Community Q&A: March 23rd 2012

[Maximum_Aaron]

In regards to the Q/A about the mercenary AC's lack of interrupt...

 

BW, you realize that Sorcerers and Sages have a CC, stun, and interrupt right? As someone who plays a merc, a real interrupt is becoming a must have in both PvE and PvP. This is especially true when playing against one of the above mentioned classes, as they have MUCH more control options as well as their insane damage output for having said abilities. Not to mention the fact that a merc's abilities are entirely dependant on the target not being immune to CC/Stun/Knockback....

 

And that is not even bringing in to account how unbalanced the "bubble" is, versus the merc shield.

 

So...

 

Sorc/sage have:

CC

Stun

Knockback

Interrupt

temporary 100% Damage Immunity

Excellent Damage output

 

Mercs/republic counterparts have:

CC

Stun

Knockback

temporary reduced damage taken

Excellent Damage output (if not interrupted)

 

So what was all that about class balance???

 

You do realize that the sorc's bubble isn't damage immunity, it's a flat "This much damage" shield. Isn't the BH's bubble 20% less damage taken for the duration? That has significantly MORE damage protection than the sorc bubble.

 

Also note that compared to the Merc's knockback, the Sorc's is laughable. And don't forget to include that the Sorcerer is hands down the squishiest class in the Empire.

[Dezzi]

Holonet? huh? Why...

 

They answered the same question a few weeks ago and I swear this week's answer was mostly copied and pasted.

[DarthZaul]

Well, yes, they do say they are 'working on' the population issue, but they really need to pull their finger out and work harder. Its obvious from the growing number of people moaning about it that this should be the #1 priority issue. My server is not even that low pop, its standard, but the standard pop for this game is very low.

Also, if they implement server transfers they can make people pay for them! EA not taking every possible opportunity to make money from people? What the fudge is happening?

[Dezzi]

Horrible Q & A. Meaningless questions. This is what amazed me the most about this weeks Q & A. In previous weeks, there were many questions that were answered so vaguely that I was surprised that they would actually pick questions that couldn't be answered more fully. This week they actually gave us some "I dunnos." Why would you pick questions, such as the very last one, if you can't even minimally answer them?

 

Example: joetacticSW: Can we have a ‘Loop music’ feature or some other way to make our experience less quiet?

 

Damion: Interesting idea. Let me give it some thought!

 

WTH is that, and who cares about that question? Maybe the one person who asked it? I'm not saying it's a bad question. I'm saying that the majority of us don't care about it, and it's not a pressing issue.

 

Btw, the part at the beginning where you tell us what type of questons to ask next week, and tell us that you're not attempting to "shy away from answers" was just priceless. I personally will be shying away from posting the questions that you want me to ask. I truly believe that we all serve the game best by asking the questions that matter to us, not the ones the devs expect us to ask. It's just disrespectful to your customers to ask us to put our issues on hold because you want us to give you some more easy ones to say "I dunno" to.

 

You know what really chaps me about that question being picked? The answer gives me the "Oh? We didn't know that was an issue!" impression, though there are more than a few threads about this very issue--some dating back quite a while. It's like they're not paying attention.

 

Then again, it seems any time Damion has to give an answer, it's always "not right now" or "it's on the horizon" or "further down the line." Watch the summit.

[Fionah]

I find it interesting and rather disturbing that not one single relevant question was answered. Why cant we get answers to some of the hard questions, such as "What are the plans, if such plans even exist, on what steps are being taken to address the low server populations??? It is nice that you are addressing some of the pvp game play issues by providing cross server lfg abilities, but those of us asking what you are planning for the pve issues are not getting any sort of response, other than you are not planning on cross server lfg for pve game play. Ok, so what are the plans?

 

These forums and other sites suggest that you have less than a handful of servers that boast a viable player population in which a player can actually experience all facets of the game, such as flashpoints, heroics, pvp and have a viable auction house economy. The rest of the servers have to rely on solo game play to level their characters, which I find to be extremely boring.

 

So, please can we get an answer? before you loose even more subscriptions.

 

Thanks

[Eillack]

Who on earth asks / picks these questions?

 

They're completely irrelevant and not a single one seems to be a pressing community issue.

 

I think this is pretty much any MMO Q&A ...only the really "Are you serious..." questions are chosen and answered while the very important ones (ex: Server merges, etc) are left alone.

 

I will say though that I am very dissapointed with the answer amount the healing nerf......"too good?" So if a player masters a skill they shall be punished...good job BW. And for the record, I only have a slight investment in healing wiht my Commando, but still...sometimes my secondary heals helped my team(s) out in the last second sort of speak...and no interupts for Troopers in general while we get spammed by Sith Sorcs...yup..seems fair...

[Aiysis]

Well, yes, they do say they are 'working on' the population issue, but they really need to pull their finger out and work harder. Its obvious from the growing number of people moaning about it that this should be the #1 priority issue. My server is not even that low pop, its standard, but the standard pop for this game is very low.

Also, if they implement server transfers they can make people pay for them! EA not taking every possible opportunity to make money from people? What the fudge is happening?

There is no way I am going to pay for server transfers to fix something that is out of my control. I have 24 days left on my subscription of which I will play 0 days because there's no point in playing when you're stuck on a low pop server. If they ever offer free transfers I will probably come back but until then I am done with this game.

[Danakar]

At least I'm happy to hear they've opened up discussion again regarding a 'combat-rez' for the Trooper. I find it very odd that all other healing classes have one, except the Trooper. It just doesn't make any sense.

[Shampoo]

Read this first: A summary of this story may be found at the very bottom of this post.

 

But for the masochistic...

----------------------------------------------------

 

The old Republic Desperately needs to control subscription Hemorrhage resulting from Excessive player Sprawl Across Low Population, Ghost Town Servers.

 

It's sad to see an MMO in it's infancy look dead and barren like the Mohave, with the healthy servers acting as Las Vegas, where lucky core players conquer content and sanctuary is provided for those willing to level up an entirely new character.

 

The prior character they worked so hard on that now sits like a lone, browned cacti surrounded by miles of cracked, dry earth and infinitely long Warzone queues with a dehydrated PVE community on the cusp of death, the only trading post being a GTN that rattles like a can full of five pennies.

 

These proud comfortably populated towns have, since the free month, been gradually reduced to dust and dried up pastures. The few who remain leave their homes only to be disappointed with the lack of opportunities for an accomplished adult.

 

The free month and launch hype migrants have come and gone, and the settlements which remain are distant but serve to remind us of what our hard work could have resulted in. Instead, we grovel alone or break bottles in taverns.

 

The amount of players on these communities combined, however, sport a population several times that that of the thriving and densely populated top five locations. Many refugees are rerolling into the big cities, dropping out altogether or leaving the desert for familiar yet less adventurous pastures.

 

...but ToR isn't the Mohave, is it? I don't know, it's become a bit hazy like smoke filled taverns under lonely Nevada skies.

 

Things may not change, the towns could dry up like so many did after the great westward migration picked communities dry like vultures on the stringly carcass of a lone wandering buffalo.

 

We could watch as players leave en masse towards supposed mountains of gold and lush farmlands, areas myself and my people don't much care for. IF we had working cars, trains, busses or even bikes we'd make our way to Vegas, Lancaster and even Victorville.

 

Perhaps what would really be most wonderful, though, would be a way to band our distant communities together and form cities in our beloved desert! Thrive without relying on places like Vegas. If folks find a way to rebuild in those cities, that's great! But whispers of unity stop the quicksand from pulling our towns into complete limbo.

 

Whispers and rumors of cluster convergence and allegiances. A way to thrive again without losing one another. Day after day we lose more--and when one family member leaves, the rest are sure to follow.

 

We desperately need a catalyst, or at least an upfront plan to stop the destruction of our communities in our beautiful desert as the sun beats down on us, sweating up our backs and remind us each day may be our last. As homes are evicted it's only a matter of a month or so before we become extinct and leave the Mohave altogether, after years of loyalty since the founding years of our adored town-steads.

 

So when the next wagon arrives and I hitch the horses I hope to take said carriage towards a summit to discuss matters of unity, so our communities can thrive amongst one another and the bleeding can stop and our friends can return. So that water may return to dry, crackled lips of lost vagabonds who seemed to have forgotten what being home felt like.

 

In this open letter to the SWToR devs, I ask to have a more formal response on the urgent server population issues.

 

Yes, I have read the post concerning the labor allocation and effort towards enabling server transfers. Said post is A. not easily accessible, B. indicates a time frame that may just bleed the game dry. What good is new content when the majority of players don't have others to access it with. I'd give up my legacy levels to play the game I felt was advertised in a heartbeat.

 

Like so many MMO gamers, I choose these types of games for achieving goals with others. Regrinding legacy is not a gamebreaker and can be added later after the bleeding has slowed.

 

MMO players are throwing in the towel, even ardent defenders of the game reserve this as a primary concern--this should have been the first issue addressed, no matter how laborious of a task it is.

 

Server emptiness looks, plays and appears bad. It cripples MMOs, and is actively turning people away in droves--making the problem even worse. Posts can be found on the issue across MMO news websites, communities and the general chat within thousands of player fleets within the game.

 

The Old Republic is unhealthy because of server and player sprawl and they dance around questions pertaining to planetary level restrictions? Laughable. It's like they want their game to fail.

 

Hell, if they have to, they should just allow players to move characters and have legacy be wiped. I could care less about legacy and I know I'm not the only one. Legacy enabled transfers could be implemented later AFTER the damage control. At least then I could occasionally play this MMO with someone.

 

Just like you don't stitch up a muscle-deep limb wound before applying a tourniquet, you cannot wait until things like legacy carryover is worked out to fix the most glaring flaw this product is wounded by

 

The bleeding must stop before the closing procedures allow for more comfortable living. A temporary solution must be enacted lest we wish more capable men and women to follow their countrymen to live all new identities (read: characters) within already bloated super-cities.

 

This sort of cyclical bleeding of players from low pop servers isn't necessary. Allocate resources to ensure a fix of any kind happens before it gets too late.

 

Pathetic that there's no easy to access place to find information about this. Probably because they don't want headlines to include a bit on dying server populations.

 

It would ultimately be good for retaining... regaining and garnering new subscriptions to actually make the game worthwhile again for the majority of the playerbase who are scattered on completely dead servers in what is supposed to be a "massively multiplayer" game.

 

Fix this now as it actually is getting too late. Before new operations, before customizing clothing or tinkering with professions and class balance.

 

This forum represents a minority of people, many of whom are established in the MMO community and have groups to play with. That being said, the other million+ of your paying subscription base do not post here.

 

Most of us who don't regularly post have already left or will soon. This can all be attributed to lack of players to adventure with. There's no excuse that this isn't coming with 1.2, allocate the resources if you want the game to succeed.

 

Stop bull******** about classes lacking interrupts and planetary level restrictions when so many of us don't even have much of a game to play at all. It's just offensive.

 

So frustrating. Worst part is I so badly want the game to survive because the fundamentals are damn fun--but for many of us the most rewarding gameplay in MMOs come from what their name implies. Playing with the masses.

 

Plug the sinking ship, Bioware--stop prancing over micro level balance issues and officially announce the transfer feature that is supposedly in the works so my friends come back.

 

The real PR disaster would be an EA shareholderholder meeting reporting an unsustainable business model because of poor resource allocation.

 

I've seen a lot of MMOs die for neglecting these same issues.

 

Good towns.. too bad hard times brought 'em to the grave.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

TL; DR for impatient folk: This fantastic game needs server transfers or mergers to survive--and they should be the absolute top priority for the development team if they wish the game to survive. Give us an official announcement, please.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Shampoo

[thaCHEA]

I like how Georg has made responses...but doesn't have the stones to respond in here to our questions and concerns.

[Womacker]

Why are commandos/ mercs. getting an uber nerf? we thought we would, yes, get a nerf to grav round, but to healing?? Why?

 

Actually, you basically buffed grav round and made it our ONLY weapon?

 

 

Why? WHY?

[bahdasz]

Where's the answer to "how come pyrotech mercenaries are getting nerfed to crap when they were already underpowered?"

 

I mean seriously, this is crap.

[Womacker]

At least I'm happy to hear they've opened up discussion again regarding a 'combat-rez' for the Trooper. I find it very odd that all other healing classes have one, except the Trooper. It just doesn't make any sense.

 

AAAAAAANNNDDDDD! We got a nerf in 1.2...... no combat rez..... a grav round buff, a healing nerf, and Field triage is pointless now

[Dezzi]

But, guys! Guys, their in-house statistics indicate that their game is doing perfectly fine. Why merge servers when your numbers are telling you what you want to hear?

 

Because those numbers are not what your players are experiencing, and perception is king.

[Rzacron]

who on earth asks / picks these questions?

 

They're completely irrelevant and not a single one seems to be a pressing community issue.

 

+1,000,000

[Zekester]

Oh my god, someone finally asked about the music not looping! I have asked questions about the music every Community Q&A and their response is "Let me give it some thought"

 

-_-.

[thaCHEA]

But, guys! Guys, their in-house statistics indicate that their game is doing perfectly fine. Why merge servers when your numbers are telling you what you want to hear?

 

Because those numbers are not what your players are experiencing, and perception is king.

 

this right here says it all...according to "their" PTS testers, metrics, reports...the game is just fine...kinda makes you wonder if any of them actually login and get the perspective of players on different servers...because if they did they would notice that their metrics and reports are a ****** cornerstone to base their decisions off of.

 

but hey...at least you can dance with a companion in 1.2...or during your heroic moment use a cool ability...oh wait...my main is a sorcerer...my lightning during my heroic moment can only be cast once every 5 seconds, and does 5 damage.

 

all i gotta say...is this is gonna be hilarious watching BW drive this game into the ground.

[Hermagaddon]

Nothing about this ****** looking new gear?

[Maelzrael]

Read this first: A summary of this story may be found at the very bottom of this post.

 

But for the masochistic...

----------------------------------------------------

 

The old Republic Desperately needs to control subscription Hemorrhage resulting from Excessive player Sprawl Across Low Population, Ghost Town Servers.

 

 

Pathetic that there's no easy to access place to find information about this. Probably because they don't want headlines to include a bit on dying server populations.

 

It would ultimately be good for retaining... regaining and garnering new subscriptions to actually make the game worthwhile again for the majority of the playerbase who are scattered on completely dead servers in what is supposed to be a "massively multiplayer" game.

 

Fix this now as it actually is getting too late. Before new operations, before customizing clothing or tinkering with professions and class balance.

 

This forum represents a minority of people, many of whom are established in the MMO community and have groups to play with. That being said, the other million+ of your paying subscription base do not post here.

 

Most of us who don't regularly post have already left or will soon. This can all be attributed to lack of players to adventure with. There's no excuse that this isn't coming with 1.2, allocate the resources if you want the game to succeed.

 

Stop bull******** about classes lacking interrupts and planetary level restrictions when so many of us don't even have much of a game to play at all. It's just offensive.

 

So frustrating. Worst part is I so badly want the game to survive because the fundamentals are damn fun--but for many of us the most rewarding gameplay in MMOs come from what their name implies. Playing with the masses.

 

Plug the sinking ship, Bioware--stop prancing over micro level balance issues and officially announce the transfer feature that is supposedly in the works so my friends come back.

 

The real PR disaster would be an EA shareholderholder meeting reporting an unsustainable business model because of poor resource allocation.

 

I've seen a lot of MMOs die for neglecting these same issues.

 

Good towns.. too bad hard times brought 'em to the grave.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

TL; DR for impatient folk: This fantastic game needs server transfers or mergers to survive--and they should be the absolute top priority for the development team if they wish the game to survive. Give us an official announcement, please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I havnt posted on these forums since the great forum wipe of launch. But this post made me decide it was time to log in an post my 2cents. Basically this game is amazing. But without other players to do things with, it becomes nothing. The fact that the devs have not addressed this as a real issue, an are hoping that 1.2 draws in these long lost players and re-populates these barren servers is just unacceptable. Pride commeth before the fall or so i hear, and i feel like the pride of the devs is preventing them from seeing the truth here...

 

WHAT GOOD IS LEGACY IF LEVELING ALTS MEANS I HAVE TO PLAY WITH 12 PEOPLE ON THE FLEET AN LESS THEN THAT ON EACH AND EVERY PLANET ON THAT SERVER?

 

I recently abandoned my level 15 legacy an my lvl 30ish alts as well as my lvl 50 assassin on my server, Darth Xedrix, because i literally cannot get a group going for ANY of the flashpoints beyond the esseles or black talon respectively. My guilds raiding progression has all but ceased completly due to people just not loggin in anymore an the lack of the ability to recruit replacements due to no new lvl 50s joining our server.

 

Instead i have started two new toons on the still heavy pop server known as The Swiftsure. On this new server the populations on the starting zones is usually above 60players and on my old server is was under 10 players at PEAK times.

 

TLDR: BIOWARE THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM! PRETTY PLEASE CAN YOU JUST MERGE ALL THE LOW POPULATION SERVERS TOGETHER AND SAVE THIS GAME!?? I REFUSE TO GO BACK TO W.O.W. BUT HAVING TO CHOOSE BETWEEN PLAYING ALONE AN STARTING OVER COMPLETLY IS REALLY LAME! JUST SIGN IN TO ANY LIGHT or STANDARD POPULATION SERVER AN TRY TO GET A GROUP TOGETHER FOR ANY FLASHPOINT ABOVE LEVEL 16! YOU'll FIND ITS IMPOSSIBLE!

 

Seriously dude.. why does your pride come before the needs of making this game thrive..? Your options are to either merge servers, offer free transfers, or watch the populations on every server except the 3 whom are "heavy+" die off completely. PUT THE MMORPG BACK IN SWTOR.

[RickRedOne]

But, guys! Guys, their in-house statistics indicate that their game is doing perfectly fine. Why merge servers when your numbers are telling you what you want to hear?

 

Because those numbers are not what your players are experiencing, and perception is king.

 

One problem with the in-house stat's as far as population goes, it ends up skewed because of the people who created multiple characters on multiple servers just to reserve names.

 

There are posts about people having to delete characters to be able to create one on the PTS. Looks like 1.2 will start enforcing a per account cap (or it could be a bug).

 

One guy said he had over 250 characters.

[Shampoo]

Here's what you might want to seriously think about before you put out another press release to your community, no matter how rabid and unforgiving we may seem. I've broken it down into nice little paragraphs for those of us who hate endless walls of crammed text

 

Call me paranoid but it really does seem like they're deliberately addressing bottom of the list issues here in order to avoid hitting controversial stuff.

 

Problems that matter such as: empty, trapped servers, the fact that there's no reasonable system to form groups or chat channel that spans further than the fleet when you have to take a completely convoluted route to get back and forth lest you want to wait eight hours.

 

We have a poorly designed UI panel to flag for LFG that nobody looks at, with no actual chat channel for groups to toggle on and off and no trade channel either. They literally want us to sit and spam general for everything and anything. This is where it seems like they haven't played other MMOs. This is **** that one other game did better at launch.

 

 

Hell, not only did they dodge the fact that the game lacks fundamental features that it will need to succeed in the future, it seems the questions answered were deliberately selected because they were trite ********.

 

Even questions like "When will they fix big-booty robes" or "When do we get a hood toggle" would have appeared more intelligent.

 

This is **** that neither the hardcore, casuals or press give a single **** about and are easy to fix issues or have subjective evasive answers.

 

Pathetic, embarrassing PR. They've astoundingly managed to try so hard to make a non-polarizing QA that it bit them back in the arse and they just look, well, like numb-skulls.

 

Zero meaningful questions about actual gameplay systems and fundamental flaws with the engine and social elements of the game.

 

It's like if a politician held a seminar discussion and during the question sections pre-screened everyone and only answered questions on his favorite brand of wrist watch.

 

Sad to see things go this far south. Hope they get some better PR people and start cruising on making a game that allows people to socialize and meet people and work properly. And not treat community members like we're complete children.

 

There's two ways to go from here: damage control or a path towards irrelevance and niche appeal.

 

Hell, maybe the second would be better, a player dropoff significant enough to push major gaming press outlets might take Bioware out of this trance of content and features before fixing fundamentals attitude.

 

Every damn engineer in that house should be working on fixing the server sprawl so paying customers can actually play the game.

 

Also, to reiterate, server sprawl aside, this literally touches on nothing of particular significance in an MMO this early in its lifecycle and the responses are short and identical in structure "Something we may work" like a broken record.

 

So what the hell are you working on, BW Austin? The next expansion pack? Building a lifesize replica of the Imperial Fleet? Because you're answering "flip switch" questions and the MMO community is going to continue to laugh at this.

 

What fundamentals are you changing to make the boxed product we paid for a more enjoyable experience that we may not know about and when will playing this game in a social manner, particularly on a low population server, be fun? That's what I'd like to see in the next QA.

 

P.S. Do you play your own game? I suggest you start a character and go 1-50 on a server whose population is "Low" at peak hours. See how the end game is. Even the leveling game. It's about as exciting as eating a bowl of nails, supplementing the milk with paint thinner.

 

Actually that's exciting and horrific. It would have been more appropriate to say is that it's about as boring as an MMO can get--and we all know you can relocate issues and address your PR team if you were competent enough to erect this game in the first place.

 

Our friends, the "casuals" the Star Wars folks and the "guys who quit that other game" are the folks that make this type of MMOs successful, profitable and subscription rich. They're all leaving in a bandwagon after realizing this game alienates players who attempt to play in a group, particularly after level 50.

 

What baffles me the most is that when such a pathetic press release hits the community I actualize that someone, somewhere was put in charge of relaying questions and answers which mean nothing. Either that person Is being told to play it safe, has no idea how to do their job, or it's just inexcusably a misunderstanding of what's going on with your game community at large.

 

 

Honest question to you, Bioware: do you want the game to retain it's status quo and become the game it deserves to be, or let your pride be your downfall? All we want is to play your "mmo" with other people.

 

You possess the tech to dupe chars onto a PTR--how far can you be from allowing us to at least create duplicates (with a time limit to avoid excessive exploitation) in the live game?

 

...otherwise what good is putting all your talent on all these content updates if there's no infrastructure to ensure it's being enjoyed by a healthy majority of core players.

 

*No biblical reference intended.

 

Specificity, even if it's something I disagree with, I'll always respect. But this is intolerable. At least have an dialogue with reasoning of some sort.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Shampoo

[nadokaoh]

hmmhave they ever answered the server transfer and low pop thing before.

 

MrGerbz: What kind of measures will you take to improve the community, population, and faction balance of each server?

 

Daniel Erickson: Faction balance is always a concern and something we watch carefully across all servers. It’s also something you can never fully account for programmatically as it is different on each server. We have many servers where the differences are small enough to be negligible and then others where either the Empire or the Republic has a huge numbers advantage. The Legacy System will take some first steps towards incentivizing players to look at what the other side has to offer and we will continue watching the most extreme servers to see if additional steps are needed.

 

Shotgun-clavy: When are character transfers going to become available? And are server transfers a real possibility?

 

Daniel Erickson: Character transfers between servers are definitely going to be available in the future and we’ll announce details as soon as we have firm dates.

 

 

oh look at that they already did

 

you know what lets all start complaining about same gender relationships they did not answer that q yet or im just to lazy to look

Edited March 25, 2012 by nadokaoh

[Shampoo]

 

Shotgun-clavy: When are character transfers going to become available? And are server transfers a real possibility?

 

Daniel Erickson: Character transfers between servers are definitely going to be available in the future and we’ll announce details as soon as we have firm dates.

 

This just seems evasive and lacks any sort of detail. This is the kind of statement devs typically give when there isn't even a start on the feature. He might as well have just said "Eventually." It's sad that this feature seems to be in it's infancy when it's so badly needed by the community.

 

He has no enthusiasm concerning the issue here--makes it seem trite. In dealing with the press it's always wise to at least sound excited about making good on a problem. One little anecdote about how it came up in a board meeting would have made this a valuable response, even. Instead we get dead-pan nonchalance.

 

That makes me feel like they aren't in touch with their consumer base at all. In the scope of ToR issues this is an awfully childish answer to a behemoth of a question regarding a game breaking concern.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Shampoo

[Eonz]

WTB definitive answer for LFG system. I know it was discussed in a previous Q&A... but it was vague... I only have one, maybe two more months worth of subs left in me.... Diablo III launch probably...if FPS and LFG tool arn't fixed/implemented (sorry BW <3, but you might have dropped the ball on this one)

[Eonz]

Also, the posts that are longer than a few sentence in this thread are likely ignored because nobody wants to read a novel for an opinion that is likely irrelevant Edited March 25, 2012 by Eonz