Planned Warzone Changes Part 2

[Banderal]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

If this is what the changes will mean, than I'm all for it. I just want to hurt people.

 

This is why, even though it hasn't been mentioned in a yellow post here yet, I really hope they add something to let us pick warzones. Then you won't be mixing your chocolate in my peanut... I mean, you can sign up for arenas or AHG where killing matters more, and I can sign up for huttball, and everyone is happy!

 

-----

I'm basically fine with it either way, but I think some consideration should be given to amount of players that are for and against the mobility changes. We really want to keep as many people playing as possible and that's usually accomplished by not pissing them off with 7000 changes that no one asked for to begin with.

 

I think it's interesting, because I'm *sure* I've seen more and more of complaints here on the forums about how the new abilities were ruining huttball, which was never designed for them, as the level cap got higher and the movement abilities were added. And now that bioware has actually proposed something that will hinder (see what I did there ) those movement abilities, I think the feedback has been about 90% against it.

 

I'm not sure what happened to all those people who were complaining about how leap, and holo traverse and operative roll, and shadow stride, etc., have ruined huttball. Maybe all those people already got frustrated and left, or maybe it was just one person posting over and over and I didn't notice? Or maybe "these are not the mobility changes you are looking for"?

 

Thusly, I think it would be highly advisable to actually testing these changes on the PTS with the proper amount of time to consider variables involved.

 

Ditto. There was a mention in one of these posts about using the PTS. I hope that's still true, and we get to actually have some time to really test these things, and they listen if the feedback is overwhelmingly negative to something. We'll see I guess. I would have expressed my doubts, but I also would never have believed they'd add match making, changed acid, proposed removing ability usage in huttball... or even done much of anything for PvP. So maybe h-e-double-toothpick DID freeze over?

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

So now every class is just a walking DCD popper if they have the ball. Mercs can just sit back as autopilot takes them to the endzone now, I guess.

 

Just make Operatives able to roll only once every 20-25 seconds and it'll make Huttball a bit more even. Apart from Operative being able to solo till endzone I don't think Huttball was unbalanced a lot.

[alexsamma]

Hinder is intended to apply to to Sage/Sorc pulls, yes. Translocate / Transpose as well. Meaning those abilities will not work on Hindered targets.

 

-eric

 

Eric please ask the devs to reconsider this change, most non-tank classes will not be able to survive with the ball long enough to get a pass off with these changes (vs solid dps).

 

If you want to give players an incentive to pass the ball consider applying a stacking debuff (damage taken increased , healing decreased, stacking slow).

 

Hinder is a terrible mechanic given the fact that so many dcds are attached to or considered movement abilities.

Edited June 6, 2018 by alexsamma

[Gyronamics]

How terrible.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to play around their ball carrier.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to pass the ball because it's going to be faster than walking it.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to take higher risks because passing has increased danger but holding it like a slug will get you dogpiled.

 

What I ask you, what, is the problem with being able to yolo the ball solo or duo with glitchy or simply powerful mobility actions which make it hard to impossible to counter.

 

You're asking players to use fighting, actual fighting to beat their way to the enemy goal instead of zipping the ball away from opponents in 30m teleports or high speed movement abilities which are generally unstoppable.

 

It's not right to make players play a team game in huttball. It's always been about who has the best ball clicking macro and the best ball carrying class. Forcing passing and teamwork will destroy that gameplay.

 

What if they made it even worse and crippled ball click spam macros by making ball pickup be proximity/time based. It would ruin the way huttball is played

Edited June 6, 2018 by Gyronamics

[Neulwen]

I don't see the need for these huttball changes. It's not broken. Please focus efforts on trying to fix dsync instead. Because that is what's broken. If this is your answer to the dsync issues, well, intercepting balls will still cause dsync. Either way, not being able to use our abilities is indeed not fun.

 

Matchmaking is coming, so games will be more balanced skill-wise. Please don't do all these big changes at the same time.

 

• Players can no longer catch the Huttball while stunned. This creates more opportunities for counter-play, such as intercepting passes intended for a target you stun.
  

I assume this includes mezzes?

 

Idk, some things such as scamper are overpowered for Huttball because they get you through fire unscathed, but Force Speed and Charging abilities are fine on my book as they do make the match more dynamic. Specially the sage/sorc's rescue ability.

And force speed, sorc pull and mad dash etc doesnt get you past the fire? How is it fair that operatives only should lose their abilities..? I don't think that will make things more balanced.

 

 

The arena acid change seems good, but sorcs will still be the acid winning class.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Neulwen

[alexsamma]

How terrible.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to play around their ball carrier.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to pass the ball because it's going to be faster than walking it.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to take higher risks because passing has increased danger but holding it like a slug will get you dogpiled.

 

What I ask you, what, is the problem with being able to yolo the ball solo or duo with glitchy or simply powerful mobility actions which make it hard to impossible to counter.

 

You're asking players to use fighting, actual fighting to beat their way to the enemy goal instead of zipping the ball away from opponents in 30m teleports or high speed movement abilities which are generally unstoppable.

 

It's not right to make players play a team game in huttball. It's always been about who has the best ball clicking macro and the best ball carrying class. Forcing passing and teamwork will destroy that gameplay.

 

If this simply eliminated high movement buffs you might have a point to stand on but hinder eliminates a large portion of many classes dcds as well.

 

This change is effectively turning the huttball into electronet.

[Stncold]

How terrible.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to play around their ball carrier.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to pass the ball because it's going to be faster than walking it.

 

People will be forced, FORCED I say, to take higher risks because passing has increased danger but holding it like a slug will get you dogpiled.

 

What I ask you, what, is the problem with being able to yolo the ball solo or duo with glitchy or simply powerful mobility actions which make it hard to impossible to counter.

 

You're asking players to use fighting, actual fighting to beat their way to the enemy goal instead of zipping the ball away from opponents in 30m teleports or high speed movement abilities which are generally unstoppable.

 

It's not right to make players play a team game in huttball. It's always been about who has the best ball clicking macro and the best ball carrying class. Forcing passing and teamwork will destroy that gameplay.

 

What if they made it even worse and crippled ball click spam macros by making ball pickup be proximity/time based. It would ruin the way huttball is played

 

You would have a point if people going ahead for matches was a common occurrence in every match, but it's not. I consider it a blessing if I've even got one person running ahead for passes.

 

If hinder goes live you will almost never see all pug groups beat premades. As it stands now the pug group can have one good high-mobility ball carrier and one or two person going ahead or CC'ing for them while the premade can have a high mobility ball carrier and healers/people cc'ing and going ahead. Sure the premade is at an advantage, but perhaps the pug's ball carrier/cc'ers are just better players. Their ball carrier is better at creating openings which to score, punishing the other team for being in bad position with leaps etc and just overall utilizing his high mobility skills properly .

 

With hinder, you're just going to see the premade escorting their ball carrier to the endzone and the pug ball carrier left with absolutely no way to score. He'll be trying to slowly walk it into the endzone and dying everytime as he slowly gets pummeled to death with no healers and none of his team going ahead for passes and no way to punish the enemy merc standing on the catwalk above him by leaping to him, pushing him down to the goal line, and leaping to him again.

 

As many others have said, hinder will be the death of Huttball as it is and we'll return to the dark days of 1.x Huttball. Nobody who has been there wants that back.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Stncold

[Gyronamics]

Classes that can solo score by bypassing the enemy team is positive and enjoyable gameplay, I can't understand why this would be shut down by forcing player interaction when you're the ball carrier.

 

If you can't solo score that means you're forced into playing as a group

Edited June 6, 2018 by Gyronamics

[Lundorff]

The only thing that can save sranked at this point, is a 1 vs 1 queue and/or a total overhaul of the dysfunctional elo system. Personally I would love a 1 vs. 1 queue, as it would put a hard stop for a lot of the cheating taking place, and it would give a far more realistic picture of individual skill.

 

And yes yes "this game is not geared towards 1 vs. 1" blah whatever. Like the current complete randomness of yolo is any better.

[Going]

The only thing that can save sranked at this point, is a 1 vs 1 queue and/or a total overhaul of the dysfunctional elo system. Personally I would love a 1 vs. 1 queue, as it would put a hard stop for a lot of the cheating taking place, and it would give a far more realistic picture of individual skill.

 

And yes yes "this game is not geared towards 1 vs. 1" blah whatever. Like the current complete randomness of yolo is any better.

[DavidAtkinson]

The only thing that can save sranked at this point, is a 1 vs 1 queue and/or a total overhaul of the dysfunctional elo system. Personally I would love a 1 vs. 1 queue, as it would put a hard stop for a lot of the cheating taking place, and it would give a far more realistic picture of individual skill.

 

And yes yes "this game is not geared towards 1 vs. 1" blah whatever. Like the current complete randomness of yolo is any better.

 

1v1 wouldn't work because you would absolutely lose vs certain classes like operative.... Imagine that on your marauder. DPS with self heals and lots of escapes would totally dominate that.

 

The proper fix would be the same as it is for G ranked. Game doesn't make 2 groups based their average rating or they keep the current matchmaking but the 2 groups will form on random without ELO being a factor.

 

Bottom line here is that solo ranked is in resuscitation on mode on Darth Malgus and they need to do something that makes more people que. Whatever that is I don't care. I am waiting in prime time sometimes for more than 15-20 mins to get a pop.

Edited June 6, 2018 by DavidAtkinson

[Caleste]

So I can see that your goals are to promote team play even more with these huttball changes. They only other senario I can think of where this is negated is if you bring a tank and several healers to just hold the ball for the entire match, which doesn't really sound like fun. So many consider applying a stacking debuff that makes the ball carrier susceptible to more dmg. A debuff that is applied after a certain amount of time that you can be reasonably sure by that the intentions are to not pass the ball. That should incentivise more play as it looks you intend for huttball.

[Lundorff]

1v1 wouldn't work because you would absolutely lose vs certain classes like operative.... Imagine that on your marauder. DPS with self heals and lots of escapes would totally dominate that.

 

The proper fix would be the same as it is for G ranked. Game doesn't make 2 groups based their average rating or they keep the current matchmaking but the 2 groups will form on random without ELO being a factor.

 

Bottom line here is that solo ranked is in resuscitation on mode on Darth Malgus and they need to do something that makes more people que. Whatever that is I don't care. I am waiting in prime time sometimes for more than 15-20 mins to get a pop.

 

1 vs. 1 would absolutely work, and it does for many other games. You just needs a slight change of rules for stealth, like only 1 combat stealth per round or some type of periodical stealth detection buff etc. Yes some classes would be better than others like a sniper vs. jugg, but even with class advantage many players are so bloody terrible at their class, that they can still be killed.

 

With 1 vs. 1 you no longer have problems with:

 

 

• Unbalanced starting matches (4 vs 3)
  
• Queue decline which results in tank or healer vs. no tank or healer
  
• Wintrading that directly affects your match
  
• Mat farmers
  
• Inexperienced players (Well except for ourselves lol)
  
• Rage whispers
  

 

You would also have much faster queue pops with 1 vs. 1, and the dysfunctional elo system would work better, as it would be easier to pitch people in close elo-proximity against each other.

 

Yes cheating and wintrading with yourself would probably be easier this way, but at least they wouldn't **** up my match directly. I am certainly seen a lot more advantages than disadvantages to a 1 vs. 1 queue.

 

@Keith: Is a 1 vs. 1 queue something you guys are even considering? Am I just completely wasting my time?

Edited June 6, 2018 by Lundorff

[TrixxieTriss]

Hey folks,

 

Welcome to part 2 of our planned Warzone changes for GU 5.9.2. If you haven’t already done so, we recommend you go take a look at part 1 and our upcoming matchmaking changes. The following changes focus on Huttball and Arenas, so let’s dive in:

 

Huttball (and Queshball) – We have some concerns about the dominance of Classes with movement abilities in Huttball. The proposed changes will help encourage more teamplay in the Warzone. We also want to create more situations for counterplay and competition in Huttball while ensuring all players are rewarded for their efforts.

• Carrying the Huttball now applies Hinder to the character. Hinder prevents the use of high mobility actions such as Force Charge, Force Speed, Scamper, and more.
  
• Due to the Hinder changes above players holding the Huttball will now move at 80% movement speed (up from 67%)
  
• Players can no longer catch the Huttball while stunned. This creates more opportunities for counter-play, such as intercepting passes intended for a target you stun.
  
• Adding attacker points for catching a pass from a friendly target:
  
  • Currently the thrower of the Huttball receives 500 points, but not the receiver. We will increase the receiver to gain 250 points.
    
  • We would also like a touchdown pass to award both players equally (currently the thrower gets 500 more points). Here is what the new breakdown would look like:
    
    • Thrower: 2750 Attacker Points total
      
      • 500 Attacker Points from completing pass successfully
        
      • 2250 Attacker Points for throwing a scoring pass
        

      [*]Receiver: 2750 Attacker Points total

      • 250 Attacker Points from receiving a friendly pass
        
      • 2500 Attacker Points for possessing the ball for a score
        

 

We know these changes will be pretty substantial in affecting how you play Huttball. Before we make these adjustments, we want to know your thoughts. We are getting your feedback early to see what changes we should, or should not make.

 

Arenas – There are quite a few places where players can exploit to prevent themselves from dying. We plan to address them and implement ways to penalize those players. Additionally, we wanted to take another look at how the acid mechanics work at the end of Arena matches to see if we can improve that experience for stalemates. Here are our thoughts:

• Characters who hack their way into places they shouldn’t be, such as outside the arena or in the ground, will die.
  
• Currently, acid causes characters to take 10% of their max health in damage every second, prevents stealth and all healing.
  
• Acid will now work as follows:
  
  • Characters will take 1% of their max health in damage every second and reduce all healing done/received by 2% per stack.
    
  • Characters affected by acid will begin with one stack and gain one stack per second.
    
  • Acid will still inhibit stealth.
    

 

This will mean the very end of an Arena match will now get progressively more dangerous. This gives more time for players to fight each other and counterplay, before their inevitable acid death. This should also address cases where stealth characters in particular can just CC and run away to win a match.

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

 

Hey Eric, all of those changes sound excellent ... just one thing I would suggest and that is to make the acid start sooner than now.

 

Here is a slightly unrelated question about the PvP roadmap and the new Strong Hold.

 

* Will there be a Bolster terminal available in the strong hold to allow people of different lvls to pvp against each other?

Edited June 6, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

[-Bob-]

The changes to Huttball sound really good!

[Malachi_Bane]

Eric, is there any chance this major warzone revamp can also include some achievement rebalancing? Currently, the only way to get 10 Solo Kills, 20 Killing Blows or 55 Total Kills in a match is to run a premade group and purposefully ignore the objectives, hurting the PVP experience for other players. Surely this can't be the intended behavior when achievements for making 10,000 damage/healing in a single cast or 400,000 total damage/healing per match are easy to progress even for an average player?

 

The reasonable requirements for these achievements would be:

 

Solo Kills: 1-3-5 (from 1-5-10)

Killing Blows: 1-5-10 (from 5-10-20)

Total Kills: 10-20-30 (from 25-40-55)

 

When even dedicated achievement hunters who have Rank 100 in Valor, 50000 player kills in "I am Death Incarnate" and all operation achievements including timed NiM runs and HM Revan / Izax kills can hardly progress these PVP achievements without completely ignoring objectives and thus hurting their team, you know the goals for them weren't set correctly.

 

The main issue here is time, with the current match length those goals can hardly be reached even when the opposite side just runs into you without gear to suicide. Since your other proposed changes including making the matches in Voidstar, Ancient Hypergate and Yavin Ruins even shorter, it only makes sense to rebalance the achievements as well. Otherwise you are forcing people who want them to sabotage the matches over and over, which cannot be enjoyable for either side.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Malachi_Bane

[Theagg]

So now every class is just a walking DCD popper if they have the ball. Mercs can just sit back as autopilot takes them to the endzone now, I guess.

 

Just make Operatives able to roll only once every 20-25 seconds and it'll make Huttball a bit more even. Apart from Operative being able to solo till endzone I don't think Huttball was unbalanced a lot.

 

Rename Huttball to Hotball and have the ball deal damage over time for those holding it will go someway to stopping this. As a scoundrel I've done this move so knowing the ball is literally 'too hot to handle' would force pass offs.

 

Also, raising the height of the top Queshball platforms (another Snave suggestion) would stop those quick pass offs from the bottom up to the enemy goal line. (A move that would be equivalent to passing the ball from somewhere in mid straight to the goal line in regular Huttball). It's a fun move to pull off, premades make use of it an awful lot, but for Queshball it is kind of cheesy.

[Elusive_Thing]

1 vs. 1 would absolutely work, and it does for many other games. You just needs a slight change of rules for stealth, like only 1 combat stealth per round or some type of periodical stealth detection buff etc. Yes some classes would be better than others like a sniper vs. jugg, but even with class advantage many players are so bloody terrible at their class, that they can still be killed.

Would be a lot of fun to queue as, say, a Sorc healer against some Sins, Marauders or whatnot.

[Rafiknoll]

The reasonable requirements for these achievements would be:

 

Solo Kills: 1-3-5 (from 1-5-10)

Killing Blows: 1-5-10 (from 5-10-20)

Total Kills: 10-20-30 (from 25-40-55)

 

+1 to that.

 

Huttball is my favourite match type by far, but there are definitely some classes that over-perform, especially in PUG matches where there's very little coordinated opposition. As such some changes to the format are welcome, and is something I've thought about and discussed before.

 

My main wishes are below, and I'm thinking all 4 work together but testing would be required, but I like some of Snave's suggestions, too.

 

 

1. Apply a stacking healing debuff to the carrier, as suggested elsewhere. Thought should be given to the duration it remains for after the ball is passed to prevent , for example, passing from tank to healer and back to tank to clear said debuff. Depending on the duration it stays for, it should possibly reset when the ball does.
    
    
   
2. Apply a modified 'hinder' effect that only applies to non-targeted mobility actions; roll, dash, sprint, etc. This does give an advantage to some classes, but I feel the targeted nature of leap, intercede, pull, etc requires bad positioning of the enemy team - which should be punished - or good positioning/teamwork from your team - which should be rewarded.
    
    
   
3. Use the temporary ability bar to grant the ball carrier a dash type ability. Yes I'm suggesting taking these away from classes, just to give them back! However this ability would be standardised across classes and balanced for Huttball specifically; root break, CC immunity, short duration (~2s), no damage mitigation, at least a 30s CD (I'm thinking 45-60s, but not sure without testing). This should allow people to make some headway, and skip some inactive hazards. Active hazards, however...
    
    
   
4. Increase damage or other effects of the hazards. They've lost their bite over the years as classes have gained mobility and/or damage mitigation. Make them actually hazardous again.
   

 

I think these work together to encourage more teamwork without bogging down progression too much.

 

As for the listed changes, the only one that concerns me is stun blocking a pass. Can see this could lead to stalemates, and also makes it easy for stealth classes to shadow someone expected to receive a pass (on the line, up high, etc) and just stun them to easily intercept.

 

and to that.

 

As for the fear of stealthers exploiting the stun mechanic, it already works for sins with pushes, and I used to do it a lot, and if it is the stealth mezz you fear, then the pass target should make sure he is in combat by attacking someone. If you are neither in stealth nor in combat waiting for the ball, well, it's a risk you decided to take. This situation is rare anyway.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Rafiknoll

[Elusive_Thing]

Predation doesn't work in spite of being hindered , it's that the Unbound utility allows you to purge it and is activated through the use of Predation. [it doesn't work against the effects of e-net though]

 

Unbound -

" When Predation is applied or refreshed, it purges movement-impairing effects. Additionally, the movement speed bonus of Predation is increased by 30%."

 

Naturally if the person doesn't choose that utility than it can't be used in that manner.

True. Similarly, Obfuscate is only an accuracy debuff. Quite realistically though, most Marauders that know their class will be armed with both of those utilities.

[JMNeves]

Huttball is my favourite match type by far, but there are definitely some classes that over-perform, especially in PUG matches where there's very little coordinated opposition. As such some changes to the format are welcome, and is something I've thought about and discussed before.

 

My main wishes are below, and I'm thinking all 4 work together but testing would be required, but I like some of Snave's suggestions, too.

 

 

1. Apply a stacking healing debuff to the carrier, as suggested elsewhere. Thought should be given to the duration it remains for after the ball is passed to prevent , for example, passing from tank to healer and back to tank to clear said debuff. Depending on the duration it stays for, it should possibly reset when the ball does.
    
    
   
2. Apply a modified 'hinder' effect that only applies to non-targeted mobility actions; roll, dash, sprint, etc. This does give an advantage to some classes, but I feel the targeted nature of leap, intercede, pull, etc requires bad positioning of the enemy team - which should be punished - or good positioning/teamwork from your team - which should be rewarded.
    
    
   
3. Use the temporary ability bar to grant the ball carrier a dash type ability. Yes I'm suggesting taking these away from classes, just to give them back! However this ability would be standardised across classes and balanced for Huttball specifically; root break, CC immunity, short duration (~2s), no damage mitigation, at least a 30s CD (I'm thinking 45-60s, but not sure without testing). This should allow people to make some headway, and skip some inactive hazards. Active hazards, however...
    
    
   
4. Increase damage or other effects of the hazards. They've lost their bite over the years as classes have gained mobility and/or damage mitigation. Make them actually hazardous again.
   

 

I think these work together to encourage more teamwork without bogging down progression too much.

 

As for the listed changes, the only one that concerns me is stun blocking a pass. Can see this could lead to stalemates, and also makes it easy for stealth classes to shadow someone expected to receive a pass (on the line, up high, etc) and just stun them to easily intercept.

 

I loved every word of it.

Someone give this man a medal.

[Bullyabass]

Arena changes are good.

 

Huttball changes are way too much. I assume the intention is to encourage faster game play through passing rather than cheesing with mechanics but, given how risky it is to pass, the far more likely outcome is to slow the game down to another mindless trudge where most healing wins.

 

No idea why people say a tank will become the ideal ball carrier, merc or healer will be far more likely.

 

The healing debuff idea also wouldn't work. The cheesiest tactics at the moment are around the speed with which ops and juggs can get from pickup to score using rolls/double rolls and jumps (with a little dsync thrown in for spice). They wouldn't have the ball long enough for a healing debuff to matter.

 

If you want to encourage passing then reflect the number of passes in the value of goal. Add a debuff on the passer to prevent mindless passing back and forth

[Banderal]

You know, one benefit I hadn't considered about the hindered ball carrier... at least then your own team would not be able to so easily sabotage the game by blatantly giving the ball carrier leap targets for easy scores. Not that I just got out of a game where that was happening, or anything.

[Lundorff]

Would be a lot of fun to queue as, say, a Sorc healer against some Sins, Marauders or whatnot.

 

Sorry but tanks and healers would have to be excluded from 1 vs. 1 queue. Only a really terrible healer / tank would ever lose, and the queue would be nothing but those classes.

[omaan]

Hey folks,

 

 

[*]Acid will now work as follows:

• Characters will take 1% of their max health in damage every second and reduce all healing done/received by 2% per stack.
  
• Characters affected by acid will begin with one stack and gain one stack per second.
  
• Acid will still inhibit stealth.
  

 

This will mean the very end of an Arena match will now get progressively more dangerous. This gives more time for players to fight each other and counterplay, before their inevitable acid death. This should also address cases where stealth characters in particular can just CC and run away to win a match.

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

-eric

 

I just hope this will despise of so called "acid teams" where 4 opers or opers/sins are winning decent, normal teams because people have no idea how to fight acid games, and how vanish bugg works during acid or how to counter it. Acid fights with 4 opers/sins is not what acid system was created for, and even one operative has a big chance to win against 3/4 other classes (esp if those classes are in aoe specs) if he knows what to do, and has a bit luck. This was a real nonsense