Are you kidding me?!?!?!

[Tsetso]

A lot of your post does come full circle back to "no new content" though. I think you eventually approach a point where no matter how good you could tweak this new gear system, the lack of no content to keep people playing is going to kill you.

 

That's not true. There are many guilds and raid groups that raid a couple of hours 2-3 times a week. My guild was like that - the whole 4.0 we were slowly progressing through HMs. Some bosses required multiple weeks until they were on farm. And even then we rotated roles so that all of us could tank/heal/dps them so it took more time. We had barely started NiMs when 5.0 hit and killed any will to play the game anymore. If it was still 4.0 my guess is that we would happily continue. As it is now, half the guild left the game.

[Savej]

In 4.0 gearing was fast. And ppl got to learn and practice NiMs, got to PvP on new toons etc. Just because ppl got geared fast, life hadn't stopped.

Now we have Eternal Grind to get gear to be able to play what we want.

GEAR IS NOT THE GOAL OF THE GAME

I don't know if I can make that any clearer. I don't play swtor because I want 346 rating gear. If 208 was enough for NiMs and ranked, I'd not care. I want to enjoy the game (what enjoyment is left...), but GC stops us from that very thing.

 

Actually 4.0 saw lots of people come in and then leave shortly afterwards. Retention was the problem. Active player counts were probably at an all-time low just before 5.0 (and before anyone knew about rng). Gear is not "the" goal, perhaps, but it is the main reward. And that reward gets boring fast when anyone can get max gear 10 min or 2 weeks after hitting max level. What is it that you want to do that you can't do now in 230s crafted stuff?

[cyrusramsey]

Meh... there are people that want and/or need the gear treadmill, there are those that do not. Personally I consider it something I try to get out of the way as quickly as possibly every cycle, so that I can continue to play the game as I have been. My main problem now is that gearing has become the game for me, if I mean to aim to play the same content with the same amount of specs. I have absolutely no interest in gearing up all year if it means I just get to start over again next year.

 

If 4.0 gearing was too fast for some people--I don't get it, it feels to me like you're not really enjoying the game if you'll only play it if you 'have to' for something, but.. it seems like this is how some people roll, okay.. then what was wrong with how gearing was before 4.0? Why jerk to the complete opposite end of the spectrum all of a sudden?

 

It just means that the content I wish to play is now unavailable to me.. how is that an improvement?

[Glower]

they will not get rid of those crates. It is preparation to going full maintenance mode when those crates will be purchasable from cartel market.

 

qft

[lokimogor]

Uh please find me an MMO where you are able to continue doing the same raids right after a level cap bump and new gear, good luck finding it as every single MMO that does a level cap bump has new gear requirements and you've got to grind for it again. On average folks in my guild have been gearing at a faster rate then expected as far as set pieces go. The fear of RNG screwing you, is not the fact of RNG doing so. Let me go find some safe spaces for you lot

[omaan]

Galactic Command sucks!!! I mean, I would MUCH rather gear out my toon in max level gear in 2 weeks then NOT be rewarded in anyway for playing end game content!! Who doesn't want to endlessly grind on a main toon, spend credits to rip out mods and move to alts so THEY get geared without actually being played?!?! After all, who needs to learn to play a class when I can simply overgear and get carried by guildies that know how to play?!?!?

 

This Galactic Command system requires me to continue playing and gives me something to work for which is garbage!! I would much rather gear up quickly then spend countless hours posting on the forums, chatting in fleet and Reddit that there's nothing to do!! After all, without Galactic Command, I wouldn't have anything to threaten to cancel my subscription over!!!! I've been posting since RotHC that this game is dying and I'm canceling my subscription!!! What about traditions?!?!?!?!!?

 

***For those readers who didn't catch it, this is sarcasm. If you hate the game changes that much, find constructive ways to voice your criticism. Ranting on a forum and verbally abusing the Devs in any way is not likely to bring a sympathetic ear. Voice your displeasure and criticism in a better way and it might be listened to in the end. After all, when people are insulted, they tend to stop listening. Not saying you can't be outraged or upset. Just saying, treating the Devs like they are beneath you then being surprised about them not listening seems to me like "cause and effect". Besides, ranting and raving on the Forums and berating the Devs comes across more to me like a temper tantrum of a petulant child than anything else. By all means, voice your displeasure at ANY game changes you feel strongly against, just do it like a grown up and they MIGHT actually listen.

 

THE problem is that there are already much of constructive and non-constructive criticism, for example everyone asks for command system to be legacy wide so we could play alts - bw don't care. They don't care on any types of criticism...

[AscendingSky]

Uh please find me an MMO where you are able to continue doing the same raids right after a level cap bump and new gear, good luck finding it as every single MMO that does a level cap bump has new gear requirements and you've got to grind for it again. On average folks in my guild have been gearing at a faster rate then expected as far as set pieces go. The fear of RNG screwing you, is not the fact of RNG doing so. Let me go find some safe spaces for you lot

 

Ad hominem attack ahoy! Yes, because your experience represents the experiences of all the many people who have posted on here (including me) who have got nothing but garbage in their crates.

 

Shoo, go away, illiterate white knight. At least the other white knights know how to spell and punctuate correctly.

[DanNV]

Since when sarcasm and strawman are synonyms?

 

Nobody complains that they will not be geared in two weeks. Your "sarcasm" misses the point, your own armor is so shiny that it blinds even yourself.

 

The complains are:

 

1) You can be an end game player that grinds this system for centuries and still not get the gear you need for NIM operations because gear drops are RANDOM. On the other hand you can be stronghold player and have bank full of various set bonus items while needing to buy decorations for credits cause they never drop for you.

 

2) Guilds that run operations cannot schedule hardest mode runs. Not only there are less players to do it, you do not know when your best tank/dps/healer will have good gear and you cannot run through lower mode operations to gear him/her/them/it accordingly.

 

3) All the expansions, besides KOTFE, took relatively long time to gear. And even in KOTFE it wasnt 2 weeks.

 

4) Casual/weekend players that play few hours per week will be at severe disadvantage,much more so than previously. In half a year most people who can grind for 25h/day in PVP will have best gear available while casuals who like to PVP here and there will still have few crappy drops because it takes hour/crate.

 

Well said.

[DanNV]

In 4.0 gearing was fast. And ppl got to learn and practice NiMs, got to PvP on new toons etc. Just because ppl got geared fast, life hadn't stopped.

Now we have Eternal Grind to get gear to be able to play what we want.

GEAR IS NOT THE GOAL OF THE GAME

I don't know if I can make that any clearer. I don't play swtor because I want 346 rating gear. If 208 was enough for NiMs and ranked, I'd not care. I want to enjoy the game (what enjoyment is left...), but GC stops us from that very thing.

 

Exactly. Knights of the Eternal Grind is not the game I want to play. Grinding old content and content that feels old after a week just to get gear to go back to dong what we were doing 2 weeks ago isn't fun. With 3.0 the game was still fun, with 4.0 is started sliding downhill, with 5.0 it fell of the cliff.

[DanNV]

For people in your position I think that is a perfectly valid complaint. So then is the problem the Galactic Command, or is it a dearth of new content that players feel motivated to work towards mastering? I think the "standard" needs to move away from "raid", and instead maybe introducing other forms of challenging group play into the game needs to be looked at. Maybe that's what they are trying with the difficulty modes for Uprisings.

 

There are people who enjoy raiding. Most of my guild (used to have 4 almost full Rep side guilds and 2 Imp side) are gone. They went elsewhere a year ago when BW proved to have lied about working on Ops starting Jan 2016. The problem for BW, is those are the people who right class guides, who do podcasts that are free advertising for BW, who teach new people who to play their classes, etc. MOst of those people game-wide are gone. (Look at 4.0 class guides on Dulfy, some never got written.

 

As to uprisings, they are great the first dozen times, after that they feel like running the same old flashpoint over and over. Now, I expect they went to 4 man content because they don't have the player base left to make 8 man groups easy to form, but that's the devs own fault.

 

To answer your first question, Galactic Command is the problem because it's all random. You get garbage out of it and are told your supposed to like it and find it exciting. Well, I don't like it and it's frustrating and infuriating, not exciting. The worst part is, these idiots had weeks and weeks of negative feedback on the idea before it even went live, but they shoved their heads into anatomically impossible locations and went ahead with it then act surprised people are angry. BW devs seem incapable of learning from past mistakes. That's almost as infuriating as the GC system.

Edited December 9, 2016 by DanNV

[Clarian]

That's not an appealing carrot. That's an ancient carrot buried in the back of the crisper drawer that isn't orange anymore and drips a foul liquid.

That seems to be a...fitting analogy. (Where's the :tran_barf: smiley when you need it?)

So then is the problem the Galactic Command, or is it a dearth of new content that players feel motivated to work towards mastering?

Why not both? But yes, even if they hadn't made things worse with RNG, the lack of new content would still be a problem.

 

Here's my take as someone who (1) is here for the story, not the endgame, and (2) wants the game to stay around for a long time, because I have years to go as far as playing all the class stories with different ACs and genders and moralities, doing different romances, etc.

 

 

• With the resources Bioware apparently has now, they can't continue the story in any way that does justice to the vanilla content, or is remotely interesting to me. They tried going all-in for story, and utterly failed.
   
  
• With the resources Bioware apparently has now, I think it is possible that they could make new operations and flashpoints - if they focused on that.
  

 

If there haven't been new flashpoints or operations in two years, why not? Because they've been focusing on 'story' - or what passes for story these days. As many people have pointed out, the Eternal Empire stuff really isn't about your character; you're on the outside looking in on some family drama. It might have made a good book or movie, but putting the player's character on the sidelines doesn't work well for a game. As many people have pointed out, the whole thing doesn't really feel like Star Wars. As many people have pointed out, it's a lame and nonsensical for this huge hidden empire to suddenly come out of nowhere. As many people have pointed out, the gameplay is just fighting endless waves of sky troopers. As many people have pointed out, open world planets and exploration is gone, and it's all just on rails.

 

As someone who's here for the story, I consider every minute that they spent on the Eternal Empire expansions to be completely wasted. They are of zero interest.

 

Now they're talking about putting more work into 'bringing companions back.' But bringing them back...for what? Even if, two years from now, they've 'brought them back,' it's clear that the they won't be able to give them any significant role in any ongoing story. I seem to remember in the Shadow of Revan days, people thought it was weird how their companions just never had anything to say about anything. Well, that's all it's going to be in the future.

 

All the real story content we're ever going to get, we had at launch. Well, maybe Oricon too. It was, and it is, amazing. It would be awesome if we could get more. But we cant. And that's that.

 

So, as someone who's here for the story, I say: stop putting out new story stuff. If new group content will help the game stay around longer, then focus on group content 100%.

 

And if you really insist on having RNG in addition to the traditional ways of obtaining gear, fine. But in additon to. Not instead of.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Clarian

[ludoviccb]

And yet people will still wipe on it.

 

Some people rotation is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1...

 

So I got no problem seeing how they can wipe on it since they don't know how to play their character. They walk their companions from point A to objective B and the companion do all the job.

 

It's like 2 gunslinger in a WZ that keep trying to kill me using sweeping gunfire and I killed them both solo.

[Anzel]

Yesterday's live stream was really really uncomfortable. People were making comments about RNG over and over and over again and they all but ignored it. The one guy actually said that "RNG is exciting". Like, they really said that.

[xkcurtisx]

Funny you say this, as Beta testers gave them feedback as "adults" and yet, they still got ignored? But sure, keep shifting the blame to the community rather than the devs who did not listen to beta feedback. If they were going to "listen" they would have done so with Beta feedback.

 

^best reply in this thread.

[Halinalle]

Just got to command rank 23. Crate included pet I already have and 228 green boots I already have except the armoring (still keeping 216 set bonus). So exciting.