Hey everyone,
As promised, here are Damion's answers to some of your questions from today's Q&A. Thank you all for participating, let us know if you enjoyed this Q&A and would like to see more like it in the future.
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Tim Simmons
Cantinas are wonderful, big empty spaces - any plans to have the abilities to make music and dance (I don't mean entertainer classes per se, more a reason to "hang around" them - small buffs of something)... ?
Damion
We have some ideas, but nothing planned for the immediate future.
Paul Holding
Are there going to be more world bosses added? They're one of the best parts of the game
Damion
We will probably add these sporadically throughout the life of the game. I can tell you there's at least one new one in 1.2.
Luca Rio
How big are the expectations for patch 1.2? I mean, as a team, how much are you looking forward to it and how strong do you think it will affect the current gameplay?
Damion
That's a tough question to answer - the game was pretty strong before 1.2 came out. That being said, this game update is an incredibly large and ambitious update, and has some definite key improvements to the game experience. I think that in particular Legacy will offer an all-new dynamic for people to play around with, no matter what their play style is.
Chris Scott
What Space Combat and Starship changes can we expect? Will we see customizations and new upgrades?
Damion
The space team has several initiatives moving at once right now - I wish I could speak to them all. Once these are more concrete, we'll be happy to tell you more about them.
Damiano Vitali
Is there any chance we could have target marks to be key-bindable in 1.2? Many tanks and RL would be pleased.
Damion
That will definitely go on the GUI backlog today. I don't have an ETA for when this will get to you, as their top priority for 1.2 is being sure that GUI customization is clean and ready to go.
Stefan Viskovic
will we be able to tranfer the already discovered taxi/teleportation nodes through legacy from our mains to our alts?
Damion
Not at this time.
Nathan E-lie Pavely
Will you ever change it so characters aren't always right handed? Where's the love for lefties?
Damion
This is fairly non-trivial for our game, due to the choreographed combat and the in-game cinematics. Sorry to say, we have no plans for this at this time.
Gabriel Santiago
Will assassins be able to use electrostaves without restricting moves? since carrying a glowing and humming weapon is not stealthy
Damion
I've passed this feedback on to the combat team.
Jeffrey Peck
With what sounds like a continued NERF to biochem reusables in the future, what are the plans to make it competitive with the rest of the crafting skills after they seem to all be getting boosts?
Damion
The balance team has no plans to make Biochem inferior to other classes at the endgame, but instead to bring a level of parity across all crafted items. We think the changes in 1.2 should bring all the crafting skills to be much closer in line with each other.
Lee Mathe
Will we be able to crit craft exisiting orange schematics already in the game?
Damion
Our lead crafting designer says: Yes! All craftable orange (custom) gear can be crit crafted.
Matty Debilde
"About the raid calendar, is there maybe also some consideration about recording loot from events on the calender, assigning it to people and maybe even assigning points to people, as in making it possible to use/create a dkp system ingame?"
Damion
We've talked about this before and may examine it again in the future. Part of the problem is that guilds use a wide variety of different DKP methods, and there's a wide swath of players who are hostile to any sort of DKP system at all, and who don't want to feel the game is forcing one down their throats. Any solution we come up with needs to be general enough to take all of these play styles and considerations in mind.
Chris Welbourn
Currently you can preview the appearance of armour for your character and companions. Will it be possible to please view weapons, as well, in this fashion?
Damion
Someday. No immediate ETA.
Oren Shed
I am not thrilled about creating multiple characters and like to stick to just one, as well as a lot of the other population in the game in sure. With the legacy system, would someone like me be losing out a lot of new skills/abilities now since I dont want to create other toons?
Damion
We are very sensitive to this, and want to be sure that we don't undermine your playstyle. In particular, we want to be sure that the amount of alt-playing you have to do in order to take part in other activities you might like (warzones, operations) is limited at most. This is why the unlockable 'Heroic Moment' abilities are limited in their usage, and why players can unlock some of the key buffs in the tree with credits instead of alt-playing. Also, as is possible now, players can gain legacy levels and experience even when their normal level is at cap. Yeah, you'll miss out on some cool toys, but for the most part, there will be ways for you to get everything that you need to get.
Rob Levi
Since we are under Legacy system, is there a way our alts can appear in a room either on our ships or the guild ships? It would be awesome to see our characters and maybe even exchange inventory with them on the ship
Damion
No on the 'seeing alts' thing (at this time). We do have plans for the future to streamline inventory swapping between legacy characters, but for right now, you'll have to use mail. Note: we are removing the faction limitations on sending mail to yourself to facilitate this.
James Brown
Is there going to be a way to change the appearance of our armor? Seeing the same old armor is getting quite old.
Damion
1.2 will have an increase in the amount of moddable gear, as well as improvements allowing for moddable gear to be used at the endgame. Between that and the new color unify system going in, players should have a remarkable amount of freedom in customizing the look of their character's gearset.
I am also incredibly anal when it comes to warzones. I despise losing when it is within my ability to win every match, so the leadership perk is nice for me too (for PUGS, anyway. Premades are never an issue.)