Combat styles are death of game

[LeoAugustina]

Do they think a horde of new players are waiting pruning and talents choice to play SWTOR? Its unbelievable

Ff14 is the new thing not an old 10 years SWTOR.

[Nee-Elder]

The smaller group is the one who uses the forums. The larger group are the ones too busy playing the game to use the forums

 

Most players just lurk actually, but never bother posting.

 

It takes a certain type of insanity to keep posting on these SWTOR forums after 10 years. /whistles-innocent

 

p.s. i'm busy playing the game and alt-tab to the forums sometimes

Edited July 14, 2021 by Nee-Elder

[Alssaran]

Its unbelievable. Ff14 is the new thing not an old 10 years SWTOR.

 

So the game without talents, specializations on classes, glyphs, additional power systems and a super basic gearing system is the new top dog in the industry?

 

Well, then I suppose I really don't understand where Bioware could have gotten the idea from that simplicity sells. It remains an utmost mystery...

[JCDenton]

I'd be surprised if even ten percent of people playing the game went to the forums frequently.

 

I'd be even more surprised if people who say things like this understood what a sample size was, or how they worked.

[Tsillah]

The smaller group is the one who uses the forums. The larger group are the ones too busy playing the game to use the forums <3

Are you making a joke or are you seriously oversimplifying the matter?

[Viraxis]

Combat styles aren't what we asked for. We wanted a broadening of weapons available to each class. I play my mercenary to play a mercenary, or my guardian to play a guardian. I'm not opposed to the idea they're pitching but separate combat styles from weapon requirements. Let a commando use a blaster rifle instead of those obnoxiously oversized cannons, or let a marauder use a saberstaff instead of dual wielding sabers. But don't bind that concept to having to change out your entire class identity if you don't want to do so.

 

This will never ever happen. Animations for the most part are tied to the weapon you are using. If you allow classes to use other weapon types then you have now have ability x weapon type animations for each ability that uses the weapon in the animation.

[JCDenton]

This will never ever happen. Animations for the most part are tied to the weapon you are using. If you allow classes to use other weapon types then you have now have ability x weapon type animations for each ability that uses the weapon in the animation.

 

Which really isn't that big of an ask, and the consistent framing of it here as just being plainly out of reach is ridiculous. If Bioware isn't able to reach the same heights as an amateur Skyrim modder, what am I paying for? What is anyone paying for?

[Alssaran]

I'd be even more surprised if people who say things like this understood what a sample size was, or how they worked.

 

I'm putting this into a spoiler to now blow up the thread, considering it's largely statistical conversation.

 

 

I understand perfectly fine what a sample size is. Take a group of people with a good mixture of age, political view, affiliation or other factors depending on what you're trying to measure and then you can - with reasonable certainty - extrapolate to a larger community.

 

The problem with trying to apply a sample size to this and claim that this is why you're right or what you're going for is twofold: First, you have zero idea how to measure total prevalence of negative opinions. As I reminded you when I said that many names even in this post appear in multiple of these doom and gloom posts, you can't even extrapolate properly. Want to look at total number of posts that are negative about this? That number can be inflated by multiple threads from the same person in different forums. Want to look at responses in negative threads? You'd have to account for multi-posts from the same person or subtract the posts defending the PTS.

 

Literally every time someone tries to throw some "statistical analysis 101" around, they fail to account for almost all of the nuance.

 

Secondly, you fail to account for the fact that people who are unhappy are far more frequent to voice their opinion than people who just enjoy and play the game. It's like a complaints line. In my own company, people don't just call in and sit in line for 10 minutes to say: "I like my course, I'm happy! Bye!" They will, however, do it if there's a problem. In many cases the far more casual, less serious userbase that doesn't frequent the forums all too much doesn't care too much about expansion to expansion changes either. They pop in, play a few months, pop out. There's also a ton of long-term players that I know who never, ever go to the forums because gaming forums are (by and large) often a waste of time. Evidence A: the two of us will never agree, so this discussion is largely pointless to begin with. Many of which actually like the proposed changes and the idea behind it. That's mostly subjective evidence though, before you make a snarky comment about "do you know subjective observations?!?!"

 

Unless you can account for this issue, your "sample size" is useless. There's a reason election predictions have often been fairly off the mark lately.

 

This problem is also known in statistics. Extrapolation past the point of available data must be done carefully for that reason. I'll put this into a current example: let's say you are (reasonably) able to predict 90% of forum-goers hate this change. You have 1,000 people on this forum, the game has 80,000 players. Saying that the "evidence and sample size suggests 72,000 players will hate the change" is not supported by any data. You know that a "sample size" of 1,000 people that are hyper-focused on this game, took the time to voice their concerns on the forum and are unhappy enough to say it did so, but you have no idea how prevalent this unhappiness is with the other 79,000 players. For all you know, they were never bothered enough to write. They might like it. They might not know the forum exists. They might hate it, but think it's a waste of time to write and just leave.

 

But sure, let's talk about "sample sizes": what data suggests to you:

 

1. This change is widely disliked in the community?
   
2. That the forum could be an effective sample size for current players?
   
3. How future players feel about this change?
   
4. How many new players this change might or might not bring in?
   

 

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Alssaran

[Christie_Swift]

Combat styles aren't what we asked for. We wanted a broadening of weapons available to each class. I play my mercenary to play a mercenary, or my guardian to play a guardian. I'm not opposed to the idea they're pitching but separate combat styles from weapon requirements. Let a commando use a blaster rifle instead of those obnoxiously oversized cannons, or let a marauder use a saberstaff instead of dual wielding sabers. But don't bind that concept to having to change out your entire class identity if you don't want to do so.

 

I agree with this 100%

Could be nice to have but at what expense? Devs should not be lazy and just create an extra class they can fiddle with rather than obliterate what we had since day 1.

[Tsillah]

This will never ever happen. Animations for the most part are tied to the weapon you are using. If you allow classes to use other weapon types then you have now have ability x weapon type animations for each ability that uses the weapon in the animation.

 

Yeah cause all we get is the old content tweaked and fiddled with. Heaven forbid we expect BW to actually do something new. I get it though...I also know it's never going to happen, but how sad is this state of affairs really?

[TheVoyant]

So when was the last time something was on the PTS and based on the feedback it was retracted? That was a rhetorical question btw. I'm sure it'll be tweaked but BW have a history of putting stuff on the PTS and still go through with it even when the community is dead set against it.

 

So...it's kinda not too early to complain and freak out about it. Of course the game won't die over it, but an exodus like with galactic command is possible.

 

This hits it perfectly. Its the track record, I mean just look at how virtually EVERYONE said hey this new amplifier window is god awful on PTS.

 

Then they launched it and everyone, even the customer support seemed to be like "really guys?"

 

You know its bad when even customer support is agreeing with the consumers against bad design decisions.

 

It is very very simple Bioware, DO NOT TAKE AWAY ABILITIES, and the people will be happy. At the very least make the default or middle road exactly what we have now and then offer two alternative options for your "choices"

 

We need more customization, not more streamlined simplifying.

Edited July 14, 2021 by TheVoyant

[JCDenton]

Literally every time someone tries to throw some "statistical analysis 101" around, they fail to account for almost all of the nuance.

 

Like someone consistently using "it's just the forums!" as a way to imply that the negativity isn't shared by the player base at large, despite zero data to support this assertion? Despite the available data directly contradicting it? Unsupported assertions that run contrary to the available, observable data don't make for very good arguments.

 

I may not have any interest in teaching statistical analysis 101 on the Star Wars video game forum, but don't take that to mean you couldn't use a brush up.

[Alssaran]

Like someone consistently using "it's just the forums!" as a way to imply that the negativity isn't shared by the player base at large, despite zero data to support this assertion?

 

Precisely, there's zero data. That's the point. I never claimed the majority liked this change. Currently, the majority of the playerbase doesn't seem to care. I've been hanging around quite a few Discords, Reddit and on general chat on fleet quite some time, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence they lean any one way particularly. Some are against it. Some think it sounds like a good idea.

 

Your problem is the at large. You claim your opinion is shared by the majority/the larger playerbase. I don't. I'm simply saying it doesn't seem to go any one way at the moment at that the forums alone aren't statistically representative of the entire playerbase. I'm not saying the larger playerbase agrees with me. I'm saying making any assumption of what the larger playerbase thinks beyond of a mix is all conjecture and assumption at this point, invoked to merely strengthen your point because you think you're right and don't want this to happen.

 

Unsupported assertions that run contrary to the available, observable data don't make for very good arguments.

 

You don't even have observable data. I would be surprised if you've taken the time to turn a forum view (that will inevitably be skewed by your own perception) into hard numbers. And secondly, it's fine if there is some negativity on the forum. It's certainly not all positive. The problem is that the issues of extrapolation I mentioned don't go away. They are proven concepts. Vocality in a small area does not equal majority support. The largest part of users - which would form an average - might not care at all. It could be that there are two extreme camps and a large middle, casual portion of the playerbase that literally has no feelings on the topic either way.

 

I'm not saying a large portion likes this. My issue is with you trying to strengthen your argument by invoking a "sample size" that can't work.

 

Take that as you will.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Alssaran

[JCDenton]

You claim your opinion is shared by the majority/the larger playerbase.

 

No, I don't. I claim that attempts to suggest that it definitely isn't, because the forums are somehow separate from the player base for one unsupported reason or another, are asinine. Argue with what people say, not what you imagine.

[OlBuzzard]

To be perfectly candid about all of this:

 

** What "some folks asked for" : IMO this was not requested by the majority. Yes .. several have been flooding the forums with "let us chose what weapons we want" ... Not everyone asked for that. I DO understand a certain amount of that desire (here are a couple of examples)

 

** Trooper who is seen pulling a side arm ESPECIALLY in cut scenes .. restricted to the use of the "auto cannon" only . That was something of a contradiction.

 

Solution ADD an additional weapon (perhaps two) : side arm blaster and MAYBE sniper rifle ??? IMO the sniper rifle is still out of character to a degree (sort of) ... but not enough to be dogmatic about!

 

** Smuggler uses one blaster and a shot gun ?? still a little weird to me personally. BUT I'm also smart enough to realize that is MY opinion. Again nothing to be dogmatic about.

 

Then there was the Mandalorian episode where he uses a sniper rifle (of sorts). Soooo naturally several folks in game WANT said sniper rifle ! IMO this is one of those subjects where that matter is discussed on open forum and the development team eventually decides what they want to do. Again .. I'm OK with whatever decision is made. Not that big a deal really.

 

** Jedi and Sith. To be perfectly honest there are "shared abilities" straight across the board on this one. YES I get it !! There are some thing that a Jedi just simply do not do. I get that part too. As for what they use :

*Two sabers

*One saber

*pole saber

From everything I've seen this does not dictate an advantage. It seems to be something of a preference as much as anything.

 

***** What I have not seen done successfully .. is for someone who is not a Jedi / Sith to pick up a light saber and use it skillfully.

 

Obi Wan did pick up a blaster to defend himself ... then threw it down since he preferred to use his saber.

 

All in all since the game was released there have been certain "characteristics " which have helped to define each of the classes (4 Republic / 4 Sith Empire) . As long as the story lines continue we should be in good shape.

 

OH yeah ... that's right we've lost those too !

 

Hmmm

 

Let's see:

** Companions are done (pretty much ... only good for playing space Barbie. An amulet hanging around our neck can do exactly the same task of adding healing or attack points).

 

** Class stories are done (pretty much .. Very little variant ... actually)

 

** Repeatable story sections where we can increase our mode of play ( like we had in KotFE / ET ) ... gone !

 

Combat styles are not the death of this game !!

 

Some of the "weapons choices" do make sense. So I have no problem initially with what is being tested. I for one plan to wait and see what shakes out in the end.

 

 

As for the death of the game there are a lot of other things that have been consistently asked for (and hopefully will not be ignored.)

 

NO .. I don't want the team to do things the way I would do it !! They have to only read a couple of my poorly done short stories to see that ... Or see the models I've done ( or tried to do ) . It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out !!

 

The team is quite capable when they set their mind to it!

 

BTW... it should also be noted that as a retired purchasing director ... smoke and mirrors (don't work either).

[casirabit]

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9957133#edit9957133

[OlBuzzard]

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9957133#edit9957133

 

I saw that !! I'm glad that they are looking this over!

[Tsillah]

I saw that !! I'm glad that they are looking this over!

 

Well they've said that many times before. My guess is that they'll come back with some "improvements" that people won't really be happy with but will accept down the line, because they have to.

 

But hey, I'll be happy to be wrong about this and have them surprise the hell out of me. However, I expect them to continue with this choice deal, where you have to choose between abilities that you all got before. So hey, it's new and fresh but we're going to keep the same ability pool but we're gonna make you choose between them. How cool is that eh?

 

You know, for once I'd like the to do something with the combat system that's actually new rather than just a rehashing of the same, just in a different format.

[Darth-Obvious]

Mmorpg is about grouping and guilding with many different classes, each one has pro and contra, but devs are going to destroy the foundation of mmorpg by destroying class exclusivity.

 

What about FF14? It's super successful despite all classes being able to be played on a single character.

 

SWTOR can justify the separation of classes at least with the Class Stories but after a certain point, the content you're playing through primarily becomes the same for all classes. For a number of people it's too monotonous, tedious, repetitive, etc, playing through KOTFE (or whatever) for the umpteenth time. A number of WoW players have similar issues where it's just not justifiable enough to play the same content again a dozen times over.

 

Playing through the story or stories again is a big deal for people but how many people who are into that aspect want to actually engage with the game or combat as opposed to just playing the story?

 

"Combat styles" aren't even choosing your characters preferred weapons or fighting techniques, it's just a straight up class change. Nobody wanted or needed this, it's just a copy paste from FF14, a game where making alts and leveling through the base game is miserable.

 

You're not supposed to make alts in FF14. FF14's design highlights how pointless or unnecessary having alts is in many cases & unlike SWTOR you can replay through the story which is one of the big reasons a number of people have so many alts in SWTOR.

 

Do they think a horde of new players are waiting pruning and talents choice to play SWTOR? Its unbelievable

Ff14 is the new thing not an old 10 years SWTOR.

 

FF14 came out in 2010, a full year before SWTOR.

 

I agree with this 100%

Could be nice to have but at what expense? Devs should not be lazy and just create an extra class they can fiddle with rather than obliterate what we had since day 1.

 

The idea of a new class is completely ridiculous. A new class has or brings new expectations, ie story, armor, weapons, etc, and if you say it doesn't need to have a class story or exclusive armors or weapons or it's own unique class ship or companions or any of that stuff then you're giving people less reasons to play that class and making it appear inferior to the other classes.

[Alssaran]

No, I don't. I claim that attempts to suggest that it definitely isn't, because the forums are somehow separate from the player base for one unsupported reason or another, are asinine. Argue with what people say, not what you imagine.

 

Then I will apologise for attributing an argument that you did not make. That is what I took from your sample size comment.

 

However, the points I have raised aren't unsubstantiated claims. They are very much fundamentally concepts when working with data. The idea was not to suggest that they're entirely disconnected, but that quantifying said connection and overlap due to the variables is entirely impossible. There's simply no way to tell a majority any one way across the entire game right now. My issue was with the perception of trying to invoke the silent majority to any one side.

 

Which is also largely besides the point. Whether we like it or not, some form of simplification will happen. Plans like this aren't suddenly entirely scrapped. If pruning was ever in the cards, that is. This is a very early work-in-progress version...

Edited July 14, 2021 by Alssaran

[OlBuzzard]

I agree with this 100%

Could be nice to have but at what expense? Devs should not be lazy and just create an extra class they can fiddle with rather than obliterate what we had since day 1.

 

If a NEW class were added it would be completely new: Story / companion (3 sub classes: healer / tank / dps) .

 

You might be thinking of adding a new subclass to each class now available ?? maybe ?

 

IMO that would still be unnecessary ... not sure it would help.

 

Additional note:

If I had to guess (and that is ALL this is: a guess.) ... I'd say the intent of the team was to clean up some of the redundant abilities that really don't add that much to the game (but still takes a ton of programming) ... and wanted to add a few items from similar classes (ie: smuggler / sniper ... maybe ?)

 

From what I've read several folks that wanted "change" were asking for just being able to cross over classes for certain weapons. AND IIRC there have been posts in the past asking to trim down the number of attacks / defense items to pull from during combat.

 

IN any case I do hope that the discussions will continue and to be civil in the process. We're all going to disagree from time to time. That much is for certain. Hopefully with all of that there is a lot of listening too !!

[DarkTergon]

Not getting in the middle of this argument, as tbh, i'm not sure where I stand on it, but a couple of things I did pick out

 

You're not supposed to make alts in FF14. FF14's design highlights how pointless or unnecessary having alts is in many cases & unlike SWTOR you can replay through the story which is one of the big reasons a number of people have so many alts in SWTOR.

 

.

 

I play FF14, and I'm only new to it, but I've already got a couple of alts, and from what I've seen in the game, most the other players too. Now admittedly I'm new to it, but it's just something I've observed Not saying you are wrong, just something I noticed

 

 

 

 

FF14 came out in 2010, a full year before SWTOR.

 

 

.

 

Didn't it get 'burned to the ground' and rebuilt though, so although it's an old game, it's also new?..sort of....

Edited July 14, 2021 by DarkTergon

[Severith]

Not getting in the middle of this argument, as tbh, i'm not sure where I stand on it, but a couple of things I did pick out

 

 

 

I play FF14, and I'm only new to it, but I've already got a couple of alts, and from what I've seen in the game, most the other players too. Now admittedly I'm new to it, but it's just something I've observed Not saying you are wrong, just something I noticed

 

 

 

 

Didn't it get 'burned to the ground' and rebuilt though, so although it's an old game, it's also new?..sort of....

 

The absolute weakest element of FF14 is the early leveling and questing. It's an abysmal swamp of fetch quests and back and forths. The first 20-30 levels suck, and that's considered "fact" in the FF14 community. When people roll an alt in FF14, it's mostly for fashion choice. The story ends up being the same, and there's little to no input on how the story plays out from a player choice perspective. There's no "I played a light side Jedi, gonna try dark side with this new toon" type situation with FF14.

[Darth-Obvious]

Didn't it get 'burned to the ground' and rebuilt though, so although it's an old game, it's also new?..sort of....

 

The overhaul, ie A Realm Reborn, came out in 2013 which would only put it 2 years after SWTOR. FF14 is an older game than people make it out to be. It's just become a much more dominant force in terms of the coverage and attention it's been getting recently due to positive word of mouth, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, etc.

 

The absolute weakest element of FF14 is the early leveling and questing. It's an abysmal swamp of fetch quests and back and forths. The first 20-30 levels suck, and that's considered "fact" in the FF14 community. When people roll an alt in FF14, it's mostly for fashion choice.

 

Let's not pretend SWTOR's quest design of "Kill 10 of These and Collect 5 of those" is anything special or that feels particularly great, especially when it persists throughout the entire game.

 

The story ends up being the same, and there's little to no input on how the story plays out from a player choice perspective. There's no "I played a light side Jedi, gonna try dark side with this new toon" type situation with FF14.

 

So it's basically like every other MMO's story and not specifically like SWTOR which is the outlier.

 

If you're going from SWTOR to any other MMO's story, no matter what it is, that other MMO is going to seem lacking.

 

SWTOR does start coming up more and more short in the story department once you're out of the vanilla content. Many FF14 players will note how it's story doesn't start great but becomes better over time whereas SWTOR is kind of the inverse where most of the best story stuff is found in the vanilla game with the content getting weaker post Chapter 3, ie the vanilla content.

[Xargas]

Lol am I only one who is absolutely against combat styles? This is just a **** that destroyes the spirit and core of this game entirely. Game absolutely has no need of it.

 

Every xpack in every game there is a post like this. Even in WoW, after every announcement, there is a post about death of a game. I'm sure fans will keep it up, and new and returning players will fill the gap of those who don't like the expansion.