of the bomb removal, which I agree would be an issue without AOE.

[Technohic]

I guess I kind of agree with people when thinking about it that un-managed AOEs that just hit without the person doing anything should not stop caps but if you run Sab/Eng; your role is area denial so I guess that means something other than the area around a node. That's fine and I can live with that and at least see how it goes.

 

What about cone type of attacks? Are they getting counted in this AOE thing? Thinking of pulse cannons and flame throwers and the likes. Trying to remember the ability for scoundrel/operatives that at least used to cost UH to do a frontal cone but I ignored it most of the time.

[CaptMurphy]

Which is fine if you are allowed to queue 8 so that you don't have to rely on the swarms of PVE <1k expertise conquest'ards...

 

Getting rid of spammable AOE's from stopping caps, and fire and forget AOE's like orbital strike I'm all for... but canceling all AOE's from stopping caps is rough.

 

I'm sorry... call me spoiled, but I can't take anything you post seriously without a .gif embedded

[Sangrar]

well, I was honestly not expecting that...

 

wow

 

that just made my day, and now we won't have the problem of idiots in greens anymore!

[Kheeleb]

PvP changes sound good to me.

 

Just some thoughts:

 

Why leave it at 2 WZ gear sets ? With the cost reduction of 33% (exhumed) and 81% (Dark Reaver) the cost of these two sets should be nearly equal. Why not scrap the exhumed set and have the Dark Reaver set the only pvp set ? For active players it should only cost 2 or 3 weeks more to get DR.

 

AOE changes need some compensation IMO. Preventing AOEs from stopping a cap is a great way to speed up a match and make it more interesting, but then the pendulum come out the other side, and a cap with 4 or 5 simultaneous cappers will be nearly unstoppable. So please disable multicaps, too. That means, if one player is capping a node, another player cannot join him and cap it simultaneously, instead he/she should get a message like "This node is processed by another player". Only when the first player is interrupted another player should be able to cap.

 

Sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language.

[CaptMurphy]

Concerning the 2018 minimum for ranked:

 

How does/will the mechanic work? - Do you need 2018 in order to queue and once that happens, we are unable to swap out our gear; kind of like it is now where we're unable to respec once we queue for a WZ?

Edited May 28, 2015 by CaptMurphy

[BaineOs]

One clarification that I'd like to make is that AoE DAMAGE abilities will no longer interrupt a capture, AoE CC will still interrupt however. Your points are still valid but we encourage everyone who is suspect of this change to play in on PTS when it comes up with 3.3. Like we said in the podcast, if this is change has a negative impact on gameplay we will make adjustments but from our internal playtests this has been a positive change. We are looking forward to your feedback and sharing of experiences with this and all the other changes coming!

 

This is going to be a huge nerf to the sniper engineering skill plasma probe, the damage it does is questionable at best due to no front loaded damage and even with a 70% slow it's far too easy for people to get out of range. The utility plasma probe gives is big for this spec, if this goes ahead then you are going to have to redesign plasma probe in order for it to be effective in pvp.

 

The same thing could probably be said for orbital strike as well, sure the damage both do is useful....any damage at all no matter how good or bad is useful but the effectiveness of them does not make up at all for the HUGE loss of utility.

 

I think you need to explain this one in great detail, don't let our engineering spec which is hardly played as it is suffer for changes really meant for other classes with aoe skills.

[Sindariel]

For players in this extreme situation they can purchase the new Warzone Comm Legacy Lockboxes detailed in the podcast to get under the cap on a certain character if they have no gear, medpacs or vanity items they wish to purchase.

 

Didn't you make Stronghold Labes BoP to stop players from moving warzone comms to other characters via legacy bank? And now you're adding a Warzone Comm Legacy Lockbox?

 

Logic?! Anywhere?!

[Elracor]

Didn't you make Stronghold Labes BoP to stop players from moving warzone comms to other characters via legacy bank? And now you're adding a Warzone Comm Legacy Lockbox?

 

Logic?! Anywhere?!

 

The logic being they've realized removing ways to stop moving Warzones comms was a bad idea, and rather than just adding half-broken ways to moved comms they've gone and made an official way to do it.

Edited May 28, 2015 by MFollin