SWTOR

[Mosesandstick]

So damn confusing. I thought they were going to call the harder versions "heroics". Hardmodes are definitely in, I remember them mentioning it. I'm glad they included them, a lot of people were calling for more content and I thought the easiest way would be to have the hardmodes.

I was a healer so no problems getting a group, but I did not enjoy grouping with my dps spec, and I did not enjoying soloing with my healing spec. I would steamroll content with my healing companion (once I had him), and only use my tank companion for tough fights. My tank companion didn't do anywhere near enough DPS to justify me being a healing spec.

[Modern Angel]

Ok, for those of you advocating the use of the parses, are you still playing WoW?

Are you still raiding in WoW? If not, when did you stop?

If SWTOR doesn't do it for you, will you go back to WoW, or will you play both at the same time to remain on the fence?

No.

No. Three months after Cataclysm launched

No, I'm not going back to WoW, ever.

Again: this is not about what I want to do now or how things should ideally be in game design. Bioware did a specific thing with their endgame, which is raiding. If you're going to do that, it comes with expectations from the people who raid.

Further, if you do raiding as your endgame, you're competing with WoW. Straight up, point blank, that's who you're competing with. This isn't the same as "all MMOs are competing with WoW". This is way more specific than that, both due to the quality of WoW raiding historically and with the niche nature of it.

Being mad at the people with those expectations isn't the way to go. This is on Bioware. They chose to make the WoW clone in every way, including (especially, maybe; we'll see how things pan out) the raiding endgame.

[Fordel]

So damn confusing. I thought they were going to call the harder versions "heroics". Hardmodes are definitely in, I remember them mentioning it. I'm glad they included them, a lot of people were calling for more content and I thought the easiest way would be to have the hardmodes.

I was a healer so no problems getting a group, but I did not enjoy grouping with my dps spec, and I did not enjoying soloing with my healing spec. I would steamroll content with my healing companion (once I had him), and only use my tank companion for tough fights. My tank companion didn't do anywhere near enough DPS to justify me being a healing spec.

I want to say I saw most healers cruising with a DPS companion most of the time, but honestly, I wasn't paying much attention to them. Tank+Healer companion = tru luv 

[Sheepherder]

No, actually that's not it. It was a case of losing 20% of possible casts to latency - watching cast bar finish all the way, then pushing next spell. Quartz fixed the issue for the player as I recall, since it showed you your latency as part of your cast bar so you could actually cast as fast as you were supposed to be able to.

Ahh, one of those.  I've taken Quartz for granted since TBC, since, you know, Arms warrior @ 800ms ping.  Still effectively the same problem: You could/should be casting something every second you're not prohibited from doing so, because it's almost mathematically impossible to have a wrong choice unless you get in the habit of using Ghost Wolf as a filler spell.

[Fordel]

No, actually that's not it. It was a case of losing 20% of possible casts to latency - watching cast bar finish all the way, then pushing next spell. Quartz fixed the issue for the player as I recall, since it showed you your latency as part of your cast bar so you could actually cast as fast as you were supposed to be able to.

Ahh, one of those.  I've taken Quartz for granted since TBC, since, you know, Arms warrior @ 800ms ping.  Still effectively the same problem: You could/should be casting something every second you're not prohibited from doing so, because it's almost mathematically impossible to have a wrong choice unless you get in the habit of using Ghost Wolf as a filler spell.

We have had that issue as well. 

[Sjofn]

The thing that is killing me is these things are not just for the insane cutting edge people. They're helpful for losers like Slap in the Face, hardly a hardcore guild. Like extremely helpful. And when the group and raid sizes are so small (4/8/something else, right?), it makes it a lot easier for losers like Slap to even consider DOING the raiding. Which is good, but if you make half the fight versus your interface and make it hairpullingly difficult to find easy things to stop fucking up, they'll stop. And if you're banking on people to stay because of your raiding endgame, that is really bad.

Also the chat window is in a stupid place and it makes me angry.

[Modern Angel]

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Sfojn, you're ruining the settled upon narrative here: raiders = scum, mods = bad, angry angry angry

fe: Oddly, SWTOR (which I am playing tonight, actually) makes me want to fire up Rift.

[Sjofn]

I'm a rogue cop that doesn't play by anybody's rules!

[Mosesandstick]

I want to say I saw most healers cruising with a DPS companion most of the time, but honestly, I wasn't paying much attention to them. Tank+Healer companion = tru luv 

Probably depends on which class you're playing. I'm guessing because its story dependent the levels where you gain your companions are the same, so you know that you go through a fair bit of the game with just one or two companions. Don't have a choice 

[Modern Angel]

I'm a rogue cop that doesn't play by anybody's rules!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pokYz9im1rU

[Fordel]

I want to say I saw most healers cruising with a DPS companion most of the time, but honestly, I wasn't paying much attention to them. Tank+Healer companion = tru luv 

Probably depends on which class you're playing. I'm guessing because its story dependent the levels where you gain your companions are the same, so you know that you go through a fair bit of the game with just one or two companions. Don't have a choice 

Troopers get their healer second, so I kinda gamed things a bit and rushed my story quest to exclusion of all else to get my healer companion asap.


That's true though, some classes do get some companions sooner and later and stuff.

[Paelos]

Further, if you do raiding as your endgame, you're competing with WoW. Straight up, point blank, that's who you're competing with. This isn't the same as "all MMOs are competing with WoW". This is way more specific than that, both due to the quality of WoW raiding historically and with the niche nature of it.

Ok, so why not "raid" differently? Why do you have to give people the exact same stuff WoW did? To me that doesn't make sense.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Further, if you do raiding as your endgame, you're competing with WoW. Straight up, point blank, that's who you're competing with. This isn't the same as "all MMOs are competing with WoW". This is way more specific than that, both due to the quality of WoW raiding historically and with the niche nature of it.

Ok, so why not "raid" differently? Why do you have to give people the exact same stuff WoW did? To me that doesn't make sense.

They already did, that's the point. The game IS wow in space, the only question now is how good of a wow clone will it be.

[Modern Angel]

They already did, that's the point. The game IS wow in space, the only question now is how good of a wow clone will it be.

Right. The ship's sailed. It's like asking why the class mechanics are the way they are. They made a carbon copy of WoW in space with fewer design differences than almost anything else that's come out recently. Setting aside good or bad, it's unarguably an extremely unambitious title from a design standpoint. If we're going down that route you might as well ask why they didn't design a different game altogether. They just didn't.

[sam, an eggplant]

Anyone that doesn't get that by now clearly hasn't played the game. Which means they haven't wanted to play, since everybody that ever registered has been invited to at least one beta weekend by now.

[Modern Angel]

I don't think that's it. I think the license holds a lot of pull for people and it can mask a lot of flaws. But I also think that's extremely short term.

[Simond]

Anyone that doesn't get that by now clearly hasn't played the game. Which means they haven't wanted to play, since everybody that ever registered has been invited to at least one beta weekend by now.

I want to play!



...something around Easter next year. Fuck buying MMOs at launch. 

[Viin]

You know, if they just limited "raids" to 8 ppl max you wouldn't need all of these crutches....

[Sheepherder]

We have had that issue as well.  

I once saw a DPS warrior's taunt get resisted by Gruul.

The thing that is killing me is these things are not just for the insane cutting edge people. They're helpful for losers like Slap in the Face, hardly a hardcore guild. Like extremely helpful. And when the group and raid sizes are so small (4/8/something else, right?), it makes it a lot easier for losers like Slap to even consider DOING the raiding. Which is good, but if you make half the fight versus your interface and make it hairpullingly difficult to find easy things to stop fucking up, they'll stop. And if you're banking on people to stay because of your raiding endgame, that is really bad.

I would say that decent tools helps Slap and it's ilk more than anybody else.  Nobody in Ensidia is going to get caught with low activity or time on target, or getting large numbers of parried attacks, or DPSing in the wrong stance, or get wrecked by the boss without attempting to pop cooldowns.

You know, if they just limited "raids" to 8 ppl max you wouldn't need all of these crutches....

By all accounts Slap would find a way to make you a liar.

[Rokal]

You know, if they just limited "raids" to 8 ppl max you wouldn't need all of these crutches....

If raids were SOLO you'd still find a use for combat logs. Just the other day playing DDO alone, I looked at my combat window to figure out how I died so quickly. Combat log mods and parsers just make it less tedious.

[Sjofn]

You know, if they just limited "raids" to 8 ppl max you wouldn't need all of these crutches....

By all accounts Slap would find a way to make you a liar.

And then we'd one-shot some boss we had no right to even get down to 50%.


I love Slap. 

[Nevermore]

Am I wrong in thinking the way mobs are set up in SWTOR sounds closer to how CoX did their mobs (at least how they were supposedly designed, not so much how they turned out) rather than how WoW does theirs?  One PC = 3 mooks (minions in CoX) or 1 LT (silver elite in TOR?) and a boss (gold elite?) is supposed to need more than one PC to bring down in general.

Also, I keep scratching my head when someone complains about 'poor AI'.  Is there some hidden intelligence in WoW mob AI that I never noticed?  Because in WoW they all would either run up and hit you or stand and cast if they were able to and that's it.  I don't see how mob AI could be any more basic than that.

[Fordel]

Am I wrong in thinking the way mobs are set up in SWTOR sounds closer to how CoX did their mobs (at least how they were supposedly designed, not so much how they turned out) rather than how WoW does theirs?  One PC = 3 mooks (minions in CoX) or 1 LT (silver elite in TOR?) and a boss (gold elite?) is supposed to need more than one PC to bring down in general.

Also, I keep scratching my head when someone complains about 'poor AI'.  Is there some hidden intelligence in WoW mob AI that I never noticed?  Because in WoW they all would either run up and hit you or stand and cast if they were able to and that's it.  I don't see how mob AI could be any more basic than that.

You've got it right, except for Gold Elite is supposed to be killable by a PC+Companion if they use cooldowns and play it right. There is a separate 'Boss' Elite level too.


Complaints about mob AI had more to do with how bland mobs were I think. A few builds ago they basically didn't have ANY special attacks for the most part. Now they do stuff, stun, specials, sometimes they'll even try to kite you. Some of the gold elite mobs basically have a whole toolkit and reflect player talent trees almost.

[Merusk]

Players always want "more intelligent mobs" that "act like players" right up until they actually run into them.  Then it's nothing but bitch, bitch, bitch, "wahh, this is too hard" and "wahh I have to use more than 3 skills."

c.f. TOC in WoW.

[Fordel]

Players just want to claim they are awesome.


See people claiming every game since the dawn of time is "TOO EASY LAWL".

[Kageru]

I found this in the SA SWTOR thread: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14239

Good read, and pretty much matches my expectations. The story elements don't change the MMO gameplay but are just a bag on the side that has consumed massive resources, which would have been better spent in advancing the underlying mechanics.

My near total lack of interest in the game is perfected to total lack of interest.

[kildorn]

Ok, for those of you advocating the use of the parses, are you still playing WoW?

Are you still raiding in WoW? If not, when did you stop?

If SWTOR doesn't do it for you, will you go back to WoW, or will you play both at the same time to remain on the fence?

No.

No, mid Cata.

No, I'll continue being a game nomad, trying to find something that amuses me. In my case, fanboying over GW2 knowing my guild probably won't play it heavily as I cry myself to sleep.

I like parses because I like analyzing data. Especially in complicated fights. Parses are rarely "you suck at dps, lol" unless it's a dumbass gear check fight with a short timer. In complex fights, it's figuring out what the holy shit was going on behind all those huge fancy effects all over the place, and figuring out either how to do it better or how to do it at all. Parses helped me a ton to figure out Hodir and make it click for me. I felt fucking useless the first dozen times I tried that until I brushed all the effects away and just "got" how the fight went and which of my spells were having the most impact during which phase.

[kildorn]

Further, if you do raiding as your endgame, you're competing with WoW. Straight up, point blank, that's who you're competing with. This isn't the same as "all MMOs are competing with WoW". This is way more specific than that, both due to the quality of WoW raiding historically and with the niche nature of it.

Ok, so why not "raid" differently? Why do you have to give people the exact same stuff WoW did? To me that doesn't make sense.

If you want to bring alternative ideas as an endgame, more power to the company. Rock my socks off. edit: I completely consider bringing an actual compelling story to be new gameplay and innovation in the MMO field. Awesome! And if they keep feeding it content, I expect it to be very popular.

If you want to run with the same endgame everyone else has, I kind of expect you to bring some of the same improvements that have gone on.

I wouldn't excuse a web browser without the ability to parse XML or had a back button that launched tomorrow, either. I will excuse "we lack as much content as the people with a _ year head start", but I won't give a pass to "oh and we've completely ignored every innovation or improvement in our chosen field"

[Rokal]

Players always want "more intelligent mobs" that "act like players" right up until they actually run into them.  Then it's nothing but bitch, bitch, bitch, "wahh, this is too hard" and "wahh I have to use more than 3 skills."

I remember the arena boss fight in BRD that was part of the tier 0.5 set quest. The fight was supposed to mimic pvp, where the enemy ai would attack healers and more fragile targets first, and would attempt to use interrupts and such. It was a response to "why do all the enemies just attack the least vulnerable target (tank) like idiots" and it was completely not fun.

[SurfD]

Players always want "more intelligent mobs" that "act like players" right up until they actually run into them.  Then it's nothing but bitch, bitch, bitch, "wahh, this is too hard" and "wahh I have to use more than 3 skills."

I remember the arena boss fight in BRD that was part of the tier 0.5 set quest. The fight was supposed to mimic pvp, where the enemy ai would attack healers and more fragile targets first, and would attempt to use interrupts and such. It was a response to "why do all the enemies just attack the least vulnerable target (tank) like idiots" and it was completely not fun.

Much like the "PvP" raid fight in the Crusader's Colleseum.

[CmdrSlack]

Again, these logs are perhaps not what you imagine them to be. They help you figure stuff like that out, but *most importantly* they help the person in charge figure it out for people who don't understand the big picture of what is going on. And when you play with people because you like them instead of because they're super awesome players, it is extraordinarily helpful for the leader to have a way to spot things that are causing problems so he can gently (or perhaps passive-aggressively) give advice. 

Jaysus. Really? I guess this is the advancement of gameplay from EQ to WoW, but I never even raided in EQ. There were lots of camping encounters, there were lots of hard encounters that required some group discipline. When I was a senior guide, I used to hide inviz in the planes and watch massive plane raid wipes. It was great. The nascent raider community was fun when all of the raid drama was vented via /shout.

That just seems like a fuckton of after-market solutions to a style of gameplay that is like repeatedly slamming your dick in a drawer.

[Velorath]

Velo - It's not even a mod, it's just a parsing of the base combat log after the fact. It's also pretty hard to have total vision and awareness of everyone's actions during a raid in real time. Any encounter in which you CAN have total awareness of everyone, is usually a pretty straight forward and simple one.

There's a reason you will never see me do a raid in SWTOR with a group of 16 or 24 people.  8 is a good number.  From playing DAOC for good length of time, I know it's possible to have a good understanding of who is doing what, just from watching the screen.  I don't even care if they end up giving out better loot for people who raid with larger groups as long as I at least get to experience the content with a 8 man group.  I've got zero desire to spend time figuring out which of the 24 people in the group wasn't pulling their weight and then trying to explain it to them with charts.

[Margalis]

You can't just throw some intelligent mobs into a game that is centered around tank and spank. That doesn't mean intelligent mobs are a bad idea, just you have to commit to doing it right.

[Ingmar]

Nobody wants truly intelligent mobs, they want mobs that seem just intelligent enough to make them feel good about beating them. The problem is that's such a knife-edge of balance and player skill there's no point you can put mobs at that will make more people happy than unhappy I suspect.

[Fordel]

Velo - It's not even a mod, it's just a parsing of the base combat log after the fact. It's also pretty hard to have total vision and awareness of everyone's actions during a raid in real time. Any encounter in which you CAN have total awareness of everyone, is usually a pretty straight forward and simple one.

There's a reason you will never see me do a raid in SWTOR with a group of 16 or 24 people.  8 is a good number.  From playing DAOC for good length of time, I know it's possible to have a good understanding of who is doing what, just from watching the screen.  I don't even care if they end up giving out better loot for people who raid with larger groups as long as I at least get to experience the content with a 8 man group.  I've got zero desire to spend time figuring out which of the 24 people in the group wasn't pulling their weight and then trying to explain it to them with charts.

I was talking 10 mans in WoW.

Played DaoC for half a decade. DaoC 8 man groups were so not a good example of anything in terms of PvE. DaoC is not a good example for PvE.


The Awareness from PvP is a different ball game entirely and not really applicable... be it 8v8 DaoC or 5v5 WoW.