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Community Q&A Blog Discussion: June 22nd, 2012


CourtneyWoods

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Pargon: I'm curious about the development cycle for something like an armor set. Could you elaborate on the process you guys go through when designing and implementing that equipment?

 

Ryan Dening (Lead Concept Artist) and David Hunt (Systems Designer): This is a very good and timely question as we have recently been refining parts of our approach and inspiration in response to the feedback we have gotten from our players. The first thing we do when designing a new armor set is to look at which class it's for and what level or tier it is going to be. For instance, if it's for a Bounty Hunter we've established that Bounty Hunters wear heavy armor that should feel custom or at least modified (since he's not a uniformed soldier). Our strongest influences are going to come from characters like Boba Fett, Boushh, Dengar etc. Level of the gear is going to determine how visually impressive the gear should look and where it fits in the progression. This is the real tricky part because in Star Wars, a lot of the costumes are quite simple or hit one note and we have to extrapolate to create a lot of different, unique looks that feel like they progress from low level to high.

 

With this as our background we'll start sketching ideas to find and capture a look that is compelling. When the sketch is approved we make a model sheet which is a lot like schematics. Every piece of a set of gear needs to fit into the wearables system so that they can work with every other set of gear in the game independently. An outfit will also have different layers like a base (for a Bounty Hunter this would be his base armor) and attachments (the cool stuff like Boba Fett's cape, rocket pack, Wookie braids). From here it goes to the character artists who bring the concept to life as a 3D model. They start with high poly models and custom sculpt each piece. Then they texture the models and make lower poly meshes that can be imported into the game. It's a long process and takes a lot of hard, skilled work to make an armor set.

 

Once in the game, designers create a map between all the available art assets and the items that need to be distributed to cover the various roles. We utilize different attachment and color combinations provided by the artists to try to make as many armor sets as possible unique, even if they're similar to others. Those sets are named and distributed along similar content channels, with the goal of giving players gear that makes them naturally look cool as they progress instead of making you look like a clown. The related content bands are setup with the intent of making characters look good in mixed sets of the same band, while still providing variety between them. There are too many combinations to guarantee that you'll find the right items that look cool together, but we work to get you as close as possible so that it's easy for you to complete the last steps.

 

Wouldn't it be interesting if they just created a forum for fan-based works regarding armor sets for inspiration, I'm sure the community of a million knows what it wants more then simply a group of say 20 artist .... This would be a nice way to collaborate fan creativity with swtor concept artists 'unique game look'

Edited by Briseius
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Wouldn't it be interesting if they just created a forum for fan-based works regarding armor sets for inspiration, I'm sure the community of a million knows what it wants more then simply a group of say 20 artist .... This would be a nice way to collaborate fan creativity with swtor concept artists 'unique game look'

 

The problem with using fan work comes down to ownership rights. There's a bit of legal work involved when someone submits something as a non-employee. Things like contests, however, take care of the legalese up front by requiring contestants to accept an agreement that usually acknowledges that their submission will lawfully become the property of the contest sponsor if they're chosen (sometimes they don't even have to be a winner).

Edited by Dezzi
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Really? Repeating questions again??

 

Fireblazer: Any chance we will be able to get extra character slots for a server in the future. Maybe as part of the legacy system?

 

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): There will definitely be more slots appearing in the near future. Stay tuned for details.

 

Was already answered in this Q&A:

 

Aymi: You guys are including a whole bunch of things to motivate us to reroll and unlock stuff through Legacy, but if I’m playing on one server because the community is great, I’ll be limited to eight characters. You said during the Guild Summit you were going to think about it at some point, any update on that?

 

Daniel Erickson: We are 100% committed to providing more character slots per server in the future but unfortunately we’re not ready to talk about how that will work.

 

Why??

Edited by JeramieCrowe
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The problem with using fan work comes down to ownership rights. There's a big of legal work involved when someone submits something as a non-employee. Things like contests, however, take care of the legalese up front by requiring contestants to accept an agreement that usually acknowledges that their submission will lawfully become the property of the contest sponsor if they're chosen (sometimes they don't even have to be a winner).

 

This. I think holding a contest for a cool design to throw up onto the social vendors would be pretty neat.

 

While the current end game armor sets may not be the most popular, it's up to their internal artists to bring the game more in line with your typical Star Wars fare for armors. While we haven't seen the newer designs yet, I'm content to wait and see what they do. My scoundrel can stand to be a space ranger for the time being (you're all under Space Arrest by the way).

Edited by Pargon
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The only decent information out of this Q&A was that extra character slots are coming "soon", which we already had been told.

 

Obviously the hard hitting questions and too sensitive for the dev's to tackle.

Edited by Ignicity
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too many tank defenses only work against weapon damage.

 

Glad you were finally able to come out and say it. So what are you going to do about it?

 

Also, you addressed Shadow tanks but not Guardian tanks, which means either

 

1. No one asked

2. You have absolutely no explanation for the damage nerf to three of our best skills

 

(hint for the reader: it isn't number 1)

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Glad you were finally able to come out and say it. So what are you going to do about it?

 

Also, you addressed Shadow tanks but not Guardian tanks, which means either

 

1. No one asked

2. You have absolutely no explanation for the damage nerf to three of our best skills

 

(hint for the reader: it isn't number 1)

 

(hint for the poster: it's more than you're giving mind to)

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The only decent information out of this Q&A was that extra character slots are coming "soon", which we already had been told.

 

Obviously the hard hitting questions and too sensitive for the dev's to tackle.

They've gone on record explaining that's not what the Friday Q&A is for. As such the fault is yours for expecting "hard hitting questions" to be answered in a venue not intended for that purpose.
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They've gone on record explaining that's not what the Friday Q&A is for. As such the fault is yours for expecting "hard hitting questions" to be answered in a venue not intended for that purpose.

 

So why have a Q&A session with question and answers we've already asked and already know the answers to?

 

Oh that's right, to pander to those who can't find existing information the same way intelligent people do.

Edited by Ignicity
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So ... the clarify the answer on shadows ...

 

You're basically saying shadows are too powerful because the have too much shield / avoidance, so you need to nerf that.

 

Then you say shield and avoidance is useless because it doesn't work on raid bosses.

 

So ... are you fixing raid bosses? Because ... holy crap I'm just speechless about this answer. You're basically saying "yes, we know they are useless EVEN NOW because of how raids work, but we are going to make them more useless anyway."

 

I can't WAIT until I'm no longer paying you any money. My 6 month sub was such a mistake.

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man i know some shadows that are gonna flip out when they read this......

 

 

.....nothing worse than a nutkick followed by working as intended LOL

 

glad i rolled a vanguard tank

 

It's not even working as intended. He is flat out saying it is NOT working as intended, and without question migitragion tanks are far more useful on raids. He flat out is telling the community that on the current raids DO NOT USE SHADOW TANK because bosses do all force / tech damage (something we have known for months).

 

And then he says 1) no, we are not going to change that. We are going to let them contiune doing all force and tech damage and

 

2) we are going to nurf you anyway, so you suck even more, and we have no concerns at all about this.

Edited by lexiekaboom
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It's not even working as intended. He is flat out saying it is NOT working as intended, and without question migitragion tanks are far more useful on raids. He flat out is telling the community that on the current raids DO NOT USE SHADOW TANK because bosses do all force / tech damage (something we have known for months).

 

And then he says 1) no, we are not going to change that. We are going to let them contiune doing all force and tech damage and

 

2) we are going to nurf you anyway, so you suck even more, and we have no concerns at all about this.

 

I don't know what you read, but that is not what he said at all. This is what he said in regards to potentially changing the way bosses do damage and the way that damage is avoided/mitigated:

"Not all channels of survivability can be balanced for every boss encounter, which is why tank survivability is measured against a norm, and why we're going to be pushing harder to hit that norm in the future - either through tweaks in boss damage or tweaks to the way shields work."

 

He clearly said it is a known problem that they are going to be working on.

Edited by SoonerJBD
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I don't know what you read, but that is not what he said at all. This is what he said in regards to potentially changing the way bosses do damage and the way that damage is avoided/mitigated:

"Not all channels of survivability can be balanced for every boss encounter, which is why tank survivability is measured against a norm, and why we're going to be pushing harder to hit that norm in the future - either through tweaks in boss damage or tweaks to the way shields work."

 

He clearly said it is a known problem that they are going to be working on.

 

You know "tweaks" is code for "nerfs", right?

Edited by Ignicity
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This is the line that boggled me, regarding how they design armor sets:

Those sets are named and distributed along similar content channels, with the goal of giving players gear that makes them naturally look cool as they progress instead of making you look like a clown

 

Have you seen the higher level consular sets? They make male characters look exactly like a clown, or a drag queen. Sorcerer gear isn't much better, but at least the lower level stuff actually looks like something a Sith might wear. If your goal is to not make characters look like clowns, you have utterly and completely failed.

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You know "tweaks" is code for "nerfs", right?

 

I read it to mean they are going to look at (1) diversifying the type of damage bosses do, with at least some of them doing more weapon damage as opposed to force/tech damage, and/or (2) Allowing tanks to shield force/tech damage.

 

Option 1 would seem an easier potential fix as it would only affect PvE. If you allow force/tech damage to be mitigated by shields, you would need to seriously re-balance every classes damage for PvP purposes, as the fact that force/tech damage can't be shielded is an important aspect of balance between the classes and their potential damage output.

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Regarding Shadow/Sin tanks...

 

i realize the numbers alone may fall short of telling the whole story and factors far beyond numbers alone contribute to these things. I simply remain concerned because other changes in this game were made in the past for the sake of evening up numbers and were later found to be poor changes.

 

I appreciate that future changes will be looked at to adjust things further but admitting that such things remain at issue essentially admits that the 1.3 changes are not expected to actually achieve the balance they desire, and apparently still seek, for tank classes. The statements support the facts that shadow/sins get strong shields, that those shields aren't doing what it takes right now to keep balance across the tank classes because of existing Operation mechanics, and that the developers KNOW this but are proceeding with the currently scheduled changes anyway. That is disappointing.

 

I appreciate the attempt to answer this question. The fact they even acknowledged it as a question speaks volumes about the feedback they've probably gotten on the issue. I don't like the answer and I think they executed this answer in a manner that left a lot to be desired, but it is a response.

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To be honest, I think you're all worrying -far- too much about this Shadow/Assassin tank business anyway. We have a regular Assassin tank in our Denova Hard Mode runs and he has zero problems, in fact he's got niches on the vast majority of fights where he can do things better than any other tank can because of things like CD's, etc. We have absolutely -no- problems taking him through a Denova HM clear, and i'm 99% positive that after the patch, we'll -still- have absolutely no problems taking him through a Denova HM clear. It doesn't get harder than that in PvE, so I honestly completely fail to see the issue you guys are having. As long as a tank is still viable to run through the hardest content in the game, how can it be a serious issue from a PvE standpoint?
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This is the line that boggled me, regarding how they design armor sets:

 

 

Have you seen the higher level consular sets? They make male characters look exactly like a clown, or a drag queen. Sorcerer gear isn't much better, but at least the lower level stuff actually looks like something a Sith might wear. If your goal is to not make characters look like clowns, you have utterly and completely failed.

 

/signed

 

The process he describes for designing the armor appears from the ground up was very interesting to read, and I'm really glad they discussed how that works, I've been curious for a long time now.

 

That being said, the process he described of carefully and meticulously pouring through designs which have to be approved, and go through a prolonged process to create and preview and model can't possibly be the process that led to the higher-tier armor appearances......I just can't believe a room full of people, designers, producers, etc saw the concept art and models for a majority of the tiered gear and let the "lengthy" process continue to create them.

 

Really.....I can't believe it happened the way he said it did, especially since he says they don't want us looking "like clowns" since that's exactly what a lot of that stuff looks like.....literally.....

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I don't know what you read, but that is not what he said at all. This is what he said in regards to potentially changing the way bosses do damage and the way that damage is avoided/mitigated:

"Not all channels of survivability can be balanced for every boss encounter, which is why tank survivability is measured against a norm, and why we're going to be pushing harder to hit that norm in the future - either through tweaks in boss damage or tweaks to the way shields work."

 

He clearly said it is a known problem that they are going to be working on.

 

Going to be working on means latter. The Nerf is now. So he's saying DO NOT USE A SHADOW TANK NOW. They are worthless until we balance bosses, which isn't happening in this patch or any time soon (as there is no eta, and they are not even sure how they need to approach it)

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