Fun with DoTs in Star Wars Galaxies
Lead designer on Star Wars Galaxies, Blixtev, compares going through the old Damage Over Time code to rummaging through your grandmother's attic. "It's loaded with old junk and it sure smells really bad", he says. Still, that's exactly what the SWG developers are doing as they work to revamp Commando abilities for the upcoming Game Update 4. In some posts to the official forums, Blix talks about opening up moldering trunks and tossing aside ancient silverware to get at the DoT code beneath. "The DoT system is one of our oldest systems, and it sure does some wacktacular things. We found 10 different calculations amoungst 5 functions to determine just the value of absorbtion from armor against DoTs. For folks who don't code, that's alot."
He goes on to describe their upcoming plans for the system, which will spread DoTs to two different abilities and substantially change the way they're applied. After the update they're going to stack up to 10 a piece on a single character, a process that could take some time. Because of this change, DoT removal will change as well. Taking long minutes to apply the full 10-stack to a PC shouldn't be automatically negated by a Medic power. Instead, DoT removal will take away part of the stack, and make the recipient immune to further DoT additions for a short period. Meanwhile, the existing debuff will continue to tick down - harming the character with an element type determined by the Commando's weapon.
A later update indicates that these trials are proving very effective in making the Commando a more fun profession to play, a claim we'll be able to put to the test hopefully very soon.
