Official Q&A Thread for June 22nd Blog Post

[TalosMight]

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): The only thing we’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!

 

Daniel answered a question about HK-51 last week. My question involving his post is what does, "Most people will need to have a 50 of one faction and at least a mid-level character from the other faction" mean? Mainly becuase I do not plan to roll any type of republic char within my imperial legacy (I have my reps and imps on different servers). So does most mean that it is the easy way for people to get HK-51 but one can still get it by just playing one side?

[ChristoMinaverus]

I just wanted to ask how the team in general feels about healing in both PvP and PvE right now. Curious if there were any changes in the works, or if you were relatively happy with where healing is at in this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for all your hard work on the server transfers too! Much appreciated

[RamathRS]

Can we please have a customization slot for our companions that redefines their role?

 

Every class has some amazing companions that are fun to use and take along with us during our adventures. However, due to the mechanics of the game we are often restricted to, or from, certain companions. While I completely understand the reasoning behind the companion system and their designed roles, this same system severely limits our selection based on our chosen Class/Role.

 

For example, my Bounty Hunter tank will never have any use for Blizz. The little tyke is an absolute blast to have with me, but because I am a tank myself, I have no use what so ever for another tank companion. As a result, Blizz is reduced to nothing more than an icon in my Crew Skills window. My wife, who plays a Bounty Hunter healer, will never get to take Mako with her when she plays.

 

While it is possible, to a very limited extent, to turn off Blizz's tanking/hate-holding abilities and equip them in DPS gear, he is still reduced to basic blaster attacks with his single remaining attack ability tossed in every so often. He becomes completely ineffective when compared to Gault. At which point I should simply take Gault with me instead, which puts me right back to my original point.

 

This option becomes completely unavailable to me if I want to play any of my other companions but have a game-mechanic need for my healer. No amount of equipment or ability-toggling will make Torian into a healer. So once again, my entire crew stays on the ship as I am forced to bring Mako along because I need a healer.

 

Now, as I stated before, I understand the reasoning and logic behind the companion system and the related game mechanics. I also have no desire, truthfully enough, to change this. But I do have a suggestion that might help. Once we complete any combination of the options listed below, we would unlock the option for Companion Role changes.

 

-Completely Chapter 3

-Max affection for specific companion

-Legacy level (with an affordable credit cost, for the love of Jawas!)

 

This then allows us to purchase a Companion Customization item, much like our current companion appearance kits, that fit into a new slot in their equipment page. There would be five, one for each of the current companion roles.

 

We have some amazing companions, full of well-written life and character. It is a shame that we are unable to fully enjoy all the hard work and talented effort put in by the design team simply because we are forced to satisfy the demands of game mechanics.

[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 on-going CC.

[E-Zekiel]

I'd appreciate it if you guys could let us know when paid transfers are coming. I've been waiting on these for about 4-5 months, and since it was revealed that origin servers will not have more than one destination, I am already aware I will have to wait for paid transfers. Rather not wait another month.

 

So what is the time frame on paid server transfers?

Edited June 17, 2012 by E-Zekiel

[SNOperaghost]

Any chance on it being possible to have a second person/toon being listed as the guildmaster in game?

 

There are times that certain management changes need to be made and it would be far easier at times, for a GM to allow for a second trusted person to manage those same changes. (Buying bank tabs, rank manipulation, ledger tracking and such.)

[Vellskud]

Could you Devs please give us a thorough explanation of why some classes and specs, it seems, have been completely untouched by the upcoming class changes in 1.3?

[DarthVladamir]

The sever transfers have been amazing, easy and quite frankly re-energized me and a lot of people to play again. Now when I bought the game and had early access I created a character *sorc* on a heavy server but that server when the game launched had a 1 hour wait so I created several toons on a different server. I managed to finally bring him up to 50 before that server died but now he is all alone and I don't want to do another sorc from scratch when I have a lvl 50 already done. Can we get 1 free character transfer to any sever *ie joining the rest of my legacy and toons*? I know you are worried about population imbalance hence why people will be paying to move to a server of their choice but if we can just transfer 1 of our lonely toons that would be appreciated. Edited June 17, 2012 by DarthVladamir

[Deewe]

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away Sir Emmanuel Lusinchi mentioned that Bioware was not satisfied with companions appearance kits. He even mentioned deeper companion body customization along what we can do with our characters.

 

......Q?: Yes/No, time frame/priority?

Edited June 17, 2012 by Deewe

[BadSpice]

Hello and welcome to the official Q&A thread for questions to be answered for the June 22nd, 2012 Q&A blog post.

 

As a reminder, we’ll be starting up a weekly Q&A blog series in which we will select questions from the community and post answers to them every Friday. We’ll have the next set of answers next week on June 22nd, 2012, but before that, we need your questions!

 

Please use this thread to ask your question (one per community member, so make it count!). On Monday at 2PM CDT (8PM BST/9PM CEST/5AM AEST), we will close this thread, select the questions, and get answers to them for Friday’s blog post.

 

In order to increase the chances of having your specific question answered and to help us keep the thread manageable, here are some guidelines on asking questions:

 

1. Keep your question relatively short. Background details are welcome, but don’t go overboard.
   
2. Please actually ask a question. We want to hear constructive feedback elsewhere in the Forums.
   
3. Use common sense – we cannot answer everything, especially on far-reaching content.
   
4. This should go without saying, but be respectful.
   
5. Limit yourself to one question in this thread, please. You can always ask another question next week!
   
6. And finally, as a reminder, this is not a discussion thread. Do not comment about what somebody else has posted.
   

 

As development plans are always subject to change, questions about future features will often get vague answers which can be repetitive and sometimes annoying. With that in mind, the development team is more interested in questions about current in-game features or systems, or questions about why development decisions were made. You’re still welcome to ask questions about future features and we’ll continue to answer them where appropriate – just expect the occasional ‘soon.’

 

Any other posts apart from questions in the thread will be removed.

 

With that being said, please ask away!

 

I have a question for the writing team:

SWTOR has had a number of underground hit NPCs whose stories currently end with the planets players find them on. I am curious if there are plans in the works to reveal the futures of some of these NPCs. Will we find out where Padawan Fia's training has lead her after all these months, how has Lamalla Rann's ruthless journalism effected the Republic's cause since her days on Ord Mantel, will we learn the fate of the Flesh Eater we saved on Tython, or can we look forward to another cameo from the Bonecrusher, for example. Thanks guys!

Edited June 17, 2012 by BadSpice

[Forswore]

Why did u put expertise into the game as a stat? It seems we all get it to cancel out each other’s expertise stat and it limits the gear’s purpose.

[Anti_Bodies]

What's going on with all the servers that now have nearly 0 population on them?

[Raalat]

The Toxic Scan ability purges two effects. If a target has more than two purgable effects, how is it determined which are purged?

[Peace_Lianna]

I would like to know more about the Legacy Inheritance items. So far, I haven't really seen much use for them except for a few levels of gameplay. They don't level up with the character, and they are not moddable, which leaves them to be quite useless in most of the community. Does Bioware have a plan to make these a bit more appealing to the players?

[Ashania]

Are there any plans to improve the animations of Scoundrel healing abilities? Currently they appear lackluster compared to the variety of animations Operative heals have - not to mention their Kolto Probe persists on the target for its duration, whereas Slow-Release Medpack appears briefly.

[Briseius]

Post server transfers, It has become more common to see characters with special letters in their name (á, í, ú .etc) Has there been thought for implementing a 'ctrl' / 'alt' modifier when typing to create these letter (ie. typing alt+i = í) to support non-numpad laptop users? Edited June 18, 2012 by Briseius

[Caiclor]

When will we able to mouse over preview companion item stats in the GTN?

 

Currently if I have my companion selected for finding armour say for Mako and I mouse over the item it shows my stats only. This makes it very hard to decide on new items for my companions I find.

[Aerion]

Seeing that 1.3 will emphasize ways to customise your characters appearance through adaptive Social Gear,

are there any plans to allow players to further take control of their characters looks, by introducing a way for ACs

that usually wield exotic weapons to, at least in apperance, wield more usual weapons, for example standard single lightsabers for Sith Marauders and Sith Assassins or Blaster Rifles for Commandos, without sacrificing stats, damage and access to certain skills?

[Viledinner]

Any chance we'll be seeing more character slots in the near future

[SciFiGeekette]

Has there been any discussion or plans to implement some sort of waypoint system into the game? For example, it sure would be nice to enter a command like "/waypoint -1450, 2500" and have a waypoint marker created at those coordinates of whatever planet you're on.

[DreksOrden]

Are there any plans for new planets beyond Makeb? I have heard rumors about new daily zones on belsalvis and new planets like the Hutt homeworld Varl. I personally would like too see mandalore added as well as dantooine, and Lehon.

[Shingara]

With the secret space project in the works can you give us any sneaky info as to if we will be able to use and attain different ships then our class ship.

[Sshate]

Instead of complete Free to Play, any chance of dropping monthly fee and only requiring purchase of the game to access all classes? That way at least the game designers won't feel obligated to resort to less-fun tactics to keep players playing.

[Alassa]

I know this would probably take a lot of tweaking and none of these are all that important but there's a few things I'd like to see.

 

Is it possible to let Jedi/Sith choose between double bladed lightsaber or dual wielding? I don't think the double bladed saber option should be limited to only the Inquisitor or the Consular but should be available to all classes.

 

Second, I would like to know, if it would be possible to 'share' certain Legacy abilities? I think it would be neat to be able to create a family tree/share a family tree with another Legacy player and create a rather extensive family tree this way.

 

Also, would it be possible to add in companion players that you romance to the family tree option? Is this at all possible or would the reprogramming be too extensive?

[dalver]

Are there any plans for a companion deactivate lightsaber/holster weapon toggle?