Print Page - Weekly Devs Q&A

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on March 03, 2012, 09:43:57 AM

This is the link to official forums as they've launched Q&A Archives where You can find earlier questions about specific topics.
(http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4406503)
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4406503

(http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4406503)

I will constantly keep this thread updated as well.

2012, March 2nd:

JediCarve - Will our ships ever get upgraded to include mailboxes and the Galactic Trade Network so that we will be able to access those without having to go through the process of load screens and Orbital Stations/Spaceports?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): On one hand, we really like making the ships richer and more useful, and on the other hand, we also want to be sure that the fleets feel like vibrant centers of the game community. So the answer is... Yes! And this feature is coming as soon as Game Update 1.2 ... as ship features you can unlock as part of the Legacy system. Watch for more information about Legacy unlocks coming in Game Update 1.2 - we should be dropping that Real Soon Now.

spcdog - When will we be able to add people to our Friends List who are not online? The main point of the Friends List is to let you know when friends are online. Right now, I have to already know when friends are online to add them, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Damion Schubert: This is a bug - thanks for calling my attention to it (this issue is somewhat sporadic, so it fell through the cracks). We are getting this into the pipe to get fixed, most likely for Game Update 1.2.

ThtreLady - Can we get character achievement announcements in the guild chat channels? I.E. Krysari is now level 39, etc? I'd love to be able to congratulate my fellow guildies, but I have no way of seeing when they level up or kill something spectacular.
Damion Schubert: This is a good idea - cheap but effective features like this are, as a designer, among my favorites. I'll bring this to the Guild Team, but no telling when they will prioritize it compared to the other guild love they are working on.

Arodin - Characters with a neutral or "grey" alignment are at a disadvantage because there are almost no Relics that they can equip until endgame. This forces players to stick with either light side or dark side dialogue options exclusively, limiting freedom and roleplaying. Will Relics be added that can be equipped by neutral-aligned characters, and are there any other plans for neutral gear?
Damion Schubert: Grey alignment is in the pipe - we have a design, and that design includes a plan to make the itemization fair for light, dark, and grey. I do not have an ETA for this feature at this time, but can't wait to announce one.

Evilvision - Any chance of getting the ability to lock our camera angle? I probably spend 20% of my time during PvP adjusting this when I should be well.... PvP-ing.
Damion Schubert: The ability to turn off smart camera is in Game Update 1.2 (this is what makes the camera swing behind you when you start to move).

Rtwozero - Any plans to implement region by region maintenance times?
Blaine Christine (Sr. Producer, Live Services): At this time there are no plans to implement separate maintenance times by region. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a global service with no restrictions on a playerâ€™s server choice.
Unfortunately the trade-off is that we have to maintain a single service environment, which leads to global maintenance periods. We are very sensitive to the fact that we are limiting play time once per week with a global scheduled maintenance.
We have carefully examined global peak times and the number of players affected by our planned downtime. Those of you that have been with us since launch may have noticed that the first few patches were scheduled at 4 AM CST; we very quickly adjusted to 2 AM CST. The reason for this adjustment was an analysis of the peak time play patterns by region that resulted in the current start time.
We understand that this is especially concerning to players in the European and newly opened Asia/Pacific server regions. We will always do our best to minimize the downtime, but it is the only way that we can perform critical service updates on the game client and on the gameâ€™s network infrastructure, underlying platform systems and so on.
Thank you for bringing your concerns to us â€" we will always listen and do our best to make adjustments when possible, but at this time, we have to move forward with a single global maintenance period.

CaptainJammo - Can you clarify the role of the Accuracy stat? Right now, it seems lackluster and/or unnecessary for many classes, yet it appears on all of their end game gear.
Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): Accuracy counters your target's ability to defend (dodge, deflect, etc.) against your attacks. You are correct about the accuracy budget on the current end game gear being too generous for most scenarios - unless you are a dedicated tank killer in PvP, you probably do not need as much as you get from Rakata gear at the moment and you should consider swapping out some mods to support your preferred playstyle.
For the upcoming tier of new gear, we have an improved distribution of stats for both PvP and PvE gear.

Gidoru - In last weekâ€™s Q&A, you detailed upcoming changes to the Crafting System with crit crafting orange gear and removing base mods from purple gear. I think that this issue needs some clarification, as what was stated essentially suggests that orange crit crafted gear will always be superior to either PvP or PvE gear. This is because players will be able to simply remove the mods in their PvP or PvE gear and place it in a piece of crit crafted orange gear that will additionally provide extra stats as a result of the augment slot. Is it your intention to make crafted gear superior to gear obtained in other ways?
Emannuel Lusinchi (Technical Design Director): Yes, for Game Update 1.2, this is correct. Crafted gear is, in theory, superior to endgame gear obtained in other ways. However, it is worth pointing out that putting together crit crafted gear, including item modifications, requires more effort, not less. Now, the reason I specifically mention Game Update 1.2 is that we will introduce new mechanics in a future update that, without diminishing the usefulness of crit crafted items, will bring some interesting changes and thatâ€™s all I will say about that!

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: smilodon on March 03, 2012, 09:59:40 AM

Nice post. I'll stick this and we can add new updates as we go. I'll also keep the latest patch notes stickied as well.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on March 18, 2012, 03:51:10 PM

2012, March 16th:

Ziko: Already having 8 characters on my server...will I be forced to delete characters in order to take advantage of the Legacy system or will I be able to change race & new Legacy customization features on pre-existing characters and will there be more character slots added?
Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): We have heard at the Guild Summit that there's interest in being able to acquire additional character slots on the servers. We are in the process of determining the requirements for such a step and will update the community when such a feature has moved past the planning state.

aivedoir: Any chance we'll get a pop up blocker for crews returning from missions?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): This should be fixed in Game Update 1.2. We also are adding an option to disable Crew Skill reward pop ups entirely in Warzones (since the definition of when you are in combat is fuzzier there).

SpaniardInfinity: At the Guild Summit, the question was asked whether or not Commando/Mercenary would receive an in-combat revive (at least in the near-future); to which the answer was no. I am curious, however: what is the rationale behind this design choice? As it stands, Commandos/Mercenaries can overcome their weaknesses (AoE and mobility) with practice, effort, and smart skill/ammo use; none of that will help us work around being the only healer unable to raise an ally, however.
Georg: The answer at the Guild Summit pertained to Game Update v1.2 for the most part. While different classes have different utility in the game (by design), we feel, based on feedback from our top end guild testers, that with the increased usefulness of in-combat revives coming in Game Update 1.2 (we increased the amount of health players come back with), it is necessary to re-evaluate this topic. Weâ€™re not categorically opposed to adding an in-combat revive to the class in the long term, most likely around the same time we add another Quickslot Bar to the game.

DinesenDK: Will it be possible to exchange lower level planet commendations for higher level commendations in the future?
Georg: Itâ€™s something we had in testing but took out as it lead to a majority of players not spending any commendations and just uptrading them, which defeats the purpose of the commendation system. I can see us re-opening this topic a while down the road, maybe in context of discussing something like the much requested Legacy Bank.

Loreki: Will the new crafting items coming in Game Update 1.2 have their own grade of materials and if so; how will you fit the nodes into the existing end-game areas?
Georg: The majority of Game Update 1.2 crafting content will seamlessly integrate with the existing system, meaning they will make use of existing endgame materials. The newly craftable augments will use new materials supplied by Slicing missions, while the newly created PvP crystals will use new materials bought by PvP commendations. We did add additional nodes for high-end materials to the daily areas and changed some of the operations materials to be Bind on Equipâ€¦.

Khoreal: Will you add extra Quickbars? 4 is a bit short when you want to use your character to its full extent.
Damion: We plan to do this, but no ETA. This will not be in Game Update 1.2, I'm afraid.

Urtog: Say I get a Chiss to level 50, now that species is unlocked for all other classes. So if I make a Chiss on the republic side then delete the level 50 Chiss what would happen to my republic version? Or if I delete it before making another character of that species, does it become permanently unlocked even if the level 50 species is deleted?
Damion: You keep your Chiss, and you also keep the ability to create new Chiss. This ability is now permanently unlocked on that server.

ClayManiac: Will there be an overhaul to the achievement system? Currently there is no way to track progress towards them and most of them seem to just happen. Maybe even add more objectives? Survey a planet's map, etc. Reasons to do stuff other than sit in the fleet all day.
Damion: We are just starting an initial design document for this system now. I don't want to talk about it yet, but I can say that we have some twists planned that should make it no ordinary achievement system...

captainfrankie: Do you have any plans to upgrade the Razer Green/Black Color crystal (SE Black Green Color Crystal) as you did the pre-order Yellow/Black?
Georg: Yes. It will involve uptrading your existing crystal for a new one (along with paying a modest credit fee to the vendor), so donâ€™t throw out the old one just yet

YuvalZiv - Are there any plans to add a barber shop anytime soon, or a feature that will allow existing characters to enjoy additional customization options, unlocked through the Legacy system?
Damion: "Are there plans?" - the answer is yes. "Anytime soon" -- the answer is no. It's not that we don't want to do it, it's just a little further down in the priority queue, and so I don't want everyone to have any expectations that are unrealistic in terms of when it will get into your hands.
Because this sort of answer happens what I am sure is too often in these weekly Q&As, I thought I'd pause and give an idea of how we sort and prioritize issues like this. Right now, my primary role on the project is to design and help guide prioritization for most of the new features that are in consideration for the next year. Designing them is easy and fun - my dream job, really. Prioritizing them is a lot trickier, and a lot of factors go into those decisions. Quick features (such as the ability to toggle off receiving mission rewards in Warzones, mentioned earlier) are cheap wins - easy to program, easy to QA, and useful or important to a large segment of the audience. The barber shop is harder -- not hard, mind you, but it requires multiple development groups, really needs new art to do very well, and has implications for existing characters in the world. For the cost of a well-done barber shop, we can do six or eight things the size of the Warzone toggle, or last week's Smart Camera Toggle (and sometimes more)!
This doesn't mean that we won't do larger features -- indeed, in the next patch we have multiple very large features, including Guild Banks and Legacy, that were big money features, and that we think are going to have huge impacts overall on the quality of the game. But we tend to pair a relatively smaller number of those big features with a lot of these smaller feature additions, because that sort of approach seems to offer us the largest bang for the buck. And to be honest, having looked at our most recent version of patch notes for Game Update 1.2 today --- well, let's just say that this patch is astonishing in the amount of new stuff, big and small, that is coming your way.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: TeaLeaf on March 18, 2012, 06:06:43 PM

Q: Is SWTOR a WoW clone and do you have a barber shop coming soon?

A: We are not a WoW clone but yes we will be introducing a barber shop.

Oh how I laughed.

Sent using Tapatalk & thumbs.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on March 25, 2012, 11:52:16 PM

2012, March 23rd:

Mksaccount: Are there any plans on adjusting rage timers in hard mode Flashpoints?
Gabe Amatangelo (Lead Endgame & PvP Designer): The team continues to tune Flashpoint bosses based on metrics and feedback. Bosses that are a â€˜spikeâ€™ in the progression curve (e.g. when a second boss might be more difficult than the last) are being addressed in one way or another, be it increasing their enrage timer, decreasing their health, extending the cooldown of control abilities, etc.

Bendog: Are there any plans to make the lower level planet commendations â€˜Bind to Accountâ€™? It would be nice to hand them off to another character.
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We've talked about it, sure. It's something we considered as we added in the Legacy System. However, right now we know that other aspects of the Legacy System will act to speed up the leveling experience for alternate characters. We want to see the state of the game in terms of leveling speed and itemization power after the core Legacy System goes live with Game Update 1.2 before we potentially make that change.

BurdoThePious: Is there a reason why the Commando / Mercenary Advanced Classes do not have an interrupt ability (eg. Mind Snap, Distraction, Force Kick)?
Georg Zoeller (Lead Combat Designer): Yes. The lack of an interrupt ability on these Advanced Classes is a purposefully designed weakness in their ability arsenal. At the current time, adding an interrupt to the Commando/Mercenary would increase their combat utility, especially in PvP, beyond what we are comfortable with.
That said, this issue is one weâ€™ve re-evaluated with every major patch and will likely continue to revisit in the future. It is not inconceivable that an interrupt may be added to these Advanced Classes in a future update, especially if more PvE content is introduced that relies on a certain number of interrupts being available in a group.

Niktika: Can you please explain some of the reasoning behind the healing nerfs? It almost seems like every healer is up in arms regardless of their class.
Georg: Sometimes it's hard to hear this, but the change to healers you're referring to was, quite simply, a result of them being too good. When one healer is close to target performance and the others aren't, it's natural to think that the logical course is to buff the underperformer and leave the over-performers alone. I want to dispel that notion and explain why it isn't always possible.
All specs for all roles have a target performance. This is what drives the balance of the game: soloing, Heroics, PvP, Flashpoints, Operations... everything. When those targets aren't hit, we can't just â€˜bring everyone upâ€™ to the highest performer without negatively impacting the balance of the game and creating unsustainable inflation in our combat system. Frankly, it's also a lot more work to change all end game content in the game to compensate for an over-performing role than to bring the role back in line. The hard but simple truth is that Sorcerers and Sages had better Force management than we intended (e.g. a well-played Sage was almost incapable of running out of Force) and Mercenaries and Commandos were significantly over target in their healing performance.
After considerable testing, we're more confident than ever that all healing roles are both closer to target performance and closer to one another than ever before, leading to a much tighter balance on end game content. The community will be able to confirm this using the new combat logging feature in Game Update 1.2.
I know trying to â€˜sellâ€™ a downwards adjustment (AKA nerf) to anyone affected is like selling the need for a tax increase to people. When you are on the receiving end of it, you're not going to be happy about it. It may appear massive to you, even if the overall impact is limited. You likely won't care that it's 'for the greater good of the game' and, if you decide to disagree with our action, there's little we can do to sway you.
Based on the feedback brought to us so far from testers playing on PTS along with metrics and combat logs gathered from our guild testers, we are going to make additional adjustments before Game Update 1.2 is promoted to the live servers. For example, we reopened the internal debate about having an in-combat resurrect ability for Mercenaries/Commandos based on PTS feedback regarding the new Operations, in light of the higher utility value this ability brings to the table in 1.2. We're listening to your feedback, too, and rebalancing some of the changes made to healing based on data gathered from PTS. Look out for a future update to PTS for more details.

Pzljug: When are you guys going to finish the Timeline on the Holonet?
Stephen Reid (Senior Community Manager): When the Timeline series was begun we werenâ€™t entirely sure how many timelines would be needed to detail relevant backstory for The Old Republic and left â€˜blank spacesâ€™ on the Timeline that, we thought, would all be filled in with Timeline entries. Ultimately, we feel weâ€™ve detailed all the relevant backstory required, so no more Timeline entries going back into earlier history are planned. However, we know how much players enjoyed the lore details, style and presentation of Timelines, so weâ€™re planning to continue that with a different series (currently unscheduled!) which will detail other aspects of the lore of The Old Republic.

Suzume_Bachi: If I unlock the Pureblood Sith species for all my future characters via the Legacy System, will I be able to create a Republic Pureblood Sith Smuggler, and will that Smuggler have Punish to I can smack around Corso Riggs?
William Wallace (Senior Designer): Players creating characters with the new species/class combinations allowed by Legacy will get that speciesâ€™ 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....

DevTheSith: Can Bounty Hunters get a [Name] The Mandalorian title (or if itâ€™s already in game, where is it)?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Currently, there is no such title available for Bounty Hunters. It may be added as part of a future content update, but weâ€™ve got no current plans to add it to the existing game.

Alericus: I am wondering how the â€˜vote to kickâ€™ system for PvP matches will work. I have a concern it will be abused by pre-made teams who want to control the team. Can you clarify how this system will work?
Gabe: Any player can vote to kick an AFK player through the Ops frame context menu. This will not initiate a vote prompt, but rather must be actively sought out by multiple players. Once a player has received several votes they will receive a prompt indicating that theyâ€™ll be kicked from the Warzone in a few seconds if they do not engage in combat or defend an objective. A player who is kicked from the Warzone in this manner will be returned to their original location before they queued, and will not be able to queue up again for several minutes. Weâ€™ll continue to fine tune the detection logic, but gradually, with an eye towards protecting the innocent bystander player.

Mataoh: A lot of guilds have a second alt guild for the opposite faction - is there any plan to allow some sort of cross-faction chat so both guilds can communicate with each other in game?
Damion: This was something that came up a lot during the Guild Summit and is an idea we're taking seriously. However, no design is locked down in stone and I don't have any sort of ETA as of yet for when something like this might happen.

joetacticSW: Can we have a â€˜Loop musicâ€™ feature or some other way to make our experience less quiet?
Damion: Interesting idea. Let me give it some thought!

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: Vargen on March 26, 2012, 09:21:40 AM

Quote from: TeaLeaf;346979Q: Is SWTOR a WoW clone and do you have a barber shop coming soon?

A: We are not a WoW clone but yes we will be introducing a barber shop.

Oh how I laughed.

Sent using Tapatalk & thumbs.

Saying they are a WoW clone isn't entirely accurate. They have taken lots of features from many if not all MMOs. WoW was not the original MMO blueprint after all, it was just the first to attract such a wide audience. I really don't mind them adding features people like from other games. Take the best features and combine them in a single game to make a better one. Just because all other cars have steering wheels, doesn't mean I don't want one in mine ;)

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: Bellanie on March 26, 2012, 09:56:24 AM

Mataoh: A lot of guilds have a second alt guild for the opposite faction - is there any plan to allow some sort of cross-faction chat so both guilds can communicate with each other in game?
Damion: This was something that came up a lot during the Guild Summit and is an idea we're taking seriously. However, no design is locked down in stone and I don't have any sort of ETA as of yet for when something like this might happen.

hmm now this is a intresting little nugget! as the fact that it has been brought up on here about having a alt guild on republic side, as lots of us have alts there but would like to chat more. might be a idea to keep a eye out for this feature should anything come of it:D

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: smilodon on March 26, 2012, 06:33:00 PM

It would counter the problem off seeing a Guild fragment as players move between factions which IMHO is a real problem.

However don't forget we have a TS channel for SWTOR and the general channel is quite fun and chatty, even when Oldie and Penfold are present :boxing:

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: TeaLeaf on March 29, 2012, 09:38:12 AM

Quote from: Bellanie;347480Mataoh: A lot of guilds have a second alt guild for the opposite faction

I'm not aware of a single guild that has ever made this work. It's failed so many times people take it as read that it won't work. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is not common for precisely the reason that it doesn't seem to work.

It's easy to create the guild, but then you have an unpopulated, low activity shadow of a guild that then loses members due to its inactivity. Spread yourself too thin and you have problems.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on March 31, 2012, 02:34:42 AM

2012, March 30th:

Clone_troope: I still donâ€™t get how the Legacy system works. I have a level 50 Jedi Knight Guardian and a level 50 Smuggler Scoundrel. With the Legacy system can one â€˜inheritâ€™ the abilities of the other and vice versa?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Each class has one iconic ability that can be unlocked for your entire Legacy, which means every character on your chosen server. This ability is only available for use during the Heroic Moment ability (which means you need to have your companion with you, and that you only have a limited window to use it). In your case, that means your Guardian would unlock Legacy Force Sweep and your Scoundrel would unlock Legacy Dirty Kick. Each could then use the otherâ€™s ability as could any additional Legacy characters you might have, or create.

Cylht: I donâ€™t want to have to leave my guild mates and go play Empire to unlock alien species. Will credits be able to purchase all species or will I have to grind them?
Daniel Erickson: All species have an alternate unlocking method that requires a minimum Legacy Level and credits, making them all purchasable.

Lstn: If I hit 50 as a human, what benefit do I get with the Legacy system, as humans can be any and all classes?
Daniel Erickson: Reaching level 50 as a human results in a sizable Presence bonus to all of your Legacy characters, making all current and future companions more powerful.

Shaynae: Would it be possible to add companion icons to the Legacy family tree?
Daniel Erickson: It is not possible now but is definitely something we want to do in the future.

AetherMcLoud: Is the Legacy Rocket Boost usable in PVP? I sincerely hope not, because if it is that would extremely unbalance Warzones between stinking rich people and people with a more moderate amount of credits.
Daniel Erickson: The Legacy Rocket Boost is most definitely not available in Warzones.

Wesleycrushers: In terms of Legacy unlocks, what do we get for leveling the ship droid to max affection? Is he considered a healer, or is he a different type of companion? Also, do the unlocks carry across characters, so if I max affection with my companion character healer for one character, will I get that bonus applied when I play a different character?
Daniel Erickson: The ship droid is primarily a crafting tool so increasing his affection results in crafting bonuses, but provides no additional Legacy rewards. He is not considered a healer in relation to Legacy unlocks. Maximizing your first companion character healer - and your first of any of the five companion character types - provides a bonus that applies to all Legacy characters. Maxing out additional companions of the same type provides a small Presence bonus that also applies to all Legacy characters.

ViciousFett: Light and Dark active ability Legacy unlocks are obviously Alignment +/- 10000, but what about Neutral? Is it simply a matter of staying between light and dark 1? Or perhaps having at least 5k in each?
Daniel Erickson: The Neutral Legacy reward will not be coming in Game Update 1.2 Iâ€™m afraid, as true grey alignment advancement did not make the cut. It will appear as part of the full grey alignment advancement package in a later Game Update.

Aymi: You guys are including a whole bunch of things to motivate us to reroll and unlock stuff through Legacy, but if Iâ€™m playing on one server because the community is great, Iâ€™ll be limited to eight characters. You said during the Guild Summit you were going to think about it at some point, any update on that?
Daniel Erickson: We are 100% committed to providing more character slots per server in the future but unfortunately weâ€™re not ready to talk about how that will work.

Players have expressed some dissatisfaction with endgame armor sets â€" can you comment on your plans for future endgame appearances?
Daniel Erickson: We have heard the community loud and clear when it comes to armor sets. What weâ€™ve heard the players say is, â€œI donâ€™t care how high level I get, I still want my core sets to look and feel like Star Wars and like my class - cooler but not crazy. Keep the crazy to optional gear.â€ I will warn that creating new armor is a part of our game with long lead times so it will take a set or so before players see a strong shift in direction but weâ€™re already working on some stuff I love and I think players will too.

Asphen: Can we get an option to turn off the combat error text in the center of my screen?
Damion (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We will be looking at adding the ability to move and/or turn off banner text and error text (the two kinds of text that appear in the middle of your screen) as part of the GUI customization system in a future patch. This isn't a trivial issue, however - in some cases, fairly vital information is given to the player here, and we'd need to be sure that in these cases the text gets rerouted someplace for a player to review. So short form, yeah, we're thinking about it, but no ETA for you at this time.

What rewards do I get from the new dailies on Corellia?
David Hunt (Systems Designer): Daily Commendations, with a weekly quest that gives Black Hole Commendations. Some new items have been added to Daily Commendation vendors, and Black Hole Commendations come from multiple locations as a means of buying high end gear.

Magnalorian: I have been acquiring champion gear pieces for the sole purpose of pulling those nice level 56 mods and enhancements out of them to put in my sexy Jedi Battlelord set, which currently makes it roughly equal to Columni I have kept the hollowed out remains of the champion gear I have pulled these mods from, leaving only the armoring which currently can't be removed. Will they turn blue right away in 1.2, remain purple as they currently are (cannot uneqip the armor slot), or will they remain purple and allow me to pull the armoring from them as well?
David Hunt: As a general rule for gear updates: Any mods that youâ€™ve changed will remain changed. Any mods you havenâ€™t changed will update if the gear changed.
In this case, it means your currently empty Champion gear will be purple and show a filled/extractable armoring and empty mod and enhancement slots. Those mods and enhancements will still be present in your Jedi Battlelord set.

Exaro - Will crit crafted orange gear with the tier 4 mods in it and an additional augment be required to get the best possible stats or will the stand alone purple tier 4 be just as good?
David Hunt: Augments are required for the highest possible stats, but augmented gear is not required for any existing content. A fully augmented set of endgame gear will put you above the stat curve.

ZudetGambeous - Is it possible to use Reverse Engineering on PvP gear and Operations gear in 1.2 to get the appearance shell for those items? If so, has the ability to trade bound items for Reverse Engineering been added, or can you only use Reverse Engineer on those items if you have them yourself... I.E will my alts have to start rolling need on my mainâ€™s Operations gear so I can use Reverse Engineering?
David Hunt: You can use Reverse Engineering on Operations gear but not PvP gear. You can purchase PvP appearance schematics for credits, but the appearance schematics may have additional equip requirements. For example, Battlemaster appearances require Valor even though normal Battlemaster items do not. This is because the recipes to produce Battlemaster appearances do not require PvP activity, while purchasing Battlemaster gear requires PvP commendations.
It is not currently possible to trade Bind on Pickup items for Reverse Engineering.

Arnathis: Can we please get an in-depth explanation of how gearing is going to work in Game Update 1.2? I understand that you can reverse engineer the gear and possibly learn the schematic but is that for everyone or just the people with the appropriate Crew Skills? Will this apply to the tier sets as well?
Georg Zoeller (Lead Combat Designer): This is a very broad question, but Iâ€™ll try to answer as comprehensively as possible, as the system is rather complex.
First off, in an â€˜under the hoodâ€™ change to the game, end game items have more stat variety, allowing for significantly improved item customization for players that like to fine tune their stats.
The most important change for gear in Game Update 1.2 is that all previously modifiable purple gear has all their mods exposed, including the so called â€˜base modâ€™ (Armoring, hilt, barrel). These can be freely moved into any empty (orange) appearance shell, giving you a lot more choices in your characterâ€™s appearance.
New end game gear (e.g. â€œCampaign Gearâ€) introduced with the Game Update has the added benefit that it keeps information about its set bonus on the armoring â€" but comes with the limitation that the extracted armoring can only be moved into an item of the same slot type (chest to chest, boot to boot, etc.). The reason for this â€˜Bind to Slotâ€™ behavior on armoring is that we do not want players to farm the initial boss of an Operation as the easiest way to obtain a full set of end game mods.
This means you can now take any custom (orange) appearance and imbue it with all the benefits of your end game set. As an added progression option, you can also acquire a critical crafted orange item with additional augment slots for even better stats.
Reverse Engineering has also received considerable improvements with Game Update 1.2.
For one, when attempting to reverse engineer an item (for which you indeed need the appropriate profession) you will now be able to see in the item tooltip what your chance to successfully reverse engineer a new schematic is (or if such a chance exists at all).
Many of the new end game items (and end game items going forward) can be reverse engineered to learn schematics based on the original item:

Reverse engineering an item with mods leads to empty orange equivalents of the end game items. This can be done after the mods are extracted and used in a different item!
The item you learn to create is commonly Bind on Equip, as we want to encourage a more lively market on the Galactic Trade Network.
Many different mods can now be reverse engineered which will grant you a schematic to craft that mod. (This is not possible on armoring that carry a set bonus.)
Reverse engineering non-modded items usually leads to a schematic for an equivalent item.
Reverse engineering an end game item also provides materials needed to craft these items. Operations materials are also Bind on Equip now, creating a more diverse market.
A crafting critical on these schematics will usually lead to an augment slot. For item mods, it results in an extra item.

Effectively, this means you can sell nearly full end game items (including augment slots on a critical success) one component at a time. However, doing so requires a significant upfront investment, itâ€™s certainly not easy. This also means every profession now benefits from Reverse Engineering and can trade items.

Armormech produces certain Augments, Augmented Tech Armor
Armstech produces certain Augments, Augmented Weapons
Artifice produces Color Crystals, Enhancements, Augmented Shields and Relics
Biochem produces Augmented Implants
Cybertech produces Mods and Augmented Earpieces
Synthweaving produces certain Augments, Augmented Force Armor

Augment schematics (green) are found via Slicing missions and blue and purple variants of these augments can be researched via reverse engineering by the appropriate crafters. It is not possible to reverse engineer legacy augments obtained from slicing before the game update arrives, however. These are technically different items.
Because we do not want players to gamble with reverse engineering custom appearances (orange items) which are often unique quest rewards, the schematics for these items are obtained via mission discoveries for various gathering skills and are set to Bind on Equip to encourage active trading.
Finally, a word on augment slots: with Game Update 1.2, crafters are the only source of augment slots in the game, significantly elevating their ability to contribute highly desirable items into the more open trade economy while enabling players to engage in end game using an appearance of their choice.
We have also heard at the Guild Summit and through community feedback on the Forums that many players have built up a significant stack of custom appearances for future use in their cargo holds and would really like to upgrade these with an augment slot to make them fully competitive as end game gear. We absolutely support this and will be introducing the ability to do so in a future Game Update.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on March 31, 2012, 02:35:13 AM

Reverse engineering an item with mods leads to empty orange equivalents of the end game items. This can be done after the mods are extracted and used in a different item!
The item you learn to create is commonly Bind on Equip, as we want to encourage a more lively market on the Galactic Trade Network.
Many different mods can now be reverse engineered which will grant you a schematic to craft that mod. (This is not possible on armoring that carry a set bonus.)
Reverse engineering non-modded items usually leads to a schematic for an equivalent item.
Reverse engineering an end game item also provides materials needed to craft these items. Operations materials are also Bind on Equip now, creating a more diverse market.
A crafting critical on these schematics will usually lead to an augment slot. For item mods, it results in an extra item.

Armormech produces certain Augments, Augmented Tech Armor
Armstech produces certain Augments, Augmented Weapons
Artifice produces Color Crystals, Enhancements, Augmented Shields and Relics
Biochem produces Augmented Implants
Cybertech produces Mods and Augmented Earpieces
Synthweaving produces certain Augments, Augmented Force Armor

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on April 07, 2012, 03:10:56 AM

2012, April 6th:

Thangunis: Soon I will hit level 50 and was wondering what to do with my commendations. If I understand correctly the new Recruit gear set is more PVP oriented and has less PvE stats? Is the old gear worth buying or should I wait for the new Recruit? I would like to buy Battlemaster directly with commendations but I can only have 1000 commendations, right?
David Hunt (Sr. Systems Designer): PvP gear going forward has more Expertise than the initial PvP gear, which includes the Recruit set. The Recruit set is also purchased for credits. You have a few options for handling your existing commendations, but what you should do depends on what types of commendations you have.
Centurion, Champion, and Battlemaster Commendations: These currencies are getting deprecated in Game Update 1.2. There are a few miscellaneous things you can purchase in Game Update 1.2 that are currently on the vendors on PTS. Most players will be best served by spending any of these commendations that they have now before 1.2 goes live.
Warzone Commendations: The cap on Warzone Commendations is increasing in Game Update 1.2, and they buy many more valuable items. Characters that do not have Battlemaster gear will probably benefit the most by spending Warzone Commendations to stay below the cap, but should try to keep 1,000 commendations for 1.2 to spend them on Battlemaster gear.
Unassembled PvP Tokens: These currencies are deprecated and have no value in Game Update 1.2.

Giolon: I read in patch notes that sniper rifles will no longer drop for Republic players - what about Risha and Zenith? These companions use sniper rifles. How are we supposed to gear them up if sniper rifles no longer drop for Republic players?
David Hunt: There are still several ways to get sniper rifles for Republic players â€" this change primarily removed them from boss drops. Sniper rifles can still be crafted, purchased from vendors, and modded. And with Game Update 1.2, weapons that drop more frequently on one side can always be mailed across from the other side with legacy characters.

CamoCladn: If I reverse engineer orange items, will I be able to obtain the schematics for them in Game Update 1.2? It would be great if I can get schematics to attempt to get augment slots as this would grant the ability to look just like I want.
Patrick Malott (Systems Designer): While in reverse engineering mode, items that can provide research variations will display a â€˜Chance to Research a Schematic: x%â€™ tooltip. Otherwise, the tooltip will read â€œNo Research Available.â€ Reverse Engineering to get Armormech Schematics pertains to the new endgame tier of Operation items and PvP Battlemaster/War Hero items.

Ironcleaver: I was under the assumption that the three crafting classes would gain the new augment schematics through their trainers... but seeing what's listed under Slicing, does this mean the schematics are only gained as critical rewards through Slicing?
Patrick Malott: Correct. Augment schematics are not learned via the crafting trainers. They are acquired as Sliced Tech Part mission critical rewards through Slicing.

Shaynae: According to the patch notes: The chance of researching schematics via reverse engineering has been significantly increased. However I'm not seeing this on the stuff I'm trying, in fact I am getting purples from blues much less often than on the live servers. Yes, I do understand that some of it is luck. I found the Tier one stuff came pretty easier, but now the Tier three stuff I'm having either a really long run of bad luck or there is something wrong.
Patrick Malott: As stated earlier, while reverse engineering, items that can provide research variation will display a â€˜Chance to Research a Schematic: x%â€™ tooltip. This chance will currently either be 20% or 10%. Pre-Game Update 1.2, Artifact items (Purples) had as low as a 4% chance for research. In addition, the â€œYou already know that schematicâ€ bug we fixed for this patch was preventing some research variations from being learned. Research chances overall should be significantly higher in 1.2.

Babouine: Will you guys add new stuff to the VIP area on the Fleets?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): We will definitely be adding new items to the VIP areas on the fleets in the future, but we canâ€™t give you an exact estimate on when just yet.

Xsmspiffs: Could we get an option to allow others to see the Guild Ledger, and show the Guildmaster on it?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): The Guildmaster not showing will be corrected in Game Update 1.2. We will eventually allow the Guildmaster to set who can see the guild ledger via permissions - this will not make 1.2, but is definitely coming in a future update.

Alexbeav: I love the new Smart Camera toggle option! However, I have one observation to make: when you move (with smart cam off), the camera does not rotate, but when you use an ability, the camera resets back behind the player. The same thing happens when traveling by taxi. Is this an oversight or is it intended?
Damion: That's a bug - good catch! I'll get a bug into the system, and hopefully we'll get a fix either in Game Update 1.2 or a patch shortly afterwards.

Mysquine: Whilst trying to do "/who x" (x being level) or "/who x-x" it does not return anything, if you type "/who x [planet]" then it will return the appropriate results. Is this intended?
Damion: That's not intended. I will investigate.

Leonalis: When will we get the titles promised for playing on PTS? Will it be for all my characters?
Stephen Reid (Senior Community Manager): Short answer: after Game Update 1.2 goes live and yes!There are two in-game titles that will be granted to anyone who created a new character on the Public Test Server. Both titles will be placed after your characterâ€™s name. The first title is given for attaining Level 10 with any new character on PTS, and it is â€˜First Line of Defenseâ€™. The second title is given for finishing Chapter 1 with any new character on PTS, and it is â€˜The Cutting Edgeâ€™.
Weâ€™ll be granting these titles soon after Game Update 1.2 goes live, and youâ€™ll receive the titles across your account for all characters, both existing and new. Youâ€™ll get the titles via in-game mail, similar to the Founderâ€™s Medal, so keep an eye on your mailbox. In addition, these titles will still be available to be gained from playing on PTS in the future.

Daezihang: Are Mortar Volley and Death from Above actually functioning the same now? How much faster does MV start its damage?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Yes, this was the motivation for the change. Mortar Volley and Death From Above now fire projectiles at the same time and those projectiles travel at the same speed, dealing the same damage. As for how much faster MV starts its damage - the answer is "much faster."

Rystet: I have done extensive testing on the Training Dummies and I have spent over 2 hours beating on the Operation Training Target. I have not had any attack Dodged or Parried. Is this a bug?
Austin: Training dummies currently do not parry/dodge as intended. We are working on a fix for this.

PerfectDuke: Are you really removing the giggle/laugh for scoundrels when Upper Hand procs in Game Update 1.2? As a healer, having the audio cue is great for focusing on... well, healing. Especially if the proc comes off of my hot, slow-release medpac.
Austin: The change was intended to prevent sound fatigue when lots of these procs were going off in a small area (especially in operations). We are looking into ways of making this proc more visible going forward.

Zilvra: I have a level 32 Scoundrel Scrapper. I am already having problems killing my on level bosses due to the 1.1 nerfs. What will the 1.2 nerfs do to me in PVE? It seems really unfair to the purely PVE players when the nerfs hit?
Austin: Many of the class story bosses are intentionally very difficult. This is something that all classes face and is not unique to Smugglers. The fact of the matter is that Scrapper DPS is closer to target in 1.2. Understandably, if you were already struggling with an encounter, you may view this as an undesired change. For clarity, we don't agree that this is "unfair" for "pure PVE" players as the changes are not meant to (despite popular perception) specifically target PVP over PVE.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: TeaLeaf on April 11, 2012, 04:31:59 PM

Thanks for the ongoing postings Voyak, useful info :thumbsup:

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on April 22, 2012, 12:44:25 AM

Thanks TL! They've been slacking a bit, but here are the latest ones:

2012, April 20th:

BlackMink: Could you please explain SWTOR's threat mechanics? What exactly do the de-taunt abilities do, and how exactly is threat generated? Is threat directly related point for point to the damage you do, or does each individual ability generate a pre-set amount of threat?
Cameron Winston (Combat Designer): Threat is calculated based on damage done, plus or minus certain modifiers, with one damage translating directly into one point of threat. These modifiers are always called out in the abilities which adjust them. For example, Soresu Form increases your threat generation globally, while Crushing Blow or Hilt Strike specifically generates extra bonus threat when activated.
De-taunt abilities reduce your threat level by a flat percentage of its current value. Healing generates less threat than damage and is split evenly among all enemies you are currently fighting.

Keldain: Love the stuff for 1.2! I think you guys are doing a great job on addressing the issues of the community. Just one thing I would really like an update on: is there any movement on getting an option to toggle hoods on and off?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): This is totally in the plan, but we are unsure at this time when it will get to you.

Pierre-olivier: Will it be possible to create a guild uniform or get a distinctive sign. I mean other than the name displayed above the character?
Damion: At some point, this will be possible. No ETA yet, but we have a design fleshed out.

Irouven: What is the idea behind the selection at the equipment vendor for planetary commendations? Sometimes you get boots, sometimes chest-armor, never a potential "full" outfit.
Damion: We don't want you to get all of the pieces of an armor set from any one source of gear. We want you to do multiple activities in the game to build out a full set of gear. This is a conscious decision on our part to encourage and reward playing multiple facets of the game. So you should do other things -- heroics, check the GTN, etc -- the full set of gear is out there.

TheCritter: If I delete a character with Legacy unlocks do I lose those unlocks? For example, if I have a human female Sniper at level 50 with Act 3 completed will I lose the race unlock, Heroic Ability, and class emote for my other characters if I delete her?
Damion: You will keep all unlocks that you have managed to unlock so far.

Zawny: Any chance there will be an effort to develop account storage somewhat similar in nature to guild banks so that characters on an account can access items rather than mailing them under what the current plan appears to be?
Damion: We have a plan for this. However, since there is currently a workaround for this (mailing items to your alt), this is a lower priority than some of the other improvements we have earmarked for the legacy system.

DarthBloodloss: Why doesn't ranked War Hero armor (or the new tier of PvE armor) have augment slots?
Georg Zoeller (Principal Lead Combat Designer): It is possible to obtain ranked War Hero appearance with augment slots from crafters on the GTN. The schematics for the those items can be found on the PvP vendor and a critical success while crafting them will result, as with other armor, in an additional augment slot.
It is also worth noting that we will be adding a way to add an augment slots to existing modifiable armor in a future game update.

Aikiyc: Can we get a clarification on how interceptions in Huttball work? Currently, it seems to be mostly random, with a somewhat increased chance of intercepting if all the allied receivers are stunned. Does the number of allies VS enemies factor in? Closest to the center of or edge of the passing zone?
Gabe Amatangelo (PvP & Endgame Designer): The player closest to the center of the landing spot circle who is not stunned or mezzed will receive the ball, regardless of what team they are on.

Grandmthethird: It seems to me like some companions have a hard time when it comes to gear. Iâ€™m sure there is more but Iâ€™m thinking specifically of Torian and Skadge. It seems impossible to get aim melee weapons. Is this an oversight? Or am I simply missing something?
David White (Systems Designer): Aim melee weapons are used by a very small subset of companions. For this reason we tend to distribute those items through either vendors or class specific quest rewards. Our goal is to make these items reasonably available without constantly putting essentially â€œworthlessâ€ items in front of players who do not care about them. We also make the items customizable (orange) when possible to make it easier to keep them up-to-date by swapping out the Mods and Enhancements. Ultimately itâ€™s a delicate balance to make sure they can be reasonably found and maintained by the players who care about them without them becoming a nuisance to players who might not even understand why they exist.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on April 27, 2012, 11:01:08 PM

And now, a couple of really decent ones!

2012, April 27th:

Phyreblade: Loved the Rakghoul Plague outbreak event and seriously hope you have plans to include similar events in the future. I am sure you can't specify what and when such events might occur in the future but anything you could say on the subject here would be welcome. Thanks for the great work!
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): We definitely have more surprises coming in the future but we donâ€™t want to have the same format or become predictable. I will say that these surprises will come in a variety of sizes that range from the stealthily rolled-out magenta Lightsaber crystal hunt, to full on server-wide explosions like the Rakghoul Plague.

Trietxan: Is there a plan to make social armor adjustable to armor rating? For example, I would really like to dress my Powertech in the Imperial Trooper armor without losing the heavy armor rating.
Daniel: Yes, adaptable social gear that automatically changes to your characterâ€™s gear type is coming in Game Update 1.3.

wyllam: I love the new armor color "unify" feature. Will this option (as well as "hide head armor") ever be available for companions?
Daniel: Definitely in the plans for the future.

WolfJHavok: I don't know if this has been asked before, but could you possibly share the reasoning for only allowing 5 out of 6 companions to be sent out at a time at max level? It feels like a bit of a waste of a companion. Thanks!
Daniel: It was a combination of the maximum amount of economic power we wanted a player to be able to produce per hour, plus never wanting to put players in a situation where they felt like they had to choose between having their maximum missions going or actually adventuring where they needed a companion.

Lovarboy: Will we get dual spec with Game Update 1.3?
Daniel: Unfortunately, no. Game Update 1.3 is being kept a bit leaner to get the Group Finder and the next stage of Legacy in the game as fast as possible. After that weâ€™ll be returning to some bigger updates and weâ€™re hoping dual spec makes it for the next one.

JimG: Is there any sort of ETA on adding completely new playable species into the game such as Togruta, Mon Calamari, Nautolan, etc.?
Daniel: Canâ€™t comment on what species you might see, but you can expect the roster of playable species to expand... this year.

Misiolak: The Datacrons are a nice addition to the game, but getting them for all the characters is simply not fun. Do you plan to include Datacron sharing in the Legacy unlocks?
Daniel: Long term we plan to move many of the gameâ€™s reward systems to be Legacy-wide and Datacrons are definitely on the list for consideration.

mr_ruiz: Smuggler/Operative Question: As the only classes without a stance/form of some sort (even all companions have a couple), is there any plan to add something like that to these classes for additional utility? If not, why?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): I'm personally a fan of stances for how they communicate to others and how they help add structure to the already burgeoning character advancement options, but those are developer reasons to love stances. As a player, it's nice to be able to have a sense of someone's spec at a glance by seeing their stance, but for me, the appeal ends there as long as the absence of a stance doesn't mean I'm "missing" something. To answer your question specifically, adding stances to these classes is certainly an option in the future, it just needs to be appropriate and serve a purpose. We don't want to introduce a mechanic for no other reason than to have it.

DarthTexas: Can you give some insight to the numbers behind crafting? What is the baseline crit chance for crafting? How does companion affection affect crit chance? Exactly how much of a boost is +1 or +5 critical chance in crafting? Having the Reverse Engineer % chance is a nice step in removing some of the unknowns in crafting; now we just need the numbers on the creation side to be less ambiguous.
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.

Arymono: When will character transfers be available for everybody?
Dallas Dickinson (Senior Producer, Live Services): We will be rolling out our Character Transfer Service in early summer. First weâ€™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 weâ€™ll reveal more details closer to the launch date.

DrakeAssaShin: What is being done to address low population servers?
Dallas: The Character Transfer Service, as mentioned above, will be offering free transfers from/to specific servers. This should allow the most motivated players to get onto a higher population server.

Alxandria: What was the design reasoning behind choice of mods/stat combination on commendation vendors during the leveling process? Most of what is available seems to favor +Endurance across the board with very few options for those who want to maximize their primary stat during the leveling process. Usually if someone wants a barrel, armoring or hilt that favors something other than Endurance, we must settle with a lower item score, if it's available all.
David Hunt (Systems Designer): The mods you can purchase from commendation vendors are not intended to be optimal. They are cheap and probably too easy to acquire. If you want to optimize, you need to find a crafter.

Caizic: In the 1.2 Legacy patch notes there is a section under Items and Economy and General that says "Loot drops from endgame activities, such as Operations and Flashpoints, now take group composition into account." Can someone please clarify what this means/how this works exactly? Thanks in advance!
David: Throughout the game, the composition of your group impacts the loot you get from defeating enemies. For the majority of content, the drops are skewed to favor whatever classes are present. This is a bias, but not a guarantee. In leveling Flashpoints, that bias is very strong, and will almost always give loot for the group. However, in endgame Flashpoints, there was no bias â€" drops were completely random. Weâ€™ve added a strong class bias to the loot drops for the endgame Flashpoints. In most cases, this guarantees a drop that can be used by someone in your group. The bias is an â€œopt-inâ€ system for each character present. That means that you have the same loot playing as a solo Jedi Sentinel or a full group of Jedi Sentinels.

Raific: Could you please clarify and expand on the following patch note for Game Update 1.2:

Players can now remove Armoring modifications that have set bonuses from items and transfer those set bonuses to Custom (orange) items. These modifications can only be transferred to an item that is equipped in the same slot. This does not apply to all items with a set bonus, only those where the set bonus is attached to the Armoring modification.

[/B][/COLOR]

[/B]I believe many people where under the impression that we would be able to pull set bonuses from most gear, not almost none. It seems like only the top tier set bonus can be relocated at this time. Any chance this will be expanded or lower tier? If not, what is the reason?
David: Weâ€™re sorry if the note confused anyone. You can pull set bonuses from all new items with set bonuses going forward. There are not any current plans to expand this to old items. The tech that allows us to distribute set bonuses as part of the armoring is new, and there are limitations to how much we can change items that players already possess. That means we can have the set bonus on all armorings that were created for 1.2 or later, but that old armor still has the set bonus on the shell item.

Zannis: Any chance on allowing companions to show in the Operation frame? As a healer, I do a lot of questing with a friend, and I'm unable to replace Party Frames with the Operations Frame since we can't see our party member's companions with this option turned on.
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): Funny, we were just talking about this the other day. I'm working on the design now, but have no ETA of when this will get to you.

Capthxc: Any plans to improve your achievement system and/or codex? Right now achievements donâ€™t seem to serve any purpose.
Damion: We have big plans. Too big to share prematurely.

Thanks for all of your questions, and thanks to the team for answering them. If youâ€™d like to put forward a question for next weekâ€™s Q&A, please visit this Forum thread (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=435614)!

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on May 07, 2012, 02:30:03 PM

2012, May the 4th be with You ;)

DarthZaul: Other than the planned Hutt takeover of all GTNs (which will make them all neutral), do you have further plans to improve the economy? Below level 49 it is almost nonexistent. The crafting changes in 1.2 were supposed to improve it but instead they just gave people more incentive to RE everything they make instead of put it on the GTN. I had to make enough characters with different crew skills to create a self-sufficient Legacy economy, making all my own armor, mods, and stims/medpacks because there are none available to buy.
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): It sounds like there is a legitimate hole in the economy that someone who has a whole bunch of crew skills could be taking advantage of (hint hint). In all seriousness, a key part of selling your wares in any MMO is understanding supply and demand. In most MMOs, the economy flattens out because all the crafters take the 500 pairs of boots that they craft and plop them on the auction house, which drives the supply wildly way above demand, which pushes the prices down to be below the cost of materials and makes it so that selling stuff isn't economically worthwhile - which kind of destroys the 'I'm a successful shop owner' vibe that aspiring crafters are hoping for. A huge part of the reverse-engineering feature is that it encourages players to remove these excess goods from the economy, which hopefully will bring supply and demand closer to what they actually should be, and should create more space in the GTN without lots of competition. That being said, we can always do better, and I'm sure this will be something we will tweak further in the future.

Dzkiller: Iâ€™ve been looking for purple-colored crystals for my Lightsaber for a while now. I want to know where and how we can get it because I'm tired of walking around with a red Lightsaber for my Sith Sorcerer while the Character Progression video for the Inquisitor showed a Sorcerer with a purple Lightsaber.
Damion: We really wanted purple Lightsabers to not be trivial for anyone to get -- some things, a player should have to work for a little. That being said, this seems like an excellent opportunity to use some of the awesome fansite resources on the internet. The truth is out there!

Giand-Amazone: IÂ´m a guild leader, and as a guild leader I want to be able to send out mails to my whole guild. Right now this is only possible by sending out mails one by one to all of my members, which is very tedious. Will there be an option to send out mails to the whole guild at once?
Damion: We have plans - it was one of the more requested features to come out of the Guild Summit, and we took feedback from the guild leaders very seriously. So itâ€™s in the works, but we have no ETA at this time. When the feature comes, expect it to have constraints on the amount that it can be used to prevent it being used to spam and to keep data storage under control. In the meantime, the MOTD (Message of the Day) remains the best way to communicate to players, and the guilds I run with use it to direct players to their own website.

Lorroc: Are there any plans to introduce a mentoring system in SWTOR? In some other MMOs, this mentoring system lowers the stats and armor of high level characters and grays out abilities that they didn't have during lower levels so that they can help their lower level friends.
Damion: I'm a big fan of â€˜down leveling,â€™ and I've been pushing to add something like this for a long, LONG time. Plus, you just can't ignore the master/apprentice relationship as being a core part of the Star Wars experience. So yeah, this is coming -- someday. And, as always, it will have a couple of unique twists that I think people will enjoy.

AbsoluteGrndZero: When we get adaptable social armor, will current social armor be changed, or will we be forced to rebuy social armor that is currently sitting in our bank unused on medium-heavy characters?
David Hunt (Systems Designer): Existing gear will be updated to use the adaptive gear weight. This will go live at the same time as augment tables, meaning the social gear you own now will be viable combat gear regardless of your primary armor weight.

DarkElvis: In the Q&A for April 27, you addressed a question about loot drops taking classes into account and how you added the bias into the endgame Flashpoints. Is there any way for this bias to check not just the base class but the advanced class as well? I would say this most affects Sith Warriors and Jedi Knights, who wear different classes of armor depending on their AC choice. Example: our normal Flashpoint group is a Powertech, Sniper, Marauder, and Sorcerer. It seems any time Sith Warrior gear drops, it's heavy armor, so only a Juggernaut could use it. Our Marauder has actually gotten very little gear from the endgame Flashpoints because of this. So is there any way for it to bias to Advanced Class, mainly to benefit Sith Warriors / Jedi Knights? Thanks in advance!
David: The bias actually uses base class or advanced class as appropriate. For example:
Medium Strength Armor = Marauder / Sentinel
Heavy Strength Armor = Juggernaut / Guardian
Strength DPS trinkets = Sith Warrior / Jedi Knight
Strength Tank trinkets = Juggernaut / Guardian
Offhand only Lightsabers = Marauder / Sentinel
This could be due to a bug in the endgame Flashpoints drops that should have been fixed in patch 1.2.2. If you keep seeing this issue, please send a bug report with as many details as possible. Which bosses you killed, what items dropped, and what your group composition was: these would be the most useful data points. Thereâ€™s some room for this to occur due to randomness, but it should be limited in endgame content.

Nyjin: Greetings, Ware of Bio! In a Dev Tracker for upcoming crew skill changes in 1.2, it was mentioned that new schematics were going to be put into the game in order to allow for more customization. These schematics were supposed to be of lower-level armor and be obtained through Underworld Trading and Investigation missions. So far, nobody on the forums, myself, or my server have seen any new schematics. Can we get a confirmation on whether or not these made it into the game?
David: Weâ€™ve been gradually adding more customization-related schematics to various places in the game. Most of these have been for Custom (orange) armor, but some of them have also been for color crystals. Underworld Trading provides several sets of orange armor â€" you have a chance to get one of these when you have a mission success. Those schematics already cover a substantial portion of the low level appearances we have available now, but weâ€™re looking for places where we can put more. For the specific 1.2 schematics, the investigation schematics are for new Armstech weapons. Thereâ€™s an empty orange version of every weapon type except for the Lightsabers. In both cases, thereâ€™s a level 20 version (â€œCustom-builtâ€) and a level 50 version (â€œElegant Modifiedâ€). Treasure Hunting has the Lightsaber versions of these schematics for use in Artificing.
Thereâ€™s a major update to Underworld Trading schematics in 1.3 â€" itâ€™s possible that the upcoming crew skill change was actually referring to that, the gradual introduction of more orange armor sets or other steps being taken to opening up more armor to be viable in 1.2 and 1.3. Weâ€™ve added a whole bunch of orange waist and wrist schematics to Underworld Trading in 1.3 Weâ€™ve wanted to open this up to players for awhile, especially because some outfits really need the belt in order to look right.

DannerSwa: What was the reason why "Unify" was strictly linked to chest and not designed to let the player choose which slot to unify to? I may like the color scheme of the gloves over the chest but would still like keep the current chest model. Was this an oversight, conscious design decision, or just too complicated to implement?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Conscious design decision. The chest piece is by far the hardest to get in each outfit and the primary acquisition driver. It also â€œownsâ€ the outfitâ€™s color palette. Itâ€™s important to remember that â€œunify to chest styleâ€ does not solely mean â€œmatch color.â€ The design is to give good looking outfits that match the design and color layout of the set the chest piece came fromâ€"not to pick one color and make a monotone eyesore.

jalapena: Does BioWare think that item and money sharing between characters at least on the same faction is a bit cumbersome? My question really stems from my frustration of always having to email myself money and items. Here is an annoying scenario that drives this question. I log in to character A and start a companion to craft or go on a mission for materials for character B. I log over to character B to play while the mission or crafting takes place, it would be nice if the item just showed up in my 'account bank' and can get it without logging in and out three times to get the said resources to my second character. I think email might be a comfortable and familiar way, but with a game that clearly encourages alternate characters, maybe a new way of sharing resources like money and materials is needed.
Daniel: No argument here. The first steps towards this goal were loosening up the rules on moving items and credits between Legacy characters. Our long term goal is to make more of the progression systems Legacy-wide.

Blackholeskipper: Any chance of seeing alternating skins for PvP Warzones in a future update? For example, if you're playing the Alderaan map, maybe it could show a summer setting or a night time setting instead of the original. This wouldn't affect the gameplay or balance at all since it's just a re-skin.
Daniel: Definite possibility. First we want to finish introducing some core Warzone gameplay types then weâ€™ll look at refreshing some of the older Warzones.

cycao: I was wondering if there is any plan to implement dueling on the fleet. I feel if you remove the restriction on dueling on the fleet it will be a nice way to pass the time.
Daniel: This is a popular request and one weâ€™re actively looking into. Right now weâ€™re making sure performance will stay solid if the fleet breaks out in a duel-fest so it may be restricted to a certain area when/if it comes.

McGrizzly: Any plans to expand Legacy to be across servers (i.e. tied to your account not the server you are on)?
Daniel: This is something the Legacy team would love to do. Itâ€™s a huge amount of infrastructure work, however, so it wonâ€™t be coming soon.

Llloralei: You know all those color crystals that some specs get that they end up not using? How about using them for speeder slots for an underbody glow or a body trim color on your speeder?!
Daniel: Sold, it goes on the list!

SteppeMerc: I was wondering if you would be able to go into how the writers and devs decided which class got what companion, and when in the game. What went behind your thinking, and what sort of inspiration did you draw on? For instance, I assume that the inclusion of a Wookiee companion for a Smuggler was obvious, but how did you decide the others? For instance how did you decide that a Jedi Knight would get a force using follower before the Sith Warrior, etc? Thanks!
Alexander Freed (Lead Writer): Companions (and their distribution) was one of the very first subjects writing tackled on the game--we had a pool of "Star Wars companion concepts" written up before we'd even finalized our list of classes! As you mention, some of the choices were obvious--we wanted a Wookiee, and it was an easy choice to give him to the Smuggler. Some of the ideas, on the other hand, never did quite fit in--the idea for a Killik companion was dismissed, but became the later inspiration for Vector.
After the easy ones were out of the way, we looked at each individual class story and tried to introduce companions that would provide insight into or contrast the main storyline at the right time. Vette provides a lighter counterpart to the dark Sith Warrior story, but Quinn follows quickly to push the notion of the Sith Warrior as a military leader. Yuun is great fun, but he's a little too weird to throw at the Trooper right away--the Trooper had to be grounded in the world first before Yuun could really make an impact.

LordAshuman: Would you be able to explain the thought process behind the recent damage boost to Snipers/Gunslingers and buff/nerf prioritization in general? (Not complaining about balance, just wanting to know why them over other classes that could possible use tweaks.)
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): The damage boosts to Snipers and Gunslingers that you're referring to was actually a targeted weapon damage boost. We found an error in the assumptions we use for the mathematical interactions between weapon damage and defense chances. Without going into the boring specifics, we found that weapon damage (especially in abilities with high costs, high cooldowns, or high activation times) could be somewhat underappreciated. When we change our assumptions and come up with a new model like in this situation, we have two diametrically opposed goals: 1) to propagate all necessary changes to the game so that it's using our most recent math, which opposes the second goal 2) maintaining balance without blindly following our math. We altered the abilities that would pick up a significant enough change to be worth making without having a negative effect on the balance of the game. The list you're referring to is the result.
Class change prioritization is a bigger topic. Without getting too long-winded on the subject, what we're aiming to do with any class change is get a class or spec as close to target as we can. These "targets" are objective math-based goals that apply identically to all like-roles. By that I mean that all DPS specs have the same target because they are all the same role: damage dealing. Tank roles have their own targets, and healing roles have their own targets. When someone is off target (too high or too low), we try to find non-invasive ways of bringing them closer to target. We don't try to bring classes closer to target because we're mean - we do it because the global game math assumes everyone hits their target. When someone doesn't hit their target, it has an adverse effect on the game at large. And since rebalancing the entire game to accommodate an outlying spec is completely infeasible, we address the outlying performers with class changes, individually, as appropriate. It's an ongoing experience that we'll never be done with, so prioritization is based on what we feel is the most egregious in any given patch. How we identify outliers and how we determine which is the most egregious is... another bigger topic.

Lorrimar: With Game Update 1.2, Artifice patterns were added for +41 stat color crystals for blue & red off the daily vendor as well as blue & yellow off the PvP vendor. Many people are wondering what happened to the green and orange crystal patterns. Rumor is that the orange patterns are a random drop from high level mobs & chests, but I have yet to read or hear anything about anyone locating a pattern for the +41 stat green color crystals. Can you confirm that the orange patterns are now high level world drops & can it be confirmed that the green color patterns are in the game somewhere?
Patrick Malott (Systems Designer): Currently, there are no PvE green Lightsaber crystal schematics that provide +41 stat color crystals. Orange Lightsaber crystal schematics for +41 PvE stats drop off Primal Destroyer â€" the Rancor world boss on Belsavis. There are currently no PvP orange Lightsaber crystal schematics that provide +41 stat color crystals. The PvP green Lightsaber crystal is on the PvP items vendor for 500 Warzone commendations. It is not sold as a schematic. Players buy the crystal directly.

alricka: What's the system behind the Gathering and the Missions crew skills? What I mean is this - how does the system decide what item I get? Is it random or is it dependable on something? For example, why some Underworld Trading Gift missions get me military gear while others get me courting items? What I want to know is what's the logic behind it? Does it matter what the mission's description says, does it matter which companion I send along with their affection and proficiency etc.
Patrick: When running a specific mission, like for companion gifts, it is random on what the mission returns as a reward. Rarer rewards tend to return less often than more common rewards. Critical mission success usually bumps up the quality of the item returned. Companions with higher affection and specific companion trait critical bonuses increase critical mission success.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on May 14, 2012, 12:50:59 PM

2012, May 11th:

*WARNING: slight spoilers ahead for the Sith Warrior storyline*

Warning: Potential Spoiler
The information hidden by this spoiler alert may reveal certain in-game storyline details about your characters storyline. You must be logged in to view this information. Login now (http://www.swtor.com/user/login?destination=/blog/community-qa-may-11th-2012)

[/FONT][/COLOR]

nakomaru: You have mentioned DPS, healing and tanking "targets" as objective methods of balancing the roles in the game. Are there hybrid targets (e.g. healing & dps spec) as well? It seems some hybrid specs are viable on certain classes and out of the question on others. I suppose this has to do with objectively balancing lower tier skills across the classes.
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Yes and no. In your example of a healer and DPS hybrid, by and large, whatever damage you sacrifice you should pick up in healing. For example, if you gave up 10% damage, we'd expect you to pick up 10% healing. Sometimes that's the case, but sometimes you lose or pick up synergies that move you above or below an even shift. Because "hybrid" in our skill trees means "virtually any combination of points," it's certainly not the case that we have targets for every combination. However, we do have expectations, and we're happy with hybrid builds so long as they don't radically stray from our expectations.

Freeborne: Alacrity as a stat seems to be encouraged in "Energy Based' classes (Troopers/Smugglers) through our talent trees. However, Alacrity seems to be a terrible secondary stat for us. The faster we use abilities, the faster we lose our energy - and the less energy we have, the less energy we regenerate. Are there any plans to review Alacrity, or at least its place in some class talent trees?
Austin: I agree. We're exploring ways of improving Alacrity that we hope to get working for a future Game Update. As much as I'd like to, I can't provide details on this plan yet. It's possible that we'll address passive Alacrity boosts in the skill trees, but those changes need to be solid and work for the long haul; it would be unacceptable to have a â€˜temporaryâ€™ skill in place that we planned on removing at a later date.

Deewe: With the locked companion specs, some of us feel like being forced to use specific companions versus choosing them for their personality and look. Is there in the works any kind of feature mitigating this issue (hint: companions kits)?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Companions in BioWare games have always been fully developed characters with their own backgrounds and skills. While you can change between a couple different approaches with each, we do not presently have plans to make Companion Characters interchangeable.

RKLimes: I recall a developer post indicating the results of transferring a character with a Legacy from one server onto another where a Legacy also exists, the highest level legacy would simple be applied rather than added. Since higher Legacy level does not necessarily equal greatest number of Legacy unlocks, will any and all unlocks be granted from either Legacies, or only those of the highest?
Daniel: Legacies will be merged in the most advantageous possible way for the player. Theyâ€™re your rewards, you earned them, we donâ€™t want to prevent you from moving them wherever you like. So any unlocks gained by the character youâ€™re moving will come with that character, even if the Legacy they are moving into is a lower level.

Rickety: I'm currently the Division Captain for The Old Republic within The Older Gamers community. I am responsible for multiple guilds spanning all three regions. Several of our guilds have issues with the current guild limit of five hundred Characters. Are there any plans to increase this limit or alternatively, to introduce an in game 'Guild Alliance' system?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We've definitely talked about an â€˜Allianceâ€™ system, and even thrown around a basic design. This feature is lower in priority than some other guild needs, though, that were identified at the Guild Summit.

Gidoru: Currently in Huttball, certain classes have huge advantages, to the point where, without them, you have a considerably lesser chance of winning. The classes I speak of are namely Sages, Guardians, and their Imperial counterparts that are able to leap and pull across the map granting great mobility. Any chance of changes that prevent the ball carrier from using abilities like leap or being pulled?
Gabe Amatangelo (PvP & Endgame Designer): It is something we considered early in development of the map. However, we aimed to ensure every class had a role as opposed to effectively turning classes off when they carry the ball. Granted, some of those roles are not as obvious or have a steeper learning curve than simply getting the ball over the line (i.e. controlling the middle, cover defense, controlling hazard lines, etc.). The team composition win ratios suggest those roles are playing out for the most part. For example, teams with all Sages and Guardians do not even appear in the top 100 win ratios and the composition with the highest win ratios include a fairly even distribution of Advanced Classes. That, of course, is not an absolute conclusion, especially considering full team compositions rely on matchmaking. Weâ€™ll pay close attention to the variance in composition win ratio considering rating when full team queuing is enabled.

ZeusThunder: Why were the vendors removed from Warzones? They seemed to be harmless and the community didn't appear to mind them.
Gabe: A number of players would queue up for a quick vendor/repair and leave the match to go back to whatever else they were doing. This impacted enough matches that the cons started to outweigh the pros. We plan on getting tech to disable the sell and repair functions on a vendor, at which time weâ€™ll be able to justify turning them back on for those players who want to purchase consumables mid-match, etc.

HoboWithAStick: What is the reasoning behind letting some classes have moddable offhand items but not others? I find this to be a little unfair to those of us who mod absolutely every piece of gear possible to obtain the best results.
David Hunt (Systems Designer): Itâ€™s due to arcane technical details. Thereâ€™s no direct design reason, although there are some awkward situations and implementation details to address. Weâ€™ve been talking about options for how to fix the inequality between offhand items recently, and weâ€™re about to start R&D on a potential fix.

Paladinnight: I am wondering why the decision was made to allow PvP crafters the ability to buy the schematics for the PvP orange gear, versus obtaining the schematics similar to PvE players which are forced to play the reverse engineering game in the hopes of obtaining a schematic. This decision has resulted in an economy that the only crafted orange boots and gloves require the buyer to PvP. Could we possibly get schematic boxes purchasable via credits (or Black Hole commendations) added to the vendors? If this is not possible, can we at least be allowed to reverse engineer the Black Hole gear instead of only Campaign gear?
David: In either PvE or PvP, you need to consume a certain amount of that content to gain the appearance associated with the highest level gear. PvE and PvP will never have identical distribution mechanisms because of their inherently different progression. The PvP boxes were necessary to ensure that PvE gear wasnâ€™t the best PvP gear due to the augment slot gap. In Game Update 1.2, this means thereâ€™s the inequality you mentioned for obtaining orange boots and gloves. There are ~75 new orange PvE hand and feet schematics in Game Update 1.3 (each). We canâ€™t make schematic boxes for Campaign items, because it would conflict with the reverse engineered versions of those items.
Iâ€™d like to allow any gear to reverse engineer for discoveries, but thereâ€™s a limit to how many recipes players can acquire. Weâ€™re looking at ways to improve that and apply systems more universally, but itâ€™s not currently possible. Only Campaign can be reverse engineered because if we make both a Campaign and Black Hole a reverse engineering recipe, they will be the same result with different names but they will both count against the upper limits.

Wookieluva: In a previous Q&A it was stated that there will be a way to add augment slots to existing items! I like the idea but was wondering about how it is planned to put it in. Would it be by adding a crafted item to the armor? Or would it be put in by some long-winded quest? Or both?
David: Adding an augment to an item through the augment table will require an augment kit and credits. The kits can be traded and are created by crafters. Reverse engineering crafted items will give you the materials required to create augment kits. You can also see other previously answered questions and my answers in regards to this topic here (http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=4330446&postcount=68).

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on May 27, 2012, 03:55:27 PM

This time covering 1.3 update:

2012, May 25th:

llesna: Can you please tell us why the upcoming Legacy additions for Game Update 1.3 are character-specific rather than Legacy-wide? 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 youâ€™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.

Ixum: Daniel Erickson said in his interview that there will be no new gear sets in Game Update 1.3. Does this mean there will not be any new orange gear as well?
Daniel: Although there are no new gear sets, the addition of Adaptive Gear opens up a range of new options for characters, especially those wearing medium and heavy armor. Now any of the social gear sets can be used by any class and they will automatically change stats to be the correct armor level. With the addition of the Augment Tables, players can additionally take that social gear and get Augment slots added that will make it competitive with any gear in the gameâ€"once the right mods and augments are gathered, of course.

Mindspore: Any update on Ranked Warzones in 1.3?
Daniel: Ranked Warzones is on track for 1.3. All the heavy lifting (ratings, group persistence exiting warzones, etc) is done and right now we are working through some emergent conflicts with Group Finder and the process of queuing for multiple activities at once with multiple temporary groups.

Mallorik: What is your philosophy on cross server LFG tools? Are we getting a same server tool just to hold us over while you work on cross server tech or is this just a test to see if a same server tool will do the job?
Daniel: Although weâ€™re certainly willing to entertain the idea of cross-server LFG tools if the need arises, itâ€™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 canâ€™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. Early tests show weâ€™ll be able to raise the peak concurrent user cap above what it was at launch. Combining that with server transfers to enable players to move to these new servers and fill them to the brim, we should see some fantastic, vibrant communities develop where Group Finder will always be able to find someone for your content.

CompassRose: Many players are concerned about the upcoming character transfer feature. One question frequently being voiced in the forums is that of retaining their legacy surname. Is there a mechanic in the transfer feature that will notify a player if the destination server they choose already has their surname locked by another player?
Daniel: Weâ€™re not quite (almost!) ready to talk about the specifics but rest assured we are doing everything we can to make the process as easy and low-impact to the greatest majority of players as possible. We should have better specifics soon.

BlazingShadow: Will we see the return of our favorite droid HK in some form?
Daniel: The great thing about droids is that they can be rebuilt. Of course, HK-47 wasnâ€™t the only HK model ever builtâ€¦

Asturias: Are you guys looking to let players incorporate a Bio for each character so others can read it. I always loved how some MMOs had this option for others to read a quick Bio of my character that I created and I could read theirs.
Daniel: Unfortunately because of our intricate mission systems we are carrying a massive amount of variables for each character already so we are forced to be a bit stingy with things like customizable text. That said, weâ€™re already researching solutions for making this content lighter to drag around with each character and Iâ€™d love to see it. Nothing soon, though.

Ximix: Are there any plans to revisit ability animation issues between mirror classes? For example, several "instant" Sage abilities actually have 1-2 second activations while Sorcerer abilities activate and deal damage instantly. Just like the Commando vs Bounty Hunter animations, in PvP these discrepancies can be huge.
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Whenever you use an "instant" ability, the server receives and process that action without any animation dependency (read: instantly), but the impact VFX and flytext are synced to the attack animation on your client. This is done to make the game look good and give attacks a sense of weight and impact without affecting timing or balance.
There are some notable exceptions to this that are real delays and real discrepancies that we're aware of and are addressing. In the case of Shock and Project, there is a real delay (on the server) before Project deals its damage, and that's something we're fixing in 1.3. The other real delays that we're aware of are in Smash and Force Sweep, but we don't yet have a fix for those.
If you believe additional abilities have delays or are not mirrored, you'd have to point them out specifically. With the exception of the abilities I've already mentioned, so far our investigations have shown that the discrepancies being reported are the intentional ones that make the game look good and feel right and, to reiterate, do not impact timing or balance.

gabarooni: As a long time tank (nearly 10 years), Iâ€™ve come to the conclusion that holding Aggro is not fun. Tanks already have to watch their survivability, cooldowns, position mobs, watch their groups position and health, and fight the mobsâ€"all of which I enjoy. Are there any plans in Game Update 1.3 to increase threat generation for tanks? Especially for Guardians and Juggernauts?
Austin: Actually, yes. We'll have more detailed information for you soon, but you can expect some improvements in threat generation, AOE threat, and quality of life.

Hargan: Will the Commando Gunnery spec be rebalanced after the changes in Game Update 1.2 so that we are back on par with the DPS output of similarly geared Sages/Gunslingers/Sentinels in Operations?
Austin: I think I'll confirm a lot of suspicions with this answer, but the bugfix that addressed Demolition Round scaling had a large enough impact on Gunnery DPS that it surprised us, too. Although Gunnery and Arsenal had been hitting our targets, it became harder to do so than we were comfortable with. Another way to say that is that the "low end" of our test results was hit too frequently by too many people. The changes you're going to see are mostly in resource management and usability, which will make it easier for you to deliver the considerable damage you already wield. We'll have more detailed information for you soon.

Brutalos: What class balances can we expect from Game Update 1.3 and will it undo some of the changes done in 1.2?
Austin: Game Update 1.2 brought damage dealing and healing roles closer to target than they had previously been. If for you and your class that meant a reduction in performance, that can be a hard thing for me to justify to you. I think it's fair to say that some of those changes were made by reducing usability instead of just reducing numbers, and it's these usability issues that we want to correct and negative changes to usability that we don't want to repeat in the future. Like I said before, we'll have more detailed information for you soon, but if I had to identify a motif for class changes in future updates, it'd be "improved usability."
Supaaq: I am extremely excited to see a Group Finder being added to SWTOR in Game Update 1.3. I would say of all the features I wish the game could have ASAP, that definitely tops my list. What else can you tell us about the specific implementation of this most welcome improvement? Will it automatically teleport group members to the entrance when the group forms?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): We are very, very close to releasing the full design of the feature in an imminent blog post written by yours truly. That being said, highlights do include that it can be used for flashpoints, heroic flashpoints, ops and planetary content. For the instanced combat, it will give you a free teleport to the content location once all group members agree to the group.

Gangawolf: I am curious about the cost of repairing gear, particularly in the end-game. When I die, I find that the cost to repair my Bounty Hunter's gear is just under half what if costs my Jedi Consular (and they are similarly geared in terms of level of gear). Likewise, my Smuggler falls somewhere in between the two. Again, not a scientific sampling, but it seems like heavy armor sets are cheaper to repair than medium armor sets which in turn are cheaper than light armor sets. Why wouldn't repair costs be the same across the board for similar level gear?
Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer): Repair costs are tied to the percentage of durability your items have lost (in addition to item level and quality). Currently heavy armor has a higher durability score than medium or light armor, so it degrades more slowly in combat and it is thus cheaper to repair over time. This was put in place fairly early in development to give tanks a bit of a break on their repair costs (back before we had lightly-armored Shadow/Assassin tanks). With the introduction of Adaptive Armor in Game Update 1.3 this design decision is definitely getting dated, so thereâ€™s a good chance we will normalize the durability of all armor types in a future update.

tkinnunzero: In Game Update 1.3, can you briefly summarize what is the endgame Operation gear progression, i.e. what is the path a fresh level 50 is intended to be following that will see him/her eventually conquer the highest difficulties and end up fully decked in Best-in-Slot gear in every slot?
Jason: We expect a fresh level 50 character to start with a mixture of high level Premium and Prototype gear from missions, crafting and planetary commendations. For players interested in Group PvE end-game content the first step would be to use Group Finder to go through the Normal Mode Flashpoints until you acquire a full set of Prototype gear, probably mixed with several Artifact/Tionese items or mods. Next up would be hard mode Flashpoints (starting with tier 1 then moving on to the harder tier 2 Rakghoul Flashpoints) and story-mode Operations (starting with Eternity Vault then moving on to Karragaâ€™s Palace) where you pick up your Columi/Energized gear. Finally youâ€™d get into story mode Explosive Conflict to pick up your Rakata gear, and use the Black Hole commendations to start picking up Black Hole gear. To progress past this point youâ€™ll need a guild at your back capable of doing Hard Mode and Nightmare Mode Operations. Starting into hard modes immediately after story mode Eternity Vault will let your dramatically accelerate your Columi and Rakata gearing, and Hard Mode Explosive Conflict lets you rapidly pick up Black Hole gear and is the only way to pick up the top-of-the-line Campaign gear set.
Once you have good gear that you feel youâ€™re going to hold on to for a while you can improve it by adding Augments through crafting and Item Modification Tables. You can also optimize it by extracting mods from duplicate pieces of Operation gear to get the perfect balance of stats for your character build. Crafting also has a role to play, especially if your guild has a lot of extra Operation gear they can reverse engineer. It allows you to augment your gear more quickly and cheaply, customize the look of your gear, and help gear up your new guild-mates with powerful crafted mods and items.
If you enjoy solo content playing the daily mission hubs on Ilum, Belsavis and Corellia can help rack up the credits and accelerate your early end-game gear progression. The Galactic Trade Network provides opportunities to buy powerful mods and items with all those credits, while providing a decent income for the end-game crafters.
Our plan for future Operation game updates is to have Group Finder players to progress from Story mode to Story mode, while Operation guilds move into Hard Mode of the new operation (possibly dropping back into Story Mode to learn fight mechanics or gear up new players) then progress into Nightmare Mode. We intend to introduce Hard Mode and Nightmare Mode in the same update (Nightmare Explosive Conflict was delayed to allow us get some exciting new Nightmare Mode tech into the game which we should have more details on soon). Weâ€™re also planning on having Hard Mode Flashpoint rewards continue to progress as we introduce new tiers of content, allowing new players to skip past some of the earlier Operations (if their guild has already completed them and doesnâ€™t wish to go back, for example).

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on May 30, 2012, 01:47:40 AM

updated my OP with link to the official archives

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on June 03, 2012, 10:59:41 PM

2012, June 1st

Lymain: You announced that Ranked Warzones are still on track for Game Update 1.3 in the May 25th Q&A. Is the plan still to implement this feature incrementally, starting with only pre-made teams of eight? Will queues be cross-server initially? Or will cross-server queues be implemented at some point after the first stage of Ranked Warzones makes it live?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): That is correct. First implementation (pre-season) will be pre-made teams of eight and will not be cross-server.

JimG: For the new augment slots for Game Update 1.3, will the tier of augment slot raise the level required to equip the gear? For example, if I have a level 11 piece of orange gear and add the highest tier augment slot to it, can I still equip it at level 11 assuming I don't put an augment in it that exceeds my level?
Daniel: You can still equip the item so long as you donâ€™t put mods that exceed your level into the augment slot. In addition, the high tier augment slot can use any augment of a lower tier as well so you can steadily upgrade with level-appropriate augments without having to worry about upgrading the slot itself since you put the highest tier slot on to start.

Dzeiger: With the changes to make social gear "adaptive" and augmentable and thus more desirable, are there any plans to revise the social points system? For example, making it per-Legacy rather than per-character, and/or expanding options for social point gathering at endgame that doesn't involve endless Esseles and Black Talon runs.
Daniel: Yes, the social point system will be getting a major revamp in the future and many of our systems will be going Legacy-wide, though whether social is one of them is still under discussion. In the meantime, Game Update 1.3 will bring social points to all Flashpoint and Operation boss kills, meaning far more social points just for being social and playing with friends.

Iracaelestis: Currently, crafting missions have a chance to drop schematics from the opposite faction. Given the uselessness of these schematics for the crafting playerâ€™s faction, combined with a cumbersome and intentionally difficult means of trading with the opposite faction that's not being used, what is the justification for this and are there any planned changes for the future?
Daniel: They are an intended part of the system and are there to cause cross-faction interaction which will soon be much easier as we finish out the last few steps and the Hutts formally take over all of the GTN terminals in the galaxy.

Anastre: The Legacy system currently allows you to create ties with perks and unlocks using your own characters on the same server. The thought crossed my mind that it would be cool if you could add the characters of another player to a 'joined' Legacy. This way, you could gain Legacy levels a bit faster if you work together. It also gives you a reason to befriend other players. Did this idea cross the mind of the developers?
Daniel: It definitely has. People want to marry other players officially, build family groups, share histories and last names, and much more and itâ€™s all in the queue for the future of Legacy.

LKaras: What will you be doing to keep guilds and server communities together once server transfer is implemented?
Joveth Gonzalez (Online Community Manager): Once server transfers are implemented, we will re-evaluate our server group forums and make any changes that are necessary. We also have Community Coordinator Eric Musco as the liaison to guilds and he has a lot of good ideas on how to work with them. Finally, weâ€™re going to begin to highlight server community events on the Community Blog section of our site to make sure that they get proper attention. Rest assured that guilds and server communities are part of our overall focus within the community team.

Tuk-Teufti : Endgame crafted items are bind on pick up. Itâ€™s alright when they come from a drop, but when they come from crafting the system feels limited. Whatâ€™s the point of crafting armor you canâ€™t sell? Biochem seems once again the way to go for PvP players, along with a little of Cybertech for grenades. Are you going to give other crew skills exclusive features to rival Biochem?
David Hunt (Systems Designer): While the initial endgame schematics were all bound, that hasnâ€™t carried over to some of the newer endgame crafted items. In Game Update 1.2, there are many reverse engineering schematics that are not bound. In general, weâ€™re opening the restrictions on some of these kinds of distribution channels. There are some changes in Game Update 1.3 that impact the interactions between Biochem and PvP, and you can expect more general changes to level out crafting skill viability in future game updates.

Murshawursha: What was the logic behind choosing which Crew Skills get to craft Augment Kits? In Game Update 1.2 and before, if a player wanted, for example, an augmented Lightsaber, they HAD to buy it from an Artifice. Post-Game Update 1.3, if a player wants an augmented Lightsaber, they choose a Lightsaber that they already own (probably acquired through raiding or questing), and buy an Augment Kit from an Armstech, Armormech, or Synthweaver. This effectively cuts out the Artificer completely out of the market for augmented Lightsabers. Why was it done this way, rather than simply allowing Artificers to make Augment Kits that could only be applied to Lightsabers or Relics, Synthweavers to make Augment Kits that can only be used on force armor, Cybertech on earpieces, etc?
David: There are two primary reasons that Augment Kits are limited to Armstech, Armormech and Synthweaving: 1) They are the augment crafters, and Augment Kits extend that service. 2) Prior to crafted augments, they did not have a substantial input into the item mod game and we want to open that up to more players.
We did not want to have lots different Augment Kits, because that would make finding the right item and kit combination substantially more difficult. Augment tables are intended to make it relatively simple to get any item to the same power cap, and lots of kit variation introduces the possibility that it would be hard to get some items to hit the same potential. While this is how augment tables work now, all Crew Skills will continue to evolve based on player feedback and game data.

Insomniel: Is it possible to make tiny adjustments to crafting dialog? Namely, could you save schematics filter settings per character or even per account - I like my schematics sorted by level and it is rather irritating to sort them this way almost every time I open the dialog after changing locations or relogging. It would also be nice to start with collapsed schematics trees .
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): This is a good idea. I will pass it on to the GUI team.

Monkgryphon: Can you break down the Random Flashpoint daily and explain how it will work and what sort of rewards it will grant?
Damion: With the Group Finder, we will be adding the concept of a Random Flashpoint. If you do the Random Flashpoint with a Group Finder assembled group, you will earn a reward. Currently, this reward is in the form of level-appropriate commendations which may be exchanged for equipment at a vendor. At level 50, there are there are separate daily rewards for normal and hard mode Flashpoints, as well as story mode Operations. These rewards escalate with the difficulty of the content.

Ashivauto: There are quite a few threads on wanting open world PvP and a lot of good ideas on open world PvP content. My question is: are there any plans to implement something that would encourage open world PvP such as faction points for factional items, or planetary control. Maybe even rewards or commendations for open world kills?
Gabe Amantangelo (PvP & Endgame Designer): Yes. We have open world PvP content and incentive systems in the works. We will update you as soon as we can. They will likely come in parts, as opposed to all at once. For example, a proper incentive system for defeating players in open world PvP may come in first.

Lord_Franklin: This may be a bit off-topic, but oh well: I have recently been wondering what actually happens during that 4 hour or so window once a week when you take the servers down for maintenance. What's happening typically on your side when I'm sitting there refreshing the server status page?
Blaine Christine (Sr. Producer, Live Services): Many things happen in that precious four hour window and it varies from week to week. Typically, we have a patch deployment for the game along with possible web, network, infrastructure, hardware, and/or platform maintenance, just to name a few possibilities. Taking the game patch as an individual item, the full process takes several hours, beginning with that lovely in-game message that you all get fifteen minutes prior to the actual kick from the game. At the T-15 mark, we start in-game messaging and put the servers in Maintenance Mode so that no one else can enter the game. At 2:00 AM CDT, we kick everyone out and start the shutdown process for all of the servers which takes another ~15 minutes. Then there are several steps to the actual deployment of the patch which can take an hour or more, depending on complexity. After the deploy, we have to start the servers back up and have CS perform spot checks of the servers while they are in Maintenance Mode (so they still appear offline to the players). In some cases, we may detect issues with the spot checks that need to be resolved or at least double-checked before we open to the public. After all of that, we finally open the gates again and notify all of you via the Forums and Launcher that the game is once again ready for play.
We certainly strive very hard to ensure that we condense this process down as much as possible to reduce the impact on playtime for you, our customers. Most of the time, we manage to get the game back up earlier than we projected, but occasionally an unforeseen issue with the maintenance causes us to go over the projected timing. As we get closer to the end of the maintenance, there is a lot of hectic activity if things arenâ€™t going well, because everyone here takes their responsibility seriously and wants to ensure the best possible experience for all of you. If we go over time, it constitutes a hair on fire emergency that requires all hands on deck to resolve as quickly as possible.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on June 08, 2012, 08:25:52 PM

2012, June 8th:

Stubacca: Will the new Group Finder only work for solo players to find random group members, or will two or three friends that are already grouped together manually be able to still play together and fill the open spots in the group with random group members with it?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): The Group Finder has absolutely been designed to allow 2- or 3-person groups to find the missing players to complete that group. It also has functionality allowing players to easily backfill a group if, for example, you start running a Flashpoint and lose a player.

Elperzon: Will we ever be given the chance to 'forget' schematics we know? For example, I can make the base item, the 3 upgraded version (crit, power, def), and some of their upgraded versions (alacrity, surge, etc). That makes for a ton of schematics for a single item. I would love to be able to forget the base item schematic if I have the upgraded version I like/want.
Damion: This is, in fact, something that we've thought about and might implement at some point. However, it's mostly a nice cleanup thing and is behind other priorities at the moment.

Goldenstar: Daniel Erickson mentioned in the last Q&A that social points will now be awarded for boss kills in HM FPs/OPs. What about PvPers? Are there any plans to add methods of acquiring social points to PvP?
Damion: At this time, players wonâ€™t be able to gain social points by participating in PvP. In the future, itâ€™s possible that weâ€™ll evaluate more ways to earn social points and how that system compares to other reward systems in the game.

CiKaidom: You mentioned â€œpre-made teamsâ€ in your answer to Lymain (link), but what did you mean exactly? Are you saying that to increase our ranking weâ€™ll need to always be with the same group of 8, or will we be allowed to change one or more players? Is this ranking common to all team warzones fought or is it specific to a team, and changes whenever one or more members of this team change?
Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer): Our apologies for the lack of clarity. A â€œpre-made teamâ€ in the context of Ranked Warzones simply means any full 8-man operation. You do not need to always queue with the same group of 8, just a full group of 8. Each individual player keeps his own ranking, and when a team is formed and queued we generate the team value based on all of the rankings of the members of that specific team.

Ghoppa: Can Force/tech attacks (for example a Scoundrelâ€™s Back Blast) actually ever miss (excluding any special abilities players have)? Do Accuracy and Defense play any role with these attacks, or does Accuracy/Defense only affect melee/ranged attacks? Can Force/tech attacks be shielded?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Yes, but the flytext you'll see is "Resist" instead of "Miss." Typically, Force/tech Accuracy is higher than melee/ranged Accuracy and melee/ranged Defense is higher than Force/tech Defense, but Accuracy and Defense work the same with all attack types. Currently Force/tech attacks cannot be shielded.
Alxandria: Can we get a detailed breakdown of the affect of Presence on our companions? I'm specifically targeting info that would explain if the bonuses are weighted or static.
Jason Attard (Senior Game Designer): Your companion gets a fixed amount of damage, healing, and health per point of Presence on your character, and that amount does not change as you level up. This is the exact same sort of scaling done for Endurance and Power. In fact, putting 100 points of Presence on your main character is equivalent to putting 50 points of Endurance and ~85 points of Power on your companion, so if youâ€™re playing solo or 2-player content where you have your companion out itâ€™s mathematically the most effective thing you can do. This is offset by the fact that itâ€™s split between offense and defense (making your companion less role-specialized) and that youâ€™re sacrificing your personal effectiveness to increase the effectiveness of an AI.
As for how it scales as you level up, characters get lots of Endurance and Power on their gear, but typically donâ€™t get much Presence. This means that, early on, Presence tends to be a bigger proportion of your overall stat budget (and thus plays a bigger role in your companionâ€™s effectiveness) than it does in the late game. In theory, you could make Presence more important by seeking it out for your gear, but in practice we found most players prefer to increase the power of their own character instead, so we made Presence have more of a niche role, and balanced the PvE game assuming players do not itemize towards it at all.
Shintorg: Can you explain the reasoning behind making the BIS consumables, Exotech Stims and Adrendals, drop so rarely and seemingly only on Hard Mod EV&KP? Why isn't there a way to purchase these? Why donâ€™t they drop in Explosive Conflict? Or off bosses?
David Hunt (Systems Designer): These schematics are split between the Black Hole and Daily Commendation vendors in Game Update 1.3. This isnâ€™t in the version of Game Update 1.3 thatâ€™s currently on the public test server, but it will make it into Game Update 1.3 before it reaches live servers.

RCcarroll: I play characters of a multitude of levels regularly and haven't gotten one Legacy Item drop. Would you mind saying how often these are supposed to drop and on what kind of enemies?
David Hunt: Legacy items do not have a specific drop location. Inheritance can drop from any random loot of level 34 or higher. That usually means killing NPCs at level 34 or above, but itâ€™s possible for an NPC to drop loot slightly above its level. Birthright items drop from level 46+ (Inheritance can still drop from 46-50). It is difficult to state their precise drop rates because most random drop rates vary significantly depending on what youâ€™re killing. Normal bosses throughout the world have a substantially higher chance of dropping these than regular NPCs.
These drops are included in the Artifact quality loot table. As with everything on that table, the best way to find it is through Artifact quality lockboxes anywhere in the level range. Tough bosses that drop random loot are another option. However, I would not recommend purchasing these boxes with the expectation of finding lots of Legacy gear â€" there are tons of competing items in those loot tables.
Whenever dealing with any drop rate thatâ€™s low and random from a large selection, the individual experience ends up varying wildly. The overall drop chance for these is increasing in an upcoming update, and weâ€™re looking at other ways to normalize the acquisition rate of these items.

SNOperaghost: Which crafting skills will be able to make which specific types of augment kits?
David White (Systems Designer): Armormech, Synthweaving, & Armstech can all craft Augment Kits. The kits are the same regardless of Crew Skill.

StagehandMERC: Can you talk about efficiency bonuses for Crew Skills? Are they a percent reduction to the time it takes to complete tasks, or is there more to it than that? Also, is there an efficiency bonus granted by companion affection? How does it scale from 0 affection through to full?
David White: The efficiency bonus reduces the amount of time it takes to run Crew Skill missions and crafting. Certain companions have innate bonuses to the efficiency of specific Crew Skills but all companions will become more efficient as your Affection with them goes up. It is possible to get as much as a 15% efficiency bonus when you are at max Affection.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on June 16, 2012, 11:40:59 AM

2012, June 15th:

GarrickBlackSun: I understand he is a long way off, but could you please possibly give us any sort of clearer or better insight to the unlocking of HK-51?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): The only thing weâ€™re saying today is its going to take a serious amount of work, involves a galaxy-wide mission, introduces some different ways of playing the game and most people will need to have a 50 of one faction and at least a mid-level character from the other faction. Get working on those Legacy characters!

Zoheb: It looks like the LFG Tool will limit the FP's we can queue for to those within our level range. This may handicap those who have skipped a large number of FP's and have effectively outlevelled that FP's range. Will they be able to queue for FP's below their level range and if not, why not?
Antonia Phillips (Development Director): Not at this time. The reason we did not include this option with the launch of the feature is essentially balance. We did not want to penalize some players by matching them with players far above their level. In addition, we want players to feel that they are contributing to content and not being carried through by higher level players. Donâ€™t get me wrong, Iâ€™m not saying we wonâ€™t implement a version of this option with a future release. Weâ€™ve heard the feedback on the forums and we recognize that this is important, just as long as we implement it correctly.

SAtaarcoeny: Is there any chance of you guys making the PvP win/loss stats viewable by everyone?
Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer): We currently do display a playerâ€™s rating via inspection and the /who list, as long as that rating is above a particular threshold (currently set to 1200). We really would like to encourage the competitive aspect of Ranked Warzones by allowing players to compare themselves against each other, so this is suggestion is definitely something we will talk about.

Cycao: Can I please get a response on this issue I have for Ranked Warzones and how you will deal with a disconnect? People disconnect from Warzones; it happens and sometimes itâ€™s the game, others itâ€™s a client issue, but it happens. To go down one man in a ranked warzone will be detrimental to the team.
Rob: We are aware that a Warzone team suddenly losing a player is a great disadvantage to that team, and we are investigating ways we can better mitigate that loss to the team. One of the things that we currently have implemented is that the team that loses a team member will have that factor taken into consideration when the system makes adjustments to ELO ratings at the end of the match.

Skondy: Can one of the Developers give a detailed breakdown on how threat is generated? I have heard that it is generated more by how many times a player can land blows on the boss than by how much damage is dealt. So that a tank can hold aggro better by using his basic attack (rapid shots, saber strike, etc) in combination with his high threat moves, rather than trying to do as much damage as possible to a boss.
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Threat is equal to damage inflicted at a "one damage equals one threat" ratio. Passive threat modifiers then adjust that amount by a percentage, while active threat dumps adjust current threat levels by a percentage. I wouldn't suggest using your basic attack to try and generate high threat.

Elfindreams: What does the "cover fire" keybind do? The keybind, not passive skill and not "take cover" or "take cover in place" - specifically "cover fire". It does not have any function in advanced class cover mechanics that anyone has been able to detect.
Austin: This is actually a Dev function that was never cut from the retail build. You are correct that it serves no function to players. I'll investigate why this option yet remains.

Theworldends: With the implementation of "smart" aoe attacks for tanks, why are there still no smart aoe heals that only target the lowest health group members?
Austin: So far, this hasn't fallen into the category of gameplay we want to change. All AOEs prioritize targets closer to the center of that AOE, so a better aimed Revivification or Kolto Bomb will yield better results. It's not hard to imagine a world with "smart" AOE heals though, so I'll end with saying that it's certainly something we're still considering.

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.

Jtsd: Will you release Power/Crit and Defence/Absorption enhancements? Currently the only way to get Crit Rating is to directly swap out Power, which is only slightly behind our Primary Stat in value. The only way to get Absorption is to take a larger amount of Accuracy or Shield Rating.
Jason Attard (Senior Game Designer): We currently have our late-game stats split into two groups: Power, Defense, Crit, and Absorb in one, and Accuracy, Alacrity, Surge, and Shield in the other. Modifications have a stat from the first group, and Enhancements have one stat from each group. This was done to prevent players from stacking a single stat to the exclusion of all others, and to help keep the number of Modifications and Enhancements in the game to a reasonable number. Every time we introduce a new set of gear we refine our item design, and we have considered loosening up the restraints on those stats in various ways, but we do not have an ETA for it yet.

Kingofthebritons: In last weeksâ€™ announcement, we learned that the level cap will be increased later this year. With this change in mind, will any changes be made to the current PvE endgame? For example, will the difficulties for Hard Mode Flashpoints and Operations be increased to match the new level? If not, could you explain why?
Daniel: Weâ€™re keeping a tight wrap on details about the level increase later this year until weâ€™ve done far more testing. Right now we have plans and theories but no empirical numbers for what, if any adjustments will need to be made to PvE endgame content.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on June 24, 2012, 02:12:56 PM

2012, June 22nd:

Pargon: I'm curious about the development cycle for something like an armor set. Could you elaborate on the process you guys go through when designing and implementing that equipment?
Ryan Dening (Lead Concept Artist) and David Hunt (Systems Designer): This is a very good and timely question as we have recently been refining parts of our approach and inspiration in response to the feedback we have gotten from our players. The first thing we do when designing a new armor set is to look at which class it's for and what level or tier it is going to be. For instance, if it's for a Bounty Hunter we've established that Bounty Hunters wear heavy armor that should feel custom or at least modified (since he's not a uniformed soldier). Our strongest influences are going to come from characters like Boba Fett, Boushh, Dengar etc. Level of the gear is going to determine how visually impressive the gear should look and where it fits in the progression. This is the real tricky part because inStar Wars, a lot of the costumes are quite simple or hit one note and we have to extrapolate to create a lot of different, unique looks that feel like they progress from low level to high.
With this as our background we'll start sketching ideas to find and capture a look that is compelling. When the sketch is approved we make a model sheet which is a lot like schematics. Every piece of a set of gear needs to fit into the wearables system so that they can work with every other set of gear in the game independently. An outfit will also have different layers like a base (for a Bounty Hunter this would be his base armor) and attachments (the cool stuff like Boba Fett's cape, rocket pack, Wookie braids). From here it goes to the character artists who bring the concept to life as a 3D model. They start with high poly models and custom sculpt each piece. Then they texture the models and make lower poly meshes that can be imported into the game. It's a long process and takes a lot of hard, skilled work to make an armor set.
Once in the game, designers create a map between all the available art assets and the items that need to be distributed to cover the various roles. We utilize different attachment and color combinations provided by the artists to try to make as many armor sets as possible unique, even if they're similar to others. Those sets are named and distributed along similar content channels, with the goal of giving players gear that makes them naturally look cool as they progress instead of making you look like a clown. The related content bands are setup with the intent of making characters look good in mixed sets of the same band, while still providing variety between them. There are too many combinations to guarantee that you'll find the right items that look cool together, but we work to get you as close as possible so that it's easy for you to complete the last steps.

Raalat: The Toxic Scan ability purges two effects. If a target has more than two purgable effects, how is it determined which are purged?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): You can typically expect the oldest effect to be removed first.

Daitenzin: Does the team have any concerns about how the 1.3 changes will affect how Assassins/Shadows will perform as tanks compared to the other tanking options in an Operation situation?
Austin: No, not especially. I know a lot of players feel like this was a PvP fix that glossed over the idea of Operations survivability, but that just isn't the case. In reality, Shadow/Assassin tanks were slightly over-performing prior to Game Update 1.3, but some of that is obfuscated in the current climate of boss encounters. What some players have correctly identified as an issue is that some Operations bosses deal significantly more Force/tech damage than weapon damage, which favors tanks with high mitigation over those with high shield/avoidance.
Therefore, it'd be more accurate to say that I'm more concerned that we're currently overemphasizing armor and health pools (as the most valid channels of survivability) in Operations encounters. This may be the case because bosses aren't using enough weapon damage or because too many tank defenses only work against weapon damage. Not all channels of survivability can be balanced for every boss encounter, which is why tank survivability is measured against a norm, and why we're going to be pushing harder to hit that norm in the future - either through tweaks in boss damage or tweaks to the way shields work.

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.

RamathRS: The upcoming "Smart" abilities look to be amazing. I am very eager to try these out. However, will these same changes apply to our Companion tanks as well? They each have an AoE ability that generates large amounts of hate on up to 5 targets, coupled with a debuff of some sort. But, it also does damage. I am almost always forced to turn off this key and essential ability to preserve ongoing CC.
Austin: This sounds like a good idea and is plenty plausible. We'll look into it. Thanks.

HeavensAgent: In general how are random loot tables defined, and when an item is awarded how is the loot table it originates from determined? Are they based on planet? Item level? Item quality?
David Hunt: We have a hierarchy of different loot tables for different purposes and functions. Loot falls into three broad categories:
1. Random Loot.When you kill something in the world or open a generic lockbox, loot usually comes from here.
We have a series of four random loot tables representing difficulty rarities.
The first table is where you see all the grey â€œjunkâ€ loot. We have a large list of items, and then each item requires a specific tag. When we give a loot package to a creature, it has properties for what kinds of tags that creature owns. For example, thereâ€™s a boss tag, a military tag, republic/imperial tags, a medic tag, a scaled tag, etc. The composition of those tags determine what the creature can drop.
The second through fourth tables are increasing rarity calls. Those rarities roughly translate to quality, but not precisely. For example, the uncommon table is where most of the Premium (green) stuff in the game drops. However, thereâ€™s also a bunch of Prototype (blue) items -primarily mods. Those Prototype items almost all require the Boss tag to be present. This means that instead of dropping a static Premium item, a boss has a chance to drop a Prototype mod instead when they call to the table. That chance doesnâ€™t apply to regular mobs because they donâ€™t have the Boss tag.
For all random loot, we have base chances that are globally defined. Note that Standard and Weak creatures have a chance to not drop loot at all, and these calls are only made AFTER it determines that they will drop something. We use random loot for world bosses, but they all have overrides to the global random loot rates. The overrides depend on how many players are expected to fight to kill the boss.
The process for determining the specific item that drops is a simple series of calculations based on requirements. We roll to determine which loot table is used, then we check the level of the NPC and roll to see if it offsets. We then look for that level in the loot table, and if it canâ€™t find anything it will drop 1 level and check again. Once it finds a valid level, it builds a list of all the valid items and their weights. Weight is a relative chance to drop a specific item compared to other items in the table. We bias loot towards classes by having the table split: thereâ€™s an unrestricted section and a restricted section. For example, the Level 38 loot entry for Kinetic Resolve D-System has a weight of 125 unrestricted in the Rare table. It has a second entry with a weight of 100 that is restricted to the Sith Sorcerer and Jedi Sage. So the effective item weight is 125 for every group that does not have a Sorcerer or Sage and 225 for any group that does. That is why adding two characters of the same class does not further increase your odds of loot beyond having one of that class present.
Trying to describe specific weight chances gets very complicated very fast. You have to factor in the potential presence of two loot entries, the composition of the classes present, whether there are any additional drops due to what youâ€™re killing, etc.â€¦ then we toss in a few additional factors, like Boss-only Prototype drops that have high relative weights. While in the provided example the Kinetic Resolve D-System has a lower class weight than general weight, thatâ€™s not representative of the system in general. The weights for any specific item are determined by a moderately complex set of calculations to create relative loot density consistency across hundreds of different loot criteria combinations.
2. Regional Loot.When you kill something in the world and get commendations or medpacs, it comes from here.
Most NPCs opt in to regional loot. Whenever you kill something on a planet that is valid for regional loot, it will make a call to this table in addition to whatever other loot it provides. We generally use this for simple, generic additions that we want to provide for generally participating in the content. Thatâ€™s why itâ€™s the way we drop commendations and medpacs. However, it can also be used for other purposes, like the â€œrandomâ€ loot you get from trash mobs in a flashpoint.
Note that regional loot does not apply to things like lockboxes.
3. Custom Loot. When you kill a boss in a flashpoint and pull from a specific list of items, it comes from here.
This is similar to random loot, but it calls from a much smaller predefined list thatâ€™s specific to the NPC. Custom loot uses class restrictions extensively. Sometimes, custom loot is all class restricted and itâ€™s not possible to get an item for classes that arenâ€™t present. Weighting is also much simpler in custom loot packages, but with randomness thereâ€™s a high probability that a single pass through a FP/OP will be very slanted. Custom loot is typically split into several subpackages. Each subpackage has a chance to be called and contains a list of items.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on June 30, 2012, 05:50:52 PM

2012, June 29th:

Lesai: When it comes to planning content and game direction, how much of it is based on the developersâ€™ plan for the game, and how much of it is based on community suggestion and feedback?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): As we come to the end of our big must-have features (like Group Finder), updates are driven more and more by the community. Expect to see far more of the smaller quality of life requested features (color matching for companions, chat bubbles, etc.) start to get real traction under them in the near future.

CelCawdro: What are your long-term plans for implementing playable species? Are Cathar merely the first of semi-regular species additions?
Daniel: Like all of our ongoing content updates, weâ€™ll release Cathar into the wild and see how they perform. If new species are clearly popular weâ€™ll keep them coming!

Nyrdbyrd: People are always disappointed when they lose the tie breaker in a Voidstar match, as though it was incorrectly judged. Any chance you could clarify the tiebreaker rules for us?
Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer): Excellent question! We've actually gone through a series of adjustments to improve this very system. As of 1.3, here is how a winner is determined in Voidstar: There are 6 checkpoints inside the Warzone - the 3 sets of blast doors, the bridge in the reactor room, the forcefields in the cargo room, and the datacore itself. The team that gets the furthest wins the Warzone. If both teams get to the same checkpoint, then whichever team gets to that point the quickest wins.
When the Warzone figures out that one team has already won the match (since they are the 2nd team on the attack and have exceeded their opponentsâ€™ progress, or have gotten to the same spot faster), the match will end immediately instead of playing out the rest of the game to a known ending.
Unrelated to the tiebreaker changes (but also exciting), we've made a change to the Hangar inside Voidstar to help prevent stalemates inside the first room. We've added a broken fence down a portion of the middle of the room, which obstructs movement but not vision. The intended result is that the defenders have to commit to defend one side or the other, and can't float between both doors quite so easily.

Tomisu: How does Expertise affect healing in PvE environments, like Operations for instance? If all players are flagged for PvP, will the heals they receive get the Expertise bonus? If not, what prevents it?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Expertise counters the negative effects of "PVP Trauma," the debuff applied when engaging in combat with enemy players. It is not in any way associated with flag status.

Kiper: My question is are you still considering some sort of dual talent option, and if so is there an ETA?
Austin: This is definitely a feature we hope to provide in the future, but we don't have any details to share at this time (including an ETA).

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on July 09, 2012, 09:01:19 AM

2012, July 6th:

CelCawdro: If Cathar are successful, what kinds of species can we expect to see? May we see anything beyond the current selection of near-humans? What is the process behind selecting new species and gauging community interest?
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Weâ€™d like to open the selection of future species to the community as a whole with clear positives and negatives provided for each selection. That way we can go a bit further afield in our species selection.

Lurtzello: Are the various stories ordered? Meaning, when does the storyline of each Republic planet takes place compared to the Imperial storyline and the storylines of the other planets?
Alex Freed (Lead Writer): The short, unsatisfying answer: it depends!
The longer answer: The class stories tend to weave in and out of one another--they all happen (nothing's "out of continuity"), and they all happen roughly at the same time (chapter 3 is chapter 3 for everyone, for example), but there's not a set correspondence that runs all the way through. For example, you couldn't say "the Jedi Knight is always half a planet ahead of the Imperial Agent." But you could say "the Bounty Hunter chapter 3 finale takes place before the Trooper chapter 3 finale."
For the world stories, it's a little more complicated. In some cases, only one of the world stories can happen--the Republic and Empire can't both defeat King Ulgo on Alderaan, or the villain of the False Emperor Flashpoint. For story purposes, we know these characters were defeated... but we don't know by whom.
In other cases, different factions' world stories happen roughly at the same time--aside from the final defeat of Ulgo, the rest of the Alderaan missions can be contemporaneous. Other world stories are, as you suggest, time-separated--Republic Taris takes place significantly before Imperial Taris, and Imperial Balmorra takes place significantly before Republic Balmorra.
For the most part, it's best not to worry too much about ordering individual world events unless they actively reference one another--and if they contradict one another, you can assume that we won't be writing future stories that depend on one faction's participation at the exclusion of the other. (For example, you'll note that the Corellia "Black Hole" storyline reconciles the events of the Imperial and Republic Corellia storylines so that going forward, we know roughly the state Corellia is in!).

caravaggio: The last few major patches have seen significant changes to the Sniper/Gunslinger Marksman/Sharpshooter tree. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys envision the class and what was not working that caused you to decide changes needed to be made? Do you think that 1.3 brought you closer to where you want to be or do you still see areas in the tree that need improvement?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): Marksmanship and Sharpshooter have been a challenge to "get right" to be sure. Apart from cover and cover gameplay in general, Marksmanship and Sharpshooter have had a few specific hurdles for us to overcome. Thematically, these guys are high weapon damage specs, and that means that they can be easily countered (or even shut down) with a cooldown like Deflection. On the other hand, when their target is defenseless, their high weapon damage can actually become a little overwhelming.
These specs are also highly cover-dependent, and it has been a difficult task to communicate to players that in most cases they're better off holding their ground than kiting like a Sorcerer or Sage would. Of course, even that depends on having chosen a good cover spot to begin with. We face the issue of rewarding clean shots from cover while not making extended stays overpowered.
To answer you more directly, our vision for these specs hasn't changed, but I think we're striking much closer to that target than we have in the past. I'm really quite happy with Marksmanship and Sharpshooter in Game Update 1.3. Prior to this update, these skill trees fell apart at the top tiers, so we really wanted to address that and reward the full-spec Marksmanship and Sharpshooter. They now have the tools to stand their ground when they need to, they have better energy management than ever before, and their gameplay is smoother, simpler, and more rewarding. That's not to suggest there aren't issues, but I expect most issues can be addressed with minor tweaks in the future.

Clymene: Are there any plans to buff companion tanks? Currently they are barely any better at survivability than dps companions, especially poor Xalek, and don't hold aggro very well.
Austin: I'll bring up the issue with the rest of the team and see if increased survivability and threat is something we can afford to give them. Without me revisiting our goals for what tank companions should do, off the top of my head, it certainly sounds like they could use some adjustments. Thanks for raising this issue.

Taitsuo: Would you guys consider adding root effects to the Resolve bar? At the moment, 3 well-coordinated Gunslingers could permaroot someone (5secs duration, 15 secs cooldown). With ranked warzones, that could mean a lotâ€¦
Austin: Resolve is meant to put a lid on effects that take control away from you, the player. It's meant to limit the effectiveness of chain stuns, sleeps, and knockbacks. However, it is not meant to impact the ranged and melee (kiting and anti-kiting) balance of the game. This was a very deliberate measure taken to separate these two different aspects of control. I won't say that we won't limit the "chainability" of roots in the future, but given the amount of skills and abilities that break and cleanse roots and snares at the moment, it's not something we're very concerned about. Of course, we will be keeping an eye on how ranked warzone teams use the tools they have.

Title: Weekly Devs Q&A
Post by: voyak on July 15, 2012, 12:57:12 PM

2012, July 13th:

Anzel: Credit Sinks appear to be one of the hot topics in the community right now. Are there any chances of severely lowering or possibly removing some of these at this early stage in the game?
Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): Now that 1.3 has been out and legacy perks have been in the system for a while now, we will be looking at our credits sinks, particularly the perks, to see how they are performing. It is quite likely we will make some adjustments based on what we've learned.

BobertCole: Could you elaborate please on what role you see deception Assassins playing? Are they close to operating in the way that was envisioned?
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer): First, as to whether or not they're operating close to what we envision, the answer is "depends who the operator is." From the videos, logs, and anecdotes players provide us, it's really very much the answer for all specs - some people "get it" and play it to its potential, and some people don't. Frequently, the ones who "don't" are hitting brick walls because their expectations for what a spec should be like or should be capable of are different than what the spec is designed for.
In the case of Deception Assassins, we see and hear about a lot of players expecting to go toe-to-toe with tough enemies. They expect that since they're a melee spec, they should have the survivability they need to withstand the frontlines. That's true for some melee specs, but that's not what Deception Assassins were designed for. Deception should epitomize "hit-and-run" and "lone wolf" gameplay. Obviously that's less the case in Operations boss encounters, but if this is a question of sustained DPS, the short answer is that they hit within the same 5% "grace window" targeted by every DPS spec in the game.
In solo and PvP environments, Deception is meant to be a high burst, high mobility, shutdown spec. When played properly, they provide some of the highest burst and highest pressure in the game. However, Deception is not a great partner. He can't take hits, his shutdown requires that he set the pace of the fight, and his escapes leave allies open and vulnerable to counterattacks. I say that, but I've seen players dash my expectations and turn Deception into a spectacular teammate. Unfortunately, I've seen many more players try to facetank and fail. Assassins have a great team support role - Darkness; they also have a great well-rounded, high utility role - Madness. We left Deception to take the opportunity to do something fun and very different, but that comes with the risk of missing player expectation. If you like Deception and you want to pull it off, my suggestion is that you pick your fights and plan ahead, but I'd also warn that Deception is a spec of extremes - I would not describe it as "well-rounded."

Coldin: Every class who fights primarily in melee range (Assassins, Warriors, Powertechs) gets some kind of ability they can use to close the distance outside of 30 meters. That is except for Operatives. What's the reasoning behind the Operative's apparent lack of ability to quickly get within range to deal their most powerful attacks?
Austin: In PvP, the short answer is a combination of stealth (including Cloaking Screen), the ability to self-cleanse, and the ability to self-heal. Operatives also benefit from a good deal of control with snares, Sleep Dart, Debilitate, and Flash Bang, with additional roots, snares, and knockdowns available in skill trees. However, those things don't offer much benefit in boss fights that demand a high level of mobility and target switching. The question for us becomes one of how to best introduce a "fix" for a few encounters without dramatically impacting gameplay in other game modes or environments. That's a much longer answer, and something of an ongoing discussion. High mobility fights and encounters with a lot of target switching are proving to be fun ways for our Operations designers to challenge players. So with that theme keeping up, this issue is quickly floating to the top of our priority list.

Sindorin: When you're discussing a new planet, what sort of criteria do you guys lay out for the design process? How do you determine what's in or out, and what sort of backstory or lore goes into it?
Alex Freed (Lead Writer): Any new world needs to feel different from the worlds around it (in game terms, the worlds with level ranges just above or below its own), and it needs to push the overall themes of the story forward. So we might start with basic requirements like "We want to show the Republic going on the offensive," and "We want a wilderness world, since we've done a lot of urbanized planets lately." Defining these basic requirements isn't too difficult--they can usually be determined with an hour or two of group discussion.
After that, it gets more difficult. Figuring out the details of the world (including whether we want a canon planet to fill the role, or if we want to create a new planet altogether) takes much longer, but the basic criteria stay the same: Does the backstory fit the requirements outlined? Does the planet sound fun to play through? Is it practical? (If the art department can't build a planet full of, say, 90-foot-tall giants who use buildings as melee weapons, then that idea isn't practical, no matter what writing may want). Elements that contribute to the overall goals of the planet are retained; elements that don't get put to one side.
Writing, art and world design work together closely during this process, and if all goes well, we get a planet that has a clear purpose while being broad enough to support a wide variety of interesting missions.

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.

Dead Men Walking

Forum Archive 2023 => Games of old that no longer float our boat........ => dMw Gaming => Gaming Archive => Star Wars: The Old Republic => Topic started by: voyak on March 03, 2012, 09:43:57 AM