Weekly Dev Q&A for Fridays

[Paelos]

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:

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.

[Bunk]

"Patch 1.2 brings a big step. Species will be unlocked."

What the hell does that mean?

[luckton]

"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.

[FieryBalrog]

No, not at the moment. What they mean is new combinations of existing races and classes will be allowed.

[01101010]

So basically I get to reroll another character... Twi'lek SW. 

I sooo wanted a Nautolan.

[Bandit]

Bah, I thought it was new races as well - I am dying to make a Gamorrean

[Lantyssa]

He sounded like they allow races that are in the game but not necessarily used by players.  We'll see.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Threash]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Lantyssa]

It's not like you can see a Jawa's face under their hood.

[Nebu]

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?

[Ingmar]

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. 

[Sky]

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. 

[Nevermore]

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.

[proudft]

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!

[Sjofn]

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.

[proudft]

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.

[Fordel]

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?

[Threash]

I don't get, there's 8 classes and 8 storylines.  No idea why you'd need more.

[Fordel]

Run through the same story twice, dark/light, for starters.

[Sjofn]

Yes, just 8 more, that would cover my opposite gender/different AC/possibly different alignment needs.  


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.

[Mattemeo]

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 four three racial choices.

And yes, more than 8 slots/server would be very helpful.

[Sjofn]

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.    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.

[Mattemeo]

Sith warriors are only three? Human, sith blood, cyborg, horn head, I thought?

FIFY.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Nevermore]

It's hard to consider cyborgs as a separate race when they're just humans with stuff on their faces.

[Mattemeo]

Humans with oversize facial piercings or blindfolds do not constitute racial choices.

[caladein]

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.

[Falconeer]

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.

[Paelos]

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.

[Threash]

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.

[Shatter]

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

[Sjofn]

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.

[Fordel]

Does this count Paelos?

http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012

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?

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.