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Title: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 17, 2012, 12:07:13 PM http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-10th-2012 (http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-10th-2012)
Here's the first one for the 10th. I'll keep these in order as they release them with my own summary in addition to the link: Quote from: Summarized Questions 1 - Can you elaborate what specific benefits the Legacy will offer? A - Patch 1.2 brings a big step. Species will be unlocked. 2 - What will happen for the future in pvp? (Ilum, warzones) A - New warzone, better warzone ranking/matching. 3 - Is Social gear coming for Medium and Heavy armor? A - Yes, in 1.2 4 - What measures are taken to improve community pop and balance? A - Legacy system will incentivize switching. 5 - When are character transfers available? A - Eventually. We don't have firm dates. 6 - Are you going to put in housing and guild features? A - Guild banks in 1.2, but guild ships aren't even close yet. 7 - What is your preferred method of feedback to the dev team? A - All methods will get to use eventually. 8 - Will there be more rare color crystals? A - Yes, rare and limited items as well as treasure hunts soon. 9 - How do you prioritize bugs? A - It's complicated. In order, critical story flaws, number of people affected, difficulty of the fix. We never ignore bugs. 10 - Is there dual spec in the future? A - No plans to switch ACs, dual spec is coming soon. 11 - Will we get armor color matching? A - Hue to Chest system is in 1.2 12 - Will you implement target of target in the visible UI? A - Yes. In 1.2 patch. 13 - Will you add the option to choose a Warzone in queue? A - Not until we allow cross server queuing. No timetable on that. 14 - How are you planning to expand the endgame? A - New flashpoints, warzones, and operations regularly. No definition on what regularly means, however. Also, we want to evolve crafting. No explanation on how. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bunk on February 17, 2012, 12:09:30 PM "Patch 1.2 brings a big step. Species will be unlocked."
What the hell does that mean? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: luckton on February 17, 2012, 12:12:50 PM "Patch 1.2 brings a big step. Species will be unlocked." What the hell does that mean? Depending on your legacy level, you can roll new characters using species not available from the get-go, like Mon Calamari. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: FieryBalrog on February 17, 2012, 12:14:32 PM No, not at the moment. What they mean is new combinations of existing races and classes will be allowed.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on February 17, 2012, 12:20:32 PM So basically I get to reroll another character... Twi'lek SW. :oh_i_see:
I sooo wanted a Nautolan. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bandit on February 17, 2012, 12:26:36 PM Bah, I thought it was new races as well - I am dying to make a Gamorrean
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on February 17, 2012, 12:29:27 PM He sounded like they allow races that are in the game but not necessarily used by players. We'll see.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 17, 2012, 12:33:08 PM Believe that is coming later, all that should be in this first pass is existing player races available to factions/classes where they were not before.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Threash on February 17, 2012, 12:34:39 PM How hard can it be to make the Ashara Davos race or the aliens with bug eyes and lots of tentacles? they are not much different than Twileks.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 17, 2012, 12:35:40 PM You may have noticed every single one of them has the same face basically right now. They'd have a fair amount of work to do to add all the variant face shapes, earrings, whatever, etc.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on February 17, 2012, 12:56:41 PM It's not like you can see a Jawa's face under their hood.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on February 17, 2012, 12:59:23 PM Depending on your legacy level, you can roll new characters using species not available from the get-go, like Mon Calamari. So, I get to level multiple toons to get legacy levels that allow me to level yet another toon? Is it ok if I'm not excited about this? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 17, 2012, 01:01:13 PM It's not like you can see a Jawa's face under their hood. Let's not even get into the ones with different model skeletons and ones that would require complete rewrites of all the story lines. :-P Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on February 17, 2012, 01:42:36 PM It's not like you can see a Jawa's face under their hood. I was going to make a post about how odd it would be hearing the VOs for humans from a jawa...but I would totally reroll a male jawa BH. Hearing that gruff voice from a lil ootini dude would just be too cool.Seems like 1.2 is shaping up to be a pretty massive thing. April? Guild ships sound awesome. Hopefully there will still be an active BC by the time that patch them in. 2013? Seriously, the Bat Country Star Destroyer. :drill: :drillf: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on February 17, 2012, 01:49:42 PM He sounded like they allow races that are in the game but not necessarily used by players. We'll see. The way it was worded could be interpreted either way. I would be both happy and pissed off if I could make a Cathar Trooper and/or a Togruta Knight. Happy because I want to play those races, pissed because I'd have to delete characters to make room. They really need more than 8 slots per server, especially since they're emphasizing alts so much. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: proudft on February 17, 2012, 04:04:34 PM I was going to make a post about how odd it would be hearing the VOs for humans from a jawa...but I would totally reroll a male jawa BH. Hearing that gruff voice from a lil ootini dude would just be too cool. Voice should not be a problem for jawas/wookiee/etc PCs. Just play the same alien gibberish we get when the NPCs talk now! Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 17, 2012, 04:46:37 PM They really need more than 8 slots per server, especially since they're emphasizing alts so much. YES THEY DO I need 8 more slots. The end. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: proudft on February 17, 2012, 04:54:59 PM The question is... how much are you willing to pay?
I could use a few more, myself. Even though I only have 3 'real' guys so far, I can easily see filling up all the slots by 2014 or whatever. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on February 17, 2012, 04:59:45 PM They really need more than 8 slots per server, especially since they're emphasizing alts so much. YES THEY DO I need 8 more slots. The end. Just eight more? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Threash on February 17, 2012, 05:02:55 PM I don't get, there's 8 classes and 8 storylines. No idea why you'd need more.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on February 17, 2012, 05:03:43 PM Run through the same story twice, dark/light, for starters.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 17, 2012, 05:10:38 PM Yes, just 8 more, that would cover my opposite gender/different AC/possibly different alignment needs. :why_so_serious:
EDIT: Although AC is less of a THING, I think the only one I didn't go opposites on between Republic and Empire was SW/JK. Neither one of those characters dual wields. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Mattemeo on February 17, 2012, 05:16:51 PM I'm holding back playing a char on both Republic and Empire side because of this issue. I ran cold on the idea of a Twi'lek Smuggler and if I could roll a Cathar Smuggler instead, I would really like to know; they're being aggravatingly cryptic. I haven't played a Sith Warrior yet because I'm not enamoured with the current
And yes, more than 8 slots/server would be very helpful. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 17, 2012, 05:23:19 PM Sith warriors are only three? Human, sith blood, cyborg, horn head, I thought? Didn't matter to me, I made a huge amazon sith blood who looks hilarious. :why_so_serious: I'd make the shit out of a man twi'lek SW though. Really all my male characters would be twi'leks if it was allowed. WHICH IS ISN'T.
No, I don't know why I like boy twi'leks. I can't stand the girl ones and their stupid earcones. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Mattemeo on February 17, 2012, 05:24:31 PM Sith warriors are only three? Human, sith blood, FIFY. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 17, 2012, 05:27:11 PM I am looking at a cyborg on the sith warrior make a dude screen right now.
EDIT: They do have one less than the others though, it is 4 vs. 5. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on February 17, 2012, 05:32:58 PM It's hard to consider cyborgs as a separate race when they're just humans with stuff on their faces.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Mattemeo on February 17, 2012, 05:33:08 PM Humans with oversize facial piercings or blindfolds do not constitute racial choices.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on February 17, 2012, 05:58:38 PM It's hard to consider cyborgs as a separate race when they're just humans with stuff on their faces. Occasionally awesome stuff more like it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Falconeer on February 17, 2012, 07:12:20 PM 2 - What will happen for the future in pvp? (Ilum, warzones) A - New warzone, better warzone ranking/matching. 4 - What measures are taken to improve community pop and balance? A - Legacy system will incentivize switching. ( <--- this answer is an insult to intelligence ) So nothing for Ilum, and nothing for population balance. Dropping the ball on open PvP? Poor fucking miserable bastards. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 17, 2012, 07:22:54 PM Honestly, it doesn't shock me. My original instinct when I heard the possible R&D number on the game was "Geez, only some really inefficient morons could blow through that kind of cash on a project like this."
I know they are working on some of the problems, but there were several questions posed about when we can expect to get bug-fixes for the end-game items, and how they wanted to expand the endgame. They chose to softball that one. There were several questions posed about tanking that they ignored. In fact, I've never even heard them reference once how they see class balance in both the pve and pvp arenas. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places. Their window is closing fast if D3 is going to be released in Q2. For many, 1.2 better hit during March, and 1.3 in May so we can get some idea of where they are headed. I'm hoping that the future Q&As expand upon those issues with a few more specifics. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Threash on February 17, 2012, 07:52:26 PM Open world pvp is something devs toss in as an afterthought just to tick it off on the list of things you must have. Unless the game is based entirely around world pvp it is always going to suck. I just wish they'd go back to the original ilum at this point.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Shatter on February 17, 2012, 08:00:25 PM Well based on their inability to produce quality patches so far, 1.2 with everything in it is going to be buggy as f*ck
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 17, 2012, 08:46:07 PM Humans with oversize facial piercings or blindfolds do not constitute racial choices. You need to specify when you're talking about the real numbers or your goofy made-up Catakin numbers. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on February 17, 2012, 08:58:29 PM Does this count Paelos?
http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012 Quote RuQu: Can you provide some details on Healer class design philosophy? Commando/Scoundrel AoE does not scale with group size due to player caps. Are they not intended to fill the raid-healer role? Scoundrels can be highly efficient, but have no tools for doing a short burst of healing. In short, what is the design intention for each of the healers, and is it intended for them to be balanced so that any possible combination is competitive in Operations, or is a certain mix expected? Quote Georg Zoeller: Our stance is that all full healer specs should be viable for all type of content, which is the case, even for 16 man Operations. Our own players have no issues clearing any of the content in the game, on all difficulty levels, with any healer spec. Data from the Live game shows Operations, at all sizes, being successfully run with Commando and Scoundrel healers. It is expected for certain Operations bosses to create challenges for different healer archetypes (e.g. due to mobility requirements), but overall, every healer archetype is capable of successfully healing through any Operations and Flashpoint content in the game (currently and in the future). With regards to your question about Commando/Scoundrel Area of Effect healing not scaling to group size, please understand that no heal, on any class, scales with group size. The most powerful Area of Effect heals in the game (Salvation/Revivification) affects up to 8 players, but does not scale with group size. These abilities are very costly, have an activation time requirement and require the targets to stand in a localized area for ten seconds to receive the full benefit. We plan on improving the overall Area of Effect healing performance of the Mercenary/Commando in the next major Game Update (1.2) by increasing the number of targets affected by Kolto Missile/Kolto Bomb. As for Scoundrels having no tools for short burst healing, we don’t agree with that assessment. A scoundrel, for example, is capable of producing rather significant burst healing output by using Upper Hand gained from Underworld Medicine or Kolto Injection to trigger an instant Emergency Medpack or Surgical probe when needed. That said, we certainly think there’s room for improvements (and our upcoming Game Update 1.2 has a sizeable chunk of such improvements). For example, we are shifting the healing created by the Kolto Cloud ability to be front loaded in 1.2 to allow it to act as an emergency Area of Effect healing tool. Finally, the perception of a specific class being not desirable can also be affected by the desirability of other classes. For example, Sage/Inquisitor healers are currently able to exceed our intended healing performance at times by affecting multiple heals with the same Conveyance/Force Bending buff. Game Update 1.2 will remove the ability to do so. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on February 17, 2012, 09:25:41 PM The problem with Revivification is that current encounter design doesn't make the positional requirement an issue. The rooms are relatively small and there just aren't the mechanics that make the group scatter or force you to split up the melee clump so you can just cast it as soon as the boss gets moved to its new position. Even Soa's jump phases have lulls that allow Sorcs to heal heavily instead of forcing the group to rely on instants.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Zetor on February 17, 2012, 09:38:22 PM Heck, a lot of times I cast Salvation even if it's just going to hit one target because it's a strong HOT and I really don't run out of force as a healing sage. I guess it comes back to the resource system again...
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 17, 2012, 09:59:02 PM Yeah I plop it down even if it's only going to hit two people because whatevs, man. It's just way, way, way better than the other two AE heals. I would like them to bring the other two up (because yes they can move while casting it and I am glad they're upping the player cap on them but they still blow it out the ass comparitively) but I wouldn't be surprised if they wind up nerfing Salvation instead. Because it's not balanced at all, and it's pretty lame for the troopers and smugglers (and BHs and IAs).
On the other hand, trooper healing is totally more fun. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 18, 2012, 06:13:06 AM Yeah Fordel, that counts. However it does raise some horrifying points. The idea of AoE healing scaling is similar to the AoE tanking debate.
Quote Our own players have no issues clearing any of the content in the game, on all difficulty levels, with any healer spec. Data from the Live game shows Operations, at all sizes, being successfully run with Commando and Scoundrel healers. This statement alone scares me. Is that your metric? We can do it, so you should too? Your players designed the fucking game. Of course they can clear the system. Can the regular dumass do it on either class? That's your standard. Also the stance from Georg Zoeller is argumentative. He's actively saying he disagrees with the players that scoundrels lack tools for short burst healing. When he talks about balance he then talks about nerfing Sorc healers. Ugh. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 18, 2012, 11:29:17 AM http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012 (http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012)
Q&A for the 17th is up. Here's my summary of the questions: Quote from: Paelos summary of the Q&A 1 - Will there be server wide seasonal/special events? A - Yes, with special rewards that will be one time only. Soon! 2 - Will you put in the /roll command for ML? A - Yes, in an upcoming weekly patch. Very soon! 3 - Is show/hide headgear coming as an option? A - Yes, it's not in 1.2 though. In the works. 4 - What about hoods? Can we pull them up/down? A - In the works. Also not in 1.2 but is in 1.3 likely. 5 - Will you deal with the AH interface, and when? A - We hear you, and we are working on it. Watch here for news. 6 - What about mobile apps? I want to send out companions. A - We dream of this. We want this. We have no idea when though. It's hard to code. 7 - Can we mod our pvp gear into a design we like better and keep the bonuses? A - Yes, set bonuses will be carried by armoring mods. 8 - Do you have chat bubbles in the works? A - They are on the list. They were in beta, but they wrecked performance. We have to get past GUI customization first. 9 - What is the healer class design philosophy? A - (You'll have to read this on your own, it's long) 10 - What is the exact mechanic behind taunt? Does it equalize threat like a traditional taunt? A - They work two ways: instantly put you at the top of the list, and put a short duration effect on the target to attack you. 11 - How are you going to combat Warzone AFKers and deserters? A - 1.2 will deincentivize this behavior, including removal of the bag/quest system, and direct purchase of equipment with commendations, as well as 14 new objective medals and participation scaling. Also, we're putting in a votekick with a requeue debuff. 12 - 16 man ops are much harder than 8 man with no loot difference. What do you plan to do to offset this imbalance? A - It's not intended that way. We will patch in 1.2 to make 16 man ops easier due to the coordination involved. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on February 18, 2012, 01:04:07 PM Yeah Fordel, that counts. However it does raise some horrifying points. The idea of AoE healing scaling is similar to the AoE tanking debate. Quote Our own players have no issues clearing any of the content in the game, on all difficulty levels, with any healer spec. Data from the Live game shows Operations, at all sizes, being successfully run with Commando and Scoundrel healers. This statement alone scares me. Is that your metric? We can do it, so you should too? Your players designed the fucking game. Of course they can clear the system. Can the regular dumass do it on either class? That's your standard. Also the stance from Georg Zoeller is argumentative. He's actively saying he disagrees with the players that scoundrels lack tools for short burst healing. When he talks about balance he then talks about nerfing Sorc healers. Ugh. His players and the other thousands doing operations? I'm pretty sure it's the latter more then the former there. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 18, 2012, 03:17:01 PM I don't think it really matters if people can complete the content with a given setup. What he doesn't go into with that comment is the percentages. Sure it CAN be done with those classes. Is it being done regularly? I don't know for sure. Plus he listed his guys first in that comment. It's a sort of insight into how he ranks the worth of his testing metrics. Some will think I'm reading into that, but whatever.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 18, 2012, 04:18:20 PM I am fine with them taking their time on the healing thing, because I am positive at least half the "problem" with the non-sage/sorc healers is the way they heal is different from the way anyone who has played a heal class has healed before, and some of them are going to be able to make the shift and some of them are not. That doesn't mean the other two classes are "bad" or need rebalancing.
I tend to agree with them, by the way, that scoundrel/operatives DO have tools to deal with burst healing. And the sorc "nerf" you see is a bug fix. EDIT: Basically the AE healing is the big glaring thing in my eyes, that needs to be fixed before anything else. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 18, 2012, 05:32:53 PM AE healing and AE tanking I think are both off in the game.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fabricated on February 18, 2012, 08:05:26 PM The 16-mans being harder thing is weird. I've only done normal mode raids so far and I haven't noticed much difference at all.
My guildmates say that hardmode is -way- different. They've cleared 8-man HM Eternity Vault and Kagarra's Palace, but literally got curbstomped by the first boss of EV in 16-man HM. Also: Quote 8 - Do you have chat bubbles in the works? Yeah, mods are never ever happening. They're literally battling HeroEngine's UI APIs just to get the UI functional.A - They are on the list. They were in beta, but they wrecked performance. We have to get past GUI customization first Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Wolf on February 19, 2012, 01:12:28 AM my buddy that's doing raids says they finished everything on nightmare, or whatever the hardest thing is, this week. Thing is they're running with something like 8 DPS BHs. I'm starting to thing the lack of combatlog is mostly there to cover the shitty balance at the endgame. Then again I have like 5 characters between 40 and 30 and none at max, so I might be just talking bullshit :grin:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: eldaec on February 19, 2012, 02:11:58 AM Whenever people complete shit for the first time it will be with some bizarre emergent build, I wouldn't worry.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not seeing random scrubs complain about being unable to complete normal mode shit. If randoms can't do nightmare or even hard without few fotm characters then honestly I give zero fucks. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Phred on February 19, 2012, 04:59:01 PM I don't get, there's 8 classes and 8 storylines. No idea why you'd need more. two specializations. Both play very differently. In retrospect having both guilds on the same server is a bit of a drag. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Threash on February 19, 2012, 06:40:11 PM I don't get, there's 8 classes and 8 storylines. No idea why you'd need more. two specializations. Both play very differently. In retrospect having both guilds on the same server is a bit of a drag. Thats why you do one republic and one empire, that way you play all 8 classes and all 8 storylines without repeating any. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on February 19, 2012, 06:48:33 PM I will at this point apologize for suggesting rolling on the same server with SLAP. I would also like a few more slots and considered rolling a couple alts on a separate server....though then you don't get legacy :uhrr:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Merusk on February 19, 2012, 07:00:25 PM I don't get, there's 8 classes and 8 storylines. No idea why you'd need more. two specializations. Both play very differently. In retrospect having both guilds on the same server is a bit of a drag. Thats why you do one republic and one empire, that way you play all 8 classes and all 8 storylines without repeating any. Yeah, this is what I'm doing. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Phred on February 19, 2012, 07:32:15 PM I don't get, there's 8 classes and 8 storylines. No idea why you'd need more. two specializations. Both play very differently. In retrospect having both guilds on the same server is a bit of a drag. Thats why you do one republic and one empire, that way you play all 8 classes and all 8 storylines without repeating any. Sorry I didnt see the only correct way to play the game in the intro or loading tips. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on February 19, 2012, 08:16:24 PM Plus for those who like them (LIKE ME :why_so_serious:) the different romances can be worth flipping gender for. Some of them, anyway. I can't see me giving a fuck about romancing Kira over Doc ever but I'd like to romance Vector (my IA is ALL MAN) sometime, I'd like a romance that doesn't make me want to punch a puppy on my smuggler, etc.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on February 19, 2012, 10:21:20 PM My secret hope is that part of the Legacy system is a bit like the old veteran reward system from CoX and certain thresholds will open up more slots. But nice as it would be, it's not something I seriously expect. On the other hand, they might sell extra slots at $10 a pop.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on February 20, 2012, 07:07:26 AM For classes I have plenty of slots. Four classes, two advanced each. Now I may not have a full suite on each side, but I can get the feel plenty well enough.
What will be a problem is when they add more species. Then there won't be nearly enough slots. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Merusk on February 20, 2012, 08:55:51 AM They won't add new species before they add the race-swapping and server-switching mechanisms. :drill:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on February 20, 2012, 10:06:55 AM They could print money if they allowed people to change species for $$$.
Step 1: Make wookies a playable race that is Republic only. Step 2: Charge $$$ for species and faction changes. Step 3: Buy hookers and blow. If they're bold, they could repeat this 3 months later with a cool, Empire only species. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: eldaec on February 20, 2012, 11:14:29 AM I am genuinely surprised that the game still has no RMT shop. In a good way.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 20, 2012, 11:18:30 AM If I could make an Ortolan dual weilding JK Sentinel, I'd resub.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on February 20, 2012, 12:05:46 PM If I could make an Ortolan dual weilding JK Sentinel, I'd resub. I foresee a lot of those little guys with snub noses then. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Phred on February 20, 2012, 01:13:07 PM They won't add new species before they add the race-swapping and server-switching mechanisms. :drill: Ya by that time we can move the 5 active people in bat country to another server. :) Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: amiable on February 21, 2012, 04:25:27 AM This statement alone scares me. Is that your metric? We can do it, so you should too? Your players designed the fucking game. Of course they can clear the system. Can the regular dumass do it on either class? That's your standard. Also the stance from Georg Zoeller is argumentative. He's actively saying he disagrees with the players that scoundrels lack tools for short burst healing. When he talks about balance he then talks about nerfing Sorc healers. Ugh. I think that response was the most enlightening. Georg is VERY defensive there because he knows he is fucked. They created 2 types of healers with "energy based regen" and they know if they buff their healing too much then they will have to deal with overpowered healers. That is the entire reason end-game game is balanced around enrage timer crap. However a side effect of the enrage timer is that Sorcs will always out-perform energy based casters because they can go balls-to-thewall for the entire fight and not really have to worry about their mana pool disappearing in the time frames that fights allow. Arguing with a straight face that operatives "can clear end-game content" is absurd. The question that needs to be answered is : can a skilled group with operative healres (and no others) clear nightmare raid content. I have never hear of this being done and I am pretty sure the answer is no. Already I am seeing recruitment posts for end game guilds that are asking for healers specifying that Operative healers should not apply. You can lie to the player base all day long, but the number crunchers are not being fooled. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Shatter on February 21, 2012, 05:28:20 AM Thats funny cause my main was a 50 Sorc and Im on my third scoundrel / operative class and healing wise the 2 aren't even close. Oh well GW2 comes out this year, f*ck Bioware and their BS
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Cyrrex on February 21, 2012, 05:31:13 AM Chat bubbles! Coming soon! Maybe.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fabricated on February 21, 2012, 05:47:18 AM Scoundrel/Operative and BH/Trooper healers could be fixed if one of their primary healing stats also affected their resource generation. This is only from observing them healing in raids however; it seems like Trooper/BH/Scoundrel/Operatives can heal "average" damage for literally forever but 1/2 waves of spike damage and they're done unless people can survive long enough for them to stand around until their resources come back.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on February 21, 2012, 06:01:54 AM To an extent, yes. Additionally, Operatives can deal with "average" damage taken while running around the entire time.
Over a two years' worth of raid encounters, I don't think Operatives will come down to a numbers problem. But when all you're looking for across eight fights (and two where you don't really heal at all) is max throughput while being able to mostly stand still, that's what it's going to look like. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bunk on February 21, 2012, 06:08:39 AM Ya know, listening to everything from the "end gamers" on these boards kind of gives me a new perspective on the whole Trammel/Felucia thing.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: amiable on February 21, 2012, 06:27:20 AM To an extent, yes. Additionally, Operatives can deal with "average" damage taken while running around the entire time. How? Our hot certainly cannot even keep up with average damage and instant heal requires TA, which is only granted from random procs (and only once every 6 seconds) on our hot and from hardcasting. To the contrary: if you are healing on a IA you are just as imoable as the other classes because you need to hardcast to generate TA and get the KI/SP train rolling. For real burst healing you need to either hardacst KI repeatedly or alternate it with the crappy 20 energy 1 TA heal, which will run you out of energy very quickly. As long as you have a TA you can repeatedly cast the insta on someonw who is sub 35%, but that uses a global cooldown and really doesn't heal for much (you will get more throughput from chaining KI). Recuprative nanotech is a joke as it requires very specific positioning and heals for not very much. In moderate damage situations I can heal forever by alternatiing KI/SP on the tank and rolling some hots, but if there is burst more than once every 2 minutes, I am screwed. And if there is heavy Aoe I am also screwed. Edit: I would also kill for a hield I could throw on other players. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on February 21, 2012, 06:48:01 AM Scoundrel/Operative and BH/Trooper healers could be fixed if one of their primary healing stats also affected their resource generation. This is only from observing them healing in raids however; it seems like Trooper/BH/Scoundrel/Operatives can heal "average" damage for literally forever but 1/2 waves of spike damage and they're done unless people can survive long enough for them to stand around until their resources come back. Healers need help from the other players. Know when to use interrupts and when to blow defensive cooldowns. With Ops and Merc healers especially. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on February 21, 2012, 07:03:30 AM To an extent, yes. Additionally, Operatives can deal with "average" damage taken while running around the entire time. How? Our hot certainly cannot even keep up with average damage and instant heal requires TA, which is only granted from random procs (and only once every 6 seconds) on our hot and from hardcasting. To the contrary: if you are healing on a IA you are just as imoable as the other classes because you need to hardcast to generate TA and get the KI/SP train rolling. For real burst healing you need to either hardacst KI repeatedly or alternate it with the crappy 20 energy 1 TA heal, which will run you out of energy very quickly. As long as you have a TA you can repeatedly cast the insta on someonw who is sub 35%, but that uses a global cooldown and really doesn't heal for much (you will get more throughput from chaining KI). Recuprative nanotech is a joke as it requires very specific positioning and heals for not very much. In moderate damage situations I can heal forever by alternatiing KI/SP on the tank and rolling some hots, but if there is burst more than once every 2 minutes, I am screwed. And if there is heavy Aoe I am also screwed. Edit: I would also kill for a hield I could throw on other players. Rolling Kolto Probe stacks with Recuperative Nanotech and Surgical Probes to spot heal does a good bit of healing. But you're working 20 times as hard (in large part because the Operations frame is garbage) as a Sorc dropping Revivification for similar results and you don't have another gear to shift into it. You're spot on on the rest though. And as for interrupts, there's a single fight where that comes into play. Team/individual defense cooldowns and medpacs are still nice though. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fabricated on February 21, 2012, 07:50:34 AM Scoundrel/Operative and BH/Trooper healers could be fixed if one of their primary healing stats also affected their resource generation. This is only from observing them healing in raids however; it seems like Trooper/BH/Scoundrel/Operatives can heal "average" damage for literally forever but 1/2 waves of spike damage and they're done unless people can survive long enough for them to stand around until their resources come back. Healers need help from the other players. Know when to use interrupts and when to blow defensive cooldowns. With Ops and Merc healers especially. The first boss of Kagarra's Palace is basically uncontrollable and WILL cleave the fuck out of 2-3 people on 8-man and 5-6 people on 16-man. The Bounty Hunter duo in kagarra's also like to dish out massive random damage too. Sages pretty much drop their aoe heal and bubble and sail through it while our operatives/troopers spam for their lives. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Wolf on February 21, 2012, 11:13:09 PM Well I said that 3 times already at different points - there's a reason why the brewmasters are getting a mana bar in their healing spec.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 28, 2012, 10:37:13 AM New Dev Q&A up for the 24th, my summary follows:
Quote from: Paelos Summary 1 - Will you be putting in a LFG tool? What will it feature, how will it work, and when will it go live? A - We are working on it. We are trying to offer flexibility and speed with the tool. Details soon. 2 - Will you implement quick travel to your ship? A - No, we don't think it's necessary. 3 - Will new emotes be added? A - They are planned. Legacy system will unlock them in 1.2, including a dance with your companion. 4 - Biochem is dominating endgame due to gear from crafting not matching up with pvp/pve drops. Do you look into this? A - Absolutely. 1.2 will add endgaming crafting including expanded reverse engineering (up to 4 pages of patch notes on this topic). This also includes extracting base mods from purples. 5 - Will you put in mini-games like pazaak? A - It's not on the horizon. 6 - Will you put in something that compares mods in armor better? A - It's a convenience feature. As such, it's low priority. 7 - How will you fix performance issues in open world pvp and WZs? A - We have an internal strike team! It's a crucial initative. We should see drastic increases in 1.1.5. Buzz words! 8 - Will you add a companion loot roll option? A - Maybe. Don't hold your breath. 9 - Can I get a different ship? I like mine but I want more. A - It's too hard for us to do. We'll give you the ability to customize your ship more at somepoint. Deal? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on February 28, 2012, 11:11:37 AM Quick travel to ship - really needed imo. When it's more efficient to burn a fleet pass than trudge back through, say, Coruscant's epic spaceport? I don't mind the trudging for the most part, but getting to and from the ship is a pita.
Looking forward to the crafting changes. I think. I'm kind of scared, honestly. Companion loot roll, c'mon guys. It's more useful than 'deconstruct', ffs. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on February 28, 2012, 11:29:31 AM Quote 2 - Will you implement quick travel to your ship? A - No, we don't think it's necessary. :uhrr: Orbital stations you fuckers... not necessary my ass. What is not necessary is having to flight path to the space port, run through it, since you know... no speeders allowed, then zone over and run through that to your ships front door. And god forbid you get to a planet with an orbital station. ...not necessary... fuck you. Quote 3 - Will new emotes be added? ^^A - They are planned. Legacy system will unlock them in 1.2, including a dance with your companion. This is the shit that is not necessary. Back burner that stuff... Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bandit on February 28, 2012, 11:42:29 AM Well the answer was a bit less direct than "not necessary"....
Quote LthalSavy: Will there be any way to implement a quick travel to your ship? Georg Zoeller: Not in the short term, but it's something we've been discussing on and off. Currently, given how easily available fleet travel passes are on the Security Vendor, we don't think adding this is necessary. and more directly to orbital stations rather than quick travel to ships... Quote Zennis: Has there been any discussion to streamlining the Space Port process? Perhaps allowing speeders in the Space Ports besides the Fleet? Brian Audette (Senior Designer): We've absolutely heard what the fans are saying and have been exploring options to address these issues. While we are still investigating allowing speeder use in Space Ports, we've also been looking for other ways to get people from point A to point B with greater haste. One such feature will specifically affect planets that have Orbital Stations instead of Space Ports such as: Tython, Korriban, Hoth, and Belsavis. We'll be adding an option for players to go directly to their ships from the surface shuttles as opposed to having them run through the Orbital Station to their airlocks. This feature and some additional tweaks will start showing up in Game Update 1.2. I am more hopeful with the "we've been discussing on and off" part as it is a pain in the ass. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 28, 2012, 11:43:12 AM Quick travel to the ship would be nice but I don't think it is crucial, plus it would break some story things. Maybe something they could give you as a reward for finishing your storyline, though?
EDIT: And yeah, you people should know better than to trust Paelos's summaries. :-P And you should ALSO know better than to think that the animators who make new dances have anything to do with making stuff like quick travel work! Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 28, 2012, 11:56:09 AM Guys you can shoepolish it all your want on the front end, the important part of the direct quote was exactly: "we don't think adding this is necessary"
The only place I took some shots in the summary was all the buzzwords they used in their performance question. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bandit on February 28, 2012, 11:58:28 AM But you missed the whole question about orbital stations, which 01101010 was raging on about...
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 28, 2012, 12:03:36 PM But you missed the whole question about orbital stations, which 01101010 was raging on about... Hmm, for some reason that didn't show up when I pulled up the notes. My bad! I missed the first two questions. There's also an animations question which tells you nothing. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Rasix on February 28, 2012, 12:06:43 PM Anyone want to shell out $15 for a WoW sub for Paelos? :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on February 29, 2012, 07:13:11 AM Quick travel to the ship would be nice but I don't think it is crucial, plus it would break some story things. Maybe something they could give you as a reward for finishing your storyline, though? They could do it like Korriban:Orbital Station Imperial Fleet [Where You Currently Are For Some Odd Reason] Clean it up a little so options that aren't available don't show up or are greyed out, your current location is greyed out, and if you have a quest then it is indicated as they do now. Also an option to choose which ship you get on and which instance you enter if you are grouped. They are all over the place on that. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bunk on February 29, 2012, 07:13:25 AM Quote Zennis: Has there been any discussion to streamlining the Space Port process? Perhaps allowing speeders in the Space Ports besides the Fleet? Brian Audette (Senior Designer): We've absolutely heard what the fans are saying and have been exploring options to address these issues. While we are still investigating allowing speeder use in Space Ports, we've also been looking for other ways to get people from point A to point B with greater haste. One such feature will specifically affect planets that have Orbital Stations instead of Space Ports such as: Tython, Korriban, Hoth, and Belsavis. We'll be adding an option for players to go directly to their ships from the surface shuttles as opposed to having them run through the Orbital Station to their airlocks. This feature and some additional tweaks will start showing up in Game Update 1.2. That pretty much handles my major pet peave regarding getting to my ship. Yea, some of the Spaceports are a little huge, but it was the multi loadscreen Oribital Station runs that were a real pain. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on February 29, 2012, 07:18:39 AM Maybe, with a little luck, they'll realize that running back to the middle of Drummond Kas just for one line of text 6 times during the class storyline is a MONUMENTAL FUCKING WASTE OF TIME!
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on February 29, 2012, 07:30:08 AM Drummond Kas Watchoo talkin' bout, Nebu?Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 29, 2012, 07:52:04 AM I can't confirm this because I wasn't in the beta, but our Guild Leader who was told me that orbital stations didn't actually exist in beta when he was testing. They were added into the game when there was an outcry that it wasn't immersive enough.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Merusk on February 29, 2012, 08:25:45 AM Yet another reason small, closed betas are useless for mechanics development. Implementation, checks and general "hey does this shit blow up?" Fine. After that just open it up or release since you'll be overhauling the whole damn thing once it hits your actual customer base anyway.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 29, 2012, 09:37:15 AM It's actually the pazaak answer that disappoints me the most. It means they are unwilling to look outside the typical diku box in any meaningful way. Audio quests and storylines are nice but they really arent that different or new. Shit, even blizzard is starting to realize this and adding pokemon to their game. People WANT fluff and bioware seems to think that pvp/raiding is where they need to be aiming their guns.
I'm sure swtor will do ok, make a profit(if the .5 million subs = profit is accurate) but man, they could be doing a lot better. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Evildrider on February 29, 2012, 10:44:49 AM Sorry but the Pokemon stuff isn't going to bring back all the people leaving. I left cuz of ToR, but also because Cataclysm pretty much sucked and MoP is a joke of an expansion in my eyes.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 29, 2012, 10:49:17 AM It's actually the pazaak answer that disappoints me the most. It means they are unwilling to look outside the typical diku box in any meaningful way. Audio quests and storylines are nice but they really arent that different or new. Shit, even blizzard is starting to realize this and adding pokemon to their game. People WANT fluff and bioware seems to think that pvp/raiding is where they need to be aiming their guns. I'm sure swtor will do ok, make a profit(if the .5 million subs = profit is accurate) but man, they could be doing a lot better. In the short term that IS where they need to aim their guns. The fluff will come - hell the legacy system is all about fluff. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on February 29, 2012, 11:29:56 AM It's actually the pazaak answer that disappoints me the most. What are the legal ramifications for hosting an online gambling service?Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Evildrider on February 29, 2012, 11:32:04 AM It's actually the pazaak answer that disappoints me the most. It means they are unwilling to look outside the typical diku box in any meaningful way. Audio quests and storylines are nice but they really arent that different or new. Shit, even blizzard is starting to realize this and adding pokemon to their game. People WANT fluff and bioware seems to think that pvp/raiding is where they need to be aiming their guns. I'm sure swtor will do ok, make a profit(if the .5 million subs = profit is accurate) but man, they could be doing a lot better. In the short term that IS where they need to aim their guns. The fluff will come - hell the legacy system is all about fluff. I agree with this, everyone in my guild wants more/better pvp and pve. No one complains that there is no pazaak or mini games. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 29, 2012, 12:00:01 PM It's actually the pazaak answer that disappoints me the most. What are the legal ramifications for hosting an online gambling service?For fake money? There are no legal issues. If that were the case then puzzle pirates would have been shut down a long time ago. Also of course guilds want better pvp/pve that's all there IS once you hit 50. Focusing on diku pvp though is already a losing battle and wow has proved catering to your 1% hardcore raiding segment doesn't work out well. swtor would have had 10mil subs if it was released 5 years ago instead of wow, or hell even right after wow came out. Problem is the game doesn't exist in a vacuum and it's not 2005. People's tastes are evolving and changing, even people who like diku are getting sick of the same old thing. They could spend most of their time(and by all accounts are) refining their pvp and end game pve but that is only going to satisfy a small segment of players. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on February 29, 2012, 12:01:11 PM It's actually the pazaak answer that disappoints me the most. What are the legal ramifications for hosting an online gambling service?Good question. Late in my FFXI career, I noticed in Jeuno a lot of Japanese players were using /random (which rolled a 1-100 die and popped up your results and those around you with a "So-and-So rolled a #!") to gamble with gil. Not really sure how the pay outs worked as I never joined in, but I think to get in the game you paid one character who held the gil and if you won, he paid you out. Very simple numbers game, but it got bigger as the game went on. Players will find a way. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on February 29, 2012, 12:09:58 PM For fake money? There are no legal issues. http://www.ige.com/Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on February 29, 2012, 12:32:25 PM For fake money? There are no legal issues. http://www.ige.com/What does that have to do with gambling? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on February 29, 2012, 01:35:59 PM Nothing. People like to make the very huge leap that in-game currency has real value, and therefore allowing people to gamble in credits has cash implications.
This sort of falls to pieces when you read the EULA and see that under no circumstances do you have a right or ownership of those credits as a user, and selling them in any form is a direct violation of the IP. So, in legal terms credits have no market value. You are gambling with play money, which many sites do freely. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: CmdrSlack on February 29, 2012, 08:18:49 PM Unless you add Second Life into the equation. It did, after all, shut down in-world casinos because $L were freely traded for $USD, and LL got nervous.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on March 01, 2012, 11:00:17 AM This week I'm going to look at the thread and see what I would like answered out of the questions posed. Here are the ones I hope they address:
1 - Will we be able to change our Legacy name in the future? 2 - Tons of questions about same-sex romances. 3 - When can we expect to see multiplayer space combat? 4 - When will macros become available in the game? 5 - Are there plans for passenger vehicles? 6 - When are you going to do Chapter 4 storylines? 7 - Any plans to update your targetting system functionality? 8 - Any plans to expand upon the achievement system? 9 - Do you plan to allow commendation trading between Legacy characters? 10 - Will you include functionality to switch between gearsets once you release dual spec? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 01, 2012, 11:38:52 AM 1 - Will we be able to change our Legacy name in the future? ---- Don't hold your breath 2 - Tons of questions about same-sex romances. ----- We don't want to piss off conservatives. 3 - When can we expect to see multiplayer space combat? ---- Easier said than done. 4 - When will macros become available in the game? ---- Maybe but we feel squeemish about giving players tools 5 - Are there plans for passenger vehicles? ---- Sorry too hard to code. 6 - When are you going to do Chapter 4 storylines?---- hahaha wait...you're serious? 7 - Any plans to update your targetting system functionality?--- - We don't think it's a problem, lrn2play 8 - Any plans to expand upon the achievement system? ---- We never put that much thought into it in the first place. 9 - Do you plan to allow commendation trading between Legacy characters? ---- And make you grind less? hah good one. 10 - Will you include functionality to switch between gearsets once you release dual spec? ----- Once we release dual spec.....sure. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fabricated on March 01, 2012, 12:17:37 PM I wonder if RP is ever going to make it to the raids...probably not I imagine.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: ajax34i on March 01, 2012, 05:12:11 PM I'm gonna say we will, just about at the same time as they finally fix all the raid bugs. Which is perfect, really.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 07:17:59 AM If Lankov can play, so I can I! Without the snarky doucheness.
1 - Will we be able to change our Legacy name in the future? - I imagine it will be fee based if ever 2 - Tons of questions about same-sex romances. - Will probably go in, in a tame form - politically charged issue they're smart to avoid imo (even if I personally support it) 3 - When can we expect to see multiplayer space combat? - wall of crazy, but one of the more probable things on your list 4 - When will macros become available in the game? - RIFT IS SO AWESOME - PUSH BUTAN 5 - Are there plans for passenger vehicles? - Yes 6 - When are you going to do Chapter 4 storylines? - First expansion has been in development since release 7 - Any plans to update your targetting system functionality? - They've said a tentative yes for stuff like Target's Target, but probably not click-to-heal 8 - Any plans to expand upon the achievement system? - What achievement system? 9 - Do you plan to allow commendation trading between Legacy characters? - No, based on the removal of trading up commendations (ex. 10 Korriban for 1 Kaas) 10 - Will you include functionality to switch between gearsets once you release dual spec? - Probably way down the line, don't hold your breath Most of this stuff has been covered or can be sussed out from other sources. Apologies for the snarky doucheness when considering Rift's awesome macro system. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 02, 2012, 07:38:25 AM So, pretty much what I said?
I mean I'm sure a lot of things will EVENTUALLY make it into the game but nothing about this dev team inspires the confidence that it will be done quickly or done well. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bunk on March 02, 2012, 09:27:34 AM Its pretty amazing to me how times have changed as far as our expectations go for "timely" when it comes to patches, updates etc.
Imagine there was a bug in SWOTR that let people stack mushrooms next to your ship to break in and steal everything out of your cargo hold, and then imagine that that bug would remain for years before it was addressed. (if it ever was) Yes, I know comparing to UO is a stretch, but still. The mantra used to be, don't play a new MMO in the first what 3 months? six months? if you were bothered by bugs. SWOTR had people screaming about the end of the world that bugs weren't being fixed, during the damn prerelease week. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on March 02, 2012, 09:34:33 AM When people knew about bugs for six months prior to release because of beta, does it count?
Though I have to agree to some extent. I hate bugs, I do expect them fixed ASAP, but people are getting a little unrealistic with their expectations. Especially for convenience features. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: ajax34i on March 02, 2012, 10:35:49 AM We cultivate the mindset that EA is completely inept AND greedy and the conclusion is that this is how they must be talked to, to have a chance to get anything done. I remember when CCP was in the hot seat as far as public perception of their talent level.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on March 02, 2012, 11:11:15 AM I remember when CCP was in the hot seat as far as public perception of their talent level. Was? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 11:54:22 AM Some stuff from a Gabe interview. http://toroz.com.au/2012/03/interview-biowares-gabe-amatangelo-on-pvp-server-transfers/
Quote Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable. There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones. Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations. New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear. There will be some "fun" uses for commendations you dont need anymore. Ranked PVP Phase one will be server specific. Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing. General/UI Changes Combat log coming soon. DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log. Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this. Cross-Server Queuing Coming in phase two of pvp changes (later than 1.2) Priority is on playing with people from your own server. As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server queue. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 11:58:36 AM 1 - Will we be able to change our Legacy name in the future? From the dev tracker:Quote http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3060969#edit3060969[ We're definitely working on this (it's a much requested feature) but we have not made any statements regarding when this will be available. Georg "Observer" Zoeller Principal Lead Combat Designer Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 12:01:11 PM Combat log coming soon. (http://truemeaningoflife.com/images/andhappy.gif) Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 02, 2012, 12:04:56 PM I see absolutely nothing good coming from having a combat log in game.
Classes/players will be kicked from pugs or not invited at all. People will flock to the numerically superior classes. Elitist assholes will now be able to throw numbers around while being elitist assholes. :heartbreak: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 12:05:29 PM And before anyone gets too excited, he clarified '3rd party add-ons' as out-of-game solutions; not in-game 3rd party add-ons.
For the record, I am in agreement with Nebu. For the slight bit of benefit of tweaking builds (since there's not much to tweak in TOR), there's a lot of downside. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on March 02, 2012, 12:06:04 PM Maybe with a threatmeter they can figure out why JKs suck at tanking.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 12:06:28 PM Nebu, you're such a ray of sunshine. :-P
I look forward to actually knowing what my abilities do, personally. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 02, 2012, 12:06:38 PM Maybe with a threatmeter they can figure out why JKs suck at tanking. JK's don't suck. The threat system is what sucks. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on March 02, 2012, 12:22:11 PM Ranked warzones should be grand on our server, where we can usually only support one WZ at a time for 20 of 24 hours a day. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 12:30:00 PM I look forward to actually knowing what my abilities do, personally. It'll be glorious. We're such elitists. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on March 02, 2012, 12:32:15 PM Nebu, you're such a ray of sunshine. :-P I look forward to actually knowing what my abilities do, personally. Looking forward to the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 12:40:51 PM Honestly I find not knowing what my abilities do (like ... I have no idea how much damage my sage's bubble actually absorbs) infuriating. I also loathe dying to something and having no idea what ACTUALLY killed me because I can't check the log. And I never really ran into the elitist shit Nebu claims will happen the instant a combat log exists.
EDIT: And yes, I have done a metric fuckton of PUGs in WoW, the place people claim it happens most. It has never happened to me. And I haven't seen it happen very often to other people. There were lots of times it COULD'VE happened, but didn't, because we were still "winning" the instance, so who gives a fuck. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 12:45:33 PM The self-bubble from blade storm on guardians is another one where its just like, welp, it absorbs some damage. No, you don't need to know how much.
There's just so much stuff that is down to guesswork without a log and parses. Want to know whether you should get that power/accuracy mod or the crit/alacrity one? Too bad, you have to guess. Etc. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 02, 2012, 12:47:18 PM Nebu, you're such a ray of sunshine. :-P I look forward to actually knowing what my abilities do, personally. What dps meters will do is exclude people. You need to be class A, with spec B, and gear C to join our group. Guilds will begin asking people to reroll if their class is underperforming to get a group spot. If those things don't matter (to you) then there's no reason to even have a dps meter. You can already get good approximations from the champion mobs in Correlia. If my group can beat an encounter and have fun doing it, that's all the information I need. I don't want to know who the weakest link is. It doesn't do anyone any good and generates an atmosphere of resentment. It's bad enough that players are already being berated for wanting to listen to the cutscenes in flashpoints. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 12:48:40 PM What's important to me is maximizing my own performance, and the combat log is the one basic tool I really need in order to be able to do that.
Have you ever actually been berated for listening to a scene or is that forum hearsay? I'm not PUGging, so I haven't seen it myself but I'm curious just how widespread it is. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 12:53:49 PM You need to play with people who aren't assholes, Nebu. Like I've said before, what you describe simply does not happen on the scale you seem to think it does. If it did, I surely would've run headlong into it, multiple times, in WoW PUGs. Which I have done a fucking shitton of. I am pretty sure no one here will claim WoW PUGs are a bastion of patience and understanding, either. Yet we'd have people doing absolutely abysmal DPS in a heroic, and no one cared, so long as we were getting through the instance.
When my guildmates are "winning" an instance, we are happy. When we are not winning an instance, we do look to see how to maybe improve, and you need information to do that. We don't berate people, we don't make them respec to something "better," or any of that nonsense. We raided with people with shitty specs and sub-optimal raid composition all the fucking time in WotLK (Priests? Warlocks? What are those?). But for the people who WANTED to improve how they played, instead of possibly being the boat anchor, those tools were a huge help, and not having them sucks. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 02, 2012, 12:54:22 PM What's important to me is maximizing my own performance, and the combat log is the one basic tool I really need in order to be able to do that. Have you ever actually been berated for listening to a scene or is that forum hearsay? I'm not PUGging, so I haven't seen it myself but I'm curious just how widespread it is. 1) You don't need a combat log to figure that out. A combat log just makes it easier. 2) I listen to my guildmates complain about it in vent every time they pickup someone that wants to watch the cutscenes. I don't join pugs. I play these games to run instances and do pvp with people I enjoy playing with. If I didn't know anyone in game, I doubt I'd ever even run an instance. The only instances I ever saw in WoW were the few I saw with Rasix or could do solo when they went gray. I can tell you that I watched dps meters bring out the worst in people in Rift. They are the perfect tool for pointing out the weakest link in a party. That's the kind of information that nothing good ever comes from. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: ajax34i on March 02, 2012, 01:04:43 PM Honestly, Nebu, you may be right about the tendency to use meters to exclude people, but with how hard it is to FIND people (on even the more populated servers), I think anyone looking to exclude anyone would only make their own life harder.
Judging by WoW, guilds recruit x tanks, y healers, and z DPS, and then they're struggling to minimize drama in order to keep them. In my experience meters were used to try to win the fight against the current boss, rather than wiping yet again. I haven't seen a lot of "druids are better than priests" though I suppose there were some cases. However, the developers nerfed and buffed classes or abilities so frequently that any guild would gimp itself if they excluded a particular class. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 01:04:57 PM OK, I'll rephrase, you need a combat log unless you're an insane person who wants to do all the math to figure out, say, the power coefficient for a particular power by hand.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: ajax34i on March 02, 2012, 01:07:34 PM So it sounds like they're going to implement a "save combat text to hard drive" option and let us use excel or offline parsers to do what we wish with the information, rather than allowing in-game meters, am I understanding that right?
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 01:08:49 PM Yeah that's what it sounds like. Which is enough really. (Although I wouldn't cry if there was a way in-game to do the 'last 20 seconds of life what did I die from?' thing that Recount lets you do.)
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 01:12:28 PM OK, I'll rephrase, you need a combat log unless you're an insane person who wants to do all the math to figure out, say, the power coefficient for a particular power by hand. You want the numbers. You do not need the numbers.Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Rasix on March 02, 2012, 01:13:19 PM Fuck you, I want the numbers.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 01:13:54 PM OK, I'll rephrase, you need a combat log unless you're an insane person who wants to do all the math to figure out, say, the power coefficient for a particular power by hand. You want the numbers. You do not need the numbers.:facepalm: Don't make this a stupid semantics thing. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 01:18:26 PM Fuck you, I want the numbers. Fuck yeah! Be elite with me, Rasix! Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Rasix on March 02, 2012, 01:21:00 PM That Death Knight is only pulling down 800 DPS. Fuck him.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 01:23:07 PM I'm totally going to inspect him to see why he is so terrible!
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 01:27:58 PM :facepalm: Don't make this a stupid semantics thing. I wasn't. I don't care about a 1% difference in tertiary stats or how much my bubble is shielding. Not knowing doesn't make the game any less fun for me.I get that you guys want the numbers, and I understand why. You're the one saying "you" (Nebu, me) need them or "you" (Nebu, me) have to do power coefficients (whatever that is) by hand, as if there isn't any other option out there. Maybe it won't be a problem. I've seen it be a problem in other games. Since there's no upside for me, can you understand why I'm wary of it? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: FieryBalrog on March 02, 2012, 01:45:02 PM I see absolutely nothing good coming from having a combat log in game. Yes it will be a paradise (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=333373) without such elitist tools as "how much damage is everyone doing". Classes/players will be kicked from pugs or not invited at all. People will flock to the numerically superior classes. Elitist assholes will now be able to throw numbers around while being elitist assholes. :heartbreak: There is no way the community will use far sillier and more arbitrary measures like "how much HP does this dude have" and "what classes are sucky and weak according to vague rumors flying around." No sir! :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 01:59:36 PM :facepalm: Don't make this a stupid semantics thing. I wasn't. I don't care about a 1% difference in tertiary stats or how much my bubble is shielding. Not knowing doesn't make the game any less fun for me.I get that you guys want the numbers, and I understand why. You're the one saying "you" (Nebu, me) need them or "you" (Nebu, me) have to do power coefficients (whatever that is) by hand, as if there isn't any other option out there. Maybe it won't be a problem. I've seen it be a problem in other games. Since there's no upside for me, can you understand why I'm wary of it? What exactly is the downside for you though? You already choose not to participate in endgame content. So why would you be wary? It shouldn't have any impact on you at all, other than the indirect benefit you might gain when number-crunchers find stuff that is broken and bring it to EA's attention. I have the same question for Nebu, really - why do you care what might be happening in theoretical PUGs if you're already deliberately not participating in them? (On the semantics thing, you quoted my 'need' out of context of the statement I was modifying, that's why I got prickly. I was originally saying "In order to do this, I need this"; I wasn't saying everyone needs it.) Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 02:03:18 PM :facepalm: Don't make this a stupid semantics thing. I wasn't. I don't care about a 1% difference in tertiary stats or how much my bubble is shielding. Not knowing doesn't make the game any less fun for me.I get that you guys want the numbers, and I understand why. You're the one saying "you" (Nebu, me) need them or "you" (Nebu, me) have to do power coefficients (whatever that is) by hand, as if there isn't any other option out there. Maybe it won't be a problem. I've seen it be a problem in other games. Since there's no upside for me, can you understand why I'm wary of it? That isn't actually what I was saying. I'm saying "I" want them. I'm saying "you" are overreacting to this imagined horror of people being huge douchebags in PUGs you don't join in the first place, or people being elitists in guilds that are, supposedly, made up of people you like. I am positive the combat log is not going to change Bat Country at all, it's certainly not going to make Slap warp into some log parsing hellhole where we make you guys all respec or reroll or FACE TEH CONSEQUENCES. And if people can, the vast, vast, VAST majority of the time, keep their douchebagness in check in PUGs in WoW (in this regard, anyway), I'm pretty sure SWTOR can manage it too. Will some people be douchebags? Sure, people always find ways to be douchebags. But the actual impact, assuming you do not play with people who lean towards douchiness in the first place, is not going to be very big. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: FieryBalrog on March 02, 2012, 02:04:44 PM I can tell you that I watched dps meters bring out the worst in people in Rift. They are the perfect tool for pointing out the weakest link in a party. That's the kind of information that nothing good ever comes from. People rarely care about the weakest link in a party unless that weakest link is actively causing a problem (in which case they SHOULD care). People just don't care enough to get worked up about it. I got my rogue geared up through heroics doing absolutely abysmal DPS for the first several days thanks to my bad gear and complete inability to play a melee DPS. No one said anything, not once. I've run a few hundred cross-server dungeons since the tool came out, and I can count on two hands the number of times DPS meters became an issue. Several of those were cases where a guy was doing autoattack damage, aka putting in less than 0 effort. And in those cases all that happened was people pointing it out in chat. At the same time the DPS meter has some serious advantages. It helps balance the classes. It helps fix actual problems on raids. Last week on normal Ultraxion we wiped several times because we couldn't meet the enrage, especially if someone died. A hunter in our guild was doing significantly less DPS than we could handle. We had to bench him and get a pubbie who did enough DPS that we could get through the fight. And he knew it wasn't because we hated him or anything; if we could've carried him we would've. In the meantime, he can actually gear up or optimize his rotation or whatever (and the guild officers can help him do it), and get a sense of real progress with his character. Since enrages are all over the freaking place in TOR, the equivalent situation just leads to endless wiping with no solution in sight. Everyone thinks they are carrying the group and someone else must be fucking up. And right now class balance is a complete mystery box. Better not bring Sentinels on your ops because the scuttlebutt has it that Sentinel DPS blows! True? False? Sorta true? It's MMO mystery theatre! Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on March 02, 2012, 02:23:56 PM I didn't want a combat log. I still don't. But the proliferation of enrage timers do make it a necessity. Bear in mind I HAAAAAAAAATE enrage timers. It's a lazy bandaid on the fact that you gave people infinite healing and you have no fucking clue how to balance it. Otherwise, your "timers" would be when your healers are tapped and out of tricks.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 02:47:27 PM As a healer, being the raid's enrage timer kinda sucks. Because it's always painted as THE HEALERS FAILED US. With enrage timers, THE DPS FAILED US but there are more people to blame. And there are a lot more DPSers kicking around, always and forever. They can take a little blame. Healers are rarer and the job can already be pretty thankless without giving people an extra reason to whine about the healers being assy (because naturally, whenever someone dies, it's the healer's fault).
Not saying enrage timers are great or anything, but I don't have a problem with them being used for some bosses. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: FieryBalrog on March 02, 2012, 02:50:05 PM Generally I prefer soft enrages to hard enrages though.
I don't see why hard enrages need to exist at all unless there's a sensible RP reason for it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 02:54:05 PM Yeah, I generally prefer the "eventually you'll just fail because you are failures," but I wouldn't want EVERY fight to be that way, especially if you could string out an attempt to be like 20 minutes before finally running out of gas. I'd rather the guy just enrage at 10 minutes and make it clear we suck.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on March 02, 2012, 03:02:35 PM Yeah, I generally prefer the "eventually you'll just fail because you are failures," but I wouldn't want EVERY fight to be that way, especially if you could string out an attempt to be like 20 minutes before finally running out of gas. I'd rather the guy just enrage at 10 minutes and make it clear we suck. It's old.. but http://www.nerfbat.com/2008/08/13/absolute-virtue-is-absolutely-unscrupulous/ Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 02, 2012, 03:04:41 PM To play devil's advocate there is
"Oh, his dps is kinda low but we're doing ok" and "Holy FUCK is he punching with his bare hands and wearing teri-cloth platemail?! jesus fuck no wonder we wiped 10 times in a row" Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 04:34:52 PM Yeah, I generally prefer the "eventually you'll just fail because you are failures," but I wouldn't want EVERY fight to be that way, especially if you could string out an attempt to be like 20 minutes before finally running out of gas. I'd rather the guy just enrage at 10 minutes and make it clear we suck. It's old.. but http://www.nerfbat.com/2008/08/13/absolute-virtue-is-absolutely-unscrupulous/ OpenDNS blocked that site due to malware for me, just as an FYI for people pondering clicking it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on March 02, 2012, 04:52:50 PM Yeah, I generally prefer the "eventually you'll just fail because you are failures," but I wouldn't want EVERY fight to be that way, especially if you could string out an attempt to be like 20 minutes before finally running out of gas. I'd rather the guy just enrage at 10 minutes and make it clear we suck. It's old.. but http://www.nerfbat.com/2008/08/13/absolute-virtue-is-absolutely-unscrupulous/ OpenDNS blocked that site due to malware for me, just as an FYI for people pondering clicking it. Odd... I got nothing on Firefox with adblock and noscript. Apologies - was just making a point that FFXI had that whole black eye thing with Absolute Virtue first attempts taking +18 hours. Maybe this one is cleaner... http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Pandemonium_Warden Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 05:00:45 PM It probably just means that at some point in the past it was infected or had bad ads.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 02, 2012, 07:25:25 PM It shouldn't have any impact on you at all Fair enough. It's not like I'm all passionate about my dislike of it or anything. it's certainly not going to make Slap warp into some log parsing hellhole where we make you guys all respec or reroll or FACE TEH CONSEQUENCES. I'm not worried because I'm filled with awesome. :why_so_serious:I should get a republitard to 50, though, since the chances of BC raiding or even doing HMFP is about nil. The fact that I don't take part in the endgame isn't written in stone. It certainly not my favorite part of the game, but I've raided in EQ2 and Rift a bit. It's that I've had to PUG it, mostly. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on March 03, 2012, 06:36:23 AM Here's the thread (http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-march-2nd-2012) for March 2nd Q&A, summary below:
Quote 1 - Will you put trading hubs and mailboxes on our ships? A - Yes, part of 1.2 will unlock options via legacy system for your ship 2 - When can we add friends that are not online? A - That's a bug. It will be fixed in 1.2 3 - Can we get achievement announcements in guild chat? A - Good idea, we will add it to the guild love we are working on. 4 - Will Relics be added for neutral characters? A - It's in the pipeline, we have no ETA. 5 - Can we lock our camera angle? I adjust this too much in pvp. A - Ability to turn off smart camera is in 1.2 6 - Any plans to implement region by region maintenance? A - No. Single service environments don't really allow this. 7 - Can you clarify the role of the accuracy stat? A - Accuracy counters your target's ability to defend (dodge, deflect, etc) against your attacks. 8 - Is your intention to make crafted gear superior to gear obtained in other ways? A - Yes, for 1.2 this is correct. Crit crafted items with item mods will require more effort, and that is why they will be better. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Riggswolfe on March 03, 2012, 12:01:03 PM 1.2 is really shaping up to be a very signficant and I suspect very important patch for them. We're getting ready to get 1.1.5 I hope that doesn't mean 1.2 is 5 weeks out.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Paelos on March 03, 2012, 12:39:14 PM I dare say that 1.2 will probably make or break the game at this point.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 03, 2012, 07:19:31 PM I dare say that 1.2 will probably make or break the game at this point. Only if server mergers accompany it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 03, 2012, 09:00:06 PM I dare say that 1.2 will probably make or break the game at this point. There is no way to sway the haters. None.I'm looking forward to the release of GW2 so the gypsy train picks up and moves on down the road and we can just deal with people who actually like TOR and not just the fotm. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 03, 2012, 09:22:00 PM There is no way to sway the haters. None. Saying that a rose is red isn't 'hating' on roses. SWTOR has its moments. Is it a shining example of what an MMO should be? No. It is a step in the right direction for casuals and people that prefer solo. I'm guessing that explains your love for the game. I enjoyed leveling up several toons, but the game gets old pretty fast. That's the point where you really need some 'sand-boxy' elements beyond dailies for players to generate their own fun. SWTOR is still too new for that. Hell, if they could address a few major bugs, I'd be a lot happier. As it is now, my entire guild is playing Mass Effect 3 Demo instead of SWTOR. As recent as SWTOR released, that tells me a good bit about the state of the game. It's well worth the box cost, but barely deserving a sub fee, particularly after 3 months. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: apocrypha on March 03, 2012, 11:05:02 PM I dare say that 1.2 will probably make or break the game at this point. 1.2 is looking like a decent patch with a lot of quality of life fixes, but still missing the (for me) two major things needed (as well as the other stuff ofc) - LFD and dual spec. This game has been characterised by hyperbole from the start, from all sides, and it's continuing now. People posting criticisms feel browbeaten, people still liking it feel persecuted, it's retarded and it's taking over from genuine discussion. Over the last couple of weeks I've logged on a few times and found I have no desire to do any of the things on offer to me. There's no bias or prejudice. I'm not a "naysayer", I just don't feel like playing any more. After leveling one to 50, one to 44 and having spent probably in excess of 100 hours on the game I think it's fair to say I've given it a damn good shot, but as it stands it needs something else to convince me to carry on spending a monthly sub on it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Riggswolfe on March 03, 2012, 11:11:55 PM I dare say that 1.2 will probably make or break the game at this point. There is no way to sway the haters. None.I'm looking forward to the release of GW2 so the gypsy train picks up and moves on down the road and we can just deal with people who actually like TOR and not just the fotm. I give GW2 3 months at MOST before F13 collectively shrugs and moves on after its launch. Less if it is very much like GW1, IE, a boring game with a few interesting mechanics. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 03, 2012, 11:23:35 PM People posting criticisms feel browbeaten, people still liking it feel persecuted, it's retarded and it's taking over from genuine discussion. Genuine discussion would be a lot easier if people who haven't actually played the game weren't weighing in with their opinions about how the game is terrible. I don't think you'll find anyone to argue against your two big wants - dual spec and LFD. They're top of my list too. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Mosesandstick on March 04, 2012, 12:41:46 AM Is it a step in the right direction for casuals and people that prefer solo. I'm guessing that explains your love for the game. I partially disagree with this. Whilst the story mechanics are probably great for a lot of players, especially non-MMO rpg players, SWTOR's MMO mechanics are pretty damn unfriendly. Travel time being a good example. What casual game could swallow up half of your playing session with travelling and loading screens? Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Bunk on March 05, 2012, 06:21:37 AM I am assuming you never ran from one end of the Presidium to the other? Or took an elevator ride?
Every Bioware game ever made has had stretches of running from A to B that took inordinate amounts of time. Not saying its a good thing, but we've been conditioned to expect it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Mosesandstick on March 05, 2012, 06:34:41 AM Bioware RPGs haven't always been that casual friendly either.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on March 21, 2014, 12:18:10 PM Lost in the hubbub of the 1.2 patch notes was last week's Q&A.
03/16 Q&A (http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-march-16th-2012) TLDR; Can we haz moar character slots? Maybe but not anytime soon. Crew skills pop-up blocker? Yes (sort of) in 1.2. Can Mercs get an in-combat rez? Maybe down the road but not in 1.2. Can we trade up planetary commendations? No, but someday we might change our minds. Will the new crafting stuff in 1.2 need new materials to make? No, except for augmentations which will need items you get from Slicing missions and PvP crystals which will need some pvp item you buy with pvp comms. Can we haz moar quickbars? Yes, but no ETA. Not in 1.2. If I unlock a race through Legacy then delete the level 50 character that unlocked it, what happens? Once a race is unlocked, it stays unlocked. Will there be an overhaul to the achievement system? We are in the early planning stage on this. We plan to add twists! Can the 12 of us who bought that Razer mouse upgrade our crystals? Yes. Can we haz a barber? Plans: Yes. Soon: No. I will now indulge in a couple of paragraphs on how we prioritize. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: 01101010 on March 21, 2014, 12:26:33 PM Quote Can we trade up planetary commendations? No, but someday we might change our minds. This is really aggravating from a certain aspect. However, I sorta see why not since you can farm the shit outta the 1st FlashPoint and stockpile a shit load of comms. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 21, 2014, 01:31:28 PM I imagine the lack of additional character slots is directly tied to the release date of the cash shop.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 21, 2014, 01:35:46 PM Quote Can we trade up planetary commendations? No, but someday we might change our minds. This is really aggravating from a certain aspect. However, I sorta see why not since you can farm the shit outta the 1st FlashPoint and stockpile a shit load of comms. Plus it would really kind of suck if the actual "right" thing to do with commendations as you level is just sit on them all until you hit 50. I like that you can't swap them, it means that buying stuff as you go isn't the wrong choice. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Evildrider on March 21, 2014, 01:49:03 PM Before they changed it in beta, there was no reason to use them, just swap them up.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: koro on March 21, 2014, 02:14:08 PM I really wish you could trade them again, though. It sucks having 4 useless Coruscant comms that you could otherwise toss to a friend or an alt.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on March 21, 2014, 02:24:32 PM Making them BOA would be pretty cool.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on March 21, 2014, 02:29:59 PM They've actually talked about that, having some kind of Legacy Vault so you can trade comms across alts and junk.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: DraconianOne on March 22, 2014, 04:50:40 AM Can we trade up planetary commendations? No, but someday we might change our minds. One thing that probably everyone found out on day one but took me until recently to realise - commendation bought mods are BoE so you can buy them for alts. Useless if you don't alt, fantastic if you do and have loads of spare ones from a planet you outlevelled. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 22, 2014, 07:01:11 AM That isn't much help when you have comms scattered across 4 alts, only one of which can use them and the other 3 don't have enough to buy something themselves to send over to him. By the 4th alt, let me mail them over so he can buy a purple box or something.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on March 26, 2012, 09:59:51 AM For Sjofn:
Quote Players creating characters with the new species/class combinations allowed by Legacy will get that species’ unique ability. So yes, your new Sith Pureblood Smuggler will have the Punish ability, and can use it on Corso Riggs as much as you like. Poor Corso.... Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 26, 2012, 10:02:08 AM Tempting, but I am personally opposed to having a sith pureblood on the Republic side. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on March 26, 2012, 10:28:19 AM Make her on a server with a stupid name and play just long enough to get Corso. Then log in every now and then to punish him.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on March 26, 2012, 01:23:30 PM I don't think legacy goes between servers, though.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on March 26, 2012, 01:25:10 PM It does not. My Shien characters have no legacy.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on April 11, 2012, 12:56:41 PM George seems to have gone on a question answering spree last night.
Quote Quote Originally Posted by Dylancholy We are currently working on what we call 'adaptive gear' technology for a future Game Update (hopefully 1.3) which will make social equipment morph to the correct armor type for a player. Together with the ability to infuse mod slots into existing gear, this will make social gear a completely viable option when it rolls out.I'm still confused about social gear. Specifically, the armor. The Republic Officer social gear, for example, is "light armor." Is it viable for me, a Gunslinger, to put my end game mods in that? Or will it stay light armor? Sadly, for 1.2. it will stay light armor. Soon Fordel will be able to tank in a wedding dress just for Ingmar! :grin: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on April 11, 2012, 01:18:49 PM They need more belts that work with the social gear imo, my manquisitor's belts all look ridiculous with the social shit because it's all that "actually three belts at once" droopy, loopy shit.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on April 11, 2012, 01:46:46 PM George seems to have gone on a question answering spree last night. Quote Quote Originally Posted by Dylancholy We are currently working on what we call 'adaptive gear' technology for a future Game Update (hopefully 1.3) which will make social equipment morph to the correct armor type for a player. Together with the ability to infuse mod slots into existing gear, this will make social gear a completely viable option when it rolls out.I'm still confused about social gear. Specifically, the armor. The Republic Officer social gear, for example, is "light armor." Is it viable for me, a Gunslinger, to put my end game mods in that? Or will it stay light armor? Sadly, for 1.2. it will stay light armor. Soon Fordel will be able to tank in a wedding dress just for Ingmar! :grin: I actually can't, the wedding dress is female only :( Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on April 11, 2012, 01:50:47 PM Someone mentioned they might be removing gender restrictions in the future, though!
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on April 11, 2012, 01:51:19 PM inc Jassan running around in a slave girl outfit
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on April 11, 2012, 02:21:20 PM I actually can't, the wedding dress is female only :( Time to make Fordella, the Wedding Commando then. (What's another Trooper, right?)Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on April 11, 2012, 02:45:14 PM Commandos are the healing class Lanty, GAWD!
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on April 11, 2012, 04:40:14 PM It was a title, not a class designation.
(Not like I know your silly Republican classes anyways.) Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Jherad on April 12, 2012, 04:13:32 AM silly Republican classes (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/704154/EmperorCheney_lg.jpg) Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Rokal on April 27, 2012, 05:01:42 PM Quote Q: When will character transfers be available for everybody? A: We will be rolling out our Character Transfer Service in early summer. First we’ll have some targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, but that will be followed with a broader system where you can either take advantage of free promotional transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice. We know everyone has more questions about character transfer, and we’ll reveal more details closer to the launch date. Source: http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-april-27th-2012 Not unexpected, but it sounds like they plan for server transfers to be a paid service in the long run. I'd hoped that Rift set a precedent for why free transfers are good business, but Bioware has opted to stick with the 'tried and true' MMO model that has done so well for them thus far. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on April 27, 2012, 05:20:26 PM wtb more character slots per server pst
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on April 27, 2012, 05:21:30 PM So where's the evidence that free transfers were actually good for RIFT?
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on April 27, 2012, 07:04:23 PM wtb more character slots per server pst Fuckin' A. I've deleted two or three I'd rather not've.Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Minvaren on April 27, 2012, 07:05:52 PM 16 per server should be enough for everyone. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on April 27, 2012, 07:28:05 PM So where's the evidence that free transfers were actually good for RIFT? That everyone thinks of them as "free transfers and trial servers" instead of server merges. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on April 27, 2012, 07:28:49 PM 16 per server should be enough for everyone. :oh_i_see: 1 per romance imo Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on April 27, 2012, 07:52:14 PM 16 per server should be enough for everyone. :oh_i_see: That would be about enough. :grin: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on April 27, 2012, 08:23:31 PM Per side.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on April 27, 2012, 08:26:34 PM Mostly I would like to be the opposite gender for the bulk of the classes (But not all! For example, I don't feel the need to be a dude JK, because Kira annoys the fuck out of me, and I would spend the entire time wishing I could make out with Doc), so 16 really would be pretty much ideal. :P
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Rokal on April 28, 2012, 12:44:50 AM So where's the evidence that free transfers were actually good for RIFT? I don't really know that there's any proof, other than that the game is doing well, servers are well-populated, and the community (judging from the forums/in-game) seems happier with the game and Trion than any other MMO community I've seen. Players getting into like-minded guilds is good business for MMOs, as it makes it more likely that they'll stick with the game or take advantage of the repeatable activities (PVP, raiding, dungeons, RP) that keep subs rolling. Allowing free transfers and having a competent Looking For Guild tool makes that goal much easier to achieve. You can also see the benefit in the free mobile app, which keeps players more connected to their guild and the game. There's a value to that. Companies like Blizzard/Bioware only seem to see the value if the service is directly bringing in revenue (e.g. mobile guild chat/AH 'subscription' for WoW). Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Minvaren on April 28, 2012, 06:21:12 AM For me, it's mostly that I'd like to take Light Side and Dark Side routes on each class. On reflection, I did this with the KotORs as well...
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Phred on April 30, 2012, 12:31:24 AM So where's the evidence that free transfers were actually good for RIFT? Don't worry, SWToR is next on the graveyard train. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on April 30, 2012, 03:15:23 AM the community (judging from the forums/in-game) seems happier with the game and Trion than any other MMO community I've seen The vast majority of people who care about Rift at this point probably like it. This is especially true as we move farther from the debate over the introduction of addons. There's no hook for that game that makes people who don't like it as-is pine for it to be something else. It's not a social juggernaut, it doesn't have a compelling IP, and it's not the last best hope for a certain game style or sub-genre. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Kageru on April 30, 2012, 05:01:44 AM So where's the evidence that free transfers were actually good for RIFT? Who cares? more interesting is the pretty likely argument that no transfers of any type has been bad for SWTOR. There's a lot of characters stuck on light servers with the options being abandon your investment and re-roll or abandon your investment and un-sub. Or put another way if the server isn't supplying the MMO experience the player deserves I would consider free merging or transfers off that server to be reasonable customer service. You don't punish the customer for being unlucky in their server selection. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Shatter on April 30, 2012, 09:26:04 AM Didnt they say in last weeks Dev Q&A that transfers for NA wil be early summer? Kind of along time to make people wait on dead servers now isnt it?
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on April 30, 2012, 10:07:23 AM It isn't like they can wave a magic wand and have the tech to do that instantly completed. If it isn't ready it isn't ready.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: bhodi on April 30, 2012, 12:15:50 PM Well, it's ready and active for Oceanic servers...
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on April 30, 2012, 12:22:37 PM Ah well in that case, yeah.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on April 30, 2012, 01:25:17 PM Well, it's ready and active for Oceanic servers... They said that version is just a prototype, though. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Kageru on April 30, 2012, 06:17:53 PM It should have been ready at launch or shortly thereafter because server population imbalance was highly likely and damages the play experience. They explain that the legacy system complicates things which means that even after launch, when they were finishing the legacy system, the need for one just never occurred to them. And transfers off dead servers is pointless as it leaves behind a doubly dead server. It's merges they need and pride / appearances that means they won't do it. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on April 30, 2012, 06:29:37 PM If the Rift model is technologically feasible for them, the dead servers are not an issue. They can just cannibalize them for grandfathered/trial-only use.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: bhodi on May 01, 2012, 08:49:09 AM This lovely piece of info is useful for any crafters... I'm glad this was detailed in the game itself:
Quote Patrick Malott (Systems Designer): The baseline crit chance for crafting is dependent on the difficulty of the crafting action relative to your current crafting skill level. The difficulty is color coded in the crafting GUI. Orange Difficulty: 10% Yellow, Green, and Gray Difficulty: 15% Companion Affection scales Crew Skill chance up to +5% at maximum affection. A Companion Trait critical chance bonus of +1 or +5 is a percentage. Example: The Imperial Agent companion character Kaliyo grants a +2 bonus to Underworld Trading Critical. This is +2% bonus. Using Kaliyo at maximum affection as an example, if she ran a green difficulty Underworld Trading mission for you, she would have a 22% chance to score a mission critical success. So you want to avoid orange missions for the maximum chance of critting for purple materials. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on May 01, 2012, 10:16:15 AM Unless you're just skilling up, then you want to do the orange ones as I think you get more skill points per combine?
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on May 01, 2012, 04:09:36 PM Unless you're just skilling up, then you want to do the orange ones as I think you get more skill points per combine? Yes, Orange gives two skill-ups per craft. As for the crew skill criticals, I'm pretty sure we knew the affection/bonus stuff. It being orange vs. everything else for critical rates is new though. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Phred on May 01, 2012, 04:25:24 PM Haven't seen this posted so...
Quote Star Wars: The Old Republic : Erickson Denies Declining Sub Numbers Posted Apr 24, 2012 by Suzie Ford BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic Lead Designer Daniel Erickson has denied recent claims that the number of subscribers to SWTOR are in decline. Last week, financial analyst Cowen & Company projected that SWTOR's subscriber base would likely be reduced by the end of fiscal March 2013. Erickson, however, says that this is not true. However, BioWare lead writer Daniel Erickson has now denied that sub numbers are already dropping, although he told PC Gamer that server merging may occur due to light server populations. "Nothing is off the table when it comes to making sure our communities are strong and active on each server," he explained. He said that BioWare is currently doing "anything and everything" to increase concurrent user numbers. In other news he also insisted that black was white and up was down. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on May 02, 2012, 07:33:25 AM With a little statistical manipulation I'm sure he's correct.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nebu on May 02, 2012, 07:47:08 AM If they keep giving everyone a free month, then I'm sure that subscription numbers will remain stable. :why_so_serious:
I logged on last night for the first time in weeks and it was a ghost town on my server. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Minvaren on May 05, 2012, 09:22:18 AM New week, new Q&A (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=443114).
Some highlights: - all GTN nodes going neutral (1.3?) - Mentoring "is coming" - look for new Orange armor pieces from Treasure Hunting - Legacy cross-servers? Eventually... Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on May 06, 2012, 06:23:55 PM I think what annoys me about the GTN statement, is if they want more lowbie items on the markets, just put the GTN terminals back on all the planets. In Beta, there were GTN terminals on each planet, so it was really easy to just take a speeder back, dump all your shitty greens and blues, then go back to questing.
Right now it takes half a dozen loading screens or you mail it all to a auction alt... or option number three, vendor that shit :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Kageru on May 06, 2012, 08:22:54 PM The "We need server merges!" threads never disappoint. Images of people standing alone in the fleet area or a /who list showing 40-70 people on the entire faction. I can't decide whether it's incompetence, hubris or desperation that they believe they can take their time on server merges. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Phred on May 06, 2012, 09:24:38 PM I think what annoys me about the GTN statement, is if they want more lowbie items on the markets, just put the GTN terminals back on all the planets. In Beta, there were GTN terminals on each planet, so it was really easy to just take a speeder back, dump all your shitty greens and blues, then go back to questing. Right now it takes half a dozen loading screens or you mail it all to a auction alt... or option number three, vendor that shit :why_so_serious: Plus people need to buy that shit which in my experience rarely happened. Maybe it's a catch 22. People dont find low level items on the market so they stop bothering to look. If that's the case I think that boat has sailed. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: caladein on May 06, 2012, 09:36:10 PM The "We need server merges!" threads never disappoint. Images of people standing alone in the fleet area or a /who list showing 40-70 people on the entire faction. I can't decide whether it's incompetence, hubris or desperation that they believe they can take their time on server merges. I'm being perfectly serious when I say this: having a planet to myself in the middle of the night is a feature. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Spiff on May 06, 2012, 11:40:57 PM Last time I logged onto my server (one of the ones that didn't die) it was full of people rerolling apparently, so perhaps they see the lack of server merging/changing as a good way of re-using content :oh_i_see:.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Kageru on May 07, 2012, 12:19:43 AM The "We need server merges!" threads never disappoint. Images of people standing alone in the fleet area or a /who list showing 40-70 people on the entire faction. I can't decide whether it's incompetence, hubris or desperation that they believe they can take their time on server merges. I'm being perfectly serious when I say this: having a planet to myself in the middle of the night is a feature. Yes. I would assume a large amount of the remaining population are playing it as a single player (maybe duo) game. Which means the grouping potential for those who want the multi-player experience is even worse than the numbers indicate. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on May 07, 2012, 01:27:11 AM I think what annoys me about the GTN statement, is if they want more lowbie items on the markets, just put the GTN terminals back on all the planets. In Beta, there were GTN terminals on each planet, so it was really easy to just take a speeder back, dump all your shitty greens and blues, then go back to questing. Right now it takes half a dozen loading screens or you mail it all to a auction alt... or option number three, vendor that shit :why_so_serious: Plus people need to buy that shit which in my experience rarely happened. Maybe it's a catch 22. People dont find low level items on the market so they stop bothering to look. If that's the case I think that boat has sailed. Yea, there's definitely a bit of that. In Beta, you could count on buying a whole suit of green/blues every planet if you wanted too. So it was worth it for everyone to just list their crap, even for the default GTN asking price per item (which was still more then vendor value). Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on May 08, 2012, 04:50:18 PM This isn't part of the weekly Q&A, but there's a podcast (http://www.swtor.com/blog/star-wars-old-republic-officical-podcast-episode-i) up with some info on 1.3.
Some highlights:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on May 08, 2012, 04:53:00 PM My recollection is that the initial version of LFG was going to be same-server with cross-server getting added later, but I could have dreamed it.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on May 08, 2012, 05:04:20 PM The other thing I'm curious about is if you pick world content and you get a group, will the tool take you to where the content is or do you still have to hoof it there yourself?
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Zetor on May 08, 2012, 09:55:55 PM Yea, I was about to ask this (LFD is relevant to my interests and my 'check out WOW... again' sub has just ended; it'd need to be x-server though as my server was kind of dead when I left in Jan). I do know some of the outworld heroics start in the world and then shift into an instance. Have they updated them so the heroics port everyone into the instance and start there, or does everyone still need to (e.g.) travel to levelling_planet_x, go through the various docking zones, take a flight path or port (if the 'hearthstone' is up) and do the quest normally?
* yeah, I realize that if you're doing them while levelling you're already on the same planet at least... but on my server I was frequently the only person on a levelling planet, which doesn't fill me with too much confidence about LFGing for levelling heroics. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: koro on May 09, 2012, 12:29:10 PM The other thing I'm curious about is if you pick world content and you get a group, will the tool take you to where the content is or do you still have to hoof it there yourself? If it's the former, I will feel so vindicated after all the arguments I had on the beta forums with people who were so staunchly against anything LFG-related, especially if it auto-ported. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: bhodi on May 09, 2012, 04:13:34 PM No Ranked Warzones, no 8 Man PVP Queuing? Maybe no deserter debuff or any pvp issues being addressed? Oh well! I really wanted to like this game, but it's just been disappoint.
How is Questing LFD going to work? If it doesn't include a TP to bring people together am just going to smile sadly and close the book on this game because they are completely missing the message. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on May 09, 2012, 04:24:47 PM I really don't get the obsession some people seem to have over ranked warzones. WoW somehow managed to stumble along for 6 years before putting in rated battlegrounds, and even then they had to practically force people to use the damned things by restructuring the weekly cap on conquest points to get the arena people to use them. Why are ranked warzones so important?
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: bhodi on May 09, 2012, 04:33:36 PM Because all the pricing of the PVP gear is assuming that ranked warzone commendations exist, so everything is 3x the price due to a 3:1 token tradein. This might have been fixed, not sure. Honestly the 4 man group max thing is way more of a day-to-day issue than ranked warzones to me; having to tell one guy he has to sit out because there are 5 of you on TS is a bummer.
WoW somehow managed to stumble along for years before putting in LFG and dungeon teleports too (remember when there were no summon stones? When warlocks were gods?) but once they are in it's clear to everyone how much of a quality of life bonus it was. Going back from that is hard. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on May 09, 2012, 04:41:20 PM Except ranked battlegrounds absolutely blew in WoW.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Nevermore on May 09, 2012, 04:44:15 PM Because all the pricing of the PVP gear is assuming that ranked warzone commendations exist, so everything is 3x the price due to a 3:1 token tradein. This might have been fixed, not sure. Honestly the 4 man group max thing is way more of a day-to-day issue than ranked warzones to me; having to tell one guy he has to sit out because there are 5 of you on TS is a bummer. WoW somehow managed to stumble along for years before putting in LFG and dungeon teleports too (remember when there were no summon stones? When warlocks were gods?) but once they are in it's clear to everyone how much of a quality of life bonus it was. Going back from that is hard. Yes, but all those other things you mentioned are quality of life features that benefits everyone. What is it about ranked warzones specifically that makes so many people bring it up? I mean, we're talking about a feature that wasn't even particularly well liked in WoW, at least up to when I finally cancelled at the end of November last year. If it's just the price of the pvp gear, just readjust the price in my opinion. Though it should also be noted that the difference between the Battlemaster set and the War Hero set is really, really small. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Fordel on May 09, 2012, 05:38:25 PM The issue there isn't ranked Warzones, it's the retarded endgame PvP itemization and acquisition... again. :why_so_serious:
They have no idea how they want to handle PvP items or how they want people to get them. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on May 09, 2012, 06:57:31 PM Though it should also be noted that the difference between the Battlemaster set and the War Hero set is really, really small. :why_so_serious:Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: bhodi on May 09, 2012, 07:14:50 PM Yeah.. um, that isn't true for some things like implants.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: bhodi on May 09, 2012, 07:45:39 PM Also, because they fucked up the itemization so badly, I actually tried to plan, hit 50, bought the entire recruit set and 2 pieces of battlemaster, when I hit 50 and joined a game, I was unable to damage anyone. That was kind of a bummer.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Falconeer on May 10, 2012, 04:46:03 AM Because all the pricing of the PVP gear is assuming that ranked warzone commendations exist, so everything is 3x the price due to a 3:1 token tradein. This. A full set of War Hero is about 80k (eighty thousands) Warzone Commendations. Considering you earn an average of 80 per match, you have to play about 1000 warzones in order to get it. As usual the winning faction gets there faster and that makes them even more winning. Sure, dailies speed up the process... by a negligible amount. That is even more infuriating if you think that the whole pvp gear revamp has been made so getting gear was going to be easier for everyone across the board, as a way to level the play field and make it more about player skills than gear grind. That has been the staple of the whole patch 1.2 production process, and it has been killed 2 days before launching it by removing the ranked warzones and not reconfiguring prices or purposes. The difference between War Hero and Battlemaster gear isn't that big on paper but believe me you feel it on the field. You really feel it. This game is gear dependent, and everything adds up. When fights are decided in a matter of seconds and for a few slivers of HP every single number counts. Also, and maybe more important, it's not that a full set of War Hero gear is that domianting over a full set of Battlemaster gear. It's that if you have a full set of War Hero you can sub the mods/enhancements you don't need with Battlemaster ones, for a huge efficiency boost. When you are usin "just" Battlemaster gear or "just" War Hero gear you are not even close to someone that is wisely using a mix of the two. So yeah, the lack of ranked warzones sucks for the way they built itemization, but that aside, the lack of ranked warzones sucks because some love to play ranked/ladder matches. Regardless of how they have been implemented in WoW. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on May 10, 2012, 07:47:14 AM So they let you have early access to the ranked warzone gear and everyone bitches about it. Be nice if they just yank all the gear and return the commendations so everyone will shut up about it until the ranked wzs come out.
Also, because they fucked up the itemization so badly, I actually tried to plan, hit 50, bought the entire recruit set and 2 pieces of battlemaster, when I hit 50 and joined a game, I was unable to damage anyone. That was kind of a bummer. This is why I laugh at the entire concept. But thanks for pushing that concept onto fps, it's really improved the genre. I'm assuming that because I don't play fps anymore because they've jacked it up so bad.Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Falconeer on May 10, 2012, 09:24:18 AM Sky, in all honesty no one was asking for more PvP gears.
That's why it was a good idea that while keeping tiers in, they were all pretty easy to attain. Having removed open PvP (Ilum) the least the PvP crowd was expecting was some e-Sport stuff. Which were the planned ranked warzones with easy to attain top equip. A la Guild Wars, in a way. So not the best, but good. This is exactly what they were going to deliver up to 2 days before 1.2 launch... when they had to delay ranked warzones and by doing so forced everyone to another huge item grind, worsened by the thinning population (so less games starting therefore less chances to get commendations). So thanks... I guess... for the early access to gear that on a losing server is almost impossible to get. Easy instead if you are on a winning server, as huttball friendly matches keep starting over and over. That said, War Hero gear is not the problem. The problem is the lack of any of these things: 1) Cross Server queues 2) Server Transfers 3) Server Mergers The keyword here is SERVERS. Fuck. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sky on May 10, 2012, 11:32:17 AM Or that geared pvp is stupid.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Falconeer on May 10, 2012, 12:36:27 PM We pretty much all agree.
If you ask me the focus in any PvP game should be on builds, tons of them. Abilities, talents, synergies, and even gear. But same stuff available to everyone from the get go, please. Still, that's not the worst thing here. Their last announced gear revision was decent on paper. If only they implemented it in full... Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Mattemeo on May 10, 2012, 05:27:08 PM Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on May 25, 2012, 03:28:18 PM Today's is up:
http://www.swtor.com/node/315059 Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on May 25, 2012, 04:15:42 PM Quote Although we’re certainly willing to entertain the idea of cross-server LFG tools if the need arises, it’s a last resort for us. We firmly believe for cooperative play it is important to have a community and social responsibility that you simply can’t have with players appearing and disappearing from your reality. Instead we are pushing hard on servers that are massive compared to the ones we launched with. SIGH I mean, whatever on the server mergers that aren't REALLY server mergers oh god don't say they're server merges, but unless they're merging the servers into ONE BIG SERVER, this is the WRONG FUCKING ANSWER. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Minvaren on May 25, 2012, 06:49:37 PM Quote Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Legacy Perks have a different purpose than global unlocks and are specifically designed to enable players to customize each individual character. Since you may not care about Space XP or running the Bonus Series missions on one character it is important that you’re not paying a premium that is calculated at the expense of 8 or more characters all gaining this benefit. This also means the Legacy Perks will, as a rule, be more affordable than the global unlocks. Did he just say what I think he said? :grin: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on May 25, 2012, 07:04:24 PM I hope so. <3
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Evildrider on May 25, 2012, 07:29:58 PM Quote Although we’re certainly willing to entertain the idea of cross-server LFG tools if the need arises, it’s a last resort for us. We firmly believe for cooperative play it is important to have a community and social responsibility that you simply can’t have with players appearing and disappearing from your reality. Instead we are pushing hard on servers that are massive compared to the ones we launched with. SIGH I mean, whatever on the server mergers that aren't REALLY server mergers oh god don't say they're server merges, but unless they're merging the servers into ONE BIG SERVER, this is the WRONG FUCKING ANSWER. It really depends on how big these server caps are. I bet they are just gonna say fuck it about instances and let as many ppl on the servers as possible and instance the shit out of the fleet and planets like they did at launch. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on May 25, 2012, 07:46:51 PM WoW's dungeon finder didn't become 100% wicked sweet awesome (from a group building standpoint, of course) until it branched out of its battlegroups if I remember right, and I feel pretty secure in saying the battlegroups WoW was working with had bigger populations than whatever servers pop they're going for on the new merges, so ... I dunno. Maybe you're right. But I am pretty well certain that the populations - even on freshly merged servers - are not going to be big enough for their LFG thing.
It's better than nothing, of course, and will probably be ooookay for level 50 stuff (although probably shitty for DPSers as usual? Who knows). But being all "derp derp cross server is a LAST RESORT" is making a big mistake imo. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Evildrider on May 25, 2012, 07:59:12 PM WoW's dungeon finder didn't become 100% wicked sweet awesome (from a group building standpoint, of course) until it branched out of its battlegroups if I remember right, and I feel pretty secure in saying the battlegroups WoW was working with had bigger populations than whatever servers pop they're going for on the new merges, so ... I dunno. Maybe you're right. But I am pretty well certain that the populations - even on freshly merged servers - are not going to be big enough for their LFG thing. It's better than nothing, of course, and will probably be ooookay for level 50 stuff (although probably shitty for DPSers as usual? Who knows). But being all "derp derp cross server is a LAST RESORT" is making a big mistake imo. I am all for them holding off cross server as much as possible. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on June 18, 2012, 01:18:54 PM Missed the last couple, here's last Friday's:
http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-june-15th-2012 Most interesting thing to me was this bit about debuff stacking: Quote VexedLucifer: How do armor debuffs work? Do they allow for more damage from other players besides the one who put the debuff on the target? If two characters of the same class put an armor debuff on do they both allow for more damage or does only one take effect while calculating damage? For example, would a raid do more damage to a boss if it had 3 unique armor debuffs opposed to no armor debuffs? Austin: Game Update 1.3 introduces a new system to regulate the stacking of buffs and debuffs, such that only the highest of any same-effect applies. There are some exceptions to this, but by and large (and in the case of armor reduction), only the highest of any same-effect will apply. You will still benefit from the presence of your own debuff (for example, your 5 stacks of Armor Reduction will enable your Guardian Slash to strike nearby enemies), but only the biggest debuff will affect the target's stats. And yes, armor debuffs do benefit all attackers. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Minvaren on June 23, 2012, 06:11:16 PM Another Q&A (http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-june-22nd-2012) is up. Pretty short, but hey...
Quote Fireblazer: Any chance we will be able to get extra character slots for a server in the future. Maybe as part of the legacy system? Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): There will definitely be more slots appearing in the near future. Stay tuned for details. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on June 29, 2012, 02:17:56 PM This week's is up:
http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-june-29th-2012 Nothing too exciting this time around. Chat bubbles are coming at some point, the RPers will be happy. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on June 29, 2012, 02:22:16 PM I was going to chastise you for placing chat bubbles over companion color customization, but then I realized why that one doesn't excite you. ;D
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on June 29, 2012, 02:23:36 PM I just mentioned the chat bubbles first because we already knew companion color matching was coming. BUT HA HA LAUGH AT THE DISABLED.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on June 29, 2012, 03:05:06 PM (http://www.tshirthell.com/shirts/products/a559/a559.gif)
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on June 29, 2012, 03:16:15 PM <sisfist>
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Sjofn on June 29, 2012, 03:24:23 PM :heart:
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lucas on July 03, 2012, 02:28:50 AM As a roleplayer, I'm very happy about the chat bubbles; now please give me more sit-able chairs, pazaak and I'll gladly play your game forever (I know, I know: priorities! :P)
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on July 16, 2012, 01:34:50 PM The one from Friday the 13th, that I missed due to in-laws.
http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-july-13th-2012 Quote Talius-LH: Is there any plan in place for either re-implementing the removed codex entries and titles or removing them entirely from the codex? Damion: The codex will get a clean-up pass in the not-too-distant future, and at that time, we'll be either removing the entries that are no longer obtainable or re-enabling some those removed entries if it makes sense to do so. Hooray, the lingering stuff in there makes it hard to use the codex as to-do checklist for achievement stuff, glad to see they're cleaning it up. (I still think they need to bring back the General title for JKs...) Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on July 23, 2012, 03:24:03 PM Friday's QA from last week was delayed to today:
http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-july-23rd-2012 Nothing too super thrilling in there this time around. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Rokal on July 23, 2012, 03:45:34 PM Maybe some of the more experienced people on here will know: is there currently a way to get purple color crystals without being lvl 50 (and buying the pvp one) or buying the crystals that were sold pre-1.2 via the AH? Torhead has a ton of low-mid level crystals listed, but it's not clear if they were ever actually accessible in the game.
Edit: I guess the Q&A you just posted mentioned that there are no plans to make them craftable, so that answers my question. Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on July 23, 2012, 03:47:53 PM I don't know of any low-level purple/cyan crystals that are actually in game, no.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Lantyssa on July 23, 2012, 04:10:47 PM The low level purple ones were only around in beta. The times I shouted at my character to "grab his lightsaber" for the purple crystal were innumerable. I'd have used it even if it was statless.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Amaron on July 24, 2012, 02:38:38 PM The only purple crystal you can craft is the pvp one. There were some 47 ones on the vendor at one point I think but that's it for below 50.
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: koro on July 24, 2012, 06:02:50 PM I think it's still possible for some low-level world bosses to drop cyan crystals, but since nobody ever kills them...
Title: Re: Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays Post by: Ingmar on July 24, 2012, 06:06:16 PM They seem to get dropped fairly regularly on Ebon Hawk from what I've seen. (Er, the bosses, not crystals.)
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