Five suggestions for GoH, from [iN] with love
January 15, 2016 8:25PM
edited January 2016
I'd like to start off this post by telling any dev that reads this a very important message:
I understand you probably hate when players try to suggest design changes as if you don't know better.
I say this due to having many friends in the game industry and if there's one recurring thing I've heard over the years more often than not, it's their dislike for being told how to “do their jobs” when it comes to designing the games they're working on by the casual player.
I get it.
So please, take all that I'm about to write not as me saying I think I know better and that you should absolutely take everything I say to heart, but more of me just saying this is some stuff the team and I feel strongly about after playing your game for two months as a player without a dev bias. Because let's face it, no matter who you are... no matter what you do or what you've created... you're always going to have a bias toward the decisions and things you've put in place.
These suggestions are relating to a lot of the hot topics in the forums and on Reddit, and are talked about daily in most inner circles of players that play Galaxy of Heroes right now. A lot of the stuff I'm about to suggest are concepts and things Team Instinct has discussed as a group over time and I'm simply putting it here as a written up list for consideration. Additionally, some of the things here may have been said already in other places – again, I'm simply putting it all in one easy to read spot by listing it here.
Please refrain from responding to this post with derogatory comments insinuating we do not know what we're talking about or that we come from a place that does not have incredible amounts of hands on experience dealing with these topics. If you disagree with something in this post, that is obviously completely fine, but I would appreciate it if you made the effort to toss in constructive feedback and opinions instead of needless trolling and conflict.
Also, any time I talk about gameplay in this post, it is almost exclusively referring to Squad Arena gameplay. I do not care about Light Side missions, Dark Side missions, Cantina missions, Challenges, Galactic War or Events. None of that concerns me. I play this game because I enjoy what Squad Arena brings to the table and my continuation of playing is directly linked to my hopes it gets better in the future.
Suggestion #1 – Try to define other roles as right now DPS is the only actual role in this game.
Tanks are not actually tanks. Support like Poggle are just there to make the DPS do more DPS, and their presence is nothing more than an extension of the DPS themselves. Healers have become all but negated by the overwhelming presence of Darth Sidious, and due to the handling of their skills by the AI are incredibly easy to play around. The only AI at the moment that you can rely on is AI that uses a character's abilities right away, IE: Old Ben, Poe Dameron, Poggle, etc., and while this opens the door slightly to "Support" guys sneaking in... it usually slams the door shut on Healers.
Support characters usually have a special place in my heart, and I love the idea of characters that allow for special builds and techniques in the perfect team compositions. As it is, though, in this game, “Support” as a concept is impossible due to how much damage DPS can deal relative to the health pools present. So how does one help to define tanks and support (and even healers) apart from the fact 98% of characters on Arena Squad line-ups are DPS-inclined?
Add more abilities similar to that of Royal Guard - skills that trigger passively when certain conditions are met, that do not require the character to have action priority to benefit from. This accomplishes many things, namely the ability to control parts of the fight even while DPS are nuking and your hands are off of the steering wheel. There needs to be more at stake in a match other than just nuke nuke nuke, and using Royal Guard as an example is perfect. With Royal Guard on the board, I do sometimes have to stop and say to myself “is attacking this character the appropriate action, given my % odds to cause Royal Guard to potentially pop his passive Taunt as a response to this action?” It's this sort of gameplay that adds strategic layers to the process, and in my opinion really diversifies the match-ups. It also allows for actual team concepts and designs given that builds are able to be constructed around these sorts of triggers taking place.
I really feel DPS in this game at the moment is too overpowering a concept in all aspects and labeling characters as Healer, Tank, Support etc. serves almost no purpose whatsoever.
PS Edit: If there is one Support that actually performs on some level, it's Old Ben. I did not mention him and he deserves mention. But, consider this: the only reason you even use Old Ben is because he's the only chance you have at slowing down the overwhelming amount of DPS coming your way. So, again, even if he's a "Support" that can be justifiably used and considered as such, he's still a direct answer to DPS and only that. He's not very complicated, doesn't really have many layers and his purpose is pretty straight forward. He's also the only example of a Support with any hope in a game with 70+ characters at the moment...
Suggestion #2 – Tone down the damage in Squad Arena.
Originally, we as a team had suggested the idea of doubling all HP across the board as a means to an end in having longer, more strategic battles. There would be less one shot kills, more time for group synergy, cooldowns would actually start to matter (fights often end before a lot of cooldowns even refresh) and ultimately could lead to a better experience.
However, upon further consideration, it became very clear this was not really practical. What happens with abilities based off of Health Percentage, such as heal skills? Do these just become incredibly overpowered? Do they then need a re-working as well? What about the PvE content – do you balance that for double HP too? Is double HP just a Squad Arena thing?
Obviously, double HP is a tricky beast. So let's consider the opposite as an alternative:
Cut all damage in Squad Arena by half.
This is not a new concept. In fact, a lot of MMOs and other games have adopted this strategy in the past, specifically for PvP, as a means to an end in having matches “last longer.” it effectively doubles the HP of all of your guys without having an adverse effect on any percentages or outside content.
To me, the biggest problem with Squad Arena right now is that most fights are determined by who gets the fastest kills off in the very first round of actions. This isn't really fun in any way whatsoever. Watching a character I've spent months of time and patience on to level up and gear up and skill up die in literally one shot from the enemy is not an experience I enjoy. Gaming should always be about having fun, first and foremost, and having matches last a little longer would go a long way.
Suggestion #3 – First Order Tie Pilot really needs attention.
First Order Tie Pilot is, in my opinion, the only character currently in the game that feels imbalanced and wrong. I can live with every other character in it's current iteration, save for maybe Sidious (which we'll touch on soon) but even Sidious is not due to his OWN power, but simply a LACK of power from competition. No... it's FOTP that sits as King of the Hill for many reasons.
First, FOTP was not fixed when Leia was fixed, with this recent content. He can still attack an extra time when using Double Tap, similar to how Leia would attack four times instead of three, so please investigate this and remedy it asap. This is a ridiculously strong bug to have in place.
Second, FOTP is designed to be primarily a glass cannon, and yet he is also bugged in that his STR stat swaps with his AGI stat at 7*, causing him to gain a tremendous amount of HP. This is well documented all over the forums, but I'm putting this here for posterity.
Third, and probably most importantly, Double Tap is far, far too powerful a skill to be his “basic” attack.
Assist attacks are incredibly popular due to the nature of their damage level. You get a hit in from one of your top DPSers while ALSO slapping them with another member of your team, effectively getting a 2-for-1 attack a majority of the time. First Order Tie Pilot basically has this built in to his basic attack, which means any time a member of his team calls on him, he's 2-for-1'ing them as an assister. This is really, really strong when looked at comparatively to other characters in this game at the moment.
Additionally, the damage modifiers on his skills are abnormally high when compared to a lot of other damage-dealers in this game. As shown on swgohdb.com, his Gun Down skill hits over a 3x multiplier, and Double Tap is not too shabby either. Even still, the real proof of his imbalance in Double Tap is highlighted by one simple fact:
Barely anyone ever uses his special attack, Gun Down, as Double Tap is almost always more effective damage and the better choice.
This is a clear indicator that something is inherently wrong with Double Tap as an attack. The design of a character's skills should not be that in which the special attack with a cooldown is a less-efficient, less-damaging skill than the basic attack they not only spam every turn, but also use as an assist attack.
The possible changes to this character that could potentially balance him out a bit more are as follows:
- Change the positioning of Gun Down and Double Tap, so that FOTP's base attack is a high-crit, high damaging one shot pop, and his special cooldown skill is the double hit attack. This keeps FOTP's overall single target damage relatively high, while reducing the over use of Double Tap's ability to effectively one shot kill most targets, even when being called on to assist.
-Slightly lower the overall damage modifiers on both skills to be in line with other characters.
-Fix FOTP's stat scaling so he loses the surplus health at 7* and becomes more in line with other glass cannon characters.
-Fix FOTP's extra cheatyface third attack on Double Tap. (It's DOUBLE Tap, not Double-but-sometimes-a-buggy-Triple Attack!)
-Slap him in the face a few times and tell him to calm down already, he's making everyone else look bad.
Suggestion #4 – Revamp many leader skills to open the door to diversity.
As it stands right now, Darth Sidious reigns supreme.
A lot of people farm Darth Sidious as an entry level F2P character, as he's somewhat easy to acquire and his power is very strong given that ease of entry. His leader skill adds both Crit Chance AND Crit Damage, and as far as consistency goes... there isn't much else like it.
This is where the problem lies.
I have no problem with Darth Sidious being a GREAT entry level character for ALL players and I would NEVER want to see anything negative happen to him. I think his stats are well balanced and his offensive skills reasonable (sans maybe the fact he makes healers almost obsolete), but I have a real issue with his leader ability... solely because there is not a single leader ability in the game on it's level.
There are a few contenders, and I won't disregard them. You could make an argument for, say, Captain Phasma. You could, sure. You could also make an argument for a similar damage-dealing ability like Boba Fett. You could even make a slightly weaker argument for speed abilities like Qui-Gon's, even given the fact they're currently not working properly and don't apply to the first turn. You could even suggest Luminara or Barriss for their passive heals.
But honestly, right now, that's about it. It's a telling thing when a person in my position, the whaliest of whales, who has access to 7* versions of every character in the game already at level 70, and who can make a team compisition of any 5 characters he so wishes, goes with Darth Sidious anyway because nothing really comes close.
Again, this isn't a bash on Sidious. This is a plea for the devs to take a second look at many passive leader bonuses in the game and consider giving them a boost to be competitive. I want to spice it up, I want to try other teams, I want to make some changes and try new leaders. But to be competitive in Squad Arena, you simply cannot deny the effective damage boost Sidious provides as leader when compared to other options. Gimmick teams just don't really work well, and a lot of bonuses right now only pertain to specific ally types.
Look at Qui-Gon Jinn, for example: his leader skill, at rank 8, removes the limitation of only affecting Jedi and gives the speed bonus to his entire team. Why can't more allies have this same sort of thing in place? Why can't we open the door and lift this cumbersome set of limitations so many leaders have?
Sidious, by himself, is fine but not great – make no mistake, his leader ability is the primary reason he sees so much play. What would happen if other lesser-used characters had Sidious's leader ability, word for word. Sure, this example lacks originality, but really... consider it – if you had ten guys with the same leader ability as Sidious, what then happens? The answer is, you begin to explore strategies below the surface of just their leader ability.
When I consider using Sidious, it's simply because of his leader skill. Nothing else matters. His HP, his AOE, his health debuff, none of this matters to me. You could kill Sidious as your very first action in the match and I'm pretty sure I would still use him every time, due to how powerful his leader skill is compared to other options. It's really just that bad.
No one likes nerfs, but everyone likes buffs. Please, CG, if you read this – consider giving other characters a ton of leader love. Don't nerf Sidious, buff the field.
Suggestion #5 – Please include a new character in every update.
Today was the first time we've had a real major update in the game since release (not counting the Force Awakens characters added for the movie's release), and it left a lot of us disappointed. I think you may underestimate just how much new characters mean to us.
You have a library of hundreds in the tank and access to thousands more in the Star Wars universe, which means you're at no short supply of potential inclusions. No one will ever say you need to completely overhaul the character database on every update. No one's looking for 20 new guys every month and no one expects brand new Cantina/GW/Squad Shipment specials every time you add content.
That being said, even just ONE new character any time you add content could go a long way. Seriously, even if it's just one. One new character adds so much to the game (so long as it's not a complete blank of a character, like.. say, Mob Enforcer~) and if spread out correctly, little specks of character additions here and there won't undermine your overall profitability or margins.
Just one, guys. One dude to mark an update. Consider it in the future. It's probably the biggest thing you an add to a game based around collecting guys, after all. Don't neglect our Pokemon-fueled obsession with collecting them all!
Those 5 are the big ones for me, the ones I think about daily while playing this game. Hope you enjoyed reading, and please leave feedback on what you think. Even if you disagree on any of these 5 points, please be respectful and keep comments civil. Thanks!
I understand you probably hate when players try to suggest design changes as if you don't know better.
I say this due to having many friends in the game industry and if there's one recurring thing I've heard over the years more often than not, it's their dislike for being told how to “do their jobs” when it comes to designing the games they're working on by the casual player.
I get it.
So please, take all that I'm about to write not as me saying I think I know better and that you should absolutely take everything I say to heart, but more of me just saying this is some stuff the team and I feel strongly about after playing your game for two months as a player without a dev bias. Because let's face it, no matter who you are... no matter what you do or what you've created... you're always going to have a bias toward the decisions and things you've put in place.
These suggestions are relating to a lot of the hot topics in the forums and on Reddit, and are talked about daily in most inner circles of players that play Galaxy of Heroes right now. A lot of the stuff I'm about to suggest are concepts and things Team Instinct has discussed as a group over time and I'm simply putting it here as a written up list for consideration. Additionally, some of the things here may have been said already in other places – again, I'm simply putting it all in one easy to read spot by listing it here.
Please refrain from responding to this post with derogatory comments insinuating we do not know what we're talking about or that we come from a place that does not have incredible amounts of hands on experience dealing with these topics. If you disagree with something in this post, that is obviously completely fine, but I would appreciate it if you made the effort to toss in constructive feedback and opinions instead of needless trolling and conflict.
Also, any time I talk about gameplay in this post, it is almost exclusively referring to Squad Arena gameplay. I do not care about Light Side missions, Dark Side missions, Cantina missions, Challenges, Galactic War or Events. None of that concerns me. I play this game because I enjoy what Squad Arena brings to the table and my continuation of playing is directly linked to my hopes it gets better in the future.
Suggestion #1 – Try to define other roles as right now DPS is the only actual role in this game.
Tanks are not actually tanks. Support like Poggle are just there to make the DPS do more DPS, and their presence is nothing more than an extension of the DPS themselves. Healers have become all but negated by the overwhelming presence of Darth Sidious, and due to the handling of their skills by the AI are incredibly easy to play around. The only AI at the moment that you can rely on is AI that uses a character's abilities right away, IE: Old Ben, Poe Dameron, Poggle, etc., and while this opens the door slightly to "Support" guys sneaking in... it usually slams the door shut on Healers.
Support characters usually have a special place in my heart, and I love the idea of characters that allow for special builds and techniques in the perfect team compositions. As it is, though, in this game, “Support” as a concept is impossible due to how much damage DPS can deal relative to the health pools present. So how does one help to define tanks and support (and even healers) apart from the fact 98% of characters on Arena Squad line-ups are DPS-inclined?
Add more abilities similar to that of Royal Guard - skills that trigger passively when certain conditions are met, that do not require the character to have action priority to benefit from. This accomplishes many things, namely the ability to control parts of the fight even while DPS are nuking and your hands are off of the steering wheel. There needs to be more at stake in a match other than just nuke nuke nuke, and using Royal Guard as an example is perfect. With Royal Guard on the board, I do sometimes have to stop and say to myself “is attacking this character the appropriate action, given my % odds to cause Royal Guard to potentially pop his passive Taunt as a response to this action?” It's this sort of gameplay that adds strategic layers to the process, and in my opinion really diversifies the match-ups. It also allows for actual team concepts and designs given that builds are able to be constructed around these sorts of triggers taking place.
I really feel DPS in this game at the moment is too overpowering a concept in all aspects and labeling characters as Healer, Tank, Support etc. serves almost no purpose whatsoever.
PS Edit: If there is one Support that actually performs on some level, it's Old Ben. I did not mention him and he deserves mention. But, consider this: the only reason you even use Old Ben is because he's the only chance you have at slowing down the overwhelming amount of DPS coming your way. So, again, even if he's a "Support" that can be justifiably used and considered as such, he's still a direct answer to DPS and only that. He's not very complicated, doesn't really have many layers and his purpose is pretty straight forward. He's also the only example of a Support with any hope in a game with 70+ characters at the moment...
Suggestion #2 – Tone down the damage in Squad Arena.
Originally, we as a team had suggested the idea of doubling all HP across the board as a means to an end in having longer, more strategic battles. There would be less one shot kills, more time for group synergy, cooldowns would actually start to matter (fights often end before a lot of cooldowns even refresh) and ultimately could lead to a better experience.
However, upon further consideration, it became very clear this was not really practical. What happens with abilities based off of Health Percentage, such as heal skills? Do these just become incredibly overpowered? Do they then need a re-working as well? What about the PvE content – do you balance that for double HP too? Is double HP just a Squad Arena thing?
Obviously, double HP is a tricky beast. So let's consider the opposite as an alternative:
Cut all damage in Squad Arena by half.
This is not a new concept. In fact, a lot of MMOs and other games have adopted this strategy in the past, specifically for PvP, as a means to an end in having matches “last longer.” it effectively doubles the HP of all of your guys without having an adverse effect on any percentages or outside content.
To me, the biggest problem with Squad Arena right now is that most fights are determined by who gets the fastest kills off in the very first round of actions. This isn't really fun in any way whatsoever. Watching a character I've spent months of time and patience on to level up and gear up and skill up die in literally one shot from the enemy is not an experience I enjoy. Gaming should always be about having fun, first and foremost, and having matches last a little longer would go a long way.
Suggestion #3 – First Order Tie Pilot really needs attention.
First Order Tie Pilot is, in my opinion, the only character currently in the game that feels imbalanced and wrong. I can live with every other character in it's current iteration, save for maybe Sidious (which we'll touch on soon) but even Sidious is not due to his OWN power, but simply a LACK of power from competition. No... it's FOTP that sits as King of the Hill for many reasons.
First, FOTP was not fixed when Leia was fixed, with this recent content. He can still attack an extra time when using Double Tap, similar to how Leia would attack four times instead of three, so please investigate this and remedy it asap. This is a ridiculously strong bug to have in place.
Second, FOTP is designed to be primarily a glass cannon, and yet he is also bugged in that his STR stat swaps with his AGI stat at 7*, causing him to gain a tremendous amount of HP. This is well documented all over the forums, but I'm putting this here for posterity.
Third, and probably most importantly, Double Tap is far, far too powerful a skill to be his “basic” attack.
Assist attacks are incredibly popular due to the nature of their damage level. You get a hit in from one of your top DPSers while ALSO slapping them with another member of your team, effectively getting a 2-for-1 attack a majority of the time. First Order Tie Pilot basically has this built in to his basic attack, which means any time a member of his team calls on him, he's 2-for-1'ing them as an assister. This is really, really strong when looked at comparatively to other characters in this game at the moment.
Additionally, the damage modifiers on his skills are abnormally high when compared to a lot of other damage-dealers in this game. As shown on swgohdb.com, his Gun Down skill hits over a 3x multiplier, and Double Tap is not too shabby either. Even still, the real proof of his imbalance in Double Tap is highlighted by one simple fact:
Barely anyone ever uses his special attack, Gun Down, as Double Tap is almost always more effective damage and the better choice.
This is a clear indicator that something is inherently wrong with Double Tap as an attack. The design of a character's skills should not be that in which the special attack with a cooldown is a less-efficient, less-damaging skill than the basic attack they not only spam every turn, but also use as an assist attack.
The possible changes to this character that could potentially balance him out a bit more are as follows:
- Change the positioning of Gun Down and Double Tap, so that FOTP's base attack is a high-crit, high damaging one shot pop, and his special cooldown skill is the double hit attack. This keeps FOTP's overall single target damage relatively high, while reducing the over use of Double Tap's ability to effectively one shot kill most targets, even when being called on to assist.
-Slightly lower the overall damage modifiers on both skills to be in line with other characters.
-Fix FOTP's stat scaling so he loses the surplus health at 7* and becomes more in line with other glass cannon characters.
-Fix FOTP's extra cheatyface third attack on Double Tap. (It's DOUBLE Tap, not Double-but-sometimes-a-buggy-Triple Attack!)
-Slap him in the face a few times and tell him to calm down already, he's making everyone else look bad.
Suggestion #4 – Revamp many leader skills to open the door to diversity.
As it stands right now, Darth Sidious reigns supreme.
A lot of people farm Darth Sidious as an entry level F2P character, as he's somewhat easy to acquire and his power is very strong given that ease of entry. His leader skill adds both Crit Chance AND Crit Damage, and as far as consistency goes... there isn't much else like it.
This is where the problem lies.
I have no problem with Darth Sidious being a GREAT entry level character for ALL players and I would NEVER want to see anything negative happen to him. I think his stats are well balanced and his offensive skills reasonable (sans maybe the fact he makes healers almost obsolete), but I have a real issue with his leader ability... solely because there is not a single leader ability in the game on it's level.
There are a few contenders, and I won't disregard them. You could make an argument for, say, Captain Phasma. You could, sure. You could also make an argument for a similar damage-dealing ability like Boba Fett. You could even make a slightly weaker argument for speed abilities like Qui-Gon's, even given the fact they're currently not working properly and don't apply to the first turn. You could even suggest Luminara or Barriss for their passive heals.
But honestly, right now, that's about it. It's a telling thing when a person in my position, the whaliest of whales, who has access to 7* versions of every character in the game already at level 70, and who can make a team compisition of any 5 characters he so wishes, goes with Darth Sidious anyway because nothing really comes close.
Again, this isn't a bash on Sidious. This is a plea for the devs to take a second look at many passive leader bonuses in the game and consider giving them a boost to be competitive. I want to spice it up, I want to try other teams, I want to make some changes and try new leaders. But to be competitive in Squad Arena, you simply cannot deny the effective damage boost Sidious provides as leader when compared to other options. Gimmick teams just don't really work well, and a lot of bonuses right now only pertain to specific ally types.
Look at Qui-Gon Jinn, for example: his leader skill, at rank 8, removes the limitation of only affecting Jedi and gives the speed bonus to his entire team. Why can't more allies have this same sort of thing in place? Why can't we open the door and lift this cumbersome set of limitations so many leaders have?
Sidious, by himself, is fine but not great – make no mistake, his leader ability is the primary reason he sees so much play. What would happen if other lesser-used characters had Sidious's leader ability, word for word. Sure, this example lacks originality, but really... consider it – if you had ten guys with the same leader ability as Sidious, what then happens? The answer is, you begin to explore strategies below the surface of just their leader ability.
When I consider using Sidious, it's simply because of his leader skill. Nothing else matters. His HP, his AOE, his health debuff, none of this matters to me. You could kill Sidious as your very first action in the match and I'm pretty sure I would still use him every time, due to how powerful his leader skill is compared to other options. It's really just that bad.
No one likes nerfs, but everyone likes buffs. Please, CG, if you read this – consider giving other characters a ton of leader love. Don't nerf Sidious, buff the field.
Suggestion #5 – Please include a new character in every update.
Today was the first time we've had a real major update in the game since release (not counting the Force Awakens characters added for the movie's release), and it left a lot of us disappointed. I think you may underestimate just how much new characters mean to us.
You have a library of hundreds in the tank and access to thousands more in the Star Wars universe, which means you're at no short supply of potential inclusions. No one will ever say you need to completely overhaul the character database on every update. No one's looking for 20 new guys every month and no one expects brand new Cantina/GW/Squad Shipment specials every time you add content.
That being said, even just ONE new character any time you add content could go a long way. Seriously, even if it's just one. One new character adds so much to the game (so long as it's not a complete blank of a character, like.. say, Mob Enforcer~) and if spread out correctly, little specks of character additions here and there won't undermine your overall profitability or margins.
Just one, guys. One dude to mark an update. Consider it in the future. It's probably the biggest thing you an add to a game based around collecting guys, after all. Don't neglect our Pokemon-fueled obsession with collecting them all!
Those 5 are the big ones for me, the ones I think about daily while playing this game. Hope you enjoyed reading, and please leave feedback on what you think. Even if you disagree on any of these 5 points, please be respectful and keep comments civil. Thanks!
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Replies
I am not sure I'd agree that FOTP is the only char that needs fixing, but he's definitely at the top of the list.
I'd only dispute the "don't nerf X, buff everyone else" comment, which is common in gaming discussions. All that really matters is relative power and utility. I definitely agree with diversification, but sometimes when one character is simply outshining all the others, nerfing that one character is a lot more practical than buffing 20 others.
Glass Cannons would still deal the most damage out of all damage dealers, their role as the primary damage dealers does not change. The only difference in functionality would be they don't simply one shot kill an enemy.
They're only an issue because of damage being what it is.
Fix damage and suddenly first round actions mean much less.
FOTP is ridiculous the way it is now, and the lack of new characters is disappointing.
I'd also like if they added useful heroes to shipments such as arena and GW even if they were existing heroes.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with over 10k tokens from arena due to lack of good options.
Only a few characters can one shot an enemy. You said buffing HP would cause problems with healers being OP but do not apply that logic to glass cannons.
I presented it more as a question. My personal opinion is that heals are very weak in PvP and easy to play around, coupled with the fact Sidious and Kylo apply heal negating debuffs easily.
If anything, having damage halved would possibly bring heals back as a somewhat viable strategy, albeit probably too weak to compete.
That's a fair point. But even so, I do think there's something wrong when a properly-leveled and starred team has to wait for the 5th or 6th or even later overall turn in a match before they get to act. You do not?
Poe is the obvious culprit here. A combination of very fast speed, a taunt, expose AND turn meter reduction.. does this seem reasonable to you? Honest question, because I respect your opinion. To me he just screams "broken" -- unless you get a lucky stun on him, you are probaby going to lose.
I can't go in to too much detail on this because we begin to break the veiled wall of what I like to discuss outside of Team-Only conversations
The important thing to remember is Poe only goes first if randomly selected out of a group that also hit round 7 with him, and currently that group includes Dooku, Sidious, Leia, Geonosian Soldier and Rey. Not a very large list, I admit, but when you consider how many of those are current Squad staples...
Sure, but again... I feel like this is more of a problem with the fact DPS can win the game in one first round of actions and less to do with having someone that can do what Poe does as early as he does.
Healing would not be weak at all if you applied 1/2 damage to everyone. In fact, we would be back to stalling lineups in Arena. 3 healer setups are more likely to be found in Arena than no healer setups.
The real problem has been a few select characters. FOTP obviously needs to be fixed.
Poe isn't everything. Consider that his base attack is very meh and his presence over another DPS means your assists don't hit as hard, as often. Also consider that while his first turn taunt is great, he... doesn't do all that much after that. If the opponent can stabilize, or if the taunt comes too late, Poe actually starts to feel like a blank.
Feedback, regarding: A possible approach could be: Adding damage mitigation exclusively for PvP/Arena. Either as a stand alone Stat or as a subcategory for existing Stats. Tenacity comes to mind.
Apart from Poe's 92% Tenacity atm (106% at lvl 73), no one really has that high of a number there. A lot of Characters actually float somewhere between 20% - 50%. Some even less, some more, so adjustments would be needed i guess.
Could work tho cause it would be a ~30% damage decrease in PvP on average.
Tanks could have naturally more "Tenacity" = Damage Mitigation/Chance to resist debuffs, Glasscannons less.
In some cases this destribution is already in the game. All that would be needed is to globally change how the Stat Tenacity works. Could be worth considering.
Armor mitigates physical damage. Resistance mitigates special damage. Tenacity mitigates debuffs. This stuff is already in the game.
"Increases the chance to ward off detrimental effects AND reduces the damage taken in PvP/Arena"
Sorry for little off-topic, but I thought a geo-soldier has 140 pts of speed and goes in the 8th round?
He has 140 speed when equipped in full gear lvl VIII, but at lvl 70 he can equip some gear from gear lvl IX. I don't really agree with how the Cantina (where I assume you got the numer 140) has presented their stats in this case as these stats are never(!) accurate if you want to see the maximum stats any character will have at lvl 70.
Will his speed be increased by 9th tier gear?
Hmmm...that would be interesting. It'd create a new meta for sure.
Yes.
I think if TIE is nerfed or changed, that would't really change the landscape of the game. I don't think it's just damage relative to health and healing either...it's the combination of damage + speed. So for your point #2 on damage, toning down overly powerful actions on speed early in the rounds is the best way to accomplish that. There just flat out shouldn't be early round ally calls, meter manipulation, and team offense buffs that occur in the first 1-2 turns of a battle. Throw all that stuff together and that's how you get what we have now. That's also why Sid's leader is so great because you're just concerned with maximizing damage as early in the round as possible. If speed weren't so out of control though, you might defer to some other leader skill that was more defensive in nature as you expect to actually need to absorb damage. Before all this speed stuff, I didn't particularly like Sid's leader skill as I wasn't protected enough. I use him exclusively now though as it's just a speed / damage contest.
Great post though - I admire your passion and level of care for the game.