Where are all the players "flooding back"?

[commanderwar]

Though about few days after 4.0 they raise server capacity. Which after that did not which heavy

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8565724

Do not why people look at it all they do. While you just look at the official site. Cause that what they get there info from.

[Nothing_Shines]

They raised server capacity for the flood of people that never materialized. And those that did come back, did so just long enough to finish the story and then left again. Monthly story updates was a complete bust.

[Alexandrozingsw]

my guild lost about 25% of its remaining members since I checked a few weeks ago.

 

yup same here, we have council on almost every timezone and no one saw a massive gquit so we just assume they went back to their servers

[TheGreatFrosty]

More outstanding are the people defending the health of this game. It's never been this bad; KOTFE I know, in terms of storyline, put many people off due to the distancing from the traditional light v dark paradigm (paired with lack of group content and general Star Wars feel). The story they told wasn't bad, but it changed the context within which we play.

 

For the PVP community, Bioware couldn't even put in the effort to maintain regular ranked season and rewards. Consequently, the entire community left. I'm not sure whose left? The in-and-out players that play for a week, complete the storyline, proclaim the game as excellent, and then leave? It's not an MMO anymore (hasn't been for a long time). There's no reason to be surprised if only very few return, and even fewer remain.

 

Bottom line: for what reason would you stay subbed to SWTOR after you've completed the story? (If you're a long-time player that has already done all existing content, numerous times). You can only reset the hamster wheel so many times before the hamster learns to step off.

[americanaussie]

I just came back today, logged in for a few to check my characters and find my legacy gear, even did a few heroics on one and a tactical on an other for practice.

 

Anyways, I paid for one month and will not be staying / paying for more than this month as beyond the small bit of new story and some mini flashpoint things, there does not appear to be any new content, and thus no reason IMO to invest ongoing time or money with the game.

 

Which is sad, I'd have gladly paid for a real expansion with new progression content as well as maintained a subscription for months if the content were engaging, but the new RNG based progression system tied to stale old content that will most likley be poorly tuned and full of bugs just isn't appealing.

 

We just got 9 new chapters plus uprisings...what are you smoking where you see there's no new content? Maybe you have a handicap and cannot see I dunno. The rng is fine. Every box I've opened has had useful gear and I already had 220 stuff.

[Gray]

TRE is thriving atm! really noticeable change in player activity it's just like the old days with insta wz's pops

[Eshvara]

TRE is thriving atm! really noticeable change in player activity it's just like the old days with insta wz's pops

 

Yeah TRE is doing pretty great, not that it was ever really bad, but pvp'ing has been a lot of fun. Definitely noticing an influx of newer players in warzones too.

 

The ones that either make you flip your desk when on your team, or die laughing while on the other.

 

PS: I liked your old signature better!

Edited December 2, 2016 by Eshvara

[Alexandrozingsw]

We just got 9 new chapters plus uprisings...what are you smoking where you see there's no new content? Maybe you have a handicap and cannot see I dunno. The rng is fine. Every box I've opened has had useful gear and I already had 220 stuff.

 

the main difference with the game we used to know is that the new "chapters" have almost good production in terms of story and locations, but in contrast with traditional chapters the locations have no replayability (idk if thats a word tbh) no dailies, no heroics, just a story that you may or may not repeat to see the 2 or 3 variants. feels more like netflix than a mmo sometimes.

[Alexandrozingsw]

TRE is thriving atm! really noticeable change in player activity it's just like the old days with insta wz's pops

 

yup TRE has the advantage of having all EU and east EU / asia players that don't speak german nor french

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I don't put much faith in torstatus due to the servers all having different capacities, however even tho it is still only early access I find this a little alarming.

 

I can't play until next week so I cannot see for myself, but is there any anecdotal evidence of a player increase? Is there more people on the fleet? Shorter wz queues etc? I play on Harb, can anyone tell me what fleet numbers are currently like?

 

True you can't use it to compare servers but this is trend analysis ( North America for the link I posted but Europe is more or less the same ).

The only thing that could affect it over time is if they were constantly playing with overall capacity. Even when they boosted the server capacity last year ( and announced doing so ) the server were still hitting heavy on that same analysis over 20% of the time let alone the extra amount of standard compared to light.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

o Only people who have been subbed since late October can play yet, most people "coming back" probably didn't sign up back then just to get Early Alpha.

 

o "Coming Back" means they've been here before, so that means they know well enough to wait for at least a week or two to get at least *some* of the main bugs worked out.

 

Not saying I'm holding my breath for a large resurgence, just saying it's a little too early to mock them fairly. Although from what I've seen, there was definitely a resurgence on my main server (Bastion), at least once the 90CC xfers went into effect (and I am noticing lag on Harbinger)...my guild lost about 25% of its remaining members since I checked a few weeks ago.

 

Regardless of all of that we saw a huge upsurge last year BEFORE the expansion dropped ( and for a larger period than a week ) yet this time that same surge wasn't even enough to outdo the start of bloody DvL.

 

I'm at work so can't fully access this site ( thinks it's a means around filtering which it kinda can be ) but if you chuck torstatus.net into https://archive.org/web/ you can find copies from last year that illustrate this point perfectly. When you do that and see true year on year ... it's pretty depressing.

 

People can cite all the reasons in the world but so far people were overwhelmingly negative about this expansion and the numbers playing the game support that view ... it was not a vocal minority as some sought to ingrain into others minds.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

When 3.0 dropped, Rishi looked like a metropolis with hundreds of people in dozens of instances. 4.0 dropped and there were similar numbers, at first. And before the launch dates, people were lining up and getting their toons ready to jump right in and play all the new content. Now, I go to Odessen or fleet or the various KOTET chapter instances and see...the same exact people in the same exact numbers. Are they expecting everyone to start subbing tomorrow?

 

I predict Rogue One will do for SWTOR exactly what TFA did: one month bump over holiday and then trickle back down to flatline.

 

I expect if anything rogue one to give more of a boost to Battlefront than this game ... the association of lightsabers and the force is much stronger in this game and that ties better to TFA where as Rogue One imo ties better to battlefront. Especially considering how cheap you can pick up the base pack right now ( and I jumped back in recently and easily get 40 person matches popping within seconds in my crappy APAC time zone which is cool as ).

[Nothing_Shines]

Also, WZs are popping because it's the fastest way to grind CXP. I hate PVP and it's all I did to grind rank since early access.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Also, WZs are popping because it's the fastest way to grind CXP. I hate PVP and it's all I did to grind rank since early access.

 

Why though? I mean why bother? I'm in a similar boat where I would need to grind to do the content I want to do ideally so figured stuff it and cancelled sub. That content whilst enjoyable I have done a lot. No ay I'm doing things I don't want to do for extended periods of time just to get to a point of being able to do content I do want to do.

[eartharioch]

People can cite all the reasons in the world but so far people were overwhelmingly negative about this expansion and the numbers playing the game support that view ... it was not a vocal minority as some sought to ingrain into others minds.

 

Just so we're clear, I'm definitely in the "overwhelmingly negative" camp (based on what they promised and delivered), I'm just saying that we should wait until it's absolutely clear that there is no mass return (introdus?) of returning players before saying "we told you so".

 

That said, despite *me* not liking most of the changes, I don't think BW is necessarily making the wrong call for the game. As with most of BW's behavior, I think the most negativity comes from their complete failure to communicate what is going on, and why.

[MayhemofChaonus]

Haha the graph for Bastion is hilarious...literally flatlined.

 

I know, I've been on Bastion for a week straight, its like an RPG, literally. You NEVER see anyone.

[Aulus_Claudius]

The players are all "flooding back" to other MMOs where they can gear up without dealing with an eternal RNG grindfest.

 

I expect subs to pick back up again when/if they fix this train wreck of a gearing system.

[SaerethDL]

some people keep saying there are tons of instances open on such and such place... you got to realize some instances only hold 10-20 people, oddessen for example.. the fleet holds hundreds.. 200 per instance?.. so it would mean a lot more in the fleet had multiple instances and not planets like rishi, yavin, and new xpac areas.

 

Also did anyone stop to think this game has been around 5 years and everyone has played it thats gonna play it.. and that for old veteran players, old rehashed content isn't going to keep them around. It's as simple as this, Bioware/EA wants the most profit for the least amount of work... Most of us would have payed 39.99-59.99 for a full fledged expansion.

Edited December 2, 2016 by SaerethDL

[keimox]

Yeah TRE is doing pretty great, not that it was ever really bad, but pvp'ing has been a lot of fun. Definitely noticing an influx of newer players in warzones too.

 

The ones that either make you flip your desk when on your team, or die laughing while on the other.

 

PS: I liked your old signature better!

 

That might be because pvp seems to be fastest way to grind CXP. So you can get lot of people that just spend time in wz to farm CXP.

[keimox]

We just got 9 new chapters plus uprisings...what are you smoking where you see there's no new content? Maybe you have a handicap and cannot see I dunno. The rng is fine. Every box I've opened has had useful gear and I already had 220 stuff.

 

Every box I opened so far had nothing useful. Few uprisings and 9 chapters doesn't make it up for that lame command system.

[AngFour]

Every box I opened so far had nothing useful. Few uprisings and 9 chapters doesn't make it up for that lame command system.

 

The thing is, the Command System isn't terrible in and of itself. It's the fact that it's the only way to get BiS gear. If we got DvL type boxes with cosmetic gear, companion gifts, and jawa junk and we were able to get actual gear in the traditional way, everything would be golden and BW would be commended for it.

[Aulus_Claudius]

The thing is, the Command System isn't terrible in and of itself. It's the fact that it's the only way to get BiS gear. If we got DvL type boxes with cosmetic gear, companion gifts, and jawa junk and we were able to get actual gear in the traditional way, everything would be golden and BW would be commended for it.

 

This, 100%. The old gearing system was fine. CXP, if it's fixed to be more alt-friendly, is fine. Either way, the intense grind and random factor are a disaster. For all I care make BiS gear drop from SM ops and FPs so everyone has access to it, or make the GC crates drop redeemable tokens, whatever, anything other than this RNG nonsense. Crates with (preferably new) cosmetic stuff, gifts, and jawa junk and no random gear are a great idea.

[Zhedzaban]

The thing is, the Command System isn't terrible in and of itself. It's the fact that it's the only way to get BiS gear. If we got DvL type boxes with cosmetic gear, companion gifts, and jawa junk and we were able to get actual gear in the traditional way, everything would be golden and BW would be commended for it.

 

The traditional way? Like in 4.0 where everyone geared in 2 weeks then quit unless they were altoholics.

 

I know everyone likes to claim otherwise, but the reality is once the average person min/maxes their main they seldom play it anymore because their sense of progression stops. About the only exception is ranked pvp players and there isn't a whole lot of those.

 

Not defending the current system (although I don't hate it), just saying players needed to be slowed down.

[TUXs]

It's only early access right now.

 

I'm sure tons of people will flood in tomorrow! ... Right? Yeah...yeah. Right!

EXACTLY lol!!!

[AscendingSky]

The traditional way? Like in 4.0 where everyone geared in 2 weeks then quit unless they were altoholics.

 

I know everyone likes to claim otherwise, but the reality is once the average person min/maxes their main they seldom play it anymore because their sense of progression stops. About the only exception is ranked pvp players and there isn't a whole lot of those.

 

Not defending the current system (although I don't hate it), just saying players needed to be slowed down.

 

I'm a pretty average person... and once I'd gotten good gear on my characters, I didn't quit. Instead, I worked on clearing the HM/NiM content I hadn't done yet on those characters, because that was the whole point of grinding towards good gear in the first place. So your assertion is patently wrong.