Commando Archive
Thread: Preview of Combat Balance from Publish 8
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garvin
Fri Mar 12, 2004 5:36 pm
#1
Well, they just posted a preview of what's coming...it really doesn't say much, but for some reason it gives me a bad feeling they way they keep stressing "bring them in line with each other"...
Combat Balance: A major Combat Balance pass will be happening in Publish 8. The goal of the combat balance is to make combat challenging and equitable across the combat professions. The Combat Balance consists of several aspects.
The first aspect is the Weapon Balance. The Weapon Balance pass is intended to bring relative power of weapons between professions more in line with each other. This is not to say that they will all be the same. Different weapon types will still have various strengths and weakness providing different abilities in which they are ideally suited. Certain weapons classes will stay more or less powerful than the average but this is to reflect a balance paradigm of the profession that uses those weapons. Additionally weapon certifications will be rearranged to provide a better power progression and to better match up with when Weaponsmiths are granted the schematics to craft them. A major goal of the weapon balance pass is to provide players with a consistent and balanced power progression as they advance up their profession as well as providing interesting and varied weapon choices at all skill levels.
The second aspect of the Combat balance will be the HAM redesign. A very critical part of the overall combat rebalance is the change to the functionality of the HAM system. This change will allow a greater ease in balancing overall HAM costs for weapons and special moves. It will also allow Mind to be removed as a special damage type and place equal emphasis on Health, Action and Mind pools for both abilities and damage.
The third aspect is the Profession Balance. Once the underlying core systems for combat (weapons, damage & HAM) are balanced it will be possible to look at all combat professions and balance them in a way that emphasizes each of the professions roles in combat and to give purpose to each individual player as well as reasons for choosing various profession combinations in groups. This includes a skill mod balance, skill tree progression tweaks, combination stacking, special abilities (existing and some new) and overall difficulty.
Lastly is the follow up to many of the preliminary changes that have been made so far. This includes balancing armor, buffs and DoTs, bringing them in line with the combat balance overall.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=140548
TechnoHic
Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:15 pm
#2
Heh, the thing is yo8u never know how they are going to get you until they get you, leaving you ill prepared and quite possible totally disapointed in their plan for your professions of choice.
Seems to me they like to see you grind non-stop on this game by not letting you know ahead of time what they themselves are planning for the role of a profession, so you take it then a month or so later, its nothing like you expected it and I think its funny for those that just want the uber class but for those of us that just want what was described it sucks.
Thanks for the info Garvin.
Raptor2k1
Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:56 pm
#3
"bring them in line with each other"...
Well, I'm hoping this means we'll at least be able to compete with the other elites, as we should be able to. There is some hope to be seen here...
tacwraith
Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:08 pm
#4
I think its all hogwash.
Here, let me activate my B.S.-to-English translator... *beep*
"Combat Balance: A major Combat Balance pass MAY be happening in Publish 8. The goal of the combat balance is to make equal for all proffessions, from the skillpoint expensive Commando and Bounty Hunter to the no combat proffessions like Artisan. All these classes will have the same ability in combat, but their weapon graphics and animations will remain unique. The Combat Balance consists of several aspects.
The HAM balance will be different from what it is now in the game. The fuk up we will make with this new ham system will hopefully end up fine-tuned by the end of 2004. Weapon certifications will be made more ridiculous to tackle the paradigm currently facing players in the game. This means that very powerful and out-of-proffession role weapons like the genosian rifle will continue to be added, for we do want everyone to have the same combat capability. Our Art team will franatically work to churn out more and more of these fabulous weapons before we fire them and replace them with trained chimps (like we did with our programming teams that handled netcode and the teams that managed proffession balance).
Lastly is the follow up to many of the preliminary changes that have been made so far. This includes making armor even more pointless to wear unless you are a doc, buffs and spices and chef foods will become mandatory to purchase and constantly consume to have a chance in combat (the economy you know) and DoTs will continue to be nerfed until we feel they are a waste of code and delete them...bringing all these in balance with the combat review."
Here, let me activate my B.S.-to-English translator... *beep*
"Combat Balance: A major Combat Balance pass MAY be happening in Publish 8. The goal of the combat balance is to make equal for all proffessions, from the skillpoint expensive Commando and Bounty Hunter to the no combat proffessions like Artisan. All these classes will have the same ability in combat, but their weapon graphics and animations will remain unique. The Combat Balance consists of several aspects.
The HAM balance will be different from what it is now in the game. The fuk up we will make with this new ham system will hopefully end up fine-tuned by the end of 2004. Weapon certifications will be made more ridiculous to tackle the paradigm currently facing players in the game. This means that very powerful and out-of-proffession role weapons like the genosian rifle will continue to be added, for we do want everyone to have the same combat capability. Our Art team will franatically work to churn out more and more of these fabulous weapons before we fire them and replace them with trained chimps (like we did with our programming teams that handled netcode and the teams that managed proffession balance).
Lastly is the follow up to many of the preliminary changes that have been made so far. This includes making armor even more pointless to wear unless you are a doc, buffs and spices and chef foods will become mandatory to purchase and constantly consume to have a chance in combat (the economy you know) and DoTs will continue to be nerfed until we feel they are a waste of code and delete them...bringing all these in balance with the combat review."
ScootieJoogab
Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:27 pm
#5
...It will also allow Mind to be removed as a special damage type and place equal emphasis on Health, Action and Mind pools for both abilities and damage.
Bless me bagpipes! Am I reading that wrong, or is that suggesting that Mind damage might be removed from combat? You must be kidding...that's way too awesome a thought to actually be true.
Or maybe they're removing the restrictions on healing it? I guess it's intentionally cryptic.
Still, I don't understand the reason for a three-bar system where customization is truthfully non-existant. You can't customize a "combat" HAM setup because each bar is equally vulnerable to damage that can incap you. What's more, armor encumbrance forces most people into extremely even HAM setups anyway. I wonder if any of these issues will be addressed in the HAM revamp?
Jaxtrax
Fri Mar 12, 2004 10:21 pm
#6
hmmm didn't really say anything... It's kinda like listening to a politician speak. Lots of words yet no real answers. This could be something good. (doubt it). Or it could be something that is really really bad news for us as commandos.(more likley). Or it could mean not much of a change at all.
They have been spouting propaganda about combat balance and "in the name of balance" For quite a while. The end result of that jabber was us getting nerfed into uselessness. they felt we were to powerfull even with 3 broken trees. Did they fix the trees to balance us out? NO. They just nerfed the only tree that worked untill it didnt anymore. They didnt stop there now lets add high heat resist to all the new content and hey why not add high heat resist and fire blanketsfor playersto defend even further from a now weak weapon.
Now the real question is... Is this how all this was presented to us as fair balance before it went in to action last time? Answer NO.
Learn from the past. My opinion on the new combat balance system is we are not gonna like it one bit.
StarVoyager
Sat Mar 13, 2004 5:19 am
#7
Bear with me.
I think jaxtrax has some valid points here and I would like to make some of my own. The more Iuse my flameunit the more tweaking I think needs to be done to it. Just a little bit. Make it fire faster. No repeat fire. Thats my biggest complaint with it(outside of the DoT crap). As far as the rest of our weaponry goes I'm still trying to ponder whydo our weapons keep getting liquidated ordonot get fixed? The acid rifle is supposed to be fixed as of Tuesday morning(Publish 7) next week but I can't help but wonder is it going to be just like the flameunit? SLOOOOOOOW fire rate with a little bit lower damage rate? If so why?!?!? Once again as I've said in previous posts commandoes(with rifleman and bounty hunters)should be FEARED. Why? Because we're Damage Inc. that's why!!!!!!
If the developers are not going to allow us to have a weapon that will fire faster and have a special attack at full range, then MASSIVE changes need to be made to the launcher pistol(with AT LEAST 2 special attacks at 64m) and I think just one new weapon withalittle bit better fire rateshould be awarded to us all. Those of us that have master commando I dont believe are getting all of the speed mods for any weapon that we should. When friends of mine that are rifleman are doing more damage(and have MUCH slower speed and a lower damage rate)than i can do there is a problem. Please rifleman dont take this the wrong way because I want the rifleman profession to stay EXACTLY as it is now. NO LIQUIDATIONS!!!!!I love watching friends of mine fire their weapons with this accuracy and speed it's sweet. They kill enemies fast. Another profession that should be feared in my opinion. Why dont we get the same rewards and mods? Because too many people in this game want to fight commandoes and win the fight a LARGE majority of the time with a weapon that does a minimum on average of 90-100 damage(which may be a little high) as compared to 300 to 400 plus minimum for the commando. Because of this our speed modswere takendown just a little too much I think at least with the flameunit. Do I think commandos should be able to fire their weapon as fast as say a pistoleer? Of course not but I don't want to be a snail either lol.
In closing this is what i feel: Our job is to hit hard fast and accurately and make sure those we face can onlyuse their speed and agilityamong other things to get out of our way when all he!! breaks loose.I am hoping that the new updates in publish 7 and 8 improve instead of liquidate our profession. Thanx for reading even if you do not agree.
Later
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