Developer Q&A - 12/04

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:45PM

Hi Holotable Heroes,

The team is getting ready for the Q&A at 12:30pm PT today. We've got a bunch of questions that we answering already from the survey so post your questions in the thread and we'll try to answer as many as we can live!

Today's Categories:

Who's Here Today:

CG_Tophat - Live Producer
CG_SvenGG - Sr. Game Designer
CG_Vyeking - Creative Director
CG_Cyanides - Data Analyst/Lead Product Manager
CG_Miller - Senior Game Designer
CG_RagingSpaniard - Sr. Artist
CG_SBCrumb - Sr. Community Manager

EDIT: We are getting start in about 20 minutes.
EDIT: The team has answered a ton of questions that I still need to post and many of stayed extra long today. I won't be gathering any more questions from the thread at this time but most answers live shortly!
EDIT: Alright folks, I'm going to wrap up. I've added more responses to each of the categories. Thanks for coming folks. I'm sorry we didn't get to every question!

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:47PM

TOPIC: General

Q: Guilds may be great for big groups of friends but I am a solo player. How can I get raid only gear if I am the only member of my guild producing raid tickets and/or taking part in raids and/or territory battles?

A: Tophat - We made a decision a long time ago about how important/required guilds would be. We decided on making a significant part of the game experience related to guilds. We have no plans in changing the structure of how the rewards or experience of guilds play out. The short answer is you'll need to join a larger guild if you want a regular flow of those items.

Q: Are we getting any closer to having a more organized way to farm gear? Still waiting for that QOL update where we can choose "favorite" gear to farm it without going through character interfaces.

A: CG_SvenGG - We are exploring a feature to rework the inventories to introduce a gear inventory, which could introduce functionalities like favoriting gear or crafting and finding gear regardless of character requirements. There is a bit of a UX and data puzzle to unravel, and the work needs to be balanced against other features including game modes. It is on our radar and we have thought through it to the point of writing design documents and creating wireframes.

Q: Would it be possible to pick between both old TB's while still alternating LS & DS Geo TB? The content is very old at this point, but our guild still doesn't have the Probe Droid across the board (and I don't believe anybody has a 7*). We've graduated to DS Geo TB, but we've been able to alternate between standard Imperial DS TB and Geo. Now with the release of LS Geo TB we're losing the opportunity to alternate DS TB's and we've got no further use of the LS Rebel TB, and are probably years away from doing LS Geo TB. We feel like we're being forced to pursue a game mode that we're finished with at the expense of having to later choose between 2 we really want to participate in.

A: CG_Tophat - The short answer is no. We walk a delicate line between demanding too much and too little time for a mobile game. If we allow players to play the old TBs alongside the new ones, from a min/max perspective this is basically a requirement to be "good" at the game which is to play both. So while there are some players that want to play more our data indicates that we already ask a lot of a lot of players time. Adding an additional "requirement" probably tips us over on the "required" amount of time playing. In addition, we have very specific economy outflows modeled and allowing the second TB disrupts that in a way that as the economy is currently set up, can't handle.

Q: In a past interview CG_Tophat commented "Interesting. Wonder what that could mean" in regards to Echo's basic getting buffs with Crit Damage Up. Now that all the 501st are out and we're moving past the Clone Wars, could we get more clarity on what that means since he has no Crit Damage Up synergy with clones or 501st?

A: CG_Miller - At the time CG_TopHat wrote that there was an upcoming ability meant to synergize with that, but in our balance testing that occured after he made that comment we had to change that ability. We're looking into avenues we can take to correct Echo's Basic Omega.

Q: Why do you not utilize the in game inbox more? I feel as though the best way to communicate to your players are in the actual game. I know you guys put out push notifications but often times i am clicking through dailies and miss the message with no way to look at what it was (update coming, new pack, etc.) Can we get all updates as an inbox message that we can manage? Is it possible to see dev posts from the forum as well or at the least a notification that there is a new post?

A: CG_Erik - The in-game communications tools (and those outside the game) we have are a few years old and are certainly an area to improve. For the last few years, we've prioritized new gameplay features and content higher than upgrading these tools, but we're currently working on upgrades that you'll see in a future update.

Q: Will we get any info on the neutral tag anytime soon or will y'all be removing it? If y'all still got plans for it, i think my man Hondo Ohnaka would be great for the tag since he doesn't really care for any specific faction as long as he gets paid handsomely and he will double cross you to save his butt. Could make his kit have it where he gets effects depending if paired up with light or dark side characters?

A: CG_Miller - Every time we contemplate removing the Neutral faction from the game, we always make an argument for a future character getting that tag and so it remains.

Q: During GA, the person going second has a clear advantage knowing how many points they need to achieve and planning accordingly. Are there any plans to consider hiding the opponents progress during the attack phase - or at least hiding the attempts and score??

A: CG_Vyeking - There are flow changes we want to make to build a faster, more engaging GA experience - including building more decision-making during deployment and during the attack phases.

Q: What is happening with the beta testing program? Is it still running? What is the future?

A: CG_Tophat - It still exists, but I would say it's current format isn't optimal (not from the wonderful participating players, but in the way we've structured it). There are conversations internally about how we should structure it moving forward. Hopefully we'll be able to revitalize it.

Q: When are we going to get a public test server? With this many characters/ships and all the complexities of various kits, etc., this game is in dire need of a public test server so all the variations of strategies get tested ahead of time. Most of the recent bugs that have caused events to be cancelled or rescheduled would have certainly been exposed through a public test server.

A: CG_Tophat - Hopefully sooner rather than later. There's a conversation that's ongoing on how to spin this up. We have some structural hurdles we need to overcome (how do we do it quickly, how do we cycle players in and out effectively, who on the team manages it, etc.) We have many champions of the Public Beta Environment in the studio, but it's trying to work through the doing of it. It's a high priority item.

Q: What are your personal biggest problems with the game, and are those being fixed?

A: CG_Tophat - Personally, I'd like to see us be able to release "mini-raids" and be able to do with relative speed. What is a mini-raid? I dunno, there's a lot of ideas about what that could be - single player raid? Something with a single player and guild related component? There are so many interesting Star Wars moments (my example internally is always Vader in the hallway at the end of Empire Strikes back - slinging debris at the player) that we could put in to the game. So you may say? Ok - so why isn't that in there? As always, based on where we are in the game's lifecycle we make our best call on what's the next step for the game. My hope is that we're able to scratch this itch in the next year - we're currently trying to figure that out.

Q: What is your new years resolution (game related and otherwise if you'd like to share)?

A: CG_TopHat - Personally, I want to finally finish Divinity 2, get my Ascension 20 victory on the Watcher in Slay the Spire, and get gold rank in Teamfight Tactics. Professionally, I'd like to see a new game mode introduced that I talked about in my "biggest complaint" question above.
A: CG_RagingSpaniard - I'm stuck on the last boss on Sekiro AND Bloodborne so I really need to get around that before the Final Fantasy VII remake takes over my life. I have a personal art project where I'm reconcepting Chrono Trigger (my favorite game) so I need to get back on that when I can find some time (I'm not hard to find on twitter). Professionally, the art team is pretty invested in making some key improvements for 2020, we don't want people to think we are resting on our laurels and have some ambitious ideas to make the game look a lot more current than it does right now.
A: CG_Cyanides - I've been working on getting Grand Champion in Rocket League, so I hope that is accomplished next year (everyone in the office is sick of my Rocket League obsession, so they'd be happy to not hear me speak about it anymore). Crossing 5m GP will happen, so I am looking forward to that (and getting General Skywalker whenever he comes back). I have this obsession with trying to get into JRPGs and never making it past the first 5 hours of dialog, so maybe I can break that barrier in 2020.

Q: What are the plans for SWGOH beyond Episode IX? What new updates can we see in early to mid 2020?

A: CG_Tophat - The content plans have been in pretty broad strokes up until the last month or so. We're in the process of adding the specific details right now. I think if you look at the Star Wars stuff that's known about for next year, you'll get an idea of some of the things we're thinking about. New systems or modes, we're actively working on it but can't speak to it specifically at this time.

Q: Could you share a little more of the 5-year plan and how it could handle the current rate of power creep?

A: CG_Tophat - This question is always tough for me. The last time I spoke about it, I discussed how's it tough for us to speak on specifics of the five year plan, primarily because we have to manage/safeguard expectations. I can't say anything specific, because if things change (like the Mythic Raids I talked about above) there are chances for missed expectations for the playerbase. Regarding power creep - Managing power creep is something we talk about pretty regularly. I think in general our definition of what is or isn't acceptable for "power creep" let alone what is the definition of "power creep" is very different than the players. What I can say is that we have periods of time that we knowingly expand power and there are periods of time that we let releases consolidate around the new norm of power. We're always looking to respect previous investments and we've got some candidate systems were investigating.

Q: Will you be looking to add more simple but effective characters that are more readily available on release - TFP, DeathTrooper, Starck, Kylo Unmasked are all great examples. It’d add more diversity and would allow FTP players to progress characters quicker?

A: CG_TopHat - CG_Miller and I have been talking about some of the upcoming character designs for this next year and this is a pillar for some of our releases.
A: CG_Miller - General Hux and First Order Sith Trooper have much less complicated kits, but each bring power to an overall First Order squad.

Q: Will there be a Darth Revan event this december? I hope so, a lot of use were hoarding mats for him! Thank you.

A: CG_Tophat - Darth Revan will be included in the Journey Guide. So as soon as that's live, you'll be able to get after it.

Q: When previewing DS Geo TB, you guys provided insight into how you expected guilds to perform (i.e., X GP should get Y stars). Between now and the relaunch of LS Geo TB, can you provide similar insight into what your expectations were/are for guilds (even on a comparison to DS Geo TB)?

A: CG_Tophat - We won't be providing them. This is primarily because the amount of context to explain "why" is too complicated to discuss in a Q&A or any other venue and I'm not sure what it really adds to the larger conversation with the player base. We provided it previously in Dark Side and what we found is that without a lot of the internal context of working on the game that number can create a lot of missed expectations.

Q: When DS Geo TB was introduced we were given a very clear expectation of what the entry requirements were and how many stars we could expect to get. Why was that not done for LS Geo TB? Many of the flames could have been suppressed on Reddit and here on the forums if that one step had been complete

A: CG_Tophat - I answered this partly in another question about the why. We did provide it with Dark Side Geonosis and what we found is that there were a lot of missed player expectations by us publishing the number. By saying you should be getting X, if a guild didn't get it they felt bad and usually that resulted in some disappointed players. This generally prompted questions of "why didn't we get the number?" which is often times difficult and depends on the guild, their collection, their activeness as a group, etc. We decided not to produce it this time for those reasons.

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:47PM

TOPIC: Economy

Q: Will you address guild sandbagging in TW? Guilds having 225+GP facing 204GP guild because they use alt accounts to make 600 tickets and TB battles but don't participate in TW's. How is there not a failsafe for this?

A: CG_Cynaides - Can us send me an ally code of a player in a guild you believe is sandbagging? I ask this because I hear a lot about sandbagging and knowing how the matchmaking works, I don't see how reducing overall GP would actually give you an advantage in how our matchmaking works. Although I can't think of a way doesn't mean it's not possible; thus, I'd like to see a guild that is doing this so I can better understand what they are attempting to do.

Q: When Imperial Retaliation was launched, the shard rewards for ROLO and IPD were increased from 1 to 2 per victory, too compensate for only getting to do the TB half as frequently. Will Wat and KAM missions be treated similarly?

A: CG_Cyanides - We have no plans on doubling the amount of shards rewarded from Geo TB.

Q: To all the devs. First of all I want to say how great the idea is to develop the feature with the "journey guide". This Feature will be friendly to longtime players like me (2 year GoH experience) and new players. For a f2p gamer it's getting more and more frustrating to be successful in both arenas. Squad arena is allready a lost place for f2p. Fleet Arena becomes more and more difficult with both GK Negoiater and GG Malevolence Capital Ship. Are there any ideas to implent another crystal income i.e. GAC? Are there any plans to develop new tier in the challenges? In my opinion it's time to get access to new tiers with gear pieces like stun guns, stun cuffs and more carbs or golden eyeballs. I must farm Brut Alpha (last star) and was happy to finaly farm Mats for relicts. But now I must farm the ARC Trooper. Are there any plans to find other location to farm relic mats? ?

A: CG_Cyanides - We don't have any plans on adding new farming locations for relic mats. I'd like a new daily challenge for them, but we don't have a timeline for doing that yet.

Q: To Data Analyst Cyanides: Which "numbers" was a nice suprise i.e. how many player unlocked General Skywalker or the teams who reached near end of the DS Geo TB? I wish a lot of fun and looking forward to enjoy many years with this great project. Keep up the great work Best regards?

A: CG_Cyanides - We spend a lot of our time to ensure that we aren't surprised by numbers The numbers that still astound me though is how long you all have played SWGOH. With our 4 year anniversary, we pulled some "fun metrics" for the studio, and one of those what the # of players that are playing today, installed in 2015, and have missed less that 14 days since then. That number was much higher than I ever would have expected.

Q: Hey there Devs, would you consider removing the non 5 dot mods from the Mod challenges as a QoL update? They are inferior since the introduction of mod slicing.

A: CG_Cyanides - Yep! We are planning to do this. Timing of this is still in the air as we decided when the QoL update goes out.

Q: Are the GAC rewards still in line to what is expected?

A: CG_Cyanides - Overall, I think we are rewarding too little Championship Tokens, so we are increasing the amount of Championship Currency earned through GAC in the following month.

Q: Can you please update the types of gear snd the amounts of certain gear that we can request/donate within the guild? These have remained the same for the last few years and the game has progressed since these levels first were introduced. Thank you

A: CG_Cyanides - I'd like to do some more stuff with guild donations. It's a system that was made years ago and has never really been updated. I need to talk to engineering to better understand what we can and cannot do with donations, but I think there is room for improvement.

Q: At one of recent Q&A you mentioned a plan to ease up the gear crunch was that forgotten or being planned?

A: CG_Cyanides - No, I haven't forgot and we are planning more. We added Kyros to Daily Activities completion and TW rewards, reduced the crystal and shard shop cost of G12 and added G12+ to shard shop, reduced the energy cost of Ship Energy, increased the refresh rate of Ship energy, and added G12+ to Ship nodes. Actually, my question back is define "easing"? I hear easing a lot, but it is very subjective. Mathematically, we have eased the gear grind, but that doesn't mean that players actually "feel" the easing. This isn't being snarky, I am just genuinely interested in what everyone's definition of easing is to see if I can some how help that feeling.

Q: With the release of the Journey Guide, how will that change how often we see mythic events like daring droid or pieces & plans?

A: CG_Tophat - We're in the process of figuring that out still. It'll be a fairly regular cadence. Hopefully I can speak to that next Q&A.

Q: Are we safe to use championship tokens (currency) or will there be a super powerful (exclusive character) released there that we'll regret if we don't hoard for (ie GAS & DM -- making GE store useless)?

A: CG_Miller We have no plans to add characters to the Grand Arena Currency rewards. We intend to keep it for now so you can spend your currency on gear

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:47PM

TOPIC: Art

Q: In comparison and contrast to models and skins from the Star Wars movies and TV or animated series, which theme do you like the most? For example, in the prequel movies, an original model of B2 Battle Droid seems compact and has one wrist blaster built on its left arm. Later in animated series, its body is bulkier than the original ones from the prequel movies and armed with two wrist blasters on both arms.

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - This is entirely up to the individuals taste so I cant speak for the rest of the art team. I personally like stylization because it allows you to get to the essence of the characters and settings in a way that live action can't get to sometimes. For instance those Galaxy of Adventures shorts are outstanding and I love them, but then again I really like anime so thats a natural fit for me. The art team has a very diverse set of likes and dislikes so we try to leverage all that information and distill it in something thats uniquely ours. One good example of this is our KotOR content where we had the chance to make some creative decisions based on the limitations the original games had and in order to fit them into our own art style we were able to redesign a fair amount of elements. Canderous, Jedi Revan and Mission being particular highlights but pretty much every single environment got a thorough makeover. I never want to be the game that just copies other peoples work, I want to celebrate it, find the best parts and enhance it. We wont always succeed but thats the mission.

Q: Would you be willing to create a section on the forum to display art created by the development team? I love the portraits, but it would be cool to see a gallery with larger versions of them. I’d also love to see some of the event art that only appears once in the game and then is gone forever. The artists put so much work into the art, it seems a shame for it to disappear. Maybe you could add concept art as an unlockable in game for quests or events? Anyways, awesome work art team! Keep it up!

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Thank you, this is something that we talk about internally pretty often. Obviously the art team is proud of their efforts and we like the opportunity to share our work whenever the opportunity presents itself but we haven't established a proper pipeline for doing so yet. The reasons for that are many. Adding the high resolution artwork to the game as an unlockable is quite tricky, it can really blow up the SKU size. In-Game art is not always authored to be seen without the UI or at a higher resolution, so some of the pieces you like might not look so good when seen in a different light.
A: CG_SBCrumb - It's something I've been working on with the team. No updates at the moment but it's a possibility if we can work out the pipeline that RS talked about above.

Q: This is a minor complaint but nonetheless, I felt like it had to be stated. The lightsaber hilts on these characters should be switched. The hilt Jedi Knight Revan uses in-game is the one that should be/was in KOTOR red and used by Darth Revan and vice versa. I know this is a small complaint but with the addition of relics and them emphasizing the weaponry, they should change it. Always bugged me.

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Oh this is not something we would call minor so thanks for bringing it up! While working on the Relic system we realized we had a chance to revisit some lightsabers that didnt have unique models and Revans was one of them so that was an easy choice. We did notice the discrepancy between lightsabers and after looking at the designs for each we made the call that the saber with the rounder edges was a better fit for Jedi Revan while the one with the far more aggressive shape really resonated with Darth Revan.

Q: @CG_??? - ArtDude, Why was JKA and GAS looks’ changed? What prompted the change in the first place? Is there a way GAS can have JKA’s look instead?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Sometimes these answers can be complicated and sometimes they can be simple. For General Skywalker, when production started we knew we didn't want to stick to the original JKA face as it no longer represents the game stylistically, so, we settled on his current look and it will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
With JKA, initially it made sense to be consistent and update his face, so we made that decision. However, we had a character that people heavily invested in for years and we realized that changing his visuals dramatically was obviously causing friction so we reverted to the look that players were familiar with. I actually liked the new character icon I made for him so it made me a bit sad to revert it, but hey, it happens.

Q: Question for the art designer: would you consider changing the relics for certain characters to make them more relevant? For example, Darth Revan, Jedi Knight Revan, and Darth Nihilus should all have their distinctive masks for their relic instead of a lightsaber. And Hera’s kalikori is a lot more relevant to her than a little blaster.

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Relics are ... tricky. The reality is that making over 100 Relics from scratch was a significant challenge and I'm satisfied with how we met that challenge but I'm also very aware that no matter what route we decide to go in there will always be another route we could have gone with. With Relics we had an opportunity to focus on the most iconic elements in all of Star Wars, the lightsabers. Getting the opportunity to flesh out the weapons used by Revan, Malak, Nihilus, etc was an imperative for us. This doesn't mean Revans mask isn't iconic, but he doesn't use the mask in the game in any significant way, its his lightsaber that he uses to fight his enemies so for us that was always going to be the first stop. When it came to less obvious answers like the Nightsisters, C3PO or the Wampa we came up with some fun solutions and in the fringe cases like Hera or Thrawn we had a couple of avenues open to us and we stick to elements you could actually see in the game

Q: CG_ArtDude: How long does it take to put together the artwork and animations for a new character/ship? 2- CG_ArtDude: Have any characters been more challenging to do, artistically? 3- CG_ArtDude: Does the artwork ever influence a character's kit?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - 1- Putting a character together takes more or less time based on the particular needs, Geonosian Brood Alpha took longer due to it being an original design, adding a summonable spot to almost every layout in the game and have it look good in a 4:3 screen (that aspect ratio is the bane of my existence). Padme took longer because we had to decide, argue, research and argue some more about which design we would go with and how it would affect the rest of her production pipeline.
No part of the process takes longer than a week (modeling) and some just a few days (animation, VFX) but an extensive review process makes it more volatile. On average I'd say a new character takes about 3 1/2 weeks. Ships are fairly straightforward since they don't animate like traditional characters, Capital Ships are challenging though, getting the Malevolence to look good in a 3D space where the scale couldnt possibly be 1:1 and getting it to fit all aspect ratios and whatnot brought a number of significant technology challenges to the table.
2- B1 Droids were pretty challenging, so was the Droideka. Those respawn animations on the B1 might look simple but trust me, that took significant effort. For the Droideka, getting the rolling animation looking good and deciding when and how to use it can add significant time and research because more people start getting pulled into the process. Characters like the Terentatek, Reek and Nexu are challenging for more traditional reasons because everything needs to be done from scratch and, for a live game that updates very frequently with a small team, we really rely on a strong pipeline that allows us to get a running start on characters. Making giant monsters sure is fun, though, so I hope we get more use out of them soon.
3- Yes, the art team can influence a kit, we are close with our design team and share intent and ideas often! Ki Adi Mundi and General Anakin are good examples of this."

Q: Great to have the opportunity to speak to one of the Art-Design Devs. First of all I'd like to express how much I love this game. To the Art/Dev. Are there any ideas you really love? Which Design project (i.e character design, world design) is your favorite one? Who got the great idea for the beautiful background graphics "Concord Dawn"? If you got unlimited resources, what would be you greatest idea to develop? Thank you again for you art/ideas. I really love the art style and want to show respect for this work.

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Thank you! There is a lot in Star Wars to love and my favorites change often, I just beat Fallen Order over the weekend and am currently obsessed with The Mandalorian so I'm really excited with how the franchise has been handled lately. From our game I really like all the visuals and audio for the Sith Raid, that really marked a before and after in our game as far as narrative presentation goes. On a personal note, I concepted the Geonosian Brood Alpha so for me to contribute a new design to the universe was a great thrill, not something I thought I would ever do when watching the original movies as an 80's kid in Betamax growing up in Spain.
I will say that Fulcrum Ahsoka's lightsabers are my absolute favorite. Planet wise Cloud City and Coruscant hit me just right but I'm also a sucker for the Star Destroyer on Jakku, that sense of scale is one of the things Star Wars has always done so, so well.

Regarding Concord Dawn, that's from our Sr. Environment Artist, he's amazing, has been on the project since day 1, is a huge fan and is always on the lookout for places around the Galaxy to be represented in our game. Concord Dawn in Rebels gave us ample opportunity to make a really cool space environment and I love that it still resonates with players. I really, really want to come up with more striking space environments like that, I think the one we just did for Kamino was pretty cool!
Unlimited resources are not a thing in videogames and anything I say will be taken as a hint for future content so I'm not gonna go there. Somebody should make a Star Wars fighting game based on Bushido Blade though, like, come on, it makes itself.

Q: Mr CG_ArtGuy!!

Just the person I was looking for! Love that New Hope Luke portrait, but since he’s obviously staring up at the twin suns wondering where Biggs’ portrait is, I have to ask, when will we get a Biggs Darklighter portrait in game? We need this! Please! Thanks for all the awesome art in the game so far!

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - For portraits we try and reuse art that we have already made for the game, not a good value play for us to paint something from scratch for such a small icon. If Biggs gets some love for a Pack Art or an Event then I'll be more than happy to make a portrait for him.

Q: Can you share your favorite non-SW art you've worked on?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Earlier in the year, as my Smash Bros hype was hitting its peak I made a print with Link fighting Richter Belmont, I've done a few things over the years Im pretty prood of though, having art featured in the Street Fighter IV box art back in the day was (and is!) a huge deal for me.

Q: What is one piece of artwork that you made for the game that was never used and you wished they used it? Can you share it with us??

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - I did make a pretty cool Ebon Hawk event piece we still haven't used and I'm a little sad about it. The vast majority of the art we make does end up in the game though, being a live game we try to be as efficient as possible.

Q: Do you do character models / animations too? What's your favorite character animation? Personally, I think Sion's Held by Hatred is one of the best and most authentic to his character ?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - I am a traditionally trained 2D animator so I have -many- opinions when it comes to our animations but those are not handled by me. I agree that Sion's animations are awesome and we were happy to be able to add to his character. Darth Revan and Malak are personal favorites, some of the movements Traya makes are really cool and even some of the more subdued stuff like the Ki-Adi-Mundi forms or Zaalbars Bacca Blade attacks make me pop

Q: What is one artwork you are most excited to work on??

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - I'm a bit of a generalist and I like projects that allow me to spread my wings a bit. So all of the KotOR content was a huge opportunity since I was in charge of storyboarding the event, handled some character designs, discussed the different battle layouts we could use, brainstormed how to re-interpret the environments and put the pieces in place so our other, remarkable artists could make some really really cool content such as the event art or the release trailer.

Q: What is your favorite art in the game by you or anyone else?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - "This has been very -me- centric so far so let me gush about the people I work with:
The Aurra Sing Event Art by Garret, our senior artist, is so.dang.good y'all. He makes awesome art on the regular and we take it for granted but I really love when he gets to play around with the non-obvious characters
Some of our character models I think are really well done. The Terentatek, Reek, Nexu and Acklay really allowed him to make some cool stuff and we're looking forward to the next batch of characters he's making now!
The first time I saw one of the cinematics I did (the much beloved Chewbacca cinematic, if I'm reading the internet right;) with audio by CG_AU-D10, I was floored! Seeing something that you have made, by and large, in your head, get the audio treatment all of a sudden made me feel like I actually -was- working on Star Wars.
Environments, the entrance to the Sith Temple for the Sith Raid was something that didn't look like we should be able to pull off in our game, hell speaking of lighting, that ship hangar on Yavin IV is one of my absolute favorites.
Animations, those Darth Revan animations are sick. The way Malak feels like hes about to kick your **** feels really, really good. The VFX when Echo's grenade hits? Oh man, super cool"

Q: Are you also in charge of level design / backgrounds for fleets and squad combats?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Our Sr. Environment Artist handles all of that. I provide guidance, feedback and reference gathering when needed. For example, I really wanted that red hallway scene for the General Anakin event and was pretty vocal everyone knew how I wanted the scene presented, so that took working not just with the environment artist but watching the Clone Wars episode repeatedly and negotiating with design regarding how that particular fight should be framed.

Q: Are you open for an art request? Can we get Mob Enforcer slapping CUP in the face as a portrait in-game?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Those portraits are so **** small that you wouldnt be ale to see any of that. I would love for us to be able to display them larger. Also, no.

Q: Yo, Art Guy, we've received the 4th Anniversary portrait and the FO portraits from the GAC, but why no Jawa portrait? Crumb said the time isn't right for it last Q&A, but I think it is?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Yeah I should probably get around to making one. Art production is one thing, like, I can make the portrait, wouldn't take all that long ... but then that means something else isnt getting made and we really emphasize prioritizing our workload. That's only the art though, every piece of content in the game has to be something the rest of the team is aligned on, thats why something that seems obvious at a first glance can be complicated to put in the players hand

Q: Man City or Liverpool to win the Premier League?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - I'm not super into watching the inferior soccer leagues , but being a Real Madrid fan I cannot root for a Pep Guardiola team in good conscience, plus Mo Salah is awesome and I feel bad that we broke him in the CL final. I'm gonna go with Liverpool here.

Q: Yo, Art Guy, we've received the 4th Anniversary portrait and the FO portraits from the GAC, but why no Jawa portrait? Crumb said the time isn't right for it last Q&A, but I think it is.

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Yeah I should probably get around to making one. Art production is one thing, like, I can make the portrait, wouldn't take all that long ... but then that means something else isnt getting made and we really emphasize prioritizing our workload. That's only the art though, every piece of content in the game has to be something the rest of the team is aligned on, thats why something that seems obvious at a first glance can be complicated to put in the players hand

Q: Q to CG_Artdude: Beyond the voices of the well-known actors from the movies (eg. Vader "Nooo") did you create all the sounds by yourselves, especially the death screams?

A: CG_AUD-10 - Aside from the actor for Vader and Anthony Daniels for C-3PO, we used voices from our licensed libraries and created our own as well. Inspired by the voice from KOTOR, Nihilus is one of us saying the Sith code played backwards and used as a signal to drive an effect engine to give us his sound.

Q: I drew you a unicorn. You can use it for whatever you want. In return i would love to have some Shaak Ti shards or a Ingame-title for everyone called "You are amazing!"?

A: CG_RagingSpaniard - I'm sorry I can't give you those things but its a wonderful depiction, I do have some notes so I red lined my feedback. With some added touch ups I believe we can put this somewhere

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:47PM

TOPIC: Content

Q: The Mandalorian. I have spoken.

A: CGTophat - Still no current plans for it. We're targeting for some time next year, but no clear timeline.

Q: With the Journey Guide allow players to go back and redo events for fun? I'd really like to enjoy all the hard work that was done in creating Rey and Luke's Hero Journey and the Journeys for the Revans. Also we would previously be able to do mythic versions of some legendary battles and get rewards, will we have access to those all the time now? Since we will have the journey guide with all old events available to newer players, can older player be able to access these events again to test out squads if they want to try the difficulty of the event? Similar to marquees when they have 5 attempts per tier but apply it to these legacy events.

A: CG_Erik - Yes, events which have been lifecycled will be re-playable as much as you'd like for no rewards. Mythic tiers will remain on a scheduled basis and will stay in the Events section for now. Not exactly a sandbox mode, but something you can repeat as you'd like.

Q: Why don´t you do update characters of certain factions. Because most of the time we know the top 5 toons of the faction. A good example is First Order. Almost everyone uses KRU, Kylo Ren, FOX, FOst and the officer. Why don´t you improve others like Phasma and Pilot, and nerf e.g. FOX. This would shake up the factions and allow more theorycrafting. (Even small changes like Damage/Health buffs or nerfs are great)

A: CG_Vyeking - We like to do character refreshes and reworks alongside relevant character and ship releases. Generally speaking, reworks take just as long to produce as some of our characters, so we don't do as many reworks as we would like. With regard to First Order reworks, I can't say with certainty that we will tackle reworks anytime soon, but we may decide minor stat updates will be needed.

Q: Whatever happened to Arcade / Mythic Raids? The whole scoring system was a neat idea and interesting take but its been a year since all that stuff was datamined to be a work in progress.?

A: CG_Vyeking - The foundation laid for Arcade/Mythic raids last year will serve as the bones for our upcoming content system. Our goal for this feature is to provide you with more solo and guild content more quickly, and for all players. Pre-production for this feature has just started and you can expect to see something later in 2020.

Q: Plans on making more assault battles so that we eventually have one for each faction?

A: CG_Vyeking - Yes, CG_Miller and our other Live game designers will be working on this throughout 2020.

Q: Why are there no mythic events for the newer legendary events? Like the padme event. I like the mythic events because you can replay those events after you completed them.

A: CG_Tophat - I'm certain the playerbase hates me for this answer, but it's the truth: Tradeoffs. We had other pieces of content we wanted to roll out (the TB for one) and working on the mythics takes away effort from larger projects. My hope is that we can get back to making Mythics this next year. We'll see.

Q: Now that summoning characters is a feature is there any plans to rework characters to use this feature . Like Ezra summoning loath cats or space whales?

A: CG_Tophat - We don't have a "give summoning to some characters" rework pass planned at the time. However, as we rework characters moving forward that's definitely a consideration we'll have as we build them,

Q: Kind of a general question, but what kind of content can we expect to be coming up soon? Is it safe to assume it will all be based on our current trilogy? As far as art goes, how much time roughly is spent on designing event banners and such??

A: CG_TopHat - It is safe to assume the majority of the content coming up soon will be Episode 9 related
A: CG_RagingSpaniard - Event art takes about 3 work days to make, afterwards it goes through an extensive review process before it's actually in game so it's challenging to be more precise than that, plus we reuse and edit the art in other places like newsletters, packs, icons, etc, so in case there is an edit we go back and fix it all up again."

Q: Do you plan on adding a General Grievous portrait( without malevolence)? it seems odd that he doesn't have one, not even as a feat reward

A: CG_Tophat - That's a great idea. Taking the note.

Q: How many character are being released for The Rise of Skywalker? Will there be a variety of release styles -- Marquee, Galactic Chase, Legenday, Hero's Journey -- for The Rise of Skywalker?

A: CG_Tophat - Less than 10 if you include ships and some of these character kind of span moveis (Hux is a prime example).

Q: With the new trilogy Sith Trooper being mentioned in the recent road ahead post will the Sith Trooper currently in game be renamed? Example: Sith Empire Troope?

A: CG_Tophat - To distinguish between the two, the new one will be called Sith Trooper and the current one will be renamed to Sith Empire Trooper.

Q: With the Negotiator and the Malevolence, we now have two more capital ships in our rosters. Do you plan on having a more steady release schedule for capital ships in the future or will it be quite awhile before we get more?

A: CG_Tophat - We have two more planned for early next year, but with all things, that could change. From there, we are going to monitor and see how the ship meta changes and plan for future capital ships from there. We'd like to have a lot more in there, but Capital ships are tricky to release because of a lot factors (characters to support them, ships to support them, what do their abilities do, how do we make owning a capital ship fun, etc). Ship events would help that (something we want to kick out) and some way to modify your ships would help. Long story short - more are coming, we're thinking about it.

Q: What happened to the Mace Windu rework?

A: CG_Erik - CG_SBCrumb and I recently spoke to this on a podcast with our friends over at the Galactic War Report. Long story short, we had initially planned to do a Mace Windu rework, but ended up running out of time to do it justice. Mace is a cool character, so we didn't want to release a "just ok" rework. New characters and events is really TopHat's area to speak to, and funny story, he came to me after the podcast and said "Thanks for signing me up for a Mace rework next year!," but there is a new season of the Clone Wars animated series coming up next year that presents an interesting opportunity to explore more Clone Wars content. So... maybe?

Q: You guys mentioned working on new content tools to churn out content faster, any update on when that will be complete?

A: CG_Miller - Work on the tools is constant and we are getting new features for our tools every sprint. While the tools help development immensely, they are not a magic "make content" button. There is still art and animation that need to be made, and QA milestones, as well as balancing the characters to fit where we expect them to in the meta.

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:50PM

TOPIC: Technical Issues

Q: It's been going on for over a year now, when will you fix the bug where the game freezes and buttons disappear? I almost lost a perfect record in GAC this time around due to a game crippling bug that you can't fix.

A: CG_Tophat - Our recently released "battle restart" tech covers about 90% of instances which is a great improvement, but still 10% to fix! We are about to start looking for the next source of the disappearing button issues.

Q: Did you ever fix the Fives bug? Or does he still need to be in the 5th spot?

A: CG_Tophat - Still needs to be in the fifth spot. It's something that needs a client release to fix and it's a lower priority item compared to some other things we have ahead of it.

Q: With the release of Malevolence and LSTB, people will now have to make a choice on 7 star'ing Negotiator vs unlocking Malevolence. Is there a timeline for fixing the "unending loyalty buff duration is not refreshed when reapplied" bug which currently plagues Negotiator fleets? It GREATLY diminishes Negotitor fleet strength currently.

A: CG_Tophat - I'll look into it.

Q: Are you going at some point to fix the problem of wat shards not being provided to many guilds despite the fact we completed multiple missions? Are we ever going to receive those missing shards?

A: CG_Tophat - We're actively working on it.

Q: If we find an inconsistency in a hero ability description (i.e., an ability description reads that it inflicts a debuff before doing damage, but in reality it does damage before inflicting the debuff), how do we report that as an issue to be fixed?

A: CG_Tophat - Answers HQ is the best place to post it. We have two great QA folks (EA Mind Tricks and EA High Command) who go through it constantly for our game. We speak with them every morning and they assign bugs to us for the things the players post. We then triage on our side and try to take care of them as fast as we can

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:50PM

TOPIC: QoL

Q: I have asked this question in the last 3 Q&A’s and you have never answered this question that so many want an answer to. Quality of life seems to have totally fallen off the radar. When are we going to be able to simulate the tank and sith raids. It is ridiculous that we have continue to complete these raids and it creates totally unnecessary tension in a guild by people fighting for the best slots. Second, mods are my biggest frustration of the game. I have farmed mods nonstop since the rework but have not once gotten a mod with a secondary speed greater than 21. A circle secondary speeds greater than 15 are exceedingly rare. This is a great frustration of many negatively affecting our experience in the game. It’s so bad it is like CG is deliberately punishing the players. This is a major quality of life issue. Stop ignoring these important questions. Thanks

A: CG_Tophat - Apologies - I don't think we're actively avoiding this question. We get a lot of questions and it sounds like we ran out of time to answer. 1) Quality of Life hasn't fallen off the table. We typically do quality of life work in March. We're hoping to do some this March. Now what is quality of life for people changes from person to person. 2) The AAT sim has been discussed pretty recently. I would say that one has a good chance of seeing a roll out sooner rather than later (no promises on timelines). We have no immediate intent to sim the Sith Triumvirate. A large chunk of players are still working through it. 3) Sorry to hear you're having a tough time with mods. We talk about mods pretty regularly. We're in an interesting position with mods insofar that without the game turns into a pretty stale deterministic tree (we saw this in the early days of the game) because some character's speeds put them in a position to be written out of the game (practically, not functionally). So mods serve an important role of making it possible to elevate different characters and control turn orders. That said, we recognize that there's a tremendous amount of importance on speed in the game and we're thinking about how to tackle it. Some of that shows up character design and encounter design. We're thinking about it.

Q: Can you add a feature where officers can remove squads from territory wars?

A: CG_SvenGG - This touches on two sets of QOL work we want to do: Guild Management and territory activities. We know that managing a guild (especially a competitive one) is a lot of work. Giving Leaders and Officers more information and better tools to make decisions and to perform managerial tasks should cascade into an improved experience for everyone in guilds. We also want to empower strategic decisions for territory activities, and strategies often need to adapt or change to be successful.

Q: Hi. Will there ever be an feature to "refund" a zeta or a whole character/rooster (giving back gear credits, droids and ability materials) since there is a big focus on making your account as "thin" as possible for best Grand Arena Championships results?

A: CG_Tophat - We have no intention at this time of creating a feature that would refund materials applied to a character. Rather, we spend out time thinking about how to make the game reward players that have better developed rosters.

Q: With the new hyperdrive bundle coming to advance players to level 85 what will be done to assist new free to play players. It seems that if this is added with the current pace of leveling it will create a far larger barrier of entry for new players then ever before due to allowing anyone who pays for the bundle to get months if not more ahead of a new player who cannot. I know ultimately f2p games need to bring in new spenders but if the actual f2p community is driven out in the process it's still bad for the overall health of the game.

A: CG_Erik - It would be silly for us to suggest that players who buy the Hyperdrive Drive won't have an early advantage, but let's start with the goal. We've recognized that the game has changed over time - and that a lot of the most compelling content now starts after getting to level 85. We've also heard from the community for months that there's a growing concern about the ability to recruit new qualified players to keep Guilds staffed. The Hyperdrive Bundle and Journey Guide are a first stab at addressing an on-going theme of "get more qualified players to the heart of the game, faster." We're excited to get these features into player's hands and will assess what else we need to do.

Q: When we receive the in-game message that our guild has started a raid, can we, instead of the "go" button, get the option to simply join the raid?

A: CG_Erik - Interesting idea. We'll add it to the QOL backlog.

Q: Why do you have to sign up for each phase of GAC? I played the first, second, and third phases, of course I want to play the fourth. Even if you sign up for the first phase you should be automatically entered in to each successive phases. I missed out on getting kyber for the first time because of this stupid setup

A: CG_SvenGG - Championships were originally designed to showcase multiple events throughout any given Championship. While the outcome of events can contribute to Championship progress, functionally they are isolated instances of scheduled events. So the way the feature has been used so far is that the previously stand-alone Grand Arena event is run as the exclusive event in Championships. We have a pretty substantial backlog of Championships and Grand Arena quality of life improvements we'd like to make, including those that improve player flow and ease of engagement. It should not feel onerous to participate in an ongoing activity, and once you are participating in a Championship, that should be all that it takes to continue to participate without additional sign-ups.

Q: Can you redesign the mod search tool so I can search my mods based on speed? Like speed 3-7, speed 8-12, speed 13-18, speed 19+, i.e. There are so many speed mods and hard to keep track them all. And no one is farming 1-4 dot mods. Will be easier to get rid of them totally. All I am asking is please make the mods easier to find and use

A: CG_SvenGG - Enhanced filtering and sorting for all inventories and lists is in consideration for quality of life work. These user interfaces are already some of the most information and option-dense screens we have, so adding all the desired functionality is more a redesign than an addition.

Q: QoL questions! 1. When can we expect a Squadron button like the Squad button? Lotta ships now to put into different teams and this would help a lot in saving time. 2. Can we get more simming of existing events, especially ones that have multiple waves (Secrets and Shadows, Rebel Roundup, etc.). Like if we beat them 5 or 10 times, or earn 3*, can we sim them in the future? Thank you!

A: CG_SvenGG - Introducing fleet management with functionality comparable to squad management is definitely something on our radar that we'd like to schedule for development as soon as possible. We've been thinking about the best way to decrease the time commitment we ask of players for content they are able to clear with trivial effort. Ultimately, that has led to the realization that we need a holistic approach to time-saving for players so that we can continue to add new content to the game without exacerbating the commitment players feel they have to make each day.

Q: When are we getting more quality of life updates? There's a bunch of requests from Guild officers that we really need!

A: CG_Erik - Historically, we've released a QoL update early in the calendar year. Typically, schedules get a little squirrely at the end of year, so we pick up as many QoL items as possible. We're starting the discussion around what we'll include in the next release, which will certainly include a number of QoL items, and we'll share those as we get closer. Something that we're going to try out this next release is picking a couple of QoL themes and going deeper, rather than QoL items from across the whole game. Additionally, rather than saving QoL generally for once a year, we're looking at both setting aside some capacity in the schedule to accommodate QoL items in other release and potentially making more frequent releases that pick up a smaller number of QoL items between our main releases.

Q: Can there be a way to leave and rejoin GAC or otherwise decide when to lock your roster?

A: CG_Tophat - It's being discussed. No plans in the next client release, but potentially future ones.

Q: When one of your characters has an ability that is stacking, please can you add something to the battle UI (possibly over the skill in the bottom right) that shows how many stacks it has accumulated?

A: CG_Miller - this is something we're trying to get better at. In the past we put a lot of effort on the player with remember who has how many stacks of what when they were oddball buffs/debuffs. As we move into the future I want to make sure that critical buffs like that get their own buff icon (especially now that we can collapse buffs) so the player can see what is affecting units at a glance.

CG_SBCrumb · December 4, 2019 7:50PM

TOPIC: Mechanics/Balance

Q: You’ve stated that the difficulty will not be rolled back after this TB (sic) and that it is to stay the same, can you provide some information as to what’s coming to help level the playing field. Players are worried that this new addition will be hidden behind some massive paywall that will weaken the total community by player retirement.

A: CG_Tophat - There's a discussion in the community that with this Territory Battle is setting up for a future progression system element that is imminently planned (the theory is typically this seems to be in the next two or three months). Geonosis Light Side is intended to be a long term piece of content that will take some time to master. The difficulty is intentional. We've tried to account for player theory crafters who generally do a great job of finding very powerful strategies in these pieces of content. We do not at this time have an expansion of relics, level cap increase, etc planned in the next three months. We will be actively monitoring player participation (and related behaviors) in the Geonosis Light Side territory battle. If there is a problem (your example is mass exodus) we will intervene and make changes. Hope this helps allay any concerns.

Q: Are you able to share specific details of how pilotless ships will scale in relation to matching the power of traditional relic 7 pilots?

A: CG_Miller - Crewless ships are balanced tested at Relic 7 to ensure that the fleets they are designed for behave as we want them to at this level. This involves a lot of wizardry done to their stats and how they improve, but suffice it to say that if the Relic cap goes up, we'll need to address this issue with crewless ships.

Q: With relics you have also introduced Archetypes. Do you plan to use these Archetypes in the futur or were they just template for relic stat boost?

A: CG_Miller - Mastery (the stat that is directly tied to Archetypes) is a stat we are looking at adding to places outside the Relic system.

Q: Will it be different if i upgrade a mod with speed sec stat today or tmrw ? or once the mod earned, then the whole upgrade is fixed already, no matter when we max them the end result will be the same ? ty

A: CG_Cyanides - Stat rolls are determined when the mod is rolled. There's no outside force having an impact on the RNG of what gets rolled.

Q: When one of your characters has an ability that is stacking, please can you add something to the battle UI (possibly over the skill in the bottom right) that shows how many stacks it has accumulated?

A: CG_Miller - This is something we're trying to get better at. In the past we put a lot of effort on the player with remember who has how many stacks of what when they were oddball buffs/debuffs. As we move into the future I want to make sure that critical buffs like that get their own buff icon (especially now that we can collapse buffs) so the player can see what is affecting units at a glance.

Q: Do the Malevolence spawned Vulture Droids scale their stats with the capital ship or our own Vulture Droid?

A: CG_Miller - The stats scale with the Malevolence, not your own Vulture Droid.

Q: The Vulture Droid ship has the ability to buff immunity for 2 turns in the Discord Missile, however, ships that are summoned and replaced do not have the ability to apply this debuff. Is this inability to apply buff immunity purposeful or is it something that will be readjusted in the next update?

A: CG_Miller - This was done on purpose. The player obtainable unit has some special perks over the summoned one.

Q: I love KAM and how he will make some of the unused Jedi viable with his “Jedi Console” unique ability. My questions are about that ability. It says “At the start of each battle if all allies are Galactic Republic Jedi, they have +30 Speed, +40% Max Health, and +20% Offense. Galactic Republic Jedi allies with a Support or Healer role have additional Offense equal to 10% of their Max Health.” A- When does the 10% of their max health converted to offense? At the start of their turn? At the start of the battle? Before/after any max health bonus from a leader? If at the start of the battle that means that health up would also be factored in? or any kind of max health reduction right? B- It looks like to get the 10% health/offence addition you do NOT need to have a full Galactic Republic Jedi team. Is that right? thanks

A: CG_Miller - A) The offense boost is refreshed every time they use an ability. If they gain Health Up/Down or other Max Health-modifying effects, those will be factored into the offense boost for the next ability they use.
Correct, you do not need to bring a full Galactic Republic Jedi squad in order to gain the offense boost.

Q: In what order are pre-battle bonus stats calculated? For example health % with Padme lead and R2’s number crunch. Which one kicks in first?

A: CG_Miller - "Unique abilities occur before leader abilities. However, stat boosts for the same stat stack additively, not multiplicatively. If an ally gains 10% Max Health from one unique ability and 50% Max Health from a leader ability, they will have a total increase of 60% Max Health. In the listed example:
1. 1) R2-D2 gains 10% Max Health for each Rebel ally
  - 20,000 Max Health (base) + 20,000 * 0.10 (1 rebel in the Padme team) = 22,000 Max Health
2. 2) R2-D2 grants 10% of his Max Health to each other Droid, Galactic Republic, Rebel, and Resistance ally
  - 22,000 Max Health (current) * 0.10 = 2,200 Max Health shared
3. 3) Padme grants a 50% Max Health boost to all Light Side allies
  - R2-D2: 20,000 Max Health (base) * 1.5 + 2,000 (boost from Number Crunch) = 32,000 Max Health
  - Padme: 30,000 Max Health (base) * 1.5 + 2,200 (boost from Number Crunch) = 47,200 Max Health

Q: Is the ARC Trooper’s Turret’s damage based solely on his Gear/Relic level, or does it look at his stats like Offense? I ask because this might affect how I choose to Mod him (Offense or Critical Damage Primary on Triangle for example)

A: CG_Miller - Summoned units stats scale off the summoner, the only thing the turret cares about is ARC Trooper's offense.

Q: Are TB droideka's hardcoded to target Jolee like JKR targets Traya first?

A: CG_Miller - There's no hard coding of kill orders for specific units in Territory Battle, however there isn't a lot of randomization that can happen either. If a unit is consistently targeting another unit, then that's just how the unit is doing their threat assesment based on the available targets.

Ultra · December 4, 2019 7:56PM

--QUALITY OF LIFE--
1. When are we getting battle logs, inter-guild GAC and Relic Abilities?
2. Can we get relic tiers on the HUD in battles? You can't tell the relic levels of an opposing toon when looking at screenshots or video clips

--TERRITORY BATTLE--
You mentioned reducing TB to 24 hours to schedule more events, are you planning on having a new type of event for the 3 days TB isn't running? A TB followed by TW each week (resulting in 4 TB/TW each month)? Or something else? When can we expect the 24 hour per phase change to take place?

QUESTIONS FOR RagingSpaniard (Miller is not the art guy my bad)

1. What is one piece of artwork that you made for the game that was never used and you wished they used it? Can you share it with us?
2. Do you do character models / animations too? What's your favorite character animation? Personally, I think Sion's Held by Hatred is one of the best and most authenthic to his character
3. Can you share your favorite non-SW art you've worked on?
4. What is one artwork you are most excited to work on?
5. What is your favorite art in the game by you or anyone else?
6. Are you also in charge of level design / backgrounds for fleets and squad combats?
7. Are you open for an art request? Can we get Mob Enforcer slapping CUP in the face as a portrait in-game?

--- NEW CONTENT ---
1. You guys mentioned working on new content tools to churn out content faster, any update on when that will be complete?
2. One of the impediments was the approval process, are steps being taken to smoothen and quickly get things approved?
3. Whatever happened to Arcade / Mythic Raids? The whole scoring system was a neat idea and interesting take but its been a year since all that stuff was datamined to be a work in progress.
4. Thoughts on players launching personal individual raids scaled per player instead of guild? Allow players to raid at their leisure rather than fixed set times decided by the guild as a whole
5. Any plans on adding mythic events for Padme, Chewie, Falcon, C3P0 events?
6. Plans on making more assault battles so that we eventually have one for each faction

Indominable_J · December 4, 2019 7:56PM

When previewing DS Geo TB, you guys provided insight into how you expected guilds to perform (i.e., X GP should get Y stars). Between now and the relaunch of LS Geo TB, can you provide similar insight into what your expectations were/are for guilds (even on a comparison to DS Geo TB)?

Stumpcrusher · December 4, 2019 7:59PM

For guilds who were likely to max out LS Hoth for first time.how are you going to make us whole?

Ultra · December 4, 2019 7:59PM

I’ve been debating whether I should ask questions regarding LS TB but I’m sure others will

Just going to drop my 2 cents on the justification given

I know that part of the reason for difficult content is players churn up content faster than y'all can make, but the solution to make content that can't be cleared until whenever you decide in the far off future isn’t a good one.

Players waited half a year for this territory battle, there were months of hardly any updates. A lot of delays and anticipation only to be told we can’t compete or play. I would recommend going back to the drawing board and developing new solutions instead of deflecting the blame on players

DS TB did it right, now requiring 2~3 timed the GP to complete isn’t a viable end game goal

I cannot get excited for the next raid knowing that it’s not meant to be tried or challenged for another year or two and hope the raid is tuned to be completed by a guild with maxed out character progression at the time of raid’s launch

Stumpcrusher · December 4, 2019 8:00PM

Why should we believe anything you say when you have screwed up every major recent release of content? Through poor management have you coded yourselves into a corner that makes it impossible to do what needs to be done?

Kudlaty · December 4, 2019 8:00PM

Do You consider Droideka one shot assist killing r4 6 dot mods Kenobi (almost 150k combined health and prot) before You can even take a turn, fun?

OsirisGrande · December 4, 2019 8:02PM

What are the plans for Baby Yoda to join SWGOH?

Vos_Landeck · December 4, 2019 8:03PM

When are we going to get a public test server? With this many characters/ships and all the complexities of various kits, etc., this game is in dire need of a public test server so all the variations of strategies get tested ahead of time. Most of the recent bugs that have caused events to be cancelled or rescheduled would have certainly been exposed through a public test server.

Aka_mannah · December 4, 2019 8:07PM

There is a lot of indignation with regards to the LSGTB, while most players do accept a need for harder content to progress the game, does the unrest of the community sentiment mean anything to you as a team?
Furthermore, you’ve stated that the difficulty will not be rolled back after this TB (sic) and that it is to stay the same, can you provide some information as to what’s coming to help level the playing field. Players are worried that this new addition will be hidden behind some massive paywall that will weaken the total community by player retirement.
Thanks

Robchee5e · December 4, 2019 8:07PM

Why have you created a TB which is unplayable with maxed out characters? Are there huge level/relic/mod upgrades incoming and if so why was this along with the ridiculous difficulty of the TB not communicated to us before TB started so we could make an informed decision in whether it was even worth attempting it?

marcusopus · December 4, 2019 8:08PM

We are still missing our Wat shards from a month ago. We have gone through the proper channels with ea_MindTricks and still nothing other than "we are working on it". Our group of players is getting really frustrated and the failed TB isn't helping that out. Any update at all?

And if you'll allow me ask a second question: Are you going to release a new progression item soon to deal with the new TB difficulty?

MADMAN3199 · December 4, 2019 8:09PM

Why are you releasing content we can’t enjoy due to difficulty or don’t care about(sequel trilogy toons) one way you can make more people happy is to do more kotor or clone wars ships and toons like a sith capital with malak or nihilus as crew or more clones for shaak ti instead of some first order toons(was there a ship?) that I and many other people will never use due to our hatred or disliking of those horrible movies so for us that’s not new content so where’s the new content for us?

ObiObiMonkey · December 4, 2019 8:10PM

QoL

When one of your characters has an ability that is stacking, please can you add something to the battle UI (possibly over the skill in the bottom right) that shows how many stacks it has accumulated?

Ravens1113 · December 4, 2019 8:12PM

You guys have failed to properly tune the difficulty of the Republic Offensive TB. Yet you insist on keeping it the same. Why should we accept that fully maxed teams barely win a CM in phase 1 of the event and cannot clear one in phase 2.

BeralCator · December 4, 2019 8:12PM

Can you please fix quests that involve territory battle completion (IG-88, et al) so that they include Geonosis? I really would like to get some of the other Bounty Hunter portraits, but it's not fair to have to play through Hoth TB 3 times in order to do so.

Jpfit262 · December 4, 2019 8:12PM

Why the decision to not rework mace? We were told it was due to not having enough time to design a kit. But the Mace in TB is really good and the kit seems like it would be a nice touch up for him. Why is this something that can't be done? He is a really important character to star wars lore and he is less powerful than a generic resistance trooper. That seems insanely unjust.

Ravens1113 · December 4, 2019 8:13PM

Why are you guys refusing to address bugs that are months in the making like the missing WAT shards yet push new broken content to only add to the already growing list of ingame bugs?

Prosser · December 4, 2019 8:13PM

1. Is the hyperdrive bundle and journey guide your only plans to help new players?
2. How can you justify making LS geo so difficult that maxed out teams can't clear the 1st wave on day 1?

Sdtbarbarossa · December 4, 2019 8:15PM

Doesnt the Difficult of LSTB is a competitive goal against the easyer acess for new Players? Its clear you are adding a new Progression level to the game wich will make it harder for new players to get to that point.

RebelScummers · December 4, 2019 8:15PM

Can you please admit that CG’s goal is to make the game 100% pay to play and eradicate the free to the play aspect of the game?

Ultra · December 4, 2019 8:15PM

MADMAN3199 wrote: »

Why are you releasing content we can’t enjoy due to difficulty or don’t care about(sequel trilogy toons) one way you can make more people happy is to do more kotor or clone wars ships and toons like a sith capital with malak or nihilus as crew or more clones for shaak ti instead of some first order toons(was there a ship?) that I and many other people will never use due to our hatred or disliking of those horrible movies so for us that’s not new content so where’s the new content for us?

I like sequel trilogy and can’t wait for sequel stuff. It needs more love in this game tbh

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Developer Q&A - 12/04

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