Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game

[Beezeldub]

The sub price wasnt what drove your customers away it was the lack of communication and updates on the game itself. If you all had properly planned this game from the start you wouldnt need a F2P model because the subs would have stayed. I was a beta tester and still a sub'd memeber but alas as of Nov 12 i will not be because of the formentioned problems. My guild was into HM Ops days after they were released because they were a joke. the leveling is old and tiring and not fun. I had high hopes for this game but Bioware went to bed with EA and as soon as i saw that i knew the game was screwed.

 

Delete the post but sooner or later the BS always floats to the top.....

[Sheike]

Jeff,

 

Can you give us some scoop on what is planned for PvP? Ancient Hypergates, Season 1 of Rated War Zones, the Ilum Revamp, Cross-Server Ques, Class Balance etc?

 

This, please mention something, anything about what is in the works for PvP. And thank you very much for making an effort to communicate with the community, I and many others sincerely appreciate this.

[Rydlin]

One thing I have yet to hear is when will PVP be fixed and when can we have open world with rewards like illum back? a lot of time and effort is going in this game to the PVE and RP people but feels like the PVP players are pushed aside like other MMO's.

 

suggestion would be get rid of cc or have a longer time limit on it for PVP use. another that might fix illum is put up doors on bases, must be out of combat to enter your base to prevent ganking into instant kill points.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Rydlin
added coments

[AlyxDinas]

The state of your game, currently is that it is only good for RPers (barely) and for some casual raiding. So let's talk about some things:

 

PvP

 

PvP has been taking a swirling nosedive. Barrier of entry is too high and the "war" of Star Wars feels very distant.

 

Point One: Incentivized open world is needed.

 

Have a planet, Empire versus Republic with a third party involved too. Yeah, it's PvPvE but you need it to balance your numbers. Let people capture bases. If they capture them, they get schematics to really cool orange gear that is bound to the person only. Capture enough bases or kill enough enemies and you get titles. The zone doesn't need to be excessively large but bigger than Ilum.

 

What's that? Engine troubles, you say? Well then you build a limit on players in one instance of the planet such that it is not only permissible to the engine but balanced, as much as such a thing can be, by the relative populations of each faction. Have them "sign" into the zone at some sort of checkpoint. Combine the mechanic with some story. That's what you love to do after all.

 

Point Two: Disparity is still too high.

 

Entry 50 bracket with MK2 needs to be it's own thing. BM and WH? Golden. Keep them together.

 

And while we are talking gear: slow down. Because if your solution is to keep making old gear obsolete, relatively, by continually releasing something closer to the next tier is not only foolish but it makes gearing redundant. Why even do the grind, what am I building towards? If you keep releasing a new tier and then making another obsolete with more Recruit MK X gear, what does that say about people's work? I farmed Champion bags. Battlemaster bags.

 

Now. The upwards mobility is much better but the initial entry into the 50 bracket is an issue because it affects player rentention and interest in the activity post 50. Now, hardcores will tough it out. But I know that my queue pops are getting lower and even with a player influx from FTP, your limitations on those players will not help much in this regard. So where does that leave us?

 

Here's what you do: people under a certain baseline of expertise have their own tier post 50. Let's make that baseline ~1000 (Battlemaster chest and legs with MK2 gives an expertise rating of 1001 and stacking smaller upgrade brings you close to the edge anyway). It might limit queue popping but you know what? It's worth it to retain player interest in one facet of your game.

 

After WH, you add the "final" tier of gear in terms of expertise. It caps out. That's the max. Then after this, you keep releasing well designed and interesting gear with high levels of custom-ability. A way to really choose specific stats. Keep comms relevant by making this process spend them as well as by releasing other nicknacks. But at some point, you need to hit a cap. After that, you just have access to really amazing gear. Heck, make it determined by VALOR, which is criminally underused in your game.

 

Point Three: Ranked Warzones

 

We're still in the "preseason"? Really? That was a while ago, gang Um...step it up. I don't know many people who even play Ranked outside of one night where there's some organization with premades and some PUGs. If the idea was that having ranked WZs would affect parity in the normal post 50s, you failed spectacularly.

 

Give more incentive for teams to really play these. More cosmetics, titles, and all that. Gear with unique looks. Let them show their rank and how tough they are for all the world to see. Are you the number one player on the server? You can let people see that until someone takes the crown from you. Find ways to generate interest in this already. Have tournaments, let people buy in for a big credit pot and comms. Just...do something.

 

The Game World

 

Your game world is static, your events team needs to do things even if they are minuscule. Content turnover is up and that's huge.

 

But even something as little as having a few odd NPCs show up on Nar Shaddaa for a week could be huige. Bay, you place Exchange arms dealers around the world that spawn semi rarely and have a higher chance for good loot. A few weeks later, maybe there's spies on faction capital worlds. They are the same as some random NPCs but if you scan them, you find them. Players unmask enough of them in time? They prevent a riot. They don't, their capital city is full of rioters. Low level, sure. But it makes things feel alive.

 

But those things take time. You know what moment actually sticks out to me? I arrived on Tatooine and a guard shot a "shady dealer". Suddenly the NPCs were not entirely stagnant. Just add even some things like that and it will make things seem less cold.

 

Here's a big hint: Add activities in the world. Mini games. SOMETHING!

 

These are my two major complaints but I can think of many more. The bottom line is that these are some of your game's largest weak spots and they need to be addressed.

Edited November 7, 2012 by AlyxDinas

[Republic_Ace]

One of the reasons that I do not play the game much anymore is because of the lack of RP. Many of my RP friends agree that there is not enough out there for us. No night/day cycle, no weather, and a huge one..no chat bubbles. I thought I heard those were figured out six months ago at the guild summit, RP panel? I love Starwars, and I love the game, and I really enjoy RP. But most of the RP (that I can find) out there is either Tython classes or cantina-rp. I would love stuff more adventurous and fun! I'm sure you've heard all of this before, but might there be any large update on the Role Playing side of the game in the future?

[Ailie]

Ah the meme continues. No Mr. Hickman, it wasn't "the price" of the subscription, it was "the quality of the service" for the price of the subscription that drove people away. In fact, your patch 1.4 "quality of life fixes" forced me back to World of Warcraft. Fix your game and tell us the truth.

 

EDIT: You know keeping legitimate complaints from your management only keeps them in the dark. SWTOR is not in the state they think it is. If you continue to delete posts that describe problems (like the graphics issues which make it near impossible for me to play your game since patch 1.4) they will continue to write fluff and spin pieces. You are fooling no one.

 

Exactly this, it has absolutely nothing to do with the subscription itself, but the game just isn't worth paying to play.

 

They're either completely ignorant of this fact or selectively ignoring it, either way their game is not awesome, it has a lot of problems that they need to fix before people will start to play it again

[Scorpiooooo]

At first I was glad they were addressing the APAC Server issue - but this is completely bogus.

 

If you read the consolidated APAC thread you have, right there, hundreds of people begging you to merge the servers. The population, on the whole, doesn't care if it's PvE or PvP - and the simple solution is this. Merge them into one super server (like you've done in the states) and offer transfer to anyones who doesn't want to play in the PvE or PvP environment.

 

We've already established that F2P with its limitations on game-play CANNOT FIX the population issue in terms of regular warzone and group finder pops.

 

You're admitting to us there's an issue and then saying you plan on doing nothing about it.

 

For anyone who wants to see the difference between APAC and USA server populations - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=534412&page=86

[shudon]

I think this blog post is a good example of what is so frustrating. When I saw 'state of the game' I sat back and prepared to take in some substantial information and hopefully get excited about the future. Instead we rehashed the same generalizations we always do.

 

Why even bring up topics 1 and 2 if we aren't going to get into them? Saying that people left for various reasons and that this will help us thrive is fine. Once you explain how that's true. As an example, it would be great if in the first topic we could get into what some of the new teams are working on- is there something cool you can give us a sneakpeak at for 2013? Anything? Instead- there are problems and we are working on solutions.

 

I can't really comment on topic 3 as I haven't been paying attention to those servers but I assume its coming up a lot since its being addressed here. But that's just another 'wait and see' response. Which, in and of itself isn't horrible, but why take out a front page ad to announces more waiting?

 

There are so many people, including myself, having a great time with this game and rooting for it to become even better. I just think we want to be spoken to plainly and honestly-- this, more then anything else, will help us to have more productive conversations that we can all take something from.

[Tatile]

Question time:

 

Same Gender Romance Arcs?

Puzzle bosses that feel like puzzles?

PvE fights which aren't "everyone hit the boss with your stick"?

Super Secret Space Project?

Continued Class Story?

How about some ability to engage with the armour designers and have actually have a look in at the sets I'm supposedly supposed to be excited about?

[Kelbun]

Thank you for putting out a state of the game blog. You are going to have a tough job for awhile, but I do appreciate it.

 

I haven't quite picked out the format, but something that might help:

 

1. A short statement of the game's health. (We may not agree, but I think it's there.)

 

2. What went wrong (1-3 items), and what is in place to prevent it from happening again. (Here a detail or example of what is in place may inject more confidence into the discussion)

 

3. What is going well (1-3 items), and how you are going to maintain or leverage that for the future.

 

4. The next three to four things in development to get released in order from nearest to latest (I don't think you need to even say 'this fall', just have them in relative order). This will tell us what to look forward to, and give you fodder for future what is going well, and not so well sections. You can of course leave out surprises (like the rakghoul plague event and hold out and later sprinkle in things like mini-games) and then place those in to tide us over.

 

I have seen state of the game pieces from other companies and I really like them. I know it's tough right now, but keep at it. I know I'll be glad you did.

 

1. Game Health: Could be better. Frequent ENORMOUS lag spikes and DC's. Glitchy qeues. Got worse after the "grass imporvment update". Last patch added some new graphics shader or something and they had some post about how the grass looks better. Looking at the picture, I couldnt really see the difference nor do I care in the grand scheme of the game. Piss poor space combat, mediocre PvP, run of the mill raids, the same endgame gear grind you can find in any other game, huge lag and disconnect problems. I dont care how the grass looks.

 

2. What went wrong? Epeen envy. You COPIED WoW TOOOOO much. Sure, keep it close enough that WoW player who give this game a shot arent completely disoriented, not take wow and throw star wras art on it. Geez guys. I suspect corperate dipwads had something to do with this. Huttball is the best, most original PvP theme you have, the rest are cheap wow ripoffs. You couldnt rip off AV then? Cuz THAT would be great ! Raids are pretty standard fair which I a problem. What happened to " We are not going to have a bunch of guys standing around beating on one guy." Hmmm? In heroic movies in general what do you seen teams doing? Spliting up to achieve multiple different goals at the same time. What happended to No trinity or a soft trinity? My suggestion would be look at TSW's ability wheel and apply it to the classes in this game. And overall, Yes new content, but also fix what you already have. Remember this principle: When you just keep adding thing to the end, its not an expansion, its an extention. An expansion make the game overall, and all around, bigger. That would be nice. Hell, why not a new string of planets to level through instead of the same path you took on your last imp or pub toon. THAT would be awesome.

 

3> Whats going well? I like some of the class stories, Love the others. Thats definitely a plus. Companion system and its affects on crafting, farming, solo content and combat is damn good. 6 at level 50 is plenty, however. Not that I wont go get me an Hk, but I would have spent that developement time on fixing what we have and other new content. More companion related quests would be cool.

 

4: Developement: Better, more diverse and dynamic Pvp with larger than 8 person teams. Better Space combat to include: Guild ships; group spacecombat content for both Pvp and PvE. More complex raid system: more than dodging trash, kill a boss, dodge some trash, kill a boss, dodge some trash, kill a boss.

 

Edit:

Edited November 7, 2012 by Kelbun

[AshlaBoga]

The frequency of our Game Updates was way too slow. People were leaving because we were not releasing new content fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed.

 

100% agreed on that one.

[Arkerus]

Typical. Tons of people complaining they don't get the right updates when they do update us. It's never right. You can never satisfy the angry mob.

[DkSharktooth]

....Our current plan is to wait for Free-to-Play to launch and see what the influx of new players does to the populations of these servers. We will give it a little time and if we do not see significant improvement, then we will move ahead with the solution that offers the best playing experience for the Oceanic community.

- Jeff Hickman

Executive Producer

 

Thanks for the update, the communication is greatly appreciated. The only positive things I can say about this statement is that it is nice to hear some hope of new content every 6 weeks, although a 1 month subscription lasts 4 weeks. I also don't see how F2P will help the level 50 and endgamer population if it will bring an influx of fresh level 1 players and casuals.

Edited November 7, 2012 by DkSharktooth

[Dornfir]

Thanks for the update, Jeff. Please keep them coming.

 

I sure wish I could pay to transfer my toons to another server so I could play with my friends. If that is too difficult, at least let legacy go cross-server. Let's face it, the game's been through a lot. To say its been a rough ride since launch would be putting it mildly, certainly in terms of population. A lot of people came and went, but mostly went. Friends are scattered. It's so disappointing committing to joining friends by abandoning your toons, making a new toon on your friend's server, only to find out that they have no legacy. I like the toons I've made and I've invested too much time leveling them on the server I started on, and so have my friends on their server. Neither of us are willing to start over from scratch, and I think you'd have to admit that's pretty understandable. Continuing to deny us the ability to transfer only increases the chances that when we find a different game that we enjoy playing together, we'll do just that, and probably play Star Wars a lot less. We lack choice in this situation. You said it yourself Jeff, "Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it." You are 100% correct, I love your game too and so do my friends. Help us enjoy it even more by allowing elected character transfers and make a few extra dollars at the same time.

 

Please?

 

PS - I'm more than willing to pay but keep it reasonable would ya? Don't make it $40 like some other MMO's, that's just silly. $10 or $15 would be great. Thanks and love ya Jeff!

[bbates]

Unless new content comes out tonight and I think we would agree that isn't going to happen, how do you feel about missing your first new content every 6 weeks timeline.

 

I myself was a little disappointed to see that it was missed. Unless of course what you meant to say is once F2P comes out we will be offering new content every 6 weeks, in which case you haven't missed the mark yet but again communicated it very poorly.

 

I do appreciate the state of the game message, I hope in the future it actually address issues in the game bugs, fixes, class updates, and such.

[Darvus]

2. The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly.

 

I am insulted that this Dev Team continues to try to shove this fabrication down our throats. People knew when they bough this game that it had a subscription. This "State of the Game" was just another chance to try to spin this. The real first step in correcting the issues is to recognize and admit what the issue really is. Until this Dev Team stops trying to convince us that they do no wrong, and everything is just great, we will get no real progress. Maybe Mr. Hickman will address THAT!

Edited November 7, 2012 by Darvus

[Alynore]

Well, not sure if this will even be looked at by anyone but meh.

 

One thing I keep hearing in these messages to the players, is BioWare comparing its mistakes and problems to other MMO's. How other MMO"s have had these problems. If you are going to compare yourself, be prepared for the differences. SWTOR has the slowest response times when dealing with bugs that I have ever seen in an MMO. A sister company in EA that is more recent in the MMO market is doing a much better job with the C/S. The Secret World. There are complains about how things are in the game, but you don't see the majority of those post filled with horrible comments about c/s. Customer service needs to be consistent, no matter the means of how you obtain it. You actually seem to get better support when you use a social means in SWTOR than you would in game or calling on the phone. That's not good.

 

People did not leave because of the subscription cost, if you honestly and truly believe this; you are in denial. No easy way to say that, but its true. The only reason cost would be part of the problem is because other others pointed out in this thread, the quality of what you get versus the price is what makes the subscription expensive. Improve the quality of the service and people would subscribe and be glad to pay the 15 dollars a month. The subs were there in the beginning. They knew what they were paying; but as the quality went down, so did the subs.

 

Trion (Rift) learned very quickly within the 3-5 months of release that they needed to listen to the community. They have actively done that. That is why they are still able to go on without a free-to-play option and are getting ready to release their expansion.

 

And please stop telling us that you plan on doing things, or making updates. Just that they are not in the budget or plans at this time. Give us real dates and times so we know it will happen. Otherwise, we wont believe you. Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?

[Churro]

I like this game with a passion and would love to see it succeed and continue for many years to come. I will tell you one thing though, guys - as a former subscriber of that other MMO from the company whose name also starts with a B... one of the reasons why I think they managed to keep me hooked and subscribed for years was that they always seemed to push the bounds of gameplay and their creativity, perhaps especially in quest design. Not necessarily in big dramatic ways all the time, but they seemed to always find some unique or interesting way to keep it fresh.

 

I get that you guys thought "story" was going to be the thing that your game brought to this field. You may have been wrong on this account, but I don't really care either way, as we all agree the story in this game is strong, and the other absolutely essential thing - combat - is also fine. Still, what I'm referring to is more elusive and difficult to describe... it has to do with quest design and combat mechanics, but if I could explain it in one way it would be thus: to always be willing to push the limits and create something truly original. Again, it does not be one big dramatic utterly-game changing (pun intended) thing, but if a few of these creep up into the game, the game will really start to stand out from its competition - especially with F2P coming.

 

Perhaps you guys discuss these things in your internal meetings and you already know all this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it. Also, I didn't read this whole thread, sorry.

 

To give some small, not-altogether original examples, other new MMOs have incorporated "true action combat," "active dodge" abilities, and on select missions you are transformed into a creature or disguised as an enemy. I'm not saying TOR should let us dodge all over the place immediately, and none of these things make or break their respective games IMO — but these are examples of what I mean about "thinking outside the holocube"...

 

Congratulations on a great job so far, guys. Looking forward to next year's content.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Churro

[warstory]

i have concerns about the telekinetic spec for sage the cast times are very long and i am fine with that but the damage is very and there is no real synergy with the entire spec. I am sure you can better come up with solutions but one of my suggestions would be add turbulence to telekinetic momentum at x% chance to trigger it

[udalan]

Hey Jeff,

 

I was directed here from reddit, thanks for taking the time to post that, I for one, really appreciate good customer service.

 

I quit a couple of months after launch because I just did not have time to play, even though I LOVE playing. I restarted my sub a couple months ago because screw it, I just loved playing and even though I only play a few hours a month, $15 was worth it in my opinion.

 

I'm very excited about F2P, even though i'll probably stay sub'd just 'cause, however in regards to Oceanic server but I disagree with your choice to see how F2P affects server populations THEN make a decision.

 

If people login, and i'm talking mostly about people who played launch here, where there were 100's of people around, and you could easily do anything with other people, come back to a F2P server and it's just dead (like it is now, very disheartening) I think you'll find you will turn away too much of your potential customer base instantly. Rather than slowly re-building to launch levels of players, like I suspect will happen.

 

My personal preferrence would be to put all Oceanic players on a PVP server, unless it's not fiscally feasable, in which case moving all Oceanic PVP players to the same US PVP server (Although I really hate the idea of 400ping instead of 40... It's like a dream come true to have such low ping)

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this if you did!

If you didn't... Well then you are not reading this so screw you!

[Kelbun]

Latest Forbes magazin says George Lucas is distancing himself from the Star Wars franchise because of the SWTOR embarassment, and he was glad to unload it on to Disney.- JK!

[Icebergy]

Paid transfers. Where are they? We are getting really tired of waiting for them.

[Soluss]

Its about time you did a "State of the Game" post. It only took you almost a year. That being said, it was pretty lackluster. Most state of the game posts tell people about the near future of the game and how far along they are working on certain features/content.

 

We already know you are going F2P. We already know why you are going F2P. If you need to restate it then atleast be honest about it. People did not quit because of a 15 dollar barrier. People quit because they didnt feel your game was worth 15 bucks. There is a huge difference there.

 

I was excited to see you made one of these but now I am even more depressed. You have finally taken this time to talk to us, only to show us that you have some tattoos and tell us how you were the head guy in charge of MMOs that have failed miserably once you took over.

[CelCawdro]

I mean to phrase this as simply as I can, and I hope that no offense is taken. My question is, if you believe that subscriptions were driving people away, why is nearly all of the free-to-play model geared toward influencing people into subscribing?

[JadeRyoma]

Thank you, Jeff! And you can definitely keep updates like this coming, although, as with EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS WORLD, we all know that press releases like these are meant to be tangible for the intended audience, but are still shallow in content. But the effort is appreciated!!

 

As for myself, I love this game. I'm not incredibly MMO savvy but I enjoy everything about this game immensely and find it well worth the money I pay.

 

I'm going insert a rakghoul face here just because I can:

 

Hehe