Community Q&A: March 23rd 2012

Last Friday BioWare published another Community Q&A. In it they first announce that next week will be a special Q&A focusing on existing questions regarding Game Update 1.2 before going on to the questions themselves. Here's one of those questions and answers:

Niktika: Can you please explain some of the reasoning behind the healing nerfs? It almost seems like every healer is up in arms regardless of their class.

Georg: Sometimes it's hard to hear this, but the change to healers you're referring to was, quite simply, a result of them being too good. When one healer is close to target performance and the others aren't, it's natural to think that the logical course is to buff the underperformer and leave the over-performers alone. I want to dispel that notion and explain why it isn't always possible.

All specs for all roles have a target performance. This is what drives the balance of the game: soloing, Heroics, PvP, Flashpoints, Operations... everything. When those targets aren't hit, we can't just ‘bring everyone up’ to the highest performer without negatively impacting the balance of the game and creating unsustainable inflation in our combat system. Frankly, it's also a lot more work to change all end game content in the game to compensate for an over-performing role than to bring the role back in line. The hard but simple truth is that Sorcerers and Sages had better Force management than we intended (e.g. a well-played Sage was almost incapable of running out of Force) and Mercenaries and Commandos were significantly over target in their healing performance.

After considerable testing, we're more confident than ever that all healing roles are both closer to target performance and closer to one another than ever before, leading to a much tighter balance on end game content. The community will be able to confirm this using the new combat logging feature in Game Update 1.2.

I know trying to ‘sell’ a downwards adjustment (AKA nerf) to anyone affected is like selling the need for a tax increase to people. When you are on the receiving end of it, you're not going to be happy about it. It may appear massive to you, even if the overall impact is limited. You likely won't care that it's 'for the greater good of the game' and, if you decide to disagree with our action, there's little we can do to sway you.

Based on the feedback brought to us so far from testers playing on PTS along with metrics and combat logs gathered from our guild testers, we are going to make additional adjustments before Game Update 1.2 is promoted to the live servers. For example, we reopened the internal debate about having an in-combat resurrect ability for Mercenaries/Commandos based on PTS feedback regarding the new Operations, in light of the higher utility value this ability brings to the table in 1.2. We're listening to your feedback, too, and rebalancing some of the changes made to healing based on data gathered from PTS. Look out for a future update to PTS for more details.

After the break the developer quotes.

Developer Quotes

• [link] to Georg Zoeller on combat log parser.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on 1.2 patch notes clarifications.
• [link] to Cameron Winston on PvP gear in 1.2.
• [link] to David Hunt on new daily area in 1,2.
• [link] to David Hunt on Champion gear in 1.2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on Rakata gear in 1.2.
• [link] to Stephen Reid on James Ohlen feedback.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on Rakata gear in 1.2, part 2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on 1.2 patch notes clarifications, part 2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on Rakata gear in 1.2, part 3.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on Warzone rewards.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on combat log parser, part 2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on mystery item in 1.2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on medpacks in 1,2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on medpacks in 1.2, part 2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on combat log parser, part 3.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on combat log parser, part 4.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on Sorcerer healers in 1.2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on mystery item in 1.2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on medpacks in 1.2, part 3.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on healer changes in 1.2.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on readable combat log parser.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on research percentage tooltip.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on crit on implant crafting.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on color crystal.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on combat log parser, part 5.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on unlocked War Hero weapon crystal.
• [link] to Stephen Reid on server maintenance.
• [link] to David Bass on Guild Summit recordings.
• [link] to Daniel Erickson on dark/light points bug on Test.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on Legacy buffs.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on research chance.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on wall bug on Test.
• [link] to Georg Zoeller on healer changes in 1.2, part 2.

There are a lot of small little things there, mainly to do with the various changes in 1.2. But there wasn't really anything that stood out to me as needing quoting here. For the most part I'm happy to trust that the developers know what they're doing. SO I'll leave it at that for now.