Commando Archive

Well I just lost a TON of respect that I once had for ThunderHeart. If anything, ThunderHeart was ranting at us even though you definitly adressed the problem in a mature manner. I would sure love to see what ThunderHearts definition of "ranting" is.

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garvin wrote:

So tell me what you think of the letter and how you would respond to TH's Response...

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Garvin,

I disagree with your basic premise - its not a broken profession. Sure it needs to be improved, but its all being addressed in the combat balance, which I have stated over and over again. Besides, its still a fun profession and there are lots of players who like playing commandos, including myself, JustG and a lot of other team members.

If you wanted to have postive discussions, I would engage you, but you guys have to be more positive and stop ranting for the sake of ranting if you expect me to engage you in a dialogue.

th

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In other words, "you have given me too many facts that I cannot refute and cannot put a spin on, so I will not engage in a discussion with you."

You know, I was regretting dropping Master Commando, and all of Commando for that matter, but after this....there are no regrets at all because I know -now- that it will never be a complete profession like it deserves to be.

Thanks for being a defender of the faith Garvin, but seriously, it's probably time to turn out the lights.

Thunderheart, that was a pitiful response to a well thought out letter. You -have- to be a politician in real life. Not that you will read this anyway...

I would say his response is unbelievable, but it really isn't. Sadly, this is what I've come to expect from TH and all the other devs. He won't talk to us until we get more positive? I have seen countless requests, made in a professional manner that have gone ignored. What exactly does he expect us to do when asking nicely doesn't get us anywhere? Of course people are going to get upset. TH's response sounds like he's talking to a group of small children. You know, "while you may have some valid issues, I'm not speaking to you about them because you can't ask nicely." Thanks for nothing TH because that's what you have given us, nothing. Quite frankly, you may work for SOE on this project, but I'd have ot say we know our profession and how it plays better than you or any other DEV. We play it every day! All I'm asking for is communication. Not communication along the lines of "it will all be fixed in the combat balance." That tells us absolutely nothing. What is happening in the combat balance? We need specifics so we know whether or not this is worth sticking out. Without telling us, I can only assume that you don't know what is happening in the combat balance. You are just hoping that by saying that, we'll leave you alone because you have no answers.

Your test with commando vs. commandowas flawed, our weapons (short of the flame thrower) are broken, you nerf us every publish...these are facts, TH. Stop dancing around the subject or feeding us a line of crap. Give us the answers we deserve because we pay your salary.

To ask nicely, PLEASE

I highly doubt we'll be looked at as a profession any time in the near future. I'm guessing it'll be a month or two (if ever) after the revamp they want to put on an alter and worship so much.

Having a combat profession where the majority of players only use one of the skill lines makes it seem like there is a problem whether one or two of the devs care to see it or not. Unlike some of the other combat professions where a line or two is mostly for defense and other mods, all of ours contain weapon certifications. Out of the four trees of weapons (disposable and not), only one is used by the majority. Whether they're playing the class right or not, there should be a change made because there's something wrong there.

I just don't get the Jedi stuff though. If the devs didn't know that players would complain about permadeath to their jedis, what planet were they on? They had to know it would cause a mess to be stirred up. Only a small majority of players would have agreed with it ( I sort of do, but that's beside the point). Yet resources that could be used for the other professions had to be used to revamp something that should have never made it past the discussion stage anyway. *Big sigh here*

Anyway, thanks for the work Garvin. Whether the devs appreciate you or not, this forum does and I'm sure your work keeps some of us from really getting "negative" in here.

I get sick of hearing about the Combat Rebalance. For one, it's still months from completion. And even after that I'm still expecting it will be riddled with bugs. That's based on past experiences with these publishes. What are we supposed to do in the meantime over the next 6 months as this rebalance is rolled out?

Why do they waste their time with more and more dungeons, quests, etc... when there is so many problems with what is here and now? Why not take those developers and put them on fixing stuff instead?

/e looks for a response from developers....

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garvin wrote:

BTW...My actions lately (writing to the Dev's and Posting repeated messages incertain forums) are my own and I take full responsibility...

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Like hell they are, this is a war man!

Hey guys, look what I just dug up. TH claims to play as a commando! Like hell he does!

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garvin wrote:

This is meant to be a postive post offering some testing advice for TH to better understand our issues...

He stated the other day that he and a Dev friend logged into TC as Master Commandos and fought each other in a Cantina. I do not believe that was an accurate test to understand our difficulties...

TH...please try your test again...except this time try the following combinations:

Master Commando VS Master TKA - Start next to each other...Flame Special VS Spammed Dizzy/KD...

Master Commando VS Combat Medic - Start at 30m...Deal with ranged disease attack...

Master Commando VS Bounty Hunter - Start at 30m...Deal with ranged kiting and Mind Bleed...

Master Commando VS Any Ranged Profession - Start at 30m...Just deal with ranged kiting...

Master Commando VS Marksman Pistol Tree Only - Start at 30m...Again deal via ranged kiting...

Now remember...Commando is the "Heavy Weapon Specialist" of the game...We have "apparently" one of the most feared weapons and specials in the game...capable of causing serious grief...In all the above test scenerios, who is the victor? Don't use any secondary profession dabbling as not all Commandos have the same templates.

There are plenty of other combos for you to try, but Master Commando Vs Master Commando is just to even to fairly judge our profession...

Now, once you've tried fighting all those combinations, think about adding in the "no stacking" rule and "fire extingishers"...Our advantage (as you and others have expressed)doesn't seem to unfair once you've been in all these types of fights...

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I understand what you are saying. Im a commando and I play PvP. None of this flies.

Some things to keep in mind:

1. There is a combat balance underway / spamming will mostly be a thing of the past (its just gotten worse)

2. There is a PvP balance coming up next (next what? hasn't happened yet!)

3. Mind Bleeds / other Dots have been balanced (yeah, they deal less DoT, more base damage, a novice medic can survive our burn now if he's got a bit of armor on)

4. HAM costs changing (Uhh...Flamesingle2 only costs me 18 health, and I basically use your human setup)

5. Versus any ranged profession = no dice. Professions are neither "classes" nor is any one class supposed to have "everything" (we're not asking for everything, we're just asking for SOMETHING!)

6. I see Commandos drop Pistoleers all the time. The Pistoleers fret over the fact that they arent as powerful as other elite profession. (When? Not if they burstrun/kite us {which they all do}, I only get Pistoleers if they are stupid enough to get within 17 meters of me)

Fire DoTs arean unstoppable DoT. (like hell they are, just run into water, or use a stimpack A (since your beloved DoT does crap now in PvP)

Anything that can be done and NOT un-done is unfair. (How the hell did he get to this line?)

When you consider combat items, try to think of them as they will be and not as they are. (When we use them on an hourly basis? We're forced to think of them how they are)

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Assistant Community Relations Manager

TH must be a little 8 year old boy. He got his flame thrower and is so blinded by the cool fire that comes out he doesn't notice that everything else is broke. Its time you faced reality that commando sucks in the terms that it is not anything of what it should be and we get owned in PVP alot.

Sought after? When have we been sought after?

We have one working weapon...We have repeatedly (for over 5 months) tried to convey this...Because of this we've had to rely on this weapon...but as of late this weapon is getting decreased in damage it can do over and over...We understand the complaints about the DoT and offered up many good solutions...all of which were ignored...And a change has happened (the increase to the initial damage done) that is causing more NERF screams against Commandos then before...We tried to warn you...but again, we were ignored...

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One of the lesser fixes in the 7th publish is the HAR being enhanced and repaired, thunderheart said this in the In development forum:

"The HAR will be improved in this patch too - - remember, these are only the major features. Also keep in mind (sing it with me) Its coming in the combat balance....

All the combat changes will make sense at that point. (Its in progress...)"

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We are the ONLY ranged profession to has ALL of it's specials ONLY usuable within MELEE range...yet we have less Melee defenses then any of the elite ranged professions

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This i can agree with, if the profession has specials designed for close range then ranged mitigation isn't much use.

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Our DoT now does less then half the amount of damage that a Stim B can heal...A Novice Medic can heal the DoT damage faster then we can deliver it...so why is a blanket even needed?

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The very same can be said for any bleed other professions have, the fact is that someone can only carry a fixed amount of stims on them plus using stims means they cannot attack. So it's a very valuable tool even though its not going to be killing anyone now, someone has a choice between healing or attacking. If a medic is on hand then it's simply a counter but again they will run out of stims eventually. Stop crying because it's not all powerful anymore, the burns meant it was far too easy to kill someone to begin with.

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Heat Resists are a good thing...I'm glad they work...but it was WAY TO EARLY for them to start working...If we had another weapon to use this would be ok...but our FT is our only working weapon without bugs...again, we tried to tell you this but were ignored...

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Again please note that at the very least the HAR is now fixed and will be upgradedplus will be live within the next 4 weeks.

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Our grenades incapp and do more damage to the user then the target...Our HAR is beyond fixing and is completely useless (it has the same restrictions as the FT, but no DoT and does less damage thent he FT...plus the mods don't stack properly)...No WS wants to spend the time and resource crafting our Consumable weapons...Where does that leave us...

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The HAR is certainly not beyond fixing, indeed it has already been fixed internally it seems. We haven't been told if grenade are also being repaired as these minor changes are not the major part of the next publish. Once the full patch notes start to appear on the TC forum you will know what is left to be repaired.

I have to agree with garvin that the profession isn't broken, things do work. But they do not work very well, the profession isn't optimized you might say however it does work. They have taken a few steps towards optimizing it and that will make a huge difference. I do however dislike how garvin says that we're ranting and being generally non-constructive. I see many many good ideas and rational posts on these forums. However the devs need to realise that ignoring us is simply making things worth, they need to break this cycle because they cannot rationalize the fact it has been more than 6 months and our profession has had very little fixed or looked at. There have been no discussions about what should be done with the profession. Equally I have to agree that theres far too much mindless ranting from some of the community and it's not helpping at all. A rant such as this you sent to him isn't helping matters. How do you avoid a rant? Simple. You offer the problem and then a solution, that then becomes a constructive post.