Expanding the Horizons of Combat

Expanding the Horizons of Combat​

ornj - November 27, 2024​

Today we’re sharing more details about all of the combat-related changes coming to SWG Restoration in our upcoming publish. It's an exciting time to be in the game and for us to finally bring in so many of the features and professions that have long been on the roadmap. From Heroic Encounters and their iconic Jewelry sets, to the release of the Ranger combat profession, and finally a big set of changes to the core skill trees aimed at increasing customization, fun, and balance, there is something new for everyone to get to play with! We all share a love for this game and never want it to change what it is at its core, so we are excited to share our plans for expanding what's great and unlocking so many more possibilities for everyone, while preserving what's special.

When we approached this daunting task of bringing all of these new mechanics under a “Combat Upgrade” umbrella, we knew we needed to do our best to take a birds-eye view of everything at once and also make any changes necessary to make sure that it all worked together. We’ve been working with the community for many months on Test Center (we’d love for you to check them out and give us feedback if you haven’t), and now that we’re nearing release, we wanted to also share this big picture with you and provide more insight into the direction we’re taking. This is a long one, folks, so strap in.

Here's a quick preview of what's coming, and what we'll be delving into today:

• More flexibility in skill trees, allowing new profession combinations
• Multiple Heroic Jewelry sets for every profession, to enhance a playstyle and add new abilities
• Major improvements to support professions in order to make them easier to both hybridize and master
• New mechanics and abilities inspired by the best from both Pre-CU and NGE
• Revamps of many classic CU abilities to further lean into combat roles and reward dedication
• Reduced reliance on many previously unavoidable meta abilities, allowing for more build flexibility
• A new framework for ensuring Jedi can be fun and rewarding while not game warping

Profession updates​

Flexible skill trees​

The thing I'm personally most excited about with this update is the expansion of skill tree prerequisites. In the original system, Advanced professions (like Bounty Hunter, Carbineer, Fencer) each required two specific lines from the Basic professions in order to access them. We are introducing a new way of accessing these trees with Optional Prerequisites. Advanced professions will still require at least two lines to access, but for many of them you'll now be able to pick from a few different profession options in order to meet those prerequisites. This will make the "hybrid" professions more equally accessible to both Melee and Ranged builds, and also generally allow you to customize and more efficiently reach the skill boxes you really want. The new prerequisites are expected to be:

1. Bounty Hunter: 4xxx Scout + (xxx4 Scout OR xxx4 Sharpshooter OR 4xxx Brawler)
2. Commando: Any two of (x4xx Scout OR xxx4 Sharpshooter OR 4xxx Brawler)
3. Smuggler: Any two of (4xxx Scout OR xx4x Medic OR x4xx Sharpshooter OR 4xxx Brawler)
4. Squad Leader: xxx4 Scout + (4xxx Scout OR xxx4 Sharpshooter)
5. Combat Medic: x4xx Medic + (xx4x Medic OR xxx4 Sharpshooter)
6. All melee are now Weapon line + (Unarmed OR another melee line)

(We'll also be making one or two changes to non-combat professions here).

Highlight - Doctor and Combat Medic​

The Medic professions are key to almost any character, and we wanted to make sure that there was a reason to pick it up at any level, including just basic Medic, and fit it into any build. Doctor and Combat Medic are gaining access to new stats and a few abilities moved around, with the goal of both refining their distinct playstyles and advantages/disadvantages so that you know which skills will fit your build, and secondly giving them additional synergy with each other for players who love that dedicated healer role. Doctor gains an AoE resurrect, a new Bacta Bomb mega heal on a long cooldown, and stats that will let it sustain healing for a long time at a slower pace. Combat medic gains a combat revive, and stats that will make its heals far quicker than Doctor, letting you wave it into more combat oriented professions. All of the healing stats have been reworked to ensure that it scales nicely at every level, so you can hybridize to your heart's content.

Highlight - Ranger​

Ranger is finally here, drawing inspiration from CU Sniper, Pre-CU Ranger, and of course NGE's Spy, Bounty Hunter, and even some Smuggler, alongside some unique tricks of its own. This profession will of course come heavily focused around Stealth, being able to lay down traps to eliminate creatures and other foes from safety. We think it will be a very capable paired profession with many different types of playstyles, adding subterfuge and crowd control to create very creative combinations. At the same time, all players will receive a basic Detect Camouflage ability to increase the chances of finding and taking out any sleuthy enemies in the area. The Camouflage system is now fully implemented, and affects any kind of stealthed enemy (Ranger or Jedi).

Highlight - Hybrid​

The "hybrid" professions are called such because they usually shared lineage with both Brawler and Sharpshooter, but branched from the Scout tree as well. With the new prerequisites, they both double down on this definition but also distance themselves from it: it will be easier than ever to use Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, or Squad Leader as a Melee focused character, as all of the abilities have been unlocked to be useable by any weapon. But in addition, people will be able to focus more deeply on just these professions alone, creating new possibilities. On top of all that, each gets a refresh:

• Bounty Hunter gains some new capabilities on Torso Shot, and caps off with Shields, an iconic NGE ability that absorbs incoming damage, weakening over time but converting that energy into a damage boost
• Commando acquires more explosive hardware in Remote Detonator and Mines, both very powerful tools for punishing enemies for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Smuggler has had many abilities improved, from Panic Shot adding a slow, to Last Ditch giving you a reckless buff that trades power for vulnerability. A new Lucky Attack comes with a chance to heal you.
• Squad Leader gains access to more abilities allowing it to contribute to the fight in its own way. Core Bomb, Shock Grenade, Sure Shot, all give it the tools to coordinate their own attacks with their teams. Of course they still retain many strong, iconic group buffs, and new among them are two passive abilities that can be up at all times: Tactics and Entrench, adding some small offensive and defensive bonuses.
• Creature Handler has had a ton of pet abilities rebalanced to help make them viable: Siphon Life, Wing Buffet, Puncture, Provoke, and Defensive should all be far more usable now. Alongside their jewelry we hope that this is able to create some very exciting new companions for your build.

This is just scratching the surface of all the new capabilities and customization options being added. Melee trees gain several new 'defensive cooldowns' shorter duration abilities that must be well timed to soak up damage, which alongside a Center of Being adjustment will mean that they play a more active role in tanking. Ranged trees also gain more abilities that lean into their respective playstyles, including my personal favorite Pistoleer's Quick Draw which now deals action damage and has a chance to reset cooldown, for that double-tap action. It's going to be a lot to take in, and we still welcome any feedback about making sure that your favorite playstyles and abilities are available to you. Hopefully all these changes meet their goal in unlocking untold amounts of combinations of skills just to make your character fit your unique playstyle.

The Combat Diamond​

Before the now-standard "Tank/DPS/Support" trifecta was mainstream, SOE brought us the Combat Diamond. It's there to show the various combat roles that each profession should be good at, and how they fit into the overall picture.


Where each profession sits on the diamond indicates how strong it should be in that area, along with a subtitle of the style with which they achieve that. Sniper should have its damage come from "Nuking" (spike damage). Teras Kasi gets its tanking from "avoidance" (attack ignoring rather than damage reduction). Bounty Hunter should be good at tanking but leans toward damage as a secondary specialty.

The diamond is our bible, our source of truth. Everything we do related to profession balance and overall group contribution comes directly from where each profession is on this chart. It doesn't necessarily tell us much about the playstyle or feeling of the profession, but it does tell us what they should be strong at (and what they shouldn't).

We used this framework to influence a couple decisions around pushing a few abilities "up" the skill tree, limiting or at least improving them in master boxes. This was an important aspect of balance which we dig into more below, but is also something we are open to feedback on. A few examples:

• Bacta Spray is no longer available in the Medic tree, and the Master version of the ability was pushed to the Master Combat Medic box. Lower versions of this ability are still able to be dabbled in, but alongside some of the rebalance we are working hard to reduce the necessity of this line in basically all ranged builds. This was done to ensure Combat Medic is a more deliberate choice for your build, but remains accessible as a "center circle" profession giving it versatility with other professions. We think we have found a good balance between access, and payoff of investment, but we'll be watching this closely.
• Quick Draw is now exclusively a Master Pistoleer ability, but received a lot of new power to justify the change. The damage has been increased, it now additionally inflicts Action damage as inspired by Pre-CU, and gets a crack at a new mechanic featured heavily in the Heroic Jewelry: Fast Attack. In this case, the ability has an inherent chance to reset the cooldown to zero, allowing you to hit it immediately after the global cooldown (which, of course, is Quick). Pistoleer sits in Crowd Control and leans towards Tanking, with a focus on Attack Control. The new Action damage on Quick Draw leans more heavily into this playstyle of reducing your opponent's effectiveness and ability to attack, and of course just helps the profession also achieve the right feel: a speedy, light on their feet attacker.
• Enraging Spur is now exclusively at Master Scout. In truth, this ability never really functioned as intended but gained legendary status for how overpowered it was at such a low level in the skill tree. We've rebalanced it into the realm of sanity but wanted to preserve its status as the king of Scout by putting it there. It's still a very strong AoE Stun that ticks for damage, and feels right at home in many of the Scout-derived professions. All of the basic combat professions received updates as well in order to give a good toolset to the bases while ensuring that the most iconic and powerful things were a part of the Advanced professions.

New Combat Mechanics​

We are also using this chance to introduce a bit more variety into the types of defenses in the game. The game is absolutely still centered around the core Accuracy and Defense mechanics, but there are a couple new ways that we are trying to improve the combat feel by adding some more variety in the ways to stay alive, in ways that pay homage to both Pre-CU and NGE.

1. Block Chance - You will notice that all attacks now have a small chance to be blocked. When an attack is blocked, a small amount of the damage (25%) is reduced. You can increase this amount by adding to your Block Value. Think of it as the unlucky cousin of a Critical Hit. This gives us another way of keeping people alive and allows us to shift some of the extremely high defense values from Center of Being, for example, into another stat that isn't as punishing.
2. Jedi Toughness/Lightsaber Toughness - These Pre-CU stats have made their way into the Jedi trees, adding more inherent survivability when you might find yourself without your critical defense buffs. Jedi Toughness reduces damage from all sources except Lightsaber attacks. Lightsaber toughness reduces all damage from Melee attacks. Alongside Saber Deflect and Jedi Armor, the Jedi trees now have a huge variety of ways to mitigate damage. You will also notice that Force Aura's duration and cooldown have been adjusted to not be full-time, and we added these stats so that Jedi could remain strong without that crutch.
3. Knockdown - This state has been redesigned into a timed debuff that you automatically recover from after 3 seconds. The defense penalty is no longer there, so it is simply a small window in which the victim will not be able to act. We did this to make sure that knockdowns actually had impact and caused your opponent to "miss a turn," but also to improve the experience for newer players who aren't always as ready to hit that Recovery.

Defensive cooldowns​

A 'defensive cooldown' refers to an ability or buff with a long cooldown and a short duration, that is there to increase your survivability. While these are not strictly new to SWG Restoration, the original CU combat instead heavily featured defensive abilities that could be active at all times. Some examples are Center of Being and Force Aura. While these abilities are a big part of what gives professions their identity, they also tend to easily become the "crutch" that the profession leans on, essentially forced to spend points on to be viable.

One of the first things many players will notice is that we have adjusted Center of Being and Force Aura into defensive cooldowns, with the goal of opening up the skill trees a bit more, and making combat decisions more impactful. At the same time, we are making sure that the professions will still maintain the same roles and capabilities as before by increasing some inherent defenses, and adding additional defensive cooldowns to the game to fill the gaps. Fencer and Lancer now receive their own unique defensive cooldowns that fit in line with their combat role. Where previously most Melee players would feel forced into a line of Teras Kasi Artist in order to pick up Center of Being, given that Melee often needs that extra defense to stay alive on the front lines, now they will have access to multiple and can pick up as many or as few as they feel they need to make their build work.

Heroic Jewelry​

Heroic Jewelry are 5-piece sets of jewelry that you can purchase with tokens earned from the 5 Heroic Encounters, and are the final piece of endgame customization to cap off a player's build. They each come with unique stats that are tailored to a specific profession and playstyle, and come with new abilities or mechanics that become available when you're wearing 3 or more pieces from the same set at once (called a “set bonus”). So, unlike skill trees, pick one focus at a time.

Each set of Heroic Jewelry will require a Master Box from an advanced profession (with a few exceptions– more on that later). This set of jewelry will give you an even deeper dedication to a particular strength or playstyle for that profession, usually inspired from the combat diamond. So, while you're still able to grab as many different skills and abilities as you want from the trees, the Jewelry Set you pick will be the capstone to everything, nudging you towards the thing you want to contribute the most in a fight. You can, of course, also own multiple sets of jewelry and swap them out between fights, allowing you to change playstyles as the moment calls for it.

Our goals for Heroic Jewelry are as follows:

1. Focus on playstyles. Give every profession something fun and unique that both enhances their existing capabilities and adds a brand new one, all with the goal of leaning into one specific playstyle.
2. Make everything seem a little bit gamebreaking. We wanted to push the boundaries of the CU by adding in things that almost make you feel like you're breaking some unspoken rule about how the game should work. Unblockable attacks, infinitely spreading DoTs, removing any Debuff, removing any Buff. These mechanics do draw inspiration from things many of us have seen before, but they are absolutely going to shake up the CU.
3. Expand combat to be more about 'windows of opportunity': watching your enemy's abilities and timing your own in order to hit that perfect window where their defenses are down and your buffs are lined up. There's counterplay and more counterplay to be found in these sets.
4. Keep things spicy with a variety of randomized effects that you can take advantage of at a given moment. These sets heavily feature "fast attacks" that will reset the cooldown on a powerful ability in order to mix up your rotation, and even more on new procedural chances (known as "procs") that trigger all sorts of unique effects that might swing a battle. They aren't always in your control, but they require you to always be paying attention for the opportunities they might provide.
5. Bring in our favorite pieces of the original heroic jewelry sets and other NGE combat mechanics. Heroic Jewelry came from the NGE era, and so while we worked hard to adapt their ideas into something CU-era appropriate, we also think a lot of the things in that era were still fun! Many iconic abilities are coming over, but you'll notice that almost all have been tweaked to fit in better with the game we already love.

Since Heroic Jewelry is coming into the game and "power creeping" some of the other jewelry in the game, we tried to improve on that downside in two ways: First, the new jewelry will come with fewer raw stats than the statted jewelry available now, meaning that new players that haven't yet earned or purchased their sets will have a minor numbers advantage in many cases, though lacking the new power and utility of these new legendary items. Second, we added a new Jewelry slot: Earrings! Earrings replace the slots that used to be taken by Bracelets, meaning that valuable bracelets from Treasure Chests will still be able to be used in endgame scenarios.

Without further ado, here are some of the sets of jewelry we're adding to the game, and how they fit into the combat diamond:

1. Scoundrel's Set for Smuggler - This set is all about Crowd Control, reducing the cooldown of the Concussion Shot ability and giving you more accuracy while moving around the battlefield. Wearing three or more pieces of the set at once unlocks the Pistol Whip ability, a melee-range ability that guarantees a knockdown on any target – even if they are normally immune. It's the perfect way to interrupt a player in a key moment, or give your team a chance to really hammer into one key target without any interference.
2. Assassin's Set for Sniper - Sniper already does lots of damage, but what they need is the ability to finish the job from a distance - Finishing Shot is a new ability that comes with the 3-piece bonus that can be used from Rifle range, which deathblows the target. If they are incapacitated, or at low health with incapacitation sickness, this ability will instantly kill the target. Against NPCs, this ability gets a massive damage boost if the target is at low health. The set also grants a Fast Attack chance on Ambush Shot, a new Sniper ability that stacks a damage/crit susceptibility, for an even more devastating Sniper Shot.
3. Pathologist's Set for Doctor - Doctor also gets a new set more dedicated to pure healing, but this set is about cures. All of the DoT clears get reduced cooldowns with this set, and at three pieces, you get the powerful Serotonin Boost. This ability removes one debuff from a target and has a relatively quick cooldown (much like Soothing Comfort on Creature Handler). If your group mate is being focused and you've healed them up, you can also stabilize them by clearing a Knockdown (which is now a debuff), Paint Target, Armor Break, Blind/Dizzy, or nearly anything that may be ailing them.
4. Tidstill Set for Teras Kasi Artist - Everyone hates missing, even NPCs. With the Tidstill set bonus, you can get a reactive proc of Timeless Step on any attacks to you. Timeless Step generates a large amount of "hate" (aggro) against an NPC, and drains the Mind and Force power of your attacker. Each piece also comes with a Combo Attack Fast Attack chance, allowing you to stack up your Block Chance even higher.

All advanced professions will each have access to two different sets. Weapon-based professions (those that primarily depend on Brawler and Sharpshooter) receive access to either the Pursuit Set (for melee) or the Soldier's set (for ranged). All the other advanced professions receive two dedicated sets. Combined with the ability to master multiple professions, this should give everyone lots and lots of customization options.

Approaches to Balance​

Not going to sugar coat it: attempting to balance a combat system with over 20 different skill trees and the ability to pick and choose the best of everything is… impossible? It's the white whale of any skill tree combat system: always approaching, likely never reaching. However, it's still something we have to continuously work on to ensure that gameplay remains fun and that people can play the way they want to play.

In a system that's as complex as SWG's, there are two high-level ways we see to approach balance:

1. Small differences - Preserve as much flexibility as you can, give players as much freedom as is feasible, but make sure that the extreme ends of the spectrum are still not too far apart. Can't stop someone from being a grenadier squad leader neo dodging bounty hunter, so just make sure that they aren't putting up 10x numbers compared to the Pistoleer Carbineer. Everyone's gonna have some healing, everyone's gonna have many of the same staple damage/defense abilities, and the skill difference will come more in the form of consumables and coordination.
2. Big differences - Lean into more defined group roles. Give each profession a specific thing they are good at that nobody else can do and make it really powerful, but make sure that it's something you have to be dedicated to. Make a glass cannon feel like a glass cannon, and a tank feel like a tank. Make support roles powerful and necessary, and balance around the expectation that there will be a lot of diversity in a group composition. Make the most impactful abilities in the game something that a player must invest heavily into but that play a critical role in combat, and the skill difference will come in the form of your ability to deeply know the strengths and weaknesses of your build, and how it fits in with the bigger picture.

You can probably see where this is going. We're going to move closer to the second one. This is still done entirely through the Combat Diamond framework. It's the heart of the reason we want to do this. The individual roles that each profession brings to the table in Restoration all directly draw from the intended design of the original Combat Upgrade, and we hope to do it justice. We think there's a good chance that the professions would naturally have evolved in this direction anyway if the skill tree system had remained in place. Clearly defined combat professions that create emergent complexity with the multiclass and multiplayer systems.

To drastically oversimplify things, here's the goal:

1. Professions are dedicated to a clear and critical combat role
2. Players can pick multiple roles in whatever amounts they want
3. Groups function best when they have a balance of all of the combat roles (but can get there in a lot of ways)

As an example, healing is a pretty important combat role! We fully expect basically everyone to still continue to "soft" spec into it, but want to make sure that it isn't too efficient to achieve the best parts of healing without needing to spec too deeply into it. This is not simply a way to force dedicated healers into the game, it's actually just as important for ensuring that lower levels of investment are also useful.

To achieve #3 above, we need to make sure that a "full" spec is roughly twice as strong as a "half" spec, of a particular combat role. In the case of healing, Doctor and Combat Medic both aim to fulfill that role (Doctor moreso, especially after these updates). So, a player who masters both professions with the goal of being a dedicated healer, should be able to deliver roughly twice the overall healing and support value to a group as two players that each only grab one of those professions (or even more than players that just drop a few skill points in the trees).


Obviously, it won't all be that simple and will probably break down in many situations. That's the white whale that we'll be chasing, though.

The three-letter elephant in the room​

So, are we trying to turn the game into the NGE? Copying all the abilities, moving things into master boxes, turning all the professions into nine iconic classes?

No.

No, no, no no no. NO.




Not at all. The NGE took it way too far. We love the Combat Upgrade era and truly believe that it was the best of all worlds. We wish deeply that the game's directors had understood as well as the players did that one of the most central features of the game that made it special was the skill tree system that truly allows you to play in whatever way you want. Yes, it has downsides: it's basically impossible to balance, and it's much more complex than many players are used to and it probably does just turn some people off from the game entirely. We accept that tradeoff. It's fun. It's the most fun aspect to me, personally, and I'm sure that is true for many of you, too.

What our goal is, as it always has been, is to bring the best ideas of all the eras into the Combat Upgrade umbrella. The NGE, especially after they finally found their footing after a couple years, did end up making the best of that situation and added a lot of really fun abilities and mechanics and group dynamics, and even managed to balance the game pretty well. We want to try and bridge that gap, and port the most unique and iconic mechanics here. We also take inspiration from the class fantasy ideas that they had, really helping you feel like a Bounty Hunter or a Smuggler or a Jedi through many aspects of gameplay.

We are taking those ideas and plugging them into the Combat Diamond system we have here. Sometimes that means expanding the profession a little bit. Squad Leader doesn't just need to lead squads, it should still have some Officer-inspired abilities to throw down AoE fire on top of having more in-the-moment combat buffs. Smuggler doesn't work all that well as a purely Crowd Control/Crafting profession, so we enhance the feeling of the profession by leaning into that classic Han Solo luck. Critical hit bonuses, Lucky Breaks, and of course, running and gunning. It's not so much a part of the combat role, that makes them strong, but instead just some sweet, sweet flavor to help it feel like you're a Smuggler.

Combine that with the multiple skill trees and you have something incredibly unique. You're not pigeonholed into one style of play, you can take two or more different ones and mash them together in a way that you find the most fun, and leave it to you to break the game in any number of ways.

The four-letter elephant in the room​

Jedi is here, and Jedi is strong. Jedi keeps getting nerfed. It's also not even on the combat diamond. FRS when? What is the plan exactly?

First, as it relates to the combat diamond, the saying goes, "Jedi is the combat diamond". Well, the obvious effect of that is that it makes Jedi be the only thing that matters. Right now the balance exists through risk and reward: they're still quite strong, especially in the right player's hands, but if used carelessly, you wind up a ghost. However, it's still something that many people play because it's strong, rather than because it's fun. We want Jedi to live up to its name, not just in its implied power but more importantly as a fun and magical way to experience the game and live your Star Wars story.

Jedi's skill trees cover most playstyles and roles in the game. One of the more harmful things that Jedi brought into the game was that it took many of the game's best abilities and gave them better versions. There's a better way.

We want Jedi to be strong, but we want to make sure to leave room for everyone else to play the way they want to play, too. So, Jedi's strength should come from their versatility more so rather than their raw numbers, with the ability to fill in for any combat role but not necessarily outperform them. A Master, not a Jack of All Trades. They should be able to be a great tank, filling in for the Teras Kasi Artist who wasn't able to log on. They should deal lots of damage, especially with how risky it is out in the open. They should heal and support a group, but groups should still want Doctors and Squad Leaders, too. They can be all those things simultaneously, and others should be able to fight alongside them and feel excited instead of outclassed.

The way we achieve this goal of versatility instead of raw strength is, again, through the skill trees. Jedi can't afford to get everything, but the most powerful abilities available to each tree should actually not be in the Master boxes. Saber Armor Break, Force Cloak, Force Armor, Force Heal, Force Aura: These abilities can fit usually into any build and we expect most Jedi to have most, which is more than can be said about non-Jedi. Master boxes are there to lean into playstyles rather than combat roles. Master Lightsaber already inherently has access to all of the stances and strong abilities, so it's just capped off with a strong AoE to give it more Melee usability. Master Healer will change, allowing a less powerful Battle Meditation to be accessed by more Jedi and instead receive more ability to sustain themselves while using it, allowing them to lean better into the support playstyle.

Jedi is obviously the most iconic part of Star Wars for so many people, and we want to make sure that we respect the work that goes into the unlock as well as the risk that players go through with Visibility and Bounty Hunters, and so on. So we will be very careful to respect that risk/reward balance and to ensure that Jedi can have fun with the rest of us and remain a special part of Star Wars Galaxies. The first step we're taking on that is to reduce the maximum number of Bounty Hunters that can be on a single target back to three. In our testing, a Jedi is still more than capable of taking on two and sometimes three hunters at a time, which is our rough benchmark for an appropriate power level for Jedi Padawan. As Jedi Knight and the ranks beyond are released, that risk and reward will continue to increase. Jedi are here to stay.

Bringing it all together​

This is a big project, and making combat something that feels like home to all of us sometimes feels like a moving target. We are extremely grateful to our community for joining us on this journey, and for helping shape this game into something we can all be proud of. This is still just the start of a long road that I'm sure will still have some rocky moments in the future as we try to balance all these new things and ensure every profession and playstyle is represented. But you know what? I have a good feeling about this.


May The Force Be With You,
ornj and The SWG Restoration Team