Planned Balance Changes for 7.1.1

[JamboBaker]

“We know we’re ruining the viability of Lightning and AP on most Nim bosses, we’re doing it on purpose”

[DrakoOnasi]

Why? Who asked for this ?

 This might not be the place for this but here it goes anyways

Who asked for anything you did with 7.0 or 7.1?

Players asked for 3 things more Story and not in Chapters

New PVP maps

New Classes  or types of characters why is there no playable Wookie?

When you do content stop with these dumb chapter releases, release the whole thing at once, spoon feeding content is why this game is dying a slow Painful death the same way the content is delivered slow an painfully.

While Eternal Throne content was good,  if you have more than one character it was the same same story for every class.

Then with 7.0 you worked on it over a year and the time spent messing with the way gearing works to create a whole new 4 levels of grind to get the top rated gear was garbage yeah it brought in a few new players but it is not what the Players that have been here for years asked for for every new player I am sure you are losing an old one and most of the new players don't keep their subscription either.  

This game has to be less than 100K players total hence why there are only 4 servers worldwide, and unless things change in the next month or 2, I cant justify keeping my subscription either.

 

[Ambrodel]

25 minutes ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Developer Feedback:

• Lightning/Telekinetics is exceeding our DPS targets as a Ranged Burst spec role.

Targets for what content? What are you measuring it up against?

[Chryptyk]

i guess it's time to nerf the devs and EAware execs and unsub.

[JamboBaker]

4 minutes ago, Ambrodel said:

Targets for what content? What are you measuring it up against?

*Looks at Arsenal and Marksmanship*
Maybe that's the measuring stick....

[djbauer]

Just now, Ambrodel said:

Targets for what content? What are you measuring it up against?

Such an important question. No idea what this target is, and why they address these two disciplines in particular while effectively ignoring every other combat style blasting far past this "target" compared to lightning and AP.

What content is being run that these seem to be the most direly in need of changes?
What variables are being isolated in the dev's testing tools that tell them information so different in comparison to how we see the same disciplines perform in practice?

There's clearly a huge mismatch between what's being seen in-studio, class balance-wise, and what players actually feel when we play the game, and I'm not sure how that gap is supposed to be bridged if we give feedback and get this kind of change back instead... I'm so legitimately confused as to what decided this

[AdsAillard]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

I wanted to start by saying we appreciate everyone for taking the time and effort to give feedback on the changes. (...)
I just wanted to close by thanking everyone for their feedback and hope to keep seeing more of it in the future. I

Well, look, here's the thing... If you ask for feedback, then don't listen to it and later try to justify it as if we didn't get what you were planning to do because we disagree... Does not sounds like you're thankful or even paying much attention to the said feedback and want to see it in the future.

This has been a problem again and again, and it never seems to get any better. Honestly, at this point, it seems that your "solutions" come around at random, really. 

And it starts with the mistake of trying to make a single thing work on PVE and PVP and ends up just making both not work. Sorcs are terrible in PVE content right now; Madness is annoying in PVP but in the end of the day, you're suggesting changes that don't really solve that and further make Madness a bad option in PVE. Let's not even get to TK - it's being absolutely destroyed by it and it shall now be relegated to SM.

... Same with AP, ofc - not that anyone is really playing it on HM and NiM,if you look at parsely. And no one is playing it because Pyro clearly does more damage/has less heat management issues. From a PvP perspective, it's terrible to meet a good AP player... But also throw a reflect at them when they're mid-burst and they mostly will kill themselves on you, so, it really isn't a big issue in itself unless you're doing a 1v1 - and, spoilers, none of the game modes in PVP are really aiming at a 1v1. You want to make AP less OP in PVP? Take out their ability to keep doing damage while stunned (or make so that it doesn't work on pvp, whihc we know you can do), which is super gamebreaking on pretty much all unranked modes. See what I mean with seeming random changes? Actual problems are not addressed and other stuff is changed that doesn't help with the (pvp) problem and create a PVE problem where there wasn't one.

 

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

 

• • • Much like the Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge changes this change was made to reduce the sustain of the spec.*

* emphasis mine

See... this is why sometimes you'll see people wondering if you play your own game, because, this is not what we actually need! Yes, we wee a lot of BIG NUMBER DPS on AP (and other specs), and that may seem excessive but when you get down to the actual (PVE) play, it isn't excessive. We don't need less sustain on specs, and while I understand that *conceptually* you wanted it to be burst windows Vs Constant Damage, the game design of your (pve) content doesn't work like that. And the changes you're making is narrowing more and more what are actual doable classes on harder content - mathematically, in case of NiM, and in experience in case of HM - you keep increasing the barrier for HM/NiM while SM presents so little challenge as to hinder the teaching of harder content because players have zero experience in basic mechanics. So, you know, seems like you're taking the trees as if they were the whole world and never looking at your own forest and how you're stopping it from thriving. 

Which mirrors the whole way we said again and again and again that gearing paths were too complicated/draining during MONTHS of PTS, how it was completely ignored and then caused a MASSIVE number of players to leave the game because they got burnt out trying to gear up to get back at what they were doing before the patch (when they even could do it, let's not forget that NIM Gods wasn't cleared before 7.1). So, yeah, I don't feel like there's any point in giving any feedback, as it's never listened and as the actual attempt at explanations just end up showing lack of game awareness... And, worse, community awareness. Because, I don't really care what says in your pretty white board, the game design isn't meant to be done aiming at beautiful abstract concepts. It's meant to serve the people playing - the people who keep telling you this is the opposite of what they want/need and being ignored.

So, you know, maybe y'all should try a little thing called "read the room". 


BTW, I don't even play Sorc at all or PT for real, I'm just AMAZED and slightly enraged at how you seem to not care that this is terrible UX (because UX isn't about making things pretty or about your UI, it's about the whole experience. And the experience of 7.x has been filled with car crashes that could've been easily avoided if you read any of the signs).

Edited October 14, 2022 by AdsAillard
grammar

[AdsAillard]

6 minutes ago, djbauer said:

Such an important question. No idea what this target is, and why they address these two disciplines in particular while effectively ignoring every other combat style blasting far past this "target" compared to lightning and AP.

What content is being run that these seem to be the most direly in need of changes?
What variables are being isolated in the dev's testing tools that tell them information so different in comparison to how we see the same disciplines perform in practice?

There's clearly a huge mismatch between what's being seen in-studio, class balance-wise, and what players actually feel when we play the game, and I'm not sure how that gap is supposed to be bridged if we give feedback and get this kind of change back instead... I'm so legitimately confused as to what decided this

Yeah, but, that's kinda easy:

How user experiences features ALWAYS trumps "lab" theory.

Live-representation ALWAYS trumps the test with a limited scope of players.

This isn't anything shocking, new or hard to grasp, this are the basics of how you develop user-centered products.

And 10 years is a long time not to have learnt that.

[BladeWind]

You clearly don't listen to feedback. I'm not even sure why you solicit it anymore, it just causes more annoyance/discontent when you ignore what your players are telling you. 

You clearly don't play your own game and understand its interactions.

You are nerfing classes instead of increasing viability of others. 

Bugs continue to exist that range from annoying to game breaking/rage inducing and never seem to be addressed.

 

But that cartel market always seems to get updated...

 

[codydmaan]

Most of the community plays pve. 

Group unranked pvp. 

 

Small minority plays ranked pvp 

 

These nerf affect pve more than pvp. 

Ranged classes were lacking in 7.0 they don't need a nerf.

If any range class is overperforming it's engineering. However it's enjoyable and not too overly powered negating raid mechanics or anything. 

 

This is unwarranted and can I say widely unappreciated. 

 

It would be nice if you actually listened to us. 

What's your target numbers? Share them with us. 

[timovdt]

40 minutes ago, Ambrodel said:

Targets for what content? What are you measuring it up against?

its viable thats not allowed only pyro mara jugg and io are supposed to be viable

[Wolvesgaar]

Hey Devs, 

Seeing how top 5 DPS specs are all melee, you might as well remove all of the ranged classes/specs from the game.

Dunno what DPS checks are you comparing your balancing too, but its clear none of you play content harder than Veteran. 

Hard to keep interest in this game, month after month...

Edited October 14, 2022 by Wolvesgaar

[Exly]

Tell us, what are your dps targets by spec. 

You say that some specs are over performing, but never tell us what your performance standards are (assuming that you actually have any).

I would also like you to let us know if performance levels are based on bis 340 gear or unaugmented 320 gear or something in between.  Also, are you basing it on performance in pvp or in operations or on dummy parses?

To be honest, I wish you would stop nerfing people, and increase the health pools on bosses instead.  I mean, some bosses are so easy that only take 1 or 2 minutes to kill.  

[steveerkcanjerk]

I am going to wait and see how it shakes on live. I am going to assume 340 gear is what the tests are in and parsed at. And also just looking at top dummy parses don't tell the entire story either. Lightning will still be brought to fights especially for ranged burst window type fights or something like styraks where overload will stop the mobs. I can see it being brought to master blaster and revan. But last time i checked here, arsenal was still doom and gloom or not enough and their parses are looking fine. I also see people saying game easy or game is hard but I think if you know what you are doing on your spec you can still be taken. But we shall see how it shakes out. That halted offensive will still hit hard, but i do see hard casting it going away. 

[jstachj]

Ok so while I appreciate any attempt at transparency you have to know that is not enough.

 

The crux of your post boils down to "These classes are exceeding our targets, therefore nerf" and that opens a ton of questions that to be frank, have already been asked, and are still unanswered.

 

What are these targets? How are they determined? How do other classes compare?

How do these targets line up with DPS requirements in PvE? Class performance in PvP?

How do you collect your data? How is normalized and sanitized? How do you factor in class prevalence and skill floor/ceilings? 

How do you expect these changes to impact aforementioned PvE and PvP performance? What other changes if any are planned to mitigate concerns in those areas?

How do you explain the difference in player perception and developer insight as to the performance of these classes?

 

I understand if you can't answer all of these, but these kind of questions have already been asked and attempting to cover it all with "Well the chart says this number is bigger than this number so we gotta nerf it" is not going to satisfy anyone with concerns.

[NicoleMay]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hello everyone, 

 

Shabir here and I am a Gameplay Designer on SWTOR. I wanted to start by saying we appreciate everyone for taking the time and effort to give feedback on the changes. I wanted to explain some of the changes we are making in the upcoming patch: 

 

Lightning/Telekinetics:

• Patch Notes:  

• Convection/Clamoring Force - Critical hit damage bonus goes to 12% (down from 15%).

• Thundering Blast/Turbulence - Second arc of damage deals 20% of Turbulence's damage (down from 25%).  

• Storm watch damage decreased by 4%

• Halted Offensive/Power of the Force cast time increased to 3.0 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds). Alacrity still affects cast time. 

• Decrease Halted Offensive’s/Power of the Force’s damage by 15%.

• Convection/Clamoring Force - Thundering Blast/ Turbulence grants Reserved Darkness/Reserved Light, making Dark Heal/Benevolence an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

• Thunder and Lightning/Incoming Turbulence ability mod have their damage increased to 10% (up from 5%) and includes Halted Offensive/ Power of the Force.

Developer Feedback:

• Lightning/Telekinetics is exceeding our DPS targets as a Ranged Burst spec role. For this reason, we are making the following changes:

  • Halted Offensive/Power of the Force cast time increased to 3.0 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds).

    • An increase to cast time allows players to not feel as if they have to hard cast this ability especially in situations that require mobility. 

  • Decrease Halted Offensive’s/Power of the Force’s damage by 15%

    • This change was made to bring the ability’s damage into line to its intended damage value and bring the Ranged Burst spec’s damage correctly into line with the DPS targets. 

  • Convection/Clamoring Force - Thundering Blast/Turbulence grants Reserved Darkness/Reserved Light, making Dark Heal/Benevolence an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

    • The change to the Convection/Clamoring Force passive is made in addition to the currently existing passive. The new buff is not replacing the old version of Convection/Clamoring Force. In the future, we will make changes like these much clearer. 

  • Thunder and Lightning/Incoming Turbulence ability mod have their damage increased to 10% up from 5% and includes Halted Offensive/Power of the Force.

    • This change is being made to make the burst option more appealing in comparison to the sustain and utility based option. 

 

Madness/ Balance: 

• Patch Notes: 

• Disintegration/Critical Kinesis - Death Field/Force in Balance and Death Brand/Shifted Balance grant Vitiate's Malice/Warden’s Vigor, giving Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw 20% Lifesteal for 12 seconds. 

• Force Horrors/Drain Thoughts - Increase periodic damage to 20% (up from 15%). 

• Lightning Barrage/Telekinetic balance - Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw reduced damage changed to -20% from -25%.

• Tempest of Rho - Correctly applies 50% chance for Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw to trigger periodic effects down from 75%. 

 

• Developer Feedback:

  • The change to the Tempest of Rho Tactical was designed to first bring it in line with its original power level. And in addition to that, changes were made to distribute that DPS back into the class itself. 

  • We also wanted to discourage players from prioritizing Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw over Lightning Strike/ Disturbance when proced in order to get the best DPS output. 

 

Advanced Prototype/Tactics:

• Patch Notes: 

• Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge damage reduced by 14%. 

• Power Burst/High Yield Explosives mod stacks damage bonus reduced to 4% per stack down from 5% per stack. (total of 16% damage bonus to thermal det down from 20%). 

• Serrated Blades damage reduced to 5% down from 15%. (combined into Prototype Rail/High Friction Bolts)

• Blood Tracker/Triumph damage increase to bleeding targets is reduced to 3% down from 5%. 

• Lingering Heat/Superheated Cells damage reduced by 50%.

 

• Developer Feedback: 

  • Advanced Prototype/Tactics is exceeding our DPS targets as a Melee Burst spec role. For this reason we made the following changes: 

  • Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge damage reduced by 14%. 

    • Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge damage was reduced to lower sustain and reduce the amount of DPS this ability contributed to an overall parse. 

    • Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge is intended to be a filler ability and not make up a majority of the DPS output on a burst melee class. 

  • Power Burst/High Yield Explosives mod stacks damage bonus reduced to 4% per stack down from 5% per stack. (total of 16% damage bonus to thermal det down from 20%). 

    • The change to Power Burst/High Yield Explosives mod was made to bring the mod more in line with the intended DPS increase a player should receive from a burst DPS mod. 

  • Serrated Blades damage reduced to 5% down from 15%. (combined into Prototype Rail/High Friction Bolts)

    • Much like the Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge changes this change was made to reduce the sustain of the spec.

  • Blood Tracker/Triumph damage increase to bleeding targets is reduced to 3% down from 5%. 

    • The change to Blood Tracker/Triumph was also made to reduce the sustain of the class. 

  • Lingering Heat/Superheated Cells damage reduced by 50%.

    • The change to Lingering Heat/Superheated Cells mod was made to bring the mod further in line with what a sustain mod should give within a burst melee spec.
       

What will happen after 7.1.1: 

 

• We are going to be taking a look at the tank balance within the game as well as a variety of quality of life changes for various classes. 

• We will be taking a look at other mods across classes and balancing them in order to make them more competitive with the go-to options players tend to take. 

I just wanted to close by thanking everyone for their feedback and hope to keep seeing more of it in the future. I hope these notes added some additional transparency on the changes and that the feedback keeps on coming. And as always balance is an ongoing process and we will keep you all updated with class changes coming your way in the future.

Take it easy,
Shabir

I don't mind the change to madness. That tactical error explains why Tempest has been doing so well, and the extra mobility while moving damage into the spec itself is appreciated. (We'll still see what the final result is.)

 

BUT WHY NERF LIGHTNING? Why nerf anything at this point? Maybe instead of nerfing the rare out-performing specs, you buff the underperforming ones. Ever think of that?

[TheMightyIokua]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hello everyone, 

 

Shabir here and I am a Gameplay Designer on SWTOR. I wanted to start by saying we appreciate everyone for taking the time and effort to give feedback on the changes. I wanted to explain some of the changes we are making in the upcoming patch: 

 

Does this mean that you are rolling back the proposed changes to Serenity/Hatred?
Since they are not listed here in your post and no reason as to why is being given?

[ZUHFB]

59 minutes ago, Wolvesgaar said:

Hey Devs, 

Seeing how top 5 DPS specs are all melee, you might as well remove all of the ranged classes/specs from the game.

Dunno what DPS checks are you comparing your balancing too, but its clear none of you play content harder than Veteran. 

Hard to keep interest in this game, month after month...

They already did say that.

Regardless, I love everything about the changes! Lightning gets a deserved nerf, it is the best ranged spec and bioware already said that ranged burst specs have to have the biggest damage penalty due to losing nothing from the boss moving or downtime, on paper it's not bad.

Anyway, since everybody seems to have very hard feelings about a DPS nerf, I get that there is a favorite class but there also needs to be some... composition advantage gainable when playing the correct comps in very hard fights, the own class being nerfed is a risk every OTP willingly takes.

[TheFiveOhFirst]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hello everyone, 

 

Shabir here and I am a Gameplay Designer on SWTOR. I wanted to start by saying we appreciate everyone for taking the time and effort to give feedback on the changes. I wanted to explain some of the changes we are making in the upcoming patch

----

I just wanted to close by thanking everyone for their feedback and hope to keep seeing more of it in the future. I hope these notes added some additional transparency on the changes and that the feedback keeps on coming. And as always balance is an ongoing process and we will keep you all updated with class changes coming your way in the future.

This all feels pretty terrible... not sure what feedback you are listening to; but I don't think anybody actually needs or wants this.

[oicher]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hello everyone, 

 

Shabir here and I am a Gameplay Designer on SWTOR. I wanted to start by saying we appreciate everyone for taking the time and effort to give feedback on the changes. I wanted to explain some of the changes we are making in the upcoming patch: 

 

Lightning/Telekinetics:

• Patch Notes:  

• Convection/Clamoring Force - Critical hit damage bonus goes to 12% (down from 15%).

• Thundering Blast/Turbulence - Second arc of damage deals 20% of Turbulence's damage (down from 25%).  

• Storm watch damage decreased by 4%

• Halted Offensive/Power of the Force cast time increased to 3.0 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds). Alacrity still affects cast time. 

• Decrease Halted Offensive’s/Power of the Force’s damage by 15%.

• Convection/Clamoring Force - Thundering Blast/ Turbulence grants Reserved Darkness/Reserved Light, making Dark Heal/Benevolence an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

• Thunder and Lightning/Incoming Turbulence ability mod have their damage increased to 10% (up from 5%) and includes Halted Offensive/ Power of the Force.

Developer Feedback:

• Lightning/Telekinetics is exceeding our DPS targets as a Ranged Burst spec role. For this reason, we are making the following changes:

  • Halted Offensive/Power of the Force cast time increased to 3.0 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds).

    • An increase to cast time allows players to not feel as if they have to hard cast this ability especially in situations that require mobility. 

  • Decrease Halted Offensive’s/Power of the Force’s damage by 15%

    • This change was made to bring the ability’s damage into line to its intended damage value and bring the Ranged Burst spec’s damage correctly into line with the DPS targets. 

  • Convection/Clamoring Force - Thundering Blast/Turbulence grants Reserved Darkness/Reserved Light, making Dark Heal/Benevolence an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

    • The change to the Convection/Clamoring Force passive is made in addition to the currently existing passive. The new buff is not replacing the old version of Convection/Clamoring Force. In the future, we will make changes like these much clearer. 

  • Thunder and Lightning/Incoming Turbulence ability mod have their damage increased to 10% up from 5% and includes Halted Offensive/Power of the Force.

    • This change is being made to make the burst option more appealing in comparison to the sustain and utility based option. 

 

Madness/ Balance: 

• Patch Notes: 

• Disintegration/Critical Kinesis - Death Field/Force in Balance and Death Brand/Shifted Balance grant Vitiate's Malice/Warden’s Vigor, giving Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw 20% Lifesteal for 12 seconds. 

• Force Horrors/Drain Thoughts - Increase periodic damage to 20% (up from 15%). 

• Lightning Barrage/Telekinetic balance - Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw reduced damage changed to -20% from -25%.

• Tempest of Rho - Correctly applies 50% chance for Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw to trigger periodic effects down from 75%. 

 

• Developer Feedback:

  • The change to the Tempest of Rho Tactical was designed to first bring it in line with its original power level. And in addition to that, changes were made to distribute that DPS back into the class itself. 

  • We also wanted to discourage players from prioritizing Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw over Lightning Strike/ Disturbance when proced in order to get the best DPS output. 

 

Advanced Prototype/Tactics:

• Patch Notes: 

• Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge damage reduced by 14%. 

• Power Burst/High Yield Explosives mod stacks damage bonus reduced to 4% per stack down from 5% per stack. (total of 16% damage bonus to thermal det down from 20%). 

• Serrated Blades damage reduced to 5% down from 15%. (combined into Prototype Rail/High Friction Bolts)

• Blood Tracker/Triumph damage increase to bleeding targets is reduced to 3% down from 5%. 

• Lingering Heat/Superheated Cells damage reduced by 50%.

 

• Developer Feedback: 

  • Advanced Prototype/Tactics is exceeding our DPS targets as a Melee Burst spec role. For this reason we made the following changes: 

  • Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge damage reduced by 14%. 

    • Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge damage was reduced to lower sustain and reduce the amount of DPS this ability contributed to an overall parse. 

    • Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge is intended to be a filler ability and not make up a majority of the DPS output on a burst melee class. 

  • Power Burst/High Yield Explosives mod stacks damage bonus reduced to 4% per stack down from 5% per stack. (total of 16% damage bonus to thermal det down from 20%). 

    • The change to Power Burst/High Yield Explosives mod was made to bring the mod more in line with the intended DPS increase a player should receive from a burst DPS mod. 

  • Serrated Blades damage reduced to 5% down from 15%. (combined into Prototype Rail/High Friction Bolts)

    • Much like the Magnetic Blast/Tactical Surge changes this change was made to reduce the sustain of the spec.

  • Blood Tracker/Triumph damage increase to bleeding targets is reduced to 3% down from 5%. 

    • The change to Blood Tracker/Triumph was also made to reduce the sustain of the class. 

  • Lingering Heat/Superheated Cells damage reduced by 50%.

    • The change to Lingering Heat/Superheated Cells mod was made to bring the mod further in line with what a sustain mod should give within a burst melee spec.
       

What will happen after 7.1.1: 

 

• We are going to be taking a look at the tank balance within the game as well as a variety of quality of life changes for various classes. 

• We will be taking a look at other mods across classes and balancing them in order to make them more competitive with the go-to options players tend to take. 

I just wanted to close by thanking everyone for their feedback and hope to keep seeing more of it in the future. I hope these notes added some additional transparency on the changes and that the feedback keeps on coming. And as always balance is an ongoing process and we will keep you all updated with class changes coming your way in the future.

Take it easy,
Shabir

with the Disintegration change is that passive getting add to it or it replaceing what there currently ?

[CorNightwind]

3 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hello everyone, 

 

Shabir here and I am a Gameplay Designer on SWTOR. I wanted to start by saying we appreciate everyone for taking the time and effort to give feedback on the changes. I wanted to explain some of the changes we are making in the upcoming patch: 

 

Lightning/Telekinetics:

• Patch Notes:  

• Convection/Clamoring Force - Critical hit damage bonus goes to 12% (down from 15%).

• Thundering Blast/Turbulence - Second arc of damage deals 20% of Turbulence's damage (down from 25%).  

• Storm watch damage decreased by 4%

• Halted Offensive/Power of the Force cast time increased to 3.0 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds). Alacrity still affects cast time. 

• Decrease Halted Offensive’s/Power of the Force’s damage by 15%.

• Convection/Clamoring Force - Thundering Blast/ Turbulence grants Reserved Darkness/Reserved Light, making Dark Heal/Benevolence an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

• Thunder and Lightning/Incoming Turbulence ability mod have their damage increased to 10% (up from 5%) and includes Halted Offensive/ Power of the Force.

Developer Feedback:

• Lightning/Telekinetics is exceeding our DPS targets as a Ranged Burst spec role. For this reason, we are making the following changes:

  • Halted Offensive/Power of the Force cast time increased to 3.0 seconds (up from 2.5 seconds).

    • An increase to cast time allows players to not feel as if they have to hard cast this ability especially in situations that require mobility. 

  • Decrease Halted Offensive’s/Power of the Force’s damage by 15%

    • This change was made to bring the ability’s damage into line to its intended damage value and bring the Ranged Burst spec’s damage correctly into line with the DPS targets. 

  • Convection/Clamoring Force - Thundering Blast/Turbulence grants Reserved Darkness/Reserved Light, making Dark Heal/Benevolence an instant cast and increasing its healing by 30%. Stacks up to 2 times.

    • The change to the Convection/Clamoring Force passive is made in addition to the currently existing passive. The new buff is not replacing the old version of Convection/Clamoring Force. In the future, we will make changes like these much clearer. 

  • Thunder and Lightning/Incoming Turbulence ability mod have their damage increased to 10% up from 5% and includes Halted Offensive/Power of the Force.

    • This change is being made to make the burst option more appealing in comparison to the sustain and utility based option. 

 

What will happen after 7.1.1: 

 

• We are going to be taking a look at the tank balance within the game as well as a variety of quality of life changes for various classes. 

• We will be taking a look at other mods across classes and balancing them in order to make them more competitive with the go-to options players tend to take. 

I just wanted to close by thanking everyone for their feedback and hope to keep seeing more of it in the future. I hope these notes added some additional transparency on the changes and that the feedback keeps on coming. And as always balance is an ongoing process and we will keep you all updated with class changes coming your way in the future.

Take it easy,
Shabir

I've brought some of this up before(I think much earlier in this thread) I'm not sure if Ops balancing and class balancing are the same people, but Ops need rebalancing WAY more than the classes.

Veteran R4 IP-CPT we don't bring tanks. Just in general, this is a huge slap in the face to our tank players (as an FYI I play healer/dps so it's not my role being ignored). And this isn't a simple throw on some dps gear and just do the fight. We need actual gear to get this fight done, and forcing that one player to have 2 sets of upgraded endgame gear sucks.

Story mode R4 is in group finder...next to KP. The disparity in the difficulty of these is immense. This confuses new Ops players about the level of content they are going into. And unless we as the community pick up the slack no one new is getting into regular Ops play.

Meanwhile if we're geared to run R4 we are ridiculously overpowered for the older content. To the point that we don't bring tanks anymore, again a slap in the face to our Tank players.

Now for something constructive along these lines. 

Make all of the older SM Ops locked at level 75. Keep SM R4 at lvl80. This was something we had back in 6.0 and I at least felt it worked pretty well then.

This would give the older content at least some challenge, we'd probably still roll them, but we wouldn't just sleep our way through the Op. This would also give people who just reached level 75, and haven't yet reached LotS content, a way to gain the xp for those last 5 levels AND a more stable introduction into Operations.

I'm NOT trying to say that because this is my idea, it's perfect, do this and you fix everything. I just want to put an idea out there that I think could be helpful.

Now onto the class I know the most about Lightning...

If you want a MUCH simpler way to bring it's dmg down a bit AND give better QoL, make Halted Offensive only usable with the proc. If you remove the ability to hard cast it the class will get a nerf to damage and we won't feel so rooted in place for a huge part of our rotation. I feel like this would accomplish what you're trying to do without gutting the class.

In the end I'm still lost as to why though. You at least mention that it's hitting above what you want, but we as players don't have your metrics and we're clearly still confused as to why. I get ranged classes dealing less damage than melee, our benefit is that we have more freedom of movement during fights. But it still feels weird having our damage potential being dropped while other specs are putting up 40K+.

I don't necessarily think those classes need to be nerfed but it's a very visible disparity.

I'm also not really sure why we're getting the the buff to dark heal use. It's nice, but when playing DPS if I need to pick up slack for the healers we've probably already lost the fight. We're already limited on who can bring someone back in combat, so if the healers are out we're done.

As I've mentioned healing at the end, the upcoming changes to the actual healing specs look good. The Operative changes might be a bit much, but in general I think the changes are good.

To anyone who made it to the end of this, take care and enjoy your day. 😃

(sorry if I've overused comma's o.o)

Edited October 14, 2022 by CorNightwind
grammar

[Exocor]

I can understand the balancing decisions from a certain point of view.

 

AP, Lightning and Madness are very very very easy. I've recently rejoined my old raiding group (that I took a break from, as well as from the game) and we were going into the new raid for me to get clear XP and equipment. I just went in there with an AP PT. Not to get out the big numbers, but do do the mechanics right while not having to worry about my rotation. I can play AP without looking and so can probably everybody else who is or was active in the Nightmare community.

 

And that's the whole issue. The spec is very easy and still does decent damage. In my first few weeks I acquired 330 equipment and was able to out-DPS experienced players in full BiS in Brontes NiM and Revan Core challenges on Pyro and other classes without much effort. The spec is not doing too much damage overall. it does to much damage compared to how easy it is to play. That's also the reason Arsenal is at the bottom. It's just 12345 without much thinking.

 

Obviously, difficulty in play the spec is always open for everyone's own interpretation. But what's more important is, that this is not what the Developers are saying. If they would say: "AP, as a spec, enjoys great mobility and unnatural range as a melee DPS. It excels in important raid challenges and is comparatively easy to learn and to play. For this reason we nerf the DPS by x% (our estimates)". I would be more satisfied with the explanation. I would still disagree, because after this nerf, Pyrotech will be able to do everything AP can, but better. And that is the issue between nerfing a class and making it irrelevant.

 

[Wolvesgaar]

1 hour ago, ZUHFB said:

They already did say that.

Regardless, I love everything about the changes! Lightning gets a deserved nerf, it is the best ranged spec and bioware already said that ranged burst specs have to have the biggest damage penalty due to losing nothing from the boss moving or downtime, on paper it's not bad.

Anyway, since everybody seems to have very hard feelings about a DPS nerf, I get that there is a favorite class but there also needs to be some... composition advantage gainable when playing the correct comps in very hard fights, the own class being nerfed is a risk every OTP willingly takes.

You must only play super casual if you think this is a good nerf. 

Nothing to do with your fav spec getting nerfed. Lightning is barely holding in stable DPs just enough for HM and NiM OPS compared to other specs which make it now even more useless and redundant to play. 

The mindset of players like you is the reason Bioware gets away with stupid balancing/nerfs like this.

Its also why this game struggles to pull 15k active players daily.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Wolvesgaar

[ThanderSnB]

2 hours ago, Wolvesgaar said:

Hey Devs, 

Seeing how top 5 DPS specs are all melee, you might as well remove all of the ranged classes/specs from the game.

Dunno what DPS checks are you comparing your balancing too, but its clear none of you play content harder than Veteran. 

Hard to keep interest in this game, month after month...

They haven't posted anything recently, but I think they are still following what Eric Musco posted in 2017. You can read it in the link below, but basically melee has a disadvantage in ops because often times they have to stop DPSing to avoid boss attacks while ranged can keep DPSing the whole time. To balance this, they give melee 2.5-5% more DPS than ranged. So if balance is perfect, melee should be doing more DPS, but it shouldn't be doing tons more DPS. For example, if the target is 26,000 DPS (average) for ranged sustained DPS, melee sustained DPS should be around 27,300 DPS (average).

Bioware categorizes every discipline into melee or ranged and DPS type: burst, hybrid, sustained. Then they add plus or minus 0 to 5% DPS depending on the categories. This gives the table below.

Melee Sustained DPS (up to +5% of target DPS)
Melee Hybrid DPS (up to +2.5% of target DPS) - only Marauder/Sentinel's third discipline is in this group
Melee Burst DPS and Ranged Sustained DPS (target DPS, no bonus or penalty)
Ranged Hybrid DPS (down to -2.5% of target DPS) - only Sniper/Gunslinger's third discipline is in this group
Ranged Burst DPS (down to -5% of target DPS)

See the quoted section in this link for more details: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/842212-how-class-balance-happens/#comment-9005558

Edited October 14, 2022 by ThanderSnB

[Wolvesgaar]

9 minutes ago, ThanderSnB said:

They haven't posted anything recently, but I think they are still following what Eric Musco posted in 2017. You can read it in the link below, but basically melee has a disadvantage in ops because often times they have to stop DPSing to avoid boss attacks while ranged can keep DPSing the whole time. To balance this, they give melee 2.5-5% more DPS than ranged. So if balance is perfect, melee should be doing more DPS, but it shouldn't be doing tons more DPS. For example, if the target is 26,000 DPS (average) for ranged sustained DPS, melee sustained DPS should be around 27,300 DPS (average).

Bioware categorizes every discipline into melee or ranged and DPS type: burst, hybrid, sustained. Then they add plus or minus 0 to 5% DPS depending on the categories. This gives the table below.

Melee Sustained DPS (up to +5% of target DPS)
Melee Hybrid DPS (up to +2.5% of target DPS) - only Marauder/Sentinel's third discipline is in this group
Melee Burst DPS and Ranged Sustained DPS (target DPS, no bonus or penalty)
Ranged Hybrid DPS (down to -2.5% of target DPS) - only Sniper/Gunslinger's third discipline is in this group
Ranged Burst DPS (down to -5% of target DPS)

See the quoted section in this link for more details: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/842212-how-class-balance-happens/#comment-9005558

No wonder they can't balance anything in 2022 if they are following an outdated style of selectively nerfing/buffing classes. Melee can keep DPS easily even when avoiding bosses if you look at specs like Veng, having solid DoT procs. 

At the end of the day, numbers speak for themselves. With these nerfs, top raid guilds are already thinking off perma dropping light specs as no longer viable to maintain its "already" low tight-DPS threshold compared to other more-forgiving DPS-check specs.

Even my own guild is reluctant to take Light specs into NiM.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Wolvesgaar