Play of the Day (SWTOR): En Fuego

Posted on 2012 April 7 by Ed Park

In this Play of the Day video, I buy enough time under heavy focus fire to line up 3 opponents for a one-way trip into the fire pit.

Here is the spec used in the video:
– Gunslinger: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#700bcrrdRoo.1
– Sniper: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcrrdRoo.1

I play as a Sharpshooter-spec’d Gunslinger, which IMO is one of the most underrated specs in the game. One key defensive talent is Spacer, which adds 2 meters to the distance for your knockback. Those 2 meters make a *big* difference :)

To see me PVP’ing live, check out my TwitchTV channel. My stream features real-time commentary and between matches I interact with the Chat Room.

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GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/star-wars-the-old-republic-video/the-republic-swtor-show/

Posted in Gunslinger / Sniper, PVP, SWTOR, Video

SWTOR Ranked Warzones: Rating Calculation, Matchmaking, and Gear

Posted on 2012 April 2 by Ed Park

On Friday, BioWare posted in-depth information on how the Ranked Warzones will work.

Here’s how the rating system will work…

In Game Update 1.2, any level 50 player will be able to queue up for Ranked Warzones by themselves or in a group of any size up to eight players. Performance will be tracked on every player who participates, as a rating that will be adjusted with every match won or lost (leaving counts as a loss and prevents you from re-queuing for several minutes) considering the ratings of all other players in the match. In other words, if the enemy team has an overall much higher rating than you and your team, your rating would only go down a small amount if you lost. Players will have a separate Solo and Group rating, meaning only the rating for which the player queued will be affected by each match.

…so the rating system is similar to WoW’s Rated Battleground system – i.e. rating is attached to each player not to a team. I’m glad to see that there is no requirement to create a team with a roster. Of course, players can form teams if they want, but it’s not enforced by the game itself.

As far as solo vs group queuing…

However, in order to ensure that players won’t have to wait too long for a match to occur, the system will become more ‘flexible’ over time. Solo and group queued players might be pulled together after a while if needed to launch a match.

…I don’t like this at all. I was looking forward to queuing solo for Ranked Warzones to play with and against 15 other people who queued solo. It’s the ultimate competitive PUG. Having solo players face a premade for Ranked Warzones makes no sense, because it’s unfair matchmaking.

But there’s more…

If a match cannot be made for extended periods of time, then Normal and Rank queued players (except those who queued as a group of five or more) might be pulled together to launch a ‘mixed’ match

…yikes. I’d rather wait for a longer queue pop than fight with or against players who are not queuing for the same kind of match that I am. The whole point of Ranked Warzones is to create a competitive context where you get matched up against opponents of roughly the same skill level.

At least it sounds like “flexible” and “mixed” matches will be temporary…

We know that the flexible matchmaking and mixed matches are not ideal. They are only in until cross-server queuing is available and are the primary reason Ranked Warzones in Game Update 1.2 are Pre-Season, along with the opportunity to collect data and refine various systems in preparation for Season One.

How do you avoid these issues for group Ranked Warzones during Pre-Season? The solution is to queue as a full premade of 8…

Note, Rank queued players will never be prompted to backfill a match. So you’ll never be placed in a match that is about to end that could cause you to suffer a negative rating adjustment. Additionally, the Group rating is adjusted regardless of the size of group you queued up with and groups of five or more players are never called into mixed matches. So for complete control over the fate of your group rating, we suggest you queue up with your seven closest buddies that are good at PvP!

As far as buying the new War Hero gear…

Ranked Warzone Commendations in tandem with the equivalent Battlemaster piece can be used to purchase pieces of the brand new set of PvP gear called War Hero. There are no other requirements for purchasing or equipping this gear.

…the key thing to note: in order to buy a War Hero piece, you need the equivalent Battlemaster piece. Some of us have been min-maxing by mixing different BM set pieces. E.g. I am currently using the Trooper healing (Combat Medic) implants, which have Crit/Surge instead of Power/Surge, because my goal in 1.1.5 is to get to ~400 Crit Rating. So in 1.2 I’ll need to buy the Battlemaster Eliminator (DPS) implants if I want to upgrade to the War Hero Eliminator implants.

There is a 2nd set of War Hero gear…

Additionally, there is a set of Rated War Hero Gear and mounts which do have Highest Rating requirements to purchase and wear. Rated War Hero Gear has the same stats as regular War Hero Gear, except with a more prestigious appearance.

…and thankfully this gear won’t provide a stats advantage.

The rewards at the end of the match are based on team and individual performance…

The final score for your team at the end of a match now always directly affects the rewards of all players on your team. So, high scoring games will reward more. Thereby better preserving reward meaning for continued good team performance – even if it looks like your team is losing. Experience reward is an exception to this. It will be a factor of time in the Warzone and participation.

Players who earn few to no medals will have their overall rewards reduced. For example, if a player goes ‘AFK’ for some reason and gains no medals, they will receive no rewards.

There are twelve new objective medals awarded for thresholds of objective offense and defense points which are earned for various objective accomplishments and participation (e.g. help defend a door in Voidstar, passing for score and scoring in Hutball, heal allies near an objective in Alderaan, etc.).

…and this is the way it should be. One of the things that I found most irritating in WoW was the mentality of “let them win, it’s faster Honor” when things weren’t going well in the first minute of a battleground. The game mechanics should not encourage intentionally losing matches. And one of the most gratifying experiences is turning around a match.

And finally, we’ll be able to vote to kick AFK players…

Players will be able to vote to kick AFK players out of a Warzone. Any player can vote to kick a player through the group context menu. This will not initiate a vote prompt, but rather must be actively sought out by multiple players. Once a player has received several votes they will receive a prompt indicating that they’ll be kicked from the Warzone in a few seconds if they do not engage in combat or defend an objective. A player who is kicked from the Warzone in this manner will be returned to their original location before they queued, and will not be able to queue up again for several minutes.

…although I don’t recall seeing players on my server (Ajunta Pall) on either faction who were chain-AFK’ing matches. But I do understand it’s an issue on other servers, so the addition of this functionality is a good thing.

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GAMEBREAKER Host for “The Republic” SWTOR show: http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/star-wars-the-old-republic-video/the-republic-swtor-show/

Posted in Game Design, PVP, SWTOR

The Skinny on the SWTOR Class Balance Changes on PTS 1.2

Posted on 2012 March 16 by Ed Park

The patch notes for PTS 1.2 are up: http://www.swtor.com/test-center/patchnotes/313976

Simply put, the number and degree of class changes are significant.

I’m an advocate of the approach of tweaking fewer things, putting them on Live, and seeing how  balance is impacted. That has been the working mode of BioWare up through Patch 1.1.5. However, in 1.2 many classes are being changed in significant ways, and it’s hard to tell whether the changes will collectively bring classes into the desired balance.

After talking with my Maven guildees on Vent, below are our thoughts on the notable initial changes in 1.2. For brevity, I do not cover every single change.

Summary

  • Overall
    • Sustained healing for 2 of 3 ACs nerfed
    • Instagib / burst DPS nerfed
  • By AC
    • Guardian / Juggernaut significantly buffed
    • Sentinel / Marauder significantly buffed
    • Sage / Sorc healing took an arrow to the knee, for DPS no more proc to insta-cast AOE
    • Shadow / Assassin basically untouched
    • Commando / Mercenary sustained healing nerfed. Grav Round / Tracer Missile damage nerfed
    • Vanguard / Powertech can’t hybridize tank with right-hand DPS tree, and the RNG burst has been lowered for that tree
    • Gunslinger / Sniper buffed
    • Scoundrel / Operative healing buffed, DPS instagib nerfed

Sentinel (Marauder)

  • The Focus / Rage cost for CC abilites is being removed. I think this is a fair change, because previously you’d have engage in combat before having the resources to use CCs.
  • The “Execute” ability is usable at 30% HP instead of 20%
  • The healing debuff can’t be cleansed
  • Watchman tree
    • Can no longer talent the in-combat stealth to provide 100% damage mitigation. A nerf, since damage will break you back out of stealth
    • Cauterize can be talented to snare at 50%, so this removes the GCD contention with the “Hamstring” ability
    • Valor is now in Tier 1 of the tree, which is great as any spec can take it
  • Combat tree
    • Fleetfooted now buffs the Transcendence buff. This change keeps the Combat tree consistent with being about mobility and anti-kiting
  • Focus tree
    • Inner Focus causes Zen to provide up to 4 stacks of Singularity. This is consistent with the philosophy of being able to generate resources immediately (or not need them) to do something you want to do
    • Improved AOE damage via the Swelling Winds talent

Guardian (Juggernaut)

  • The Focus / Rage cost for CC abilites is being removed. I think this is a fair change, because previously you’d have engage in combat before having the resources to use CCs.
  • The “Execute” ability is usable at 30% HP instead of 20%
  • Finally, Guardian gets a CC effect early: Charge stuns at level 10. However, some players are concerned about building Resolve on the target, whereas the existing root effect does not build Resolve
  • Defense tree
    • Blade Barrier was moved down a tier. This fantastic ability will become reachable for Vigilance / Defense hybrids
  • Vigilance tree
    • Single Saber Mastery damage buff no longer tied to stance. Everyone will likely take it
  • Focus tree
    • Inner Focus causes Zen to provide up to 4 stacks of Singularity. This is consistent with the philosophy of being able to generate resources immediately (or not need them) to do something you want to do

Sage (Sorcerer)

  • Seer tree
    • Conveyance buffs have been nerfed. The fast-cast, mana-inefficient flash heal is having the mana cost reduction replaced by increased Crit Chance. The greater heal is having the cast-time reduction replaced by reduction in mana cost. Both are bad changes for PVP
    • Resplendence no longer removes the HP cost from Noble Sacrifice. Per Ryndar, this change is crippling. Right now NS is the only way to regain mana, which regens slowly, and in 1.2 it will cost HP to use again
  • Balance tree
    • Presence of Mind proc now only usable on spammable single-target spells. Significant nerf. No more insta-cast AOE

Shadow (Assassin)

  • No noteworthy changes

Gunslinger (Sniper)

  • Can finally enter Cover while rooted
  • Healing debuff effect added to the armor debuff ability
  • Sharpshooter tree
    • Burst Volley may be worth taking, as it will not only boost Alacrity but mana regen as well
  • Dirty Fighting
    • Crit Chance talent nerfed from 6% to 3%

Scoundrel (Operative)

  • The backstab ability’s cooldown increased from 9s to 12s
  • The opener from stealth now has a 7.5s cooldown. This is probably being added to prevent instagibs (Shoot First -> vanish -> Shoot First). In practice most of the better Scoundrel / Op players I know don’t rely on the instagib technique, but it is funny
  • Sawbones tree
    • Upper Hand limit increasable from 2 to 3
    • AOE heal amount increased and made more compact, cooldown increased from 12s to 15s
  • Scrapper tree
    • Not sure why they’re making the changes
  • Dirty Fighting
    • Crit Chance talent nerfed from 6% to 3%

Commando / Mercenary

  • Channeled ground-target (DFA / MV) AOE diameter nerfed from 16m to 10m – probably a good change
  • Full Auto attack animation timing fixed
  • Base cost for cast-time nukes reduced
  • Combat Medic tree
    • Crit Chance talent nerfed from 6% to 3%
    • Net-higher mana costs for healing
    • Healing buffs and damage mitigation buffs nerfed
  • Gunnery tree
    • Grav Round damage nerfed 10%

Vanguard / Powertech

  • Interrupt costs no mana
  • Shield tree
    • Some abilities moved off GCD
    • Mitigation tweaked (can’t tell whether it’s net-buff or net-nerf)
  • Tactics tree
    • Melee DoT can be talented to snare 30% for 6s
  • Assault Spec tree
    • The proc cooldown reset talent for High Impact Bolt now requires a specific stance to work. No more Carolina Parakeet (21/2/18) hybrids
    • The proc cooldown reset talent has a 45% / 60% change to proc but has an internal 6s cooldown – which is a net-nerf due to loss of RNG burst

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Posted in Commando / Mercenary, Guardian / Juggernaut, Gunslinger / Sniper, PVP, Sage / Sorcerer, Scoundrel / Operative, Sentinel / Marauder, Shadow / Assassin, SWTOR, Vanguard / Powertech

Producer Chris Hager on TERA’s Hitboxes, RMT, Events, and Political System

Posted on 2012 March 14 by Ed Park

At GDC 2012, GAMEBREAKER writer Jason Winter and I attended a private session and hands-on boss fight demo in the En Masse Entertainment (EME) media booth.

Afterwards, we spoke with EME’s Chris Hager, the Producer for NA TERA.

Our discussion covered the following topics:

  • 0:08: the hitbox implementation
  • 2:40: the ability to buy a virtual good (Chronoscroll) from the item shop to sell in-game to other players
  • 5:15: the Nexus Dynamic Event system
  • 6:20: the Political system, which is based on the election of governors (Vanarchs) for each of the provinces

More on Hitboxes

My interview with EME COO Patrick Wyatt generated a lot of questions and debate about hitbox.

After dialoguing with gamers on social media and digging around on Google, I found the following excerpt from the TERA Answers thread on hitboxes which contains information originally posted sometime in the summer of 2011:

“If there are major differences in hitboxes so that those of a physically smaller race have a smaller hitbox and therefore are harder to hit, this would be an advantage. Conversely, because these races have shorter limbs compared to larger races, it is more difficult to attack enemies, and this would be a disadvantage. These elements would have a big impact on game balance, and certain races would then be preferred or avoided, and those who wanted to play the disadvantageous races would become frustrated with TERA.

However, simply ignoring the visual differences between races would create a potentially worse problem: lack of authenticity and immersion. This has been a large point of conversation and debate among TERA’s developers. In the end, we decided to make the hitboxes and attack ranges as close to the same size as possible across the races, although not completely equal, so that players would not get frustrated while playing the game.

For example, Barakas and Amani have slightly smaller hitboxes for their size, while the hitbox for the Popori is slightly larger than their size. There is still a difference, but it isn’t as major as the physical size of the model would lead one to believe.

The attack range went through a similar balancing process. The attack animation for the Popori is indicative of their slightly longer attack range, while Amani and Barakas hardly move forward. When they attack, the ranges for races have been appropriately modified and balanced to match their animations.

In short, we tried to make the game as balanced as possible while still maintaining the individual flavor of each class. Therefore, hitboxes and attack ranges have been configured in such a way that they are similar without being gamebreaking, but are not exactly the same size.”

I found the excerpt to be a bit confusing, even after reading it multiple times :) The excerpt is 10 months old, so we don’t know whether the information is still current.

What I heard from Chris in person was very clear on the matter:

  1. Attack animations have been adjusted to make the reach of attacks for the same ability the same across races – i.e. reach is normalized
  2. In terms of being hit or healed, the bigger you are, the easier you are to target – being hit / healed is not normalized

Chris’s explanation aligns with my experience in CB3, in particular the second bullet point. I found as a Sorcerer that the bigger my opponent, the more surface area of my opponent I could move my target crosshairs over and have the crosshairs form a circle, and the easier it was to hit them with straight-line spell attacks. This was the case when fighting mobs or dueling.

Please post your questions and feedback.

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Posted in Interview, TERA, Video

BioWare’s SWTOR Team Peaked at Over 650 Team Members

Posted on 2012 March 12 by Ed Park

At GDC 2012, I attended the panel on launching SWTOR as a AAA-quality MMORPG hosted by SWTOR Executive Producer Rich Vogel and Director of Production Dallas Dickinson. Massively provided a nice writeup on the panel.

There are two takeaways from the panel that I wanted to discuss:

  1. the team size and ballpark burn rate
  2. the parallels of working across disciplines between the gaming industry and online business

Team Size and Ballpark Burn Rate

Rich and Dallas talked about the massive headcount involved in delivering the work:

  • 30 Producers / Project Managers
  • 75 Designers
  • 80 Engineers
  • 40 Platform
  • 10 Localization
  • 10 Audio (not including LucasArts)
  • 140 Artists
  • 280 QA

That’s 665 people total! What is not clear is whether that was the max concurrent team size, or the number of people involved in the lifetime of the project, etc. My impression is that it was the former.

When you know the headcount numbers, you can ballpark the resource costs, i.e. the sum total for of the costs per resource for compensation, benefits, training, equipment, licenses, etc. If we were to assume an average cost per resource of $100K* per year, that’s a burn rate of $67MM USD annually, excluding costs for PR / Marketing, Community Management, hardware / network / data center costs, etc.

* Keep in mind I’m not saying the average salary of a BioWare team member living in Austin is $100K per year. The $100k estimate is simply a ballpark that includes not only the compensation and benefits, but the complete costs for each person including training, hardware & software, the facilities they worked in, travel costs, and the associated non-developer resources needed to support them (e.g. HR, IT, etc).

So when we hear numbers being thrown around for the cost of developing SWTOR running in the hundreds of millions of dollars, they’re not unreasonable. A team of that scale generates a significant burn rate of millions of dollars on a monthly basis, and the extent to which such a massive team is structured to deliver effectively and managed effectively has a huge impact on the total costs and quality of the deliverable.

Parallels of Working Across Disciplines Between the Gaming Industry and Online Business

One of the big aha’s that Rich and Dallas had was the critical importance of setting up “strike teams” that were multi-disciplinary, i.e. teams that consisted of Designers, Engineers, Artists, QA, etc to work on specific issues and solutions. After the panel, people from other development shops, e.g. from Microsoft’s XBox 360 team, shared that they recently came to the same realization.

What I find interesting is we reached the same conclusion in the Internet business space over a dozen years ago. Launching online products and services required close collaboration across multiple disciplines: Product Managers, Information Architects (who define the site / app structure and functionality from the perspective of the user), Content Writers, Graphic Designers, System Architects, Front-End Engineers (the ones writing the web scripting / pages), Back-End Engineers (the ones implementing the middleware, business rules, databases, integration with other systems, etc), etc.

The good thing is that as developers learn to better execute and manage these large-AAA launches, the smoother the process should be and the better the end product for gamers.

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Posted in Business Analysis, SWTOR
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