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KeithKanneg

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Hey everyone,

 

It has been a while since I put out a post so I figured I would stop into the forums and get an update out to everyone. I’ll provide you with a brief update about what’s coming soon, but first and foremost want to address the issues we’ve been experiencing with our Tulak Hord server this past week. It’s being very stubborn and every time we think we have it nailed, it decides to kick some players from various areas in the game and won’t let them back in for a while. Not a great experience for anyone and I apologize we haven’t fixed it already. We believe it’s an intermittent hardware issue, making it difficult to isolate, so we’re rebuilding that server and will deploy a new one later tonight. We’re going to have to take the European servers down, but we’ll look to get it done while most of you are sleeping. We will let everyone know when we’ve completed the effort.

 

Let’s talk about Onslaught! Like many of you, I have been really enjoying the expansion and all the changes we made for gearing. I now have quite a few toons up to level 75 and virtually all of them are at Item Rating 306. I’m spending time changing stats of individual items, playing around with amplifiers, and seeing what changes will make me feel OP. What feels good is being able to play anything in the game and benefiting from the new gearing system. I also have read many comments over the past couple weeks about areas you’d like to see changed, and as you’ll see starting with next week’s patch, we are addressing them and will continue refinements over the coming months. Keep the posts coming as they’ve been very helpful to the team.

 

We are extremely pleased with the launch of the expansion. I don’t want to jinx it, but from the game standpoint, it has been very smooth with relatively minor issues all around (the Tulak Hord server being the exception). We fixed a number of bugs a week following the expansion and we have a number of additional bug fixes being released in next week’s patch likely on Thursday the 14th of November 2019. I know we usually release on Tuesday, but there’s a few items we want to include in this patch, so we gave the team an extra couple days. There is also a little surprise for everyone included with the patch, but we will let you know what’s up on Tuesday.

 

Patch 6.0.2 will be our last update for 2019 and we’ll target its availability mid-December. It’ll have additional bug fixes along with the following:

  • Life Day returns and has new items for you to enjoy.
  • It’s our 8th year anniversary, so the vendor will have some new items.
  • We’re adding new missions on Mek-Sha, including new heroics.
  • You’ll be able to recruit Tharan for your Consular and as he says, “It’s Tharan, not spelled the dumb way”.
  • Ranked Season 12 for our PvP players begins and winners from last season will get their well-deserved rewards.
  • Crafting changes – it begins! Yes, we’re taking a hard look at crafting and will make some adjustments starting with this patch.

 

We have Game Update 6.1 planned for early 2020 making its PTS debut in December. When we’re ready to have you take a look, I’ll share more details about the update and give you a glimpse into our future plans for SWTOR. Don’t forget Star Wars™ Celebration is planned for August and in Anaheim, California next year. We’re already making our plans to be there. Would be great to meet a bunch of you at the event! Thanks everyone for making Onslaught a success. Keep your thoughts, concerns, and ideas coming as those are an invaluable source of feedback for the team.

 

Happy Holidays,

 

Keith

Edited by EricMusco
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Top Posters In This Topic

  • Life Day returns and has new items for you to enjoy.
  • It’s our 8th year anniversary, so the vendor will have some new items.
  • We’re adding new missions on Mek-Sha, including new heroics.
  • You’ll be able to recruit Tharan for your Consular and as he says, “It’s Tharan, not spelled the dumb way”.
  • Ranked Season 12 for our PvP players begins and winners from last season will get their well-deserved rewards.
  • Crafting changes – it begins! Yes, we’re taking a hard look at crafting and will make some adjustments starting with this patch.

Thank you for all this, but especially for crafting changes and Tharan's return! Lots of us are enjoying many elements of 6.0, but others are a bit of struggle (*cough*crafting*cough*), so we really needed to hear some hopeful words about the outlook going forwards. :) Good luck fixing Tulak Horde.

Edited by Estelindis
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So when are the old operations going to be brought up to the new level cap?

 

I think I've reached the reasoning on this one.

 

1. New op being the only level capped content means more people will play the new OP, right???

 

2. Hey no boss scaling required for old ops because they're still level 70!

 

3. Now they can add all the new gear they want and only have one op to worry about scaling (or to become easier due to added gear).

 

See win win! More gear-for-content and less work for BW!

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So when are the old operations going to be brought up to the new level cap?

 

^This. It's true - you gave us a huge variety of mods to play with and minmaxing is a lot of fun. But level lock makes most of the decisions completely irrelevant and even actively hinders what many consider normal aspects of gearing (i.e. the Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault Relics are affected by the stat cap).

 

Overall great job tho, apart from level lock this might be my favorite expac so far :)

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Thank you for the update, I'm grateful crafting is planned to start being adjusted in mid-December for 6.0.2. I would love to hear what the team is thinking about regarding crafting ASAP. With respect, incremental changes in SWTOR have historically been very slow. So many things become over-nerfed only for it to take years for things to be adjusted. Much of the feedback you see now was already provided to you on PTS. Are you interested in engaging the community prior to mid-December to optimize the delivery of the crafting updates on that date?
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It's really great to see you checking in with us again, Keith, it's very much appreciated! I think it's also safe to assume that people appreciate the fact that you and the team are looking at changes for gearing and crafting, based on the feedback that you have heard here. I am curious to see what changes we'll see!

 

As to the updates you have mentioned, I have a suggestion that I really wanted to make, as I think it would really fit Onslaught and could be added retroactively.

 

Spoilers ahead, so for those who don't want to be spoiled, don't read beyond this line!

 

In Onslaught's story, after we are given the choice to rejoin our original faction or to remain independent, if we choose to rejoin the Empire or Republic our previous titles, positions and holdings are restored within the story. To players who have completed the class stories and have earned the class titles, this has no effect beyond the story. However, I think that this moment in the expansion's narrative is an excellent opportunity to put in a QoL improvement for instant level 60/70 characters or toons that had skipped their class story. Those toons namely, don't have any way to earn or get access to the class titles like Darth, Master, Lord and so on and so forth. This is naturally understandable, as those are titles that should be earned by playing the class story. Yet often, these instant 60/70 characters are made by seasoned players who have finished the class stories multiple times in the past. Especially roleplayers are very keen on making alternate toons of the same character, but one wields a single lightsaber for example and the other a double-bladed, but in their roleplay with others it's the same character.

 

What I would like to propose, is that instant level 60/70 characters or toons that skipped the class stories, will be granted the class titles for their class at the end of Onslaught if they have rejoined their old faction, under the condition that they have completed the class story they want the class title for at least once before. This could be tracked by ingame systems, by checking whether players have the Legacy achievements for completing the class stories. For example, a Sith Warrior will get the class titles for the Sith Warrior class, and only those for that specific instant level 60/70 toon, and only if they have the achievements for completing Chapter 1, 2 and 3 of the Sith Warrior class story. This way, it could be ensured that no one is being given anything for free and you don't get them by simply making an instant level 60/70 toon, as you have to clear all the content before the point where you'd get the class titles.

 

While Onslaught is still fresh, so to speak, it might be a good idea to retroactively add this as an afterthought QoL improvement for seasoned SWTOR players who have or make instant level 60/70 tokens. Naturally, if you have completed the Onslaught story already on such a character, you'd be given them retoactively still, because you technically did already put in the effort to clear all the story content prior to the Onslaught faction choice.

 

I know this is a small thing when compared to the crafting and gearing changes, but to many roleplayers and seasoned players out there this would be a warmly welcomed QoL improvement!

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^This. It's true - you gave us a huge variety of mods to play with and minmaxing is a lot of fun. But level lock makes most of the decisions completely irrelevant and even actively hinders what many consider normal aspects of gearing (i.e. the Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault Relics are affected by the stat cap).

 

Overall great job tho, apart from level lock this might be my favorite expac so far :)

 

The BiS for lvl 70 is actually different from the real BiS, because all enhancements have to be swapped (you use Proficient instead of Initiave for Crit for instance).

Those are really unnatural builds cause you may gain 300 crit, but at the expanse of a 500+ power losss, which is litterally gone due to sync.

 

That's ******** in my book.

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Patch 6.0.2 will be our last update for 2019 and we’ll target its availability mid-December. It’ll have additional bug fixes along with the following:

  • Life Day returns and has new items for you to enjoy.
  • It’s our 8th year anniversary, so the vendor will have some new items.
  • We’re adding new missions on Mek-Sha, including new heroics.
  • You’ll be able to recruit Tharan for your Consular and as he says, “It’s Tharan, not spelled the dumb way”.
  • Ranked Season 12 for our PvP players begins and winners from last season will get their well-deserved rewards.
  • Crafting changes – it begins! Yes, we’re taking a hard look at crafting and will make some adjustments starting with this patch.

 

Hi Keith,

 

Is one of the bugs that is to be squashed the "Follow Target" command not working? I use it so my autistic grandson can play along with me. He does not interact much, he mostly watches but he insists on having his own computer to "play". This command allows his toon to follow mine without him using the keyboard or mouse a lot. He gets upset if I reach over and use his keyboard too much to keep up with my toon.

 

Thanks!

 

Robert aka "Keryyn"

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Like many of you, I have been really enjoying the expansion and all the changes we made for gearing.

 

What kind of statistics are you referring to? I would like to see percentages.

 

 

What feels good is being able to play anything in the game and benefiting from the new gearing system.

 

Don't make me laugh. Since when playing anything in a game is to be considered special? It's a standard service. Benefiting from the gearing system? Sure, unless you play warzones or want to craft. Furthermore, praising this gear system is quite irritating considering it is inferior in every aspect compared to the 4.x era. Creating something better than 5.x is not an achivement.

 

 

We are extremely pleased with the launch of the expansion. I don’t want to jinx it, but from the game standpoint, it has been very smooth with relatively minor issues all around (the Tulak Hord server being the exception).

 

It is almost amusing how you ignore Darth Malgus being unplayable on high-end computers in certain countries/ISP in prime time.

 

 

Patch 6.0.2 will be our last update for 2019 and we’ll target its availability mid-December. It’ll have additional bug fixes along with the following:

  • Crafting changes – it begins! Yes, we’re taking a hard look at crafting and will make some adjustments starting with this patch.

 

What exactly had you been looking at hard in the PTS phase then? Hadn't there be anyone to tell you how absurd it was? Don't bother, we already know the answer.

Edited by varietasplus
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You know, all of this is more than I would have expected, especially 6.02 coming in December and 6.1 targeting early 2020. This is perfect communication and makes me far more excited about the future of the game than I would have been otherwise. I'm definitely interested to see what tweaks you are coming up with.

 

So thank you for posting this.

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What kind of statistics are you referring to? I would like to see percentages.

 

I do think that Bioware has better statistics than you have. You only see what you want to see, but the devs have the hard numbers and thus the facts. Maybe there is a sizable portion of the playerbase that likes the changes, you don't know for sure whether that's true or not, Bioware does.

Edited by Ylliarus
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Please let us see some content for Vanilla LIs going forwards.

 

Not everyone is into gearing and while I very much enjoyed the story, the lack of Vanilla LI content makes it pointless to take many of my characters through the story, again. Some are still back at the end of their class stories waiting for more than a 2 minute reunion scene to make the journey worthwhile.

Edited by Suzsi
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Whiel i enjoy the overall direction of the expansion, you really need to bring all ops and fp to lvl 75 asap, otherwise the gearing system is rather problematic, since you will run into the lvl 70 stat caps pretty fast.

 

Also, old fps are in dire need for an overhaul. The diffculty gap between fps like Hammer Station and newer FPs is vastly bigger then between Veteran and Master, which makes no sense. Also with respect to clearing times, you are getting essentaily punished now for doing difficult content.

 

Becuase of this if you do a random master FP, people will often just outright leave after seeing that they have drawn a "hard" FP.

Edited by Arutar
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Thanks for the update, Keith! I too have been enjoying the expansion so far, with my main char already best-in-slot save for some amplifiers, and I'm currently working on getting all 8 classes to rank 100 for the legacy title. I really like the gearing.

My raid group is progressing through Dxun VM, and I've organized over ten PuG runs through Dxun SM to teach the boss fights to other players. The flurry of bugs, requiring a phase reset multiple times each run, is very annoying though.

 

I do have to say that my enjoyment has been diminished quite a bit because of all the small bugs, which shows me there's been a lack of attention to detail, specifically:

  • Quick Travel points that cannot be unlocked
  • Gathering nodes that are stuck inside a wall or tree and cannot be clicked
  • Mek-Sha achievements that cannot be completed
  • Mek-Sha world boss that grants no loot or achievement
  • Various bugs in the Dxun operation
  • Various typos and inconsistencies in the German translation - something that has never happened before

I am sure everyone at the studio is giving their best but these bugs show that the expansion was rushed. I wouldn't have wanted to see another delay but please schedule better for future Game Updates so bugs like this don't happen again.

It is especially frustrating when half of the things mentioned in the 6.0a patch notes turned out to not be fixed after all, so I hope they (and some of the remaining issues) will get fixed next week.

Edited by Jerba
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Hey everyone,

 

 

It has been a while since I put out a post so I figured I would stop into the forums and get an update out to everyone. I’ll provide you with a brief update about what’s coming soon, but first and foremost want to address the issues we’ve been experiencing with our Tulak Hord server this past week. It’s being very stubborn and every time we think we have it nailed, it decides to kick some players from various areas in the game and won’t let them back in for a while. Not a great experience for anyone and I apologize we haven’t fixed it already. We believe it’s an intermittent hardware issue, making it difficult to isolate, so we’re rebuilding that server and will deploy a new one later tonight. We’re going to have to take the European servers down, but we’ll look to get it done while most of you are sleeping. We will let everyone know when we’ve completed the effort.

 

Let’s talk about Onslaught! Like many of you, I have been really enjoying the expansion and all the changes we made for gearing. I now have quite a few toons up to level 75 and virtually all of them are at Item Rating 306. I’m spending time changing stats of individual items, playing around with amplifiers, and seeing what changes will make me feel OP. What feels good is being able to play anything in the game and benefiting from the new gearing system. I also have read many comments over the past couple weeks about areas you’d like to see changed, and as you’ll see starting with next week’s patch, we are addressing them and will continue refinements over the coming months. Keep the posts coming as they’ve been very helpful to the team.

 

We are extremely pleased with the launch of the expansion. I don’t want to jinx it, but from the game standpoint, it has been very smooth with relatively minor issues all around (the Tulak Hord server being the exception). We fixed a number of bugs a week following the expansion and we have a number of additional bug fixes being released in next week’s patch likely on Thursday the 14th of November 2019. I know we usually release on Tuesday, but there’s a few items we want to include in this patch, so we gave the team an extra couple days. There is also a little surprise for everyone included with the patch, but we will let you know what’s up on Tuesday.

 

Patch 6.0.2 will be our last update for 2019 and we’ll target its availability mid-December. It’ll have additional bug fixes along with the following:

  • Life Day returns and has new items for you to enjoy.
  • It’s our 8th year anniversary, so the vendor will have some new items.
  • We’re adding new missions on Mek-Sha, including new heroics.
  • You’ll be able to recruit Tharan for your Consular and as he says, “It’s Tharan, not spelled the dumb way”.
  • Ranked Season 12 for our PvP players begins and winners from last season will get their well-deserved rewards.
  • Crafting changes – it begins! Yes, we’re taking a hard look at crafting and will make some adjustments starting with this patch.

 

We have Game Update 6.1 planned for early 2020 making its PTS debut in December. When we’re ready to have you take a look, I’ll share more details about the update and give you a glimpse into our future plans for SWTOR. Don’t forget Star Wars™ Celebration is planned for August and in Anaheim, California next year. We’re already making our plans to be there. Would be great to meet a bunch of you at the event! Thanks everyone for making Onslaught a success. Keep your thoughts, concerns, and ideas coming as those are an invaluable source of feedback for the team.

 

Happy Holidays,

 

 

Keith

 

Hi Keith,

 

While it’s good to hear from you, it seems you guys are ignoring lots of legitimate threads and concerns from players regarding some of the gearing problems for pvpers, bugs, balancing and crafting, etc. we’ve basically had zero communication and your post doesn’t cover a lot of what’s concerning the community. It’s great you are looking at crafting, but what about everything else? Also, we told you guys on the pts about the crafting issue and you ignored us.

 

The beginning of the year you promised we would have improved communications. But it’s one way. We communicate and you guys don’t respond or totally ignore whole threads on legitimate topics. Musco has basically been afk since launch on anything that wasn’t a tech issue,

 

When can we expect some better “two way” communication from your team. Many of us have discovered issues aground the gearing and that only people willing to grind flash points or Ops can gear up to get the right gear. Pvpers have a sub par drop rate and it mostly drops items 6-8 levels below your iRating.

 

I like that you’re optimistic and your post is too. But some of it came across that you aren’t in touch with some of the population and some of the key problems going on. I don’t know if that is your optimism or wether these things aren’t making there way back to you through the proper channels. Ie, through the community management team.

 

I look forward to seeing the crafting changes. But I would also like to see some discourse on the gearing for pvp and other gearing issues around Amps, cost, fragment cap, some class utilities not working, tactical’s being swapped by stealth in a pvp combat scenario, not all old content balanced correctly (yet) ... and so forth. There are plenty of these topics across the forums and we feel like they been totally ignored because we get zero response or replies from the team or Musco, if you want us to keep providing the “valuable” feed back, we need to know you are listening, ie, how about someone respond and say we’ve seen x,y,s and are looking into it. Honestly, how long would that take to do? Just an acknowledgement goes along way.

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So... nothing new till early 2020. Which for you probably mean something around end of February. Just as I thought.

. I now have quite a few toons up to level 75 and virtually all of them are at Item Rating 306. I’m spending time changing stats of individual items, playing around with amplifiers, and seeing what changes will make me feel OP. What feels good is being able to play anything in the game and benefiting from the new gearing system

 

Honestly this sounds less like a honest description of your experience as a player and more like a sales pitch. Trying so hard to sell us the new gearing system, eh?

Edited by Gelious
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So... nothing new till early 2020. Which for you probably mean something around end of February. Just as I thought.

 

What did you expect, they just released an entire expansion and you're behaving as if we haven't had new content for ages. Seriously, don't be this impatient. New content will come in due time, but they just released a really big thing that took them a lot of resources and time to develop. The devs are only people, just like you and me.

Edited by Ylliarus
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Hi Keith,

Is one of the bugs that is to be squashed the "Follow Target" command not working?

 

This is definitely getting looked and once fixed included in an upcoming patch

 

https://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=9783846&postcount=7

 

We are aware that the follow command on character portraits or via chat is not currently working in most situations. We are planning to restore the functionality with one of the upcoming patches.

 

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What did you expect, they just released an entire expansion and you're behaving as if we haven't had new content for ages. Seriously, don't be this impatient. New content will come in due time, but they just released a really big thing that took them a lot of resources and time to develop. The devs are only people, just like you and me.

 

Oh poor Bioware, my heart goes out for them and their hard work....

 

Actually no, it doesnt. What they released is smaller then any expansion they released before. It's a glorified patch, called expansion for PR purposes, nothing more.

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Oh poor Bioware, my heart goes out for them and their hard work....

 

Actually no, it doesnt. What they released is smaller then any expansion they released before. It's a glorified patch, called expansion for PR purposes, nothing more.

 

Your bitterness is anything but warranted as it makes you come across as incredibly spoiled. You just received an expansion for the game, whether you consider it one is irrelevant, which the devs poured in time and resources. Frankly you're being thankless in this case, because the team that Bioware has is much smaller than it used to be and their resources are fewer than they used to be. They could have also released nothing, nada, no new story, no new content. And yet, they did, for people who can't even appreciate the small stuff apparently.

Edited by Ylliarus
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Thx for the update Keith and thanks for acknowledging the mess that is Tulak Hord. I know the dude is dead but still...

 

As far as further content goes i hope we won't have to wait until summer 2020 for the next drop of story. Especially the interest in vanilla LI content has been very big for a long time and i am starting to wonder why our characters don't even get some ingame mails from their LIs like they did post class story? Just them letting our characters know what they think of our latest decisions etc. Minor content, minor work needed but huge impact.

 

Also, with the changes coming to Odessen (at least as far as Lana states), don't you think it is time for a stronghold on Odessen?

Personaly i started getting into strongholds recently and despite the ridicolous pricing of some items (please offer more decorations as direct sales via the cartel market or legacy unlocks just like armors and weapons) i am having a lot of fun creating a themed home for my main characters.

For example i decorated an alliance embassy in my Dromund Kaas stronghold, but now that my sorceress got her seat back (her scenes with the dark council were the expansions absolute highlight imo and i applauded in front of my monitor!) i have to retheme it.

I am already imagining a republic themed stronghold on Odessen for my Jedi characters to represent Odessen becoming a part of the republic. Apartement for my character, offices for the republics administration, another force enclave to help rebuilding the Jedi order. So many ideas! All that is missing are more Odessen decorations and of course the stronghold itself! So please, a stronghold on Odessen? Please...Just a humble...huge and bombastic stronghold with a settlement on the outside and a spaceport and an embassy and a daily area with missions to build up Odessen and assist Lana in finding hostile infiltrators and omg the ideas i am going crazy...:p

 

But first: Fix Tulak Hord!

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