Everything’s coming up Zoeller in this week’s DevTracker highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers everything from cooldown readability, protocol droid maintenance, and the Legacy system, to modification workbenches, speeders, and Rakata-level items from Nightmare mode Operations. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.
Georg Zoeller acknowledges concerns about the new way abilities their cooldown status.
Georg ZoellerWe hear your feedback and are working on adjustments to increase the readability of the cooldown UI in an upcoming patch.
-- Georg
Georg Zoeller takes on the role of customer service as one forum voices his concerns about C2-N2’s protocol.
Georg ZoellerDear Sir,
I am writing to you in response to your complaint about our product, the C2-N2 droid. We regret that you are experiencing difficulties with this award winning, state of the art household droid.
Sadly, we have to inform you, that the C2-N2 droid, and its Imperial counterpart, the 2V-R8 autonomous ship maintenance unit, are not rated for combat at this time.
Several regrettable incidents, including the loss of a full squad of SIS operatives (apparently triggered by a malfunctioning speech unit voicing its congratulations to the undercover team during a deep cover infiltration mission), have lead the Republic Technical Support Corps to revoke the combat certification from these units and forced us to replace the 'advanced weapon and martial training ROM' from the programming of the unit.
These facts have been clearly disclosed to customers at time of sale, as well as in the programmatic introductory conversation program voiced upon owner transfer.
For this reason, we cannot take responsibility for your problems.
We are however pleased to announce that future updates to the unit's artificial intelligence core will dramatically increase the efficiency of it's emergency medical protocol features - and add some other, more questionable features.
The C2 Droid Corporation is also pleased to announce that we have started investigations into a new line of droid casings and cores, aimed at improving the efficiency of the unit's assembly and construction features. No official release date for this line of top end equipment has been determined at this point.
We thank you for your interest in our product.
The Management
C2-N2 - The only thing that crits is his voice in your earchannel!
Georg Zoeller gives an update when more information about the Legacy system will be unveiled.
Georg ZoellerWe believe that our Legacy System design strikes a great balance between players that like to play multiple characters and players that rather focus on one main character in endgame.
We know you're anxious to hear more, and don't worry, we'll talk about it in the future before patch 1.2 goes live.
Georg Zoeller hints at a possible new function for modification workbenches.
KyromooSo, if the workbenches are completely unneeded....WHY did we have one added to the supplies area of the fleet in a patch?
Georg ZoellerTo confuse you?
Okay, maybe not just that. Maybe we have plans for those benches...
Georg Zoeller disputes the correlation between ability delay and the delay when mounting a speeder.
RealAeiouyThe speeder issue has NOTHING to do with ability delay
Georg ZoellerCorrect.
The speeder issue is a separate problem (the cast bar is client anticipated and therefore not reflecting the state of the server) that will be handled as a separate fix in the near future.
Georg Zoeller notes that existing Rakata-level items will be upgraded in a future patch.
Georg ZoellerHi,
This issue will be fixed in an upcoming patch. (Not 1.1.1)
Items already acquired by players will be upgraded automatically to the fixed versions when that happens.
Comments
I think that some of the issues percieved with Rakata Survivors' (insert token) armor/set pieces are that people don't value Accuracy highly as a tanking stat.
This is mostly for Kesitah ->
We don't just have to survive, we have to generate threat. If you have proper dps'ers, you know that they can and will get aggro if you're not pulling all your moves right.
Yes, special moves start off with 100% hit chance, but ops bosses have between 8%-10% defence, meaning you as a tank need to weigh that in a bit aswell as all the other stats in order for you to not have a straight 8%-10% miss chance with your Wither & other threat generating abilities.
And as for defense being worse - well, if you have a lot to start with, then sure..
I suggest you go to sithwarrior.com and read some of their theorycrafting and you'll see that at any given rating, with the def/shield% ratings being somewhat even (and absorb% ½ of that) (more than 100, less than 600), +10 rating to any of the 3 stats def/shield%/absorb% will give the about same lifetime expectancy increase/overall damage taken reduction.
Question is whether you wanna be an avoidance tank (max def out at the cost of everything else) or a soak tank (maxing shield%/absorb%) - and I think the answer is neither.
Since the mechanics of diminishing returns kick in at varying points, they're all pretty balanced and unless you have a unique need to not get hit by a particular boss, then having balanced stats means you get more % out of the same number of rating points than if you were to emphasize one over the 2 others.
I also know that it's easy to be misled by the highflying numbers of absorb% if you just add a few more absorb rating, but remember that absorb only comes into play after your def% is taken off AND if the hit is shielded.
Theorethical Damage taken (overall) = unshielded hits + shielded hits =
(1-def%)x(1-shield%) + (1-def%)xshield%x(1-absorb%)
The above doesn't factor in the raw damage mitigation from the armor from armor pieces, and that also makes rakata more attractive because of the higher raw armor values.
Please no more accuracy on eliminators bh armor >.< and before anyone opens their mouth about needing it, no, you don't. As of now it's only useful in pvp. Never once has my tracer missile\unload\heatseeker\railshot been dodged by an ops boss. Ever.
Thank god they are fixing the Rakata set. The Guardian 'Rakata War Leader' set has surge.........wtf?
I think he's probably referring to the fact that current Rakata MH/OH weapons are rating 126, NOT the 140 as you'd expect, which means that getting a rakata weapon atm is actually a downgrade dps- wise because of the loss of raw base dps.
It is not just the weapon... 5 pieces Rakata Survivor have according to my Beta-TC-tool: 98 Absorb Rating, 147 Defense Rating and 0 Shield Rating - but 98% Accuracy (sry, my tool currently doesn't add up the accuracy in rating, only in %). Due to the way Absorb and shield influence each other the 0 rating is pretty bad. Columi got 119 Absorb, 111 Defense, 96 Shield - much better! And only around 4% wasted in Accuracy, not 8%...
Also, why do only have the DPS/Heal Relics have the +77 End, while the tanking ones got +51 End/+some Will ? It would make more sense the other way round.
Yes. I was just today testing the first betaversion of my theorycrafting tool "Project Shield" (a tool to decide on best equipment, similar to WoW's "Rawr" program) and was very surprised when I saw that *every single* Columi set item was better than the Rakata. I checked my maths, the maths was correct. The problem is that the Consular Tank ("Survivor" set) Rakata set is defense-heavy, while the Columi set is Absorb-heavy, and the Consular tank - while liking both stats - scales much better with Absorb. Also I don't get it why they put so much Accuracy on the tank set? Got a feeling of deja-vue, in WoW they also tried this for a while, and tanks were trying to avoid the accuracy/hit as best they could.
I believe/hope that along with the mh/oh fixes that's also implying an overall boost in stats, because a 5 or 6 point jump in str from my rakata pieces from columni is a bit weak.
I agree with both of you here
The weapons were the obvious mistake. Thought I consistently see and hear about people ripping mods out of others sets--just so that they can 'fix' the poor stat selection of the Rakata pieces.
he better not be refirring to just that. a few sets need a massive change