NGE Good or Bad for SWG

[Oporim]

It's those 30 minute fights that actually required strategy and planning during the fight that made it great. it was like a chess match, and very involving.

Chess with 100 pawns on each side to throw around. If I remember correctly it came about to
- being MBH/MCM and MLS/MDEF
- having armorbreak 75%
- using debuffs and force crystals
- compete who is going to run out of mind/force first
(Besides, where have the other 29 professions go? Or 20? Doesn't make much of a difference)
That is not strategy, IMHO. That is attrition, exhaustion. Same crap we had one year ago with 90% stun resist armor, mindfire DOTs and insane buffs. Things everybody were cursing about. And yet they came back. Why? Because we as people look onto SWG combat with our RL experience and see these happenings as abnormal (at least I do, and half of the former BH/jedi SOE forums too). SW movies were made with regard to RL facts i.e. you never see there Boba trying to poison Luke for half an hour, nor you see Han strafing at Stormtroopers for half an hour before they fall incapacitated. SWG, trying to implement combat in a more RPGish way through damage tables and special abilities (a board-game like or turn based "strategy" game combat), failed on numerous times to produce a combat people would like. Inside SWG's physical universe such prolonged combat may be completely valid, but since we were not born inside that universe we look at it with our own experience and judge it is abnormal to wrestle there for almost an hour before both parties decide to call it a day. It is obviously it came to that because SOE tried to create combat on imaginery rules. Since both SOE and the players have ZERO experience in what outcome those rules (on particular boundry situations) will produce, having such an imaginery system (followed by 32 professions and many more abilities) is completely unpredictable an hard to balance. Inherently.
Since we have studied real world we know that a kinetic projectile with velocity v has well defined energy, and a shaped charge has its anti-armor 'melting' properties. Again, kevlar armor or ceramic armor plates have well defined toughness (ability to withstand a certain ammount of energy per area affected by bullet), and so does layered steel etc. If you base your combat equations on allready-studied reallife (physical) experience (like FPS games do) and taking into account hit areas, you won't have any problem whatsoever later in a game, since the system can be evaluated before it is even put into program. You know exactly which bulled at which range is able to penetrate what, or which shaped charge is able to melt through a certain thickness of steel. You also know that a person wearing nothing weights 100% its own weight, wearing kevlar slightly more, wearing ceramic plates a lot more, the one wearing an inch of steel won't be able to stand up and his high resist is useless.
On the other hand, in SWG we have armor with X imaginary units of resistance, and we have guns with Y imaginary units of firepower, and ability multipliers, and polynomial interpolators to fit everything into the area of results where it was anticipated to be ... but voila, at the end people learn to slightly change one single variable in this complex polynom and everything starts falling apart. Because it was invented, pulled out of thin air on zero experience, this combat system cannot be evaluated until it has been fully incorporated into the game along with all the data sets. DEVs can only manually checked the equations on a few various inputs, but since the data sets are eventually user-manipuated this system will in time produce unwanted and unpredicted results.

If I look at it, in NGE it hasn't changed much. We still have polynomial equations based on combat level, armor and weapon stats. Not even the number of specials was reduced. Healing time was nerfed, that's big one. User interface was changed, this is big one also.
Before you hit the Ranged Shot and got whatever damage you got, your toon was doing the aiming even through other toons, you could be half asleep near the keyboard or put it even on macro. Cooldown was 2 sec (or so) minimum and that was it. Ranged attacks every 2 sec unless you fire a special.
Now you have to aim. You need to actually be there. Even though you see guns firing very rapidly, communication to server still goes the same old way, every two seconds or so. If you manage to hold your mouse on the target for that time, your client will send out some 6 reports of hits in one "data burst". If your aiming is bad, client will send data of say only one hit. It is the same thing technically, except that now "ranged shot" is worth the actual ammount of time you can keep your mouse over target.
IRL M-16 or AK47 doesn't have any specials on it. Just trigger. In Star Wars FPS games you had overcharge shot. And now SWG is basically on that. Special is an overcharge shot, AoEs are no longer needed since you can do them manually and much more customizable.

SWG is the first and last MMO game I have played. It is actually one of the very few games I ever played. But I like the realism that has been added, the realism that has more contact with real life realism, rules that make more sense looking at them through physics.

Now it's over in 10 seconds it's who it's what button's faster, you using the most damaging attack and spam your regular attack and in 5-10 seconds it's over. I don't know I just don't like it, I liked long fights where I had to think. Now it's just a game of checker's.

I know I have to think through these fights also. It is not just fire away. The other night a few PvP fights we had were pretty long. I was in one and I must say switching specials from stun, damage, healing - include here optional DOTs, snares or Cloaks - and having to move and aim at the same time, I had to think. Anyone who is saying this now is a FPS in plain wrong. America's Army for example - there it is all about movement around walls, aim and shoot. There they have one shot kills. We here have none. There they have no specials. We still have. You can last pretty long and choose from a variety of attacks and keep yourself busy all the time.

[E-bo Obi]

Jabe I am with you on STO. Even though it appears I won't be able to play one of the federations enemies, like I had hoped, I will still be there in engineering helping someone. Just let me know who needs a drunken engineer (everybody needs one) and I am there.

[Hashum]

It's those 30 minute fights that actually required strategy and planning during the fight that made it great. it was like a chess match, and very involving.

Chess with 100 pawns on each side to throw around. If I remember correctly it came about to
- being MBH/MCM and MLS/MDEF
- having armorbreak 75%
- using debuffs and force crystals
- compete who is going to run out of mind/force first
(Besides, where have the other 29 professions go? Or 20? Doesn't make much of a difference)
That is not strategy, IMHO. That is attrition, exhaustion. Same crap we had one year ago with 90% stun resist armor, mindfire DOTs and insane buffs. Things everybody were cursing about. And yet they came back. Why? Because we as people look onto SWG combat with our RL experience and see these happenings as abnormal (at least I do, and half of the former BH/jedi SOE forums too). SW movies were made with regard to RL facts i.e. you never see there Boba trying to poison Luke for half an hour, nor you see Han strafing at Stormtroopers for half an hour before they fall incapacitated. SWG, trying to implement combat in a more RPGish way through damage tables and special abilities (a board-game like or turn based "strategy" game combat), failed on numerous times to produce a combat people would like. Inside SWG's physical universe such prolonged combat may be completely valid, but since we were not born inside that universe we look at it with our own experience and judge it is abnormal to wrestle there for almost an hour before both parties decide to call it a day. It is obviously it came to that because SOE tried to create combat on imaginery rules. Since both SOE and the players have ZERO experience in what outcome those rules (on particular boundry situations) will produce, having such an imaginery system (followed by 32 professions and many more abilities) is completely unpredictable an hard to balance. Inherently.
Since we have studied real world we know that a kinetic projectile with velocity v has well defined energy, and a shaped charge has its anti-armor 'melting' properties. Again, kevlar armor or ceramic armor plates have well defined toughness (ability to withstand a certain ammount of energy per area affected by bullet), and so does layered steel etc. If you base your combat equations on allready-studied reallife (physical) experience (like FPS games do) and taking into account hit areas, you won't have any problem whatsoever later in a game, since the system can be evaluated before it is even put into program. You know exactly which bulled at which range is able to penetrate what, or which shaped charge is able to melt through a certain thickness of steel. You also know that a person wearing nothing weights 100% its own weight, wearing kevlar slightly more, wearing ceramic plates a lot more, the one wearing an inch of steel won't be able to stand up and his high resist is useless.
On the other hand, in SWG we have armor with X imaginary units of resistance, and we have guns with Y imaginary units of firepower, and ability multipliers, and polynomial interpolators to fit everything into the area of results where it was anticipated to be ... but voila, at the end people learn to slightly change one single variable in this complex polynom and everything starts falling apart. Because it was invented, pulled out of thin air on zero experience, this combat system cannot be evaluated until it has been fully incorporated into the game along with all the data sets. DEVs can only manually checked the equations on a few various inputs, but since the data sets are eventually user-manipuated this system will in time produce unwanted and unpredicted results.

If I look at it, in NGE it hasn't changed much. We still have polynomial equations based on combat level, armor and weapon stats. Not even the number of specials was reduced. Healing time was nerfed, that's big one. User interface was changed, this is big one also.
Before you hit the Ranged Shot and got whatever damage you got, your toon was doing the aiming even through other toons, you could be half asleep near the keyboard or put it even on macro. Cooldown was 2 sec (or so) minimum and that was it. Ranged attacks every 2 sec unless you fire a special.
Now you have to aim. You need to actually be there. Even though you see guns firing very rapidly, communication to server still goes the same old way, every two seconds or so. If you manage to hold your mouse on the target for that time, your client will send out some 6 reports of hits in one "data burst". If your aiming is bad, client will send data of say only one hit. It is the same thing technically, except that now "ranged shot" is worth the actual ammount of time you can keep your mouse over target.
IRL M-16 or AK47 doesn't have any specials on it. Just trigger. In Star Wars FPS games you had overcharge shot. And now SWG is basically on that. Special is an overcharge shot, AoEs are no longer needed since you can do them manually and much more customizable.

SWG is the first and last MMO game I have played. It is actually one of the very few games I ever played. But I like the realism that has been added, the realism that has more contact with real life realism, rules that make more sense looking at them through physics.

Now it's over in 10 seconds it's who it's what button's faster, you using the most damaging attack and spam your regular attack and in 5-10 seconds it's over. I don't know I just don't like it, I liked long fights where I had to think. Now it's just a game of checker's.

I know I have to think through these fights also. It is not just fire away. The other night a few PvP fights we had were pretty long. I was in one and I must say switching specials from stun, damage, healing - include here optional DOTs, snares or Cloaks - and having to move and aim at the same time, I had to think. Anyone who is saying this now is a FPS in plain wrong. America's Army for example - there it is all about movement around walls, aim and shoot. There they have one shot kills. We here have none. There they have no specials. We still have. You can last pretty long and choose from a variety of attacks and keep yourself busy all the time.

Sorry I started to read this but it hurts my eye's a bit cause it's kind of to cramped together.

But to your first point about it coming down to MBH/MCM vs. MLS/MDef, I'm sorry but I have to consider that down right wrong.

MBH/MCM and MLS/MDef were the FotM yes, and I will admit I was going MLS/MDef but that was my plan even before the CU made MDef a desireable skill set.

There were plenty of good templates out there, Ekade had a good Melee Template, and while I never got to fight against Nyvveck I hear he had it down to an art as well.

There were several great ranged templates for PvP as well, anything with a mix of CM or Doc was a pretty decent template. You could also make a great template using some Medic skills for healing although they may have nerfed that near the end.

And as to Jedi again there were plenty of variations of templates that were equally effective in PvP. You had MLS, Enh 2404, with Defender 4040, and healer 4000 for example, an excellent template that would have stood up in PvP.

And while yes it was a battle to see who's mind or action ran out first that's what made it so strategic. What food's to eat, when to eat them, when and how often to heal, etc.

There were so many options so many variables that it made it feel like chess. No there weren't 100 pawn's it was just a matter of how well and how deep you got into your profession.

There are MLS/MDef out there that could get pwned by MBH/MCM, and then there were Jedi out there like Toront that could take 4 or 5 people on of any template just about.

And then there was Alonzo who could could 4 or 5 people himself and coudl beat Jedi and even beat Toront in the PvP tourney on Gorath.

I'm sorry but there's no way anyone can make me believe the current combat system is better in anyway shape or form.

It's different I'll have to live with that or leave unfortunately. But there's no way it's better. It doesn't take strategy to mash the left mouse key as quickly as possible. The only strategy now is make sure I heal before I die and hope I can get enough damage in after to kill them since you can only heal once or twice per battle.

And I'm sorry but I've seen several fights that may no be considered "long" but it's not the same. You're entitled to your opinion and if you like it great. But before the NGE it wasn't all about 4 professions, sure some of the profession's were not as well suited to PvP but that should be true.

I'm sorry but a BH should have better PvP skill's then some of the other professions. Why? Because that's what a BH is suppose to do. But I think you're forgetting how good Rifleman was, Pistoleer had great root's as did Smuggler both of which were handy. And Carbineer was a very powerful skill set as well.

And all the Melee templates were really good, Swordsman was great, TKM armor was decent, and Pike was pretty good too. I'm sorry but there is no thought in the current system, the NGE is what makes SWG like the old 90% resist system. It's just spam the button FTW.

Now maybe it's better for your profession, maybe you have more special's to choose from because you have different categories. But Jedi offensive specials don't work the same way. We have our Choke/Grapple specials which often times don't work, and really is only good as a snare. You have the Force Power Specials Force Storm for example which is decent it does some damage and add's a snare. But the bread in butter of Jedi are their lightsaber's and all of our lightsaber special's are on the same counter. So I can start off with Force Power to snare you and get a little damage in, and use one Lightsaber special, and then the fight is about mashing the mouse button. Possibly through in a heal if you can get your mouse off your target at melee range. I'm sorry but that doesn't require a whole lot of though, all I do is map the 4 specials I can use to my keyboard and then click the mouse. Sorry that = no startegy for me.

[Ekade]

It's those 30 minute fights that actually required strategy and planning during the fight that made it great. it was like a chess match, and very involving.

Now it's over in 10 seconds it's who it's what button's faster, you using the most damaging attack and spam your regular attack and in 5-10 seconds it's over. I don't know I just don't like it, I liked long fights where I had to think. Now it's just a game of checker's.

Bingo!!!!!

The problem is LA/SOE is sitting in a room with an 800lb gorilla called WoW. WoW appeals to gamers who aren't looking for that type of sophistication in their gameplay. Unfortunately for us old schoolers, their numbers are apparently greater and therefore the money is better to attract that crowd.

Many roleplayers and older gamers in general are going to lose out. This is my big beef with WoW: they set a precedent. Its one that some like, its one that others don't like. I happen to hate it. I played WoW for less than 2 weeks before I got bored with being stuck in the same area for the entire time, bland quests and generally slow progression. The lack of any sort of chat interface also prevented me from finding friends that might change that.

Last I heard WoW had like 4 million players. SWG had 300k at its peak. We're not paying the bills as well as kids in high school are, so us old schoolers have been essentially fired by SOE. They want the young kids that discovered cybersex in Azeroth to come try out their new stuff.

Funny thing is these kids playing WoW right now are gonna grow up and want something else thats more challenging. It won't be there. It was there, but now its gone. It was SWG.

After SWG, I am done with MMO's until STO comes out. If SWG gets fixed I will play it again. If STO sucks I'll just call it quits like I did the last time I got sick of the crap. I was on a 10 year hiatus from gaming when I got in to SWG, I'm a patient man. I'd rather quit gaming than play crap.

Jabe

stfu n00b

I have to speak up here. WoW is actually an interesting and complex game. You have to play smarter to succeed in WoW than you do to succeed in SWG. In SWG, you grind you win. Period.

I actively played both SWG and WoW for almost a year now, so I think I have a better perspective than someone who played WoW for 2 weeks and never got out of the starter area. What would you say to someone who played SWG for 2 weeks, never did anything but kill worts outside of mos eisley, and thus proclaimed SWG was a stupid game?

WoW has always been more fun to play than SWG. SWG was where I went for RP, immersion, and community. I had that to a lesser degree in WoW, but the gameplay in WoW was generally superior to SWG across the board.

I am not saying that because WoW gameplay is childlike or easy. It is complex enough that you need to think. I would not be playing a game that consisted solely of simple, childlike gameplay. Nor would 4 million other people.

Let's not confuse good design and user-friendliness with lack of sophistication.

People play WoW because it is a good game, not because they are idiots. It's hard to argue against that. In fact, one would have an easier time arguing that people who play SWG are the idiots.


If you don't like WoW, that's fine. Just don't infer that people who do like it are stupid. A LOT of mature and intelligent players like the game. I'd go as far to suggest that MORE intelligent/mature gamers play WoW than do SWG.

WoW does lack the chat interface and the ability to bring your character to life that SWG had. That is my only complaint. WoW's RP tools are lacking compared to SWG.


Blizzard treats it's customers MUCH better than SOE does. There is no argument there. I get more from Blizzard for my monthly subscription than I get from SWG. That's why people go there.

[Hashum]

To Ekade's point I tried out WoW the other day for the first time. Frankly the system can work for WoW. But they don't have the complicated "Action" system in their combat. They have Mana however their special's don't use all of their Mana in one shot.

The spamming of 1 special is prevented by simply using their cool down timers. Now I haven't been in PvP or anything and don't think I'll be joining WoW on a regular basis, it was fun and all but I just don't think it's for me. So there PvP may also be 10 seconds long I don't know but their over all combat system is set up better then what we have. SWG has bad action costs, if the corrected this it might help but it just needs a lot of work.

Just because it works in WoW doesn't mean it will work in SWG or that it's good for SWG. Frankly I think they're trying to turn the apple into the orange and we've ended up with some demented biology experiment.

[Ekade]

SWG would have been better served by sticking to it's own identity and not trying to be like everybody else.

Be your own game, don't be a poor imitation of someone else's game.

[Hashum]

SWG would have been better served by sticking to it's own identity and not trying to be like everybody else.

Be your own game, don't be a poor imitation of someone else's game.

Bingo, I miss CH.

[Ekade]

To Ekade's point I tried out WoW the other day for the first time. Frankly the system can work for WoW. But they don't have the complicated "Action" system in their combat. They have Mana however their special's don't use all of their Mana in one shot.

The spamming of 1 special is prevented by simply using their cool down timers. Now I haven't been in PvP or anything and don't think I'll be joining WoW on a regular basis, it was fun and all but I just don't think it's for me. So there PvP may also be 10 seconds long I don't know but their over all combat system is set up better then what we have. SWG has bad action costs, if the corrected this it might help but it just needs a lot of work.

Just because it works in WoW doesn't mean it will work in SWG or that it's good for SWG. Frankly I think they're trying to turn the apple into the orange and we've ended up with some demented biology experiment.

Actually rogues have a bar that behaves like "action". It is class specific.

Duels take one or 2 minutes at the high level, depending on how evenly matched the opponents are. Healing/low DPS classes tend to have long duels.

[snado]

SWG would have been better served by sticking to it's own identity and not trying to be like everybody else.

Be your own game, don't be a poor imitation of someone else's game.

Bingo, I miss CH.

/mourn CH

Did you have to mention CH? Theres probaly a few others out in the community that are crying because of loss of CH. That profession was just so.... So.... So..... FULL OF LOVE! You tell your creature to attack, creature kills and eats enemy. This is the primary insult to me who had choosen mch to stick with for as long as possible.

[Oporim]

Hashum. What I was talking yesterday all day long was that every system degenerates over time. I wasn't saying CU was bad, I wasn't saying original system was bad, I wasn't saying NGE is better or worst. I was merely pointing out that there were obvious indications that original CS as well as CU did degenerate over time. And they degenerated similary.

A lot of people gravitated towards FOTM professions and this was a sign that not everything was OK. Of course there were people who mastered the OCS and those who mastered CU, no doubt. But that doesn't proove anything. To some OCS players, CU was outright bad. And so on. I'm not getting into the debate which was the best, and it was not my intention to do so in numerous posts over the last few days. But I got the feeling that you (or others) may be going that way, so I pointed out the similar flaws between the first two systems one might have forgoten about.

Tactics exists in every combat system, be it keymashing CU or LMB-holding NGE or some FPS. It is up to the player to discover it. For example, you put an emphasis on pre-battle preparation in CU. That is true. While, in the time of battle everything may have gone so equal and prolonged that eventually a player who had more stims and PUPs free to use in his backpack would win. This reminds me of human wave attacks in Russia-Germany and Iran-Iraq. Not the 'action' tactics, but 'who has more to throw at' tactics.
And people were complaining about it. In my experience being careful with specials meant == no strategy for me, since I could spam them all the time and my action consumption was low. Now in NGE you need to choose which one to use.
All these were tactics, in OCS, CU and NGE, just different focus.

I was refering to a 100 pawns (vs. 8 pawns) in a sarcastic comparison CU to NGE; in CU you had so much overhead you could easily make a mistake and live through it. Now you cannot any more.

On the other hand if you did not have top gear in CU you were deprivileged allready. I had 25% hit chance in jedi fights. Not to mention everything was allways going KD, AB, powerhit ... there was no diversity. It was available, true, but it was useless and nobody used it.

Same goes to professions. Indeed there were 32 available, but little people used most of them, and most of people used very few of them. Yes, diversity was again available, but there was less and less of it in game. Same applies to specials. You had a tonne of them, basically multiple copies of a few with different power, but only a handfull were really usable. NGE simply sweeps away the less-used things or merges them.


I am a spy now. Being that I only have one "chargeshot" special, others are not gun-bound (snare, flashbang, AoE and targeted poison, heal, steal and two for combat disengagement/cloak). Therefore I can pull my target, I get to choose whether to stun it, snare it, poison it. I can 'block' movement with AoE poison or use it if multiple mobs come after me into meele distance. Eventually I can disappear.

About specials not working. Maybe here is an answer for you. There are apparently cooldown timers that prevent usage of special after some other special was used even if not on the same counter. I read about that. I also noticed if I have less action I cannot heal right away even if heal does not consume any action. This forces me to plan a few specials ahead considering my health pool etc, so I don't 'screw' myself
This also applies when I plan to disengage from combat.

;)

[Jabe Adaks]

stfu n00b

I have to speak up here. WoW is actually an interesting and complex game. You have to play smarter to succeed in WoW than you do to succeed in SWG. In SWG, you grind you win. Period.

An opinion, no different than mine. I see it exactly the opposite. My point is that WoW and SWG attract two different kinds of gamers wanting something different. And now SWG is trying to attract the WoW crowd and cash in. I am not the WoW crowd although at this point I feel more willing to try anything.

I actively played both SWG and WoW for almost a year now, so I think I have a better perspective than someone who played WoW for 2 weeks and never got out of the starter area. What would you say to someone who played SWG for 2 weeks, never did anything but kill worts outside of mos eisley, and thus proclaimed SWG was a stupid game?

SWG left you wanting more out of the gate, WoW never left me feeling that way. It got boring quick and when I tried to move on I could not. It moved too slow and I could never see who I was talking to in 'General'. It was the most disorienting gameplay I ever experienced.

The quest system was confusing because you had to go to places on the map that you maybe hadn't even been to, no waypoints or clues when you got stuck. I wandered in to the direction the quests told me to go, got pwned and floated about for 20 mins trying to find my body and repeated that a lot until I realized I need to do some grinding. It was miserable. The last straw was when I actually fell in to the veiled sea and could not figure out how to come back to life for like an hour. Thats when I found out the hard way that customer service in WoW was actually worse than SWG - they never got back to me EVER.

Why should I have continued? I never had that kind of trouble in SWG. I dare say the new Mustafar quest system is far superior to the one I experienced in WoW when I was splaying WoW. Hopefully they have improved that since I left.

WoW has always been more fun to play than SWG.

The combat in WoW sucks and I'll tell you why. Not because its too simple (although as I have said I prefer more sophistication) but because the only reason to fight in WoW was for the dumb quests and thats it. The quests sent you to places where you were actually in very little danger of getting killed or... OMFG I got WTFPWNed there is no way to do this. So I ended up doing exactly what I do in SWG... mindless grinding. That means standing around in one spot and killing all the spawns until you are strong enough to finish the quest. Booooooring. In SWG I can at least do that on one of 7 different planets and could actually die and recover sompleace NEAR my corpse. Not to mention engage in meaningful conversations and find groups much more easily because of it.

SWG was where I went for RP, immersion, and community. I had that to a lesser degree in WoW, but the gameplay in WoW was generally superior to SWG across the board.

Superior? How?

I am not saying that because WoW gameplay is childlike or easy. It is complex enough that you need to think. I would not be playing a game that consisted solely of simple, childlike gameplay. Nor would 4 million other people.

My argument is that your typical WoW player is a high school kid or essentially anyone that has played one of the more popular Blizzard games and now is experiencing their first MMORPG because of their entusiasm for past games. Do they really know what they want out of an MMORPG? Doubtful. Blizzard has set the standard for a new generation of online gamers. Its a standard I don't like, plain and simple but its one SOE is trying to adopt. Its simpler and for someone who started with SWG, it feels dumbed down and thats the only way to put it. I am sure your typical WoW player would have some nasty things to say if Blizzard adopted a combat system like the CU. Two different feels, two different player types.

SOE is the reason SWG is ruined, but WoW is the hands on their back pushing the game in to the ground.

Jabe

[Sepiv]

I'm trying hard to keep my judgment open. But because of the bugs right now I can only say it's diminished the game. And I'm still fuming about 9 character classes only, losing my dual MD and TKM concept, the ability to dance more than basic1...ok I'm calming down...I'm calming down. Yes, I think it's diminished things sum total from what I wanted to play.

[Nyvveck]

Heheh. I just kinda thought of something. NGE is basicly the old pre-CU system, only instead of constantly clicking on an icon, you are now clicking on the enemy (or holding your mouse button down while pointing at an enemy). Your specials are all the times you would do something other than HeadHit3.

I loved combat in the CU. Every battle was a little war with feints, ambushes, offensive actions, and defensive actions. And that was just in a one on one duel. Big battles in PvP were very, VERY fun. And even within the same template, player ability still had a lot to do with it. I could fight one MSabers/Mdefender Jedi and have him dead in two minutes, and two seconds later I could be in an epic battle with the same template, but someone different behind the keyboard. So, in short, I LOVED the CU combat. Ranged and melee where generally balanced, and Jedi was generally balanced with them all.

Because I loved the CU combat, I'm naturally going to be disappointed by the NGE. However, that is not to say that the NGE is bad. It has definate ability to be good. At this time, it has just been released. Remember what the CU was like when it was just put on live? It was basicly the same as this (just as buggy, people were complaining just as much). But, once a few months passed by, it became the system we loved. I'm hoping very much that SOE can do the same with the NGE.

What do I dislike the most about the NGE? Melee is crap now. Oh well, I don't mind too much. I've been crap in melee before (Teras Kasi was not always as great as it was) . Hey, with luck, melee will even be balanced out (and I really hope the devs don't consider jedi as the only melee).

Now, to answer the question, if the NGE was good for Galaxies. Depends on the point of view. To a lot of the players, it won't be (just as the CU wasn't), because it will mean learning a whole new system. From the view of the suits in the highrise building that must be SOE HQ, it probably is a good move. New blood will come into the system, replacing the old blood that had left.

My two cents.

[toront]

Anyone saying the CU system wasn't strategic did not know how to play the CU. End of story. I don't need a 3 page post to explain it.

If you want to dig me on having the FotM template, I had MLS/MDef pre-pub19 that made MLS viable and jedi healing have mind cost. You can go talk to Alonzo, who started the MBH/MCM craze on our server, but also played a group PvP template to near perfection on Sorain as well as Jaymz, his SL/MCH that was cut off by the NGE.

No point in getting into crazy details now, as it's gone forever But I want to say I found the line "the CU isn't about strategy" to be absolutely ludacris.