How PVP in its current state is driving away new potential players

[SentinalMasterWW]

Okay let me get this out of the way, PVP in SWTOR in 2023 is a mess. There are multiple issues that are being reported by players and yet Bioware doesn't address the core important ones. Let me go into further detail 

Arena's are full of Premades, They Q with a set team to give them an advantage over the other team. This usually includes a couple Madness sorcs, a Pocket healer, and some other DPS or a tank. While you and the others who Q'd solo get whatever. I honestly don't Q for Arena's that much anymore. Why do I and others want to go against a sweaty premade ranked guild? 

Warzones are still full of premades, Still seeing entire premade guilds on the other team. They are either farming kills with meta specs, or Easily beating the other team in Objective play. 

Huttball is dominated by Stealth meta camping in Endzone's and whoever has the most pocket healers and tanks carrying the ball. Huttball is the only game mode that can be won by playing in stealth, all other modes require you to be out of stealth. Can we get Anti-Stealth in Endzones? I and perhaps others have been asking this since 7.0 dropped. 

CC meta is out the door and Whitebar is basically a joke. Too much inconsistency when it comes to hard and soft CC's. You get CC'd and when you break that, you get CC'd again. How about a CC revamp on who gets CC's and how whitebar works. Whitebar does nothing and a majority of the time you just stand there stunned over and over and just die. 

No ability to Kick people who are AFK or not contributing. All you have to do is stand in stealth somewhere in the corner of the map. 

Scoreboard is broken, Try and look at just your team and it will show both teams, same goes for the enemy. 

Poor matchmaking, The game is throwing new players against veteran ranked sweats. 

PVP Seasons doesnt give out enough tokens. I'm pretty sure I can get a Ranked armor set and a Weapon set during a Ranked season compared to just barely one of these during a PVP Season. 

Broken Abilities (Hololocate, etc) 

Poor Class balancing (Madness, Lethality, Deception) 

Broken tacticals (Ionic Discharge, Two cloaks) 

Point of this is, is that if Bioware wants people to do PVP how about they fix the core issues? Doing Pointless UI updates and weird Economy decisions are not helping fix the game. No matter how shiny the PVP season is, If players don't like the game mode they are not going to participate. With Ranked Gone I imagine not too many ranked players are going to stick around for much longer either.  

 

 

[StrikePrice]

Start by saying I agree with your post 100%.

The fundamental problem is that no-one at BW understands or cares about PvP. I think they would be happy if it just went away. The amount of work that it would take to make PvP "right" or even close to that is insurmountable. Any game that really wants to balance PvE and PvP separates the effect of abilities. That is, abilities behave differently in PvE and PvP. Without that fundamental separation of how things work in PvE vs PvP, it can never be made right.

Further, all the maps and game modes have to be torn down from scratch and re-built. They no longer represent anything logical. They were designed basically at launch. It would be like if people were using jetpacks to run to 1st base in Baseball and it was still 90 feet. Once a grounder to short becomes a base hit, it's no longer baseball. It's something else.

Making PvP right might bring some players back or make a handful of players happy, but I don't think it is high on their priority list compared to more content and more cosmetics. I don't really blame them, they need to think about making money to keep the game alive. But, do it right or don't do it at all. 

[afwhoefuwov]

I agree with most of what you said, specially the endzone thing in Huttball.  Theres a thing in competitive sport called "Offside", it exists in football (soccer) and I guess hockey too.  This is to make it fair so the opposite team doesnt have someone chilling right at the goal line and receive the ball (or puck).  Endzone should be anti stealth, and you are not allowed to just chill behind the goal line.  

For CC, the white bar does work but its duration is too short.  A white bar that lasts longer should fix it, I think.  

The season's token is way too few, there is not enough to buy multiple things, i.e. you either get the armor set or you get something else.  With the way BW changes stuff all the time, what's to say that one day these rewards will not be available? 

[Skolops]

I really don't understand reading so many complaints about things that have been true of the game since 2011 as though they are new since 7.0 or some other recent time.

Stealth players waiting in the endzone for the Huttball has been extraordinarily common since day one. The stun/resolve system functions exactly the same today as it did 12 years ago when the game launched. Premades winding up on the other team has been a regular feature of the game since the beginning. People have complained about balance since day one, and over many balance changes and paradigms. In fact, this is not unique to SWTOR: people saying a game is imbalanced is par for the course in any game with any kind of PvP element.

One thing I will agree is that damage farming is a lot worse than it ever was. I've played since the very first year of the game and damage farming premades have always been present, but something about them is a lot worse today. The degree to which some of these guilds are ignoring objectives to farm damage is something I've never seen before in spite of having thousands of hours in PvP in this game. Sure, groups always did it during Huttball, but for instance in a Civil War they'll clear a node and run off somewhere else without a single one of them capping it. It used to be that they'd kill everyone, cap the node, and abandon it, undefended, but at least they'd actually cap it before abandoning it. 

I can't really agree with some of the other stuff, though. I don't intend to be rude and I hope it doesn't come across that way, but I think that today as it has been for 12 years people who say the whitebar system is broke and you just sit there stunned forever are players who don't really understand how it works and who waste their stunbreaks at the wrong time.  In fact, if anything stuns are a lot easier to deal with today than they've ever been before, not only because there are significantly fewer stuns in the game today, but many classes have extra stunbreaks available or other abilities that can be activated while stunned. The degree to which you spend less time stunned in the game versus even just a few years ago is not even remotely close. It's waaaaaaaaay less today. 

The bottom line for me is that I think that the whitebar system in this game is one of the few things in the game which is truly mechanically interesting or unique (although maybe not anymore) about the game and I think altering or removing it would be a real loss. The way it is now there are some a very nice layers of strategy about how to use your stuns, your stunbreaks, etc. (though it may not be as deep as it was in the past when there were more stuns available). Changing this would remove one of the most tactically interesting parts of the game.

I also have no problem with stealths in the endzone. Again, this is just a matter of strategy. Also, I can't understand complaining about tanks carrying the ball. Of course tanks carry the huttball. That's how it's always been and that's frankly the way it should be. Sure, a non-tank can carry the ball sometimes in a match that doesn't have good team compositions, but if your team has tanks then of course giving them the ball makes sense. 

Some of the other stuff may be good complaints. I have no opinion about the tokens. I don't play the game to earn stuff - I play it for the intrinsic reward of competition - so I don't know anything about that. Maybe to those who do care the rewards aren't well balanced. I agree there are some things thast should obviously be fixed like the scoreboard or abilities that are bugged in some way or another. I agree matchmaking could be better, but it's always been a little rough just by the nature of trying to make matches with the population that's available. Even back in the day with more people in the queue it was not always the best. I agree it can be frustrating, but at the same time I'd rather have matches popping even with imperfect team balance than have to wait forever for something more perfect. 

By the way, something to be aware of in the "be careful what you ask for" category: at least in the past, the system used a kind of "hidden ELO" for matchmaking. Nobody ever saw it, but the game matched you up based on your past wins and losses. One problem with this is that it could become very easy to get stuck in a certain tier so that if, for instance, you had some bad luck with matchmaking early on, winding up with some poor players, you might get stuck being in the "tier" without a clear way to get out of it.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Skolops

[StrikePrice]

2 hours ago, Skolops said:

I really don't understand reading so many complaints about things that have been true of the game since 2011 as though they are new since 7.0 or some other recent time.

Stealth players waiting in the endzone for the Huttball has been extraordinarily common since day one. The stun/resolve system functions exactly the same today as it did 12 years ago when the game launched. Premades winding up on the other team has been a regular feature of the game since the beginning. People have complained about balance since day one, and over many balance changes and paradigms. In fact, this is not unique to SWTOR: people saying a game is imbalanced is par for the course in any game with any kind of PvP element.

One thing I will agree is that damage farming is a lot worse than it ever was. I've played since the very first year of the game and damage farming premades have always been present, but something about them is a lot worse today. The degree to which some of these guilds are ignoring objectives to farm damage is something I've never seen before in spite of having thousands of hours in PvP in this game. Sure, groups always did it during Huttball, but for instance in a Civil War they'll clear a node and run off somewhere else without a single one of them capping it. It used to be that they'd kill everyone, cap the node, and abandon it, undefended, but at least they'd actually cap it before abandoning it. 

I can't really agree with some of the other stuff, though. I don't intend to be rude and I hope it doesn't come across that way, but I think that today as it has been for 12 years people who say the whitebar system is broke and you just sit there stunned forever are players who don't really understand how it works and who waste their stunbreaks at the wrong time.  In fact, if anything stuns are a lot easier to deal with today than they've ever been before, not only because there are significantly fewer stuns in the game today, but many classes have extra stunbreaks available or other abilities that can be activated while stunned. The degree to which you spend less time stunned in the game versus even just a few years ago is not even remotely close. It's waaaaaaaaay less today. 

The bottom line for me is that I think that the whitebar system in this game is one of the few things in the game which is truly mechanically interesting or unique (although maybe not anymore) about the game and I think altering or removing it would be a real loss. The way it is now there are some a very nice layers of strategy about how to use your stuns, your stunbreaks, etc. (though it may not be as deep as it was in the past when there were more stuns available). Changing this would remove one of the most tactically interesting parts of the game.

I also have no problem with stealths in the endzone. Again, this is just a matter of strategy. Also, I can't understand complaining about tanks carrying the ball. Of course tanks carry the huttball. That's how it's always been and that's frankly the way it should be. Sure, a non-tank can carry the ball sometimes in a match that doesn't have good team compositions, but if your team has tanks then of course giving them the ball makes sense. 

Some of the other stuff may be good complaints. I have no opinion about the tokens. I don't play the game to earn stuff - I play it for the intrinsic reward of competition - so I don't know anything about that. Maybe to those who do care the rewards aren't well balanced. I agree there are some things thast should obviously be fixed like the scoreboard or abilities that are bugged in some way or another. I agree matchmaking could be better, but it's always been a little rough just by the nature of trying to make matches with the population that's available. Even back in the day with more people in the queue it was not always the best. I agree it can be frustrating, but at the same time I'd rather have matches popping even with imperfect team balance than have to wait forever for something more perfect. 

By the way, something to be aware of in the "be careful what you ask for" category: at least in the past, the system used a kind of "hidden ELO" for matchmaking. Nobody ever saw it, but the game matched you up based on your past wins and losses. One problem with this is that it could become very easy to get stuck in a certain tier so that if, for instance, you had some bad luck with matchmaking early on, winding up with some poor players, you might get stuck being in the "tier" without a clear way to get out of it.

Lots of good stuff here. So, honest questions for you.

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In fact, if anything stuns are a lot easier to deal with today than they've ever been before, not only because there are significantly fewer stuns in the game today, but many classes have extra stunbreaks available or other abilities that can be activated while stunned. The degree to which you spend less time stunned in the game versus even just a few years ago is not even remotely close. It's waaaaaaaaay less today. 

Yes, you're exactly right about hard stuns. I'm glad to see some removed by spec choices. What do you think about slows and roots? Some classes (Eng Sniper comes to mind) have endless, AoE spammable slows.  The fact that there is no DR for slows and roots seems bad to me. What do you think?

 

Quote

I also have no problem with stealths in the endzone. Again, this is just a matter of strategy. Also, I can't understand complaining about tanks carrying the ball. Of course tanks carry the huttball. That's how it's always been and that's frankly the way it should be. Sure, a non-tank can carry the ball sometimes in a match that doesn't have good team compositions, but if your team has tanks then of course giving them the ball makes sense. 

What are your thoughts on holotraverse with the ball? This feels very broken to me. I think the game would be better if all pulls, jumps, warps, etc etc were disabled when you have the ball. They don't let you roll with the ball, why do they let you warp?

 

Quote

One thing I will agree is that damage farming is a lot worse than it ever was. I've played since the very first year of the game and damage farming premades have always been present, but something about them is a lot worse today.

In fact, when one team dominates another, they regularly stand in the spawn zone of the defeated team to farm kills. I propose when you drop from your zone until you do something, you have a large defense and offense buff (+500%) to end the bad sportsmanship. Enemies should have to stay well away from your spawn area. 

 

Anyway, as another long time pvper, I agree with you. A lot of this is not new. It's still here and it's still broken.  

 

[steveerkcanjerk]

Well I hate to break it to you but this is kinda how its been since well ever lol. Also alot of these "issues" aren't even issues they are just the nature of PVP in any MMO. Play ESO, WoW, GW2 etc. Some are less previlent then others like for example vet players vs new players. That requires population to be really high for any game to not feel that and you still feel that. WoW has cross server queues and one of the biggest pops not just in mmo's but in gaming. And you still see new players get put in a BG against vets because it just happens matchmaking can't be so picky that people have long queue times. Even MOBAS like league have the same issue come up because the reality is that its not possible to get picture perfect matchmaking. 

1. Premades just about every game has them. At this point it is a little silly to complain about them, people working/playing together in a multiplayer role based game is going to just be better. Make friends find 3 other people to queue arena with, its not that hard and the game gives you all the tools to do so. Especially if you are a avid PVPer you should be able to communicate with others if not you will just have to accept that sometimes you gonna get squashed. And also if you are queing and a group was on the other side, dont instantly queue right back up, be smart. 
2. IDK what server you are on but on SF full 5+ player premades are not common. We have players complaining about being solo and to think its common for a full group of 7 above average players to be a common occurrence is a little silly. Especially when there are measures in the game where they don't get instant pops so you should be skipping them most of the time. 

3. Stealth trick in huttball is well a strat. There is an easy way to counter it, dps well and control the middle of the map. If a guy sits in the endzone all game that means his team is a player down everywhere else on the map. Or find and remove him. If you see the ball carrier running towards the ledge start dropping AoE on the ledge. The huttball throw does not have infinite range. Or better yet win the fight at mid. If they are just killing all of you well...do you deserve to win a pvp match? Probably not?

4. CC lol okay. So alot of the classes lost their hard stun as a gurantee choice. White bar isn't going off as often because you are not being hard CC'd as often. Which means you can fight back. So if you are using a breaker on slows then your goofing. CC is a contention point also in just about every role based game. Overwatch to WoW it will never feel good to get CC'd. But to say that its happening "more" would not be accurate. But there are alot of tools in the game to counter this and survivability of majority of the classes went down in 7.0. And its also the job of a tank or teammate to peel for you, personally I dont want to go back to each class having a bunch of health bars or reflects galore all over the place. As a dps you should die under tunnel and no support. And if a group of 3 players wants to cycle CC's on you well tough. You are outnumbered. 

5. Scoreboard bugs okay ill give you that. But that doesn't drive new players away. 

6. Poor matchmaking is not an issue they can fix at this point. The skill gap between players is something that just has been an issue in this game for a long time. There are just flat out alot of players who just dont want to improve skills, gear correctly, or learn their class. But they enjoy just coming in and hitting buttons. Find friends who want to get better or enjoy playing well and you will find your experience will improve. This goes for any MMO at this point. But if there are only 40-50 people in queue there is only so much you can ask from the match maker. 

7. Meta so right now the meta is pressure, just like at times its been burst. So if we look at classes that are doing pretty well in PVP
- Madness, Leth, Veng, Pyro, Engi (if skilled), Carnage, Arsenal, AP, Rage, Deception. For DPS I would argue all of these specs are very good right now in PVP. Thats a really good chunk of specs to be viable in a meta. Its nice to play some arena and not just see double AP (that is still crazy to go against). And you could even argue fury could be in there. And for supports Healers atm any one of those 3 is a solid choice. Merc probably being the easiest to do well on. Tanks same thing, sin lags a bit behind pt and jugg but right now they are dishing some great damage out and have good utility. So this is defiently not the worst meta ever. Are some specs easier then others, yes. To say only 3 specs are good sounds like crying. Just like the old meta shifted eventually so will this one. 

8. Two cloaks is not broken lol. And buggy abilities ill give you that but you will find that in alot of mmo's especially movement based ones. 

But to address the point, if this is enough to make a new player stop playing then every mmo is going to stop them from pvping. If you are new, you should expect to get stomped. That is in any game. When I first start PVPing in any mmo happened to me to. There is a learning curve. Making friends, finding people to play with is the key to any team based activity in video games and irl. You also can flex more builds in a group, leth giving you trouble? Nets and anti heal options are nice way to deal with it. But if you are playing alone and investing everything in self preservation yeah its not gonna be as easy of time. 

[Crystal_Mind]

1 hour ago, StrikePrice said:

...They don't let you roll with the ball, why do they let you warp?

I'm not the person you quoted, but with regard to this point, you can 100% roll with the ball.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Crystal_Mind
hit post before I was done typing

[Prapcaster]

The people getting globalled in 2 gcd's in arenas is sure driving me away from the game

[StrikePrice]

10 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

The people getting globalled in 2 gcd's in arenas is sure driving me away from the game

Not much you can do about people throwing. I'm personally one who believes that if you get less than 3 trophies in Arena, you get no rewards. That would at least prevent the people who play 24 suicide matches every Tuesday just to get the weekly. 

 

1 hour ago, Crystal_Mind said:

I'm not the person you quoted, but with regard to this point, you can 100% roll with the ball.

Thank you. Then it's even more broken than I thought. Huttball was designed before roll and certainly before holotraverse. 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by StrikePrice

[DaltarSpitfire]

5 hours ago, Skolops said:

I can't really agree with some of the other stuff, though. I don't intend to be rude and I hope it doesn't come across that way, but I think that today as it has been for 12 years people who say the whitebar system is broke and you just sit there stunned forever are players who don't really understand how it works and who waste their stunbreaks at the wrong time.  In fact, if anything stuns are a lot easier to deal with today than they've ever been before, not only because there are significantly fewer stuns in the game today, but many classes have extra stunbreaks available or other abilities that can be activated while stunned. The degree to which you spend less time stunned in the game versus even just a few years ago is not even remotely close. It's waaaaaaaaay less today. 

The bottom line for me is that I think that the whitebar system in this game is one of the few things in the game which is truly mechanically interesting or unique (although maybe not anymore) about the game and I think altering or removing it would be a real loss. The way it is now there are some a very nice layers of strategy about how to use your stuns, your stunbreaks, etc. (though it may not be as deep as it was in the past when there were more stuns available). Changing this would remove one of the most tactically interesting parts of the game.

The Whitebar (Resolve) does work as intended. but the Game has changed and evolved. while the Resolve system did not adapt. that is what most folks complain about. 

A hard stun like Backhand from a Jugg. is 5 seconds. unless you talent it. it only fills roughly half the resolve bar. so you can get two 5 second stuns back to back. from good players. and get burned down inside those 10 seconds. 

A CC/Soft stun fills roughly 3/4s of the Resolve bar. can Be Dispelled. two of these and for the next 25? seconds you cannot be stunned again.

Certain Abilitys ingame have the 2-4 second with / without incoming hard damage (not dots) stun. i personally have not seen these short stuns add resolve. (however pvp is fast paced. and i'm not as young and quick as i used to be.)

every ability with a Root Component. Adds Zero Resolve. (looky i'm a big target. shoot me)

Slows. I'm honestly not sure how slows work in this game anymore. I mean. if you get a slow from each class or two from each class...you shouldn't be able to move. at all. but it never reduces your speed to absolute zero. however some classes seem to shrug off slows. or they simply don't effect / affect that person in a match.

also when you die all debuffs should be removed. and they are not. that is slightly confusing to me. i get Buffs that Presist through Death. but debuffs? 

anyhow. just my two cents. 

i'm not sure honestly if the resolve immune buff should last longer. or if each stun should fully fill the resolve bar.

i don't know what balance for that looks like. but i do believe that for pvp. Roots and Slows should be apart of that system. 

 

thinking about it atm. 

Resolve bar should give the Immune Buff for half the CD of your Stun Breaker. (so if you spec into your Breaker and its got a 1.5 min CD. then your stun immune buff once Resolve bar is filled should last for 45 seconds. (I.E. you can't be Controlled in anyway for that 45 seconds)

if your not spec'd into it. and you have the 2 min CD. then you get 60 seconds. (this idea might be extreme. or too long. i'm not sure. but it makes sense atm to me)

CC can stay at 75%

Hard Stun should be 75%

Soft stun / Short 2-4 second Stuns should be 25%

Roots should be 50%

Abilitys that only Slow. (Sins and Shadows Slow Ability) should be 35% and the CD on that ability should be 4 seconds longer than the debuff.

abilitys that have a slow added to the main effect. like Incend Missle for Merc IO. should only add 15-25% 

[krackcommando]

6 hours ago, Skolops said:

I don't intend to be rude and I hope it doesn't come across that way, but I think that today as it has been for 12 years people who say the whitebar system is broke and you just sit there stunned forever are players who don't really understand how it works and who waste their stunbreaks at the wrong time.  In fact, if anything stuns are a lot easier to deal with today than they've ever been before, not only because there are significantly fewer stuns in the game today, but many classes have extra stunbreaks available or other abilities that can be activated while stunned. The degree to which you spend less time stunned in the game versus even just a few years ago is not even remotely close. It's waaaaaaaaay less today. 

that's not true. they did a lot to nerf stuns after the first year. they made 30m cryo 10m. they made resolve only track the time stunned rather than punish the bad players who stunned on top of another stun. much later they inexplicably gave a 30m soft stun to sin. now there's (omg!) neural trigger. a free, off the gcd, guaranteed to hit 30m stun.

and yes, they reduced the number of hard stuns in the game in 7.x by putting them in impossible talent tree choices, but they also did that with the tools players used to survive. it was a net loss for survivability for most classes. and neural trigger is a thing, which is just obnoxiously broken (incl. adding 30m to a stun). honestly, most of these changes don't matter in WZs. even in rated WZs, those changes wouldn't have mattered. there's always a tank and healer around. but they're broken af in arenas where a certain few classes are just dead after popping a couple cds and breaking (correctly) when hard stunned and focused after 4s. you could say that only matters b/c you're playing w/o trinity comps, but that's what 80-90% of arena pops are. therefore that's what the format is. iunno man. even a class that is built to eat dmg like jugg and merc...you eat 4s of burst. break. if you live past your white bar, you just get hard stunned again and have to pop reflect or ed within that first 4s, but it doesn't really matter b/c you're gonna be stunned for another 4s with no recourse. and arena players aren't generally as dumb as WZ players, so they aoe over reflect more often than not, so you don't htf. you've just slowed the dmg for 6 of 8s. it's just silly. and ofc you cannot kite b/c you couldn't afford to mad dash or RO or you'd have died even sooner.

look man, it ain't just me. good rated players were furious about the dcd pruning as soon as they saw 7.0, and with good reason. it doesn't work for non-trinity arenas. nothing like getting chain stunned the second white bar disipates and having no guard and healer. game just wasn't designed that way. isn't designed that way. but that's literally the state of the game. so tweak resolve. tweak breaker cd. or force trinity (which will, ofc, not happen cuz there's be no pops).

Edited April 17, 2023 by krackcommando

[Prapcaster]

50 minutes ago, StrikePrice said:

Not much you can do about people throwing. I'm personally one who believes that if you get less than 3 trophies in Arena, you get no rewards. That would at least prevent the people who play 24 suicide matches every Tuesday just to get the weekly. 

 

Nothing to do with throwing it's them removing an entire game mode that demanded a skill gap. Now it's just every person who did story to level 80 with level 40 gear able to queue. they need to add a gear qualification or something. But they won't because pvp is being abandoned for micro transactions.

[krackcommando]

2 minutes ago, Prapcaster said:

Nothing to do with throwing it's them removing an entire game mode that demanded a skill gap. Now it's just every person who did story to level 80 with level 40 gear able to queue. they need to add a gear qualification or something. But they won't because pvp is being abandoned for micro transactions.

I geared up in pvp. did all the dailies and weeklies with my one 80. I didn't do it as efficiently as I should b/c I didn't get 2 set pcs and I started leveling 2 gear pieces for a couple levels before I did the hyde and zeek thing. but still...took about 3 weeks, maybe? and that was being ignorant. anyway, mercs were bugged at the time so I had both RO and Responsive Safe Guards. in 306 and 324 gear (286 aug'd everything), I was able to kite effectively enough. I used to have to do it in rated, so it was certainly a lot easier in 7.2. I don't think every class is like that, and maybe if I didn't have the RO exploit life would have been much worse. I think the big thing was using augs and just knowing how to kite though. I would hazard a guess that any returning player would be constructive in 306-324. eve more so in WZs where raw dps output isn't as important as positioning and communicating.

the bigger issue is whether he knows how to gear, b/c it's pretty stupid and convoluted. why pvp doesn't actually just buy all pvp gear is beyond me. and the number of ppl who waste tons of comms steadily leveling their pvp gear up through the pvp vendor (as one might think is the right way) is alarming. it's just not at all intuitive to buy just one piece and level that one piece all the way up, then take it to hyde and zeek. I'm not saying it's hard. it's quite easy. but it's convoluted and needs more guidance like a quest. for that matter, the fact that implants are now set pieces should be part of a mandatory training quest.

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, Prapcaster said:

Nothing to do with throwing it's them removing an entire game mode that demanded a skill gap. Now it's just every person who did story to level 80 with level 40 gear able to queue. they need to add a gear qualification or something. But they won't because pvp is being abandoned for micro transactions.

I’ve suggested they turn the lowbie bracket into a proper learning bracket again by boosting everyone to lvl 80 & giving them all cookie cutter gear & stats. The rewards could be gear based so they have the right gear to enter end game PvP. Then have a gear check to get into end game PvP. 

This is basically how games like GW2 do their whole PvP. But BioWare could use the lowbie bracket as a training bracket or safe place for new or less skilled people to improve & learn how to PvP. 

Sadly, we have to be careful what we wish for. Because knowing BioWare, if they decided to boost lowbie pvpers to lvl 80, they’d probably just shove them into the current lvl 80 queue with everyone else & get rid of lowbies altogether.

Edited April 18, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Skolops]

10 hours ago, StrikePrice said:

Lots of good stuff here. So, honest questions for you.

Yes, you're exactly right about hard stuns. I'm glad to see some removed by spec choices. What do you think about slows and roots? Some classes (Eng Sniper comes to mind) have endless, AoE spammable slows.  The fact that there is no DR for slows and roots seems bad to me. What do you think?

 

I think there are fewer slows and roots than there used to be, too, and honestly I can feel it when I play. I know intellectually that there are fewer stuns, and sometimes I notice it, but I always feel like I'm slowed a lot less. 

I also think that the impact of these slows are overestimated and often there's a pretty significant tradeoff to them. For example, it's true that Engineering Snipers can put that slow out BUT... the best way I can explain it is to say that the experience of playing Engineering is brief moments of hilarious burst surrounded by an overall existence of overwhelming, suffocating mediocrity. You can blow someone up if you get the right set up, sure, but the rest of the time it feels like you're playing on a starter planet where you don't have all your abilities so you just use random skills in a way that doesn't really make sense. In other words, yes, you get that slow but even with the awesome burst the whole spec is still, in my view anyways, very mediocre. 

Similarly, look at sorcerers with the broken Deathbrand. Obviously this should be fixed and it is annoying, but with sorcerer being one of my more played classes and I just never take this. The loss of DPS from Deathfield is just way, way too much.  In a duel I'd take the Deathbrand slow, but in a warzone or even an arena I just think that if an opponent is playing with this, hey, good - they're being way, way less effective than they could be. They'll have an easier time surviving against a single melee that focuses them, sure, but while they're kiting that one guy they could be killing the entire enemy team instead. 

So honestly even the more annoying slows don't bother me that much. I think there is a little work to do in getting the balance quite right between all the classes, but overall I'd say most of the most annoying slows represent pretty significant tradeoffs right now. 

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What are your thoughts on holotraverse with the ball? This feels very broken to me. I think the game would be better if all pulls, jumps, warps, etc etc were disabled when you have the ball. They don't let you roll with the ball, why do they let you warp?

Pulls and jumps should absolutely be allowed with the ball. They've always been a huge part of the strategy and they're one of the main things that makes Huttball what it is. Some people hate Huttball, but honestly my experience over the past 12 years has been that this is at least often a matter of players who aren't all that good and don't know how to use the various movement skills well or to counter them, or players who don't like playing objectives. I agree that full on warps shouldn't be allowed. At least in the past you would drop the ball if you used these. If any of this has been changed it should be changed back. 

 

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In fact, when one team dominates another, they regularly stand in the spawn zone of the defeated team to farm kills. I propose when you drop from your zone until you do something, you have a large defense and offense buff (+500%) to end the bad sportsmanship. Enemies should have to stay well away from your spawn area. 

Eh, I've been on the short end of that. It's not that much fun, but I think the reality is that sometimes you're going to face a team that's just better than you and more than just a game, that's just part of life, honestly. Sometimes you have a really rough time of something and you need to move on and try again. 

[Skolops]

7 hours ago, DaltarSpitfire said:

The Whitebar (Resolve) does work as intended. but the Game has changed and evolved. while the Resolve system did not adapt. that is what most folks complain about. 

A hard stun like Backhand from a Jugg. is 5 seconds. unless you talent it. it only fills roughly half the resolve bar. so you can get two 5 second stuns back to back. from good players. and get burned down inside those 10 seconds. 

A CC/Soft stun fills roughly 3/4s of the Resolve bar. can Be Dispelled. two of these and for the next 25? seconds you cannot be stunned again.

This is how it's always worked. The fact is that it's a team game. It can be hard when you solo queue - trust me, I understand as it's all I've done for years - but the reality is that surviving this stuff requires team support. I think changing it would be a net loss for the game, which has already moved too much away from team play. 

 

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Certain Abilitys ingame have the 2-4 second with / without incoming hard damage (not dots) stun. i personally have not seen these short stuns add resolve. (however pvp is fast paced. and i'm not as young and quick as i used to be.)

Short stuns do add resolve.

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every ability with a Root Component. Adds Zero Resolve. (looky i'm a big target. shoot me)

Roots have never added resolve and I'm very happy for it as it's a layer of depth to the tactics in the game. Using Creeping Terror or a Juggernaut leap, for example, to catch a ball carrier at just the right instant to kill them in the fire trap is just one of the things that makes the game so much more interesting than a mindless button smashing/damage-fest. If you aren't a fan of premades who just farm damage and ignore the objectives (and most people on these forums seem not to be) then little subtleties like this are the sorts of things we should want more of, not less. They're what makes the game more than just that farm. 

 

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Slows. I'm honestly not sure how slows work in this game anymore. I mean. if you get a slow from each class or two from each class...you shouldn't be able to move. at all. but it never reduces your speed to absolute zero. however some classes seem to shrug off slows. or they simply don't effect / affect that person in a match.

The strongest slow will take precedent, but slows do not stack. I think this is good. 

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also when you die all debuffs should be removed. and they are not. that is slightly confusing to me. i get Buffs that Presist through Death. but debuffs? 

 

This is how it is supposed to work but there are a few bugs which cause debuffs to sometimes persist through defeat. 

[Skolops]

7 hours ago, krackcommando said:

that's not true. they did a lot to nerf stuns after the first year. they made 30m cryo 10m. they made resolve only track the time stunned rather than punish the bad players who stunned on top of another stun. much later they inexplicably gave a 30m soft stun to sin. now there's (omg!) neural trigger. a free, off the gcd, guaranteed to hit 30m stun.

and yes, they reduced the number of hard stuns in the game in 7.x by putting them in impossible talent tree choices, but they also did that with the tools players used to survive. it was a net loss for survivability for most classes. and neural trigger is a thing, which is just obnoxiously broken (incl. adding 30m to a stun). honestly, most of these changes don't matter in WZs. even in rated WZs, those changes wouldn't have mattered. there's always a tank and healer around. but they're broken af in arenas where a certain few classes are just dead after popping a couple cds and breaking (correctly) when hard stunned and focused after 4s. you could say that only matters b/c you're playing w/o trinity comps, but that's what 80-90% of arena pops are. therefore that's what the format is. iunno man. even a class that is built to eat dmg like jugg and merc...you eat 4s of burst. break. if you live past your white bar, you just get hard stunned again and have to pop reflect or ed within that first 4s, but it doesn't really matter b/c you're gonna be stunned for another 4s with no recourse. and arena players aren't generally as dumb as WZ players, so they aoe over reflect more often than not, so you don't htf. you've just slowed the dmg for 6 of 8s. it's just silly. and ofc you cannot kite b/c you couldn't afford to mad dash or RO or you'd have died even sooner.

look man, it ain't just me. good rated players were furious about the dcd pruning as soon as they saw 7.0, and with good reason. it doesn't work for non-trinity arenas. nothing like getting chain stunned the second white bar disipates and having no guard and healer. game just wasn't designed that way. isn't designed that way. but that's literally the state of the game. so tweak resolve. tweak breaker cd. or force trinity (which will, ofc, not happen cuz there's be no pops).

As I said in another reply, stuff like this needs team support to survive and always has. Yes, you often don't have the right team composition for this these days because of the population, but I really do not think it would be good to mess with the basic "infrastructure" of combat to account for that. You don't fix one deficiency (in population) by adding another (in game depth). I have to say that this is easily my favorite PvP experience in any game over the past 12 years but I'd probably stop playing if they changed the way the whitebar works: it's just one of the defining characteristics that makes the game what it is, and I suspect that even if they wouldn't specifically recognize it a lot of other players would also start to find the game less enjoyable if changes were made to these systems. 

It's probably not something a lot of people want to hear, but I think arenas are just for the most part not worth playing. You really do need a solid trinity composition for them to make sense, but the population is such that you can't always get these. This is probably part of why BW removed ranked arenas in the first place. It's unfortunate and sad, but I think it's true.  

[krackcommando]

59 minutes ago, Skolops said:

It's probably not something a lot of people want to hear, but I think arenas are just for the most part not worth playing. You really do need a solid trinity composition for them to make sense, but the population is such that you can't always get these. This is probably part of why BW removed ranked arenas in the first place. It's unfortunate and sad, but I think it's true.  

arenas are literally the only thing worth playing in 7.2. I enjoy most of the WZ maps, but who are we kidding? nobody tries to win...except the ppl with no gear or understanding of the game. it's a total clusterbleep. I do 3 arena weeklies in a day, and it's great (like 1 in 3 matches is interesting but I do those 3 in the time it takes to run 1 WZ). doing one weekly WZ is like pulling teeth. WZs are dead game mode. they're just awful. they aren't coming back. it's just a space to pew pew stuff and maybe try to trigger a rage monkey.

[remylion]

15 hours ago, afwhoefuwov said:

I agree with most of what you said, specially the endzone thing in Huttball.  Theres a thing in competitive sport called "Offside", it exists in football (soccer) and I guess hockey too.  This is to make it fair so the opposite team doesnt have someone chilling right at the goal line and receive the ball (or puck).  Endzone should be anti stealth, and you are not allowed to just chill behind the goal line.  

For CC, the white bar does work but its duration is too short.  A white bar that lasts longer should fix it, I think.  

The season's token is way too few, there is not enough to buy multiple things, i.e. you either get the armor set or you get something else.  With the way BW changes stuff all the time, what's to say that one day these rewards will not be available? 

But soccer has goalies which is what the stealth player is.

Stealthed players on your end zone are useless if your team fights at the ball spawner and gets the ball first every time it spawns.

Most huttball matches however work like this.

Team A has 1-2 people camping the ball spawner and getting the ball every round. Team A also has a stealth at the end zone. Team A runs the ball every time it respawns because they have people waiting at the ball spawner to grab the ball.

Team B never challenges Team A at the ball spawner. Team B is constantly chasing the ball runner so is always fighting around their side of the field in the pit. Team B has a stealth waiting at Team A's goal just like Team A, but the issue is Team B never grabs the ball when it spawns so is always chasing the ball.

The stealth waiting at the goal isn't the problem. The problem is one team refuses to camp the ball spawner because all they can think of is "must chase large group of enemies". Most of the time team B is too busy trying to kill randoms that aren't even close to the ball carrier or half their team is fighting on the end zone looking for a stealth they won't find.

[Skolops]

6 hours ago, krackcommando said:

arenas are literally the only thing worth playing in 7.2. I enjoy most of the WZ maps, but who are we kidding? nobody tries to win...except the ppl with no gear or understanding of the game. it's a total clusterbleep. I do 3 arena weeklies in a day, and it's great (like 1 in 3 matches is interesting but I do those 3 in the time it takes to run 1 WZ). doing one weekly WZ is like pulling teeth. WZs are dead game mode. they're just awful. they aren't coming back. it's just a space to pew pew stuff and maybe try to trigger a rage monkey.

Very hard disagree. If I'm honest, I think arenas have never really been worth it. The game has never been balanced for them and they are really just an extremely simplified version of the game that reduces a lot of interesting and well designed mechanics to DPS. I think they went a long way to ruining PvP in the game because of the mindset they promote. Do I take it from this comment that you are one of the people who goes into warzones and ignores the objectives and just fights in some corner somewhere as if it were an arena?

[septru]

1 hour ago, Skolops said:

If I'm honest, I think arenas have never really been worth it.

Buddy, if you don't like arenas then don't que them. 

 

But I wouldn't go around saying stuff that is objectively false. It just makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about...

1 hour ago, Skolops said:

The game has never been balanced for them

1 hour ago, Skolops said:

they are really just an extremely simplified version of the game

 

[krackcommando]

4 hours ago, Skolops said:

Very hard disagree. If I'm honest, I think arenas have never really been worth it. The game has never been balanced for them and they are really just an extremely simplified version of the game that reduces a lot of interesting and well designed mechanics to DPS. I think they went a long way to ruining PvP in the game because of the mindset they promote. Do I take it from this comment that you are one of the people who goes into warzones and ignores the objectives and just fights in some corner somewhere as if it were an arena?

I'm not accusing you of not having read the post which you quoted, but I do think you were blinded by the first line and didn't pay attention to the meat of my comment.

WZ maps are mostly great. Objective PVP is great. But WZ maps and objective PVP in SWTOR 2023 is a burning hot pile of dog poop. The more skilled players generally ignore objectives. This is a fact. are you on SF? <no idea> <hysteria> <something rizz> <rankerp> and yes, I'll throw in <reign in darkness>...the list goes on. the groups that can do the most generally do the least. then you have WZs flooded with absolutely terrible players who don't even want to PVP but there's a seasonal quest with a reward, so they apparently need and are entitled to those "rewards" (tokens). every single HB there are 2-3 garbage players on op or sin who declare "I'll be in the EZ" for that mythical stealth pass that only ******* works because the other team doesn't give a rat's rear end about winning in the first place. they're just dpsing. WZs are just stupidly broken.

now to your question about my behavior, since I cannot simply leave, when I see my team or the other team mostly ignoring objectives, I do so as well. there's no point winning behind a <no idea> death squad. it's just dumb. it's dumb on their team. it's dumb against them. you have to DM. i'm not one of those idiotic nubs who says, "let them DM. free win for us." like...that's not winning. that's wasting my time in a WZ for 5-10 mins because I CANNOT JUST LEAVE WITHOUT A FRIKKIN DESERTER DEBUFF.

arenas, on the other hand, players are actively trying to win 95% of the time. and when they run into a chain saw, they may stuck the 2nd round and it's over in 2 mins...not 10 mins.

as to your complaints about balance, you may have an argument that SOLO RATED (not group) broke balance because it required DPS specs to be functional without the presence of trinity comps. I personally support this theory/hypothesis.

where you are absolutely wrong is stating that solo rated was never balanced. you see, BW did give every DPS spec the sort of DCDs that would allow them to function outside of trinity, and that did balance SOLO RATED. it also, one might argue, broke WZs by turning obstacles like walls and fire plates into a joke that every class could overcome with a speed boost or teleport ability. not to mention having crazy immunity abilities and/or self healing that would allow them to point and laugh while 8m light into them for 4-6s. that's pretty dumb in a WZ. it's actually pretty balanced in a 4v4 all dps arena or a 3dps 1support role arena.

but for me, 7.2 arenas pop. they're actually faster pops right now than WZs for me. they're far more competitive than WZs on SF. and when the matches are lopsided, they're over in an instance. also, it's easier to carry in arenas than WZ. there are just fewer ppl. AND, while 7.2 arenas are clearly not rated arenas (skill wise), they're considerably more skilled on average than the idiocy going on in WZs because, whether you would like to admit it or not, arenas are a steeper learning curve, and not as many garbage bin seasonal migrating incompetents flock to arenas as WZs. this is also aided by the fact that when you're bad, it's easier to be HIDE in a WZ, and when you're bad in arenas, you end up getting erased quickly and having to lose 24 times instead of just 12. this adds to the ease of carrying weaker players b/c not as many join the queue.

edit: the 7.x removal of dcds/movement abils/CC has only exacerbated the balance problem everywhere. TTK is way down. healing is more futile than ever because all those DCDs implemented (for solo rated?) masked the many short comings in balance brought about by power creep over the years. although, fwiw, WZs were never balanced. there were a couple specific specs you needed for utility. but, for example, who would ever take a dps merc over sniper? or a healing merc over op or sorc? (player skill being the same) the entire class was sidelined. and then there was combat sent. you had to have a combat sent. you had to have at least one jugg tank. the fact of the matter is that there were very few choices to make for a competitive WZ team. sure, you could kick around with any grp. but if you were serious about it? it was no different from arenas. only a handful of specs and classes. literally the only difference is you could hide weaker players in objective maps where you could not in arenas.

Edited April 18, 2023 by krackcommando

[StrikePrice]

16 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

arenas, on the other hand, players are actively trying to win 95% of the time. and when they run into a chain saw, they may stuck the 2nd round and it's over in 2 mins...not 10 mins.

If this is the case, I should switch to that server. On SS, lots of people just run into the middle and get globaled or flat out /stuck. All the time. Particularly on Tuesdays. 

[SentinalMasterWW]

On 4/17/2023 at 7:46 AM, StrikePrice said:

Start by saying I agree with your post 100%.

The fundamental problem is that no-one at BW understands or cares about PvP. I think they would be happy if it just went away. The amount of work that it would take to make PvP "right" or even close to that is insurmountable. Any game that really wants to balance PvE and PvP separates the effect of abilities. That is, abilities behave differently in PvE and PvP. Without that fundamental separation of how things work in PvE vs PvP, it can never be made right.

Further, all the maps and game modes have to be torn down from scratch and re-built. They no longer represent anything logical. They were designed basically at launch. It would be like if people were using jetpacks to run to 1st base in Baseball and it was still 90 feet. Once a grounder to short becomes a base hit, it's no longer baseball. It's something else.

Making PvP right might bring some players back or make a handful of players happy, but I don't think it is high on their priority list compared to more content and more cosmetics. I don't really blame them, they need to think about making money to keep the game alive. But, do it right or don't do it at all. 

I agree, I was thinking that one of the Core issues with PVP is that because of the Design Choices for 7.0, all the maps are out of balance for them. Mercs/Commandos and VG/PT had stealth scan alongside sniper being the counter to them. With those specs nerfed, Stealth meta really has no hard counters these days. 

I think bioware doesn't know how to balance PVP, PVE they can do some Easy 2-3 Hour story and have it be that, but PVP requires class balancing and Mechanic balancing etc. Stuff that takes time and thought. 

I think because of how Dumbed down the game has been since 7.0, its why things like PVP are more frustrating. 

[SentinalMasterWW]

On 4/17/2023 at 8:41 AM, afwhoefuwov said:

I agree with most of what you said, specially the endzone thing in Huttball.  Theres a thing in competitive sport called "Offside", it exists in football (soccer) and I guess hockey too.  This is to make it fair so the opposite team doesnt have someone chilling right at the goal line and receive the ball (or puck).  Endzone should be anti stealth, and you are not allowed to just chill behind the goal line.  

For CC, the white bar does work but its duration is too short.  A white bar that lasts longer should fix it, I think.  

The season's token is way too few, there is not enough to buy multiple things, i.e. you either get the armor set or you get something else.  With the way BW changes stuff all the time, what's to say that one day these rewards will not be available? 

Huttball is the only game mode where Stealth can cheese the entire match. Just get someone to camp in an endzone and zerg rush the ball to them and you already won the match. If there was proper anti endzone camping mechanics huttball would actually be pretty fun. 

Everything else, I agree.