Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

After our usual coverage of the news, Kuze presents his ideas for improving SWTOR, along with some additional suggestions from the community.

1. Introduction

The following gallery contains Chill’s screenshots from his #StatueOrBust adventure!

[Show slideshow]

2. Tip of the week

Congratulations to this week’s winner, Biggus’dickus! Thanks to Matt, Cameron, GasGuy, Bara-dur,  Topps and Sandnuu for entering.

Please send your tips to ootinicast@gmail.com by next Tuesday for a chance to win a Taunfawn or M8-R3 droid code, courtesy of BioWare, and an OotiniCast-provided Cartel Market pack from the latest shipment.

3. Holofeed

• Patch 3.2a was deployed with little warning on Thursday morning.
• The Epic Story XP Boost was intended to be available to subscribers at 8am Pacific on 4 May; however, it wasn’t until later in the morning that it reached all players.
• The rewards for Season 5 will be teased in a blog post later in May.
• The issue with the spelling of Season 4 titles will be resolved in Game Update 3.2.1.
• The Black-Silver Crystal that was a reward in Season 4 will also be a reward in subsequent seasons.
• The endless war against win-traders and trolls in Ranked PvP continues.
• The changes proposed for all the healing Disciplines have been postponed, and thus will not appear as originally intended in Game Update 3.2.1.
• Game Update 3.2.1 has been removed from the PTS. The next PTS will be hosting Game Update 3.3, not Game Update 3.2.2.
• Credit sellers were taken down en masse as a result of a long-running investigation.
• On Thursday last week, a second round of more severe punishments were meted out to players accessing the Colossal Monolith encounter on Ziost ahead of its release on 4 May. No further action was required as no more players had taken advantage of the exploit on Friday or over the weekend.
• In Electronic Arts’ (EA) Q4 2015 earnings call, they confirmed that EA’s E3 presentation would be on 15 June 2015, the date associated with #FallenEmpire at the Anaheim Community Cantina.

4. Community

Thanks to our latest Ootini Patrons: Charles, Alex, Jazzycat, ElionD and Mosq!

You can find episode 5 of the Galactic Gamers Coalition podcast here (also its RSS feed, and where to find it in iTunes).

5. Force Feedback

GasGuy has updated his Codex Tracking spreadsheet with the new entries from Ziost provided by Derpine.

This Reddit thread included additional answers from BioWare representatives at the Anaheim Community Cantina.

Sechari has apparently identified Milton, the SWTOR developer who resides in an underground lair fixing bugs:

6. Sarlacc Digest

This one is free, BioWare. – Oni

Shown below are Kuze’s ideas to help retain existing players, and bring in new ones. Thanks to ElionD for her wishlist, and to Pnnick, Freedious, Rose Marie, Ferrous Terran, Laurie M, Brian (of the Bad Feeling Podcast) and Chong for their contributions.

PvP/GSF Ideas

• Cross server queuing, even if it’s just between like servers or make super servers.
• New 8v8 PvP Maps, and after cross server maybe some 12v12s
• Statues as a PvP season reward (Top 10 on Server or so) in the Combat area with Players names on Plaques.
• Rework Bolster for PvP. Just give everyone base stats that will never trump the lowest level of PvP gear regardless of what they have equipped. Once a piece of expertise gear is equipped that base value should be over written. What a crazy world it would be for people to have to play on skill alone. The min/maxing aspect of PvP should be done with PvP gear.
• Add new maps and play styles to GSF. A team race through an old ship, asteroid, or space station would be awesome. A defend and attack swap map. A escort map where you have to protect a team member that is carrying a bomb to the enemy’s spaceport.

PvE Ideas

• A PvE Star fighter encounter in the beginning of or during an operation. Even if the first introduction of this was a trench run style using fixed turrets and obstacles instead of an advanced AI battle.
• New Hard mode Flashpoints similar to Lost Island (before all the nerfs) that are like mini ops with decent loot drops.

Quality of Life

• Multi-spec with gear and action bar changer.
• In game calendar for guilds and events.  Note: would have been great for Ziost!
• Update GTN and all selection windows for better filtering/sorting. This goes for the character selection screen as well. I would like to order my characters and have them stay in order. For example, filter by not owned (decos, pets, mounts and maybe armor).
• Mouse over raid frame with keybinds
• Make bound to legacy the most restrictive (or unlocakble via craftable item or legacy 50)
• Legacy wide search
• Fix minor bugs more frequently to give the game a more polished feel so players don’t get frustrated and lead them down a Bioware hating road.

General

• Reasons to have a high level of Valor and Legacy. (Valor e.g. PvP Gear discount for Valor rating X.) (Legacy e.g. Things like the ability to purchase 12x xp, Reveal previously explored areas and speeder/quick travel points as Legacy privilege only!)
• Mini games, this can also be tied to a phone app as suggested last show.
• Update seeker droid with new loot and UI.
• Short Speed Boost while mounted similar to Rocket Boots.
• Stronghold Dailies to earn new decos and cosmetic items. They could be simple fetch or crafting quest.
• Portable GTN
• SWTOR Advertising on TV
• More platforming challenges! This could be for achievements, special loot, new datacrons, etc.
• A site to view peoples Equipment, Achievements, Disciplines, and Utilities. Like WoWs Armory but we could call it ???
• Fix the slot machine

Crafting

• Stop nerfing crafting and start working to make it viable. Don’t get me wrong, I love my 8hr stims but things like this really take away from crafting. We had a lack of resource nodes in RotHC and too many in SoR; a balance needs to be found.
• Give the player’s character an option to craft an item immediately with something like a 2hr cooldown. If you want more ideas I’m sure they’re out there.
• All decos added into the game should require deco kits
• A way to send companions out on alts all from one toon
• Craftable sparkle powder

7. Outro

On the show this week were Chill (@BrandonLStarr, twitch.tv/chillswtor), Teo (@jasonetheridge), Kuze (@kuze_roh, YouTube) and Bill (@BillLentz).

Information about our guilds on The Harbinger, Ootini Knights (Republic) and Ootini Rage (Empire), can be found here.

You can email questions and comments about the show to ootinicast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter via @OotiniCast. Check out our website, ootinicast.com, which has links to our presence on Google+ and Facebook. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, and listen to us on Stitcher and Spreaker. We record the show live every Wednesday at 4:30pm Pacific, goto ootinicast.com/live to find out how to join in!