Community Q&A – April 27th 2012 Blog Discussion

[chaosdefined]

Finding a group to play with isn't too terrible if you're social and a decent player.

 

It's always amusing when people comment on matters they have no idea about.

 

If you're of that opinion, you are clearly not trying to level up on a low pop server.

 

Personally I'm very glad they're finally bringing out a Group Finder, I'm on a heavy pop server and trying to do Flashpoints as you level is still a pain. However they've really dropped the ball on leaving server transfers for so long.

[Sandwulf]

Any discussion at all on cross servers? That could apply to PVP as well as Flash Points. Would be great not to have to wait long periods of time with small amounts of people cause u only group with people on your own server. I hope this will change. thanks much!

[Vicelord]

If you want open world PvP then hang out in the enemy's territory. I seriously doubt Bioware is going to make it harder to level up by moving quests to force more encounters... PvP servers are designed to give you the option to hunt other players, not have an endless stream of them come right to you. If you want that, play warzones... otherwise go hunting in enemy territory if you want fights.

 

As far as better open world PvP at 50, I'd love to see it. I still have hopes for DAoC style mass battles some day, but I would be utterly shocked if any open world PvP changes happened within the next 6 months. I remember the devs saying something like "we want to change it but we haven't decided how yet" a couple of months ago in regards to Ilum, and I am going to assume that until they say differently that answer still holds true. It's not that they don't want to add more open world PvP, it's that they have probably 9-15 months of stuff that's higher priority to do first. I'm hoping for a non-warzone PvP revamp some time in 2013 but I mainly play TOR for PvE (even on PvP servers) so I'm content to wait. If you want open world PvP soon, you may want to find a different game.

 

I generally assume that "ignored" issues in the Q&As are simply not yet in preliminary development and therefore there is no information to report (hence the lack of answers). So assume any question that is consistently asked and never answered has the answer "not anytime soon, but maybe in 3+ major patches" and you will probably not be far off...

 

I don't know about you, but riding around on my speeder for an hour to find one fight is pretty ridiculous. The Rakghoul event was a boon for pvp simply because it made the two teams interact more. If they made enemy characters drop commedations or something this would make people want to fight open world. That could be done in a patch.

 

And the whole, they are only answering questions on stuff that is in development? Cmon look at some of the questiosn they answered:

 

I love the new armor color "unify" feature. Will this option (as well as "hide head armor") ever be available for companions?

Lovarboy: Will we get dual spec with Game Update 1.3?

 

Capthxc: Any plans to improve your achievement system and/or codex? Right now achievements don’t seem to serve any purpose.

 

JimG: Is there any sort of ETA on adding completely new playable species into the game such as Togruta, Mon Calamari, Nautolan, etc.?

 

Daniel: Can’t comment on what species you might see, but you can expect the roster of playable species to expand... this year.

 

They could have replaced any of those questions with a pvp addressed question.

[Darth_Nihilst]

You have created this mess and now we're supposed to hang around until early summer where you choose where we go or we have to pay to get to a server we choose to re-roll on in the meantime, I'm sorry but not going to happen, without the ability to consolidate my characters and legacies for free I don't see me being patient and understanding any more.

 

Edit: Not to mention that we pay a subscription for this game, in essence paying for the development of the transfer feature so why on earth should we be charged for using it.

 

 

You quote it, but did you even READ it?

 

"First we’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."

 

Two opportunities to move for FREE. Stop your QQ and actually read for once.

[Darth_Nihilst]

Well it's either sitting around doing nothing until transfers come in as rerolling is impossible without free transfer to consolidate my chars and legacies or simply quit the game, you can see where it's heading with this announcement.

 

 

 

Rift has free transfers, to be fair WoW is probably the only subscription based game that reliably gets away with charging for transfers. but I know, with people like you standing ready with wallet in hand expecting to pay for something that should be free, the rest of us gets shafted.

 

 

Since you brought it up, WOW had this same problem early on as well. In 2006, WOW had a massive server transfer issue, and they wouldn't even allow for paid transfers until later. We understand that you're new to this MMORPG thing, but this is the natural balance of things, and all things come in time. As I've highlighted about your ignorance and inability to read before; they will be offering two opportunities for free transfers from low populated servers to other servers to increase server population. If you're on a low population server, chances are that you will have the opportunity to transfer your characters. Quit your whining, the sky is not falling there chicken little.

[Zolimox]

• No ranked warzones?
  
• No 8 man WZ groups so we can stop getting scrub pugs?
  
• No cross server queueing?
  
• Populations are in the tank and will continue to be until summer!?!
  
• No PVP additions?
  
• Nothing to address population imbalance?
  
• No word on broken arse Ilum?
  
• No dual spec?
  
• And when you do eventually get to server transfers, we all know you'll do the select transfers well before letting people actually choose.
  

 

I wonder if they are trying to intentionally tank this game. I really dont understand their decisions on priority <very sad face>. We have Diablo 3 on may 15th and Guild Wars 2 not long after... what on earth do you think that's going to do to already decimated server populations!? Not enough M (multiplayer) in my MMO. Even my hard core patient friends are moving on. Sad to say, i'll probably be joining them shortly.

 

Btw, guild wars 2 had FUNCTIONING server transfers in BETA hah!

Edited April 30, 2012 by Zolimox

[DamenX]

Seriously no friggen dual spec in 1.3? I play a jugg. Vengeance pve is my main spec i also pvp everyday for my dialies. And becasue nobody else in my guild wants too. I tank flashpoints and off tank operations. I pretty much spend all my creds on respec costs. Altohugh i do appreciate how it resets everyweek still 100k a pop for a resec is ridiculous.

Plz reconsider adding dualspec to the new patch. It is soooo annoying playing this game with out it. Or at the very least put a few more respec vendors around the universe and lower the cost a bit. I feel like a dick when i'm pvp'n and i'm asked to tank a fp and i have to say no becasue of respec then my guildy's cant do there dailies casue were on low pop and they cant find a tank for a hour.

Other than that the QnA was definelty better this week compared to the former ones. Keep it up.

[dpwms]

Edit: Oops posted in wrong thread. Edited April 30, 2012 by dpwms

[Bozse]

You quote it, but did you even READ it?

 

"First we’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."

 

Two opportunities to move for FREE. Stop your QQ and actually read for once.

 

I did read it, it isn't an option to sit on my dead server for a month or two while they sort transfers hence re-rolling, now where I re-rolled there won't be any free transfers, I'm quite sure, hence I would have to pay to transfer the characters off my old and dead server or simply give them up and waste 4 months of work on three level 50's.

 

So as far as reading comprehension goes you might want to work on it a bit your self.

 

Since you brought it up, WOW had this same problem early on as well. In 2006, WOW had a massive server transfer issue, and they wouldn't even allow for paid transfers until later.

 

That was then, this is now, there should have been transfers at launch, no really. Now in the absence of that me and my guildies have been patient and understanding, that only goes so far though.

 

We understand that you're new to this MMORPG thing, but this is the natural balance of things, and all things come in time.

 

Have been playing MMO's for more than a decade thank you very much you condescending ... I'll save my self the warnings.

 

As I've highlighted about your ignorance and inability to read before; they will be offering two opportunities for free transfers from low populated servers to other servers to increase server population. If you're on a low population server, chances are that you will have the opportunity to transfer your characters. Quit your whining, the sky is not falling there chicken little.

 

As I stated above, neither of those transfers will do anything for me as I already re-rolled and as such need to consolidate my characters and legacies.

Edited April 30, 2012 by Bozse

[Skirata_Kal]

No, that's not it.

 

As we said, we'll have more details to share closer to launch. Between Group Finder and a Character Transfer Service, our plans are designed to allow more players to play together more often.

 

But how on Earth is a SAME server group finder going to help a dead server? Sure, it will add the convenience of not having to congregate in one location to find groups, but do you really think that's going to save a dead server? <head shaking>. If one can leave a dead server and transfer to a more populous one for free, then I could see that combo helping some (only some), but then your dead servers will become even more dead (if that makes sense lol). Like alot of people, I will NOT pay for a transfer, period! And if x-server isn't in by the time I finish all 8 class quests, I'm gone (is that cheering I hear?).

[Nicolettexiv]

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 we’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 we’ll reveal more details closer to the launch date.

 

I hope by early summer you mean May as if it ends up being into June and July i'll likely be gone. Playing on very quiet servers is just not fun for anyone, i have plenty of single player games for that.

 

AGREED. I quit for a month in February, because finding groups for anything, or even having any sort of community on my original server was impossible (we're lucky to hit 20 people on fleet at peak hours, often times it's less than 10 during the week..). My friends and siblings quit playing, the once populous guilds are empty.. Including my progression raiding guild that had knocked out NMM achieves in January. All gone. Definitely not ideal for an MMO. I finally worked up the nerve to re-roll on the most densely populated server I could find (PvE - the Harbinger)- which still rarely hits full, and never ever have I had to queue. And I love it. Love it.

 

Ask on any planet's general chat, and you'll find dozens of fellow re-rollers, who also had to abandon old characters. My current character is now 50, working on her campaign set, and has been able to see nearly every heroic, Op and Flashpoint - most of which through pugs (until I found the right raiding guild ). This server actually has a pretty strong community - with familiarity between players who've been here more than a month and actively interact with others.

 

I'm anxious to get my poor 50 sorcerer and gunslinger over here, so I can contribute to our multiple raid teams with alts, and start experiencing content on characters I've invested time into. Promotional transfers aren't ideal.. PLEASE bring the paid transfers sooner rather than later! (May would make me love you forever BW).

 

Thanks for being aware of this issue, and making an effort to address it!

[Nicolettexiv]

So wait, if I want to transfer from a dead server to another dead server I can do it for free, but if I want to transfer to a server where there are people playing I have to pay? Is that it? If so, you really need to re-evaluate your strategy. Fewer servers, bigger playercaps and merge servers. Shouldn't be so hard.

 

More like, you'll get the option if you're on a densely populated server (one of the three) you may get a free directed transfer option to a specific server or two.. much like WoW still does.

 

You're right - I with they would cut back some of the dead servers, and merge them with several other dead servers, with higher caps, rather than take away from the depressingly few "MASSIVELY" multiplayer bastions - there are what.. 125 servers total and only 4-5 ever get past "standard" which can vary from 10 people to 90 people on fleet average.. I can't imagine how bad it is on a "light" server.. nor the motivation to play on it.

 

But at least paid transfers will let you get off of a dead server when you want to. That's a plus.

[Nicolettexiv]

Sooo the listing of "Field Respec" in the Legacy menu (under the "Coming in 1.3 section" )is something other than duel spec? Or should that legacy page be titled something else bioware?

 

Field respec, I imagine, is like visiting the skill mentor without having to travel to Coruscant/Dromund Kaas or fleet. Instead, if you have the legacy and invest the cash, you can respec wherever you are, without the mentor.

[Nicolettexiv]

This is simply not true, as has been discussed in the following thread:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4098149

 

Here is what I had to say on the matter

 

 

 

The loot table has YET to take into account the makeup of the group.

 

That's weird. As a consular ALL I GET are Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior Drops. Regardless if one is in the group or not. It was awesome for my SW.. but sucks playing my consular. Must be RNG.. like he said, it's a bias, not a guarantee. Fortunately, in Denova HM the tokens that drops are not class specific - so anyone in the group could use it.

[Nicolettexiv]

For those that played Star Wars Galaxies, the final mass loss of subscribers started with the free transfers. What happened there was that everyone transferred to the fad Server of the Moment and they the lag drove many of them from the game. I can very easily see this be repeated if SW:TOR were to add free and regular server transfers like SWG did and Rift does.

 

Exactly. It's to remove frivolous transfers, and avoid a slew of problems resulting from unregulated transfers.

[Nicolettexiv]

I'd love to know this also but, I don't expect to see anything until it's either out or close to. I personally would love to play as a Trandoshan, Cathar, Ewok, Wookie, Jawa, Rodian and probably a few more I'm not remembering.

 

For next weeks question, on my part, will there be the ability to change EXISTING character's looks when some of this new content rolls out? A free one time change would be great but, I'd even be willing to either pay in game for a change token. I'd also be willing to pay say 5$ to change my char one time. I'm sure everyone else would be thinking along my lines as well.

 

They've discussed adding a re-customization type feature, like the barberships, in coming patches.

[thendrix]

After reading through this entire thread I would like to say that it shows a very dynamic discussion. There are definitely many pro's and con's to the current state of SWTOR that many users are invested in. That being said, I think that the list of con's to this MMO are only increasing and will continue to grow.

 

I have been playing MMO's for over a decade, beginning with Ultima Online. Since then I have experienced a very wide display of gaming types and models. What I love about SWTOR was the creation of a very in depth leveling storyline and a whole new take on class dynamics.

 

However, what has been a growing frustration for me, and I see voiced in many of these threads is that SWTOR had not really had much differentiation from other recent MMORPGs. It is growing more and more frustrating to see this game follow much of the same issues that I saw over a decade ago with MMOs. All of those games either made changes that killed them or pushed them to further success. But, it is frightening that I am playing a game that is in apparently in noway actually taking any quantitative research in them MMO market to address recurring issues. It has also not truly created any viable differentiation point for end game viability for players. In fact it is a little depressing to see that most of the development money went into creating an in-depth(but excruciatingly easy) leveling storyline. But, once you hit 50......everything is just repetitive theme park gameplay. I mean honestly DOTA holds my attention more for this type of gameplay.

 

10 years ago this game would be the beesknees, but it is not up to par with the MMO industry and it is frustrating to see the priority of the developers. The legacy system is a waste of time. This is something that gets implemented much later into a game... not 4 months after launch. Nerfs to operatives and smugglers is absurd due to the veritably small user base here. And, I would like to apologize to all the whiners that just hit 50 and got ***** by a battlemaster geared op or scoundrel. But, if you take down the dps burst, then make the character not a burst only char. Now we have ops and scoundrels all moving to a heal spec because they cannot come close to holding their own in a group melee situation.(this is one example of misprioritization)

 

Another issue I am very concerned about that I have not seen mentioned is the amount of server downtime due to re-patching after the release of 1.2. Never in my gaming experience I have been in a situation where I see a game servers going down so frequently to patches. It is also rather infuriating to see that latest patch time move up the time-frame so that any person who works an evening shift has zero time to log on during those days.

 

My last point, which I have seen posted in numerous unanswered posts has to do with that large amount of people already dropping this game. I did not have the game at launch and had to grind hard to hit 50 to play with many of my friends. However, by the time i hit 50, which many experienced players had already been at for a couple months, they were already dropping the game. WHY? because there are too many issues with the end game that any players with serious MMO experience find unbearable. And subsequently all of the players that have undying belief that this game can make something of itself are left high and dry with unbelievably infrequent and long wz qeues as well as a lack of any kind of pve raids existing outside of guilds. These issues were solved in countless MMOs in the past 5-10 years! How in the world does a game get millions of dollars thrown at it and not consider this collective experience? The game is not going to live off of people new to MMOs. And the players with the greatest depth of experience, that can offer an insurmountable depth to a game, are just looking for the next option.

 

but, hey, whatever.... I had fun waiting years for Shadowbane to be released to watch it fail in under 6 months. And, this situation honestly does not seem any different at all. Thanks for the extra 30days, so i can have the satisfaction of being fully geared before letting my sub lapse out of boredom.

[GingerMagician]

Id like to ask the devs how they remain in employment when every patch they produce makes the game worse.I have just logged in to todays patch and find that auction house search feature has been ruined and the AH is now bascailly unusable.

 

I would love to have a job where I can **** up every day and never suffer any consequences or penalties and just carry on banking my salary regardless.

 

Absolutely extraordinary.

[xenofire]

Nothing about nightmare modes or patch 1.3 releases. =(

 

The way I look at it, if nightmare mode really is a nightmare, it's going to take a month or more to clear, so they'll need to give a good 2 months for the community to grasp nightmare. With 1.3 needing to go to the PTS, and nightmare going to the PTS, does that mean we're still 3-4 months away from 1.3, and a month or more from nightmare? We're already bored with EC HM!

[Jcyborg]

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 we’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 we’ll reveal more details closer to the launch date.

 

I hope by early summer you mean May as if it ends up being into June and July i'll likely be gone. Playing on very quiet servers is just not fun for anyone, i have plenty of single player games for that.

 

I don't think half of your players will still be around by then. I know I have till the end of May for my three months are up and unless I can transfer to the server of my choice and not one you choose for me I will be gone too. If you need more time then keep giving me free months until you get your act together.

[Darth_Nihilst]

I did read it, it isn't an option to sit on my dead server for a month or two while they sort transfers hence re-rolling, now where I re-rolled there won't be any free transfers, I'm quite sure, hence I would have to pay to transfer the characters off my old and dead server or simply give them up and waste 4 months of work on three level 50's...

 

As I stated above, neither of those transfers will do anything for me as I already re-rolled and as such need to consolidate my characters and legacies.

 

 

We all have choices in life; you made yours. It's not the dev's fault you chose to re-roll on different servers. QQ somewhere else. As a wise man once said, "I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day, and tomorrow doesn't look good either." The devs are working to address the problem; so quit whining about what they will do, or won't do, or how it doesn't align perfectly with your poor decisions. Patience is a virtue that has been lost on you. Since your demand of instant gratification won't be answered, there seems to be only two logical conclusions. You can just quit the game. By your postings, it seems as though the plight of your life can never be solved by free server transfers. Therefore, I would highly recommend the former suggestion, rather than the latter.

 

Either way, it will, hopefully, end your crying about free server transfers to address the low population issue within the game.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Notannos
interpreted as wishing self-harm post

[Anaemone]

I have a question about transfers. The faction balance seems to be off on a lot of servers. The majority being Republic on the minority end. There are guilds that would like to switch sides due to lack of recruits or too many guilds on one faction. While the legacy system is great (I'm really excited to see it expanded.) and its fantastic for alts, rerolling will still require abandoning characters that a lot of time and effort has been put in to. For a guild facing death by lack of recruits or death by those that would faction swap if it were available but don't want to reroll and level from scratch, the ability to simply pay to switch factions would save the entire guild. Now that server transfers are in the works, is there any plans to provide a way to switch factions besides just rerolling characters, be it via paid transfers or a long, epic questline that had your character change loyalties? Edited May 2, 2012 by Anaemone

[sithheroes]

Not sure if anyone else was wondering the same thing but here it goes. I started leveling by myself on one server and got all the way to 50 some good gear and of course a legacy level of 22. I then rerolled on another server to play with my brother and a friend from school. When server transfers go live what happens to legacy? Say I wanted to transfer my 50 Powertech with the level 22 legacy to my server with my 50 Operative with only a level 15 legacy level. Will I have the option to carry over my higher level legacy? or even combine the two legacies experience for a higher overall legacy level? Or maybe even the option to have legacy carry across all servers I choose to play on. Any further information is much appreciated.

 

Also why do I pay a subscription only to be charged for character transfers? Why not make it so every account gets a certain number of FREE transfers per month/year with more being given to those with longer overall subscription time?

EX. 1 free transfer for 3 months of continuous subscription

BTW you only have 20 days to impress alot of people before we jump ship to go enjoy D3

Edited May 2, 2012 by sithheroes
more questiosn

[Gargion]

Did we read the same blog? I saw nothing that suggested this. Do you assume they will not guide the process to ensure fuller servers?

 

The hysterical rhetoric on these forums is out of control.

Agreed. It would be downright stupid for them to allow free transfers from dead servers to other dead servers--at least from a business perspective. I doubt Bioware is that stupid. If they can manage to get rid of a few dead servers, that's less money they have to pay to maintain them.

[bloomfireblade]

Not sure if anyone else was wondering the same thing but here it goes. I started leveling by myself on one server and got all the way to 50 some good gear and of course a legacy level of 22. I then rerolled on another server to play with my brother and a friend from school. When server transfers go live what happens to legacy? Say I wanted to transfer my 50 Powertech with the level 22 legacy to my server with my 50 Operative with only a level 15 legacy level. Will I have the option to carry over my higher level legacy? or even combine the two legacies experience for a higher overall legacy level? Or maybe even the option to have legacy carry across all servers I choose to play on. Any further information is much appreciated.

 

quite simple your legacy will cease to exist once you transfer unless this is changed but sofar they are only talk about it . It can take months until they finally decide something. I allways had the Idea people in texas where fast well seems that has changed in the last years