A Message from the Community Manager

[TUXs]

Hmmm...2 days in a row?! One more and I'll start to believe...Glad to see you guys back again today Joveth. Thank you.

[Emeda]

All right! Big list of responses today. I'll do my best here.

 

 

 

Ok Blisst_uNF, in order:

1. Yep. This is definitely something we can do. The problem sometimes is finding a thread to post in. We'll do our best going forward.

Just have the mods stop closing any thread except for the I LOVE SWTOR AND ITS PERFECT THREADS.

2. Most important news and updates can be seen on either http://www.swtor.com/info/news and http://www.swtor.com/blog. These two sites should cover most major information. Additionally, I try to push this as much as possible, but the Dev Tracker is also a powerful tool. We use the official SWTOR Twitter and FB accounts as an additional outlet for news that already appears on our main site. Relevant discussions can happen anywhere, and it will be a difficult process to keep track of and reproduce them in one centralized place. I'll try to see what we can do, but this will be difficult to do.

Those Links dont answer any of the real questions. Those links make us ask the questions because they dont give the answers.

3. This is actually in the works. Keep an eye out for these interactions in the near future.

Near Future=Soon. We all know how long Soon is

4. We do do this internally. Amber has a daily list that she escalates up to the responsible development teams. In the future, we can work on finding and updating threads more consistently to let players know that we're either aware, investigating, or coming up with a solution.

 

Does anyone do a follow up to get the answers? Yeah you can give the devs everything and they can even answer them but if you dont follow up on them then we may never get the answers. So Amber sends the stuff to the devs on MON, on the next day or the next mon or at some scheduled time someone be it amber or someone else should got to the devs and say "how about that stuff a gave you before, anything on it?"

 

We'll definitely be working closer with devs to make sure that these sort of interactions continue.

 

We've heard your feedback regarding the Q&A and we think that we've come up with a better solution, such as increasing daily developer interactions and publishing THOSE responses on a weekly basis.

 

Did you read what you just said? Let me tell you with some words you didnt add. Reguarding the weekly Q&A we came up with a better solution by publishing those responses WEEKLY!!

 

Will do!

 

Thanks for this! We just recently finished up our last round of class feedback (we posted stickies in each class forum on the perception for each class). This feedback has been taken back to the designers, who are now digesting all of it. Your feedback will definitely contribute to their decisions in the future.

 

Additionally, we will be requesting MORE feedback soon, so keep an eye on the class forums for that.

 

 

 

This document is already managed internally and maintained by us. Keeping track of every single bug reported is no easy task, to be sure. It'd be unrealistic to have this document publicly, but we DO make sure to address major bugs and issues with the Known Issues thread (maintained by Amber).

Could that be telling you something. There are too many bugs and maybe start fixing some.

 

 

Thank you for this. We are currently aware of this issue and it was escalated internally.

 

 

Yes, but feel free to reach out to the rest of the team as well. They don't bite. For the most part.

 

It good to see you came back today and didnt go back into hiding.

 

One other question. Why doesnt the forums let you quote the quotes of the person being quoted that you are quoting? OR to say it easier. Why doesnt the questions that you are answering show up when I quote you? Its kind of hard to respond to an answer when you dont know what the question is and you either have to make another window to read the question or go back which loses anything you said already. Plus making pyramids is fun

Edited August 9, 2012 by Emeda

[Emeda]

Going to file this advice under "How to get myself fired in less than an hour."

 

IF he gets the answers and all the players support him he wont be fired.

[deecee]

Of course our team uses internal metrics! Community feedback just is just one part of the process.

 

Also keep in mind with class feedback that players are stacking power to the heavens. Many players are taking mods out of War Hero sets of other classes and even armorings to use set bonus that they shouldn't even have.

 

Possibly gear itemization should be looked at before you even touch class balance.

 

Mod stacking can make an average class quite epic if you know what mods to stack.

[Dansu]

Hey Joveth thanks for answering some questions today.

 

Here are two specific issues that I think are examples that have been a let down despite official responses given from BW:

 

1. Initially noted Jan 7, http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=144521

Community post on May 9.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=144521&page=5

Still nothing.

 

2. Ready Check. Mentioned at guild summit 5 months ago.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=516154

Still nothing.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Dansu

[Jurgen-Ferik]

Can you introduce us to the balance team?

[DarthMord]

Can you introduce us to the balance team?

 

As abysmal as the class balance is I highly doubt there is anyone on that 'team'. More likely they were fired with the first round of layoffs. With as silent as they have been on class balance and the complete lack of information and updates on the classes themselves I would guess they aren't even looking into this which is just sad. I mean seriously are the interns working on this game now? Sorry I'm ranting here but honestly, how hard is it and how much damage can be done to the game by being open, honest and frank with the customers. Being all secretive and keeping things close to the vest simply isn't working, time for a different strategy.

[Styxx]

You could not be more wrong sir ! class balance have been a disaster after 1.2 and that is not because metrics

do the job,to know the classes and how they perform one must play the game on a competetive lvl something

few if any developers do.There is a reason why so many AC in SWTOR is not wanted in good rated teams.

Sure some will try to claim this and that on the forum who is clueless or just want to see theyr class stay OP

but alot of the feedback is most valid and when bioware ignored all the feedback from players on PTS for 1.2 and 1.3 that was a huge mistake ans see now how many have left because their class in no fun or competetive.

 

This is and will always be the job for internal testing. For PROFESSIONAL internal testing. It can be balanced ONLY by someone that has nothing to gain from it. And ANY poster, be as plausible as it is... has an interest... . VERY few players can actually provide UNBIASED feedback.. and not many are left and certainly even fewer are selected or listened by Bioware.

 

By testing, of course, I understand the smartest Bioware in-house beta-testers. IF they exist.

 

I might be awfully wrong, but I am yet to see anyone saying HER/HIS class is op. Even so, it still has a very high chance of having a personal agenda.

 

[EDIT]7 months in, they should have enough feedback to know how each class is performing 1-50, 50 blues, 50 standard purple gear, 50 min-max gear, so they should do one more FINAL tweak to classes. Based on internal numbers which should be based on statistics of class versus target. And make them all identical to target at MIN-MAX`ed level, or best potential. Some will be better at 1-50, some will be better at 50 in blues, some will be better at 50 standard purples, but ALL will be equal at their best possible. Because anything else is a cheap push to reroll the current FOTM.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Styxx

[Taloraan]

Can you introduce us to the balance team?

 

Greetings! We are currently unable to post a list of our balance team as we have yet to run down to the local Home Depot to hire one. A list will be available Soon™ .

[Daniel_Caparros]

Its good to know that you are going to listen and reveal new information frequently. But dont listen to all players complains, some of them could ruin the game

[Celebrus]

Its good to know that you are going to listen and reveal new information frequently. But dont listen to all players complains, some of them could ruin the game

 

Man you guys just can't get over the fact that this game is killing itself, it has very, very little to do with the players. Where there is smoke, there is fire. All of the complaints didn't just materialize.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Celebrus

[Nyaara]

Where is the Bioware team who developed this game?. Current devs were hired by EA?. Who is controlling the game right now?

 

You should start answering these kind of questions and not the blablabla since the preorders. Just lies and silence. Customers deserve the truth if you wanna they trust on you again.

 

Joveth, sorry if this sounds harsh but im being serious here. EA should learn about why this game is falling on and on since release. Im out since i heard the F2P but much people still have faith in this game. You should listen to the community and not like these last months.

 

Good luck!.

[VarisRoa]

Man you guys just can't get over the fact that this game is killing itself, it has very, very little to do with the players. Where there is smoke, there is fire. All of the complaints didn't just materialize.

 

Very true

 

and instead of getting the content hose and hosing down the game with it, they give us fancy smoke masks available in sith burgundy and tatooine sunset yellow.

 

Then communicate with us through the P + R events that take note of our dreams and then hand them off to Aperture Science "take a wish" foundation.

 

but you already know the game is somehow still dying from the trivialized smoke....

so big daddy EA does what it learned from the Mayans... they keep on sacrificing employees to the internet gods

 

and here is a tip from me:

do not ask how many players are currently subscribed because their friends are still playing it. It's not good for morale =)

[Laurreth]

4... This one is an usual suggestion, but bear with me. Hold your dev's accountable. If there is a BIG issue that's affecting a large number of players, figure out who's responsible and let us know that you know there's an issue and it's been brought up to the correct team, assigned to specific team member, who is currently working on a fix. Seriously, I'd adore that kind of post. because it illustrates to me a number of things... 1.. the post hasn't fallen on deaf ears... 2... it shows that you're doing your job by taking community concerns to the devs... 3... it informs US that the correct team is aware of the issue... and 4... it informs us that the issue is having a resolution worked on.

 

I'm fairly sure that they're being held accountable internally, and if it's "only" by means of a nice ol' wall of shame. Holding them accountable externally (not that you're proposing that explicitly) doesn't serve a specific purpose, except having the developers and designers live in fear of being exposed to a raging mob. Fear and panic never helped development along in a healthy environment

 

I also don't doubt that they're fairly diligently trying to get things fixed as fast as possible. It may be bad when an operation breaks, but such things happen, and a one- or two-day turnaround is not a bad time for a project that size. Your personal pet bugs may have been around forever (some of mine sure are), but looking at patches like 1.3 or even some intermediate versions shows that even the smaller things do indeed get looked at, so I don't see an overwhelming need to put more pressure on.

 

However, a small attribution to someone who actually fixed something really big or nasty could be a nice incentive. "[so and so] managed to squash a bug so tooltips can now be generated from live data instead of being entered manually from a huge spreadsheet" would make that team or person rather highly regarded

[Costello]

 

 

We've heard your feedback regarding the Q&A and we think that we've come up with a better solution, such as increasing daily developer interactions and publishing THOSE responses on a weekly basis.

 

 

 

 

Will do!

 

 

 

When?

 

So far after a 4 month draught of information we are told there will be better communication.

 

Then rather than better communication or useful information we are told the Q&A will be better and there will be better information. When will there be better information, cause while its nice to see more yellow text if all it says is yeah there will be more yellow text its not really new information.

[DarthMord]

Joveth,

 

Here's an idea that I think would get an excellent response from all of us. In your very next post (here) instead of telling us all about the new policy that will allow you to tell us more about the game and the updates, you should actually post some info relevant to the game. I don't even care what it is but find an item whether it's class balance, the new space mission, mini games, the new Operation, Warzone or flash point. Just something and tell us about it. Tell us something we don't already know. I'd be happy with that as a first step in "proving" that you guys CAN and WILL back up what you're saying about more open lines of communication with your customers.

[Glower]

Communition? Very hard to believe... You have once promised this and then dissapear for a couple months.

 

Someone bite you in Bioware offices?

[Blue_Leader]

Edited to be more specific:

 

To be more specific, we do apologize for any inconvenience but our dev team is hard at work on the game, and we just couldn’t spare the staff. We just completed Comic-Con and are preparing to attend Gamescom in Germany next week. Please stay tuned for updates about future events.

 

So you guys couldn't spare anyone for the Star Wars Celebration, but you could for Gamescom? The "staff" is putting priority into Gamescom (something that happens every year at that) rather than Star Wars Celebration VI (that only happens every three or four years)? CVI is the largest Star Wars convention in the world, and it seems like there would be no better place to have a SWTOR showing than there. This is a Star Wars MMO, and CVI is a Star Wars convention... That seems like a no-brainer to me.

 

As loyal as I've been to this game, I do often have to wonder what's going on in the heads of the "staff". If it were me, I would have put priority into CVI rather than Gamescom, as that's what would have made a better showing for this game. And besides, like I said, Gamescom happens every year, the Celebration happens only ever three or four years (at least). With the way MMOs tend to go nowadays, SWTOR probably wont even be operational anymore by the time the next Celebration comes around.

 

I don't mean to insult, but I really don't think that this decision was a smart move at all.

[Deewe]

All right! Big list of responses today. I'll do my best here.

 

 

 

Ok Blisst_uNF, in order:

1. Yep. This is definitely something we can do. The problem sometimes is finding a thread to post in. We'll do our best going forward.

 

2. Most important news and updates can be seen on either http://www.swtor.com/info/news and http://www.swtor.com/blog. These two sites should cover most major information. Additionally, I try to push this as much as possible, but the Dev Tracker is also a powerful tool. We use the official SWTOR Twitter and FB accounts as an additional outlet for news that already appears on our main site. Relevant discussions can happen anywhere, and it will be a difficult process to keep track of and reproduce them in one centralized place. I'll try to see what we can do, but this will be difficult to do.

 

3. This is actually in the works. Keep an eye out for these interactions in the near future.

 

4. We do do this internally. Amber has a daily list that she escalates up to the responsible development teams. In the future, we can work on finding and updating threads more consistently to let players know that we're either aware, investigating, or coming up with a solution.

 

 

 

We'll definitely be working closer with devs to make sure that these sort of interactions continue.

 

 

 

We've heard your feedback regarding the Q&A and we think that we've come up with a better solution, such as increasing daily developer interactions and publishing THOSE responses on a weekly basis.

 

 

 

 

Will do!

 

 

 

Thanks for this! We just recently finished up our last round of class feedback (we posted stickies in each class forum on the perception for each class). This feedback has been taken back to the designers, who are now digesting all of it. Your feedback will definitely contribute to their decisions in the future.

 

Additionally, we will be requesting MORE feedback soon, so keep an eye on the class forums for that.

 

 

 

This document is already managed internally and maintained by us. Keeping track of every single bug reported is no easy task, to be sure. It'd be unrealistic to have this document publicly, but we DO make sure to address major bugs and issues with the Known Issues thread (maintained by Amber).

 

 

 

Thank you for this. We are currently aware of this issue and it was escalated internally.

 

 

 

Yes, but feel free to reach out to the rest of the team as well. They don't bite. For the most part.

Answer:

We've only read this same speel 3 or 4 times now.

 

Pardon me if I voice the opinion that this rings more hollow each time I read it, sorry, but you're not convincing.

Until you guys start interacting with the player base and delivering these are hollow words.

 

Anyway, players also can make promises like you: if you don't change the communication behavior your execs will fail again at moving to F2P.

[VarisRoa]

Answer:

 

Until you guys start interacting with the player base and delivering these are hollow words.

 

Anyway, players also can make promises like you: if you don't change the communication behavior your execs will fail again at moving to F2P.

 

not quite... chances are WE will follow through and actually deliver on our threat

[Omicrie]

I`m sorry, but players should not have any saying in class balance. Each "main" will try to buff its class and nerf the others... and subjective feedback is not really what`s needed.

 

So, please, use your "metrics", IF they exist.. and do your OWN balancing, based on whatever "targets" your classes do or do not achieve. ASSUMING you folks actually test and not theorycraft all day.

 

I'm sorry too burst your bubble, but even if they had a perfect understanding of the game "metrics", that alone would never be enough to truly balance out the game. There is simply too much situational content and possibility's for that route to be a perfectly accurate representation of the game.

 

While I agree that there will always be people in the game fighting to empower their main, it doesn't really matter. Its design 101 to gather feed back and thoughts when a problem is found in a product, weather its an MMO or a an Ikea toaster. The principle stays the same: gather feed back, investigate (Research), brainstorm, revise, refine, brainstorm off the best ideas , revise again, refine again, Then finally test the product (if undesirable start the cycle again), back shelve alternatives to work off of on a rainy day.

 

The subscribers trying to empower their class that way are more likely to hurt there class than empower it since it can be easily break-en down on BW's end (since their likely too investagete spacific class scenarios), and the more weak they say they are the more likely they will bring attention to ability's they would much rather have left alone. Bringing attention to a class is a double edged sword, so its only really a safe option for a weak class too complain to begin with.

 

It should be noted though that from a design perspective I find it hard to reason around why they always nerf or buff classes with the large variations they do. Or why they don't just apply one buff or nerf at a time to test it instead of potentially changing the whole game by changing more than one class at a time. It makes it impossible to get an accurate measurement of the changes they implemented. (You devs can handle that much, its a soft critique by normal design standers IMO)

 

I hope that clears up as to why they NEED class feed-back, It's something EVERY successful MMO has done at one point of time.

[Styxx]

I'm sorry too burst your bubble, but even if they had a perfect understanding of the game "metrics", that alone would never be enough to truly balance out the game. There is simply too much situational content and possibility's for that route to be a perfectly accurate representation of the game.

.......[sNIP]......

I hope that clears up as to why they NEED class feed-back, It's something EVERY successful MMO has done at one point of time.

 

All they have to do is set a target. Like, 800k DPS per 6 minutes, 75% HP loss per 6 mins and 800k heals per 6 minutes. That way, the MAXIMUM potential for each of the 3 classes (DPS, tank and healer) is set in stone and known (insert any number for any amount of time, based on how fast they need NPC`s to drop, or how slow the combat pace needs to be).

 

Then, beta testers use the best possible rotations for 6 minutes and fine tune the class to match the target. Or for more minutes, or for less. That`s why they are paid in the first place, or should be.

 

What happens afterwards is down to the player to use the right rotations and/or the needed skills for any situation, or find the proper gear to max the character.

 

Of course there will be a FOTM for each class(DPS, tank or healer) and for each content (in this case PvP and PvE). But by constantly tweaking we just change the FOTM and indirectly "buff" another, which will become the next FOTM. As long as EVERY class is balanced towards the same target, is really down to the player being able to use it.. or not.

 

So, really, there is no NEED for feedback, at least in ONE scenario.

There is a need for it when they are trying to equalize the averages ... because the top will end up min-maxing and the masses will start yelling.. which will prompt a nerf .. and the cycle restarts with the new FOTM.

[Ykicka]

Hi everyone,

 

For those of you that don’t know, I’m Joveth Gonzalez, Community Manager for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

 

As most of you know, over the past few months, our team, our studio, and our game have undergone quite a few changes. Through it all, we’ve remained committed to the community and have worked with the development team to make sure that your voices were heard.

 

I wanted to take some time to reassure you all that my team, the community team, is still committed to you folks.

 

Hi and about time some one actually showed up on the forums.

 

I am sorry but I have to take issue with that last line of what I've quoted. Your team is useless, why because we've heard this 3 or 4 times before and each time the communication has gotten worse after such promises are made.

 

For many people, like my self, it's too late we're gone (or going to be gone shortly) I commend the dev's ability to never fix things when they claim they have, and break previously working things, while trying to fix other things, all the while doing ZERO testing before putting the suposed fixes live.

 

You CS staff that reposond to ingame issue have absolutely zero clue of the left hand is doing compared to the right hand. Since you should be able to see my tickets to see ones that have been just removed from my log, and ones where I have recieved different replies to the same issue (resolve in pvp). I've got guild mates putting tickets about the voidstar victory comms issue, to get told working as intended, see the CS forums again it's working as intended, then for another CS member to say yes this is a bug inbetween what the other 2 have said (for those that don't know there are times when you win even if you have 16+ medals for the WZ you receive only 80 comms).

 

Another example I put a ticket about the sound issues in Nar sha'dar and get asked for my network information.

 

All of this comes back to communication and why I don't trust a word of what you have stated here and Yes some of this can be seen as a rant, but let me ask you this before I sign off from this post,

 

DO you think I am truely alone in this line of thinking? I mean we try and help you guys out with bugs and information only to be treated like bacteria in the cess pool that is whomp rat dung piles.

[Nothematic]

Hey, good to know a community team does exist.

 

I was wondering, for each bug on the known bug list could we get like a stats next to it? Eg, being investigated, cause identified, fix in next patch? I think this would stop many people asking about testament bug over and over again and t would also make it a lot easier to get information.

 

Thanks Joveth!

[Choib]

Id like a solid date set and announced for the new operation(s) released so my guild members of 120+ can consider returning, or if its ambiguous state of "the year/fall" will see a permanent move to new mmos like guildwars 2 (which is where most are going btw!)

 

its hail mary time bioware/ea, better get the next release right, to make up for the past 8 months of promises cause other games are scooping up your most loyal day +1 subbies to greener pastures. -chop chop- get the lead out