Combat Overhaul Suggestions

Derpyh · Jul 17, 2024

Combat in the game I feel needs a lot of work, especially for non-Jedi classes as it is very apparent they can't really even complete right now, the meta is very stale at the moment.

The problem I feel with Jedi isn't just that they are strong, normal de-buffs do little to them if nothing.

Tyr · Jul 17, 2024

Derpyh said:
My goal is raise normies up, not *help everyone*, as described in my main post. Jedi don't need help.

Jedi are supposed to be up, if you raise "normies" then they would have to raise Jedi to keep them on par.

Derpyh · Jul 17, 2024

Tyr said:
You wrote:

Self-Healing: You shouldn't need 4xxx Doc or CM to play the game. It also gives everyone access to AOE healing. If they got self healing earlier, you can keep the group healing in CM/Doc only.

You don't need either of those to play. Again the Stims work and you can have them from day 1 with Stim A - D. Make different or better ones if needed but it it a major thing to try to change whole classes.

"Combat in the game I feel needs a lot of work, especially for non-Jedi classes as it is very apparent they can't really even complete right now, the meta is very stale at the moment."

Tyr said:
Jedi are supposed to be up, if you raise "normies" then they would have to raise Jedi to keep them on par.

My suggestions would not make them stronger than Jedi. It wouldn't even bring them close.

Tyr · Jul 17, 2024

Derpyh said:
"Combat in the game I feel needs a lot of work, especially for non-Jedi classes as it is very apparent they can't really even complete right now, the meta is very stale at the moment."

My suggestions would not make them stronger than Jedi.

Well suggesting they redo basically the whole system at once seems off for a PV. They are working on a ton of things so doing one a few at time works, not trying to be SOE and go through another NGE here.

Derpyh · Jul 17, 2024

Tyr said:
Well suggesting they redo basically the whole system at once seems off for a PV. They are working on a ton of things so doing one a few at time works, not trying to be SOE and go through another NGE here.

I didn't suggest redoing the whole system. I suggested revamping, buffing some key abilities that need it and adding more defensive buffs and nerfing others. They literally did this recently with Jedi and it was a good change.

Tyr · Jul 17, 2024

Derpyh said:
I didn't suggest redoing the whole system. I suggested revamping, buffing some key abilities that need it and adding more defensive buffs and nerfing others. They literally did this recently with Jedi and it was a good change.

Sorry you are right you only suggested roughly 15 things in one PV......

Tyr · Jul 17, 2024

Derpyh said:
Combat in the game I feel needs a lot of work, especially for non-Jedi classes as it is very apparent they can't really even complete right now, the meta is very stale at the moment.

The problem I feel with Jedi isn't just that they are strong, normal de-buffs do little to them if nothing.

Oh and leave my Smuggler alone, at least until after the Syndicate Swell content comes out. FYI he has CM 4xxx and does just fine.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

savacc said:
Way too much for one PV.
I'm going to address just one, Taunts in PvP. It's never going to work. It's horrible gameplay for the game to take over targeting from a player, and force them to switch targeting from their choice to a target the game determines. You want the game to reward good tactics, not force you to make bad tactical decisions against your will.
I'm not real thrilled with taunts in PvE either. Your opponents are fighting for their lives. They should be using good tactics. Winning because I made them be dumb is less satisfying then winning because I'm better.

Since you did not respond to me previously, I will assume that you have not played with this mechanic before. Especially since the response seemed more emotional than logical, you didn't give me an example why, only set an emotional response to it.

Here is an explanation why it *does* work. First of all, I know i've been out of the loop for PvP for awhile but I never had known and am frankly surprised you were talking about that since the change would only be for PvP. I know you personally so it's just surprising as your mostly playing a crafter from my prospective.

Second of all, if you would actually play PvP in SWG you would know one of the greatest tactics in SWG is the /assist macro, where everyone simply clicks a button and /assists "person". Tactics is a word that exists implying there is a strategy to deal with it, and currently there isn't.

Good strategy in games implies counter-tactics, counter-play if you will. Currently there is no way to stop a target from focusing on your ally, no way for a *tank* to really be a *tank*. What I am suggesting actually creates tactics, where there is currently only cheese.

Example 1: I want to protect my friend from getting focus fired. I know the leader of the /assist macro is Kay, so I taunt him making all of his clicking friends /assist and target me instead. This is a good example of tactics, because I prevented him from mowing down my ally and provided my role as a tank. The fact that the enemies using the /assist macro didn't pay enough attention to switch means that my good strategy changed the fight.

Example 2: I want to stop an enemy from being healed and I know who is healing them. Currently there is no way to prevent them from healing, so a good way is to pull the healer's target away from the person they are healing to me, forcing them to self-heal instead. This means that I not only provided my role, I stopped them. Providing more counter-tactics and thus adding more strategy to the game.

Example 3: I want to protect my friend from being breached. My friend is our only Jedi left on the team, I know the enemy Jedi is a Master Enhancer and I know if they get breached, we lose. So I will taunt the enemy Jedi, giving my friends and allies time to come up with a strategy to deal with the breach-er.

All of these scenarios are just things I came up with on the spot with no sleep.

Taunts being forced-target was a PvP-Only suggestion only, since Taunts build hate in PvE. Hate is not a mechanic in PvP, thus the suggested change. So the change would not affect PvE what-so-ever.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

Tyr said:
Gotta agree that way too much for one PV and basically it sounds like you just want to redo the entire system. Also I have a character I use frequently that has zero self healing (no medcis, no doc, no cm) but I use Stim D's and they work quite well for me. Sure if I want to solo some end game boss it probably won't work but that is the point. You have trade offs for everything in the game. Also Jedi are supposed to be stronger than the normal classes. To sum up, Stim D's, Jedi strong, Way to much in your pv.

If you paid attention to test-center, that is one of the current goals it seems. The meta is rather stale as I said before and currently there is no real way to suggest changes to the game other than PVs. I asked for permission because frankly posting and spamming the Player Voice chat with 14-20 PVs will most likely annoy people more than making one suggesting many smaller changes and ideas that could assist or help the game.

That is the reason I did it, only to help the game. I would like your actual feedback on the suggestions that you like, saying what you dislike and giving no real credence why isn't helpful.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

Chewiejdh said:
I am afraid what you're asking for is nearly a complete overhaul of the Combat system. It feels like you're asking for CU 2.0.

Maybe one or two of these changes could be implemented, but you've also restructured an entire class in there.

This feels WAY too big and WAY too much for one PV.

Just read above, I am not saying as much to you Chew because you seemed to give some feedback about the subjects, but Ornj is looking for positive changes to help the game. If you like any suggestions post what you do like and how you think it could help the game.

Tyr · Jul 18, 2024

Derpyh said:
If you paid attention to test-center, that is one of the current goals it seems. The meta is rather stale as I said before and currently there is no real way to suggest changes to the game other than PVs. I asked for permission because frankly posting and spamming the Player Voice chat with 14-20 PVs will most likely annoy people more than making one suggesting many smaller changes and ideas that could assist or help the game.

That is the reason I did it, only to help the game. I would like your actual feedback on the suggestions that you like, saying what you dislike and giving no real credence why isn't helpful.

Let's see. I so pay attention to TC, Dev Diary, Roadmap, etc. You on the other seem to impulsively/knee jerk toss stuff out like the Crystals. Why do you want the crystals changed? Because you want to play with the different colors and you want it now rather than paying attention to the roadmap, diary, etc that said the crystals and such are temporary and change is coming. Your idea is fine but the impatience is not because they would have to spend time making a change that will change again soon anyway, wasting time that could be on other stuff.

You said

since the change would only be for PvP

Ok that would be hard to do keeping those changes from pve. Also the meta is always stale at some point for someone. Your comment about this is what made WoW fun....SWG Live died exactly because they tried to become like Wow...I guess you ignored the video in the pvp channel. And I gave you feedback on the healing bit you suggested. Iwould also suggest you remember that things are supposed to be kinda like the rock/paper/scissors setup here. Normies are not supposed to have the ability to have everything. The game was meant to be a trade off. You character wants certain things but has to give up other things. Your suggestion for ranged might be fine except it leaves out the melee crowd and unbalances. Also any changes to pvp or pve will impact the whole game so that needs to be thought through all the way. This is why spitballing it with the Senator and others helps to narrow it down. Also there is only so much time/people available to work on the game and they nlaid out the roadmap then Cryka comes along and basically suggests all these things that would delay or take up most of that time/resources and the already slow progress would dang near stop.

Lots of people want to help the game but basically you seem to want to change the whole game rather than just tweak things here and there. SOE went down that raod to try to make this WoW like and it was a disaster. I don't want my Smuggler to be a "sawbones" and have my class chased so radically just because you liked it in another game.

You said "All of these scenarios are just things I came up with on the spot with no sleep. Please do not suggest I do not think about what I say in the future".

If you just came up with them on the spot with no sleep, that is impulsive and not thiniking them through by your own words.

Ok lets see a few more since you want the feedback you will ignore and argue about:

Lower the Skill Points of Starting Professions - Bad idea. The professions and game, as already pointed out above, are supposed to be a rock/paper/scissors kinda thing and if you give out more skill points basically everyone loses that. It is and was meant for there to be trade offs for certain skills NOT that everyone can basically have everything.

Bleeding DoT - good idea

Self-healing - already gave you feedback

That is just some more but again it seems like you want to ignore or dont read the road map, dev diary etc as to what is coming and being worked on to see what changes are there and instead you want to make this a game your way instead of the tweaks along the path they lay out in them. It feels like your idea of "only to help the game" is to change it into some WoW/SWTOR wannabe just like SOE tried.

Edit - sidenote -some of these changes would make pve even easier than it is now. Accu/def being raised for example. If anything pve needs to be a tad more difficult not made even easier.

Chewiejdh · Jul 18, 2024

My opinion (not that it means a great deal as I am still new to the server) is this:

Take your "best. most beloved idea" and give that a PV.

Even if you had 3 really great ideas out of 5, you'd risk being shot down due to the mixing of ideas.

You do tend to dump a bunch of ideas into one thread and hope something 'works.' That's not how this system is to be used.

Find ONE idea and think it through fully. Discuss it with a Senator and on Discord. Get in-game chat and ask. Think it through from more than just a 'well, other games had it, so we should too' frame of mind. SWG is not like any other game. Sure, other games have similar portions, but the game as a whole is unique. I do not want my characters to be 100% self-sufficient in ALL things.

Heck, I'm a solo player who loved being a Ranger in Live because I would go out to planets and camp/hunt for days long before speeders were a thing. I play nearly 99.9999% by myself and I dislike going to a Doctor or Ent for buffs. However, I do not want my character to be able to do it all. Where's the fun? Talk about things getting stale then. All of us would run the same gear set, the same macro, and the same buffs.

Work on one portion at a time.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

Tyr said:
Let's see. I so pay attention to TC, Dev Diary, Roadmap, etc. You on the other seem to impulsively/knee jerk toss stuff out like the Crystals. Why do you want the crystals changed? Because you want to play with the different colors and you want it now rather than paying attention to the roadmap, diary, etc that said the crystals and such are temporary and change is coming. Your idea is fine but the impatience is not because they would have to spend time making a change that will change again soon anyway, wasting time that could be on other stuff.

You said

since the change would only be for PvP

Ok that would be hard to do keeping those changes from pve. Also the meta is always stale at some point for someone. Your comment about this is what made WoW fun....SWG Live died exactly because they tried to become like Wow...I guess you ignored the video in the pvp channel. And I gave you feedback on the healing bit you suggested. Iwould also suggest you remember that things are supposed to be kinda like the rock/paper/scissors setup here. Normies are not supposed to have the ability to have everything. The game was meant to be a trade off. You character wants certain things but has to give up other things. Your suggestion for ranged might be fine except it leaves out the melee crowd and unbalances. Also any changes to pvp or pve will impact the whole game so that needs to be thought through all the way. This is why spitballing it with the Senator and others helps to narrow it down. Also there is only so much time/people available to work on the game and they nlaid out the roadmap then Cryka comes along and basically suggests all these things that would delay or take up most of that time/resources and the already slow progress would dang near stop.

Lots of people want to help the game but basically you seem to want to change the whole game rather than just tweak things here and there. SOE went down that raod to try to make this WoW like and it was a disaster. I don't want my Smuggler to be a "sawbones" and have my class chased so radically just because you liked it in another game.

You said "All of these scenarios are just things I came up with on the spot with no sleep. Please do not suggest I do not think about what I say in the future".

If you just came up with them on the spot with no sleep, that is impulsive and not thiniking them through by your own words.

Ok lets see a few more since you want the feedback you will ignore and argue about:

Lower the Skill Points of Starting Professions - Bad idea. The professions and game, as already pointed out above, are supposed to be a rock/paper/scissors kinda thing and if you give out more skill points basically everyone loses that. It is and was meant for there to be trade offs for certain skills NOT that everyone can basically have everything.

Bleeding DoT - good idea

Self-healing - already gave you feedback

That is just some more but again it seems like you want to ignore or dont read the road map, dev diary etc as to what is coming and being worked on to see what changes are there and instead you want to make this a game your way instead of the tweaks along the path they lay out in them. It feels like your idea of "only to help the game" is to change it into some WoW/SWTOR wannabe just like SOE tried.

Edit - sidenote -some of these changes would make pve even easier than it is now. Accu/def being raised for example. If anything pve needs to be a tad more difficult not made even easier.

Patience? Barely know her.

Out of all the changes, the only change I suggested to make combat more like WoW actually is OGCDs, but those are not unique to WoW, in the actual Combat Upgrade they existed and they existed before that too.

Lowering the Skill Point cost was a suggestion I made because it is very easy to see that it is hard to make more unique builds. It would give a bit more points but I doubt it would be enough to change the entire game, but it would definitely help normies compete. I doubt it would do enough to change the meta entirely but it would help push underused builds up. Due to the way the game is designed, having a few more points would not actually increase your overall power (damage) that much, mostly help your utility, build variety, and add an additional skill. Its not going to suddenly turn them into an ubermensch.

Everything else? Pretty unique to SWG and games before WoW actually. Reload was a CU-NGE (start) skill, and Mind Healing was a Jedi healing ability.

Tyr · Jul 18, 2024

Derpyh said:
Out of all the changes, the only change I suggested to make combat more like WoW actually is OGCDs, but those are not unique to WoW, in the actual Combat Upgrade they existed and they existed before that too.

Lowering the Skill Point cost was a suggestion I made because it is very easy to see that it is hard to make more unique builds. It would give a bit more points but I doubt it would be enough to change the entire game, but it would definitely help normies compete. I doubt it would do enough to change the meta entirely but it would help push underused builds up.

Everything else? Pretty unique to SWG and games before WoW actually.

You have some decent ideas but, it seems to me, that a good number of your thoughts come from pvp/hate jedi kinda thing. PvP is good for the game but here with such a small pop it is a small piece of it so when you suggest combat changes it feeels like (and reads like) you are talking about players fighting players while forgetting that these change will impact the pve side which already is way easy for most of it and would be even easier with your changes. Talk about ick....And normies don't need to be made stronger for Jedi (again pvp stuff here) as they already said that the current Jedi will be adjusted down when the FRS system comes and Jedi ranks get here. I get the Jedi dislike. I am one of the few that would love a server that has zero jedi and just the other classes but I am very much in the minority on that but I don't want to mess it up for those that do play them and like it. Patience and some of these things (e.g. crystals, weaker padawans, etc) will come. I just ask that you please follow Chewi suggestions and let's keep this game unique as it was meant to be and be patient.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

Tyr said:
You have some decent ideas but, it seems to me, that a good number of your thoughts come from pvp/hate jedi kinda thing. PvP is good for the game but here with such a small pop it is a small piece of it so when you suggest combat changes it feeels like (and reads like) you are talking about players fighting players while forgetting that these change will impact the pve side which already is way easy for most of it and would be even easier with your changes. Talk about ick....And normies don't need to be made stronger for Jedi (again pvp stuff here) as they already said that the current Jedi will be adjusted down when the FRS system comes and Jedi ranks get here. I get the Jedi dislike. I am one of the few that would love a server that has zero jedi and just the other classes but I am very much in the minority on that but I don't want to mess it up for those that do play them and like it. Patience and some of these things (e.g. crystals, weaker padawans, etc) will come. I just ask that you please follow Chewi suggestions and let's keep this game unique as it was meant to be and be patient.

Jedi Hate? No, it's a well designed class, it has issues but it is quite fun to play overall. If I hated Jedi I would suggest more nerfs besides the frankly sensible aura change. Its why I said the Marksman tree could use it for a small example idea.

You say I hate Jedi, but if you look at TC Jedi seems on the verge to getting sweeping changes and nerfs when one of the problems I see is that a lot of regular abilities just do not affect them. For example the debuff to reduce defense can't even hit the target-; stuff that normally cripples my mind pool doesn't do anything to force pool...;ectect.

I would rather raise normal players up a bit than bring Jedi down. Especially just with how hard PvE has become in high end dungeons. My current build (for my regular character) which was fun is just not as viable anymore as I don't have the defense to play it in high end PvE.

It's one reason why I asked for their to be more smaller abilities that added defense, because its really hard right now for any player that doesn't have xx3x TK.

Making their abilities actually affect Jedi in a reasonable way seems sensible, as it would add more tactics and strategy to the game and make it more of a "rock paper scissors" instead of a shotgun and some useless items.

Tyr · Jul 18, 2024

Derpyh said:
Jedi Hate? No, it's a well designed class, it has issues but it is quite fun to play overall. If I hated Jedi I would suggest more nerfs besides the frankly sensible aura change. Its why I said the Marksman tree could use it for a small example idea.

You say I hate Jedi, but if you look at TC Jedi seems on the verge to getting sweeping changes and nerfs when one of the problems I see is that a lot of regular abilities just do not affect them. For example the debuff to reduce defense can't even hit the target-; stuff that normally cripples my mind pool doesn't do anything to force pool...;ectect.

I would rather raise normal players up a bit than bring Jedi down. Especially just with how hard PvE has become in high end dungeons. My current build (for my regular character) which was fun is just not as viable anymore as I don't have the defense to play it in high end PvE.

It's one reason why I asked for their to be more smaller abilities that added defense, because its really hard right now for any player that doesn't have xx3x TK.

Making their abilities actually affect Jedi in a reasonable way seems sensible, as it would add more tactics and strategy to the game and make it more of a "rock paper scissors" instead of a shotgun and some useless items.

Ok sounds reasonable except we all know Jedi, though technically it is Padawan, are getting changes because they told us it was coming. But raising up normies (and you keep ignoring this) makes pve even easier than it already is and it is very easy with a few end boss exceptions. If you really look this game has a ton of pve stuff that is wasted because it is all for lower level. Would be nice if it could scale.. Anyways making normies stronger impacts pve while you are looking at, it seems, the pvp side of it only. And high end game stuff is supposed to be hard.

Let me give some feedback on your Sawbones idea.

Yuck. What happens if I want to be a RP melee smuggler. You know that person who gets into shady deals, fist fights in bars, etc. Getting rid of brawler totally gets rid of the melee option for the entire build and turns smuggler into something it is not supposed to be as well as possibly screwing up the Syndicate Swell content before it even gets here.

Tyr · Jul 18, 2024

Patience? Barely know her.

And that is an issue with some of your stuff.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

Tyr said:
Ok sounds reasonable except we all know Jedi, though technically it is Padawan, are getting changes because they told us it was coming. But raising up normies (and you keep ignoring this) makes pve even easier than it already is and it is very easy with a few end boss exceptions. If you really look this game has a ton of pve stuff that is wasted because it is all for lower level. Would be nice if it could scale.. Anyways making normies stronger impacts pve while you are looking at, it seems, the pvp side of it only. And high end game stuff is supposed to be hard.

Let me give some feedback on your Sawbones idea.

Yuck. What happens if I want to be a RP melee smuggler. You know that person who gets into shady deals, fist fights in bars, etc. Getting rid of brawler totally gets rid of the melee option for the entire build and turns smuggler into something it is not supposed to be as well as possibly screwing up the Syndicate Swell content before it even gets here.

Like every other tree in the game, it would be a tree or spec.

xx4x could be Melee smuggler.

4xxx could be Healing.

So you go xx4x.

However it doesn't exist right now, so I am not sure why your talking about it.

I also fail to see how extra healing wouldn't help ranged or melee smuggler... so I fail to see your point. You could make really unique skills with it.

(What if I don't want healing)

Be a crafter I guess? Dancer? Social professions can be fun.

Tyr · Jul 18, 2024

Derpyh said:
Like every other tree in the game, it would be a tree or spec.

xx4x could be Melee smuggler.

4xxx could be Healing.

So you go xx4x.

So what you are trying to say is add a Tree to smuggler? Cause the way it reads to me is you want to replace brawler with medic to be a Master Smuggler:

xxx4 Medic (Drug Tree) instead of Brawler

That is a hard no for reasons above.

Chewiejdh · Jul 18, 2024

I am going to suggest that this thread gets closed down.

There is too much in here for ONE PV.

The simple fact that there is so much discussion around just 1 portion of the PV means that the whole proposal will not be able to be vetted as it should.

This needs to be thought through, broken out and discussed individually.

Derpyh · Jul 18, 2024

Tyr said:
So what you are trying to say is add a Tree to smuggler? Cause the way it reads to me is you want to replace brawler with medic to be a Master Smuggler:

xxx4 Medic (Drug Tree) instead of Brawler

That is a hard no for reasons above.

Yes.

Why so? Melee Smuggler isn't really a spec atm. Smuggler's use pistols for a majority of their abilities, I think only two of their many skills can be used with melee and it's a debuff.

Unless the TK meta has gone that far out of hand and you are 1x3x for the debuffs.

It can be done I suppose, but its not like you would lose power from it because you still need healing, so even with my idea it would be similar.

It really doesn't make sense when the smuggler's entire thing is "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

If you want my take: all bounty hunter skills should be also be able to be used in melee.