Fan Site Summit: Gabe Amatangelo Q&A
While in Austin for BioWare's Fan Site Summit, the developers treated us to several question and answer sessions. With the second embargo now over, we are able to unveil the last session in the series featuring Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo.Hit the jump for the audio embed as well as the full transcription of the session.
Musco from TOROCast: So my question is right now the pace of combat in PvP is very, I don't want to say slow, but it's not three shot killing. How's that going to scale when you get higher into the end game as people are doing more damage, are people going to die faster, or is the pace going to stay how it is now?
Gabe Amatangelo: I don't like the pace going too fast I don't want to go too fast if people are one-shotting two-shotting each other. Burst having its place sort of towards the end when you see health pools getting low and you want to use your cooldown etc. To burst at that point, I think is the right, fun way to go, kind of sort of a strategic thinking PvP type situation with some twitch to it as well. Is it going to change? No, we want to try to hit that same beat all the way across. Is it going to change from what it is right now? Yeah I mean we are going to tune it a bit certainly, but principally that is what we are going for, it is not FPS one-shot two-shot type thing.
Gamona: My question is how difficult is balancing all the classes and advanced classes and also in terms of PvE and PvP, like balancing all those things?
Gabe Amatangelo: It's easy, it's just magic we just snap our fingers and it all comes together. No, Georg and I sit next to each other so we talk hand-in-hand and there's compromises made between PvP and PvE, but at the end of the day things when you have mechanics like guard and you have things that bolster stuff like that, we have the instruments to tune the difference between the two. Again I mentioned it, no I didn't mention in the presentation, but we're committed to ensure that everyone has a role in PvP but there's going to be at least one spec in every advanced class that's going to be that sort of 2% competitive edge in PvP we're committed to do that. More hopefully, but we'll be monitoring to make sure that everyone has that, that there's not going to be an advanced class that's like, hey I've got no PvP place, they will. That's what we're committed to keep hammering at.
Dover from Darth Hater: We just got a chance to play a whole lot and a lot of what Musco was asking was the health took a long time for someone to take down. I noticed that the scoreboard at the end had a lot of heavy emphasis towards high points on the force users because they're in there and able to take a lot of hits, whereas Imperial Agents and Smugglers have a little bit of a harder time with the cover and whatnot. We totally took advantage of some points but we were kind of useless on other points because portable cover kept getting knocked out. That two discordant play styles, managing those is that covering all the maps, are you guys making sure that all the maps have cover spots for everything?
Gabe Amatangelo: So I mentioned it when one of the groups was playing, we were in-between in this build, we were in-between cover texts so there's not as much environmental cover as intended, so there will definitely be more environmental cover, and the portable cover of course you know that's handy wherever you're at. There's also spec like entrenched, you can spec it to make it so you're totally immune to stuns while in cover, which of course has huge place in PvP. But again, we're going to keep testing and iterating. You brought up the health pool question again and the TTKs basically the times to kill, it's a little bit on the heavy end we're going to tune it we're going to dial it back a bit, we're not going to dial it back against so much to where it's the one shot two shot type thing.
Tom from TOR-Talk: I was just wondering is PvP going to be more based upon gear than skill, is it going to be vice-versa, or is there going to be a good balance of both?
Gabe Amatangelo: So the matchmaking system we have is dynamic. It tries to match premades against premades and number of healers against number of healers, those kind of things. It does a bunch of different magic tries to bring them together and be an equal match, and then it does a bolster, and it brings everyone to, our goal is to bring everyone to at least 80% effectiveness of one another, so level spectrum and gear is going to make up that other 20% difference. So then, gear basically is about a 10% difference, so we do want to carrot PvP players to earn that gear and get an edge but it's not going to be like a 50% difference, so skill is going to have a big part and a bigger part. It's not going to be like, hey I've got my full set of PvP gear, you have your full set of PvE gear, bam one shot, get out of PvP. No it's not going to be that, but it is going to be if you go toe-to-toe equal skill everything remaining equal, you're going to have the 10% edge, so skill is going to play a bigger part than I think most people are used to seeing.
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Posted 5/6/2011 4:50:14 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 6:41:59 PMGreat interview, and hats off to BioWare for thinking about how to expand the potential of PvP
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Posted 5/5/2011 5:02:26 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/6/2011 9:44:03 AMzero-sum
Adjective: (of a game or situation) In which whatever is gained by one side is lost by the other.
Situation or interaction in which one participant's gains result only from another's equivalent losses.
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Posted 5/5/2011 6:24:09 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 6:37:07 PMSWTOR Character Names:
Wound in the Force:: Avinoam (Lvl 50 DS Assassin), Gurion (Lvl 20 LS Sith Juggernaught), Adomin (LVL 33 DS Sentinel),Achinoam (Lvl 10 Grey Consular), Tzahala (LVL 14 DS Trooper),Juliraus (LVL 9 Grey/Dark BH)
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Posted 5/5/2011 6:13:41 PMSWTOR Character Names:
Wound in the Force:: Avinoam (Lvl 50 DS Assassin), Gurion (Lvl 20 LS Sith Juggernaught), Adomin (LVL 33 DS Sentinel),Achinoam (Lvl 10 Grey Consular), Tzahala (LVL 14 DS Trooper),Juliraus (LVL 9 Grey/Dark BH)
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Posted 5/5/2011 5:59:54 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 4:51:59 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 4:41:47 PMAnyway, I'm a much bigger fan of open world PvP and this info hasn't done much to get me excited about Warzones. We'll have to see how it all plays out in the game but this is one area of TOR that BioWare does not have me excited.
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Posted 5/5/2011 5:56:04 PMReally the only thing that a lowbie character in a high level group loses in number of abilities, they would only have the few abilities they have at their level. Those abilities might be just as strong as a max level character's, meaning lowbie characters might just end up a bit more focused.
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Posted 5/6/2011 12:42:21 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 8:42:38 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 4:40:31 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 5/5/2011 4:23:30 PMThe bolster idea is fantastic. Letting a 10 play alongside a 30 is going to help out a lot with getting new people into the game and letting older players play with their newer player friends. Great idea.
Also, I am VERY happy to hear that pvp gear will only be marginally better than other gear. I am speaking as a pvp player here, and there is nothing more frustrating than a pvp match being decided by gear before it begins. It doesn't matter if you are on the receiving or giving side, it's fun for nobody. Healthy, balanced competition, is and always has been the key to great pvp. I'm glad they didn't go overboard with pvp gear bonuses.