Tuesday, April 17, 2012
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4:31 PM
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This portion of the site is now the archive. Head to Dunsparrow.com to see the updated site!
Posted by
Dunsparrow
Sunday, April 15, 2012
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5:13 PM
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Sorry for my extended absence. Between work and other games, and nothing new for Rift, I've been spending my time elsewhere. On Wednesday, 1.8 and Infernal Dawn come down, and with them, some new and changed rogue specs. There's a lot to cover and I'm going to spend some time with it, but I wanted to let everyone know I'm alive and testing.
Here's what to expect in 1.8:
Ranger as the new ranged spec
It's been a long time since anyone ran Ranger in a raid, but I've been toying with some specs and rotations on the test server and you can definitely beat Marksman for single target ranged damage, using the HK ranger crystal.
Sabstreet's Back
Rogues will actually be able to AOE once again, with our old friend Saboteur. The rotation has changed a lot and its nothing like playing Sabo or Sabdancer has been in the past. Get ready for some complex rotations/priorities/dependencies and a lot of botched rotation until you get it down.
Bloodstalker still top dog
The more things change, the more they stay the same. For pure single target damage, Bloodstalker is still tops and nothing has changed in 1.8. Same rotation, same damage. Its really a one-trick pony though. If you need to do something besides kill a boss in melee range, look elsewhere.
Marksman (?)
Marksman is still alive and kicking, and it will be tops on fights where you need to be at ranged, deal single-target damage and pets aren't viable. How many fights like that are there? Well, none in HK. We'll have to see how ID looks before passing judgment on this spec. Right now, its a niche role, at best.
Lightning Ragnarok Shining Majesty
Do not doubt the LRSM. 1.8 breathes new life into this survival/farming spec with the addition of Meditative Trance in place of False Blade. Meditative Trance heals for about 2500 over 12 seconds, making it great for keeping your health up while dealing with tough enemies. Combined with Rift Scavenger and Leaching Poison, you'll be plowing EI mobs like nobody's business.
I'll be going in depth on the new specs soon. Especially Saboteur and Ranger. Sabo is going to be an important part of raiding and may even find some uses in PvP (who knows). The Chinese curse says "may you live in interesting times" and we are, at that.
Posted by
Dunsparrow
Saturday, January 28, 2012
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2:01 AM
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In case you couldn't tell from my last post, I've been playing SWToR, along with Rift for the past month or so. I really like the PvP in SWToR, despite its enormous problems. You can see the hand of Mythic staff at work in the PvP map design, which is quite frankly, the best of any game.
However, the blight of problems that a company as big as EA/BioWare should have foreseen is an albatross around the neck of this game. The reason I mention this, is because these failings by BioWare really illuminate some of the things we don't always think about that make Rift awesome.
Weekly Maintenance Every Day
First of all, BioWare has maintenance multiple times each week, for 4, 6, 8 and sometimes 10 hours at a time. Not just for major patches, but for small updates like those that Trion hotfixes into Rift in 30 minutes or less. SWToR's shortest maintenance cycle has been 4 hours.
User Disinterface
The user interface and ability bars are horrendous. SWTOR has no macros and no UI customization (but its coming in some future patch some day!), no Addons and not even a combat log. Its like they don't even look at standard features of MMOs. There is a persistent bug for all players where pressing the middle mouse button or MB4 on your mouse will lock up your entire UI. Its existed since beta and is not even acknowledged, despite being 100% reproduceable for every single player in the game. The UI is a mess that you constantly have to fight while you fight enemies.
Character Control Fail
SWTOR has the absolute worst player control of any MMO I've ever played. Half the time I feel so disconnected from my character that I actually think I am someone else if there are a lot of players stacked in a small area. If you press your hotkeys too fast, you can actually interrupt your own instant cast abilities. Its unbelievable. Here's a video of some other annoying crap that happens.
Hope You Like Your Spec
There is no dual spec. You have one spec, and it costs more each time you respec, up to 100k credits (equivalent to 50 plat in Rift). You can't shift specs on the fly. You can't bring fight-specific specs like you can in Rift and you can't switch between heal/dps or dps/tank between fights like you can in every other major MMO on the market today. The Operations (aka raids) do not take this into account. Some fights require 1 tank, some require 2. I guess you're supposed to sit your off tank and tell him what a douche he is for the 1 tank fights. Meanwhile in Rift, you can bring a tank, dps and support spec to any raid and change roles between fights or between attempts so that you don't have to worry about what class is in the raid, but what player.
Failure to Plan
The first Open World PvP zone is the planet Ilum. They billed this as an amazing PvP zone, but players just traded objectives with the other faction until the 1.1 patch ruined the zone entirely. SWTOR's hapless community team attempted damage control, but with posts like this, it didn't work out too well. Contrast this with Trion, who always tries to own their mistakes, and make up for them. When the River of Souls opening went South, Trion immediately apologized and compensated everyone involved so they felt rewarded. They didn't say they would "work on a response." They responded.
Its Bad to be Good
If you're playing the Republic, you are probably outnumbered by Empire by a ratio 3:1 or 4:1 on your server. Oops.
Nerf to Balance
HOLYBUTTS I JUST DIED! NERF ROCK - Scissors
This is the mentality that BW listens to. Scoundrels are very good at killing low armor classes like Sorcerers. The problem is that there are 10 Sorcerers (Empire) for every Scoundrel (Republic). So when the Sorcerers start crying about Scoundrels, BW nerfs the hell out of them. Meanwhile classes that can literally spam 1 button to victory go untouched. Instead of making the underplayed classes more appealing, they nerf them to appease the more popular classes who are crying. If Scoundrels are so overpowered, why does no one play them?
If Hitler Developed a Community Management Strategy
BioWare would adopt it. They love to crack down on free thought and critical posts, and frequently disable all posting on the forum during maintenance to keep people from flocking to the forums to ask why the game needs a 6-hour maintenance every 2 days. Trion tries to improve the problems that people find with the game. BW tries to prevent people from talking about problems.
I could go on, but I won't. BioWare has basically wasted a very cool intellectual property. It will be a long time before we see another Star Wars MMO. Too bad, I'm a huge Star Wars fanboy.
UPDATE: 8:33 CST
The link I posted above-- disable all posting -- now shows up as a broken link. This is because BioWare always deletes their posts when the forums are re-enabled, instead of just updating the post to say that the forums are now live again. This directly contradicts their practice for when the servers go up and down. Clearly, they want to pretend that they don't shut down the forums all the time. The fact is -- they do.
Posted by
Dunsparrow
Monday, January 23, 2012
at
6:49 AM
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22
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You know, I'm pretty choosy when it comes to games. I won't play just anything. It needs to have a certain flavor, or a certain uniqueness that draws me in and makes me want to explore possibilities.
Rift has that. The soul system in Rift drew me to the game like a moth to flame. The idea of being able to essentially design your own class was so cool that I just had to play. And being able to change your role to fit any situation was constantly challenging and interesting. There is no best spec. There is no best rotation, or best strategy or best class. You must constantly adapt. It's kept me hooked for nearly a year.
Now Trion plans to ruin it all with one fell patch.
I am not one who is prone to exaggeration. When I said that rogues were a joke back in August, they were. Trion eventually got around to agreeing with me. This is just as bad, but now its bad for everyone, and bad for the game.
With the new PvP Planar Attunement system on the PTS, you now have a new tree called Attunement of War. This tree includes most of the good stuff in the Infiltrator soul. Sound like a good thing? I thought so too, until I realized that you have to choose between putting your PA points into this tree or your other PA trees, like fire and air that actually increase your raid damage.
That's right. Trion is now going to make you choose between PvP and PvE. If you want to be good in PvP, you'll need to dump about 9,000 points into the Attunement of War. How much does that leave for the rest? In my case, not much.
Gone are the days of leaving a raid and heading to Warfronts or oPvP in Stillmoore or EI. Unless you want to get totally crushed, and I mean horribly massacred. Gone is the versatility and flexibility that make Rift so great.
You get to either have a massive handicap in PvP or in PvE. Which would you like? What a fun choice this is. I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope that what I'm looking at is just a partial implementation or a mistake. But I'm not hopeful.
Rift has that. The soul system in Rift drew me to the game like a moth to flame. The idea of being able to essentially design your own class was so cool that I just had to play. And being able to change your role to fit any situation was constantly challenging and interesting. There is no best spec. There is no best rotation, or best strategy or best class. You must constantly adapt. It's kept me hooked for nearly a year.
Now Trion plans to ruin it all with one fell patch.
I am not one who is prone to exaggeration. When I said that rogues were a joke back in August, they were. Trion eventually got around to agreeing with me. This is just as bad, but now its bad for everyone, and bad for the game.
With the new PvP Planar Attunement system on the PTS, you now have a new tree called Attunement of War. This tree includes most of the good stuff in the Infiltrator soul. Sound like a good thing? I thought so too, until I realized that you have to choose between putting your PA points into this tree or your other PA trees, like fire and air that actually increase your raid damage.
That's right. Trion is now going to make you choose between PvP and PvE. If you want to be good in PvP, you'll need to dump about 9,000 points into the Attunement of War. How much does that leave for the rest? In my case, not much.
Gone are the days of leaving a raid and heading to Warfronts or oPvP in Stillmoore or EI. Unless you want to get totally crushed, and I mean horribly massacred. Gone is the versatility and flexibility that make Rift so great.
You get to either have a massive handicap in PvP or in PvE. Which would you like? What a fun choice this is. I hope I'm wrong about this. I hope that what I'm looking at is just a partial implementation or a mistake. But I'm not hopeful.
Posted by
Dunsparrow
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
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9:50 PM
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Changing the PvP tree to Planar Attunement is a worthy -- but not easy -- task. This is something that could easily go horribly wrong if some muckity-muck high in the organization, but out of touch with the game and player-base, takes it in his teeth. So, some dos and don'ts.
DO
Create lots of new ranks. Grinding out 8 ranks is tough and progress comes slowly. SWTOR has 65+ PvP ranks where progress comes quickly and benefits are seen constantly. This multi-rank system makes more sense in the context of a PA tree, where many points are needed, and its more rewarding along the way. Too many companies forget that the game is about the journey, not the destination.
DON'T
Make everyone start over. I ground out Prestige 8, and so have a lot of other hardcore players. We did it to attain an advantage over our fellow players, and worked hard to get here. If you think we're going to start from scratch -- you're wrong.
DO
Translate current Prestige ranks into new PA levels. You could give everyone 10% of their total PA for each Prestige Rank (10% for rank 2, 20% for rank 3, etc.). This will keep the ranks in order, but still get P8s playing again.
DON'T
Remove any "core" abilities from the PvP trees. Rogues still need Anathema, Cleanse Soul and Camouflage, or at least the option to get them. Clerics still need Deathwings, stun shields and heal spreading. Yes, you can add things like minor vengeance/valor increases, damage against players, crit damage, against players, etc. but don't remove the cool PvP moves that we all love to use and hate to be used on us.
DO
Add new abilities. At least 1 for each class. Also consider pulling PvP-oriented abilities from other souls, and adding them to the PvP PA. Obvious candidates are Deep Wounds from the Warrior Champion tree, Neddra's Essence from Mage Warlock tree, Fell Blades from the Rogue Nightblade tree, and Slumber from the Cleric Druid tree. I'm sure there are others as well. This will make the PvP PA more interesting and rekindle some interest in PvP.
DO
Consider this an opportunity to fix problems that have always existed in PvP but were hard to address in the current system. PvP healing is a nightmare to balance around. Maybe its time give everyone a passive PvP healing debuff through their PvP PA. Something between 30-50% seems about right. If everyone is always heal debuffed in PvP, it will be easier to balance and will make for more fun and interesting gameplay. This could be balanced by allowing vengeance on healers to partially pierce this healing debuff, and make sure this stat is just as important for them as everyone else.
DO
Make sure people have many options for gaining PvP PA experience. Warfront grinds are inevitable, but lets encourage some world PvP or even strange tasks like invading capital cities or enemy territory. PvP PA experience is a new reward for doing stuff, so give it to us as a reward for doing new and interesting things. If you're worried about exploiting, put a cap on the amount that can be earned per day on the new/experimental things, so we don't have something like the PvP Rift exploits happen again. Learn from your mistakes, dont repeat your mistakes, but also don't be afraid to make new mistakes. New mistakes mean progress, which is something we all want.
DO
Create lots of new ranks. Grinding out 8 ranks is tough and progress comes slowly. SWTOR has 65+ PvP ranks where progress comes quickly and benefits are seen constantly. This multi-rank system makes more sense in the context of a PA tree, where many points are needed, and its more rewarding along the way. Too many companies forget that the game is about the journey, not the destination.
DON'T
Make everyone start over. I ground out Prestige 8, and so have a lot of other hardcore players. We did it to attain an advantage over our fellow players, and worked hard to get here. If you think we're going to start from scratch -- you're wrong.
DO
Translate current Prestige ranks into new PA levels. You could give everyone 10% of their total PA for each Prestige Rank (10% for rank 2, 20% for rank 3, etc.). This will keep the ranks in order, but still get P8s playing again.
DON'T
Remove any "core" abilities from the PvP trees. Rogues still need Anathema, Cleanse Soul and Camouflage, or at least the option to get them. Clerics still need Deathwings, stun shields and heal spreading. Yes, you can add things like minor vengeance/valor increases, damage against players, crit damage, against players, etc. but don't remove the cool PvP moves that we all love to use and hate to be used on us.
DO
Add new abilities. At least 1 for each class. Also consider pulling PvP-oriented abilities from other souls, and adding them to the PvP PA. Obvious candidates are Deep Wounds from the Warrior Champion tree, Neddra's Essence from Mage Warlock tree, Fell Blades from the Rogue Nightblade tree, and Slumber from the Cleric Druid tree. I'm sure there are others as well. This will make the PvP PA more interesting and rekindle some interest in PvP.
DO
Consider this an opportunity to fix problems that have always existed in PvP but were hard to address in the current system. PvP healing is a nightmare to balance around. Maybe its time give everyone a passive PvP healing debuff through their PvP PA. Something between 30-50% seems about right. If everyone is always heal debuffed in PvP, it will be easier to balance and will make for more fun and interesting gameplay. This could be balanced by allowing vengeance on healers to partially pierce this healing debuff, and make sure this stat is just as important for them as everyone else.
DO
Make sure people have many options for gaining PvP PA experience. Warfront grinds are inevitable, but lets encourage some world PvP or even strange tasks like invading capital cities or enemy territory. PvP PA experience is a new reward for doing stuff, so give it to us as a reward for doing new and interesting things. If you're worried about exploiting, put a cap on the amount that can be earned per day on the new/experimental things, so we don't have something like the PvP Rift exploits happen again. Learn from your mistakes, dont repeat your mistakes, but also don't be afraid to make new mistakes. New mistakes mean progress, which is something we all want.
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Dunsparrow
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