Raid schedule posted through March!

by Mithoron, 2 days ago

Based on the current feedback from our level 50's, I've posted the Raid Schedule through March. You can access the sign-up for the next 3 raids on the widget to the right or go to the DKP/Raiding section and sign-up for all of them!

Note that you have to have your character created on the site and I need to then set that character up as "raid eligible" to sign up...so do not wait until the last minute!

Dev Tracker Summary: February 13-20th, 2012

by Mithoron, 2 days ago

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Hello, and welcome to this week’s Dev Tracker blog. Each week, we’re going to be collecting the most important developer responses that show up in our Dev Tracker and collating them into this digest. Be sure to also check out the News and Community Blog sections of our website for all of the latest updates! Let’s get started: On Monday last week, Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert jumped in on a discussion about need vs. greed in SWTOR, revealing that there will be changes to the current system in the future: Quote: Need vs. greed isn't as simple in our game because of companions, as well as Orange Gear and mod extraction. We will probably limit the 'need' button to only people who match the primary class the gear is meant for, and add a new button in between need and greed for players to choose if they intend the gear for these purposes - this will allow CC users to roll against each other without competing with the guy who wants to sell the gear for credits. I don't have a timeline on this for you guys right now, though - certainly not in the next major patch. In the meantime, I strongly recommend that players who care clearly decide the expected need/greed role behaviors ('no companion need rolling or you're out!') when a group is initially formed. In the meantime, I'll work on getting this feature in the works. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller was all over the forums last week, which is good, since he was able to reveal several bits of information. First, he clarified that the fix for operative medical therapy was coming in Patch 1.1.4 and also just why developer posts sometimes show up as backdated, even though they are new. He then discussed several upcoming PVP changes: Quote: Patch 1.2, among many other PvP changes, will remove the reliance on daily quests for your gear progression (and therefore increasing the value of the commendations you get for playing a match to the end) and implement penalties for quitters. He also managed to role-play a little bit and confirm that the next major content patch will have additional schematic drops. He also hopped into the Trooper Forum to reveal: Quote: We have a new set of animations in the development pipeline that will even the timing between the class abilities, yes. As for timing, at the latest these new animations will roll out with the next major content patch, 1.2. Finally, he wrote about why certain patch notes only appear once they go live (instead of on the PTS) and the changes in 1.2 regarding endgame orange gear: Quote: From patch 1.2, any orange (custom) appearance in the game will be viable for endgame purposes. Of course there'll be new outfits as well - so these changes together should lead to a very significant amount of variation in endgame, for all classes. Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez informed people about Patch 1.1.3a and that it wouldn’t require a new download since it was client-side. He also clarified that battlemaster commendations were dropping as intended and confirmed that servers would be located in Australia for the Asia Pacific launch. He also had this to say in regards to the Asia Pacific launch: Quote: Hi bahugboto! Thanks for your questions! Yes there will be, in fact, an Asia/Pacific tab under the location selection list and anyone with an active SWTOR account will be able to play on these servers. Finally, he made sure that people were aware of tomorrow’s maintenance and posted threads for Friday’s Q&A discussion and the next Q&A. Live Community Coordinator Amber Green closed the loop on a companion bug and posted the patch notes for 1.1.4 in the Public Test Server Forum. She also confirmed that we have unbound the “” key in 1.1.4 and that players will no longer be flagged for PVP unintentionally with indirect targeting. Assistant Community Production Coordinator Courtney Woods posted a thread in General Discussion letting people know about the upcoming Asia Pacific launch. She also posted about the latest Quick Start Guide here. And last but not least, Sr. Community Coordinator David Bass posted an update about the upcoming Guild Summit, letting people know that invites had been sent out.

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1.1.4 Patch Notes — 2/22/2012

by Mithoron, 2 days ago

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General The key formerly bound to /bug can now be mapped to any action and no longer opens the /bug window. The command is no longer able to be bound to a quickslot, but player can still type /bug in chat to open a new bug report. Classes and Combat General Using abilities with indirect targeting (such as area of effect abilities) will no longer cause players to be flagged for PvP if a PvP-flagged player from the opposing faction is within the ability's range, and the ability will have no effect on the PvP-flagged player. Imperial Agent Operative Medical Therapy: Kolto Probe and Recuperative nanotech will now properly benefit from this skill. Bounty Hunter Powertech Carbonize: PvP armor for Combat Tech will no longer prevent this skill from stunning enemies. Flashpoints and Operations Operations Eternity Vault Casting Mind Trap will no longer cause Soa to lose threat against his primary target. Karagga's Palace G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator now has fewer hit points in Normal Mode. Items Vendors "Show Usable" now properly filters to only show equipable items. Missions and NPCs Missions Republic Unlikely Allies: Resetting no longer requires players to abandon and re-acquire the mission in order to complete it. PvP Warzones General Fixed a queue interface exploit that allowed players to bring additional players into a warzone. While imbalances can still happen under specific circumstances, the issue can no longer be intentionally triggered by players in this way. Alderaan Civil War The Eastern Turret no longer fires twice under some circumstances when it is captured by the Imperials. World PvP Ilum The /stuck comman will no longer teleport players to the location where they died. UI General Added a /version command. Added several new preferences for cooldown appearance: Show Ready Flash: Toggles a bright flash when an ability finishes cooldown. Show Global Cooldown Ready Flash: Toggles a bright flash when an ability finishes global cooldown. Cooldown Style: Changes the art style for the cooldown graphic. Global Cooldown Style: Changes the art style for the global cooldown graphic. Show Cooldown Timer: Toggles cooldown time text on top of the ability icon in the quickbar. Bug Fixes Sorting will now function properly in the Guild Window. Items placed in a quickbar are no longer removed when training abilities. Using Shift + Right Click to split a stack of usable items will no longer cause the item to be used. Some UI settings (such as quickbar lock, chat font size, and minimap zoom) will no longer reset upon area transition. Miscellaneous Bug Fixes Players will no longer experience occasional disconnection when purchasing Crafting Materials from the GTN.

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Community Q&A: Feb 17th 2012

by Mithoron, 6 days ago

/roll
Customizable hoods
Mobile Apps for Crew Skills

All of these and more are hinted at in the near to far future...

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It’s that time again! Last week we asked for your questions and this week we have some answers. Once again, we had planned on answering 10 questions but in the end, got 12 answered by various members of the team. Please note in some cases we’ve combined multiple questions into one, and we have edited some questions for clarity. We have now opened an official thread for next week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CST on February 21st (8pm GMT/9pm CET). We welcome your questions in that thread and hope you enjoy the answers below. If you want to discuss any of the answers given, please use this Forum thread! DarthBelkar: Can we look forward to server-wide special seasonal / short-term events? Daniel Erickson: Yes! Expect them to fit into the world and setting, involve a fair bit of discovery, and offer special rewards that will be there one day and then gone forever. And expect them soon. Darthinfimus: Do you plan to implement a /roll or /random command for use in master looter situations? Damion Schubert: Diceslingers of the world rejoice! /roll has already been implemented on our internal development servers and should be coming to you guys Real Soon Now (in an upcoming weekly patch). Relayinabox: Are there any plans for a show/hide companion headgear option? Damion Schubert: Yep, we have plans. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but is currently in the works. NiklasWB: When will you make it possible for Force-using characters to pull up/down their hoods on their robes? Damion Schubert: This is in the works now. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but should get done in the next major update after that. And yes, we will extend this functionality to your Force-slinging companions as well. ehlnofey: Will there be any changes/improvements made to the Galactic Trade Network system, and when will it be implemented?” Damion Schubert: We know that the GTN needs a lot of love, and work is currently underway to improve this. Watch this space for more news! GnovaD: Are there any plans to introduce mobile apps to the game? Eg. Use smart phone/tablet to send companions on missions while offline. Damion Schubert: Let's just say that this has always been a dream of mine for crew skills - it's almost as if this design was created specifically with this in mind, doesn't it? Good news, sometimes dreams do come true! The bad news is that I have no ETA for you, though, as this is a significant technical endeavor. Bobonar: Will we be able to take the modifications out of our endgame pvp-sets and put them into a set that we like better (design-wise) and keep the bonuses? Emmanuel Lusinchi: Yes, the set bonus will be carried by Armoring mods that work just like regular mods except that they only fit into specific types of items, such as chest items or boots items. So, for example, the set bonus from a chest piece can be moved to another chest piece, and the set bonus from a helmet can be moved to another helmet. HollowPoint: There has been a large push in the community for chat bubbles, especially with a toggle option for those who don't want them. Is a chat bubble system in the works? If so, when can we expect it to be implemented? Damion Schubert: They're definitely on the list. We’ve got many active roleplayers in the dev team and chat bubbles have always been important to us. We actually had chat bubbles in beta, but there was unfortunately some serious performance issues that our implementation caused that, for example, made things really suck in warzones and the fleet. They’ll be coming soon, but in priority, the GUI team is focused first on GUI customization. I'll have a better idea of timing once we get past that. And yes, for people who hate them, whenever we do them, they'll be toggleable. RuQu: Can you provide some details on Healer class design philosophy? Commando/Scoundrel AoE does not scale with group size due to player caps. Are they not intended to fill the raid-healer role? Scoundrels can be highly efficient, but have no tools for doing a short burst of healing. In short, what is the design intention for each of the healers, and is it intended for them to be balanced so that any possible combination is competitive in Operations, or is a certain mix expected? Georg Zoeller: Our stance is that all full healer specs should be viable for all type of content, which is the case, even for 16 man Operations. Our own players have no issues clearing any of the content in the game, on all difficulty levels, with any healer spec. Data from the Live game shows Operations, at all sizes, being successfully run with Commando and Scoundrel healers. It is expected for certain Operations bosses to create challenges for different healer archetypes (e.g. due to mobility requirements), but overall, every healer archetype is capable of successfully healing through any Operations and Flashpoint content in the game (currently and in the future). With regards to your question about Commando/Scoundrel Area of Effect healing not scaling to group size, please understand that no heal, on any class, scales with group size. The most powerful Area of Effect heals in the game (Salvation/Revivification) affects up to 8 players, but does not scale with group size. These abilities are very costly, have an activation time requirement and require the targets to stand in a localized area for ten seconds to receive the full benefit. We plan on improving the overall Area of Effect healing performance of the Mercenary/Commando in the next major Game Update (1.2) by increasing the number of targets affected by Kolto Missile/Kolto Bomb. As for Scoundrels having no tools for short burst healing, we don’t agree with that assessment. A scoundrel, for example, is capable of producing rather significant burst healing output by using Upper Hand gained from Underworld Medicine or Kolto Injection to trigger an instant Emergency Medpack or Surgical probe when needed. That said, we certainly think there’s room for improvements (and our upcoming Game Update 1.2 has a sizeable chunk of such improvements). For example, we are shifting the healing created by the Kolto Cloud ability to be front loaded in 1.2 to allow it to act as an emergency Area of Effect healing tool. Finally, the perception of a specific class being not desirable can also be affected by the desirability of other classes. For example, Sage/Inquisitor healers are currently able to exceed our intended healing performance at times by affecting multiple heals with the same Conveyance/Force Bending buff. Game Update 1.2 will remove the ability to do so. Fu-bear: Can you please confirm the exact mechanics behind Taunts? The tooltips purely state that it forces a mob to attack for X seconds, yet I've read reports that the skill appears to equalize threat like a traditional taunt. Can you clarify this? Georg Zoeller: Taunts work in two ways. First, they instantly put you on top of the target’s threat list. Then, they place a short duration effect on the taunted target forcing them to attack you. Assuming that you then lose threat (say, you just stand there) the NPC will be forced to attack you for the duration of the Taunt. Afterwards, the AI will resume attacking targets based on threat order. If another Taunt is applied after yours, the most recently applied Taunt takes precedence. Please note this is assuming regular threat rules – there are certain situations in the game, especially unique boss fights, which may cause NPCs to specifically ignore targets. In these cases, an ignored target will not be able to gain threat even with a taunt. In general, these situations are messaged to the player through effects on their buff bar – something we’re looking to make more visible in the future. Gladoss, titdiscus, Leoran: What do you plan to against Warzones’ AFK, more particularly about players who leave Warzones ? Will there be sanctions for this type of behavior? Gabe Amatangelo: It is not sanctioned behavior. In Game Update 1.2 we will be making changes to the Warzone rewards system, which will de-incentivize this type of behavior. This will include the removal of the interim bag/quest system, the introduction of the direct purchase of gear from Warzone and Ranked Warzone commendations, 14 new objective-based medals and participation scaling the rewards. Additionally, players will have the option to vote kick idlers. Kicked players will not be able to re-queue for several minutes. Lexiekaboom: 16 man Operations are much harder than 8 man Operations (to the point where most guilds can easily clear hard mode 8 man before being able to clear 16 man easy mode) but there is no loot difference at all to doing them. It's better to send your 16 man raid force to clear two 8 man instances .Is this oversight or design? What will be done to offset this in the future? Gabe Amatangelo: This is not per design. The teams have been addressing this in the weekly patches to some degree and more so in Game Update 1.2. It is intended that 16 player mode is slightly easier than 8 player mode due to the fact that getting and coordinating 16 players is a larger hurdle in and of itself. Thanks for all of your questions, and thanks to the team for answering them. If you’d like to put forward a question for next week’s Q&A, please visit this Forums thread!

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1.1.3a Patch Notes — 2/14/2012

by Mithoron, 6 days ago

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General Using mouse button 5 while hovering over the UI will no longer cause the game client to crash.

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