Developer Q&A - 9/5

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

The team is getting ready for the Q&A at 12:30pm PT today (that's just 15 minutes from now!) We've got a bunch of questions that we answering already from the survey and hopefully be able to get more questions from the thread live!

Today's Categories:
Who's Here Today:
  • Nick Reinhart/Tophat - Live Producer
  • CG_Erik - Player Lifecycle Producer
  • CG_154M - Feature Producer
  • CG_Cyanides - Data Analyst/Lead Product Manager
  • CG_SBCrumb - Community Manager/Puzzle Acolyte

ebinS4C.jpg

^^ proof we have more than one laptop ;)


We are just sitting down with the team to get started but feel free to start popping questions into this thread. Kick off in 15 minutes! Starting now! Thanks for coming everyone! We are going to wrap up until next time.
Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on

Replies

  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited September 2019
    TOPIC: General Questions

    Q: Are there any plans to change the picture of the loading screen? We've had the same one for a while.
    • A: Erik - Stay tuned. We're working on a new one that will release later this year. It looks pretty good so far.

    Q: Will you ever add lego star wars characters to swgoh?
    • A: Erik - Interesting idea. EA doesn't work on the Lego Star Wars products, and it seems pretty far off-theme, so while I try to avoid saying "never", this seems pretty unlikely.

    Q: During times of major releases or Road Ahead releases, would the Dev Team ever consider running short livestreams in conjunction to show us new things or help address any questions or concerns that may come up with future updates?
    • A: Erik - This is an ambition we've been building up to for a while. We've been doing a lot of work lately to rework the schedule, deliver more frequent and digestible communications, and deliver on the commitments we've already made. Ultimately, I'd love to see us give livesteams a shot.
    • A: Crumb - I've been pushing to do this for a while! I would love to do livestreams around updates or even more often than that. As Erik mention, I want to make sure we nail down our previous regular commitments to communicate before spinning up another but it's on the table.

    Q: When the game was in development, how/why did the team decide on 330 total shards to max a character (or ship)? It's such a weird number. For that matter, why 65 for 5*, 85 for 6*, etc.?
    • A: Cyanides - We were trying to confirm Half Life 3 110 times

    Q: Will the game get a graphics update?
    • A: 154M - We'd like to tackle visual fidelity improvements, and we think that our last few updates have put a lot of effort into smoother and more modern UI. However, we have to balance these concerns against performance concerns. We want as many people as possible to have a smooth and high-quality experience with the game, even as we add tons of content, systems, features and interfaces. Right now we need to spend quite a bit of time optimizing performance, and that's likely to take priority over some of the visual fidelity items we have in our backlog.

    Q: Will we ever be able to spend galactic war tokens (and other currencies) in weekly shipments again?
    • A: Cyanides - We don't plan on adding items for Galactic War Tokens to Weekly Shipments. We don't like adding items in Weekly Shipments for currencies in other Shipments because it feels too random. If I knew there was a chance that an item could show up in Weekly Shipments for Galactic War Tokens, I would just hoard my Galactic War Tokens and wait. In reality, the better thing to do is to either work on finishing the characters/ships in the Galactic War Store or spend Galactic War Tokens daily on dupe shards for Shard Shop Tokens.

    Q: Are truly trying to push the primacy of grand arena over squad and fleet arena?
    • A: 154M - We have had a lot of discussion about moving crystals from Arena to GA. Since GA is unsharded and not always running, it's difficult for us to ensure that the same amount of crystals are being earned daily by the same number of players, so mathing that part out has been difficult.

    Q: Are using modding services where an 'expert' logs into your account to help against the terms of services and if so, is the punishment a permanent ban?
    • A: 154M - Yes, this is against the ToS and can result in punishments up to and including a permanent ban. We recommend using Swgoh.gg or other methods that don't involve other people directly accessing your account.

    Q: Will the graphics get updated in the near future?
    • A: 154M - We'd like to tackle visual fidelity improvements, and we think that our last few updates have put a lot of effort into smoother and more modern UI. (It's minor, but personally I think that the Signal Data and the Relic icons are among the most beautiful 2d assets we've ever put in game.) However, we have to balance these concerns against performance concerns. We want as many people as possible to have a smooth and high-quality experience with the game, even as we add tons of content, systems, features and interfaces. Right now we need to spend quite a bit of time optimizing performance, and that's likely to take priority over some of the visual fidelity items we have in our backlog.

    Q: Would you ever consider making a PC version of SWGOH?
    • A: 154M - We've discussed it on and off over the years. Nothing to share at this time, unfortunately.

    Q: Any chance we could get an option to turn the profanity filter off? I'm in a swedish guild and so many common (child friendly) words get blocked, messes up communication some times. Even misspellings of curses are blocked ("fick" for example)
    • A: 154M - Sorry about that! We're hesitant to change the profanity filter without a TON of QA & other eyeballs on implications. So for now, no plans to touch this.

    Q: This is for each of you, if you could put one character you REALLY wanted in the game right now, who would it be and why?
    • A: 154M - Atris from KOTOR 2. Our designers are so good at figuring out what makes a character feel like the character and their most iconic moments, and given that the pivotal interaction with this character is basically a "boss battle by conversation", I would love to see what they came up with.
    • A: Tophat - Jabba the Hutt. And why? Mostly for game design reasons. What does Jabba even do in Galaxy of Heroes? I assume he summons bounty hunters or has some sort of super contract or something. It's a fun thought experience. Maybe an off screen Rancor claw? Just so many weird things to do with him.
    • A: Crumb - Besides the obvious Kowakian Monkey-Lizard, Salacious B Crumb with anti-droid synergies, I'd really love to see some of the more obscure droids from the series. Something like the floating torture ball could have a really unique kit about extracting info. Nute's kit really felt thematic despite being a non-combat character and shows that the team can come up with some fun kits when given a crazy premise for character.
    • A: Erik - Doc Aphra. “You know, one of these days, I hope we’re going to get past this is-he-going-to-murder-me-this-time stage of our relationship.”
    • A: Cyanides - I may get laughed at for this, but I'd like to see Grand Inqusitor in game. I want that helicopter saber.

    Q: Can you tell us more about the demographics of the people playing this game?
    • A: Cyanides - We can't really share this data publicly, but we would like to show more data in general. However, some of this information can be found on swgoh.gg (such as character ownership/gear levels).

    Q: What's the deal with gear drop rates getting worse the closer you get to a full set?
    • A: Cyanides - question again! We don't have tech for this, and honestly, it's something we wouldn't really want to do. When designing economies, we rely on drop rates to math out how long we expect it to take players to earn gear, shards, etc. as well as determining pricing for the item being farmed. Adding variability based on player inventory would make this more difficult and ultimately, not really worth the effort imo. I almost want to change my name to CG_WeDontChangeDropRates

    Q: What are your plans to make kryotechs more available?
    • A: Cyanides - We added them to the Championship Store, Guild Event Store for Mk II Guild Event Tokens, and part of the Daily Activity Completion. We don't have any plans to add additional inflow sources of Kyrotechs.

    Q: When's the next puzzle Crumb?
    • A: Crumb - The bees are getting ready to leave the hive again

    Q: Are there going to be a new tiers in daily challenges to make an old gear flow easier with an introduction of Relics?
    • A: Cyanides - This is something we have discussed. Personally, I would like to add a new tier that is more relevant to the current power in the game that rewards additional gear, but we don't have any current design plans for this.

    Q: What determines where you will place a character for farming? Is there a process that the team goes through or is it decided by one person? Example: Why did Brood Alpha get placed in Cantina battles, but Shaak Ti got placed in Hard Mode Ship Battles? Is there a distinction between characters that determines where their location for farming is??
    • A: Cyanides - I mainly decide which nodes characters go to. We try to spread out the characters across the different energies so players can work on farming multiple characters at once. We also try to move older, more well owned characters to easier nodes so that newer players can start farming them earlier, but due to the amount of characters we have released and the number of nodes we have, sometimes we aren't able to put characters in specific locations that we would like.

    Q: Can you officially layout the qualifications that make an "Epic Confrontation" event going forward?
    • A: Tophat - We'll codify it soon. We're working on another one right now and we're figuring out the common elements. All the things you said are parts of the new one.

    Q: I really miss Marquees. Do you have any planned for the rest of the year?
    • A: Tophat - Nice try, CG... seriously though, there's a couple knocking around..

    Q: Will there ever be another level cap increase? And if not, will there ever be a use for our large stockpiles of training droids?
    • A: Tophat - There might be. We don't have immediate plans for it, but that doesn't rule it out.

    Q: Have you thought about mod trading?
    • A: Tophat - Yep. All of our thinking is that it generally devolves into weird, borderline black market behavior that we don't have good solutions for.

    Q: Are we ever going to see mods 6-D through 6-A?
    • A: Tophat - Eventually.

    Q: Will we ever get 6e mod slicing materials back in GA rewards? For something as random as mods, it's hard to justify farming for slicing gear when there are so many other priorities in just finding mods.
    • A: Tophat - There are no plans to add them back into GAC rewards at this time.

    Q: What about Mandelorian/Episode IX/Resistance/Expanded Universe/etc characters getting added to the game?
    • A: Tophat - These are great questions and we love hearing all your suggestions. We wish we could answer them but we can't talk about what characters or ships are coming. Sorry. :(

    Q: I'd be interested to know behind the scenes what teams and synergies that players came up with have been a genuine unexpected surprise for developers? (For example, Kylo escaping p1 of tank raid, nute lead team with Jawas, Jawas vs Geonosians etc.)?
    • A: 154M - The Imperial Grand Maneuver P3 HAAT team. It was the "hackiest" thing I've seen in game that didn't break the immersion of fighting with a party of characters. It also introduced me, as a player who never personally delved deep into MMO-style build customization but always admired it, to the wonderful world of really deep modding in the game.
    • A: Tophat - The Kylo one is still one of the most surprising to me. The original pit team of the Ewoks and Qui-Gon is something I think about pretty fondly.
    • A: Erik - I know it's recent, but it's the Bossk lead Jawas. They finally found their leader...
    • A: Cyanides - Chirpatine was one of my favorite random synergies. Chex mix is also up there for me

    Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited September 2019
    TOPIC: Relics

    Q: As a new player it is more than concerning to see this game trending toward more "gear grinding". I can barely get a character to gear 12, much less gear 13, and I'm worried that when future content comes I won't be able to even play it because of the power level required. So my question is will future content and game modes keep this in mind to allow new players some breathing room instead feeling like I'm trapped at the bottom of a metaphorical hole of gear grinding just to always be behind?
    • A: 154M - One of our goals with Relics is to build a more sustainable system and a more enduring veteran player chase, precisely so that we have the flexibility to spend some time over the next few months making the game more accessible to new players. See below for some more details on this.

    Q: Are you planning on any catch up mechanics for new players?
    • A: 154M - We're now working on a big push to make sure that new players have much clearer goals and visibility into how to play the game and grow into committed, engaged vets. This will be a process rather than a single beat, but once the Relics update is in your hands, that initiative will become arguably our top priority for a while. We'll be talking about how we're planning to do this in more detail in the future.

    Q: Will players with no G13 toons still have access to the scavenger?
    • A: 154M - Relics requires G13 and, for now, the Scavenger also requires a character at G13.?

    Q: Will the new Jawa crafting station serve as a gear inventory? I have been asking for 3 .5 years!
    • A: 154M - Pretty much! As mentioned in some earlier posts, there are a handful of crafted G12+ & Finisher pieces that are not in the Scavenger, but we've wanted to do a gear inventory alongside meaningful ways to use excess gear for a long, long time now, and I think this is it.

    Q: Why release relics so closely after the release of G13??
    • A: 154M - Many reasons! I'll mention a couple here. A) the Relic system's timing isn't so much related to its proximity to G13 as its proximity to what we plan to do next, which is about putting some more focus on what it takes to get from a new player to a veteran player, and which is about giving us the flexibility to spend some more time reworking and adding abilities to some existing characters that we think players really care about. (More on this in future posts.) B ) We've got PvE content coming along that will leverage the power & specialization provided by Relics & the new growth paths provided by the character Archetypes. C) We want to produce power increments in this game more sustainably and meaningfully than the way we tackled gear over the past few years. This is complicated to get into within the span of one Q&A but suffice it to say that balance and UX-wise, exclusively relying on a single piece in a single slot to create power improvements was beginning to really drag on the game's ability to deliver on the core concept of perfecting your collection and feeling really good about persistent, durable upgrades to classic Star Wars characters and ships. So with Relics, going forward, there will generally be more than one way for players to grind out the resources they need to power up their characters.

    Q: What makes relic amplifiers different from gearing and will it make the gear crunch worse?
    • A: 154M - See above Specifically, that now, while some relic levels will be gated behind difficult-to-acquire gear, it will now be a list of gear, rather than a single piece of gear. Once Relics is out in the wild and we begin to see more players spill into progressing through the system, we'll continue to take steps like the recent changes to daily activities, around inflowing lower-tier gear and making it easier for players to get to G12/G13.

    Q: I hope Wampa's Relic is a tauntaun?
    • A: 154M - Every single character in the game is getting a Relic icon. The Wampa's is awesome. As soon as I'm done with this Q&A I'm going to go annoy our senior artists about their favorites. (Update: Fulcrum, Kylo, Traya, C-3PO, Wampa!)

    Q: Will relic progression impact crew power of pilots?
    • A: 154M - Yes.

    Q: Will the drop rates for Signal Data be in the same range as it is for Omegas? As character shards in that tier? Or as, for example, purple gear drop rates in LS and DS nodes? Or will they drop like mods?
    • A: Cyanides - Signal data will follow a drop rate similar to Mod Salvage.
    Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited September 2019
    TOPIC: Grand Arena Championships

    Q: Are there any plans for Grand Arena players to see/review the team that defeated their team? This would help players to improve for future matches
    • A: Tophat - Absolutely. In our most recent State of the Galaxy we talked about this specifically. Building out the system entirely is a bit of a lift (to do quickly), so as an intermediate step we're in the process of seeing what it would take for us to host the information on SWGOH.GG. We've gotten some feedback about players being worried about their counters being exposed, so we're trying to figure out when do we surface the info, do we link it to swgoh.gg accounts, etc? This conversation is in its VERY VERY EARLY STAGES. We don't have any firm idea of what all this looks like other than what we talked about in the State of the Galaxy. Our hope is that we have something more tactical/real that we can share in the next State of the Galaxy.

    Q: What are you doing about cheating in Grand Arena?
    • A: Tophat - We just tackled this broad issue in our latest State of the Galaxy (link above). We are still working on it and trying to make it easier for us to detect it and for you to detect it as well.

    Q: When will you bring back 3v3? It was the single best mode in the game for theorycrafting. It was a tremendous way to use the roster and something that is sorely missed in the game. Since we have been brought back to 5v5, we just see the same stale 5v5 teams. I understand that the initial design of the teams was to have 5 person synergy. But with the lack of content, 3v3 would at least give a fresh perspective on some of the newer character updates. Thanks
    • A: Tophat - We're currently working on it right now. We were discussing about deploying it for the next championship, but we still have some investigations ongoing to make sure it's stable. We don't want to relive the initial release of GAC, so we're taking our time in testing it and making sure it works right. One of the current sequencing ideas we're kicking around is 3v3, 5v5, 3v3 w ships, 5v5 with ships. Our thinking is that order scales to test the collection more broadly while injecting different strategic contexts to react to. Still pretty preliminary in our thinking around it, but feedback is appreciated.

    Q: Can we get an auto-fill when someone only sets one team in Grand Arena please? I cannot complete feats when there are no teams to beat.?
    • A: Tophat - We've talked about it. We're still looking at the auto-fill tech/intent and what all we want it to do. We have some ideas that we need to incentivize setting defenses more or change scoring around the behavior before expanding autofill more. It's definitely a topic of discussion, but lower than conversations around feats, overall scoring, and new types of GAC (3v3, sips, etc).

    Q: Last Q&A (if my memory is correct) it was mentioned that GAC / TW / TB are considered as events so there isn’t a lack of events as the players think it is ie. Assault battlesor omega battles for example
    Q: Shouldn’t there be replacement events scheduled when GAC is cancelled or delayed due to unforeseen circumstances to make up for it? Because according to the calendar there should be events running during this timeframe?
    • A: Tophat - That's a reasonable request that is difficult to execute on (sorta). Often times when we run into a GAC, TW, or TB needing to be pulled down we're in "firefighting mode" meaning we need to rapidly do a release to change the calendar because something is bad wrong. That means we're trying to do the release as cleany as possible without introducing any new variables (like new event content). That said, if we use our established events that should be relatively safe... I'm taking the note, it may not be the next one but we'll see if that's something we can layer in. No promises, but hope we can deliver.

    Q: Is there anything on the roadmap that would put more emphasis on the defensive side of GAC? Something like awarding points for an initial hold, adding quests for defensive achievements, additional GAC progression for defensive achievements, etc.?
    Q: Thanks for all you do to produce this game!! I love seeing new ways to progress, greatly improved communication, and the chance to interact with you. If you can, join a few more of the popular podcasts when possible. Thanks!!
    • A: Tophat - All I can say is that it's on the list. It's a thing we want to target, but balancing it and making sure we don't over correct on the scoring around defense is a little tricky. It's very much in the "sooner, rather than later" column

    Q: Aside from the new Geo TBs LS and DS (which are challenging, but not really "new content"); will we be getting sometime soon, NEW CONTENT?
    • A: Tophat - I'd love to tell you, but I can't. But we're always working on something...

    Q: When are TW bonuses coming back!?!
    • A: Tophat - Not any time soon. They were expensive to make and balance, divided the community, and had no impact on how much engaged with TW. If we saw in the data that people went crazy for them, then we would do more - but that doesn't seem to be the case.

    Q: Now that u are talking about changing the gear crunch little bit (because of relics), will u bring back Mk 8 BioTech Implant Salvage as HAAT reward?
    • A: Cyanides - Once Relics are released and we have more information on how players are interacting with them/earning them, we will determine if we want to change inflow sources/quantities for existing gear. We recently increased the quantity earned from completing Daily Activities as part of the preperation for gear economy changes.

    Q: You said in the last Q&A that the GAC was supposed to replace arena as the main source of crystal income. When is this going to happen?
    • A: Tophat - Great question. The answer is we don't know. Until we resolve issues that affect fairness (cheating being the primary one) and stability, we won't make the change until then.

    Q: What are the chances of facing the same opponent twice or more in GAC? I fought an opponent in the GAC exhibition and then fought them again in the current GAC?
    • A: Tophat - Our data indicates it's virtually zero, but there are a few players that fall into weird places where this happens to them more often (so often they think we are trolling them). It does occur, but it's a fringe behavior. We are going to review again in the next couple months to make sure it's not happening more.

    Q: When are you going to adjust matchmaking? I sometimes face rosters with way more G13 characters and way better speed mods.
    • A: Tophat - We've gotten a lot of questions around this idea of "making matchmaking better". What we can offer is that we'll be opening up the investigation again soon., but our current set of analyses indicate that the current matchmaking has led to more "pitched" battles (meaning more players are experiencing a 50% win rate) - which for us is the definition of what we're hoping for. We believe that combat experiences that result in regular victories and losses is more exciting, more engaging, and, hopefully, less one sided. We're going to be running another analysis after the current change to matchmaking (where players can't be surfaced matches that are outside their division) has had its first run. We'll also do some analysis around the impact relics have on matchmaking. A number of players have reached out to us about the "mis-weighting" of zetas relative to G13, which we'll review as well. We've said it a number of places, but we are taking match making very seriously and continue to re-evaluate. We'll let you know if there are any changes we think need to occur.

    Q: Matchmaking on the top 80 characters of a roster consisting of 170+ leads to many wild mismatches. Will this be changed to something more reasonable such as 120?
    • A: Tophat - We received a lot of variations on this question. Ultimately, expanding our cutoff point, we just get closer to collection GP which we think is not as good at discriminating matchups (see above for deeper dive around "making matchmaking better". We will continue to monitor the performance of the matchmaking algorithm to ensure a fun and fair experience, but overall are pleased with the switch to effective GP and do not plan to switch back. Whether we do more fine-grained tuning is a different question.

    Q: Why can't we have a meaningful and fair tie-breaker for GAC ties instead of one kind of GP figure or another? For instance award the win to the player with the most 64 Banner wins (then 63/62/etc) if still a draw award to the most 1St time undersized squad wins, and only then use gp if still a tie but aware to the lower gp player (and only playable gp, i.e. not ship gp in a chars only GAC)?
    • A: Tophat - It's been discussed. Right now, we don't see a tremendous number of tie-breakers in general, so from a cost benefit perspective, it's a non-trivial amount of work that affects only a few people. We are likely not going to pick up this work any time soon, as there are a lot of other competing priorities that are higher impact.
    Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited September 2019
    TOPIC: Characters and Ships

    Q: Will u be creating squadrons for fleet so we can better organize our fleets for TW, TB and hopefully GAC?
    • A: 154M - This was right below filtering Mods by level in terms of a QoL item that didn't make the cut. We have some cool new ship content coming out and will get to this in a future update - sorry we can't give a specific date.

    Q: Why doesn't Visas Marr have an Old Republic tag?
    • A: Tophat - Our read on Visas Marr is that she's not really affiliated with the Old Republic. She's kind of an independent operator (spoilers) after the death of Darth Nihilus.

    Q: Where do you see the Tusken Raider faction fitting in moving forward? I imagine they would play a role in some sort of Anakin's journey to the dark side..maybe..has this come up in any discussions?
    • A: Tophat - The Tuskens are an interesting case because in many ways, from a purely game design perspective, they're a lot like the Geonosians. People know them, people like them, but I don't think there's a gargantuan demand for them. That said, your point makes sense - they are clearly narrative fixtures that we should try to round out the faction if nothing else. Long winded way to say, we've talked about additional Tuskens - we've got some ideas around them. More than anything we're waiting for the right time/window of opportunity to drop them into, if we were to do them. Maybe if we make our way back to OT content they might see some love - time will tell.

    Q: What is the first order riot control stormtrooper? It was mention in the Content Update on 8/23
    • A: Tophat - That Trooper is in the Rey (Jedi Training) event. Has the stun baton thing-y.

    Q: Is Young Lando 427.6% damage multiplier on his special a reference to the box office take from the original theater run of The Phantom Menace?
    • A: Tophat - No. I just took an informal poll of the design room and no one knew this number for the box office take. Coincidence is a weird thing.

    Q: With Echo's basic ability it says that he does extra damage when he has Crit damage up. No one on his synergies gives Crit damage up... is that something or someone to look forward to perhaps?
    • A: Tophat - Interesting. Wonder what that could mean?

    Q: Will you consider adding more summon mechanics like Geo Brood Alpha/Brute? That was a nice addition to the Geonosians.I can imagine something similar with EP/RG, Vader/Stormtroopers, Snoke/Praetorian Guards, or Clone Troopers
    • A: Tophat - Working on a new one right now. It's a different take on the summon. We're pretty excited about it. What if you could summoned an object and not a character?

    Q: What was the intention of the Neutral tag? Will it ever be used?
    • A: Tophat - To second part above, we had originally thought we had a couple characters that were neutral that we were imminently going to release about a year ago, but then those plans changed. Still kicking them around.

    Q: Why didn't Cad Bane receive a zeta?
    • A: Tophat - The answer is... he just didn't. When we were doing his kit we didn't feel like we had a great zeta in mind for him and we already had plenty of zetas across the rest of the bounty hunter team. So, he didn't get one.
    Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited September 2019
    TOPIC: Events

    Q: Have you ever thought to introduce the possibility to challenge your friends in pvp matches without rewards?
    • A: 154M - Yes - we've talked about why we haven't done this in the past but continue to listen to community asks for a mode like this. For now we are focused on features and game modes that really feed back into building out & perfecting the player's collection, as well as direct QoL improvements and enhancements to existing features that players are enjoying.

    Q: Do you have any plans for new PVE game modes after light side Geonosis territory battles?
    • A: 154M - Yes!

    Q: Are there any future plans for a new game mode to do with vehicles (like ships but land vehicles like at-st, at-at etc)
    • A: 154M - Also yes!

    Q: Is the difficulty of Malak Event, DS vs LS, intentionally designed?
    • A: Tophat - It's an interesting quesiton. We would say that the experience of each is purposefully designed and the difficulty was a result of that decision. We wanted the Light Side of the Malak event to be an experience about "working together". Jedi Knight Revan as a character, is a character about bringing people together and leveraging their power together. The Dark Side of the event is an experience about "raw, selfish power". Darth Revan crushed his enemies at the expense of his friends. As such - his event is a reflection of that. Beyond the broader intent, the event designer, CG_Prophet, had this to say regarding balancing, "The Light Path battle was inherently more difficult to balance around because the team used there is not the same as that current JKR meta team, it lacked a lot of its damage capability that the arena team had. That made the Light Path much more reliant on utilizing the entire team and each of their strengths in order to survive long enough to defeat Malak (i.e. Jolee revives, Zalbaar taunts, etc.), it was more of a battle of attrition. The Dark Path team had a much more straightforward strategy but it had some heavier RNG elements that we thought gave the two battles a roughly similar difficulty in our internal playtesting and putting some of our best players internally up against the tier. It was more of a race in which you were attempting to draw Malak away from Darth Revan while you continued stacking Ferocity on him until you could get to the point where you could defeat Malak. So, the TL;DR is yes and no. We knew the Dark Path strategy was going to be much easier to figure out because that team's ability to deal damage was just so much higher, but like with most of our content, the community surprised us with their ability to adapt and optimize their strategy/mods/etc. and overcame the other elements of the battle that we thought would put it on par with the Light Path's difficulty."

    Q: When can guilds sim HAAT and Sith Raid?
    • A: Tophat - We've been kicking around simming the HAAT. We'll look into it soon
    Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on
  • CG_SBCrumb
    685 posts EA Community Manager
    edited September 2019
    TOPIC: Quality of Life

    Q: Can we get a "sort by level" filter for selling mods?
    • A: 154M - This is a QoL feature that just missed the cut with our next update. We'll get it in in the future.

    Q: Can you add more Loadouts? The more character we get and the more TBs we have, the more Loadouts are needed. I would even like to have a Loadout for some toons for GA, but I don't have enough space for it.
    • A: 154M - This is a QoL item in the backlog. Similar to some of the graphical improvements, we'll have to make sure that this doesn't hurt our performance.

    Q: Will there ever be a way to organize our gear farms? Perhaps a gear button to replace the train button in the characters menu where players could "favorite" certain gear pieces to quickly farm the gear they need instead of clicking on a character where we can only see the current gear levels needed pieces?
    • A: 154M - This is a great QoL ask - I'm interested in seeing how people use & react to what is effectively a gear inventory in the Scavenger.

    Q: Same question I had last time but you didn't get to--any chance of a QoL that lets us customize how those red-icon notifications for upgradable toons, ships, etc. get displayed? For instance, only light up the icon if a Favorited toon has an upgrade, or only show me if I have the mats needed for a zeta instead of an omega. Most of us just have the "3+" icon lit up all the time and it serves no purpose.
    • A: 154M - I thought we did get to this one! I remember reading it. We have an item in the backlog for it.

    Q: To avoid going in and out of both Arena to get new matchups is a refresh button or rolodex style not a possible option? Love the game!
    • A: 154M - We don't have anything super high-priority around Arena opponent selection QoL. We think that where we've landed in terms of "visible matchups" in Squad & Fleet Arena is good for the time being.

    Q: What QoL improvements are incoming? I would really like to see Cantina Battles updated to show the shard available on that node in the same way that Fleet and LS/DS Hard Battles do.
    • A: 154M - To be honest, these Q&As have been incredibly helpful in picking up QoL suggestions, and we're looking to sprinkle some of these items in with all of our updates in the future, rather than having one big QoL update and then very little in between. There are a couple small ones coming in TU17 that we want to keep a surprise until the patch notes are out.

    Q: Do you intend to place a shift counter and fight replay in the squad arena?
    • A: 154M - No plans to do this at this time. See our latest State of the Galaxy for our next steps with battle log visibility.

    Q: Will there be a rework for the in-game logs in TW and TB? For example if you max other zones and their missions are closed off and you are searching for the missing 5 ppl who need to do their fleet combat missions you will have some ppl that are obvious and for some it´s a guessing game where you either need to ping everyone several times or send several ppl pms and ask them if they haven´t done it yet. So a mission status for every single mission would be nice to track it better.
    • A: 154M - The team got a big list of TB QoL items from the community 2 or 3 Q&As ago. It includes some of what you're describing here. We'd like to get to it and eventually will be able to deliver on this - but nothing concrete just yet.

    Q: Will we ever see some QoL update regarding UI? For example: Show a percentage of how much health/shield/barrier left an enemy and your charachter have like in raids. Are there at least talks for a post-battle report for battles?
    • A: 154M - We haven't heard much in the way of your first suggestion before but I will add it to the backlog. See our latest State of the Galaxy for our next steps on battle log.

    Q: Why did you force comments on TB commands? It's incredibly annoying. The symbols themselves are good enough, and there's a bug that when I take prohibit or focus off and want to go to none, I'm forced to put in a comment. So mostly I use the command to complain about having to put the comment. These are not the TB enhancements we are looking for.
    • A: 154M - This was an unintended consequence of fixing an issue in which players could spam chats with emojis and other characters that would cause chat windows to bug out. We'll fix it in a future update - sorry it didn't make the cut with this upcoming one.
    Post edited by CG_SBCrumb on
  • Ultra
    11452 posts Moderator
    When is the next long awaited Crumb Puzzle? Is LS TB delayed to October or still slated for this month / quarter?
  • Ultra
    11452 posts Moderator
    Last Q&A (if my memory is correct) it was mentioned that GAC / TW / TB are considered as events so there isn’t a lack of events as the players think it is ie. Assault battlesor omega battles for example

    Shouldn’t there be replacement events scheduled when GAC is cancelled or delayed due to unforeseen circumstances to make up for it? Because according to the calendar there should be events running during this timeframe
  • Will Embo's relic be his pet Anooba Marrok? I'm bummed that you left him out of the game.
    THE SUPREME JAWA OVERLORD!
  • Yes or No - Will there be a Windu Rework
  • Is there anything on the roadmap that would put more emphasis on the defensive side of GAC? Something like awarding points for an initial hold, adding quests for defensive achievements, additional GAC progression for defensive achievements, etc.?

    Thanks for all you do to produce this game!! I love seeing new ways to progress, greatly improved communication, and the chance to interact with you. If you can, join a few more of the popular podcasts when possible. Thanks!!
  • When are TW bonuses coming back!?!
  • Will mace be reworked?
  • Responses from the team are starting to roll in! They will be running through this thread throughout the Q&A and grabbing questions
  • Will a 7* Shaak Ti be required to unlock the next legendary/journey character coming to the game?
  • Aside from the new Geo TBs LS and DS (which are challenging, but not really "new content"); will we be getting sometime soon, NEW CONTENT?
    As in a totally new game mode that we can enjoy on a regular basis? A New raid concept? Something?
    Not just more "competitive" game modes like GA/GAC, which is a solo TW, and Geo TBs, which are more challenging versions of Hoth...
    FRESH content please. Love you.
  • When will the tank raid and sith raids be simmable? Quality of life means saving me time on something I can place well on and not need to spend an hour each time doing it. Also evening out rewards with simming as top 10 compared to the bottom 40 is disparagingly high and extremely disadvantageous.
  • Will Plo Koon be reworked? He is a tank with zero taunt. Literally only worth gearing due to ship arena viability (previously with Mace, and now potentially with GK)
  • Ultra
    11452 posts Moderator
    Any ETA on battle log feature?
  • HK22
    644 posts Member
    I asked this in the survey, but will ask it here as well.

    Are there any plans to bring Fleet Content to being on par with Ground content? Currently, there are no Fleet Assault Battles, no Fleet Mythics, no Fleet Omegas or Credit Heists, only Contraband Cargo as the only event style requiring fleets. Maybe players would be more invested in their fleets if they could use them for something outside of arena/TW/TB.
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    1st 3 are loading screen, legos and live-streams loooooooooooool at least pretend to take this seriously
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • To piggyback on HK22, how about fleet involvement in a raid?
  • The bottleneck should be with Zetas and not Omegas. Any plans to make the challenge mission give a guaranteed Omega as you did with the ship challenge mission?
  • is their a chance Inferno squad could come to the game soon? (Iden, Del, Hask, Seyn & Zay)
  • HK22
    644 posts Member
    Oh and another one I just thought about:

    Are you planning on bringing back some type of bonuses for Territory War? I realize that some people enjoyed them and others didn't, but it would be nice to get some variety every now and again. Along the same lines, have you thought about doing a bonus rewards TW maybe once a quarter where for every x amount of teams or zones cleared the guild gets some extra rewards like 10 slicing mats or 10 mk3 ability materials similiar to how players earn credits for beating teams in GAC.
  • Any plans to bring any of the comics characters into the game? Would love to see Triple Zero, Aphra, Sana and her ship, SCAR squadron, etc.
  • With GAC 1st place; being a great reward. Is there any potential changes to reward guilds winning their TW battles, making TWs more competitive to win. The rewards from losing, are pretty good.
  • Are there any plans to raise (or eliminate) the mod cap in the future? Given the increasing number of game modes, and the increasing number of ways people may want to mod characters across those modes, it would be nice to be able to store more mods than we currently can.
  • When are we going to be able to change placed teams in GAC and TW during the setup phase to fix errors or change toons after they are placed?
This discussion has been closed.