Livestream: December 8th, 2016

[Exly]

Personally I think that they need to swallow their pride and accept how badly mistaken they were by implementing the Galactic Command system as the only source for end game gear, and they need to fix end game gearing before they leave for vacation.

 

They also need to start talking about what they are working on for new end game group content, and whatever they are doing needs to be good, and needs to be something that we want, not just something that they want to try to sell us on to make us think that it will be good and then adding that all that we need to do is just trust them.

 

The time for trusting them is long past, now we need actual results. Anything less will undoubtedly be seen as a failure, and they can't afford any more failures.

[Stariessaber]

Hopefully they will fix the problem like:

1. No Mission Alerts for those of us that are eligable for either/both Shae Vizla and Master Ranos.

2. Improve the Kolto healing for Story mode Uprisings by (see suggestions below):

2a. Reduce respawn timers on the Kolto tanks as are way too long (if there are any), at least reset them if the group wipes.

2b. Group can only be made up of 1 Tank, 2 DPS and 1 healer

2c. Minimum gear rating for entry

2d. add Bolster, only to Story Mode Uprisings

2e. add the droid like the one in solo mode flashpoints to assist the group with heals or in story mode only allow the group of 4 or less each be able to bring in their companions (if bringing in companions have a minimum influence limit eg over 25 at least).

3. Tactical Groups Flashpoints using Galactic Command

4. Have Galactic Command level legacy based instead of Character based

5. Change the Command Stash to be similar to the Pack Explorer item Stash, so you can get unwanted items to other characters.

6. DvL Event Achievements, can we at least get this archived, which looks like you are going to talk about this so YEAH!

7. Can you please an additional Storage bay (so we can have 7 bays) for the Cargo Hold and legacy Stronghold storage. Alternatively could the configuration be changed from a 8 x 10 (80 slots/bay) to a 10 x 10 (100 slots/bay)

8. A suggestion for replaying chapters is being able to bring a companion that is NOT part of the story ie cartel market companions, subscriber (aka premium) rewards (however NOT story ones like HK-55 and Shae Vizla) companions, or HK-51, Treek, Master Ranos, possibly maybe even a Star Fortress Companion and maybe even non returned in the story classic companion.

9. Please get rid of RNG just about every game has tried this and eventually moves back to a comms base system

 

OH I have one last thing which is a query about the story and the ending of KOTET (see spoiler section)

 

I found it strange that the Scion never really made an appearance after KOTEF chapter VI Asylum. Also it would of been a great chance to finalize the Revan story line with an appearance as part of the Finale, after all he was a key figure for the overall story line.

 

Edited December 7, 2016 by Stariessaber

[KendraP]

I did the DvL event even though I already had one of each class , completing the final tier. I was irritated that I couldn't do it on my current toons (at the time I had 16) but i decided I could deal with it. They were rewarding making alts, and I make a lot of alts after all.

 

Now fast forward to 5.0. Thanks to DvL (and a particular oddity of my own that makes me not want to delete a toon I put the time into to get it to at least 50), I now have 24 toons.

 

Being quite frank, I don't have the time to gear grind 24 toons under the current system. Yes I can legacy gear my like classes. But the cxp gains feel low. I play, at a minimum, nightly for about 3 hours. I am command rank 16, haven't finished the story because I'm trying to get my rank up and enough gear to do my weekly raid this weekend, and only have gotten 1 230 gear piece to drop (pants).

 

This seems very slow. I am a longtime (albeit not founding, came in around 2.x) subscriber. Like most others here, I have a job that demands much of my time. I also work 1 in about 4 weekends (including this past one). So I simply do not have the time to complete the gear grind apparently.

 

I main a guardian tank, but also heal (either on an operative or a sage) quite often. This means as soon as my main is reasonably geared, which could take literally months at this rate, I have a minimum of 2 more toons i would like to gear. It could be the next expansion before I finish this process.

 

I read on massivelyop that you were considering adding a vendor for people who had gone 200 cxp without getting a particular drop. This really doesn't help me. A week after the expansion I'm at rank 16.

 

Let's do some math:

(16 ranks /1 week) =(200 ranks/ x weeks) ==> 16x=200 ==> x=12 and 8/16=12.5 weeks.

 

So it could be 3 and a half months (estimating a month as 4 weeks) before I get to the level where I can buy gear for 1 toon. That's 10 and a half to gear my 2 primary alts along with my main, who I have been playing exclusively since launch of the expansion.

 

Granted I know people far higher. There was a guy in my guild who is rank 30-something already. So apparently it's possible.

 

The best way I have found to get cxp so far is pvp. I don't mind too much, as I enjoy pvp. That being said, as I'm a tank, I find the dps having guards marginally annoying as well. Like what purpose do serve anymore. I'm not that terribly much less squishy than a dps guardian and do not have nearly the damage output (note, even in the 4.x era when it was arguably op I did not skank, I've always been tank geared, tank spec).

 

Also, I feel ops have little reward. It seems like I get far more from 1 pvp match than a sm op. And (at least on harbinger) I find groups easier to get in anyway. I enjoy ops more, but I need to gear quickly for my raid team and so I can get back to helping my guildies.

 

I really do not want to go anywhere. Swtor is my first mmo and I don't really want to learn a new one until I have to. It was star wars that drew me to it, as a fan of kotor and mass effect I had high hopes. Until now, I have not been majorly dissappointed.

 

Sure stuff like, why's my light v jedi guardian suddenly questing for a throne bug me. But then I keep telling emperor whatever we're calling him now that I don't WANT the throne. So (depending on the ending that I haven't seen yet since I've been trying to gear so I can help my guildies, something I consider a responsibilty of mine as guild leader) I will deal with this.

 

I even dealt with DvL as I told myself it was a one time thing, and maybe next time they'd do something to reward long term subscribers like myself. Now I find my achievements gone and I can only assume this is so they can do DvL again. I really have no use for 8 more toons as that'd put me at 32 and I do not have time to gear the ones I currently have (see the math).

 

I am not strictly a solo or casual player. In the 4.0 era I did HM raiding on a team that was close to NiM quality. I can tank or heal at this level. Now I feel punished, for being a long time aubscriber, for doing the DvL event, and now for not having 20 hours a day to play.

 

I am unable to fulfill my responsibilities as guild leader because I am busy trying to keep up with my guildies who have far more time than me for a multitude of reasons.

 

In conclusion, I believe I have been perfectly rational in this little rant. I am unhappy but do not wish to leave. Please use this stream to convince me (and many of my guildies) to stay.

Edited December 7, 2016 by KendraP

[majopucik]

YAY seems that someone actually looked at the forum posts for a change

[majopucik]

Dear Ben,

 

IF you ever get to read this, I am daily on the forums and reddit and from what I have seen people do not like the Galactic Command system. They dont like the fact that they made 8 toons in DvsL event and now they have to play only one as its takes a long time to get him to rank 180 where you start to get end game gear.

 

As I wrote in my thread, please tell us what where your plans with this expansion?

 

You added maybe 5 hours of KOTET story and those Uprisings which are "fast paced fps" done in 10-15 min. Once achievements are done (Adrenal in Firefrost is bugged) there is no reason to go back there. So you are done with 5.0 content in about a week if you play like me (wife and 2 kids and little play time). Veteran modes chapters are easy too, what im seeing on reddit and forums is that people went through the content and there is nothing more to do!!

 

THe plan to make people grind CXP but doing Uprisings and old content isnt making players happy. What makes people happy (based on what i think) is gearing and gearing needs to be easier in terms of alts, if you nerf the CXP system people will see more hope and will keep their focus on the gearing as it is "achievable" !!

[John_Kar]

Hello!

I have 46 command rank on my main, but still dont have any 230 armoring with set piece. Is it normal?

Please, increase chance of dropping of set pieces from each command crate or do that system can know your current gear and increase chance of dropping set piece for those who dont have any set piece.

Edited December 7, 2016 by John_Kar

[MegaTherions]

Guys we should not be coming up with suggestion on how to "improve" the galactic command system with nerfs/buffs/adjustements. The only way to "fix" it is to remove it! No one ever asked for RNG and grind!

[Celise]

They better have one hell of an apology and plan in place for this RNG thing they planted on SWTOR. I want it gone and then i can return to the game again. i don't have the time or the patience to mess around with an RNG machine and getting nothing from it. If anything i have played MMO like has shown me is that i am luckless when it comes to RNG crates and this will be no different.

 

The moment these three mention that the RNG will be removed and the gearing system returns to 4.0 level, then i will wait until the whole thing is in place and sub again. But if this silly thing is staying and they don't take on board anything their community wants, i can only assume this RNG thing is by design and they want to kill SWTOR. In this case i am gone for good.

 

In that case if they want to kill the game, why don't they just come out and announce it instead of riling up the community to no good end? Further if another star wars mmo comes out these same guys are at the helm of that one, the various players will remember what little goodwill the team had towards their community last time and it won't be long before that poisonous chalice makes it's way to that game as well.

 

If they want to keep their game, they better have one hell of an apology ready and a way to remove this RNG system for end game gear for good. just keeping it and adjusting it would be unacceptable. They are the ones who nerfed this thing, they gave the community no quarter and i will show none.

 

My bottom line remove this thing with an apology and i will return, if not i got no reason to stick around, i just hope the three of them can stand having this mistake on their CVs when looking for a new job in the industry. So many peoples futures at stake and it is all riding on their actions on the 8th 10:30pm my time. I won't watch it because it is so late in the day so i will watch it on the 9th when i wake up.

[Frenesi]

Lol. How do you know Bioware actually loses subs over their decision? They start to talk about it.

[Rheshalea]

I've cancelled my sub.

My sub ends on Friday.

The LS is Thursday.

What is said in the LS determines whether I renew or not.

 

I hope to hear how BW plans to fix:

A - The terrible RNG gearing system - Make it faster AND not random.

B - The anti-alt state the game is now in - I have not played any of my 17 alts since this went live for obvious reasons.

C - The fact that one side in the DvL system winning non-stop is even a thing and how large zerg guilds can control the winning side at will.

 

These are my top three that hold my continued sub in the balance.

 

Fixed your typo. Otherwise I pretty much agree. My sub runs out at Christmas, and I'm not going to re-sub unless/until these issues get fixed.

[Ravenschild]

Personally I dont mind the RNG thing,though I have had decent luck with it at Command level 11 and 2 pieces of set gear. Funny part is what they will probably do as a hotfix is just add bolster to make all gear set at minimum for story mode Ops and the like. And then people will complain some more,even though they have fixed the issue of casual gaming.

 

The commentary about everyone leaving and sub numbers dropping a few weeks after launch is a straw man argument at best and disingenuous at worst as the complaint at the time was how fast the game was completed (average was 40 hours) and people had nothing else to do. That is why everyone left,not having more to do and grinding like mad to get the gear.

 

Giving operations ridiculous numbers of exp? Seriously doubt it is going to happen as all that will do is unbalance pvp since expertise is no longer in effect . It would also effect the Gree event,Conquest and I believe the Rackghoul event if you are in a pvp instance. Not to mention any open world pvp. GSF as an example gives over 1k a match,which is far better than ground pvp (though this may be with bonus as I didnt check). The numbers and bonus are there as an incentive. There will be times ops does get those big numbers from the bonus and what side you of the force you are currently fighting for and there will be times other things are getting that bonus. What they seem to be pushing is for diversity in the game experience. Doing everything that gives command points and honestly that isnt a bad thing.

 

A simple fix if there are duplications being given on set gear would be to have it tracked,much like how things are tracked in collections,so you dont get a bunch of set gear pants (although they should add an achievement and title for getting 100 blue gear pants from the crates called Meat Bag Pants) and should be fairly easy to implement. If they do not just add bolster to instanced areas they could give a person an X% increase that is cumulative on getting set gear any time you do not get one or get a duplicate of what you have.

 

In the end it is a new system and it has been live to everyone for less than a week. Lets see what they have to say in the dev blog before we lose our collective minds.

[-Spc]

And cartel coins for passes?

 

Ticket# 30414076

 

Still have the passes, no cartel coins added.

 

thanks

I also have the passes in my inventory.

[AscendingSky]

Whatever. I don't see anything useful. You must be blind cause most people don't even use the forums.

 

He's offered evidence. Where's your evidence that people love the game and no one is unsubscribing?

 

Oh wait, you don't have any, you're just white knighting and talking out of your rear? Understood.

[NobPL]

Please adress also the bug that is currently happening to SWTOR launcher - application terminates itself after few seconds. It happened also somewhere in patches 1.x so you may have a solution somewhere there

[Morteficare]

For me its all about the c-boxes. Im currently on lvl 50 and i got 2 pants whit setbonus and the rest is crapp.

Guildmates who are around 20 alredy got 2-5 setbonus items.

 

If the system garantied me a full set on each tire when i reach then of it im ok. But if im newer garantied a full set there is no Point to playe. I dont do what i want in the game only what gives mee good cxp. So if i sitting whit 1-4 set items at 90 im off. That meens im not rewarded for effort or leting me compete whit others.

[Red_rocks]

I just ground out 7 more cmd levels, so far my only set piece had been legs.

I got 2 more legs.

what are the chances with 7 possible slots?

Why can't we have a set piece token from the cxp box and then choose which piece we want?

[AllisonLightning]

I want apologies, not 'we don't understand the awesomeness of paying for a F2P grind as subscribers' but a full apology, in particular in putting more effort into nerfing CXP and exploits while putting CXP boosters on the market while the game has developed bugs like requiring a hard restart of our entire systems on exit to odd stationary mount bugs.

 

I just got an blue implant I could have used in a crate except for it lacking Alacrity. My build is a precise mix of Critical/Alacrity/Power/Accuracy and I'm cringing now. I'm not getting drops specific to my DPS build, I'm getting random pieces dropped.

 

The story was so much better but you managed to screw the rest of the game up in ten seconds. If you don't apologize and offer a remedy to fix this situation, I'm messaging EA and complaining directly. You either care about driving this game into the ground or you need to step aside for people who will try and save this game.

[kimbleb]

Nice to see another stream, so far I've enjoyed them. Please comment on crafting and the conquest materials. So far people are getting a lot of void matters and it is still unclear if they are going to be worth anything ever. I know you said conquest material shouldn't be the one used for ops schematics but I'd like to know when it is fixed and how.

 

Some feedback: highlight the crafting to players because they obviously don't understand this shift in gearing towards ops schematic drops. All my gear is 234-240 item rating while command rank at best toon is 20~something. Guys if you want to do harder pve content there is a way, it's not cxp though...

 

Another feedback: Add uprisings to conquest objectives plox

[MegaTherions]

I hope to hear how BW plans to fix:

A - The terrible RNG gearing system - Make it faster or not random.

B - The anti-alt state the game is now in - I have not played any of my 17 alts since this went live for obvious reasons.

C - The fact that one side in the DvL system winning non-stop is even a thing and how large zerg guilds can control the winning side at will.

 

A+B We don't need them to change the RNG grind system. We need them to remove it. It's bad and nobody asked for it. 2.x-4.x gearing was fine. Why fix it if it's not broken?

C Yes, it seems on each server there is a side that is ALWAYS winning. This is again a not asked for feature that was badly thought of. Makes me destroy the personality of all my toons.

[AnimatedCallum]

When is the 5 year anniversary vendor released?

[Nomaad]

Let me guess, they are going to announce how successful the commands system is, how great the story line is, and how everyone came back in droves to play the same old content again, but just in a different format, and how everyone loves everything in the game.

[EightiesMonkey]

Quick perusal of their Twich channel and I found this:

 

Post-Launch & December Events Livestream

WHEN: Thursday, December 8th, 2PM PT

WHAT: Tune in as we explore the state of the post-KOTET galaxy! Plus, get a first look at exciting upcoming events and in-game rewards, including SWTOR's 5-Year Anniversary, Life Day, and much more!

 

So here's hoping that they address the issues among all this.

Edited December 7, 2016 by EightiesMonkey

[Transcendent]

When is the 5 year anniversary vendor released?

 

13th iirc.

[Degan]

Quick perusal of their Twich channel and I found this:

 

Post-Launch & December Events Livestream

WHEN: Thursday, December 8th, 2PM PT

WHAT: Tune in as we explore the state of the post-KOTET galaxy! Plus, get a first look at exciting upcoming events and in-game rewards, including SWTOR's 5-Year Anniversary, Life Day, and much more!

 

So here's hoping that they address the issues among all this.

 

All this tells me is they will, in usual form, gloss over the issues and ignore the outrage, then they will quickly move on to whatever event is coming up, try to wow everyone by going way overboard on some more crappy in-game rewards (new trainer, knock-off party jawa, etc.) move on to gleam over Life Day and then end on how they are listening to us and how successful 5.0 has been so far.

 

Did I miss anything?

[Nmyownworld]

Did I miss anything?

Talking about their tee shirts.

 

I hope you're wrong, but not holding my breath.