After Tuesday’s strong reactions to the announced Resolve and PvP-centric class changes coming to Game Update 1.4, BioWare’s community team took the time to clarify some of the changes in two dev tracker replies. The first clarification we received was in this thread: 1.4 Nerfing classes for PVP reasons, impacts PVE:

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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I talked to Senior Designer Austin Peckenpaugh and Senior PvP Designer Rob Hinkle about the concerns that developers allow changes made that primarily affect either PvP or PvE to negatively affect the other part of the game.

While it’s true that some changes may be motivated by design requirements in one gameplay mode, we never make a change without confidence that it’s fun and appropriate in all gameplay modes. We think it’s natural for players to think of the game as two different sub-games and to dislike changes made for a sub-game they don’t participate in, but that mindset couldn’t be further from the case for us. We only ever look at the game as a complete package, and it’s always our goal to deliver one cohesive and coherent gameplay experience. If, during our playtesting, we find that one experience suffers at the cost of another, we revisit our design goals and our options and reassess our approach.

Overload and Force Wave, for example, now reach 15 meters in front of you. This is almost twice the previous range. The extra reach is quite a bit of fun and quite useful all around. Similarly, although stuns that now have a 10-meter range are irrefutably worse, we’ve taken measures to correct for this loss by adding a few new tools and skills to the affected classes. From our internal playtesting and feedback, we’re confident that the new experience is more fun. Ultimately, we want you guys to be able to tell us what is and isn’t fun, so we’re looking forward to players actually testing these changes in-game on the PTS and giving us good, constructive feedback that is based on playing with the changes.

It’s interesting to see BioWare’s stance on balancing changes for PvP and consequently affecting PvE as well. Unfortunately, many Inquisitor/Consular players weren’t looking for new abilities altogether, and instead, wanted to see their PvE utility remain consistent. Keep reading for the second dev tracker reply.

Yesterday we got a dev tracker reply from Jason Attard, Senior Game Balance Designer, courtesy of Allison Berryman. It was regarding modifications in endgame loot and how stats are distributed:

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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I talked to Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer) and he was able to shed some light on modifications in endgame items and how stats are distributed.

Our goal is that a highly-skilled player can complete content without needing to swap mods on their gear, but spending the time and credits necessary to optimize the mods should still make a noticeable difference.

When we generate mods for endgame gear, we generate all the mod variants at a given item level and then run a process that combines the mods with endgame shell items to create the items needed for an Operation. This process helps us ensure that the stats are useful for Advanced Classes and roles, but it doesn’t generate gear that is completely optimal for every spec. We always manually check the results and tweak items where necessary.

We have had some problems in the past with gear that stacks a single rating too much and with incorrect armorings being assigned to some items (high Endurance gear should go to tanking items, Aim/Cunning/Strength/Willpower should go into DPS and healing items), and we’re continuing to refine the processes we use to make more useful gear. In future tiers, you’ll see many issues with mod allocation corrected!

The last bit is especially interesting, and may explain some of the current stat ratios we’re seeing on our Operation loot tables.

Yesterday, Allison Berryman took the time to seek out Rob Hinkle, Senior PvP Designer, and get a few questions from the PvP community answered that were originally asked in this forum thread. Some of the information revealed pertains to Ancient Hypergates, Ranked Warzones, Season 1, and 8-man team queues in non-ranked Warzones.

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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Hey everyone! I don’t have answers to all the questions in the OP and throughout the thread, but I’ll keep them coming as I’m able to. Here are a couple I got answers for after talking to Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer).

Ancient Hypergates will be available in the Ranked Warzones queue as soon as it’s in-game; no wait for it to get added.

Regarding queuing as an 8-player team for non-ranked Warzones: We won’t say “never,” but we don’t have plans for this right now. We want to try to keep the regular Warzones competitive in their own right, and allowing full pre-mades to potentially match with a full PUG could be problematic. We’d want to avoid situations like that.

For Ranked Warzones and queuing with less than 8 players: This is something we have plans for, but we haven’t announced a timeframe for it (it won’t be available in 1.4).

About Season 1: Right now, we have a little more work that needs to be done overall before we’re ready to officially kick it off, and I can tell you that it won’t be launched as part of 1.4. We’ll keep you updated! The PvP game won’t be neglected – we do have Ancient Hypergates on the way as well as new PvP gear, and we have a lot more in store for you!

The good news: at least the PvP community has received some answers, and may be getting more in the future. The bad news? Most of them aren’t that encouraging, and from the looks of it– Game Update 1.4 won’t be very focused on PvP fixes and updates to current in-game content.

It’s no secret that many guilds across multiple servers have been experiencing lag-related issues during Operations. Groups have also been experiencing random “Access Denied” in-game errors that force them to repeatedly try and enter the instance. Some servers are experiencing this issue more than others, of course, but one server where it seems to be the most noticeable is on Canderous Ordo.

Joveth Gonzalez issued a response yesterday to one player-created thread about this issue in the Customer Service forum:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Hi folks, we’ve been seeing some reports about this specific issue and Sr. Server Programmer Jennifer Harkness wanted to elaborate a bit on what’s been going on:

As many of you have noticed, we have been playing with the population settings for the raid areas, and in particular for Explosive Conflict. The main change is that we’ve lowered the overall population for those zones. We’ve been really happy with the reports of lowered lag that folks have been posting, so it looks like that side of the change has been a great success.

However, we have run into one unexpected effect. Normally when you zone to a new area, we try to put you in the same instance as your guild mates and friends. Unfortunately, it’s doing the same thing when you zone into raid instances, which means that with the lowered population numbers, you can be the last one who fits in the instance, and there won’t be room for the rest of your Operations group. This is why a few people have been getting the dreaded “Server Admin” error and end up unable to zone into Denova.

When this happens to you in a group that has just started, the best thing to do is to have everyone exit the area, then reset the group’s active phases. Then you can have someone who is either unguilded or who knows their guild members aren’t in a raid instance zone in first so that they get a emptier instance.

If this happens to your group when you have made progress and would have to kill your way back in, you can wait a few minutes and hope that the population drops, or you can reset your phase immediately and you should be able to enter a new instance immediately.

We did make a configuration change yesterday afternoon to help with the problem and we’re monitoring the servers very closely to evaluate whether that lowers the error rate enough. We’re also working as quickly as possible to get a regular fix ready to deploy.

After the GamesCom announcement regarding Terror from Beyond, the new Operation coming to SWTOR in September, players began wondering whether or not they’d be able to get a chance to test the new Operation on the Public Test Server (PTS). BioWare, in the past, has released some fairly bug-ridden content updates, and no fan of the game wants to see that trend continue. How do players help ensure a bug-free release? Easy– PTS testing.

Allison Berryman responded to one such question regarding the PTS server yesterday:

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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We do plan to continue to use the PTS to test upcoming content (like the new Operation). We haven’t mentioned dates for testing or live release, but we’ll be testing on the PTS in addition to our internal testing in order to help ensure a good quality experience when the Operation reaches the live servers. We do want to make sure that testing is thorough and that any major issues are uncovered and corrected before the Operation is live. We’ll have more information about when to expect releases as quickly as we can.

It’s interesting to note that the September release date isn’t mentioned here. It is good, however, to hear that BioWare fully intends on using the PTS for testing new content. Hopefully they will continue to do so when the F2P model goes live, as well.

In recent patches, we’ve seen some much-needed changes to SWTOR’s Legacy perks, but one thing we haven’t seen is any new rewards or perks for players who have reached the higher Legacy levels. Quite a few players are above Legacy level 25 now, with many sitting at level 50. Yet, there aren’t any special rewards for the levels above 25, which has been a disappointment to many fans.

In one community forum thread, this subject was brought up, and Joveth Gonzalez said the following:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Hello! So I spoke to Principle Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert about this, and he feels that with some of the Legacy rebalancing that has occurred recently, he definitely agrees that there is a need for more rewards for players with Legacy levels 25 and higher. The team hasn’t made any decisions yet, but it is something that they are exploring.

The word “exploring” is admittedly a little less encouraging than the usual Soon™, but at least it’s knowledge that the team is working on some type of reward.

Just in case you were curious about how much time there is left to complete SWTOR’s Grand Acquisitions Race event, yesterday an ending date has been announced. We also received word that the Shady Dealer, the event’s currency vendor, will remain in-game for one week after the event ends.

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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The Chevin Conglomerate has decreed that you will have until next Tuesday (August 21st) at 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8 AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) to finish up the Grand Acquisitions Race. They’ve also decreed that the Shady Dealer will remain for an additional week after the race ends, citing “feedback” as the primary reason.

Good luck!

This is a bit of good news for players who might remember the Rakghoul event, when the vendor was taken out before many players were able to use the rest of their currency.

During Gamescom on Tuesday, EA revealed that next month, we’ll be seeing a new Operation called Terror from Beyond, which takes place on Belsavis. We also discovered that Ancient Hypergates, the new Warzone in development, will be released sometime at a later date, but before fall’s F2P launch.

Since that announcement, many players have wondered how these new content releases will affect the current gear ladder. Will we see another tier of Operation gear? What about an additional PvP tier? David Hunt, SWTOR’s Systems Designer, addressed these gear-related concerns thanks to Allison Berryman, who has been diligently seeking answers to many questions the community has had since BioWare’s recent community refocus.

Originally posted by AllisonBerryman (Source)

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I talked to David Hunt (Systems Designer), and he shed some light upcoming gear. He said that (for PvE), Terror from Beyond’s Hard Mode will include a new set of gear that is a sub-tier of the larger tier that started with Campaign gear. It will also have non-slot restricted armornings. Nightmare Explosive Conflict will speed up the acquisition of the new set and provides new challenges for Operation groups.

For PvP, new mainhand and offhand items will become available from the PvP vendors when Terror from Beyond is released. These will be included so PvP players don’t feel the need to get the hilts and barrels from PvE items to get the highest weapon damage in some cases. The rest of the set will release when Ancient Hypergates becomes available. We also have plans to release a new Recruit MK-2 set.

This is good info, and it’s also nice to see some hints about Nightmare Explosive Conflict in there, too.

Also, this is a good start to BioWare’s goal of interacting more often with the community. These are exactly the types of responses players are looking for on the forums.

So far, BioWare’s Community Team seems to sticking to Joveth Gonzalez’s Message to the Community that was posted two days ago. The team has interacted with the forum community more than they have in previous months, and even taken the time to answer some questions and respond to bug reports. The list of General Forum topics, overall, is more constructive than purely negative, and it’s a nice change to see the yellow staff icons lighting up the list of threads.

One subject that received a staff member response was regarding the lack of a ready check system in SWTOR. Ready check systems are very helpful in numerous games for raiding and PUG situations, and it seems like adding one into SWTOR wouldn’t be overly difficult on behalf of the developers. Here is what Matt Boudreaux, Gameplay Programer, replied with:

Originally posted by MattBoudreaux (Source)

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Many people in the studio are looking forward to a Ready Check system as well. We have one in the works, but unfortunately, I can’t give an ETA. Rest assured we hear you and things are in motion.

Yeah, it’s kind of a Soon™ response, but hey– at least it’s a response. As well as a sign that, yes, features are being worked on.

Yesterday we saw something we’re rather unaccustomed to these days– official SWTOR forum dev tracker activity! Joveth Gonzalez, Community Manager, issued a message to the community and proceeded to stick around and chat with some of the forum community members a bit.

Here’s an excerpt from the message, which can be read in full here:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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As most of you know, over the past few months, our team, our studio, and our game have undergone quite a few changes. Through it all, we’ve remained committed to the community and have worked with the development team to make sure that your voices were heard.

I wanted to take some time to reassure you all that my team, the community team, is still committed to you folks. As part of this commitment, we’re excited to let you know that we have been developing a brand new strategy for our team that focuses on developing new ways to bring you more information about the game and the people involved with SWTOR’s development.

As we progress towards the recently announced Free-to-Play experience, you can expect more frequent updates to the game (which means more information coming to you) and more developer interactions.

Joveth Gonzalez then went on to say that him and his team will be becoming more active on the forums, and refocusing their attention to SWTOR’s community as a whole.