Galactic Command Gearing Roadmap - Coming This Week

[Vaerah]

Why not bring back the old system, that worked perfectly and enabled quick gearing for both mains and alts at ones own pace? Feels like there are quite enough bugs to keep you guys busy for a while, no need to spend this much time on developing a new gearing system and subsequently having to use resources to fix it every month.

 

Because you cannot report to your superiors and tell "you know what? We wasted a year worth of budget into making a piece of garbage and now we are just undoing it and restoring the previous, functioning system".

 

So, the escamotage is about inventing creative ways to basically deplete what you have done and sort of force in the old system - a round peg - into your new square hole.

[yeldarbnotned]

Because you cannot report to your superiors and tell "you know what? We wasted a year worth of budget into making a piece of garbage and now we are just undoing it and restoring the previous, functioning system".

 

So, the escamotage is about inventing creative ways to basically deplete what you have done and sort of force in the old system - a round peg - into your new square hole.

 

This is exactly the issue right now. Pride and arrogance to initiate the system over community concerns has been replaced by fear and selfishness. He or (they) are desperate to save the system to save their own hides. They care not for the players enjoying the game.

[gabigool]

This is exactly the issue right now. Pride and arrogance to initiate the system over community concerns has been replaced by fear and selfishness. He or (they) are desperate to save the system to save their own hides. They care not for the players enjoying the game.

 

I'm not so sure.

 

I don't so much think they're afraid to walk it back as much as they still don't believe they need to.

 

I honestly think they truly don't understand how bad it is. At some level, reading some of the posts I'm not sure many players do yet either. To be fair though, most players don't need the gear and as such don't feel the pain. But to have content in the game that necessitates even decent gear, this system cannot be how it is acquired.

[stoopicus]

I don't think they *can* walk it back.

 

I think they were directed by the studio leads to extend the long tail revenue (of subs and cartel market) if they want to keep the game alive.

 

I think this was their plan to do it, to give players something to focus on until the next big yearly content drop.

 

I think admitting it didn't work out now would be tantamount the game shutting down.

 

I think they *have* to make GC work.

Edited February 1, 2017 by stoopicus

[Wayshuba]

I'm not so sure.

 

I don't so much think they're afraid to walk it back as much as they still don't believe they need to.

 

I honestly think they truly don't understand how bad it is. At some level, reading some of the posts I'm not sure many players do yet either. To be fair though, most players don't need the gear and as such don't feel the pain. But to have content in the game that necessitates even decent gear, this system cannot be how it is acquired.

 

If they don't understand how bad it is, then your are right, it is not arrogance. It is utter incompetence.

 

But it is neither. Unfortunately in my 25 plus years in the corporate world I've seen this story play out before. Someone makes a commitment to management that they have an idea that is going to help get more revenue (in this case coming up with an end game revamp that will help increase sub retention and therefore revenue). Then the idea sinks faster than the Titanic, but they are determined to prove they are right so they keep going ahead, making small adjustments, thinking they will get the balance right and prove themselves right. But it always ends the same, every single time, after massive revenue loss and for those that remain, destroyed customer trust, someone will lose their job and someone will be put in charge to try and clean up the mess.

 

This is EXACTLY what we are dealing with and why all the customer complaints seem to be falling on utterly deaf ears. Mark my words, by summer, there will be staffing changes in Austin. Someone has a point to prove and the loss of customers is insignificant to them trying to show management they were right.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Wayshuba

[Wayshuba]

I think they *have* to make GC work.

 

Imagine if Coca-Cola had decided to try and make New Coke work instead of bringing back Coke Classic. Where do you think they would be today?

 

BW is trying to force New Coke to work when their market has CLEARLY told them they don't want New Coke but Coke Classic. But they are determined at this point to shove New Coke down your throat.

 

And we all know how this is going to end. Ben will soon learn, for the first time in his career, how this ends soon enough. Mark my words.

[GalacticKegger]

Wow GK. You've certainly changed over the years on these forums. Glad I don't see you (or anyone else for a while now) accusing anyone being critical of simply "posting riff-raff" and being "a sock puppet account".

 

Hehe. Thank you for remembering. Here's a brief highlight stroll down memory lane:

 

Beta

Hey guys, why can't we implement the character transfer system we experimented with since we'll probably need them for launch? Speaking of which, what are we going to do about KP? And Ilum? And the Sage story break on Voss? And this amazingly minimalist UI? Are we bringing back hi-res textures? We going to actually do the Guild Summit? But man ... how about that beta closing light saber party in the Nexus Room? My graphics card nearly fried. And I'll miss the orange pixel.

 

Early Access

Woohoo! First day early access! Wait ... a 2½ hour login queue? Alright people don't spaz. The devs are slowly increasing the pop caps on the servers and said we'd be g2g by launch. Takes a while to get in, but man this is so sweet ... best ever Star Wars class stories, full open world planets, and best of all I can play everything together with my wife and guildmates. Too bad all we have is this text chat-based grouping tool. Would be nice to have a drag and drop interface for that. Speaking of leveling up in a group, these leveling flashpoints are way better than WoW's dungeons for learning group play dynamics while we level. And I LOVE my Force Leap / Force Sweep! Holy snappin' arsels we're launching tomorrow and there's already somebody on Ilum?

 

Launch

They're adding how many new servers? 72? I though they were just going to raise the pop caps? Now they're telling people to roll new characters on a less populated server until the problem is resolved. So what happens if there's only 5 of them on their server? We don't have cross-server queues so they'll be stranded. Was Bioware hoping they would go back to their original server after the queues died down? Where is that character transfer thing we tested out a few months ago?

 

1.1

New content! Sweet! Wait ... Rakghouls? (Fast forward to later in the day in D7) Huh? Why did we wipe? What do you mean the healer exploded? But EV's turrets aren't flashpapering us any more!

 

1.2

Bioware is the BOMB! They listened at the Guild Summit and now we have guild banks! And Legacy! And the best and most customizable UI of any MMO I've ever played. Who needs addons when the best is already built in! And we get a new heroic area The Black Hole! And ANOTHER new op Explosive Conflict! I don't get why so many people are ragging on this game and trashing the people who enjoy it. They have to be competitor water army drones or something trying to crash our game. Yes it probably should have launched with 1.2, but hey - we have it now and they keep adding new great QoL features and content!

 

1.5 -1.7x

Free to play? Why? I understand the Cartel Market for buffs and cosmetics. Hell my wife and I do a hypercrate a month each to GTN excess customs, mounts, pets and emotes for guild funds. But F2P? The game doesn't need free to play because free doesn't generate revenue ... it's just a promotional consideration. Oh jeez ... here comes the riff raff () At least we got the Gree, which after the Coruscant quest chain was a really nice surprise. The mandatory PvP quests to complete achievements, while ill-conceived for single players, are fine for us since we have a lowbie PvP night every weekend. And would you get a load of all these damn gold spammers?

 

2.0 - 2.10x

This just keeps getting better. Entire new planets ... Legacy-wide rep ... Strongholds ... 5 additional levels ... new heroic areas ... new gear tiers ... new flashpoints and operations ... Wait, what happened to individul class stories? Well ... hell. Okay, the rest of the game rocks and continuing each class' story would have been a huge undertaking. Though I would have gladly paid $80 for the expansion if they had continued individual class story. I spend at least twice that a month in the Cartel Market for hypercrates and Legacy perks, so ... ya. And these Czerka tacticals ... the lag is horrendous. Maybe it's my PC. Regardless, there still isn't a MMO made that suits my wife and I, and our guild and us, better than this one.

 

3.x

Upgraded my CPU. Going from a i5 to a 4-core i7 made a HUGE difference! More new open worlds to explore, new flashpoints and ops ... this game is awesome. Keep the killer group content coming! Oh wait. What do you mean my wife and I can't do the story dialogues together? Well, at least we can explore Rishi and Yavin as a group. Though I'm not liking the single player direction they are taking story. But the Ops are excellent and I like the solo story mode FPs. But there isn't a level appropriate version we can go back to and farm. That's disturbing. But at least Rav and ToS are giving us our money's worth for end game. I would have paid an additional $40 if they had kept Blood Hunt and Battle of Rishi level aapriate and made solo mode and tactical copies, as well as keeping everything about story - including dialogues - the same so groups can play through them together if they want to.

 

4.0

Betrayal. Except for a few small open areas the entire 5 levels worth of story is solo only? I can't level through the expansion with my wife? Or a guildmate? Or another human being? What? No group content? No new open worlds to explore? No more leveling planet flashpoints? I don't mean no more new leveling flashpoints. I mean no more leveling flashpoints anywhere in the game any more - period. They're all jeezus droid solos or bolstered now? And where the hell are my companions? And why can't I gear them up any more. I spent $100s in the Cartel Market and 1,000s of comms getting them properly geared and their stuff shows up in a dear John letter? The hell with it. When my main gets to Odessen I'll find that terminal and get them back. What? Our loot tables got replaced by Alliance crates? With companion gifts and an end game comprised of nothing more than me grinding to get them back? Sorry. I'll sit the rest of this out. Maybe Bioware will come to their senses with the next expansion.

 

5.0

. . . :mad: . . .

 

5.1

. . . :mad: . . .

 

___________________________________________

 

Time can heal, but it can also fester depending on how the wound is treated. With every turn now Bioware gouges the wound even deeper and rubs salt in it. So here I am, the eternal optimist, hoping like hell one final time that Bioware mans up and gets it right. Like when we gladly paid for expansions and in return received a real MMO with real end game, group story, new open worlds to explore, new Flashpoints, new Operations, even the occasional new PvP and GSF map.

 

4.0 was the NGE bomb that scattered our guild, and 5.0 is when we lost respect for Bioware. For 2 full 16-man Ops teams plus standbys, the rest of our guild who just likes doing small group stuff together (like farming old flashpoints together for customs), and yours truly ... Eric's message Friday will either bring us all the way back or bury us for good.

 

The only way we come back is if they announce that all story going forward can be run in its entirety in a group similar to everything pre-3.0, and that they were massaging Galactic Command all along to address the solo end game they announced last week, and that they are reverting back to pre-4.0 for group end game.

 

I have a very bad feeling about this.

Edited February 1, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[cyrusramsey]

I'm not really opposed to the galactic command system, as a system that allows easy access to the various content in the game. I'm not even really opposed to the quality of gear no longer depending on the difficulty of the content being played.

 

The problem for me is that this was off-set by making it take incredibly long. If I had a single character, I would not have minded, but I wish to gear a minimum of 30 characters. I don't see how I'm going to do that.

 

In my ideal scenario, the following changes would be made:

 

• The GC interface stays.
  
• GC no longer has ranks or tiers, and requires a flat amount of points that gives a crate every 30 or 60 minutes.
  
• This time is not an average over all users, this time ignores the heavy grinders. This part is critical, if you take out difficulty as a limiting factor, you cannot limit normal players by the standards that heavy grinders set. It is better to let heavy grinders get their gear very early, and regular players get it at a normal amount of time, than to slow down regular players just because some people are grinding in such a way that it messes with averages.
  
• NO RANDOM GEAR --- Instead, every crate drops a universtal token. One kind of token.
  
• One token buys one piece of entry level gear. Any slot. Entry level gear should be quick and easy to get.
  
• Any time factor, any way to slow down getting the higher tiers of gear, will be established by higher tiers of gear requiring more than one token. This allows for easy non-rng tweaking.
  
• I've not played the game recently, have not experienced the 5.1 changes, but I imagine my system is simpler and better: Ops bosses dropping relative equivalents amount of my new tokens to bring them back to the level of previous cycles: Say.. an 8-person operation dropped 5 pieces of tier 2 gear, now they'd drop a combined amount of universal tokens worth up to 5 pieces of tier 2 gear, divided by 8, to each character. Less RNG than in previous cycles. The CXP gain from such runs will act like the random non-set cookies the ops used to provide as well.
  
• The tokens bind on legacy.
  
• I.. do not pvp, but am sure I'd have a sensible solution if I knew what I was talking about in that regard...
  

 

That would have me celebrate Galactic Command. While many people would like to see it gone, I expect most would not mind it in this shape. I can't imagine any of the supporters of GC being opposed to this either.

 

The only people I can imagine being opposed to this, are people who want things to be sludge. Who want things to be slow. And since those people are employed by BW:A, I cannot believe anything remotely like this will ever happen. And that is why I changed my signature to quote an earlier post.

[stoopicus]

Imagine if Coca-Cola had decided to try and make New Coke work instead of bringing back Coke Classic. Where do you think they would be today?

 

BW is trying to force New Coke to work when their market has CLEARLY told them they don't want New Coke but Coke Classic. But they are determined at this point to shove New Coke down your throat.

 

And we all know how this is going to end. Ben will soon learn, for the first time in his career, how this ends soon enough. Mark my words.

 

Oh, I agree. You described the fallacy of sunk costs well enough in your previous post. I should probably have phrased it as

 

"I think they are convinced they HAVE to make GC work."

 

I also note that you're not really disagreeing with my take there either

Edited February 1, 2017 by stoopicus

[Kyuuu]

I could believe that but understand that bolster for PvP and bolster for Ops serve two completely different purposes in this regard. In PvP bolstering everyone to the same level has a lot of advantages (and there are detractors too, but I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that it levels the playing field.) In ops, on the other hand, you're not fighting other humans with skills, you're fighting a set of (relative) idiot mechanic mobs of arbitrary toughness, so I agree it is more viable there to bolster in ops to a minimum level in relation to the targets.

 

its the same bolster system for both pvp/pve you really think they gona make serprate bolsters for the 2? they cant even be bother to separate pvp and pve mechanics/damgae formulas.

 

and in pvp everyone having 250 bolster which is gear that dont exist made have gear pointless, which why they droped it to 232, dont get me wrong bw made **** stained mess out of 5.0 and are compounding it with every update, but i dont want bolster going back to 250 even in pvp/wz. people will think they better then they actual are, which already issue.

[casirabit]

These are pretty gosh darn valid concerns .

 

It is fair to say that if someone solely cares about gearing their character, they would consider waiting for these changes to go in place before playing. That is why we had a few goals in making my post yesterday:

1. We are being open that changes are coming.
   
2. We are going to provide details on what is changing, and when, so that you know what to expect.
   
3. We want to start rolling these changes out ASAP. I said the changes will start in the next few weeks, but the goal is the first changes will happen very soon (likely next week).
   

If someone really wants to wait for changes to take affect before playing, that's ok! However, I think there is other fun to be had without just gearing their 70 (level an alt to 70 in prep for the changes, finish up legendary status, etc).

 

-eric

 

 

Good luck in getting some people to see this as they are just wrapped up in their gear at the moment. I guess because of the things they want to play or do.

 

Thanks for working on this problem, no matter that some will still find fault with it. Sure, the RNG part of the command crate is a headache but I understand why you introduced the command crates and it was for all players to get gear, not just a select few that did operations.

 

Not everyone in the game does operations and just because they don't people think they have no business having the same gear. If they are paying for a sub then they should be to get the gear from the way they play, not doing what everyone thinks they should do.

 

Operations can be fun, with the right group, but there are some that don't want that part of the game so you did something to try to include everyone albeit it needs work.

 

Have a good day.

[AllisonLightning]

its the same bolster system for both pvp/pve you really think they gona make serprate bolsters for the 2? they cant even be bother to separate pvp and pve mechanics/damgae formulas.

 

and in pvp everyone having 250 bolster which is gear that dont exist made have gear pointless, which why they droped it to 232, dont get me wrong bw made **** stained mess out of 5.0 and are compounding it with every update, but i dont want bolster going back to 250 even in pvp/wz. people will think they better then they actual are, which already issue.

 

Funny, I'd say that applies to people on the better end of the gear curve. By all means, put the bolster at the actual highest gear level but when I'm often carrying in FPs and came up entirely different on an even playing field in PvP, that just puts it as the gear advantage makes some special snowflakes in PvP think they're better than they are. Even good players, with a gear advantage completely takes out any ability to assess skill... you just said made gear pointless and that some people were better and then with the level playing field taken away, they got to taste how bad they were 'with the weaker gear'.

 

I knew the difference between performance in a warzone and everywhere else pre 5.1. I didn't need people left with almost zero chance for free kills or to get hurt by my bad RNG luck - thank frell for GTN and supplemental relics and mainhands.

[Joonbeams]

Good luck in getting some people to see this as they are just wrapped up in their gear at the moment. I guess because of the things they want to play or do.

 

Thanks for working on this problem, no matter that some will still find fault with it. Sure, the RNG part of the command crate is a headache but I understand why you introduced the command crates and it was for all players to get gear, not just a select few that did operations.

 

Not everyone in the game does operations and just because they don't people think they have no business having the same gear. If they are paying for a sub then they should be to get the gear from the way they play, not doing what everyone thinks they should do.

 

Operations can be fun, with the right group, but there are some that don't want that part of the game so you did something to try to include everyone albeit it needs work.

 

Have a good day.

 

None of this will be taken seriously until they address the MAIN issue which is that the drops are mostly junk no one wants. Keep CXP, keep GC, keep RNG, but until the loot tables are RADICALLY fixed to drop more quality items much more frequently, none of these statements will help. This could be implemented in the next patch. It's such an "easy" fix because it doesn't require dismantling any of the alleged "good" parts of 5.x, but till now the studio has said NOTHING about fixing this -- the MAIN problem with 5.x.

[DanNV]

If they don't understand how bad it is, then your are right, it is not arrogance. It is utter incompetence.

 

But it is neither. Unfortunately in my 25 plus years in the corporate world I've seen this story play out before. Someone makes a commitment to management that they have an idea that is going to help get more revenue (in this case coming up with an end game revamp that will help increase sub retention and therefore revenue). Then the idea sinks faster than the Titanic, but they are determined to prove they are right so they keep going ahead, making small adjustments, thinking they will get the balance right and prove themselves right. But it always ends the same, every single time, after massive revenue loss and for those that remain, destroyed customer trust, someone will lose their job and someone will be put in charge to try and clean up the mess.

 

This is EXACTLY what we are dealing with and why all the customer complaints seem to be falling on utterly deaf ears. Mark my words, by summer, there will be staffing changes in Austin. Someone has a point to prove and the loss of customers is insignificant to them trying to show management they were right.

 

This is exactly the problem. The sooner EA execs take a real interest in it, the better.

[MaximumOwnage]

My answer for PVP has been to set a level of stats and everyone gets bolstered or reduced to that set with whatever stat mix they prefer based on the gear they are wearing. Then it's a matter of skill and how you prefer to stat your character for your play style. It's no longer a gear based system.

 

The difference from 204 to 208 gear in 4.0 was minuscule. PVP was not gear based in 4.0 UNLESS you didn't have the starter set (204) gear. That's the exact point that TUX made. Make the set bonus entry level suit very easy to obtain. You should be able to purchase one once you reach top like in 4.0 when you stashed away comms until you can use them at 65. Even grinding a full suit of 204 in 4.0 took no longer than a week of very casual playing or 2 days or less of power playing. That's what I hope the developers are going after in this next patch.

[Kyuuu]

Funny, I'd say that applies to people on the better end of the gear curve. By all means, put the bolster at the actual highest gear level but when I'm often carrying in FPs and came up entirely different on an even playing field in PvP, that just puts it as the gear advantage makes some special snowflakes in PvP think they're better than they are. Even good players, with a gear advantage completely takes out any ability to assess skill... you just said made gear pointless and that some people were better and then with the level playing field taken away, they got to taste how bad they were 'with the weaker gear'.

 

I knew the difference between performance in a warzone and everywhere else pre 5.1. I didn't need people left with almost zero chance for free kills or to get hurt by my bad RNG luck - thank frell for GTN and supplemental relics and mainhands.

 

 

People wont learn how to play there toons right if they are just bolster to level of gear that dont exist. it even more infurating when your bolster to gear level that dont exist (250) and you are some how carrying people still.

 

This wasnt much of issue till BW decided to add bolster in game, then started nerfing ops and flashpoints of there mechanics. Alot entry level mechanics that were learned by sm fp/ops have been removed from sm and remain in hm some those has mechanics removed or changed too..

 

I refuse to run Pug flashpoints especial hm these days cause I would wait 30+ min for pop just to get group people that dont know what they doing refused to listen to mechanics being explained and have no clue how to play there toons.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Kyuuu

[DanNV]

Thanks for working on this problem, no matter that some will still find fault with it. Sure, the RNG part of the command crate is a headache but I understand why you introduced the command crates and it was for all players to get gear, not just a select few that did operations.

 

No, actually it has nothing to do with making gear accessible to everyone. That's an excuse they made up to try to sell GC to the player base. GC is entirely meant to keep you subbed longer hoping that next crate will be the piece of gear you want. BW promised EA share holders they had a system that would increase subs and keep subs subbed longer. GC is that system. It has failed miserably and at some point EA will take notice, hopefully sooner than later.

[stoopicus]

The difference from 204 to 208 gear in 4.0 was minuscule. PVP was not gear based in 4.0 UNLESS you didn't have the starter set (204) gear. That's the exact point that TUX made. Make the set bonus entry level suit very easy to obtain. You should be able to purchase one once you reach top like in 4.0 when you stashed away comms until you can use them at 65. Even grinding a full suit of 204 in 4.0 took no longer than a week of very casual playing or 2 days or less of power playing. That's what I hope the developers are going after in this next patch.

 

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I really don't care how bolster is addressed provided we don't end up with a large gear disparity as a barrier to entry for alts and noobs. As it currently sits the 10 item rating gap is probably going to prove significant, especially set bonuses vs not, though.

 

The War Leader set bonus, for example, ups my DR by 2%, but more importantly, helps kill the cooldown on the AoE and standard taunt, which directly translates to less damage for everyone on my team (but me). Like a lot of Juggs I use that skill on cooldown. Thinking this is not significant and that set gear should be backloaded instead of frontloaded in the grind is a huge mistake. So what you and Tux are saying makes a lot of sense - and is basically what Snave was getting at in his earlier posts.

Edited February 1, 2017 by stoopicus

[TrixxieTriss]

In case some people haven't read it, this is Ben Irving about Galactic Command:

 

"We took a risk here; we took a shot. I think we got most of it right, but there are things that we didn't get right. And that was providing goals for those who are doing the hardest content and providing specific gear-chase items. So two weeks after we launch, we reviewed that data and had a heart-to-heart discussion with ourselves to say this is what we've got to do. It's the right thing to do for the game."

 

They reviewed DATA and had a heart to heart discussion with THEMSELVES to decide this system must stay. That says all about respect for players, he doesn't even mention them.

 

Maybe this behaviour is what makes people wanting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named fired. If at least he was able to recognize when things are going wrong, he wouldn't have this problem imo. And people will continue to think, no matter what they censor or not.

 

At some point he should maybe wonder why people say that, that would be way more productive than covering what he doesn't want to see.

 

/facepalm.."doh"

 

The arogence of not consulting externally with the players but only internally amongst themselves is why they are in this predicament.

 

The way I read what he said was.. " we had a meeting and realised we made a huge mistake, we spent a tonne of money doing it and we don't have enough to fix it. EA are looking over our shoulders at what's happened, so we need to present a united front and have our stories straight. So we'll say we did the right thing, even though we all know we messed up. That way no one individual is responsible"

[TrixxieTriss]

My answer for PVP has been to set a level of stats and everyone gets bolstered or reduced to that set with whatever stat mix they prefer based on the gear they are wearing. Then it's a matter of skill and how you prefer to stat your character for your play style. It's no longer a gear based system.

 

That is exactly how it should work. PvP isn't about grinding gear or getting the right gear to kill the right boss. PVP should only ever be about skill vs skill.

[TrixxieTriss]

Hehe. Thank you for remembering. Here's a brief highlight stroll down memory lane:

 

Beta

Hey guys, why can't we implement the character transfer system we experimented with since we'll probably need them for launch? Speaking of which, what are we going to do about KP? And Ilum? And the Sage story break on Voss? And this amazingly minimalist UI? Are we bringing back hi-res textures? We going to actually do the Guild Summit? But man ... how about that beta closing light saber party in the Nexus Room? My graphics card nearly fried. And I'll miss the orange pixel.

 

Early Access

Woohoo! First day early access! Wait ... a 2½ hour login queue? Alright people don't spaz. The devs are slowly increasing the pop caps on the servers and said we'd be g2g by launch. Takes a while to get in, but man this is so sweet ... best ever Star Wars class stories, full open world planets, and best of all I can play everything together with my wife and guildmates. Too bad all we have is this text chat-based grouping tool. Would be nice to have a drag and drop interface for that. Speaking of leveling up in a group, these leveling flashpoints are way better than WoW's dungeons for learning group play dynamics while we level. And I LOVE my Force Leap / Force Sweep! Holy snappin' arsels we're launching tomorrow and there's already somebody on Ilum?

 

Launch

They're adding how many new servers? 72? I though they were just going to raise the pop caps? Now they're telling people to roll new characters on a less populated server until the problem is resolved. So what happens if there's only 5 of them on their server? We don't have cross-server queues so they'll be stranded. Was Bioware hoping they would go back to their original server after the queues died down? Where is that character transfer thing we tested out a few months ago?

 

1.1

New content! Sweet! Wait ... Rakghouls? (Fast forward to later in the day in D7) Huh? Why did we wipe? What do you mean the healer exploded? But EV's turrets aren't flashpapering us any more!

 

1.2

Bioware is the BOMB! They listened at the Guild Summit and now we have guild banks! And Legacy! And the best and most customizable UI of any MMO I've ever played. Who needs addons when the best is already built in! And we get a new heroic area The Black Hole! And ANOTHER new op Explosive Conflict! I don't get why so many people are ragging on this game and trashing the people who enjoy it. They have to be competitor water army drones or something trying to crash our game. Yes it probably should have launched with 1.2, but hey - we have it now and they keep adding new great QoL features and content!

 

1.5 -1.7x

Free to play? Why? I understand the Cartel Market for buffs and cosmetics. Hell my wife and I do a hypercrate a month each to GTN excess customs, mounts, pets and emotes for guild funds. But F2P? The game doesn't need free to play because free doesn't generate revenue ... it's just a promotional consideration. Oh jeez ... here comes the riff raff () At least we got the Gree, which after the Coruscant quest chain was a really nice surprise. The mandatory PvP quests to complete achievements, while ill-conceived for single players, are fine for us since we have a lowbie PvP night every weekend. And would you get a load of all these damn gold spammers?

 

2.0 - 2.10x

This just keeps getting better. Entire new planets ... Legacy-wide rep ... Strongholds ... 5 additional levels ... new heroic areas ... new gear tiers ... new flashpoints and operations ... Wait, what happened to individul class stories? Well ... hell. Okay, the rest of the game rocks and continuing each class' story would have been a huge undertaking. Though I would have gladly paid $80 for the expansion if they had continued individual class story. I spend at least twice that a month in the Cartel Market for hypercrates and Legacy perks, so ... ya. And these Czerka tacticals ... the lag is horrendous. Maybe it's my PC. Regardless, there still isn't a MMO made that suits my wife and I, and our guild and us, better than this one.

 

3.x

Upgraded my CPU. Going from a i5 to a 4-core i7 made a HUGE difference! More new open worlds to explore, new flashpoints and ops ... this game is awesome. Keep the killer group content coming! Oh wait. What do you mean my wife and I can't do the story dialogues together? Well, at least we can explore Rishi and Yavin as a group. Though I'm not liking the single player direction they are taking story. But the Ops are excellent and I like the solo story mode FPs. But there isn't a level appropriate version we can go back to and farm. That's disturbing. But at least Rav and ToS are giving us our money's worth for end game. I would have paid an additional $40 if they had kept Blood Hunt and Battle of Rishi level aapriate and made solo mode and tactical copies, as well as keeping everything about story - including dialogues - the same so groups can play through them together if they want to.

 

4.0

Betrayal. Except for a few small open areas the entire 5 levels worth of story is solo only? I can't level through the expansion with my wife? Or a guildmate? Or another human being? What? No group content? No new open worlds to explore? No more leveling planet flashpoints? I don't mean no more new leveling flashpoints. I mean no more leveling flashpoints anywhere in the game any more - period. They're all jeezus droid solos or bolstered now? And where the hell are my companions? And why can't I gear them up any more. I spent $100s in the Cartel Market and 1,000s of comms getting them properly geared and their stuff shows up in a dear John letter? The hell with it. When my main gets to Odessen I'll find that terminal and get them back. What? Our loot tables got replaced by Alliance crates? With companion gifts and an end game comprised of nothing more than me grinding to get them back? Sorry. I'll sit the rest of this out. Maybe Bioware will come to their senses with the next expansion.

 

5.0

. . . :mad: . . .

 

5.1

. . . :mad: . . .

 

___________________________________________

 

Time can heal, but it can also fester depending on how the wound is treated. With every turn now Bioware gouges the wound even deeper and rubs salt in it. So here I am, the eternal optimist, hoping like hell one final time that Bioware mans up and gets it right. Like when we gladly paid for expansions and in return received a real MMO with real end game, group story, new open worlds to explore, new Flashpoints, new Operations, even the occasional new PvP and GSF map.

 

4.0 was the NGE bomb that scattered our guild, and 5.0 is when we lost respect for Bioware. For 2 full 16-man Ops teams plus standbys, the rest of our guild who just likes doing small group stuff together (like farming old flashpoints together for customs), and yours truly ... Eric's message Friday will either bring us all the way back or bury us for good.

 

The only way we come back is if they announce that all story going forward can be run in its entirety in a group similar to everything pre-3.0, and that they were massaging Galactic Command all along to address the solo end game they announced last week, and that they are reverting back to pre-4.0 for group end game.

 

I have a very bad feeling about this.

 

That was extremely well written and more than highlights the reasons why the game is losing subscribers and guilds and dedicated MMO players. The only people that have liked the changes since 4.0 are the solo story people and lots of the original players started to get turned off at 3.x. That alone should have rung the warning bells.

I get why they wanted to attract those solo people, especially as the movies were coming out and there weren't any other solo player SW games around. But they didn't need to alienate the rest of the player base for some quick bucks $$.

The implementation of the whole thing was poorly thought out. They could have easily made it so that there was a story mode and an MMO mode. Then they could have allowed people to choose. Being able to play with my significant other, friends or guildies while levelling is what drew us to the game. It was a social activity that we could sit down next to each other and interact in a virtual world. By changing it to a solo story game, it ruined that experience as we were disconnected from each other. We might as well have been sitting in different rooms. In the end we basically stopped playing at the same time or if we did, she played dress up, while I pvp'd.

In the end she stopped playing altogether and I've seen so many friends leave the game it's depressing. Over a hundred people I personally knew stopped.

I think lots of us would have actually paid money for real expansions. Every other game over the years has done it. Even WoW still does it. Then they wouldn't need F2P as part of the game dynamic and could have used it as a trial for 30 days or only to lvl 20. Imagine how much better the game could have been if they had stayed with a Subscriber only format with paid expansions.

[TrixxieTriss]

This is exactly the problem. The sooner EA execs take a real interest in it, the better.

 

Be careful what you wish for. They may just say it's a failed experiment and shut the game down.

[Avinler]

Eric,

 

The only acceptable solution is the removal of the system. Your current, former, and potential players do not want this system. Subscribers and server populations will continue to drop until the system is completely reversed. The dismissive and condescending way that this widespread opinion was brushed off in the last live stream didn't help either.

 

You can choose to listen or ignore us, but we have been consistently providing the same feedback since the day you announced the system and nothing has changed. Is the team really prepared to go down with this ship?

[Exocor]

Uh huh lol. How many pieces of gear are you claiming you've gotten through unassembled components exactly??

 

2 high-armor pieces (me, tank) and 2 MH's, 1 OH by 3 of our dps, so 1 each (all 242). Thats not much, but in combination with the op-way, it's helpful.

[aethell]

You're not misremembering. EAWare took it out. They took it out of mine too, without warning, just a note after the fact that I needed to 'respect the developers'

 

Wow. Just wow. I am not sure what I find most appalling about that- probably that THIS is what they are spending time on? Censoring signatures of their paying customers expressing opinions about the performance of people whose salary we fund?

 

All the things that need work in this game, and they are spending time trying to spare the ego of someone that we think is doing a bad job? (Eerily similar to a certain someone spending days obsessing over media coverage of the turn out in DC ~12 days ago...)

 

It's not like you were calling him foul names. Where exactly is the line between expressing our desires for the direction of this game, including its leadership, and disrespect?

 

Because I'm sorry Bioware Austin team, but I also think the failure of SWTOR's Producer to listen to our feedback leading up to GC's implementation caused a lot of the player loss we're seeing now, and he should be held accountable for that.

 

People express opinions about who should lead their country, and whether the management of companies in which they hold stock is doing a good job, and that's seen as our duty as citizens/shareholders, not disrespect. We the players have invested years into this game and would really like to continue investing money in subscribing to it if you'd just give us reason to... it's unreasonable to think we don't have a stake in the leadership of this game too, and want to express our opinions on that.