Does Bioware even read these boards anymore?

[dcgregorya]

I haven't seen any sort of PVP feedback in months. There haven't been any PVP related tweaks or adjustments since June - it's nearly September. All that's been mentioned/hintet at (with Guild Wars 2 releasing in one week mind you), is additional gear in the form of Recruit Mk-2 and hilts/barrels that are better than War Hero and the new Warzone details.

 

Are you guys paying attention? Are we not going to receive any updates or feedback until 1.4 is released?

 

Major topics people have been asking for responses on:

1) Class balance for Marauders/Sents & PTs/Vanguards and viability of some classes/specs in RWZ (such as Madness Sorc, etc).

2) War hero gear pricing and gear grind in general.

3) Plans or fixes to rated warzones - specifically lack of queuing teams, poor match balancing and ability to cheat the queues by timing the queuing.

4) CC/Resolve and whether or not Bioware is happy with how it is performing.

5) World PVP?

6) Solo queuing for RWZ?

 

I disagree with some on these topics and agree with others but that's not really the point, I think the point is that despite PVP being a primary concern of the game for many players the conversation is painfully one-sided (where Bioware, if they're listening to or planning on addressing people's concerns, have avoided making any public mention of it).

 

Considering PVP content is the hands-down most cost-effective per play hour to maintain, it boggles me that Bioware has dedicated so little resources into PVP community involvement.

Edited August 22, 2012 by dcgregorya

[THAAC]

Did they ever read these?

[Icestar]

I hinted AllisonBerryman to check up on the PvP forum aswell, who knows we might even get a yellow post here sometime in the near future *X-Files theme*

[VoidJustice]

Nice summary OP... rarely do I totally agree, but I do on your post.

[cycao]

You know I think they posted in a thread the other day...but for the most part no. They know this is a PvE game and really do not care about us PvPers in general.

[VoidJustice]

You know I think they posted in a thread the other day...but for the most part no. They know this is a PvE game and really do not care about us PvPers in general.

 

Whoever the genious was that serperated MMO's into Pvp and Pve aspects needs to be drug out into the street and filled with better ideas and a deeper understanding of MMOs and those that play them.

 

The ultimate yardstick for your progression isn't static AI encounters... it's other people.

Edited August 22, 2012 by VoidJustice

[UncleOst]

I haven't seen any sort of PVP feedback in months. There haven't been any PVP related tweaks or adjustments since June - it's nearly September. All that's been mentioned/hintet at (with Guild Wars 2 releasing in one week mind you), is additional gear in the form of Recruit Mk-2 and hilts/barrels that are better than War Hero and the new Warzone details.

 

Are you guys paying attention? Are we not going to receive any updates or feedback until 1.4 is released?

 

Major topics people have been asking for responses on:

1) Class balance for Marauders/Sents & PTs/Vanguards and viability of some classes/specs in RWZ (such as Madness Sorc, etc).

2) War hero gear pricing and gear grind in general.

3) Plans or fixes to rated warzones - specifically lack of queuing teams, poor match balancing and ability to cheat the queues by timing the queuing.

4) CC/Resolve and whether or not Bioware is happy with how it is performing.

5) World PVP?

6) Solo queuing for RWZ?

 

I disagree with some on these topics and agree with others but that's not really the point, I think the point is that despite PVP being a primary concern of the game for many players the conversation is painfully one-sided (where Bioware, if they're listening to or planning on addressing people's concerns, have avoided making any public mention of it).

 

Considering PVP content is the hands-down most cost-effective per play hour to maintain, it boggles me that Bioware has dedicated so little resources into PVP community involvement.

 

The only valid question/arguement is the last one. Solo ques for ranked, which even then is a futile endeavour.

 

All the rest of your points are just QQ.

[oredith]

• i'm sure someone's reading it.
  
• i'm sure the dev responsible for pvp has seen/read some iteration of all the complaints / suggestions that are hashed and rehashed over and over on the forum.
  
• i'm sure they have some internal numbers they deem to be much more informative / objective than the forum posts
  
• i'm sure they know damn well that anything they post will be met with an overabundance of flaming, and will please no one.

 

basically, they can't win, and thus, it's better/easier to just be silent.

 

there is one thing they can do to really help, but i highly doubt they have the manpower to do this:

 

class reps. someone who's not a dev, nor a forum mod (whose job is basically to lock threads), but someone who actually has INDEPTH knowledge of every ability for a given AC, who can actually carry on intelligent conversation with the player base - and has direct access to the devs responsible, and actually able to make changes.

 

alas, that's not going to happen.

 

this is why the pvp forum is so horrible to read. there's a whole lot of QQ, but no one (go ahead, find a single QQ post that has any actual numbers - you know, screen shot, factual numbers) to back up their claims.

 

there's a lot of "i was 3 shot by a pyro" when it might have been 4 shot by 1 pyro and 1 jugg, or "marauder solo'd 5 guys" when it was actually 1 marauder + 1 merc hidden and spam healing him without anyone interrupting.

Edited August 22, 2012 by oredith

[VoidJustice]

The whole balance thing is and always has been wildly overblown. The only place balance really hurts is that it won't let some class / spec's participate in rated... (that hurts... ouchies) and even this is more a function of community failure than of game design..

 

The reality of the balance in this game is that it's really pretty darn good, honestly... and Im a Vigilance Guardian so... no Im not trying to defend an OP class.

 

In general the whole forum balance tear festival is far more destructive to modern gaming than productive. Especially in AAA titles that have balance just about perfect... Crying constantly just takes dev focus away from important issues ... umnnnn world pvp?... and it makes them have 0 respect for the community which just looks like a bunch of unsatisfiable babies.

Edited August 22, 2012 by VoidJustice

[cycao]

The only valid question/arguement is the last one. Solo ques for ranked, which even then is a futile endeavour.

 

All the rest of your points are just QQ.

 

Well they already said they will be doing more "class balance" and most of them are legit questions but yes some are just QQ.

 

War hero gear in which I feel is fine (but I am done and have been for a while) for the pvper who likes it but does not have time to play every single day for multiple hours, well then it must really suck.

 

World PvP on ilum at some times was great and it would be nice if they add some sort of incentive to participate in it again when they said they would re-evaluate ilum they have not.

 

Ranked warzones are a joke now, a lot of teams pug against full 8 man and the matchmaking is terrible and they queues take forever.

 

I feel that solo queue is the last thing I want them to address as they cannot get 8 man queues going without a solid ELO system how the **** do you think a solo system would work when you could have a fresh 50 in green gear on a team with 7 snipers fair against a more balanced team with melee ranged healers and tanks?

[VoidJustice]

do you think a solo system would work when you could have a fresh 50 in green gear on a team with 7 snipers fair against a more balanced team with melee ranged healers and tanks?

 

Honestly, my hope is that solo ranked games would keep the rakata noobs and the "it's too hard Im just gonna chill on a node" folks out of my games. In my perfect hallucination my Wz would be full of people that cared and in my case in a mix of BM/WH full augmented or equivalent that fought hard and won or lost by slim margins.

 

However, Im sure they'd find exploits and it'd be horrible... but can we at least try it.

Edited August 22, 2012 by VoidJustice

[TheronFett]

Did they ever read these?

 

My thoughts exactly. One thing's for sure....they never read the 10,000 good suggestions during beta that would've prevented a lot of this game's problems today.

[Monterone]

All your questions are legitimate dcgreg.

 

However, good luck getting an answer. Ever since beta we've been hounding the devs and the community team about poor communication from them and telling them that this won't stand... I have never seen an improvement.

 

Actually, I have seen just a HINT of it moving in the right direction with the recent posts that I think Joveth G made -- saying meetings have happened, now we will have more info and we will start sharing it with you as it comes to us -- great! Unfortunately it's too little, too late.

 

I've written many tickets and even forum posts back on the beta forums that this style of communication won't work and that it will cause an exodus eventually -- guess what, none of it even got a reply.

 

Sorry to sound so jaded when I say this but you won't get anything from them. As a former project manager of a major studio game release, and having been in charge of both CS and moderation teams, I have never seen such poor communication skills from a team, in my gaming or professional career.

 

Don't get your hopes up too high.

[Nolenthar]

Major topics people have been asking for responses on:

1) Class balance for Marauders/Sents & PTs/Vanguards and viability of some classes/specs in RWZ (such as Madness Sorc, etc).

 

Reading PvP forum learnt me that, Marauder/Sent, PT/Vanguard, Jug/Guardian, Operative/Smuggler, Sniper/Gunslinger, Assassin/Shadow, are OPs in at least one of their iteration. Arguably, Sorcerer/Sage and Merc/Commandos are least OPs than other and doesn't scale as good at high level of gear. Balance is not perfect, but is hell close.

 

2) War hero gear pricing and gear grind in general.

 

A vocal minority has been QQing on the forum, inversely proportionally to GW2 release timeframe, claiming that this game required no skills due to gear, whereas many players have proven providing screenshots and experience, that they were doing just fine in recruit/BM. Truth is that the PvP system in SWTOR actually presents an insane discrepancy between the good and the average player, rarely offering a balanced game, increasing frustration. How many times have you finished a Huttball by a tie ? how many times have you finished it by 6-0/0-6.

 

3) Plans or fixes to rated warzones - specifically lack of queuing teams, poor match balancing and ability to cheat the queues by timing the queuing.

 

Ranked Warzones queuing problem is only a community problem (and unfortunately came late). Fact is most of the team only queues up when victory is assured (or when team is the A+ possible team) rather than just signing to have fun with 7 other friends. Bioware cannot solve this issue, this is a mentality issue. People cannot loose in MMORPG anymore, they do not tolerate it.

 

If I lost, it's because :

- This class is OP

- The other team has better gear

- Resolve was broken and I was CCed where I shouldn't

- My team mates are *******.

- The PvP in this game sucks.

 

Never the real reason actually happened

- I could have been better

- I can improve myself

- This player is better than me

- This team was more organized

- Those guys are way more experienced.

 

4) CC/Resolve and whether or not Bioware is happy with how it is performing.

 

Resolve has one problem. It's complex, and has an important learning curve. It makes again good players shine, and bad players worse. See 2.

 

5) World PVP?

 

The game engine cannot handle heavy players load. That's unfortunate, and that clearly kills World PvP. Among everything the developers can change, the game engine is definitely not one of those. Improvements sure can be made, but no game engine can be changed so much in a matter of only 9 months. It would require the whole engine to be totally revamped, and would require the work of a full 3d engine engineers during months. That cannot come without a way healthier playerbase.

 

6) Solo queuing for RWZ?

 

Solo queuing for RWZ defeats the very purpose of Ranked Warzones. Again see 2. No Pug Ranked would ever have a chance against a half decent ranked team. The only thing it would provide would be to offer a better source of ranked wz comms. To work, it would require in-game voicecomm, solo PvP rating, and gear checks. I see a few problems with this, especially with in-game voicecomm.

The very purpose of MMORPG is generally to make friend and to be part of a community. Sure, modern MMOs made pugging a majority, and pug players (the one complaining that you even need a guild to do Ops HM, Ranked WZ, or any kind of "competitive" activity) want everything to be made by that standard, where it obviously goes to the opposite of what competitive would mean. See how many players QQed about LI HM being too hard, just because they can't put a team together, use voice, and deal with the instance in 45 minutes top. Solo queuing for RWZ is exactly the same : people want the competitive content without putting effort into it. They want to play NBA starting basketball 1 month ago.

 

As someone said earlier, Devs cannot win such a conversation. No matter the solution they use

- They can troll the forum, they loose (see the stunlocking operatives)

- They can explain their intention (see shadow tanks nerf), they loose

- they can ignore, they loose

 

Fact is, I'm looking forward to the game company who would produce a game like they WANT IT, and never ever move from that line no matter the forum. Have the people who loves it play it, and those who don't leave it. Those games exist, they are called niche game, see Eve Online for details. Players are like children. You need to tell them "that's how it is and that's not gonna change".

Forums spoil games, all of them, and PvP forums are on the top on the food chain when it comes to spoiling.

[DarthSabreth]

• i'm sure someone's reading it.
  
• i'm sure the dev responsible for pvp has seen/read some iteration of all the complaints / suggestions that are hashed and rehashed over and over on the forum.
  
• i'm sure they have some internal numbers they deem to be much more informative / objective than the forum posts
  
• i'm sure they know damn well that anything they post will be met with an overabundance of flaming, and will please no one.

 

basically, they can't win, and thus, it's better/easier to just be silent.

 

there is one thing they can do to really help, but i highly doubt they have the manpower to do this:

 

class reps. someone who's not a dev, nor a forum mod (whose job is basically to lock threads), but someone who actually has INDEPTH knowledge of every ability for a given AC, who can actually carry on intelligent conversation with the player base - and has direct access to the devs responsible, and actually able to make changes.

 

alas, that's not going to happen.

 

this is why the pvp forum is so horrible to read. there's a whole lot of QQ, but no one (go ahead, find a single QQ post that has any actual numbers - you know, screen shot, factual numbers) to back up their claims.

 

there's a lot of "i was 3 shot by a pyro" when it might have been 4 shot by 1 pyro and 1 jugg, or "marauder solo'd 5 guys" when it was actually 1 marauder + 1 merc hidden and spam healing him without anyone interrupting.

 

Meh you have a very good post, and i agree, i have a low lvl vangaurd and i was killing lots of players and could not be taken down, the reason.... i had a scoundrel spam healing me and keeping me up, everyone was so motivated to take me down that they completly ignored my pocket healer and in turn i was able to just play wreckingball and plow my way through in hutt ball. i will always look at who is the healer in the group and just peal them off them and usually they are so greatful that they will just follow behind you healing the group and keeping their body gaurd up.

[NathanielStarr]

Is there anyone left to read it? I think most of them were fired.

 

The fact is this game is failing. You can't blame the players for that. Good games are good games and they speak for themselves bad games don't sell or in the case of MMO's keep players playing. People are voting with their dollars. I don't doubt that free to play will get more people than we have currently, but will they pay money for things? I say they won't.

Edited August 22, 2012 by NathanielStarr

[MasterRequiem]

Dude, they never read these forums to begin with.

[hyuplee]

I haven't seen any sort of PVP feedback in months. There haven't been any PVP related tweaks or adjustments since June - it's nearly September. All that's been mentioned/hintet at (with Guild Wars 2 releasing in one week mind you), is additional gear in the form of Recruit Mk-2 and hilts/barrels that are better than War Hero and the new Warzone details.

 

Are you guys paying attention? Are we not going to receive any updates or feedback until 1.4 is released?

 

Major topics people have been asking for responses on:

1) Class balance for Marauders/Sents & PTs/Vanguards and viability of some classes/specs in RWZ (such as Madness Sorc, etc).

2) War hero gear pricing and gear grind in general.

3) Plans or fixes to rated warzones - specifically lack of queuing teams, poor match balancing and ability to cheat the queues by timing the queuing.

4) CC/Resolve and whether or not Bioware is happy with how it is performing.

5) World PVP?

6) Solo queuing for RWZ?

 

I disagree with some on these topics and agree with others but that's not really the point, I think the point is that despite PVP being a primary concern of the game for many players the conversation is painfully one-sided (where Bioware, if they're listening to or planning on addressing people's concerns, have avoided making any public mention of it).

 

Considering PVP content is the hands-down most cost-effective per play hour to maintain, it boggles me that Bioware has dedicated so little resources into PVP community involvement.

 

TL;DR nerf post in disguise

 

Sorry pal but if ppl have trouble doing wz playing any other class than a lightning sorc or a arsenal merc they're either outgeared or they're bad.

 

the rest of categories are just QQQ. IF someone like me who generally enjoys reading couldn't be bothered reading those whine threads if someone pays me to. you probably shouldn't expect the devs to read everything.

Edited August 23, 2012 by hyuplee

[Azrienov]

The only valid question/arguement is the last one. Solo ques for ranked, which even then is a futile endeavour.

 

All the rest of your points are just QQ.

 

You must be a marauder or PT.

[Azrienov]

Reading PvP forum learnt me that, Marauder/Sent, PT/Vanguard, Jug/Guardian, Operative/Smuggler, Sniper/Gunslinger, Assassin/Shadow, are OPs in at least one of their iteration. Arguably, Sorcerer/Sage and Merc/Commandos are least OPs than other and doesn't scale as good at high level of gear. Balance is not perfect, but is hell close.

 

I thought you were supposed to be in Singapore Georg Zoeller...

[dcgregorya]

The only valid question/arguement is the last one. Solo ques for ranked, which even then is a futile endeavour.

 

All the rest of your points are just QQ.

 

They were points? It was a listing of posts that keep coming up over and over again from the community that there has been no response to. I didn't post my opinions on the validity because that doesn't matter (and will boil into a flame war), what matters is that you have several thousand people playing a game with a lot of concerns and perceptions that have been ignored for months upon months.

 

If I have several thousand users with a perception that there is a problem with X, Y or Z you can bet I'd invest the money in at least addressing those problems verbally somewhere in the realm of 3 or 4 billing cycles.

 

I don't buy the whole "they can't win" argument. I've played other MMOs like Guild Wars, Eve Online, etc where they didn't feel shy about talking with the community. It's honestly a minor expectation given the millions of dollars being passed from wallets to bank accounts.

 

FWIW my only two characters that are war hero geared is a sentinel and a vanguard assault spec. So its not a hidden nerf disguise post, just a question on why Bioware chooses to make the PVP aspect of this game feel abandoned and secondary by doing their best to avoid any sort of direct community contact.

Edited August 23, 2012 by dcgregorya