Too Little...Follow

The release of MoP & GW2 really seemed to have put a nail in the coffin,

Daniel Erickson (Lead Designer) & Alex Freed (guy responsible for the IA storyline) have left this week. Bioware Co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk left back in Mid September. Rumbling that the "less than 1 million" pop number was more than likely less than 750k, & was being inflated by including the free trial accounts as well.

I think it is fair to say that the best that can be hoped for now is a Rift level of success, however a Warhammer level of failure if more than likely.

It is a shame, since I enjoyed the game

For what it's worth, I'm still enjoying the game. I may not agree with some of the animation changes, and the linear game world and "generic" MMO level/talent system was sort of a letdown (was hoping for SWG2, but who wasn't?), but so far I'm enjoying the ride to 50. Got tired of my Assassin, so I dabbled a bit in the Republic classes, especially a Trooper. Really enjoy the storyline, but then I created a Bounty Hunter (female) and the voice acting is leaps and bounds ahead of any of the other voice acting, in my opinion, so I stuck with it.

Official boards are full of "1.4 ruined my AC, please fix", but I'm not having any issues. I don't plan on doing Ranked Warzones and so far I've been having a blast running random Flashpoints and Warzones. Got focused hard when I went in there, but still managed to win every match, both as Arsenal and Bodyguard.

It sucks a bit that the scoreboard doesn't take into account everything done to secure the win. When the enemy team focused one of our nodes, I ran to one of theirs and successfully managed to make them panic, causing half their team to rush to me and kill me. By keeping pressure on their node, their attack on our node failed and we secured the win, but I got slaughtered on the scoreboard. MVP votes went to some dude who sat on a node all game long and therefore got the highest Objective score, and some other dude who maxed out damage done.

Meh.

Flashpoints are sort of fun now that I no longer tank them. That is, I still tank them, because tanks are so horribly bad in this game that I end up taking aggro whether I'm healing or dealing damage. Had one Assassin tank who only used Force Lightning and Shock. Never, ever used any of his AOE abilities or saber attacks. Painful, but being a total boss () allowed us to pull through. Also, some guy went total retard and pulled an entire area in Hammer Station after I sliced the elevator and the rest of us used it to bypass some stuff. He ran to us, through all the mobs, pulling them with us, securing a wipe. Afterwards, he was like "lol, chillax, dudes!" and we kicked him. Good times.

Still, I'm seeing a drop in active players. After the consolidation, there were two or three full instances of the Imperial Fleet, but Balmorra (3rd planet Imperial side) was down to 80 peak time Sunday. Was a pain getting a group together for a random 4-man heroic. Dromund Kaas (2nd planet) had 200+ players on it.

They should probably have held back the F2P announcement until they were ready to make the switch. I canceled my subscription because I've got GW2 to keep me entertained until TOR makes the jump.

Still seems pretty busy where I am, but surge that seemed to happen on our sever with consolidation has passed. Still no trouble finding people to group with Herioc2/Herioc4 stuff. Were about 50 people on Hoth last night, which seemed decent for a sunday night about midnight server time. For me that will be the thing I think. Once I can't find people to do stuff with, the game will get too single-player.

As for longevity, there seems to be a sizable group that will play this thing through to the bitter end, so I don't see it wasting away into nothingness anytime soon. Assuming of course we don't get twisted every which way in a vain effort to increase the cash flow.

Still anxiously awaiting this F2P conversion. We'll see how they handle it.



I found myself saying this a lot. SWTOR has an outdated system for a lot of stuff, but there's a lot of times where that's just what I want. Playing long enough to get nostalgic already?

Edited, Oct 8th 2012 8:57am by someproteinguy

Even without considering the leveling implication, I still don't see why I should find the new system attractive. Why?

Because I don't PVP. There's literally no value to the system if you are a PVE player, particularly if you play DPS. A Tank DK might make a slightly interesting choice when it comes to choosing between Purgatory and AMZ. But even that is simple--go Purgatory unless that boss encounter specifically requires the other.

Tier 1- Rolling Blood, MAYBE Plague Leach if the boss has adds you can regularly steal diseases from. But PVE wants sustained DPS, and (assuming they didn't nerf diseases to hell), they're a significant source of DPS and not worth a single Death rune.

Tier 2- Are you a tank? Purgatory unless you need AMZ. DPS? AMZ unless you need Lichborn, but that's up to you because who the hell cares for 85% of content?

Tier 3- Death's Advance, no argument.

Tier 4- Are you Unholy? Death Pact. Frost? Death Siphon. Blood? Conversion. That's not even subtle.

Tier 5- SLIGHTLY interesting choice, but I'm betting it still falls into spec constraints. Each spec has a clear winner.

Tier 6- Why the hell cares? You're PVE, you don't need snares. Gorefiend's Grasp, because it's the only one with meaningful utility in a PVE environment.

I see no real choices there. None. Sure, there are plenty if you PVP, but nothing of any interest for PVE. I'd even bet the DPS falloff for breaking the spec molds is sizable enough that it's intuitive and doesn't even need TC to prove.

To be fair, that's DK. Mage is MUCH better.

Tier 1- POM, Scorch, or Icy Floes. All of these have actual PVE value. Granted, the choice is clear based on how much moving that encounter requires, but still--it's an actual tree with choices for every spec. If you are Fire Spec, you go Scorch.

Tier 2- Temporal Shield or Ice Barrier. Probably the latter--TS heals back all damage, but that doesn't matter if it kills you. And it's short. IB is a pure shield. Which wins really depends on the encounter, but IB is the overall safe choice. Save TS for when you know it'll perform better.

Tier 3- Frostjaw, next.

Tier 4- Do you need a threat drop for the content you do? Take invis. Otherwise, take Cauterize.

Tier 5- Fire? Go Living Bomb--it procs Pyromaniac on whatever you apply it to. Not Fire? Well, go Living Bomb for ST and Frost Bomb if you need an AOE capable of hitting a large number. I'm thinking Nether Tempest just isn't worth it, not if the WoWhead stats are right.

Tier 6- Are you Arcane? You take Invocation, no arguments. Otherwise, you take Rune of Power. TC might come out that Rune of Power wins for Arcane too, but I doubt it--not with their mastery still being so frickin' stupid.

Better? Sure. But not meaningfully so. Just about everything of value is concentrated down to your spec choice. The talents only become interesting when you are thinking about PVP. It's better than the DK though, because at least you have to make some choices about AoE vs. ST. Of course, that


So yeah, I think it's a dumb system that removed any value from talents for PVE players in exchange for some minimal value for PVP players and the ability to balance PVP more easily, but stifles PVP creativity even further. It's a change that hurts the players overall.

All the balance issues I remember were because Blizz either made dumbass choices or switched gears halfway through development and didn't do the necessary groundwork.

Dumb choices: Mage masteries and ignite munching, plus making the best dps spec even more RNG-dependent than it had ever been, despite the fact it was always a problem.

Switched gears: We're gonna implement triage healin-NVM LOL.

I don't really remember anything in particular that wasn't tied directly back to a fundamental design problem. And none of those were created by talent specs. I'm only really remembering Mage and DKs, though, so that's obviously only one small part of balance. None of those would have been solved if this system was in Cata (and for some stupid reason they've kept Arcane's mastery which is seriously awful).

Meh, I should just stop thinking about it. WoW clearly isn't a game for me anymore, and I have no intention of ever returning, so getting angry about it is just stupid. Everything went downhill after they took away AoE Unholy Blight...

Okay, yeah, I see what you're saying.

I know those issues were a lot worse for hybrids in general, because the core design issue behind them from vanilla were never solved. Everything would have been so much better if Blizz would have just added PVP clauses to problem skills...

That's not limited to them of course. Project is a perfect example of a dumbass change half-assed to solve a PVP issue... I'M NOT BITTER SHUT UP

GW2 has been better in this department for two reasons. 1, every class is a hybrid. 2, normal PVE play doesn't deviate wildly from PVP--both you and your enemies are moving, dodging, using statuses, etc. in both styles. So a change to reduce power in PVP is probably needed in PVE too, and vice versa. Not always, of course--skills to block projectiles are generally more useful in PVP, for instance. But still...

I'm sure there is, but I'm not seeing any value in the choice aspect. EIther every option seems irrelevant to PVE, or there's a clear winner.

I mean, every single DK tank is going to take Purgatory (the second wind DK talent). Things only end up interesting if they know a specific encounter has magic damage Anti-Magic Zone can block, that can't otherwise be dodged. Then they need to make a choice between those two. But for the most part the talents are things like CC and snares. Maybe not USELESS in PVE, but not particularly useful, interesting, or meaningful either. I'm guessing they didn't decide to make bosses susceptible to stuns and chill, so a lot of what I remember from Mage and DK is obviously useless in the encounters where it matters.

To be fair, this is VERY class dependent. Druids get some decent options. There might be a clear winner in a tier, but they still get many situationally useful options. For instance, tier 1's clear winner is Feral Swiftness--passive 15% run speed. But they also have a blink that puts you into a stealthed kitty form. If 15% isn't enough to get you out of the area AoE on some fight, that could win. The last is a "fly to nearby ally" skill, so you only want to use it on fights where people are evenly spaced and you can be sure to escape the area. But in those cases they ARE useful. More useful than 15% passive run speed? I'm inclined to doubt, but it's possible.

Their last tier gives two interesting options. One skill offers a passive 6% buff to Stam/Agi/Int with a 45 second active effect (6 min CD) that buffs the skills not relevent to their roles. Most notable effect, imo, is that it lets Kitty druids cast free, buffed Rejuvs on themselves and allies, or lets them play Boomkin for periods where melee cannot get close. That aspect is definitely more PVP--the 6% is what I care about--but it's not completely irrelevant.

Their other option is a 3 min CD (30s uptime) that buffs their damage and healing by 20%, and 25% of their damage/healing is changed to healing/damage to nearby allies/mobs. That's a great skill, yeah. I'm inclined to side with the 6% passive, for it's great damage and survivability buff, but I have no doubt both will be useful depending on the fight. Bloodlust/Heroism will obviously be a big factor.

Really, overall, Druids still get to have fun with their talents. They did not get hit hard by the change.

For Rogues, on the other hand? There are two, MAYBE three, valuable PVE talents. And one(/two) of those are in the last tier. Everything else is very, VERY PVP-centric. They're all about stealth, CC, or defenses.

So it's SUPER inconsistent. For the classes I mained, they tend towards PVP to a very large margin. Other classes get some that actually will have the potential to change PVE tactics. I'm probably a lot more doom-and-gloom about it as a result, but I don't really feel bad about it. Because this isn't even a subtle difference. It's not like complaining about doing 3% less DPS. It's complaining about the fact that your performance in PVE is completely independent of your talent choices.

The awesome thing about SWTOR PVP is Huttball

I dunno if they've changed anything, but my Sage was an awesome ball carrier.