Q&A 2-17-12

by Soulkann, 5 days ago

It’s that time again! Last week we asked for your questions and this week we have some answers. Once again, we had planned on answering 10 questions but in the end, got 12 answered by various members of the team. Please note in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one, and we have edited some questions for clarity.

We have now opened an official thread for next week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CST on February 21st (8pm GMT/9pm CET). We welcome your questions in that thread and hope you enjoy the answers below. If you want to discuss any of the answers given, please use this Forum thread!



DarthBelkar: Can we look forward to server-wide special seasonal / short-term events?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! Expect them to fit into the world and setting, involve a fair bit of discovery, and offer special rewards that will be there one day and then gone forever. And expect them soon.



Darthinfimus: Do you plan to implement a /roll or /random command for use in master looter situations?

Damion Schubert: Diceslingers of the world rejoice! /roll has already been implemented on our internal development servers and should be coming to you guys Real Soon Now (in an upcoming weekly patch).



Relayinabox: Are there any plans for a show/hide companion headgear option?

Damion Schubert: Yep, we have plans. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but is currently in the works.



NiklasWB: When will you make it possible for Force-using characters to pull up/down their hoods on their robes?

Damion Schubert: This is in the works now. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but should get done in the next major update after that. And yes, we will extend this functionality to your Force-slinging companions as well.



ehlnofey: Will there be any changes/improvements made to the Galactic Trade Network system, and when will it be implemented?”

Damion Schubert: We know that the GTN needs a lot of love, and work is currently underway to improve this. Watch this space for more news!



GnovaD: Are there any plans to introduce mobile apps to the game? Eg. Use smart phone/tablet to send companions on missions while offline.

Damion Schubert: Let's just say that this has always been a dream of mine for crew skills - it's almost as if this design was created specifically with this in mind, doesn't it? Good news, sometimes dreams do come true! The bad news is that I have no ETA for you, though, as this is a significant technical endeavor.



Bobonar: Will we be able to take the modifications out of our endgame pvp-sets and put them into a set that we like better (design-wise) and keep the bonuses?

Emmanuel Lusinchi: Yes, the set bonus will be carried by Armoring mods that work just like regular mods except that they only fit into specific types of items, such as chest items or boots items. So, for example, the set bonus from a chest piece can be moved to another chest piece, and the set bonus from a helmet can be moved to another helmet.



HollowPoint: There has been a large push in the community for chat bubbles, especially with a toggle option for those who don't want them. Is a chat bubble system in the works? If so, when can we expect it to be implemented?

Damion Schubert: They're definitely on the list. We’ve got many active roleplayers in the dev team and chat bubbles have always been important to us. We actually had chat bubbles in beta, but there was unfortunately some serious performance issues that our implementation caused that, for example, made things really suck in warzones and the fleet. They’ll be coming soon, but in priority, the GUI team is focused first on GUI customization. I'll have a better idea of timing once we get past that. And yes, for people who hate them, whenever we do them, they'll be toggleable.



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.



Fu-bear: Can you please confirm the exact mechanics behind Taunts? The tooltips purely state that it forces a mob to attack for X seconds, yet I've read reports that the skill appears to equalise threat like a traditional taunt. Can you clarify this?

Georg Zoeller: Taunts work in two ways. First, they instantly put you on top of the target’s threat list. Then, they place a short duration effect on the taunted target forcing them to attack you. Assuming that you then lose threat (say, you just stand there) the NPC will be forced to attack you for the duration of the Taunt. Afterwards, the AI will resume attacking targets based on threat order. If another Taunt is applied after yours, the most recently applied Taunt takes precedence.

Please note this is assuming regular threat rules – there are certain situations in the game, especially unique boss fights, which may cause NPCs to specifically ignore targets. In these cases, an ignored target will not be able to gain threat even with a taunt. In general, these situations are messaged to the player through effects on their buff bar – something we’re looking to make more visible in the future.



Gladoss, titdiscus, Leoran: What do you plan to against Warzones’ AFK, more particularly about players who leave Warzones ? Will there be sanctions for this type of behavior?

Gabe Amatangelo: It is not sanctioned behavior. In Game Update 1.2 we will be making changes to the Warzone rewards system, which will de-incentivize this type of behavior. This will include the removal of the interim bag/quest system, the introduction of the direct purchase of gear from Warzone and Ranked Warzone commendations, 14 new objective-based medals and participation scaling the rewards. Additionally, players will have the option to vote kick idlers. Kicked players will not be able to re-queue for several minutes.



Lexiekaboom: 16 man Operations are much harder than 8 man Operations (to the point where most guilds can easily clear hard mode 8 man before being able to clear 16 man easy mode) but there is no loot difference at all to doing them. It's better to send your 16 man raid force to clear two 8 man instances .Is this oversight or design? What will be done to offset this in the future?

Gabe Amatangelo: This is not per design. The teams have been addressing this in the weekly patches to some degree and more so in Game Update 1.2. It is intended that 16 player mode is slightly easier than 8 player mode due to the fact that getting and coordinating 16 players is a larger hurdle in and of itself.



Thanks for all of your questions, and thanks to the team for answering them. If you’d like to put forward a question for next week’s Q&A, please visit this Forums thread!

Q&A response from Daniel Erickson 2-10-12

by Soulkann, 10 days ago

Last week we asked for your questions and this week we have some answers! We had planned on answering 10 questions but in the end, got 15 answered by various members of the team. Please note in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one, and we have edited some questions for clarity.

We have now opened an official thread for next week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CST on February 14th (8pm GMT/9pm CET). We welcome your questions in that thread and hope you enjoy the answers below. If you want to discuss any of the answers given, please use this Forum thread!

(For those of you wondering where the Dev Tracker Summary blog is, we decided to move it out to Mondays going forward. Look for it then!)

Alkapwn: Could you elaborate about what specific benefits the Legacy will offer? I know that I am not alone in the fact of putting off making an alt (and hence losing out on gameplay) because I wish to know what kind of character creation options will be available. All we have to go on now is "The legacy system will unlock new character creation options, including new species." Does this mean species that have been unavailable for that specific class, or that have been unavailable to play in the game as a whole?

Daniel Erickson: Game Update 1.2 will bring you the first big step in the Legacy System but it’s important to understand that the Legacy System will continue to grow, bringing new options to new characters (alts) and some fun options for elder game players as well. Legacy is definitely not just for new characters! The species that will be unlocked in Game Update 1.2 are species currently in the game that will become available to classes and factions where you haven’t seen them before. New species are in consideration for the future but we don’t have any details to share right now. Look for more specific details in the near future as we head toward Game Update 1.2.

Jeunedorsk: What will happen in the future for PvP (Ilum, new Warzones ?)

Daniel Erickson: We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how popular PvP is in The Old Republic and we’ve been doubling down on our efforts to bring exciting new content and systems to the PvP community. Right now there’s a new Warzone planned for Game Update 1.2 which we’re already testing internally and really enjoying. We can say it’s enabled for same faction vs. same faction play, so if you’ve been playing a lot of Huttball, expect some variety soon! Also coming in 1.2 is the pre-season of our Warzone ranking system, bringing better matchmaking which means better PvP. In the future expect a ton more PvP news as we expand and polish what has proven to be one of the most popular aspects of The Old Republic. We’ve got big plans.

AeonKwiz: Are you planning on adding Social Gear for Medium and Heavy Armor characters?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! Expect to see the first new gear coming in Game Update 1.2 and some dramatic changes to the social gear system just around the corner afterward.

MrGerbz: What kind of measures will you take to improve the community, population, and faction balance of each server?

Daniel Erickson: Faction balance is always a concern and something we watch carefully across all servers. It’s also something you can never fully account for programmatically as it is different on each server. We have many servers where the differences are small enough to be negligible and then others where either the Empire or the Republic has a huge numbers advantage. The Legacy System will take some first steps towards incentivizing players to look at what the other side has to offer and we will continue watching the most extreme servers to see if additional steps are needed.

Shotgun-clavy: When are character transfers going to become available? And are server transfers a real possibility?

Daniel Erickson: Character transfers between servers are definitely going to be available in the future and we’ll announce details as soon as we have firm dates.

DarthNhiilus: Are you going to implement housing and guild features (like guild banks, guild ships)?

Daniel Erickson: Guild banks are coming in Game Update 1.2 and like PvP, guild features are a priority for the development team with a strike team focused on nothing but top guild concerns and requests. Guild capital ships are a huge undertaking, though, so expect to see more quality of life style guild features roll out before you and your allies start building your destroyer....

Seltron: What is the preferred method for providing feedback to the development team, and why (e.g. In-game tickets, forums, support@swtor.com)?

Stephen Reid: Every method of feedback you mention will ultimately make its way to the development team; we get feedback from everywhere (including off-site sources such as Twitter, Facebook, fansites, podcasts and the like). In-game metrics are also always being gathered and analyzed, so that essentially ‘passive feedback’ is given by players every time they log in. With that said, the Forums are always a good starting place for feedback; everything is read (even if we don’t always immediately respond to threads) and the Community team regularly reports out player concerns and thoughts. As always, the more constructive your feedback is, the better for the development team.

Venomlash: I was excited as anyone about the Magenta Adegan crystals, but I'm not a huge fan of magenta. Will there be more rare items of this nature?

Daniel Erickson: Absolutely. In the near future expect to see not just rare items but limited availability items, more treasure hunts and some big surprises for the community to discover and work together to figure out.

Buddytonto: When you made the blog post about the balancing act of what to fix, what to balance, and when; got me thinking about how the items are prioritized, as it didn't really explain that?

Daniel Erickson: How we prioritize bugs is a complicated question and one that can be maddening from a player point of view. The answer is as complicated as the question but I can give a high level view. First comes anything that blocks the critical path of a class story for any reason. If you can’t progress, your game comes to a screeching halt so that always takes precedence. Next is the question: how many people are being affected and what is the damage being done? Half the population being slightly irritated loses in priority to ten percent of the population having their game crippled, for example. The last consideration, and the most opaque to players, is how hard the bug is to fix. There are fixes that look complicated and are nothing more than a database entry that went rogue. There are fixes that look easy and take months of untangling code. What we can promise is that we never ignore bugs or decide something is good enough as-is.

Aurozia: Will there be a dual specialization system in the future? Will there be a possibility of changing advance classes as well?

Daniel Erickson: We have no plans for switching advanced classes - which we see as fundamentally different class designs- but dual spec is in the works and coming soon.

NommNomm: Are you still planning on giving us an option to make our chest item colors match the rest of our armor?

Daniel Erickson: The new and vastly improved ‘Hue to Chest’ system launches with Game Update 1.2 and there are more customization and quality of life improvements along those lines hot on its heels.

USLeatherneck: Will Bioware implement Target of Target (including a visible cast bar above the portraits) in the new UI?

Gabe Amatangelo: Yes. Target of Target on primary target and party frames will be part of Game Update 1.2. Primary target already has a visible casting bar on live right now. In Game Update 1.2 target of target frames will have visible casting bars as well. Additionally, there will be various customization features in all of those frames (e.g. repositioning).

Annexes: In the EU our keyboards are a little different than in the US, and I´m wondering if you guys are going to make the "bug report" shortcut key unbindable?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! This will be addressed in a weekly patch in the very near future.

Simoon: Will you be adding the option to choose what Warzone you enter a queue for?

Gabe Amatangelo: Not until we introduce cross server queuing. If we were to allow players to choose their Warzone before they could queue across servers, then it would negatively affect how often every player would see a Warzone – and for every player that loves a certain Warzone there is another player that hates it. The population would end up divided by their Warzone choice, negatively affecting the time it would take for a specific Warzone to become available for anyone. With cross server queuing we will still have a preference to match players of the same server, but those players who choose specific preferences such as these will likely end up in a match with players in the larger Wargroup.

Many people asked: How are you planning on expanding the endgame experience?

Gabe Amatangelo: We are going to continue to introduce new Flashpoints, Warzones, and Operations on a regular basis. The story line will continue with all of the above as well as in solo-able missions. We will continue to evolve Crew Skills and crafting. We’ll be introducing the Legacy System soon, as Daniel mentioned. Additionally, we have exciting PvP features planned, the first of which includes pre-season Ranked Warzones in Game Update 1.2.