I'd estimate more like 6 months, but it won't be a reversal, so much as walking back enough to placate some people way too late without really listening to the bulk of the complaints. Thing is, all evidence I've seen points to this team moving like they are wading through molasses when doing anything. I don't know why, if it's just the way their development cycles are organized or what, but it's like on the few occasions they seem to listen, it'll sometimes take years before the changes actually show up in the game. It's like they come out of a cave, read some things, then go back into the cave for 6-12 months, come back out, are surprised that people are angry with what they have produced and make lame attempts to justify it, and then go back into the cave to do it all again. I'm exaggerating to make a point, kind of, but that's sort of how it feels, like most of the time they barely exist and pretend we don't exist, and then occasionally we exist to them and they make a show of presence to us, but rather than seeing us as human beings it's like they just see us as marks to dupe.

Idk about that. Their arrogance has had material consequences each time. The game is down to 5 servers, their budget is down to a little bit of story and some system changes that are mostly QOL or "change for the sake of change" being called an expansion, and they can't even release an expansion like that on time and on top of that, have delayed one of the most CM marketable features of it, which is essentially just an appearance change QOL feature (weapon designer) since we could already do similar with mods (and they're messing that up too, since we won't be able to mod the newer high level weapons). As far as I can tell, the subreddit is doing pretty well, but that might just be because of more players switching to non-sub. These forums, which are the best representation of sub numbers we have, seem deader than ever and in my memory, it's a big deal the number of long-time familiar faces I've seen who don't even want to give the new expansion a chance after seeing what it's going to be like on PTS. And the newer players who have started in the last year or two, how many are just gonna leave when they see systems they were just getting used to get thrown out and experience firsthand BW's tonedeaf behavior and refusal to do more than placate slowly with tweaks over months. I don't believe for a second they are "doing just fine." If anything, I think it's the very fact they are doing really badly that they have taken on these sweeping changes, thinking they can get a more modern market that way, and because they can't even deliver on that properly, they are just estranging what little people left they still have AND they won't be able to get that modern market at all. So whether intentional or accidental, what they are doing materially amounts to sabotage at this point and no 1 out 10,000 sunk cost fallacy boomerang players are going to save their game. Probably the only thing that would allow their game to grow past 7.0 "consume content and leave" at this point would be a significant investment into backend system infrastructure and an overhaul of their entire company culture and practice for listening to players, and given their history, I think the only way that would happen is if EA fired BW and gave the game to another studio. Though it's hard to say how intertwined the two are (EA and BW), so it may be even that wouldn't work.

My guess for the least conspiratorial explanation would be that it's a result of someone new coming in who wants to "shake things up" and is going to "turn the game around" and they fire the team up and get community managers to promise things the devs can't deliver on, but they don't at all understand the game or resources they are working with, so it ends up being a disaster. Or maybe not someone new, but either way, someone obsessed with "modernizing." I mean, if you look at some of the changes in broad strokes: weapon designer, loadouts, overhaul for the look of character creation, mob tagging, changing the in-game UI, trying to simplify number of abilities or change when you get them. It's kinda got that imprint of "I'm going to modernize this old game", doesn't it? "It's the 10th anniversary and we're going to freshen up this old stale game!" But then half the stuff they're being asked to do doesn't even work well because it's on such terrible infrastructure. What 10th anni probably should have been is putting resources into modernizing the infrastructure backend, not frontend. I know they aren't gonna get the budget for wholesale engine rewrites, but just modernizing more systems. Refactoring stuff, cleaning some of the spaghetti, so they can go into 10th year strong. That would have been an actually good investment, I think. They seem to have focused on frontend instead and so the result is not only a bunch of changes that are too broad strokes and sweeping for long time players to ever be ok with them, but are also buggy and half-realized. Nobody would complain about them making the game run better or have less bugs. Drastically changing or removing long-standing systems, on the other hand, is easily one of the most dangerous (for audience longevity) things you can do to a video game. Heck, one time I drastically changed some things in a mod I made for a video game and I think at least one person quit using it because they liked it the old way. I learned my lesson to be more thoughtful about it after that.

This was years ago, but one person I used to game with, I know the graphics were part of it. They didn't like the cartoony style. I don't like it either, tbh, much prefer realistic, but I can look past it well enough after I get used it. Another did play with me a little, but I think they were put off by all the F2P restrictions. Edit: Also, I remember it being a bit weird trying to play the stories together. IIRC, there was one time we tried to both do the same class, not realizing it would be so awful where we had parts we had to each do while the other watched (or leave group to do them separately or something).

Fair enough.

I think having a button in the toggle for "neutral" that allowed you to not support dark or light would have made a huge difference. And maybe get you some underworld themed tokens/gear too, for supporting neutral, but even just allowing people to opt out. One of the main problems with it, IMO, was how it made it almost impossible not to eventually "hide" the consequences of meaningful choices you had made with your character. Previously, if you were, for example, mostly light, but did some dark things, that would show up in the distribution of your points. But with the DvL system, you can literally erase the evidence of it by being set to light and doing enough missions, without even realizing you're doing it. And yeah, we will probably just see that gear disappear and become impossible to get for the next year or two after (assuming the game continues that long) and then it'll either show up as some CM variation or as an RNG reward for yet another obnoxious, temporary reward system. Because inducing panic and FOMO is pretty much this game's design philosophy. They also borrow the EA practice of removing content only to sell it to you later in one form or another. In that sense, I disagree with you that it should have been a temporary event. I hate the events being temporary, they are a huge part of the FOMO strategy.

Yeah, it's evident that most of what people cherish about this game was mostly made by people who were fired in the massive layoffs after release didn't meet EA's overblown expectations. There was enough skill, and people in general, left to do some ok RPG storytelling, but so far, nothing that comes remotely close to the personalization and detail work of the class stories. So expansion after expansion, people get breadcrumb tastes of what they got in base game, being teased along with this clawing hope it will go somewhere and pay off in some meaningful way like the class stories did, even if just a little bit, for a moment. But it always falls short in the end. The payoffs are too abrupt, the place it's going too narrowed and generic. I know people have said if this wasn't SW, it would have been gone long ago and I agree, but I would also say, if it wasn't for the quality of the class stories, it would have been gone long ago. If the base game story experience was as generic as the expansions, this game wouldn't have made it past a few years.

Well yeah, if you are planning to be subbed until the game shuts down, then I guess it doesn't matter, but I don't think most people sub that way. And some people are going to be looking to start subbing for the first time to correspond with its release, to get the most out of their sub, and it's important they not rush to do that until they know for sure it's out or they may get screwed over by Bio "delay at the last minute and offer no compensation for having subbed expecting to get it" Ware. So this is a good "buyer beware" thread for people who are new or naive enough to take BW at their word on a release date. In practice, with how this company behaves, timing your sub to last through expansion access before it's out so you'll get it when it releases is basically preordering a predicted weather event. Could show up, might not at all, and if you complain, you'll just be told that life is hard and the weather is unpredictable. It's a wonder they get away with it at all, but it goes to show how little has precedent enough to scare them, at least in this locale's practice.

If financial quarters are anything to go by, I'd bet that if 7.0 struggles on its release there'll be a sale before we're through with March. How much of a sale might depend on how well it does and considering it's so far looking like it will hurt weapon sales, I could see them doing a big-ish sale of some kind to try to offset the loss in expected revenue from that. Just doing guesswork based on their priorities here, no way to know for sure, but that's what I figure (not counting on it tho, of course). Whether something as good will come around again, I'm not confident about that at all. They can be pretty stingy. :/

No idea what point you're trying to make here.

Hehe.

That's pretty much just them saying they leveled a character and they disagree with the consensus about leveling and having to choose between abilities. So they tested one single aspect of things people have been complaining about and their feedback amounts to "I enjoyed it." It's not detailed feedback, there is nothing to discuss there. It's just someone's opinion and that's it. What are we gonna discuss with them? What number on a scale of 1 to 10 they enjoyed it compared to now? Like congrats, they enjoy being forced to choose between things they had all of previously? And of course they stick in a part about "the panic, doom and gloom" because it's not enough to just say their opinion, they have to contrast it against the consensus to insinuate that the complaints are invalid. So don't talk to me about how people not liking that are invalidating their feedback. If you still don't understand what I mean, let's just leave it at that. I don't think I have anything more to say.

I think they are caught between two bad outcomes atm though, so it's hard to say for sure which way it will go. Delaying again would appear to mean even longer with guild perks broken, which may tank guild participation and logins (and in general, delaying again would prob get investors antsy and draw ire from EA overseers). Not delaying along with the senseless design choice about mods and failing to deliver on weapon designer may tank CM sales. How they got to this point at all is really something. You'd think after 10 years, they'd have at least one person in power who understands their own game well enough to not paint themselves into a corner like this, but nope.

Don't play the victim, you went out of your way to give people a "don't like it, then leave" speech. I called your speech goofy, not you, which it was and it always will be no matter who gives it in what game. As I said, read the room. There is a difference between doing detailed testing and giving detailed feedback that disagrees with the overwhelming consensus (most of which has been written by people who did detailed testing and gave detailed feedback on what was on the PTS) and simply saying "but I like it / am fine with it." Some people sunk hours of their lives into testing the new stuff for free and writing their feedback on it, only for clowns to come in at the last hour and tell them that "actually, I disagree, ahem hrm" without any remotely comparable effort put into explaining why. It's obnoxious and yes, as someone else rightfully pointed out, reeks of marketing. Comparable effort that disagrees with the consensus has been shared sometimes and it's fine because it gives people something to talk about. Being contrarian does not. It's disrespectful to the time people have put into testing and sharing their feedback, and on top of that, is often openly disrespectful and dismissive in its tone if you actually read how those people post. Like the kind of people who said nonsense like "wait and see" when there was stuff on the PTS to see. Or say this is all just people getting worked up about nothing, without addressing any specific concern.

Probably either technical limitations (their go to excuse for things we don't like) or another of "it sounded good in my head" decisions made by careerist "designers" who have never logged into the game and exist on an ethereal plane of guesswork and unchallenged ego, where their ideas sound good because they haven't seen them in reality yet and because they came up with them.

Nah, if there are candidates for worst posts on the forums, it'd have to be the ones that show no sign of having read the room at all and act shocked and offended that being contrarian to the issues people are having with something that's coming by essentially saying "yeah but I like it and/or am fine with it" is not going to be received well. If it was all just a matter of opinion and preference, at least there'd be an excuse for it, but it doesn't work like that. There are aspects of the changes that are more than opinion. Failing to deliver on weapons in outfit designers while also not having new gear be moddable, for example, is less appearance customization at end game compared to the current experience on live. Whether someone cares about that might be a matter of opinion, but the CM is a huge part of this game, so it's obviously going to matter to a lot of people and such a downgrade will hurt sales, so it doesn't even make sense as a design choice, they are just shooting themselves in the foot. Also, w/ regards to your goofy speech about leaving if you don't find enjoyment, if you "hated 6.0 and are glad it's going away," then why are you here now? Seems like a load of BS if you don't even follow your own advice.

I guarantee most of the people who claim premades are just friends goofing around or easy to put together yourself for some wins, would quit if they did their little premade a couple times and got curbstomped each time. People PvP mainly because they are competitive and competitive people don't like losing so badly they could have replaced their character with an NPC and no one would have noticed the difference. Premades imbalance an already imbalanced system all the more. I've not known of any PvP pug system in an MMO that doesn't have this problem to some extent. To really get consistent fun PvP, you need to organize it and coordinate people between factions with relatively balanced teams and scenarios. That seems to be the standard in MMOs. Nothing about pug systems make any sense for achieving remotely fair matchups, yet MMOs still do them because they are a cheap and easy way to allow people to do quick content, without having to do any of that strange stuff like talking to other human beings and spending time with them. Social games that are not really social, it's a bizarre point we are at.

Speaking generally, I would say it's difficult to judge without knowing what the given codebase looks like. Sometimes something as simple-sounding as "click a button and a window pops up" is a library feature in one case and needs to be done by hand in another case. You can discern somewhat though based on what is already there. For example, it would probably be reasonable to assume they have in-house tools for helping create quests, that they don't program it all by hand, as components of it seem fairly uniform in their structure. Incidentally, going a little off topic here, but this is why it confuses me that the cartel bazaar vendors have had stuff that doesn't unlock properly in collections for so long. I'd think they can just make a list of which are broken and replace the listings with the version of the item that comes from past packs or CM direct sales, whichever it originated from. And if it never did, copy the data structure of an item with the new properties that unlocks properly and use it as a template, changing its appearance, etc., to that of the item that needs updating. But this is guessing their item infrastructure looks like a straightforward data structure and that may be wrong, idk.

"Witness Malgus like you've never seen him before! Giving a standard monologue about strength and power that any Sith could give and it would be believable that's their ideology."

Yeah, tying the rewards to wins in a near-exclusively pug system where you can do nothing about who you are matched with and against is some awful design and I will give BW a modicum of leeway here that they are not the only game to do it this way, but it's poor design every time. It doesn't even mean that the most skillful get better rewards, it just means whoever does a premade or gets lucky in their matchup gets better rewards. PvP in general seems to be an afterthought pug system in most MMOs, with an open world component most people don't use because they just get abused by griefers (and then in this game, the engine issues prob ruin any chance of fun, organized open world). I can understand them not being innovators in PvP systems, but the least they can do is not lean into the poor design of other games in this way.

I feel that, I was working on getting a 100 level renown title I wanted before it goes away and one time I thought about doing yavin to help mix things up, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. With maxed rep, it's basically just some dailies that take too long to complete.

Curious what the context was. I mean, if that's the attitude of the decision-makers with this game in general, it would explain a lot. I don't expect any developer to be sitting there primarily filling requests, it's just not feasible with an audience of significant size and not exactly fun or fulfilling, but if that's the attitude you have toward requests in general? That's a different thing to me. It sounds like the attitude I'd expect from an unpaid modder who just wants to make stuff sometimes and be left alone, not a giant corporation who rakes in the dough from paying customers. I wonder if this company's culture has never grown up past the fact they are no longer just making one-and-done single players RPGs.

Dang, it would need to be infinite for there to be one where they listen, wouldn't it.

I feel you. I don't know how much I have left in me to say, I've posted my complaints a lot lately on here, but I'll try to talk some of the specifics for me: I think everything I'm even tepidly looking forward to is ruined by other things. For example, yay combat styles, but with class changes and reports on leveling experience, idk if I'd enjoy leveling, and I'm concerned the changes to the character creator (I guess in part to accommodate the new thing of picking styles at creation?) are going to kill some of the game's unique art style; from what I've seen, it's pretty bland now and I've heard reports it's harder to tell accurately how a character looks. I have similar concerns about the changes to the UI. Also, the thing about a 2nd combat style being sub only ruins it as well. I mostly play as a sub when I do play, but it's just another way where it shows their priorities are punishing people for dropping sub instead of making a fun game. Another example is mob tagging sounds nice, but without other dynamics forms of open world group work and the crowding people into the same areas weekly they are planning to do, it won't save us from issues with clicking the same objectives and killing mobs that die easily, so it's like a tiny improvement in exchange for an overall downgrade. Which I guess sums up how I feel about this expansion in general... tiny improvements in exchange for overall downgrades. I'd almost rather they just stop updating the game and do bug fixes and maintenance and that's it, than get what's coming. At least I can say I get some enjoyment out of the game as it is now. Judging by the coming changes, I'm not confident that'll still be the case come 7.0.

Yeah, this is good advice.