Operation Victory Tournament - *Cancelled*

[funkiestj]

We thank you for your feedback around the contest and should we decide to do something like this in the future, we will let you know. Also, let us know your feedback on the concept of doing a speedrun contest. As we explore options like this in the future it would be great to know your thoughts.

 

-eric

 

*** man? Bro, I don't even PvE but I'm shocked that they are cancelling the event rather than postponing it.

 

I don't really care but I find the complete reversal baffling. How bad can it be (i.e. waste of resources) to postpone but at least follow through on a single such competition rather than cancel? Maybe that is their intent but I find the whole "cancelling" and "should we decide to do something like this in the future" a bit off putting.

[Dractonis]

Maybe I should do a sequel to my

video. Hitler rerolled sorc and finds out Operation Victory has been cancelled.

[jrwellworth]

Sorry if that sounded rude, I didn't intend it to be. While I'm not a casual player myself, I often help out other groups who have trouble with a boss and tell them what they are doing wrong.

If I had encountered this bug myself yet, I'd have tested it thoroughly with my raiding group and helped in offering steps to reproduce it, but for some reason, it only affects some groups but they always get the same bug in each consecutive try. .

 

I suppose I should also apologize for jumping down your throat. I am also not a casual player and like to think of myself and my team as full time raiders. You also have a point, where you see something from the outside looking in, in regards to fight hangups people have that just have to be bugs and notice that they are doing something mechanically wrong. I noticed with the thing with coratanni, it either happened or it didn't. Meaning we could go in there week after week and not have trouble, and then go in there and she won't go to the escape pod, or fights it, or you have to kill her and then kill pearl, who at that point is at double enrage. Those nights we would just say forget it, who needs a headache. We would come back the next day and bam, works perfect.

 

I don't know what the problem could be, or why it works for some, and not others. I do know that I am a bit disappointed in BW about it and a few other things. I will however say this, not out of misguided fanboy-ism but common sense. I think that pulling this contest was the right thing to do if they could not get the fight to work to their satisfaction. The reason I say this is because they offered *cash* prizes and also iirc a trip to star wars celebration. Those are not things to scoff at, meaning, they would look so much worse, and not just to this community, if the contest was tainted with broken fights, and other things of that nature. With real prizes on the line, not just cartel swag, this had to go off without a hitch or not at all. Some may not agree, but that is just my opinion.

[jrwellworth]

Maybe I should do a sequel to my

video. Hitler rerolled sorc and finds out Operation Victory has been cancelled.

 

Man I just gotta say, that video made for such a good laugh for my guild and raid team. We were quoting it for days. The team leader mains a sentinel, we had fun ribbing him good. If there was more to come, that would be amazing.

[Jerba]

I will however say this, not out of misguided fanboy-ism but common sense. I think that pulling this contest was the right thing to do if they could not get the fight to work to their satisfaction. The reason I say this is because they offered *cash* prizes and also iirc a trip to star wars celebration. Those are not things to scoff at, meaning, they would look so much worse, and not just to this community, if the contest was tainted with broken fights, and other things of that nature. With real prizes on the line, not just cartel swag, this had to go off without a hitch or not at all. Some may not agree, but that is just my opinion.

Of course, Musco's posts today shed a whole new light on this tournament. Before, I was wondering why Bioware would organize such a tournament for the top 1% of PvE players when they already get their nightmare timerun rewards. I just could not believe why they would pay ESL money to organize such a tournament when they cannot get back that money from returning/new players.

 

Then he wrote:

First, it was a numbers game. Only a fraction of the players who are in Ops at 60 are in ToS and so we wanted to make sure the first round was accessible to as many people as possible.

And it all made sense to me. From the start, this tournament was made to keep players tied to the game. We are currently in the bizarre situation where despite having gotten a new expansion recently, there isn't much to do at endgame besides the weekly raid. For operations, either you one-shot SM or you are stuck on a fight like Underlurker with no chance to progress no matter how often you wipe.

Also, SoR drew in a lot of KotOR fans who mostly play single player games and have no interest in group content so they want to find ways to have them run raids as well. The Choose Your Path promotion shows that they want to keep players subbed until 3.2 in April/Spring.

This tournament was just another stepping stone. Remember when we got the e-mail about the speedrun tournament and I wondered why they would advertise it if it is only for the top progression guilds.

Looking back now, I realize that from the start it was a perception problem. By itself, the term "speedrun" has a negative, elitist connotation; mentioning ESL did not help. Progression players like speedruns, casual players couldn't care less.

I'm 100% sure now that Bioware intended for all level 60 players to take part in the Ravagers speedrun and give them a participation award (like a title, a pet or even a mount) and then do the ToS speedrun for the real progression guilds to give them cash prices and the Celebration tickets.

Like I wrote earlier, esports tournaments are the wrong way to get the solo or casual players more involved in the game. The just don't want to go through that hassle, they want to login, play with their friends, do some dailies, maybe run a SM raid if they have a good group. They are not the kind of players to do a speedrun tournament like you hoped them to, no matter how much you advertise it.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Jerba

[Aerich]

Well if you really want feedback, so be it...

 

First off, I think the speedrun concept in general is stupid. SoR has been extremely content light and you want to have events that require players to burn through what little there is as quickly as humanly possible? Oookay...

 

Secondly, this is extremely unprofessional. What should have happened is you spotted bugs, fixed bugs, announced event. Instead you do the last one first, the first one second, and the second one not at all. You also basically declared to the world now that not only does TOR suffer from issues, but that the team behind TOR is incapable of fixing them.

 

Also in need of mentioning is this should be a wake up call to the TOR team and to EA in general: Your QA process is abysmal. This bug existed before this event, it's just that until the event you didn't care overly much. And this is one bug out of an enormous mountain of them that sit in the game right now; some of them dating as far back as RELEASE. And it's time to acknowledge what the TOR engine is and is not capable of. From my experience, the more mechanic-y a fight, the more issues it has. The engine just doesn't seem capable of handling mechanic heavy encounters and if you are not able to get them working (as evidenced here) THEN STOP DOING THEM. I'd rather have more boring fights that work than more complex ones that bug out half the time.

 

Lastly, ToS. If your very own metrics are showing only a tiny fraction of the playerbase is in there then maybe you need to smack your devs upside the head for consistently releasing overtuned content. Brutal encounters in HM and NiM OPs are fine, but I thought the whole point of SM was to be accessible by pretty much everyone? And how's that bonus boss in Battle of Rishi treating you devs in the office? Enjoying it? Boy we sure are. It's so fun when you need a group in OPs gear to do FPs...

[AshlaBoga]

I know you guys will have a lot of questions so let me hit some of what has come up so far.

 

Why not play Temple of Sacrifice?

Two reasons for this. First, it was a numbers game. Only a fraction of the players who are in Ops at 60 are in ToS and so we wanted to make sure the first round was accessible to as many people as possible.

-eric

 

Eric, I always try and be respectful, but I can't help but think you should have left that out of your explanation.

 

Any guild that would be in the Top 100 for this tournament would have both SM Ravagers and ToS on farm.

 

I understand your other explanations, but if someone isn't already doing SM ToS then they're not going to be a part of this tournament to begin with.

[Dractonis]

Man I just gotta say, that video made for such a good laugh for my guild and raid team. We were quoting it for days. The team leader mains a sentinel, we had fun ribbing him good. If there was more to come, that would be amazing.

 

I have to say I just made this for my boyfriend who plays a mara really. I posted it on the forums on the off chance another mara found it funny and was quite surprised at how many related and had a laugh from it. ^^

 

Needless to say, Hitler caved and rerolled to a sorc DPS to prepare for Operation Victory so he won't be happy when he finds out about this...

[LosevV]

Bioware, only thing that I can write is "Ahahah". Bioware are you serious? You canceled thing that you announced because you can't create rules for it and can't fix bug that mustn't be in the first place? Its already 4 month since SoR started and you still can't fix bugs with boss? Like when Sparky in HM mode interrupt brutalize and killing tank or Cora that won't go away for any reason. I hope you understand now, that Private Test Server must be not Private, but PUBLIC when big expansion on it's way.

[Jerba]

Like when Sparky in HM mode interrupt brutalize and killing tank

Off-topic: Sparky one-shotting a tank is part of the mechanic and definitely not a bug, you need to have two tanks standing in front of him during Brutal Pounce. See this thread for additional information. Not sure about the Coratanni bug though, and I agree about everything else you wrote.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Jerba

[RiVaN_]

I know you guys will have a lot of questions so let me hit some of what has come up so far.

 

Why not play Temple of Sacrifice?

Two reasons for this. First, it was a numbers game. Only a fraction of the players who are in Ops at 60 are in ToS and so we wanted to make sure the first round was accessible to as many people as possible. Second, our plan was that the finals (the second round) would be played in ToS so that the Revan encounter was a part of the tournament finale.

 

Why not announce the rules sooner?

We wanted to make sure we knew exactly what we would be playing and how we would be playing it. While we were working on the Coratanni changes, we were hesitant to post any rules.

 

Why announce the cancellation so late?

We were exhausting everything we could to get the competition in place, to start on time. We didn't want to pull the plug unless we really felt we had too.

 

-eric

 

 

Call me a fan boy if you will, at this point I care less.

I think that this decision shows a level of responsibility on the SWTOR team's part that has been rare since Strongholds went live. They wanted to get the community excited about the game again and they wanted to get people back to playing the ops, so they announced the tournament. Then, when they realized that a major bug in the game was going to cause set backs and other problems they canceled the tournament and were upfront with the reason for doing so.

 

In my humble opinion this displays the fact that the dev team is aware that the bug is a major one and that they are devoting man hours to making it right.

 

Should they have held off on announcing the tournament until they knew if they could fix Coratani? Of course. Should fixes for Ravagers and ToS already have been made (seeing as how the expansion has been out for 3 months, counting early access)? A resounding "YES". But the fact that they canceled this tournament instead of letting it go on with bugs in tact, overall is a good "1st step" toward some progress.

Continuing this level of responsibility and open honesty is the key to getting players back. That and fixing many of the glitches and bugs.

 

SWTOR has a lot of work to do if they want to remain competitive in the coming months and I hope they are up to that challenge. There is a lot to be excited about in the world of gaming right now, unfortunately SWTOR hasn't really generated much of that excitement. Fortunately for SWTOR much of what is currently available for digital consumption has had a harder time in the market than they have.

 

Well thought out and polished, Playable content is the only thing that will bring people back in force. Cartel Packs, Strongholds, cosmetic tabs, new races and Upping the current Ops to NiM is simply icing on the cake. You gotta provide new material for people to experience.

 

Gamers are driven by experiences and visual stimuli, we need content with substance and replay-ability. SWTOR is running out of interesting, replay-able content quickly.

[LosevV]

Call me a fan boy if you will, at this point I care less.

 

Ok, fan boy. You is fanboy. And guess fact that I still playing in that makes my fan boy too.

[Aries_cz]

Honestly, this just shows me some of your people are incompetent. You still can't fix one boss over 2 months later, but you could "fix" the slot machine in a matter of days. I guess since it doesn't involve "in game economy" or cartel coins it doesn't matter? Ya, a boss fight being bugged for over two months now, no, that doesn't matter.

Because not all bugs are equal (and frankly, if you believe that,

)

• Editing database that controls drops is something that a relatively unskilled intern can do in matter of minutes.
  
• Checking why the encounter bugs out is a much more complicated matter, and presumably need much more experienced people working much longer to find the cause, and try fix it. Which they obviously did several times, but it did not work or it break something somewhere else (this happens in coding a lot, how the song goes... "99 little bugs in a code, 99 little bugs in code, take one down, patch it around, 128 bugs in the code")
  

Edited March 3, 2015 by Aries_cz

[Aries_cz]

While I am sad this goes away (if only temporary), there are some things that bear giving feedback to.

 

Your own numbers show that not many people do ToS.

This is a very big problem of Story Mode being insane even for voice-coordinated progression group. Not just in mechanics, but the pure numbers that group members have to crank out, which are comparable to old hard modes. Our skill rotations did not get that much easier, nor did the numbers get that much larger by simply being at level 60 in slightly better gear.

I have no problem with content being challenging, but ToS Story Mode, something that, by your design philosophy, should be available to complete bunch of yahoos with at least the recommended gear level, is simply brutal.

 

Not being able to fix the bug

I (and I guess some others) would love to hear something from developers who tried to fix the changes. Why exactly did not not go well? What is the cause of the bug (if known)? Etc.

Also, beg the Evil EA Overlords™ for more money to get more staff. You got new Star Wars movie coming out in 9 months, which should give the franchise a much needed boost in popularity, which is bound to drive more people to this game (which means, the game should be in sparkling condition to get these people to sub and stay). So hiring programmers now seems like a right time, to get them up to speed on your codebase and how stuff works (which can take weeks or months even for a highly skilled people)

[BrintoSFJ]

Incompetence is the greatest virtue - EAWare Austin.

[Icestar]

You want feedback?

 

Let's start with what Story Mode operations used to be and compare them with what they are now.

 

It used to be that SM operations could be easily PuGed and as long as the basic fight mechanics were known voice communication wasn't really necessary. It used to be that SM operations were easier than HM operations to allow casual raiders a chance to experience the content that you made instead of limiting it to groups of "dedicated" raiders. I mean, it makes sense to ensure as many people as possible get to see the product you worked so hard on. Instead, we get SM operations that are harder than previous tiers HM operations.

 

It also used to be that you had two tiers of flash points and that those flash points were stepping stones to operations. While we still have two tiers of flash points, the tactical flash points do not in any way, shape or form prepare players for the HM versions. Nor do the HM versions gear players for operations.

 

Let's discuss gear. Current Elite comm gear, which should be being used to get players ready for HM operations, is instead so insanely out of touch with the optimum stats (typically being crit and end heavy) that it makes the operations even more difficult. Even Ultimate comm gear fails when it comes to optimizing stats, so badly that many people are buying gear for just one mod out of the piece. This means that the amount of time it takes to get decently geared is drawn out tremendously for all but the most dedicated who spend their every moment in game accruing commendations.

 

Now to the down and dirty. First, you've created operations mechanics that your systems can not handle. It is painfully obvious that your system for communicating between the client and the server is beyond bad. This was apparent for even simple mechanics like those involved in the Czerka Corporate Labs Security Chief fight where players were dying even though their client showed them many, many meters from the circle only to have themselves rubber banding back to the circle dead when the shot went off. And yet you not only continue to add these types of mechanics but you make them so essential to success that it ups the difficulty level far, far beyond what most people would consider reasonable for a SM operation.

 

Second, you flat out ignore bug reports and forum posts concerning these issues. Without some sort of confirmation that the development team is aware of these issues and working on them, the player base has no choice but to assume that you aren't aware of them and aren't doing anything about them. Same goes for balance issues such as the 16 man SM Ravagers Torque having 3.1 times the health of the 8 man SM Ravagers Torque when there is only a DPS increase of 2.5 times. Add in class balance issues where operations are concerned such as melee DPS classes being absolutely screwed in many instances because the mechanics of the fights are much more onerous for melee versus ranged DPS and you have...well, what you have is the appearance that not one person involved in the design and implementation of these sorts of things ever plays the very scenarios that they put out for the rest of the player base.

 

You've already experienced what happens when you let bugs linger. You get weeks of players exploiting a broken operation. You get months of players getting more and more frustrated. You find out that what could have been a great way to introduce others to the game can not happen because you didn't spend the time necessary to fix the bugs that have plagued your expansion since it launched and you end up with the kinds of mocking comments you see in this thread now.

 

You ask us for feedback, yet most of us have to wonder why we should even bother considering we've been giving feedback for three months on this issue and many others and all we seem to get is silence unless it's a graphical issue with a Cartel Market item.

 

Not one seasoned MMO player expects perfection in a system as complex as a MMO but what we do expect is that the imperfections be fixed instead of ignored. We don't expect personal responses to reported issues but we do expect a general acknowledgement that you are aware of the issues that we find...beyond the form letter any /bug report gets when the ticket is closed. Until the development team shows the player base that they actually care whether or not they put out a quality product, we as players can only assume that the only thing you care about is our wallet and how much money you can get out of it.

 

Well said

[Przemo_No]

You want feedback?

 

Let's start with what Story Mode operations used to be and compare them with what they are now.

 

It used to be that SM operations could be easily PuGed and as long as the basic fight mechanics were known voice communication wasn't really necessary. It used to be that SM operations were easier than HM operations to allow casual raiders a chance to experience the content that you made instead of limiting it to groups of "dedicated" raiders. I mean, it makes sense to ensure as many people as possible get to see the product you worked so hard on. Instead, we get SM operations that are harder than previous tiers HM operations.

 

It also used to be that you had two tiers of flash points and that those flash points were stepping stones to operations. While we still have two tiers of flash points, the tactical flash points do not in any way, shape or form prepare players for the HM versions. Nor do the HM versions gear players for operations.

 

Let's discuss gear. Current Elite comm gear, which should be being used to get players ready for HM operations, is instead so insanely out of touch with the optimum stats (typically being crit and end heavy) that it makes the operations even more difficult. Even Ultimate comm gear fails when it comes to optimizing stats, so badly that many people are buying gear for just one mod out of the piece. This means that the amount of time it takes to get decently geared is drawn out tremendously for all but the most dedicated who spend their every moment in game accruing commendations.

 

Now to the down and dirty. First, you've created operations mechanics that your systems can not handle. It is painfully obvious that your system for communicating between the client and the server is beyond bad. This was apparent for even simple mechanics like those involved in the Czerka Corporate Labs Security Chief fight where players were dying even though their client showed them many, many meters from the circle only to have themselves rubber banding back to the circle dead when the shot went off. And yet you not only continue to add these types of mechanics but you make them so essential to success that it ups the difficulty level far, far beyond what most people would consider reasonable for a SM operation.

 

Second, you flat out ignore bug reports and forum posts concerning these issues. Without some sort of confirmation that the development team is aware of these issues and working on them, the player base has no choice but to assume that you aren't aware of them and aren't doing anything about them. Same goes for balance issues such as the 16 man SM Ravagers Torque having 3.1 times the health of the 8 man SM Ravagers Torque when there is only a DPS increase of 2.5 times. Add in class balance issues where operations are concerned such as melee DPS classes being absolutely screwed in many instances because the mechanics of the fights are much more onerous for melee versus ranged DPS and you have...well, what you have is the appearance that not one person involved in the design and implementation of these sorts of things ever plays the very scenarios that they put out for the rest of the player base.

 

You've already experienced what happens when you let bugs linger. You get weeks of players exploiting a broken operation. You get months of players getting more and more frustrated. You find out that what could have been a great way to introduce others to the game can not happen because you didn't spend the time necessary to fix the bugs that have plagued your expansion since it launched and you end up with the kinds of mocking comments you see in this thread now.

 

You ask us for feedback, yet most of us have to wonder why we should even bother considering we've been giving feedback for three months on this issue and many others and all we seem to get is silence unless it's a graphical issue with a Cartel Market item.

 

Not one seasoned MMO player expects perfection in a system as complex as a MMO but what we do expect is that the imperfections be fixed instead of ignored. We don't expect personal responses to reported issues but we do expect a general acknowledgement that you are aware of the issues that we find...beyond the form letter any /bug report gets when the ticket is closed. Until the development team shows the player base that they actually care whether or not they put out a quality product, we as players can only assume that the only thing you care about is our wallet and how much money you can get out of it.

 

Couldn't say it better myself.

Bravo, sir!

[darkdestroya]

Fellow force users, bounty hunters and agents,

 

We plan to run our own timed run competition on The Bastion (US) and welcome anyone with an interest in joining.

If you'd like to get your guild involved but aren't on our server, we are happy to facilitate this.

 

More information to come, along with rules and regulations, and prizes, in the next week or so.

 

Keep an eye on http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/ and the forums for more information.

 

Feel free to contact Senathad in-game @ The Bastion, or send me a mail. Alternatively leave a message on our web page @ paradigm-bastion.enjin.com, or reply to this post.

 

May the force be with you,

Edited March 3, 2015 by darkdestroya

[Jabakla]

Maybe I should do a sequel to my

video. Hitler rerolled sorc and finds out Operation Victory has been cancelled.

 

I saw this a few days ago when a fellow raider marauder posted on his personal wall. I have to congratulate u for it, it is very well done, very funny. I have to encourage u to do more if u can

[Ruskaeth]

I am not sure if I've seen BW #rekt this way with SWTOR before. It's almost amazing how they have chained #fail o.0 together with 3.0. There was so much promise with the new HM operations but that is not going to make it or break it financially. Then the inability to fix things and tune the story modes for casuals kicked in with other sad events.

 

Broken set bonuses, horrible tunes with specs, bad calls on story mode requirements, bugged operation encounters months on end, PvP class balance directly from the 7th level of Dante's Inferno, Slot machine miscalculation to just say couple of things. But hey, I had fun raiding last night and that weights a lot for me. All these failures initially made me feel annoyed but no more. Now it's just "heh". Going to sub as long as I have fun raiding. I also like to buy cartel packs for shinies with credits. So keep working with the CM stuff too!

 

There is very little BW can say in their defense to paying customers regarding the rampart bugs and mistakes they have done. So they have pretty much opted to not say much at all. That is a sound PR strategy. As a result I just feel sorry for BW. I honestly did not see that coming. I also feel sorry for more casual players unable to see the story with story mode difficulty. I wish I could just look the people responsible for this game in the eyes and say "there there" and pat them on their backs.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[SnipeAlott]

It's only a good thing this got cancelled, I was actually hoping it would be. The instances aren't ready. Bioware isn't ready and neither are we. I'd like Bioware to fix stuff and then do a proper tournament.

 

Most important is announcing the rules in advance, preferably a week or two if not more considering lockouts. Tell us what you expect, is trash skipping allowed, is a full stealth team allowed, do we need to adhere to two tanks two healers? This is all stuff you should tell us in advance. And then when all of the above is taken care of, we can actually have a fun and fair tournament.

 

-Snipe

[omeru]

So you are saying there was not enough time you had 3 ******months to fix everything but you did what NOTHING. Players are filling bug reports you did what? ignored all and released more wothless cartel market crap. Game still has lots of bugs and problems are you gonna fix them now? Probably not since you are a bunch of incompetent, ignorant arrogant bunch of people who ignores players request and focus "how can we get more money from players?"

Most of this people are playing this game since they love star wars not your game, such a great content is ruined with your hands. Are you ashamed now? No you didnt since your group has no brain to understand what is wrong even here.

You started this event thinking game is perfect, there is no bugs since you ignored all bug reports. Aga,n you have 3 *********** months to fix bugs and there are bugs every where in game.

You started pvp season without making class balance or fixing PT-VG shoulder cannon IGC, or merc-mando healer set bonus items and many more. I hope after this shameful sitiuation some incompetent people will be sacked but no since your managers are also incompetent so nothing will change there wont be any changes.

I wrote a lot of things here and none biofail personel will read this since you ***** are ignoring everything.

So **** you Bioware

[Gun-Gun]

My tolerance for screw ups is usually quite high but this is unprofessional as hell. Expansion is out for 3 months now and forums are filled with bug reports, fps issues, lag issues etc. Then you guys try to organise a tournament on a buggy content without published rules of the tournament?

And after that you cancel the tournament because you realise that boss fight is bugged and that could influence the outcome of the tournament and you DIDN'T have time to fix it! Really, no time? YOU HAD 3 MONTHS! Players are screaming for 3 months that new content is bugged! I don't understand the way games are made but I'm sceptical that 3 months isn't enough time to fix a bug.

With this behaviour you are leaving the impression that you are not familiar with your own product and that you are not putting a lot of effort in it.

[Toweleeeie]

We all know it was cancelled bc there are too many bugs in ToS and Rav for a fair and competitive environment.

 

All we have to do is down Cort in under 20 min to win!

 

She then bugs 4 times in a row, derp.

[FrozenGoalie]

Hey folks,

 

I will cut right to the chase, we are cancelling our ESL Operation Victory competition. Our reason revolves around the Coratanni encounter. I know many of you raised concerns about the issues related to the encounter, and we agree.

 

We spent a lot of time this week testing bug fixes to see how viable the fixed version would be in a speed running environment. We have applied improvements to the Coratanni encounter as of tomorrow’s patch but there are still situations that could impact players focused on a timed run.

 

We thank you for your feedback around the contest and should we decide to do something like this in the future, we will let you know. Also, let us know your feedback on the concept of doing a speedrun contest. As we explore options like this in the future it would be great to know your thoughts.

 

-eric

 

So you outright cancelled instead of postponing?

 

Also, I don't know about others, but I've only ever seen Coratanni bug a) with pets out and b) when the group wipes at the right time. And honestly if you're wiping you're not going to have a chance for a speedrun victory anyway...