January 5th Livestream Wrap-up

[DarthZaul]

Was that ever summarized clearly by BWA? Not that I don't believe you ( infact you are correct based on many people now clarifying this point ) but so much crucial information can be missed by the community that relies on the summary for discussion/planning.

 

I don't see "also you need the old shells" mentioned anywhere?

 

They said in December it will work the same as the ranked PVP gear system so old shell+unasembled tokens.

 

There is gonna be an explosion of salt from people who didn't keep the shells. I wonder if they will go as far as to go into the vendor history and re-grant people shells they got rid of.

Edited January 6, 2017 by DarthZaul

[Glzmo]

Hey folks,

 

Thank you to everyone who stopped in for the livestream today. If you missed it or you were looking for links to anything we mentioned, here is a recap:

 

• 5-year anniversary rewards vendor will remain live until January 17th
  
• Life Day event will remain live until January 10th
  
• Game Update 5.1 - Coming January 24th
  
  • Five new Uprisings in Story and Veteran Difficulty
    
  • Master Difficulty for all KOTFE and KOTET Chapters
    
  • Galactic Command Gearing changes
    

  [*]Influencer Mentions

  • Kidlee -
    
    
  • Kidlee -
    
    
  • Corellian Run Radio livestreams
    
  • Swtorista, Ootinicast -
    
    
  • Swtorista -
    
    

  [*]Next livestream will be on 1/26 to discuss what is coming after 5.1

 

Here are the names and locations of the five new Uprisings:

• Trench Runner – Denova
  
• Destroyer of Worlds – Makeb
  
• Landing Party – Rakata Prime
  
• Divided We Fall – Coruscant
  
• Trial and Error – Space Station
  

 

Here is a recap of the changes to gearing in Galactic Command:

• New currency: Command Tokens
  
  • They are earned from Command Crates
    
  • Command Tokens are Legacy wide
    
  • We will retroactively grant Command Tokens
    

  [*]New currency: Unassembled Components

  • Rewarded from participation in Warzones
    

  [*]New currency: Unassembled Gear Pieces

  • They are earned from Ops bosses or purchased with Unassembled Components
    

  [*]Vendors to purchase gear will be added to the fleet on January 24 (Game Update 5.1)

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

Will we get an increase the maximum number of outfit slots per character to 20 or 30?

 

What about chat bubbles? Are they finally coming in 5.1? We've been waiting for them over five years now. That you still haven't implemented them even though they have been one of the top requests ever since launch shows everyone you have never been listening to the player base and aren't planning to.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Glzmo

[Radzkie]

BTW

 

I'll run the Coruscant Uprising once in each mode for achievements, then never again. Not interested in saving the pub scum senate over and over. It'll be painful enough doing it the first time. Really don't care if some group blows them up in my name. I'm sitting on the Eternal Throne and I could help the Sith Empire **** up the Republic.

 

Signed,

"An imperial"

Edited January 6, 2017 by Radzkie

[Andryah]

Raids have lockouts, and your group could walk out of a raid with only 1 piece. Depends on RNGesus/ luck and how low drop rates are going to be.

 

I really do not understand why OPs have lockouts anymore in 5.0.

[Elssha]

Here is a recap of the changes to gearing in Galactic Command:

• New currency: Command Tokens
  
  • They are earned from Command Crates
    
  • Command Tokens are Legacy wide
    
  • We will retroactively grant Command Tokens
    

  [*]New currency: Unassembled Components

  • Rewarded from participation in Warzones
    

  [*]New currency: Unassembled Gear Pieces

  • They are earned from Ops bosses or purchased with Unassembled Components
    

  [*]Vendors to purchase gear will be added to the fleet on January 24 (Game Update 5.1)

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

I know you mentioned not wanting to go back to the 4.0 system (each boss drops unassembled) because you don't want people farming first boss.

 

If that's the case, why not make all ops 1st boss only drop ear piece, second drop either implant or relic, then the later ones drop the actual set bonus stuff? At least then each run would not mean fighting vs 7 (or 15... do the drops get doubled in 16-man????) other people for one item. In the old system you had at least 50% chance of scoring a token based on normal loot rules (one per player; 8ppl, 4+ bosses). The new one (assuming bad luck, aka only last boss drop) only being at 12.5% chance of a run getting you a piece.

 

The system still heavily pushes people into PvP (promised parts, no fighting others for it and praying to RNGods), even ones that really don't enjoy warzones - the people who MOST NEED said gear, too!

 

 

Also, since the percentages are so low... is there any way that could mean lowering the weekly lockouts (say lock you to boss, but when you finish Raid you can restart)? At least that way we could run them a few times and get everyone in the group something to show for it. You can PvP as long as you want.

[Gwena]

I had hoped that Bioware would alter the command crate/cxp system in a way to benefit players that don't do PvP or Ops, too. But here it looks like they are completely ignoring the concerns of players that don't participate in those two activities.

 

CXP gain needs to be better balanced for both difficulty and time spent. For example, an easy task that takes 15 minutes should not earn substantially more cxp than an easy task that takes 25 minutes.

 

Command crate rewards should be looked at. They are, quite frankly, rather uninspiring; the cosmetic stuff is neither varied nor special enough, and chasing after the very rare set bonus pieces is not that enticing for some players. Having a stellar selection of fluff that you can spend tokens on would help a lot, here.

 

And yes, yes, I know, "solo players don't need the best gear!!" Honestly, I am ambivalent on the matter and don't care to be persuaded either way. However, I would like to point out a few things:

 

- Master mode chapters are said to be very, very difficult solo content.

- Many solo activities such as solo FP's and story content are quite slow for cxp gain.

- Unranked PvP is neither hard nor time-intensive, yet is one of the fastest ways to earn cxp, and apparently both deserves and requires rewards on-par with Operations.

 

Honestly, I don't know how to properly fix this mess, and I am certainly not advocating top tier gear being handed out like candy, or nerfing PvP rewards. I am simply trying to make the point that the fix they are proposing is not enough because the system's flaws run deeper.

 

To those that would say, "If you don't need or want the best gear, just be happy with your 228's/230's and just don't care about the CXP system!", I would ask: do you really want a large chunk of the game's players to be uninterested in a premier new feature of the latest expansion?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

From the December livestream: https://www.twitch.tv/swtor/v/107684567?t=18m50s

 

But we don't know if the shells from Command Crates are identical to the shells from the PvP vendor. So not sure if there's a benefit to keeping the Command Crate shells, I also sold mine to a vendor.

 

Well my point is for anyone going off the information given by Eric here on the forums ( i.e. those that can't stand to watch the back patting fest that the streams seem be last time I bothered ) all we need is the components and tokens with a valour requirement - to then also need a shell at some point would be a bit poor if people go off what has been officially posted at least.

 

If we take the part you posted literally though it seems there is nothing to indicate you can use GC shells, they specifically seem to mention you get your first part from the vendor and upgrade from there.

 

I would love to know how many components we get roughly per match though and then the cost of components into a piece.

[Resputin]

If you solo, you don't need any of the end game gear and can do most everything with drops that you get. Now you also get command crates with stuff. What is the problem? Because people that group in a multi player game get better stuff than you? If you only solo why does it matter what other people have vs you?

When you do heroics or story quests or anything that doesn't require 8 person groups do you take your gear off and put on lower gear? If not why? My guess is because you can do that stuff quicker right? Why should 4 people doing flashpoints with 242 gear be able to blow through it in 20mins but four people who dont do operations are doing flashpoints and it requires them 30mins because they dont kill stuff as quick? Thats exactly why people who don't do operations should still be allowed to get better gear. I can do everything I enjoy doing without even getting 230 gear but I want to be able to do it faster so I want better gear. Its pretty simple.

[Khevar]

I really do not understand why OPs have lockouts anymore in 5.0.

One thing that lockouts do that is beneficial, is to allow a static raid group to do an operation over more than one day.

 

So if you only have time to kill two bosses on Tuesday, you could do the rest on Wednesday (rather than restarting from the beginning).

 

That said, someone suggested that once you finish the last boss, have the lockout reset so your group could run it again from the beginning if they so desired. This seemed like a decent idea to me.

[Gravord]

Whole stream no word about merging dead servers, care to say few words about it now?

[Fleurdelis]

Was there any mention as to why there was no recognition of Carrie Fishers death?

[Resputin]

Whole stream no word about merging dead servers, care to say few words about it now?

I agree. This is the first thing they should of commented about. Second thing should of been legacy command ranks. Those are the first two biggest issues with the game.

[DreamingElf]

I was rather hurt by the joking of Kai Zykken swooping in and romancing Arcann ._. there are a majority of us who truly do want our characters to romance Arcann, I've become quite the hopeful cheerleader for it (my twitter says it all LOL).

[Gwena]

I was rather hurt by the joking of Kai Zykken swooping in and romancing Arcann ._. there are a majority of us who truly do want our characters to romance Arcann, I've become quite the hopeful cheerleader for it (my twitter says it all LOL).

 

Well, you know how some folks can be about romance options that don't appeal to them personally. It's like how if you make a thread requesting, say, Pierce or Zenith to become romancable, someone is gonna come along ask for Khem or Blizz romances too because LOL why not, a dashade or a jawa is just as appealing!

 

I think they were just trying to lighten the mood. ^^ Last stream I watched they started laughing about suggestion in chat for a body type 4 male Twi'lek as a mount, or something.

[ChunkyGoodness]

Here are the names and locations of the five new Uprisings:

• Trench Runner – Denova
  
• Destroyer of Worlds – Makeb
  
• Landing Party – Rakata Prime
  
• Divided We Fall – Coruscant
  
• Trial and Error – Space Station
  

 

 

Quick question, what is the name of the new Op and when can we expect it? When we say group content, we mean for more than 4 people at once. Why should I continue to have a subscription if there isn't going to be new content I want to be in? Or is this game going to try to continue with just pvp and 4 person content?

[DreamingElf]

Well, you know how some folks can be about romance options that don't appeal to them personally. It's like how if you make a thread requesting, say, Pierce or Zenith to become romancable, someone is gonna come along ask for Khem or Blizz romances too because LOL why not, a dashade or a jawa is just as appealing!

 

I think they were just trying to lighten the mood. ^^ Last stream I watched they started laughing about suggestion in chat for a body type 4 male Twi'lek as a mount, or something.

I think some people take a romance option (or request) they don't like too seriously. Just don't romance'em if you don't like them *shrugs*

 

And ty that was my first stream of theirs I've ever watched. They probably were trying to lighten the mood (which is something I can appreciate). I mean, it still hurt LOL I've just become attached to Arcann (I do that a LOT with characters I like)

[Daewan]

Will we also be awarded retroactively for Warzones?

[DHTarez]

One thing that lockouts do that is beneficial, is to allow a static raid group to do an operation over more than one day.

 

So if you only have time to kill two bosses on Tuesday, you could do the rest on Wednesday (rather than restarting from the beginning).

 

That said, someone suggested that once you finish the last boss, have the lockout reset so your group could run it again from the beginning if they so desired. This seemed like a decent idea to me.

 

This is one of the reasons I have mentioned before that every activity one does should give out the unassembled components like PVP warzones is going to give so everyone can work toward specific gear and not rely on the RNG to give them the piece(s) they need.

So each flashpoint boss, each uprising boss, each GSF match, PVP warzone, daily mission, operation boss, etc, needs to give these components out.

Why should those that run flashpoints but not ops or pvp not have a way to go a specific piece of gear. Set bonuses and better gear is needed for some of the harder flashpoints. (master mode Bloodhunt, Battle of Rishi to name a few)

 

Having operation bosses only have a chance to drop an gear token is not acceptable to many I game with as we all see the final boss being the only guaranteed token as something at is going to cause a lot of fighting over that one token.

 

There is too much reliance on RNG for end gaming gearing!

Too much grind involved just to get back to doing the activities we all were doing 2 months ago without difficultly.

 

In my opinion and based on talking with friends and guild members since 5.0 dropped, some of the ideas that have been given that is needed to fix the mess is:

1. Revert operation bosses to dropping unassembled tokens not just a chance to drop one
   
2. Give out Unassembled Components for all activities (GSF, PVP) or bosses (Operations, flashpoints, uprising)
   
3. Increase the drop rate of set bonus pieces in the command crates and reduce the dropping of green 228 gear.
   
4. Get rid of reputation tokens for activities you can do in the game from the command crates (Voss, Oricon, Section X, Yavin, Rishi, KDY) etc... Players can do those activities to get reputation and most veteran players are legendary already
   

[teclado]

If we take the part you posted literally though it seems there is nothing to indicate you can use GC shells, they specifically seem to mention you get your first part from the vendor and upgrade from there.

Yep, I was doing some guessing. Jerba is right, we don't know if there will be any compatibility between using the GC or operation drop gear pieces in terms of trading them for the next tier from the pvp vendor. I was assuming there would be since there is no more expertise, and therefore no more "pvp gear." Also, imagine the rage that would result from BW suddenly telling us (or not telling us and we find out on patch day) that all those purple drops you got from GC cannot be traded in to upgrade your pvp set. You have to start from scratch. Yay?

 

A whole lot of unknowns, hence my attempt at a request for clarification. I may not be the most eloquent with my questions, and I may be missing some important details, but I was hoping that I would get the conversation with EM started, and hopefully get some clarification.

Edited January 6, 2017 by teclado

[Jerba]

we don't know if there will be any compatibility between using the GC or operation drop gear pieces in terms of trading them for the next tier from the pvp vendor.

Actually, you can use the operation drop pieces and then go to the PvP vendor. That's what my raid group plans to do because we probably won't be able to kill the final bosses in MM. So instead, we will get the 236 tokens from the final VM bosses, then do some PvP to trade them in for 242 tokens. And I'm assuming other raid groups will do the same, since that appears to be the most efficient way to get BiS gear post-5.1.

 

The devs mentioned this in the December livestream as well. I won't bother finding you the specific time when it was covered. If you really want to know the nitty gritty details, you should watch the full stream and not just read the summaries. I get easily annoyed when players start asking questions that we already know the answer to.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Jerba

[MeNaCe-NZ]

If you really want to know the nitty gritty details, you should watch the full stream and not just read the summaries. I get easily annoyed when players start asking questions that we already know the answer to.

 

Or they could actually post a well detailed summary.

I get really annoyed when people assume everyone has the time to watch a stream especially when we know a summary is posted up that one would assume has all the adequate details.

 

Also if that sort of thing annoys you - the forums probably aren't a great place for you to frequent.

[Jerba]

Or they could actually post a well detailed summary.

I get really annoyed when people assume everyone has the time to watch a stream especially when we know a summary is posted up that one would assume has all the adequate details.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against answering questions or helping players out. But in a thread that's dedicated to getting answers from the devs, any question that has been answered previously wastes dev time, and decreases the chance to get actual questions answered.

 

Like e.g. "When are companions returning?" - We've had this answered so many times I can't count anymore. Yet players are continuing to ask because they don't like the answer, and since Charles "loves to talk about companions", he will waste 5 minutes of nearly every livestream on that.

[chaharbagh]

Fix the codex entries, please.

[Liquor]

Hey folks,

 

Thank you to everyone who stopped in for the livestream today. If you missed it or you were looking for links to anything we mentioned, here is a recap:

 

• 5-year anniversary rewards vendor will remain live until January 17th
  
• Life Day event will remain live until January 10th
  
• Game Update 5.1 - Coming January 24th
  
  • Five new Uprisings in Story and Veteran Difficulty
    
  • Master Difficulty for all KOTFE and KOTET Chapters
    
  • Galactic Command Gearing changes
    

  [*]Influencer Mentions

  • Kidlee -
    
    
  • Kidlee -
    
    
  • Corellian Run Radio livestreams
    
  • Swtorista, Ootinicast -
    
    
  • Swtorista -
    
    

  [*]Next livestream will be on 1/26 to discuss what is coming after 5.1

 

Here are the names and locations of the five new Uprisings:

• Trench Runner – Denova
  
• Destroyer of Worlds – Makeb
  
• Landing Party – Rakata Prime
  
• Divided We Fall – Coruscant
  
• Trial and Error – Space Station
  

 

Here is a recap of the changes to gearing in Galactic Command:

• New currency: Command Tokens
  
  • They are earned from Command Crates
    
  • Command Tokens and Command Ranks are Legacy wide
    
  • Command Ranks will be combined. Meaning if you are Rank 25 and have an alt with Rank 5, your new Legacy Command Rank would be Rank 30
    
  • We will retroactively grant Command Tokens
    

  [*]New currency: Unassembled Components

  • Rewarded from participation in Warzones
    

  [*]New currency: Unassembled Gear Pieces

  • They are earned from Ops bosses or purchased with Unassembled Components
    

  [*]Vendors to purchase gear will be added to the fleet on January 24 (Game Update 5.1)

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

FIXED

 

Thats the only way to make it right for the community. Their outcry is loud. You can hear the Subscription door slamming on their way out. Some are grabbing pitchforks and lighting torches. Others just logoff and uninstall for a different MMORPG, oh sorry BW doesn't do the MMO thing anymore. Stop the online single player RPG that SWTOR has turned into. A once fantastic massive multiplayer online role play game has been detuned and dumbed down to cater a more simple minded casual player base. Even the casual peasants have complained about Command Ranks and gearing system.

 

I'm over here enjoying this tall glass of ice tea and snacking on popcorn. Watching the world burn.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Liquor

[Vinak]

TL;DR: Devs still not listening to player feedback.

 

We want the original loot tables back.

 

new group content that justifies the arbitrary increase in level and gear cap

Edited January 6, 2017 by Vinak