For those who criticize Bioware for focusing on story/solo play......

[miburec]

To make it clear: This is my PERSONAL point of view. My PERSONAL oppinion. Everyone may play the game the way he likes and of course the devs are more or less forced to satisfy the majority of players. It's a buisines decision after all.

I only started the Kotfe expansion and almost immediately stopped playing while still on Marrs ship. And to be honest: At the moment I don't have _any_ intention of playing it any further. Not because it is bad, but because I preffer to play an MMO with other people. I even played the class stories together with others. And let me tell you: My verry first character - a smuggler - is still my favorite just because of that simple fact that playing together with a trooper and a jedi knight gave me the best gaming experience ever and hence the memory of an absolutely great story experience. Climaxing in taking down the ground forces on Corellia and cutting down the air/space support by turning their own "irregular troops" against them, before taking off to fight the emperor himself was the literal definition of "epic" - even the mere 20 seconds it took us to kill him didn't matter, because the buildup was so spinetingling.

 

There is one thing I don't understand, no matter how hard I try. Let's say it is a _fact_ that most SWTOR players prefer to play solo... Why do those few who think otherwise get locked out _completely_? I mean c'mon... RotHC had a single story for all four classes of a faction, but you were still able to group up and do it together. Heck it even had conversation rolls in main plot dialogues, even when it came to "hard decisions" (for example sacrificing the Mayor or saving her, for the republican side). The one player winning the roll decided the answer. In SoR I was utterly dissapointed that every single dialogue, every cutscene was a personal instance. Yes, you could join others by enabling the option to enter personal instances and be a quiet bystander, watching their conversation an decisions. But it was exactly that: You watched someone elses playthrough but you weren't able to make a group playthrough.

 

There is one exception in SoR though: The Dephts of Manaan flashpoint. I love being the only one in a group choosing the dark side option and let Jakarro kill this one selkath doctor - and needless to say I really enjoy every single time I win the conversation roll. But this is a flashpoint after all and there is (as far as I know) not a single flashpoint in the whole game without atleast one decision of the let-live-or-let-die kind and the outcome of _one_ players luck applies to the whole group (not counting in the light side / dark side points).

 

And this is the point, where I can't comprehend the decision in how Kotfe was made. Enabling players to solo the whole addon is good. Really, I like the idea. But why restricting the whole thing to it? What is the problem in enabling group phases with conversation rolls? What is so difficult in letting decide the story for the whole group by "random Speakers"? In every single flashpoint there are dialogue roll based decisions with definite and irreversible outcome (given it is a minor decision and it lats only for that run of the FP). But on Makeb, a main plot playable by a group allready exists, even with consequences of decisions which apply to the whole group.

Those are the question I can't answer to myself, no matter how hard I think of any reason. I simply don't understand it (and to be honest, I'd love to hear a statement from the devs about this, even it is rather unlikely to happen).

I know that this would include a bit more work to implement. But I simply don't believe that it would be too time consuming to make kotfe still cost-effective; it allready exists in the game and just needs to be "copied an pasted" (not literally, I know, but I think you get the idea).

 

 

 

TL; DR

Bioware allready made an Addon (RotHC) which includes a main pot playable by a whole group and with decisions affecting all of them, and I don't get it why they didn't include that option to satisfy the ones who want to play solo, aswell as the ones who preffer to experience the story in groups.

 

So please, Bioware, remember for future addons, that you allready _do_ have the tools at hand to satisfy both groups - the "soloplayers" and the "multiplayers" - with only minor effort, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to re-use what you've allready made and what _did_ allready proofed to work.

Edited October 23, 2015 by miburec

[Draqsko]

TL; DR

Bioware allready made an Addon (RotHC) which includes a main pot playable by a whole group and with decisions affecting all of them, and I don't get it why they didn't include that option to satisfy the ones who want to play solo, aswell as the ones who preffer to experience the story in groups.

 

So please, Bioware, remember for future addons, that you allready _do_ have the tools at hand to satisfy both groups - the "soloplayers" and the "multiplayers" - with only minor effort, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to re-use what you've allready made and what _did_ allready proofed to work.

 

You, me, my girlfriend and 2 other people like Makeb, everyone else wants to burn it into the ground. Not sure you'll get a lot of support.

[MandFlurry]

This is what James Ohlen, the Game Director for SWTOR had to say in regards to why Bioware has begun to really key in on solo play story with KotFE, Shadow of Revan, and even the new solo-mode ops coming with 4.0

 

 

 

For many who are sour that Bioware is focusing too much on story and making this mostly a solo-player experience at the cost to the fans, well, that simply isn't true because Mr. Ohlen just said that not only have players within the community been asking for more story but based off of how a majority of the players play SWTOR, it isn't the OPS, Flashpoints, GSF, or Warzones that people play the most, it is the level 1-50 class stories!

 

So for those who think that this is another mistake that Bioware is taking with SWTOR and that people will leave this game in droves because of the focus on solo play, then you are wrong. In fact, this expansion will satisfy a majority of their player base! In fact, the only reason why I am here and back as a subscriber is because I am excited for this new solo-friendly approach to SWTOR and while waiting for KotFE, I am leveling up a few characters that I will import into KotFE later this year.

 

I thought that I just point that out.

 

 

I'll point out that all of ur so-called facts are nothing but ur opinion at best, Nothing else. This also isn't what a majority wanted, so ppl like you need to stop lying about that.

 

Fact is droves of ppl have left because Bioware doesn't listen as well to the player base as they say. Fact is also that James Ohlen is not more than just a puppet for EAWare to tell ppl for what he gets paid to do Period.

 

 

As for me, i'm on the fence on what has happened. A lot of Good stuff has been implemented, along with a good amount of Bad stuff to.

 

I will very much miss the ppl that left, as 1 thing is foresure. Now 1 segment of the Community has a bigger voice that shouldn't. Then they lie and say the majority wanted all this stuff, which is Not true.

 

 

Good and Bad in this...........

Edited October 23, 2015 by MandFlurry

[Icykill_]

This is what James Ohlen, the Game Director for SWTOR had to say in regards to why Bioware has begun to really key in on solo play story with KotFE, Shadow of Revan, and even the new solo-mode ops coming with 4.0

 

 

 

For many who are sour that Bioware is focusing too much on story and making this mostly a solo-player experience at the cost to the fans, well, that simply isn't true because Mr. Ohlen just said that not only have players within the community been asking for more story but based off of how a majority of the players play SWTOR, it isn't the OPS, Flashpoints, GSF, or Warzones that people play the most, it is the level 1-50 class stories!

 

So for those who think that this is another mistake that Bioware is taking with SWTOR and that people will leave this game in droves because of the focus on solo play, then you are wrong. In fact, this expansion will satisfy a majority of their player base! In fact, the only reason why I am here and back as a subscriber is because I am excited for this new solo-friendly approach to SWTOR and while waiting for KotFE, I am leveling up a few characters that I will import into KotFE later this year.

 

I thought that I just point that out.

 

LoL... So now it's released and I've done the complete story on four different classes and half the new heroics 2+... What am I supposed to do??

Don't get me wrong the story was great and the quality was the best I've seen in this game... except the interactions with the base NPCs at the end of completing the chapters... They completely changed the GUI interaction selection screen to look like an old school txt game... This is lame and reeks of them running out of time, money or plain laziness... Devs you need to fix that so it looks like the rest of the game

But back to my point... I did the first 9 chapters in 7 hours, while taking my time to watch every cut scene... One chapter every 4-5 weeks isn't going to cut it if they are only going to focus on story... They've put all their eggs in the one basket to feed people, but we all go hungry for a month after our first meal and then get a mouthful for an hour 1 month later and so on... Wouldn't it have been better to save some eggs to hatch some more pvp and pve (ops) chickens so they could produce some more content to keep people playing inbetween these story meals-mouthfuls once a month...

People are going to leave the game once they realise they will never get any love for those major parts of the end game again...

Please Bio, realise this... Add a new WZ map once a month too... How hard is that??... You could use any current game areas to make maps out of... What about making outlaws an instance and limited to 15 perside or making the Yavin SH a WZ... Or add new quests for pvp once a month... Or have rewards for doing or winning X amount of maps per week on a WZ of the week/month... Some pvp love is by far the easiest to give, out of OPs vs pvp content because you need to program NPCs etc in OPs, pvp is just playing other people... So no programming NPCs or Bosses...

I know that doesn't address the pve problems... But pve people have receieved all the love for the last 2 years and pvp has received the back hand of the Devs.... Of course they should also look at adding some pve stuff too... But maybe not every month...

Story only will ultimately fail if there isn't enough content to keep people in the game and we all know it costs way more money and time to make that content, hence why it takes a month to get one chapter out, with probably only 1-2 hours game play if we are lucky...

So Devs, don't put all your eggs in a basket with a hole... Save some eggs and hatch some pvp and pve chickens for us to play with inbetween the awesome story you've created or we'll all starve and end up going else where for a feed

[miburec]

You, me, my girlfriend and 2 other people like Makeb, everyone else wants to burn it into the ground. Not sure you'll get a lot of support.

To be honest, I didn't like Makeb at all. IMHO the story was rather shallow and the planet is a chaotic mess (fitting for the scenario considering the topography and the quakes, but rather annoying to play on). But i DID like that we were able to go through the story as a team, making it easier to endure and enjoyable at last. I once went through Makeb with an alt character and just won't do it again, that's for sure.

 

But now that you point it out, could it be possible that BW just confused the general lack of interest in Makeb with the general disapproval of group stories?

[Quraswren]

This is what James Ohlen, the Game Director for SWTOR SNIP....

 

I thought that I just point that out.

 

Here is osmething else he said:

There was a tone of regret in his voice as Ohlen continued his recounting of the month after launch: "We had people going through the game so fast that within one month, four to five weeks, we suddenly had close to half a million people at the endgame. It was something we didn't expect at all. We had all those people at the endgame and suddenly certain things like having only one Operation, and having no group finder [tool] become much bigger challenges than what we thought they were going to be."

 

The rest of Ohlen's presentation documented the entire year following SWTOR's launch, with blunt appraisals of the studio's falling morale during the problems of 2012.

 

There reliance on story at the time of launch and just how lacking content at end game was. What they are doing now has a very similar taste and we had a whole lot more story at launch than we just got.

 

So we got this expansion that has a good but really short story. Completed in 6-7 hours. Then you have nothing but a rehash of content from 1-4 year old. There isn't a game or MMO I can think of that ever had gamers wanting rehashed old content in a new expansion. BW can hope and wish and dream just like the did hoping story was enough but this time, they think rehashed old content is enough for player retention because the story.

 

The story alone isn't some great gamer retention mechanic. Rehashed 4 year old heroics isn't some massive want of players. No new OPs and replaying 1 to 4 year old OPS isn't some great retention of gamers and the affection grind so you can get more companion and open up an even worse affection grind is just terrible as a retention system knwoing players had already maxed companion but apparently that first grind wasn't grindy enough. REDO IT! ugh.....

 

I thought I'd just point that out. BW's mistake this time around is so similar to their mistakes at launch its almost scary.

[Draqsko]

To be honest, I didn't like Makeb at all. IMHO the story was rather shallow and the planet is a chaotic mess (fitting for the scenario considering the topography and the quakes, but rather annoying to play on). But i DID like that we were able to go through the story as a team, making it easier to endure and enjoyable at last. I once went through Makeb with an alt character and just won't do it again, that's for sure.

 

But now that you point it out, could it be possible that BW just confused the general lack of interest in Makeb with the general disapproval of group stories?

 

Personally I like the story of Makeb, it certainly fit with the Republic storylines from 1-50, and had a blast with the group conversation mechanics. The mob density was overboard though and that probably ruined it for you and a lot of people. We're kinda used to dealing with large densities of mobs like that from other games we played together, since we often did group content for 5 or 6 people by ourselves in those games. But it would have been a shocking change if you never did stuff like that before.

 

I don't think Bioware really can be blamed there though, because most players are just simply I hate Makeb without too much elaboration. If you try and ask why, they just say something like I just do. I've tried that in my guild before, and it's frustrating to try to get some solid answers from people at times.

[Pagy]

where are all of the bioware white knights that attacked me for weeks for suggesting that this new quest patch would be short and choices wouldn't matter?

[Draqsko]

where are all of the bioware white knights that attacked me for weeks for suggesting that this new quest patch would be short and choices wouldn't matter?

 

They got that round table meeting thing going on I think, wait til the weekend.

[zhandao]

1. Players are incentivized to level up multiple characters whether they want to or not via game mechanics and rewards.

 

2. Lack of timely elder game content creation drives players to spend more time leveling characters.

 

3. Six months of 12x XP leads to a critical mass of character leveling.

 

4. BioWare then points to metrics which show "people mostly playing the story" as justification to continue prioritizing story over content.

 

Really BioWare?

I played pre-launch and I played for the story. Went through again with a different class.

Never did any end game content.

[Djiini]

What??? You mean that the majority of players play this game for its one strong point instead of its weak points???

[Pietrastor]

So we got this expansion that has a good but really short story. Completed in 6-7 hours. Then you have nothing but a rehash of content from 1-4 year old. There isn't a game or MMO I can think of that ever had gamers wanting rehashed old content in a new expansion. BW can hope and wish and dream just like the did hoping story was enough but this time, they think rehashed old content is enough for player retention because the story.

 

The story alone isn't some great gamer retention mechanic. Rehashed 4 year old heroics isn't some massive want of players. No new OPs and replaying 1 to 4 year old OPS isn't some great retention of gamers and the affection grind so you can get more companion and open up an even worse affection grind is just terrible as a retention system knwoing players had already maxed companion but apparently that first grind wasn't grindy enough. REDO IT! ugh.....

 

I thought I'd just point that out. BW's mistake this time around is so similar to their mistakes at launch its almost scary.

This isn't comparable at all. Even if there's no brand new end-game group content, there is a lot of end-game content after KOTFE is done. Dozens of Flashpoints in various modes, ten Operations dropping relevant gear, etc. Not even discussing things like Alliance, Strongholds, GSF, PVP, Achievements, Reputations, shinies on GTN and CM and all the stuff that keeps people busy that was either completly absent at 1.0 or barely there.

 

They ALL add up to retaining players, especially in themepark MMO. Yes, new Operations are needed soon (as are new strongholds, PVP maps, Cartel shinies etc) but in 2015 everyone knows Raiding is not #1 most important thing ever and the only one that maters and keep players in.

[Drudenfusz]

Bioware's ability to correctly interpret the metrics they have, is seriously suspect in my mind.

I completely agree. People often make the mistake to think the data in itself would say something, but it is always the interpretation of said data that is the crucial part. If nobody is doing X or Y, than this doesn't necessarily mean that nobody would like to do it, but maybe they designed it in a way that just makes it not as much fun or the cost-effort ratio is off and thus players go and do other things. So, part of the problem is that it has vicious cycles, a lack of suficient work can lead to the players not taking it and thus even less time is spend on it which will not help to get the players to do it.

 

I for example would love to do more GSF, but on my server it almost never opens, and because it opens so rarely most people don't bother to queue for it which then leads to even less games open. The solution could be cross-server tech, but when BioWare looks at their metrics and see not that much people queuing they might decide it is not worth the effort and thus draw the false conclusion out of the data at hand.

[Pietrastor]

I for example would love to do more GSF, but on my server it almost never opens, and because it opens so rarely most people don't bother to queue for it which then leads to even less games open. The solution could be cross-server tech, but when BioWare looks at their metrics and see not that much people queuing they might decide it is not worth the effort and thus draw the false conclusion out of the data at hand.

Cross-server tech is needed for all group content. No it's not the holy grail that will drop a million new tanks/healers for all the dps waiting but at least it will be possible to get in content on smaller servers or at non-prime hours (thx to players from multiple time zones). And of course the PVPers (ground or space) would probably like to compete with all players in the world. Plus, more people available would perhaps finally allow better matchmaking. Too many times groups get assigned simply because they're the only groups that can be created with so few people queueing, which is how we end up in 3 healers versus 4 dps Arenas or a group of 1/2-shippers in GSF versus 5-ship premade.

 

There are only positives to such investement IMO, even if they don't fix trinity issues (overrepresenation of dps)

Edited November 5, 2015 by Pietrastor

[zhandao]

What??? You mean that the majority of players play this game for its one strong point instead of its weak points???

Hahaha nice way to put it.

 

I never seriously enjoyed the combat.

 

Guess what my two first classes were: Assassin. Operative.

 

I don't think it's quite hard to see what they have in common. Note again my Assassin was created pre-release of SWTOR vanilla, and my Op was something like late 2011.

 

And honestly, I would not have come back to the game if it were not for the 12x boost. I will agree on one hand that killing storyline 'bosses' in 10 seconds is ridiculous. However, drastically cutting the time needed to fight trash mob groups after trash mob groups after trash mob groups after trash mob groups after trash mob groups after trash mob groups after trash mob groups...

 

12x and now KotFE basically eliminated the one dealbreaker about the game.

 

(Though currently I realized putting my companion on passive makes it bit more satisfying dealing with story mode 'bosses')

 

*I suppose I could have played a Scoundrel and a Shadow back in the day. Oops.

[Ghisallo]

Here is osmething else he said:

 

 

There reliance on story at the time of launch and just how lacking content at end game was. What they are doing now has a very similar taste and we had a whole lot more story at launch than we just got.

 

So we got this expansion that has a good but really short story. Completed in 6-7 hours. Then you have nothing but a rehash of content from 1-4 year old. There isn't a game or MMO I can think of that ever had gamers wanting rehashed old content in a new expansion. BW can hope and wish and dream just like the did hoping story was enough but this time, they think rehashed old content is enough for player retention because the story.

 

The story alone isn't some great gamer retention mechanic. Rehashed 4 year old heroics isn't some massive want of players. No new OPs and replaying 1 to 4 year old OPS isn't some great retention of gamers and the affection grind so you can get more companion and open up an even worse affection grind is just terrible as a retention system knwoing players had already maxed companion but apparently that first grind wasn't grindy enough. REDO IT! ugh.....

 

I thought I'd just point that out. BW's mistake this time around is so similar to their mistakes at launch its almost scary.

 

I posted that quote regarding launch failure I don't how many times and it was ignored. I also pointed out that metrics are only good if used in the right context. Example... just raw numbers, if 85% of your content is solo grind story related content and the instanced stuff is on lock out timers, like it is here... then DUH you can say what he said with a straight face.... yet know that really that only happened as people tried to fill the boredom until their lock out timers expired.

 

quick reality/logic check. If the vast majority of players only care about solo story do you go to the head ache of redesigning all your instanced content to the current tier AND promise new elder game in the future? No you do not as it make no economic sense whatsoever. If you have a clear majority preferring something you husband that.

 

The quote that the OP here used was 100% pure marketing spin to justify the fact that with the goals of attracting new players AND the limited resources they had, they could not serve everyone. When was the last time you heard a dev anywhere say "sorry we really wanted to do A and B BUT the bosses would only give us enough money for A. B is coming later." Answer... NEVER.

 

But when marketing spin makes people feel like a special little snow flake they hold onto it like a piece of drift wood off the Titanic.

[Obliterath]

I say THANKS! I love the new story and game play. I also like the fact that I get to pick up the companions of the other classes. I only hope that you'll make some of the retired gears sets available because I have a few pieces missing before you upgraded the game.

[Ewacked]

Well... doesn't take rocket scientist to discern that if they spent a little more time on delivering a better PvP offering more people might actually PvP.

 

A healthy PvP community can ONLY help retain a high playerbase and add longevity to the game. One day some of you anti-pvp players might realise this as you watch the tumbleweeds roll through fleet HQ and wonder where everyone went.

[Heavensrun]

Bioware's ability to correctly interpret the metrics they have, is seriously suspect in my mind. Just because they have data showing XX number of people do YY, doesn't mean what they always seem to assume it means. Any new content introduced to an MMO skews metrics, and I believe Bioware is particularly susceptible to misreading it because of past comments they've made regarding metrics.

 

For example...If their story was so good, why was the preorder for 3.0 bonus of 12xXP so successful (they stated it was an amazing success)? Wouldn't that imply that the majority of players are skipping the bulk of the stories already in game? How much less static will FE be versus the traditional side quests that people are completely skipping these days?

 

I -replayed- several class stories during 12XP because it enabled me to do so in a fast paced way with minimal grinding and sidequesting. Just sayin'.

[MWidowmaker]

Well... doesn't take rocket scientist to discern that if they spent a little more time on delivering a better PvP offering more people might actually PvP.

 

A healthy PvP community can ONLY help retain a high playerbase and add longevity to the game. One day some of you anti-pvp players might realise this as you watch the tumbleweeds roll through fleet HQ and wonder where everyone went.

 

nah, pvpers are drooling tardsfor the most part with horrible social skills and a fondness for being know it all aholes

Edited November 9, 2015 by MWidowmaker

[ZanyaCross]

Wow, no surprise so many people here are trash talking any point that contradicts their preconceived notions.

 

News flash, the people on these forums represent less than 1% of the total player base, if even that. Even if everyone here was vocal about how much they hated the focus on story (and they're not), it wouldn't mean jack squat because the loudmouths who post here (myself included) aren't a representative sample of the player base at large.

[papragu]

just lol "metrics show most people play story" well what else is there to do in the game, what other ways are there to level a character? I bet 20 spacebucks, that if there would be a way to level characters outside the story, then metrics would show that most people wouldn't even poke storymode with a stick. Edited November 9, 2015 by papragu

[zalanii]

I'm just crazy for thinking that Bioware is capable of making an MMO with story, endgame PVE and PVP.

 

Like every other big studio.

[DataBeaver]

just lol "metrics show most people play story" well what else is there to do in the game, what other ways are there to level a character? I bet 20 spacebucks, that if there would be a way to level characters outside the story, then metrics would show that most people wouldn't even poke storymode with a stick.

Flashpoints and PvP are the other two main possibilities. They used to be fairly popular among their respective crowds in the past; I don't know how efficient they are now after the recent story XP boosts.

 

In theory you could level with space missions too, but I don't think anyone's willing to endure that.

Edited November 9, 2015 by DataBeaver

[zhandao]

Well... doesn't take rocket scientist to discern that if they spent a little more time on delivering a better PvP offering more people might actually PvP.

 

A healthy PvP community can ONLY help retain a high playerbase and add longevity to the game. One day some of you anti-pvp players might realise this as you watch the tumbleweeds roll through fleet HQ and wonder where everyone went.

This is true.

 

On the other hand, since so many people like different aspects, you can easily spread yourself thin.

 

And I definitely think Bioware spread itself thin.

 

Another example is GW2. GW2 completely emphasized Dynamic Events and RVR. But what actually happened is that they added a Personal Story and spent so much time on it, that it hugely made Dynamic Events and RvR not as good as they could have been.

 

I'm not saying PVP, endgame, storyline are bad aspects at all. But at some point, there has to be a sacrifice (which understandably will drive away a certain group of players) in order to have better quality in other aspects. I think KotFE was a huge example of how resources were just not enough for the KotFE campaign.

 

It's definitely not a good thing for, say, you and others who like PVP.

 

But on the other hand, it's also not a good thing to have subpar everything because you don't have the resources to have at least one higher quality aspect.

 

It's a hurtful sacrifice, and it's a choice with consequences (lol). Perhaps it may be the best way, but at the same time it may not.