Patch Notes

[kildorn]

Without combat logs, all we can do is say "I feel X is over/under powered", and we can't actually back it up. For all we actually know, this brings Ops/Scoundrels in line with the other damage specs. But the forums are indeed on fire with people who feel this goes too far. Personally, meh? Most of the threads FAR overstate the actual functional use of Hidden Strike/Shoot First in pve. The armor pen nerf does indeed hit the pve aspects of the spec, but we have absolutely no data to say how much of an impact it actually is.

[Threash]

And seriously "first impressions" or whatever should come FAR behind game balance when making this decisions.

[Fordel]

Without combat logs, all we can do is say "I feel X is over/under powered", and we can't actually back it up. For all we actually know, this brings Ops/Scoundrels in line with the other damage specs. But the forums are indeed on fire with people who feel this goes too far. Personally, meh? Most of the threads FAR overstate the actual functional use of Hidden Strike/Shoot First in pve. The armor pen nerf does indeed hit the pve aspects of the spec, but we have absolutely no data to say how much of an impact it actually is.

Combat logs and/or a threat meter would go a long way in figuring out why Ingmar's Guardian's threat is so poopy compared to my Troopers. Am I doing more threat, more damage? Is it a rotational issue? Are some of his 'does extra high threat' abilities just not doing that?

Who the fuck knows! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sky]

How to nerf for pvp:

"Ability X now deals full damage vs Weak, Normal, Strong and Champion mobs; 50% damage to players."

How NOT to nerf for pvp:

"Ability X now deals 50% less damage."

 

Good on the Mandalorian Killer fight. That healer made it so damned tough.

Most of the threads FAR overstate

I fucking hate those official forums. They should ban anyone who threatens to cancel because of any goddamned thing. Be productive or shut your useless yaphole.

[Wolf]

I've talked about this in vent for lengths of time - the only way to balance both PvP & PvE is to have the same skill perform differently against players. I can, however, see why they're not willing to go that way - that'd be insanely confusing for a new player, to the point where it could make them quit the game. I'd love to see a stat on how much time players are spending reading tooltips, but from experiences in real life, I'd wager a guess most people just diagonally skim them, get a basic impression of what the skill does, and go from there. When it doesn't really do what they think it does - it doesn't matter, they'd just press it anyway and convince themselves it's awesome. This is the only possible explanation of some behaviour in pugs.

[Paelos]

Taunt currently does something on players it doesn't do on mobs, so that's a start.

[Zetor]

Yeah, the right way to do it is define a PVP ruleset and balance skills separately for PVP/PVE. Hate to channel DLRiley, but Guild Wars did this pretty well IMO -- basically a separate pvp version of most skills, some of which worked entirely differently than the pve one. Of course in GW your character was your selection of 8 skills that you picked yourself, so there's that.

[Rendakor]

EQ2 had that as well; every skill had two different damage values, durations, etc. based on if it was used against a mob or a player. As long as skills function the same way, I don't see where there would be much room for confusion although I've been known to overestimate the average MMO player's intelligence from time to time.

[Fordel]

I've talked about this in vent for lengths of time - the only way to balance both PvP & PvE is to have the same skill perform differently against players. I can, however, see why they're not willing to go that way - that'd be insanely confusing for a new player, to the point where it could make them quit the game. I'd love to see a stat on how much time players are spending reading tooltips, but from experiences in real life, I'd wager a guess most people just diagonally skim them, get a basic impression of what the skill does, and go from there. When it doesn't really do what they think it does - it doesn't matter, they'd just press it anyway and convince themselves it's awesome. This is the only possible explanation of some behaviour in pugs.

Nah, if you want to balance PvP you make it first, then bend the PvE around it. Mobs don't care how bullshit XYZ abilities are. 

[ajax34i]

Problem is it's kinda hard for the AI to pull the shit that players do, nor is it really fun for the player.  Imagine bosses circle-strafing, jumping around casting only instants, stun-locking the healers, respawn-rushing, alpha-striking from stealth, etc.   Also, how many times do you die (on average) in a PVP session?  Imagine that during a flashpoint, with item degradation.

[01101010]

Problem is it's kinda hard for the AI to pull the shit that players do, nor is it really fun for the player.  Imagine bosses circle-strafing, jumping around casting only instants, stun-locking the healers, respawn-rushing, alpha-striking from stealth, etc.   Also, how many times do you die (on average) in a PVP session?  Imagine that during a flashpoint, with item degradation.

If AI behaved that way, I would actually PvP a hell of a lot more, and as of right now that is never.   

[Outlawedprod]

Their system status alert UI for the launcher has a notice about a patch starting at 2AM Tues.  There general forum has a thread.  But of course in neither of these places does it link to the actual changes.  All I can do is assume it's the full 1.1.1 from PTS.

Their communication is as good as their game's UI.  At least they are consistent.

[Ingmar]

If you mean this thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=212071

It is just talking about the regular weekly maintenance? Not a patch (necessarily.)

[apocrypha]

Yesterday evening the launcher system alert specifically mentioned patch 1.1.1 but this morning that had disappeared and it just said regular weekly maintenance, so who knows wtf is going on. 

[Lucas]

Patch 1.1.0b, 24/01/2012

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes

General

Implemented optimizations to improve performance on Republic and Imperial Fleets.

Classes and Combat

Significantly improved the delay when activating player abilities, particularly when in lower framerate situations. This allows for improved ability responsiveness in hectic combat situations.

Operations


General

Operations will no longer allow more than 16 Operations Group members to enter concurrently.

Karagga's Palace

Operations Groups will no longer be forced to reset the Operation if the group wipes when attempting to defeat G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator.
Fixed an exploit that would allow players to repeatedly loot the chest after defeating Jarg and Sorno.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that could cause graphical inconsistencies, which most often manifested as random screen "flickering."

[Gunzwei]

Their burst out of stealth was insanely freaking retarded, i have a tank specced powertech and they routinely killed me before i could do anything.  Their burst most definitely needed a HEAVY nerf, but you have to replace it with sustained dps and probably some extra mobility and survivability.

Most the attacks you see in PVP are force/tech which ignore block and parry. This ends up making defense rating and block rating damn near useless in PVP. What made OP burst high was the 50% armor pen buff they get with their opener in combination with how expertise works.

[Mrbloodworth]

Anyone played the new patch yet?

[luckton]

Anyone played the new patch yet?

Servers came up right as I was about to leave for work.  Logged in and fiddled around Fleet for a few.  Performance does seem better.

As far as the ability delay thing goes, Twitter and forums feeds are producing mixed results, but for the most part it seems they actually did fix the issue.  What remains may be isolated incidents based on particular hardware configs and other unique variables.

[Lantyssa]

Only had time for a few rounds of space.

[Mrbloodworth]

Anyone played the new patch yet?

Servers came up right as I was about to leave for work.  Logged in and fiddled around Fleet for a few.  Performance does seem better.

As far as the ability delay thing goes, Twitter and forums feeds are producing mixed results, but for the most part it seems they actually did fix the issue.  What remains may be isolated incidents based on particular hardware configs and other unique variables.

AFAIK, they have not fixed all of the factors that can cause it across various situations and hardware. They said as much.

This is part of what I was saying before, those writing off the engine ETC... Now that the client is out to millions, the real work starts. Anyway, win win for all.

[luckton]

Anyone played the new patch yet?

Servers came up right as I was about to leave for work.  Logged in and fiddled around Fleet for a few.  Performance does seem better.

As far as the ability delay thing goes, Twitter and forums feeds are producing mixed results, but for the most part it seems they actually did fix the issue.  What remains may be isolated incidents based on particular hardware configs and other unique variables.

AFAIK, they have not fixed all of the factors that can cause it across various situations and hardware. They said as much.

Well that is the problem for setting the system requirements for the game to be "open/low"; you allow a shit-ton of budget and cheap parts into the mix.  Still, some forum comments go as far to say that when they logged in to play this morning, it was "like a brand new game."

[Mrbloodworth]

As you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

    As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
    We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
    We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
    We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

Regards

Georg

[01101010]

My textures really did appear a hell of a lot crisper while I was playing around on one of my incognito, talking shit in general alts.

[Miasma]

Why haven't I seen anyone talk about the new content, the Rakghoul story?  Has anyone tried it?

[Nebu]

Why haven't I seen anyone talk about the new content, the Rakghoul story?  Has anyone tried it?

I posted about it in the flashpoint thread.  It's about halfway down the page.

For those interested, the new Rakghoul (sp?) instance was pretty fun.  Good atmosphere is all I'll say without spoiling it for others.  The bonus boss is also fun.  

Give it a shot if you have the time.

[Raknor]

Why haven't I seen anyone talk about the new content, the Rakghoul story?  Has anyone tried it?

I ran the new instance. It was pretty fun.  Only ran it on normal mode but it had a serious FEAR horror thing going on.  Everyone picks up flashlights to see (although they bug and disappear sometimes) There is random screams in the back ground which where enough that my group said in vent "That was a bit unsettling" or "Ok, that was just creepy". 

After we were finished we all pretty much agreed that a hard mode version of that instance would be wicked.

[01101010]

Why haven't I seen anyone talk about the new content, the Rakghoul story?  Has anyone tried it?

I have not as I refuse to PUG considering my history of fail with the clown brigades.

[tmp]

I don't run the flashpoints too often, but can't say i really had any bad experience with the PUGs so far. Granted, it probably helped that two which seemed like potential trouble failed to get started at all

[01101010]

Most of the PUGs I have been in, say ~90%, could be equated to a group of 4 male grizzly bears attacking everything down a large hallway until the last thing. Then they seemingly turn into the whomping tree from Harry Potter when they get next to the boss. I won't even go into the loot despair. However, the other 10% have actually been pretty great and of those, there is that 1% where everyone seems to know what the fuck to do even though it was a first run for the group.

[eldaec]

Then they seemingly turn into the whomping tree from Harry Potter when they get next to the boss.

I don't even...

[tmp]

Most of the PUGs I have been in, say ~90%, could be equated to a group of 4 male grizzly bears attacking everything down a large hallway until the last thing. Then they seemingly turn into the whomping tree from Harry Potter when they get next to the boss.

I suppose it doesn't bother me that much as it seems to be all that's required to get through ~90% of SWTOR instances.

[Sky]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2008115#edit2008115

 

[Rokal]

The combat delay improvements weren't really noticeable on my BH (which never felt particularly bad anyway), but playing my JK tonight feels much more responsive.

[Nebu]

Combat was still sluggish for me in pvp, but better in pve.  I really didn't notice any improvement in pvp.

[Mrbloodworth]

PvP arena has always been laggy, and by that I mean lag, for me. But in the outside world, I noticed a much smoother more responsive game.