An open letter to our players

[Cherubel]

Thank you for posting.

Please stop being vague about what is happening.

WHY cant you put a roadmap for 2016/2017 like you guys used to??

 

Totally idiotic not to as it would give us players something to look forward to.

I dont mean dates and play-by-play explanations but non-vague and easy to understang sentences.

LIKE YOU USED TO before.

 

Cant for the life of me find the post but there was a 2014 or a 2013 roadmap where you wrote clearly and concisely new major patch around so and so. it will be similar in size to this and that content. after that the newt patch will come x amount of time after. It will have some new modes of play and be closet to this and that patch in size!

 

I friggin LOVED the transparency of that particular post. (Shame I cant find it now).

 

That would eliminate all the doom and gloom bullcrap. The new #drivebygerneration is just moaning coz they dont know better, it is in their DNA. The diehards are still here and will be here till you guys decide to pull the plug no matter what. But we are your customers, yes 99.9% of us moan about stuff, cry about changes, want MOAR of everything etc, etc. We are also human beings so treat us decently. We as the customers deserve to have MMO content in a MMO game.

 

1. Hire a ops developer person as the position is currently vacant MMO isn't a single player *****torm of crapy repetitive **** if you have 20 characters and you want them all to be up to date story wise. There hasent been a new ops in AGES (since 2014) do you really think this is reasonable??? Look at other "current" MMOs and their content and the speed of their expansions and how much there is to do for end game ppl.

FIX THIS PLEASE!!!

 

2. Please make Master&Blaster fight normal again. It is not doable for pugs in any mode. Progression teams are weven having problems clearing it and after 4.0 not many teams do this fight at all. Dont believe me you have the metrics, check em out. Number dont lie.

 

3. Please stop this single player ****. It is a MMO make group content, not just revamp old stuff.

 

4. Communicate with us more. Support is a joke. Wait time for tickets is beyond ridiculous! I just went over my personal tickets. and the answers are 1 week+ in answering... Really??

Get somebody to tell us more about the game, what you are planning, listen to the player base, PLEASE!!!!!!

 

5. Keep making more SWTOR not KOTOR. dont misunderstand me, I love both but it is a MMO I'm paying for and I would like MORE MMO content that ACTUALLY requires me to play with friends to complete.

 

Thank you

Edited April 20, 2016 by Cherubel

[Fixiooo]

Does the MoCap work involve new animations for Sins and Shadows because holy crap, the double-strike animation is the most dull thing. Edited April 20, 2016 by Fixiooo

[Rabenschwinge]

I am curious what these animations are for. Combat animations that we see all and make combat a little smoother, a little less choppy? Or highly specialized dialogue animations which only appear for a few seconds in the game?

 

I really like the improvements in facial animations with the latest additions.

[TopAceOfEarth]

Doubtful, but it would be nice to get a response from Bioware Austin to the following concerns, even a "we know about it and are working on it" would be nice .

 

General:

• Win trading in the current season, seems to run rampart on some EU servers already, with people advertising for it on fleet for credits
  
• PvP balance, especially using tank stance to get the full 110% accuracy and then using tank armorings and dps gear in other slots - is it working as intended? Cause 10% free acc is quite nice.
  
• Maybe an option to turn off the flying animation every time you go to the guildship?
  
• Remove repair cost from the game, it's not useful anymore, only people you are hurting with it are endgame raiders, it is also a barrier to entry for newer players to try harder content
  

 

New Warzones:

• Rishi Arena - jumping someone on many places = instant death. A this bugged arena should not be used for ranked matches, until fixed.
  
• Rishi Arena - can stand right outside the spawn point, without the "getting kicked soon" debuff.
  
• Rishi Arena - getting outside of the map in (ranked) matches and outlasting the other team - is it an exploit? cause there are quite a few that do this, and reporting does not seem to help as they are keeping their ranking.
  
• Odessen Proving Grounds - Sorc/Sage force barrier prevents capturing of notes, is this intended?
  
• Odessen Proving Grounds - spawning after death on a spot with 3-4 enemies
  
• Odessen Proving Grounds - Battlemods and stealth characters - can't get rid of battle mods except to give them away or use them - prevents stealth, disadvantage, would be nice to at least utilize stealth for getting force back, getting procs etc. even if you get kicked back to non-stealth right away
  

 

Mission Balance:

• Sharing warzone quests between factions und turning them in
  
• Many Warzones and GSF Missions are still lvl 60 and reward less credits etc.
  
• Heroic missions on planets giving extra credits for each person in the group, e.g. 4x 18k instead of 1x18k per person, this is inflating the economy - is it intended?
  
• On Odessen Proving grounds, the difference between victory and defeat is very marginal in commendations.
  

 

Achievements:

• All with chapter 11 associated achievements are currently gone
  
• Missing achievement under possessions -> pets 10pts
  
• Broken achievement under companions - shared - treek 50 pts
  
• Achievements for Kills on Odessen proving grounds are granted by doing killing blows in Voidstar, example "Alliance Proving Ground Mauler" rewards the Trophy Art Voidstar
  
• Alliance Proving Ground: Likelihood of getting the 55 player kills and 20 killing blows per match are a poor copy and paste job from Voidstar and should have been adjusted to take the reduced time per match and the intended objectives into consideration.
  
• It would also be really nice if you would stop adding achievements that are clearly broken or not working to the live servers. Since the achievements came out there has not been one day where it was possible to get 100%, because of bugged ones that were not obtainable.
  

 

Class Balance:

• No Option for 30% AoE Damage reduction for some specs, example: Hatred/Serenity, or Pyro - is this intended?
  
• Will there be any class balance coming? Or do you believe it is in a good spot right now? e.g. 50% of all ranked matches are sorcs... etc.
  

[killershrike]

Maybe one day u'll understand that no one care of solo content. Only casual like that cuz they only do the 15min per month their chap and come back next month. Yes its worth for you, free money but when this terrible chapter story will end. No more free money.

 

Maybe one day u'll realize thats the hardcore gamer doing PVP/PVE daily that keep your game alive. Open your eyes, thats not the casual who keeped WoW alive since 10 years. Come on how can u be blind like that?

 

(slight hyperbole and generalization incoming)

 

Actually, "hardcore gamers" are the worst customers a MMORPG can have.

Disproportionately high use of resources and constant complaints.

Trying to abuse the system whenever possible.

 

Compare that to the "casuals", who play maybe 5 hours a week.

The players with a little army of alts to explore the stories in different manners.

The players that can barely keep up even with slow content releases.

 

If I were a developer and had limited resources, I would cater more to the "casuals".

I wouldn't totally ignore / abandon the "hardcores", but would definitively take their complaints with not only a grain, but a ton of salt.

 

But it's all speculation, because none of us actually knows the exact composition of the playerbase.

And there are a lot of other playstyles in between the extremes.

 

I'm just tired of "hardcore gamers" proclaiming that they are the be all and end all of MMORPGs.

[Krazhez]

I love this game, but this post kind of worries me. Why post something like this with hype and promises that that game is doing the best it ever has? That can't be true, you can see the server statuses on torstatus. Harbinger, the most populated server, never hits heavy server status anymore. It used to be a very common occurrence at primetime. Must be based on subscribers that subbed, but they only log in for new chapters.

 

I was a story driven person my first year here in 2012, I still love doing the story, but there should be more to do. I moved into being a heavier raider when dread ops dropped. (Btw 2.0 and every patch that came with it was the best expansion for me.) I love the Kotfe story, but I'm not a fan of the missions or the way adds spawn. I've done all the star fortresses, multiple times and gotten all the achievements. Other than that its all old content, I've progressed already.

 

Back on point however, I do see this letter as troubling, it doesn't really settle concerns, it seems very defensive. I want to see this game strive and live, but I'm not sure pushing away the MMO aspect is such a great idea. A fair amount of people won't continue to pay for a single player game month to month. I just hope you guys read through these posts and take a lot of them as constructive criticism. People who may seem over emotional or loudly disappointed, are because they love the game so much and they don't want to see it die, or they don't want to leave it because it no longer interests them. They want to stay, but you need to give them reasons to stay.

 

Its been said many times in this forum and all other aspects of social media, but we need some fresh group content. We need you guys to show that you care, communicate with us more, update us. Care about our concerns and questions.

[Karudan]

Thank you for the open letter. I am one of those who is thoroughly enjoying KoTFE and happy with the new direction. I can echo the sentiment of other players posting in this thread that it will be nice to hear more of the on going new additions to the game. At the least once it has been announced as the Warzones or Eternal Championship.

 

The website is not doing much to promote the new features and personally I think a write up on the bosses of Eternal Championship bosses for example could have created some hype and a show of activity for the players.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Karudan

[AlrikFassbauer]

As much as I love this game, it gives me constant frustration - mostly because of the way the Heroics were dumbed down for low-level characters. All the cutscenes gone !

This is what depresses me most : Levelling in SWTOR just isn't like it used to be. It feels too fast. It just has not that much immersion anymore, at least not someone who is focused very much on details. What kind of players is EA / Bioware catering for ?

 

 

No, although I'm a subscriber, I can hardly force myself playing SWTOR nowadays, because everywhere I play with my characters I'm forced to see the ruins of former low-level experience, how "vanilla SWTOR" used to be. ( I just picked up the term "Legacy Servers" in an entirely different MMO discussion. )

 

And I can't force myself starting KOTFE, either, because of all of the legacy stuff that's BOC and filling up my Cargo Bay storage room ( inside of my older characters' class ship ), and I just don't want to throw this ancient stuff away.

Therefore, if I start KOTFE, I would get even more BOC stuff which I can't store.

Call me crazy, but to me, thatz's a real hindrance. I want to keep this ancient stuff for later generations. Even in RL I'm working in an archive now.

 

The problem is, that the Cargo Bay storage room of the class ship is still at the size of let's say SWTOR 2.0 - as if 4.0 had been fully ignored. Or didn't even exist.

 

And don't get me even started on PVP class balance ...

 

And Tacticals are a problem as well : If you put too many low-level characters into a group, you just won't get enough DPS ... I've seen it.

Plus, tacticals are considered a "speedrun" now by most people, it seems. And when they can't get through it, they complain.

Old FPs weren't considered speedruns. One had to be cautious from the start.

 

Sometimes I really miss the old SWTOR. I mean, I can't do OPs with level 50 anymore. Well, that was the cap, then, but now ... there is a big, big hole between level 50 & level 60 ...

 

The PvE / PvP instances is one is the best ideas I've ever, seen, imho, by the way. Same with Legacy Storage.

And with Strongholds.

Although I still on't understand why there are never decoration hooks "in the wilderness" on the outside of these Strongholds. I would have *loved* that !

( Currently, decoration strongholds are very tighltly bound only to the building itself. )

Edited April 20, 2016 by AlrikFassbauer

[Jedi_riches]

Thank you for posting.

Please stop being vague about what is happening.

WHY cant you put a roadmap for 2016/2017 like you guys used to??

 

While I have not yet read all of this thread I caught this post and the answer is rather obvious and the reasons devs always keep thing vague.

 

The fact of it is that if they showed you the roadmap and for what was coming up, every time Bioware missed a deadline they would be slaughtered, I remember seeing negative posts from people due to continual delay of the most recent Eternal Championship (which we only knew about I feel as they needed our input re: potential rewards etc).

 

People tend to expect deadlines to be met, which is fair enough and I get that but things don't tend to work like that.

[AlrikFassbauer]

We already know most of the roadmap of 2016. It's here : http://www.swtor.com/fallen-empire

[Jedi_riches]

Mate if you looked for information via google, reddit, fansites, your own gosh darn forums you'd see people don't give a crap about KOTFE they want new RAIDS new group content they can enjoy with their friends not 10-30 minutes of story content you call golden because let's face it, it's really not.. put this story crap on the back burner and get to the crap people want.. Release raids then release story crap in subsequent patches. You don't just outright ignore your PvE and PvP communities respectively for years while you make up these crappy predictable stories.

 

No all you really know is that a vocal section have actually posted something. that the thing you have to be careful as a vocal subset of players MAY NOT represent the whole of the player base.

 

Maybe one day u'll understand that no one care of solo content. Only casual like that cuz they only do the 15min per month their chap and come back next month. Yes its worth for you, free money but when this terrible chapter story will end. No more free money.

 

Maybe the cartelboy will keep you alive for few months but no more.

 

Maybe one day u'll realize thats the hardcore gamer doing PVP/PVE daily that keep your game alive. Open your eyes, thats not the casual who keeped WoW alive since 10 years. Come on how can u be blind like that?

 

Do what a MMO are made for, release MULTIPLAYERS content seriously. We are in 2016. Wake up

 

Stop lie in your all communications posts, I HAVE NEVER SEE SOMEONE HAPPY OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE for the last months.

 

And please stop saying you have work hard for this game. Rescale ( without any idea of what u are doing, i mean, have you realize that the scaling of operation have made impossible timer run ? Like dread fortress with grob'thok taking 10 minutes to die for a boss without any strategy. You have just put more Hp and damage on the boss, thats not enough to keep player motivated to kill boss who they already farmed years ago in every difficult )

 

And as usual, your post is like speaking to say nothing, always the same message since last year in different words. "We are working hard blablabla" my dog work probably more and he doesnt need to tell us every 2 months

 

I was actually going to reply to this saying how you can't talk for all of the player base yet I think that this post actually sums everything up correctly:

 

(slight hyperbole and generalization incoming)

 

Actually, "hardcore gamers" are the worst customers a MMORPG can have.

Disproportionately high use of resources and constant complaints.

Trying to abuse the system whenever possible.

 

Compare that to the "casuals", who play maybe 5 hours a week.

The players with a little army of alts to explore the stories in different manners.

The players that can barely keep up even with slow content releases.

 

If I were a developer and had limited resources, I would cater more to the "casuals".

I wouldn't totally ignore / abandon the "hardcores", but would definitively take their complaints with not only a grain, but a ton of salt.

 

But it's all speculation, because none of us actually knows the exact composition of the playerbase.

And there are a lot of other playstyles in between the extremes.

 

I'm just tired of "hardcore gamers" proclaiming that they are the be all and end all of MMORPGs.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Jedi_riches

[carnivalofrust]

I almost never post on these forums but I wanted to say thank you for this open letter. I'm a returning player who's thoroughly enjoying KotFE and I really appreciate all the hard work you and the other devs have put into this game. Glad to hear things are going so well. Can't wait to see what comes next!

[Rabenschwinge]

The focus of Star Wars: The Old Republic shifted towards Bioware's central competance, heroic stories. Like Baldur's Gate, like Neverwinter Nights, like Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect. All of them are single player games. When the game started it was a broad MMO, set up to have millions of subscribers. It didn't work. So now it's specializing on its own niche and takes into account that they will loose some MMO gamers in order to be as appealing as possible to Bioware's own audience.

 

That's my guess, anyway, it's not like I was attending management meetings.

 

Personally I am perfectly fine with that. As most of the critics point out, World of Warcraft has a lot more, less buggy and more interesting operations or raids, respectively. So why compete with WoW on its own territory? WoW has a lot more throughput than SW:TOR, they'd never be able to catch up with them. Why not for focus what sets the game apart? What does anyone need two games for which are identical except for some paint on top and the fact that roles are not implied in classes? If people really want raids they can simply play WoW, problem solved. Why does this game have to be just like another? That's what I would do if raids were the most important aspect of MMOs to me.

 

World of Warcraft is better at being World of Warcraft than Star Wars: The Old Republic could ever be.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Rabenschwinge

[sethdil]

Hi there!

 

Onto the future. Is SWTOR going to receive ongoing support? The answer is absolutely yes.

 

Ben Irving

 

Does this mean between new MAJOR development cycles the players will now see the development team starting to correct bugs in older content. This includes but not limited to visual bugs in cutscenes, broken cartel market items [Example: Darth Anddedu armor set lower piece severe clipping], or just a quick search of the forums yields lots of bugs that are small enough that a skilled development team would only need an hour or less to fix(mainly mesh misalignment on armor). This would show the community that Biowares commitment is serious.

[Thaladan]

Empty words..you just see the number of subs dropping and you really think that a political "open letter" will make us happy?

 

in which decade do you live? we see this kind of message so many times, there are just empty words, you waste your time doing it, i waste mine reading it.

 

so FIX YOUR GAME and SHUT UP ! you Miserable blundering barbecued blister!

[Jedi_riches]

Empty words..you just see the number of subs dropping and you really think that a political "open letter" will make us happy?

 

in which decade do you live? we see this kind of message so many times, there are just empty words, you waste your time doing it, i waste mine reading it.

 

so FIX YOUR GAME and SHUT UP ! you Miserable blundering barbecued blister!

 

Gee insults, in the next breath people like you are asking why there are no posts from devs etc with updates on the game sigh!

[JennyCharmers]

This was enough to finally end my subscription. You should of been a politician Mr Irving as they have to train to be able say a whole lot at the same time as actually saying nothing and you've done extremely well at it with this post.

[Max_Killjoy]

Gee insults, in the next breath people like you are asking why there are no posts from devs etc with updates on the game sigh!

 

I'm starting to think it's not "Where are the dev posts?" but rather "Where are the dev posts so we can insult them and froth at the mouth?"

[Alanbra]

While I'm glad that SWTOR will have support in the future, I have to ask : How will this future support differ from the support it has had in the last few months? I mean, I assume it's had support and yet we've had a credit exploit, broken ques, sudden death glitches in rishi arena, broken companion quests, a glitched Disavowed chapter for many people, and that's just from the top of my head.

 

So what actions are being taken? Are you using the great success of the expansion to increase the QA department? Allocated more hours to testing? Increased communication between the teams so that each one group doesn't cause bugs in another area? What steps are you taking to prevent the recent mistakes?

[Elvija]

How about giving some constructive criticism on what you see is a problem of the game, instead of saying to the devs are doing a terrible job? Some of you have, yes. But most of you complainers don't really give that much info on what exactly it is you want repaired, other than yelling "fix the bugs" and "class balance". Seriously, that is not the way to help them out pinpointing what it is you want fixed.

 

Ben, thank you for the info. Can't wait for the last chapters and what ever new content comes our way

[Jedi_riches]

I'm starting to think it's not "Where are the dev posts?" but rather "Where are the dev posts so we can insult them and froth at the mouth?"

 

Quite possibly I almost think the forums WANT something to complain about.

[Moranae]

How about giving some constructive criticism on what you see is a problem of the game, instead of saying to the devs are doing a terrible job? Some of you have, yes. But most of you complainers don't really give that much info on what exactly it is you want repaired, other than yelling "fix the bugs" and "class balance". Seriously, that is not the way to help them out pinpointing what it is you want fixed.

 

Ben, thank you for the info. Can't wait for the last chapters and what ever new content comes our way

 

My critic would point to the never answered question concerning the *new companions* and their customization.

A definitive answer like yes or no, as simple as this, would have been appreciated. But no we are on ignore from Eric and any other devs about this feature.

 

The ignorance has led me to delete 12 levels 65 with romance and start new ones that will never ever use romance and only play with companions that can be customized. I never use Lana, Theron, HK55, or any others, and play the stories as i wish them to be.

I have still to delete 21 but those are less important to me so they just are put aside.

 

The stories with those new companions are really great, BUT i hated the sensation to be cheated by my romanced companion. Theron was the worst as he goes with everyone and romance everyone (meaning you can stand in an area and see 30 or 50 of him, same look).

 

But well i settled the problem by rejected anything with the new companions. I am still Alliance commander with 7 characters, so yes i play the game, i just play it the way it was offered to me since the start concerning the companions.

 

Now beside that i am there supporting and playing the game, doubting sometimes of the futur of it when i can play a full day without encountering anyone, but still enjoying it the way i play it.

Ben sur did a great post, teasing us very well, praising the devs and the support they receive, but this does not remove the fact that i feel ignored totally.

 

After more thoughts, i could even start with the companions and their bugged tank stances that has never been answered either, despite a movie send to explain it.

When i am forced in the started of KOTFE to use for some chapters the new companions, Lana tank stance is perfect, she jump on the mobs far away, Koth and Theron, just do a double salto staying at my side and lure to me all the mobs.

I discovered lately that even Iresso do the same.

Happily Nadia is perfectly playing her role.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Moranae

[Glower]

Hi there!

 

If there is anything I would like people reading this to take away it’s this: SWTOR is absolutely being supported into the future. We have a lot of content coming over the next few months and even more exciting things to talk about later this year.

 

Ben Irving

 

For real?

 

Well, yeah, no balance changes in PvP for ages, no new PvE MMO content for ages, single player game successfully consumed fairly good MMORPG and your team and partners are proud of it. GG!

Edited April 20, 2016 by Glower

[Jedi_riches]

single player game successfully consumed fairly good MMORPG and your team and partners are proud of it. GG!

 

Hey profit is profit, it does not matter to them about making all players happy as long as it turns over well in the financial statements.

[JediAkemi]

Mr Irving.

 

Thank you for trying to engage the community.

Unfortunately the language in the open letter was too vague for a lot of us, as you will have seen if you read this thread.

 

I find the biggest problem with Knights of the Fallen Empire to be the complete lack of replay value. If you have been reading the forums, you may be familiar with the frequent cries that the story only makes sense for Jedi Knights. Many players with Sith Inquisitors and Jedi Consulars rightly question where their powers have gone as the cut-scenes have them focusing on their lightsabre instead of using the Force to pummel enemies with nearby objects or fry them with lightning.

The simple fact is that it is one story.

 

The best parts of the game are those that allow the different classes to do things that feel appropriate to that class. The original class stories felt right. Making each class have to do the exact same things over and over and over is not the way to keep people interested in new story content.

 

Please give us more class-related variety moving forward.

 

Thank you for listening.