SWTOR

[Draegan]

I too have been waiting for the flexible scaling raid system for a long time. It takes all the bricks out of the briefcase for a raid leader. The game that figures out how to do it is going to print money if it's polished well.

Being able to appropriately balance a raid encounter in a dynamic fashion would probably be extremely difficult for any complex encounter.  I imagine it would be easier for simpler encounters but when you get to the truly challenging and fun fights, it would almost be impossible if you want to maintain a consistent level of difficulty and quality.

[Sky]

I'm quite happy about the loot bag announcement. And I hope Drae is right on the collection angle that could put longevity into the system. EQ2 seems to be really working that angle with their next expansion, hopefully BWA is taking notes.

And I figured someone was just moving the cake...but there's still that moment of OHNOES SOMEONE STOLE MAH CAKE

[Paelos]

Any time you take loot distribution out of the hands of people, that's a good thing in my view.

[Malakili]

Any time you take loot distribution out of the hands of people, that's a good thing in my view.

It seems to be the way of the future, even Diablo 3 is going to have individual loot drops in multiplayer.

[Lantyssa]

Because trying to balance the same encounter for multiple sizes above a trivial difficulty is hard.  Trying to do so without regurgitating the handful of mechanics that scale somewhat cleanly among group sizes that can be double/half of one another is even harder.  (Hint: Fire being bad isn't one of those mechanics.)

Like City of Heroes did six years ago?

[Mrbloodworth]

Because trying to balance the same encounter for multiple sizes above a trivial difficulty is hard.  Trying to do so without regurgitating the handful of mechanics that scale somewhat cleanly among group sizes that can be double/half of one another is even harder.  (Hint: Fire being bad isn't one of those mechanics.)

Like City of Heroes did six years ago?

Or LOTRO skirmishes.

[Malakili]

I dunno I think he has a point.  If the encounter has sufficiently complex mechanics to make it interesting it probably isn't trivial to make it scalable.  You can scale difficulty easily sure, but that doens't mean the fights are actually good.

[Paelos]

I dunno I think he has a point.  If the encounter has sufficiently complex mechanics to make it interesting it probably isn't trivial to make it scalable.  You can scale difficulty easily sure, but that doens't mean the fights are actually good.

All mechanics don't have to be scalable. In fact, you can bring in new mechanics as size increases while the rewards increase as well.

[eldaec]

Scaling for solo to 150 is tough. Scaling from 4 to 20... not so much.

[Paelos]

My ideal game would scale from 3-12, with mechanics changes at 6, 9, and 12.

[Sky]

They're using 4 as a minimum due to companions. "Solo" is actually two players, a duo is four. If you have three players, you pull out the most useful companion to fill the group. I actually expect to see a lot more tank and healer builds because dps seems much easier to automate with a companion. Tank/healer with two dps companions is probably going to be common.

The guy doing the Bounty Hunter VO is wolverine from the X-Men Legends/MUA series :)

[luckton]

They're using 4 as a minimum due to companions. "Solo" is actually two players, a duo is four. If you have three players, you pull out the most useful companion to fill the group. I actually expect to see a lot more tank and healer builds because dps seems much easier to automate with a companion. Tank/healer with two dps companions is probably going to be common.

The guy doing the Bounty Hunter VO is wolverine from the X-Men Legends/MUA series :)

I don't think they've said that companions will be allowed in raids...I could be wrong though.  They very well may allow it which means  you could 'maybe' do raids with just 8 people?

RE: BH VO: You speak of the great and talented Steve Blum, good sir. 

[fuser]

Can companions fill out raid slots?

[WindupAtheist]

Nah. The only new MMO I've tried for the first time in the last ten years has been WoW, and only because literally every single person I played games with was playing it.

So...WUA will be playing TOR?  

Weirdly enough, I'm not hearing much about SWTOR outside of the usual places I'd expect to. That is to say here, WoW forum "I QUIT" threads, places like that. Now granted a lot of the MMO people I talk to on a personal basis are fellow near-oblivious UO diehards, but still, even those people noticed WoW.

This will be a big release, it might even do the million-plus sustained that has been heretofore unattainable for anyone but Blizzard, but I don't think it's going to be the universal gaming-culture milestone that WoW was by any measure.

Aren't paladins tanks? I thought that was one of the most popular classes .. or did they change enough with the specializations that you can have a weak tank with high dps and that's what everyone does? (When WoW launched I remember people complaining that pali's had good DPS and good tank ability with the self heal - so why play anything else?).

All classes have a DPS spec in addition to whatever tanking and healing they may be able to do, and that's the spec almost everyone takes.

[Merusk]

This will be a big release, it might even do the million-plus sustained that has been heretofore unattainable for anyone but Blizzard, but I don't think it's going to be the universal gaming-culture milestone that WoW was by any measure.

Depends on if we can get Geldon to doomcast it or not.   

[eldaec]

This will be a big release, it might even do the million-plus sustained that has been heretofore unattainable for anyone but Blizzard, but I don't think it's going to be the universal gaming-culture milestone that WoW was by any measure.

Suspect you are right, I'd even say the Star Wars licence is probably a drag on sales once you get above that.

Also WoW only has, what 3 million subscribers in the west?

Doing over a million does put it in the same bracket in NA and Europe.

It would need to break through in Asia to do any better.

[Ingmar]

Because trying to balance the same encounter for multiple sizes above a trivial difficulty is hard.  Trying to do so without regurgitating the handful of mechanics that scale somewhat cleanly among group sizes that can be double/half of one another is even harder.  (Hint: Fire being bad isn't one of those mechanics.)

Like City of Heroes did six years ago?

CoH doesn't have to worry about things like "does this group have someone to interrupt" or "does this group have someone to remove this sort of debuff" etc. So while you could simplify all fights down to CoH style brawls and 'solve' the issue I think the game would lose something. I'm happy CoH still exists but I definitely don't want all my PVE games to be like that.

[Lantyssa]

Well, except CoH lets you tackle problems in different ways.  You can slug it out, you can use several types of control, you can AoE burn things down, etc. rather than "You must complete this fight in exactly this way.  Please bring 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 dps.  The gods of DIKU have spoken!"

I'll grant you I'd like a little more complexity than CoH. but it does allow for variety.  Something sorely lacking in most other MMOs.  (And being locked into an advanced class isn't assuaging my concern about this in SWTOR.)

[Sky]

The AC limited respec, where right now they're saying it's easy at 10 (when you get your AC) but almost impossible at 20 or 30, is really a red flag. I'll enjoy the game for what it is, but when Rift is out there just allowing unprecedented flexiblity, it seems so archaic. But I think all mmo design is a bit odd when not viewed through the WoW filter.

[Ginaz]

This will be a big release, it might even do the million-plus sustained that has been heretofore unattainable for anyone but Blizzard, but I don't think it's going to be the universal gaming-culture milestone that WoW was by any measure.

Suspect you are right, I'd even say the Star Wars licence is probably a drag on sales once you get above that.

Also WoW only has, what 3 million subscribers in the west?

Doing over a million does put it in the same bracket in NA and Europe.

It would need to break through in Asia to do any better.

From what I've heard, the Star Wars franchise was never close to being as popular in Asia as it is in the West.  I don't expect huge numbers in Asia (partly due to the fact that it won't be released there at the same time as well) so it probably won't have as many overall players as WoW does.

[Mosesandstick]

SW is definitely not as popular in Asia as it is in the West, which is one of the reasons why it would be a miracle if SWTOR was as popular as WoW (in terms of sub numbers). Blizzard is also a much bigger name than Bioware in Asia.

[Ingmar]

Well, except CoH lets you tackle problems in different ways.  You can slug it out, you can use several types of control, you can AoE burn things down, etc. rather than "You must complete this fight in exactly this way.  Please bring 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 dps.  The gods of DIKU have spoken!"

I'll grant you I'd like a little more complexity than CoH. but it does allow for variety.  Something sorely lacking in most other MMOs.  (And being locked into an advanced class isn't assuaging my concern about this in SWTOR.)

Yeah, I get where you're coming from, the problem is CoH doesn't really do boss fights in the traditional MMO sense so they don't have to worry about all the issues that come with complex scripted encounters, for the most part.

[luckton]

The AC limited respec, where right now they're saying it's easy at 10 (when you get your AC) but almost impossible at 20 or 30, is really a red flag. I'll enjoy the game for what it is, but when Rift is out there just allowing unprecedented flexiblity, it seems so archaic. But I think all mmo design is a bit odd when not viewed through the WoW filter.

The price to pay for that 4th column deal.  I don't mind...I'll get a tank to max level and reroll a DPS or healer as a new race ^_^

[eldaec]

CoH combat - espeicially support character mechanics - involve a damn sight more decision making in their brawls than just about anything except EQ2.

They don't have many 'follow this script for success' set pieces, but honestly I never missed them.

One thing that does disappoint me about SWTOR is I'm not seeing much in the way of interesting control or support abilities. It all seems to be direct damage or direct heal - hopefully something more interesting is hidden in the detail.

[eldaec]

Flashpoint video

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110729

[luckton]

One thing that does disappoint me about SWTOR is I'm not seeing much in the way of interesting control or support abilities. It all seems to be direct damage or direct heal - hopefully something more interesting is hidden in the detail.

They're probably trying to stay true to the movies and such along with the fast-pace combat.  At any point in the movies did you see Vader choke a bitch for 45+ seconds?  There were some moments, sure, but nothing like a polymorph or sap a la WoW.

Also, eat some fresh cake

[Lantyssa]

At what point do we see Darth Heel'r keep Darth Brikk healed to full while D-PS and Dame Aage take down their opponents?

[palmer_eldritch]

At what point do we see Darth Heel'r keep Darth Brikk healed to full while D-PS and Dame Aage take down their opponents?

I know you're being sarcastic but the moment they add playable robots to the game I am going to make a character called D-PSR

[01101010]

At what point do we see Darth Heel'r keep Darth Brikk healed to full while D-PS and Dame Aage take down their opponents?

I know you're being sarcastic but the moment they add playable robots to the game I am going to make a character called D-PSR

Line starts behind me buddy.

[Draegan]

I'll be D33-PS

[caladein]

Because trying to balance the same encounter for multiple sizes above a trivial difficulty is hard.  Trying to do so without regurgitating the handful of mechanics that scale somewhat cleanly among group sizes that can be double/half of one another is even harder.  (Hint: Fire being bad isn't one of those mechanics.)

Like City of Heroes did six years ago?

Or LOTRO skirmishes.

I never played CoH at a high level but LotRO is the case in point.  LotRO fudges its scaling by not introducing certain lieutenants until certain sizes but even then gets it wrong.  Duos are much harder than solos and trios and a lot of maps are simply not designed around having twelve players fighting in the same area (or are and the smaller sizes are designed to be much easier).

[Lantyssa]

At least they try and give players the option.

[eldaec]

Also, eat some fresh cake

That is exactly what my statement was based on.

The widely available skill trees look pretty limited.

The vanishingly small number of abilities on any character in official videos also don't inspire.


Ofc you don't play bioware games for the combat model etc...

[SnakeCharmer]

Why do you need 100 abilities or skills when 90 of them are redundant?

[Sjofn]

You know, I am totally cool with a limited number of abilities at this point. I'm sick of having 497453726354 abilities that are slightly different, but different enough that I need to remember they exist in case variant A is better than variants B and C for a particular situation.

Surely Guild Wars showed us that you don't need a bajillion abilities available at any given moment, right?