Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, took some time at PAX East to speak with us about what players can experience playing through Taral V and other Flashpoints. He also graciously shed some light on a few debated topics like healing classes.
Hit the jump for the full interview, and enjoy the read as we prepare for our second day of full PAX East coverage.
What are you showing here at PAX?
The big thing we are showing is the Taral V Flashpoint, and this is a Level 32 Flashpoint for four very experienced players. We had a lot of discussions beforehand, and most of the time for a media piece, we will actually kind of buff people up to make sure people who aren't real familiar or whatever. This time we said, "Forget that! People want to see the real game."
There is a lot of talk about "we don't get to play, we don't get to play..." So awesome; we came full tilt. You got to have your stuff together. Get your team. Train them up. We're not sending people in blind; there is a great little training booth where people come in and pick their class beforehand. They sit down and get a full briefing on their class: how to do it, what their major rotations are, what each class is doing in each piece, and then they are going to go in. They are going to go try to fight through the Flashpoint and take on a very difficult boss.
We picked an interesting group to show off the Advanced Classes. We have the two Jedi going in as DPS, the Trooper as the tank, and the Smuggler as a Scoundrel healer. It is kind of a fun feel. People interested in the Consular haven't seen much except the healing side. Now they get to go in, play the Sage, and do some other stuff with it.
There was some speculation on the forums about the healing capacity of each class when it comes to healing in a group. By showing off the Scoundrel as the healer, is that basically saying that the healing paths, regardless of which one of the ones you go, are all competent healers? Is the Consular healer and the Scoundrel healer on the same page for healing a Flashpoint?
Absolutely, although they heal very differently. The actual game play for them and the way that the healing feels -- and without seeing the class breakdowns, it is kind of hard to explain -- can be very different. The Scoundrel can stack various heal over times on somebody. He can actually go on his Trooper and drop three of the heal-over-time medkits on him and then kind of leave him alone for a minute, get back in, try to take some people off, go from cover, do that sort of thing. So it is a different approach than maybe you might have for the Consular, who might be taking more of a direct "Hey, hit that guy, hit that guy, hit that guy. . . ."
Whack-a-mole.
Yeah! Different classes really play their healers differently -- which is really fun. You can obviously also be as much healer or not. And this is something that is kind of a little odd, but when I go Inquisitor healing path, I don't put it all in there. I don't actually go dedicated. I actually find it works really well for how I play to maybe bring my healer CC, for me, and then do a little bit of healing on there, and then actually go a little more like, let's do some damage and get to stay in the fight.
So you can play a healer in these multiplayer things and hybridize a little bit to do more than just whack-a-mole?
Absolutely! And especially if you have more than one person taking that approach, you can definitely build your classes differently if you know that you're going to be in a group all the time, and you have a pretty good idea of what that group dynamic is going to be like.
We saw other Flashpoints before; we got to play a little bit of the Esseles at Jedi Immersion Day. How is Taral V unique or different in comparison to other Flashpoints that we saw or heard about?
Well, one of the big things here is that it is outdoors. The ones we showed so far were big ship pieces. We wanted to show a little bit of the space of Star Wars. Taral V is actually a ground mission; moving through the jungles, going sort of outside, and taking on an Imperial base. It has a very different feel to it. Also all the things where we did before, where we had explosions coming through the walls and stuff like that... we get to do some great stuff like that. Taral V has lightning storms. It is a really, really beautiful planet. But you're actually seeing something like... you'll go and you're about to fight somebody or there's a monster, but then the lightning comes down, knocks down a tree, then the tree catches on fire. And if you run through that fire, then you catch on fire. You'll see the lightning hit down ships that are trying to come in to drop people down to come in. You can actually do a little bit of environmental finagling to say like "Hey monster, you want to run through the bad part here to come get me?"
One thing that is a hallmark of the Star Wars: The Old Republic marketing is "story, story, story, story, story." By approaching a multiplayer Flashpoint, is this BioWare's stance of saying "yeah, we've got a ton of great story in there, and it even works multiplayer. But this is a MMO, we're showing MMO stuff, and this is classic MMO"? Is that kind of the goal with showing this here?
Absolutely. The Flashpoints are not a classic MMO in the sort of dungeon romp thing, right? We want to make sure there is still contextualization, that each moment of it is actually fun, and that you're not just sort of going through a long period of stuff. There are bonus quests in there, there is optional content, there are bosses you don't need to deal with, and there is a whole bunch of stuff to explore. We try to take our core philosophies of RPGs and even put them in the Flashpoints. But it is showing "hey, this is built for multiplayer." The conversations that are in there are interesting -- but they're shorter, and they're faster. They tend to be built with a little bit more room for sort of... let's say random comedy or crazy. Because when people are in groups, they want to try to shock each other with the stuff. One of the things in the multiplayer dialog that is obviously really fun is that different classes have different lines in there. So the Smuggler will bust out with something you didn't even have a chance to vote on, and you're like "Whoa! Hey! What went on there?" But we want to get you through that; we want to get you interested, and then we want to get you back into the action as fast as possible.
With all the different options for where you can be: ranged, melee, ranged tanks, melee tanks, etc. -- what are some of the difficulties that you've encountered with creating these Flashpoints having the different classes fill such unique roles, from ranged healer to healer sitting behind cover, and things like that?
It is a lot of play testing, and it is a lot of balance obviously. And we just pound them again and again and again and again. We have a crack combat team that comes in, they do stuff and help out after the Flashpoint team has done their amazing passes. A lot of it is about having the space. One of the things is that the Flashpoint is big. They're 90 minutes if you are a crack team of amazing amazingness. Otherwise, if you decide to do all the stuff on the sides, they're big because we need that space. When you're talking about the ranged guys, there is nothing that feels sadder than when you've got a guy with a gun and his gun shoots three feet, right? So we need you to feel like "hey, we've got snipers." Which means the bare space for design that we have to build for every combat encounter is really large. It expands the size of our world to something really big and even our Flashpoints have to take up a lot of terrestrial space.
One quick thing about the side quests you mentioned and about the divergent paths that aren't necessary for completing it... are these things that are purely recreational, or are they quest-linked? What is the inspiration for getting someone to go over there? Is it just loot, is it story, or so many different versions that add a lot to going through a Flashpoint?
Some of it is story because there are times that you'll actually go through a different path because you've made a large story decision. And then there is a lot of the... let's say the extreme stuff; like there's going to be bosses in there that if you're a group that can take the Flashpoint but you're an amazing well-oiled machine... you're just not going to touch them, right? There is stuff that is just in there for challenge. There is stuff that is just XP and mad loot, stuff that's for completionists, etc.
We had Stephen come up on stage just a second ago and reaffirm BioWare's position on talking about release dates, and I just wanted to see would you like to share with everyone what he said about what the release date is for Star Wars: The Old Republic?
Sure. The release date is still 2011. We haven't made any further announcements from there.
Before we leave you... your class, and has it changed? Are you still thinking an Imperial Agent for story and interested in other things?
Right now, I am knee-deep in the Inquisitor and I'm playing an Assassin. I'm sneaking through the world and putting my lightsaber through people from behind, and it is a whole lot of fun. I did not expect that Kim Vaal would turn into one of my favorite companions from a personality and feel sense, but it is great stuff. But the same thing happens every time I move into a new class because I'm like "I'm gonna play that."
Thank you very much.
You guys enjoy!
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Posted 3/12/2011 12:57:33 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 5:08:12 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 7:20:09 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 5:26:35 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 6:02:37 AMIn WoW for example, you have a pool of people that have climbed to said level and are used to said skills and mechanics, given that scenario, I can see this flashpoint being a walk in the park for the average player. Hopefully this part is still in testing, most mmo's continue to tweak difficulty post launch for years to come.
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Posted 3/12/2011 5:29:43 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 6:30:32 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 7:58:55 PMthe point is, no mmo gets it right, the only 2 that came close were eq1, eq2, and wow,,,, BW has like 13 years of examples to learn from. Honestly, they should have been clear that this was altered to make it easier for pax - now it just looks like sloppy testing & communication (to at least me). Good thing they have a ton of $$$ and time, unlike most games,
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Posted 3/12/2011 4:14:12 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 5:10:02 PMthat or just a change in statement to get more leeway just in case...
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Posted 3/12/2011 10:51:07 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 4:15:51 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 3/12/2011 4:36:40 AM