Official Q&A Thread for July 6th Blog Post

[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? Also, many (not all) snipers/gunslingers feel their damage is down 5-10% in relation to the other classes post 1.3, was this intentional? Thanks.

[Elear]

Why new Priority Targets missions for level 50 includes Nightmare Pilgrim, that already has it's own quest? This way, groups that can take on Nightmare Pilgrim get one more almost free reward, while those that can't get nothing from it.

[InnerPieces]

Have you considered implementing contests for the community to participate in? These may be anything from fluff item, speeder, or even social gear item design contests to fiction writing or art design contests. You could even sponsor fun things like videos, comic strips, or caption contests. Submissions can be narrowed down by the community and winners selected by the BW team (or visa versa). Awards could be having item designs incorporated into the game, having non-game contest winners featured on the official site, or maybe even a month of game time. I think this would be a fun, exciting way to include the community in the foundation of the game.

 

Thanks!

Edited June 29, 2012 by InnerPieces

[YuvalZiv]

Will Cathar be added as playable species as part of game update 1.4? Edited June 30, 2012 by YuvalZiv

[funkiestj]

I've been playing level 50 WZ in PUGs for a while now. My experience is that a way too many matches are one team curb stomping another team (e.g. 6-0 huttball, 100% - 0% novare).

 

Here is the question: Does bioware see 'too many lopsided match results' as a problem? If yes, what are your plans for improving the situation?

 

COMMENTARY:

 

Do you expect a "ranked PUG matches" feature to address this issue?

 

Are you currently generating metrics that measure how close/lopsided warzone match results are (e.g. a histogram match margin of victory for the last <n> days of category <x> matches)?

 

Presumably a goal of a good match making system would be to shape the match result histogram so that we have more close matches and fewer matches where a strong team simply curb stomps a weak team.

 

I realize that you need to get cross server warzone queuing implemented before you have a large enough population to do fancy match scheduling but I don't recall hearing anyone from BW mention the problem above as an important issue that needs to be addressed.

[xtoo]

With the changes to Target Acquired in 1.3, the 2 piece PvE set bonus seems to have lost its value. It used to provide the additional energy needed to counter the affects of extra alacrity with a little bit left over. Now 10 extra energy on a two minute cooldown seems worthless, as though it hardly makes a difference. Is there any chance this set bonus could be changed?

[onfireguy]

With the Star Wars universe already rich in lore, what was the motivation to go with a totally new planet (Makeb) for the upcoming expansion announced at E3?

[Sith-Viscera]

The rating for this game has blood and gore as part of the rating, I still haven't seen blood and or gore. I've seen bruises and scrapes, to me that's not blood and or gore. Now if you will implement body dismemberment like i think back in jedi academy, i think 2, they did that in, there is no blood but an arm came off when hit by critical light saber blow. Now true that was on npc not pvp but i think if this game is going to have those types of ratings then dismemberment on critical blows with any weapon on npc should be some kind of dismemberment implemented into the game.

 

So will there ever be dismemberment of any kind in this game?

 

thank you......

Edited June 30, 2012 by Sith-Viscera

[sithgreyguard]

Will there be more sith corruption like eyes like Malgus in the future? nudge nudge. Edited June 29, 2012 by sithgreyguard

[Joe_Rivera]

I really like Hutball and i would like to know (or suggest), if new HB courts will be available for the future? I would like to see a new layout of the arena, new hazards, it would be the same warzone but since HB is kinda like a sport, it can change depending on the Hutt hosting it Edited June 29, 2012 by Joe_Rivera

[DarthBloodloss]

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.

 

-----------

 

Does this mean PvP gear only functions in a WZ? Or the healing bonus from expertise only functions in a WZ?

Edited June 29, 2012 by DarthBloodloss

[GimpsStarkiller]

Is there still going to be a Mac version of the game? I had read that it was a idea to have it come out after a while, so what me and a lot of other people were wondering is, is it still a idea and will we be seeing TOR on a mac? i know a lot of mac users want to see one come out and not have to play on a windows version only. even tho they can bootcamp it but that's really not the ideal way to have to play this game. I myself am playing on my laptop because that's the only windows that i have and playing on a laptop isn't really the best way to be playing games unless it's built for that reason.

[KickFrenzy]

Will there ever be an update to the character creator... such as more granular options for body sizes/physiques, separating adornments from facial features/textures or a better way to go between options (instead of "I think it was this notch")?

[Tharryth]

Any chance on letting us put our alts from the other faction on our friends list, maybe an alts tab under the friends list? It would make mailing items to them tons easier.

[Beacon]

Are we eventually going to be able to transfer characters to the server of our choice? If so, do you have an ETA for it, and how much will it cost?

[Elthis]

Why was the design decision made to use the Fleets as the main area for social interaction instead of the Capitol planets and cities? To me personally, the fleets feel a bit sterile and don't properly convey the culture and "lived in" feel that cities would have. Also, one more question related to the first, why was the design decision made to not have a Capitol city or space that the other faction could attack? I believe this would have fostered a sense of the faction vs. faction war that is supposedly going on. As of right now, we are safely tucked away from each other in our own little corners.

[Metajedi]

Much of the community feel that Damage operatives and Damage Assassins and their respective mirrors have less important roles in objective based pvp.

 

The main reason for this is because these are damage burst - low survivability classes that are easily destroyed when focused as their defensive capabilities and escape tactics are limited. Additionally these classes have problems because they both rely on burst damage to kill, with healers and tanks severely limiting damage applied classes with more survivability and sustained dps tend to do much better then " glass cannon" types.

However you will see the term Glass cannon with out the cannon quite often in the Assassin forum, the meaning in this is that our dps is not quite high enough to make kills before healers or tanks save the day. The best way currently for assassins and operatives to be successful is to pick off individual targets too far from a healer or tank to be helped, however this limits objective medals. Because most people are concentrated around the objectives, where assassins and operatives are easily focused as soon as they break stealth.

 

Marauders and Sentinals have just as much damage capability but more defensive cool downs and general survivability.

However I do no believe a nerf is in order for marauders I believe survivability buffs are in need for Dps Assassins and Operatives.

 

Currently as it stands, in competetive pvp at level 50, especially in Rated Warzones, Assassins and operatives are being forced into the role of Healer or Tank because their utility is low. There is no point in tanking say a Deception Assassin over an Annihilation or Carnage marauder, the marauder simply offers more damage that is sustainable.

 

Do your metrics support these findings? Do you guys have anything on the board for adding either survivability or increasing the burst damage to counter the low survivability so that we are more of a threat in warzones?

[Fidaelas]

Are there any plans of implementing an in game vent server with channels like guild, group, raid/operations,and creatable channels? Also can we look forward to appearance gear slots for regular gear?

[Doktah]

Are there any plans to make shadow consulars less squishy and bring their DPS up to par with other damage classes. The damage output is the lowest of all the repbulic dps classes.

[Edahsetin]

With the introduction of many more orange belt and bracer recipes in 1.3 that will help us change our look will the end game items be now changed to allow movement of the armoring from these pieces into the new orange gear?

[Adnon]

The upcoming big content patch with the new companion and space mission along with new levels looks very interesting. Will this be free content we get for being subscribers or a new expansion? I ask this because typically new levels means expansion and in "other" mmo's (which shall not be named) these cost another 30-40 bucks. If so, is there a price point in mind for this?

[Grazile]

Will Armstech ever become end game relevant? I have yet to see a Tiered gear schematic drop. Is there any future possibility of maybe changing the orange schematics that require grade 7 exotic mats into items that are perhaps a little more desirable? They only have blue lvl mods why not purple and beef them up a little bit more? Arms tech just doesn't feel as rewarding as I think it should be.

[ZealotOnAStick]

Why isn't the ready check for groups/operations that was mentioned back at the Guild Summit still not in the game, and when can we expect to see this added?

[zoefschildpad]

In many games I developed a habit of jumping around, however in this game jumping slows you down, why is this? and can you please remove it?

[Jaedine]

When will we see better communication ingame for servers going down for maintenance, this week alone we had 3 days where communication was horrible. And twitter was used to tell us what was happening, surely we can see better broadcasting ingame along the lines of CS notiifications giving us the heads up with the latest changes on whether maintenance is getting post ponned, or delayed a few hours.