SWTOR

[koro]

Too many of them though.

No truly badass jedi in the history of star wars has been a regular user of more than one single sided lightsabre.

As sad as it sounds, this is exactly why the Jedi tank I plan to main on release is a Guardian.

[Sky]

Whatever, I shoot first, motherfuckers!



wtb game pst

Playable Rodians: not in at launch.

[Dren]

Does your Ret Paladin jump in to heal when one of the priests dies? No.

True for PvE.  However, is this because people are so single minded or because the game is set up to punish those that stop DPS'ing and switch to healing even with a man down in the group?  In the WoW case, I believe it is because the game is designed that way.  To support that point, think about Ret Paladins in PvP by contrast.  Really good (emphasis) retadins WILL heal when necessary to keep themselves and others up longer because you will get rewarded for doing so.

Allowing all characters/builds utility, healing, CC, etc. are only good if the game rewards you for having this on all members of a team.  Basically if the AI in the game were designed to be like true players (healers targetted, tanks avoided, DPS stunned, etc.) you would see a much bigger demand for more diverse builds.  If you think about it, the whole concept of a tank having special powers that keep the enemy focused on them the entire fight is pretty silly.

I'd really enjoy having the ability to switch roles depending on the circumstances of the encounter moment by moment.  Go in guns ablazing.  Heal if somebody is in trouble.  Tank if you are getting too much heat.  CC if the opportunity is right.  That's why I tended to prefer paladins and druids for PvP myself.

[Fordel]

I think you might see a small increase in the number of tank/heal specs, if only because the companion characters can fill a hole for you. Like even today in WoW, if you spec for healing, when you want to quest solo or whatever, you either respec to your DPS build or kinda putter along as a sad panda.

With a built in buddy, you always have something to support.



They'll still be dwarfed by the sheer number of dual wielding force users no doubt though.

[kildorn]

I'm totally cool with "pure dps classes don't far outshine things with a possible other spec"

[Ingmar]

Yes, the other way of doing it was clownshoes.

[Amaron]

Amusingly all the stealthers in the game are hybrids.   I can think of more than one person who's head would explode if he had to choose between stealth and "l33t deeps".

[eldaec]

That's just a wow thing AFAIK.

EVE is probably the best example I can think of where stealth limits DPS, but lots of games do it.

In swtor the main stealth classes have a stealth tree separate to the DPS tree, so no reason swtor couldn't do the same.

[Amaron]

In swtor the main stealth classes have a stealth tree separate to the DPS tree, so no reason swtor couldn't do the same.

But they also have a healing tree or a tanking tree.   Thus they wouldn't be "pure" DPS in the manner we were discussing.   You're right it's a WoW thing but the expectation is there now for a lot of people.

[Simond]

That's just a wow thing AFAIK.

Yes, Everquest never had a pure DPS class with stealth or anything.

[Sjofn]

Neither did DAoC!

[eldaec]

Daoc stealth classes didn't do wizard or light tank DPS. They'd ninja out of stealth and be all 'Nyaahhh ASSASSIN STRIKE!' when you were sat about resting for mana, but their actual DPS was mediocre.

I really can't remember the position in EQ because lolpvestealth.

[Koyasha]

I really can't remember the position in EQ because lolpvestealth.

Rogues were meh at DPS for a long time.  They even introduced special rogue-only mechanics in various places to force people to bring rogues along, cause they weren't particularly desirable overall.  Eventually they got brought up and were one of the best damage classes in the game.

Rogue stealth on the other hand was always valuable.  The best (and cheapest) option for recovering corpses from whatever dark depths of a dungeon you died in was: send the rogue.  Otherwise you had to get other people to clear the way for you, or get a necro to summon the corpse which was pretty expensive.  Also valuable in a few zones for scouting (to see if anything worth killing is up, if it's out of ranger tracking radius).

[luckton]

Rogue stealth on the other hand was always valuable.  The best (and cheapest) option for recovering corpses from whatever dark depths of a dungeon you died in was: send the rogue.  Otherwise you had to get other people to clear the way for you, or get a necro to summon the corpse which was pretty expensive.  Also valuable in a few zones for scouting (to see if anything worth killing is up, if it's out of ranger tracking radius).

Yes, thank you for reminding us of how far we've come from the days where MMOs = having a full and complete second life

[Shatter]

Rogue stealth on the other hand was always valuable.  The best (and cheapest) option for recovering corpses from whatever dark depths of a dungeon you died in was: send the rogue.  Otherwise you had to get other people to clear the way for you, or get a necro to summon the corpse which was pretty expensive.  Also valuable in a few zones for scouting (to see if anything worth killing is up, if it's out of ranger tracking radius).

Yes, thank you for reminding us of how far we've come from the days where MMOs = having a full and complete second life

No shit right.  Dam I remember one POF raid that went bad and a 6 hour corpse recovery before it was all over. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, corpse recovery.

I bitch about SWTOR but I think all this talk is kind of a non issue. All they need to do to insure people play different classes is to have all the classes be useful. It sounds complicated but really there's at least half a dozen ways bioware(AUSTIN!) can ccomplish this so I'm not really worried.

My biggest concern by far is the storyline content just dropping off somewhere mid-level

[Malakili]

Yes, thank you for reminding us of how far we've come from the days where MMOs = having a full and complete second life

That was kind of the allure.

[Jherad]

[As sad as it sounds, this is exactly why the Jedi tank I plan to main on release is a Guardian.

Same, although I plan to spec him for DPS rather than tanking. I'll probably never try and raid in SWTOR, so I don't give a stuff about minmaxing.

[eldaec]

Similarly looking at a juggernaught going deep into the utility rage tree.

Look at us rebelling against the man by playing an EA game!

[luckton]

A couple Friday updates.

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20111007
- For anyone who watched the Companion video from a week or two ago, here's a follow-up.  They talk about how you'll be able to tailor your comp's AI to suit your needs, or not at all, if you want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT4cLHU3Yd0
- The BW devs pick a side and debate why they think they're chosen champion would win in a fight between a Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter.  Light-sabers cutting up a BH and not doing a damn thing ensue 

[Lucas]

Yes, thank you for reminding us of how far we've come from the days where MMOs = having a full and complete second life

That was kind of the allure.

Yep, originally, it wasn't about "dps builds" or endless repeating of raids. The allure was to live an alternate life in a alternate world, no matter how bizarre that may sound. Of course there are people who are taking that concept too far, so they ruin their "first" life.

Now, instead of building my own house, run a small business, go to the local player-run tavern and so on, it looks like they want me to believe I need to be heroic at all times, while looking up on the Net for the best armor set and min/max numbers. Alright.

[eldaec]

EVE does that without having to complete six hour corpse runs.

Also, UO, still running.

They talk about how you'll be able to tailor your comp's AI to suit your needs, or not at all, if you want.

The two things that stood out to me...

1) Tailoring AI doesn't even seem to be on the level of Dragon Age. Presumably this is down to the fear of offending stupid people.
2) You can go ahead and put companion abilities directly under your control, making 1) less of an issue, and also helping alleviate the problem this game has with characters having too few abilities/buttons.

[Mrbloodworth]

Apparently Defiance is coming out before this.

[koro]

2) You can go ahead and put companion abilities directly under your control, making 1) less of an issue, and also helping alleviate the problem this game has with characters having too few abilities/buttons.

What? The game borders on EQ2 with the amount of shit you have to have on your hotbars. Hell, it's arguably worse since most of EQ2's was redundant stuff.

Unless that was sarcasm.

[Ingmar]

You have to remember Eldaec is the 40 BUTTONS NOT ENOUGH GIVE ME MORE EQ2 guy.

[tmp]

A couple Friday updates.

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20111007
- For anyone who watched the Companion video from a week or two ago, here's a follow-up.  They talk about how you'll be able to tailor your comp's AI to suit your needs, or not at all, if you want.

But don’t start dreaming about conquering the galaxy with an army of companions at your side just yet – Star Wars: The Old Republic is a massively multiplayer game, and as such it is a social experience as much as it is a story-driven BioWare role-playing game. While the majority of content in the game can be mastered by a player and their companion, some group content is a different matter. Flashpoints often require human coordination to successfully overcome challenges.

Take, for example, the fight we showed at PAX East, in which a group of players fought Captain Shivanek and his pet, Ripper. As we showed in the walkthrough video, the group had to split in two to complete this fight. As the first of several boss battles inside the Taral V flashpoint, it provides a moderately difficult challenge for a group of four players – three players and a companion will find this fight to be a far more challenging obstacle that may take several attempts to overcome. Two players and two companions may find it impossible altogether.

Well ain't that great.

[Paelos]

I am not amused by that news.

[Draegan]

Incoming complaint that it's so difficult to get 3 other people together to raid and groups 2 are so much better.

[Nebu]

Incoming complaint that it's so difficult to get 3 other people together to raid and groups 2 are so much better.

 

You run a website.  You can troll better than this. 

[Rasix]

Incoming complaint that it's so difficult to get 3 other people together to raid and groups 2 are so much better.

You know, I could go into a big long rant about how dumb this and how dumb you are for making that comment, but I'll just leave it at:

Go hang yourself with your poopsock, raider-boy.  Not everyone has the personal bandwidth or desire to group all of the fucking time to experience content that could be made to accomodate systems that are already in the game. They are counting on my money more than they are counting on yours, and when I hit this brick wall, my money goes away.

[Sky]

The problem, as I see it, is that not enough mmo focus on group and raid content.

[Draegan]

You run a website.  You can troll better than this. 

You know, I could go into a big long rant about how dumb this and how dumb you are for making that comment, but I'll just leave it at:

Go hang yourself with your poopsock, raider-boy.  Not everyone has the personal bandwidth or desire to group all of the fucking time to experience content that could be made to accomodate systems that are already in the game. They are counting on my money more than they are counting on yours, and when I hit this brick wall, my money goes away.

 

So what happens when you can't find one other person to run a dungeon with, you gonna start bitching you can't do it solo?

I'm just laughing at the fact that no matter how small the player requirement is for a piece of content, people will still bitch that it's not even smaller.  

You seem to think I'm calling for more hardcore content.  Which I'm not.  I hate hardcore content.  I think raiding anything in a game is as hardcore as being on a softball team that practices once or twice a week and plays on Saturdays.

[Ingmar]

They're probably wrong about how hard it is anyway - players always end up surprising devs on what they can handle solo or undermanned - unless we're literally talking about something where 4 people have to flip a switch simultaneously or whatever. I don't really see a big problem if one or two of the flashpoints have little issues like that, personally. Especially if/when a random group finder is added.

[Draegan]

They're probably wrong about how hard it is anyway - players always end up surprising devs on what they can handle solo or undermanned - unless we're literally talking about something where 4 people have to flip a switch simultaneously or whatever. I don't really see a big problem if one or two of the flashpoints have little issues like that, personally. Especially if/when a random group finder is added.

Or like, one person is a tank and the other is a healer and you use companions for dps. 

From the class design dev post from earlier in the week:

By spending that first skill point at level 10, you start developing your character into whatever role you want them to play in the long term. Since it's your skill choices that define your role, it is a gradual process. You don't become a healer at level 10 or 11, you're growing into becoming a healer over many levels.

Our content is designed around that. The first Flashpoint assumes the group has only DPS roles. Even if you bring a healer, he'll have only a single heal available at that level as he has just begun his journey into his role, so there isn't too much of a spread in balance.

Over time, the game becomes more firm in the roles it requires for content like Flashpoints, but additional tools like companions still make it more flexible than many other MMOs in regards to what group mix can run group content.

That progression is quite different from how your characters work in other games, and we've certainly seen our share of people being surprised by it in testing ("I just took the Sage Advanced Class, but I don't feel like I'm a great healer").

So players don't have defined roles until later in the game.

[eldaec]

You have to remember Eldaec is the 40 BUTTONS NOT ENOUGH GIVE ME MORE EQ2 guy.

My ideal MMO would literally fill my second monitor with buttons to push.