Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Publish 8.2 Feedback: Death Watch Bunker
Well they locked the Corvette thread without one reply to all the concerns about the Super Battle droids. There are players who make groups that try to do things fairly and they get penalized. I'm quickly loosing interest in this game and fear its going off in a direction that isn't worth the time invested into it.
The BH armor uses a similar random mobs dropping random loot that Asheron's CAll used a couple years ago for their epic Shadow Armor quest. I promised myself at that time that I"d never doa quest that invoved spending so many tedious hours doing something I didn't enjoy to get a reward.
There is nothing wrong with making things challenging and if these dungons are for just the 1% of the super elite defense stackers then please inform your player base of this so we can wait for cool combat quests that involve more human elite master professions.
I'm not really sure what the purpose of this new content is for. The power gamers who have hours and hours per day to play? Those are generally the only types that can kill hundreds of mobs needed to get your quest items. Devs always tout that their games are aimed at the so called casual gamer, yet they make these quests that require 40, 80, 100 hours, or more,of in game time to complete.
Getting all my equipment chewed up with nothing to show for it isn't fun. I have to spend more time running tedious missions to pay for the maintence of my equipment. When does the fun start? Finally during the past two updates you add some interesting content, but instead of fun you make it so impossible its not worth doing. I just don't understand what the point of wasting so much dev time to make things that few if any will ever see or complete.
When the Geonosian Lab was released, I was somewhat shocked to see medium armor creatures popping up in the game as regular fare for the new dungeon, but I thought it was cool and reasonable to expect these genetically altered super mutants to be covered in a natural medium armor. Looking at the official SWG page and reading a quote about armor, I found:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Advanced%20Guide%20Armor%20Fundamentals
"Personal armor always falls into the Light category with None being reserved for those with no armor and the other two values being reserved for armored vehicles and especially nasty critters."
Okay, so medium armor may apply to nasty critters.. maybe heavy armor refers to armored vehicles or even ancient mystical beings. Personal armor always falls into the light category, it would seem.
When the corvette dungeon was released, suddenly we saw suits of personal armor on our NPC foessporting armor ratings of medium and even heavy. I was a little confused, and even more confused on how the combat professions with only light armor piercing were expected to participate in any meaningful way against these opponents. The damage that a light armor piercing weapon will do to a heavy armor opponent with six digit HAM is just so incredibly low as to be almost unnoticeable. Not even a commando's zero armor piercing flamethrower, famous for its massive damage, can hope to do much against a heavy armored foe, especially when hitting random pools with every shot.
Now, with the release of the death watch bunker, the resists and armor on droids being so high as to effectively make swordsmen no longer play the role of "armor piercer", where do we turn to find a profession who can actually do damage to the droids?Acid (40% SBD) and electricity (25% SBD) seem to be the biggest weakness of the droids, along with heat coming in a little behind (60% resist for SBD), but what kind of armor piercing weapons do we haveforthese three categories?
Acid pistol and carbine are light armor piercing.. that's not gonna do much against heavy armor.The commando's heavy acid cannon is pitiful as always, butmade even moreso with its lack of armor piecing versus heavy armor. Bounty hunter's scatter pistol is light armor piercing as well.Light lightning cannondoes a fair amount ofdamage, but again is crippled by its light armor piercing, along with the fact it can only target random pools, making your SBD battle experience that much longer and painful as you watch the gun scratch away at 250000 x 3HAM bars.The Commando's flamethrower with a SBD at 60% heat resist and heavy armor just isn't enough to do the damage at zero armor piercing, and its random pool targeting makes for another painfully long experience. The Pikeman's electricity lance is eyebrow raising, but at light armor piercing you're in for another slow experience (but at least can target the action pool with an army of pikemen and acid carbineersto shorten the pain).
Who can we turn to for the most reliable support in this time of need? The only logical choice in the DWB, from what I can see, is the rifleman and his DXR-6B disruptor rifle. It's acid damage, it's good damage, and it's _the only acid weapon with medium armor piercing_. In fact, it's the only weapon that can cause damage to droids in the DWB that does medium armor piercing in a dungeon filled with medium and heavy armored droids.
The point I'm trying to make is.. the armor "inflation" is getting worse and worse with the passage of time, and fewer professions are able to participate in any meaningful way in the new PvE areas. If light armor piecing is supposed to be reserved for personal armor, then why do Corvette captains in leather suits walk around in heavy armor? Where can I get my own suit of personal heavy armor?
Something needs to be done about this armor inflation, and making heavier and heavier armor isn't the solution. While there are a lot of issues regarding PvE, PvP, and combat balance in general, there is absolutely no fun in spending ten minutes watching a group of ten players hit and hit and hit and hit the same SBD for minimal damage. I've seen scenarios get so boring that people just start chatting in the group chat about everyday topics unrelated to the DWB scenario at hand, because they all know it's a ten minute wait before you need to consider the next move besides your hit spam.
And for anyone who's gathered twenty players together to take on the death watch bunker, and watched them all get wiped out, you may want to consider the armor piercing issue as the reason everyone died. It's not because you need FORTY players to get anywhere, but more because you didn't have the right armor piercing profession and damage type profession in abundance. You need riflemen with acid rifles or you won't get very far. Teras Kasi, Swordsmen, Fencers.. they have no place doing damage in the DWB. Their only role is to serve as damage soakers and tanks while the acid shooters do their job. You're much better off with the same profession in abundance than spreading it out. Having a bounty huner's LLC, a pikeman's electricity lance, and a rifleman's acid rifle isn't going to be nearly as effective asthree pikemen hitting the action pool, or three riflemen hitting the mind pool. Three bounty hunters with LLC isn't terrible, but not great either when you can't target a pool.
In conclusion, the death watch bunker is interesting, but plain hopeless without medium acid piercing riflemen as the main assault force. That's not a great dungeon design, in my opinion.
GRONDASTOMP WROTE:
\
When the Geonosian Lab was released, I was somewhat shocked to see medium armor creatures popping up in the game as regular fare for the new dungeon, but I thought it was cool and reasonable to expect these genetically altered super mutants to be covered in a natural medium armor. Looking at the official SWG page and reading a quote about armor, I found:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Advanced%20Guide%20Armor%20Fundamentals
"Personal armor always falls into the Light category with None being reserved for those with no armor and the other two values being reserved for armored vehicles and especially nasty critters."
Okay, so medium armor may apply to nasty critters.. maybe heavy armor refers to armored vehicles or even ancient mystical beings. Personal armor always falls into the light category, it would seem.
When the corvette dungeon was released, suddenly we saw suits of personal armor on our NPC foessporting armor ratings of medium and even heavy. I was a little confused, and even more confused on how the combat professions with only light armor piercing were expected to participate in any meaningful way against these opponents. The damage that a light armor piercing weapon will do to a heavy armor opponent with six digit HAM is just so incredibly low as to be almost unnoticeable. Not even a commando's zero armor piercing flamethrower, famous for its massive damage, can hope to do much against a heavy armored foe, especially when hitting random pools with every shot.
Now, with the release of the death watch bunker, the resists and armor on droids being so high as to effectively make swordsmen no longer play the role of "armor piercer", where do we turn to find a profession who can actually do damage to the droids?Acid (40% SBD) and electricity (25% SBD) seem to be the biggest weakness of the droids, along with heat coming in a little behind (60% resist for SBD), but what kind of armor piercing weapons do we haveforthese three categories?
Acid pistol and carbine are light armor piercing.. that's not gonna do much against heavy armor.The commando's heavy acid cannon is pitiful as always, butmade even moreso with its lack of armor piecing versus heavy armor. Bounty hunter's scatter pistol is light armor piercing as well.Light lightning cannondoes a fair amount ofdamage, but again is crippled by its light armor piercing, along with the fact it can only target random pools, making your SBD battle experience that much longer and painful as you watch the gun scratch away at 250000 x 3HAM bars.The Commando's flamethrower with a SBD at 60% heat resist and heavy armor just isn't enough to do the damage at zero armor piercing, and its random pool targeting makes for another painfully long experience. The Pikeman's electricity lance is eyebrow raising, but at light armor piercing you're in for another slow experience (but at least can target the action pool with an army of pikemen and acid carbineersto shorten the pain).
Who can we turn to for the most reliable support in this time of need? The only logical choice in the DWB, from what I can see, is the rifleman and his DXR-6B disruptor rifle. It's acid damage, it's good damage, and it's _the only acid weapon with medium armor piercing_. In fact, it's the only weapon that can cause damage to droids in the DWB that does medium armor piercing in a dungeon filled with medium and heavy armored droids.
The point I'm trying to make is.. the armor "inflation" is getting worse and worse with the passage of time, and fewer professions are able to participate in any meaningful way in the new PvE areas. If light armor piecing is supposed to be reserved for personal armor, then why do Corvette captains in leather suits walk around in heavy armor? Where can I get my own suit of personal heavy armor?
Something needs to be done about this armor inflation, and making heavier and heavier armor isn't the solution. While there are a lot of issues regarding PvE, PvP, and combat balance in general, there is absolutely no fun in spending ten minutes watching a group of ten players hit and hit and hit and hit the same SBD for minimal damage. I've seen scenarios get so boring that people just start chatting in the group chat about everyday topics unrelated to the DWB scenario at hand, because they all know it's a ten minute wait before you need to consider the next move besides your hit spam.
And for anyone who's gathered twenty players together to take on the death watch bunker, and watched them all get wiped out, you may want to consider the armor piercing issue as the reason everyone died. It's not because you need FORTY players to get anywhere, but more because you didn't have the right armor piercing profession and damage type profession in abundance. You need riflemen with acid rifles or you won't get very far. Teras Kasi, Swordsmen, Fencers.. they have no place doing damage in the DWB. Their only role is to serve as damage soakers and tanks while the acid shooters do their job. You're much better off with the same profession in abundance than spreading it out. Having a bounty huner's LLC, a pikeman's electricity lance, and a rifleman's acid rifle isn't going to be nearly as effective asthree pikemen hitting the action pool, or three riflemen hitting the mind pool. Three bounty hunters with LLC isn't terrible, but not great either when you can't target a pool.
In conclusion, the death watch bunker is interesting, but plain hopeless without medium acid piercing riflemen as the main assault force. That's not a great dungeon design, in my opinion.
Hmmm... still 23 pages w/ NO Dev Response
Not as many complaints... but I think that's because there are not too many people going to the DWB???
Bowoci wrote:
Hmmm... still 23 pages w/ NO Dev Response
Not as many complaints... but I think that's because there are not too many people going to the DWB???
-Sebun
Masanis wrote:
Just got back from my second try at the DWB. Did everything right. 30 people. Ranged in one group, Melee in another. 5 CMs, 3 docs (res is useles, btw), BHs and all sorts of tanks.
You know when I do something wrong at my job I have to admit my mistake. At what point will you SOE devs admit that you messed up? It's ok to occasionally make a mistake, it happens. I forgive you all for that.
But Super Battle Droids should not out-number the amount of Death Watch in the bunker. Period.
Stenka Razin
Master BH
Soon to be ex-Galaxies subscriber..
Bounty Hunter Armor that Bounty Hunters can not get because everyone and there mother is grabbing it...then...you have to goto a place were you as a Bounty Hunter cannot do a single thing to get mando armor...who would want to give the nerfed BH armor.
I've only been on a month and I've seen things that impress me, but this along with the corvette and the geo caves is just plain stupid. Why make a mission so impossible to do unless you have the ulitimate armor, weapons and characters with you. I wouldn't mind it if you did it once...but every expansion in the game you put is so hard that the new players, mid-level players, high level players cannot do it.
Only the rich, best armored, best weaponed, most broken combat classes in a group are able to do these. That is what disapoints me. Now I don't want a free ride, I want it to be hard...not impossible.