Anyone know *why* they thought some of the 4.0 changes were going to be a good idea?

[ThorgrimLutgen]

In answer to the thread title.

 

They have never had a clue how to make a MMO, nothing has changed.

 

Yet, they persist with the concept they have always used; that they know better than us, what we find fun.

[Aries_cz]

• Mastery - Eh, probably a thing to make it simpler on people such as this guy. Doesn't really matter, IMO
  
• Making FPs tactical - good thing, make more people engaged in group content.
  
• Giving some FPs solo mode - eh, not really sure if it is needed with the tactical changes, but it does serve some purpose (Revan's story)
  
• Making OPS/FPs scale - very good thing IMO, make it so that content does remain always viable, instead of being left in the dust never to be touched again except when few people are bored. Also, older OPS had much better mechanics designs than the newer ones, IMO.
  
• Mobility changes - we will see how it plays out. I think some are good, while others are utterly dumb (like moving gap closer for vanguard tanks to 61)
  
• Companions being role and stat free - IMO good, allows to play with whatever companion we feel like it at any time, no need to play with one that fills that particular role while being absolutely annoying, or the one that has gear.
  

 

More stuff we do not officially know, but I personally like what we even do not officially know

[psandak]

There is also the philosophy of Steve Jobs: (paraphrasing) - a company cannot build around customer requests because by the time the company gets the request and manages implement that request their customers want something new.

 

For the last four years, BW has tried to fulfill customer requests:

 

- hate for space combat on rails lead to the SSSC, which turned out to be GSF

- players clamored for character housing, we got strongholds

- players wanted open world PvP, we got the Gree event

- players wanted more Rakghouls, we got them

- players wanted more balance in PvP, they took a step toward that by instituting disciplines thereby eliminating hybrid builds

- players wanted more class story, they sacrificed extended faction story and gave us a small dose of class story

- players wanted upleveled Operations, we are getting them

- players screamed that crafting to win conquest is broken, they are changing that

 

...the list goes on...

 

And yet, it seems as if we as a forums populous are still not satisfied.

[branmakmuffin]

As someone who wants to continue to find a place in this product, I would prefer to have justified changes rather than "here you go, take it or leave it."

If you want to "find a place in this product," then you will. That's entirely your choice. If you don't "find a place," then you clearly don't want to.

[DreadtechSavant]

Actually, it was - someone else earlier in the thread remarked on it as well - the disciplines are easier to manage and they tend to penalize "hybrid" builds (such as someone in the Shii-Cho sentinel/marauder tree working up the Ataru tree to gain dual saber mastery). At least the first part of that explanation was definitely given by the developers at some point close to the release of 3.0.

 

Is also not true, this was written by other players who have no real knowledge of the development thought process than any other player. Just because a player says something does not make it true. So if as you say it was "definitely given by developers" prove it?

[Juromaro]

I like the Conquest changes personally. I hate seeing a small active guild barely make it on the board while the large guilds just spam war supplies until they have millions of points, it makes competing virtually impossible.

 

 

And to curtail the usual responses: No I am not in a small active guild nor any guild for that matter, I eek out my measly 35k for conquest and call it a day. but on ebon hawk and it's linked realms conquest always looks like this.

 

1: So and So Guild@ So and So Realm - 4,876,999

2: So and SO Guild2@ So and So Realm - 3,987,944

3: So and So Guild3@ So and So Realm - 356,667

4: So and So Guild4@ So and So Realm - 144,444

 

and so on.

 

Smaller guilds can't compete with larger guilds unless they blow all their mats on war supplies. And half the guilds that make millions of points I rarely ever see online.

[Transcendent]

"Metrics."

 

This.

 

I would imagine they're trying to make the game more appealing to the more casual players, ahead of the hype train from the films. It's a business decision and nothing else, it's certainly not all based on player feedback (I'd be surprised if it was).

 

Is also not true, this was written by other players who have no real knowledge of the development thought process than any other player. Just because a player says something does not make it true. So if as you say it was "definitely given by developers" prove it?

 

Go watch the twitch videos from the build up to SoR, the earlier ones about class changes etc - it's in one of those.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Transcendent

[DreadtechSavant]

There is also the philosophy of Steve Jobs: (paraphrasing) - a company cannot build around customer requests because by the time the company gets the request and manages implement that request their customers want something new.

 

For the last four years, BW has tried to fulfill customer requests:

 

- hate for space combat on rails lead to the SSSC, which turned out to be GSF

- players clamored for character housing, we got strongholds

- players wanted open world PvP, we got the Gree event

- players wanted more Rakghouls, we got them

- players wanted more balance in PvP, they took a step toward that by instituting disciplines thereby eliminating hybrid builds

- players wanted more class story, they sacrificed extended faction story and gave us a small dose of class story

- players wanted upleveled Operations, we are getting them

- players screamed that crafting to win conquest is broken, they are changing that

 

...the list goes on...

 

And yet, it seems as if we as a forums populous are still not satisfied.

 

All these were indeed requested as you say, prob is just as many have posted against a lot of the items in your list as asked for. BW as a company will never please everyone no matter what they do. Take the Rakghoul event which is but one mentioned on you list. How many complain threads are there every time it comes round. I know I stop playing during the week its on or just start new characters as it does not happen on starter worlds. On the other hand I am much in favor of more class story which is another mentioned on your list. So in the end BW has to do what they thing is best for the future of the game because some players will complain whatever they do.

 

As for your last part "And yet, it seems as if we as a forums populous are still not satisfied" Very true and unfortunately this will always be the case. Not unique to this site either, I think same go's for every forum I ever been on.

[Eldarion_Velator]

Is also not true, this was written by other players who have no real knowledge of the development thought process than any other player. Just because a player says something does not make it true. So if as you say it was "definitely given by developers" prove it?

 

Ever hear of doing your own research? If someone makes a claim based on what they have witnessed/read/seen, the onus (in terms of logic) is on the one who makes the counter-claim to demonstrate that the original claim is false/erroneous/etc. Therefore, I made the claim; it's on you to prove me otherwise (what you're doing is similar to putting your fingers in your ears and yelling "I didn't hear it myself; it's not true"). It's how logical inquiry and debate are conducted. That said, I know this is the Internet and therefore the terms "logical inquiry" and "debate" apparently have no meaning for the vast majority of people online, here you go (skip to the section near the bottom called "Why the Change"; I cite it at length below): http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20141006 - not particularly hard to find.

 

Verbatim from the section entitled "Why the Change":

 

"With Disciplines, we can focus on creating strong and fun play styles from level 10 on, without having to worry about how people are spending 50 skill points and whether some people are making bad decisions or if others are finding crazy untested combinations that vastly exceed what we want to happen. Attach to that the idea of expanding the amount of and type of utility each player has access to and you get a system that creates better and more balanced characters with a stronger identity while allowing players actual choice. We also continued to run into a significant problem expanding the Skill Trees for level cap increases: development time. Each of the Skill Trees were balanced based on an assumption of points and how players must spend their points to get what they need to perform in combat. When we add more points (as well as more skills themselves) to the trees during a level cap increase, all of that balance is thrown off kilter and must be reset for every Advanced Class. This results in a massive amount of time spent every level cap increase simply redoing and rebalancing the Skill Trees over and over, preventing us from spending time actually doing cool new things."

 

It's fair to say that's pretty definitive. In case I have to break it down for everyone Barney-style, the green-bolded text is another way of saying "we are penalizing players who found skill tree combinations we did not intend and find to be OP" and the yellow-bolded text says "we had to spend too much time balancing skills for every expansion."

 

If one were to infer anything from this, it would be that the developers want to spend less time having to balance skills (for instance since there are other balance-related things, such as Force Lightning damage initiation v. Forcequake damage initiation, that still need to be addressed) and more time on improving their product and playing with other things in the game. Perhaps they plan to put out more expansions at a more rapid rate, or they feel that rather than taking time to have to balance stuff they feel that their time is better spent working out bugs that seem to pop up almost every other patch. The developers are probably not at liberty to say, but what it sums up to is that player choices were initially found to be too broad and infringing upon development time and so the most economical (not saying it's the most reasonable) choice was to somewhat limit player choices. With disciplines they were able to implement something that players quickly got used to, yet saved them time and effort to focus on other things.

Edited September 22, 2015 by Eldarion_Velator
added highlights

[Bluejayoo]

4.0 is SWTOR's attempt to meld itself to this new model of MMO. It seems that developers have given up on the idea of cultivating long term subscribers and instead hope to attract masses of content locusts who will spend a month on the current batch of simple content and then return later for another month.

 

I find it hard to fault them for that. It seems to be the only thing players respond to. You only have to look at the patterns in subscription numbers for this and other games to see that this what MMO players have been asking for rather they realize or not.

[branmakmuffin]

Ever hear of doing your own research? If someone makes a claim, the onus (in terms of logic) is on the one who makes the counter-claim to demonstrate that the original claim is false/erroneous/etc. Therefore, I made the claim; it's on you to prove me otherwise

No, the burden of proof falls on the original proponent. If you say "Pee Wee Herman is really Duane Johnson," the burden is on you to provide evidence to back up that claim." To suggest otherwise is ludicrous. Now, if you make the claim and also provide evidence, then sure, it's up to someone who refutes the claim to provide either positive evidence of their own or evidence that refutes yours.

 

Just an off-topic note.

Edited September 22, 2015 by branmakmuffin

[Eldarion_Velator]

No, the burden of proof falls on the original proponent. If you say "Pee Wee Herman is really Duane Johnson," the burden is on you to provide evidence to back up that claim." To suggest otherwise is ludicrous. Now, if you make the claim and also provide evidence, then sure, it's up to someone who refutes the claim to provide either positive evidence of their own or evidence that refutes yours.

 

Just an off-topic note.

 

Off-topic or not, my claim was nothing like "Pee Wee Herman is really Duane Johnson." My claim was that the devs provided definitive answers about why they changed. It's not an extraordinary claim (like saying "Pee Wee and Duane Johnson are the same" is), and it turned out that there was evidence to support it; others had made the same statement based on what they had read in the devlogs. Your counter-claim was that I was merely parroting what others had said (partly true) when there was no evidence to be found (proven false), and in so doing the burden was actually on you to prove the devs had said nothing about why they made the skill tree changes. You were wrong.

 

I did leave out an important point, though (and people can see the difference when comparing my original post and your quote), which you kind of touched on. The original claim was based on information (admittedly not first-hand, originally) that had been read/seen/witnessed. You made a counter-claim that the original claim was incorrect. Since some basis existed/believed to have existed, the onus was on you to demonstrate otherwise (obviated by the overwhelming evidence that you could have looked up yourself - not difficult to do). There is nothing ludicrous about it; and your attitude doesn't help matters much either.

 

I would highly recommend that you keep silent until you actually have something substantive to say. That is all.

Edited September 22, 2015 by Eldarion_Velator

[TyonYlle]

There is also the philosophy of Steve Jobs: (paraphrasing) - a company cannot build around customer requests because by the time the company gets the request and manages implement that request their customers want something new.

 

For the last four years, BW has tried to fulfill customer requests:

 

- hate for space combat on rails lead to the SSSC, which turned out to be GSF

- players clamored for character housing, we got strongholds

- players wanted open world PvP, we got the Gree event

- players wanted more Rakghouls, we got them

- players wanted more balance in PvP, they took a step toward that by instituting disciplines thereby eliminating hybrid builds

- players wanted more class story, they sacrificed extended faction story and gave us a small dose of class story

- players wanted upleveled Operations, we are getting them

- players screamed that crafting to win conquest is broken, they are changing that

 

...the list goes on...

 

And yet, it seems as if we as a forums populous are still not satisfied.

^^ This right here.

 

Say what you will, but I don't think it's entirely to fair to say outright that BW doesn't try, and this list proves it. There will always be people who don't like features, and ask the whys, and other who adore the features. I, personally would love individual class stories, but I'm just as thrill at the prospect, of one, season-ily story, and I consider myself to be a writer. Though, I still watch every line of dialog, because I'm able to immerse myself enough to differentiate my charries. Perhaps, I'm one of the lucky few, like that.

 

But, that's me getting of topic. TOR will always have a slight advantage over other mmos, because the majority of the conversations are voiced, and we probably couldn't comprehend how expensive it would be to do eight, individualized stories that have full voice over.

 

BW are trying, because they have said that each class will receive personalized dialog options, so really, while the story might be the same, the journey will be different. Like in SoR, Rishii, we received a personalized class specific mission, I absolutely loved what the Smuggler received for that, and was blown away by the appearance of one of fave npc's, and I hope that I see more of her in future expansions.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

All these were indeed requested as you say, prob is just as many have posted against a lot of the items in your list as asked for.

 

Really and you can prove that can you or are you just assuming the vocal minority actually make up a even proportion of for and against in those cases?

 

 

BW as a company will never please everyone no matter what they do. Take the Rakghoul event which is but one mentioned on you list. How many complain threads are there every time it comes round. I know I stop playing during the week its on or just start new characters as it does not happen on starter worlds.

 

That's one example but if you dig into those threads there is a majority of players in favour of the event laughing at people like yourself because you don't just use the vaccine and carry on.

 

On the other hand I am much in favor of more class story which is another mentioned on your list. So in the end BW has to do what they thing is best for the future of the game because some players will complain whatever they do.

 

You got that part right, there is never any pleasing everyone.

 

As to the OP ... why? I believe someone touched on this already, metrics. It would be nice if you referenced specific aspects that you can't understand the reasoning for the change for so those can be discussed individually because generalizing everything together makes for a rather pointless debate to begin with.

[ImmortalLowlife]

For disciplines they straight out said it was easier to maintain. Some of the changes for 4.0 seem to fall into that category as well. Personally, I'm more likely to believe that little is really done for the benefit of the player, while much is for the benefit of the devs/company and just marketed as benefit to the players.

 

From a crafter's pov the prospects are bleak. From a raider's pov the prospects are bleak. To me it looks like they focus on the main crowd of casual short-term players. There doesn't seem particular interest in encouraging/fostering a longterm commitment. The only incentive for a continued subscription is making episodes subscriber only and releasing them on a monthly schedule.

 

What makes you think all or even most of the casual players are short term? I'm as casual as it gets, but there has only been one month (the month after launch.) that I didn't have a sub.

 

Personally I think it has more to do with trying cater to a variety of play styles.

 

 

Solo FP's

I've always hated that I couldn't see a lot of stories in game because they were locked behind FP's and OP's. I STILL haven't finished the dread masters story. I haven't done the "false emperor" because I refuse to "AAAARRRRRGGGG! SPACEBARRRR!" and I'd like to look around. Soon I'll be able to solo them with the help of the Godbot.

 

Companion changes

I've got companions who've never left the ship because I pretty much always run with either a healer. I've only ever maxed out a handful of companions affection. But I'd like to run with companions who'll contribute in cut scenes instead of just using Treek and HK all the time. Soon I'll be able to use whoever I want, and gear will only be cosmetic.

 

KotFE story

I'm holding onto hope that choices will matter.While I didn't really like makeb, I've played thru SoR with nearly every class just to see that ONE mission. Hopefully KotFE will be like that on steroids....with choices that matter and change the outcome.

[Thoronmir]

What makes you think all or even most of the casual players are short term? I'm as casual as it gets, but there has only been one month (the month after launch.) that I didn't have a sub.

 

Personally I think it has more to do with trying cater to a variety of play styles.

 

 

Solo FP's

I've always hated that I couldn't see a lot of stories in game because they were locked behind FP's and OP's. I STILL haven't finished the dread masters story. I haven't done the "false emperor" because I refuse to "AAAARRRRRGGGG! SPACEBARRRR!" and I'd like to look around. Soon I'll be able to solo them with the help of the Godbot.

 

Companion changes

I've got companions who've never left the ship because I pretty much always run with either a healer. I've only ever maxed out a handful of companions affection. But I'd like to run with companions who'll contribute in cut scenes instead of just using Treek and HK all the time. Soon I'll be able to use whoever I want, and gear will only be cosmetic.

 

KotFE story

I'm holding onto hope that choices will matter.While I didn't really like makeb, I've played thru SoR with nearly every class just to see that ONE mission. Hopefully KotFE will be like that on steroids....with choices that matter and change the outcome.

You just described me as well. I'm very casual in my MMO play, yet I've been around since launch. I also look forward to seeing all the story I've missed because of my aversion to most group play. As for Companions, the multi-role aspect and mooting of gear issues will certainly open up options, but I suspect I'll still stick to my favorites because they're my ... ya know ... my favorites.

[NeuroniaSW]

You just described me as well. I'm very casual in my MMO play, yet I've been around since launch. I also look forward to seeing all the story I've missed because of my aversion to most group play. As for Companions, the multi-role aspect and mooting of gear issues will certainly open up options, but I suspect I'll still stick to my favorites because they're my ... ya know ... my favorites.

 

This pretty much describes me as well. I solo nearly exclusively so that I can read all the text and explore and so on. Very glad I can do solo flashpoints now, it will let me do the story as I wish on my own time (which is getting increasingly limited these days).

 

I still don't like the loss of skill points, but I'm over it, at least.

[Thoronmir]

This pretty much describes me as well. I solo nearly exclusively so that I can read all the text and explore and so on. Very glad I can do solo flashpoints now, it will let me do the story as I wish on my own time (which is getting increasingly limited these days).

 

I still don't like the loss of skill points, but I'm over it, at least.

Well, dang. It's pretty much too late, but we should have just found one more player who agrees with the three of us and done them as a group a long time ago.