Brayla_Sana Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 (edited) http://www.swtornetwork.com/news/interview-with-bioware-stats-and-game-design-decisions/ The TLDR of this article is that if you want certain parts of the game to be given more attention, play them more. I am not an OPS player; but I understand the frustration of those who love OPS and haven't seen a new one. From this article, it looks as though you will have to play the current OPS more to get that to happen. Thoughts. Edited December 17, 2015 by Brayla_Sana Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 (edited) http://www.swtornetwork.com/news/interview-with-bioware-stats-and-game-design-decisions/ The TLDR of this article is that if you want certain parts of the game to be given more attention, play them more. I am not an OPS player; but I understand the frustration of those who love OPS and haven't seen a new one. From this article, it looks as though you will have to play the current OPS more to get that to happen. Thoughts. Yep that's why they strung people looking for any group content along... See the beautiful thing about those metric statements is that they are rather vague. However the whole metrics things, including that interview, has been deconstructed more than once. Numerous reasons were noted but the most obvious is that the way they have the weekly and daily queue rewards and the lockouts set up.... of course more time is spent soloing. That's like saying more people eat chicken than steak and seafood in the mess hall if you serve Chicken 5 nights a week and steak or seafood only 1. The reason for this expac is the devs have to make an expac on smaller budget that manages to attract new players unfamiliar with the game as the Movie launches tomorrow. Nothing more complicated than that. Edited December 17, 2015 by Ghisallo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MuskyBoy Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Ops aren't getting played because they are old and stale for long time players. People who do operations are unsubbing or leaving in protest due to the lack of current content and that no new content is on the horizon. People are waking up to the fact that is not metrics but revenue which dictates BW's actions and therefore are hoping that hurting them financially (by unsubbing) will lead to far more action then aimlessly playing ops til a new one comes out. After all people have been doing that for a year already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 It's not even OPs runners, I know people who solo and just do FPs leaving as well. The only people I see genuinely happy with this expac are people who see the "playable" content as a necessary evil to get to the story, new players and those who left around RotHC. For these people the lack of content doesn't matter OR there simply is no lack of new content because its all new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodneyMcNeely Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Yep that's why they strung people looking for any group content along... See the beautiful thing about those metric statements is that they are rather vague. You know that one friend you have who will look you in the eye and lie to you, even though he knows he's lying and he knows YOU know he's lying, but he does it anyway? Yeah, I feel like EAWare is that friend... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekwalizer Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I wonder what they expected to find in their metrics while the game was in a 6 month 12xp state for story quests .... 4 months of which we were awaiting a level cap increase .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joesixxpack Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 http://www.swtornetwork.com/news/interview-with-bioware-stats-and-game-design-decisions/ The TLDR of this article is that if you want certain parts of the game to be given more attention, play them more. I am not an OPS player; but I understand the frustration of those who love OPS and haven't seen a new one. From this article, it looks as though you will have to play the current OPS more to get that to happen. Thoughts. I'm sure metrics are influential but don't be naive. inb4 "u dunno how bidness works" But I do. Those that think customer metrics are the end-all-be-all when decision makers make decisions don't know what they're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joefjr Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Sounds like they should fire that department and use their salary to pay people to fix bugs and make more end game content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 You know that one friend you have who will look you in the eye and lie to you, even though he knows he's lying and he knows YOU know he's lying, but he does it anyway? Yeah, I feel like EAWare is that friend... I know, what I find funny is this. Do you think it a coincidence that all of the sudden they give such an interview in the time frame they did? A month before the formal announcement and first details at E3? It was clearly an interview to justify/back up the announcement that said "this year it's all about the story.". What's even funnier is this bit about trying to break down who plays what and for why... We certainly try to. In fact, we recently developed some new metrics to test out this behaviour. Well here is the weird thing. The expac was in planning for many months before this interview speaking of new metrics. So at best they ran metrics to prove what they " already knew". At worst this is all a bunch of spin trying to put a smile on a bad situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dscount Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I'm sorry.. but the person at BW checking metrics should be changed out for a monkey because they clearly have no clue. They should have seen this Exploit a mile away and reacted quickly. If "Metrics" are really monitored as much as they brag about them. I think the whole "STORY MODE" Metrics are flawed and I'll suggest why. When 12xp rolled out what did everyone do? In MASS they did 100% Story/Class missions to level characters quickly because that was how to get max XP was doing the story (DUH - metrics showed that). With a RAPID stopping near the end once folks hit 47 and went directly to Makeb. Factor in the TERRIBLE rate of SUB's have apparently been DROPPING over the last year or so.. (Content/Bugs/etc) - no I'm not going to link it (GOTO financials for EA if you want to view yourself). While I do enjoy "Story" I also want to see an MMO, well... BE an MMO and not just a strung along story that should have been an XpAC paid for up front. That would have been of more value, but the problem is they would have had to sell it CHEAP to the movie market and likely folks wouldn't pay for something twice so they went with strung out over months instead option to try and milk more cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Sounds like they should fire that department and use their salary to pay people to fix bugs and make more end game content. They probably gave them a bonus because their "new metrics" gave them justification for what they were already planning. Looking at everything it looks like they came up with the idea for the expac THEN went in search of metrics to justify the decision based on the putting together statements from various interviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dscount Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Don't worry the next "METRICS" will show nobody plays NIM content so it should just be removed. Well DUH... not worth doing anymore with 224 debacle. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Budget is what currently determines it...what players want or do is irrelevant at this point. All that matters is what Bioware can do on a minimal budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Don't worry the next "METRICS" will show nobody plays NIM content so it should just be removed. Well DUH... not worth doing anymore with 224 debacle. LOL The term "self fulfilling prophesy" has been coming to mind and likely Budget is what currently determines it...what players want or do is irrelevant at this point. All that matters is what Bioware can do on a minimal budget. The above is why. Most game designers started as gamers and a such none wants to be seen as "the bad guy" . Time and again I have seen dev houses pull reasons out of their butts to justify stuff. This has to take the cake though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mornok Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I actually thought this article was great. It seems like Bioware takes a very nuanced and wise approach to looking at metrics. I like that they don't let metrics totally rule the roost, combining it with community feedback as well as design sense. And I think it's good that they are informed by real-world data. Lots of people in the thread here are saying things like metrics showing declining play in areas of the game that have problems or haven't received enough attention. But the article directly addresses this question, and the BW analyst correctly points out that this is a very basic question that any analyst worth their salt will ask. Nowhere does he or the article say that they look at declining usage as a confirmation that they made a good resource allocation decision when it's been a while since they updated part of the game. In fact, he explicitly says the opposite: that they account for how much investment various aspects of the game have received when assessing usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Always amusing to see people who have to be subscribed in order to post stating how so many players are leaving the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frenesi Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Always amusing to see people who have to be subscribed in order to post stating how so many players are leaving the game. Well, I'm stuck with my sub till new year. Technically I left, but since I still have sub time and nothing better to do - here I am Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDymond Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I actually thought this article was great. It seems like Bioware takes a very nuanced and wise approach to looking at metrics. I like that they don't let metrics totally rule the roost, combining it with community feedback as well as design sense. And I think it's good that they are informed by real-world data. Lots of people in the thread here are saying things like metrics showing declining play in areas of the game that have problems or haven't received enough attention. But the article directly addresses this question, and the BW analyst correctly points out that this is a very basic question that any analyst worth their salt will ask. Nowhere does he or the article say that they look at declining usage as a confirmation that they made a good resource allocation decision when it's been a while since they updated part of the game. In fact, he explicitly says the opposite: that they account for how much investment various aspects of the game have received when assessing usage. ^Pretty much this. I'm not saying there isn't room for metrics to be misconstrued based on the observers' biases, but players who seem to have a knee-jerk reaction of treating "metrics" as if it was a bad word often give the impression that they have an over-simplified view of what they entail. It's not like BW sat down in September, nine months after the last new Ops had been released, looked at the day's numbers and said "wow, looks like no one raids in this game - we better cut that feature right out". Looking at metrics the way BW does involves looking at the numbers over time, not discrete snap-shots. They know how many players raid day-to-day throughout the month that a new Operation comes out, they know how many are raiding each day six months later, and they know how many were raiding at each step along the way. They can use that information to project how often they would need to put out new Ops to keep participation at various levels, and since it is a known quantity how much it costs to develop those Ops, they can determine at what level the return is worth the investment - or whether it is worth the investment at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I actually thought this article was great. It seems like Bioware takes a very nuanced and wise approach to looking at metrics. I like that they don't let metrics totally rule the roost, combining it with community feedback as well as design sense. It's too bad they don't mix a little common sense in with it. Look at the PvP leaderboards and tell me how well their current approach works in reality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joefjr Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Well, I'm stuck with my sub till new year. Technically I left, but since I still have sub time and nothing better to do - here I am Same here, canceled because they spend more time on the CM than they do anything else. Just tired of the amount of bugs in this game, so many related to companions. Force based companions getting tech power, Tech based companions getting Force skills. The bugs with the other classes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Sleepy Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Yep that's why they strung people looking for any group content along... See the beautiful thing about those metric statements is that they are rather vague. However the whole metrics things, including that interview, has been deconstructed more than once. Numerous reasons were noted but the most obvious is that the way they have the weekly and daily queue rewards and the lockouts set up.... of course more time is spent soloing. That's like saying more people eat chicken than steak and seafood in the mess hall if you serve Chicken 5 nights a week and steak or seafood only 1. The reason for this expac is the devs have to make an expac on smaller budget that manages to attract new players unfamiliar with the game as the Movie launches tomorrow. Nothing more complicated than that. I always picked the cheeseburger option in the messhall, it may not have been good, but at least I knew what I was getting, and it was a good reason to use the steak sauce. Now, using that people might think the burgers were good, but was just more palatable than other options as a rule. I play lots of different ways in the game, some because I like them, some for other reasons, so what I am doing is not a good example of what I like, but an example of what I do for various reasons. A simple poll on the launcher might give a better idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neglience Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 If BW would monitor metrics/or have a clue how to read them, the last exploit would have been fixed within days, not weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekwalizer Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Always amusing to see people who have to be subscribed in order to post stating how so many players are leaving the game. It isn't a difficult concept, many of us unsubbed and are simply awaiting our time to expire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyaniteD Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 (edited) Metrics give numbers, but not reasons. If I play the only content that isn't bugged, metrics say I play that content a lot more than the rest. The immediate interpretation would be that I play it a lot more because I like it a lot more. So I'd have to play bugged content to make it appear in the metrics as something I like and am interested in in order to have some hope of it getting fixed and developed. On the other hand, maybe it's not getting fixed, since metrics show that I play it a lot anyway, even though it's bugged... Edited December 17, 2015 by KyaniteD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 http://www.swtornetwork.com/news/interview-with-bioware-stats-and-game-design-decisions/ The TLDR of this article is that if you want certain parts of the game to be given more attention, play them more. I am not an OPS player; but I understand the frustration of those who love OPS and haven't seen a new one. From this article, it looks as though you will have to play the current OPS more to get that to happen. Thoughts.that's a wonderful catch 22 isnt it? the ops are old and boring so i dont play them, but i have to play them to get more ops. this is why the entire "bw metrics" thing is laughable. of course they saw everyone focus on story...there's literally no other reason to play it otherwise as endgame pve / pvp is all unsupported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts