[POLL] SWTOR Content Drought Crisis - Needs Immediate Attention!

[Talon_strikes]

Enough is enough EA/BioWare Austin. We haven't had any real quality content at least for 2½ years. Though you did give us the Odessen WZ and Rishi Cove arena in Spring of 2016, still, that is NO excuse. You guys have NOT been churning out actual, quality MMO content on a regular basis. MMOs such as FFXIV and WoW have been ahead of the curve on that front, and the former came out 2 years after SWTOR. You don't see these MMOs focusing on singleplayer/solo content.

 

The "4th pillar" is a flawed and failed concept that will not retain subscribers long-term nor will it encourage them to continue supporting the cash shop if they will only be logging in one month once a year to complete bad and drawn-out storylines with cheesy and uninspired dialogue.

 

You guys have even taken away content from the community such as ranked 8v8s, open world PvP, and now Flashpoints, and replacing them with a watered-down, reskinned and uninspired version of them entitled "Uprisings".

 

The game is bleeding players because, to put it bluntly, your game has become boring. There's nothing new to do. Every single expansion you guys have released look and play more like downloadable content than actual expansions. The only true expansion you guys have released has been Rise of the Hutt Cartel.

 

If this game is to sustain itself and thrive as an MMO, you guys need to do the following:

• Start working on PvE AND PvP content again.
  
• Make Story content on the lower list of priorities for development.
  
• Create new game-wide events and make the ones that have been repeated ad nauseam seasonal.
  
• Actively communicate with your players on the forums.
  
• Create expansions and not DLC-esque content.

 

Your next livestream is coming up soon. Now is the time to mention you'll be returning to this game's roots and go back to focusing on what this game was marketed as: an MMO.

 

Optional: Feel free to select what type of content you think SWTOR should be focusing on in this poll.

 

OP's Notes: I personally do not think this game is, or has become, boring. I am simply displeased with the lack of endgame development, and I do not see the story/solo development focus as a successful model moving forward. I want endgame development back and I want the devs to give us the Star Wars MMO that was released in 2011.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Talon_strikes

[ImmortalLowlife]

Ironic don't you think considering the answer given by the majority of people who answered your poll. Edited January 23, 2017 by ImmortalLowlife

[AlaricSevGirl]

Where's the poll because I think you're wrong. I think there are problems for sure and I do think there needs to be new flashpoints and operations and a couple of battlegrounds but I also think they need to go back to the old method of content and they aren't going to do it. They frankly gave up and they certainly can't say that they won't do content for each class because of the voice acting cost because as we found out with this strike, voice acting is dirt cheap. The problem is that they have their fingers in their ears and are humming la la la la la. I've seen free MMOs come out with more content that SWTOR has. There are so many things they could do to improve it but they don't bother and nothing anyone says is going to change it.

[JediAkemi]

Ironic don't you think considering the answer given by the majority of people who answered your poll.

 

15 out of 30 say solo... yeah, I'd say that counts as irony

[ImmortalLowlife]

Where's the poll because I think you're wrong...

 

It's at the end of the OP's post. It's now showing that more people want more solo/story content than endgame, PvP, or even the "both" option combined. Lol

[Radzkie]

I do not think they have the funding to produce as much content as FF14 or WoW does.

[Velgar]

I do not think they have the funding to produce as much content as FF14 or WoW does.

 

You are correct, it is blatantly obvious that they do not have the resources to produce content on the scale of either of those much less the schedule those two follow and WoW has lots and lots of solo content as well.

 

And I find the results of his poll vastly amusing as they totally undercut his argument with over 50% at present voting for more solo content and story, more than all the other choices he had combined.

[Damedius]

Lol.

 

The poll results show that players don't want an mmo. They want a crappy star wars fan fiction to watch ad nausem.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Damedius

[stoopicus]

Thanks for the poll.

 

This game has way more than enough story content to support new players for months, so we can leave them out of the equation. The game solved that problem perfectly already; it's easy to forget just how good the class stories and planetary arcs are. This game is amazing at that.

 

So let's talk about the endgame.

 

For endgame story content, we just had over a year of focus on the Valkorion soap opera. I loved it; others didn't; to each their own. But the fact is, story mode play has been pursued to the exclusion of nearly everything else since 2015.

 

So, for me the poll was a no brainer. There needs to be time put in to endgame group content.

 

Now, I *never* group for PvE. For PvE I am a story mode solo player exclusively. I really love the story content in this game. But it's been the sole focus for way, way too long now, IMO.

 

Couple this with the fact that the story content is far, far more production heavy than new ops or warzones and in the end I had to answer for new endgame group content on this one.

Edited January 23, 2017 by stoopicus

[CaptianFordo]

Ironic don't you think considering the answer given by the majority of people who answered your poll.

 

Clearly the results are rigged! I think the Electorial College has struck again...

[Fygee]

Honestly, all of the great single player content with the latest expansions is exactly what got me to resubscribe to the game. I've thoroughly enjoyed the last two expansions, and I'm really looking forward to what's up next.

 

I'm all for adding other content that's more in line with the MMO aspect of the game, but not at the expense of the great single player PvE content we've been getting.

[DanNV]

Lol.

 

The poll results show that players don't want an mmo. They want a crappy star wars fan fiction to watch ad nausem.

 

Of course they do. Who else is left in any numbers? 4.0 chased off a lot of end game players. 5.0 is doing it to the rest. Unfortunately for BW, people who play just story, okay the story and then leave until there's more story. Story is expensive to make due to voice acting, cut scene creation, etc. So, as there are fewer players paying, there will be a smaller development budget which means less story so those who play story get less and come back less often. It's not a pretty cycle.

[jimmorrisson]

I am content with existing content as it's pretty obvious the game has peaked and it's all downhill from here.

 

Grinding PvP and Fractured for CXP along with CXP and Command Crates in general can go to hell.

Edited January 23, 2017 by jimmorrisson

[AllisonLightning]

I want stories for our factions and more importantly my class- so the story has been one massive bandaid solution since Shadow of Revan which managed to give everybody what they wanted while having one story. I want new PvP maps but I can't stomach another expansion story about the Alliance Commander- it's a pale shade of Mass Effect which I'm getting in March.

[Raphael_diSanto]

I'm here for the story. I've never made any bones about that. I don't raid, I don't PvP, and I only ever do Flashpoints with a very small select group of friends.

 

So sure, I'm here for the story - There's way more story content in TOR than in all 3 Mass Effects and Dragon Ages combined. Why am MMO? Well, partially, I don't really care whether it's an MMO or not, but also I do like the social aspects of an MMO (chat, gtn, helping others, etc).

 

I understand that creating story content takes far more resources than creating raid content - Anyone who's tried to create content using a toolset such as Neverwinter Night's Aurora toolset or Cryptic's Foundry knows that it takes a whole lot longer to write a dozen branching dialogue conversations than it does to plop some mobs down in the middle of a corridor.

 

So while I would -love- a return to class-based story, I definitely understand that that's unlikely to happen, and if one-size fits all story is what we're going to get, I'm okay with that. After playing through KoTET a few times now, I don't even feel that it's inappropriate for non-force users. I think Valkorian explains that pretty well.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Raphael_diSanto

[ShieldProtection]

Enough is enough EAware. We haven't had any real quality content at least for 2½ years. Though you did give us the Odessen WZ and Rishi Cove arena in Spring of 2016, still, that is NO excuse. You guys have NOT been churning out actual, quality MMO content on a regular basis. MMOs such as FFXIV and WoW have been ahead of the curve on that front, and the former came out 2 years after SWTOR. You don't see these MMOs focusing on singleplayer/solo content.

 

The "4th pillar" is a flawed and failed concept that will not retain subscribers long-term nor will it encourage them to continue supporting the cash shop if they will only be logging in one month once a year to complete bad and drawn-out storylines with cheesy and uninspired dialogue.

 

You guys have even taken away content from the community such as ranked 8v8s, open world PvP, and now Flashpoints, and replacing them with a watered-down, reskinned and uninspired version of them entitled "Uprisings".

 

Personally I wonder if you guys are even manipulating your metrics to please your shareholders, justify this massive swing in development focus and lack of direction. None of this is Exciting™ nor is there any Thrill™ in it either.

 

The game is bleeding players because, to put it bluntly, your game has become boring. There's nothing new to do. Every single expansion you guys have released look and play more like downloadable content than actual expansions. The only true expansion you guys have released has been Rise of the Hutt Cartel.

 

If this game is to sustain itself and thrive as an MMO, you guys need to do the following:

• Start working on PvE AND PvP content again.
  
• Make Story content on the lower list of priorities for development.
  
• Create new game-wide events and make the ones that have been repeated ad nauseam seasonal.
  
• Actively communicate with your players on the forums.
  
• Create expansions and not DLC-esque content.

 

Your next livestream is coming up soon. You guys are losing thousands and thousands of subscribers. Now is the time to mention you'll be returning to this game's roots and go back to focusing on what this game was marketed as: an MMO.

 

Optional: Feel free to select what type of content you think SWTOR should be focusing on in this poll.

 

 

I will have only three questions for you:

 

1) Whats your reddit group link

2) Who is paying you to start these hate threads every week

3) Is this is a bot/fake account? If so, how many troll accounts do you have

 

Answer this vital questions and I see what I can do for your thread

[ThomasTomaz]

I am a story player only- I doubt I will ever group for a heroic mission, much less a flashpoint, operation, etc- but the complaint has long been the lack of end-game content. A friend of mine who kept hounding me to start playing left the game a few months after launch and hasn't been back because of it.

 

For the story player, there is enough in the 8 story classes to last for quite some time. I've been playing the game since a couple weeks after launch and am still only through five of eight characters. I go stretches where I won't play for a month or two, but that's made up when I play it almost every day.

 

To keep this game afloat, single players like me are not going to cut it. Personally, I enjoy the game so much that I do subscribe- I want it to be here for the long run, and I want them to develop and promote more end-game content to keep people coming back to the game so it's here for a long time. People who like Star Wars like me are going to play this game regardless, and they may not even spend money on the Cartel Market, much less subscribe. That base should be fine with the class stories.

 

MMO vets are the ones who are going to subscribe and are going to provide the financial base for the game, and they are the players that they need to target for feedback, and need to impress to get them back into the game. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that Star Wars fans playing for the story and because it's Star Wars deserved the bulk of attention, and if that person is still with Bioware, they should probably be fired for that decision.

 

Also, I'd like to address the Valkorion storyline. While I have no problems with the story or storytelling, I do have an issue with how they designed the levels. It almost feels like I am playing Halo or Call of Duty, just progressing through a linear map with certain objectives to accomplish before I reach the end. If we are going to push story content, lets go back to Hutt Cartel or Shadow of Revan, where we had more of a sandbox environment that was the same experience as leveling 1-50 with class stories.

[Kheld]

Im about to drop my sub BECAUSE there are no monthly chapters or recruitment missions.

 

The CXP grind bores me to tears.

 

The OP isnt wrong though, EA/Bioware keep on finding new ways to make us grind old content.

 

1) Conquest

2) DvL event.

3) CXP grind.

[FerkWork]

Lol choosing content in an MMO instead of making it all lel. This game is memes. Edited January 23, 2017 by FerkWork

[Talon_strikes]

Lol.

 

The poll results show that players don't want an mmo. They want a crappy star wars fan fiction to watch ad nausem.

I'm actually surprised that currently, even though the option for both PvE and PvP is behind, is still able to trail behind story/solo by just a few points as of this post. I still think it justifies my argument; the last few EA quarterly reports proves this too. The devs have been chasing away MMO players for the last 2½ years so it makes sense that many of them are not here to vote. They've gone to greener pastures. Many of them won't reconsider coming back unless endgame content will become the main focus of development.

 

Thanks for the poll.

 

This game has way more than enough story content to support new players for months, so we can leave them out of the equation. The game solved that problem perfectly already; it's easy to forget just how good the class stories and planetary arcs are. This game is amazing at that.

 

So let's talk about the endgame.

 

For endgame story content, we just had over a year of focus on the Valkorion soap opera. I loved it; others didn't; to each their own. But the fact is, story mode play has been pursued to the exclusion of nearly everything else since 2015.

 

So, for me the poll was a no brainer. There needs to be time put in to endgame group content.

 

Now, I *never* group for PvE. For PvE I am a story mode solo player exclusively. I really love the story content in this game. But it's been the sole focus for way, way too long now, IMO.

 

Couple this with the fact that the story content is far, far more production heavy than new ops or warzones and in the end I had to answer for new endgame group content on this one.

/Agree with your assessment.

 

Of course they do. Who else is left in any numbers? 4.0 chased off a lot of end game players. 5.0 is doing it to the rest. Unfortunately for BW, people who play just story, okay the story and then leave until there's more story. Story is expensive to make due to voice acting, cut scene creation, etc. So, as there are fewer players paying, there will be a smaller development budget which means less story so those who play story get less and come back less often. It's not a pretty cycle.

This is honestly a reason why I kinda doubt the devs have little resources for endgame development. If they are able to churn out all this solo/story nonsense, albeit slowly, then they are more than capable of giving us endgame content. If they would simply shift their focus back to what this game was marketed as, many former vets would come back and more MMO gamers would consider investing their time and money in SWTOR. It's a win for all of us... well, almost all of us.

 

As stoopicus mentioned, this game has way more than enough solo/story content to sustain solo players for a long while. The vast majority of them are casuals and won't rabidly consume this content.

 

I am a story player only- I doubt I will ever group for a heroic mission, much less a flashpoint, operation, etc- but the complaint has long been the lack of end-game content. A friend of mine who kept hounding me to start playing left the game a few months after launch and hasn't been back because of it.

 

For the story player, there is enough in the 8 story classes to last for quite some time. I've been playing the game since a couple weeks after launch and am still only through five of eight characters. I go stretches where I won't play for a month or two, but that's made up when I play it almost every day.

 

To keep this game afloat, single players like me are not going to cut it. Personally, I enjoy the game so much that I do subscribe- I want it to be here for the long run, and I want them to develop and promote more end-game content to keep people coming back to the game so it's here for a long time. People who like Star Wars like me are going to play this game regardless, and they may not even spend money on the Cartel Market, much less subscribe. That base should be fine with the class stories.

 

MMO vets are the ones who are going to subscribe and are going to provide the financial base for the game, and they are the players that they need to target for feedback, and need to impress to get them back into the game. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that Star Wars fans playing for the story and because it's Star Wars deserved the bulk of attention, and if that person is still with Bioware, they should probably be fired for that decision.

 

Also, I'd like to address the Valkorion storyline. While I have no problems with the story or storytelling, I do have an issue with how they designed the levels. It almost feels like I am playing Halo or Call of Duty, just progressing through a linear map with certain objectives to accomplish before I reach the end. If we are going to push story content, lets go back to Hutt Cartel or Shadow of Revan, where we had more of a sandbox environment that was the same experience as leveling 1-50 with class stories.

If only most of the casual/story/solo players here were as pragmatic as you. Astutely and profoundly said ThomasTomaz.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Talon_strikes

[Darkside]

15 out of 30 say solo... yeah, I'd say that counts as irony

 

Honestly, I think the post set up the poll in way as to be trolled, which is why we are seeing the skewed results.

[TUXs]

You should have had an "other" option...at this point, no matter what they do, they're far too slow and have done too much damage to their name. They deserve every cancellation they've gotten with their show of utter incompetence.

[Lionflash]

Poll results blow up in OP's face.

 

" I still think it justifies my argument! " lol

[Talon_strikes]

You should have had an "other" option...at this point, no matter what they do, they're far too slow and have done too much damage to their name. They deserve every cancellation they've gotten with their show of utter incompetence.

Tuxxy, I still think the studio has enough time to turn things around. SWTOR has the Star Wars IP going for it for starters. It's a new year, they have another stream coming up. I stay subscribed because I sincerely do care about this game and I want it to succeed, I want it to thrive. I certainly don't want this game to be shutdown or for them to cancel anything.

 

I honestly think any damage made (IMO it being lack of endgame content) is definitely changeable. It's reversible. If the devs go back to the focus they had with their content update cadence in 2012 and 2013, I think we would see a lot of old veterans coming back and the studio will see an increase in profits and income. It's a win/win. And who doesn't want that?

[PlasmaJohn]

I honestly think any damage made (IMO it being lack of endgame content) is definitely changeable. It's reversible. If the devs go back to the focus they had with their content update cadence in 2012 and 2013, I think we would see a lot of old veterans coming back and the studio will see an increase in profits and income. It's a win/win. And who doesn't want that?

It's reversible if and only if EA supports a rebuilding year. Frankly I think the only way that'll happen is if they clean house. The last thing they need to do is "focus" on one type or other. What they need to "focus" on is correcting their pipeline (and finances) so that they are producing content to cover all player niches on a reasonable and consistent timeline.

 

But for that to even sink in they need to give up the pipe-dream that there's this huge untapped demographic that hasn't already heard of SW:TOR. There's a demographic out there they're waiting for TOR to grow up and become the MMO it promised to be.