Hey everyone,

Please discuss this week's Community Q&A blog in this thread!

Overall a good Q&A with some good information. A lot was already out there in one form or another - but I hadn't heard about the plans for ranked WZs to be included in 1.3 before reading this.

I do with that we were able to get some more firm dates than "soon" "very very soon" "imminent" etc. - at least for when the blogs will be up with more details about the content. Also, would have liked more information about the "super-servers" and why/how that is going to be implemented. I guess I'll have to wait until "soon"

Ranked WZs on-track for 1.3 is the best news. Aggro changes sound good... transfers can't come quickly enough though so I really hope that's a priority for, or before, 1.3.

Curious about this bit: "Crafting also has a role to play, especially if your guild has a lot of extra Operation gear they can reverse engineer. It allows you to augment your gear more quickly and cheaply, customize the look of your gear, and help gear up your new guild-mates with powerful crafted mods and items."

Does that mean, to obtain Augment Kit parts, we can RE end-game gear instead of Orange Crafted 50 stuff, for a greater return?

Also, would have liked more information about the "super-servers" and why/how that is going to be implemented. I guess I'll have to wait until "soon"

My assumption (and we all know how wrong those can go!) is that it is becoming clear that with the large number of game areas (planets) the playerbase is so split up that it can be hard to find players to do stuff with. This leads to not finding groups, which leads to leaving the game. Having servers able to handle much larger numbers would mean larger numbers on each planet, so easier to find groups, so fewer people leaving. Server transfers to largers servers may thereby lead to higher player retention than server transfers to current sized servers.

If you enjoy solo content playing the daily mission hubs on Ilum, Belsavis and Corellia can help rack up the credits and accelerate your early end-game gear progression. The Galactic Trade Network provides opportunities to buy powerful mods and items with all those credits, while providing a decent income for the end-game crafters.

I don't understand this statement since there is no real end game crafting. Where are schematics for lvl 50 mods, enhancements, armor, etc. I just got my 400 Artifice to 50 and can't make anything anyone would want to buy. IMO all the best gear should come from crafters, not drops, and certainly not from NPC vendors.

I thought with reference to crafting, he was talking about RE-ing the high-lvl mods that you can extract, and learn recipes for. You then can make them and distribute to guild-mates, making gearing-up much faster.

Aye I think he meant that too, but he also said there "It allows you to augment your gear more quickly." So wondering if the shells themselves will yield Augment Kit parts... it'd be a good feature.

Nothing on char transfear that they promised last week.And nothing again on the death to lvl 50

pvp because of TTK and bad class balance.Also funny that they talk about tanks when tanks in pvp just like healers have no function now that pvp is a gibbfest. But i guess we are talking about pve

Ixum: Daniel Erickson said in his interview that there will be no new gear sets in Game Update 1.3. Does this mean there will not be any new orange gear as well?

 

Daniel: Although there are no new gear sets, the addition of Adaptive Gear opens up a range of new options for characters, especially those wearing medium and heavy armor. Now any of the social gear sets can be used by any class and they will automatically change stats to be the correct armor level. With the addition of the Augment Tables, players can additionally take that social gear and get Augment slots added that will make it competitive with any gear in the game—once the right mods and augments are gathered, of course.

This did not answer the question. We players were told in dev blogs and prior Q&As that 1.2 would give us the ability reverse engineer nearly any piece of gear into a craftable, Orange moddable version. This didn't happen. This can only be done with Campaign armor. We were mislead. We were also told that a host of new moddable patterns were being added via Crafting Missions. This also did not happen. Not a single new wearable pattern was added via crafting missions (Yes, a small handful of weapon patterns were added but that is not what we were lead to believe). The only patterns that were added were PvP patterns w/ Valor requirements.

So Bioware, in light of this I ask you again to answer the question put before you: Will 1.3 introduce more craftable, Moddable gear? If so, how will it be obtained? If not, why not?

Hearing ranked WZs are on-track for 1.3 is probably the best news SWTOR has gotten in a long time. That being said, the overall timetable on 1.3, and more importantly, server transfers/mergers, is starting to frighten me.

With several "weeks" till 1.3 is on the PTS, it's deployment to livewill most likely be 2 weeks after that at minimum (HIGHLY unlikely). If we assume a starting timetable of this week, this puts 1.3 being released at the end of June at the earliest.

Given the information we have about transfers/mergers and "super servers," I think its reasonable to think these transfers/mergers will happen pre-1.3. The reason is simple. Regardless of how server transfers work, there will invariably be issues with items missing, bugs, etc etc. This is not doomsday talk, this realistic. Similarly, 1.3 will invariably have its bugs/problems once it's deployed to the live servers. I can't see Bioware compounding the two.

Taking all this into account, I suspect we'll see server transfers/mergers mid-to-late June and 1.3 in mid July. Quite frankly, I'm not sure that's soon enough.

I have a question about 1.3

being that there are PVP servers and when you go out in open world you are flagged or PVP, will there be any incentive to encouragemore open world pvp on other planets. IE: valor or comms or something to do instead of mindless PVE grinding or WZ. Why make pvp servers if no one wants to PVP on other planets.

"Combining that with server transfers to enable players to move to these new servers and fill them to the brim"

This statement appears to indicate that the server plans will not be to link multiple servers, but instead require everyone to move to the new servers. Is this right? All servers, even the highest pop ones, are going to become obsolete and we will all need to transfer to the new servers?

So Bioware, in light of this I ask you again to answer the question put before you: Will 1.3 introduce more craftable, Moddable gear? If so, how will it be obtained? If not, why not?

The question you were referring to in this week's Q&A confused me. Not sure what interview with Erickson they are talking about, but haven't seen him say anywhere that there is no new gear in 1.3 In fact, in the last Q&A, they specifically said 75 new schematics would be added for orange boots and gloves and in the Q&A before that, they said they would also be adding a bunch of new orange belt and wrist schematics in 1.3. So I have no idea what the person asking the question was talking about. They've already said they are adding a bunch of new orange gear in 1.3.

Informative Q&A.

I would love to hear/read more about the server transfers. My current server is barely hanging on to a decent population, it hurts competition in warzones and it kills the fun of questing.

I would like to know if these servers will be brand new ones, or will certain current servers be picked to become a super server.

Not ONE thing on dead servers LOL. Bioware, its ok if you admit something we all know, we'll just respect you more if you do.

Soon.

The question you were referring to in this week's Q&A confused me. Not sure what interview with Erickson they are talking about, but haven't seen him say anywhere that there is no new gear in 1.3 In fact, in the last Q&A, they specifically said 75 new schematics would be added for orange boots and gloves and in the Q&A before that, they said they would also be adding a bunch of new orange belt and wrist schematics in 1.3. So I have no idea what the person asking the question was talking about. They've already said they are adding a bunch of new orange gear in 1.3.

I don't remember where I saw it, but I also recall it being mentioned that there would be no new gear sets in 1.3. But there was some confusion as to whether that meant no new tier gear (like the Campaign stuff we got in patch 1.2) or just no new gear in general. The information about orange belt and wrist schematics leads me to believe that it is the former, but the fact that they only mentioned the belts and wrists (maybe boots? not sure which) is worrisome.

I think that is what the person asking the question wanted to clarify, but unfortunately they completely avoided answering it. Just because social gear is not currently useful to all classes doesn't mean that it does not currently exist! And besides, social gear is not the huge boon to customization they are making it out to be, unless they are planning to add more in 1.3. There is a limited number of sets, and several of the lower rank ones are gender restricted. Not to mention what a pain it is to grind social rank on every character you want to wear social gear.

On the bright side, maybe I'll be able to get someone to run Esseles/BT for social points now.