[2019] Developer Q&A - 12/04

TOPIC: General

Q: Guilds may be great for big groups of friends but I am a solo player. How can I get raid only gear if I am the only member of my guild producing raid tickets and/or taking part in raids and/or territory battles?
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[*] A: Tophat - We made a decision a long time ago about how important/required guilds would be. We decided on making a significant part of the game experience related to guilds. We have no plans in changing the structure of how the rewards or experience of guilds play out. The short answer is you'll need to join a larger guild if you want a regular flow of those items.
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Q: Are we getting any closer to having a more organized way to farm gear? Still waiting for that QOL update where we can choose "favorite" gear to farm it without going through character interfaces.
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[*] A: CG_SvenGG - We are exploring a feature to rework the inventories to introduce a gear inventory, which could introduce functionalities like favoriting gear or crafting and finding gear regardless of character requirements. There is a bit of a UX and data puzzle to unravel, and the work needs to be balanced against other features including game modes. It is on our radar and we have thought through it to the point of writing design documents and creating wireframes.
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Q: Would it be possible to pick between both old TB's while still alternating LS & DS Geo TB? The content is very old at this point, but our guild still doesn't have the Probe Droid across the board (and I don't believe anybody has a 7*). We've graduated to DS Geo TB, but we've been able to alternate between standard Imperial DS TB and Geo. Now with the release of LS Geo TB we're losing the opportunity to alternate DS TB's and we've got no further use of the LS Rebel TB, and are probably years away from doing LS Geo TB. We feel like we're being forced to pursue a game mode that we're finished with at the expense of having to later choose between 2 we really want to participate in.
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[*] A: CG_Tophat - The short answer is no. We walk a delicate line between demanding too much and too little time for a mobile game. If we allow players to play the old TBs alongside the new ones, from a min/max perspective this is basically a requirement to be "good" at the game which is to play both. So while there are some players that want to play more our data indicates that we already ask a lot of a lot of players time. Adding an additional "requirement" probably tips us over on the "required" amount of time playing. In addition, we have very specific economy outflows modeled and allowing the second TB disrupts that in a way that as the economy is currently set up, can't handle.
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Q: In a past interview CG_Tophat commented "Interesting. Wonder what that could mean" in regards to Echo's basic getting buffs with Crit Damage Up. Now that all the 501st are out and we're moving past the Clone Wars, could we get more clarity on what that means since he has no Crit Damage Up synergy with clones or 501st?
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[*] A: CG_Miller - At the time CG_TopHat wrote that there was an upcoming ability meant to synergize with that, but in our balance testing that occured after he made that comment we had to change that ability. We're looking into avenues we can take to correct Echo's Basic Omega.
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Q: Why do you not utilize the in game inbox more? I feel as though the best way to communicate to your players are in the actual game. I know you guys put out push notifications but often times i am clicking through dailies and miss the message with no way to look at what it was (update coming, new pack, etc.) Can we get all updates as an inbox message that we can manage? Is it possible to see dev posts from the forum as well or at the least a notification that there is a new post?
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[*] A: CG_Erik - The in-game communications tools (and those outside the game) we have are a few years old and are certainly an area to improve. For the last few years, we've prioritized new gameplay features and content higher than upgrading these tools, but we're currently working on upgrades that you'll see in a future update.
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TOPIC: Economy

TOPIC: Art

Q: In comparison and contrast to models and skins from the Star Wars movies and TV or animated series, which theme do you like the most? For example, in the prequel movies, an original model of B2 Battle Droid seems compact and has one wrist blaster built on its left arm. Later in animated series, its body is bulkier than the original ones from the prequel movies and armed with two wrist blasters on both arms.
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[*] A: CG_RagingSpaniard - This is entirely up to the individuals taste so I cant speak for the rest of the art team. I personally like stylization because it allows you to get to the essence of the characters and settings in a way that live action can't get to sometimes. For instance those Galaxy of Adventures shorts are outstanding and I love them, but then again I really like anime so thats a natural fit for me. The art team has a very diverse set of likes and dislikes so we try to leverage all that information and distill it in something thats uniquely ours. One good example of this is our KotOR content where we had the chance to make some creative decisions based on the limitations the original games had and in order to fit them into our own art style we were able to redesign a fair amount of elements. Canderous, Jedi Revan and Mission being particular highlights but pretty much every single environment got a thorough makeover. I never want to be the game that just copies other peoples work, I want to celebrate it, find the best parts and enhance it. We wont always succeed but thats the mission.
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Q: Would you be willing to create a section on the forum to display art created by the development team? I love the portraits, but it would be cool to see a gallery with larger versions of them. I’d also love to see some of the event art that only appears once in the game and then is gone forever. The artists put so much work into the art, it seems a shame for it to disappear. Maybe you could add concept art as an unlockable in game for quests or events? Anyways, awesome work art team! Keep it up!
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[*] A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Thank you, this is something that we talk about internally pretty often. Obviously the art team is proud of their efforts and we like the opportunity to share our work whenever the opportunity presents itself but we haven't established a proper pipeline for doing so yet. The reasons for that are many. Adding the high resolution artwork to the game as an unlockable is quite tricky, it can really blow up the SKU size. In-Game art is not always authored to be seen without the UI or at a higher resolution, so some of the pieces you like might not look so good when seen in a different light.
[*] A: CG_SBCrumb - It's something I've been working on with the team. No updates at the moment but it's a possibility if we can work out the pipeline that RS talked about above.
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TOPIC: Content

Question Template:
Q: The Mandalorian. I have spoken.
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[*] A: Tophat - Still no current plans for it. We're targeting for some time next year, but no clear timeline.
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TOPIC: Technical Issues

Q: It's been going on for over a year now, when will you fix the bug where the game freezes and buttons disappear? I almost lost a perfect record in GAC this time around due to a game crippling bug that you can't fix.
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[*] A: CG_Tophat - Our recently released "battle restart" tech covers about 90% of instances which is a great improvement, but still 10% to fix! We are about to start looking for the next source of the disappearing button issues.
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Q: Did you ever fix the Fives bug? Or does he still need to be in the 5th spot?
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[*] A: CG_Tophat - Still needs to be in the fifth spot. It's something that needs a client release to fix and it's a lower priority item compared to some other things we have ahead of it.
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TOPIC: QoL

Q: I have asked this question in the last 3 Q&A’s and you have never answered this question that so many want an answer to. Quality of life seems to have totally fallen off the radar. When are we going to be able to simulate the tank and sith raids. It is ridiculous that we have continue to complete these raids and it creates totally unnecessary tension in a guild by people fighting for the best slots. Second, mods are my biggest frustration of the game. I have farmed mods nonstop since the rework but have not once gotten a mod with a secondary speed greater than 21. A circle secondary speeds greater than 15 are exceedingly rare. This is a great frustration of many negatively affecting our experience in the game. It’s so bad it is like CG is deliberately punishing the players. This is a major quality of life issue. Stop ignoring these important questions. Thanks
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[*] A: CG_Tophat - Apologies - I don't think we're actively avoiding this question. We get a lot of questions and it sounds like we ran out of time to answer. 1) Quality of Life hasn't fallen off the table. We typically do quality of life work in March. We're hoping to do some this March. Now what is quality of life for people changes from person to person. 2) The AAT sim has been discussed pretty recently. I would say that one has a good chance of seeing a roll out sooner rather than later (no promises on timelines). We have no immediate intent to sim the Sith Triumvirate. A large chunk of players are still working through it. 3) Sorry to hear you're having a tough time with mods. We talk about mods pretty regularly. We're in an interesting position with mods insofar that without the game turns into a pretty stale deterministic tree (we saw this in the early days of the game) because some character's speeds put them in a position to be written out of the game (practically, not functionally). So mods serve an important role of making it possible to elevate different characters and control turn orders. That said, we recognize that there's a tremendous amount of importance on speed in the game and we're thinking about how to tackle it. Some of that shows up character design and encounter design. We're thinking about it.
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Q: Can you add a feature where officers can remove squads from territory wars?
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[*] A: CG_SvenGG - This touches on two sets of QOL work we want to do: Guild Management and territory activities. We know that managing a guild (especially a competitive one) is a lot of work. Giving Leaders and Officers more information and better tools to make decisions and to perform managerial tasks should cascade into an improved experience for everyone in guilds. We also want to empower strategic decisions for territory activities, and strategies often need to adapt or change to be successful.
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Q: Hi. Will there ever be an feature to "refund" a zeta or a whole character/rooster (giving back gear credits, droids and ability materials) since there is a big focus on making your account as "thin" as possible for best Grand Arena Championships results?
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[*] A: CG_Tophat - We have no intention at this time of creating a feature that would refund materials applied to a character. Rather, we spend out time thinking about how to make the game reward players that have better developed rosters.
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TOPIC: Mechanics/Balance

Q: You’ve stated that the difficulty will not be rolled back after this TB (sic) and that it is to stay the same, can you provide some information as to what’s coming to help level the playing field. Players are worried that this new addition will be hidden behind some massive paywall that will weaken the total community by player retirement.
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[*] A: CG_Tophat - There's a discussion in the community that with this Territory Battle is setting up for a future progression system element that is imminently planned (the theory is typically this seems to be in the next two or three months). Geonosis Light Side is intended to be a long term piece of content that will take some time to master. The difficulty is intentional. We've tried to account for player theory crafters who generally do a great job of finding very powerful strategies in these pieces of content. We do not at this time have an expansion of relics, level cap increase, etc planned in the next three months. We will be actively monitoring player participation (and related behaviors) in the Geonosis Light Side territory battle. If there is a problem (your example is mass exodus) we will intervene and make changes. Hope this helps allay any concerns.
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Q: Are you able to share specific details of how pilotless ships will scale in relation to matching the power of traditional relic 7 pilots?
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[*] A: CG_Miller - Crewless ships are balanced tested at Relic 7 to ensure that the fleets they are designed for behave as we want them to at this level. This involves a lot of wizardry done to their stats and how they improve, but suffice it to say that if the Relic cap goes up, we'll need to address this issue with crewless ships.
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Q:
With relics you have also introduced Archetypes. Do you plan to use these Archetypes in the futur or were they just template for relic stat boost?
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[*] A: CG_Miller - Mastery (the stat that is directly tied to Archetypes) is a stat we are looking at adding to places outside the Relic system.
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Jamerson;c-2022396

yo @CG_SBCrumb how bout those 20 or so questions you said you had answers to from the last q&a? You took lunch and promised to post them later and failed to deliver.

I did added a bunch more after lunch but ran out of time to do all of them. There's sooo many!

Firebrigade;c-2022549

@CG_SBCrumb

EDIT: The team has answered a ton of questions that I still need to post and many of stayed extra long today. I won't be gathering any more questions from the thread at this time but most answers live shortly!

Stayed extra long? Isn’t it like 2:45 there? What time does your workday end? Think I may have found part of the problem...

I only asked them to stay for an hour and half to answer questions and they stayed much longer than that. They also have their jobs to do

Firebrigade;c-2022549

@CG_SBCrumb

EDIT: The team has answered a ton of questions that I still need to post and many of stayed extra long today. I won't be gathering any more questions from the thread at this time but most answers live shortly!

Stayed extra long? Isn’t it like 2:45 there? What time does your workday end? Think I may have found part of the problem...

I only asked them to stay for an hour and half to answer questions and they stayed much longer than that. They also have their jobs to do