Communication? Wasn't this supposed to be a priority?

[LordSkyKnight]

As a starter, I thank you Eric for responding on such a touchy issue. Quite frankly, I do not think the problem is that BW does not respond, is that BW do not address the issues.

 

This right here is the problem. Bioware keeps more secrets than the US government does, they act like they are protecting national security. Look around your studio and see if any of the Mythic employees you have left were at the company when Sanya Thomas was the community lead, she was awesome and was very open with the players. I really miss those days, I haven't seen anyone yet able to top her.

[Sir-Coffee]

This game isn't based off KOTOR. Get it out of your head that this is supposed to be KOTOR 3. Yes, there are characters and elements of KOTOR in the game, but it isn't BASED on KOTOR.

 

KOTOR set the stage for this game.

 

Yes, this game is based off KOTOR. Have you played through the story?

[astrobearx]

This game isn't based off KOTOR. Get it out of your head that this is supposed to be KOTOR 3. Yes, there are characters and elements of KOTOR in the game, but it isn't BASED on KOTOR.

???

 

 

this game is based on the knight of the old republic series

[Sir-Coffee]

???

 

 

this game is based on the knight of the old republic series

 

^ This. Some people are just ignorant.

[Jayshames]

I completely understand that you are trying to progress the game by bringing out new content for PvE etc. I don't even mind you bringing out new CM items, because I am guilty of buying them.

 

That being said, what I don't understand is (apart from it being difficult). Why you cannot just dedicate a patch to completely fixing (or at the very least attempting) all the problems with PvP. I really do hope that 2.4 does this as PvP is such a chore at the moment and there's minimal incentive to play for me besides trying to do something with guildies.

[Andryah]

But just to say all pvp bugs are exploits is a cop-out.

 

Except, that's not what he said. Go back and read what he said, and then compare it to your deliberate distortion here.

 

If people want to continue to criticize because you are not getting the answers you want, at least do so factually IMO.

[Jherad]

Reread your own post. This is exactly what you are asking for...Or at least, you are asking for them to always respond to stuff that you personally care about.

 

*scratches head*

 

I can only assume that English is not your first language?

 

I'm asking that bugs be acknowledged quickly and in one place, not in every thread that reports them all over the place. All major bugs, whether they effect me or not.

 

As it stands right now, some bugs are never acknowledged at all and some languish without a response for too long. I am (again) not asking that every single individual thread be responded to, but I certainly am asking that every (major) BUG is acknowledged somewhere.

 

A 'we might not respond, but we're probably aware of it anyway' type deal is just not good enough. It causes a lot of community friction and stress, especially when fixes aren't forthcoming quickly.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Jherad

[iamthehoyden]

Acknowledgment of bugs This is a tricky thing, and it is something I mentioned in my last post. As I said before, the general rule is that if a bug exists, we are almost definitely aware of it even if one of us doesn't appear in a thread to say "we are aware of it." I try to only post something like that for bugs that have a lot of visibility, otherwise we would have a devtracker full of "we are aware of it."

 

Bugs! One other thing I would recommend for bugs of any kind, which would certainly include PvP, is that you post about them in the bug report forum. Amber is always looking through our forums, but especially that forum, to round up any and all bug related issues. Again, you will not always get responded to, but we see them.

I used to send in bug reports on a regular basis. Emphasis on 'used to'. But, as you say above, you're aware of most bugs. I understand why you don't acknowlege all the bugs that are reported. It is not practically feasible. However, I don't like wasting my time reporting stuff that's already in the system and with no way to get that information I don't bother.

[shednik]

Except, that's not what he said. Go back and read what he said, and then compare it to your deliberate distortion here.

 

If people want to continue to criticize because you are not getting the answers you want, at least do so factually IMO.

 

So again why isn't the GCD misfire not in the bug tracker then?

[Magnusheart]

Speaking of communication, Eric since Revan's Light Grey Bug, and his Double Hood bug isn't being put in 2.2 despite what you said. can we get an update about this?

[Joesixxpack]

So again why isn't the GCD misfire not in the bug tracker then?

 

^ A prime example of the objectively bad bugs needing comm.

[uziforyou]

Bioware should start caring because it seems servers are dropping populations by a big amount. If Bioware continues with what they're doing and not give their players the content they want, server consolidations will happen again.

 

"Anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

 

--Albert Einstein

[iamthehoyden]

"Anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

 

--Albert Einstein

I love Einstein, but he gets entirely too much credit for saying things. The author you're looking for here is Christopher Hitchens.

[Capote]

This might be a dangerous thread to poke my head into, but I figure it warrants a response if I can give it! One of the things that I certainly see on occasion and have to deal with is a perceived lack of communication. Something that is always very hard to manage as a Community Team is making sure that everyone feels like they are being spoken to on the things they care about most. You would be surprised just how difficult this can be. Not because communication itself is difficult to do, but because every single player has something different they care about. To add to that issue, sometimes we just simply don’t have anything to say! I think we can all agree a forum full of “I have no information but will get you more soon” would not be a place you want to be a part of. Whenever possible, I try to make sure we have real information every time we post.

 

To talk about PvP specifically, I know this is a very contentious topic and one that players will always be hungry for information about. Certainly just like every other part of the game, there will be bugs that need to be addressed, and we can deal with those as they pop up. What makes it extra tricky, is that there are also issues that pop up tied to PvP that aren’t actually problems, but perceived problems. An example being claims of speedhacking due to a player not understanding all class abilities, etc. The same can be true in some situations for class balance. Often times at Cantina Tours we ask what the most overpowered class in our game is, you would be amused to know that people guess almost every single Advanced Class.

 

We are always going to work to communicate as often and transparent as we can, PvP included. I remember well what it is like to not work inside of these walls, the truth is that players want to know everything they can, and I don’t blame them one bit. Hell, I work here and I do my best to learn as much about our future plans as possible! The problem is, we will never be able to say absolutely everything, so it is all about telling you guys as much as we can, as often as we can. I have tried to make sure PvP issues are being addressed as much as possible in yellow posts and I wanted to point some of them out just in case they haven’t been seen, especially since I saw some of them mentioned in this very thread:

 

• When are we getting more PvP content? Although it isn’t specific on what , you can expect good things in Game Update 2.4.
  
• Why don’t you acknowledge /stuck? Alex did that very thing, we are definitely aware and are looking at solutions!
  
• Bolster bugs. We know there are still issues, I commented on one this morning and we are working with combat to make them aware of any and all issues we see on the forums (even if we don’t post that in every thread)
  
• Listening to PvP feedback. Based entirely on player feedback we pulled the CC break reset on death from 2.2.
  

 

I realize that our communication around PvP may not always be as much or as frequent as you want but I assure you that we are always trying to find places to get developer responses or to pass things back on to the team. As always, I will make it a point to try to push up our yellow responses to questions and concerns around PvP. You are certainly not being ignored. As a general rule always remember, just because we don’t respond in every single thread we are definitely reading!

 

-eric

 

It's funny how a wall of text can say absolutely nothing. They shove anything down our throat and we are supposed to be thankful for that as if it were something really good.

Sorry about the QQ but thats how I feel.

[cashogy_reborn]

I read through the entire thread and I think there are a few things I can address, and some I can make sure we work on specifically.

 

Known Issues As some have already indicated this is largely due to the fact that most PvP issues which are present, are exploits. This means we will not place them on the known issues list.

 

Acknowledgment of bugs This is a tricky thing, and it is something I mentioned in my last post. As I said before, the general rule is that if a bug exists, we are almost definitely aware of it even if one of us doesn't appear in a thread to say "we are aware of it." I try to only post something like that for bugs that have a lot of visibility, otherwise we would have a devtracker full of "we are aware of it."

 

Bugs! One other thing I would recommend for bugs of any kind, which would certainly include PvP, is that you post about them in the bug report forum. Amber is always looking through our forums, but especially that forum, to round up any and all bug related issues. Again, you will not always get responded to, but we see them.

 

Like I said before, I will take what you guys are saying and try to make sure you feel you are being communicated with more. We wont post in every thread acknowledging every PvP bug. We won't release information about future content until we are comfortable with what we are saying (and realize that us talking about content at all, 3 Game Updates from now, is far beyond anything we did before). With that being said, I will do my best to acknowledge more bugs and to share information as I have it. Specifically, I will try to work even more with the PvP and Combat team to explain some of our decisions whenever possible.

 

-eric

 

PS - Bruce did this one on his own, but working to get broader things addressed like this as well.

 

so i think you are missing the point entirely here eric.

 

the overwhelming majority of yellow name posts have little to no information. this post right here, despite being a wall of text, has no new info. following the dev tracker is not hard, especially with how few posts there are.

 

this is not just an issue about dev post frequency. its about the content of those posts. do you know how many people would be complaining about communication if bolster had been fixed on the first attempt? or if we had actually gotten a update outline for 2.4 like we did for 2.3? i could go on, but cba.

 

while i know you (eric) are not always privy to everything we want to know, you need to understand that a post with no information is just as useless as no post at all. the complete secrecy with which you guys treat your future plans is hurting the game. the idea that "we dont release any info til its 100% ready" is ridiculous now; it has been since the RWZ debacle in 1.2. the community will react to changes, even negative ones, in a far less intense way if we are privy to what those changes are prior to them occurring.

 

ps: still waiting for that 'mathy' post about how Bolster in 2.0 actually works......

 

thats what i said to your first post, and it still applies to this one. youre just repeating yourself.......

 

and the dev team is aware of bugs? seriously? so that means they are deliberately choosing to NOT address the ops chat bug (been there since launch) or the kicked to character select on taking a WZ queue pop bug (been there since shortly after launch)? and there are more, but cba. cmon man......

 

how many devs are actually working on this game? i know that Austin P. is both the PvP team AND the class balance team; is he another team too? or do you have more "dev teams" consisting of 1 single person, and having that person responsible for multiple facets of game development?

 

this is a train wreck......

Edited June 5, 2013 by cashogy_reborn

[schmel]

Fair enough, I may have missed that intention. But tell me why GCD misfires are not on the list? I don't believe that to be exploitable.

How is that not exploitable?! You could fail to fire against an enemy, who might then get so confused by your apparent failure to do anything except sit there stupidly that he or she just spontaneously surrenders!

[theUndead]

It's funny how a wall of text can say absolutely nothing. They shove anything down our throat and we are supposed to be thankful for that as if it were something really good.

Sorry about the QQ but thats how I feel.

 

At least he attempts to write anything at all. You should be thankful.

[schmel]

This right here is the problem. Bioware keeps more secrets than the US government does, they act like they are protecting national security.

/amen

 

Eric, I appreciate the effort--and I will also say that, going back through the dev tracker, there were a lot more posts that made me go "wow, great job!" than I expected--but it doesn't really help to justify the lack of communication regarding future updates by saying that it's still better than what we used to do!' As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm sure there must be a legitimate reason why you can't tell us, but it would really help if you told us what that reason is!!

 

At the risk of being hypocritical, because I always leave assignments until the last minute, it almost feels like you guys wait to start the updates until the night before they're due (so to speak )--I mean, why else would you not have an excellent idea of what will be in the update? aren't people working on specific aspects of it right now? Heck, forget 2.4; isn't someone working on 2.3? It seems like you should be able just go drop by one of your colleague's cubicles and ask him/her "hey, what are you working on?" and have him/her say "hey eric, buddy, I'm working on a cool new ability for each of the advanced class. I don't know the exact details yet, but I'm thinking I want it to be a defensive ability for dps classes and a damage dealing ability for healing classes. Don't know about tanks yet." Then you could come to us and say something like "hey everyone, for 2.3, we're working on giving classes each a new ability. we don't know for sure what it'll be yet, but right now it's looking like a defensive ability for dps classes, a damage dealing ability for healers, and no word yet on tanks." And we'd say, "awesome eric! can't wait to see what new abilities we get!" But you obviously can't do that, or you would. What I don't understand is why you can't do that. I mean, clearly there must be something I'm missing here....

 

TLDR: Eric, I appreciate the effort--and I will also say that, going back through the dev tracker, there were a lot more posts that made me go "wow, great job!" than I expected--but it doesn't really help to justify the lack of communication regarding future updates by saying that it's 'still better than what we used to do!' As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm sure there must be a legitimate reason why you can't tell us, but it would really help if you told us what that reason is!!

 

At the risk of being hypocritical, because I always leave assignments until the last minute, it almost feels like you guys wait to start the updates until the night before they're due (so to speak )--I mean, why else would you not have an excellent idea of what will be in the update? aren't people working on specific aspects of it right now? Heck, forget 2.4; isn't someone working on 2.3? It seems like you should be able just go drop by one of your colleague's cubicles and ask him/her "hey, what are you working on?" and have him/her say "hey eric, buddy, I'm working on a cool new ability for each of the advanced class. I don't know the exact details yet, but I'm thinking I want it to be a defensive ability for dps classes and a damage dealing ability for healing classes. Don't know about tanks yet." Then you could come to us and say something like "hey everyone, for 2.3, we're working on giving classes each a new ability. we don't know for sure what it'll be yet, but right now it's looking like a defensive ability for dps classes, a damage dealing ability for healers, and no word yet on tanks." And we'd say, "awesome eric! can't wait to see what new abilities we get!" But you obviously can't do that, or you would. What I don't understand is why you can't do that. I mean, clearly there must be something I'm missing here....

Edited June 6, 2013 by schmel

[schmel]

"Anything asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

 

--Albert Einstein

That assertion ironically lacks evidence...

(and, as another poster pointed out, it is also egregiously misattributed.)

Edited June 6, 2013 by schmel

[cashogy_reborn]

/amen

 

Eric, I appreciate the effort--and I will also say that, going back through the dev tracker, there were a lot more posts that made me go "wow, great job!" than I expected--but it doesn't really help to justify the lack of communication regarding future updates by saying that it's still better than what we used to do!' As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm sure there must be a legitimate reason why you can't tell us, but it would really help if you told us what that reason is!!

 

At the risk of being hypocritical, because I always leave assignments until the last minute, it almost feels like you guys wait to start the updates until the night before they're due (so to speak )--I mean, why else would you not have an excellent idea of what will be in the update? aren't people working on specific aspects of it right now? Heck, forget 2.4; isn't someone working on 2.3? It seems like you should be able just go drop by one of your colleague's cubicles and ask him/her "hey, what are you working on?" and have him/her say "hey eric, buddy, I'm working on a cool new ability for each of the advanced class. I don't know the exact details yet, but I'm thinking I want it to be a defensive ability for dps classes and a damage dealing ability for healing classes. Don't know about tanks yet." Then you could come to us and say something like "hey everyone, for 2.3, we're working on giving classes each a new ability. we don't know for sure what it'll be yet, but right now it's looking like a defensive ability for dps classes, a damage dealing ability for healers, and no word yet on tanks." And we'd say, "awesome eric! can't wait to see what new abilities we get!" But you obviously can't do that, or you would. What I don't understand is why you can't do that. I mean, clearly there must be something I'm missing here....

 

TLDR: Eric, I appreciate the effort--and I will also say that, going back through the dev tracker, there were a lot more posts that made me go "wow, great job!" than I expected--but it doesn't really help to justify the lack of communication regarding future updates by saying that it's 'still better than what we used to do!' As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm sure there must be a legitimate reason why you can't tell us, but it would really help if you told us what that reason is!!

 

At the risk of being hypocritical, because I always leave assignments until the last minute, it almost feels like you guys wait to start the updates until the night before they're due (so to speak )--I mean, why else would you not have an excellent idea of what will be in the update? aren't people working on specific aspects of it right now? Heck, forget 2.4; isn't someone working on 2.3? It seems like you should be able just go drop by one of your colleague's cubicles and ask him/her "hey, what are you working on?" and have him/her say "hey eric, buddy, I'm working on a cool new ability for each of the advanced class. I don't know the exact details yet, but I'm thinking I want it to be a defensive ability for dps classes and a damage dealing ability for healing classes. Don't know about tanks yet." Then you could come to us and say something like "hey everyone, for 2.3, we're working on giving classes each a new ability. we don't know for sure what it'll be yet, but right now it's looking like a defensive ability for dps classes, a damage dealing ability for healers, and no word yet on tanks." And we'd say, "awesome eric! can't wait to see what new abilities we get!" But you obviously can't do that, or you would. What I don't understand is why you can't do that. I mean, clearly there must be something I'm missing here....

 

why is the tl;dr the same as the first part?

Edited June 6, 2013 by cashogy_reborn

[Gidien]

If by communicating you mean posting words strung together in loose cohesion that provide little real information, then sure.

 

I agree with this. Eric does a phenomenal job communicating imo. Given what we've had in the past vs. what we have with him, the amount of information we're getting is borderline absurd. When he can post information, he seems to. When an issue is called to their attention, he seems to respond. We may not like all he tells us, it may not be as fast as many of us wish it were, but I truly believe he's the best CM we've had and I think we're fortunate to have him working to get us info. Don't shoot the messenger.

[Mertaal]

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, and certainly isn't in response to complaints in this thread, but I do think that the massive amount of negativity, whining and ************ on these forums has an impact on developer/CS communication.

 

Far too many people think that it's acceptable behaviour to just whine and moan about every little thing, accuse EA, Bioware and the developer team of all sorts of insane conspiracy theory nonsense, and get hysterical because their pet peeve isn't personally addressed by a company representative flown by private helicopter to their front door.

 

I do think communication is poor, but I think that the community is partly to blame for that situation.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

why is the tl;dr the same as the first part?

 

LOL.

 

As far as Bioware being so secretive, you know if they weren't the first time they failed to deliver the community would grab the flames and the pitchforks. We as the community really don't give them a huge incentive to talk speculatively about the future when every single word that comes from their mouth is taken as sworn testimony. Anytime a dev says something that ends being even half wrong there are 80 threads OMG DEVS LIED TO US /UNSUB.

 

Edited June 6, 2013 by Arlon_Nabarlly

[shednik]

LOL.

 

As far as Bioware being so secretive, you know if they weren't the first time they failed to deliver the community would grab the flames and the pitchforks. We as the community really don't give them a huge incentive to talk speculatively about the future when every single word that comes from their mouth is taken as sworn testimony. Anytime a dev says something that ends being even half wrong there are 80 threads OMG DEVS LIED TO US /UNSUB.

 

 

They brought that onto themselves with the failure that was 1.2, you promise things to your customers and now over a year later still haven't fully delivered those promises. What do you expect people to be happy in this situation?

[Icestar]

Like I said before, I will take what you guys are saying and try to make sure you feel you are being communicated with more.

 

Then please atleast give your view of the thousands of posts regarding :

 

1. Current lootystem, that every character can roll on everything

 

2. PvP, Premades VS PUG

 

Those topics are constantly discussed and I have not seen any feedback regarding this for over a year.

 

Feel free to make the community feel we are communicated with more