Is the lack of attention to important issues pushing you away?

[Prototypemind]

At this point I'm just killing time until Black Desert drops, which is still a while away here in the states. I don't expect it to be perfect, but the ability to do content outside of what's scripted, the ability to explore, and the ability to design seem much more likely to hold my interest than being stuck on story or end game as I am here. Anyway, to the specifics of what I've seen.

 

1) PvP completely and utterly ignored. This has never been something that the majority have been vocal for getting real attention, but it was something important to a large number of players and which most players delve into here and there, yet the devs paid it no mind, then told players flat out that nothing of value was coming in the near future. At least they were honest, but the responses to the community were few and far between. Their final response, that there is nothing major coming anywhere on the horizon is just sad.

 

2) Persistent bugs. Most notably as of now there is the major issue with the Underlurker and to a lesser extent Sword Squadron, Torque, Cortanni, etc. The problems have been pointed out in great detail--problems which affect almost half of the total encounters in these new ops--yet despite this, the fixes have been pathetic. Months to fix such glaring issues is unacceptable in any game that wishes to show that it values its player base. Other bugs still remain, despite being well documented and reported.

 

3) GSF dead in the water. I've literally never touched it other than the tutorial, but to have invested major development time into it, get players involved with it, and then leave it to stagnate is again, just boggling. Player input as to features for it that have been touted since GSF was first mentioned have been completely ignored, and it sits in limbo, with no tie-in to the rest of the game. A completely wasted piece of the game.

 

4) The CM slot machines. Again, something that I never touched and was not affected by, but the way that the devs and community representatives handled this was horrid.

 

5) Taking away end game rewards for the majority of end game players. I love the difficulty of Ravagers & ToS. There is definitely value in having Ops that are challenging mechanic-wise even in story mode. That said, with the abysmal snail's pace that is content roll-out in this game, to make it so that only the clearing of these two ops, or HM/NiM of 55 content, which is still beyond the scope of about 75% of the end game population, rewards the highest level of comms has killed pug ops, something that even progression players find fun to jump into at times. Let's be honest, the Ultimate comm gear is pretty much garbage, even more so than the old 180 gear was, but casual players enjoy having that same sense of progression in gearing that more focused progression players do. If nothing else, the higher level gear makes dailies and later questing when the next tier rolls out that much easier.

 

The players have emphatically spoken as to what they want, yet the devs just do not care. EC NiM could still destroy even the most geared players, but things like EV NiM gave guilds and pugs an easy way to get into end game content, learn some fights, and be rewarded for it. It's great that HM/NiM S&V/TfB are still beyond the reach of most, making it viable content in terms of knowing how to execute in Ops, but to so thoroughly cut off the majority of players from end game rewards of any kind is just saying that they don't care about what the community wants.

 

Adding further to the is the fact that 16M ToS/Ravagers STILL do not drop proper rewards. There is no incentive to help a pug group through with established players can stick to running with the guild and clear for reward payouts that are scaled to the number of group members in 8M content.

 

Lastly, 60HMs are brutally difficult for most players, and those who do clear get little in the way of rewards for doing so. To top that off, there have been issues with Weekly HM quest logs being reset, not giving credit, etc, and nothing done to make good for the losses.

 

6) The devs/staff lack consistency. We see staff shuffled around and moving on to other things. We see EAWare starting entire projects that take away from SW development, only to mothball those projects after wasting resources that could have been put in here. We get lovely what the hell moments like the ability to post images in the Community section suddenly being taken away after three years of being able to post there because "it was never intended", despite the robust community involvement there because of the media that was shared. If EAWare were a local shop, I certainly wouldn't take my car there for service because I'd have no idea what I'd be getting from one day to the next.

 

I just feel that as days go by here the interaction between the staff and the players becomes more and more disconnected. I really don't see any other conclusion that this when most recently players were teased with "something big", only to get a splicing of cinema from the Warrior story line as the big reveal. The new road map is paltry and the content that we are being teased with for the future is yet again more same-for-every-class story, something that becomes stagnant very, very quickly when leveling multiple toons. I

 

Everyday I find myself having to come up with reasons to justify staying subbed, and I think I'm running out of ways to convince myself. How about the rest of you?

[Darth_Wicked]

Everyday I find myself having to come up with reasons to justify staying subbed, and I think I'm running out of ways to convince myself. How about the rest of you?

 

This game feels like an abusive spouse at times.

 

Figuratively speaking.

 

People grow attached to it, hoping the "relationship" will somehow improve along the way, but deep down inside, they know better.

 

This is as good as it gets. It's all downhill from here.

[TheNahash]

This game feels like an abusive spouse at times.

 

Figuratively speaking.

 

People grow attached to it, hoping the "relationship" will somehow improve along the way, but deep down inside, they know better.

 

This is as good as it gets. It's all downhill from here.

 

Only, there might be actual reasons it's hard to leave your spouse. After all, we're talking about real life, kids, money...

 

Leaving a game has none of the aforementioned consequences that you need to seriously consider. You just uninstall it and it's gone.

 

If someone feels like they want to but for some reason can't leave a game, they should consider seeking psychological help.

And no, I'm not kidding. What you are describing - which happens a lot more than you might think - is an addiction and should be treated as such.

[Darth_Wicked]

* snip *

 

Tone down the preaching. The "figuratively speaking" is there for a reason.

 

As I said:

This is as good as it gets. It's all downhill from here.

[Grayseven]

Yeah, I'd say so. I'm stuck until my 6 month sub runs out and if EA/BW continues to place Cartel Market graphics bugs ahead of fixing real issues that affect game play, that sub won't be renewed.

 

There are so many things wrong with this game, but the biggest in my eyes is what the Dev's keep talking about. It's not bug fixes, it isn't player concerns about end game, it's page after page of "were doing this next" or "we'll fix that jetpack graphics bug".

 

Basically, they keep adding stuff to the game while ignoring actual game play. They won't even respond to let people know what is intended and what is, indeed, a bug.

 

It's sad that the dev team acts like they don't care. This is their job, and job security involves making sure you put out a quality product that people want to pay for but this last expansion is the worst product I've ever seen come out of a game company.

[LydMekk]

To the title and then OP's post: Yes.

[AlrikFassbauer]

Me, I'm currently only really concerned by the balance in PvP and in GSF - which is why I fully stopped playing both.

The rest ... is not that important to me,

 

with 2 exceptions :

 

- the nerf of the playing machine due to the vocal minority of high-end crafters wanting even more money (in-game)

- the embargo of the Life Day things due to an certain individual ranting so much.

 

This is - to me - far too much "individual catering" beside having to read posts of "H2F" and "perception problem", which is the absolute opposite of that.

Edited February 19, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

[DarthDymond]

If someone feels like they want to but for some reason can't leave a game, they should consider seeking psychological help.

And no, I'm not kidding. What you are describing - which happens a lot more than you might think - is an addiction and should be treated as such.

^This.

If you enjoy the game, play the game.

If you don't enjoy the game, quit the game.

 

This is not to say people should 'quit complaining' about aspects of the game they dislike - it's certainly possible to enjoy the game overall, but still have aspects of it that you don't like or think could be made better. The forums are one avenue that's useful for giving that feedback.

 

But if, overall, you do not enjoy the game anymore, then looking for reasons to keep coming back may at least point to falling into a 'sunk-cost fallacy' with respect to your 'investment' in the game, and at worst may point to flirting with video game addiction.

Edited February 19, 2015 by DarthDymond

[JudasGray]

I am constantly amazed by the people that can take the time to pen a 7 or 8 paragraph complaint about everything horribly wrong...and yet continue to pay for it? Isn't that kind of silly?

 

It's like "God I hate HBO, never anything on I want to watch, the shows and movies on there are terrible and it's just crap - lemme sign up for 6 more months" - just weird to me.

[TheNahash]

Tone down the preaching. The "figuratively speaking" is there for a reason.

 

As I said:

 

Um... what preaching?

"Figuratively speaking" or not, what you're describing is true for some people and I'm pointing out that if someone feels like that, they should not take it lightly nor consider it normal behavior.

 

And I would appreciate it if you refrained from telling me what to "tone" up or down.

I'm not "preaching" you on how to express yourself, maybe you shouldn't either.

Edited February 19, 2015 by TheNahash

[Kalarie]

I'm just here right now cause I like the pvp better than other games. Not the ranked pvp mind you, but the 8v8 maps. I mix this game in with some FPS games for a change of pace. The moment I find a mmorpg where the pvp is more fun than this one, then i'll consider dropping my investment here and moving on.

 

I think the more likely thing to happen though will be BW to launch SWTOR 2.0 in a few years on an upgraded engine that allows for a lot of the features that we want but are difficult to handle right now. Hopefully if the program is written well it'll solve a lot of the lag issues and bugs as well. This game was great first foray into the mmorpg space, and it really does leave me with very high hopes on their next one.

[Darth_Wicked]

Um... what preaching?

 

Self-explanatory I believe.

 

"Figuratively speaking" or not, what you're describing is true for some people and I'm pointing out that if someone feels like that, they should not take it lightly nor consider it normal behavior.

 

I could be wrong, but before you, no one else in the thread even delved into that sort of stuff.

 

Projection much perhaps? Just a thought.

 

And I would appreciate it if you refrained from telling me what to "tone" up or down.

I'm not "preaching" you on how to express yourself, maybe you should do the same.

 

No.

 

You chose to "decontextualize" what I said and went into a different direction altogether, which was kinda unrelated, in addition to said sanctimonious preaching.

 

In other words, take your own advice, please.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Darth_Wicked

[Kalfear]

Priorities are a personal choice

 

Lets look at what you call important

 

1) PvP completely and utterly ignored. Is it really as important as you claim? They have the metrics and the metrics show its a steady population playing pvp. But its the same population. Which (like Ops) is not a majority of players. Personally Id love open world PVP planet (not small zone) with objectives like capturing and defending a base and other concepts tied to RVR style of PVP.

 

But more warzones? Yeah I don't see the importance at all

 

2) Persistent bugs. Bugs are important and I agree. Not most notably but all of them. Memory leak still happens (though greatly reduced I must admit). Lag is still a issue. there is a ton of bugs that should have been fixed long ago

 

3) GSF dead in the water. Not shocking. But they could help it by adding joystick control. I know for myself Ill not do GSF with out it.

 

4) The CM slot machines. Not remotely important, move on already. It was a test on how population would accept a full blown P2W item and the population balked at it. Move on already.

 

5) Taking away end game rewards for the majority of end game players. Taking what away? Your whole post could be summed up as "Fix the reward pay outs for ops". And I agree the pay outs make no sense and need to be adjusted. But thats not taking anything away from you.

 

6) The devs/staff lack consistency. LOL, this one been in place since closed beta. You either need to learn to live with this one or move on cause after 5 years (2 years of closed beta and 3 years release) I think its safe to say the devs / staff are not going to suddenly wake up and say "Hey I'm going to be consistent now"

 

See thats your list, mine would be

 

1) No Pazaak/swoop racing. should have been in game at release and is no excuse for it not being in game now

 

2) Where is the Wookie world as a FULL SIZED playable planet?

 

3) RVR style PVP. I have no interest in kiddyland pvp (warzones) and the whole expertise garbage. Give me a planet with bases to capture and defend, objectives (NOT huttaball) and a even playing field where I don't need to go through the nonsense of getting a 2nd set of gear just for the stupid expertise stat and I will be there will bells on.

 

Don't and I think Valor 81 about as high as I'm interested in getting (and I been that for over 2 years now)

 

4) Subscriber server where subs are free of the F2P and Preferred spam and nonsense

 

5) Removal of crefdit farmers and sellers. Im just sick and tired of being spammed to death by credit sellers on fleet and in mail and Im fed up of obvious credit farmers (to supply the sellers) clearing out areas of content for their illegal goals. Other games wipe these #!$!$!@! from the face of the game and frankly its about time EA did so as well.

 

I can log in any time, 24/7 and see the same character in Black Hole clearing out mobs by the energy cages on rep side. Obviously being played in shifts by multiple people to farm credits. Doesn't really effect me but Id be super pissed off if I was some newb trying to level and all my content was dead because of some farmer.

 

Goto Yavin any time, day or night and the farmers there are insane. Honestly I'd prefer if they just removed all material/resource nodes from the Yavin/Rishi maps. LEast then those running the quests would have the mobs to kill and everything rather then finding complete areas wiped out because of farmers .

 

When I do quit, #5 and EAs refusal to act on it will be one of the main reasons I will never play a EA MMORPG again going forward. Its just bad business and a complete lack of respect towards its paying player base.

 

Closing: so no, lack of attention to your small issues not pushing me away at all. LAck of attention to issues I care about has me wavering somewhat

Edited February 19, 2015 by Kalfear

[Caralysse]

Now see, your experience and mine differ widely. I just subbed a few months ago after being ftp and then preferred for over a year. (Still have a second preferred account I keep in case the kids want to play.)

 

Yes, I see the bugs. Yes, I'm sick and tired of the spammers on fleet and through the mail system. Yes, I'm sure when I finally make it to the new end-game content, there'll be things I find buggy/not satisfactory/whatever.

 

But you know what? I'm playing because I enjoy the game. I enjoy the fact that there is ONE game, ONE MMO that actually has a storyline (and for each profession!) that doesn't rely on my buying access to it. I enjoy that I can go in-game and play solo or, if guildmates are on, can group up and run content or flashpoints or do absolutely nothing but hang out and swap tales.

 

So no, the "lack of attention" is NOT "driving me [sic] away". If anything, I'm in this game more than ever before.

[Rafkin]

The Dev team seems very out of touch with the player base. Their priorities seem to be entirely focused on making new stuff for us to pay for instead of fixing current problems. There are two things that are really irking me right now:

 

1) 16m loot. They know it's wrong, they told us weeks ago. How that's not a priority is beyond me. How hard can it be to fix a loot table? If it was dropping too much loot you know they'd fix that in a day.

 

2) Anti-melee mechanics. It's always been there but 3.0 took it to a new level. That wasn't even really bothering me until the new Blood Hunt HM but this design makes it clear the devs are not listening at all.

 

Bob: "Lots of complaints about anti-melee mechanics"

Fred: "Oh? **** them. Let's put adds inside AoE bubbles."

 

They had to have seen all the complaints and their very first new zone since 3.0 has the worst anti-melee mechanic of them all. They really don't seem to care and THAT is what makes me want to quit.

[TUXs]

Absolutely it is!

 

PvP, GSF, Ops, guild functions, Conquest, balance...the list of ignored issues is getting too long. The more people who leave, the less likely it is that any of these issues gets addressed...

This is as good as it gets. It's all downhill from here.

This is my fear tbh.

[Darth_Wicked]

If it was dropping too much loot you know they'd fix that in a day.

 

You are so wrong, and recent events demonstrate it.

[menofhorror]

To the OP: Yes it is putting me off.

 

Honestly what is putting me off the most aren`t the bugs or the lack of pvp. Its the quality of the story direction. Shadow of Revan was filled with "what why?" questions the whole time. You have good looking planets but it all doesn`t matter when the story is 1)short 2)bland and 3)doesn`t make sense often enough. When the biggest selling point: story starts to fall apart than its time to stop and ask why bother playing when the devs have no direction for the game. Just what I think.

 

I would like the game but my sub runs out the end of the month and that will be it for half a year or something. I just hope things will look better than. Either way I probably won`t be thinking much about swtor in half a year. (Witcher 3!!!!)

Edited February 19, 2015 by menofhorror

[mikegrijsen]

No...

[Darth_Wicked]

(Witcher 3!!!!)

 

Geralt shall call to me as well. Can't wait!

[menofhorror]

Geralt shall call to me as well. Can't wait!

 

Ah always a pleasure to see others being excited as well.^^

 

Oh god I can`t wait man. I still need to finish the books before it comes out. Maybe replay Witcher 2 and choose a different route...ah so much to do but so less time. I just hope the potion making will be more like Witcher 1 again.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

No it's not. Are there things that annoy me about the game? Absolutely, it frustrates me to no end how many launch bugs still exist.

But, at this point it comes down to am I enjoying the game? Yes.

Is the game ever going to be completely polished? Absolutely not.

Am I OK with that? Yes I am so I accept it for what it is.

 

I'm not saying that bring up these issues shouldn't happen, but there are a lot of issues that brought up constantly but never get fixed where it's probably time to throw the towel in. And if one of those issues is ruing your experience then speak with your wallet and unsub, either go preferred or leave. Speaking with your money is much more likely to affect change then posting in here, especially on these dead horse issues.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Arlon_Nabarlly
Fixed wall of text

[MSchuyler]

1) PvP completely and utterly ignored.

 

Who cares? It's been repeatedly shown that PvP players are a small minority. They can have it or not have it. It makes no difference to me.

 

2) Persistent bugs.

 

Yeah, some are, but how many times do you really encounter them? It "bugs" you, and you move on. A bug is a minor defect, not something you need to whine about. And the fact is, players are quick to call out "Bugged!" when it is their own fault. Not all claimed bugs are.

 

3) GSF dead in the water.

 

GSF? There's GSF in this game? Who knew?

 

4) The CM slot machines.

 

You still pissed about that? Player choice. I never even saw one and had I seen one, I certainly would not have succumbed to the addiction. Was it a "misstep" the way they handled it? Yeah, sure, but did it "wreck the game"? Of course not. Get over it already. It did not affect me, nor the majority of the players, in the slightest. Tempest in a teapot, just another excuse for the kiddies to get "outraged!"

 

5) Taking away end game rewards for the majority of end game players.

 

Huh? Didn't I just see a whole thread saying BW had to nerf lockboxes at higher levels because the payout was too large? I really don't care if some purple gear drops. I don't want to wear it anyway.

 

6) The devs/staff lack consistency.

 

They can never win no matter what they do because whatever they do, you want them to do something else. The thing is, being an average player such as yourself does not mean you are entitled to be on the Board of Directors or a Chief Developer dictating how the game ought to be run. You are a player, not an expert developer, and you have no idea what constraints and pressures they are under, nor could you ever program or put together this game yourself. Indeed, you know less than Eric Musco and he knows less than most.

 

So no, the issues you think are important seem very unimportant to me and even the issues I consider important aren't enough to push me away. Credit spammers? Meh? Right click, ignore, 2 seconds out of my day. It's BW's problem, not mine.

 

I figure I've got two more years before I have all 8 classes leveled as far as I want them to be. If when I get there there's really no more story, then I'll unsub. And I guess I just found my important issue. I don't give a rip about PvP, warzones, OPs, or Flashpoints. They're just a distraction to give the kiddies something to do. But if the stories really do stop, I probably will, too. The rest of these minor issues simply don't matter that much.

 

Thanks for the coloring, Kalfear! Shamelessly ripped off.

Edited February 19, 2015 by MSchuyler

[TUXs]

1) PvP completely and utterly ignored.

 

Who cares? It's been repeatedly shown that PvP players are a small minority. They can have it or not have it. It makes no difference to me.

Repeatedly shown? Where? Please provide me a link to counter this one, which is from Bioware, that says nearly half of all players PvP.

[Malastare]

We see staff shuffled around and moving on to other things. We see EAWare starting entire projects that take away from SW development, only to mothball those projects after wasting resources that could have been put in here.

 

Welcome to the world of software development.

 

I've been a developer for a little over 12 years. I've worked for three different companies. I've never worked for the same division for more than 3 years. In that time, about one project in three that I work on has been scrapped before it reached the customers/clients. I'm routinely shuffled to other work units to help fill in skill requirements, leaving some other team short staffed, due to corporate priorities.

 

I know lots of games have zero experience with this, and the reality can be a bit disappointing, but nothing you said above is abnormal. In some ways, games development is even worse than most development tasks, as the income stream is far more volatile. It's perfectly normal for dev teams to bloat during the lead up to release and then suddenly trim down as the game moves into maintenance/DLC phase. Its normal for devs to seek other jobs (its a great way to get a raise). Its normal for them to seek to move to other projects. It's normal for them to spread their work between multiple projects.