So many defensive cooldowns

[olagatonjedi]

This.

 

WoW has continued to streamline its design while adding in new content. SWTOR hasn't bothered to do that.

WOW NEEDS to streamline to keep playerbase. Swtor will always have some playerbase due to it being star wars, and because they understand this, they can put less resources towards the game and still stay alive.

[JabbaWabbA]

by all means, yearn for a nerf

[Uruare]

In the end, all you can do is adapt or quit. Bioware only fixes what EA permits them to see as being a problem.

 

If you have an issue spending money on the cartel market, they'll help you out with that. This issue?

 

This is a non-issue. Adapt or quit. Those are your only actual options.

[RDeanOU]

WOW NEEDS to streamline to keep playerbase. Swtor will always have some playerbase due to it being star wars, and because they understand this, they can put less resources towards the game and still stay alive.

 

WoW has a massive player base compared to SWTOR. They have resources this game doesn’t have, largely because of that massive player base. WoW fixes these things because it can, not because it has to.

[RDeanOU]

In the end, all you can do is adapt or quit. Bioware only fixes what EA permits them to see as being a problem.

 

If you have an issue spending money on the cartel market, they'll help you out with that. This issue?

 

This is a non-issue. Adapt or quit. Those are your only actual options.

 

It isn’t a non-issue, though I’m under no delusion that it will ever be fixed. If you had actually read my comments you would know that I don’t consider it a game-breaking issue or personally find myself unable to adapt. It’s just a tedious aspect of the gameplay that ought to be improved.

[olagatonjedi]

WoW has a massive player base compared to SWTOR. They have resources this game doesn’t have, largely because of that massive player base. WoW fixes these things because it can, not because it has to.

You didnt read what I wrote.

[TrixxieTriss]

You aren’t paying attention. I’m all for the game being a challenge. The question is how to create that challenge. Good design would create challenge through unique encounters and properly tuned fights. The challenge should come from the content itself, not from being weighed down with a glut of abilities.

 

Just because challenge is something desirable, that doesn’t mean it’s desireable in every facet of the game. I like chocolate sauce, but it isn’t an appropriate topping for every dish. Defensive cooldowns should be intuitive. It’s not an appropriate or desirable spot to insert challenge into the game.

 

You seem to be avoiding the pvp part of this discussion. You can’t use one of the abilities (obfuscate) in boss fights and the other (Camo) isn’t really used.

So you are left with 3 DCD for Operation PVE. Which is about the same or less than every other class.

In PVP, especially competitive pvp, those extra DCD are needed because we are fighting 8 different advance classes with 3 specs each, essentially we are fighting 24 different types of classes and every one of those has different things we need to mitigate in some way.

There are so many slows, mez, stuns and CCs in this game now, as well so many situations that are never encountered in a boss fight. If you want to ask them to remove something in this game, ask them to remove a portion of those and maybe all classes wouldn’t need so many survivability abilities.

PVPers learn when and how to apply those DCD properly against 24 types of specs and that is not as easy as it is learning 3 DCDs in PVE boss encounters and PVPers don’t have a problem with 5 DCDs

Each one of those DCD has a time and place to use them. I don’t think you could combine any of them or they would be stupidly OP to the point of breaking the class severely in pvp.

While you may think this is an easy fix for your pve game play, removing or combining those abilities would affect pvp in a major way and they would need to do the same with every other classes survivability, which would break them in Pve.

If you want to hae only your 3 DCDs, then just remove obfuscate and Camo from your skill bar as you won’t need them in Operations. Then your problem is solved.

Edited December 23, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

[RDeanOU]

You didnt read what I wrote.

 

I did read what you wrote. I think what you wrote was delusional. This game doesn’t have the built in player base you seem to think it does. That’s why its population is so incredibly low. People aren’t going to keep playing a game that isn’t fun just because it is tied to Star Wars.

[TrixxieTriss]

I did read what you wrote. I think what you wrote was delusional. This game doesn’t have the built in player base you seem to think it does. That’s why its population is so incredibly low. People aren’t going to keep playing a game that isn’t fun just because it is tied to Star Wars.

 

You are right and wrong at the same time. Most of those people who were going to leave, already have. Those remaining are the die hard SW fans. That’s why the population is now on 5 servers.

If 5.0 and moved servers didn’t drive us away...

Bioware would have to make another fundamentally massive mistake to drive the remaining people away.

Yes, people still leave, but mainly through natural attrition like many games. The fans will stay because there is no other SW MMO game. So there is a built in player base, it may shrink over time, but there will always be one till they shut the game.

[ivanhedgehog]

This.

 

WoW has continued to streamline its design while adding in new content. SWTOR hasn't bothered to do that.

 

and now wow is making fights slow and tedious. NOT a recipe for success. WOW gutted some classes when they over simplified them. some classes only have a 3 or 4 button rotation. some even lack AOEs. now they are tripling the hp of all mobs which will only slow things down more. This change will go over like a fart in church.

[TrixxieTriss]

. This change will go over like a fart in church.

 

Better than a fart in an elevator

[sayNih]

This is an issue with every class so far as I know, but I'm just going to talk about the Marauder I've been playing because it illustrates the problem well.

 

My Sith Marauder is level 39, is a pure dps class, and he has 5 different defensive cooldowns. This doesn't count Heroic Moment and only counts abilities that have actual damage reductions.

 

What is the point of that? It feels like this could be reduced to 2 cooldowns and it would make far more sense and be much easier for people to manage.

There is a definite need for no-click defensive options. Some of us don't run macros in PvP, and many of us can't react as well as we did before the server move.

 

The Heavy Armor advanced classes shouldn't need superfluous key clicking. Saber Reflect should be a DPS Juggs only defensive. All we need is a buff to armor rating.

 

I don't need role-inappropriate abilities and finger dancing to make the game seem more exiting.

Edited December 23, 2017 by sayNih

[RDeanOU]

and now wow is making fights slow and tedious. NOT a recipe for success. WOW gutted some classes when they over simplified them. some classes only have a 3 or 4 button rotation. some even lack AOEs. now they are tripling the hp of all mobs which will only slow things down more. This change will go over like a fart in church.

 

I actually agree that they went too far with their pruning, which is something I’ve already stated. I feel like a lot of what they removed were abilities that brought flavor to the classes. I think there is a happy medium and there is no effort at all by the SWTOR devs to even look for it.

[TrixxieTriss]

There is a definite need for no-click defensive options. Some of us don't run macros in PvP, and many of us can't react as well as we did before the server move.

 

The Heavy Armor advanced classes shouldn't need superfluous key clicking. Saber Reflect should be a DPS Juggs only defensive. All we need is a buff to armor rating.

 

I don't need role-inappropriate abilities and finger dancing to make the game seem more exiting.

 

No real pvpers run macros in pvp or at least they shouldn’t be because it’s against the terms and conditions and considered cheating by Bioware, which “may” get you a ban.

Anyone who runs Marcos is a scrub

[TrixxieTriss]

I actually agree that they went too far with their pruning, which is something I’ve already stated. I feel like a lot of what they removed were abilities that brought flavor to the classes. I think there is a happy medium and there is no effort at all by the SWTOR devs to even look for it.

 

Why do you keep ignoring the other part of this discussion. PVP PVP PVP.

 

As myself and others have pointed out multiple times now.. WE NEED ALL OF THE ABILITIES IN PVP..

 

And out of the 5 DCD, you can only physically use 4 in PVE operations and the other one is relatively useless in PVE Operations. So essentially YOU ONLY HAVE 3 DCD to use Operations. IF you don’t like having 5 on your taskbar, remove those 2 you don’t use.. PROBLEM SOLVED..

 

If you can’t work out how to use 3 DCD on a Mara, you probably have problems on other classes too because they all have more than 3 survivability abilities.

 

Sorry, but your argument is a 100% L2P Mara. It is one of the more challenging classes to play well, especially without a healer. Maybe try playing a more simple class.

Edited December 24, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

[Bird_of_Thunder]

This is an issue with every class so far as I know, but I'm just going to talk about the Marauder I've been playing because it illustrates the problem well.

 

My Sith Marauder is level 39, is a pure dps class, and he has 5 different defensive cooldowns. This doesn't count Heroic Moment and only counts abilities that have actual damage reductions.

 

What is the point of that? It feels like this could be reduced to 2 cooldowns and it would make far more sense and be much easier for people to manage.

 

Try some PvP, you'll see why you have so many

[Teladis]

Try some PvP, you'll see why you have so many

 

Um what does PVP have to do with it? IF the defense skill is more powerful and shorter cd that could make up for it.

 

 

Also do what wow did. (since this is a wow clone anyway.) Just give extra skills for pvp only.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Teladis

[nyrkverse]

this discussion feels a little bit like someone complaining there are too many different pieces in chess when there could be only one kind and then somebody else points out that those pieces do different things and there's already a game like that anyway and it's called checkers

 

also, just as a general fyi, force camo and obfuscate are far from useless in pve.

 

obfuscate works just fine on *flashpoint* bosses. In Traitor among the Chiss, just for a very recent example, it's excellent to mitigate the damage from armor-piercing cannon burst from boss #1 and master stroke from Valss.

 

force camo can actually have many defensives uses in operations (albeit a little less since mad dash was introduced, but still good), doubles down as a cleanse with the utility, triples down as a speed boost in a pinch and helps avoid physics getting you back into the fight asap. For example on Tyth HM, if you force camo right before inversion goes off your movement abilities won't go unusable and you can force charge right away instead of clumsly running back (although there's an hilarious bug that if you hit force charge too quickly you'll be thrown off the platform). and, well, of course it's a threat drop but we all know a *real* marauder would never use it for *that*

[Exocor]

First of all, i can only give you reliable information about and I can only argue with endgame-operation-content and the use of dcd's therefor.

 

The OP wants to have about 2 strong dcd's with mediocre/short cooldown instead of 5 or more different dcd's with their current, unequal cooldown.

 

Before we start over, I'll suggest to inform yourself here about the different damage types and possible mitigation. So, now, let's take the most difficult final-boss-encounter into consideration: Brontes Nightmare/Master Mode

 

The DPS's job is, to survive energy spheres (strong cooldown helpful) and, that's the most important part, to survive Brontes fire&forget. You get stunned, then receive MR-damage. You cannot parry/dodge MR-attacks while stunned. For sentinels, it is really helpful, to have different dcd's to counter this. 1. pure damage reduction (rebuke, gbtf, force camou) 2. MR-defense-chance with stun-immunity-utility (saber ward).

Besides this, your duty is, to do as much dps as possible. With just 2 strong dcd's, you will run out of dcd's very early.

There is also the question, what these dcd's should do? Combined MR-Deff, increased Damage Reduction and Force-Tech Resist Chance? You don't need DR with both other types and you don't need Restist Chances, when you have DR.

 

For endgame-pve, dcd's are much more then oh-****-buttons. To play a class properly in a given encounter, you have to know what your dcd's are doing and what problems are encountering you. You have to use them preventatively. A usually very weak dcd can situationally become superior. An example: In terms of raw damage income numbers, force camouflage is very useless. 50% damage reduction for some seconds and it ends, when you start doing damage. For Brontes, you can mitigate the stun, the kick and 50% of the damage from fire&forget when used properly. Moreover, you can easily handle energy spheres with this ability.

 

So, mastering a class is mastering all ability and to know which ability to use in what situation. Having a couple of different dcd's doing different things is not the problem, it's in fact an integrat part of the combat system in swtor. By reducing the amount of abilitys, the effort, you have to put into mastering a class would decrease. And that is completely out of the games interest. This game is developed for long-time-motivation. I am doing endgame content for more then 2 years and a few months ago, I really felt, that I am on a good way of having mastered my main class. However, that's nothing compared founders, doing this stuff since old soa-times.

 

However, from a different point of view, you are right. A complex dcd and damage type-system is not necessary for leveling or doing heroics or other comparatively easy single-player or group-stuff. But the different abilities are defineing the different classes. I don't play shadow because of the dual-sabre (nah, okay, that's also a reason ), but because of the unique composition of abilities. When I just want two strong dcd's that are helpful against everything and with mediocre dcd, i would swap to vanguard. Yes, there are classes with other skillsets. So, when you don't like the many abilitys on your bar, just swap to vanguard/powertech. But, please, don't ask for revoking the uniqueness of specific classes because you don't like them. Try to understand the whole combat-system of swtor.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Exocor

[PennyAnn]

I would rather they not DUMB the game down any more that they already have....

 

^^This. What you are suggesting is that they combine the DCDs and give them a shorter cooldown so you virtually always have them available and you don't ever have to think about what you are defending against, you just click button and take less damage.

 

What you see as ability bloat many of us see as tools for those who have situational awareness. Take away the need for situational awareness because you've got a cooldown you can use nearly endlessly that does all of the things necessary to defend against all kinds of damage (because it was combined with 2 other abilities) and you've got a dumbing down of the game. There has been quite enough of that.

 

Yes, I understand that you'd rather focus your "I'm good at this class" on offensive abilities rather than defensive abilities, but that is not how this game is designed. If there are so many examples of games that do it better, you might want to consider playing one of those instead.

Edited December 24, 2017 by PennyAnn

[PennyAnn]

I don't expect it to change anytime soon, mostly because this game likely doesn't have the budget to fix these issues and it isn't something that makes the game unplayable. It's just a piece of poor design that I am pointing out. If they ever wanted to iron out some of this game's problems, this would be a great area to look at, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

So basically you just wanted to make a thread bashing the developers of SWTOR. No one jumped on your bandwagon as quickly as you liked, so we are not able to read or are not understanding what you are asking for... when actually you know you aren't really asking for anything because they are not going to redesign the entire game to your preference.

 

Just a Developer bashing thread, gg.

[TrixxieTriss]

Um what does PVP have to do with it? IF the defense skill is more powerful and shorter cd that could make up for it.

 

Also do what wow did. (since this is a wow clone anyway.) Just give extra skills for pvp only.

 

Seriously? Do you even pvp or understand the situation?

Did you read my post about how out of the 5 abilities, only 3 are used in PVE Operations. Hence, they have already set aside extra skills to use in pvp.

Please dont ask them to do what they did in WoW because they butchered it.

Having more powerful defensive skills would make Mara’s survivability in pvp over the top and extremely OP. Then if you were to add shorter CDs, they would be unstoppable. The last thing they need is less DCDs that are made more powerful and lower CDs.

If, like the OP, you find the “5” DCD/survivability options for a Mara too much, then I suggest removing obfuscate and Camo off your task bar. Just pretend they don’t exist. Then you can concentrate on learning how to use the other three the way they are meant to be used.

Edited December 24, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

[RDeanOU]

So basically you just wanted to make a thread bashing the developers of SWTOR. No one jumped on your bandwagon as quickly as you liked, so we are not able to read or are not understanding what you are asking for... when actually you know you aren't really asking for anything because they are not going to redesign the entire game to your preference.

 

Just a Developer bashing thread, gg.

 

No, I'm basically pointing out a piece of sloppy design that could and should be improved, but likely won't because of the state this game is in at the current moment.

 

Also, it doesn't require a complete redesign of the game to address ability bloat. It's impossible to take you seriously when you resort to such absurd hyperbole.

[RDeanOU]

Seriously? Do you even pvp or understand the situation?

Did you read my post about how out of the 5 abilities, only 3 are used in PVE Operations. Hence, they have already set aside extra skills to use in pvp.

Please dont ask them to do what they did in WoW because they butchered it.

Having more powerful defensive skills would make Mara’s survivability in pvp over the top and extremely OP. Then if you were to add shorter CDs, they would be unstoppable. The last thing they need is less DCDs that are made more powerful and lower CDs.

If, like the OP, you find the “5” DCD/survivability options for a Mara too much, then I suggest removing obfuscate and Camo off your task bar. Just pretend they don’t exist. Then you can concentrate on learning how to use the other three the way they are meant to be used.

 

You either lack a basic understanding of how balance works or else you are being deliberately obtuse. If they ever decided to address this issue and trim down the number of different DCDs, they would balance the remaining abilities (both DCDs and stuns/mezzes/controlling effects) to allow PVP to remain competitive.

 

This is an across-the-board issue. So far as I can tell, every single class could stand some ability pruning. It isn't merely about one or two specific abilities that Maras have. I used the Mara as an example merely because I was leveling one at that moment and it effectively illustrated the issue. This is about class design that was bloated from the start and has never been effectively addressed.

[RDeanOU]

Why do you keep ignoring the other part of this discussion. PVP PVP PVP.

 

As myself and others have pointed out multiple times now.. WE NEED ALL OF THE ABILITIES IN PVP..

 

And out of the 5 DCD, you can only physically use 4 in PVE operations and the other one is relatively useless in PVE Operations. So essentially YOU ONLY HAVE 3 DCD to use Operations. IF you don’t like having 5 on your taskbar, remove those 2 you don’t use.. PROBLEM SOLVED..

 

If you can’t work out how to use 3 DCD on a Mara, you probably have problems on other classes too because they all have more than 3 survivability abilities.

 

Sorry, but your argument is a 100% L2P Mara. It is one of the more challenging classes to play well, especially without a healer. Maybe try playing a more simple class.

 

For the seventeenth time, I am not having a personal problem playing this or any other class well. It isn't a L2P issue because I have never once claimed the class was too difficult to play or that I didn't understand how to play it.

 

What I have said from the beginning, is that I think this game would be more enjoyable if we exchanged less meaningful choices (such as which of several DCDs to use in a specific situation) for more meaningful choices that affect our damage output or even choices based on fight mechanics.

 

It's about what kinds of choices we make and how those types of choices affect the enjoyment level of the game.

Edited December 26, 2017 by RDeanOU