Class Balance Changes Feedback

[Darthkachna]

On 11/22/2022 at 7:24 PM, Deaconik said:

On 11/22/2022 at 6:59 PM, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hey everyone, Shabir here back with another update. After looking over data collected from PTS and player feedback on Fury/Concentration, we will be making changes in regards to their DPS performance. We are implementing the following changes:

Fury/Concentration

 

• Gravity Fissure - Berserk/Zen no longer causes your next ability to auto crit. 

• Vehemence/Fervor - Critical Strike damage from all attacks increased back up to 10% from 5%. 

Dev Feedback: I wanted to add a bit of insight on this change as it does not come lightly. Since Fury/Concentration is a hybrid spec, we saw that Fury/Concentration was leaning too far as a burst spec and wanted to bring back into balance as a hybrid spec. This change also gives more flexibility to the player when they can activate Berserk/Zen. This also allows Carnage/Combat to further establish itself as the burst specialization and Annihilation/Watchman to establish itself as the sustain spec.

We appreciate the time taken for giving feedback. We are keeping an eye on this thread and will be making updates when changes occur. Take it easy.

Like some people already said  , concentration /fury  parse higher because of  zen abuse , you can click it off to re use   every concentrated slice window. This will  make concentrated slice  crit 100% of time.When you compare  parses on Parsely io its about 8% dps increase compared  to normal rotation . No one will use it in ops because it probably requires macro to pull it off , since  zen buff its not on fixed position in buffs window  it makes it next to impossible to click it off manually , and I cant see anyone using that trick  during MM operations. Bad design maybe , but it does not justify the nerf . That trick adds  roughly 2.6 k dps when I'm comparing  top parse with my own parse without using it. Not sure what are your metrics but that is huge nerf . Somehow you have no issue with  classes/specs that under perform badly  in MM operations like Commando and gunnery   just to begin with. Continue like that  and you will have no viable classes/spec to play mm operations. Imho you should bring other specs/classes to be on same level  of dps  instead making huge nerf to other .

 

[xxSHOONYxx]

On 12/2/2022 at 6:18 PM, Aethyriel said:

is the answer to why those other classes were named. But why would you play Deception over Hatred, Arsenal over IO, Ling over Madness, Concealment over Lethality? the non-existent burst checks for the classes that don't actually have that much more burst over some 10 seconds or so (which would basically be pursuer droid which is the only real burst check I can think of that's this short)? You might consider it for armor break perhaps but then the argument would become why you don't bring a class that provides that and is better or why you don't play a setup that makes it rather redundant to have anyway and be better off in both cases.

It's pretty simple in my eyes, some specs "underperform" in ops not because of class/spec balance (could make a debate for MM and ARsenal) but mainly because of the horrible operation difficulty balance with the nerf of hp + 10 more iRating of 7.1. The only real burst dps check that is somewhat challenging is scyva ignite core, the rest can probably be done with a group of 2 tanks 4 tanks with dps gear and 2 heals so burst classes don't get their time to shine in what they would excell. 

You would see way more burst classes in 7.0 for some fights compared to now, especially for fights like kephess in EC that the walker dps check was tight.  

I dread R-4  NiM release if it happens to have a new set of gear with +10 iRating and new augments. If it keeps like this with the trend of gear creep and op difficulty nerf Ops difficulties should be changed in some months to "Super Story Mode", "Story Mode" and "Slightly more difficult Story Mode"

[Sikssix]

11 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

It's pretty simple in my eyes, some specs "underperform" in ops not because of class/spec balance (could make a debate for MM and ARsenal) but mainly because of the horrible operation difficulty balance with the nerf of hp + 10 more iRating of 7.1. The only real burst dps check that is somewhat challenging is scyva ignite core, the rest can probably be done with a group of 2 tanks 4 tanks with dps gear and 2 heals so burst classes don't get their time to shine in what they would excell. 

You would see way more burst classes in 7.0 for some fights compared to now, especially for fights like kephess in EC that the walker dps check was tight.  

I dread R-4  NiM release if it happens to have a new set of gear with +10 iRating and new augments. If it keeps like this with the trend of gear creep and op difficulty nerf Ops difficulties should be changed in some months to "Super Story Mode", "Story Mode" and "Slightly more difficult Story Mode"

Last I recall, I think the dev team is done with NiM content, but I can't say much since I can't verify this, just need to hear (or read) it from the horse's mouth.  As for the nerfing of OPs, I don't quite think nerfing the HP would do too much or 10 more IR, in fact, doing 10 more IR would be a bit OP.  The step up between SM and HM for R4A is intense, like camping, while I agree that the pun wasn't needed, I think something else needs to be adjusted on HM so it's more doable.  Nerfing a lot of classes that desperately need help, or to be untouched, while having over performing classes remain untouched isn't the answer.  

[Aethyriel]

15 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

The only real burst dps check that is somewhat challenging is scyva ignite core

when was that different and particularly, when did you have so little time for the check that burst specs outperformed dot specs by such a large margin that it ever justified lagging behind in overall DPS so heavily? There are just far too few checks like these in game for the devs to be this obsessed with keeping direct damage specs way below damage over time specs - who also almost always have much better AOE capabilities as well and self-healing. It is just senseless to attach so much weight to 'burst' in a game that doesn't ask for it. Ever.

[Sikssix]

It looks like they are pushing 7.2 on December 13th,  I got an uneasy feeling they haven't changed anything since they announced it on PTS.

 

Adding:  Development team, what are the DPS targets you mentioned before?  I recall asking this awhile back.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by Sikssix
Adding a question.

[xxSHOONYxx]

9 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

when was that different and particularly, when did you have so little time for the check that burst specs outperformed dot specs by such a large margin that it ever justified lagging behind in overall DPS so heavily? There are just far too few checks like these in game for the devs to be this obsessed with keeping direct damage specs way below damage over time specs - who also almost always have much better AOE capabilities as well and self-healing. It is just senseless to attach so much weight to 'burst' in a game that doesn't ask for it. Ever.

When the game used to be hard/er it was what happened. As i said, class guides as back as 2.0 had a list of every boss and which spec was better for each of them.  

http://dulfy.net/2015/12/04/swtor-4-0-virulence-sniper-pve-guide-by-thrax/
http://dulfy.net/2016/12/20/swtor-5-0-pyrotech-powertech-pve-guide-by-jaymis/

That's some example of what i'm talking about, couldn't find any of the 2.0 or 3.0 guides.

But now with tacticals, new abilities to do more damage and more cheeses that didn't exist before, things become less of an issue.
 

Dot classes always had more long term damage than burst, not just something new. But when dps checks or even simple target swapping are just none existing issues for dot classes  and can watlz through them even when they have to waste 2 gcds applying dots it makes burst classes less appealing to use, yet still very much able to clear eveything due to how easier it is right now.

Lowering the difficulty that ended with making the dps checks none existant so burst classes have less relevancy to me did something very similar to the issue of IP-CPT and tanks, fight had no real damage going out that could be tanked so tanks were just not used. When you make things that are supposed to be hard, well... easy, issues like this happen. Everyone can do everything with their favorite class/spec, but it removes the diversity or need to know more than one class/spec. 
I might be wrong and the issue is more class balance than operation balance, this is just my point of view.

Edited December 8, 2022 by xxSHOONYxx

[Achnaattwo]

4 hours ago, Sikssix said:

It looks like they are pushing 7.2 on December 13th,  I got an uneasy feeling they haven't changed anything since they announced it on PTS.

I have the same feeling

If they did make some adjustments, they  were quiet about it, and didn't allow the public to test or check them out to make sure

[Aethyriel]

11 hours ago, Sikssix said:

It looks like they are pushing 7.2 on December 13th,  I got an uneasy feeling they haven't changed anything since they announced it on PTS.

 

Adding:  Development team, what are the DPS targets you mentioned before?  I recall asking this awhile back.  

of course they haven't changed anything. They don't give a crap about feedback. They have not considered any feedback when they nerfed Lightning, Deception and Concealment into oblivion instead of buffing those specs (or just leaving them alone like Lightning). They didn't give a crap about a burst option being top DPS choice for Madness either. They didn't care about nerfing Virulence below the level of Engineering despite it having lower AOE DPS and less burst. their entire balancing patches are an absolute joke and it seems like a showcase of their incompetence trying to figure out who can make the most absurdly stupid changes among the 3 remaining devs instead of actually trying to make the game better. 

And they're not answering the question because if they actually took a stance and made objective criteria for their nonsense, they know it would never hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. Even if we ignore the performance factor, what they also ruin is the fun factor. they wanted to 'fix' the Annihilation Marauder rotation and what they ended up doing is making it reliant on random dot crits ot taking damage to get enough Fury stacks whereas beforehand you had a perfectly fine rotation where if they wanted to nerf the DPS - they could have just nerfed damage instead of ruining a fun rotation and replacing it with random bs. I could have lived with the nerf despite it being extremely stupid but ruining the way the class actually plays and making it a button mashing idiot class is just disappointing beyond belief. If it wasn't for a group of guys I like playing with I would've trashed the game right now. Every patch they make it less and less fun and you're limited to fewer specs that are actually efficient and/or enjoyable to play.

[sithBracer]

4 hours ago, Aethyriel said:

of course they haven't changed anything. They don't give a crap about feedback. They have not considered any feedback when they nerfed Lightning, Deception and Concealment into oblivion instead of buffing those specs (or just leaving them alone like Lightning). 

To be 100% fair to BW, they never actually told us they were nerfing deception, so no one actually gave them feedback on it. Although with the amount of times they nerfed deception over the years we really should have just expected it.

[meddani]

56 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

To be 100% fair to BW, they never actually told us they were nerfing deception, so no one actually gave them feedback on it. Although with the amount of times they nerfed deception over the years we really should have just expected it.

wait what deception nerf? i didn't see anything in the notes.

[sithBracer]

11 minutes ago, meddani said:

wait what deception nerf? i didn't see anything in the notes.

They nerfed "energized blade". It used to reset the CD of reaping strike on a force crit, now it lowers the CD by 6s instead, pretty much destroying it. I tried it and it is too clunky and unreliable and had around a 2-3k loss of dps. I can pretty much do the same dps from awakened flame and and lightning critical instead of lightning engine, only it is a lot less clunky and much more consistent. 

They didn't even bother to tell us they were nerfing it, so we never even got a chance to test it on PTS. They just dropped the bomb on the day of the patch.

[Nee-Elder]

5 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

They just dropped the bomb on the day of the patch.

Where?   Sorry i still don't see any  official  DEV post about the nerf  yet....

Or did you mean it's buried somewhere in PTS  sticky threads?

[sithBracer]

3 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Where?   Sorry i still don't see any  official  DEV post about the nerf  yet....

Or did you mean it's buried somewhere in PTS  sticky threads?

It is in the 7.1.1 patchnotes. This was never mentioned during PTS testing, they just did it on the day of the release.

 

• Energized Blade ability mod has been altered, it now reads:
  • “The cooldown of Reaping Strike is reduced by 6 seconds whenever you critically hit with a direct Force attack. Reaping Strike costs 10 additional Force.”

[Nee-Elder]

1 minute ago, sithBracer said:

It is in the 7.1.1 patchnotes. This was never mentioned during PTS testing, they just did it on the day of the release.

oh , i thought u guys were talking about  something with  7.2  ( next week ) .

[meddani]

26 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

It is in the 7.1.1 patchnotes. This was never mentioned during PTS testing, they just did it on the day of the release.

 

• Energized Blade ability mod has been altered, it now reads:
  • “The cooldown of Reaping Strike is reduced by 6 seconds whenever you critically hit with a direct Force attack. Reaping Strike costs 10 additional Force.”

 

24 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

oh , i thought u guys were talking about  something with  7.2  ( next week ) .

yeah me too lol

[afwhoefuwov]

Why must you guys nerf classes left, right and center? It feels like you are using superglue and sellotape to nerf some here and some over there.  Just pick 1 DPS number, i dont know for example 30k DPS.  Then make all DPS classes able to perform around that neighborhood.  For burst vs dot vs hybrid, then adjust that number to be +/- 1k to 2k dps.  This +/- then you can ask the community feedback for what tolerance is good.

[Aethyriel]

Anni Marauder was one of the most fun specs with a smooth prio system and resource management. Now it's a spec with a rigid rotation heavily dependant on RNG from 2 talents and an implant just to make it barely work when you have zero downtime on a target where you also can't sensibly use all your abilities because using anything but a rage spender anywhere after the initial two spots after Rend results in everything being delayed and a dps loss. You literally waste tons of rage generation into nothing using BA anywhere sub 10 rage because you have a snowball's chance in hell to gain enough Fury to make Draining Center work. This is the least fun I have ever had in all my time in swtor. Still perfectly fine utility wise and all in ops but by god, this is atrocious to play and I'm not gonna do it. You took away all the dynamics of the specs and stupefied it in such a tunnel vision style of play.

We now have even more absurd amounts of healing and if you're willing to give up another 1-2k DPS or whatever, you can gain even more healing on your melee DPS while simplifying the rotation to just being able to press anything at any time. I don't understand why the devs favour this rigid RNG bullcrap (where sometimes the best DPS option is to apply a dot again you have JUST refreshed with the CD prior due to how rage and fury interact now) over the fun and engaging rotation you destroyed for no good reason whatsoever. The burst option is still the top DPS option btw which was something you were super whiny about. So, good job seeing that through... could've just nerfed it to twice the dmg instead of 4 times the damage, buffed Blood Fury dmg and just left everything else alone and it would've been perfectly fine, but no - had to ruin another fun spec.