June Producer Livestream Wrap-up (6/30)

[Solbeck]

Hello,

 

I was wondering if you could please address the status of Cartel Certificates seeing as how they no longer drop in Cartel Packs and the drop rate via Contraband Slot Machines is very low. I have max reputation with all of the Cartel Reputation packs and no certificates to spend on the associated vendors. There's also several vendors that sell decorations exclusively for Certificates. Any update on this would be much appreciated.

[EarlWhiteHaven]

I have a question about the character perks and why they were priced the way they were. When the character perk system was first announced the character perks were supposed to be cheap compared to the legacy perks, but 1.2 million per character for the gift giving time reduction is way too much for a character perk.

 

The way the system is now it takes along time to give enough gifts to bring up a comps affection which is a problem since you are now giving us so many that I still only use one or two per toon since that is all I have time to boost. I was looking forward to this perk but now I can't see myself buying this perk especially considering how many alts I have.

 

People who buy this perk have probably already bought the 3 altruism perks, and a crap ton of green gifts so it is already a large credit sink. Could you please either make the perks significantly cheaper or make it possible to unlock on a legacy level. This perk in it self should encourage people to spend more at gifts stores since it won't take so long so it is inherently a credit sink perk

Edited June 30, 2016 by EarlWhiteHaven

[fragnor]

I have a question about the current sale on Character Server Slots. Will you continue the current sale on them for more than one week? The reason I ask is that I personally don't have thousands of CC I use my grant every month by buying decos and collection unlocks and I have already received my grant for this month and would like to participate in the LvD event and since the heroic rewards are nerfed can not easily get the credits together to pay the outrageous prices that they are going for on the GTN. thanks in advance for taking the time to answer my question.

[Gaspodia]

 

STAR WARS: Celebration

• We will be on the show floor all three days at the EA Star Wars booth
  
• EA Star Wars Panel - Saturday, July 16th from 7-8PM GMT
  
• London Cantina - Saturday July 16th from 8-11PM at the Fox ExCel
  

 

I'm *still* waiting for you to reply to me regarding arrangements for those with mobility related disabilities. By ignoring my request for information for 6 weeks (and counting), you have managed to whittle down the number of people I was requesting this information for by 2, as they can longer have an option to book affordable advance train tickets.

 

Dark Vs Light Event

 

Character slots - We know one of the issues that was raised are players who are at the current character slot maximum. With our maintenance next week we will be increasing the server maximum by 10.

I'm not taking part in this one; I don't have enough slots free to participate in the event, though I *would* participate if I didn't have to buy another 8 slots in order to join in.

 

I already pay a subscription and had hoped that it would include everything I needed to take part in in-game events. Increasing the number of available slots, that I would still have to pay additional money for over and above my subscription, isn't going to do anything to encourage me to participate.

 

I do feel quite excluded by the disconnect between the requirements of the event and the need to pay for participating in it. It just feels like I am being punished for supporting you in the past by buying character slots.

[Rankyn]

1) Will the Grand Acquisition Race Chevin World Event ever return once again in the future? It was so awesome with all its rewards. Any update?

They said a long time ago that it was a 1-time event and would not be returning.

The rewards from it are available from a vendor on the fleet.

[rantboi]

[*]Group Content - We have stated before that right now, there is no new group content coming in the short term roadmap. However, we do want to let you know that the team is working on group content as we speak. It is our plan to reveal more details later this year. Just to set some expectations, this isn't confirming any specific type of content (Ops, Wzs, FPs), but group content is in the works.

 

why is it so hard to say what it is? because you know it's **** and that people won't like it?

[Andryah]

why is it so hard to say what it is? because you know it's **** and that people won't like it?

 

Could be it's something in a somewhat new direction from the classic potatoes we have been fed for years in MMOs, and they are simply not ready to talk about it yet.

 

Could be they know that saying nothing until they are closer to release is a better approach with this audience.. since they get crucified if they reveal and then change something afterwards, or delay due to bugs, etc. Not to mention all the arm chair game designers come out of the woodwork to explain to them how to do it better.

 

Could be they plan to tease it out with the Star Wars Celebration, where they said they will have an active presence.

 

Could be any number of reasons.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Andryah

[commanderwar]

Could be it's something in a somewhat new direction from the classic potatoes we have been fed for years in MMOs, and they are simply not ready to talk about it yet.

 

Could be they know that saying nothing until they are closer to release is a better approach with this audience.. since they get crucified if they reveal and then change something afterwards, or delay due to bugs, etc. Not to mention all the arm chair game designers come out of the woodwork to explain to them how to do it better.

 

Could be they plan to tease it out with the Star Wars Celebration, where they said they will have an active presence.

 

Could be any number of reasons.

 

Also Eric said a few months ago they will not annouce something until it's finish and they know it going to happen

[nerazzurroblue]

why is it so hard to say what it is? because you know it's **** and that people won't like it?

 

come one man they are making people play all the old content they released and call it an "event"

 

don't get your hopes up

[Avorniel]

 

Dark Vs Light Event

• Event Goals/Rewards - We have worked hard in the past year to try to offer rewards to veteran players and subscribers such as Legendary Status, monthly sub rewards, etc. This event is meant to be something different from that. As we are heading into our 5-year anniversary we really wanted to celebrate and offer new rewards to players for simply creating a new character and playing through the game. That is the overall focus of this event. We have no plans at this time to make rewards retroactive.
  

 

-eric

 

Many thanks for not making the rewards Retro. How ever unpopular the decision is. Having a blast doing the event and so are the players I have grouped up with in FP's and on worlds ,it's actually fun to run with like minded players whose goals are the same as mine.

 

Edited June 30, 2016 by Avorniel

[gabigool]

Could be they know that saying nothing until they are closer to release is a better approach with this audience.. since they get crucified if they reveal and then change something afterwards, or delay due to bugs, etc. Not to mention all the arm chair game designers come out of the woodwork to explain to them how to do it better.

 

I'm sorry bro but this is a crock of crap. If they can't handle their job there are other ones out there.

[commanderwar]

Thank you Ben, Eric, and Charles cannot wait for the last chapter. I having lots of fun doing another character and doing some of the flashpoints I have not done ever and I been hear for years. One question though can Guss detect a trap. Lol I saw that question ask by bad feeling bodcast last month.

[AlienEyeTX]

Could be it's something in a somewhat new direction from the classic potatoes we have been fed for years in MMOs, and they are simply not ready to talk about it yet.

 

Could be they know that saying nothing until they are closer to release is a better approach with this audience.. since they get crucified if they reveal and then change something afterwards, or delay due to bugs, etc. Not to mention all the arm chair game designers come out of the woodwork to explain to them how to do it better.

 

Could be they plan to tease it out with the Star Wars Celebration, where they said they will have an active presence.

 

Could be any number of reasons.

 

No, I agree with the other guy. They know that the community will be disappointed, so they won't give any hints until it's too late to change anything.

[vadess]

Why?

Been playing a new character and the starting worlds are pretty busy and a lot of players are diving back into flashpoints. Event seems to be doing what it was intended to do.

 

And by playerbase I take it you mean the folk sat on a forum whining and filling the place with negativity or those ingame having fun and a bit of a laugh.

 

Yep, I bet that's what they're talking about. I'll say it here too: I like the event! Gives me reasons to level alts, and get to legendary status!

[October]

[*]Companions - Without being spoilery, we have received feedback regarding the impact of Companions leaving via story and the time/money that has been put into them. We are looking at how to solve this issue in the future.

 

Can't you guys simply make it to where we just can't summon those companions into KotFE chapters?

 

I went into KotFE fully understanding that our Choices Matter™, but this companion removal was not one of them. My choices had no impact on this companion leaving, yet I'm still suffering the same consequence. It infuriates me because I've influenced said character to 50 on several different characters, and now I have lost that character due to a choice that was not mine. I've been given several months of gameplay with this character, and then (arguably) out of the blue, I lose them.

[MoyaSP]

Don't suppose we can find out when we can expect season 2 info? So many companions missing and so much uncertainty about what's happening with them still.

[Fleurdelis]

why is it so hard to say what it is? because you know it's **** and that people won't like it?

 

Its going to be a group fashion show on fleet.

[Aulus_Claudius]

They did not screw anybody. Stop with the "loyalist" elitism. Then again.. perhaps my signature applies to your personal outlook.

 

Weeks from now.. the complaints will be all about how people did not get what they wanted in the rewards and how evil /RNG was to them.. and now they are somehow forced to buy the missing pieces off the GTN at premium collector prices.

 

Besides... since many people will have gaps in a full set of armor.. they WILL probably be buying the missing pieces off the open market in game.

 

Just because someone got something one way, does not mean someone else is not able to get them another way. I personally have many many CM items unlocked.. yet I have never paid real money nor bought any cartel packs. So how is doing the event and perhaps getting some by some players any different?????

 

You really don't get it, do you? We paid REAL MONEY for these items BECAUSE THEY ARE RARE PRESTIGE ITEMS. Your argument seems to be that those of us who shell out hundreds of dollars when a new pack is released should receive no benefit for that investment compared to a bunch of F2P solo questers. Fact is, by handing their rarest items out like candy they reduce the value for everyone who obtained them legitimately via the Cartel Market, and I'm not talking about credit value. It would be different had there been multiple methods of obtaining them from the start - I'd be totally for that -, but they sold them to us as CM exclusives and then changed the nature of them entirely. So yes, they screwed us big time in this extremely unethical move. If you want to call that 'loyalist elitism' have fun with that - I call it false advertising.

 

To answer what you said about your collection, you bought your items from people who bought them off the CM. You may not have bought CC, but someone did for you.

[LJ_Gibbs]

They've used the "we won't give any information until we have something concrete" way too long in terms of group content.

 

They can't say: No more OPs, even if it is true because they would lose subs.

 

And even though "group content" could mean a myriad of things other than OPs, there is no reason why they couldn't have said MONTHS ago they were working on "group content" because people have been clamoring for it for over a year.

 

"We know people want group content. You must understand the time it takes to develop such content. We can tell you that it is on the schedule and we are in the initial stages of getting that underway. There will be group content sometime, but we cannot give a concrete timeframe right now. But, rest assured, you will see group content in the futire"

 

Not the "We can't say anything"

[Khevar]

If we had the items be BoL then you could not have combined the event packs with any other items to complete a Collection set. We agree this is not optimal and we are working on ways to solve this moving forward.

Why not make the PACKS BoL, but once opened, the items inside are BoP?

[Twin]

Hey folks,

 

We covered a lot in this livestream, here is the wrap-up if you weren't able to tune in!

 

State of the Galaxy

• Cartel Market Update - You can read all about the changes that were made in the GEMINI Pack, here.
  
• Guss Tuno Recruitment - It is our goal to deliver this with Chapter XVI but we are still working through the issue.
  
• Heroic Missions - They were rewarding a lot of credits, it was definitely having an impact. Still, we realize that with this being missed in the patch notes and the overall timing of the change, we are going to be reverting the rewards back to their pre-4.6 values.
  
• Companions - Without being spoilery, we have received feedback regarding the impact of Companions leaving via story and the time/money that has been put into them. We are looking at how to solve this issue in the future.
  
• Group Content - We have stated before that right now, there is no new group content coming in the short term roadmap. However, we do want to let you know that the team is working on group content as we speak. It is our plan to reveal more details later this year. Just to set some expectations, this isn't confirming any specific type of content (Ops, Wzs, FPs), but group content is in the works.
  
• Dark vs Light Event - Head down to the event section down below for details.
  

 

Chapter XV: The GEMINI Deception

• Now available to all subscribers!
  
• Lead a daring assault on one of Arcann’s warships in a bid to seize control of the entire Eternal Fleet!
  
• Uncover more of the secrets behind SCORPIO and the GEMINI droids.
  

 

Featured Community Contributors

• Unholy Alliance - Revenge of the Musco's Charity Event
  
• SWTOR-Crafter
  
• NewOverlords DvL Event Tracker
  

 

STAR WARS: Celebration

• We will be on the show floor all three days at the EA Star Wars booth
  
• EA Star Wars Panel - Saturday, July 16th from 7-8PM GMT
  
• London Cantina - Saturday July 16th from 8-11PM at the Fox ExCel
  

 

Dark Vs Light Event

• Event Goals/Rewards - We have worked hard in the past year to try to offer rewards to veteran players and subscribers such as Legendary Status, monthly sub rewards, etc. This event is meant to be something different from that. As we are heading into our 5-year anniversary we really wanted to celebrate and offer new rewards to players for simply creating a new character and playing through the game. That is the overall focus of this event. We have no plans at this time to make rewards retroactive.
  
• Character slots - We know one of the issues that was raised are players who are at the current character slot maximum. With our maintenance next week we will be increasing the server maximum by 10.
  
• Dark Vs Light Pack bind rules - The reason we chose to go with BoP over BoL for these items is Collections. Currently, BoL items do not work towards a Collection unlock. If we had the items be BoL then you could not have combined the event packs with any other items to complete a Collection set. We agree this is not optimal and we are working on ways to solve this moving forward.
  

 

Chapter XVI: The Battle of Odessen

• Early Access on July 26th
  
• Face Arcann in deadly combat as he launches an all-out assault against the Alliance base on Odessen!
  

 

Thanks everyone for tuning in. Feel free to ask any questions you may have in this thread.

 

-eric

 

Please give a proper explanation as to why you don't grant us at least 1 free server slot. Specially those of us who have filled our "free" slots.

 

Do you think we should be Ok with:

1. Being forced to buy a char slot for RL cash to participate in an event that is free for everyone who didn't spend as much time in game?

2. Being forced to buy a char slot on the GTN for a ridiculus price, when it's free for everyone who didnt spend as much time in game?

3. Switch servers and thereby missing out on 2 of 3 reward categories since they're bound to legacy/pickup?

 

Elaborate how you think it's fair to put the players that likely have been loyal to the game the longest in that position.

 

Please do respond properly to this issue that you completly avoided on the stream. Show me you care about your longterm subscribers at least on some level...

 

//Twin

[casirabit]

Thanks for the stream! Unlike the vocal players, I enjoyed it a lot.

 

The Dark vs. Light event breathed new life into my raiding guild. It has been slow during the past few months because there was only story "content" (1 day per month), but this week we've had 20+ players creating alts for the event. It may be grindy but we are progression players after all, and we don't mind the requirements. (except maybe the 8 toons and 6 crafting skills, that's a tad excessive)

 

I'm disappointed that you are caving into the players and reverse the heroics nerf. There are way too many credits in the wild and GTN prices are at an all time high. I think you are forgetting that the economy depends not just on the credit drop rates but also on player activity. If you put popular items in a pack with a high rarity (crossguard saber, weapon tuning), then players who want those items will run dailies until they have enough credits to afford them. Those players flood the game with credits and drive GTN prices up even further; a vicious circle.

I hope you have an alternate solution planned once credits from heroics go back up, because this situation is far from fixed. Inflation may be good for the Cartel Market but it's bad for the long-term health of the game. You may just need to adjust the MTX rarities; if the supply of the most popular items is higher, prices go down and players will farm fewer credits.

 

Hope to get an ETA on Guss Tuno soon, I really want my favorite companion back. Make it happen for Chapter 16!

 

I don't see them caving in to the complaints. They didn't put the notes in the patch notes and then they adjusted the heroics without informing anyone. You don't do things like that without telling the community what is going on. When you either forget or whatever happened to inform a community of a major change like this it makes the community think you are going behind their backs and making changes. You come out and tell people before it happens and not after it happens.

[Ceinwyn]

[*]Heroic Missions - They were rewarding a lot of credits, it was definitely having an impact. Still, we realize that with this being missed in the patch notes and the overall timing of the change, we are going to be reverting the rewards back to their pre-4.6 values.

 

Good.

 

[*]Companions - Without being spoilery, we have received feedback regarding the impact of Companions leaving via story and the time/money that has been put into them. We are looking at how to solve this issue in the future.

 

Good.

 

[*]Dark Vs Light Pack bind rules - The reason we chose to go with BoP over BoL for these items is Collections. Currently, BoL items do not work towards a Collection unlock. If we had the items be BoL then you could not have combined the event packs with any other items to complete a Collection set. We agree this is not optimal and we are working on ways to solve this moving forward.

 

Very interested to see what you do.

 

Also from Dulfy:

 

We are aware of some of the issues with the armor rewards for the dark vs light event, we are putting out a fix for next Wednesday.

 

Does this include the XP bonus set not having armorings or was that intended? Apologies if this was mentioned in the stream specifically—I'll not be watching the whole thing.

[Andryah]

You really don't get it, do you? We paid REAL MONEY for these items BECAUSE THEY ARE RARE PRESTIGE ITEMS. Your argument seems to be that those of us who shell out hundreds of dollars when a new pack is released should receive no benefit for that investment compared to a bunch of F2P solo questers. Fact is, by handing their rarest items out like candy they reduce the value for everyone who obtained them legitimately via the Cartel Market, and I'm not talking about credit value. It would be different had there been multiple methods of obtaining them from the start - I'd be totally for that -, but they sold them to us as CM exclusives and then changed the nature of them entirely. So yes, they screwed us big time in this extremely unethical move. If you want to call that 'loyalist elitism' have fun with that - I call it false advertising.

 

To answer what you said about your collection, you bought your items from people who bought them off the CM. You may not have bought CC, but someone did for you.

 

You are the one that does not get it.

 

At no time, ever, did I or any other player HAVE to pay real money. Sure.. someone did.. someone who actually was motivated personally for whatever reason to do so.. and then resell items to people like me on the GTN for credits. Therefore.. there was NO PRESTIGE with these items.. just rarity that required either luck of the draw on /RNG.. or deep pockets to buy from someone who was lucky AND did not want the item(s). Stop trying to equate rare prestige items only available BoP in game with CM items.

 

Nobody forced you to buy cartel packs with real money. You made that choice all by yourself. Now.. three years later.. a special event will tease out some of the older CM content in random packs in the event. Nothing wrong with that.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Andryah

[Ambadoron]

So you guys mentioned in the stream about allowing all the companions to be accessed through the locator terminal, and not just the ones for our class. I like this idea and had a few questions about it. I tried to ask in the live stream but understand there were a lot of people asking questions so thought I'd ask it here. So my question was would this apply to characters that were taken away by the storyline, allowing us to adventure with say koth and jorgan regardless of our choices in the story, even though they would be gone from the story? this would also fix the issue with the companion in the latest chapter as what was invested in influence would not be so worthless anymore. Also was wondering if there were any plans to allow access to companion customizations cross faction, so that i have access to all the good looking customizations out there for qyzen and the dashade, regardless of which faction i'm playing as. Thank you in advance for the answers, and keep up the good work on the chapters.