An open letter to our players

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Is it so difficult for some of you to grasp that you have outgrown what this game has to offer?

 

Nothing lasts forever.

 

No MMO or any video game can fill the void in your life forever, nor is it intended to do so.

 

If you are done with this game, move on to another and please stop yelling at the rest of us, and the developers, that like the game.

 

How is it so difficult for some of you to realize it's just time for you to move on; there is simply no video game in which you can live forever and avoid the RL...yet.

 

If you have 'done it all', then move on to the next thing that makes you happy and stop trying to make the rest of us as unhappy as you are!

 

Just GO and let the rest of us enjoy the game.

 

People want to invoke positive change so they can continue to enjoy the game they pay for, they would prefer NOT to have to go elsewhere for their enjoyment.

No one here gives a **** if you enjoy the game or not and aren't going to stop pushing for said change just to not trample on your precious little snowflake world, they care about their own enjoyment of the game thus the posts.

 

I suggest if you can't handle it you start using the ignore function.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I think it was a huge mistake to put bolster into HM FP and SM OPS. I also don't think OPS should be in GF, I've only ever finished maybe 2 or 3 true random OPS PUGs, ever. Everyone pre-forms then queues, why bother.

 

If no bolster existed in HM FP and SM OPS, and those were the only places to get unique gear, then you'd see them actually cared about more.

 

I disagree with this and found suc a change positive in getting more people doing operations which should have helped drive development of more content.

 

Unfortunately no matter how much you help people get into them there will be people not interested what so ever and that's fair enough and also we still get to the point we are seeing now that even newer people to the operations are getting rinsed out by the same operations over and over.

[TralyanSavo]

This was the last straw. I am officially cancelled.

 

This game has become trash. The story is terrible. The content is boring. There is no group content, so everyone on my friends list has stopped logging on. Best of all, the dev are tone deaf and completely missing it.

 

The reason you're bleeding subs and CM dollars is because your choices have destroyed the community.

 

Adios.

[Krazhez]

 

2.0-3.0 brought FIVE solo stories that combined probably double or triple the length of your "chapters," THREE OPERATIONS, Nightmare Modes for FOUR operations, and SnV was the longest operation we've ever had, one warzone, four arenas, 2 NEW flashpoints, two new daily areas, GSF, Strongholds/Conquests, and the list goes on.

 

2.x Best xpac ever, I'd love to see them do more like that, even the bionoc and seeker missions chains were fun, loved the puzzles.

[TheEvilDarkNight]

Imo swtor has never been a great mmo but instead a good single player game.

 

I say this because the only thing unique about Swtor is the Class storylines which it does well. Pve & pvp content has never been unique or even stood out as being better then other mmo's.

 

So you would think that they you would expand on those class storylines but instead we have never had any expansion to the class storylines. Instead we have received one size fits all storylines that keep getting even more generic every expansion. Hutt cartel there was at least some unique dialog for each class and recognition of your class story. By SoR there was very little unique dialog or recognition and by Kotfe it might as well be insert generic hero here. It almost seems like Kotfe was written for people just starting Swtor and buying level 60 tokens (which i find quite funny i mean the level 60 tokens lock you out of the best content in the game class storylines).

 

Kotfe is kinda fun the first time you play the chapters if you just turn you brain off and don't think about the story too hard but playing a second time is hard.

 

I would gladly pay for a sub if you could come out with say an hour or expansion of each class storyline each month or even adding a new planet every 2 or month that had a shared faction story (1 for empire and 1 for republic) and also a mini class story for each class. As it stands paying a sub for 15-30 minutes of content which has almost no replay factor is a sick joke.

Edited April 21, 2016 by TheEvilDarkNight

[LosevV]

So This is great success now.... It's good to have 5 more levels, which I upped in 4 hours. It's good that now I have all heroics which I did on low level when it was hard and fun. It's good that now I have 30 flashpoint to do, although I was doing them daily, when I was raising the level of my characters, it's good to have EV and KP (RIP NiM) once again, to do the same thing from 50 lvl. Yeah guys, great work with "new" group content.

*sarcasm turned off*

This open letter such a joke... Why you write something, if all you did summaries reason why part of players quit your game?

Also, +1 to this

Kotfe is kinda fun the first time you play the chapters if you just turn you brain off and don't think about the story too hard but playing a second time is hard.

 

I would gladly pay for a sub if you could come out with say an hour or expansion of each class storyline each month or even adding a new planet every 2 or month that had a shared faction story (1 for empire and 1 for republic) and also a mini class story for each class. As it stands paying a sub for 15-30 minutes of content which has almost no replay factor is a sick joke.

Edited April 21, 2016 by LosevV

[lilathrone]

1. 30 flashpoints upgraded to be challenging again

 

As much as I like some design choices and changes you made with 4.0 and I appreciate your hard work, I'm dissapointed with a few things.

 

Have you been monitoring tacticals and listening to feedback, since november? Are flashpoints 100% working as intended? Me and as I read a lot of other players liked the old SM flashpoints better, and don't get me wrong, the idea of changing them to tacticals was a great idea, but that requires actual tuning, other than just putting down healing stations and bolstering low lvl players to lvl65. So for instance, as I read, and as I experience low lvl dps groups have a very hard time even on trash pulls due to the lack of abilities and lack of healing. Some bosses are nightmare and just watch the feedback on Blood Hunt. Tacticals, if I don't play with a healer, or don't play with a level65 toon is just not fun anymore.

[Krazzorr]

Thank you for posting this, even though I hate that you have to placate the minority of loud, raging gamers that do not truly represent your player-base, so that they do not cause PR nightmares for the game for no good reason. Rabid fans are the bane of any good thing and they are blind to that fact.

 

As you can see, forum posters already in this thread are clueless as to how these things work, much less the ability to converse in reasonable discourse, so I always applaud you guys for taking the time to post, knowing you will get so much unfiltered gamer rage-hate.

 

Please keep on working hard to make a great game; there are thousands of us enjoying it, regardless of the hate and ignorance tossed around the Internet about SWOTOR.

 

 

I mean to be honest, the staff has been silent for a long time, especially about issues that literally shouldn't exist like having a broken match in a ranked wz rotation... I know coding... it's literally is changing a 1 - a 0 for the variable of having the match populate, or commenting it out.... Like that's blatantly ignoring us. I get their job is hard. I get their job is stressful, but you're either a professional or you aren't. This isn't a game that some community is making. It's a game that we pay for on a monthly basis and all of us posting on the forums are subscribers... So as subscribers we expect and deserve to have our issues addressed. Makes sense? Thought so...

[ybdron]

... 50 operation bosses upgraded to be challenging again, ...

 

This doesn't count as new operations fyi. And while I am at it, only 2 bosses on hardest difficulty is actually hard and gives a challenge. That is unless you equip Nightmare Crystal, then everything becomes a faceroll.

 

Since I dont expect any new operations in this game anymore, Im not even disappointed that there was nothing in the dev post about this. The glorydays of this game is long gone.

[xkcurtisx]

This doesn't count as new operations fyi. And while I am at it, only 2 bosses on hardest difficulty is actually hard and gives a challenge. That is unless you equip Nightmare Crystal, then everything becomes a faceroll.

 

Since I dont expect any new operations in this game anymore, Im not even disappointed that there was nothing in the dev post about this. The glorydays of this game is long gone.

 

^

that

[Ardarell_Solo]

Thanks for updating us, Ben.

 

I appreciate your efforts developing the game. I imagine it's hard to please different groups of players and you'd probably like to do more for veterans yourselves - assuming most of you are long time gamers yourselves.

 

I've reposted your letter on our guild's forums, because we've been facing a massive exodus of players in the months following the release of KOTFE. Everyone that left said something along these lines:

 

I still kinda like the game, but the main reason for me to play it was to go raiding with you guys. And it's not enough motivation to redo the same mechanics in ops we've been progressing hard for months some time ago. It's too repetitive.

 

So I highlighted this passage in your letter:

 

we have started the early design phase for new, non-chapter, content. You all know the drill here, I can’t talk about any of the specifics (yet) but what I can say is that we have some REALLY cool stuff to talk about later this year and the whole SWTOR team can’t wait to announce it. Soon. TM.

 

And said I understand this passage as "a new Ops is in the works".

 

Because I hope that guildmates that are still around might cancel their plans of unsubbing. At the same time I know a lot of Ex-Guildies still read our forums and would gladly return if a new Ops was on the horizon. Soon. TM.

[SirMannii]

For me it's the other way around. Knights of the Fallen Empire is the least succesful expansion. All my friends quit due to no new content. You have turned the entire game into a Solo Experience. I'm still a subscriber until this summer sometime, but after that I don't see any future. I haven't put time into the monthly chapters because they are dull and have a weak story plot. I miss my first 8 Class stories I wnt through during the first 2 year life span and all the original planets and their lore all together. THAT was The Old Republic, and I have appreciated the Operation development and quality PRE KotFE.

 

Now it's all a mess and a single player game every time I log on. I have always supported the PvP section, reaching Top 3 in your Ranked PvP on my Gunslinger in times where Sorcerers have been so unbalanced it was not even worth playing anything else. Hell, the PvP is still in this state. And nothing has been adressed. So, even though this post is very welcome, I can't say it's more than a plea that players like me, who are not impressed or interested in the direction you have chosen, that we should take part in this "future", Because if "ongoing support for the future" still will deliver below 30 frames per second in Warzones, release of Single Player content instead of Group content (e.g the eternal championship), no new Operations or harder World Bosses (instanced or not) and downtime of PvP seasons for longer than anyone would pay for, then count me out.

 

Loyal Swtor subscriber since December 14th 2011

Edited April 21, 2016 by SirMannii

[AmarantKando]

First of all, thanks a lot for the letter. It's nice to be noticed every once in a while.

We are committed to doing better and I think Chapter XII: Visions in the Dark shows we are serious about listening to your concerns and making meaningful changes to address them.

Come on Ben, how many people have actually asked for another chapter, and how many people have asked to get better class balance. If you are only gonna be doing one of the two, why not prioritize the one the most loyal players of your playerbase are asking for.

Soon. TM.

Heh.

[Opaknack]

First of all, thanks a lot for the letter. It's nice to be noticed every once in a while.

 

Come on Ben, how many people have actually asked for another chapter, and how many people have asked to get better class balance. If you are only gonna be doing one of the two, why not prioritize the one the most loyal players of your playerbase are asking for.

 

Heh.

This!

Ben... there are so many posts from players suffering because

- hacker and exploits (acid exploit in ranked ovp)

- sage/sorc plague in pvp (heal and madness)

- stuck spots on the buggy rishi map and this sh*** goes live and ruins ranked pvp.

- no new operations since dec 2014!!!

- half empty servers (and you increase the character transfer costs to collect more money for an issue what you dont want or dont cant solve. The players have to pay extra charge for the mistakes by Bioware. And we still cant transfer the stronghold and all design slots will lost )

ecc.

 

and you are talking about Kotfe, the new chapter XII, the recycled 3 - 4 years old operations as if would be the Holy Grail?

Sorry for this heavy words but this ist just stupid or ignorant and NOT "LISTENING TO OUR CONCERNS".

Edited April 21, 2016 by Opaknack

[force_fortytwo]

Hey folks, hey devs,

 

I think the most difficult part for the devs' work is that a MMO attracts a wide variety of players, especially if there's also a whole lot of solo story content to be enjoyed. I myself am rather the solo story type, only occasionally doing group content like FPs, Raids and sort of the like. However, I have had my share of hardcore MMO raiding some years before and simply cannot afford the time anymore. So, I kinda have seen both sides of the MMO populace, if you want to put it that way.

 

What I think is happening here, is that the Devs try to appease all the various player types somehow, but struggle hard (I won't say fail because there's still room and time for improvement) to meet certain quality requirements.

The various bugs reported since 4.0 and being discussed on these forums seem to not have been addressed yet in a satisfying way. I guess there's an overall priority list for the Devs which is not limited to bugs.

 

The quality of the Single-player story content is degrading more and more. While in Vanilla SWTOR there were 8 unique class stories and a faction-wide planetary story arc for each planet, the variety melted down to the faction-specific planetary story arcs for RotHC and then on to Oricon and SoR. And now, the "amazing new story-driven content" of 4.0, in fact, is quite a huge step away from the level of quality we got in the leveling story arc. Melting eight classes into one story (which is, in part, extremely railroaded and obviously thought for the Jedi Knight), does not do the game any good, because many classes, especially the non-force-users, seem out of place and the explanation why V would stick around them is not exactly plausible.

Moreover, the introduction of a huge third unknown faction which excels against Republic and Empire because of their "transcendence" in the force, respectively their not being bound by the limitations of one side, puts a tremendous strain on what we have learned about the nature of the force so far. Even Revan eventually failed at mastering the middle, impressively depicted in KotOR and then in SoR. I personally like to ponder about the story I encounter, get involved in this universe and let my mind drift around in it, but KotFE so far has left us with quite some plotholes and even some thorough disappointments, which have all been made a topic on these forums already. I think there'd be a lot more demand (and even attraction for founding subscribers who left the game on the way) if the class stories returned - or at least a specific story for force-users and non-force-users of each faction, making it four stories again. The way that KotFE has developed so far actually makes replaying the story a tedious and largely boring timesink, since only significant difference you can obviously make up to Chapter XI is having Koth leave you for bombing civilians. All the other story elements - even in crucial moments - effectively produce the same result no matter what decision you take. You decide to not save Lana - she's rescued anyway. You decide not to use V's force against arcann - you're being stabbed by him and are thus just as weak as you would have been if you had chosen differently. I personally like the real options in the 1-50 stories, where you can really even sacrifice important NPCs or kill them for being annoying. And the different story endings for the IA are an awesome example of what this game and this creative team are capable of. Everything is possible, from becoming the "imperial Batman" to joining the SIS - This is why I loved KotOR I and II and these are the things I love most about SWTOR! I think it is clear why I don't appreciate KotFE that much after all - This "one story fits all" rationale forces certain out-of-character actions of your toons, which is why I won't go through this with any Non-Force-User class. At least not beyond chapter IX so I can at least be based on Odessen.

 

I understand that the aforementioned flaws in the game are a result of the creative team having tremendous schedule pressure with the announcement of monthly chapters, but as to the single-player possibilities of the game (which are clearly shown in the 1-50 story arcs), KotFE is far from sufficient. So, if there is any perspective to make it at least four distinct stories again at some point, I'll probably stay subscribed until this game is dust. The way it is now, I am subscribed, but only to push my JK alt through the new content, maybe do the second- or third-newest chapters my sith and JC alts if I can spare the time, and play certain 1-50 character stories for the first or maybe a second time to see how they play out and what the different choices entail.

 

But honestly, until something changes about the way "story-driven content" is presented, this content will be no incentive to keep me subscribed. I want CLASS story, not MASS story (pun intended). And Star Wars as a trademark and universe should offer so much which is still untold...

 

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted to differenciate and not go on a rant. Hope it is appreciated!

[DarthDymond]

Come on Ben, how many people have actually asked for another chapter, and how many people have asked to get better class balance. If you are only gonna be doing one of the two, why not prioritize the one the most loyal players of your playerbase are asking for.

The ongoing Chapters are the heart of the game now.

 

While I hope they do get any Class Balance issues addressed, they shouldn't sideline their core content to do so. (Besides, it's not likely that the same team / developer would be working on those two separate aspects.)

Edited April 21, 2016 by DarthDymond

[Jedi_riches]

First of all, thanks a lot for the letter. It's nice to be noticed every once in a while.

 

Come on Ben, how many people have actually asked for another chapter, and how many people have asked to get better class balance. If you are only gonna be doing one of the two, why not prioritize the one the most loyal players of your playerbase are asking for.

 

Heh.

 

Perhaps the loyal players are not the most profitable, if so it would be business suicide to pander and cater too much to them.

 

For what its worth I want another chapter, the classes feel perfectly well in my PvE experience I really don't want PvP class balances screwing that up and they always tend to.

[AlienEyeTX]

F42 touched on something that I've been thinking for a while... KotFE would be so much better if it had two paths: force user and non-force user.

 

As we all know, the story is so forced BH, Smug, Agent, and trooper. It's laughable that a BH would end up in this position. Mine immediately knelt to Val because there was an opportunity to make money. After events, once freed, it would be time to escape and go hunting... not try to overthrow a government. Not recruit an army. Not make friends with a Jedi and dead Sith.

 

Please, please, please, BW... for S2, give a story that makes sense to the character.

[DieAlteHexe]

Perhaps the loyal players are not the most profitable, if so it would be business suicide to pander and cater too much to them.

 

For what its worth I want another chapter, the classes feel perfectly well in my PvE experience I really don't want PvP class balances screwing that up and they always tend to.

 

Ayup.

[AlrikFassbauer]

For what its worth I want another chapter, the classes feel perfectly well in my PvE experience I really don't want PvP class balances screwing that up and they always tend to.

 

Problem is, PvE balance already screwed up PvP. Big time. You just have no idea how much frustrated people are there. How much sense is lost in playing ANY other class than Healer Sorc.

Edited April 21, 2016 by AlrikFassbauer

[Jedi_riches]

deleted Edited April 21, 2016 by Jedi_riches

[robertthebard]

Problem is, PvE balance already screwed up PvP. Big time. You just have no idea how much frustrated people are there. How much sense is lost in playing ANY other class than Healer Sorc.

 

Actually, you have this backwards: PvP balance broke PvE. All the calls for balance now are effectively "nerf sorc". I was here when Orbital Tickle, er, Strike got nerfed into the ground with the smokescreen of "It's not a PvP issue". I wonder, however, where the mob forum is complaining about it? I remember when playing my sorc/sage healer I could bubble the tank for a HoT while in FPs and Ops. Which mobs complained about that?

 

The short answer is "The mobs in the PvP FPs". The ones that don't understand what Focus Fire is, and when and where to use it. They queue'd up expecting CoDesque PvP, found out that there were people that actually understood group PvP, and hit the forums complaining. After all, if they can't go in and solo stomp everyone in the FP, it must be a problem with the game, right? Before we get into the "nuh uh" posts, check it out, this quoted post bears out this post. Short of making some classes completely unplayable in Story content, there's not much left for them to nerf, which is why they feel that balance is just fine. It's not a game issue, it's a player issue.

[Jedi_riches]

Short of making some classes completely unplayable in Story content, there's not much left for them to nerf, which is why they feel that balance is just fine. It's not a game issue, it's a player issue.

 

I would say that if Biowares focus is story content that it would actually make sense to balance the classes around the story content to ensure all classes are viable in this area first.

 

I just wish that the devs could find a way to mess with expertise as a way of buffing or nerfing classes in PvP that way you can balance each class to each contents to their hearts content.

[robertthebard]

I would say that if Biowares focus is story content that it would actually make sense to balance the classes around the story content to ensure all classes are viable in this area first.

 

I just wish that the devs could find a way to mess with expertise as a way of buffing or nerfing classes in PvP that way you can balance each class to each contents to their hearts content.

 

Which is, I believe, what they're saying it is right now, balanced for Story. As we can see, this isn't enough. I'm not sure how messing with Expertise, or even why they included it in the first place, is going to do anything. Short of people that have fully geared, Bolster was introduced in the PvP FPs to make everyone "competitive". It didn't teach them how to play, so it didn't help them much.

[Jedi_riches]

I'm not sure how messing with Expertise, or even why they included it in the first place, is going to do anything.

 

Well from my limited understanding expertise effects how hard you hit or how hard something hits you, so in effect expertise should act as a multiplier in a sense on all abilities used. Now I don't have any actual details on how it works or the numbers but assume:-

 

A typical sage heal currently has expertise multiplying its ability at a rate of say 1.5 time the normal rate, isn't it possible that you could reduce the multiplier on the 'errant' abilities to say 1.1 times the normal rate etc.

 

That way you are not affecting the abilities themselves just how they work in a warzone or in PvP open world combat.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Jedi_riches