Ben, I'd like to see a stream today

[AlesisCitadel]

/signed.

 

Great writing style too btw "on day 4" was perf.

[majopucik]

Why were you grinding Uprisings for 4 days in a row? What's the point? I think I understand more and more what the issue is and why BW does not cater anymore to the hardcore players. It's impossible to please people who apparently have way too much time to GRIND a game which is supposed to be played for fun.

 

I am a player since beta as well, but I have never grinded this game. I refuse to grind and hence I have always been just playing it. The moment I take this game too serious is a sign that I should ease off again for a bit (it happened one year ago when a certain exploit occured for way too long and I stopped logging in for almost 2 months as a result).

 

How someone can say after 4 days that you are already sick of grinding a new content is beyond me. I didn't even have time to try it out yet. Here is a look at my life. What I did since KotET was released:

 

Tuesday + Wednesday: Played the new KotET chapters

 

Thursday: Participating in a big work event during the day. In the evening playing a bit of Life is Strange

 

Friday: Long, exhausting work day, in the evening just chilling and going to bed early

 

Saturday: Invited to a friend's place for an all day/night long boardgame, grill, drinking, sauna party

 

Sunday: Chilling, watching football and cooking a nice dinner for myself

 

Monday: Double work shifts from 5 to 22 (with some breaks in between)

 

Today: Free day, and I will (maybe) try out my first Uprising

 

Do your lives not look something like that? You guys are just grinding Swtor all day long?

 

I am able to play 3 times per week when i have time and the kids allow it. Yes I do grind, I have leveled all toons, did the craftin achievements, played Uprisings for achievements and am almost done.

 

After all achievements are done i can start the grind, which I still dont know what toon it will be on cause I will only have to time for 1 and it will take ages!!

[offence]

Well written post that will fall on deaf ears , i really don't think they will change this system anytime soon maybe rather say "we buffing CXP set bonus piece drops" which will be the same cr4p because RNG is RNG.

 

This expansion is done for , better pack your bags boys/girls and find a new horizon !

Edited December 6, 2016 by offence

[XxHazenxX]

9/11 was an inside job

 

And 7/11 was a part-time job.

 

On topic, the OP is amazing and we need an official response.

[ekleberg]

/SIGNED

I agree, and the only response you have is 8 companions available was working as intended are you freakin kidding me do you not understand how that statement would further the anger of the community. Take a good look at the community and give me your honest opinion of this "expansion" I am curious what you would say. Better yet i think the media would like to know as well because that is where we must go to get any information because your not speaking to us.

[Paulsutherland]

Brilliant post OP.

[AscendingSky]

Actually Ben, I don't want to hear from you, I just want you to go and make space for someone who knows what they're doing, who can drag this game back from the precipice you've driven it to!

 

Here here. His comments from interviews and in their own livestreams prove he has no idea how this game worked in the past and how it doesn't work now, how this game's players feel and what they actually care about (hint: it's not receiving the same random orange sniper rifle shell from RNG loot boxes three times in a row), or how you design MMOs to be fair and reasonable to pay for in general. He's incompetent and should be removed from his position and replaced with someone better.

Edited December 6, 2016 by AscendingSky

[Helfen]

Great post OP. Wanted to add my name to this sentiment, before my sub runs out and I leave swtor until this system goes away.

[Chelz]

We told them in beta that none of this patch would work. We pleaded with them to change it before they rolled it out. They didn't listen. They did this to themselves. Now they will lose the majority of their subs. Edited December 6, 2016 by Chelz

[Bruticis]

We told them in beta that none of this patch would work. We pleaded with them to change it before they rolled it out. They didn't listen. They did this to themselves. Now they will lose the majority of their subs.

 

No they won't because the gang has no convictions what so ever. People have been threatening to quit for YEARS, always the same exact ones too, yet somehow they never do. You're making up a narrative to fit your own because you're angry you can't kick and scream to get what you want.

[Wayshuba]

No they won't because the gang has no convictions what so ever. People have been threatening to quit for YEARS, always the same exact ones too, yet somehow they never do. You're making up a narrative to fit your own because you're angry you can't kick and scream to get what you want.

 

Huh? There were 140 servers at launch in heavy to full mode. Sometimes you had to wait an hour just to log in.

 

Today we have 17 servers that barely ever reach standard load (that is an 88% reduction in servers) and many threads asking for server moves today because some of those are just about dead.

 

Considering it is known that about 2 million copies of the game were sold at launch, that put each server at about 15k in population. With 123 servers closed down, that means about 1.8 million have left the game. Of the remaining servers, the population never gets even close to 15k in population.

 

Sounds to me like an AWFUL lot of people have quit this game.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Wayshuba

[Jedi_riches]

 

You created uprisings. Good idea in theory. You cheaped out - we get it. That's how you do. But objectively it's a nice idea. You know what we think of them? We're already sick of grinding them.

 

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

[Tsetso]

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

 

Uprisings? The new endgame group content? I'm so glad that i unsubbed. And just FYI the OP is/was raiding in several raid teams on different servers in 4.0.

[gabigool]

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

 

That's an understandable conclusion to draw, but Operations are far, more challenging than UR. I'm personally not a DnT type player; the groups I played with generally made it through most of the year before we'd cleared NM content. After that there's other stuff to do i.e. timed runs and role swapping etc.

 

Uprisings strike me as basically planetary missions - like from class or planet stories - for groups. They've got reskinned instances and repurposed mechanics. There's literally zero challenge to them.

 

And currently, they reward literally nothing but CXP - and at a suboptimal rate. I guess I don't understand the point of them beyond grinding them TBH. That's what I'm saying.

 

I don't think they are a bad idea. I do think they are poorly implemented. I think the prevalence of spread packs of ranged mobs (that are un-LoSable) teach poor play. And being honest - I'm sort of surprised they went with the skytrooper motif after all the KotFE hate.

 

But overall, I don't think one's opinion of UR really can be extrapolated out to infer their opinion on Operations content. They're completely different animals, targeted at different demographics IMO.

 

IMO the players that are quickly sick of new Operations are probably not doing the higher difficulties. There are only a handful of guilds left now that could truly burn through new NM. And candidly any of those people still here most certainly do not deserve to be accused of being overly demanding WRT new content. I mean, come on.

 

Hope that makes sense.

Edited December 6, 2016 by gabigool

[PlasmaJohn]

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

I've done one uprising and I'm unimpressed. If you've ever played any of those games where you see how long you can live against waves and waves of enemies... these are very similar. That game style got old for me in the 80's.

 

I'd much rather run EV for the bazillionth time but that's awful for CXP returns particularly after the 1cxp nerf. Would love to run SoR again but there's no way my group would get past UL on SM, not until everybody's got their full set bonuses.

[Tsetso]

I've done one uprising and I'm unimpressed. If you've ever played any of those games where you see how long you can live against waves and waves of enemies... these are very similar. That game style got old for me in the 80's.

 

I'd much rather run EV for the bazillionth time but that's awful for CXP returns particularly after the 1cxp nerf. Would love to run SoR again but there's no way my group would get past UL on SM, not until everybody's got their full set bonuses.

 

Ha, just run with a couple of deception sins with 60%dr and reflect up the adds would fall like flies

[killershrike]

The focus of the game used to be a progression of completing lower level content that I considered "chores" to get gear, materials, and experience, so I could then engage in harder and more rewarding content. Now the focus of the game is the chores with no reason to progress except for your own desire to gear up.

 

For me, the "chores" were always the meat and potatoes of MMORPGs. I tend to ignore the typical "endgame" stuff. The new system is (in theory) a welcome change. I even like the RNG part of it. But the glacial speed of ranking up the GC level sucks a lot of fun out of it. If I were playing just to rank up, I would go insane very fast. My solution so far, is spreading my playtime between my various alts and just take the occasional new GC level as a nice "gift" and then forget about the system. But I understand, that a lot of players have a different mindset, and for players focussing on the more gear dependent activities like (ranked) PVP or progression raiding this system must be pure hell.

[TUXs]

So you are sick of the new group content already,

You mean the new quick action heroics? Come on...it's lame 4- player content. Ops were 8-16 man and to this day I do them every chance I get...I've yet to do more than 2 Uprisings...I've had enough 4-player content tbh...nobody was asking for more.

[Simpanx]

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

 

Yes because the uprisings use the same mechanics and textures that is already in the game. Take Crimson Fang, literally every boss mechanich is already used in other Flashpoints (ffs even the same sounds). And like someone else already said, aprt from CXP it doesn't drop anything worthy nor does the achievements take time, I'm already at 100% on all of them (apart from the bugged). That should not be possible after only one week of casual gameplay.

 

Also, there are absolut zero new "real" content in the expansion, apart from the story.

[Wayshuba]

Yes because the uprisings use the same mechanics and textures that is already in the game. Take Crimson Fang, literally every boss mechanich is already used in other Flashpoints (ffs even the same sounds). And like someone else already said, aprt from CXP it doesn't drop anything worthy nor does the achievements take time, I'm already at 100% on all of them (apart from the bugged). That should not be possible after only one week of casual gameplay.

 

Also, there are absolut zero new "real" content in the expansion, apart from the story.

 

Here is the thing, most MMO expansions typical take 2-3 months to burn through the new content. For example, when LOTRO released the Mines of Moria expansion it took months to burn through just the new content. When GW2 released Heart of Thorns, there was about two months of new content. I have never played WoW, but from what I understand their expansions take quite a bit of time to go through.

 

This expansion has a weekends worth of new content - and that is the big problem. Even taking ALL the new content released since 4.0 dropped, there is about 15 hours of story, 30 minutes of EC, 1 1/2 hours of Uprisings, 4 hours of alliance alerts, and 3 hours of Star Fortresses. In two years, there is still less than 24 hours of NEW content.

 

This is equivalent to most "patches" in MMOs today. But on this one, you still need to pay a sub premium for what content exactly? If you came back today after say a 15 month absence, you can play all the new content released in the last two years in.... a weekend.

 

It seems BW would rather put their efforts in how to repackage the same old content again and again - especially in the last six months (DvL event followed by this atrocious CxP system) - rather than put the effort into developing real, meaningful, repeatable content.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Wayshuba

[AscendingSky]

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

 

'Slightly longer'? Do you even hear yourself? Most of the dailies and heroics in this game take longer to complete than the Uprisings do! They do not even come close to as long as the shortest flashpoints around, to say nothing of operations. You're delusional.

[Wayshuba]

So you are sick of the new group content already, This is one of the reasons Bioware are hesitant to creating new operations since operations would take even more time and money. Uprisings are only about 1 week old. Yes granted operations are slightly longer but how long really until some players would get sick of it.

 

You can complete all 5 Uprisings in about an hour to hour and a half. Any one raid (other than EV) takes longer than that - and that is when boss mechanics are already known. On a new raid, when people are just starting to figure boss mechanics, it can be WEEKS before that raid is finally beaten.

[harokiti]

This post is awesome I hope that that it gets noticed and something gets done about it before the last nail is banged into the coffin! Sadly people with unsub but the lost revenue will just be balanced by the revenue of mindless morons purchasing cartel coins for CXP boosts.

[AscendingSky]

'Slightly longer'? Do you even hear yourself? Most of the dailies and heroics in this game take longer to complete than the Uprisings do! They do not even come close to as long as the shortest flashpoints around, to say nothing of operations. You're delusional.

 

Not to mention the Uprisings themselves are a joke. More waves upon waves of mooks as we've come to expect from KotFE onwards, followed by a boss with mechanics recycled from already existing content! These things feel like almost zero effort was put into them, and they take about as much effort to complete.

[Wayshuba]

This post is awesome I hope that that it gets noticed and something gets done about it before the last nail is banged into the coffin! Sadly people with unsub but the lost revenue will just be balanced by the revenue of mindless morons purchasing cartel coins for CXP boosts.

 

I doubt it is going to happen in time. What you do have to wonder though is with the companion and heroic credit nerfs, BW responded in a week and within another week they had them fixed. The uproar was maybe a tenth of the uproar over this and they have chosen to go silent.

 

Things that make you go Hmmmm.