Darth Hater

In an interview with Dual Shockers, BioWare Live Producer Cory Butler talks about the present and future of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Among the topics discussed are prioritizing development work, Easter eggs in the game, the appearance of hooded armor, faction balance, and new features coming in the near future.

Dual ShockersDual Shockers: Some servers have a faction balance that seems quite skewed one side or another. Is there any future plan to give local advantages to the outnumbered faction in order to encourage them to come out and fight against the odds?

Cory Butler: We are hyper aware of server populations and faction balances on the servers. As far as what we’re going to do about that, it’s something we’re keeping up our sleeve right now, but I can tell you for sure that we are looking at that very seriously and we’re coming up with a plan of action there.

Be sure to head over to Dual Shockers to check out the full interview.

Episode 110 "The Casual Cast" of the Darth Hater Podcast is now live. Check the bottom of the post for the stream and download links. Podcast notes after the jump.

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Everything’s coming up Zoeller in this week’s DevTracker highlights. Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller covers everything from cooldown readability, protocol droid maintenance, and the Legacy system, to modification workbenches, speeders, and Rakata-level items from Nightmare mode Operations. Hit the jump to dig in and see all the highlights.

Flashpoints and Operations

Operations

Karagga’s Palace

• The damage from G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator's sticky pulse grenade will scale appropriately for the selected Operation difficulty level.
• Karagga no longer fires his Unstable Energy twice in a row.
• Taking the shuttle after defeating Karagga no longer transports players to the incorrect hangar.
• Walls that were missing in Karagga’s Palace are now in place.

Missions and NPCs

Missions

Imperial

• Declaration of War: The mission will now progress as intended when players interact with their ship’s holoterminal.
• Reallocation: The final mission conversation will now begin as intended when players interact with their ship’s holoterminal.

NPCs

Bug Fixes

• Kintan Behemoths no longer occasionally walk on top of trees when in combat.

Players are reporting issues from random disconnects, to sound fx issues, and to abnormal ping times over on the offical forums thread; and Joveth Gonzalez checked into the thread with this:

Joveth GonzalezHi folks,

We're very sorry to hear about the issues that you are currently experiencing. However, thanks to your posts, we are now aware of them and we are actively working on a solution. We will keep you posted as soon as we have an update for you.

Thank you for your patience!

Today's small patch included improvements regarding character ability delay. Georg Zoeller jumped into an already hopping thread on the official forums with this feedback:

Georg ZoellerAs you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

• As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch. 
• We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe. 
• We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve. 
• We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

Unlike their sneakier cousins the Operatives, Imperial Snipers eschew up close and personal combat for the flexibility and advantages that a good rifle and long range can offer. Among the ranks of these Snipers are those who work to master their weapon skills, putting aside the gadgetry and poisons they naturally have access to, becoming Marksmen. Ideally situated from a steady perch and without interruption, a specialized Marksman can rain death on his foes with relative impunity.

In an update that appeared on Friday, Public Test Server patch notes for the next update were unveiled by BioWare. Included in the patch notes are some changes to the Global Cooldown and ability activation along with the usual assortment of bug fixes. For the full Public Test Server patch notes, hit the jump.

Note: These are not final release notes for the 1.1.1 patch and may contain more items later. Final release notes will be provided at the time of the official patch release.

Executive Producer of Live Servers Jeff Hickman posted an update concerning the Ilum issues that have taken place over the last several days since patch 1.1, Rise of the Rakghouls. Hickman explains that contrary to the belief of many players, they will not be implemented a mass rollback for those who took advantage of the valor gains. Instead, they will be reviewing each case and take action if deemed necessary to those might have gained an unfair advantage. You can read the full blog post below.

Jeff Hickman

After Game Update 1.1 went live, we discovered that the Open World PvP area on Ilum was not working as our PvP design team intended. As many of you know, large groups of players began capturing the Ilum control points, then 'camping' at the enemy's base. This led to a very frustrating experience for a number of players who were unable to leave their base and fight back against their attackers. It was not a fair gameplay experience. In addition, some players on the attacking side gained more Valor points than designed for the time they spent in PvP.

The amount of Valor granted from these activities was significantly more than intended and we are now carefully investigating players who were on Ilum during this period, and present at some of these 'camping' events. I can reassure you that those who were involved and who gained an unfair advantage over other players inappropriately will be carefully reviewed and action will be taken to restore game balance. This could include Valor adjustments or account actions in accordance with the severity of the issue.

We have made the decision not to enact a mass 'rollback' of Valor points for all players in the game, or even on Ilum. This would unfairly penalize some players who may not have been present during this event. Rest assured though, anyone and everyone who is found to have exploited the situation to an unreasonable degree will be investigated and actions taken as needed. Our in-game metrics are able to give us precise details on where players were, what they were doing and what rewards they gained.

We take any sort of situation where one group of players gains an unexpected or unintended advantage over other players very seriously and will act to ensure that all players can have a fair and fun game experience.

Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue. Our team worked diligently to get a patch ready to address this and other issues, and we're already seeing the results in improved battles on Ilum. As always we welcome your feedback and will continue to improve moving forward!

Jeff Hickman,
Executive Producer – Live Services