January 26th Livestream Wrap-up

[VandalOTG]

Will Tyth have a 20% (or whatever the lowest % chance is) to drop a random token similar to the first boss in other multi boss operations? Or will it be more of a Golden Fury situation where he will drop gear guaranteed? Since he is the first boss of eventual five bosses, I could see it being the 20% drop chance, but that would be kind of a letdown if you form a group and burn a weekly lockout and don't see any loot drop for anyone more often than not.

 

Edit: sorry I posted this before I had a chance to watch the full stream. Now that I have watched it, I understand that loot will be determined later based in part on play testing.

Edited January 27, 2017 by VandalOTG
Found an answer to a question I had asked

[FlyingUsPoo]

That section about 5.2... I swear I heard it before... something... Sounds like Siost... Its on the tip of my tongue...

[bulltonez]

They have to have players to make GF work. We're all leaving and they refuse to admit why.

 

They have enough players. If u have 800 players and 40% login its still enough players. Players leaving has nothing to do with it if there's still enough people online. Watch no one que for master uprisings. Starting to think star wars fans as a player base sucks. If it's too hard they don't que. Or they look for who can carry them. Anyway there's enough players.

[eriksarcasm]

A few questions, story/companion related;

 

- If my Jedi Knight elects to side with the Empire to obtain Quinn and because tbqfh, she's beyond frustrated with the Republic, then according to Charles' this MAY affect future companion recruitment... does that mean she won't be able to get ANY of the future Republic-sided companions, or just some? Iresso was mentioned as an example and it would make sense for him not to wish to join a 'traitor' but Lord Scourge for example, the Jedi Knight's own companion, realistically he wouldn't/shouldn't care. Hell he'd probably rejoice so what of companions like him, will he become off-limits too if my JK sides with the Empire? — Perhaps leave the option open in all cases and just have comps like Iresso express a certain disdain with like, 1-2 extra conversational steps to reel him in or convince him.

 

- What of our already recruited companions such as Theron and Aric Jorgan, if we're Jedi/Smug/Trooper but side with the Empire in 5.2, will we lose them? Or say Pierce in a reversed situation if your Sith chooses the Republic.

 

- I assume romances with Elara/Quinn will be resumed in this new patch?

 

Purely speculation here, but the basic impression I got from the way companions were presented in KOTFE was that they were all free agents, no more loyalty to either Republic or Empire but only to you and the Alliance. As such, Theron, Aric, 4x, etc would stay with you no matter which side you favored.

 

Moving forward, it seems that any future companions would have their original loyalties intact. I suppose in any future content you'd have the same choice of faction as presented with Iokath, where you'd get to choose Empire or Republic each time, and as such be rewarded with one or the other companion.

 

I heard that right, didn't I? They did say something to that effect, and that you'd either get Quinn or Elara but not both from Iokath?

[FlavivsAetivs]

The release cadence for ops isn't that bad of a deal if they can keep that up - as in, after ops boss #5 (the last one), we can expect the first boss of the next op within a similar amount of time as the bosses have been released. And then ad infinitum.

 

~ Eudoxia

[phalczen]

Will entry to the operation require one to have completed KOTET?

[Ylliarus]

That section about 5.2... I swear I heard it before... something... Sounds like Siost... Its on the tip of my tongue...

 

Which leads me to think, does it foreshadow a new big expansion? It happened with KotFE as well, we got the Rise of the Emperor update and later that autumn/winter we got a whole new expansion. Curious to see if history is repeating itself here...

[Neoforcer]

Thank you everyone for tuning in! If you missed it, here is what we discussed.

 

On Tuesday we released Game Update 5.1 - Defend the Throne

• Master Mode Chapters
  
• 5 new Uprisings
  
• Galactic Command Gearing Changes -- We know that the changes in 5.1 are just the start. We are looking into simplifying, making faster, and making more alt friendly the gearing in GC. We are also looking into making getting through Command Ranks faster.

 

Coming in April, Game Update 5.2 which will include

• Brand new story arc on Iokath. The Empire and Republic are fighting over control of the planet and you, as the Alliance Commander will choose who to side with.
  
• Two returning Companions: Quinn and Elara.
  
• After completing Iokath's storyline, it opens up into a new daily area.
  
• Coming with Iokath is the first boss of a new Operation. Each subsequent boss will be released in the future with the entire Op being completely released this year.
  
• We are planning to have a PTS for 5.2 in the next few weeks. More details to follow.
  

 

-eric

 

My take on all this is sorry but we do not have a budget ro do more then one thing at a time so about that promise of group content we made for both pve and pvp is we will be doing 1 raid every 3 month and PVP will have ot wait another 2 years before we do an new maps biofail at it best. You have made this game what it is today crap you lie to us expect us to sit by and pay for 1 warzone map ever 2 years. With the craptastic gearing system you got the game feels like a ghost town want to thank you for that BTW.

 

 

You can only lie so much before we stop listening :mad:

Edited January 26, 2017 by Neoforcer

[JennyFlynn]

Purely speculation here, but the basic impression I got from the way companions were presented in KOTFE was that they were all free agents, no more loyalty to either Republic or Empire but only to you and the Alliance. As such, Theron, Aric, 4x, etc would stay with you no matter which side you favored.

 

Moving forward, it seems that any future companions would have their original loyalties intact. I suppose in any future content you'd have the same choice of faction as presented with Iokath, where you'd get to choose Empire or Republic each time, and as such be rewarded with one or the other companion.

 

I heard that right, didn't I? They did say something to that effect, and that you'd either get Quinn or Elara but not both from Iokath?

 

Yeah, either Quinn or Elara which is fine but I don't recall them saying future companions would return in a similar 'pick a side' fashion. All I remember is Charles' saying that if you as a Republic player choose the Empire in 5.2 then a guy such as Felix Iresso would find issue with that once he himself returns, and that has me a little concerned.

 

Guess I'll be putting my Jedi Knight on ice until there's further clarification on that matter. The way I play her right now I wish to throw her in with the Empire but not at the expense of Scourge, ever.

[LtGeneralGezlin]

Thank you everyone for tuning in! If you missed it, here is what we discussed.

 

On Tuesday we released Game Update 5.1 - Defend the Throne

• Master Mode Chapters
  
• 5 new Uprisings
  
• Galactic Command Gearing Changes -- We know that the changes in 5.1 are just the start. We are looking into simplifying, making faster, and making more alt friendly the gearing in GC. We are also looking into making getting through Command Ranks faster.

 

Coming in April, Game Update 5.2 which will include

• Brand new story arc on Iokath. The Empire and Republic are fighting over control of the planet and you, as the Alliance Commander will choose who to side with.
  
• Two returning Companions: Quinn and Elara.
  
• After completing Iokath's storyline, it opens up into a new daily area.
  
• Coming with Iokath is the first boss of a new Operation. Each subsequent boss will be released in the future with the entire Op being completely released this year.
  
• We are planning to have a PTS for 5.2 in the next few weeks. More details to follow.
  

 

-eric

 

I missed the livestream due to school, so I might have missed this, but is the story on Iokath going to end like Oricon, where after doing the solo content, you hit the "You need to group up to finish this" wall, or is it like the end of SoR, where you can either do solo stuff, or an operation to finish the story? Or something else entirely?

 

My take on all this is sorry but we do not have a budget ro do more then one thing at a time so about that promise of group content we made for both pve and pvp is we will be doing 1 raid every 3 month and PVP will have ot wait another 2 years before we do an new maps biofail at it best. You have made this game what it is today crap you lie to us expect us to sit by and pay for 1 warzone map ever 2 years. With the craptastic gearing system you got the game feels like a ghost town want to thank you for that BTW.

 

 

You can only lie so much before we stop listening :mad:

 

Some people are never happy... I hear the Flaming Dumpster that is the SWTOR Subreddit would love your edgy "BioFail" comments.

[Darkbloom]

Yeah, either Quinn or Elara which is fine but I don't recall them saying future companions would return in a similar 'pick a side' fashion. All I remember is Charles' saying that if you as a Republic player choose the Empire in 5.2 then a guy such as Felix Iresso would find issue with that once he himself returns, and that has me a little concerned.

 

Guess I'll be putting my Jedi Knight on ice until there's further clarification on that matter. The way I play her right now I wish to throw her in with the Empire but not at the expense of Scourge, ever.

 

Unless they wanted to completely abandon his character, or give him some sort of brain injury, there is no way in hell Quinn is going to join anyone who doesn't side with the Empire.

 

So I feel like the only companions you should really worry about are any of them that are that strongly identified with either the Republic or the Empire. Iresso might fit in that category, but not many others would. For instance, I might just not be remembering, but isn't Scourge's beef with the Emperor, and not the Empire?

 

I kind of feel like Scourge, Kira, Nadia and (if she's coming back at all) Jaessa are all going to come back in a similar story line. It would make sense. And they all might, for one reason or another, be very happy with whoever knocked off Valkorian, regardless of whatever else the character did.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Darkbloom

[DanNV]

The MMO players left in this game would love to go back to the way gearing was before. Of course there are ways to improve/change it, but I have yet to meet someone that thinks this system is good. I heard today they are looking at ways to change it, but in reality it will make it MORE convoluted.

 

Thanks. The sad thing is, they've done this already at launch. You'd think they'd learn. Several of these managers were there for that disaster. They don't have the player base to spend months "tweaking" it until with 6 it goes back to what it was before. And they blocked all F2P and preferred from access to end game when they could be getting paid for passes to access endgame content which would at least help the revenue. At the rate they are going EA will either clean house at BW or pull the plug because they have to keep shareholders happy.

[Jerba]

Regarding progression, you mentioned releasing Master Mode for first boss along with release of second boss in SM/VM. First of all, it is great that you are going back to a three-tiered system! This means we won't have another "hardmare" debacle like with Rav/ToS where some HM bosses were tuned for a NiM level, preventing HM guilds from completing the operation.

However, it would be great it you could follow WoW's example and release Master Mode for 1st boss one week after SM/VM for 2nd boss. That removes the stress from raid guilds where they need to decide what boss to focus on, and would foster a progression race environment of who kills the boss on MM first, which would help rebuild the hardcore endgame community and who would pass their experience onto the more casual players.

Also, please ensure that this time, the NPC ids will be different for VM/MM. This plagues all of the existing NiM bosses, making it more difficult for parsers to determine if you are in VM or MM. Creating separate instances of the NPCs would solve this issue.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Jerba

[DanNV]

They have enough players. If u have 800 players and 40% login its still enough players. Players leaving has nothing to do with it if there's still enough people online. Watch no one que for master uprisings. Starting to think star wars fans as a player base sucks. If it's too hard they don't que. Or they look for who can carry them. Anyway there's enough players.

 

The loss of players is the issue. The players who would have done that content and queued for it left. If they don't come back, your queue isn't going to pop. Eve if they bring people back, if they don't encourage healers and tanks, your queue won't pop. All of teh solo content is balanced for a DPS with a healer companion. The devs have said so. Try that as a healer, you can't get through some of it. Try it as a tank, it takes forever, or there is a timer you an't beat.

 

So, they need to fix gearing ASAP, and that means getting rid of the RNG for the end game players, right now. The longer they wait the fewer will ever come back. It also means redoing all of their fancy new content so it takes into account what you are so each type of the trinity can actually complete it. Otherwise your queues won't pop.

 

Personally, I find uprisings extremely boring, so I have no interest in ever queuing for another not matter what they do to them. But then I won't matter for more than a couple weeks, my sub will be up then and I won't matter to BW anymore.

[Damask_Rose]

Coming in April, Game Update 5.2 which will include

• Brand new story arc on Iokath. The Empire and Republic are fighting over control of the planet and you, as the Alliance Commander will choose who to side with.
  
• Two returning Companions: Quinn and Elara.
  

 

-eric

 

I am so happy I could kiss you! Just don't mess up Quinn's character or I will turn into a raving homicidal maniac.

[Wayshuba]

My thoughts on 5.2 is that it is a start in the right direction, but only a start. I know that you have limits as to what you can do/produce, but if you don't make a commitment to new Ops and PvP maps every year, than 1 new Op is not going to solve your problem. In addition to this, you have to look at class balance and make adjustments. Some classes are overperforming, and some are underperforming. I don't know why you don't communicate with the community about class balance, but some of us actually have good ideas of which you may not have thought that can help address the current issues we see in dps, survivability, etc.

 

You comment makes me think of something that was said to me from a business manager once over 20 years ago.

 

"You don't decide to finally start running in a marathon at mile 5 when the leader is one mile from the finish line." What he was referring to is once you fall too far behind your competition, it is too late.

 

It is obvious from this stream (and the looks on their faces the whole stream), they are in panic mode. Very wrong decisions were made over the last two years (and the teeth kicking they decided to give a good portion of their paying customers with this GC system) and now, they are at mile 5 deciding it is time to run, whereas many of their competitors are at Mile 25 with a mile left to go.

 

They announce the START of a new Op in April with the rest probably coming every 60 days until the end of the year. One of their competitors has 9 NEW raids dropping in June, along with 12 NEW dungeons (which will bring the in game total to 59 dungeons). SWTOR players are going to get ONE Op and ONE daily area.

 

It's not a case of too little too late, it is a case of it's just too late. Seriously, if you are a raider, would you rather wait on a trickle of one raid over a year or move to a game that currently has 18 raids (12 8-man and 6 24-man) and has

9 more coming this June (6 8-man and 3 24-man)? In addition, it also has 12 NEW 4-man dungeons coming in June with another 6 slated for release throughout the remainder of the year. And this is just for the raid/dungeon group content.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Wayshuba

[casirabit]

If you don't play as a Jedi parading a sith obsessed with getting light 5 or something then YES you will wan to kill him, he betrayed you picking his "job" over his loyalty to you after making that big talk about loyalty on balmora

 

He'll the only thing that makes less sense is quinnmancers

 

 

Now real talk, is this thing going to be a full fleged game expansion like Kotef/Kotet or a "side along" thing like the ilium storyline?

 

Actually the only Sith that has any history with Quinn is the Sith Warrior. The Sith Inquistor has no history, the agent, the bounty hunter has no history, not counting the Republic characters, so the one that would have a reason to kill him is the Warrior because of the history. Now if you are a roleplayer you would not let you OOC knowledge influence you on the other characters and just kill him because of that knowledge. The warrior yea the rest no.

[casirabit]

Yeah, either Quinn or Elara which is fine but I don't recall them saying future companions would return in a similar 'pick a side' fashion. All I remember is Charles' saying that if you as a Republic player choose the Empire in 5.2 then a guy such as Felix Iresso would find issue with that once he himself returns, and that has me a little concerned.

 

Guess I'll be putting my Jedi Knight on ice until there's further clarification on that matter. The way I play her right now I wish to throw her in with the Empire but not at the expense of Scourge, ever.

 

My consular would 99% of the time choose the Republic so the romance she has with Iresso would remain in tact with that one. My smuggler well that is different but considering she has a romance with Koth, Corso would be angry anyways (lol).

 

But I tend to do them one at a time and space apart. I still have quite a few to level and go through the new chapters. I have actually only taken 2 of my 13 through the chapters, my smuggler-she chose light and my sorceress -she chose dark. The rest I taking my time.

[Jerba]

I missed the livestream due to school, so I might have missed this, but is the story on Iokath going to end like Oricon, where after doing the solo content, you hit the "You need to group up to finish this" wall, or is it like the end of SoR, where you can either do solo stuff, or an operation to finish the story? Or something else entirely?

Don't worry, you can complete the story quest for the daily area without having to do the Operation. There will be a separate story for the Operation which ties into the daily area story, but if you don't do the Operation, you won't have a quest forever stuck in your log.

[AscendingSky]

You comment makes me think of something that was said to me from a business manager once over 20 years ago.

 

"You don't decide to finally start running in a marathon at mile 5 when the leader is one mile from the finish line." What he was referring to is once you fall too far behind your competition, it is too late.

 

It is obvious from this stream (and the looks on their faces the whole stream), they are in panic mode. Very wrong decisions were made over the last two years (and the teeth kicking they decided to give a good portion of their paying customers with this GC system) and now, they are at mile 5 deciding it is time to run, whereas many of their competitors are at Mile 25 with a mile left to go.

 

They announce the START of a new Op in April with the rest probably coming every 60 days until the end of the year. One of their competitors has 9 NEW raids dropping in June, along with 12 NEW dungeons (which will bring the in game total to 59 dungeons). SWTOR players are going to get ONE Op and ONE daily area.

 

It's not a case of too little too late, it is a case of it's just too late. Seriously, if you are a raider, would you rather wait on a trickle of one raid over a year or move to a game that currently has 18 raids (12 8-man and 6 24-man) and has

9 more coming this June (6 8-man and 3 24-man)? In addition, it also has 12 NEW 4-man dungeons coming in June with another 6 slated for release throughout the remainder of the year. And this is just for the raid/dungeon group content.

 

Very well said! You hit the nail right on the head as far as I'm concerned. I got the same impression from watching the livestream as well. In particular, I watched Ben's face fall as more and more people posted negative comments about his baby, Galactic Command. He doesn't want to take the hit to the pride and admit his baby is a failure.

 

EAWare could repair so much damage right now by declaring they're going back to the 4.0 gearing methodology, while keeping the RNG loot boxes from GC as a supplement. People would adore GC then, because it would be some extra frosting on top of a tasty cake instead of a main course of stale porridge!

Edited January 27, 2017 by AscendingSky

[Resputin]

Very well said! You hit the nail right on the head as far as I'm concerned. I got the same impression from watching the livestream as well. In particular, I watched Ben's face fall as more and more people posted negative comments about his baby, Galactic Command. He doesn't want to take the hit to the pride and admit his baby is a failure.

 

EAWare could repair so much damage right now by declaring they're going back to the 4.0 gearing methodology, while keeping the RNG loot boxes from GC as a supplement. People would adore GC then, because it would be some extra frosting on top of a tasty cake instead of a main course of stale porridge!

 

I am not sure what competitor you are comparing swtor with but is it safe to assume that you get all this content you listed for free with a sub? Because I would love to know that game and be able to get that much content with a $15 dollars a month. My guess is the new content is going to be $20-50 extra. So you cant compare it. Obvious swtor doesn't think they can make enough money with producing a full expansion were players would have to pay on top of their sub. If they did they would of did it already. So with your base subscription you should expect the content that is already in the game and 1-2 updates a year.

[Jepac]

You know not *everyone* is gonna kill Quinn, ya?

 

I swear, if they force me to kill Quinn I will learn to time travel just so my ghost can come back to 2017 to haunt the devs He's my second favorite love interest after Vector, and getting him back is a good enough reason to keep my subscription going even if I've given up on on most of the gameplay. (I... just don't get this galactic command thing. At all.) Oh, just did a quick check on archive of our own -- Quinn has twice as many stories as the second most popular male LI. I really hope they know bettter than to mess with the Quinnmancers

 

And now to start hoping for Vector back too...

[Nireesh]

I for one am pretty happy by the livestream announcements. Looking forward to having Elara back at last and Ops on its way is excellent. Still, I'd love to see some more stuff like GSF content in particular.

 

Oh and I like the idea of the new daily area.

[TUXs]

It's just a way to string along subs with minimal work. That's all. It's very sad.

I agree DanNV. It's a delay tactic...nothing more.

[SithKoriandr]

I swear, if they force me to kill Quinn I will learn to time travel just so my ghost can come back to 2017 to haunt the devs He's my second favorite love interest after Vector, and getting him back is a good enough reason to keep my subscription going even if I've given up on on most of the gameplay. (I... just don't get this galactic command thing. At all.) Oh, just did a quick check on archive of our own -- Quinn has twice as many stories as the second most popular male LI. I really hope they know bettter than to mess with the Quinnmancers

 

And now to start hoping for Vector back too...

 

I feel, if the devs are crafty, they'll make it, the only way you can kill Quinn, is if you choose Rep side. Imagine the feels!