f13.net forums - Combat balance, what's your bitch?

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Summary please?

General Impressions about the game: It's going really well, still working on bugfixes and fine tuning. Story is a core component and we think we delivered. Flashpoints are a core part, we released a new flashpoint recently and it's doing really well.

About flashpoints, Hammer Station wasn't as story-oriented as Black Talon, do you plan on revisiting Hammer Station to add story or do you plan on releasing new flashpoints with more story? The answer is the latter. Kaon is the first part of a 2-part arc. Total there are 16 flashpoints, 10 have full story, 6 being lighter, but we've injected RPG mechanics like discovering hidden pathways, levers, etc. We're aiming for alternating between story and combat flashpoints.

Hard Mode flashpoints, is it difficult to balance the idea of repeatedly running dungeons with the idea of telling a story, does the repetition dilute the story? Well, it's like spoilers, but there are different choices that can be made so it can unfold differently, to spice it up. Ultimately it comes down to gameplay, and as long as that is interesting, the story can complement it. Some of the playerbase is casual and the story can help them through the action as it provides context.

Questing, (there are a lot of WoW comparisons), but the mechanics haven't evolved a lot, but the story provides context. Yeah and the companions also help, and the different classes are immersed diferently and affect combat differently. Heroic combat, it's not about attacking the boar for 60 seconds, we try to have multiple enemies and spread the time-to-kill among them to make it feel more heroic. As far as balancing lightsabers, it's a tough act; no easy solution and people will have to suspend disbelief a bit because lightsabers can't be instant kill.

On to specifics...

- PVP balance affecting PVE, a specific example being the Operative and the changes to that class. How do you balance between PVP and PVE without one affecting the other? It's a challenge, the PVP team's involvement with the balance, we have a scoring system for abilities and class balance, but there was a lot to do so some abilities weren't scored properly and we're addressing that now. As far as PVP affecting PVE, it shouldn't, but there are a lot of variables and we'll monitor and make changes as needed.

- Would Bioware consider changing abilities so they have a different function in PVE vs. PVP? It's a last resort, we like to keep a consistent ability behavior. There are a few like Guard and Charge that function differently, but in general it's a last resort. If it needs to we will but we think we can handle it.

- PVP brackets. Are you considering adding more brackets? The match-making system was using a sorting method, but if there were not enough people it expanded the range for adding people. The L50 bracket was necessary because of itemization, but as far as further brackets, we don't plan on adding further brackets, and will try to refine the match-making logic. Having regular matches is a desire so we'll try to work on it.

- Empire v. Republic imbalance, how do you plan to address it? Well, the game is story-centered, and we didn't want limitations on what players could experience, so we didn't limit players. Not sure what to say about going forward, it's not my area of expertise, but we're looking at the typical options, and I can't say much more than that. Open-world PVP on Illum is affected, and we want to do a few things about Illum, but it's for the future. Some servers have balance, but going forward we know we'll have to address it across all.

- UI and modifications / customizations for operations and raiding, the issue keeps coming up, and we've seen before where players rely on addons and it affects the difficulty of creating interesting encounters, so, I'd like to get your opinion on mods and how they affect things. I personally don't prefer mods, but if there are like threat meters, then you can design encounters that have more threat changing etc. We do a lot of center-screen messages etc, and I think it's more fun to have it without mods, but that doesn't specifically mean we'll never allow mods, but it's not my department.

- Crafting professions, certain professions become critical, like Biochem. How do you feel about that? Well, we brought down the level of those things. We have the scoring system here too, and we can adjust the crafting skills. The goal is for endgame for every crafter to have equal advantage at the end-game level. We'll have to make adjustments to reach that goal. Armormech for example has more hidden perks, drops in recipes, augments, and can get the top end gear more augmented that someone without it, but we're looking at the professions.

- Endgame play, let's use "raiding", the aim of the playerbase seems to be to get the best gear available, and so how does that mesh with a story MMO, can you convince the players to play without dangling the item upgrading in front of them? Well I think it's inherent in RPG's, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive, so we'll do content updates to continue story arcs to make them go on for some time, and we'll also continue the carrots with the gear.