Latest Badfeeling Podcast with Bioware Devs

Since I don't listen to such podcasts (absolutely not my cup of tea), I hope someone has mercy and transcripts the show for people like me. It'd be much appreciated.

Thanks for the link.

Since I don't listen to such podcasts (absolutely not my cup of tea), I hope someone has mercy and transcripts the show for people like me. It'd be much appreciated.

agreed my attention span for listening to chatter is short. I hope a transcript becomes available for lazy people like me lol.

TLDR

PTS for 5.9.2 was great
New warzone in next patch
6 Month Ranked Season and more Anti-Wintrading
Improvements to GSF Matchmaking


Notes from the Bad Feeling Podcast with Community Manager Eric Musco and Senior Bioware Developers David Demaree and Brett Hoffman, the podcast is an hour and a half but here are some notes from it if you don't have time to listen to the full recording!



PTS

Actionable Feedback as well as normal feedback was great
Implementing feedback on PTS is difficult (Rishi Apartment) and unlikely to be repeated on future test servers
The team worked on 5.9.2 while it was on PTS, normally team works on future update during PTS testing and thus rarely act or change things on the PTS
Multiple people worked weekends/nights to solve bugs


PvP

Current game developing strategy is to have warzones be around 12 minutes, prior it was 15 and that is what SWTOR was designed around, recent changes meant to decrease warzone duration.
SH PvP likely to be Rishi only, for now, might change if the PvP is appricated
New Hutball map in 5.9.3, Name is: "Sky Shredder" on the planet "Vandin".
PTS hopefully in early September
Matchmaking changes to PvP are being observed carefully


Ranked PvP

Ranked Season 10 is planned to end in February, with 6 month season becoming the norm.
Return of Pre-Season to combat wintraders, rewards will be sent out when the next season starts to give developers more time to ensure the right people gain the rewards
Weekly / Bi-Weekly actions against wintraders during seasons, less than a hundred every season
Exploring options to prevent and discourage wintrading (not being able to queue again same season, losing all ranked commendations etc.)
Crafting material farming in ranked, a problem in GSF as well, working to solve it.
Ranked Toxicity: Report it, if lots of people are telling you to "get gud", spend time in regular warzones and improve.


PvE

New PvE content makes loads of people play it for a short time while it declines heavily over time, new PvP content isn't even close and is more stable in terms of player base. (Question regarding spikes with new content)


GSF

Lots of ELO- factors are introduced to matchmaking, experiance, playtime like matches played, objectives and so on to enable more even games
GSF community is small but dedicated
Too high learning curve, gonna be addressed to make it easier to get into
Better rewards to function as incentives to grow the GSF as well as Ranked PvP Communities


Strongholds

Player generated content, like whats possible now with Rishi SH PvP, is going to be something the devs will do more going forward if that is appreciated by the players. Not going to provide rewards due to exploitability.
Stronghold PvP was inspired a lot by the Tournments created by streamers


Other things

People who play SWTOR for a year or more are a small minority of the player base, former players who return for a few months when there is new content and totally new players that play for a few months are the vast majority
Playtesting with Keith are an in-house favourite cause he takes everything super seriously, an amazing raid leader.
Considering giving a flair ingame for Bioware Employees so players can recognize when they are playing with them

People who play SWTOR for a year or more are a small minority of the player base, former players who return for a few months when there is new content and totally new players that play for a few months are the vast majority

Another thing of note was Ranked season 10 will probably not end till February next year.

They also want to have preseasons inbetween 6 months seasons so they have time to go back and sort out the win traders and cheats before the next season starts.
(I guess the 3-4 month ranked seasons aren’t going to happen)
Which means maybe 1 and half ranked seasons per year (if you take preseason into account)