Update on Mr. Robot

"Query: Have you perused my updated analysis subroutines, meatbags?"

The fine folks over at Ask Mr. Robot have added a FAQ for their combat logging tool. The FAQ addresses common concerns and explains some of the new functionality added recently to the tool. I recommend checking this out if you are a user of the tool, as quite a few things have changed from the previous iteration.

In my previous article, I noted that there were a couple of improvements I'd like to see to the tool, but the most important was the ability to merge multiple combat logs at once. Thankfully, this has been addressed as of the 20th. In addition, users that are logged in can remove merged logs in the event of an error or if someone is attempting to mess with your data.

As the tool continues to improve, I will be updating accordingly. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to use it for merged logs since I last posted about it. Operations attendance in the guild has been down somewhat due to RL issues and an increased focus on PvP. I've been using it for DPS tests, as I acquired the Operations Dummy for my Legacy, but that doesn't require any merging.

Here's hoping that I can get into a group PvE situation soon so that I can give the merging a fresh shot. Perhaps a flashpoint is in order.

Maintaining Composure

I had a rather jarring experience the other day, and thought I should perhaps share it, because it taught me some things about myself.

I had queued up for warzones with three other guildmates. My guild doesn't have "tryouts" or anything, we just foster a culture of learning and support. That means there is no "skill" requirement to get into our guild, but if you want to get better, there are tons of people willing to help you do just that.

These guys that were in my party are some of the best in our guild, and I had no question in my mind that we would be doing a strong service to our team when we got into the warzone. 

When we got into Alderaan Civil War, I immediately saw our group was accompanied by another 4-person premade from a guild on our server. I won't name them here because, honestly, there's no point. I wasn't terribly familiar with them, but had played with them on a couple of occasions. Some experiences had been very positive, and some had not been. On Ventrilo, my fellow group members shared their thoughts about the guild in question.

Because I always try to communicate well, I asked if they could send two of their guys to left, the rest to mid. Their response: "No". They didn't offer any other advice, nor did they expand on why. As a result, I respectfully asked them what they thought we should do. 

One of them said, "We're going right and if any of you follow us we will leave and you can enjoy your loss".

I politely explained I was just trying to be helpful. They responded with "Stop trying to pretend you're good, you're in Section One."

I would be lying if I said this didn't make me angry. I don't (and never will) claim to be the best PvPer out there. What I do claim is that I do my best to play the objectives, support my team, and communicate. I also do my best to make sure that my guild members do the same, or are given the opportunity to learn how to do this. This person had not only insulted me, they had insulted my entire guild.

This is what I wanted to do.

"Gooooood, gooooood."

Instead, I responded with: "I'm sorry if you've had problems with my guild in the past. I'm trying to change stuff like that." To understand what I mean here, I'll remind you that there's no "skill requirement" for Section One. The guild has history dating back to Star Wars Galaxies, where they were known as a formidable force on the popular Bloodfin server. However, we also have people recruited in this game (including myself). We have people with varying degrees of commitment and time to dedicate to the game. Not everyone is playing at the same level. I'm working, as PvP Officer, to try to elevate everyone as high as they are willing to go.

Anyways, a funny thing happened when I was polite to this guy.

He absolutely backed off. He was still arrogant, and did not call for our help and ended up losing his precious flag on the right (although it was too late for the other team, also made up of two premades, so we still won), but he definitely backpedaled. I think maybe he realized how obtuse he sounded, or maybe someone in his group just decided to scold him.

 

I realize now that I could have freaked out, I could have told him that I've run into players from his guild who weren't great, but that I still tried to work with him in this warzone, strategize with him, and extend him the courtesy of anyone who was on my team. 

In the end, it wouldn't have been worth it. The guy obviously had no interest in being polite to anyone. I'm happy with the choice I made. 

Community Spotlight: Taugrim's MMO Blog

He knows his stuff, and he's happy to share it with you.

Welcome to another installment of a recurring feature on Thrown Gauntlet, the Community Spotlight. Each week I'll be looking at a site that supports the Star Wars: The Old Republic community, be it a blog, podcast, information database, or otherwise. My hope is to point people to other websites they may also enjoy and to bring the SW:TOR blogging community closer together. 

I debated holding off on spotlighting Taugrim's MMO Blog because, quite honestly, most SWTOR players (and MMO players, even) have at the very least heard of him. In the end, I figured that if there was a chance that I could introduce someone to his material, the post would be worth it.

Even (or perhaps especially) if you're new to PvP, you should check out his site. The information is valuable to both newcomers and veterans alike.

Taugrim exemplifies what is, for me, the spirit of community in PvP. I truly hope that this trend becomes the norm for the PvP community generally. He is trying to help those around him by informing them. He explains mechanics and answers questions from readers or those watching his stream. He promotes and encourages discussion about changes. He stays away from elitism and responds patiently to inquiries. In his own words:

That is what my Guides are all about: helping gamers raise their gameplay and learning from and with them in the process 

Basically, he's doing an immense service to the PvP community of whatever game he is involved in at the time.

His style is a far cry from many who PvP. We've all seen those other PvP videos - filled with 3 second snippets of massive crits set to overly-loud music. You know, the ones that don't teach you anything. Taugrim turns this formula on its head, normally streaming himself queuing for warzones alone, explaining what's happening as he plays, and answering questions between warzones. I always try to catch his stream when it's up, because I actually learn something about the class and spec he's playing.

In addition to his stream and explanatory videos, Taugrim maintains a series of guides for different PvP topics. These guides are always informative and well-researched, and you should check them out. He also often posts about design choices and recent PvP changes, which normally make for an excellent discussion.

On top of all of this, Taugrim still finds the time to co-host two different shows on Gamebreaker.tv.

So check him out! He has tons of great stuff, and I guarantee you'll learn something.


Have a website you think I should look at, or that you think should be in the spotlight? Let me know at throwngauntlet@gmail.com, or contact me on my Twitter account, @ThrownGauntlet. I'm always looking for new blogs, resources and fansites to review!

Burek on Galactic Public Radio!

I've had the great opportunity to speak about the Juggernaut advanced class on Galactic Public Radio alongside Porter. You can find the podcast here. I really like the way it turned out, and I hope you enjoy it!

Overall, I really enjoyed myself, though I was a bit nervous at first. You'd think doing commentary for a video guide would be similar to doing a podcast, but my commentary doesn't always come out correctly the first time, whereas I have to make sure it does for the podcast. It looks like I may get opportunities in the future to return to GPR to talk about the Juggernaut, which is very cool.

Porter is a really great host and he's actually looking for other class experts for future installments of the show (All Classes Considered). If you're a class expert, you can contact him at his twitter if you'd like to volunteer to help.

In Defense of Expertise

I was listening to the TORWars Podcast #74 today and there was a discussion regarding expertise and whether or not it made sense to have a "PvP stat" in the game. Jeff, Deirdre and Brian seemed more or less on board with the idea of letting PvE gear function just as well as PvP gear in PvP scenarios. I really like TORWars and their podcast, but I think I need to step into the pro-expertise corner on this one.

For those readers who may not know what expertise is or how it works, it is a stat which appears only on PvP gear and increases damage, damage reduction, and healing in PvP only. Due to the recent changes in Patch 1.2, it is basically the best possible stat you can have in PvP.

I understand that it can be frustrating to have gear only work in specific scenarios, but I believe that a "PvP stat"-type system is the best solution for preserving balance. I also understand that many people object to it from a design standpoint, saying that it is clunky or that it wouldn't be necessary if class balance was truly perfected. I disagree.

It needn't necessarily take the same form as the one we have (you could make it more complicated, have PvP gear lack essential PvE stats, or have multiple PvP stats that do different things), but overall I believe that expertise offers the developers the best tools to balance PvP while continuing to offer exciting and engaging content in both PvP and in PvE without fear of ruining the prevailing order in both systems.


The problem of motivation

Vader does NOT need to find new ways to motivate them.

Before the Patch 1.2 changes were put into effect, making PvP gear even more effective in PvP, a curious thing was happening. Players who wanted to start doing Operations and Flashpoints were being told by their friends to start PvPing. Sound silly? To most people, it wasn't - because not only was it far easier to acquire PvP rewards, but they were almost as effective as their PvE counterparts. People tend to do whatever is easiest to complete goals, and in this case it was extremely easy to acquire PvP rewards when compared to assembling a group of people and then trying to do a Hard Mode Flashpoint.

Now, not everyone who wanted to do Operations also wanted to do PvP, so these people were left with a choice: do something you're not really interested or invested in for the easy gear, or spend a lot more time doing what you want, but which may or may not be effective and has no guaranteed reward for time invested.

If both sets of gear work equally well in both scenarios, we'll see pretty quickly that most people will feel pressured to take the quick and easy path which, with the current evolution of PvE content, will almost definitely be PvP, since winning is not a requirement and losing continuously, while slow, would likely still be faster than trying to PuG with an 8-person Explosive Conflict group. And again, even if it were faster to PuG EC, there is no guarantee that you get what you need.

Ultimately, the best choice should be to let players to what they love, and reward them by giving them better tools to continue doing it - not to do something else.

Not everyone can be Yoda-like and avoid the quick and easy path.

A controlled environment


Another thing that a PvP stat offers is the ability to make across the board adjustments to all classes in the areas of damage, damage reduction, and healing.

As of 1.2, these things all scale differently with expertise (eg. You get a larger damage bonus from expertise than you do a damage reduction or healing bonus), but Bioware has shown that they are not afraid to re-balance ratings to better accommodate the play experience of their subscribers. They currently have the ability to look at any of those three things via their metrics, decide that one of them needs to be adjusted, and then adjust it across the board. Now that's flexibility.

Ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see an "expertise co-efficient" on abilities to change their effectiveness in PvP. We've already kind of seen this with all healing abilities (Trauma, for example), but I'm talking for specific abilities. Maybe particular abilities will be encouraged in PvP, and so they gain some bonus damage or healing in PvP. Maybe some abilities will have their potency toned down for PvP, but some of this penalty will be offset by expertise.

Palpatine calls for a PvP nerf to reactor shafts.

In "that other game", before their first expansion, the roles of the two were reversed - it was far easier to get top-tier PvE gear than PvP gear, but not having a PvP stat resulted in players literally being two-shot by players wearing top tier PvE epics with no way to balance it short of class changes (which honestly weren't the problem). PvE and PvP environments are different beasts that require their own balancing efforts. Getting rid of a PvP stat makes this task even harder, as values in PvP cannot easily be modified without changing core class mechanics, which will also change the character's ability in PvE.

To conclude


I believe that players should be doing what they want and getting rewarded appropriately for doing it. Clearing PvE content should not entitle you to top tier PvP gear, nor should achieving an amazing warzone rating allow you to breeze through PvE content. That they are separate isn't a bad thing! It's just more game to explore and experience.

Quick Notes: Patch 1.2.1

Patch 1.2.1 was applied to the live servers this morning and though the majority of the changes are bug fixes, there are a few points of interest:

- The cost of PvP consumables has been reduced to 10 commendations. In my opinion, this is a much-needed change. At 20 apiece previously they were overly expensive, but now if you get a big win you can buy some consumables and still save for that next piece of gear.

- Sniper and Gunslinger received 5% buffs to numerous damaging abilities. I had heard from others that the numbers for Snipers and Gunslingers were not looking too hot in comparison to other classes in PvE environments, so I welcome this change.

- Corrected an issue that prevented players from adding offline players to their friends list. Not the first time I've seen this on patch notes, so we'll see if it's actually fixed this time. It seems like it is, at least, because I just did it successfully.

- Helmets now work correctly when unifying colors on the character sheet. This is nice. Glad they got this fixed so quickly.

The full patch notes can be found here. Thanks to Eric (@Torkar1982) for the tip on the PvP Consumables.

Burek's PvP Tanking Guides, #2: Force Push (Knockback)

I am proud to announce the public release of my second PvP Tanking Guide, which focuses on using your knockback ability! This guide should be useful to many advanced classes, since almost all advanced classes have a knockback. Even if you don't have one, the video should show you how to make yourself a little harder to throw.

The guide aims to help players make more efficient use of their knockback. It uses freeze-frame explanations and play-by-play commentary to help viewers understand the decisions made in the video. I recommend viewing the video in 1080p or 720p in full screen mode for the best viewing experience.

I had a lot of fun making this video, and I hope it shows. I hope you enjoy it, and that some part of it is useful to you!

I'm always happy to accept feedback from any of my viewers. If you have a topic you'd like to see for a future video, please share it with me!