Friday brought us our weekly Q&A blog from the TOR team, where they picked a few of the questions asked in the weekly thread, to answer.<\/p>\n
The only one of this week’s questions that provided new information also happened to be one that was previously answered…but, patch 1.3 brought some changes to the functionality, so it was re-answered. \u00c2\u00a0In my opinion, the rest of the Q&A was just a re-hash of already known information.<\/p>\n
Nyrdbyrd:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0People are always disappointed when they lose the tie breaker in a Voidstar match, as though it was incorrectly judged. Any chance you could clarify the tiebreaker rules for us?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer):\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>Excellent question! \u00c2\u00a0We’ve actually gone through a series of adjustments to improve this very system. \u00c2\u00a0As of 1.3, here is how a winner is determined in Voidstar: There are 6 checkpoints inside the Warzone – the 3 sets of blast doors, the bridge in the reactor room, the forcefields in the cargo room, and the datacore itself. \u00c2\u00a0The team that gets the furthest wins the Warzone. \u00c2\u00a0If both teams get to the same checkpoint, then whichever team gets to that point the quickest wins.<\/p>\n
When the Warzone figures out that one team has already won the match (since they are the 2nd team on the attack and have exceeded their opponents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 progress, or have gotten to the same spot faster), the match will end immediately instead of playing out the rest of the game to a known ending.<\/p>\n
Unrelated to the tiebreaker changes (but also exciting), we’ve made a change to the Hangar inside Voidstar to help prevent stalemates inside the first room. \u00c2\u00a0We’ve added a broken fence down a portion of the middle of the room, which obstructs movement but not vision. The intended result is that the defenders have to commit to defend one side or the other, and can’t float between both doors quite so easily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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Full Q&A after the break, or over on the TOR site here<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Ask your question for next week’s Q&A here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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Lesai:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0When it comes to planning content and game direction, how much of it is based on the developers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 plan for the game, and how much of it is based on community suggestion and feedback?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer):<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0As we come to the end of our big must-have features (like Group Finder), updates are driven more and more by the community. Expect to see far more of the smaller quality of life requested features (color matching for companions, chat bubbles, etc.) start to get real traction under them in the near future.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>CelCawdro:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0What are your long-term plans for implementing playable species? Are Cathar merely the first of semi-regular species additions?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Daniel:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0Like all of our ongoing content updates, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll release Cathar into the wild and see how they perform. If new species are clearly popular we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll keep them coming!<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Nyrdbyrd:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0People are always disappointed when they lose the tie breaker in a Voidstar match, as though it was incorrectly judged. Any chance you could clarify the tiebreaker rules for us?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer):\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>Excellent question! \u00c2\u00a0We’ve actually gone through a series of adjustments to improve this very system. \u00c2\u00a0As of 1.3, here is how a winner is determined in Voidstar: There are 6 checkpoints inside the Warzone – the 3 sets of blast doors, the bridge in the reactor room, the forcefields in the cargo room, and the datacore itself. \u00c2\u00a0The team that gets the furthest wins the Warzone. \u00c2\u00a0If both teams get to the same checkpoint, then whichever team gets to that point the quickest wins.<\/p>\n
When the Warzone figures out that one team has already won the match (since they are the 2nd team on the attack and have exceeded their opponents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 progress, or have gotten to the same spot faster), the match will end immediately instead of playing out the rest of the game to a known ending.<\/p>\n
Unrelated to the tiebreaker changes (but also exciting), we’ve made a change to the Hangar inside Voidstar to help prevent stalemates inside the first room. \u00c2\u00a0We’ve added a broken fence down a portion of the middle of the room, which obstructs movement but not vision. The intended result is that the defenders have to commit to defend one side or the other, and can’t float between both doors quite so easily.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Tomisu:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0How does Expertise affect healing in PvE environments, like Operations for instance? If all players are flagged for PvP, will the heals they receive get the Expertise bonus? If not, what prevents it?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Austin Peckenpaugh (Senior Designer):<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0Expertise counters the negative effects of “PVP Trauma,” the debuff applied when engaging in combat with enemy players. It is not in any way associated with flag status.<\/p>\n
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