Y'all need to calm down a bit

[Wolvel]

AOE taunt, you mean Challenging Call, which is still there. It was moved to the Defence tree. Challenging Call only works as an AOE taunt if in Soresu Form, of which only tanks get. If not in Soresu Form Challenging Call acts as a moderate threat dump. It also causes affected players to deal 30% less damage when attacking anyone other than you.

 

Likewise, Guardian Leap was not removed. It too was moved to the Defence tree.

 

Removal of 2 dcds? Do you mean Resolute and Force Kick, the CC break and interrupt abilities, respectively? As they said in their announcement, this is a super high level preview. It is not a deep dive. Speculation is that the CC break and interrupt abilities are being moved to a general list of abilities that everyone has so that one's CC break and interrupt do not change as they change from Combat Style to Combat Style.

 

As the OP said, y'all need to calm down a bit. Or, not. Cry havoc, let slip those dogs of war, grab the pitchforks and torches, twists those pants into knots, but not just any knot, a Gordian knot.

 

 

AOE taunt is not just about threat generation , its also your 60% aoe DR button in PvE content instead of the passive 30% AOE DR other classes get you have to use it at the right time to really make it shine. It is also invaluable in PvP 30% DR to your whole team in immediate radius. Removing this and tacking on a flat 30% DR utility to jugg doesnt help make it unique. Being a DWT without a aoe taunt is not something I like the thought of.

 

Guardian Leap is a great ability for all specs not just tank spec, in PvE if you are in a bad position or if someone is about to get hit and you want to help them its your meal ticket. In PvP its a 20% DR for a tunneled target button, or a get out of team fight for free button. It needs a separate ability because it is used for completely different things.

 

The removal of 2 dcds is player choice. Do I chose to lose blade blitz/enure and keep saber reflect? Sounds to me like I just lost 2 dcds. Or does that mean something different to you?

 

EDIT: Right now on live there is a big difference between jugg dps and mara dps, if this goes through as is. Jugg will have lost its identity and what made it unique over its other warrior spec. At the moment all I see is basic melee dps.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Wolvel

[VampRayLa]

As far as choosing powers goes, choosing passives is one thing that we've done since the launch of this game and is nothing new. Stealing abilities I've had since launch, then offering to give one of them back through a "choice" is lazy game development and is an insult to long time players and new alike. This is the equivalent to stealing my wallet with $100 and my social security card in it, then offering to give me back either $10 or my social security card, then pretending you've done me a favor. Either I'm out $90 along with my wallet and social security card, or I'm out $100 and my wallet. In the case of this game it's an unnecessary nerf for the sake of a nerf.

 

love your analogy. And your whole post.

[ceryxp]

Its clear the type of player that is ok with these changes and the type of player who is not.

 

You forgot one. The type of player who realizes that this is not a deep dive, that what we are being shown on the PTS is an early look, and we are willing to wait for the rest of the information, that BW inexplicably likes to keeps secret when it should be included in the first place, that is going to come before grabbing the pitchforks and torches.

[Stncold]

You forgot one. The type of player who realizes that this is not a deep dive, that what we are being shown on the PTS is an early look, and we are willing to wait for the rest of the information, that BW inexplicably likes to keeps secret when it should be included in the first place, that is going to come before grabbing the pitchforks and torches.

 

That's what I'm trying to be, but BW's past history makes it too easy to be the type that's not ok with it. I'd rather LotS be something I play alongside Endwalker, not something I play while waiting for Endwalker. But if things go live even remotely like this system it'll be the latter.

[robwettengel]

This is not ready for testing, it seems extremely rushed and not particularly well thought through or executed. The problem is that these complaints are made with the assumption that this is by definition 100% how the final product will end up like - and while that is not just very unlikely, it is an extreme stance to take due to the limited nature of the test.

 

 

I'm rather stunned at how flawed this iteration of PTS is because they want us to do level-75 content, but comps have insufficient health to survive long. If they want to see the testing done on lvl 75 content, they should provide us with an interface that can instantly up the affection of the comp we're using to an appropriate level to ensure the comp survives a standard mob encounter.

 

What we need is something I shall give the intentionally pretentious example name of The SWTOR Unified Persistent Testing Experience. The purpose of the Experience is to provide consistency in how players are introduced to testing so we will know what is being tested, where the testing is preferred to be done (PVE (what level? Are we just testing PVP changes, etc.), and have some reasoning as to why. The Experience would include all the necessary graphical and GUI assets to support the test--the text to explain what I previously outlined, droids to get insta-leveled, insta-creds, insta-this-n-that. These assets could then be recycled for each subsequent PTS iteration, hence my use of the word persistent. This would save development time regarding deployment in the future and provide the player base with consistency. This is a win-win from my POV.

 

Regarding other things we do not know: we do not know how many total loadout slots are going to be available per Toon by default, nor how many total will be available. The only thing I can state with certainty is that unlocking more slots above the default number will require the spending of credits or CC. After all, this is a credit sink that everyone will be using. We don't know how often we'll be able to switch our combat style or loadout, but we will likely not be able to do so while we are in combat.

Edited July 12, 2021 by robwettengel

[VampRayLa]

You forgot one. The type of player who realizes that this is not a deep dive, that what we are being shown on the PTS is an early look, and we are willing to wait for the rest of the information, that BW inexplicably likes to keeps secret when it should be included in the first place, that is going to come before grabbing the pitchforks and torches.

 

I'm not grabbing a pitch fork and torches, and if ppl think my posts are pitch forks and torches im wonder what discourse they have interacted with prior to this...

 

But, no, I dont need a deep dive when not only I see the foundation of what is happening. If you think this is because the interrupt is missing, or what abilities in the end I wont have/have to chose from, I really dont even know why im responding. Even those who disagree state that this is 'getting rid of abilities'. You can even take away the PTS and see that the forum arguments have move into 'I want all of my abilities, please dont dumb down the game' vs 'There are too many abilities, its ok to get rid of some'. And then attacks on those posts. Feedback starts at PTS launch. They asked 'is it fun to play, why or why not' - but then didnt give us some info...thats on them. I still get to answer and discuss how its not fun to play and why. With or without my pitch fork and devil horns.

 

The only deep dive that I could be missing is 'lol, but at end game you have them all' - Then April Fools on me in July and I would instead question why they thought this was a good presentation of that.

Edited July 12, 2021 by VampRayLa

[arunav]

Just wanted to start off this post by saying I'm 100% understanding of the concerns regarding missing abilities right now. I am.

 

But this is turning into a mob mentality faster than quick. Please remember that this is very likely nowhere near how the actual systems will work (based on their "status" thread, and how everything is subject to radical change). It's a super early test for some Guardian paths between the disciplines.

 

I also want you to keep in mind that it seems this test was not thought out/planned properly/rushed through to the test server. There's plenty of evidence of this, such as the very primitive way of getting to the testing area/content, the many bugs present (companions with no stats and 30k HP, mounts being useless...) and overall confusion on what the heck is going on, despite having read the threads regarding the testing phase.

 

It's great to voice your concerns, but there have been some absolutely ridiculous posts on here from some people, ranging from "they're changing OUR classes!", "I will never play again if this happens", "YOU'RE DESTROYING YOUR OWN GAME IN A DISGRACE" - at this point you might as well ask to see the manager too.

 

The test itself was kind of a disaster, that much is true. But let's reserve our opinions until we get into the meat of things where we can finally say "Wow, they really did remove our abilities" or "Oh, there they are" because at this point, we truly don't know.

 

Let's calm down a little, shall we? And if down the line it turns out that they really did break everything, go nuts.

 

Clearly, you weren't in the closed testing for 5.0 and Galactic Command.

 

There's very good reason to presume that, once changes like this even get to initial PTS builds, the damage is already baked into what will be the expansion, no matter how much feedback is given, politely or otherwise, that the new system or changes being made are for the worse.

 

All current players can do is voice their concerns in the best way they know how. Sometimes this may come across poorly or less effectively than a succinct, reasoned post, but the basis behind the criticism being seen is very much valid.

[captainbladejk]

I didn't say it was a good idea, I said it was too early to tell if it's a good idea or not. It IS overreacting because you literally do not know if this is a subpar change or not yet. I would also like to clarify that I did not call anybody a drama queen, that was another poster. And I did not agree with that part because there's no need to create an environment where we're making fun of each other for having different opinions. I am not making fun of you or anyone else when I say that you are overreacting. I'm telling you to calm down.

 

There's a lot of "you need to understand" in your reply, but I think you need to understand that you're overanalyzing and thinking way too hard about something that ultimately we don't know about. Whatever happened in World of Warcraft sucks, whatever the heck this test phase was supposed to be also sucks, that much is true. We can talk game design and production all day but no matter what, right now we simply do not have enough material to draw a definite conclusion on what exactly is changing.

 

Your outrage is warranted if this keeps going down the path you ultimately believe it will, but right now it serves no purpose other than to vent about what has happened in the past.

I say "you need to understand" alot in my post because point blank, you don't know as much as you think you do when it comes to game development. You don't need to know every single one or zero of the upcoming stuff to know if it's going to suck or not. We can test it for ourselves and see for ourselves what is coming if things stay the way they are. I read some of the initial posts before going onto the PTS and thought to myself "sure it isn't as bad as they're saying." When I saw the PTS for myself it confirmed that it was every bit as bad as people are saying it is. My outrage is because of testing for myself, and seeing for myself what was going on. So who are you or anyone else to say definitively "you're overreacting and need to calm down." The fact that you're deflecting from the arguments being made to you tells me that you have no legitimate rebuttals to them. If you think I'm wrong about an assertion made, then explain how I'm wrong. Saying "you're just overanalyzing and need to calm down" is not a valid argument. The arguments I have made are from my nearly 10 years with this game, and 15 years of modding and working on other games and being with other games. You may not believe me and choose to believe I'm talking out of my rear exhaust port, but that's on you as it doesn't change anything.

 

You can try to say we don't know enough right now, and you know what, I honestly hope in the next little bit they come out with some big clarifying statement/update that blows my mind and proves everyone wrong. However I'm not going to hold my breath on that either just yet. I bring up the World of Warcraft example because it's a valid example of another game that tried this exact type of thing that SWTOR appears prime to try, and it backfired hard with WoW still not having recovered from it fully, even after 5 years. WoW dumbed their game down and removed a ton of abilities that were deemed "useless" or "non-core" and completely gutted certain classes. As I said before Arcane Mages had all of 2 abilities. On some of my other characters I was standing there most of the time just doing auto-attacks because there was nothing to press and nothing to do because it was all on cooldown. Nearly 2/3 of the toolkit I used to have as a Death Knight tank was stolen from me then marketed back to me as a "choice of unlockable abilities." Yet every single one of those abilities were things I had baseline since the introduction of the Death Knight class. That's not a choice, that's a nerf no matter how you try to justify it. Myself and many other people left World of Warcraft because of them dumbing the game down like that and completely gutting the characters we loved to play. I no longer felt like a Death Knight, but a glorified NPC with the Death Knight name.

 

Now I see some of those same things starting to happen here in SWTOR with them stealing abilities I've had baseline since launch of the game nearly 10 years ago. Then they turn around saying "yeah we took 3 of these abilities that were baseline, but we'll let you have one of them back as a choice option" as they pretend it's something new an exciting and as though they've done me a favor. So I'll thank you kindly not to try to condescendingly tell me to "calm down because you're overanalyzing" when I see the exact same thing happening here. If we wait until we know every last bit of what's coming down the pipes to speak up, it will be too late. The damage will already be done and it will cause a mass exodus from this game like happened with World of Warcraft.

 

As is right now, when I see half of the defensive abilities my tank uses set to one discipline loadout, and the other half to a second discipline loadout, that is a straight up nerf and theft of half of my abilities. There is no situation in which it's not a nerf and not them deliberately harming my character for no valid reason at all. To borrow one more example from World of Warcraft was the whole flying vs no-flying debate. The anti-flyers complained about the flying mounts for one reason or another saying they don't like them. Yet flight was NOT required to get around in game, and they always had the option to use their ground mounts still, they simply chose not to. The people complaining about ability bloat right now are under ZERO obligation to use the abilities they think are useless. However simply because one person thinks an ability is useless, that is NOT automatic grounds to remove said power.

 

As a modder, I quickly learned that I couldn't force people to do what I wanted them to do on my maps. Instead I had to entice them to do what I wanted. If I wanted them to fight in the middle of the map more often and meet each other head on, I had to give them a reason to do that. Otherwise if I tried to force them to do it, they're only going to quit and not play the content I created or they will remove the mod. To get the folks to move towards the middle of the map, again that's where I put some of the better weapons along with some extra med kits and armor. I gave them a reason to go there. Likewise with what's on the PTS, if they want me to consider using different abilities, give me abilities worth using. "You can keep using that standard set of abilities you've had since launch, or you can use these entirely new toolkit over here that lets you make more use of (insert desired thing here)." If a character has 10 abilities in its toolkit and they want me to consider using alternatives, give me alternatives to the 10 abilities worth considering, BUT don't cut my toolkit down to 5 abilities and pretend you're doing me a favor.

 

I'm not sure where the disconnect is at, but when I see they're taking abilities away from me and shrinking my toolkit for no valid reason, and making me choose between things I already have and pretending it's something new, I don't need to "wait and see" to know that's a nerf. Myself and others are speaking up now and telling them "this sucks, go back to the drawing board" because we want to see a final product that wows us. I am angry because for years Bioware has been my golden standard of what an MMO can be in what they've done with SWTOR. I am angry because they've delivered a substandard product which is an insult to long term players like myself and newer players who won't get to experience the quality gameplay that I did. You mistake my anger towards them as being overly dramatic, when it's holding them to the standard they set for themselves years prior and have said many times they want to deliver. Right now they're not delivering it, and as a long time player and customer, I'm letting them now so they know they're not delivering it and half enough time to make it right. I would love to keep playing this game for many more years, but that also means I need to have worthwhile content to play. If I go to a car mechanic and have them work on my car, and that car comes back missing half the insides, it's not much of a stretch to assume that everything they did was wrong.

 

Overall I want them to deliver a quality product that continues to wow me as they've done for years past. Right now I am not wowed, but disgusted. It's not about "venting over what happened in the past" it's about showing them "hey these guys tried what you're wanting to do and it backfired hard, don't make their mistake." Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

Edited July 12, 2021 by captainbladejk

[SirCaldric]

I say "you need to understand" alot in my post because point blank, you don't know as much as you think you do when it comes to game development. You don't need to know every single one or zero of the upcoming stuff to know if it's going to suck or not. We can test it for ourselves and see for ourselves what is coming if things stay the way they are.

 

-snip-

 

Overall I want them to deliver a quality product that continues to wow me as they've done for years past. Right now I am not wowed, but disgusted. It's not about "venting over what happened in the past" it's about showing them "hey these guys tried what you're wanting to do and it backfired hard, don't make their mistake." Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Alright friend, some real talk for a second okay? You are the one who writes long multi-paragraph posts about how you know better, whether it is experience, game design (apparently modding a game gives you sufficient experience), and know me well enough from a couple posts to tell that my knowledge is inferior.

 

That's great, but you're still overreacting to something we've barely seen anything about. Blow your horn as much as you want, all I wanted was for you to cool your jets a little before claiming we're doomed by history repeating itself (it's game from what, 2011?) but all you want to do is write about how this testing phase is the downfall of all things holy about this game, and it is the final straw. I played this game since it first came out too. I love Star Wars and I love(d) BioWare games, KOTOR in particular.

 

And this next part I say with all due respect - your long posts are exhausting to read through and I just don't want to do it anymore. Make of that what you will, friend. Have a good day and don't stress yourself out too much.

[ZionHalcyon]

Just wanted to start off this post by saying I'm 100% understanding of the concerns regarding missing abilities right now. I am.

 

But this is turning into a mob mentality faster than quick. Please remember that this is very likely nowhere near how the actual systems will work (based on their "status" thread, and how everything is subject to radical change). It's a super early test for some Guardian paths between the disciplines.

 

I also want you to keep in mind that it seems this test was not thought out/planned properly/rushed through to the test server. There's plenty of evidence of this, such as the very primitive way of getting to the testing area/content, the many bugs present (companions with no stats and 30k HP, mounts being useless...) and overall confusion on what the heck is going on, despite having read the threads regarding the testing phase.

 

It's great to voice your concerns, but there have been some absolutely ridiculous posts on here from some people, ranging from "they're changing OUR classes!", "I will never play again if this happens", "YOU'RE DESTROYING YOUR OWN GAME IN A DISGRACE" - at this point you might as well ask to see the manager too.

 

The test itself was kind of a disaster, that much is true. But let's reserve our opinions until we get into the meat of things where we can finally say "Wow, they really did remove our abilities" or "Oh, there they are" because at this point, we truly don't know.

 

Let's calm down a little, shall we? And if down the line it turns out that they really did break everything, go nuts.

 

This is VERY well put.

 

Yes, they mishandled this.

 

However, there has long been a concern over ability glut as a barrier to entry to the game.

 

Yes, you will get hardcore raiders and pvpers with their "when I was your age, I walked to school naked to and from school in the snow, both ways uphill, chased by wolves, and that's how we liked it!" posts.

 

But if this game is to grow, the ability glut needs to go away, and yes, those people will have to relearn their rotations. It needs to be simplified. The goal of anyone making a game is to have as many people playing it as possible so the gaming company makes MONEY. And there is no nobility in sacrificing a game to the hardcore players but shortening its lifespan, when you can open it up and make more money by attracting more players.

 

That said, it also doesn't mean you should piss on the people who stuck with you. I don't think BioWare was trying to do that this time though (trust me, they did it PLENTY in the past under different Executive Producers, so I know what it looks like.)

 

Just in typical BioWare Fashion, they fumbled the opening snap. Its cool that they wanted people to get a feel, but the hardcore were going to be the first to jump on Test Center, and they weren't going to like having their rotations blown up unless they were given direction on what to expect and have the expectations properly managed.

 

There was an attempt to manage expectations, but frankly, it just feels like they got the wrong message out. It needed to spell some things out in this case. And they didn't.

 

So I do think people need to calm down. I think the approach bioware is going in is actually a great one.

 

However, the execution leaves much to be desired, and if that execution was going to be impacted in this version of the PTS, they should have warned people as such instead of being so vague. There are times you don't want to lead players to a conclusion to get better feedback. This was not one of those times....

[ZionHalcyon]

No. Just no. I'm done pretending that loud, irrational, "the sky is falling!!" criticism that always happens when even minor system changes are announced has anything to do with any positive kind of passion. The same kind of way that dude who has been spamming he wants his old tracer missile animation back for over a decade doesn't do that out of "passion" for an animation either.

 

 

 

Stop appealing to emotion. I hate it. It makes it sound as if everyone who doesn't go crazy about these changes after one day of a six month PTS cycle doesn't "care" for the game or their class. I've clocked in over two-thousand play hours on my Guardians, and even I'm not jumping through the roof. Some things are bad (e.g Enure has to be baseline). Other things are good (e.g thank god Challenging Call is gone for DPS). Nobody in here can tell me with a straight face that having to press that every so often to lower your threat was "defining to the fantasy of a Jedi Guardian" when just re-working aggro management would do the trick.

 

 

 

Because she's a toon in an ever-changing MMORPG. There is absolutely nothing here to take personal, and this isn't an opinion. The developers suggesting some ability adjustments and to increase class identity has nothing to do with being about you. And just to be clear: I'm not saying you shouldn't be giving input. You should definitely do that. But if you are "taking this personal", you're doing something wrong. You don't take things personal in a testing environment. I didn't take things personal when Blizzard changed my toons and I tested them either. I was invited to a closed alpha. I looked at what was being presented. I gave my pros and cons about what I thought.

 

I don't understand this community at all. Maybe it's NGE PTSD. The SWTOR community is by far the loudest community when it comes to every change. You could literally remove one ability that nobody ever uses, and you could provide data that they don't, and suddenly people would be like: "but this is an important ability! I use it for (incredibly niche situation that happens once a year here). You can't take this away! It defines my Jedi!"

 

It's like my guild mate who desperately wanted Eye of the Beast in WoW back and made a fuss about it for years. And since he has gotten it back, he has used it... *checks notes*...zero times. Oh well, we sure are glad they wasted that dev time on your request, huh?

 

The simple matter of fact is, we have 5% of a system currently to go on. Everyone who now throws their hand up and says: "this is unsalvagable, scrap all the work you've been doing so far and start over!" while claiming to know how content is made...well, they don't. It's that simple.

 

I don't think I could love a post more... Well done!

[Nee-Elder]

Clearly, you weren't in the closed testing for 5.0 and Galactic Command.

 

There's very good reason to presume that, once changes like this even get to initial PTS builds, the damage is already baked into what will be the expansion, no matter how much feedback is given, politely or otherwise, that the new system or changes being made are for the worse.

 

All current players can do is voice their concerns in the best way they know how. Sometimes this may come across poorly or less effectively than a succinct, reasoned post, but the basis behind the criticism being seen is very much valid.

 

I don't think i could love a post more... Well done!!

Edited July 12, 2021 by Nee-Elder

[captainbladejk]

Alright friend, some real talk for a second okay? You are the one who writes long multi-paragraph posts about how you know better, whether it is experience, game design (apparently modding a game gives you sufficient experience), and know me well enough from a couple posts to tell that my knowledge is inferior.

 

That's great, but you're still overreacting to something we've barely seen anything about. Blow your horn as much as you want, all I wanted was for you to cool your jets a little before claiming we're doomed by history repeating itself (it's game from what, 2011?) but all you want to do is write about how this testing phase is the downfall of all things holy about this game, and it is the final straw. I played this game since it first came out too. I love Star Wars and I love(d) BioWare games, KOTOR in particular.

 

And this next part I say with all due respect - your long posts are exhausting to read through and I just don't want to do it anymore. Make of that what you will, friend. Have a good day and don't stress yourself out too much.

 

There is no overreaction save in your mind. You can spin it all you want dude, but no matter how you spin it, it's an objective fact that we will have less abilities in our toolkit if this were to go live as is. In no universe is that a favor to people and not a pure nerf for no valid reason. Others have already pointed out how this will negatively impact the game in the time that's left before they launch this abomination. Bottom line, we are losing abilities if things stay the way they are, which is an objective fact of history repeating itself if that's allowed to go live.

 

As for my background, you can claim I'm just tooting my own horn if you will, that's on you. However the principle is the same whether it's the smaller time stuff like what I do or the AAA studio level. If you want someone to use your item, play your map, use your content, you have to give them a reason to do it. If you as the developer can't do that, then you can't expect players to do it. I'm sorry if my post offends you but I'm not going to lie and I'm not going to sugarcoat it. If you honestly think this isn't a nerf, even though we objectively have less abilities, then you don't know what you think you do. Basic math itself tells us this is a nerf based on amount of lost abilities alone. I don't know how much more obvious it can get before you have to acknowledge it yourself, or choose to remain willfully blind. I shouldn't need to explain in the detail I've had to explain for some people to get it. If I wanted to play a 5 button game like Diablo I would go play Diablo. I don't want SWTOR turning into Diablo or vice versa.

Edited July 12, 2021 by captainbladejk

[VampRayLa]

Us, who actually use the abilities we say we use: "Please dont do this. We beg of you. This is a bad idea!"

 

Them: "You dont even use those abilities! Like, who even uses saber throw? yall need to calm down a bit!"

 

There is no overreaction save in your mind.

 

Projection is real.

Edited July 12, 2021 by VampRayLa

[Alssaran]

You can try to frame it however you want, but it's still a nerf. Removing abilities from people and making them choose between that ability and other items, or giving them nothing back in return is a straight up nerf for no valid reason.

 

So we've reached full circle where this is more about the fact that you feel like you're being nerfed (and you protest to that) that any sort of viable feedback to be had?

 

I've been playing MMORPGs since 2003 (while we're throwing criteria around), and I've never seen a general rework, rebalance, re-design or even slight class nerf that went over well and was liked by members of that class. Ever. I've experienced a few myself. However, that doesn't mean disliking it makes that objectively right.

 

And might I point out while we were talking about it earlier: the "class rework" in WoW killed nothing. The game had over ten million subscribers at one point in Legion after they streamlined everything. Saying it "killed WoW" might be true for you, but streamlining doesn't need to be a bad thing.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Alssaran

[Wolvel]

I think my playtime on jugg is around 100 days. I am terrified of this, its gameplay feels so smooth and responsive. I want to get to my ally? intercede. I want to go from point A to point B quickly and not take any damage? Mad dash. Getting focused by a bunch of PT's and operatives? Saber reflect. About to take a lot of damage? Endure Pain. Want to save yourself from death from boss cleave or save your friends in pvp? AOE taunt. I am quite sad about this whole thing, I was so excited for 7.0 and the ease of saved toolbars and gear. My enthusiasm has been thoroughly culled. I do not want to choose between these abilities or lose them entirely. Its what kept me playing this game. But I am going to lose them but who gives a hoot about another sub leaving swtor, as long as the CM keeps flowing that's what matters.

[Savej]

The spreadsheet doesn't make me any happier. Why should I be happy that it doesn't look like BW has put much thought or testing of their own into this? Even assuming they fix some things, I'm going to (maybe) play to 80 on my guardian and there are still going to be gaping holes in what he can do compared to what he does now. Not my idea of fun at all. To me this feels like the opposite of a "thanks for playing all these 10 years".

 

Since vigilance guardians started (that's the class/spec I have the most played time in, probably):

 

Dispatch was replaced.

Smash/Sweep was replaced.

Master strike was changed.

 

<a couple abilities were lost I don't miss them except droid sleep on my sentinel>

 

Force clarity was added.

Saber reflect was added.

Focused defense was added.

Blade blitz was added.

 

Maybe I'm forgetting something but... 4 new buttons on top of the original 24+ means "this game's become so bloated, time to redo everything?" My level 80 guardian's going to have less of a toolkit than my level 50 had when the game started.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Savej

[captainbladejk]

So we've reached full circle where this is more about the fact that you feel like you're being nerfed (and you protest to that) that any sort of viable feedback to be had?

 

I've been playing MMORPGs since 2003 (while we're throwing criteria around), and I've never seen a general rework, rebalance, re-design or even slight class nerf that went over well and was liked by members of that class. Ever. I've experienced a few myself. However, that doesn't mean disliking it makes that objectively right.

 

And might I point out while we were talking about it earlier: the "class rework" in WoW killed nothing. The game had over ten million subscribers at one point in Legion after they streamlined everything. Saying it "killed WoW" might be true for you, but streamlining doesn't need to be a bad thing.

 

There it is right on queue, the classic "you just don't like change" argument. It's just as baseless and foolish now as it has been the previous times. "you just don't like change" and any of its forms are not valid arguments in this instance. It's a purely emotion based argument completely devoid of any facts or evidence. I don't mind change so long as there's valid reason for it and it's positive change for the game as a whole. This is not one of those times. You also need to read what I said again slowly because you either missed what I said, or are willfully distorting what I said.

 

-First up I never said that liking/disliking something made it objectively right or wrong. What I DID say however is if things hit the live servers as they are now, it's an objective fact we will have less abilities in our toolkits than we do now. One only needs basic counting skills to determine this. Just so you don't misunderstand what I'm saying I'm going to put it in bold for you. If things go live the way they are on the PTS right now, it is an objective fact we will have less abilities in our toolkits as we do now. One's like or dislike of something is completely irrelevant to whether something is true or not.

-Second, show me where I said that the mega pruning of abilities over in WoW killed the game, I would love to see that. What I DID say was that they removed too many abilities and it hurt the game as a whole, and they are still recovering from it. For further evidence this can be demonstrated with their sub numbers having not picked back up from where they were before The Great Pruning took place.

 

Now that we've gotten the obligatory statements out of the way we can get to the meat and potatoes. If you want to think myself and others are angry because we don't like change, you're entitled to that opinion. However it does NOT rebut any of the arguments presented by myself or anyone else. I have given feedback multiple times now about how the rotations are clunky on PTS, and how we are now having abilities stolen from us and given back to us as though it's doing us a favor. I have explained how there are noticeable dead spots in the rotation where I may as well be standing there auto-attacking like a glorified NPC. I have also presented ways from a development standpoint change can be done without harming the game. What have you done besides project our own emotion based argument towards me like the previous guy did? If you have evidence to show something I have said is wrong then by all means post it up. If you feel you have an idea both sides would be satisfied with, again post it up.

 

As is right now on live, my Guardian feels fluid and like a well oiled machine. There is very little down time where I'm standing around auto-attacking. The only situations where there are noticeable bits of down time is if/when I am forced to compensate for fight mechanics, I have been stunned/incapacitated in some way, or I screw up my rotation somehow. The first 2 are completely out of my control, but if I screw up my rotation, that's my own fault and not the fault of the game. On the PTS I don't have that same fluidness. There are very large and noticeable dead spots in the rotations where nothing is happening and I'm standing there unable to do much of anything due to everything being on cooldown, or from class resource generation being negatively impacted by the changes. Now if I want to get a group's attention outside of tank spec, I can't throw my saber at them to get their attention, which has been an iconic ability of Guardian/Jugg since launch. Now if I want to use saber throw I'm forced to pick between it and other abilities in the opposing discipline that I've had since launch. So again I am losing abilities that I've had baseline for years, making the class weaker overall. Overall in these aspects the class is weaker, thus it's a nerf.

 

If you've been playing MMOs as long as you say you have, then you should know by now that you can't force people to play a way they don't want to play. If the company doesn't want someone playing a certain way, then the option to play that way never should have been given to them to start with. Just like when Ian Hazikostas over on WoW made the absolutely ignorant statement on a livestream of "we don't want people playing demonology as much" in reference to multiple back to back demonology warlock nerfs. If you want someone to play differently, give them an incentive to do it. Otherwise you can't give someone an option in a game, then turn around and get mad when they use the option you don't like.

 

As I said elsewhere, if they want us to use different abilities than we have now, give us some viable alternatives to consider. I gave the Consuming Darkness example for Sorcs as a hypothetical example. If they wanted to help Sorcs/Sages maintain their force levels easier, give them some options to choose from to do it. Passive A, caps the regen debuff from Consuming Darkness at 3 instead of 4, letting more force be regenned while still benefitting from the Consuming Darkness effect. Passive B, a straight up force cost reduction to certain powers. Passive C, refunds a small amount of force power when the Affliction and Crushing Darkness DoTs tick on a target. Otherwise every ability in the Guardian toolkit gets used at some point or another. Removing any of the core powers available since launch would negatively impact the class.

 

On the point of "useless powers", if someone feels an ability is useless, they are under no obligation to keep using that power. In fact I know of a few people who don't even use the 6.0 abilities as they feel they add nothing of value to their class. The problem in this case is that because certain people feel an ability is "useless" I am now being told I am not allowed to use said power because THEY have decided they don't like it. It's no different than someone saying they hate Sorcs/Sages, therefore no one should be allowed to play a Sage/Sorc and they should be removed. There are already solutions to people who feel there is ability bloat, don't use the abilities you feel are useless.

 

To revisit the "killing WoW" bit again briefly, many people left WoW when The Great Pruning took place. They didn't appreciate the fact that they were now having to pick between abilities they had as baseline powers for years, and should have always had as baseline. Poor Arcane Mages only had 2 buttons to push for their entire rotations there for awhile. Many people left the game because they didn't like how dumbed down it had become as The Great Pruning changed the entire feel of the game in a negative way for many people. Quite a few on these very forums have said that's part of why they game to SWTOR was they enjoyed having a bit of complexity to their toons without it being overdone. Blizzard themselves even had to admit that they made a mistake with The Great Pruning and had to bring back many of the abilities they removed, and had to restore many of the abilities they had stolen before back to the toons as baseline powers, just to get a good majority of those folks to come back. While a fair amount did come back, just as many didn't. I should never have to choose between abilities that have been baseline since launch, just for the sake of a "new choice" that's not a real choice.

 

For the folks who think there is ability bloat in this game and that it's hard for new players to learn, you can lower the required skill level for entry to the basement floor of Hell itself and people would STILL be unable to do it. You are only as helpless in this game as you choose to be. Concluding, it's never been about "you just don't like change" but folks protesting terrible choices and lazy development that will harm the game as a whole and destroy many of the elements that have made SWTOR a success, and destroy alot of the uniqueness of the classes.

[motomag]

 

Let's calm down a little, shall we? And if down the line it turns out that they really did break everything, go nuts.

 

 

So reach for the fire extinguisher AFTER the house has burned down - sounds like good advice.

Edited July 12, 2021 by motomag

[Alssaran]

Dispatch was replaced.

Smash/Sweep was replaced.

Master strike was changed.

 

What in the blazes are you talking about?

 

Vigilance uses Vigilant Thrust, which is (functionally) a more powerful replacement of Force Sweep. It didn't lose the ability, it received an upgraded version.

 

Dispatch was turned into Whirling Blade, which is functionally identical to a more beefy version of Dispatch. Both these abilities are literally just powered up versions of their former ones.

 

Master Strike was changed because many people who mained Guardian - me included - didn't like it's channeled nature. Vigilance was a very subpar spec in PvP because a lot of damage relied on the reset provided to Master Strike, but MS itself was a bad ability in PvP. You'd almost never get a full channel through against anyone who wasn't completely terrible at the game and every knockback, interrupt or slight movement would interrupt the channel. It was changed by popular demand.

 

First up I never said that liking/disliking something made it objectively right or wrong. What I DID say however is if things hit the live servers as they are now, it's an objective fact we will have less abilities in our toolkits than we do now. One only needs basic counting skills to determine this. Just so you don't misunderstand what I'm saying I'm going to put it in bold for you. If things go live the way they are on the PTS right now, it is an objective fact we will have less abilities in our toolkits as we do now. One's like or dislike of something is completely irrelevant to whether something is true or not.

 

I never disputed the fact we will have less abilities. In fact, I clarified multiple times which abilities will be gone and won't be. Don't patronize me.

 

What I DID say was that they removed too many abilities and it hurt the game as a whole, and they are still recovering from it. For further evidence this can be demonstrated with their sub numbers having not picked back up from where they were before The Great Pruning took place.

 

This is what I said, you just re-worded it to sound fancier than "it killed WoW" to paraphrase. This is a false argument and a dishonest one at that.

 

We do not have evidence of where sub numbers would be today without the pruning. We don't have any data to make an informed guess about that, and we don't have any data to see how many people were lost exactly to the pruning. You complain that I make "emotional" arguments, but this is an emotional argument itself: you are creating a direct correlation between something you personally dislike (lesser abilities) and sub numbers being declined, but causality is not causation. You are merely hijacking the sub numbers in support of your arguments. You can't prove anything.

 

The game could have sunk even deeper if the pruning didn't happen. The game could have thrice the users it had WotLK if it didn't happen. The simple fact is that we don't know. What we do know, however, is that even after the great pruning in early WoD, the game still reached over ten million users during Legion years after the pruning. Thus, it stands to reason that a very insignificant portion of the player loss was specifically due to pruning and a lot of it was combined (or solely) due to other reasons.

 

Stop hijacking sub number losses that can't even be accurately tracked in terms of reason or severity (since we don't have numbers) to try and strengthen your argument. It's dishonest and false.

 

If you've been playing MMOs as long as you say you have, then you should know by now that you can't force people to play a way they don't want to play. If the company doesn't want someone playing a certain way, then the option to play that way never should have been given to them to start with. Just like when Ian Hazikostas over on WoW made the absolutely ignorant statement on a livestream of "we don't want people playing demonology as much" in reference to multiple back to back demonology warlock nerfs. If you want someone to play differently, give them an incentive to do it. Otherwise you can't give someone an option in a game, then turn around and get mad when they use the option you don't like.

 

I'm so tired of this statement being taken out of context of when and how it was made, and what followed months(!) after that statement was made. And the hilarious part is that I don't even like the guy.

 

Ion made that statement a short while before demonology received a major thematic, identity and balance rework in Legion. They didn't want you to play it in WoD - as good or bad as that is - because they knew the demonology toolkit of late MoP (demon form) would soon be merged into the demon hunter. It wasn't that they wanted to create a dead spec on purpose. It was a (light-hearted) explanation of a problem that he couldn't fully get into at that time. The live stream when Ion said that was in June 2015. The video announcing Legion (and consequently the demon hunter) didn't drop until August of that year. The reason he said what he said was because he couldn't say: demonology as you know it will disappear because we're releasing the demon hunter with their demonic forms for DPS and tanking.

 

Every time - every. single. time. - this argument has been presented in bad faith. He wasn't being deliberately obtuse that time. He literally couldn't say that they are reworking it or why they were reworking it without dropping the ball on something the marketing department hadn't green-lit yet.

 

On the point of "useless powers", if someone feels an ability is useless, they are under no obligation to keep using that power. In fact I know of a few people who don't even use the 6.0 abilities as they feel they add nothing of value to their class. The problem in this case is that because certain people feel an ability is "useless" I am now being told I am not allowed to use said power because THEY have decided they don't like it.

 

No, I'm not saying you're not allowed to use it. I'm saying that it is an objectively, terribly designed ability that shouldn't exist in the first place. Your emotional attachment to said abilities is none of my business, but that emotional attachment doesn't justify it's continued existence.

 

Freezing Force is a no-brainer, especially paired with Persistent Chill. It's not that it's bad. It's that it is way to baseline and great for what it's doing. It's a free, continuous incredible movement slow that adds a DoT and a movement speed increase for yourself through the utility. It was always a bloody no-brainer to pick and it adds a permanent slow and speed boost to the Guardian for simply weaving one more ability into their rotation. The ability being badly designed has nothing to do with it being "useless."

 

Challenging Call on DPS classes is another. There are two - only two - uses for it:

• To drop aggro when you pull it in PvE
  
• To increase damage reduction in PvP
  

 

The first one shouldn't be an issue. I'm not being dishonest here - pulling aggro because you're too good at DPS has always been an annoying mechanic. Stopping DPS to manage aggro hasn't been a good mechanic ever, and no, even people I played with in Classic didn't like it. Aggro management should be designed from the ground up to work.

 

The damage reduction in PvP is a double-edged sword. It's useful, but it's also terribly to manage. Essentially, it's absolutely terrible to make out which Guardian used it if there's more than one. If Challenging Call is a defensive only utility, then the answer to that is quite simple: the guy using defensive abilities is the Guardian to focus when it goes off. When the utility is available to all Guardians and there's more than one (e.g a defense and a DPS one), it just becomes terrible to play against because information isn't readily available.

 

You're conflating multiple things. Sometimes abilities that aren't useless get re-designed or re-assigned precisely because they aren't useless.

 

To revisit the "killing WoW" bit again briefly, many people left WoW when The Great Pruning took place. They didn't appreciate the fact that they were now having to pick between abilities they had as baseline powers for years, and should have always had as baseline.

 

Again, you have literally zero numbers to understand that it was indeed because of the pruning. Also, sub numbers recovered long after the pruning in Legion for quite a while when content was good. It almost seems like pruning was something nobody really cared about while the content was good.

 

Blizzard themselves even had to admit that they made a mistake with The Great Pruning and had to bring back many of the abilities they removed, and had to restore many of the abilities they had stolen before back to the toons as baseline powers, just to get a good majority of those folks to come back.

 

Many of the abilities they brought back for Shadowlands are functionally dead for their specs and aren't used. Nobody - absolutely freaking nobody - is using Frostbolt as a fire mage, eye of the beast for anything but lolling around in the capitol city and so on. It was largely a marketing thing. And 'lo and behold, sub numbers and content participation in Shadowlands dropped despite their attempts at unpruning.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Alssaran

[ceryxp]

I'm not grabbing a pitch fork and torches, and if ppl think my posts are pitch forks and torches im wonder what discourse they have interacted with prior to this...

 

I did not say that you were grabbing a pitchfork and torch, but you established the binary.

 

 

Us, who actually use the abilities we say we use: "Please dont do this. We beg of you. This is a bad idea!"

 

Them: "You dont even use those abilities! Like, who even uses saber throw? yall need to calm down a bit!"

 

And then you doubled-down on that binary. To you, there is no grey. Well, sorry to disappoint, but as is true of most binaries, I do not fit into yours. Some of these changes are interesting, and yes, some will be a difficult pill to swallow. But change is happening -- oh, you already said that.

 

 

These changes are happening

 

They are not asking you if you want these changes, they are asking you to tweak them.

 

You acknowledge that change is happening, but you can not acknowledge that there is a middle ground way of viewing these changes?

 

 

for those of us canceling our subs due to this change (yes, I am as well, the day before 7.0 - and I had thought I would play until they turned the servers off)...

 

I want to be wrong. I really, really really do, but only bioware can prove that. And I'm not holding my breath.

 

And there is your pitchfork. You say that only BW can prove you wrong. They say that this is a super high level preview, which means that there is stuff, information, that they are intentionally keeping back. Further details. Clearly there are things that are missing. Do you really think that BW is removing interrupts from the game? From what I have read on Reddit, where more nuanced conversations are being had (I know, shocker!, nuance on Reddit?), the Disciplines window is not accessible. So does that mean they are removing all of those passives and utilities, as well? This is information that would come in a deep dive, or at least a lower altitude dive than what we currently have, that you said you do not need to see.

 

But what does it matter? You say these changes are coming, that you do not need to see the information that they are withholding, and that you are leaving. So -- bye-bye, I guess?

 

The one topic on which people have been right is that this is not finished enough to do a preview. BW should not have put this out at this time and they are, as usual, withholding details that should be included in the first pass.

[CrazyOldMystic]

Op you have no idea what your talking about.

Mob mentality. GOOD!

The last time they did this they absolutely wrecked the vanguard and powertech. I am not talking about numbers here, I am talking about straight up fun. They removed full auto, they removed grenades, they removed explosive round, and turned the mortar volley into something down right stupid. My commando lost stock strike, and lost pulse cannon. Two abilities I used in conjunction with my grenades and full auto to kill sith warriors at close range. The worse part was you couldn't even level a vanguard or powertech after fact until months later they added some quick repair work to the class, because they realized they screwed up. They didn't even have the guts to say it.

 

If the players do not get them to not prune more abilities here and now, then every class is going to turn into a generic boring vanguard. Obviously, for the sake of less intelligent people, I do not mean the vanguard class.

[Giliodor]

Not this again. This is coming from someone who is not playing WoW at the moment, has no intention to, and quite frankly has a lot of criticism about it: the new talent trees, which is the feature this new approach mostly resembles, is far from one of the bad points. In fact, the smoothness of gameplay is still one of the game's many strengths. People remember classes before they were "pruned" because they had so many buttons, and we all know "quantity means they were so great to play!"

 

Listen, you know how many interactions my warlock toolkit had before in the very old days? One. Affliction spells would proc an instant Shadow Bolt. You know what my optimal DPS rotation was? Shadow Bolt. No, I'm not leaving anything out here. I know it's a crazy list and really hard to follow, but someone had to write it down.

 

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? No one cares about Classic WoW class design. It's atrocious. People want MoP class design. That's when the classes were interesting to play. Take your pathetic strawman arguments elsewhere.

[VampRayLa]

Do you really think that BW is removing interrupts from the game?

 

This statement alone means you didnt even read all my posts, you picked and displayed what you wanted to fit your narrative. Good job.

Edited July 12, 2021 by VampRayLa

[Savej]

 

What in the blazes are you talking about?

 

 

The names were changed - it wasn't a playstyle change or a significant change to anyone's rotation, just different names and animations. Although vigilant thrust was around when vigilance became the aoe spec while focus was turned into the single target spec. I included the renames/changes for the sake of completeness. My main point is that the spec hasn't been hit with ability bloat unless you want to say it started off that way 10 years ago. For that matter, focus and defense don't have tons of new abilities either.