I liked 6.0 it was a great time! 😂 There's not a whole lot of upside right now, but I will say I'm a fan of most of the people on the forums these days. Its nice that while the Devs bury head in sand, people articulate well about all the issues/offer solutions. Most MMOs its a dumpster fire, Lost Ark shut off their forums for example. Its a pretty awesome community despite how badly the Devs treat them, they somehow find a way to optimistic even when all the signs point to more problems, they list issues on PTS even knowing its going to be ignored. So the best thing about Swtor right now, in my opinion is all of you guys. You deserve so much better but I respect each of you for maintaining composure in the face of such unprofessionalism & someone destroying something you love. Cheers to all of you who keep trying to make the best of a bad situation, esp one you have no control over. Godspeed out there.

What a horrible waste of resources to redo something that's not going to be an improvement. I've not had this feeling since....😂 Imagine redoing the GTN when you're bleeding out your player base. This IMO is just further proof things will only continue to get worse vs. improve. They've not learned from the 7.0 downgrade at all it would seem. And c'mon they're not gonna listen to any feedback they haven't ever listened to PTS responses. You know this lol.

To each their own though, the variations were precisely what most of the people I ran with liked the most. Gave us something to do/sense of reward for re-running content. Getting an extra bit mastery or power here and there was a nice bonus anytime you saw a good R series mod. Never gonna make everyone happy, but 6.0 to me was a near perfect version of the game. Gear/Actually having meaningful loot was part of the reason why. I respect its not your cup of tea. Some aren't into the loot style systems and hate RNG, I'd of been cool with them making a system to work around that in conjunction. Now we have the worst of both worlds, no loot & a bad gear token system. But what do you expect from Devs who don't treat the player base with basic respect.

Accurate

I think its more normal to be concerned with any change at this point, its just paying attention to track record. Its one thing to modernize your games but they're so far behind on fixing core aspects of the game, its telling that this is an area of focused resources. Then you add in their low success rate of implementing changes without breaking other things... Its potentially a disaster, but good news is they've only got about 10k or so players left that will notice. Just another sign of awful leadership decisions in a long list of them. Go look at GW2's rest of year roadmap in comparison to this & the livestream. Look at ESO's roadmap compared to it. I mean even Lost Ark is trying various ways to ADDRESS THE PLAYERS CONCERNS. We got dye announcements & lightning changes, its the epitome of smoke & mirrors to cover for poorly done jobs. Its embarrassing the way they conduct themselves imo.

They know the market they haven't alienated yet at least. 😂😂😂 But it is frustrating from all sides seeing them both trying to appeal to and take advantage of players like that. Rest of us simply have years of experience to know better then to give any benefit of the doubt to this dev team.

If we could go back to how the game was at various points the population would be 3-4x higher. They've been downgrading the game visually & mechanically for 3+ years now. From UI to Reward Systems to outdated graphics being made worse... No one is safe. 😂 Also they're "fixing" lightning in an update so be prepared for all manners of broken things having to do with light lol.

Everyone: "Address and fix the problems" Devs: "We're adding Dyes!" I mean.... We're basically fools for even trying to have adult conversation at this point. Why they want to tank their game for cheap cash grabs instead of having sustained revenue & customer satisfaction is beyond me. The game is not in an enjoyable state, but hey least we'll be shiny. Respect for trying to keep pushing logical points of view, but they're just not listening or receiving it at this point.

Just another announcement of them setting the bar as low as possible. While every other MMO under the sun releases content, overhauls, or expansions.... Swtor is getting Dyes and more of the exact same things it doesn't need. Didn't have any expectations but this was just another "Swtor is still going to suffer the 7.X era style dev decisions" announcement to me.

They didn't really say anything which is better then being dishonest lol. With this being the same Dev team that brought us 7.0 it is very much not a hopeful outlook when comparing Broadsword's other titles. I would have loved a harsher more critical response that was filled with brutal honesty about Swtor falling short of players expectations in recent years, but I don't know if I would have believed it amount to anything. This dev team has their work cut out for them to undo about 3 years at least of bad design decisions, destroying the morale of the community, and overall disappointment. Anything short of "we're sorry for 7.0, here's how we're undoing the biggest mistakes" just feels like further burying their heads in the sand vs. progress. So we'll see but not optimistic about it at all.

120ms has become the new normal vs. 30ms. Its Swtor though so not expecting any fixes or even for it to be addressed. Not exclusive to PvP but does seem extra unstable there, have seen a lot of teleporting/freezing/dc's since the move.

I feel it, I used to enjoy 30ms or lower. Haven't been below 100ms since the move. What can you do though, its basically good enough to do story missions which... Seems to be all they care about.

That would be most of the UI changes, esp the past 3 years. Break what wasn't broken & making things more difficult then they were before, and not add the requested features. Welcome to Swtor, has to be the easiest job to have on the planet bc things don't even have to function correctly or make sense.

I mean I'm entirely ok with Xalek just occasionally killing people in the background of cutscenes. (After some thought: same thing for m1-4x)

You're trying to learn something, that's a good thing. Its never kind to correct people publicly like that unless its asked for or part of the topic of discussion. Sorry people aren't more understanding or patient about it. Still you're getting there and most don't even try to learn a second language. If people aren't respectful of it. Just block em and move on. No sense letting strangers on the internet bother you or put you down for trying to grow.

If you are on Starforge I will give you and your wife a guild for free, no strings, so you can use the Guild Bank as Trixxie has stated. Might take a little time for the guild join cooldown but its a solution. Just shoot me a message if you need it. The community has got your back especially because we know how long it takes for solutions or fixes to these sorts of problems to get addressed.

Sure we can get into mismanagement of resources and the politics of trying to appease different parties. Those both surely exist as problems, mistakes are always made in these areas. But as you said a lot of their point of view was simply unknown because of very poor communication & what we did get felt extremely dishonest. Its not gonna wash all the problems away, and of course they burned a lot of their player base waiting this long to even give a glimpse of this sort of feedback, but I am a firm believer of better late then never. If Eric can get his team to engage like this vs. the past communications, and then hopefully starts working with the passionate player base...it might not move mountains but it will definitely lead to a more profitable & satisfying experience for both parties. They would be able to actually have positive discourse & the community would feel respected for a change. I'm not gonna say all is forgiven, but this is a good first step towards earning player trust & respect. Lets hope they continue to take more steps in this direction.

Its great to see actual communication for a change versus what we're used to. This was a welcome surprise to see an in-depth breakdown of your team. It unfortunately doesn't paint your team in the best light in the modern era, as there are plenty of modders and other development teams who do these tasks relatively quickly. Things like upgrading texture assets for example, most of which can be done through automation programs these days. That being said I'll take this honest position and being realistic with the limitations of your team's skill set & abilities vs. the dishonest & misleading statements of the past. Its better to be real with the fact we're only going to get small scale improvements vs. Saying something is an expansion or year long celebration when it isn't the case. Will stay subbed even when taking a break in support if this sort of communication continues. It ain't perfect but it sure beats what we've had for the past few years. Cheers.

People have very short term memories. There is not a ripe market to offer them what they want. The carrot looks massively appealing when all you've been getting is the stick. I've seen it so many times in so many various fields, its a very predictable trend imo. Now add in the fact the MMO market is fluid, they go through the motions to other titles: FFXIV, ESO, GW2, etc. A decent amount of these customers are almost prone to a flavor of the month. None of the above are Star Wars or have combat that compares. GW2 used to come close but has suffered from the stacking mentality which thankfully is not mandatory for a good chunk of Swtor content. Introducing simple measures to make the game feel better to play in conjunction with new levels/maps. Perhaps even a good marketing strategy with duel tournaments, extra steps would help. But if you rebuild trust, provide the consumers wants, and invite them back with fanfare... Its almost a timeless recipe for a renewal of business. The challenge isn't in attracting consumers back at all, that's actually very easy in pretty even without the above (A sale, promotional event, tie in with popular media, etc) but its more in being able to continue to keep them happy once they've returned. This would require a complete 180 from what we currently have from them. It'd require community management, engagement, apologies, honesty, and delivering upfront vs. empty promises.

Marketing/Expectations dominate the mindset of the average consumer. Elden Ring won Game of the Year for example, not because it was revolutionary or ground breaking but because it met the expectations of its player base. If the Devs had effectively communicated the expectations would match the results, thus decreasing dissent. You're entitled to your own opinion & to draw your own conclusions, but sheer data tends to support image & perceived value is paramount to most. Essentially just be honest & upfront then deliver on said promise. I'm a former Regional Marketing Manager, this is literally my field of expertise. (Also not sure why you chose to cherry pick one of the main points and not take it as a whole. Delivering on players basic wants is also important as well. The things listed are commonly stated over and over by the larger player base.)

Honestly not having depth to the story companions is one of the biggest downfalls of the later game. The ship has sailed but it would have been amazing to have good writing beyond Chapter 3 that built on the relationships. If they found a way to just do another time skip and get away from all the mess of a story that was the Alliance to now, and then did class story focused expansions they'd get so many players back so fast. But its another one of those bad management/development decisions.

Another major issue needing addressed. The QT system is essentially not fully functional anymore bc of the inability to click the icons. How this made it into the live game is insane but least they could do is a hotfix.

This definitely needs to happen, especially because of the lack of in game moderation. I hate having to guess which form of hate I have to unblock to deal with the newest form of hate. Its basically "I guess I'll unblock the guy who uses racist slurs because they're not as bad as the guy telling people to off themselves 24/7." We get the Devs neglect the game & feed the trolls more then anything else, but at least free us up to block out all the hate.

Its baffling to say the least, its defies all logic & business sense. Making your consumer feel appreciated & respected is paramount to sustained success. And its not like the base hasn't been patient or tried various methods to encourage it. Players have been beyond civil in comparison to forums of other games. Sure the overwhelming negative feedback is daunting, most of which was preventable of course, but anyone with basic management skills/customer service can see how poor of a strategy this has been for both profit & customer retention/growth. The negative culture we have they created by negligence & unprofessionalism. Worst is it doesn't take but a tiny bit of effort to fix it and yet... Head in sand everytime beyond "hey guys we're posting patch 7.X, let us know your feedback." And then somehow make the game worse by ignoring said feedback til we get another identical post regurgitating the same phrases. AI could do a better job relating to the customers at this point.

Literally all it takes is devs communicating better, putting effort into areas that people actually care about, and admitting to their mistakes. I'd bet easily at least a couple thousand players would return with just an apology for 7.0 & a decent patch that added things like more maps, matchmaking, and addressed balance concerns.