State of PvP - Things that should / could change for the better.

[septru]

14 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

I think one of the many frustrations for players is that, I think TTK is too fast in PVP currently. 

I think that is one of the main causes of frustrations, I've been playing Healer Sorc to try something new in PVP and I'm just getting Annihlated in 3 secs, combine that with the fact that sorc healer isn't the best right now and yeah. 

When players are saying their being CC'd to death, Its a combination of fast TTK and broken CC meta currently. If you watch Cease's video that is linked to this post, he touched on how CS Trees are not even amongst classes, there are some trees that have way better abilities and options than others. 

The Fast TTK also contributed a lot to the Spawn Camping that happens in games, where all it takes it like 3 Strong DPS to lock down a spawn. Huttball is pretty bad for this as they can just funnel you out of one point. 

 

Your post honestly reads like a "i'm new to sorc heals and died 20 times wah wah wah." Sorc healer is a fine healer. Better than op. Sorc healer has more ways to get out of CCs than any other healer. Phase walk, god bubble, breaker, bubble stun. And honestly, if you're getting spawn camped in huttball you need to read a guide because literally in ALL 3 hutball maps you can get around a spawn camp without getting into combat. 

 

Honestly, I understand why some people argue that the TTK is too high. I don't necessarily agree, I think burst damage (with the exception of rage jugg and ap pt) is almost irrelevent because the burst is so bad. Specs like MM, arsenal, conc op, fury mara, ling sorc are all bottom tier specs. But I understand why some people feel like the TTK is too high. That's not your problem though. Your problem is that you tried a new spec and feel like you're entitled to instantly win every game and never die. Just another great example of why giving participation rewards to everyone and their mother is a dumb idea. 

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, TyrFoge said:

The "premade issue" is a tricky one and one that cannot be "solved" with a simple solution. On one hand you cannot punish players for wanting to queue with friends in an MMO. No one can really argue that queing with friends rather than just strangers isn't more fun. It just is. However the premade issue brought up in this thread are also very real as well. I think they were certainly exacerbated by the introduction of 8 man groups (which in theory is great and eliminating them isn't the final solution some believe it is) but more importantly I think the problem lies in not locking out "improper group compositions".

If they could just make the matchmaking system work properly & enforce premade vs solo separation, there wouldn’t be an issue. 

The problem is they have either never actually tried to make it work so premades aren’t put against solo players or the devs don’t have the skills to do it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I believe the devs have/had the skills. It’s just that they are so worried about their holy grail of pop times, that they haven’t actually bothered to write proper code to seperate premades from solo players. 

If they had done that originally for WZ’s, we wouldn’t have lost so many solo players over the years. Especially this last 9 months where the premade issue has driven more dedicated pvpers from the game in such a short amount of time than ever before. 

BioWare have been told repeatedly by the community since last December that the changes to the premade system would drive solo players from the game. They were told that the new seasons format would start to fail & deter new pvpers from participating if they didn’t fix it. Which is what’s happening now & could have been easily avoided. 

The devs & certain parts of this community are their own worst enemies.  Anyone with one iota of critical thinking could see this outcome. But BW doubled down by ignoring our feedback. And certain community members who were only out for their own trolling pleasures here and in the game supported this broken system at the detriment of the game. 

All the development work & money that went into creating the seasons to attract new pvpers was ultimately a waste of time because the dev team were to incalcitrant to listen to legitimate feedback.

I don’t know if it’s hubris or stubbornness with devs. That they can’t ever admit they made a mistake & walk back an idea. All I know is they have been like this for several years & this sort of attitude drives more people from game than it attracts. Which is why we are heading back towards the lowest population this game has ever had. I expect we’ll hit it sometime in the next 3-6 weeks. 

We can see how much the population is dropping by looking at the only indicator we have left, the Steam numbers in the chart below.

https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830#1m

Edited August 18, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Lord_Malganus]

9 hours ago, TyrFoge said:

The "premade issue" is a tricky one and one that cannot be "solved" with a simple solution. On one hand you cannot punish players for wanting to queue with friends in an MMO.

 

It would be different if pre-mades were only matched against other pre-mades but that rarely happens.

The statement is their is no solo Q for those that want to play only against other solo q players.

 

 

 

 

[Beyrahl]

7 hours ago, krackcommando said:

TL; DR: tanks can accomplish their role just fine w/o wearing tank gear. BS needs to make it worthwhile to wear tank gear. best thing I can think of it tying core tank mechanics to them in pvp instances.

There used to be a set bonus that'd increase your damage if you were guarding. I really do think tanks should have a damage penalty if they're not guarding someone, even if out of range. When you're being TT'd and drop guard chances are you're actually trying to LoS/run away a bit in those situations. Also generally, in a real TT match full of competent players guard wouldn't need to be dropped as it'd be rather easy to counter TT playstyle with some thought process put into it. I wanted accuracy to be flat-out removed plenty of times and I think if it was to happen, defense chance could be an actual stat they could build to gain Damage Reduction at a conversion rate with Diminishing Returns of course. Then have a set amount of the stat required to use guard. I think this ultimately would be the best way to deal with it and then prevent DPS from building it. 

 

 

7 hours ago, merovejec said:

PVP is unplayable at peak times. Too many tanks and heals in groups which leads to stale mates in most warzones. People then just give up or leave. This is no fun.

When your teams are not similar it does become a drag, but there are ways to deal with it, learning how to do more damage or generally understanding how to allocate players better. 
It's very easy for one or two decent players to keep a larger group busy allowing for other things around the map to happen, slowing down a heal tank group is actually a lot easier than it looks and sometimes that playstyle is enforced when your team can't match theirs. Is it fun? eh. For some maybe, but I don't think it's something to be 'fixed' or considered 'unplayable' as sometimes matches won't be a stomp, that's kind of the point. They're creating good opposition, so if anything it should inspire you to play better to beat them, if not just use it as a learning experience and go next. Obviously, if this is a premade versus pugs, I wouldn't even bother, and is generally different than a "stalemate."
Personally, I would love a match like these because I rarely get into matches where either side isn't getting turbo wiped, which I find unenjoyable. 


 

 

4 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

We can see how much the population is dropping by looking at the only indicator we have left, the Steam numbers in the chart below.

They've had to notice at least by now, I would hope. PvP forums have been cleaned up a bit recently, and I did catch this. Though it likely means nothing. 

As for HPS/DPS, this is the only expansion where the majority of DPS are capable of matching healers' HPS output if not pass it. Even at the casual levels. That wasn't the case for previous expansions and no way was it the case for a casual DPS to even compare to another casual playing healer. While player skill and my thoughts of what a casual is different as skill is subjective to whom you're comparing to and who you've seen play. This is still very much the case, though you may not think the same way of me classifying them as casual. In a large portion of my videos, you will see DPS/HPS being close together and one sometimes passing the other by a margin.  If you look at previous expansion videos, you'd rarely see DPS ramp up to HPS unless it was an AoE game. Now even in burst games, you see this happen. 
People can adapt but when the game throws a bunch of 100k+ hits by multiple different specs and your largest heal is 60-70k you're eventually just screwed. While I don't think heals should be unkillable, I think they should be able to hold their own a bit better. One good DPS shouldn't be soloing the healer, that's just how I feel and I know the game would be better if it wasn't as consistently possible as it is right now.
 

[SentinalMasterWW]

5 hours ago, septru said:

Your post honestly reads like a "i'm new to sorc heals and died 20 times wah wah wah." Sorc healer is a fine healer. Better than op. Sorc healer has more ways to get out of CCs than any other healer. Phase walk, god bubble, breaker, bubble stun. And honestly, if you're getting spawn camped in huttball you need to read a guide because literally in ALL 3 hutball maps you can get around a spawn camp without getting into combat. 

I never said I was mad about dying as Sorc Healer, I was just trying it out to play something different. As the OG Author has stated in a reply to the original post 

Quote

The average survival of players is around 8-12k DTPS (Damage taken per second, this is assuming you stay in combat for nearly the entire game averaging 5m+ Dmg taken in 10min or longer games) in order to hit that damage mark it only takes one decent player or two okay players. This is obviously not the statistic you see in your character sheet but rather a summarization of the average damage taken per game and how high it goes before it's constantly deadly. Even with defensives it's very easy to brute force through them, in previous expansions defensives meant something, maybe not a ton in 6.0 but in 5.0 they definitely were more impactful. Damage to HPS and damage to HP pool or defensive power felt right up until 258 gear where auto criticals and scaling with alacrity CC meta hit its peak.
When support roles like tanks and healers are added into the game this DTPS goes up quite a lot, but typically it only adds around 10,000 more, the record-high DTPS I have ever taken is 24k without actually ever dying. This was as Pyrotech with guard and heals, the enemy team was similar too so definitely not the average player scenario. 

The point of all of this is to show you how easily it is to actually meet damage requirements to kill anyone, even more so to keep them on constant respawn. Granted keeping that targeted damage on specific players is much harder with pugs but something as simple as even a 2man group can most likely meet the requirements to constantly kill a target over and over. Now that most players don't survive that much damage let alone use their defenses even less damage can keep them dead over and over.
I know it's a weird concept to think about for some but this is something we haven't seen since maybe 1.0, we can hit the "damage wall" as I call it where you can keep the entire enemy team on respawn for the whole game. No one can do more damage because there's no one alive to continue hitting. It's not a stalemate but rather utter domination. It used to be incredibly hard to do if ever possible, nowadays it's not only easy to do so, you can make a group with more than 4 DPS to ensure you can do it. It's not a fun time in those situations, for example, the most common layout that's super dominant is 3-4 DPS with a healer or with also a tank. 4 DPS is the same amount a proper 8v8 double premade would have but in a simple 5-6 man group, which is a lot easier and common to do. 

People need to stop saying skill issue, its a terrible excuse Prum, there are multiple cases of players dying to quickly, even 336 With gold Augs, Defensives are kind of meaningless because of the fast TTK. Before 7.0 Defensives felt strong and impactful, now they just keep you alive for 4 secs longer. I've been on both the receiving end and the delivering end of farming players in their spawn. 

 

5 hours ago, septru said:

Honestly, I understand why some people argue that the TTK is too high. I don't necessarily agree, I think burst damage (with the exception of rage jugg and ap pt) is almost irrelevent because the burst is so bad. Specs like MM, arsenal, conc op, fury mara, ling sorc are all bottom tier specs. But I understand why some people feel like the TTK is too high. That's not your problem though. 

I introduce you to Tactics/AP, I've played it and can delete players instantly, sure I'm a glass cannon, but I can bully other players into submission, Or Should I introduce you to Deception with their many stuns and control over players? I also never stated it was purely burst classes, Madness can run circles around everyone and its supposed to be a DOT spec. 

 

5 hours ago, septru said:

Your problem is that you tried a new spec and feel like you're entitled to instantly win every game and never die. Just another great example of why giving participation rewards to everyone and their mother is a dumb idea. 

I never stated I should be entitled lol, I just said it's kind of ridiculous how fast players can be wiped, Just today I had top healing and Kills via Sorc Healer, 0 deaths. I don't care about that though, do I love playing perfect matches sure, but its not something I expect every time. Controversial take but I'm glad Ranked was removed, it was full of win traders and cheaters, Alongside an extremely toxic Playerbase. The game mode was slowly dying and funnily enough it became a participation mode because barely anyone played it because of those reasons. PVP Seasons is participation sure, but it can be made into something better that incentives players to get better, Like Rewarding the Top healers, Tanks, and DPS in a season. 

 

41 minutes ago, Beyrahl said:

There used to be a set bonus that'd increase your damage if you were guarding. I really do think tanks should have a damage penalty if they're not guarding someone, even if out of range. When you're being TT'd and drop guard chances are you're actually trying to LoS/run away a bit in those situations. Also generally, in a real TT match full of competent players guard wouldn't need to be dropped as it'd be rather easy to counter TT playstyle with some thought process put into it. I wanted accuracy to be flat-out removed plenty of times and I think if it was to happen, defense chance could be an actual stat they could build to gain Damage Reduction at a conversion rate with Diminishing Returns of course. Then have a set amount of the stat required to use guard. I think this ultimately would be the best way to deal with it and then prevent DPS from building it. 

I think "Skank tanks" would be more balanced if they had DMG Nerfs, but have more defensive buffs to them, So they don't do a lot of DMG but can survive for much longer. 

 

43 minutes ago, Beyrahl said:

Obviously, if this is a premade versus pugs, I wouldn't even bother, and is generally different than a "stalemate."
Personally, I would love a match like these because I rarely get into matches where either side isn't getting turbo wiped, which I find unenjoyable. 

Honestly, these matches are kind of boring, No one is dying and your just farming for DMG at that point. I love the matches like in huttball where its a tie and it literally comes down to holding the ball to secure that W, I find those even ground matches pretty rare nowadays. 

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

People need to stop saying skill issue, its a terrible excuse Prum, there are multiple cases of players dying to quickly, even 336 With gold Augs, Defensives are kind of meaningless because of the fast TTK. Before 7.0 Defensives felt strong and impactful, now they just keep you alive for 4 secs longer. I've been on both the receiving end and the delivering end of farming players in their spawn. 

😄 I did literally get globalled by nikana (I think? he changes his names too much) and his buddy on PTs. there were a couple sorc dots on me too. it was surreal. but that was my fault. I drastically overestimated how low my health bar could go before I popped reflect with those particular classes on me, an I'm fairly certain I went from 75% to 0% in one GCD. I had popped flares, WZ stim, and reactive, iirc, but going 75% to 0% in one actual gcd (not hyperbole) was so unexpected that I never got heals from the shield nor was I prepared to hit kolto or reflect. man. that was really really bad. lul merc having reflect that htf and can be popped while stunned and still getting ravaged by two APs without ever popping. so bad.

 

[Beyrahl]

41 minutes ago, krackcommando said:

lul merc having reflect that htf and can be popped while stunned and still getting ravaged by two APs without ever popping. so bad.

Powered detonator thermal is much more deadly in the hands of anyone. It makes the burst even easier than it was, along with giving it extreme control, so when you do face a Powered detonator player it's probably something to keep in mind they'll always stack another ability with thermals damage. For example thermal into energy burst, similar to how sabotage and explosive charge work on saboteur. It's two relatively large hit splats at the same time guaranteed, while it can be done without the tactical, it will for sure catch you off guard when the average PT is doing it because of the tactical. While I would say it's less your fault but rather more the fact you may not have known how strong AP still is. 

 

2 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Honestly, these matches are kind of boring, No one is dying and your just farming for DMG at that point. I love the matches like in huttball where its a tie and it literally comes down to holding the ball to secure that W, I find those even ground matches pretty rare nowadays. 

I want to push and see the real capabilities of classes but sadly, I must say I don't think I have had but maybe one game where that was possible. Often times games like these that can be fun end up being a tunnel one-person simulator while everyone stacks relatively boring range with all defensive talents but still stand still... Just isn't it, there are other experiences I have had where it's fun but the "damage wall" is usually always hit before anything can be pushed for the fun of doing it. I am jaded simply by expecting more, my standards for myself even are too high to be impressed anymore, however, I still have fun. 

Anyway. I would love to see the thread stay on topic and please don't argue with each other, I see it is getting personal for no reason and it's not helping. If we want them to even bother taking us seriously, this isn't helping. None of us get anything out of it, nor do really any of us have anything to prove, this is a plea to ask for help in fixing what we still have.

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, Beyrahl said:

Powered detonator thermal is much more deadly in the hands of anyone. It makes the burst even easier than it was, along with giving it extreme control, so when you do face a Powered detonator player it's probably something to keep in mind they'll always stack another ability with thermals damage. For example thermal into energy burst, similar to how sabotage and explosive charge work on saboteur. It's two relatively large hit splats at the same time guaranteed, while it can be done without the tactical, it will for sure catch you off guard when the average PT is doing it because of the tactical. While I would say it's less your fault but rather more the fact you may not have known how strong AP still is. 

Sadly it was prolly the 20th time I had met them in arenas in 7.2. No excuse really. I got yoinked and carbed. I got off flares before carb. Popped shield with stim. I felt fine at 80%ish. Eat another stun iirc start to move again and my hp bar is gone. The pt and I were laughing. It reminded me of that <skill capped> sent who was in a rishi against Vinny’s guild. He tried to break, stealth, and pred. The basic escape sequence every Mara does a million times, but he missed one of the binds and got absolutely deleted and he groaned something like “that’s gonna get clipped forever.” Ah…good times. 

[SentinalMasterWW]

If the Dev's don't want to make too many drastic changes there are simple things they can do to start

One would be fixing the scoreboard, It can still bug out sometimes too where you cannot leave the match. 

The other is reversing a change they did which was removing MVP, I don't get why MVP why removed, it wasn't toxic and I enjoyed giving it to my tanks and healers, especially in Arenas. Bringing back MVP would be a simple positive change. 

If we want to talk seasons, I think removing some of the bland cartel pack stuff, and replacing it with more PVP tokens would be appreciated. 

on the PVP Gear vendors add back the Battlemaster gear for purchase, I know a lot of players would like to collect them, they'd still need to be valor rank 60 but its makes it easier to collect the whole set. 

 

[Darkestmonty]

If ttk is too slow it makes it impossible to kill players and take nodes between respawns.

I'm also an objective player because I am rotating weeklies. I don't care about killing players. I'll go a whole huttball match spending more time with the huttball ignoring combat as a tank than trying to kill anyone.

[septru]

12 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

PVP Seasons is participation sure, but it can be made into something better that incentives players to get better, Like Rewarding the Top healers, Tanks, and DPS in a season. 

12 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

People need to stop saying skill issue

It is entirely a skill, knowledge, and reading guides issue if you are getting spawn camped in huttball. It should never, ever, ever, happen on those maps.

 

But I'm not trying to make a personal argument, I'm trying to make a point. A lot of the arguments in this thread, TTK being the perfect example, are about "catering to the casual." Raise the TTK so that new players can experience the game, instead of dying constantly. Well, you know what will happen if you raise the TTK for casuals? Any half-way capable player will never die. It's not fun when you can't kill anyone, trust me, I played in 4.0/5.0.

 

I play SWTOR PvP, because it is fundamentally fun. It's a chess game, where one mistake can lead to a punishment. Use your breaker early? Get stun lock and killed you on your next white bar. The tank has slow guard swaps? Swap to the unguarded player and kill them before the tank realizes it. The best time I ever had in this game was when I finally realized how exactly I was getting outplayed because I was able to improve and learn from it. But when you "cater to the casual" and give them participation rewards, you take away the only reason to improve, learn. You reduce a complex game of chess to a simple game of checkers, because some players can't understand the rules. I will never agree with that mindset. 

Edited August 19, 2023 by septru

[septru]

17 hours ago, septru said:

Honestly, I understand why some people argue that the TTK is too high. I don't necessarily agree, I think burst damage (with the exception of rage jugg and ap pt) is almost irrelevent because the burst is so bad. Specs like MM, arsenal, conc op, fury mara, ling sorc are all bottom tier specs.

 

11 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

I introduce you to Tactics/AP, I've played it and can delete players instantly, sure I'm a glass cannon, but I can bully other players into submission, Or Should I introduce you to Deception with their many stuns and control over players? I also never stated it was purely burst classes, Madness can run circles around everyone and its supposed to be a DOT spec. 

If you really want to get into the details:

 

I completely agree about AP PT. Notice, how I mentioned it already. AP PT has really strong burst. I don't not buff AP PT.

 

I notice you didn't mention rage jugg. But rage has very high burst atm (in capable hands). I would not buff rage. 

Decep's only burst is in a 6 second window when they come out from stealth. I've long said that window should be nerfed from 6 to 5 or even 4 seconds. But deception's damage after that window is literally non-existent. If you disrupt a deception sin when they immediately come out of stealth, they will literally contribute nothing for the next minute and a half. It's pretty easy to do, especially if your teammates are helpful. Use a knockback, a hardstun. Personally I think they should nerf decep's opener and replace it with burst outside of its opener. But they could do nothing to decep. It's really fine. 

 

Every other burst class has almost irrelevant burst, to the point where I've literally seen cleave/dot specs hit harder. MM, arsenal, conc op, fury mara, ling sorc. These are all classes I would buff their burst. It again comes down to whether you want to learn to play these classes at their max potential, or if you want to cater to the casual and make it so no one dies. 

[krackcommando]

42 minutes ago, septru said:

Every other burst class has almost irrelevant burst, to the point where I've literally seen cleave/dot specs hit harder. MM, arsenal, conc op, fury mara, ling sorc. These are all classes I would buff their burst. It again comes down to whether you want to learn to play these classes at their max potential, or if you want to cater to the casual and make it so no one dies.

I'm biased. I realize this. but I feel like pvp is arse backwards with this situation. pvp should be burst heavy, particularly single target. dot/spread should be pressure. wear out the other team (good in trinity matches). it's not like I can't play dots. iunno. I get that burst has been king for almost every meta. but that's kinda how it should be, imo. at least if you're focusing down individuals. now, the best option for every ranged is a dot single target and aoe. there's no distinction between pressure and burst.

edit: or I should say, the distinction is in the choices you make in your dot build.

Edited August 19, 2023 by krackcommando

[Beyrahl]

11 hours ago, septru said:

Well, you know what will happen if you raise the TTK for casuals? Any half-way capable player will never die. It's not fun when you can't kill anyone, trust me, I played in 4.0/5.0.

TTK was fine in both of those expansions. I even played AP in solo ranked during 5.0. The only true "You can't kill anyone" meta was stacking force bound, even more so before it was tuned to not include white damage. I would love to see 4.0 TTK again because most openers then were actually more deadly than openers are today, they just happened a bit slower. The only one I would even make an exception for here would be dot explosions or new abilities that ramped burst since then. While I am trying to help the new player / casual experience to bring in more players into the game instead of it just dwindling down to nothing but a conquest simulator, doesn't mean I am casual myself. 
Here's just an example of the 4.0 Arena and Carnages opener to put into perspective what I am saying isn't just me misremembering the past. 

 

 

11 hours ago, septru said:

It's a chess game, where one mistake can lead to a punishment. Use your breaker early? Get stun lock and killed you on your next white bar. The tank has slow guard swaps? Swap to the unguarded player and kill them before the tank realizes it. The best time I ever had in this game was when I finally realized how exactly I was getting outplayed because I was able to improve and learn from it. But when you "cater to the casual" and give them participation rewards, you take away the only reason to improve, learn. You reduce a complex game of chess to a simple game of checkers, because some players can't understand the rules. I will never agree with that mindset. 

What I suggest has nothing to do with dumbing down the game. They've already done that in a significant portion and I have 3 different threads on it, which are likely just as ignored as this one. Important decisions matter less now than ever, sure in Tank/Heal arena where it's more competitive you can capitalize a lot harder. What you've described has been that way for as long as I can remember, sure 6.0 put a stain on it but the other expansions were this, either more complicated or more simplified as it is now. 
This game is far from any resemblance of chess and most if not all complexity has been pruned. The incredible amount of utility and out playability that left with 7.0 already made this game transition to a simple game like tic tac toe. Things can be added over time to regain the appeal of 'complexity' as most people want that in MMORPGs, not simplicity. Though that is a different topic altogether. 
As for catering to casuals, this game has done that for a very long time. When the majority of the player base is those players, why wouldn't they statistically speaking? Why make content for only 1%? This is why I am trying to appeal to said casuals for something they don't give the light of day. 
Don't get me wrong though, nothing I suggested here changes the meta or shifts anything, it just gives newer/casual players a better fighting chance with less effort on their part. It'd be as if they're suddenly on a more even playing field overnight, it doesn't solve them not knowing what to do or how to use dcds etc. 

11 hours ago, septru said:

Decep's only burst is in a 6 second window when they come out from stealth. I've long said that window should be nerfed from 6 to 5 or even 4 seconds. But deception's damage after that window is literally non-existent. If you disrupt a deception sin when they immediately come out of stealth, they will literally contribute nothing for the next minute and a half. It's pretty easy to do, especially if your teammates are helpful. Use a knockback, a hardstun. Personally I think they should nerf decep's opener and replace it with burst outside of its opener. But they could do nothing to decep. It's really fine. 

For the longest time on deception, its damage was based around procs for maul and recklessness, going back to a transition of that would be incredible, the whole spec needs realignment of its talents and without force speed absorb any more, I feel the DR should be more reasonable to take without having to take the slow. It also had more emphasis on Discharge which isn't the case currently, though still very good. When stride/holo was still off GCD it was part of your burst combo to use stride. Here's an example of that combo not only did it look cool, it felt good and did a lot of damage. This is 5.0 era so you can still see the TTK being quite quick. The biggest difference was that heals hit for roughly the same as most burst DPS. As for that specific game we had enough damage to roll them constantly, similar to what we have in this current day with the exception of burst outdoing healers by quite a good margin.

 

 

12 hours ago, septru said:

Every other burst class has almost irrelevant burst, to the point where I've literally seen cleave/dot specs hit harder. MM, arsenal, conc op, fury mara, ling sorc. These are all classes I would buff their burst. It again comes down to whether you want to learn to play these classes at their max potential, or if you want to cater to the casual and make it so no one dies. 

MM still hits hard, white damage suffers while also the class still suffers. Not as much as it was on the launch of 7.0 though still not where it should be, it's been far too long that Energy Burst still does so much damage through evasion, the moment they fix that - if ever, the class is infinitely more playable.

Arsenal has over-reliance on white damage and blazing bolts as its sustain damage, nearly every spec ingame that has this issue is in shambles in PvP because of it. It's burst is still very good and the change from Heatseeker auto critical to Railshot Auto critical was what gutted it's consistency in burst. Missing your auto critical is awful, let alone hitting a heatseeker that does less than tracer. Annihilation is another spec that has all of it's sustain reliant on Spiteful saber and slash, in order to really push both of these specs these abilities need less overall damage and better damage distribution. Annihilation has its own problems of annihilate (used to be its auto critical) for example hitting incredibly low, while its dots are commonly purged/don't last long enough to even spread more than the instant they're applied. 

Concealment hits plenty hard enough, its durability is the question, I wouldn't say buffing its burst is going to fix the class. It hits plenty hard and consistently, part of having bad durability on a class with 4-meter abilities really shines on this class and hinders it much more. 

Fury got gutted incredibly hard because of cheese parses. It really should get an auto-critical back to at least furious strike. Its current issue is just being overwhelmingly meh at everything it does, without the ability to hit really hard but generally just consistent, which ultimately just makes it suffer in PvP as uptime isn't always there. This is where rage on the other hand gets to shine, if uptimes are broken their burst is nearly reset meaning they can always push out more in a shorter time. Fury used to pack a punch which is what helped it keep up with defel spliced genes at the time being superior to the entire class of juggernaut. Now that defels are gone and it's auto-critical was removed (legitimately parse cheese decision imo, people were clicking off fury stacks to gain fury again after making the rotation a 1loop with autocrit every time on furious strike) it's just gutted. Not strong at anything but consistent. 

Lightning, Stormwatch was actually recently buffed and the ability I was hitting people within 328's for 100k-115k was semi-un-nerfed. Halted offense hits about as hard as energy burst and is up more often and generally easier to use, before it was nerfed I was running around with EC abusing it I took 60% or more health from people in two gcds. It was promptly nerfed afterward and it accounted for the vast majority of lightning's single target sustain as a burst ability. Now that it's regained nearly all of its power due to the buff and the fact gear is stronger, I have hit a 112k with it so far, do I play lightning to single target/burst? Not really, but it's silly to say its burst is weak. It's a spec that excels at AoE but also has good single target if you chose to take it and use it right. 

I would likely just say, while some of these are underperforming it's for specific reasons, not their burst with the exception of annihilation and fury missing an auto critical, which could easily gain one with the dispatcher. Annihilation getting an auto critical for annihilate after using dual saber throw with dispatcher would not only increase the skill ceiling for the spec but also increase its much-lacking burst. Dual saber throw is already key to the rotation so it'd flow no differently. For fury, it'd have to be different but generally, that's not our job to figure things out, I could put ideas but I don't want to make this offtopic. 
 

 

11 hours ago, krackcommando said:

edit: or I should say, the distinction is in the choices you make in your dot build.

While I love hatred's current setup, the 1s eradicate really makes it single target go crazy for PvP. It also goes through your reflection and most times in my experience kills, which I love. But, things like Dot Explosion are interesting, while I find them enjoyable I do agree, I feel like they're crossing the line of just making everything "burst" while some specs are left in the dust like Annihilation. While virulence is super fun with its explosion, I think it just hurts the class in the long run, along with madness/balance variant. 

Anyway, I appreciate the continued talk on the thread, I think some great info was shared both ways and gives some insight. Along with that thank you for keeping it constructive. 
IIRC this was my final video of 5.0 and there are tons more from that era that I have, my 4.0 ones are rather low quality since I had a terrible setup. If I even have any that are public. TTK in those were similar to what we have now, with maybe one or two sore thumbs. The biggest issue is that damage is so high now any random ability thrown your way, DCD up or not is more deadly than it was back in the day. Defensive impact felt stronger but it's merely because we didn't hit nearly as hard, which in some cases I am for, it keeps TTK healthy, however, when healers can't keep up at all I think we start getting into less fun situations on both sides. The majority aren't meeting their "potential" and generally are hindered by 3-4 different things before their trying would even matter. 

 

[SentinalMasterWW]

On 8/19/2023 at 7:40 PM, Beyrahl said:

As for catering to casuals, this game has done that for a very long time. When the majority of the player base is those players, why wouldn't they statistically speaking? Why make content for only 1%? This is why I am trying to appeal to said casuals for something they don't give the light of day. 
Don't get me wrong though, nothing I suggested here changes the meta or shifts anything, it just gives newer/casual players a better fighting chance with less effort on their part. It'd be as if they're suddenly on a more even playing field overnight, it doesn't solve them not knowing what to do or how to use dcds etc.

Controversial take but that is the main reason why Ranked was removed, It catered to a niche community that was already shrinking. PVP Seasons while not perfect right now is at least getting "Bodies in the door" so to say. Even if its just them getting the rewards for space barbie at least there are people Qing. The issue though is in the off Season no one really plays, and the Q times increase, there is no incentive for the casual/newbie player to Q for. If the Dev's increase TTK than newbie players don't feel like they are getting killed way to quickly and will actually Q more for PVP. 

On 8/19/2023 at 7:40 PM, Beyrahl said:

While I love hatred's current setup, the 1s eradicate really makes it single target go crazy for PvP. It also goes through your reflection and most times in my experience kills, which I love. But, things like Dot Explosion are interesting, while I find them enjoyable I do agree, I feel like they're crossing the line of just making everything "burst" while some specs are left in the dust like Annihilation. While virulence is super fun with its explosion, I think it just hurts the class in the long run, along with madness/balance variant. 

Interesting, Are you in favor of removing the "burst" options for Dot classes, Like removing UV blast for Virulence, etc. 

 

 

[TrixxieTriss]

On 8/19/2023 at 11:08 AM, Beyrahl said:

They've had to notice at least by now, I would hope. PvP forums have been cleaned up a bit recently

Player Numbers are actually still falling faster than even I expected. At this rate we’ll past the lowest population point in the next 2 weeks.

https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830#1m

I think PvP seasons has been proven to be an utter failure in its current format to bring in any new pvpers or bring back old players.

We likely won’t see any more PvP development or tweaks because of this 😞🤦‍♀️.

It’s been a total waste of time & resources all because the dev team refused to listen to feedback on premades & matchmaking.

Most pvpers have left or are fed up. The only way we’ll see population increases now will be from Galactic seasons or them adding solo story content.

Dedicated solo pvpers have mostly left the game and it could have been easily avoided with some simple tweaks before season 2 or even 3. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

40 minutes ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

PVP Seasons while not perfect right now is at least getting "Bodies in the door" so to say

I beg to differ. It’s actually turning people away from PvP & the game in its current format. The numbers don’t lie. We’re seeing a massive drop in player numbers since season 3 started. 
https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830#1m

[Char_Ell]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I beg to differ. It’s actually turning people away from PvP & the game in its current format. The numbers don’t lie. We’re seeing a massive drop in player numbers since season 3 started. 
https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830#1m

Many times I find myself disagreeing with your interpretation and characterization of the data as I think you make attributions that aren't strictly supported by the available data.  SWTOR player activity levels on Steam began their steep decline in June, well before the start of PvP Season 3 on July 18.  It's clear that PvP Season 3 has done nothing to reverse that trend but it's also quite clear the "massive drop in player numbers" was not "since season 3 started."  The SWTOR player activity decrease in July was still in double digits percentage which I would characterize as very bad but the percentage decrease in June was much worse than July.  There are several ways that this two months trend can be viewed.  Looking at this data from strictly a PvP player perspective however is putting blinders on and ignoring all the other factors that are contributing to the steep decline in SWTOR activity levels from Steam players.

[SentinalMasterWW]

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I think PvP seasons has been proven to be an utter failure in its current format to bring in any new pvpers or bring back old players.

We likely won’t see any more PvP development or tweaks because of this 😞🤦‍♀️.

It’s been a total waste of time & resources all because the dev team refused to listen to feedback on premades & matchmaking.

Most pvpers have left or are fed up. The only way we’ll see population increases now will be from Galactic seasons or them adding solo story content.

Dedicated solo pvpers have mostly left the game and it could have been easily avoided with some simple tweaks before season 2 or even 3. 

I think its the Core issues of PVP which is holding PVP Seasons back, Like they took out ranked, and and with 7.0 gutted any complexity to PVP and made it a COD Deathmatch fest where there is no thinking, just play the meta spec with the most DPS. 

The Dev's need to address the core issues of PVP, Imbalanced classes, Fast TTK that doesn't reward skill based play only zerg rush style, Premades that Q to farm their KD (they don't care about winning), etc. 

Going back and looking through peoples thoughts/reactions to 7.0, it's clear the Dev's wanted any complexity removed and have the game dumbed down to the lowest level. For example, Obfuscate was removed from Mara's, a pretty good utility/defensives for PVE/PVP, but the Dev's removed it entirely, Why? 

Because it makes the players head hurt from having too many abilities on their keybinding and not knowing what they do. 

PVP used to be skill based, with utilites/defensives, making it a sparing match between players. Now its not even that, its just degraded into lets play the spec with the most CC's, or Lets play Madness and never die because of its broken abilites. 

 

The Dev's dumbed down the game in 7.0 to make it more appealing to the casual market for MMO's, and instead removed everything their loyal fanbase liked, told them that "no this is what you want, totally not what we want." and they have ignored basically all fan feedback on how to improve this game. 

Why do the dev's think, that the playerbase is declining? Why is everyone going to play the new Baldurs gate 3? Why is everyone going back to say world of Warcraft or ESO? Maybe its because the games there actually have some form of substance. 

SWTOR has Seasons, Great I cannot wait to log on and kill 75 Kor'slugs on Korriban. 

Apologies if it got a little ranty there at the end, but I had to say what I thought. 

[septru]

2 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

PVP Seasons while not perfect right now is at least getting "Bodies in the door" so to say. Even if its just them getting the rewards for space barbie at least there are people Qing. The issue though is in the off Season no one really plays, and the Q times increase, there is no incentive for the casual/newbie player to Q for.

 

For once in my life I agree with @TrixxieTriss. PvP seasons are not working. It doesn't take a genius to see that. Nobody plays in the off season? Hell, nobody is playing during the season. Seriously, log on and you can see for yourself. My PvP guild died because PvP Seasons are boring. How many other PvP players have quit because the Seasons are a useless waterwheel? 

 

18 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

Looking at this data from strictly a PvP player perspective however is putting blinders on and ignoring all the other factors that are contributing to the steep decline in SWTOR activity levels from Steam players.

The data may not mean anything alone. But anyone that plays PvP, can see for themselves how PvP seasons has killed the PvP community. The PvP community used to be the most loyal community in the game. Look at @TrixxieTriss. I disagree with everything she says, but at least she has the passion and loyalty to relentlessly post on these forums for 10 years. PvPers play this game because we love this game. We all know what needs to get fixed. We argue about the details, but it's pretty simple: Limit premades to 4 ppl. Bring back some competitive mode. Balance classes. If any of these issues were fixed, PvPers would be able to just play for fun. But longtime PvPers are leaving in droves. The data simply shows this. 

[septru]

3 minutes ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

The Dev's need to address the core issues of PVP, Imbalanced classes, Fast TTK that doesn't reward skill based play only zerg rush style, Premades that Q to farm their KD (they don't care about winning), etc. 

All of these issues existed before 7.0. But for some reason you think these are the core reasons people are leaving in 7.2?

[SentinalMasterWW]

3 minutes ago, septru said:

All of these issues existed before 7.0. But for some reason you think these are the core reasons people are leaving in 7.2?

I'm not saying they didn't exist, but they have been worsened by the Poor decisions they've made throughout 7.0. 

Removing Ranked killed like 2-5% of the PVP population, So saying the removal of ranked is hardly what is killing PVP. 

PVP Seasons needs to be better and innovate more, than just being a track you go down. There are many ways to make it better, but that is a different discussion. 

[DragoslavRadanov]

6 minutes ago, septru said:

The data may not mean anything alone

You said it yourself right there. Hard numbers mean nothing on their own since they can be twisted to fit whatever narrative anyone wants. Trixxie made an interesting suggestion a while back. Have a poll and ask people whether they'd like premade and solo queue separation or keep it as a mixed queue. What I've noticed mostly reading the forums is there's much more people being vocal about making a solo only queue, but the most vocal aren't always the majority, just the most vocal. I'd be interested in seeing the results either way. Of course there's all the other issues too, like the matchmaking, balance(lack thereof), competitive mode(lack thereof now), etc., but premades seem to be the thing that gets brought up the most, so it's the logical starting point if the devs finally dip their toes into the discussion.

[Nee-Elder]

22 minutes ago, septru said:

PvP seasons are not working.

It doesn't take a genius to see that. Nobody plays in the off season? Hell, nobody is playing during the season. Seriously, log on and you can see for yourself. My PvP guild died because PvP Seasons are boring.

anyone that plays PvP, can see for themselves how PvP seasons has killed the PvP community. The PvP community used to be the most loyal community in the game.

We all know what needs to get fixed.  Bring back some competitive mode.

All  Broadsword  would have to do is just simply re-institute & incorporate  RANKED back into current existing PvP Seasons template.

( And yes, i realize originally i was a proponent of merging Regs & Ranked....but i had no idea that would mean throwing  baby out w/ the "toxic" bathwater aka total obliteration of  continual Class leaderboards, and all striving towards betterment from most players therein. --  *Of course, this was all spawned by what was, imo, the ridiculous & superfluous  "combat styles" system, which borked & blurred Class deliniations in the code. )

[septru]

12 minutes ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Removing Ranked killed like 2-5% of the PVP population, So saying the removal of ranked is hardly what is killing PVP. 

Dude no one is talking about ranked PvP. You're the only one. There's a difference between ranked and competitive PvP in general. 

2 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

All  Broadsword  would have to do is just simply re-institute & incorporate  RANKED back into current existing PvP Seasons template.

Sure, I'd support that. But honestly, at this point I'd support anything. You can bring back performance based rewards without bringing back ranked. 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by septru