Planned Warzone Changes Part 2

[Elusive_Thing]

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.

Kind of my point. Creating an extremely exclusionary queue for a game mode that's already suffering, at times, from lack of population is counterproductive.

[Rafiknoll]

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

 

Specifically, that would be hillarious and infinte. I am quite certain I can hold off a healer's damage (considering I force him to heal instead of damage for the most of the time) far longer than my 75s stealthing CD, then I would stealth out, cc him and H2F, and even if he uses BOTH breakers I can opt to simply stay stealthy until my passive regen is up (or even better, spec stealth healing before I queue). It could take 8 hours without any progress.

 

The general idea sounds nice but would need A LOT of work. I think currently we are better off going to Iokath or Odessen (not the warzone, though some idiots choose to consider it a dueling map sometimes ) or a SH where there is no lvl sync and duel there in a closes space. [iokath throne room?]

[Stellarcrusade]

• Characters who hack their way into places they shouldn’t be, such as outside the arena or in the ground, will die.
  

 

....

 

This should also address cases where stealth characters in particular can just CC and run away to win a match.

 

-eric

 

Do we really want players who "hack their way"? Players who want to cheat, have no place in multi-player gaming at all. I say if you hack your way into places you shouldn't be, your account is automatically deleted permanently. We don't want you, go away. Thank you for helping us to see you are not the type of player we want, now go play farmville by yourself.

 

And on the topic of stealth in arenas, can we fix the issue of a stealthy trolling the other team by running around and hiding before the acid just to force the greatly superior team to have to sit around until the acid.... If your team is weaker, you should lose, not _punnish_ the other team by making them wait.

[Lundorff]

Kind of my point. Creating an extremely exclusionary queue for a game mode that's already suffering, at times, from lack of population is counterproductive.

 

Everyone has at least 1 dps character and I am not saying to dismantle 4 vs. 4. What are you afraid of? That it would become so popular that 4 vs. 4 dies? That would kinda prove my point. But it is fine if you don't like it. It is just a suggestion.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

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.

 

Fair point.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

 

And on the topic of stealth in arenas, can we fix the issue of a stealthy trolling the other team by running around and hiding before the acid just to force the greatly superior team to have to sit around until the acid.... If your team is weaker, you should lose, not _punnish_ the other team by making them wait.

 

Agreed. That's annoying as all hell and happens an alarming amount of the time. Good call.

[Screaming_Ziva]

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

Will hinder also apply to Intercede and Mad Dash?

[Gelious]

 

 

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.

 

These changes are a terrible idea, please reconsider. I know what you are trying to do, but it simply will not work in 90% cases. You trying to promote and reward teamwork, but here's the fact you missing completely - 8 random people put together have little reason and no intention to work as a team. They will do whatever they want and wont be coordinating with each other.

 

In current meta pug teams have a chance to win in huttbal if at least few people know how to play correctly. After these changes go live, pugs are screwed. Premades with heals and tanks and coordination will rule, everyone else wil suffer. Huttbal is already very demanding of players and thus prone to be one-sided match a lot. you are making it so much worse.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Gelious

[Jmenks]

Will hinder also apply to Intercede and Mad Dash?

 

Yes. Literally all movements your class can do.Force speed, leaps, dash, roll, etc. Just think of being netted and that is what it will be, but a bit worse.

 

Very bad change that will ruin Huttball.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Jmenks

[nepochop]

@Eric

 

Huttball is good the way it is, sure, some classes have it better than the others, but people like it this way. Huttball is the best PVP warzone ever in swtor! The changes you suggest will make it into a boring fight like lowbies where only the tanks will get the ball and never pass cause then the ball carrier gets globalled and so so.

 

Really, dont do the huttball changes cause together with the matchmaking the teams will only rely on the tank/healer to do the hard part.

[Rafiknoll]

@Eric

 

Huttball is good the way it is, sure, some classes have it better than the others, but people like it this way. Huttball is the best PVP warzone ever in swtor! The changes you suggest will make it into a boring fight like lowbies where only the tanks will get the ball and never pass cause then the ball carrier gets globalled and so so.

 

Who are these people you are talking about? I see more people leave huttball pops than I see in any other map. Desync happens everywhere but in huttball it is the only place where it is completely game-breaking and the upcoming changes will disable high mobility and thus disable desync on ball carriers. In addition, premades of 4 operatives are not always the answer

 

Really, dont do the huttball changes cause together with the matchmaking the teams will only rely on the tank/healer to do the hard part.

 

Only tanks get the ball? Not necessarily, there are only 2 at best, and one might be dead, stunned away, or guarding the ball stand. Admittedly tanks would be the best ball carriers but considering the nerf their damage took, that is AN INTENTIONAL OUTCOME. They need to have something to do in there. And while tanks and healers might lead the "offensive" (=carry the ball to the line), the DPS are not worthless, who would kill the enemy ball carrier exactly? The tank and healers? Unless the tanks are very good pullers, that would be next to impossible for them. The job of the DPS is to kill ball carrier, or carry balls and catch flying balls when tanks are occupied, in addition to killing the enemy DPS who attempt to kill YOUR carrier. The job of the tanks is to eventually be the main ball carriers when they can and guard the ball carriers when they can't, and the job of the healers is keep the carriers or the support alive.

 

No role is unimportant objectively. The lack of neither role is game-breaking, and the number of operatives doesn't decide the winner automatically. While I support a better version of the changes, these changes are by far better than what we have now.

 

In the past few months, I PVPed solely with deception sin and concealment operative . These two are mobility gods and I could use both to run from the stand to the line without any healing and without being stopped (a well-timed force-shroud + speed is far more an overpowered combination than the concealment roll. Immune to any kind of effect and being very fast with full control of my movement for 2.5s, and according to the enemy inefficiency I was probably desyncing for the duration sometimes). As much as I liked doing that, this isn't how the game should look. I realize it even though my favorite classes are the ones losing most of it. Who knows, maybe when team playing is a must in order to win, people will feel more responsible for objective playing rather than kill farming.

 

The mentality today is: 'let the operatives roll it' or 'we have no operatives, we are doomed anyway'. Fact is I have seen far more mara kill farmers than op kill farmers, so it has to do something with that. Now that all classes are quite equal, I think we just might see more objective gameplay/

[Elusive_Thing]

Yes. Literally all movements your class can do.Force speed, leaps, dash, roll, etc. Just think of being netted and that is what it will be, but a bit worse.

 

Very bad change that will ruin Huttball.

There're ways through it.

[Rafiknoll]

These changes are a terrible idea, please reconsider. I know what you are trying to do, but it simply will not work in 90% cases. You trying to promote and reward teamwork, but here's the fact you missing completely - 8 random people put together have little reason and no intention to work as a team. They will do whatever they want and wont be coordinating with each other.

 

I have played some amazing matches of huttball with very nice coordination even without knowing the other objective players or saying more than 1 or 2 lines in chat in total. These smart people who just wait for you to push before they stun, who stand as pass targets or wait by the ball stand exist even outside of premade and are not that rare. It is the duty of us decent players to be among them.

 

If the statement I marked is correct, then there is no hope for any objective map in any multiplayer game which does not solely consist of premade, and we should all switch to battle royal. It is not true. Many many players lack the will or ability to play as part of the team (why do they play?), but many many more can do it. They can't compete with the coordination of a premade, but there CAN be an objective game even with 16 solo queuers. Fact is solo ranked survived more than a day, didn't it?

 

In current meta pug teams have a chance to win in huttbal if at least few people know how to play correctly. After these changes go live, pugs are screwed. Premades with heals and tanks and coordination will rule, everyone else wil suffer. Huttbal is already very demanding of players and thus prone to be one-sided match a lot. you are making it so much worse.

 

Premades always screw pugs in all maps unless it is a premade of idiots or people who don't play to win. Pugs barely have a chance to beat a premade of 4 in huttball as it currently is, even if neither of the 4 is an operative, and after the changes, they still won't have a chance. The difference is that they WILL have a chance versus any premade of 2 even if these 2 are voicechatting operatives, and another difference is that 8 pugs WILL have a chance versus 8 pugs regardless of the class diversity (spec diversity is now controlled, don't forget).

 

I can't see how impairing the godhood of certain ball carriers INCREASES the one-sidedness of a game. Sure, games might still be won 6-0, but if your team TRIES to kill the carrier, they at least have a chance to do it now...

[kukumburr]

So I'm still wondering if enemy pulls and knockbacks will work on the hindered target? Or are they also immune to them? It seems like fire pulls, knockbacks, and stun in fire are going to be the deciding factor now. No mobility, no need to worry about where you're standing for leaps, and no friendly pulls should make it super easy to kill the carrier in fire/acid traps.

[Rafiknoll]

So I'm still wondering if enemy pulls and knockbacks will work on the hindered target? Or are they also immune to them? It seems like fire pulls, knockbacks, and stun in fire are going to be the deciding factor now. No mobility, no need to worry about where you're standing for leaps, and no friendly pulls should make it super easy to kill the carrier in fire/acid traps.

 

Obviously, the ball carrier must not be immune to controls or a guarded and healed tank will be unbeatable completely.

I thought about this problem too. I can think of 2 solutions:

 

1. The hinder should disappear when standing on firetraps (even inactive) or acid traps [but I can think of some exploits possible there]

 

2. [i prefer this one] hinder is gone while stunned or immobilized (or lets say when getting affected by abilities which increase resolve, because the immobilise which comes after being leapt at is too short for this to be fair) and for 3 seconds after the stun, immobilize ends (by being broken, cleansed or simply ending). This will make people think twice before they firestun someone in the presence of his friendly sorc and still leaves room for stupid leap targets to get punished if the carrier was just stunned, and the fear of a stun suddenly happening will force people to never be viable leap targets at all

Edited June 6, 2018 by Rafiknoll

[-Bob-]

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

 

Will Hinder also apply to enemy pulls? Like VG/PT or Sin/Shadow? If a team member cannot pull the Ball carrier out of danger it doesn't seem right that the enemy can pull the ball carrier into danger, like flame vents.

[EricMusco]

Hey folks,

 

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

 

Once they have those finalized I will swing back in the thread with their plans to get your thoughts. I should have them tomorrow or Friday. Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

[DavidAtkinson]

Hey folks,

 

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

 

Once they have those finalized I will swing back in the thread with their plans to get your thoughts. I should have them tomorrow or Friday. Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

Any changes to solo ranked matchmaking ? You mentioned about group ranked, but I don't recall you saying anything about solo ranked.

[Vissionary]

Hey folks,

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

 

RIP hinder (June 5, 2018 - June 6, 2018)

[Metthew]

@ericmusco Can we also have a word if the max 1tank and 1healer restriction for premades apply to Team Ranked as well? Or will you let multiple healer team compositions geared for acid play in Team Ranked still?

 

(Quite a number of us consider acid-play compositions to be cancerous)

[Banderal]

Hey folks,

 

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

 

Once they have those finalized I will swing back in the thread with their plans to get your thoughts. I should have them tomorrow or Friday. Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

Kudos and thanks for listening to the feedback!

Edited June 6, 2018 by Banderal

[Sarova]

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

Aww, I just read your first post about this and loved hinder was being introduced. Which cry babies ruined it?

[JattaGin]

Hey folks,

 

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

 

Once they have those finalized I will swing back in the thread with their plans to get your thoughts. I should have them tomorrow or Friday. Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

I couldn't reply earlier, but I want to mention that I was very excited when I read about hinder. Now I'm sad that you intend to drop it.

 

I would like to encourage you to find ways to make huttball a game where you HAVE to have to do teamwork in order to win. I would encourage teamplay and coordinated efforts as much as I can, because huttball makes sooooo much more fun if you have a team that plays together. It's possible to make pugs understand that, too, by offering huge incentives for good teamplay while at the same time punish just random shooting lasers around.

 

I pug 100% of the time and I always find at least 1 or 2 others who try to play huttball like a team sport, too. You just don't have a chance to win, because there is always a rolling operative playing for the opponent. Hinder them!

[Banderal]

Aww, I just read your first post about this and loved hinder was being introduced. Which cry babies ruined it?

 

Pretty much everyone except you. (Ok, I remember a few others for it. I was originally for it. But honestly, after reading some of the other comments, I was persuaded to change my mind. Read through some of them and see if you still think hinder would have been a good idea. You might change your mind too... or not. )

[Stncold]

Hey folks,

 

Quick update. We have really been enjoying the discussion around these changes, especially hinder. The team is looking at an option where we don't introduce hinder at all and make a different set of changes to achieve our goals.

 

Once they have those finalized I will swing back in the thread with their plans to get your thoughts. I should have them tomorrow or Friday. Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

Thank you. I understand you guys want to make it more pass-oriented which is a fine goal but hinder wasn't the way to go about it. Personally I wouldn't make any changes to huttball(except more points for passing/scoring just after being passed to) but if you guys can come up with some reasonable I'll accept that.