Press Event NDAs expired at 6AM PST ...

[MisterBlackJack]

And I think I just read something that implies they have a "solo" version of one of the new operations....

 

Can this game cater to bads any more than it already does?

 

Please re-read it the article and you will see that there is NO Solo ops coming. Swtorista specifically asked about SOLO ops at the Vegas Cantina and the Dev (forgot which one) said the idea of Solo ops was immediately shot down.

 

What they are describing in the article is that after completing the Yavin 4 World Story Arc, you will be given 2 paths to complete the storyline. You can either group up [Operations] and do "Temple of Sacrifice" OR you can do a series of daily missions to gather allies to lead an assault against Revan. Basically there will be 2 different fights for Revan. One will be the Operation fight the other will be a Solo Fight.

Edited November 24, 2014 by MisterBlackJack

[LadyAdmiral]

Please re-read it the article and you will see that there is NO Solo ops coming. Swtorista specifically asked about SOLO ops at the Vegas Cantina and the Dev (forgot which one) said the idea of Solo ops was immediately shot down.

 

Just to not take credit, that Q&A was attended and written up by my guildmate Ginger, kudos to him

 

What they are describing in the article is that after completing the Yavin 4 World Story Arc, you will be given 2 paths to complete the storyline. You can either group up [Operations] and do "Temple of Sacrifice" OR you can do a series of daily missions to gather allies to lead an assault against Revan. Basically there will be 2 different fights for Revan. One will be the Operation fight the other will be a Solo Fight.

 

And yup. It's not catering to "bads"... it's catering to solo/casual players, who make up a huge chunk of the game. Altogether we don't hear a lot from them, they're a huge chunk of the playerbase and help fund all the cool stuff they might not even get to do like ops!

[Quraswren]

To anyone wondering about the legacy gear, here is roughly what was said...

 

 

 

Who knows what these changes will be, it sounds like they are really still discussing it.

It could be just barring NMM inserts from legacy gear.

It could be tied in with the costume system, so you don't have to stick your inserts in the mail.

It could be tying all inserts to legacy instead of to character.

 

There's a ton of solutions that don't involve "NERF LEGACY GEAR, LEGACY GEAR OP!". So don't worry to much and keep watching the press / devtracker

 

I love the idea of legacy gear.

If they kill legacy gear to the point where I cannot share gear like I do now. I'll drop this game like a bad habit.

 

It's one of the things that makes SWTOR great and different from other games, tying toons together like a family or a rivalry. It pulls the story together a bit more for me. There is no reason my wife or son cannot use my robes if they want.

 

I hope they play it smart when screwing around with legacy stuff and not just from a perspective of "what can we do to prolong people playing with yet another grind."

[Dras_Keto]

Thats about as bad. Maybe worse given what its a symptom of.

 

It used that story was gated with content difficulty. As your character progressed through harder and harder parts of the game and got stronger, you saw more. And if you couldnt handle it or werent willing to improve or work for it, well, then it was just too bad.

 

Lately, all of Bioware's efforts have been on horizontal expansion of diffculty, and at a level far below the top. Every single pve update for the past year not counting their "nightmare" stuff has been a tactical (IE, joke) flashpoint. BORING. And it offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to anyone halfway decent at the game.

 

Its not encouraging and doesnt bode well for the future of the game if they keep catering to the lowest common denominator.

[Kryand]

Michael: [soap box! Speaking about how players in endgame funnel gear back and forth between characters to subvert the weekly lockout. He thinks legacy gear and that ability is bad for the game. He acknowledhes it is difficult and nuanced to argue.]

 

There isn't a big enough.

[BuriDogshin]

What they are describing in the article is that after completing the Yavin 4 World Story Arc, you will be given 2 paths to complete the storyline. You can either group up [Operations] and do "Temple of Sacrifice" OR you can do a series of daily missions to gather allies to lead an assault against Revan. Basically there will be 2 different fights for Revan. One will be the Operation fight the other will be a Solo Fight.

 

And I will want to do both. Good thing I have a few alts, just in case the solo fight is a one-time-only one.

[DarthDymond]

Thats about as bad. Maybe worse given what its a symptom of.

 

It used that story was gated with content difficulty. As your character progressed through harder and harder parts of the game and got stronger, you saw more. And if you couldnt handle it or werent willing to improve or work for it, well, then it was just too bad.

The Best-in-Slot gear, plenty of Achivements/Titles, and even some unique items (Wings of the Architect, Crest of the Dread Masters, etc) are all gated behind difficulty. This trend should absolutely continue - there should continue to be genuinely challenging HMs and NiMs, and sufficient incentives/rewards for clearing that content.

 

Experiencing the game's main story content, on the other hand, should not be a reward to be earned only by those clearing difficulty-gated content, IMO. That should just be an aspect of the game that everyone gets to experience as long as they progress through the straightforward leveling content.

Lately, all of Bioware's efforts have been on horizontal expansion of diffculty, and at a level far below the top. Every single pve update for the past year not counting their "nightmare" stuff has been a tactical (IE, joke) flashpoint. BORING. And it offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to anyone halfway decent at the game.

 

Its not encouraging and doesnt bode well for the future of the game if they keep catering to the lowest common denominator.

Also from the Q&A (actually from the same bit that talks about having a solo option for completing the storyline):

New Operation Entry Barrier

 

Swtorista: Once we hit 60, will we be able to hop right into the new operations? Or will we have to go back and re-gear.

 

Dev: You will be able to hop right into them. The story modes of course. The storyline actually leads you into the Temple of Sacrifice operation. You can bypass it, you can do the solo option to get to the finale. The story modes are meant to be seen and done – they are meant to be seen. The hard modes are really, really hard.

Michael: They actually are. [laughter] I’m not so enthused by that – I’m concerned, I think the average hard mode guy is going to be pretty frustrated.

Presumably if the HMs are particularly challenging, the NiMs will be even more so when they are released (in 3.1 and 3.2 most likely).

 

Tangent about my opinion on BiS gear:

 

I would not be opposed to a single BiS item, preferably a weapon or chest-piece, being obtained through a legitimately challenging soloable quest-chain, just because I like the idea of an important/visible item that you feel invested in through an in-universe, story-based experience, like your first lightsaber at the end of Tython for Jedi classes taken 'up to eleven', and raiding doesn't lend itself to being immersed in the story/in-universe experience. But with that one exception, BiS gear should remain gated behind top-level difficulty content like NiM Ops.

 

Edited November 24, 2014 by DarthDymond

[MisterBlackJack]

Thats about as bad. Maybe worse given what its a symptom of.

 

It used that story was gated with content difficulty. As your character progressed through harder and harder parts of the game and got stronger, you saw more. And if you couldnt handle it or werent willing to improve or work for it, well, then it was just too bad.

 

Lately, all of Bioware's efforts have been on horizontal expansion of diffculty, and at a level far below the top. Every single pve update for the past year not counting their "nightmare" stuff has been a tactical (IE, joke) flashpoint. BORING. And it offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to anyone halfway decent at the game.

 

Its not encouraging and doesnt bode well for the future of the game if they keep catering to the lowest common denominator.

 

It offers variety for people who simply are not into endgame raiding content for them to do the story themselves. I don't see nothing wrong with that. Had they actually made Ops soloable you may have an argument but they are not. Also from the Press Event QnA its sounds like the new HM versions of the Ops are Really Hard.

 

Dev: You will be able to hop right into them. The storymodes of course. The storyline actually leads you into the Temple of Sacrifice operation. You can bypass it, you can do the solo option to get to the finale. The storymodes are meant to be seen and done – they are meant to be seen. The Hardmodes are really, really hard.

 

Michael: They actually are. [laughter] I’m not so enthused by that line – I think the average hardmode guy is going to be pretty frustrated.

 

So if you are looking for some challenge prepare so in the New operations. They also mention numerous times that the length between ops for 2014 was not what they wanted but it was inevitable because they new about 3.0 so they held back and they plan to release ops on a faster pace than this year.

 

But again I don't see a problem with providing more options for players who want to do it themselves

 

EDIT: It appears Darth Dymond was faster than me *shakes fist at the sky*

Edited November 24, 2014 by MisterBlackJack

[Dras_Keto]

Dev: You will be able to hop right into them. The story modes of course. The storyline actually leads you into the Temple of Sacrifice operation. You can bypass it, you can do the solo option to get to the finale. The story modes are meant to be seen and done – they are meant to be seen. The hard modes are really, really hard.

 

Michael: They actually are. [laughter] I’m not so enthused by that – I’m concerned, I think the average hard mode guy is going to be pretty frustrated.

 

We'll see.

[LtGeneralGezlin]

Thats about as bad. Maybe worse given what its a symptom of.

 

It used that story was gated with content difficulty. As your character progressed through harder and harder parts of the game and got stronger, you saw more. And if you couldnt handle it or werent willing to improve or work for it, well, then it was just too bad.

 

Lately, all of Bioware's efforts have been on horizontal expansion of diffculty, and at a level far below the top. Every single pve update for the past year not counting their "nightmare" stuff has been a tactical (IE, joke) flashpoint. BORING. And it offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to anyone halfway decent at the game.

 

Its not encouraging and doesnt bode well for the future of the game if they keep catering to the lowest common denominator.

 

Yeah, how DARE BioWare let people see the story.

[MisterBlackJack]

Yeah, how DARE BioWare let people see the story.

 

I know complete jerks

[EricMusco]

Do you guys refer to your office as EARS in casual conversation?

 

Whoops, yes we do. It is the Electronic Arts Redwood Shores office, which we abbreviate to EARS. I normally type "at our Corporate Office" in text form though. Ah well.

 

-eric

[BadOrb]

I love the idea of legacy gear.

If they kill legacy gear to the point where I cannot share gear like I do now. I'll drop this game like a bad habit.

 

It's one of the things that makes SWTOR great and different from other games, tying toons together like a family or a rivalry. It pulls the story together a bit more for me. There is no reason my wife or son cannot use my robes if they want.

 

I hope they play it smart when screwing around with legacy stuff and not just from a perspective of "what can we do to prolong people playing with yet another grind."

 

I'm in the same boat as you , not sure who this "Michael" is but I don't do what he is concerned about and the Dev reply was a bit odd. Legacy gear was just to share looks ? Well of course it is but also to share the mods within the gear. It will be especially useful when new armor comes out ( like in 3.0 ) to then hand the legacy armor down to an alt or companion , with it being all augmented up and such like. That's what I thought it was for. I hope the changes they plan and make don't change that.

 

Thats about as bad. Maybe worse given what its a symptom of.

 

It used that story was gated with content difficulty. As your character progressed through harder and harder parts of the game and got stronger, you saw more. And if you couldnt handle it or werent willing to improve or work for it, well, then it was just too bad.

 

Lately, all of Bioware's efforts have been on horizontal expansion of diffculty, and at a level far below the top. Every single pve update for the past year not counting their "nightmare" stuff has been a tactical (IE, joke) flashpoint. BORING. And it offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to anyone halfway decent at the game.

 

Its not encouraging and doesnt bode well for the future of the game if they keep catering to the lowest common denominator.

 

You do know that the Tactical and HM FP's have the same entry gear level of 148 ? So therefore are at the same level as each other , just one is trinity and the other non-trinity. Also some tactical's are harder than some HM FP's e.g. Depths of Manaan is harder than Hammer station.

There's also nothing wrong with them giving the option to solo some of these missions ( just for the story ) , I understood their reasoning behind Oricon and that it guided us to an OP but the people who didn't want to do an OP , missed out on the final part of the story.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

Edited November 24, 2014 by BadOrb

[Lost-Savage-XIII]

It doesn't even matter to smaller or newer guilds or casual players the closed beta is only for the select few and we all get left out, waiting for scraps from the devs and data miners I just can't understand why the secrets or this level of secrecy for this release. How are the smaller guilds supposed to compete against the large guilds when they get all the info ahead of time.

[Transcendent]

There's also nothing wrong with them giving the option to solo some of these missions ( just for the story ) , I understood their reasoning behind Oricon and that it guided us to an OP but the people who didn't want to do an OP , missed out on the final part of the story.

 

Indeed, it took me ages to get around to running the last parts of that particular story. Time is the main factor, and being able to run an OP with my guild at the times they want isn't always possible due to other commitments.

 

So if I can solo the end part of the story, all the better. I'll lay a wager there are a lot of players who only play for a little bit a week, so this option is nice for them to have and one I welcome in addition to the more "traditional" operations route.

[Oyranos]

I'm in the same boat as you , not sure who this "Michael" is but I don't do what he is concerned about and the Dev reply was a bit odd. Legacy gear was just to share looks ? Well of course it is but also to share the mods within the gear. It will be especially useful when new armor comes out ( like in 3.0 ) to then hand the legacy armor down to an alt or companion , with it being all augmented up and such like. That's what I thought it was for. I hope the changes they plan and make don't change that.

 

Most of my characters have the same face because there are not many caucasian faces to pick from for human male, the last thing I care is to have the same looks in the cloths as well... If they change the legacy gear, its like they dig a hole and they jump inside.

 

The only reason I have legacy gear, is to help my new toons get dressed.

 

And I am against this costume thing.. Its nice to adopt the good stuff from other mmos like GW2 or Elder scrolls online... but adopting the lazy and bad stuff? is disturbing.

 

Costume thing is laziness, I would never use it. I hated it in ESO.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Oyranos

[TUXs]

Costume thing is lazyness, I would never use it. I hated it in ESO.

That's the awesome thing about something like it...you don't HAVE to use it, while others would. Nice how everyone is happy that way isn't it?!

[Oyranos]

That's the awesome thing about something like it...you don't HAVE to use it, while others would. Nice how everyone is happy that way isn't it?!

 

Yes but since devs and disigners see that people use it, will $#%# those who dont like it... They just try to find a way to promote their leziness.

 

Its fake to be different and look different, it gives me a fake horrible feeling, that is why I would never use it. Now i may use boots from 1 set, chest from another. This costume thing will take that away from me.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Oyranos

[TUXs]

Yes but since devs and disigners see that people use it, will $#%# those who dont like it... They just try to find a way to promote their leziness.

 

Its fake to be different and look different, it gives me a fake horrible feeling, that is why I would never use it.

Then...dont?! I would. CM already makes me feel bad...I wanna wear half the stuff they release, I'm just not into throwing away a million credits for a cosmetic look.

[Oyranos]

In the long term, designers will become more and more lazy, less productive, less true armor sets, more bugs in the armors, just some craps to add ur mods... so in the long term, it hurts those who love to have quality gear, instead of haloweens. That is why I am totally against it.

 

And its sooo bad for me, equal to swtor engine. If they do that, I will turn f2p, there is no point to pay for that cheap solutions and lazy. I love quality things. I would say " improve crafting instead" but that needs hardworking efforts.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Oyranos

[Darth_Wicked]

In the long term, disigners will become more and more lazy, less productive, less true armor sets, just some craps to add ur mods... so in the long term, it hurts those who love to have quality gear, instead of haloweens

 

I think you mean "designers."

[Oyranos]

yes am dyslexic, i fixed before you make your grammar correction.

[Eldrenath]

Thats about as bad. Maybe worse given what its a symptom of.

 

It used that story was gated with content difficulty. As your character progressed through harder and harder parts of the game and got stronger, you saw more. And if you couldnt handle it or werent willing to improve or work for it, well, then it was just too bad.

 

Lately, all of Bioware's efforts have been on horizontal expansion of diffculty, and at a level far below the top. Every single pve update for the past year not counting their "nightmare" stuff has been a tactical (IE, joke) flashpoint. BORING. And it offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to anyone halfway decent at the game.

 

Its not encouraging and doesnt bode well for the future of the game if they keep catering to the lowest common denominator.

 

First of all, why on earth would anyone be averse to casual players getting to see the story?! It's silly elitism that serves no purpose. If solo versions of ops and FPs drop the same rewards (housing items, cosmetic items, speeders, titles, gear) then by all means complain--and I will absolutely join you. The best gear should be restricted to true ops--pretty good for SM, very good for HM, and extremely good for NiM--if for no other reason then that you simply don't need that type of gear unless you're doing progression. But as it stands right now, it's a good balance. The best gear currently is from NiM DF and DP. The "Wings of the Architect", one of the absolute coolest speeders in the game, is available only from the final boss of NiM DF (please correct if wrong, even if it's HM then that's still pretty seriously gated). Again--I am 100% OK with that. I'd LOVE to have the Wings of Brontes, but I haven't cleared any NiM ops so I don't think I should get them.

 

As for it not boding well for the future of the game, it strikes me that the more accessible they've made this game to casuals, the better it has done. There can be no doubt that SWTOR had a rocky start, and I think we all agree that it's far more successful now than it was 2 years ago. That's casuals paying the bills. And as long as they're paying the bills, they should get to see all of the story. They shouldn't get nearly the same rewards as the progression raiders, and they don't. But it's a fact that they represent a far, far greater proportion of the playerbase than hardcore raiders. I love raiding, but I fully support allowing casuals to see the story.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Eldrenath

[Orizuru]

I'm surprised they haven't taken some form of action against the way people use Legacy gear before now.

 

It doesn't take a genius to recognize that it wasn't given to players so they can run DF/DP on an alt and then transfer raid drops to their mains.

[Kryand]

I'm surprised they haven't taken some form of action against the way people use Legacy gear before now.

 

It doesn't take a genius to recognize that it wasn't given to players so they can run DF/DP on an alt and then transfer raid drops to their mains.

 

That's much better than whatever pointless crap they intended legacy gear to be used for. Never mind the fact that experience trumps gear ten-fold, so the teams that actually do waste time grinding gear on alts to legacy to their mains, instead of just getting more pulls in on the boss they are struggling with, are only hindering themselves. So to me, this guy's complaint about legacy gearing being harmful to progression raiding is nothing more than him looking for an excuse why Zorz crushed DP NiM on day 1, and his guild couldn't. The correct answer is of course that Zorz really is simply that much better.

 

In any case, people who have the time and alts to run the ops multiple times per week deserve to get those extra drops, and they should be able to do what they want with them. As far as progression raiding is concerned, it still isn't anywhere near as significant of an advantage as having that much time to raid every week in the first place.