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 9/10/2011 5:42:24 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 12:04:28 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/11/2011 8:55:12 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 10:53:39 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/10/2011 4:14:07 AMYeah, I guess if I didn't actually read about the game I'd think it was World-of-star-wardcraft too.
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Posted 9/10/2011 3:11:32 AMAs in PvE though I'd like to see some challenging party content (I don't have 8-24 friends to make up an operation, and hate pugs), I admit that the most work in a game possible is to organize a raid. And even if some whine about it, the most challenging too. So it's just fair that it also gives the best loot available.
We yet to see the exact itemization, how better will the "absolute best" than the others. We still don't know if Bioware will follow the tier system or come up with a more constant or less radically growing idea.
Until then, there is no point sulking about it.
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Posted 9/11/2011 12:09:35 AMThey've said repeatedly that you can mod level 10 armor so that it is viable in endgame content.
PvP gear will give about a 10% advantage(so they claim) so those who get a full set over those that just use PVE armor(which is better than most games, in which if you don't have PVP gear you get utterly and completely destroyed, a 10% advantage should still allow people who know their classes well to be able to at least compete)
I would imagine high end Operations gear gives you maybe 5-10% advantage over standard Quest, modded, and crafted armor with some crafted armor having the best in slot. You might not be able to do heroic Operations without it, but you can still more than Normals without having to grind gear and their system of drops of Normals(everyone gets a bag of loot from each boss which may have a useable armor piece, or if not then tokens to buy said armor) should mean that gearing up for Heroics isn't as difficult as in others AND you don't have to do any high end Flashpoints to do Operations, you can go straight in.
All in all, I think it sounds like a very well streamlined and sensible gear system than certain other MMO's have, which rewards people's work rather than being almost entirely random chance based.
Of course, I obviously don't know for sure, but it sounds like they've kept your concerns in mind when designing this game.
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Posted 9/10/2011 12:29:24 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 9/11/2011 12:13:17 AMI completely agree that transparency, where practical, is a good thing, and I have actually been very impressed with Bioware in the last few years about just how transparent their processes are(For a video game company anyway) but they do have to keep some things under wraps so that a)they surprise people, and b)they need to make sure the idea is going to work before they announce it to avoid a lot of anger and confusion form the players.
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