Changes to Gearing through Galactic Command

[TUXs]

Just to clarify. No, they did not make their money back on boxed sales. EA clearly states in their financials they make roughly $8.50 in profit on an initial boxes sale. So initial sales of the boxed game only recouped $17 million of the $300 million investment.

 

Secondly, BW did an article with Forbes about a year after F2P. They clearly stated the game was in very big trouble on six months after launch, to the point they thought it was going to close down less than a year after launch. To repeat, they themselves confirmed it was in major financial trouble and on the cusp of being closed. EA then directed them to put all resources on getting F2P implementation out the door. They stated this is why their F2P implementation is a bit odd compared to others on the market, because tthey had no one with experience with F2P and, because of the rapid deadline set by EA, they didn't even have time to hire someone with this experience.

 

So no, it had nothing to do with extra profits according to management at Bioware at the time. It had everything to do with the title being in very serious trouble.

 

Go to Forbes, and search for the interview if you are so inclined. In another thread recently these articles were linked.

Oh come on...you're trying to tell me they only made $8.50 on a $69.99 digital sale?! No chance in hell man...none. They can claim anything they want...I just don't believe it.

[kodrac]

and sorry to burst your bubble, but the customer is NOT always right. In fact, as times goes on... customers in many segments of our economy appear to be less and less reasonable and more tantrum like in their demands.

 

You're right about that. For all you people that have never worked a retail or service job, please do so sometime in your life. If the company always did what the customer wanted they'd go out of business in no time flat.

[Anzel]

Hey folks,

 

Please keep all of your feedback coming on Command Crates, Command XP, and Galactic Command. The team is always looking over your feedback and looking for ways we can improve the system! We have been reading everything you sent our way, and there are couple of stand-out points (this is by no means everything):

• There needs to be a way to work towards a specific slot of gear to fill in gaps (especially set bonuses) for people who are unlucky with Command Crates.
  
• Gearing your other characters is too grindy.
  

 

With this in mind, the team has some important changes planned for Game Update 5.1 coming next month to address the above concerns! We are finalizing those changes now and will walk you through our plans during this Thursday’s Livestream, 12/15 so be sure to tune in. If you can’t make the stream we will be posting a recap on the forums. I just wanted to let you know that along with the changes we have already made in 5.0a and 5.0.1, your voices are being heard. We look forward to talking with all of you about the upcoming changes.

 

-eric

 

PS - I will be back on the stream this week so the stream dream team is back together again.

 

 

Eric... Bro... This isn't even close to being true. Not even 1% true. Not even 0.000000001% true. People hate RNG. They hate it. The number one issue you have is RNG. Not that it's "too grindy". Not that people are "unlucky". We don't want RNG.

 

If you force RNG you are going to kill the game. People hate this. Fix it.

[Alssaran]

I don't think this is the case at all...

 

Which still doesn't make your assumption any more correct. The game was bleeding subscriptions left and right because the game's endgame progression was bad. There was a single raid and barely any hard content to run at level 50 back in 1.0. Among other things, Wildstar made the same mistake. The gearing and progression system was terribly broken because the rewards were utter lackluster and it was nearly impossible to get your hands on them. There was only one or two raids, and both of them required attunement quests with 15+ more steps to unlock. If someone was on level 8, but the rest of his guild was at level 5? Tough luck. A new guild it is.

 

This lack of endgame choices and progression quickly killed the game. Bioware made the same mistake at launch. They provided one operation because they thought people would be busy for "months" before even reaching the end-game content. They burned through that in a matter of two-three weeks and demanded more content options. Bioware was left in the woods with their pants down.

 

I don't doubt even for a second that EA always anticipated that CM purchases could make more money than a subscription model, but I think the move was implemented in order to save what little revenue could be safed with a team that so grossly missunderstood the playerbase at launch. They said it would take players roughly seven to nine times longer to get anywhere when the reality was only a fraction of what they believed. Essentially, those developers couldn't be trusted to deliver enough content for a subscription model.

 

Back to the topic:

 

The biggest (subjective) issue with the GC gearing system is the reliance of RNG and the alt grind. That's the case for me. I really do not care about BiS gear. Acquiring BiS gear just to run NiM is boring. I rather acquire HM gear and then run NiM in order to have a bigger challenge left to overcome. It's very much the vanilla WoW principle - I never felt compelled to get tier three sets just in order to run Naxxramas. These things dropped in Naxxramas. They were a means to an end. The real game was to clear said raid in tier 2 gear.

 

A tremendous issue is that there is no guarantee to reach the point of even full tier 2 gear in order to start NiM operations, and that the time investment for even starting NiM operations is upwards of 200+ hours of tremendous grinding through activities you don't even enjoy. Someone who wants to start doing the content he did before 5.0 (and who might be tied to a guild progression) needs a reliable way to enter that content through something he can actually pursue. In essence, he or she needs a clear connection between time investment and gear received.

 

This is one of the biggest turnbacks of the current RNG gearing: There is no clear time investment. You might get there in around 100 hours. You might get there in 300 hours. You might not get there at all. A player has no clear sense of what to do for how long in order to be rewarded, and there is no clear activity that he can acquire his rewards from.

 

"Oh, but you can do every activity to get rewards!", I hear you shout, but that defeats the point. If a player wants to start NiM/HM raiding again, he cannot chose to do heroic quests, uprisings, operations and story chapters because the GCXP rewarded per hour is tremendously low. And even if the GCXP for those activities would be upped, the player in question has no idea how long he might need to complete his tier 2 set. And there is no clear statement as to how long I need towards the next piece of set gear. It might be an hour. It might be fifty. I have no bl**dy clue.

 

There needs to be rewards for specific activities in the form of drops/quest rewards that people can count on. And then the GC system needs to be complimentary to the gearing system by rewarding doing all those side activities (Heroics/Uprisings/Story chapters) for additional rewards. It should become a system that rewards playing the game in different ways, but not hamper your progress into one form of endgame too much.

 

Here's what I would propose for the GC system:

 

Take out the green drops and leave the GC crates as it is.

 

Yes, this might sound crazy without all the other proposed additions, but bear with me. I doubt that anyone would mind a blue drop in a crate that is supposed to be a complimentary reward on top of other rewards. I also doubt that anyone here is expecting to get a set piece from running an operation, a set piece for the weekly, and a set piece for a GC crate in a single hour. That would be a gearing system that's even worse than the easy grind we had during 4.0. The GC crates still drop crafting materials/cosmetic items/reputation items as an additional reward, but you are not forced to disintegrate them for faster progress to unlock content. You can actually take out the scraps/JJ to obtain some additional crafting materials (one they become available), sell the cosmetic weapons on the GTN for a slight profit and at the same time get an additional reward in form of a purple item for your character. It should only enhance/compliment the gearing process, not take it over entirely.

 

This "taking over" aspect is the biggest drawback of GC, and the very reason you see people trying to play the system/weekly cap. GC is the entire factor in obtaining access to HM/NiM content on even a single character. This is why people do everything (grind, run FP on end, AFK in warzones) to obtain ranks - there is no other choice but to quickly play the system.

 

Add gear tokens to the Daily/Weekly reward boxes for different activities.

 

Yes, this is crazy. It completely circumvents the current Galactic Command system. And it also makes use of the scrapped token system. But there is a very good draw behind that idea: A person has an active indicator of how long he needs to play in order to obtain a piece of purple gear. Someone explained how the Data Crystal grind felt as if everything he does contributes to an overall goal. There's another thing to this: You can actively track your progress. If an item is 120 data crystals and a heroic gives 5? I need to do 24 heroics to buy a piece of gear. If I receive ~100 PvP tokens for a match and the item is 800 tokens? I need to do an average of between six and eight matches for a reward.

 

GC completely leaves this aspect in the open. Even if you acquire a box after four warzones, there is no guarantee it will even contain a good piece of gear. It might just be garbage multiple times in a row. By adding gear tokens to those boxes on an assigned slot (with the chance of an upgrade), you create a situation more similar to the old system:

 

I really want to farm for some gear. But not by opening thirty crates without a definitive chance to gain something. I could also just do four Uprisings and obtain a box from the daily quest and roll for a token I might need. If that token is not useful for my main character, I'll just buy a set piece for an alt.

 

I have a direct correlation between playing the game for X hours and obtaining Y pieces of rewards. I still need to luck out in the RNG to obtain fourteen different pieces with fourteen boxes/something for my main, but no single piece of gear is lost, and the chance to obtain something that no alt can use at all is marginal. You'd create a situation in which I could log into a character I like, play some warzones or uprisings, and then open a box for a token. If that token helps my main? That's a great scenario. If my main already has that token? I'd just send the set gear to an alt. It also counters the feeling that you waste time by not playing your main. You always have the chance to obtain something for your mains on an alt.

 

Add tokens back to operations.

 

Period. At least HM and NiM need token drops. These kinds of content should offer token drops. There's no issue in offering casuals the opportunity to gain a piece of BiS after grinding other content, but it's bad if the only way for everyone to obtain said gear is through GC.

 

Subjectively, I couldn't care less if a casual gets a piece of BiS gear out of sheer luck. As long as I can still get my BiS gear by doing NiM. Live and let live. As long as their chance to gain BiS gear doesn't hamper my ways of obtaining that gear through NiM operations, I really don't care. Again, it would require the GC to be complimentary. Not mandatory.

 

Those last suggestions directly tie into something I love about the CM: I can either buy your packs with real money and do the gamble if I want to, or if I only want a certain piece of weaponary/armour, I can also choose to open the GTN and buy it. I can make credits the way I want, and then buy the piece from someone who doesn't need it. I'm not bottlenecked into buying from the CM. I can always decide to play the game. This should be the case with GC. I can always choose to do side activities to obtain complimentary gear, but I can also simply pick a reliable way to do it.

 

Those are very crude and "early concept" ideas for potential fixes, but I think you get the idea. Make the system a great addition on top of a fun system. Don't make it the bottleneck for gear. The later will cause people to always play it in a way you don't want to/didn't anticipate at the time. And adding those token drops to crates/activities would actually see me log onto alts to do weeklies and obtain a safe piece of token gear. I wouldn't feel as if I neglect my main when I have the chance to obtain a token for him. And people who really have a single main can invest the non-duplicate tokens to boost their main character entirely. A weekly warzone quest takes anywhere between 2-3 hours. Obtaining a token after playing on an alt for three hours is worth the time, but it still leaves a good chunk of the community with a slight grind. But that grind is finally doable.

 

And don't make the mistake to balance around the hardcore players. Few players will have 9-12 hours a day to run three to four weeklies per day for weeks. Those are hardcore players. Most people have a job. They have a family. They spend christmas with their family. Balance around the mean average. Don't balance around the hardcore players. Those players will always find a way to play your system. Don't punish all of us for what only ten or twenty people can do.

 

We don't want RNG.

 

We always had a slight component of RNG. Yes, you could chase a piece of gear by clearing an operation over and over again. However, you also had to win the roll lottery with a PUG run. The only thing available as "personal loot" were PvP sets. And (subjectively) I disliked the 4.0 system very much. It was too easy. It was too repetitive and left me with no satisfaction after equipping one character on each side within two weeks. I don't mind RNG. I can see where Tait is coming from when he announces RNG is exciting. Hoping for that piece of bonus loot is exciting. The key word here is bonus.

 

In essence, I'd say that both extremes are terribly boring. No RNG is just as boring as total RNG is frustrating. The sweet spot is somewhere inbetween.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Alssaran

[kodrac]

Eric... Bro... This isn't even close to being true. Not even 1% true. Not even 0.000000001% true. People hate RNG. They hate it. The number one issue you have is RNG. Not that it's "too grindy". Not that people are "unlucky". We don't want RNG.

 

If you force RNG you are going to kill the game. People hate this. Fix it.

 

I hate to tell you this, but it's not going away. Best we can probably hope for is they adjust the loot tables. Or they'll make something else entirely again, but that won't come until the next expac.

[Otaktey]

It is such an easy fix. Simply put the OPS gear vendors back on the fleets and let the OPS and FP bosses drop the same loot tables they did before 5.0, just adjust the gear levels for 5.0. This way the players gearing for OPS and PVP can gear and get on with playing the game and the casuals can grind for gear with RNG. PROBLEM SOLVED....MOST PLAYERS HAPPY!

[TUXs]

Which still doesn't make your assumption any more correct. The game was bleeding subscriptions left and right because the game's endgame progression was bad. There was a single raid and barely any hard content to run at level 50 back in 1.0. Among other things, Wildstar made the same mistake. The gearing and progression system was terribly broken because the rewards were utter lackluster and it was nearly impossible to get your hands on them. There was only one or two raids, and both of them required attunement quests with 15+ more steps to unlock. If someone was on level 8, but the rest of his guild was at level 5? Tough luck. A new guild it is.

 

This lack of endgame choices and progression quickly killed the game.

OK...explain this to me then...if we are to assume you're correct, how did going F2P help fix the fact that there wasn't enough to do at end game?

 

If you insist they went F2P to save the game, how was that more beneficial than simply developing more content? People didn't quit because the game wasn't F2P...they quit because of the lack of end game content...which going F2P didn't fix in any way...it actually DELAYED the development of anything else.

[Tsetso]

OK...explain this to me then...if we are to assume you're correct, how did going F2P help fix the fact that there wasn't enough to do at end game?

 

If you insist they went F2P to save the game, how was that more beneficial than simply developing more content? People didn't quit because the game wasn't F2P...they quit because of the lack of end game content...which going F2P didn't fix in any way...it actually DELAYED the development of anything else.

 

That's not entirely true. As far as i remember they pushed live both KP and EC before going f2p. And soon after that TFB.

[Wayshuba]

Oh come on...you're trying to tell me they only made $8.50 on a $69.99 digital sale?! No chance in hell man...none. They can claim anything they want...I just don't believe it.

 

I am not telling you, I am quoting what EA puts in their financial reports.

 

Also it would stand that EA does $4.5 billion in business but only makes about $600 million in profits. The number on boxed sales is 12.9% and EA own financials have them making about 13.9% in profits.

 

They only make $8.50 in profit on a box sale. Seems a lot of people keep forgetting that companies have these things like salaries, leases, utilities, expenses, marketing, trade shows, et al. to cover. Where do you think that money comes from?

 

So yeah, EA's cost eat up about $62 of that. Just like it does for EVERYTHING EA makes.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Wayshuba

[kodrac]

If you insist they went F2P to save the game, how was that more beneficial than simply developing more content?

 

I'll take a stab at that. Speed. I think it was probably faster to change things that were already there than to design and test new content. New stuff takes much longer to develop, test and implement. I'm not a game developer, but in networks this is the case and the higher ups never get this concept.

[DanNV]

OK...explain this to me then...if we are to assume you're correct, how did going F2P help fix the fact that there wasn't enough to do at end game?

 

If you insist they went F2P to save the game, how was that more beneficial than simply developing more content? People didn't quit because the game wasn't F2P...they quit because of the lack of end game content...which going F2P didn't fix in any way...it actually DELAYED the development of anything else.

 

That's actually easy. I kept the players they had. Along with the server merges it meant queues would pop. F2P had to buy access to endgame content, so they did or subs paid the cash for them and the F2P paid credits to the subs. F2P increased the number of players in the game and increased the base that would pay for things on the CM. At the time it was go F2P and a cash shop to shut down. They had said they needed 500,000 subs to break even. Less than that and they'd have to close down. The cash shop and F2P players padded that and we've been running on that paddng ever since.

[Alssaran]

OK...explain this to me then...if we are to assume you're correct, how did going F2P help fix the fact that there wasn't enough to do at end game?

 

It did not fix the issue. It created a smokescreen around the issue by making a few selected whales carry the profit that previous subscribers didn't bring in anymore. They started to rely on a few hardcore fans to supplement 5-10 subscribers each month. They relied on the few people who subscribe to this game for RP/Star Wars and have a high disposable entertainment income to supplement their subscription loss until they could deliver a new expansion/until the end game issue could be fixed.

 

There was no possible way to fix the end-game issue in time. The endgame content they should've added wasn't done by the time the issue became apparent. The chances were also high that bugs and coding errors would push the content delivery far into unsustainable territory.

 

F2P wasn't about fixing the problem. It was about relying on hardcore fans to supplement the profits until it could be fixed. It was an emergency button so that the few remaining subscribers/whales could keep the game afloat until they could react.

 

If you insist they went F2P to save the game, how was that more beneficial than simply developing more content?

 

Because developing content takes time. A tremendous amount of time. Going from concept/development map to a finished piece of content can take months. That was time Bioware and EA didn't have at the time. They had to find a way to buy themselves some time. If the CM wouldn't have introduced, the game would've written red numbers shortly after release. And by the time new content had been developed, the game might have run in the red area for a few months.

 

It actually DELAYED the development of anything else.

 

Precisely.

 

This was not about finding a way to save the game by throwing millions of dollars at Bioware and hope they come up with a solution. This was just to give the game a high enough RoI to make it bearable. The actual fix (supposedly) came with RotHC.

 

The CM saved the game because the game would've been dead in the water for months by staying subscriber only. More and more people would've quit, but there was no way to make up for that in a timely manner. Instead, EA opted for the CM in order to draw money out of the whale's pockets. There is no way to develop enough end game content in a matter of two months. But by adding a CM to the game, they gave whales the option to supplement their experience with large sums of money.

 

If that option wasn't introduced when subscriber numbers were low, chances would've been good that EA would've scrapped the project entirely.

[Anzel]

I hate to tell you this, but it's not going away. Best we can probably hope for is they adjust the loot tables. Or they'll make something else entirely again, but that won't come until the next expac.

 

And I hate that you are telling me that. LOL, yes I would be very surprised if they acknowledged how horrible of a mechanic RNG is for gearing. I hate that they use it in the Cartel Market as well. Somebody there at BioWare has an ENORMOUS ***** for gambling and they are really intent on shoving it down everyone's throat.

[Alssaran]

Somebody there at BioWare has an ENORMOUS ***** for gambling and they are really intent on shoving it down everyone's throat.

 

That's because gambling works as a subconscious trigger. Period.

 

Take a very close look around the market. If gambling wasn't working for additional cosmetic rewards, why would the system be implemented in more and more games in recent years? What about Overwatch? Battlefield 1? Mystery gifts in League of Legends?

 

This isn't just a Bioware thing anymore. The practice of gambling boxes is becoming more widespread in game development.

[Tsetso]

Precisely.

 

This was not about finding a way to save the game by throwing millions of dollars at Bioware and hope they come up with a solution. This was just to give the game a high enough RoI to make it bearable. The actual fix (supposedly) came with RotHC.

Well, the biggest investment for the future content would be the salaries of the devs. Was that the period when the big layoffs happened?

[DanNV]

Eric,

 

What I need to hear today (and I assume a lot of other players are looking for basically the same thing:)

 

1) An honest apology for ignoring 2 months of negative feedback from your paying customers and going ahead with what we told you we didn't want.

 

2) A plan to reinstate gear tokens in all ops so end game gearing is not dependent on your RNG boxes.

 

3) A plan for PVP players to either get gear or to level all stats by spec so it becomes a game of skill instead of a game of gear.

 

4) A plan for the non-end game players to be able to get gear (since for them the gear is the reward where it isn't for the two groups above.) This could be a severely tweaked GC system or something else, but now that you've introduced a way for them to get the gear (which I think is a good thing to have done, just your implementation sucked) you can't take it away or you will still be in the hole you've all dug for yourselves.

 

If you can't do those 4 things with a very short timetable, then I would suggest you start polishing your resume because you're going to need it soon. A good chunk of your paying customers will all be gone and paying someone else for their entertainment.

[kodrac]

That's because gambling works as a subconscious trigger. Period.

 

Take a very close look around the market. If gambling wasn't working for additional cosmetic rewards, why would the system be implemented in more and more games in recent years? What about Overwatch? Battlefield 1? Mystery gifts in League of Legends?

 

This isn't just a Bioware thing anymore. The practice of gambling boxes is becoming more widespread in game development.

 

Yep. There's a reason gambling companies are now getting into gaming - gaming companies found the legal loophole to gambling.

Edited December 15, 2016 by kodrac

[DanNV]

Well, the biggest investment for the future content would be the salaries of the devs. Was that the period when the big layoffs happened?

 

Yep and when the big names all "left for other projects."

[TUXs]

It did not fix the issue. It created a smokescreen around the issue by making a few selected whales carry the profit that previous subscribers didn't bring in anymore. They started to rely on a few hardcore fans to supplement 5-10 subscribers each month. They relied on the few people who subscribe to this game for RP/Star Wars and have a high disposable entertainment income to supplement their subscription loss until they could deliver a new expansion/until the end game issue could be fixed.

 

There was no possible way to fix the end-game issue in time. The endgame content they should've added wasn't done by the time the issue became apparent. The chances were also high that bugs and coding errors would push the content delivery far into unsustainable territory.

 

F2P wasn't about fixing the problem. It was about relying on hardcore fans to supplement the profits until it could be fixed. It was an emergency button so that the few remaining subscribers/whales could keep the game afloat until they could react.

 

Because developing content takes time. A tremendous amount of time. Going from concept/development map to a finished piece of content can take months. That was time Bioware and EA didn't have at the time. They had to find a way to buy themselves some time. If the CM wouldn't have introduced, the game would've written red numbers shortly after release. And by the time new content had been developed, the game might have run in the red area for a few months.

 

Precisely.

 

This was not about finding a way to save the game by throwing millions of dollars at Bioware and hope they come up with a solution. This was just to give the game a high enough RoI to make it bearable. The actual fix (supposedly) came with RotHC.

 

The CM saved the game because the game would've been dead in the water for months by staying subscriber only. More and more people would've quit, but there was no way to make up for that in a timely manner. Instead, EA opted for the CM in order to draw money out of the whale's pockets. There is no way to develop enough end game content in a matter of two months. But by adding a CM to the game, they gave whales the option to supplement their experience with large sums of money.

 

If that option wasn't introduced when subscriber numbers were low, chances would've been good that EA would've scrapped the project entirely.

I agree with everything you've said except for the part about it saving the game. If they had wanted to "save the game", they could have easily done so with an investment...instead, I believe they opted for the best way to monetize what they had with as little effort as possible...a strategy they still employ to this day.

 

Maybe I just have a different definition of what "saving the game" means than some of you do...but going from 218 to 4 servers sure as hell isn't saving anything imo...that's barley clinging to life.

[Wayshuba]

I hate to tell you this, but it's not going away. Best we can probably hope for is they adjust the loot tables. Or they'll make something else entirely again, but that won't come until the next expac.

 

There won't be another xpac if they keep bleeding subs at a fast rate because of this.

[Tsetso]

There won't be another xpac if they keep bleeding subs at a fast rate because of this.

 

Depends on the number of cxp boosters they sell. Who knows, the 5.0 gamble could turn out to be financial success.

[DanNV]

Depends on the number of cxp boosters they sell. Who knows, the 5.0 gamble could turn out to be financial success.

 

Doubtful or we wouldn't be looking at the second stream in 2 weeks after launch of the xpac. If they thought it was going to pay off they would have all gone on Christmas vacation and talked to us again in January.

[TUXs]

Depends on the number of cxp boosters they sell. Who knows, the 5.0 gamble could turn out to be financial success.

Thankfully Bioware made them far less appealing by nerfing golds to only 2 CXP, eliminating any benefit of using it on them.

[Tsillah]

Forgive me, I fear I may have sounded a bit antagonistic but that was not my intent.

 

I don't know, but BW did admit that they were a big part of the reason the game was saved. Not making assumptions, just saying that there is factual history.

 

Fact of the matter is, BW themselves admitted that without F2P and, as a result the doubling of players then, the game would have shut down.

 

Guess we will have to just wait and see if this time is different from the last time.

I do not contest this point. I am aware that F2P was an important part of saving this game back in 2012. However, it's now 2016 and I am not sure if in 2016 F2P is still a strong contribution to the game. I do not know this but I am wondering about this. I cannot assume that just because F2P was important in 2012 that it still is today. That's all.

 

As I mentioned, there were many issues cited. The lack of end game content was one of them because BW admitted, at the guild summit, that they thought people would play through all the stories first and they would have time to develop EG content.

Indeed, I just intended to add to what you already mentioned, it wasn't intended as a counter argument.

 

That being said, are we any better off today? The last Op or FP was over two years ago now. So the EG has been played to death unless you just recently started in SWTOR. So now they rub it into your face by putting a grind gate to get back to content many have already done before.

And by making you sub for the grind. This is of course part of the larger issue. Not having much new content is a drain on the fun factor by itself.

 

Are the issues really that much different than the 1.x era? Lack of NEW end game content for anyone who has been in SWTOR two years or more and ridiculous RNG. Same problems that lead to this game being on deaths doorstep in 2012. The only difference is, they do not have F2P to save them this time.

Well and that is a very interesting point. It does feel a bit like we've come full circle and the same mistakes are made.

 

Though I suppose the difference was that in 1.0 there was content coming out as 2 ops were added not too long after release for example. I guess that at the time they overestimated how much time everybody would spend leveling their characters and felt confident one ops would be just fine. Clearly it wasn't.

Today perhaps they are over-confident that the old content will suffice with a long, alt-unfriendly grind attached to it.

 

I dunno, I suppose that's not how they intended it but that's what it turned out to be.

 

To me it's a matter of push and pull. The old gear system was a pull system. A boss drops x item. A person wants x item and therefore is pulled towards that boss. That's an invitation with clear achievable goals attached to it. Go there if you want it.

The current GC system is a push system. It pushes you towards (old) content with as goal to gain a level, not a specific reward. The level is the achievable goal and is therefore automatically less exciting. This lack of excitement can be regained but not if the rewards are generally disappointing.

 

It all feels like you're being forced to do things instead of invited. The line can be very fine between the two but to me the new system feels like I'm forced to do things because I can no longer say I want x reward and do the work for it. Now I have to work and hope I will get what I'm doing the work for, without knowing if I'll ever get it.

 

The old system also had RNG as not everybody can win in an operation, but as players you could decide how to distribute the loot that dropped. That player control is gone now and it's that player control that could counter the RNG if so wished. I think this lack of player control is a fundamental change in the game that makes it so players no longer feel empowered.

[Wayshuba]

Depends on the number of cxp boosters they sell. Who knows, the 5.0 gamble could turn out to be financial success.

 

Don't think so for two reasons:

 

A.) This game has already been there, done that. That is why we have F2P today. While the "elder game", as Bioware called it, was short on content, the RNG grind they had with "elder game" gear and PvP Battlemaster boxes was a also a big point of contention. Thus why they had originally gotten rid of the system by patch 1.6.

 

B.) After today, we will have had 2 livestreams on "issues" since launch (None of which actually touch on the paying customers issues, only the ones BW wants to address with their selective hearing skills). BW only does them when it is financially costing them. They don't communicate out of the goodness of their hearts and for love of the community. No, this system is having the exact effect that beta testers, the community, MMO newsites and popular fansites said it would have. BW thought ALL of them were wrong. Apparently, everyone could see the problems with this system prior to launch EXCEPT for Bioware.

 

And just like that "TORtanic" v1.x era, Bioware does not have all the time in the world to fix it like they think they have. Just like at launch, they seem to think players will wait it out until they get it right - seeming to forget that players have been waiting two years already on the end-game, which BW has barely touched in that time.

 

Plain and simple, a lot of peoples patience has plain run out.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Wayshuba