SWTOR Autumn Roadmap 2017

[Nefla]

Looks like solo/story players really have been dumped in favor of group combat stuff only.

[daveOreally]

Soooooo does this mean in 2018 we might get actual solo content? Like, oh I don't know, new classes or solo class story lines? Because not for nothing but this has been asked for for the past few years. So, seriously all this stuff is ice and all but I'm not seeing a whole heck of a lot to really be 'excited' about.

[Toraak]

Soooooo does this mean in 2018 we might get actual solo content? Like, oh I don't know, new classes or solo class story lines? Because not for nothing but this has been asked for for the past few years. So, seriously all this stuff is ice and all but I'm not seeing a whole heck of a lot to really be 'excited' about.

 

last few years? What do you think Solo players have gotten since 4.0 hit? 2 full expansions dedicated to solo players. It's about time they got back to GROUP content. it was over 2+ years for a new Operation, and that 1 has only gotten us 2 bosses in this expansion so far. It's been I think 3+ years since GSF saw any new content, and I'm not even sure how long for ground PvP. Think the last ground map was either one of the arena's, or Proving grounds, and that has been awhile as well. In the meantime solo players got kotfe, kotet, iokath, umbara, the new FP coming in 5.6. Seems to me Solo players have gotten a ton more then Group content players.

[daveOreally]

When I say solo storylines, I'm referring to class based story's not the cookie cutter-sometimes hit most of the times miss- crap that was the last two expansions.

[Toraak]

When I say solo storylines, I'm referring to class based story's not the cookie cutter-sometimes hit most of the times miss- crap that was the last two expansions.

 

Fair enough. Even I miss the old 8 seperate storylines. However Group content desperately needed content.

[kjarnage]

Both my server legacies are at 50 which legacy name do I get or can I keep both?

[DarthDymond]

When I say solo storylines, I'm referring to class based story's not the cookie cutter-sometimes hit most of the times miss- crap that was the last two expansions.

In general, I'm a never-say-never type... but come on, realistically we are never getting class stories back. The past 5 1/2 years should have made that abundantly clear by now.

Edited October 3, 2017 by DarthDymond

[Nainitsuj]

Server has no effect on name collisions. Every character is moving to a brand-new server, there is no priority based on where you came from.

 

-eric

 

How will legacy surnames work? I understand they aren't unique and that the higher legacy takes precedence, but I have 2 max level legacies. When they're merged will I be able to pick my favorite?

[kjarnage]

Few guilds on the smaller servers will be competitive on the combined servers for conquest. Where once a smaller guild had a chance, now they might never make the top ten and have no reason to try. Conquest will become the playground for exclusively large guilds mostly on Ebon Hawk and Harbinger. Pity to guilds that moved away to be competitive.

 

Here is how to make conquest more competition. Open double or triple the planets each conquest. Expand the top ten to top 20. Have rotating special conquest planet objective strictly for guilds of each former server.

[JediBoadicea]

Few guilds on the smaller servers will be competitive on the combined servers for conquest. Where once a smaller guild had a chance, now they might never make the top ten and have no reason to try. Conquest will become the playground for exclusively large guilds mostly on Ebon Hawk and Harbinger. Pity to guilds that moved away to be competitive.

 

Here is how to make conquest more competition. Open double or triple the planets each conquest. Expand the top ten to top 20. Have rotating special conquest planet objective strictly for guilds of each former server.

 

I hope something like what the above suggests is being considered in the "upgraded new Conquest system" alluded to in the road map. My small but plucky and devoted little guild on Begeren can kiss goodbye the idea of ever even making it onto the board again, once we are devoured by Harbinger. I'm sure ours is far from the only one in this boat.

[Juliani]

I have two questions regarding names and guild assets:

 

- Will there be any "guild merges", or at least will CS be able to give a refund to guild unlocks (Flagship, Stronghold and guild bank)?

Many guilds had to move to another server due to low server populations. The guilds where not transferred, and we had to purchase everything again on the new server. With this merge, we will have the two guilds on the same server, it would be very nice to be able to merge the new and old guilds, or at least get a credit refund for the unlocks upon disbanding one of the duplicate guilds.

 

- Many players had to change character names when moved to another server, and many times due to a character that was created and abandoned on the destiny server. The proposed priority system for name conflicts seems very good, but could we get a chance to get old names backs after this name purge, with free renames or at least a rename sale on the Cartel Market before the great merge?

[CrazyScruffy]

I have two questions regarding names and guild assets:

 

- Will there be any "guild merges", or at least will CS be able to give a refund to guild unlocks (Flagship, Stronghold and guild bank)?

Many guilds had to move to another server due to low server populations. The guilds where not transferred, and we had to purchase everything again on the new server. With this merge, we will have the two guilds on the same server, it would be very nice to be able to merge the new and old guilds, or at least get a credit refund for the unlocks upon disbanding one of the duplicate guilds.

 

- Many players had to change character names when moved to another server, and many times due to a character that was created and abandoned on the destiny server. The proposed priority system for name conflicts seems very good, but could we get a chance to get old names backs after this name purge, with free renames or at least a rename sale on the Cartel Market before the great merge?

 

no there will not be a refund for unlocks that you paid for twice. However the guilds transferred will retain all members, decos, SHs and such. you chose to move your guild and pay for things twice, and that is not going to change things

[JediBoadicea]

Character Names

 

In most cases, nothing will happen to your character name. Names will only be impacted when there are two of the exact same name on the new United Forces server at which point a governing system determines which character has priority:

 

Premium players (Subscribers) will have priority over Free-to-Play and Preferred Status players.

Highly played characters will have priority over characters with less play time.

 

To proactively offset unnecessary challenges around character names, we are initiating a process of removing names from long inactive accounts. Any character that has not logged in for 90-days or more which has not progressed beyond level 10 will be flagged to rename their character.

 

The above is quoted from the United Forces blog post, linked to from the road map.

 

I hope the name purge is going to be a lot more robust than the very specific and narrow subset of only avatars that have both not logged in for 90 days and are also not yet level 10. What about, say, a level 36 that hasn't been logged in for two years? Surely that name ought to be released?

 

Additionally, I would hope there are more parameters going into name prioritization than just Subscribers vs. F2P and play time. What about the date on which a character was created? What about consistency of subscription?

 

For example, I know that the names of at least three of my characters (somehow, in some crazy bad luck crap dice roll of chance) on BC are already taken on Harbinger, and while I'm hoping the other parameters might work in my favor, I am admittedly going to be pretty livid if I lose them, speaking as someone who subscribed during beta and whose subscription has never once lapsed in almost six years.

 

Someone earlier in the thread also suggested a neat trick like adding @ServerX to the character name with the option to hide that portion of it. Don't know how feasible that is, but hey, if it works, I'm all for it.

 

It would also really help to know when this purge is going to happen. Is it happening simultaneous with the merge? Or is it happening at some point before the merge?

[CrazyScruffy]

The above is quoted from the United Forces blog post, linked to from the road map.

 

I hope the name purge is going to be a lot more robust than the very specific and narrow subset of only avatars that have both not logged in for 90 days and are also not yet level 10. What about, say, a level 36 that hasn't been logged in for two years? Surely that name ought to be released?

 

Additionally, I would hope there are more parameters going into name prioritization than just Subscribers vs. F2P and play time. What about the date on which a character was created? What about consistency of subscription?

 

For example, I know that the names of at least three of my characters (somehow, in some crazy bad luck crap dice roll of chance) on BC are already taken on Harbinger, and while I'm hoping the other parameters might work in my favor, I am admittedly going to be pretty livid if I lose them, speaking as someone who subscribed during beta and whose subscription has never once lapsed in almost six years.

 

Someone earlier in the thread also suggested a neat trick like adding @ServerX to the character name with the option to hide that portion of it. Don't know how feasible that is, but hey, if it works, I'm all for it.

 

It would also really help to know when this purge is going to happen. Is it happening simultaneous with the merge? Or is it happening at some point before the merge?

 

sounds like what is happening is that the purge will be during the merge. and all for legacy linked toon names. not server linked

[CrazyScruffy]

As for the specific server mergers, if you look you will see West Coast and East coast servers are being merged with each other. While RP players may be mad, at the moment, it was the logical way to go with time zones being a thing. The idea of an RP instance is a good idea. but doesn't make sense to attack the devs because they didn't mix RP with RP, PVE with PVE and etc and etc. Think logically and everything makes sense

[CrazyScruffy]

Both my server legacies are at 50 which legacy name do I get or can I keep both?

 

NO you will have one, and the deciding factor will go down between what one is older, and then two what has more achievements. (however the achievements will be shared when they get merged) hopefully that answers yours and everyone else's questions regarding the two Legacies

[MaximusRex]

Server merger plans are terrible. Mergers aren't going to do anything at all to help the majority of players, as queue pops are based on having the right mix of people queueing more then just raw population, and most players are already on well populated servers. Server mergers won't fix too many DPS vs Tanks and Healers, Server mergers won't make PvPers queueing evenly divisible by 4 per faction, leaving the odd players sitting waiting in queue, Server mergers won't fix the terrible flight controls and balance issues for GSF that make it too difficult to get into.

 

The Hot Prospect is the most terrible server name ever.

 

Not fixing the character names issues and screwing players over for a third time is not acceptable in any way especially since BioWare is the only one who will benefit from server mergers by paying for less servers. To make matter worse, they are still keeping 5 servers, leaving the possibility open to screwing with player names again in the future. In over 2 decades of online gaming I have never encountered a company that has messed with player names as much as BioWare has.

 

The systems for deciding who gets to keep a name are also terrible. It shouldn't be based on time played at all, it should be based on how long the player has been subbed, how many cartel coins they've purchased, and if their character has ever had their name forced changed in the past due to server mergers.

[Suzsi]

Really could use some definitive answers on character slots --

 

I have characters on both Harbinger and Beregen Colony. Those two merged together is going to increase my character number above my current limit of 28 -- to something like 30 or so. ( 8 characters on Harbinger, 22 on Bergen Colony )

 

The reason I had these characters on two separate servers was so that my main server ( Beregen Colony ) I still had spaces to create new characters on ( every so often I save up my monthly CC or purchase extra coins for character slots ). That careful balance act of always being able to create a new char on my main server is going to be ruined by this merge. It's a big concern so something concrete about cap increases and slot increases would be nice.

 

And please do something about that server name! Hot Prospect is NOT a prospective server name I even want to be on.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Suzsi

[Krazhez]

HI Musco/Keith/Charles: so I have two 50 legacies, one on JC, the other on Shadowlands; my Shadowlands legacy being the most played by far. What will happen to my legacy name? will it stay the same? or will it be overwritten by my JC because it's "older"?

 

 

I have the same question.

[Deewe]

Server merge is welcomed though way overdue.

Content looks very thin, unless you intend to publish the same kind of updates each 2-3 months

All in all people might come back for a month of play time, two if you are lucky.

 

Couple of comments:

 

Legacy currency doesn't look that appealing and a half baked solution.

We need a shared walled so we don't have to:

1. Go to legacy bank to drop creds in bank for sharing
   
2. Wile playing an alt : go back to legacy bank to retrieve said credits to buy stuff from vendors, GTN or email it to friends
   

 

PvP will still be hindered by the STUNS

Afraid PvP balance will still be done on the wrong foot and will hinder PvE gameplay

242 still not enough for PvP. Hopefully at some point you'll get PvP is about skill, not grind.

 

Was already very much bored with one char at command rank 300...

BTW don't really welcome the augs grind at all either

 

Without speaking about content:

How about bug fixing like the preview window or the years old bugs of being stuck in combat and having weapons drawn out?

 

How about UI mods so we can finally have a decent UI to heal and have say chat bubbles or use emotes, toys and pets conveniently?

 

How about a one click report and ignore spammers account wide?

 

How about guild tools, especially calendars and mass mailing?

 

How about stacking gear of the same kind or identifying bound gear easily for better storage management?

 

How about fixing companions so they all fall within the same range (Companion Optimization, Gearing and Tips)?

 

How about letting us truly tweak the companions body and tag them with personalized nicknames so we don't play Clone Wars that much.

 

In regards of communications, if you are so certain about the PvP threshold how about sharing the target numbers so we can start having true conversations? When will you start to actually /discuss with your player base and listen the the detailed feedback?

 

You guys are maybe trying, though it really look like you don't have the budget to do so, nor the will to adjust to your player base requests.

[uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu]

I'm a solo player and honestly I think they should just go full on with group content and I can just unsub (not really my cup of tea, the group stuff)

 

I say this because really they ruined the story with KOTFE anyways. It's been utter garbage since then and I don't see that changing no matter how much they focus on story content. They've fouled it up. No going back now. Why spend resources trying to breathe life into a dead story when they could be focusing on group content. It's almost impossible to screw that up. I mean, I'd of liked to see Kira's and one or two more companion's returns but oh well. Companion returns were LITERALLY the only thing that interested me about any of this god-awful story. And they failed terribly at delivering there anyways mostly. I kinda wish they'd just give us ONE more big story event. Finish out this Theron stuff and give the story an ending then call it a day for story content. Honestly if they'd called KOTET the official end of the story I'd have been fine with it. People only get annoyed about losing a good story after all

Edited October 3, 2017 by uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Krazhez]

The hot prospect,... Really your taking one of the better named more active servers and you giving a name suitable for a Strip club. I really hope you'll change that now before you finalize it

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hot_Prospect but yeah, I hate it too.

 

I have completely decorated strongholds on 2 servers. They're obviously not decorated 100% exactly the same. Which of my decorated strongholds will take precedence? Maybe pick everything up in 1 before the merge?

 

"Active Strongholds will be unaffected by the United Forces update. If you have Strongholds from more than one Legacy coming together, both will be added to your list. If you have more than one of a specific Stronghold (such as multiple Coruscant Apartments), they will both be retained and accessible. If the combination of the two Strongholds takes you above the cap of six, they will all be retained. However, you cannot activate new Strongholds until you return to a number below the cap.

 

Decorations are not impacted by the United Forces update. If you have more than one Legacy which are combined as part of the update, you will have access to each decoration equal to the highest decoration among your Legacies. Ex: On the “Skywalker” Legacy you have 4 Basic Metal Chairs, on the Organa Legacy you have 15 Basic Metal Chairs. After the update, you will have a combined Legacy with 15 Basic Metal Chairs. It is possible that you may end up with more decorations placed than you own after the update. If this happens, you cannot place any more of that decoration until you go below your owned value."

[Pyrami]

Sorry if I missed the answer to this, but I'd like to know: If my toon is level 70 and geared, will that affect whether or not my toon's name takes priority in the transfer?

 

I made sure to own the names for my two most important toon on most servers in my specific merge.

With the exception of one or two who took the name, I basically own the same name on most servers.

 

The highest level toon in the name I want is in the 20s, while mine is 70.

 

Am I going to keep my names? Is there a way to tell how often they have been playing that toon?

 

I know based on numbers its likely that I've played longer with that specific toon name, but I want to be absolutely sure on this. I've put a lot of work into my toons both in and out of game, and I would be crushed if I didn't get to keep their names.

[casirabit]

Sorry if I missed the answer to this, but I'd like to know: If my toon is level 70 and geared, will that affect whether or not my toon's name takes priority in the transfer?

 

I made sure to own the names for my two most important toon on most servers in my specific merge.

With the exception of one or two who took the name, I basically own the same name on most servers.

 

The highest level toon in the name I want is in the 20s, while mine is 70.

 

Am I going to keep my names? Is there a way to tell how often they have been playing that toon?

 

I know based on numbers its likely that I've played longer with that specific toon name, but I want to be absolutely sure on this. I've put a lot of work into my toons both in and out of game, and I would be crushed if I didn't get to keep their names.

 

Character Names

In most cases, nothing will happen to your character name. Names will only be impacted when there are two of the exact same name on the new United Forces server at which point a governing system determines which character has priority:

 

Premium players (Subscribers) will have priority over Free-to-Play and Preferred Status players.

Highly played characters will have priority over characters with less play time.

To proactively offset unnecessary challenges around character names, we are initiating a process of removing names from long inactive accounts. Any character that has not logged in for 90-days or more which has not progressed beyond level 10 will be flagged to rename their character.

 

Basically there is no guarantee but if you are a sub and you play your character more often then the possibility of you keeping your name is fairly good unless the other player is a sub and has played her toon longer or your name is one that most would not think of.

[Pyrami]

Character Names

In most cases, nothing will happen to your character name. Names will only be impacted when there are two of the exact same name on the new United Forces server at which point a governing system determines which character has priority:

 

Premium players (Subscribers) will have priority over Free-to-Play and Preferred Status players.

Highly played characters will have priority over characters with less play time.

To proactively offset unnecessary challenges around character names, we are initiating a process of removing names from long inactive accounts. Any character that has not logged in for 90-days or more which has not progressed beyond level 10 will be flagged to rename their character.

 

Basically there is no guarantee but if you are a sub and you play your character more often then the possibility of you keeping your name is fairly good unless the other player is a sub and has played her toon longer or your name is one that most would not think of.

 

Ok so, is there any way to tell how long another player has played on that specific name? or when they last logged in? Because I did go from server to server in the list of the ones I'll be merged with to find out if my names were taken. I found 3 of them, but all offline and all not level capped.

 

If they've played longer than my character, even at their low level, they get the name?