Community Q&A – March 30th 2012 Blog Discussion

[kodrac]

I'll be honest, this is the first Q&A that I was truly disappointed in. Most of the questions had already been answered in some form. Heck, many were answered in the Legacy developer blogs and videos that have been posted this week.

 

They had to do this because most people don't have reading comprehension. Thus, they have to reword and repeat themselves in every medium possible.

[Syphlon]

Can someone please tell me where the "overwhelming" response is coming from in regard to the gear not being star warsy? I personally liked most of it and would not be very pleased if it became more bland. Didn't Bioware choose this time period, 4,000 years beofore episode I, in order to have leeway to have exotic looking gear? Operations are supposed to provide rewards; rewards provide more incentive when they are cool looking. Orbalisk armor anyone? (<- from darth Bane fiction in this period.) I am worried BW is listening too much to trolls. They have done well overall, just need to tweak endgame operations to be harder and move forward w/o bugs.

[Anrew]

I was kinda lost in what I was reading about that last question can someone help me out? Thanks

 

Anyway heres what I got:

 

Some of the endgame gear (columini, rakata, the new op gear) could re and get the schematic for an empty orange piece of that gear and then get lucky and crit it to get the endgame gear with augment. However some of the orange gear currently in game from quests can't be re'd to learn the schematic?

[Aaoogaa]

IMO this weeks Q&A was a waste of time. The purpose of the Q&A should not be to advertise but address serious questions about live and 1.2 gameplay issues. All the questions in the Q&A that were put up had been addressed already at one time or another with notes and player feedback in the test forums. This is the first Q&A that was not informative in the least. I hope with the 1.2 PVP focus going on today that the next Q&A will focus more on PVP and game play and less on fluff.

[RickRedOne]

I wish they would stop picking and answering questions that are AVAILABLE and ANSWERED elsewhere, and start answering questions we can't find anywhere else.

 

You mean like server transfers.....

 

Oh wait, they answered that one in the first Q&A, but since people didn't like the answer they just keep asking.

[RemyDMartin]

Well I honestly wish these guys the best with SWTOR, they sound like ok people but I'm going to quietly walk away from this one...

 

Some dreams are not meant to be.

 

What this guy said...honestly they did not answer anything any fan site has not already.

 

These "Q & A" weeklies are getting worse...

[Kaosbain]

So BiS PvE items will be BOE?

 

That is one of the worst ideas i've ever heard.

 

BiS is Crafted + Raid drop.

 

One without the other is not BiS, you need both.

[Kaosbain]

Okay? Last I checked the Q&A's were never limited to 1.2.

 

They actually stated that this week's Q&A would only cover Legacy 1.2...

[DarthMalies]

Are there going to be free server transfers?

[Slobozache]

Will there be a LFG tool in 1.2?

[StrykerOne]

I heard:

Ops and PVP will still yeld best end-game gear and augments are irrelevant since this game isn't 1vs1 based

 

THANK YOU GOOD NIGHT.

 

This is an MMO. It has raids. In any MMO that has raids the best PvE gear comes from raiding or from crafting with raid components (top PvP reward gear is often better for PvP). Augments are hardly irrelevant though... they aren't required but higher stats are still an advantage. In particular, putting mid-level raid gear mods in crit crafted shells and adding augments might well make you equal to someone in basic high end raid gear, so you could for instance skip having to grind out a full set of Rakata gear before going after the new Campaign set.

[Karkais]

The change is armoring is a huge step in the right direction. My Columi gear is starting to grow on my BH, but I absolutely freaking hate the Sith Inquisitor gear. Wow does someone at BioWare have a poor sense of aesthetics.

 

Seconded, for me the armoring change is huge improvement that at least gives me something to work with in terms of aesthetics. Doesnt mean the gear appearance in this game doesnt need a massive overhaul. For example I like the my jedi knights hair very much, but 99% of jedi knight gear seems to come with a cowl attached which is not what I want. In comparison, my lvl 50 sorcerer would kill to have cowls, but the only cowled chest item that I have is an item I have carried with me since the 20s. Other than that there is NOTHING. And don't even get me started on endgame gear.

 

Bioware director in charge of gear appearance needs to be fired yesterday. Ability to move endgame mods around alleviates the problems slightly, but problems still exist. We still need betterlooking gear.

 

ps. Im worried that now I would need a maxlevel synthweaving character (and maybe some other profession) in order to enjoy both customized looks and augments? :S

Edited April 1, 2012 by Karkais

[DroidDreamer]

Daniel Erickson: We have heard the community loud and clear when it comes to armor sets. What we’ve heard the players say is, “I don’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.” 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 we’re already working on some stuff I love and I think players will too.

 

YES! Thank you for listening. As one of the folks who feels this way, the simplicity of the Imperial officer uniform for my Sniper is far preferable to any outlandish armor.

[Hachimando]

You can put the set bonus into a orange item which will be boe. Maybe doing so will bind it to you but I doubt it.

 

When you acquire the new campaign/black hole gear it's bound to you. When you remove it's armor mod, that mod is bound as well. Putting a bound mod into a BoE shell automatically binds the shell to you.

 

If I read all this right and their design, the BiS items are going to be re+crit crafted pre 1.2 shells (e.g. rakata or BM gear) with the new r61 mods pulled out and put into them?

 

pre 1.2 shells -> set bonus on shell. re+crit adds the augment slot to the shell. Then you put the new armor mods into the lower shells and have a double set bonus plus augment slot? (or at the least, a double set bonus but no augment if you just use an existing shell)

[Archiwizard]

It's important to bear in mind, although people are worried, buying augmented gear will put you "ahead of the curve" and only in a pve enviroment. The crit crafted gear won't be what they are using to set future raiding and flashpoint content by, it will be done with regular gear the augments are for those who want it and it won't be cheap.

 

I think this is awsome, making crafting such an important part of the game and allowing all the proffessions to create items for themselves and others will really boost the ingame economy. For every item you buy from someone they will in turn buy something from you and augments are now shared so everyone has the chance to contribute something to crafting.

 

I'm sure some kinks will need to be worked out but that's always going to be the case. From all the information and everything I have seen swtor are taking major steps to listen to the community and give them what they want I'm very pleased with alot of the Q&A article. Would be nice for them to clarify wether you can take a basic green item that looks right and eventually RE it into a critable orange piece, I doubt it but man I would love that!

[WookieIsshe]

Will there be a LFG tool in 1.2?

 

This is a discussion thread of the QA not an ask a question thread an no there is no LFG tool in 1.2. All you have to do is download the test center client and check it out.

[Agathorn]

With the huge emphasis on orange appearance items now, we need a way to preview orange schematics more than ever!

 

PLEASE Bioware, add the ability to preview schematics, so we can see a schematic on the GTN, and ctrl-right click it to see how it looks, to determine if we want the schematic or not.

[Jisadora]

When do you open up the Legacy 1.2?? Is it this month?

Battlemaster Delfine :sy_darkside:The Delphindae Legacy:sy_darkside:

[araunz]

When you are going to merge the servers? THE LIGHT SERVERS ! Your costumers are asking you that on forums and you don't give us a solution.

[OnlyNameLeft]

It was super cool that they picked one of my posts:

 

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.

 

 

But it was super uncool that they answered with a lie. ATM, to enjoy the game, I have to turn off ALL of my UI, and play with just my nameplate on.

 

This is the only way to remove red combat error text.

 

Dispite what Damion said, there isn't a SINGLE PIECE OF INFOMATION that I want. It was just a lie. I'm pretty angry about being lied too.

 

Target Out of Range

Ability Not Yet Ready

You can't do that yet

Unable to do when Immobilized

No more of this. It goes away whenever you turn off the ENTIRE UI. Please just let us turn off this part of it.

 

Umm, what was a lie? So SERVER SHUTDOWN IN 15 MINUTES isn't vital? Having a means for the Devs to ensure that everyone can see an important message isn't vital? Yeah, you may think some things may be less than important, but this was far from a lie. They need to ensure that, even with the myraid variances that will occur when customizable UI comes, there will be a method by which the Devs can get information to the playerbase.

 

And before you dismiss the shutdown message as more information you don't care about, realize that during the emergency maintenance a week or so back (the one occuring on a Fri) there was an uproar on the foums about it. Despite the fact that it was posted to the site, posted on the launcher, and had the aforementioned 15 minute warning (and 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 minutes as well) there was still an uproar over the "ninja maintenance."

 

You don't like their answer? Fine. Characterize it as a lie? Please.

[Zhaker]

When is this patch coming out? Just like to know so I can do the things before the changes like swap back my mods so I get the buff for my BM gear and such.

[Alavastre]

Multiple Q&A ... the vast majority of questions have been about server pops....

 

ignoring a dying population won't make them stay.

 

I think BW thinks that this new patch will increase the player base, ie, don't need to talk about server pops if they think they can draw more people to play the game.

[JohnnyRainbow]

Should definitely add a way to skip the conversations without exiting or at least speed it up because it is really boring!!!

 

And fix the companion problem that mosty people are experiencing. the one where your companion lays on the ground and keeps jumping to you while still laying down and cant attack. i've died so many times because my whole groups companions have done this.

[Pantheron]

"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."

 

Can you please prioritize this for 1.2. Make a warning button that TELL us that we will not see important error messages anymore. With my current wall of red text in front of me, I cannot enjoy playing. I don't see my character nor my opponents. Please enable us to remove the red text and put it in chat instead - if it must be somewhere...

 

This is my BIGGEST concern and issue about the game. I have patience with everything else. Just please remove the text.

 

Thank you, and good work by the way.

[Draeb]

I still can't believe why they didn't implement full customization at the beginning. As it currently stands there really isn't any customization and that's incredible to hear when talking about an MMORPG. ...smh