Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Damage going... down?

With SWTOR 3.0 patch, Shadow of Revan, there will be a host of combat changes/balancing.  There is too much for me to repeat here, I suggest this link.  There is one change coming that is kind of a big deal.  Usually with MMO expansions, new gear is introduced which includes more stats which leads to higher damage numbers.

Damage in the 3.0 patch is actually going down instead of up.  The developers have said damage will approach current levels around when the player reaches level 60.  This is not unheard of, of course.  WoW had their big item squish which brought down all of their stats to reasonable numbers.

BioWare seems to be taking steps to avoid needing to do an item squish later on down the line.  Instead, they are addressing too high of damage now.  It does leave the player with a possibly bad impression of the expansion though.  It's natural to feel that advancement should result in bigger numbers.  Hopefully they will be able to look past this and instead appreciate the lack of power creep.