Is this lack of communication normal?

[Icykill_]

Hopefully the Devs will pop into the GSF forums one day.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

I'm sure they ignore them even more than the standard pvp forums

 

I've suggested to the other pvp posters to just start posting in general because it's the only section that gets looked at.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Icykill_

[Piepyr]

I'm sure they ignore them even more than the standard pvp forums

 

I've suggested to the other pvp posters to just start posting in general because it's the only section that gets looked at.

 

General gets looked at? Are you sure?

[TUXs]

General gets looked at? Are you sure?

Far more than PvP or GSF does!

[PlasmaJohn]

At least let us discuss the datamined 5.0 class changes that are out there. There is a sizeable group who have issues with the purported changes

At this point in the process those changes are a foregone conclusion. All the discussion in the world is not going to make any difference. Even if they were open to change it's far too late for any fundamental rework.

 

The devs should have had discussions with the class communities months ago. Here's our overall goal. Here are the changes we're thinking of to get to that goal. Gather feedback and incorporate that into the next proposed set of changes.

 

Feedback should be considered in light of the goal but never as a wishlist grab bag (the disaster my poor Combat Sentinels suffered in 3.0). Most importantly they have to recognize that class design is an iterative process. Incorporate the feedback that makes sense and do the proposal/feedback/incorporate cycle again until the major issues are worked out.

 

Historically they've been laughably inept when they tried. They failed at holding a dialog. Worse they didn't bother to make it a cycle and instead dictated the change. While we can condemn certain expressions nobody should have been shocked at the outrage.

 

Until they stop treating their players as consumers and start seeing them as important stakeholders there's going to be a lot of avoidable friction with their designs.

[ikinai]

Far more than PvP or GSF does!

 

That's my fault, they just can't resist my sparkling charms. Perhaps I should spread some of that sparkle around.

[Mubrak]

Your post isn't pragmatic. It sounds a lot more like apathy. Apathy =/= Pragmatism. Add in a slice of idealism and you've got an opinion that isn't what you're after. If you want pragmatism i.e asking for realistic approaches it should be noted that increasing the levels of communication between the studio and its customer base is a sensible and realistic approach to ease some of the tension.

 

This also works the other way 'round:

If your job is to communicate but you have nothing new to tell, being silent is the apathetic approach, giving potential new players the impression that the devs abandoned the game.

 

If you want to be pragmatic, work with the tools you have. Just jump to a random topic and contribute to the ongoing discussion, as a person with a dev logo. If you aren't allowed to reveal anything new or explain past decisions, you can always pass over nagging questions with a wink. Yesterday's "communication overload" shows that Eric knows pretty well how to show presence on the forums without actually telling anything.

[PlasmaJohn]

If you want to be pragmatic, work with the tools you have. Just jump to a random topic and contribute to the ongoing discussion, as a person with a dev logo. If you aren't allowed to reveal anything new or explain past decisions, you can always pass over nagging questions with a wink. Yesterday's "communication overload" shows that Eric knows pretty well how to show presence on the forums without actually telling anything.

That has to be done carefully. A wink and a nudge are fine as long as there's a periodic sprinkling of substance otherwise it just looks like a dodge. They rely far too much on their "big reveal" events that try to bundle up too much in one go. A more measured approach that spreads out the information over time would probably do a better job at defusing the culture of player unrest that the studio has fostered.

[ZanyaCross]

Yeah. Right now, there's a problem with the game so severe that I'm strongly considering leaving the game over it

 

On the plus side, they did fix world-pvp, which I remember being a major complaint in your videos, and you're no longer stuck with a choice between "a psychopath that thinks your dating and a psychopath that thinks she's a philosopher".

 

So... umm... progress?

[Jamtas]

On the plus side, they did fix world-pvp, which I remember being a major complaint in your videos, and you're no longer stuck with a choice between "a psychopath that thinks your dating and a psychopath that thinks she's a philosopher".

 

So... umm... progress?

 

by fix do you mean eliminated?

[_NovaBlast_]

Until they stop treating their players as consumers and start seeing them as important stakeholders there's going to be a lot of avoidable friction with their designs.

 

Your welcome to your opinion but here is mine ...

 

****the entitlement is strong in this one ****

 

I disagree with the posts i have read of yours in a general sense. and find this comment especially *facepalm* worthy

Edited September 24, 2016 by _NovaBlast_

[ZanyaCross]

by fix do you mean eliminated?

 

The only thing they "eliminated" was pack-hunters ganking lowbies and people getting tricked into self-flagging.

[_NovaBlast_]

The only thing they "eliminated" was pack-hunters ganking lowbies and people getting tricked into self-flagging.

 

^ so much this ..i have been a victim of that myself .

 

I'm glad its gone

Edited September 24, 2016 by _NovaBlast_

[Tsetso]

The only thing they "eliminated" was pack-hunters ganking lowbies and people getting tricked into self-flagging.

 

How about the former pvp servers? Or they don't matter because you hate world pvp.

[Jamtas]

The only thing they "eliminated" was pack-hunters ganking lowbies and people getting tricked into self-flagging.

 

ganking lowbies can still happen if people are in the pvp instance. So it wasn't eliminated. However, doing this did pretty much eliminate pvp servers. Wolrd PVP was things like Ilum in vanilla. They never fixed the issues with lag and such so it was eliminated.

 

^ so much this ..i have been a victim of that myself .

 

I'm glad its gone

Yes, I know you've made it quite clear that you dislike there being other players in this game and want it to be a solo game to avoid all the elitists out there.

[_NovaBlast_]

ganking lowbies can still happen if people are in the pvp instance. So it wasn't eliminated. However, doing this did pretty much eliminate pvp servers. Wolrd PVP was things like Ilum in vanilla. They never fixed the issues with lag and such so it was eliminated.

 

 

Yes, I know you've made it quite clear that you dislike there being other players in this game and want it to be a solo game to avoid all the elitists out there.

 

So much salt and exaggeration... your posts are amusing LOL

 

Yes keep blaming Bioware if it makes you feel better even you have right to your opinion I play at max settings and rarely see lag ... but the fact is.Players killed open world pvp /servers because they dont want to do it .. open world pvp is still there you know... you just have to "choose " to join instead of automatically being in one to bother people who dont want to deal with it .

 

That word "choice " again ...it tells all

 

There is nothing stopping a player from "choosing" to go into a pvp instance so if its "dead" its not bioware's fault but a result of player choice.

 

I dont want other players to leave ... I simply want "choice" to not have to pvp or group . There is a difference ... and yes i do think there is a subset of gamers that are elitist but that's not the "only" reason.

 

It quite amusing how much some people lash out when others are given a "choice" to do something or avoid it .

Edited September 24, 2016 by _NovaBlast_

[Andryah]

It quite amusing how much some people lash out when others are given a "choice" to do something or avoid it .

 

Some players are of the mind that others should be forced to be their posse's cannon fodder. It's a predatory mind set.

 

In hindsight, in my view the studio would have been better off to have made all servers the same at launch and implemented instancing distinctions between PvE and PvP as it is now.. right from the start of launch. That way PvPers who actually want to PvP can have PvP across the worlds, and not negatively impact players who do not want to PvP at that moment in time.

[Tsillah]

How about the former pvp servers? Or they don't matter because you hate world pvp.

 

So what was so great about those pvp servers anyway?

 

All I ever heard was complaints of ganking and populations dropping. Was there any point in keeping them?

[Transcendent]

Roadmap.... yep... would love to see one. That said, I was unimpressed with the last time they released what they called a roadmap. Good roadmaps span multiple years, with more detail the closer to the present, and less detail and more things subject to change/deletion as you move farther out.

 

On the subject of a roadmap I would settle for a photo of the "wall of crazy" once each year, honestly, I actually would.

 

I'm not sure if Eric is the one in charge of posting up on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram or wherever else they have a presence, but surely if there are other people involved, then they could become more involved on the forums? Instead of just leaving it to Eric and Tait (and the occasional dev post), who then end up catching all the flak from players who are not minded that it isn't their fault when things go wrong.

 

We all get frustrated from time to time, that is only human nature, but I really do think that Eric and Tait get far too much lumped onto them. They don't deserve some of the criticism aimed at them.

[Tsillah]

We all get frustrated from time to time, that is only human nature, but I really do think that Eric and Tait get far too much lumped onto them. They don't deserve some of the criticism aimed at them.

 

I sometimes have this picture in my head of the BW Austin office with all the employees inside and an angry mob outside...so they shove Eric out the front door, give him a walkie talkie and close the door behind him.

 

I don't envy him but better communication all around would make him much less of a target and as much as we as players can go overboard and get aggressive, BW also are enablers rather than preventers of this. That's also not fair to Eric (or Tait).

 

If you only have one communication moment in a year, everything that built up over that year will come out that moment. If you do 10 a year but not really give any straight answers, it doesn't get much better either. I think the lack of communication people describe tends to fit that description. A regular information stream also takes the heat off specific moments more. It takes a bit of effort but overall it's less stressful for everyone involved.

[AlrikFassbauer]

Some players are of the mind that others should be forced to be their posse's cannon fodder. It's a predatory mind set.

 

My "inner cynic" would use a slightly different wording :

"Some players (aka Gankers) are of the mind that others should be forced to be their fun's tools."

 

 

 

To be more serious : I really simply just cannot understand the decision to not let Eric or Tait speak, so to say, if this decision is really out there.

Edited September 24, 2016 by AlrikFassbauer

[Icykill_]

General gets looked at? Are you sure?

 

Yep, Eric replied to my thread with in about 48 hours that I started this week. The easiest way to see CM responses is to look under the Developer Tracker section. Any CM posts to any threads will show up there.

[Icykill_]

ganking lowbies can still happen if people are in the pvp instance. So it wasn't eliminated. However, doing this did pretty much eliminate pvp servers. Wolrd PVP was things like Ilum in vanilla. They never fixed the issues with lag and such so it was eliminated.

 

 

Yes, I know you've made it quite clear that you dislike there being other players in this game and want it to be a solo game to avoid all the elitists out there.

 

 

Yes it eliminated pvp servers, but they were dead long before these changes. Mainly because of the gank attitude to anything outside of WZs. It only takes a few people with that trolling attitude to ruin and destroy a system that was never meant to be abused like that.

The plus side is that people can decide "when" they want to start world pvp or if they need to get some pve stuff done.

Personally I think they could have just kept the old pve server feature that allowed you to just flag for pvp. Then everyone was in the same instance and not running around in a seperate pvp instance.

All servers should have been like that to start with. There was no need for a seperate pvp server. If they had just designed the flagging system a little better and also had a pop up to explain it, then it would have mostly worked.

I miss running around on the highest planets, flagged for pvp. Pve people would see you and either want to fight or not. But now they don't even know you are there, so there is no world pvp.

[eartharioch]

Some players are of the mind that others should be forced to be their posse's cannon fodder. It's a predatory mind set.

The decision to play on a PVP server was voluntary -- nobody was "forced" to do so. The only "forced" PVP was by people exploiting things on PVE servers (which, since I don't usually play on PVE servers is something I know about only through forum whining).

 

In hindsight, in my view the studio would have been better off to have made all servers the same at launch and implemented instancing distinctions between PvE and PvP as it is now.. right from the start of launch. That way PvPers who actually want to PvP can have PvP across the worlds, and not negatively impact players who do not want to PvP at that moment in time.

I won't disagree with this...when I was in a PVP guild in 2012, we actually coordinated with the opposite factions to get big battles going. We didn't gank lowbies (or pretty much anyone), but we did watch general chat for reports of ganking and would send out an op team to take care of the gankers, and that was actually pretty fun. For us, anyways -- the usual four-man group of mid-level stealthers (usually on Tat or Ald) probably didn't think our 16v4 on them was as fun as their 4v1s, but we managed to deal with their disappointment.

[Jamtas]

So much salt and exaggeration... your posts are amusing LOL

 

Yes keep blaming Bioware if it makes you feel better even you have right to your opinion I play at max settings and rarely see lag ... but the fact is.Players killed open world pvp /servers because they dont want to do it .. open world pvp is still there you know... you just have to "choose " to join instead of automatically being in one to bother people who dont want to deal with it .

 

That word "choice " again ...it tells all

 

There is nothing stopping a player from "choosing" to go into a pvp instance so if its "dead" its not bioware's fault but a result of player choice.

 

I dont want other players to leave ... I simply want "choice" to not have to pvp or group . There is a difference ... and yes i do think there is a subset of gamers that are elitist but that's not the "only" reason.

 

It quite amusing how much some people lash out when others are given a "choice" to do something or avoid it .

 

Yep, keep up the condescension in every single reply post. In game while you avoid people, I help. On forums you request for them to change an event so you can get the reward without doing group activities and a big portion of the game - so yes I'll stand by my opinion that you want the choice to only play solo. But the event rewarded people for doing all the content and part of the difficulty in doing group is 1) making the group, 2) having to rely on other players and not a god droid/companion who can walk through the content while you afk. the HM FP requirement was what made Legendary tier difficult to get. Getting to do all that in solo mode changes it entirely to a much easier setting.

 

So since you joined two years ago you missed the days of the only incentivized open world pvp on Ilum in area around where gree event now is. I've got a great rig too, play on max settings and hardly ever have any lag- but this was scrapped from the game because no matter what kind of connection you had- it turned into a slide show- hence them removing it from the game. There was never an attempt to fix or bring back a similar area where you could earn valor outside of PVP.

 

So keep that in mind when those of us who say they killed off PVP, we have a frame of reference perhaps you aren't aware of as it was gone by the time you joined.

 

Now, I'm not some OWPVP junkie who wants to spend time ganking people in a group of 10 going after solo players. Never was one and never want to be. That is the bad side of a pvp server- but encountering people 1v1 or 2v2 on planets and taking to quick battles - that was fun. Guilds on opposing factions battling it out in black hole, quesh, section x, fighting in CZ over chance to kill the dessler spawn - also fun.

 

I'm also not an "elitist". I do throw my share of criticism on the forums, (not because I hate the game- because I want it to improve. I've been a sub since launch and never have taken a break or stopped supporting it with a subscription) but I also try and help when people post threads with questions or looking for answers. I have spent over 80 million in game helping guildies both long time friends and new recruits (many who didn't stick around) in gearing up, making them augments, end game gear etc.

 

Taking out Ilum, took out a portion of pvp outside wzs that was fun. Changing the server types and having 90CC transfers for close to a year killed the pvp servers. With all servers being the same, the larger ones had better chances for wzs, fps and pugging for fps and operations. But that also means pvp was transferring to a place where the population was 100% pve - and really people just resigned themselves to pvp being wzs only.

 

The game and the community thrive on every group (solo, group, pvp, gsf, RP) all having something to do in game and new content being made for them. People like Dulfy, Ootinicast, Swtorista, Escapepodcast, Bad Feeling and many others are all people who play, interact and give back to the community.

So while you are free to have the choice to avoid - the game is better for having these type of people around. Changing the game away from this type of content lessens the incentive for them to stay. (apologies to any above if you disagree with that sentiment)

Please point me to the contributors to the community who go out of their way to avoid others in game.(Asking for the choice to never have to group for any content in the game qualifies as that) It's fine to be that type of player for sure, but realize it is the other type that really go out of their way to help the player base and improve the game experience.

 

Now for those interested on Harbinger this Wed 7:30 PM PST - we are going to try and do a little owpvp on Oricon for those interested in getting their Scare Bear title. Come out and join the fun on either republic or imperial side. Any and all are welcome.

[idnewton]

There is nothing stopping a player from "choosing" to go into a pvp instance so if its "dead" its not bioware's fault but a result of player choice.

Uh, no, no, VERY no. Players are sheep -- they are controlled by incentives and rewards. The sheep are not to blame for where they go, the shepherd is. If players are out of line (ie: harassing others, breaking rules, etc.) that's one thing, but how the playerbase as a whole spends their time is ABSOLUTELY the responsibility of the developers. That's like Game Design 101.

 

Also...

That word "choice " again ...it tells all

As does that word "Your"

Your welcome to your opinion

Perception, as they say, is key. Edited September 25, 2016 by idnewton