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SWTOR Tooltips Bioware Developer Forum Posts
- Details
- Category: Developer Forum Posts
- Published: Saturday, July 17th, 2021
Originally Posted by JackieKo ( Original Post ) | 16.07.2021 10:32AM
Hi everyone,
Following up on the post I made a couple days ago. We wanted to bring clarity to some of the feedback weve been reading. First, we would like to share our philosophy on reducing the number of defensive cooldowns available.
Over several years and updates, more and more defensive cooldowns and abilities have been added to the game. Often times this was for class balance purposes, to allow some classes to keep up with others in terms of their defensive kit. Additionally, this was done without adjusting things like Operation boss mechanics which were designed around the class kits available at the time: mainly less defensive cooldowns. The sheer quantity of defensive cooldowns in the game today makes things more difficult to balance for both PvE and PvP. It has made some PvE mechanics completely avoidable, and made the time-to-kill metric in PvP grow steadily to the point where we are approaching tedious levels.
In 7.0, we want to reduce the quantity of defensive skills overall, across all classes, making for a more balanced and enjoyable experience in both PvE and PvP content, while at the same time making the defensives that remain more impactful and fun.
What does this look like in both modes?
In addition to defensive cooldowns, we want to streamline other abilities where it makes sense. For example, instead of dedicating an entirely separate ability and button press to a particular effect, we want to merge or combine them with others in an intuitive way. We can see this in action on the PTS with Freezing Force:
One of the reasons we wanted to share these class changes with our players so early is because we wanted to get your feedback as we are still in the design phase of several other classes. As stated previously, you are not playing a final product. While very rough around the edges, the earlier we can share impactful changes like this the more we can take into account your feedback as we continue building out the remaining classes and iterating on ones youre able to try out on the PTS.
Lastly, for this phase of PTS, the Jedi Guardian was missing both their breaker (Resolute) and interrupt (Force Kick). We understand that players may be worried about what that means for 7.0. It was never our intention to completely remove these from the game. We realize this has caused confusion, so we are going to add these back for the next phase of PTS with the caveat that they may change form in the future. We are currently iterating on different ways of utilizing breaker functionality that doesnt necessarily require an independent icon on your hotbar as well as considering where interrupts fit in with the overall class and encounter design of 7.0. Because of this, we didnt include these in the testable ability sets on PTS.
Please keep in mind that breakers and Interrupts will remain in-game, they just might not appear in the same form as they are now.
Thank you for playing PTS and giving us your constructive feedback.
Following up on the post I made a couple days ago. We wanted to bring clarity to some of the feedback weve been reading. First, we would like to share our philosophy on reducing the number of defensive cooldowns available.
Over several years and updates, more and more defensive cooldowns and abilities have been added to the game. Often times this was for class balance purposes, to allow some classes to keep up with others in terms of their defensive kit. Additionally, this was done without adjusting things like Operation boss mechanics which were designed around the class kits available at the time: mainly less defensive cooldowns. The sheer quantity of defensive cooldowns in the game today makes things more difficult to balance for both PvE and PvP. It has made some PvE mechanics completely avoidable, and made the time-to-kill metric in PvP grow steadily to the point where we are approaching tedious levels.
In 7.0, we want to reduce the quantity of defensive skills overall, across all classes, making for a more balanced and enjoyable experience in both PvE and PvP content, while at the same time making the defensives that remain more impactful and fun.
What does this look like in both modes?
- In PvP, our intent is balanced, more dynamic player encounters that move away from rotating defensive cooldowns and move more towards utilizing a broader set of skills in each classs kit.
- In PvE, our intent is to take into account these changes, and adjust NPC encounters as needed to compensate.
- Blade Blitz in the Live game:
- 45 second cooldown
- Quickly rush forward 20 meters, dealing weapon damage to enemies in your path and increasing your defense chance by 100% while blitzing. Cannot be used while immobilized or hindered.
- 35 second cooldown
- Quickly rush forward 20 meters, dealing weapon damage to enemies in your path and increasing your defense chance by 100% while blitzing. Can be used while immobilized and purges movement-impairing effects when activated.
In addition to defensive cooldowns, we want to streamline other abilities where it makes sense. For example, instead of dedicating an entirely separate ability and button press to a particular effect, we want to merge or combine them with others in an intuitive way. We can see this in action on the PTS with Freezing Force:
- Freezing Force is removed from Guardians on the PTS, but a modification to Blade Storm via the new ability choice tree upgrades Blade Storm into an AoE that also slows. This offers a similar effect to the old ability, but in a more efficient way.
One of the reasons we wanted to share these class changes with our players so early is because we wanted to get your feedback as we are still in the design phase of several other classes. As stated previously, you are not playing a final product. While very rough around the edges, the earlier we can share impactful changes like this the more we can take into account your feedback as we continue building out the remaining classes and iterating on ones youre able to try out on the PTS.
Lastly, for this phase of PTS, the Jedi Guardian was missing both their breaker (Resolute) and interrupt (Force Kick). We understand that players may be worried about what that means for 7.0. It was never our intention to completely remove these from the game. We realize this has caused confusion, so we are going to add these back for the next phase of PTS with the caveat that they may change form in the future. We are currently iterating on different ways of utilizing breaker functionality that doesnt necessarily require an independent icon on your hotbar as well as considering where interrupts fit in with the overall class and encounter design of 7.0. Because of this, we didnt include these in the testable ability sets on PTS.
Please keep in mind that breakers and Interrupts will remain in-game, they just might not appear in the same form as they are now.
Thank you for playing PTS and giving us your constructive feedback.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity