PAX Prime: James Ohlen Interview
Back at PAX Prime 2011, we had the opportunity to catch up with Star Wars: The Old Republic's James Ohlen to talk about the task of balancing combat between different game systems, end game design decisions, and the home stretch of game testing.
You had some time for testers to sink their teeth into the game since we last caught up with you. How far along is the game at this point, and are there any big features that are still yet to be implemented in testing?
James Ohlen: At this point you can play from level 1-50. You can play the end-game Operations, and the end-game Flashpoints. We have the whole game in place. We are focused on polishing the experience right now; making all the worlds as high-polished as the beginning worlds and ensuring all the features like Warzones are very well balanced. We're also continuing to balance the big group content like the Flashpoints and the Operations. It is very important those are our most balanced content, because they are going to be used over and over again. Players will obviously play a Warzone dozens and dozens or hundreds of times during the course of the game, so it needs to be really well done. The Flashpoints are also something that a group is going to do multiple times.
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On that point... how are you approaching class balance? We heard a lot about mirrors and how you may need to keep things somewhat similar to each other, while still keeping them separate but unique in their own ways. Can you speak to how that works in PvP?
Well, PvP does impact class balance. The combat design team is led by Georg Zoeller, who is my lead combat designer. They're always communicating with Gabe Amatangelo, who is the Flashpoint and PvP guru of the group, and so they're in close communication. Gabe has a lot of experience from Warhammer Online on how to balance PvP combat, so he'll just talk to the combat team and tell them, "Hey, try to avoid this, or "Please don't use these kinds of abilities, and "Be careful with the stuns; we don't want to stunlock the player in PvP. Things like that, and the combat team uses that. Occasionally, I'll come into it and make a dictate that makes everyone run around with their hair on fire, but they'll usually solve that.
There was some talk about making sure CC has a more integral part in Operations going forward for Star Wars: The Old Republic. When balancing PvP combat with Operations, what is there for players that are interested in seeing both of them balanced? How difficult is it to balance combat so that it is good for both PvE multi-party Operations and the PvP Warzones?
It is difficult. We do have different levels of creatures, so some of your abilities will work differently. For example, you'll be able to stun, like a standard enemy or a strong enemy, but you're not going to be able to stun a boss or a player with that same ability. So some abilities will not have the same effect on a target that they would on a weaker target, which is a way to give players stun abilities, and sleep abilities, and other abilities that take that creatures out of combat without making it way too powerful in a PvP situation, or in a scenario where you're going up against a big boss. That is just because the more powerful enemies and other players have a lot higher resistance to certain kinds of abilities.
Huttball is obviously a new game type. Are we going to see more of those types? Additionally on the Operations front, are we going to see more than one Operation at launch as well?
Well, we're definitely going to see more Warzones. We announced two so far for launch, I don't think we're talking about how many we're going to have for launch, and I think I can say we're going to have more than two. For Operations, I can't really comment other than we have the one. We obviously have a post-launch strategy. We're going to continue to release content, and a lot of the content we want to release is directed towards the high-level players. So yeah, we do have a lot of content I can't talk about right now in development for after we launch the game.
Regarding the Gabe Amatangelo Q&A on Twitter he mentioned that early game Flashpoints would be balanced to Level 50. Is this something you guys are employing to make sure that you have hard-mode difficulties to lead people into the Operations? What drove that decision?
Well, there are two major reasons. One is that we want to have a ton of content for our Level 50 players, and this is one way to do it. Essentially, all those Flashpoints throughout the whole game will be available in a hard mode at Level 50. Also, many of our Flashpoints are really great story experiences that we don't want players to miss. There is a chance of missing them because you might level by doing your class story and world quests, so you never do a Flashpoint. Then you get too high level for it, and there is no point so you continue on, and you never get to play it. But now you do. Once you get to the end of the game, you can play at the hard-mode version of it if you want to.
In that case, is the gear comparable to what the Operations are, or they just supposed to lead you into the Operations?
In terms of gear, the absolute best PvE gear in the game is going to come out of the Operations. If you want to get that ridiculous-looking gear that you see other people run around in, you're going to have to join into multiple groups and go there. But there is a lot of cool stuff that you can get from the high-level Flashpoints, but it just isn't the absolute best stuff.
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Posted 9/11/2011 9:06:13 PMPvP and re-rolls with friends are where I will be spending time.
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Posted 9/12/2011 3:02:25 PMMaybe I wont care that much if its rare to encounter such large Bosses, but still..
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Posted 9/11/2011 5:46:05 PMAnd it is kind of disappointing to think that they are not planning on to make more mini-games such as the puzzle we saw, I am going to be rolling an imp after all, I'd really love to see some more unique stuff thrown at my class since I'm not running around with a glow stick or anything..
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Posted 9/11/2011 12:21:56 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 5:06:35 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 7:38:59 AMPersonally id love to see more puzzle mechanics as they really are something unique, and if its just the odd tower of hanoi then it'll be pretty disappointing.
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Posted 9/10/2011 9:10:46 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 3:27:15 AMI swear to God they're so used to keeping secrets about the game they can't bring themselves to give a straight answer like it's a thought crime.
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Posted 9/10/2011 4:12:32 AMObviously, they haven't released all of them yet, and he can't talk about them.
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Posted 9/10/2011 5:44:27 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/11/2011 12:01:02 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 7:01:01 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 5:08:09 AMjust look at that profile shot of him. add a dark-hooded cloak and the identity of the emperor has been revealed.
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Posted 9/10/2011 2:27:57 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 1:17:41 AMIn all honesty my biggest disappointment with the game so far is the end-game operations. I just have the overwhelming sense of "been there, done that....no thank you."
All of the best gear will come from the end game operations...."been there, done that, no thank you." Just reminds me of another unspecified game that I do not want to play. Why would it be so difficult to let the players create the best gear and have a nice solid player driven gear economy?
you have the light side battling the darkside within the republic and sith empire. You also have the sith empire battling the republic. Just seems that the bulk of the end game should be pvp engagements. Heck if people dont want to pvp vs other players let them "pve" the pvp encounters vs bots or something.
I guess I was looking forward to "next -gen" MMO and feel like they are delivering World-of-star-wardcraft instead.