Week by week effect of changes (get your metrics here)

[Ottoattack]

Gyromanics pretty good analysis. I think looking through the info for overall participation week 16 which has the highest participation was right after 5.2 release. 5.3 though did not have that much traction probably due to a combination:

 

1) 1 boss and not the start of the new ops.

2) Major nerfs to ranged dps + healing sorc which pissed off the entire sniper, merc and sorc player base.

3) Things slow down a bit in the summer.

 

Looking through dps and heal distribution it has been slightly more even between classes since 5.3, except PT. PT currently has no player base and changes would not impact them at all now, sadly. In addition, the change was for pyro, which no one plays cuz even after the change it still sucks. AP, which is the dps discipline for PT that gets played, did not see any changes.

 

Now if we use the ops data to generalize for the entire game population, it looks like 25% player base drop over the past few month. Consistent with PvP ques and FP ques drop. The question is it going to pick-up? At the pace BW is introducing content and performing class balance surely not. The player base was estimated around 250,000 in the beginning of 2017. Probably a bit below 200,000 now. Unless BW does something drastic, it probably drop below 150,000 by the end of this year. I will be surprised if SWTOR can even maintain 100,000 by beginning of 2019 (absent some major changes).

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ottoattack

[merovejec]

PVE players are unhappy with the DPS nerfs effecting their content. PvP players are unhappy because all we wanted was utility balances. At least they brought the two communities together....

 

Heh yeah, sounds very stupid when you look at it this way

 

What really bothered PVP was the surviveability and that wasnt touched, instead DPS was, I mean come on ppl!! Even Assault Specialist was nerfed, which was barely used in PVP and also in PVE, so I dont know who does these things!

[merovejec]

Certainly deserves Cartel Coins for his analysis as they probably no longer have paid staffers to track these kinds of metrics.

 

Sadly you cant donate gold in this thread

[merovejec]

The actual changes are far from perfect, but the logic behind them is somewhat good (again, talking about pure DPS/HPS output and not defensive and utilities). I don't agree with the 5% gap, and I'm pretty sure I don't agree with the number they are aiming for (too low for PVE). However, if all those changes happened two weeks into 5.0 (like the MM/Engi/AP nerfs in 4.0), it would not have been as bad. You can slightly tweak numbers 6 months into an expansion, but there is nothing small about what happened. You can't remove 1000 DPS on some specs without breaking PVE progression. This is way too late to change numbers this much.

 

I like the general idea of DoT specs being top due to sustained dps, Burst specs second, AoE specs third, but the way the specs are now its a total mess!

[HuaRya]

Sadly you cant donate gold in this thread

 

No I meant the people at Bioware rewarding him for showing statistics that show a drop off in gamers after a major nerf bat by Neegan.

[merovejec]

No I meant the people at Bioware rewarding him for showing statistics that show a drop off in gamers after a major nerf bat by Neegan.

 

lol I could send him a 2400 cc code if he wants

[ottffsse]

I like the general idea of DoT specs being top due to sustained dps, Burst specs second, AoE specs third, but the way the specs are now its a total mess!

 

yes let's look at it:

PTs: Pyro (sustain) maybe has about 1% more damage potential now than Tacs (burst) now but rarely achieves it due to resources/ and underbuff-conclusion: keep playing Tactics

Sins: Deception (burst) still clearly better dps than Hatred (sustain) except a few add heavy fights, conclusion: keep playing deception

Mandos: kind balanced ok as in the sustain (IO) does more dps than Gunnery now clearly, but Gunnery is now pretty much at the bottom, scratch that it is at the very bottom, and I am sure the %s between them in terms of dps output is more than 5%.

Snipers: kind of ok I guess, but overall dps nerfs hit hard for peeps who do not have full 248 gear.

Sorcs: Non-bugged vanilla Lightning (burst) still does more single target dps than Madness (sustain), just check the parses; or in most favorable terms it's basically a very close wash, they are equally underwhelming unless you bug your lightning.

 

And as an overall note: If devs decide to nuke nerf more classes like burst melee down even more people wil leave the game.

Edited July 26, 2017 by ottffsse

[merovejec]

yes let's look at it

 

Yup thats pretty much it. The main issue is that the burst specs before (MM, AP etc) were so overperforming with the big hits that they actually surpassed the sustained DoT specs. But the burst specs were OK imho and they should have buffed the DoT specs instead of nerfing the burst, now we have the state of the game where ppl might struggle with dps in NiMs, it all depends on the next set of changes in 5.4

[Eloi_BG]

it all depends on the next set of changes in 5.4

Next set won't help, from what they have anounced:

 

- Carnage change: clearly a nerf, from their numbers it should be 5% behind anni but it's about equal in pure single target sustained

- Fury change: a buff, it's supposed to be between carnage and anni, might make it viable on some fights

Conclusion for marauders: Nerf in most settings, status quo in the rest, fury might be better, but will never perform as well as carnage right now on burst fights, anni fights will stay the same.

 

- Leth change: clearly a nerf, just look at the boards (not saying it needs it, but from their logic it does)

- Conc change: probably a really small nerf, since it's slightly over rage/ap. TBH even considering their logic not really sure why it's getting changed

- Probably a small buff, even tho it has the best potential AOE numbers, actual in fight numbers aren't that good (from ixparse stats they are the lowest average), again not 100% sure

Conclusion for ops, DPS nerf in all situations, probably healing buff

 

Since they aren't announcing making DPS checks easier, this will not help at all, it will only be harder once 5.4 drops. Not reverting any too drastic changes they made in 5.3 and nerfing more.

[merovejec]

Next set won't help, from what they have anounced:

 

- Carnage change: clearly a nerf, from their numbers it should be 5% behind anni but it's about equal in pure single target sustained

- Fury change: a buff, it's supposed to be between carnage and anni, might make it viable on some fights

Conclusion for marauders: Nerf in most settings, status quo in the rest, fury might be better, but will never perform as well as carnage right now on burst fights, anni fights will stay the same.

 

- Leth change: clearly a nerf, just look at the boards (not saying it needs it, but from their logic it does)

- Conc change: probably a really small nerf, since it's slightly over rage/ap. TBH even considering their logic not really sure why it's getting changed

- Probably a small buff, even tho it has the best potential AOE numbers, actual in fight numbers aren't that good (from ixparse stats they are the lowest average), again not 100% sure

Conclusion for ops, DPS nerf in all situations, probably healing buff

 

Since they aren't announcing making DPS checks easier, this will not help at all, it will only be harder once 5.4 drops. Not reverting any too drastic changes they made in 5.3 and nerfing more.

 

What I meant was that those should be the final changes at least from their point of view. After that you will know what to play

 

Since I main a sentinel and only play Concentration I would welcome a buff for PVE, since its only viable for PVP now. Combat does need a nerf, mainly for the AoE, its not a AoE spec after all. As for ops/scoundrels Leth deserves nerf for PVE and Scrapper for PVP, thats pretty much it. Yes no buffs expected, but still we will know the overall situation then.

[masterceil]

- Probably a small buff, even tho it has the best potential AOE numbers, actual in fight numbers aren't that good (from ixparse stats they are the lowest average), again not 100% sure

 

Only thing I'd like to see for Medicine/Sawbones is making it so literally everything we do doesn't get interrupted. I get that it's not a burst healer, but it'd be nice to be able to instant-cast a couple medium heals just to mitigate some spikes. Underworld Medicine, Kolto Waves, Kolto Pack, all channeled or cast (once/90s Pugnacity notwithstanding). Even Diagnostic Scan is channeled ffs. The only instant heals we have are the weak, splashy AoE and Upper Hand-consuming (and also weak if not proc'd) Emergency Medpac. Heals buff from one and HoT refresh on the other is nice, but that doesn't help us deal with damage spikes in MM FPs, let alone Ops or PvP.

 

Before someone posts screenshots of top Medicine/Sawbones heals, it's an easy heal class to fluff - spam probes and AoEs and you can rack up some numbers quick. But that don't mean that people ain't dyin', which they are if they're taking spiky damage and relying on an op/smug to heal them.

 

I'd probably be happy if they just reduced the cast times, or made the splashy AoE heal a little more. Dramatic changes aren't needed here, just some minor tweaks that shouldn't piss off Sorcs/Sages or Mercs/Mandos

 

Also, not really sure what they're doing with Concealment/Scrapper. I don't PvP much, and I hear it's a problem class there. In PvE, though, I think they're in a damn fine place right now - not weak, not too strong. I hope they don't break it to appease PvPers.

 

As far as Lethality/Ruffian, this is my main spec on my Scoundrel, and I'm fully expecting a nerf. In rating 245.47 gear (average of all 30 armorings/barrels/mods/enhancements/one-pieces), I'm doing 9.99k on a dummy rn (this close to 10k!). I'm not a Top 10%er, but post-nerf, I'll be happy as long as those in the 90th percentile are able to still hit 10k, even if it drops me back to 9.7-8k myself. If I start swingin' for 9.4 and top BiS-geared Ruffians are only able to pull off 9.8k, we're gonna have some problems

Edited July 26, 2017 by masterceil

[Shipwright]

Only thing I'd like to see for Medicine/Sawbones is making it so literally everything we do doesn't get interrupted. I get that it's not a burst healer, but it'd be nice to be able to instant-cast a couple medium heals just to mitigate some spikes. Underworld Medicine, Kolto Waves, Kolto Pack, all channeled or cast (once/90s Pugnacity notwithstanding). Even Diagnostic Scan is channeled ffs. The only instant heals we have are the weak, splashy AoE and Upper Hand-consuming (and also weak if not proc'd) Emergency Medpac. Heals buff from one and HoT refresh on the other is nice, but that doesn't help us deal with damage spikes in MM FPs, let alone Ops or PvP.

 

Before someone posts screenshots of top Medicine/Sawbones heals, it's an easy heal class to fluff - spam probes and AoEs and you can rack up some numbers quick. But that don't mean that people ain't dyin', which they are if they're taking spiky damage and relying on an op/smug to heal them.

 

I'd probably be happy if they just reduced the cast times, or made the splashy AoE heal a little more. Dramatic changes aren't needed here, just some minor tweaks that shouldn't piss off Sorcs/Sages or Mercs/Mandos

 

Also, not really sure what they're doing with Concealment/Scrapper. I don't PvP much, and I hear it's a problem class there. In PvE, though, I think they're in a damn fine place right now - not weak, not too strong. I hope they don't break it to appease PvPers.

 

As far as Lethality/Ruffian, this is my main spec on my Scoundrel, and I'm fully expecting a nerf. In rating 245.47 gear (average of all 30 armorings/barrels/mods/enhancements/one-pieces), I'm doing 9.99k on a dummy rn (this close to 10k!). I'm not a Top 10%er, but post-nerf, I'll be happy as long as those in the 90th percentile are able to still hit 10k, even if it drops me back to 9.7-8k myself. If I start swingin' for 9.4 and top BiS-geared Ruffians are only able to pull off 9.8k, we're gonna have some problems

 

I am particularly curious about Medicine/Sawbones.

 

I do not profess expertise, I may be way off, totally wrong. But...I have the ugly feeling they are going to look at the fluff heals of these disciplines and smash them HARD . They over heal, constantly dropping HoTs and refreshing them, rely upon the 2 AOEs they have quite a lot. While HPS will seem large, eHPS is another story entirely.

 

My feeling is that this over healing, which is by necessity/design, is going to be ruinous for them. If the devs just go with HPS and not eHPS, these two are going to be in deep trouble.

 

I'd like to think the devs are not this obtuse, but there have been some truly goofy changes in the name of balance before.

[ivanhedgehog]

I hope Bioware does something FAST about this...they took the 100% wrong approach to balance.

 

Most of my guild has moved to ESO. They are not planning on coming back. By the time bioware pulls its head out of its 3rd point of contact those accounts will be lost. People are getting out of the habit of logging on and playing, I am seeing a much lower level of gf ops. This last balance patch had nothing to do with balance, it was about retarding dps levels. Lower dps lets them claim that progression groups still have a long way to go. I feel this was a very bad decision that they wont deal with for months, if ever.

[VirtualMorrigan]

Most of my guild has moved to ESO. They are not planning on coming back. By the time bioware pulls its head out of its 3rd point of contact those accounts will be lost. People are getting out of the habit of logging on and playing, I am seeing a much lower level of gf ops. This last balance patch had nothing to do with balance, it was about retarding dps levels. Lower dps lets them claim that progression groups still have a long way to go. I feel this was a very bad decision that they wont deal with for months, if ever.

 

Probably a lot of healers as well that have thrown the towel. I agree about getting out of the habit to log in because, personally, I wouldn't know why I should any more.

[TUXs]

Most of my guild has moved to ESO. They are not planning on coming back. By the time bioware pulls its head out of its 3rd point of contact those accounts will be lost. People are getting out of the habit of logging on and playing, I am seeing a much lower level of gf ops. This last balance patch had nothing to do with balance, it was about retarding dps levels. Lower dps lets them claim that progression groups still have a long way to go. I feel this was a very bad decision that they wont deal with for months, if ever.

Yeah, the last balance pass was handled 100% incorrectly...I don't think we'll need to wait months, but I don't think we'll see any corrections until 5.4 hits...which is a month and a half they didn't have to spare. They should revert every one of 5.3's class changes today and approach it entirely differently than they did.

[Gyronamics]

It bothers me from the moment that the developers showed off the chart of "dps goals" that they refused to be transparent about the actual objective.

 

An equivalent would be me saying I'm going to fill up the car.

 

That isn't the ACTUAL objective, I'm going to fill up the car for a bigger reason like going to work.

 

What is the desired outcome in PVE, in PVP.

 

We can look at these numbers and see player activity is being destroyed by severely damaging classes they liked playing (output and resource management).

 

Maybe the development team expected this, or worse, didn't expect this. No transparency about the ultimate goal means we don't know.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Gyronamics

[Lord_Rezo]

The highest recorded report for players on starparse in the last 16 weeks was 84,000, last week it was 50,000.

 

Do you think it might have something to do with the cxp event ending?

[HuaRya]

Probably a lot of healers as well that have thrown the towel. I agree about getting out of the habit to log in because, personally, I wouldn't know why I should any more.

 

Last night pubside Harbinger they couldn't find 2 healers for over an hour 9pm west coast time. Never saw that before on Harbinger. Can't imagine what SL or JC raids are going.

 

If it's a matter of personal pride I can see why they wouldn't want to restore the nerf but if it means 30% departure they need to swallow that pride and fix for next patch.

[Gyronamics]

Do you think it might have something to do with the cxp event ending?

 

Peak player values were 13 weeks ago aka patch 5.2 with Iokath and Tyth being released, lots of activity, lots of raiding.

 

Lowest values were the week they made class changes with an abnormal drop on the classes which were badly affected.

 

So no I don't.

 

But I have no monopoly on theories, you can say why you think it might be a factor.

[Lord_Rezo]

Peak player values were 13 weeks ago aka patch 5.2 with Iokath and Tyth being released, lots of activity, lots of raiding.

 

Lowest values were the week they made class changes with an abnormal drop on the classes which were badly affected.

 

So no I don't.

 

But I have no monopoly on theories, you can say why you think it might be a factor.

 

Well, i meant no disrespect, but i think there are a huge amount of variables that should be taken into consideration before saying something was good or bad. Like its summer (more people in vacations?), no major story content in months (with Tyth they released Iokath which had a small story at least and dailies), no new PvP season or warzone, the dissapointment in the new stronghold, and a lot of other stuff have happened recently.

 

But also taking in consideration your point... just as an example, imagine if Juggernauts Rage were doing 100k aoe damage always crit every 6-10 seconds in pvp, obviously there would be a huge crying in the forums and that class would be the most played ingame, since well, everybody likes to be op... yet when they nerfed that skill, you would obviously see a lower amount of players with that class since after balancing they would have returned to other classes.

Of course it could also mean that a perfectly well balanced class, could be too much nerfed because in PvP they were doing quite well but the nerf made them not viable in PvE, thus losing the PvE players of that class and a big amount of dissatisfied pvp players... but overall... when there is a nerf, there is a cause behind it and most people will never like when their class is nerfed (and this applies to any game in the world), but sometimes it is needed.

[Gyronamics]

You don't need to make up a scenario, use the real ones.

 

Changes have been applied and we are looking at numbers change.

 

 

Anyway here we are on the next full week and here are some numbers comparing peak of april to the full week just gone.

 

All reports: 84731 59401 -30%

 

DPS: 50942 34901 -31%

 

Sentinel: 7695 5638 -27%

Guardian: 4709 3590 -24%

Shadow: 4698 4384 -7%

Sage: 4386 3829 -13%

Vanguard: 1982 1990 --

Commando: 17073 6938 -59%

Scoundrel: 3213 3120 -3%

Gunslinger: 8186 5412 -33%

 

Healers: 19893 14675 -26%

 

Scoundrel: 4090 4391 +7%

Commando: 5731 4890 -15%

Sage: 10072 5395 -46%

 

Tanks: 13896 9925 -29%

 

Vanguard: 2814 2216 -21%

Shadow: 6123 4120 -33%

Guardian: 4959 3589 -28%

 

Remember these are organised PVE only, Starparse users only.

 

Sadly we have no PVP data.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Gyronamics

[Frosticate]

summer time

all plebs are out

[Gyronamics]

summer time

all plebs are out

 

A factor certainly. But some classes have not been changed at all and defy any summer falloff.

 

Meanwhile the ones which have been changed don't balance the books.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Gyronamics

[naNuke]

WTS sorc healer, just 20 mil, a bit used, all gear min-maxed, pm me ingame. /s

 

These numbers indicate complete loss of player population, if some classes were deemed underpowered and there was a shift of players to play different classes, wouldn't there be some increased numbers?

 

If we assume that all reports is the population and for example sentinel players make up 9% of the population, then after the nerfs and reduced all reports the sentinel players make up again 9%.

 

By this theory I can conclude (I am lazy and just assume here because I dont want to count all the portions) that we are just missing lots of data to make any statistical judgement based on starparse.

[Gyronamics]

Debatable.

 

When you do a survey of a large group the ideal is to get the right kind of information from every single one.

 

You can't usually do that so a sample is done, large enough to get a meaningful picture of the whole and you have a think about how biased the method of collecting data was.

 

There's bias here alright, obviously everyone had to have starparse which itself suggests the sample is of a more informed group than average.

 

Can't really say what way that swings things or how large a sample vs the whole population we are seeing.

 

But what we definitely have is about 60,000-85,000 fight reports per week over 16 weeks and its not a mess of random results, we can see strong patterns, almost entirely downwards but clear all the same.

 

It's too much data to be dismissed.

 

I would also say it's the only data we can look at so there's not a better standard to compare to.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Gyronamics