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Discussion Topic: Game Update 5.4 and the Next Roadmap


KeithKanneg

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Great questions. As I outlined in the Roadmap, we are returning to our MMO roots, but as everyone knows, we were focused on story development and left most MMO content alone for the past couple years.

 

To change our direction, we had to retool, reorganize, hire new talent, and get everyone on board with the changed direction. That takes time, so we made a choice and decided to release the Operation Boss encounters one at a time. This gave us more time to design, polish, test, and get insight directly from players, versus making everyone wait all year before we released 5 new bosses.

 

It wasn't an easy decision, as we knew we were going to be criticized while impacting progression efforts. But, honestly, it was the right call. We're discussing future content, how to release it, what's going to be included, and when, but we won't be ready to disclose our next year's plans for a while.

 

I know that's vague, yet it gives you an idea of where we're headed.

 

---Keith

 

Hi Keith,

 

Are there any plans to fix the economy and insane prices on the GTN? As an average player it was easy to pick up whatever armor set you wanted back in the day off the GTN, but now you have to give up an arm and a leg to make up those credits you need to buy certain decorations or armor sets.

 

I'm sure there are others that share similar opinions about the game economy and it's hurting the players. Especially those coming back to the game and see new stuff from packs that were released months or years ago, and that could be listed from 20 million to 200 million credits which could easily be worth 2 million back then.

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As of right now, it is not a Legacy currency. But, I know exactly what you're thinking, so let me pre-announce something which I suspect will make you smile, while at the same time, irritate you because I won't tell you when until I update the Roadmap. :eek:

 

We are working to change currencies to be Legacy based. This includes unassembled components, credits, the Umbara currency, and more. I'm not aware of any major obstacles preventing this from happening, and doing so will help with a number of changes we are planning for the future.

 

I know that doesn't solve the concern about having to run the Flashpoint multiple times on one character, but once you have the Key to open the Stronghold, you can use the currency for other items on the vendor.

 

Have a good weekend,

 

-Keith--

 

Will it screw up Preferred Status players? Or you just don't care about all your players

Edited by revkashepard
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Lol they offer legacy credits and there just has to be someone who can find a negative in it "oh no please don't force me to have all my credits in one place because I might spend them!"

 

This is a serious problem for me, I'm always broke!!!:rak_03: Though I do like legacy credits.:rak_01:

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Great questions. As I outlined in the Roadmap, we are returning to our MMO roots, but as everyone knows, we were focused on story development and left most MMO content alone for the past couple years.

Got me worried here: Is story dead?

 

If not when can we expect to see more Story based content, especially Classes story, even one at a time...

Edited by Deewe
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Got me worried here: Is story dead?

 

If not when can we expect to see more Story based content, especially Classes story, even one at a time...

 

Umbara has story. They are already stated before that story will continue.

Charles also said he was working with a bunch of voice actors in LA a while ago for what comes after Umbara.

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Umbara has story. They are already stated before that story will continue.

Charles also said he was working with a bunch of voice actors in LA a while ago for what comes after Umbara.

 

I have no point to my comment, but just voicing the next tiny story snippet requires a bunch of voice actors xD 16 (x3 for non-english VA's) minimum if our characters are the only ones talking . lmao

This means nothing! there are so many voice actors in this game, for player-characters only even . :eek:

Edited by Asmodesu
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I have no point to my comment, but just voicing the next tiny story snippet requires a bunch of voice actors xD 16 (x3 for non-english VA's) minimum if our characters are the only ones talking . lmao

This means nothing!

 

He didn't say a bunch, that's just what I said. You can remove the word a bunch.:rak_03:

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He didn't say a bunch, that's just what I said. You can remove the word a bunch.:rak_03:

 

xD i know, I was just musing. Anyway Keith has never said there will be no more story, so more VA's recording more lines is to be expected. The only thing he's said is there will be less story, as it is no longer their priority or focus.

 

Iokath and coming-up Umbara will tell us exactly how much story to expect from now on, and what quality story to expect, in each content update that continues the story. So I am looking forward to finding this out. It's a waiting and patience game but the answers are there in the content already out and coming out next month. ^.^

I also want to see what the fuss about the flashpoint is, but that's just me. Flashpoints > operations since ops are so hard to find a group for where fp's are for everyone who wants to wander into a small, short group. I only play story stuff, dailies and pvp personally but still interested in the fp.

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xD i know, I was just musing. Anyway Keith has never said there will be no more story, so more VA's recording more lines is to be expected. The only thing he's said is there will be less story, as it is no longer their priority or focus.

lol xD

 

Iokath and coming-up Umbara will tell us exactly how much story to expect from now on, and what quality story to expect, in each content update that continues the story. So I am looking forward to finding this out. It's a waiting and patience game but the answers are there in the content already out and coming out next month. ^.^

I also want to see what the fuss about the flashpoint is, but that's just me. Flashpoints > operations since ops are so hard to find a group for where fp's are for everyone who wants to wander into a small, short group. I only play story stuff, dailies and pvp personally but still interested in the fp.

Yeah I basically have the same play style as you! However I don't believe the small pieces of story is how it's going to be forever, but we'll see I guess.

And we'll find out more in the roadmap for August. I do wonder if the roadmap will be done before or after the 5.4 patch.:rak_03:

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As of right now, it is not a Legacy currency. But, I know exactly what you're thinking, so let me pre-announce something which I suspect will make you smile, while at the same time, irritate you because I won't tell you when until I update the Roadmap. :eek:

 

We are working to change currencies to be Legacy based. This includes unassembled components, credits, the Umbara currency, and more. I'm not aware of any major obstacles preventing this from happening, and doing so will help with a number of changes we are planning for the future.

 

I know that doesn't solve the concern about having to run the Flashpoint multiple times on one character, but once you have the Key to open the Stronghold, you can use the currency for other items on the vendor.

 

Have a good weekend,

 

-Keith--

 

Keith,

I am conflicted on the credits being legacy wide. On one hand its good but on the other hand its not. Its fine for people who have no plans on moving servers, but for people who decide to move server, this is a problem. It would be better to add this to the legacy bank and let the players be able to deposit and withdraw from it. Even better, make it account wide and you would not have to worry about loosing your legacy credits and etc when you move servers. I don't see it happening though.

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Got me worried here: Is story dead?

 

If not when can we expect to see more Story based content, especially Classes story, even one at a time...

 

Co-signing this. It's ironic to me that they are adding things that are appealing to RPG and story-focused players, like more strongholds - but not very much playable content that RPG and story players might actually enjoy doing.

 

The game's roots were as an MMORPG with focus for both groups - and I hope that the last three letters will not be forgotten. There's no point in continuing to subscribe if the game's just going to turn into something where the only new content encourages you to kill other players and raid in huge packs.

Edited by IoNonSoEVero
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Hey folks,

 

Keith, Charles, and I wanted to apologize for our lack of posting this week. The whole team has been pretty heads down working on a variety of things and so we haven't paid you forum-goers our usual love. Here are a variety of things we have updates on or seen questions about.

 

  • Class Changes in 5.4 - We will make posts around each of the upcoming Class changes, akin to what we did with 5.3. My hope is to start those next week. Either way I will give you a better idea of timing next week.
  • Season 8 Rewards - The rewards blog is nearly finished and will contain all the deets, including tier breakdowns and reward screenshots. I am pretty confident it will go up next week as well. I will give you a status update next week.
  • Unassembled Component Changes - As Keith alluded to previously, there are Unassembled Component changes coming to PvP Mission Rewards. The TLDR is that we want you to be able to get more Unassembled Components each week overall while also making Ranked play a bit more appealing. We are in the final stages of locking down these exact numbers and so look for a post on this next week with the specifics.
  • Follow-up to Master Mode Ops Drops - Based on your feedback from the discussion thread, we are planning to add Unassembled Components to Master Mode boss drops with GU 5.5.
  • Follow-up on Bolster discussion - It was clear from the discussion thread that most of you would like to see Bolster go as high as possible, while still meeting our teams goal of having gear progression be relevant. We will be increasing Bolsters to 242 in PvP for GU 5.5 as well.
  • Umbara Stronghold - There were some questions about how this works. In short, you will need to run the Flashpoint to earn currency. That currency can be used to purchase rewards from a vendor, including a key to purchase the Stronghold. Once you have the key, you can then unlock the Stronghold for a reduced amount of Credits/CC. You cannot outright purchase the Stronghold, it has to be earned by running the Flashpoint to get the key.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Actually a lot of us want Bolster to go back to 250, which is as high as possible, 242 is not as high as possible. I guess you didnt read the whole thread or count how many individuals actually asked for that.

Edited by Icykill_
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Yeah I basically have the same play style as you! However I don't believe the small pieces of story is how it's going to be forever, but we'll see I guess.

And we'll find out more in the roadmap for August. I do wonder if the roadmap will be done before or after the 5.4 patch.:rak_03:

 

We'll see, I'm not expecting much more I suppose. But they are still setting a bar, I guess I am hoping that bar shows the absolute minimum we'll get, not the maximum. I also hope the roadmap comes out in some form before end of August as August was the last month on the first one. I am loving the roadmap stuff though, it's nice to know a summary of what is coming for longer then a week before the content is out.

I only have time for pvp matches really, nothing else is popping in queues during the times I can play undisturbed, now and then GSF will and that is my love that thing, but so unpopular.

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Making the new drops components rather than gear tokens is just a slap in the face. It shows that you know what the problem is, but that you are unwilling to fix it. it shows that you care more about not upsetting your PVP players than you do fairly rewarding your PVE players.

 

Pretty sure this means dropping UCs in addition to gear tokens (which will hopefully get fixed to be dropping 248s)

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We are working to change currencies to be Legacy based. This includes unassembled components, credits, the Umbara currency, and more. I'm not aware of any major obstacles preventing this from happening, and doing so will help with a number of changes we are planning for the future.

 

Have a good weekend,

 

-Keith--

 

Hi Kieth,as you know I've unsubbed, but this is a step in the right direction to get me to resub. Now if you can just get those other things fixed "properly" and actually listen and understand where we are coming from with our feed back on pvp, as well as adding CXP legacy wide or some other mechanisms to make my 89 alts relative again, then I'd resub.

 

The main things to get me back -

*put Bolster to 248-250 to remove gear gap... 242 is still way to low for skill vs skill pvp with little to no gear gap

*fix class balance for all classes and especially make Lightning Sorcs viable in pvp

 

An example of some others -

*fix bugs like operative rolling through the floor in Hutt Ball

*fix other class bugs in pvp

 

I would consider resubbing for those first two alone and getting the whole lot done would guarantee me resubbing... but don't take too long or my addiction to swtor will be gone and my new game's addiction will have taken hold,

Edited by Icykill_
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We'll see, I'm not expecting much more I suppose. But they are still setting a bar, I guess I am hoping that bar shows the absolute minimum we'll get, not the maximum. I also hope the roadmap comes out in some form before end of August as August was the last month on the first one. I am loving the roadmap stuff though, it's nice to know a summary of what is coming for longer then a week before the content is out.

I only have time for pvp matches really, nothing else is popping in queues during the times I can play undisturbed, now and then GSF will and that is my love that thing, but so unpopular.

 

Yeah same here, during the day I can't really commit to playing something for a steady amount of time so PvP works really well for me, same goes for story! Not a fan of GSF as of yet, but they are trying to make changes to it so I'll be willing to give it another shot in the future.:D

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Great questions. As I outlined in the Roadmap, we are returning to our MMO roots, but as everyone knows, we were focused on story development and left most MMO content alone for the past couple years.

 

To change our direction, we had to retool, reorganize, hire new talent, and get everyone on board with the changed direction. That takes time, so we made a choice and decided to release the Operation Boss encounters one at a time. This gave us more time to design, polish, test, and get insight directly from players, versus making everyone wait all year before we released 5 new bosses.

 

It wasn't an easy decision, as we knew we were going to be criticized while impacting progression efforts. But, honestly, it was the right call. We're discussing future content, how to release it, what's going to be included, and when, but we won't be ready to disclose our next year's plans for a while.

 

I know that's vague, yet it gives you an idea of where we're headed.

 

---Keith

 

That sounds a lot like a possible reboot 😉

The question is, how much of a reboot?

Will we see a new engine or improvements to the current one to make it 64bit?

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Other mmo's do a lot, WoW implements classes like there's no tomorrow. And crappy mmo's like Aion add new classes too.

Again, it would be fun and if more money was involved, it would be a nice idea. But as things are as they are now, it wouldn't make sense to do it.

Besides, Ea doesn't seem like they want to pump a whole lot of money into SWTOR. But 6.1mil for a cinematic seems to be alright.:rak_03:

 

Kill the cinematics and instead add better content and fix bugs.

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Why 5.5 and not 5.4? How hard is to change one value (i suppose it's one, because it is logical, right? ;) ) like you did back in 5.1? :rak_02:

 

Also it's only up to 242... and you still need to grind 3 tiers for months to get 248 in PvP. Meh.

 

I have a bad feeling they are waiting till 5.5 because they have gear lvl upgrade planned

 

Either that or they forgot they had a Bolster thread going and only just realised... the stupid thing is 242 still isn't high enough and won't fix the problem.

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We are working to change currencies to be Legacy based. This includes unassembled components, credits, the Umbara currency, and more

 

Legacy credits could be slightly problematic with the integer cap for some players? Also how would this impact free to play and preferred players with the lower credit cap? Increasing that cap for them would simply make it easier for credit sellers to pool credits and create more merry mayhem to the game economy.

 

Equally on the subject of credits, it needs to be something that is optional, so that those players who have character mules sat on the credit cap are not impacted (I'm not one of them, I go on spending sprees randomly :p), or those players that have poor willpower or get easily duped into buying something for more than it is worth are also not impacted.

 

It's been mentioned by others, I'll simply repeat it, wouldn't the better solution for credits simply be adding a credit bank tab to legacy storage (in the same way as guild bank credit storage) which can be unlocked if a player chooses to do so? That way you could also still impose limits on free to play and preferred players by making it a subscriber / premium player only feature, and if a player moves from being subscribed to preferred status those credits go into escrow (as not to impact any escrow unlock sales from the CM).

 

Please think this one through a little bit, otherwise it'll be Level Sync 2.0 and the fallout will be terrible. :(

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We are working to change currencies to be Legacy based. This includes unassembled components, credits, the Umbara currency, and more. I'm not aware of any major obstacles preventing this from happening, and doing so will help with a number of changes we are planning for the future.

 

For credits I can think of quite an technical obstacle: 2^32 (4.3 billion) is the max of a 32 bit integer and some guys already are on that limit on one char and far over it across their legacy. Handling 64 bit integers in 32 bit code is possible of course, but still more or less an error-prone hack, and switching to floats may cause rounding errors and angry posts from players that lost 2 credits when adding another 100 million to their 10 billion legacy account.

 

That aside, personally I prefer each of my characters having their own personal wealth. How much they have and how they earned it is part of their character, and while my rich chars DO support new characters, they usually get that money sent back once the new chars stand on their own feet.

 

As for the other currencies, that's great but please adjust the limits accordingly. The command token limit is quite low for a legacy-wide currency, wouldn't want warzone coms... um... unassembled components to be that limited.

Edited by Mubrak
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As of right now, it is not a Legacy currency. But, I know exactly what you're thinking, so let me pre-announce something which I suspect will make you smile, while at the same time, irritate you because I won't tell you when until I update the Roadmap. :eek:

 

We are working to change currencies to be Legacy based. This includes unassembled components, credits, the Umbara currency, and more. I'm not aware of any major obstacles preventing this from happening, and doing so will help with a number of changes we are planning for the future.

 

I know that doesn't solve the concern about having to run the Flashpoint multiple times on one character, but once you have the Key to open the Stronghold, you can use the currency for other items on the vendor.

 

Have a good weekend,

 

-Keith--

 

Oh I am excited about this. Legacy credits is something I've wanted for a while. I am still one player, no matter how many alts I play so this helps a lot in managing gearing costs between my alts.

 

Personally I don't mind running a FP a few times because that's part of earning your way to something. As long as it doesn't become a big grind, I'm totally happy to gain currency and earn my keep (word play intended ;) ). So I do not agree with this concern that you'd have to do something for it.

 

My concerns are here:

 

1) Normally Strongholds can be unlocked with CC. This has the added bonus of having zero reactivation costs. How will that work with the Umbara Stronghold?

2) There are some big issues with Strongholds at the moment. The two main points there are the availability of decorations (how many copies you can get and how much variation there is in basic types) and the hook placement in the Strongholds.

 

I really think that the more SHs you are bringing out, the greater the need becomes to do something about point 2. I am an avid decorator but with the release of Manaan I can no longer enjoy decorating. There is not enough variation to create enough themes without copying things that you've done before. When SHs are using the same decorations too much, there is no longer a point in having more SHs.

 

You offer 6 and soon 7 SHs, but the flow of decorations supports 3-4 Strongholds unless you are willing to really lower your standards and copy paste a lot. Then I haven't even talked about the paywall for most decorations but that is part of the reason why there are not enough copies of decorations in the game.

 

I give you one example. The Rishi Palm. https://tord.mmo-fashion.com/tree-rishi-palm-2/

 

This tree is great for my Manaan Stronghold. Why? Because it doesn't need a large hook and it has a very vibrant green to it. That vibrant green is what makes it work well. There are some other plants and trees that I can combine with it to get a colour scheme that can work together. For example the yavin style greens do not match at all.

 

Interestingly enough the greens that work well are those that come from the cartel certificate vendor. So I'm crap out of luck there. A guildie helped me a bit since he had some certificates left but I cannnot get the amounts I need still to complete the stronghold.

 

Now here's the thing. I have 14 of the Rishi Palm. Sounds like a good amount right? Well to make a theme in vibrant greens, I will probably need about 30 total. And then there's these https://tord.mmo-fashion.com/planter-ri******ree-blue/

 

This one goes great together in the them because of the colouring. I have 3 and finding any on the GTN is almost impossible and costs millions and millions each. Getting about 9 more of those will break my bank and then we're just talking getting enough of one decoration to use it as part of a theme.

 

For comparison this one https://tord.mmo-fashion.com/planter-rishi-palm-tree-medium/ actually doesn't fit in the theme, because Manaan is more blue/grey/white toned which is why a bright green and blueish tones work, but not in combination with orange.

 

Add to that that the lower parts of the SH have a greenish hue which doesn't fit and so I have to accept a colour discordance and the fact that the hooks are horribly placed and too many small green ones and also in weird places, that it's just not possible for me to complete Manaan in a satisfactory fashion.

 

I really wish you guys did something about it. It's kinda hard to explain visuals with text but this is where they issues lie. Strongholds can be fun but you've got too many brakes on it that keep people from really creating amazing themes. I struggled with Yaving for a while but that was most hook placement but also trying to get some amounts of decorations to make it work.

 

Some examples:

http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo225/Silah_Eerie/Yavin%20Stronghold/Screenshot_2016-05-08_01_04_04_538218_zpsd02e5dpn.jpg

I couldn't do anything with the middle of the room and it was a helluva thing to get the thrones aligned. And I don't even want to go into how much just this room cost and as far as number of decorations there aren't even that many in there.

 

Now there's a whole bunch of pics of my Yavin stronghold there and although I am relatively happy with it, there are still various places where you see high repetitions of specific decorations like the datacrons that are just there because I needed a bunch of filler items still to get the SH completed.

 

But I don't want to reuse the same stuff in each strongholds. Each strongholds should have it's clear own themes, not just the stronghold itself but also how it's decorated or it will all start to feel too much like you've seen it before. I currently have 2 empty Strongholds, cause I just don't know how to make the look good AND give them their unique feel. Not every stronghold needs to be a military stronghold or an out-of-control cantina or a mount/pet museum.

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Keith, have you forgotten about this thread titled Server Mergers?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=923727

You still haven't addressed this issue about diminishing server populations for MMO content.

Can we please know what your plans are to fix this and how much longer do we have to wait for the "plan" to be implemented?

At this rate there won't be anyone left in the game and it will be too late.

I'm not going to rehash the discussion from that thread here because all the points have been made a hundred times over there.

You know our feelings on the subject. You know our concerns. You know we need something done urgently.

Why are you not talking to us about it. Let us know what the plan is and the time line for it to be implemented. The longer you leave it the more people will leave.

Edited by Icykill_
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Great questions. As I outlined in the Roadmap, we are returning to our MMO roots, but as everyone knows, we were focused on story development and left most MMO content alone for the past couple years.

 

To change our direction, we had to retool, reorganize, hire new talent, and get everyone on board with the changed direction. That takes time, so we made a choice and decided to release the Operation Boss encounters one at a time. This gave us more time to design, polish, test, and get insight directly from players, versus making everyone wait all year before we released 5 new bosses.

 

It wasn't an easy decision, as we knew we were going to be criticized while impacting progression efforts. But, honestly, it was the right call. We're discussing future content, how to release it, what's going to be included, and when, but we won't be ready to disclose our next year's plans for a while.

 

I know that's vague, yet it gives you an idea of where we're headed.

 

---Keith

 

Should probably hire more people so you can actually do 2 operations every year like you used to.

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