[INFO] Summer Roadmap 2018 [ Edited ]

[RealymanLP]

Hi everyone-

This Roadmap coincides with my first full year as the Lead Producer for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ and I’m excited to have the opportunity to share our Summer Roadmap with you. As I’ve mentioned throughout the last year, the team’s priority will continue to be providing fun story-driven gameplay with a variety of multiplayer Star Wars™ battles while making Quality of Life improvements. We recently released Game Update 5.9 – The Nathema Conspiracy, which brought an end to the Traitor storyline. We hope you’ve enjoyed your interactions with Theron Shan.

We’ve met with a lot of players, influencers, press, did Livestreams, held Cantinas, received lots of emails and private messages, and reviewed the feedback on our Forums and on Social Media. As a result, we’ll be making a lot of changes based on your feedback, beginning with our PvP plans this summer. At the end of the year, we’ll introduce an exciting new storyline and multiplayer gameplay – all leading to an explosive conflict with new characters to meet and planets to explore in the new year.

Quality of Life Improvements
From our perspective, having a quality experience every time you play the game is as vital to the game as new gameplay experiences. This means we’re looking at ways to enhance our game’s systems to make it easier to add new gameplay by advancing the utility of our internal tools, improving Game Servers and augmenting tech infrastructure. We are also focusing on continuously improving gameplay features based on player suggestions to refine Galactic Command, augment the Conquest system, and improve Ranked PvP.*
Based on your feedback, we made substantial changes to Galactic Command which is now a very solid secondary gearing system. We are turning our attention to Guilds, their management tools and related competitive features. This includes the Guild Conquest system we rolled out at the end of March 2018 and we’ll continue to refine and improve them for Guilds of all sizes.

A key piece of feedback we’ve received is that more of you want to provide us with feedback prior to the release of an update. This was extremely valuable last year for both Galactic Starfighter and the Gods from the Machine Operation. The interaction between our developers and players was extensive and made a serious improvement to the quality and functionality of both. As a result, our plan is to give more players the opportunity to participate with us on our Public Test Server (PTS) in the testing of pre-release gameplay including some of the PvP changes planned this summer.

With respect to updates, here’s what we have in the works for you over the next few months:

Game Update 5.9.1 – Solo fun
As we all know, Solo: A Star Wars™ Story, hits the theaters on May 25, 2018, so we’re celebrating by bringing back the casino with our Nar Shaddaa Nightlife event and offering a variety of new Cartel Market items including a sale of Scoundrel specific items. All of this will be available starting on May 22nd for 10 days, including double XP, CXP, and GSF rewards. The Nar Shaddaa event will continue through midnight on June 30, 2018.

Also, don’t miss your chance to get your hands on the new ‘TF-4 Rampage’ Speeder by being a Premium Player on May 31, 2018. Popular on the black market, this industrial mining vehicle is the perfect vehicle for criminals (and heroes) on the run! Your new speeder will be delivered via in-game mail by June 9th.

Player versus Player

Starting with a Game Update in early July and continuing through September, we’ll provide a variety of changes for some of our most passionate players who love PvP. PVP is enjoyed by many players, so the team wanted to give this group a bit of focused development time to provide requested changes and new challenges.

Here’s the list of improvements we are planning:

PvP over the Summer:

• Convert more, if not all, of our Warzones and Arenas to allow cross-faction grouping.
• We’re adding a new Arena set in a compound you’ve seen before.
• We’re developing a new Huttball Warzone set in the dangerous and dizzying heights of an industrial planet.
• Deliver a new Stronghold with a beach-front view! Now, you ask, what does that have to do with PvP? In fact, quite a bit:
• For the first time, we are introducing a Stronghold designed around PvP which can be tailored toward Player-driven dueling, 4v4, or even 8v8 battles! We know there’s a passionate audience of PvP players who run their own dueling tournaments within their Strongholds, so we want to support that by making some under-the-hood improvements and by tailoring the spaces to support different styles of play.
• As with all Strongholds, you can decorate it anyway you like, but we’re also enhancing Stronghold decorations to support PvP gameplay. This means you can use decorations to hide behind, layout obstacles, which allows the owner of the Stronghold to create a huge variety of custom PvP layouts to use in battles amongst friends.
• End of Season 9! Right now, we’re scheduling this for July and will let everyone know the rewards in late June.
• We’re investigating ways of improving the experience of all Warzones.
• We’re taking an in-depth look at our unranked PvP matchmaking system overall to see what kinds of improvements we can make to better ensure every match is a good one.
• We’re also exploring giving unranked players more queue control over which Warzones and Arenas they want to play.
• We’ll be focusing attention on exploiters, cheaters, and adjusting how Ranked Warzones complete. This will be an on-going effort, but like all of you, we want Warzones and Arenas to be fair, competitive, and fun.

Beyond September

For our Story and PvE players, you have not been forgotten and coming this Fall, along with the return of some very cool Companions, and big updates for Guilds, we’ll introduce a completely new storyline that will kick off a new set of challenges and adventures that will continue into the new year. That’s a highlight of the things you can expect to see in the coming year. Keep your eyes on Twitch, social media, and our forums as we continue to release more details around each update. Feel free to reach out with questions, as always, we’re listening and learning from you.

Thanks everyone for your continued participation with Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

-Keith-

Lead Game Producer

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

---

Note: This Roadmap is from the official SWTOR website. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[RealymanLP · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Based on all of the feedback we have been reading in this thread, we are going to be walking back some of our proposed Huttball changes along with adding a few new ones. Let’s start with what we are not doing:

• We will no longer apply Hinder to the ball carrier.
• Ball carriers will once again move at 67% move speed (down from 80%)

Although we are fine with tanks being the best ball carriers while under the effects of Hinder, we hear your concerns that these changes could cause Huttball to become a stalemate too often. We are also sensitive over your feeling that certain Classes would be too limited and unable to defend themselves while carrying the Huttball, since many defensive capabilities are tied to movement abilities for several Classes.

On the other hand, we plan to keep the proposed attacker point changes. We feel that players who properly position themselves to receive a Huttball pass should be rewarded. We also plan to keep the change that prevents stunned targets from catching the Huttball, as it allows characters that lack a knockback ability to have a viable and reliable way to intercept passes. It also has an additional benefit of giving players another reason to use their stun abilities on characters other than the ball carrier. Ultimately, it should mean that you get stunned a little less often while carrying the Huttball.

The hinder change was aimed at addressing specific issues with Huttball, and since we are reverting it, we’ll be tackling those issues with some new proposed changes.

New Huttball (and Queshball) Changes

• The Hutt will become bored of a single ball carrier and kill them after 45 seconds (down from 2 minutes)
• To win before time expires, the winning team will need to score 10 times (up from 6 times)
• The match will now last for a maximum of 10 minutes (down from 13 minutes)

The first change is intended to encourage passing the Huttball and increase tension when attempting to turtle for a win in a close match. The latter two changes will adjust how we approach this Warzone. If you see Huttball as a sport within SWTOR, we want to have the Warzone play out more as “who can score the most points within a 10 minute match” as opposed to “race to 6 points to win.” This will also ensure that all Huttball matches are 12 minutes or less (if you count pre-match). We hope that these changes along with our updates in matchmaking will lead to a lot closer and more compelling Huttball matches.

Let us know your thoughts on these changes!

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[Belgorad]

[EgoMania]

It's tricky. They have very limited resources, so everything takes a really long time and players want to have new content and are basically asked to follow a trickle of content.

The next expansion won't come till 2019 then and the summer's about PvP.

I have to commend BW Austin for not giving up and just trying what they can. The PvP Stronghold is something I suggested years ago and I just hope it's not too little too late. 

Seeing that explorable planets will return next year is another great thing.

But here's my issue...I quit playing in January because I've played for a long time and taking regular breaks didn't help anymore. So as much as I see positives, I have no reason to come back to the game. I cannot imagine I'm alone in that. Perhaps in a year or two it will if it keeps with the idea of going back to Star Wars as I see it and having things like explorable planets again. One can dare dream of class stories but I suspect that's out of the range of capabilities.

Let's hope the game lives on for another year or two then. I might feel like I might want to give it a go again then. Until then, I hope it's enough for those who still play.

[RealymanLP]

Hey folks,

As Keith mentioned in the roadmap we are looking to make some Warzone changes this year, starting in July. It is our plan to try to get these on PTS as well, but before we get to that point we wanted to get your opinion on our plans. Below you will find the changes along with our goal for these changes. Let us know your thoughts.

The goals of these changes are:

• To shorten the average time of our Warzones to be around 12 minutes. We have a few WZs that are taking quite a bit longer than that currently.
• We have some WZs that are exploitable due to environment hacking, we want to fix that.

Voidstar changes - We want to give the offense a much better chance of completing the objectives. We want to make Voidstar more about a race to complete the objectives as opposed to a map which often ends in a stalemate. Less stalemates will shorten the overall time of the map.

• Door now take 6 seconds to arm (down from 8)
• Defenders now have 15 seconds to disarm door bombs (down from 20)
• Extending the bridges and lowering the shields now takes 6 seconds to channel (down from 8)
• Forcefields are now blocking the reactor room doors until the bridges are extended
• Characters who hack their way into the last two rooms of the Warzone before the bridge has been extended or the forcefield is down will be killed

Ancient Hypergates - We want running orbs to be more impactful to the WZs gameplay, with the goal of shortening each map.

• Orbs now score more points (up from 6, review below)
• Orbs scores ramp up each round of the game:
  • Round 1 = 12 points per orb delivered
  • Round 2 = 15 points per orb delivered
  • Round 3 = 18 points per orb delivered
  • Round 4 = 21 points per orb delivered
  • Round 5 = 24 points per orb delivered
  • Round 6+ = 27 points per orb delivered
• Player corral forcefields have had their up-time reduced, the forcefield is now down for 10 seconds and up for 15 seconds (previously 30 seconds)

Alderaan - Shortening the match time.

• Turrets now damage ships for 12 damage per tick (up from 10)
• Characters exploiting by hacking inside of the capture terminals will now die when they do so

Yavin - Further differentiate the map from Alderaan Civil War along with shortening the match time.

• Teams now start with 500 points (down from 600)
• When players die they reduce their teams score by 2 (up from 0)
• Characters exploiting by hacking inside of the capture terminals will now die when they do so

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[RealymanLP]

Hey folks,

There have been a lot of great comments in this thread about the currently planned changes. Based on that feedback here are a few additional changes:

• Novare Coast
  • Any characters who leave the starting area prior to the match starting will die.
  • Players will no longer be able to cap a point outside of the intended 20m range (we’re looking at you, Phase Walk)
• Void Star
  • Characters who attempt to hack through the hangar doors to place a charge from inside the hallway, will die.

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[RealymanLP]

Hey folks,

Matchmaking is another place that we wanted to make some pretty big improvements for Game Update 5.9.2. Below you will find our planned changes:

• All Warzone and Starfighter queues are now cross-faction
• The Unranked Warzone queue will now always prioritize Warzones over Arenas. An Arena match will only pop if there are not enough players to populate a full Warzone match at that time.
• Role Balancing:
  • Matchmaking will never place more than 2 tanks or healers on the same team in a Warzone or 1 tank or healer for an Arena.
  • Matchmaking will always do its best to balance the amount of tanks and healers on each team. If there are 2 healers, each team will receive one if possible, the same is true of tanks.
  • In situations where there are an odd number of tanks / healers, matchmaking will do its best to place the combined number of tanks and healers evenly (example: there are 3 healers and 1 tank, matchmaking will attempt to make the teams 2 healers vs 1 tank 1 healer.)
• Skill Balancing:
  • Matchmaking will more strongly take player skill into account when making teams.
  • Premade groups queuing for Ranked and Unranked Warzones and GSF will now have their matchmaking skill based on the highest rated member, not the team’s average rating.
  • Galactic Starfighter matchmaking has been improved to better account for player experience along with their currently selected ship loadout.

All of these changes have the goal of making Warzone and Starfighter matches pop more regularly and be more balanced overall. Let us know your thoughts!

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[RealymanLP]

Hey folks,

Welcome to part 2 of our planned Warzone changes for GU 5.9.2. If you haven’t already done so, we recommend you go take a look at part 1 and our upcoming matchmaking changes. The following changes focus on Huttball and Arenas, so let’s dive in:

Huttball (and Queshball) – We have some concerns about the dominance of Classes with movement abilities in Huttball. The proposed changes will help encourage more teamplay in the Warzone. We also want to create more situations for counterplay and competition in Huttball while ensuring all players are rewarded for their efforts.

• Carrying the Huttball now applies Hinder to the character. Hinder prevents the use of high mobility actions such as Force Charge, Force Speed, Scamper, and more.
• Due to the Hinder changes above players holding the Huttball will now move at 80% movement speed (up from 67%)
• Players can no longer catch the Huttball while stunned. This creates more opportunities for counter-play, such as intercepting passes intended for a target you stun.
• Adding attacker points for catching a pass from a friendly target:
  • Currently the thrower of the Huttball receives 500 points, but not the receiver. We will increase the receiver to gain 250 points.
  • We would also like a touchdown pass to award both players equally (currently the thrower gets 500 more points). Here is what the new breakdown would look like:
    • Thrower: 2750 Attacker Points total
      • 500 Attacker Points from completing pass successfully
      • 2250 Attacker Points for throwing a scoring pass
    • Receiver: 2750 Attacker Points total
      • 250 Attacker Points from receiving a friendly pass
      • 2500 Attacker Points for possessing the ball for a score

We know these changes will be pretty substantial in affecting how you play Huttball. Before we make these adjustments, we want to know your thoughts. We are getting your feedback early to see what changes we should, or should not make.

Arenas – There are quite a few places where players can exploit to prevent themselves from dying. We plan to address them and implement ways to penalize those players. Additionally, we wanted to take another look at how the acid mechanics work at the end of Arena matches to see if we can improve that experience for stalemates. Here are our thoughts:

• Characters who hack their way into places they shouldn’t be, such as outside the arena or in the ground, will die.
• Currently, acid causes characters to take 10% of their max health in damage every second, prevents stealth and all healing.
• Acid will now work as follows:
  • Characters will take 1% of their max health in damage every second and reduce all healing done/received by 2% per stack.
  • Characters affected by acid will begin with one stack and gain one stack per second.
  • Acid will still inhibit stealth.

This will mean the very end of an Arena match will now get progressively more dangerous. This gives more time for players to fight each other and counterplay, before their inevitable acid death. This should also address cases where stealth characters in particular can just CC and run away to win a match.

Let us know your thoughts!

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[RealymanLP · Accepted solution]

Hey folks,

Based on all of the feedback we have been reading in this thread, we are going to be walking back some of our proposed Huttball changes along with adding a few new ones. Let’s start with what we are not doing:

• We will no longer apply Hinder to the ball carrier.
• Ball carriers will once again move at 67% move speed (down from 80%)

Although we are fine with tanks being the best ball carriers while under the effects of Hinder, we hear your concerns that these changes could cause Huttball to become a stalemate too often. We are also sensitive over your feeling that certain Classes would be too limited and unable to defend themselves while carrying the Huttball, since many defensive capabilities are tied to movement abilities for several Classes.

On the other hand, we plan to keep the proposed attacker point changes. We feel that players who properly position themselves to receive a Huttball pass should be rewarded. We also plan to keep the change that prevents stunned targets from catching the Huttball, as it allows characters that lack a knockback ability to have a viable and reliable way to intercept passes. It also has an additional benefit of giving players another reason to use their stun abilities on characters other than the ball carrier. Ultimately, it should mean that you get stunned a little less often while carrying the Huttball.

The hinder change was aimed at addressing specific issues with Huttball, and since we are reverting it, we’ll be tackling those issues with some new proposed changes.

New Huttball (and Queshball) Changes

• The Hutt will become bored of a single ball carrier and kill them after 45 seconds (down from 2 minutes)
• To win before time expires, the winning team will need to score 10 times (up from 6 times)
• The match will now last for a maximum of 10 minutes (down from 13 minutes)

The first change is intended to encourage passing the Huttball and increase tension when attempting to turtle for a win in a close match. The latter two changes will adjust how we approach this Warzone. If you see Huttball as a sport within SWTOR, we want to have the Warzone play out more as “who can score the most points within a 10 minute match” as opposed to “race to 6 points to win.” This will also ensure that all Huttball matches are 12 minutes or less (if you count pre-match). We hope that these changes along with our updates in matchmaking will lead to a lot closer and more compelling Huttball matches.

Let us know your thoughts on these changes!

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source

[RealymanLP]

Hey folks,

One of the topics we have seen quite a bit of feedback about is the viability of tanks in PvP. There are a few reasons for this which we would still like to address down the line, but we have one change planned for 5.9.2 which we hope will help their survivability in PvP. This will also help incentivize tanks to wear tanking gear in PvP.

• Critical hits are now affected by Shield / Absorb.

Currently, only regular hits from players can be impacted by shield procs. By including crits, this gives the potential for much more damage mitigation for tanks when being targeted by DPS classes. Here is a very basic example. Let’s say a normal hit would do 1,000 damage and a critical hit would do 2,000 damage. You are a tank and when your shield procs, you reduce damage by 25%. Previously you could reduce the normal hit to 750 damage, but would always take the 2,000 from a crit. After 5.9.2 you can also reduce the critical hit damage down to 1,500. This allows shield and absorb to be a direct counter-stat to Crit Rating for DPS classes.

Let us know your thoughts.

-eric

---

Note: This Post is from the official SWTOR forum. I don't work for EA/BW!

Source