Eugh, War Zones.

I knew letting Mythic anywhere near star wars was a bad idea.

Warhammer online scenarios anyone?

 

War Zones make sense to me, I don't see what's wrong with having them. What about it don't you like?

 

It's the sheer fact that every time an MMORPG has instanced PVP implemented or listed as their main feature, open world pvp turnout takes a huge nosedive as soon as launch begins.

The great thing about Bioware is the fact that usually take alot of time in doing the environments; if war zones are anything like scenario's, we're going to get a cramped space where everyone and their mother is jumping at each other trying to get rid of the crazy lag spike and the team that pushes the most in the first 5 minutes going on to dominate the rest of the game.

I wouldn't mind if we saw huge open-fielded scenarios or war zones; but I'm going to go ahead and guess it's going to be restricted to 10 vs 10 players at a stretch.

 

Hmm I see your point, I've heard them talking about 8 v 8 as the max so far, but with no concrete statements. To be fair though it's hardly the games main feature, that would be the fully voiced story. I'm not one to bother with pvp that much anyway tbh so it's less of a problem for me.

 

If we were to create WoW 2.0 you would be right. Giving a Paladin the dps of the rogue or the tank of a warrior and the healing prowess of a priest would probably be imbalanced...

But a heal-specced Jedi should have some incentive to run up and auto attack the boss. He's got a lightsaber, not a mage's staff. It's just wrong. They could give him bonuses to force regen or something for dealing damage or using melee-range force abilities, a Jedi should never be sitting around doing nothing but healing. At the very least there should be some defensive / offensive force spells he could be casting while keeping up the healing.

Coordinating characters classes so that they all have a means to heal / deal damage / tank would not be hard or imbalancing, if done correctly. Look at HoN or LoL, for instance, player heroes can be given a few items to fulfill certain roles with only a limited number of abilities at their disposal. Sure, if you spec pure healer, you're going to be a good healer, but why can't the healer also tank on the fly? They might not be the greatest tank ever, but it should be within their capability even if they're not specced/geared for it.

And the excuse that balancing for pvp is hard is rubbish. It can be done. At the very least, in the least subtle way, entering a pvp zone could scale spells/ablities so they aren't quite as good as they are in pve. Bioware's just not trying, I think. Not from what I've seen so far at least.

 

To be fair, you've seen one tiny section of the game where this is happening, we don't know what's possible or not yet, it could be that they just wanted to show off the fact that the Jedi could heal, or that it was simply the best way of dealing with the situation. Until there are more details on the classes abilities this is mostly just speculation. I'm hopeful that they'll put it off.

 

Whatever happened to the old RPG concept of "I create a character I like, then build it up until it can stand on it's own through to the end of the game"? I hate the concept of being forced to rely on other people/A.I. for my character's success.

 

It's not an RPG. Its a MMORPG. The fact that their seems to be so much criticism in this thread about having to group with others to complete some of the content boggles my mind.



Bioware has already said their is a large portion of the game you can solo if you want to, but the fact that people are disappointed that some content requires other players in an MMO baffles me.

 

Question: Healer should be able to offtank...In the same gear? So either you want simple stats (attack stat, mana stat, life stat) or you want healing gear to excessively waste gear points in order to boost life and mana stat? There's a reason why the Trinity of MMORPG isn't changed, it happens to be fairly balanced. Tank can't kill healer, healer can't kill DPS, DPS can't kill Tank. If tank is self-healing (see: Prot Paladins in 3.1) they dominate in PvP because they can both kill and not die.

The problem with having versatile characters (ones that can tank and dps at the same time) is that why bring along a solely tank character? If X class can passably tank while doing more DPS than a pure tank (whose only advantage is that he'll take less damage/regen more/have more oh shit buttons) if there's a decision between the hybrid and the pure, guess what's being picked? It's not the pure tank. Same thing with any other role.

We really don't know enough to say if the above situation will occur, but given human nature, it's pretty likely unless the gap between a pure and a hybrid is massive. Paladin and Druid tanks are STILL favored on many servers because they have a higher dps as a tank than DK/Warriors, even though they are (Effectively, according to blizzard) equivalent at tanking.

 

QFT. I'd thumbs up this post, but apparently I fail and can't figure out how

 

Glad to see some more positivity! The only thing I find concerning at the moment really is that when they've talked about races they seemed to imply that Twi'lek was a Smuggler only race and Chiss an Imperial Agent only race. If that's true then we may be a bit limited in what we choose which is a bit crap.

 

I just hope it won't require some crazy state of art pc to play and that the price won't be too high.

is the open and if so, has anyone played it yet?

btw, love your avatar silent, Richard is win :awesome:

 

In WoW, hybrid classes (such as the paladin), who could tank and heal or tank and dps or dps and heal, were overpowered at points (really only at launch, with the paladin dps bug). But we're not talking about WoW, we're talking about an entirely new game (that was my hope, anyway). Rock, paper, scissors is a system that works, but it's a simple system, and a rigid one.

I really don't see your argument. WoW didn't have nearly enough -healing debuffs (just the offensive specc'd warrior I think, and maybe the rogue), at least when I played it. The paladin had numerous bugs which increased his dps (at least when I played WoW), and he had an incredibly long invulnerability shield. It's hardly evidence to the idea that hybrid classes are hard to balance. They aren't, especially if you make their skills more skill-dependent (like, you have to aim them, instead of them being autotarget instant cast).

Why would you take a class who's really good at tanking over a class that's good at tanking and good at something else? If you have to ask this question when preparing to do some kind of dungeon in an MMO, I think it shows the design flaw in the game. But this is all theorycraft. We can all agree we don't know much about the game. What I would prefer though, is if there were a majority number of 2-3 man dungeons (so there's less time waiting around for friends) where the challenges are less on team composition and heal spammage and more on group coordination and well aimed/timed skill usage. That's all I'm trying to say.

As far as pvp goes, all classes should feel confident enough in themselves that paper doesn't run as soon as it sees scissors.

 

I predict... that changing specs will be prohibitively expensive. Again.
I predict... that tanking and healing stats is separate from damage stats. Again.
I predict... that tanks and healers will be rare. Again.

I am a healbot. I have been through ffxi, wow, lotro, aoc, warhammer and aion. Sadly they make the same mistake over and over again just because it's convention and that's how it is.

 

Why thank you, he is isn't he :awesome

 

Funny how this always works out. I find healers the funnest classes to play...

 

Healers can be very fun to play, tense as fuck, but fun.

 

I am guessing that no class but Jedi/Sith will be able to heal though abilities. After all, thats what Bioware did with DA: O, there is literally no non-mage healing move.

 

As I understand it, there will be no 'Hybrid' tanks. Out of the 8 classes (includes both factions) there will be two classes capable of becoming tanks, the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior. Not to be confused with the Jedi Consular or Sith Inquisitor.

Then, out of those two classes, only one of their two Advanced Class sub specs can tank properly.

So, because tanks are likely going to be about 1/8th of the of the faction, they'll most likely be somewhat rare. Though, to be honest, they'll probably be so many "AMG! I'MA DARTH VADARS" twelve year olds you'll be more hard pressed to find healers, or at least dedicated healers.

I have a feeling healing will be more attractive in SW:TOR, since the classes will still have a lot of utility spells from their Mage-like roots. Especially the Sith Inquisitor, since they heal like a Warlock from WoW, draining their own life and the enemies to heal the group.

I believe that the tanking classes also have a minor self heal. It's mentioned that the Sith Warrior can 'drain the life of the enemy, strengthening their resolve.' And I imagine they'll give Jedi Knights some sort of equivalent ability.

This, combined with the fact that the healers seem to have quite a few attacks, makes me think that leveling tanks and heals won't be the massive pain in the ass that it was in early WoW, and more viable for PvP.

Anyway, as a personal note, I'm so playing the Sith Empire faction. All of it's classes seem more interesting.

 

But they did mention in one of their E3 interviews that the smuggler will have heals, and I hope this hints at a handful of support abilities for each class. I believe they will do this with all classes with a hit to the amount of offensive skills you can acquire.

I can find the link to the video if it's really needed.

Edit: Link: http://e3.g4tv.com/lv3/46527

"... he could drop a heal in from time to time..." - In regards to the smuggler.