Community Q&A – Feb 17th 2012 Blog Discussion

[originaltodzilla]

I'm about 50/50 on everything you're saying:

 

I could not care less about any of this.

 

I am sitting here watching players leave this game in herds and you are talking about your love of chat bubbles?

I don't know how we can tell if players are leaving in herds (and if they are good riddance) but I totally agree on the chat bubbles

 

Companion helmets??

 

Fix stealth.

 

16 player raids? I can't even get a group together to do Heroics, and you want to talk about 16 player raids?

 

I didn't even know there WERE 16 player raids.

Ha ha ha! I agree, it's hard to group and I barely knew there were 16 player raids! All the other stuff is minimal as well. Not sure about "stealth". If it's truly a broken issue then it should be fixed, especially if it's hindering the class.

 

 

I sure hope you guys have 10 levels of character chain content that you have been hiding from us.

I would love this, but I can probably safely say that it's not going to happen for a while.

 

Otherwise, this game is going over the falls.

Only for those that are impatient. Granted people are paying per month and deserve new stuff, but the power levelers that get to level 50 overnight are the exception. A lot of folks in my guild play often (casually) and since about December 13th have reached the high 30s in level. My assumption in in a few more months they would have completed everything and earned all Battle Master gear by then. That's a total of 6 months on average. I would say that it an acceptable amount of time for BW to push out new content.

 

Boy, I've got that old Star Wars Galaxies feeling again.

I know the feeling! But mostly my feelings are about the forums The last time I saw hater posts of this magnitude were in the SOE forums back in the day! Even though I was a die hard SWG fan (was there on launch also for at least a year or more after), I have to say SWTOR is lightyears better than SWG.

 

All in all I can't really complain. Even at level 50 I have a lot of PvE stuff to do. A lot of PvP to earn. Not to mention start a few ALTs and experience different classes. After I complete all that, and there is nothing new, then I may start complaining

[CommandoPower]

To be fair, I'm for same gender romances simply because I want more options and I absolutely hate some of the romance options for females. So far, I've got Corso and I've got Aric. Both of which I hate with a passion. Honestly, as a Smuggler, I would've rather romanced Risha, and I in no way 'swing' that way. I just found her vastly more interesting/entertaining and I had a lot more in common with her.

 

I'm for more options. They either need same gender romances to open up those options, or give me more romanceable companions to fill the gap.

 

Honestly the # of people that would desire this are there. There is a larger LGBT community here than you think. The problem is the potential social backlash by those who are disapproving causing PR issues for the game.

 

They deserve their romance options, every bit as much as we deserve ours. I might be straight but I can also see straight, and there is no reason they should be excluded. I can see how it can feel like a small slap in the face, one that they repeatedly get from all over the place.

 

That being said, it's a relatively minor issue. But all of us can appreciate how relatively minor issues, left ignored, can bother us greatly.

[Calimwulf]

I love how you marginalize one set of peoples concerns yet cheer about your own marginal concern being addressed. Five percent of people asking the same question is rather large for these topics, and in no way reflects all of the people who care about this issue. The forums are a small sample size, after all.

 

The thing people seem to forget is that Bioware doesn't like talking about things that are not yet close to finished. They could be weighing the addition of new dialogs to existing companions and npcs or just adding them to new ones. Just launched MMO's have a ton of features that are in backlog needing to be implemented, and how they fall into the queue has already been addressed by Bioware.

It isn't marginalizing anything, everyone has a favorite game feature they want added that will greatly improve their enjoyment of the game. Adding additional options for how your toon looks/can look is near and dear to a large majority of players hearts, minds and wallets

 

Besides, vocal minorities tend to dominate any forum discussions. If one reads the forums, everyone is either a crazed PvP nut or a rabid PvE raider, and we all know those populations aren't anywhere near the majority. They just think they are.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Calimwulf

[Ziljin]

This is frustrating. They answered some trivial questions and didn't answer questions about the end game or pvp. We all know they are "working on it". They can say that about everything. We need specifics, not working on it. But this is the same as every MMORPG. I'm used to it I guess.

 

Working on it, lol. It's a comedy. I guess we'll just keep paying and wait and see. How long will that last though?

[BorisVonMadbloke]

Really nice to hear about the /roll command coming--or a version of it, anyway. But then the rest of the answers erased whatever excitement I was feeling.

 

Chat bubbles not a priority? How long and how loud do we players need to be before something is a priority? We've been screaming since beta about this!

 

 

 

They will come 'in priority'

 

Tell me where they said they are NOT a priority???

 

I suppose we should come to expect the baseless uninformed whining.. :/

[Akrys]

Priority here meaning "of great or greater importance." If the team considers the GUI optimizations a priority (which should have been sorted out ages ago when we screamed about that in beta, too), then that doesn't leave room for calling chat bubbles a priority, does it?

 

He made it clear where the team is focused. I'm expressing disdain for their choice to focus on just the one issue.

 

I'd have thought chat bubbles were included in GUI optimizations...

 

It actually quite disgusts me that chat bubbles even made it to the Q&A. With so many other things NEEDING attention, adding something that a majority of the community is going to have to disable anyway is just a huge waste of time. UI customization (even just being able to move the windows around) should me a major priority. In certain situations, the ui itself blocks you from using certain abilities, just based on location. This is a major problem.

 

Also, the need for empire vs republic rebalancing. Why was this not part of the Q&A? There are very obvious posts, videos, screenshots, and countless data showing how the empire has mechanic advantages over republic. Some of the stuff takes literal minutes to fix, if someone would just sit down at a computer and do it.

 

Also, why bother with the infintely more difficult recoding of moddable armoring to be removable, and why not simply add an appearance tab. Not only does this give a more cost effective way to have different appearances at will, but you can also wear armor that may not be practical for combat (ie..wearing social gear as anything other than a consular/inquis).

 

I really hope BW pulls their heads out, smells some fresh air, and rethinks where they need to focus their dev team. If chat bubbles remain on the "priority list" in any way, you are gonna lose alot more people than you retain. Think, re-evaluate, and then implement. Not the other way around.....

[Dezzi]

They will come 'in priority'

 

Tell me where they said they are NOT a priority???

 

I suppose we should come to expect the baseless uninformed whining.. :/

 

Uninformed? You're the one responding to me without reading my other post.

 

Uninformed...

[madmikeyb]

Alot asked wont even be in 1.2, no hood down, chat bubbles, no open space combat (if ever), They mentioned gtn just didnt say whether it was getting fixed with 1.2. Its funny alot of things were mentioned in beta and asked here yet they still have no idea when they will get to them.

 

Loved bioware when they made singe player games and didnt charge 15 dollars to play them. BW inability to be able to add basic features when asked 6 months ago in beta, I think most people know this is going to be long bumpy road for BW unless they get their heads out of their butts..

[PillowLicker]

I think there are too many servers, maybe try to merge them together so theres more people on one server. I enjoy seeing more people on a plant, and recently ive been seeing less and less

[Jahnya]

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

 

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

 

Dear Bioware:

 

LOVE YOU LIKE SUNDAYYYYYYY MORRRRRRRRRNING. OOOOOO-oooooo-OOOOO-ooOOOOOOO!

(Translation: YESSSSSS OMG YESSSSS)

[fanuvstarwars]

We all know the vote kick will soooo be abused

 

This. And what with legacy naming...make sure not to get your legacy name blacklisted or you will never pvp on that server again >.<

[zevkesef]

Yeah, that was something that I cringed when I read. I've had multiple times in WZs where, while playing a stealth character, I do some scouting or wait in stealth during a fight for the perfect time to ninja cap, and a couple people cry foul and claim I'm sitting afk because they're butthurt over dying.

 

And it's usually the idiots that see me in stealth and think I'm going to jump in and help when they start up a 1v3 or 1v4 fight.

 

Allowing players the ability to vote kick people is a horrendous idea.

 

I think the point is to kick people that are truly afk, not just being a d*** and watching without playing or just not very good. So an override could be you are allowed to veto your own kick. If you're actually there you just hit the button within a time limit and keep doing what you're doing. If you're afk and don't press it, you get kicked.

[zevkesef]

I liked this q&a. Good to know devs are working on many of the issues that still bother me and that some changes are imminent in 1.2.

 

Please tell me this is a mistake. In what universe should 16m be easier than 8man? This makes absolutely no sense. If anything, 16m should be harder and offer better rewards.

 

/agree. I think the point could have been made in a softer tone But definitely agree on the principle.

 

Scoundrel healing would be fine...if Upper Hand stacked higher and lasted longer. As it stands, working within 2 upper hands and only getting one on a random proc or when a target is already very low on health leaves for a very stressful healing experience.

 

/agree I find it much easier to heal with my commando or sorc than my smuggler. More upper hand stacks would help a lot.

 

And cheers RuQu. Nice analysis. I agree that "competitive" is not the same as "capable"/"viable" there.

[Rhyn]

I cannot believe not one PvP question was not answered. With all the issues we have had and still have nothing. Very disappointing.

[lucidlife]

So glad they threw us a bone with the UI slash command for powers. Can't wait for the fully customizable windows! Edited February 22, 2012 by lucidlife
Subject change

[Loupe]

At least you got an acknowledgement that the issue will be addressed.

 

Ops/Scoundrel healers got a giant "**** off"

 

We get confirmation that all issues will be addressed. We are still waiting to see the truth of it.

[DarthRavnos]

Finally, the perception of a specific class being not desirable can also be affected by the desirability of other classes. For example, Sage/Inquisitor healers are currently able to exceed our intended healing performance at times by affecting multiple heals with the same Conveyance/Force Bending buff. Game Update 1.2 will remove the ability to do so.

 

This doesn't even make any damn sense. A Jedi Sage who is focusing on the seer talent tree should be able to be classified as a traditional healer. Saying "they heal too well so we are going to nerf them" is pretty stupid at best. Because you think they are too desirable as a healing class? Well... um.. hello... that is what they are.

 

Glad I will be 50 on my sage before this patch comes out. /shakes head

Edited February 22, 2012 by DarthRavnos

[DarthTHC]

Many many many years ago, when I was paying 12.95 an hour to dial into CI$ and play Kesmai, I was on my first professional programming job with KPMG[1], and we got Official KPMG Consultant Training, and the most crucial thing they pounded into our heads, right after "Learn golf if you want a promotion"[2], was "Never give an unqualified answer to a client". This was so drummed into us that it became an internalized habit for me. "When will dinner be ready?", asks my wife. "Current estimates are 5:00, barring unexpected circumstances.", says I.

 

Whether accounting software or MMO software (or EVE Online, the intersection of both. Badum bum!), the corporate law is the same: Never say "We will", "We are", "It is". Always say, "We think", "We'll try", "We are considering". Anyone who deviates from this is either a Media Darling Rogue CEO, or sizing up refrigerator cartons for their upcoming career change.

 

[1]Which paid a lot less than 12.95/hour. So I never want to hear you whiny little punks complain about paying $15.00 a MONTH.

 

[2]I wish I was joking.

 

This is so true. I work for a company founded and still run by two former KPMG partners. This is the way we operate. Nobody ever gets a straight answer, not even employees.

[SageH]

Somebody did the math that in the requests thread, 5% of all posts were asking about the same thing - same sex romance.

 

Yet, no representation, for the second week in row.

 

The dodge is becoming pretty clear.

 

And my unsub is becoming more and more likely.

 

They've already said they intend to implement it.. what else are you looking for? They will never give a clear date of expectation until they are 100% done and ready to put it in.

[SageH]

Don't feel to bad they are also ignoring part of the casual/solo playing members of the community.

 

Huh? This whole game is catered toward the Casual/Solo community. What are you asking for that you aren't already getting?

Edited February 22, 2012 by SageH

[SageH]

No, we have NOT gotten a response

 

This content was last addressed three months before launch with an announcement that same gender content for companion characters would be included as post-launch content.

 

The questions are How and When

 

How: By bringing back all the voice actors and writers and doing entirely new companion storylines or by adding new companions and therefore not needing to bring back the entire voice acting crew.

 

When: Between December 21st, 2011 and the end of time. (Post-Launch Content)

[Aeysh]

Two weeks in a row and still avoiding and/or ignoring the SGRA issue. /sigh Suppose that is answer enough at this point.

 

they have answered that question in public, yet people refuse to take it. people want an immediate answer saying it will be released on this date. They announced that they will be adding SGRA but its still in the works, so when i look at the questions forum and i see every 1 in 5 questions asking that i rub my eyes. please look up Bioware's question on this topic.

[LordbishopX]

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

 

Man this can so easily be abused I have seen kicking peeps just for in words ***** and giggles before in other MMO. His gear isn't good kick, looks to purple Kick, try to get my friend in kick, if not implemented correctly this will hurt more than help anything....

Edited February 23, 2012 by LordbishopX

[Sivenom]

I was really curious as to the ETA on our same-sex relations. Even more so, does this maybe open up some more romance options. I mean, my BF can sex up SCORPIO, why can't I get it on with Khem? Edited February 24, 2012 by Sivenom
totally reversed my responses in different thread tabs XD

[Sekapoko]

Please make it so disconnects in warzones don't boot you from the warzone. What I mean in detail is that

 

Player gets disconnected

Player reconnects and is no longer in warzone (sometimes still has the warzone button stating that the player is in the warzone)

Instead of reconnecting no longer in warzone maybe apply a deserter buff to players who have disconnected so they have the opportunity to get right back in and start fighting.