SWTOR Autumn Roadmap 2017

[Shwarzchild]

Interesting.

 

New GSF map - absolutely awesome

 

Consolidate servers - seems appropriate

 

Legacy currency - finally

 

Legacy Unassembleds - much better

 

Upgraded CXP gain - seems legit. Don't know if it will accomplish what it's mean to solve but willing to see.

 

Adding additional slot to the crate - Misses the mark. Adding an additional one slot, 5 slots, 10 slots mean nothing when the true issue relates to the drop rates of the items in question, or the problem with duplicates. This is where I get slightly peeved. I don't understand why there's so much reluctance to just do what's necessary here with galactic command. Increase the drop rates. Period. The previous changes were good in the removal of green gear (even if we told them on the PTS that having green gear and even blue gear was a total mistake. Only took em so long to finally agree.) Including set bonus on blue gear and up is a good thing. But still, the main problem is the drop rate, and figure out how to lower the amount of duplicates you gain somehow. I do admit that switching the disintegrate reward from CXP to Unassembled Components may in fact solve this issue...depending on the amount of assembled components received.

 

This is good and bad I guess...Raid Bosses I'm glad we're getting new ones. That's always fun. However, we've gone from end of year to next year in terms of release date. I'm not super upset though. From what I've seen groups are still on Tyth HM, and A and E is a really fun little fight. So, I have high hopes for the quality of the remaining bosses. They've done well so far with these encounters.

 

Temple comes back. - This is good, but I'm dreading how she comes back. No companion returning has had any true comeback I'd say. They've all been really really poor. I did like Elara's return however it was far too short. At least she didn't return in some ridiculous alliance alert I guess. Here's hoping Temple gets an actual fully fleshed out return.

 

New flashpoint - Awesome. I'm always good with new flashpoints. Always been some of my favorite pieces of content in the game.

 

New PVP map - Cool.

 

Group finder revamp - Was this really necessary?

 

Story completion - I dunno. I think Theron betraying us was and is a bad piece of writing. Much like Scorpio and the Agent in regards to the entire knights expansion. Their motivations aren't there to do what they've done. I hope that the traitor quest line will give good reason for the betrayal and take it from the "You do realize Scorpio wouldn't actually do anything of what you're having her do especially if you're an agent" to "Oh ok that's good, makes sense, and is pretty cool."

 

Upgrading Conquest - Yes yes and yes.

 

Total Content Received - 1 Pvp map, 1 GSF map, 1 flashpoint, 1 raid boss. Not exactly enough per se when looking at in general. However, I think they're heavily focused on a) providing us a better community and b) providing us a galactic command that works. I still disagree that galactic command should be a thing or really taking up this much development time and resources simply trying to fix it over and over again. I do think that what's coming sounds pretty good and gets us through the new year in a decent place

 

Forgive me though if I don't hit my resub button just yet. The level of playable content received still needs to rise, companions need to return in meaningful ways, and the quality of life things described need to be seen in action first.

[Darth_Orias]

A better way to deal with overlapping character names needs to be implemented. It is bad enough that roleplay servers are being merged with PvE ones, but the fact that another round of forced name changes is inevitable only adds to the issue. Is it possible to go off the combination of character name and Legacy name?

[SebastiaanZ]

While initially annoyed and disappointed (see my previous post), once i read more carefully I am getting more happy. A lot of good improvements I have to admit.

[Darthanimus]

Who wins in this scenario:

 

1) Two characters both named Bob;

2) The first Bob is on Bastion, the second Bob is on Harbinger

3) Both are level 70, well geared and often played

4) Both of Bob's owners like Bob's name which they've had for years.

 

When the Hot Prospect (where the heck did you come up with that name?) goes live, how do you decide who's character stays Bob and who is ticked off and ready to quit the game?

 

probably by the most hours played..that is fair in my opinion. Plus I would rather spats over names and the aforementioned changes going ahead than no changes being made to the game.

[CrazyCT]

My guess is Bob created in 2015 gets priority over Bob created in 2016.

 

What if Bob created in 2015 has 10 hours of played time, and Bob created in 2016 has 100 hours of played time?

[SolarSaenz]

I am remaining cautiously optimistic.

It's nice to hear about some new pvp maps and something new for GSF.

 

It's great that Darth Hexid will be available.

Will that be for just a limited amount of time, or will she be available via achievements from 5.6 until the game officially closes?

 

I like that UCs are becoming a legacy currency and that we will have a legacy bank. YaY!!!

 

I like that Ensign Raina Temple returns! Yay! I might level up an IA and romance Temple just for this.

 

Oh, yeah and server mergers are happening. I guess that makes a lot of people happy. I personally never cared much for it myself, except that maybe some people want to be on less populated servers. But, that doesn't really affect me.

I'll say this.

They better not mess up anything, and I better not lose anything.

Seriously, like the day before the servers go offline to implement "United Forces Formation", I am taking screenshots of EVERYTHING on ALL my characters. If I lose ANYTHING, I'm going to be like a "drip drip drip" of a leaky faucet into the ears of BW/EA customer service.

 

I DO NOT like that GC/CXP/RNG is staying with us

Yes. There are improvements. But, still.....

 

I am happy there is new stuff coming out (FP, WZ, GSF), but their quality has me concerned especially given how the Umbarra FP, Iokath daily area, and the Odessen WZ turned out.

If the new FP is as lukewarm as Umbarra, my attitude will be "BW, you can keep this one"

 

There's a lot of small stuff, which to be fair, is nice. After all, it's the little things that count, right?

 

I am disappointing that BW was unable to fully release an entire operation in one year. It's not so much that I want to do all 5 bosses. Them being unable to release a full op in a year just painfully suggests a lack of resources. And, that "suggested lack of resources" is what continues to concern me.

 

Honestly, I don't know what to think about this roadmap. I'm staying subscribed; that's for sure. I'm staying subscribed for the 1.x - 3x. content though.

 

I have no doubt Keith is doing the best he can though. Thanks for the roadmap, Keith.

Edited October 2, 2017 by SolarSaenz

[Eli_Porter]

What if Bob created in 2015 has 10 hours of played time, and Bob created in 2016 has 100 hours of played time?

 

Traditionally, names have been on a first-come-first-served basis. I don't see why that should change.

[CrazyCT]

Traditionally, names have been on a first-come-first-served basis. I don't see why that should change.

 

Bit unfair if Bob 1 is a fringe character, and Bob 2 is a main character

 

EDIT: going the other way, though - It'd be unfair if someone created a character in 2015, and someone created one in 2017, and because there was a couple of minutes extra played time on the newer character, they get the name. Gonna be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth either way.

Edited October 2, 2017 by CrazyCT

[Master-Nala]

My guess is Bob created in 2015 gets priority over Bob created in 2016.

 

That could be, but there are other tie breakers. Let's say 2016 Bob has 2500 hours played and 2015 Bob, although well loved, is an alt and has 1500 hours played. It's possible they could pick 2016 Bob in that instance.

 

I just want to know the rules. The vast majority of my characters, I don't care about losing their name. But there are a couple I would be willing to quit the game over. My main Sage, who was created on the first day of early access is probably safe. But the others have me worried.

[SteveTheCynic]

My guess is Bob created in 2015 gets priority over Bob created in 2016.

And if they were both created on the same day in the same year, the one who logs in first gets it. Almost certainly. (Not necessarily: the creation timestamp could be down to the millisecond. Or it could be based on character serial number, or something.) And that reminds me, I must log in to a couple of characters and level them a bit, to prevent them being under level 10...)

[serenitty]

Totally hear you on this, and it is a fair concern. We are looking at two numbers to potentially increase. First, maximum chars allowed per server (currently 52) and the amount of "default" char slots a sub has (currently 12). Hoping to have some locked down details to share in the next couple of weeks, with the ultimate goal of largely alleviating the issue you presented above.

 

-eric

Ok, thank you. I hope so because I really don't want to lose that many toons just to make one.

I have DvL armour on a few different servers, only 5 pcs per server. Will they be allowed or removed so I only get to keep one lot?

Edited October 2, 2017 by serenitty

[sangwine]

Please don't take away my character names! I have many roleplaying names on EH and when I tried to make characters on different servers I saw they were taken there, but those characters are important for my roleplay story! I don't want to rename them because someone else thought of the same name somewhere else and happened to play it more because I have a job and don't manage to log in as much as they might! Please!

[JattaGin]

Very well written, Keith. I thought your phrasing would make hating hard, but of course we have many hateful pros on this board. Dulfys and Reddit will probably be even worse. They claim over there that here are only white knights and fanbois.

 

Anyway, to me this sounds all quite interesting and if it really works out as described, I think that this can actually become a good thing.

 

One request:

 

I would like you reconsider the new names for the servers. Star Forge and Leviathan are the only ones that sound appealing to me. Maybe you could make a poll and let the players vote? Like, give 3 name options per server or so? I really don't want to play on Darth Malgus.

[Tsillah]

I DO NOT like that GC/CXP/RNG is staying with us

Yes. There are improvements. But, still.....

The improvement that caught my eye is where disintegrating items from crates will give UCs instead of CXP. That is something that will counter the RNG aspect. How much I don't know yet but it's the type of thing that will make a difference.

[Master-Nala]

probably by the most hours played..that is fair in my opinion. Plus I would rather spats over names and the aforementioned changes going ahead than no changes being made to the game.

 

My preference is that they look for a solution that allows people to keep their name. Even if that meant appending a unique identifier under their name.

 

Something like:

 

Bob

@Harbinger <- This could be tiny, so long as it's visible for communication purposes

The Skywalker Legacy

 

Bob

@ Bastion

The Amidala Legacy

[undies]

Eric - is there any way possible that we can understand the population breakout of the merged servers by percentage? I would like to make sure I have my characters in the most populated server, post-merge, as possible.

[darthscotty]

I have been as opposed to server merges as anybody, I can live with this as a solution. Overall I am really pleased with what I saw, nothing really stands out to me as being horrible. With all of these changes to the game I can live with very little story content being delivered. The devs have done what needed to be done to help the overall health of the game. I was thinking about unsubbing, now I am going to make sure my sub stays current. I might loose a few names but I can deal with that. Overall, well done to all of the Devs. Keith you have earned Musco brining you in doughnuts of your choice.

[Preminous]

Eric, hopefully you can help me out on this. The language states:

 

"Legacy Perk – For each character that reaches Command Rank 300, we will automatically add an additional 25% bonus CXP to your entire Legacy up to a maximum of 100%. You do need to purchase the initial 25% perk, but the additional 75% will be free. And, YES, this Perk is retroactive, so you will immediately benefit once we deliver United Forces Foundation."

 

Does this mean if I get three characters + purchase the perk, I get +100% CXP? Or do I have to have 4 to get the +100% CXP?

 

Thanks!

[damonskye]

How utterly... disappointing.

 

Server merges are great, but they're not content. Quality of life items are great, but not content.

 

When BioWare talked about their "return to BioWare story-driven games" I was very excited, because you guys invested in CONTENT. Maybe it was content on rails, maybe it was rather dull to repeat the umpteenth time, but it was still hours and hours of something to do. I enjoyed KOTFE. I enjoyed KOTET, too, although I prefered the nine chapters of KOTFE released and then the month-to-month something-to-look-forward-to approach.

 

You guys didn't give me anything today.

 

I logged in for Crisis on Umbara and finished the story in about an hour. Would have been 30 minutes, but that flashpoint had some issues. I wasn't inspired to continue after that.

 

I took advantage of the massive CXP "bug" for a few days, raising my top character from somewhere around CXP 40 to about 110 or so. But even after that... it was still old stuff I'd done a million times in the past.

 

Quality of life items and server merges and the promise of one Op boss in operations I've not seen because the Op group finder *never pops* is not content for me. A new PVP map isn't content for *me*. I wanted content. I want another season of narrated stories that I participate in, not one or two forgettable flashpoints with our 'traitor' and Lana.

 

Agree or disagree, it's fine... I've played this game since beta, I played all the content for each expansion repeatedly, I've done all the dailies, I've played in every warzone. I wanted more story, some more fun things to do that didn't involve having to do Yavin or Iokath or Rishi dailies to artificially raise my character's gear in an endgame that to be perfectly honest doesn't even matter anymore.

 

Fail.

[ultimarb]

you want to look through here, the info for this is about half way down:

 

http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20171002

 

Thank you

[TUXs]

Interesting.

 

New GSF map - absolutely awesome

 

Consolidate servers - seems appropriate

 

Legacy currency - finally

 

Legacy Unassembleds - much better

 

Upgraded CXP gain - seems legit. Don't know if it will accomplish what it's mean to solve but willing to see.

 

Adding additional slot to the crate - Misses the mark. Adding an additional one slot, 5 slots, 10 slots mean nothing when the true issue relates to the drop rates of the items in question, or the problem with duplicates. This is where I get slightly peeved. I don't understand why there's so much reluctance to just do what's necessary here with galactic command. Increase the drop rates. Period. The previous changes were good in the removal of green gear (even if we told them on the PTS that having green gear and even blue gear was a total mistake. Only took em so long to finally agree.) Including set bonus on blue gear and up is a good thing. But still, the main problem is the drop rate, and figure out how to lower the amount of duplicates you gain somehow. I do admit that switching the disintegrate reward from CXP to Unassembled Components may in fact solve this issue...depending on the amount of assembled components received.

 

This is good and bad I guess...Raid Bosses I'm glad we're getting new ones. That's always fun. However, we've gone from end of year to next year in terms of release date. I'm not super upset though. From what I've seen groups are still on Tyth HM, and A and E is a really fun little fight. So, I have high hopes for the quality of the remaining bosses. They've done well so far with these encounters.

 

Temple comes back. - This is good, but I'm dreading how she comes back. No companion returning has had any true comeback I'd say. They've all been really really poor. I did like Elara's return however it was far too short. At least she didn't return in some ridiculous alliance alert I guess. Here's hoping Temple gets an actual fully fleshed out return.

 

New flashpoint - Awesome. I'm always good with new flashpoints. Always been some of my favorite pieces of content in the game.

 

New PVP map - Cool.

 

Group finder revamp - Was this really necessary?

 

Story completion - I dunno. I think Theron betraying us was and is a bad piece of writing. Much like Scorpio and the Agent in regards to the entire knights expansion. Their motivations aren't there to do what they've done. I hope that the traitor quest line will give good reason for the betrayal and take it from the "You do realize Scorpio wouldn't actually do anything of what you're having her do especially if you're an agent" to "Oh ok that's good, makes sense, and is pretty cool."

 

Upgrading Conquest - Yes yes and yes.

 

Total Content Received - 1 Pvp map, 1 GSF map, 1 flashpoint, 1 raid boss. Not exactly enough per se when looking at in general. However, I think they're heavily focused on a) providing us a better community and b) providing us a galactic command that works. I still disagree that galactic command should be a thing or really taking up this much development time and resources simply trying to fix it over and over again. I do think that what's coming sounds pretty good and gets us through the new year in a decent place

 

Forgive me though if I don't hit my resub button just yet. The level of playable content received still needs to rise, companions need to return in meaningful ways, and the quality of life things described need to be seen in action first.

Just wanted to say, I really liked this "summary"...it's exactly how I'm feeling. A LOT of great and cool things, but clearly lacking on group stuff...

[Memoti]

Fantastic. The team is addressing multiple issues that the community has been voicing for a long time now, the biggest being the low population servers. This, hopefully, will quell that. There are some great changes listed, and I look forward to seeing them implemented. I wish more companions were slated to return, and I do hope that there is going to be more to some of the story content other than just flashpoints. I would love to have a reason to use my ship again. There are times I'll board my, now empty, ship and fly to a planet just because it's such a novelty now, and remember when I had companions that populated the ship, with an annoying protocol droid that I, on occasion, wanted to blast out an airlock. New planets/missions/quests/dailies, etc...something that isn't a flashpoint, but that has purpose or adds to the story would be a nice bonus. But I'll just have to wait and see what they deliver. "A" rating overall, and here hoping for a smooth rollout of the features. Thanks to Eric & the team for the communique and keep the information coming!

[Quraswren]

While interesting.

 

That still the next TWO MONTHS with no NEW content.

 

Then after two months of no new content what we do get isn't what one would call "a lot":

 

NAHUT - The 3rd Boss Encounter for Gods from the Machine Operation

New Flashpoint on Copero – Find out what Theron’s been up to with the Chiss

New PvP map

New GSF Map set in the Orbit above Iokath

 

Thats the new content for the next 3 months. Two of which gives nothing.

 

bioware being unable to finish one entire OPS this year seems about par for the course though as most of us knew you couldn't keep that bogus statement when you made it but thats a pretty big disappointment to learn none the less.

 

GC and crates will still be garbage and no matter how many slots you add, your weighted gearing RNG system is broke in more ways then one. Thats not a positive no matter how you spin extra slots.

 

While you seem to be makeing some positive points with server mergers and some QoL features, it's content that drives the players and the game. Repeatable content at that with good reason to repeat it. There isn't enough of that in the next 3 months.

 

How do you tell your guild menbers that are holdin on by a thread. "HEy. There is nothing coming for TWO more months and when we do get something it wont be a completed OPS - Just one more boss combined with one FP and two PVP areas (gsf and warzones).

 

I commend you for your effort and it brings some nice QoL features with a small amount of new content but you really will need to do better to get this game on the positive side of things.

Edited October 2, 2017 by Quraswren

[SolarSaenz]

The improvement that caught my eye is where disintegrating items from crates will give UCs instead of CXP. That is something that will counter the RNG aspect. How much I don't know yet but it's the type of thing that will make a difference.

 

I'll admit, from a realist point of view that says GC is here to stay, its fine.

 

From not realist point of view, BW/EA just can't admit when they are wrong and keep "tweaking a bad system." I don't like that.

[EricMusco]

Eric, hopefully you can help me out on this. The language states:

 

"Legacy Perk – For each character that reaches Command Rank 300, we will automatically add an additional 25% bonus CXP to your entire Legacy up to a maximum of 100%. You do need to purchase the initial 25% perk, but the additional 75% will be free. And, YES, this Perk is retroactive, so you will immediately benefit once we deliver United Forces Foundation."

 

Does this mean if I get three characters + purchase the perk, I get +100% CXP? Or do I have to have 4 to get the +100% CXP?

 

Thanks!

 

Basically, there is a new perk that you can purchase. That perk increases the CXP you earn in your Legacy by 25-100%. What the % is, is determined by how many CR 300 characters you have. My understanding is that you need 4 characters at 300 for the 100%, but I will verify.

 

-eric