Feedback to Bioware from Founder with 10 days left on sub.

[Sluggerface]

I'm not sure how much money is going into quality assurance because I don't work at Bioware. I do know that it seems like this game has only gotten worse with regards to bugs instead of better, so whatever they are doing is not working. There are so many things broken, it's easier to list the parts of the game that don't have bugs all over the place. I'm simply trying to suggest a way to combat that, but it doesn't matter if they take my suggestions about it or not... all that matters is that someone, somewhere at Bioware needs to start addressing the bugs more seriously because it is out of control.

 

It's not a question of money as much as it is a question of labor. Total debugging is unfeasible. This is a basic principle of software development.

 

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2006/SWEng/Bradylecture.doc

 

Unless a bug is gamebreaking, as in it actually breaks the game, it's simply not a priority to be fixed. You can pull up the most stable software in the world, look in its britches, and find bugs.

 

An example of a game breaking bug would be the memory leak Age of Conan suffered at launch. Not being able to earn an achievement is not a game-breaking bug.

 

BW Austin is a triple A studio. Not the biggest studio mind you, but triple A none the less. These aren't fish out of water "I just learned how to parse an array" intro to programming 101 students. Their code coverage is industry standard.

 

Saying that "bugs are out of control" means nothing. It literally means nothing. You aren't running metrics. You aren't comparing those metrics to competition. It's irrelevant to even mention.

 

 

 

I don't delude myself that end game people are important to the game. I believe that they are, you believe that they aren't. We can disagree. That's fine. But when you go to try and Google an answer to anything relating to SWTOR and get an answer from Dulfy every time, I think you do her a disservice by belittling her contribution to the community. If you think she doesn't provide publicity to players of Guild Wars, ESO, Wildstar, and other games she provides the same types of information for, then I guess we'll have to once again agree to disagree. I know of quite a few people in SWTOR that I've played with over the years who absolutely came to SWTOR because of using Dulfy's site for other games. It's anecdotal, but I'm willing to bet she provides more advertisement and publicity for the game than say... you do. And that's not an "extremely gross estimation", in fact it's not even that difficult an assumption to make.

 

 

I didn't belittle the site's contribution to the community. I explicitly said that any such site that provides information to players about complex game systems is nothing more than a service to the players. You're the one trying to draw correlations that such sites are integral to the publicity of the game, when numbers show that they are not.

 

 

 

No one forced me to pay for or play this game, but I never claimed that they did. I also never claimed my opinion was more valid or worthy than anyone else's. Your entire post reeks of the need to call someone out in whatever way you can just because you disagree with them... and it wouldn't have if you hadn't added the last 3 sentences pointed directly at me. That's a shame, because it makes me discount your entire opinion based on the fact that I suspect you only posted to try and dig at me instead of putting forth a countering opinion based on your own observations.

 

"I have been subscribed to this game without a single month missed since launch. That's about to change. This is not a goodbye post, but rather a shot at giving a heads up to the developers why people just like me are cancelling their subscriptions."

 

"I have committed a lot to this game: Personal energy, time, money. I have enjoyed doing so for the most part and only regret that I no longer feel the need to pay for this game. I worry about how long others just like me will be able to or desire to continue that commitment and hope that Bioware will consider what I have said here."

 

You may have not claimed it, but your entire post is driven by bias. Most of the criticisms you brought up, while valid from your perspective, are missing the forest for the trees.

 

Your entire post reeks of the need to call someone out in whatever way you can just because you disagree with them

 

I wouldn't have felt the need to call you out if your post wasn't filled with false speculation, ignorance of software development, and most importantly, bias.

 

That is constructive criticism.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Sluggerface

[PennyAnn]

Not being able to earn an achievement is not a game-breaking bug.

 

Saying that "bugs are out of control" means nothing. It literally means nothing. You aren't running metrics. You aren't comparing those metrics to competition. It's irrelevant to even mention.

I'm pretty sure that I never used the words "game breaking" anywhere in my mention of bugs being a problem. I did say that it makes playing the game more difficult than it has to be. It sometimes interferes entirely with the portion of the game you are attempting to play, making it so that you cannot move forward. Not getting the next quest in a sequence is something that has happened to many people lately, myself included. When Tait tells us to call Customer Service in order to advance a quest line manually, I'd call that a problem. Perhaps even game breaking... though I haven't used those words to describe the bugs in this thread before just now.

 

I'm not responsible for running metrics for Bioware. I'm not responsible for fixing bugs in their game. I try to help by submitting bug reports when I find something that isn't working. I've submitted over 30 bug reports since the launch of 4.0. When, as a player, I find a bug several times a week during the course of game play, and those span over just about every single aspect of the game... I'm sorry but that seems out of control to me. Is that an opinion? Yes, it is. It's worth what you paid for it. Take it or leave it. This game has always had bugs, always will. I accept that. Once upon a time, they were better about fixing bugs so that it didn't seem like you couldn't avoid them. That's not the case now, in my experience. But at the end of the day, this is just my opinion... and just because it's meaningless to you does not make it meaningless on the whole. I'm trying to help Bioware by providing feedback. They can choose to ignore it as much as they like, but I'm not sure why you're so bent on keeping me from expressing it to them.

 

We don't agree about this as an important issue facing the game. That's okay. We don't have to agree. I'm alright with you holding your opinion and me holding mine. I'm perfectly happy to live and let live here.

 

 

I didn't belittle the site's contribution to the community. I explicitly said that any such site that provides information to players about complex game systems is nothing more than a service to the players. You're the one trying to draw correlations that such sites are integral to the publicity of the game, when numbers show that they are not.

Integral? Now you're exaggerating my statements. Do I think that she is "integral" to the publicity of the game? No. Do I think she is free publicity? Yes. Do I think she is helpful to every type of player in the game? Yes. Keeping people like that around, to whom you do not have to write a paycheck, but who assist your players in improving their experience with your game is probably not a bad idea. That's all I'm saying.

 

 

 

"I have been subscribed to this game without a single month missed since launch. That's about to change. This is not a goodbye post, but rather a shot at giving a heads up to the developers why people just like me are cancelling their subscriptions."

 

"I have committed a lot to this game: Personal energy, time, money. I have enjoyed doing so for the most part and only regret that I no longer feel the need to pay for this game. I worry about how long others just like me will be able to or desire to continue that commitment and hope that Bioware will consider what I have said here."

 

You may have not claimed it, but your entire post is driven by bias. Most of the criticisms you brought up, while valid from your perspective, are missing the forest for the trees.

 

 

 

I wouldn't have felt the need to call you out if your post wasn't filled with false speculation, ignorance of software development, and most importantly, bias.

 

That is constructive criticism.

 

It is my opinion, so of course it is biased! It is from my perspective, completely full of my own bias. I've never denied that. There isn't an opinion in the world that isn't biased, yours included. But that doesn't mean that I think my opinion is more valid than anyone else's. Bias and merit do not equate. They are not synonyms. I've done my best to listen to other people's thoughts and be respectful in discussion, whether we agree or disagree. There isn't much more that I can do. I'm going to express my opinions about the game and let others express theirs without needing them to be perfect human beings, coding geniuses, or somehow unbiased (about their opinion...).

 

I'm sorry you've taken such offense to my thoughts, but there isn't much more I can say other than to reiterate that this thread is solely for the purpose of trying to improve the game in ways that I feel it has degraded from what it used to be even 6 months or a year ago. My sole intention is to see the game improved for any who play it. Is that really such a bad motive? One would think so by your replies, but I'm willing to let this be water under the bridge. If improvements to the game happen because of something someone said in this thread, great. If it doesn't... then so be it. That's really all there is to this.

Edited January 3, 2016 by PennyAnn

[Waari]

Agree with everything that OP wrote, have been lurking around this thread and hoping someone from bioware would comment on it.

 

The lack of content, the amount of grind, the bugs (esp. since bioware dont seem to care, same bugs present from vanilla, after tons and tons of reports about bugs that have been going for years and nothing happens) and the completely ridiculous customer service will drive out the dedicated gamers from this game, unfortunately the dedicated games is also the one who is ready to spend his/hers cash into this game.

 

Swtor could be so much more so easily.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Waari

[Colow_Leper]

When people complain about players wanting "end game content" they assume raids etc, but this is only part of it.

 

Picking a number out of the air, say that it takes a player a year to end up with one of each of the advanced classes at top level (whatever that may be at the time) and to have pretty much covered everything that the game offers (there will be "completionists" that will spend another year getting absolutely everything, but I'm talking about your "standard average player" here).

 

OK, so, it's a year later and a bunch of players are now looking around to see what they can do, but the publisher has decided that they're not going to put any new content in - what happens to those players? Some will continue to rerun the content (because of friends still playing or because they enjoyed the experience and want to rerun bits) but a large number will say "OK, well, done all of that - think that I'll find something else to do"...

 

From the publishers point of view, whilst it's true that they want to attract new players, they also need to retain a high percentage of the old ones - and to do this, they need to continually release "new content". 4.0 is "new content", granted - it's not "end game", and that (as far as it goes) is fine - BUT - (in my view) 4.0 has very little "replayability" - I've done the story on three characters now - the third time almost broke my space bar! I have 22 characters - 3 are 65 having gone through 4.0 - 4 more I have just levelled - which leaves 15 more to go - and (probably) none of them will go through 4.0 - I've seen the story and tried a few different options - as far as I can see no choices that I made had any difference on the outcome and I very rarely read a book and then re-read it straight away.

 

The upshot is that 4.0 is fine, as far as it goes, but it really only held peoples attention for a couple of months - our guild had two people on tonight - there was meant to be an operation...

 

New operations/flashpoints/warzones etc etc *are* more replayable - they don't have to be "end game" either (although, traditionally, they always have been) - if you want to release a new chapter in the story and you want to keep people playing, then we need the class stories back as part of the 4.0 story arc - then you would have people running through 4.0 over and over to see the various versions of the story - I ran 4.0 on my main Republic character and my main Imperial character - there's not even a difference between the factions!

[Colow_Leper]

So - after thinking long and hard about it, I've cancelled as well - hopefully I'll be back if content starts to appear again (although I managed to cancel just *after* the month's payment went out )

[PennyAnn]

So - after thinking long and hard about it, I've cancelled as well - hopefully I'll be back if content starts to appear again (although I managed to cancel just *after* the month's payment went out )

 

Sorry to hear, and hope that one day there will be a reason to come back to the game we love. All the best to you!

[Ghisallo]

One last thing. I believe some of the defense, though not all, is based on 2 false assumptions.

 

1. You can not have playable content and story driven content at the same time sustainably.

2. you can't have voice over cut scenes as a large part of the story unless it's Bioware.

 

As such people fear if this falls dramatic, story driven cut scenes with voice overs are gone. To dispel that fiction..

 

 

 

[ZakiBasara]

They have always had story content and other parts of the game running concurrently. Even if not updated as frequently as they should, updates to -most- of that content occurred. Then they decided to focus only on story. We can all make guesses about why - budget, lack of staffing, player "metrics" etc. but we don't really know and Bioware will never just come out and say those things even if they are true. So we've got what we've got: an MMO that is focusing more and more on a single player story driven experience. That decision in and of itself is fine - if you provide enough story so that there is any reason to repeat it other than having nothing else to really do that is worthwhile or matters in the long term of the player's gaming experience.

 

Anyone who is new to the game or returning will not necessarily understand or agree with the complaints of long time players, because there IS a lot of stuff to do in the game. The problem lies in the fact that none of it is new or worth repeating at a certain point. You have to have one or the other... new or worth repeating. Without at least one of those things being true of your game, you won't keep long term players and subscribers around. Every single person has a different threshold of what is "enough" to keep them entertained. To act like just because you are satisfied that someone is "entitled" because they aren't is just silly. It's a subjective thing, and to argue about "I'm happy, why aren't you?" is just a waste of time. Further, to say "If you don't like the game, leave" is all well and good until the people saying that find themselves without a game to play because they encouraged people to bail rather than put forth ideas on how to keep more people around and playing instead.

 

The story for KotFE is new, but not repeatable or substantial enough to ride out for the next 8-9 months alone, especially when there will be less story content than was given with the launch of KotFE (1/9th of what we got in October). Most people played through 9 chapters in a matter of a couple of days at the longest, hours at the shortest. One ninth of that every 4 weeks is supposed to be enough to sustain this game for most of the next calendar year? I argue that it just isn't... no matter how much you love it. Without having other things to occupy your time, you will move on to something else - either cancelling your subscription or riding it out in the hopes that something else comes along to renew your interest. But people will only ride out a subscription like that for so long, typically - especially when there isn't anything new on the horizon but a couple of hours of story a month (at best). It is a very unique player that stays subbed to a game they aren't really playing, but obviously by people who have posted in this thread it does happen in this game. Probably not enough to sustain long term development though.

 

I think the original points made in this thread are valid for the most part, particularly about bugs. People are constantly begging on the forums for bug fixes... to companion romances, the GTN, mechanics in operations that are broken, not being able to progress your class story line forcing someone to manually advance you to the next quest, broken events that are published and hyped as part of an "action packed month of events", etc. The player base shouldn't have to beg for fixes, but even when they do those fixes don't seem to come. When Bioware starts to act like they don't care enough about their game to fix the parts that are broken, they can expect at some point we will start following their lead and quit caring as well.

 

I think for a lot of people, certainly those posting in this thread and other places on the forums, we've reached that point. It wouldn't take much to turn it around, but it definitely takes -something- to amend some of the discontent. The continued silence in response to thread after thread on this forum and the "We can't fix this" messages are speaking loud and clear to many, and they aren't saying anything good to the player base. It doesn't have to be that way.

Edited January 5, 2016 by ZakiBasara

[ZakiBasara]

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised this hasn't received a response with a Yellow B (yet?). I hope it will at least get read though, because there are some good ideas in here from the OP and many others!

[Colow_Leper]

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised this hasn't received a response with a Yellow B (yet?). I hope it will at least get read though, because there are some good ideas in here from the OP and many others!

 

They say that they all get read - it would be useful to have a "read by XYZ or 99/99/9999" flag.

[ZakiBasara]

They say that they all get read - it would be useful to have a "read by XYZ or 99/99/9999" flag.

 

That is wishful thinking, I imagine. I just don't know that I believe in the "we read all the stuff" claims that Eric makes. It is difficult to see where they seem to pick up on anything but the most beat-over-the-head items that have 75 threads on the same topic (that everybody bashes people for when they start a new thread, but that's all that seems to work with Bioware!). So frustrating.

[secondclaw]

I support the OP.

As someone who has been subscribed for over a year, I unsubbed as well, with two days left to go on my 6 month sub, and this is probably my first and last chance to post on the forum. I unsubbed, and actually stopped playing few months ago, because I ran out of interesting things to do. I love progression raids, but cannot devote time due to work and family commitments, so I tried to find some things to do outside of raids. I tried to level an operative. Hit L65 mid way through second chapter, then gave up, as all gameplay became mundane and trivial. Might just as well watch rest of the story on YouTube.

 

Ran my main toon, a healer sorc, through KotFE, and while I loved the story, I have no interest to do this with alts. Soloed a few hard mode star fortresses, action which while was very challenging, became a bit monotonous. Ran through many heroics, and got bored with repetition .... I've done those too many times throughout the year.

 

I remember when I started as f2p, then as preferred, fighting for every bit of xp and credits on my first toon. I loved every moment of it, leveling and the struggle to survive mobs and bosses. I remember a random subscriber giving me credits to buy a speeder, since I could not afford my own. Then I found a great guild, and been subbed since.

 

Now, credits flow like water, mobs and bosses have no fight in them, bugs do not get fixed, and outside KotFE, there isn't any new or fun thing to do. Companions lost their originality, story lost drama due to lack of challenge, and gearing lost it's meaning outside of HM / NiM ops.

 

I had great time, made many friends, and hope to one day come back. I keep reading the forums for any signs of a change of direction.

 

- Lianara

[Starbros]

Sad to say, but the failure of two consecutive events (Rakghoul and Bounty) in the touted December calendar -- and the nominal dev response directly following these failures -- has eroded my last bit of enthusiasm for this game. In a few weeks my subscription payment comes due, but this time there's practically no inclination left to renew.

 

It's not a lightly made decision. A CE owner and subscriber since launch, I had originally purposed to remain a SWTOR subscriber to the very end. Despite the game's staggering pre-release hype and months of initial bugginess, I came to appreciate The Old Republic for its own merits: fully-voiced questing, original orchestral score, rich scenic visuals, and an ever-widening array of costume pieces to personalize player characters and their companions. More than that, here was a chance to delve into a unique Star Wars era in hopes of recapturing some of the glory of SWTOR's classic forerunner (and a personal favorite), Knights of the Old Republic.

 

However, missteps and spotty communication by the developers throughout 2015, culminating in a Fallen Empire 4.0 expansion which actually removed game content and made absolutely no provision for customizing new companions' outfits, leaves me highly doubtful about the team in charge. Scant public testing of big updates; lingering bugs from closed betas; known issues with no timetable for repair; damaging exploits unaddressed for weeks on end; and knee-jerk overcorrections to ill-advised changes in game mechanics, followed by eerie official silence -- all of it has chipped away at my confidence in SWTOR's developer team and sapped my desire to log in any more, even just for a peek at the trade net (despite its broken search function). I'm finally fed up and can no longer justify paying regularly for this kind of service.

 

It's incredibly disheartening. I've got great memories and screenshots from playthroughs across my legacies, clutch warzone victories, sweet buys and sales on the GTN, and lavishly-appointed strongholds. Yet the same old mantra of "choices that matter" and underwhelming promises of announcements "breaking all precedents" stir up a gnawing feeling of a missed opportunity for this game -- a Star Wars game, at that -- to have been truly spectacular, as befits its brand.

 

How ironic then that The Force Awakens, hoped to draw new players to SWTOR, actually played a part in clinching this for me. Opinions on the movie greatly differ, but speaking strictly for myself, the film delivered on its hype big-time. Watching The Force Awakens was a sheer delight for this Star Wars fan, a degree of satisfaction never quite attained through SWTOR and a far cry from my feelings of late toward it.

 

No "loyal subscriber" rewards program of droids and jetpacks will compensate for the past 4 years of loyalty and goodwill held toward The Old Republic, squandered by its overseers. To paraphrase what someone on the forums once declared, the only choice that truly matters in this game is whether to pay or not: message heard loud and clear. For the sake of remaining subscribers, I sincerely hope all technical issues will be sorted out swiftly. As for KotFE, as long as the plot stays fairly unalterable and story companions' costumes remain unchangeable, it'll be the same playing it out as watching it on YouTube.

[ZakiBasara]

Sad to say, but the failure of two consecutive events (Rakghoul and Bounty) in the touted December calendar -- and the nominal dev response directly following these failures -- has eroded my last bit of enthusiasm for this game. In a few weeks my subscription payment comes due, but this time there's practically no inclination left to renew.

 

It's not a lightly made decision. A CE owner and subscriber since launch, I had originally purposed to remain a SWTOR subscriber to the very end. Despite the game's staggering pre-release hype and months of initial bugginess, I came to appreciate The Old Republic for its own merits: fully-voiced questing, original orchestral score, rich scenic visuals, and an ever-widening array of costume pieces to personalize player characters and their companions. More than that, here was a chance to delve into a unique Star Wars era in hopes of recapturing some of the glory of SWTOR's classic forerunner (and a personal favorite), Knights of the Old Republic.

 

However, missteps and spotty communication by the developers throughout 2015, culminating in a Fallen Empire 4.0 expansion which actually removed game content and made absolutely no provision for customizing new companions' outfits, leaves me highly doubtful about the team in charge. Scant public testing of big updates; lingering bugs from closed betas; known issues with no timetable for repair; damaging exploits unaddressed for weeks on end; and knee-jerk overcorrections to ill-advised changes in game mechanics, followed by eerie official silence -- all of it has chipped away at my confidence in SWTOR's developer team and sapped my desire to log in any more, even just for a peek at the trade net (despite its broken search function). I'm finally fed up and can no longer justify paying regularly for this kind of service.

 

It's incredibly disheartening. I've got great memories and screenshots from playthroughs across my legacies, clutch warzone victories, sweet buys and sales on the GTN, and lavishly-appointed strongholds. Yet the same old mantra of "choices that matter" and underwhelming promises of announcements "breaking all precedents" stir up a gnawing feeling of a missed opportunity for this game -- a Star Wars game, at that -- to have been truly spectacular, as befits its brand.

 

How ironic then that The Force Awakens, hoped to draw new players to SWTOR, actually played a part in clinching this for me. Opinions on the movie greatly differ, but speaking strictly for myself, the film delivered on its hype big-time. Watching The Force Awakens was a sheer delight for this Star Wars fan, a degree of satisfaction never quite attained through SWTOR and a far cry from my feelings of late toward it.

 

No "loyal subscriber" rewards program of droids and jetpacks will compensate for the past 4 years of loyalty and goodwill held toward The Old Republic, squandered by its overseers. To paraphrase what someone on the forums once declared, the only choice that truly matters in this game is whether to pay or not: message heard loud and clear. For the sake of remaining subscribers, I sincerely hope all technical issues will be sorted out swiftly. As for KotFE, as long as the plot stays fairly unalterable and story companions' costumes remain unchangeable, it'll be the same playing it out as watching it on YouTube.

 

That's what I think most people don't understand... "it'll be the same playing it out as watching it on YouTube." Why should that be? It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, it might be BETTER to watch it on YouTube, because 1) it's free and 2) no BUGS!!

 

I'm so disheartened by the "we're looking into this" followed by "we aren't fixing this right now" messages. "This will be addressed at a future date, not sure when, I'll get back to you with more info"... followed by silence.

 

Really good feedback threads (like this one)... ignored. But by all means, get RIGHT ON the response about the Bronze/Silver/Gold packs the first day you're back from vacation. Please! By all means, don't let something about the Cartel Market go by without attending to it immediately!

 

Sub is up soon, and I won't be back. YouTube is a better deal.

[BenduKundalini]

Great post OP.

[Max_Killjoy]

Overall great thread, especially the OP. OP was well-written and thoughtful.

 

 

(The only bad part of the thread is the utterly predictable "you'll be back", "**** and leave", and "if you're leaving you're a traitor" comments from certain usual suspects...)

[Roalmo]

Overall great thread, especially the OP. OP was well-written and thoughtful.

 

 

(The only bad part of the thread is the utterly predictable "you'll be back", "**** and leave", and "if you're leaving you're a traitor" comments from certain usual suspects...)

 

Amusing comment, especially since this is a necro of a 2 month old thread.

[The-Kaitou-Kid]

Amusing comment, especially since this is a necro of a 2 month old thread.

 

And the OP is still around, so while it doesn't make any of the criticism less valid the "you'll be back" comments were at least accurate in this instance.

[Max_Killjoy]

Amusing comment, especially since this is a necro of a 2 month old thread.

 

Thank you for demonstrating my point.

[Max_Killjoy]

And the OP is still around, so while it doesn't make any of the criticism less valid the "you'll be back" comments were at least accurate in this instance.

 

The accuracy is hardly the point -- there are just certain trolls/griefers who can simply be counted on to post "you'll be back" as if that nullifies anything negative someone might say about the game.

 

I wonder if the OP would share with us what lead her to stick around after all.

 

I stopped playing for 2 months, 4.0 and the KotFE crapfest were just too much at the time. I've got about 10 days left on this current sub, and I can't say one way or the other what's going to happen in 10 days for me personally.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Max_Killjoy

[PennyAnn]

And the OP is still around, so while it doesn't make any of the criticism less valid the "you'll be back" comments were at least accurate in this instance.

 

I cancelled my sub, was asked by a friend to resume it for at least a short time, and I have. I never said I was "not coming back" or wouldn't re-sub. That was NOT the point of the thread AT ALL. The "you'll be back" comments were never disputed because I said that I would definitely be back when all chapters were released, if not sooner if I had a reason to be.

 

Friends who continue to play this game asked me to come back and raid so we could kill the 2 bosses my raid group has left to kill in this game. Once that has happened, I may be on a break until chapters are out in full... or I may be around if I have a reason.

 

The point of this thread was to give examples of what "give me a reason" would look like. I still feel exactly the same way as I did when I posted this thread months ago. Unfortunately, almost nothing has changed.