Developer Q&A - May 29th

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CG_SBCrumb
685 posts EA Community Manager
edited May 2019
Hi Holotable Heroes,

The Developer Q&A is starting shortly! We've got tons of good questions from the survey but feel free to add more to this thread or the survey! We will be starting at around 2 PM PT.
See you all shortly!

Who is who?
  • CG_Carrie - Senior Producer
  • CG_Tophat - Live Producer
  • CG_Erik - Player Lifecycle Producer
  • CG_154M - Feature Producer
  • CG_Cyanides - Data Analyst

EDIT: The Q&A is underway!

EDIT: Still working through a ton of question so we are going to go longer than announced. I'm going to close this thread as we aren't going to have time to answer another deluge of inquiries but we will answer as many as we can!

EDIT: Time to send these busy people back to their jobs.Thanks for coming out everyone! We will try to do this again sooner rather than later!

EDIT: Alright folks, we've answered all the questions we're going to answer today! We'll probably schedule another Q&A after the release of Grand Arena Championships and Geonosis Territory Battle, so keep an eye out!

CG_Carrie's Responses:

  • Q: Will you ever add multibuy to bronzium data cards?
  • A: CG_Carrie: There are no plans for this. I think we get this question at least a few times a year, but the short of it is, when ally points were used as the currency in the old Tournament system, that was a big mistake that we made. When we turned off Tournaments, we didn't feel like we could take away the currency that was granted, even though we didn't want it to be used to open Bronzium packs at that amount. We probably should have then, but instead have decided to let it sit, and find other ways for you to spend large amounts of the ally points via the weekly shipments. NR: We'll likely try to find other ways for you to use large amounts of Ally Points on something that's meaningful for where you are in the game.
  • Q: On IOS devices when attempting a Territory War the game shuts down going into battle. When will we see a hot patch fix for this? -ScottDeluia
  • A: CG_Carrie: If you're on a very old iOS device, we're aware that the performance issues have been getting subsequently worse. We are seeing this on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S in particular, and it may be that we aren't able to maintain the performance for the number of people on those devices. There was an asset download stalling/hang issue that got worse in the last update that we are fixing in TU16 (next big client update). But as we move forward, we also may need to start blacklisting or highly recommending alternate devices for those that are 6-8 years old. It's the nature of the growth of the game over time and the things we're doing to add to the experience as technologies evolve.
  • Q: There is a little sound that is heard right before most attacks, is that meant to be a sort of “dice roll” sound effect as a result of playing the holotables? -Dusty
  • A: CG_Carrie: While I love this explanation, our audio guy believes you're commenting on the UI click made by pressing the button. Alas, that was the intention, but I'm going to think dice roll from now on!
  • Q: I took a year break from this game and as such my arena and my ship arena are brutally difficult; I see similar rosters as mine who rank in the top 10s and getting massive amounts of rewards while I am struggling; my question how is this equitable: will you guys address this type of issue? - A struggling old gamer new to the new ways
  • A: CG_Carrie: We've been talking for awhile about how to address the shard system, which began initially with allowing players minimally to change payouts, and larger conversations about how squad arena IS the backbone for how people gain currency. We'd like to explore the nature of this, but really really do not want to upset the applecart that is people's current routine. I mentioned this elsewhere, but every day $300,000 worth of crystals is given out from squad arena alone. So changing that system is not something we would consider lightly, if at all. We are talking a lot about catch up mechanics, especially the normal influx of new players we see around movies and that we hope to see for Episode 9, so I expect that we'll explore something to lift you up rather than something that might affect others negatively as well. NR: As we've been discussing and hinting at more broadly, we're really trying to figure out how we change the game from being all about Squad Arena, but it has to be net positive for the player.. If we're able to change that, then when you stopped playing should hopefully not be as painful for you tor return to the game.
  • Q: How will you balance out new content for long term players while making sure new players don't have an insurmountable task to catch up? -MadScientist92
  • A: CG_Carrie: It's an interesting Catch-22 because while we do want to move away from single meta teams, the existence of them has allowed people to catch up much more quickly than they will be able to in a more diverse meta. The way we think about the meta though, is we are often exploring teams that have value for endgame players, for those operating in mid-GP brackets, for people who are more casual, and everything in between. We find patterns in different player segments of different teams at the top, and we think about how you use those teams to "graduate" to the next tier of the meta. It's not a perfect science, but it is something we discuss and try to balance for this reason.
  • Q: Where is "Lord Vader" or "Fallen Anakin" and what hint can you give us to start farming towards him? -Yautjamorph
  • A: CG_Carrie: As always, we don't comment on the nature of the characters we release and when. Nick had a Porkins-esque answer in here, and I'd like to avoid further Twitter accounts being made to harangue me.
  • A: CG_Erik: Interesting factoid: the moment Anakin "falls" he becomes Darth Vader.
  • Q: What are you working on to include new players into existing guilds? I have friends that would like to play but my guild won’t let them in because they are too new. My suggestion would be a padawan system in which new players could join friend’s guilds. They wouldn’t be included in the 50 cap and there could be side missions during events such as Hoth that they could participate in. win/win? -Juanito
  • A: CG_Carrie: We're talking about some kind of alliance / referral / mentorship feature that gives existing players a chance to be in the driver's seat towards recruiting and training up new players, and getting rewarded for it. We didn't call it padawan but yes padawan system. I'm alluding to Episode IX as an opportunity for something like that, but it's VERY early in discussion right now, and we may end up going in a different direction.
  • Q: What are your plans to make the game more interesting to new players? A three to six month leveling process of using very underwhelming toons is quite painful and disheartening to the point where that overcomes the joy of Star Wars and swgoh. Little things like reducing the challenge cool down for those less than lv85 would help a lot? -Kantouch
  • A: CG_Carrie: We added a quest system last May specifically for this purpose, and one of the big downsides was people were moving through the game too quickly and not learning how to play at the same speed. This actually gave them a very negative experience, so they'd drop out or be quite unhappy by the endgame. I think some of the friction (albeit some unintentional) has created a gauntlet that makes long-term players so skilled. We reverted some of those changes and the newer experience ended up being better, however I would like to keep working on it.
  • Q: Is Darth Revan and Malak the last of the Old Republic line or can we expect more possibly?
  • A: CG_Carrie: As I mentioned in the last Road Ahead, our focus is The Clone Wars for the moment. Don't get me wrong, we have lots of Old Republic stories left to tell, and until we have Khem Val, I won't sleep. But I think we've done it justice for now.
  • Q: Is there a plan to balance every character in order to make the game more fair an remove the meta teams? -Nimdull
  • A: CG_Carrie: Something in between. Not every character in the game will be meta defining (sorry URoRRuR'R'R).
  • CG_Tophat: That's it,Tuskens are the next meta (not really).
  • Q: When will Zetas become purchasable? -Good2Noe
  • A: CG_Carrie: Not right now, and not for the foreseeable future. While we know people want to buy Zetas, at this point in the game it's the pinnacle of content for the character experience, and we like that it is restricted purely by how many you can earn. Maybe one day in the future we will sell zetas, and occasionally selling a few out isn't out of the question, but for now we aren't planning to sell them regularly (or even at all - again I'll triple underline - for now. It may change).
  • Q: What did Carrie mean by "tip of the spear"?
  • A: CG_Carrie: Thanks for asking this! It's a military expression that means the people that get there first. By that I was referencing both free-to-play and spending players who get content first, that's it. In military terms, the tip of spear usually don't fare so well (sorry guys, not my main reason for the expression) but that they "cut through" the forces to make it easier for everyone to follow. In a better strategy of the Battle of Winterfell, the first wave of Dothraki would have been the tip of the spear (and that would have amounted to something more meaningful under a better military strategist). Or as my second favorite Bill P once said "tip of the spear, edge of the knife..."
  • Q: With the character release cadence going from a trickle to a near standstill, how are you planning to keep end-game players engaged and interested in the game? We are simply running out of factions to panic gear/farm. -Varth Dader
  • A: CG_Carrie: I feel like this question is loaded! We've heard both "there are too many characters being released" articulated as well, and I'd like to think it comes in waves. We've released a lot of content the beginning of this year, that most players of this game still don't have. So while they catch up and work on acquiring Darth Revan and Darth Malak, we know that players that have them all are looking for something more to do. This is where we are hoping Grand Arena Championship and more new challenging content (the Dark Side Territory Battle is going to be bardzo bardzo trudne) is going to keep them busy.
  • Q: What's your favorite kit concept that you wanted to ship but couldn't quite nail down? -Fatal
  • A: CG_Carrie: There were some earlier discussions and prototypes for CLS actually changing his entire kit - swapping the basics and specials - when he used Call to Action. We referred to it as the "Stance" system. While it technically worked, there were a lot of weird edge cases and we worried it added too much complexity into, at the time, was a pretty loaded kit. We still still discuss the Stance system as something we may tackle in the future, but we have no plans to right now.
  • Q: Will you set the hard node battle from 5 to 8 battle permanently? It will really help free to play players to follow the meta. -DarthTekuu
  • A: CG_Carrie: Not in the near future. The game launched at three originally and it was definitely tuned too tight. When we started to release more Marquees, we bumped it up to five permanently. Whenever we thought an influx of Marquees necessitated it, we've bumped it to eight temporarily. However, we aren't releasing enough Marquees right now to make that make the numbers work. It's always a balance between giving good long and short term goals, and we'll watch and adjust as needed.
  • Q: Why is CG_TopHat so sexy?
  • A: CG_Carrie: Nice try, CG_TopHat.
  • Q: Can you develop content (both PVE & PVP) that restricts characters to those released before a certain date? E.g., a Classic Event would only allow characters released in 2016 and earlier, Legacy Event would be 2018 and earlier. Such events would eliminate the need to tune-up or rework older characters, instead allowing you to develop content specifically engineered for those older characters with their out-dated kits.
  • A: CG_Carrie: Interesting idea. Are you in the WoW Classic Beta? Haven't previously considered it, but I'm keeping an eye on Classic WoW as an indicator of if old gameplay, but nostalgic holds merit.
    CS: I would love to do something like WoW Classic is doing. Go back to where hard nodes were 3 attempts, characters went directly to Chromium, and protection didn't exist (barris was meta). Ah, the good ol days.
  • Q: Are there any plans to open more info up that can be used in Discord bots or websites? Things like unequipped mods, unequipped gear, daily raid tickets, etc. - sigsig
  • A: CG_Carrie: We've been talking to some of the mod community for quite some time, most closely working with SWGOH.gg but I've had initial conversations with SWGOH Events and others. It is something we'd like to do but sometimes falls below everything else in terms of the priority list. I asked one of our engineers who is going to be popping up in the forums and Reddit more regularly to see if he can incorporate this into his workload, so we would love to do it, it's just a question of when (and if it keeps data integrity safe). One sidenote, I've really wanted to add Battle History to Grand Arena, but it's become clear through developing Grand Arena Championships that top-performing players keeping their mod and even squad info private/surprising is one of the keys to their success, and on some level we'll always need to protect and celebrate that.
  • Q: What is the plan for adding more PvE content to the game? Many days there is absolutely nothing to do in the "Events" table, and even more days there is something useless like a training droid heist. When can we expect more fun, challenging, rewarding, replayable PvE content?
  • A: CG_Carrie: Well - first off - have you heard about Territory Battle - Geonosis. So full disclosure, May had a number of errors that are my fault. Primarily, there were missing gaps. Moving forward we made a number of process changes that hopefully won't let that happen again (with my luck though I'll be eating my hat in under 48 hours). However, more broadly we think of Territory Wars, Territory Battles, and Grand Arenas as the new core of the event experience in Galaxy of Heroes. We will continue to make sure that there is at least an event in the event room everyday, but we think of the day to day experience of events primarily being guided by TW, TB, and GA. We are planning for more Mythic events and some new ships things - but we aren't ready to deploy them yet. Somewhere else I also talk about how I'm keenly interested in delivering more Raids and more TBs more regularly. This isn't something we intend to forget about - it's just about making sure we can deliver consistently and at quality.
Post edited by CG_Erik on

Replies

  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited May 2019
    • Q: Is it possible to add a Polish language version?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Unlikely at this point. The language evaluation is usually done up front, but it gets very expensive to retrofit after a game is live.
    • Q: I've reset my payout times twice, once when it came out, and again to ensure it fit my schedule. Now that the clocks changed (daylight savings) it'd be great to move my payout back an hour. Do you think in the future we could be able to do this - Maybe reset the number of changes twice a year (when the clocks change)?
    • A: CG_Carrie: The intention was to update the recharges every year for this reason. I will admit that we all just looked at each other to make sure we've double-checked that's working. Fortunately we have some time still.
    • Q: Can you make an aged based title and avatar? 1,2,3,4,5, years....I'd like to brag.
    • A: CG_Carrie: I'd really like to do this, I think it would take some additional tech to implement. It's why I will never let my Xbox Live subscription expire, that little 16 next to my name is just too satisfying.
    • Q: What is your greatest challenge in regards to the future of the game and do you have a plan to overcome it?
    • A: CG_Carrie: We've talked about it a bunch here, but it's in overcoming the desire for each character to become a part of a singular squad that decimates all squads before it. The value of squad arena has led us here. And the desire to give people want they want and something worth farming every single time has led us here. And the reality is people play this game A LOT, so they consume the content almost instantaneously. The harder we make it, the more we separate the tip from the uhhh... you know the other part of the spear. It's why we take this methodically and slowly (I know too slowly for some of you) but that we still change the game over time in a way that you come along with us and is what you want for the game, without upsetting everything that came before it. It's very challenging to please everyone, but the fun is in trying. I remember all the conversations we had about why we thought TB/TW would add layers to the game and meaningfully change it while respecting everything that came before.
    • Q: What are your views on the longevity of the game? Basically how far do your plans reach into the future
    • A: CG_Carrie: John Salera, our Group GM (and the original EP), talks about this game having the potential to live as long as the Star Wars franchise (has til now) - so we used to say 37 more years to the team last year. Which I know sounds daunting. :) I talked about a 5 year roadmap in the Road Ahead, but I've done a version that goes to 10. When you think of the kinds of gameplay mechanics, the stories to tell, the ability for players to socialize more directly in game (and not just in Discord) - there are a ton of things we want to do. It does take a lot to maintain the game that is while we add new content though, so we have to be cautious.
    • Q: Clash of clans has recently made efforts to put it's mobile game into the ever growing E-Sports market. Have the SWGOH producers/developers had any conversations about entering this market?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Yes, we have a verrrrry competitive group of players. One of our most existential questions is whether we put the effort into real time combat. It would add a new dynamic, but it would take a lot of work, and we don't want to take away from those who like playing this game when it's convenient to them. If you have strong thoughts either way, we'd love to hear them. But for Grand Arena Championship, that's our first foray into actual Leaderboards to see who is the best in the world at this game. Depending on how much people like that, we will continue to double down.
    • Q: What other Star Wars games have you played?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Shadows of the Empire is my favorite Star Wars game (yes of all time). I started playing SWTOR again recently, and I've played the KOTORs, Battlefronts, Jedi Knights, Rogue Squadrons... uhh did I mention I have 56 video game consoles? I like video games.
    • Q: Do the folks who write the code and maintain the servers actually play the game?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Yes! Our analytics team just put together a really cool table aggregating all of the behavioral data of all the employees in the studio. I won't steal their numerical thunder in case they ever want to publish it but the results were striking. The Top 10 highest daily average playtime was much more engineer-heavy than we anticipated. I'd say that the overwhelming majority of CGers are extremely active or active in the game.
    • Q: With the news that Star Wars movies will slow considerably after Episode 9, are you excited to have some more freedom to release whatever like this past year?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Yes and no. I think we love having fun with different eras of our choosing, but having Star Wars in the zeitgeist is awesome for us. First and foremost we're all fans of this brand, so I love seeing what's coming next.
    • Q: What is your plan moving forward to stop players from quitting the game? There has been a mass exodus ever since the Revan event.
    • A: CG_Carrie: We pay a lot of attention to a variety of metrics that indicate the health of players, and we are always looking at things we want to add for players of all types. Despite how it may feel when you see certain people leave, we're not seeing evidence that there has been a mass exodus. In fact many of our health metrics (with the exception of maybe sentiment - but that comes from the passion), have gone up in recent months.
    • Q: Is there a genuine long term plan for the game? I.e. a 3 year plan?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Yes.
    • Q: I'm mostly just curious about this.. what is the approval process like at CG? A new TB is coming in a couple weeks or so and we know hardly anything about it. We haven't seen any images, don't know who may be needed, don't know if there's going to be any new modes, etc.. Is this because things haven't been approved by Lucas or EA? Or is it because they aren't finalized and you don't want to announce anything and then change it? It seems like CG would want to build some hype but so far nothing. Along the time lines, what is the typical timeline from deciding to make a new character to release? Do ideas come from Disney or Lucas, or does CG come up with ideas and present them? Once an idea is decided, what happens internally? How does internal testing work? Is there any other testing? How long does it last? I know a lot of this is inside info and CG may not want to share it. But I feel like it would be beneficial for the community to understand what all goes into releasing new features and characters. If we know it has to go through several approval loops of people outside of CG before it can even be talked about, then a lot of things make sense. Of course a lot of things are kept secret to promote panicking, but the new TB doesn't really seem like one of those things.
    • A: CG_Carrie: "A lot of very good questions here. I would say there's a lot of truth in some of your guesses, but let's start with the TB. Getting final signoff on all aspects of the game, from in-game content to art to tuning, goes through multiple layers of approvals both inside and outside of EA. We have to be careful about what we promise, because we don't want to ""take something back"" - and then we spend a lot of time working on the game, so putting together the content for public consumption often takes a lot of work.
      That being said, we have some TB posts planned for this week, and are still needing to seek approvals on all the public-facing messaging. We put together the messaging calendar a month ago, but getting final design choices nailed down enough to be certain we can say it with clarity after it's been beta tested, but with enough time to put it through the many week approval process, well it's a balancing act that keeps Crumb running at a sprint most days.
      We have added more support to our Community team specifically to help us get this stuff rolled out as early as possible, and so we can do more beats. For the next Territory Battle, we have a couple communication beats a week planned up until launch. Whether they all get approved is another thing entirely :)"
    • Q: How closely do you work with Lucasfilm. Specifically you mentioned working with Lucasfilm when developing Jedi Revan, does that collaboration happen regularly or in more special cases? How much does Lucasfilm dictate requirements for the game, versus how much pure freedom does the studio have? When developing characters from upcoming movies how much of a preview does the studio get? Thank you all for all of your work!
    • A: CG_Carrie: "LucasFilm often has ideas for content we can do, and we incorporate that into our roadmap when we first lay it out. Once we have the next year of content and features planned, we take it to Lucas and talk through the big strategy, where they offer guidance on what they do and don't like and where they'd like to see changes, as well as recommendations for us to explore a certain universe at a certain time.
      Everything in the game gets approved by them, including every aspect of the game design, however we do defer to the expertise on the brand (of course) and they often give us the opportunity to explain decisions around the design. Ultimately it's collaborative and we're grateful that they've got a dedicated LucasFilm Games team that helps us work through and approve all this content."
    • Q: As a software engineer and project manager, I’m incredibly curious about the technologies you guys use and the server stack. Certainly nothing proprietary, but it’d be awesome to hear about how the game is put together at a technical level.
    • A: CG_Carrie: We need to set up one of these for the engineering group to answer questions like this. Right now they're all working on TU16. ;)
    • Q: Many players with whom I've talked have expressed interest in some form of guild-specific "sandbox mode" added to SWGoH. The reasons vary, but, speaking personally, a game mode that allows players to test squads against viable opponents in a friendly, competitive, and guild controlled environment before these squads are used for events sounds like a fun and useful idea. Of course, a "sandbox mode" might have other uses as well. Could you discuss your thoughts about the potential addition of such a "sandbox mode" for SWGoH? Much thanks.
    • A: CG_Carrie: It's a lot of work for a mode that will give you no rewards. I'd do it if we could do it inexpensively. My preference would be to actually allow players access to a beta server where they can sandbox play the live game and test upcoming content. But how we do that is still TBD.
    • Q: Will we see anything in the future with ground battles with vehicles (AAT’s, Speeder Bikes, etc)?
    • A: CG_Carrie: This has been on my five year roadmap, almost every year at year two. So it keeps moving back. I want to do it, but there always seem to be other pressing things to build.
    • Q: Do you guys get early access to movies/TV shows/games/etc. so you can start developing characters from that thing?
    • A: CG_Carrie: Yes.
    • Q: Other mobile games, such as Marvel Strike Force, or even games that are now defunct (Star Wars Force Arena) have provided update notes in multiple languages, so I don't think there should be an excuse for this, yet you don't seem to recognize that there are players who live outside the Anglosphere. Why has this been so, and is this going to change? Other mobile games, such as Marvel Strike Force, or even games that are now defunct (Star Wars Force Arena) have provided update notes in multiple languages, so I don't think there should be an excuse for this, yet you don't seem to recognize that there are players who live outside the Anglosphere. Why has this been so, and is this going to change?
    • A: CG_Carrie: We used to have a localization team working on videos. The process for doing this without spending an arm and a leg meant it took eight weeks to translate in the 13 or 14 other languages we are in. Often the content was no longer in the game by the time we got that done. In order to meet the needs of the request for more and more community interaction, we need to do it in the language we're fluent in and at a pace that people are happy with. Once we've found that stride, we will look into affordable translation services that work in realtime.
    Post edited by CG_Erik on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited May 2019
    CG_Tophat's Responses:
    • Q: With the overabundance of KOTOR characters added to the game will we be lucky enough to get Expanded Universe characters from the comics coming to the game? i know quite a few players that would love to play with a squad of Doctor Aphra, Triple-Zero, Beetee-One, Black Krrsantan, and maybe Magna Tolvan. Even just on off characters from the Comics or Books would be great would love to be able to put Mr. Bones onto my Droid Team. -Bevel Lemelisk
    • A: CG_Tophat: Personally, I love the comic book characters and I regularly try to find a place for them in the schedule. That said, we currently have no plans to introduce these characters into the game at this time. As always, we constantly think about future character releases and may consider these characters in the future.
    • Q: Do you think that walking stick Yoda uses prominently in Seagulls video to poke R2, should be more strongly represented in-game, too? -Spicewood
    • A: CG_Tophat: "Let me grab my beater!"
    • Q: What characters kit was the most fun to create and why?
    • Q: Which character kit designs are your particularly proud of?
    • Q: How do you translate what a toon does in the movies to what it does in the game? -naklip cond
    • A: CG_Tophat: These are great questions and really hard to do in this format. We've explored some "behind the scenes"-type content previously that was really well received by the community and we want to continue to lean into doing more of that.
    • CG_Erik: What I can offer is that I'll work with TopHat and Crumb to schedule a session where the designers can talk through their process and maybe field some questions in that space.
    • Q: You say that meta diversity is important but you seem to push one or two "prescribed" teams heavily. Will you allow players more creative space in the future?
    • A: CG_Tophat: Managing/cultivating a meta is a really interesting process. Players evaluate "the" meta a lot of different ways. Often times, we see the most gravity of the meta discussion center around Squad Arena and the number of viable squads therein. As Carrie has hinted at and out right talked about, we're really trying to figure out how to shift the conversation to be more about the meta of Grand Arena and Territory Wars which are more about the meta of squads versus the meta of a particular squad. This is a roundabout way of saying, we're absolutely trying to expand the playspace, but in doing so we're trying to shift the conversation out of Squad Arena into other areas of the game. This process necessarily can't happen overnight and it is an incremental process because we don't want to "pull the rug right out from under you"/the way you know and understand the game.
    • Q: This game is currently oriented towards PvP content. GA and TW are modalities that require time and strategy. While Raids and TBs have become repetitive. Of course new TBs will bring a breath of fresh air to PvE content. But it's not something destined to last long. Don't you think that there is a lack of a new PvE content that can always be current, interesting and frequent in the game? And if you think so, do you already have something in mind ? Thanks for your attention. -JackMek
    • A: CG_Tophat: I would say that this is an obsession of mine, if not a singular obsession - how do we serve up new, interesting PvE content consistently. We run into these two diametrically opposed forces in tackling this problem - time vs. quality. While I'm sure there are a lot of choice words to be said about the Sith Triumvirate raid, I would hope we could all agree that all of our raids and TBs have been carefully crafted with a lot of unique attention to detail. There is room for improvement on all of them, but they are all lovingly crafted by our designers, artists, and engineers. In serving up a regular, tailored experience it is a timely endeavor. And while there are some potential engineered solutions - procedural generated levels, etc - I think in general my concern is that it wouldn't feel to the level of quality that we want to deliver to the players. Ultimately, our goal is to provide excellent Star Wars experiences and that ultimately just takes a lot of time. What I can offer is that we are very aggressive in thinking about what our future PvE beats look like (we're already in discussions about what comes after Geonosis and making sure it doesn't come too long after).
    • CG_Carrie: And I won't rest until we get an endless survival mode like Ninja Gaiden."
    • Q: Will any hero/villain eventually get a zeta for their Basic ability? -Strubz
    • A: CG_Tophat: Potentially. There's definitely been conversations around it for some characters. CLS was a candidate. JKR was too. We ultimately decided not to for a variety of reasons, but the option is still definitely on the table. The primary concern/issue is how you balance the character around the requirement of needing a zeta on basic (is the short version of the larger design "issue" around it).
    • Q: Did you ever consider to give us a character that we can design? (Pre-Builds where we can change some abilities that you give us) Something like our own journey/character in Galaxy of Heroes. -Akenno
    • A: CG_Tophat: I love that idea and it's come up internally before. It's a lot of work for tuning and balance, as we've explored branching ability systems (a la MMOs). Something we would do, but would need time to do it well and be able to test on a game that is growing exponentially.
    • Q: My Imperial Probe Droid is repeatedly failing to kill the target it self destructs into. Is this an intended behavior or simply an oversight with the number assigned to "massive damage" that hasn't been adressed yet? -TechiesGoBoom
    • A: CG_Tophat: IPD and Savage inflict Massive Damage (99,999) and Nihilus instantly defeats an opponent. Without more context to your specific circumstance, the only thing I can think of is either your opponent has more health and protection than that amount or their specific stats/abilities are mitigating some of the damage. I'd recommend sending a ticket to Answers HQ if you have a recurring problem that you think isn't covered by the above.
    • Q: Would you ever consider implementing customization or equipable items to make another layer of depth? -MaceWindude
    • A: CG_Tophat: Yes and no. If by customization you mean giving Commander Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca's bowcaster visually - then no. If you mean by giving you the ability to control the stats of your characters and potentialy their offensive and defensive positioning - then yes. But there's a lot we want to do and never enough time, so it's a question of when.
    • Q: For upgrading basic attack abilities, I have noticed the new or better scaling heroes have upwards of 30%+ in a single upgrade while older characters might get a single 15%+ on the last tier upgrade. Are heroes going to be standardized or brought up to the same playing scaling? -Sqwaks
    • A: CG_Tophat: We've been actively engaged in reworking our older characters for awhile now. We considered doing periodic mass standardization early, but as we've worked through it we found that it ultimately wouldn't deliver the kinds of experiences that we intended. First, older characters - beyond not having competitive stat tables - are often times in need of some kit love as well. Second, if we're going to work on a kit then we want to make sure that the rework is within the spirit of the character and has a reasonable place to compete in the game. As such, doing a mass rebalance of characters is fundamentally too big a project for us to do and we don't think we'd do our characters the level of service they need. We don't have a 100% hit rate on this, but we try our hardest to deliver a solid experience when updating our characters.
    • Q: Moving forward, will we get some new in depth fan favorite characters from the Clone Wars with specific synergies? (Example: Ki Adi Mundi with a leadership role for Jedi and Wookiee or Hondo uniting prequel era scoundrels). -Galactic Order
    • A: CG_Tophat: As always, we don't comment on the nature of the characters we release and when.
    • Q: A lot of the new characters introduced have very specific positive synergies with other characters/factions. Have you ever considered introducing “negative synergies”? An example would be if Darth Revan is placed on a team with Jedi, the Jedi experience Fear, or if Palpatine were on a team with Rebels, the Rebels would lose 50% tenacity, for instance. -TupeloBound
    • A: CG_Tophat: It's been discussed, definitely. Ultimately, our thinking has tended towards we'd rather think about how we enable characters versus disable other characters. It's definitely thematically interesting, but it isn't without cost (time and effort) and it also bloats the kits (which have been trending towards being more complicated).
    • Q: I know everybody is a little tired of the Old Republic, but I think leaving out calo nord is a big :thumbs_down:. So, I’m asking if there’s a possibility that he could make an entrance even IF he makes almost no impact on the bounty hunters or the meta of Sith Empire? For nobody gets away from calo nord in the end CG. -Whitehous3
    • A: CG_Tophat: You're not the only person sad about Calo Nord not making it into the game. There was a... vibrant.... discussion between Design and Production about whether or not Calo should go into the game. Ultimately it was a problem of time - we didn't have enough time to get him into the game with the rest of the dark side KOTOR characters. That said, that's not a no forever - it's just a no for right now.
    • Q: The game’s focus has moved in the direction of highly synergistic teams within a faction and to specific character synergies as opposed to having teams where you can mix and match characters regardless of faction. Is there a plan to release more general purpose characters? Or is the idea going forward based around faction and character based synergies? -BubbaEA
    • A: CG_Tophat: Given the state of the game and the number of characters in the game, introducing characters that have broad based synergies (ex: all light side allies get X) are tricky. They can be potentially destabilizing over the long run. Ultimately, we avoid broad synergies so that we can better evaluate what effect a character will have on the balance of the game and hopefully make so that we don't release something that enables behaviors that are difficult for us to deal with.
    • Q: Can we have an in-depth description of how the Potency / Tenacity interactions are handled in the game (similar to the recent Protection up clarifications)? -Erebus2017
    • A: CG_Tophat: Sure. @CG_Erik - throw this on the pile for the Designer Summit.
    • Q: Will you be adding Mandalorian content when it comes out?
    • A: CG_Tophat: Maybe

    • Q: When is our Lord and Savior Darth Jar Jar coming? -TotallyNotaRussianBot
    • A: CG_Tophat: Only after "Shirtless Kylo" makes it on to the holotable.
    • Q: What is one mistake/lesson learned you made as a team that made you course correct for future character development?
    • A: CG_Tophat: NR: There are two that I think most immediately spring to my mind - one the players saw and one the players didn't. They are also intimately related. When we were developing the Bounty Hunter rework our first "Alpha" we wanted to ship was, for lack of a better word, really bad. Every Bounty Hunter had their own contract that they worked against independently of each other (meaning they could proc independent of one another), there were no blue icons or targeting reticules - ultimately it was a readability and usability nightmare. This is the perspective that Carrie often provides in her role, she asked us to keep the core concept and streamline it for usability and clarity. We had a hard day where we all agreed to basically go back to the drawing board and ask how do we do this right? I'm ultimately incredibly proud of the Bounty Hunters - but they were a really rocky development period that pivoted the way we thought about communicating complicated character interactions. The second example is the Scoundrel team. Our theory was to make a "Heist" team - have everyone do their piece of the heist and get prepared so that they all went off and it was a like pulling the bank job - perfection. And while we took some of our lessons from the Bounty Hunters about visually communicating (when you're prepared, etc) we didn't prune or refine the prepared mechanic sufficiently. This resulted in overly bloated kits that are really hard to understand. Since then, and while there are certainly some that still break the rule (cough JKR cough), we are very aware of the "complexity budget" we can allot to each character to make them understandable. TL;DR Bounty Hunters changed the way we thought about communicating what's going on in the game to the players and the Smugglers changed how much complexity we introduce into any one kit. We aren't perfect on either of these but we definitely learned a lot from both experiences.
    • Q: When will another raid be developed and will there ever be a ship raid?
    • A: We're already discussing what the next raid will be. It'll come after the Geonosis Territory Battle (and awhile after that - so no two month fast follow). Will there be a ship raid - hopefully. It's something we definitely want to tackle. The next raid may not be a full ship raid, but it may have elements of ships in it. No promises - but we're working towards it.
    • Q: Is there any chance we will see a new Capital ship in the foreseeable future?
    • A: The Magic 8-ball says "Outlook doubly good." Keep an eye out for an upcoming announcement on this very topic.
    • Q: Will Vet Han and Chewie ever get a Resistance tag?
    • A: Time will tell. It usually does.
    • Q: Do you plan to add new levels of difficulty to the Current Raids?
    • A: Possibly.
    Post edited by CG_Erik on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited May 2019
    CG_Erik's Responses:
    • Q: During a previous Q&A, a question was asked (by me) about entry to the GameChanger program. The answer was basically stay tuned more info on that topic coming soon. Any update? How can we gain access to/be considered for entry into the GC program? -JD - Meat City Gaming
    • A: CG_Erik: Thanks for the question, but unfortunately we're not currently accepting new Game Changers. As you may be aware, we had some restructuring at EA in recent months, and as a consequence we no longer have a dedicated staff member to manage the Game Changer program. We've attempted to support the program as much as possible with the development team, however this is in addition to our other day jobs. We appreciate the Game Changers and the endless energy they've brought to the community conversation - and absolutely want to work with content creators moving forward - but we're in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment as we think through how to support a program properly and can staff it appropriately.
    • Q: The real question no-one is asking: How are you doing this Q&A when Caley is hogging the laptop??
    • A: CG_Erik: We are all Caley.
    • CG_Tophat: I am Caley.
    • CG_Carrie: I am Caley.
    • CG_154M: I am Caley.
    • CG_Cyanides: I am Caley
    • Q: When can we have another dev q&a and can it use a different interface beyond one that requires refreshing the forum endlessly? Some kind of live chat forum or YouTube or Twitch?
    • A: CG_Erik: Yeah, this one was long overdue. We're talking about other types of formats - possibly working with smaller groups of people, more focused on particular topics, etc. These forum-based Q&As are a technical...challenge, so we'll see what we can do about hosting them on a different platform.
    • Q: Have you ever considered removing old and outdated characters from the game? e.g Mob Enforcer, CUP, JKG? -sirjacobofglais
    • A: CG_Erik: We love all of our characters equally and wouldn't want to invalidate the work and investment players have done to make them their own.
    • CG_Tophat: I think a more interesting approach - which we started to explore with TW bonuses - is finding unique places for some of the lesser user characters to have an interesting identity. Completely hypothetical example, "Use CUP in event X, get +N% more credits."
    • Q: I live in Sacramento and want a job at CG working with you all. What skills or experience should I acquire to increase my chances of being hired?
    • A: CG_Erik: Visit our studio website or jobs.ea.com for jobs that fits the skills you have or the skills that you want to develop. Then apply - we are hiring! A lot of people come through QA if you are new to the working world or have no immediate connection to game industry experience. Finally, you can always play our game while standing in line at Pachamama Coffee in midtown and one of us will inevitably be there within a few minutes.
    Post edited by CG_Erik on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited May 2019
    CG_154M's Responses:
    • Q: Are there any plans to improve cheat detection for the game to curb game hacks/cheats, especially with the plans for grand arena championships? -Raknar
    • A: CG_154M: We do have plans to improve our tools for investigating and actioning against cheaters alongside the Grand Arena Championships launch. Some of them are already live, some of them will be coming at launch, and some of them will be coming once we see how well our tools and processes work in our initial "exhibition" championships. We intend to share more about our processes and policies here in a couple of weeks. We have learned a lot from the initial Grand Arena event system and are applying those learnings to the Championship.
    • Q: How do you plan to handle cheaters in GA championships, especially with respect to those impacted by cheating during a given season?
    • A: CG_154M: See above. Without talking too much more about our policy before it's out in front of the community, we're going to be focused on quickly ensuring that a player affected by cheating does not have their entire Championship experience affected and that they are able to move on without "despair" at the outcome of a single Grand Arena match. We'll also be firming up our "make-good" policy around rewards to impacted players, especially when cheating is not detected and confirmed until after the Championship has ended.
    • Q: What can you do to eliminate “shard arena mafias”? Coordinating PvP efforts seems very counter-intuitive. Arguably there’s more cooperative action in shard chats than guild chats. -psyanyde
    • A: CG_154M: We're hoping that the ability to change your timezone helps with this issue.
    • Q: The last Road ahead included discussion on a larger scale Grand Arena Tournament. I think that this could help to reduce the amount of one sided GA's beyond the first one each in each event. Can we get an update on how this is developing? - DrowningFerret
    • A: CG_154M: Starting today or tomorrow, we're beginning a series of posts about Grand Arena Championships that goes into more detail on the feature. There's a lot of information here and I anticipate a fair amount of follow-up with the community before we go live.
    • Q: Do you plan to add new Grand Arena Achievements for new characters now and going forward?
    • A: CG_154M: We always periodically add Achievements to the game, but for this update, any Achievement design bandwidth we might have had went towards a new feature that I'm really excited to talk about starting about a week from now.
    • Q: Can we look forward to 6v6 or other battle formats in the future? - DevilsTreasure
    • A: CG_154M: No plans at this time to expand beyond 5v5, Ships, and 3v3, but we consistently do some experimenting with other battle formats internally.
    • Q: Can we get some officer centric upgrades to assist with guild management? 1. You provide daily and lifetime raid tickets stats. Can we get average raid ticket stats? Lifetime isn’t useful because not everyone has been in the guild the same amount of time. Daily is a snapshot. Average would show a long term trend. 2. Can we get a Territory Battle review period like we have for Territory War? We can’t see day 6 stats because they are gone once the battle ends. Similarly, a preview period would let us set orders before the event opens. 3. Can we be allowed to set platoon orders at the platoon level instead of the platoons node level? If Forward Stronghold Platoon 5 calls for a 6 star C3PO and I know our guild doesn’t have one I want to set a prohibit flag on platoon 5, not on the Stronghold node overall if we can fill the other 5 platoons. 4. Can you break out ship and troop GP deployed separately on the stats tab? If I see a guild member has partially deployed I can’t tell if it’s ship or troop. We fell 200k TP short of a star on day 5. I can see we had GP left to deploy but it doesn’t tell me if ships were already maxed out and it was only troops left or if we had ships left that just weren’t being used when we needed them. 5. Can we get a data dump of all the stats from TB? That would help us analyze the areas we as a guild need to focus on. - SirShylock
    • A: CG_154M: These are all great points of feedback and I wish we had time to get these and other things like it in in time for the TB. I remember very clearly the concerns from players around TB management tools for guild leaders & officers when Hoth launched. I can promise that we'll be looking at the pain points from officers when the TB deploys, and we may be able to turn around some tools and stats for our Quality of Life update.
    • Q: Can you add the ability for an officer (not a non-officer) to remove TW defenses?
    • A: CG_154M: We did look at this and would like to get it in for both GA and TW at some point in the future, but it didn't make it into this update due to cost.
    • Q: Can you add a review period to Territory Battles, like you have for TW? Makes it easier for officers to review to improve next time.
    • A: CG_154M: We want to get this in eventually.
    • Q: For officers, can you make in-game names clickable to send messages? Example is looking at low TB combat missions and messaging them right there, rather than having to go back to Guild Management, scroll, etc.
    • A: CG_154M: There's some portrait navigation functionality coming in the next update, but not specifically this. This is a good thing for us to look into, though.
    • Q: For guild management, could we be able to sort by name across the board? [Raid tickets, TB, TW, etc.] This would make working with spreadsheets a LOT easier.
    • A: CG_154M: We can definitely look into this. I'm interested in officer feedback around the upcoming leaderboards we're building around GAC and seeing if priorities change.
    • Q: In terms of development, is there any thought to adding additional tools or abilities to Guild Officers? Ideas my guild has thought of are: For TW, unset a defense for a member, track attempts vs battle wins without using "Restricted" For TB, Set platoons for Guildemates or unset a Platooned character For General Guild life, track number of days in guild, average raid tickets earned each day
    • A: CG_154M: Grand Arena is the result of a lot of effort and hard work, so in the very rare instance of active GA players ending up in a tie, we decided to opt for rewarding on GP, all else equal. We're hoping active players experience even fewer ties as the result of Grand Arena Championships, but definitely appreciate this feedback and will check for large-scale issues that could crop up as a result of this decision after GAC launches.
    • Q: Is it possible to take into consideration the amount of zetas a player has as apart of the match making? I think that will make it more enjoyable for players like me who have a broader roster but fewer zetas. -Darksidechild
    • A: CG_154M: It is possible. We're not talking about the specifics of our matchmaking formula but our goal is to keep working towards consistently fairer and more fun matches.
    • Q: Will the matchmaking system for tw and GA be altered/improved before championships? -Gannon
    • A: CG_154M: Yup - see our post from a few weeks ago, and we'll talk a little more about this in another post before GAC launch.
    • Q: Can you add in-game notifications for new zetas that your guildmates get? That would spark good conversation./b]
    • A: CG_154M: We are wary of spamming guild chat but this is kind of cool in theory. I'll talk to Design about revisiting upgrade notifications.
    • Q: Can you adjust in-game notifications to the timezone of the player?
    • A: CG_154M: I am actually not sure - will look into it. Could be a QoL fix.
    • Q: For raids, can you add an in-game alert when the final phase has been completed?'
    • Q: Can you make the in-game Rancor alerts so that you can JOIN from the alert?
    • Q: For TB commands, can you update the in-game alert to show what the new command is?
    • A: CG_154M: This are a great QoL suggestions, thank you.
    • Q: Why is the mod system recommending that I add a 4 star mod when I have a 5 star of the same type already assigned? -Trogdor
    • A: CG_154M: The mod recommendation system prioritizes set bonuses and primaries before it goes to the number of dots.
    • Q: Can you make it so you can swap all mods from one toon to the other?
    • CG_154M: While this is a really good idea, this (along with some other loadout suggestions that have been floating around) has turned out to be a lot of work and probably isn't something we're going to be able to get to for a while.
    • Q: When are you going to fix the GA and TW issue of replacing mods on locked characters? It is affecting the entire integrity of the game -EchoEleven
    • A: CG_154M: This is fixed in the next update.
    • Q: an we have a sell button for individual mods?
    • A: CG_154M: We looked into this in our last QoL update and it was a little too expensive to get to. We may be able to get to it in the future.
    • Q: Can you show the mod stars in the mod store?
    • A: CG_154M: Not sure specifically what this is asking. But we are looking at some changes to what's being sold in the mod shipment store.
    • Q: Can you create a QOL update that lets you assign all mods as they are in any tab (assuming no duplicates). It would make the mod shuffle game so much easier if you could return to a default all at once rather than character by character. -TashaBobasha
    • A: CG_154M: I think we looked into this in the last QoL update - we can investigate for the next one.
    • Q: Are there any plan about adding mods (or something similar) to ships?
    • A: No plans specifically for mods on ships. We do have this crazy idea of releasing a crewless ship though...
    • Q: Why is there no 24-hour Review Period following the conclusion of Phase 6 of Territory Battles? There is a review period for other Guild Events and Grand Arena, but the second a Territory Battle finishes it is gone and Guild Officers cannot properly review participation.
    • A: We would love to get to this in a future update alongside other TB officer tools.
    • Q: I want to ask one question, when starts Geonosis TB ?
    • A: Hang in there - we've got a launch date coming soon.
    • Q: Hoth is great and all, but we really need a new Territory Battle. Is there any progress on that?
    • A: Why yes, there is some progress. TopHat has some more to share very soon!
    • Q: Can you add "Attempted Combats" as a metric in TW?
    • A: We focused on GA stat tracking for this update - you'll see some cool stats in the next update. Please let us know what else you want to see there, and eventually we will get to TW stats as well.
    • Q: Will you add a quick reference for fleet energy at the top of the screen like all other energies?
    • A: I'll look into this, although I believe we've used up our real estate on the HUD for easy additions and would have to do some UI work to enable this. We'll look at this for potential addition into a QoL release.
    • Q: Hi! You all have done a fantastic job of cleaning up the layout of in game battles and making it easier to navigate. That said, there are several abilities that depend on the player’s ability to know “how much” of a certain thing there is on the enemy. Example would be Young Han needing to hit a character with less than 50% TM. You’ve accomplished this with other characters (heras basic as an example, flashing who has max health). Any chance we will see things like this that are dependent on specific TM %? Thanks!
    • A: Thank you - we really appreciate this. We've gotten a lot of good feedback on our Combat Buff / Debuff UI changes and have a handful of things we've added to our combat system coming this update. As a longtime GoH player and diehard JRPG fan, I'm always interested in prioritizing items that improve the way the game plays, feels and looks in the heat of combat. We'll always be looking at this going forward and responding to the needs of our awesome character and ship designers in every update. (To answer your specific question, there are a handful of recently released and upcoming characters that are going to push the envelope on making their abilities and status clearer.)
    • Q: Would it be possible to add an indicator that tells you when someone is battling you in squad/fleet arena, instead of having to just find out after you try and enter a battle?
    • A: This is a great QoL item - I suspect it will be somewhat expensive to implement well but I agree that "Somebody is already battling you" is not my favorite turn of phrase these days.
    • Q: Is it possible to present our opponents in arena by rank from lower to higher (then start again) instead of presenting them randomly? Because sometimes you have to search for an opponent for a longer time than a fight
    • A: We've tweaked this a few times and will probably revisit it again in the future.
    Post edited by CG_Erik on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited May 2019
    CG_Cyanides' Responses:
    • Q: Will you consider revisiting rewards from Challenges? Adding newer high demand gear, or upping the reward output? -Jorm Gandr
    • A: CG_Cyanides: We have been looking into Challenge rewards as the game gets older (I'm looking at you Mace), but we don't have plans of changing the rewards anytime soon. As we are always adding new events and new feature modes, those get the priorities for updated rewards. Ideally, we'd release a new tier to the challenges with additional/new rewards in the future.
    • Q: Can you change the character cadence in terms of return on shards from nodes? In the game's current state, it is unfriendly to new players and does not give incentive to spend since the roster continues to grow to the point where it's not feasible that an investment has a good return. I think release cadence over the first year is fine as it is. But, once a character reaches a year old, would it be possible to increase either the amount per drop (say from 1 to 2) or increase the odds that a drop occurs (say from 20-33% to 50-60%)? Once a character has been out for 2 years, perhaps even increase it even more.?
    • A: CG_Cyanides: I'd like to find a way to increase the shard inflow of older characters through other means such as events (see Galactic Bounties). The suggestion you've made about drop rates would be extremely manual for us as we have no tech that allows us to change drop rates based on any criteria (even though players think we do :) )
    • Q: What is the reasoning behind not adding additional characters to the various shops like Galactic War, Arena, and Cantina? It seems like rotating characters in and out of there would be such a good addition. Currently everything just goes to shard shop currency which is pretty boring. Thanks! -Smerd
    • A: CG_Cyanides: We look at these various shops as lifecycle based. There's a point in a player's lifecycle where they are working on obtaining all characters from each shop. Once that is complete, this becomes a new inflow of Shard Shop currency for gear farming. We have no immediate plans to update these shipments.
    • Q: Will there be a level cap increase or gear 13 coming with the new geonosian tb? -Anakin1125
    • A: CG_Cyanides: Gear 12 finishers (e.g. you can get your characters to Gear 13) will be coming with Geonosian Territory Battles, but there is no level cap increase.
    • Q: Now that we have all sorts of new gear to farm in game, from the new Kyrotech parts to G12+ gear, when can we expect older gear to become more available? Many players are still gated by gear from challenges such as Mk 8 BioTech salvage and Mk 3 Carbs, and given that we have to get ever more characters geared up, some relief here would be appreciated. -Twostep
    • A: CG_Cyanides: The gear crunch is something we look at constantly. One of the hardest things for us from a balance stand point is the different priorities that players have based on their lifecycle. We hear a lot about Mk 8 BioTech Implants and how pinched players are on it, but that pinch point is reletive to specific GP ranges when we look at the data (I'm in this boat btw at 4m GP). So if we reward Mk 8 BioTech Salvage or Prototypes from an event, some players find it to be a good reward and others would rather have it be a different piece of gear that is reletive to their current needs. This is why we typically rely on shipments/a new currency from new features so that players can purchase the gear that they currently want. We are doing this with Geonosian Territory Battles and with Grand Arena Champsions (forum post coming soon on that), so this should help increase the inflow of needed pieces of gear.
    • Q: Why do most in-game events only offer health mods as a prize now? Can’t it be switched up so different events offer different types of mods?
    • A: CG_Cyanides: We typically lean into Health Mods as a default since they are fairly universal, but we do hear this a lot about Health Mods. We probably won't alter any existing events, but with new events, we'll look into diversifying the mod rewards more.
    • Q: How about a mechanism for fusing lower level gear into higher level gear i.e. 10 mk 4 stun guns makes 1 mk 5. -DocSweet770
    • A: CG_Cyanides: Fusing lower level gear into higher level gear is not something we're currently looking at. We are thinking about a few ways that your accumulated inventories of lower-level gear can be of some value for your collection and I am optimistic that we will eventually come up with something that makes longtime players happy.
    • Q: Is the crystal booster pack ever coming back? -LargeHawaiian
    • A: CG_Cyanides: We have no plans on bringing it back. We've been working on new subscription ideas, but we don't have anything to share.
    • Q: On your personal accounts, do you sim Galactic War everyday or do you ever take time to play through it? Also, what's your personal best mod slicing story?
    • A: CG_Cyanides: I sim Galactic War everyday! I've gotten pretty quick at tapping GW, resetting, simming, and closing the rewards screen. My best time is like 2 seconds.

      As for mod slicing, I have a few solid 20+ speed secondaries that always feel good. But, one of my favorite things to do with mods is "Mod rolling Monday." This is where the group of people I sit with at the office all level up/slice the mods they earned throughout the week. We will then buy a drink/food for whoever rolled the "best" mod."
    • Q: 143). What keeps you passionate about working on SWGOH?
    • A: CG_Cyanides: The complexity of this game makes it a never ending challenge on how we continue to develop new features/run live services. My world is mainly focused on Data and the economy, so we are on a constant treadmill of gathering information and making decisions based on that. This is a really fun challenge to me. Also, the people I work with are absolutely amazing, so I get to work on a fun, challenging product with many people I would consider my friends (not just coworkers)
    • Q: How are you doing today?
    • A: CG_Cyanides: CS: Just wondering why CG_TopHat is so sexy.
    • A: CG_Erik: Just wondering if Crumb's facial hair is inspired by The Giant Dipper.
    Post edited by CG_Erik on
  • Strubz
    429 posts Member
    edited May 2019
    With character kits getting more and more complicated with advanced mechanics, how do you plan to address that to avoid a stale meta in arena moving forward? A large majority of people only invest in characters that can compete in arena. It seems that unless a character is legendary or journey, you can't justify giving them an extremely complex kit to battle the meta (example: Padme designed to counter Darth Revan).

    Does this limit your design of new characters as well?

  • Tbirds01
    1235 posts Member
    Will there be another raid in the future? The three we have now I know have been openly expressed to be getting boring. Will there be a new one to liven that up a bit in the future?
    Tag me if you reply to my comment so I know I should answer you!😀 My roster: https://swgoh.gg/p/842694912/
  • Why did Crumb add so many reserved comments?
    THE SUPREME JAWA OVERLORD!
  • So is the Q&A here in this thread?
  • taquillasun
    1158 posts Member
    Will we get a ship raid?
  • Ive been playing the game for over 2 years and have a very old arena shard. it seems that a large number of whales are in it and dominate the top 50+ slots with malek. I am willing to spend a bit here and there but cannot handle the costs for toons like DR and Malek, is there any way to maybe get into a different shard in the future to have a fairer shot at the top 50? i average around 100 right now but am up against a JKR gold wall
  • Jamerson
    74 posts Member
    Any thoughts on adding a friendly PVP within guilds to battle other guild members for bragging rights/testing teams?
  • What happened to mythic raids?
  • Why did Crumb add so many reserved comments?

    Because posts have character limits and they're probably going to exceed it many times over
  • Hotsauce
    18 posts Member
    With the upcoming grand arena championships, cheating has always been an issue in the game. If we assume solving cheating all together is too technically difficult, and being able to replay a match is impossible based on the client side architecture, can we at least expect some kind of battle log where we can review what team our opponents used to attack us with and what result was reported?
  • With the state of the game as it is specifically in regards to squad arena, how do you plan to creat diversity among the characters?
  • When is the new TB coming? (Geonosian).
  • Vos_Landeck
    1666 posts Member
    Will the new gear that was introduced with the DR release be added to raid/TB/TW rewards and guild/GEC/shard shops at some point?
  • Will there be TW analytics to cover those who “attempt” an attack and fail rather than just for victories?
  • Legend91
    2441 posts Member
    Any plans for new playable content within the next months that is not copy/paste of already existing game modes (like GA is just c/p of TW into a 1v1 format, or geo TB just being c/p (?) of the already existing TB's)?
    Legend#6873 | YouTube | swgoh.gg
  • Also, will there be “group mod upgrading” rather than one-by-one and character “single mod switching” rather than going in and out from toon to toon to re-put on a mod?
  • Can you share more details on Grand Arena Championships?
  • Yotommy
    94 posts Member
    Can this game be resurrected after the damage done by the Revan / Darth Revan Meta???
  • GunnerFCm
    154 posts Member
    Are there plans to address the mixed messaging on the importance of GP? Currently, a high GP/collector's mentality is punished by difficult matchups in GA, but better for our guild in TB. Also, I like to collect things ;)
  • CottMan3
    15 posts Member
    Will Vet Han and Chewie ever get a Resistance tag?
  • Hot Pie had a better character arc than Jaime Lannister. True or False?
  • Sdtbarbarossa
    275 posts Member
    edited May 2019
    Are you ever considering making the "total raid tickets earned" part of the public profile? So bots and so on can use it?
  • When are we getting a new raid, why the change to 5 attempts, why the reduction in awards in TB, why did the NS and Ewok zeta events get reduced to 1 day and why the over complex and OP kits on new characters. The game is becoming less and less enjoyable for a 3 year old player.
  • B0B
    2 posts Member
    As a developer of bots, we will have in the future the possibility to access through api to check the tickets contributed to the guild by each player?
This discussion has been closed.