Server Merge Discussion Thread

[Khaleg]

I already said above merges will affect my game and on the day merges are announced I'm gone..

 

OMG, I can't even...lol

Leaving the speechless reader without any sense-making reason why. A new species was born, the story content only player who is affected by server mergers. Clearly an overpowered class that needs to be nerfed in the next patch if it tries to rule over reasonable and less selfish/ignorant classes/players. :-)

Edited August 1, 2017 by Khaleg

[Jedi_riches]

lol I knew you would ignore my post and just reply with a pure baseless response. You are flat out lying. You said yourself the only thing you do is story content. please tell me how server merges effects that? because it DON'T. don't bother mentioning character and legacy names. they don't matter. They don't effect story mode. You are just selfish. You want Bioware to ignore all the mmo players in an MMO, because you want a single-player game. pure selfishness.

 

I could explain but why bother, I doubt you care about them anyway Im the selfish one remember and the person who should not be playing the game anyway.

 

This thread is a waste of time the same players argue server merges the same few players argue against there has been nothing new or constructive in this thread for ages and the only reason it has not been closed yet is because the same players will j at start up another merge thread shortly after so they can carry on their arguments.

[IoNonSoEVero]

I'll answer that for you then. No we do not care if there is one server that is low populated. We do NOT need all the ones there are not. All it does is make new players coming into the game thinking it's dead when they pick a dead server not realizing it. One server for actual mmo players and one for solo players that want this to be a single-player game is all we need.

 

To answer the last part. Yes there is a way to turn ALL of that off. you can simply turn off chat and you will see no trolling and harassment. There is also an ignore feature for a reason. It's your own problem if you choose not to utilize simple features Bioware gives you. ninja's you say? played this game since release and can't even recall having this problem at all. story content is instanced, especially all class story areas and the new expansion stories. So nope mergers don't effect story mode players. I will not buy that.

 

Okay. That's fair. How would you feel, as a compromise, if the servers were defined better? They could go back to naming which servers are stronger for RPG, which have the most PvP players or most active group finders, so new players or those who are making new characters can choose one that is the best fit for them.

 

And in response to the issues about harassment - actually, no, there's no auto-decline or ignore for duel spammers (it's been a requested feature for a while) or people that try to get you PvP flagged, and there are things that are actually not instanced that story players do have to complete than can be open season for ninjas - for instance, a fair chunk of the Yavin 4 storyline, most of Oricon, and a lot of things on Corellia.

 

Also, I think we can agree that there are servers that do attract more aggressive players who are more likely to be ninjas or troll. The other day, for instance, I encountered a player who decided to run around me in circles for about five minutes as I was going about my business on Fleet. I did the adult thing and ignored them, and since chat was off I didn't hear any rubbish they might have said, but it's understandable that stuff like that happening on a regular basis can turn players off.

[PiiTarr]

you can simply turn off chat and you will see no trolling and harassment. There is also an ignore feature for a reason. It's your own problem if you choose not to utilize simple features Bioware gives you. ninja's you say? played this game since release and can't even recall having this problem at all. story content is instanced, especially all class story areas and the new expansion stories. So nope mergers don't effect story mode players. I will not buy that.

 

One of the ways I was harassed was by having an opposite faction player follow me around on his largest mount and park directly on top of my quest objectives and mobs I was trying to fight. Ignore and turning off chat does nothing to stop that. RPers are having players use the same tactic to disrupt their RP, parking large mounts directly on top of groups trying to RP. Another way I was harassed involved someone using emotes over and over again. I placed them on ignore, but you can still see the emote, it just says "slaps empty space" instead of "slaps (character name." so ignore does not prevent all forms of harassment, and turning off chat would have prevented me from using it for my own purposes. I've also had to deal with ninjas snaking open world quest objectives (not all story objectives are instanced) so just because you haven't, doesn't mean they don't exist.

[JediTahiri]

Okay. That's fair. How would you feel, as a compromise, if the servers were defined better? They could go back to naming which servers are stronger for RPG, which have the most PvP players or most active group finders, so new players or those who are making new characters can choose one that is the best fit for them.

 

And in response to the issues about harassment - actually, no, there's no auto-decline or ignore for duel spammers (it's been a requested feature for a while) or people that try to get you PvP flagged, and there are things that are actually not instanced that story players do have to complete than can be open season for ninjas - for instance, a fair chunk of the Yavin 4 storyline, most of Oricon, and a lot of things on Corellia.

 

Also, I think we can agree that there are servers that do attract more aggressive players who are more likely to be ninjas or troll. The other day, for instance, I encountered a player who decided to run around me in circles for about five minutes as I was going about my business on Fleet. I did the adult thing and ignored them, and since chat was off I didn't hear any rubbish they might have said, but it's understandable that stuff like that happening on a regular basis can turn players off.

 

I agree the servers should be defined better. But it won't fix the issue's. This game is not getting surges of new players coming in so all these servers are not needed and just makes things extremely annoying for a lot of players that do different things.

 

As for the harassment problems. I have played since release and I can probably count on one hand how many times I have gotten a duel request. That has been non existent in my case. I really don't how anyone can get you PVP-flagged, I have never once been forced to PVP ever. But take in account that I play on a PVE server. I don't get the ninja thing, just what is there in story content thats there to ninja? If its NPC's they respawn quickly. That is just all part of playing an MMO it comes along with it. We are also not the only ones playing the game so we don't own anything just because we saw it first. If it's in the open world then it's fair game for anyone to grab.

 

I am actually surprised about the things you describe happening to you in game. I can't even recall anything like that happening to me. Not saying it doesn't happen to anyone else. I just never see these things and I am on fleet a lot and never even see anyone mentioning these things in gen chat either.

[Ardarell_Solo]

Because Keith did podcast interview recently where he categorically stated that cross server wasn't possible and would never happen.

 

http://badfeelingpodcast.com/audio/podcasts/episode_162_final.mp3

 

There's the link

 

Thanks for the info. The explanation Keith gives there (at about 30:00, if anyone else wants to check) doesn't sound too solid to me, though: Anyone would have guessed that it's not trivial technically, but any "database layout", which was the only specific explanation Keith gave, can be changed.

 

I'm sure it's a pretty big and costly change at that. But cross server queuing is still the one thing that could have turned things around for SWTOR - at least, if it had been implemented say about a year ago. Other MMOs show that it's possible and the boost it brought for group content was enormous.

 

I think it's shortsighted not to allocate the needed resources into that. Cause that's what any change comes down to in the end: Anything is possible, it's always just a matter of resources allocated.

 

Any of you guys us could easily write a list of things implemented in the game that any regular player could have guessed beforehand are not a good priority. E.g. I doubt that GSF had a good return on invest. Cross server queuing is certainly an enormous invest. But are SWTOR devs aware of its return? I doubt it.

[Khaleg]

Thanks for the info. The explanation Keith gives there (at about 30:00, if anyone else wants to check) doesn't sound too solid to me, though: Anyone would have guessed that it's not trivial technically, but any "database layout", which was the only specific explanation Keith gave, can be changed.

 

I'm sure it's a pretty big and costly change at that. But cross server queuing is still the one thing that could have turned things around for SWTOR - at least, if it had been implemented say about a year ago. Other MMOs show that it's possible and the boost it brought for group content was enormous.

 

I think it's shortsighted not to allocate the needed resources into that. Cause that's what any change comes down to in the end: Anything is possible, it's always just a matter of resources allocated.

 

That is my impression as an IT Pro (network security, databases, coding, etc. ) as well. This is a half-assed "we don't have the competence and/or money to do it" - statement. EVERYTHING in IT is solvable, it's just a matter of knowledge/skill, which is the main problem at Bioware's small team I suppose since most are hired to design shiny and meaningless bs for the Cartel market..., and ressources/money of course.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Khaleg

[JediTahiri]

I could explain but why bother, I doubt you care about them anyway Im the selfish one remember and the person who should not be playing the game anyway.

 

This thread is a waste of time the same players argue server merges the same few players argue against there has been nothing new or constructive in this thread for ages and the only reason it has not been closed yet is because the same players will j at start up another merge thread shortly after so they can carry on their arguments.

 

"I could explain but why bother" = I was caught in a lie and got no way out of it.

I also see you have resorted to twisting my words. I have never once said you should not be playing this game. You have as much right to play this game as I do or anyone else for that matter. I simply state the selfishness of your stance. You just want Bioware to ignore all the MMO players concerns because you want this to be a single-player game, when it isn't. This is a MMO with story based content. Server merges would help with people wanting faster queue times for group content and you would still be able to do ALL of your story mode stuff.

[IoNonSoEVero]

I agree the servers should be defined better. But it won't fix the issue's. This game is not getting surges of new players coming in so all these servers are not needed and just makes things extremely annoying for a lot of players that do different things.

 

As for the harassment problems. I have played since release and I can probably count on one hand how many times I have gotten a duel request. That has been non existent in my case. I really don't how anyone can get you PVP-flagged, I have never once been forced to PVP ever. But take in account that I play on a PVE server. I don't get the ninja thing, just what is there in story content thats there to ninja? If its NPC's they respawn quickly. That is just all part of playing an MMO it comes along with it. We are also not the only ones playing the game so we don't own anything just because we saw it first. If it's in the open world then it's fair game for anyone to grab.

 

I am actually surprised about the things you describe happening to you in game. I can't even recall anything like that happening to me. Not saying it doesn't happen to anyone else. I just never see these things and I am on fleet a lot and never even see anyone mentioning these things in gen chat either.

 

It all depends on where you are. I'm on Ebon Hawk and am a PvE/RPG player, so a lot of the harassment does get shot down, but it does happen from time to time, especially if you appear to be female (I am).

 

In terms of getting PvP flagged, it can happen if someone tries to attack you and you respond - turning off auto-target seems to stop the risk of it happening, but people still try. I've had incidents where I've been minding my business and have had other players take flying leaps at me.

 

There are plenty of things in story instances that are ninja-able, and can't be reached until you've fought a mob - Oricon's goals spring to mind again. If you do the solo option on Yavin, same thing. And while it is open world, if you have to wait for them to respawn you may end up fighting the same mob twice, which is a pain in the butt. There are differences of opinion on this, but it seems like on some servers, people are more likely to be considerate and not grab something that someone else is obviously fighting for.

[Jedi_riches]

"I could explain but why bother" = I was caught in a lie and got no way out of it.

I also see you have resorted to twisting my words. I have never once said you should not be playing this game. You have as much right to play this game as I do or anyone else for that matter. I simply state the selfishness of your stance. You just want Bioware to ignore all the MMO players concerns because you want this to be a single-player game, when it isn't. This is a MMO with story based content. Server merges would help with people wanting faster queue times for group content and you would still be able to do ALL of your story mode stuff.

 

Not even close, I simply prefer not to waste my breath on someone who will dismiss any of my issues anyway.

 

As for why you think I twisted your words I apologise I got you mixed up with another post serves me right for trying to read this on the bus motion sickness got in the way.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Jedi_riches

[JediTahiri]

Not even close, I simply prefer not to waste my breath on someone who will dismiss any of my issues anyway.

 

As for why you think I twisted your words you were asking why solo players would be playing a mmo a statement that can easily be taken as I should not be here especially given your stance towards the solo players as in we are still insignificant.

 

Let me clarify. I have never said solo players should not be playing this game nor did I say you are insignificant. I'm simply saying that it's selfish to ignore all the concerns of the rest of us. You are not the only type of player in the game. server merges is not that big of a deal to solo/story content. so saying you would quit over merges is selfish. cause you are inherently saying Bioware should just ignore the quality of game-play for the rest of us. Especially since Bioware has catered to solo players for years now. Look how much story and solo content you have gotten over the years and the rest of us have gotten NOTHING. So stop acting like you have it so hard and merges would just be the last straw.

Edited August 1, 2017 by JediTahiri

[Jedi_riches]

Let me clarify. I have never said solo players should not be playing this game nor did I say you are insignificant. I'm simply saying that it's selfish to ignore all the concerns of the rest of us. You are not the only type of player in the game. server merges is not that big of a deal to solo/story content. so saying you would quit over merges is selfish. cause you are inherently saying Bioware should just ignore the quality of game-play for the rest of us. Especially since Bioware has catered to solo players for years now. Look how much story and solo content you have gotten over the years and the rest of us have gotten NOTHING. So stop acting like you have it so hard and merges would just be the last straw.

 

I did correct the second part of the above message while you were obviously replying.

 

My final word on this subject is that you don't know me, you have no idea what will or won't affect or ruin my enjoyment of the game what's insignificant to you is huge to me.

 

If bioware could sort our the movement of guild assets then fine offer guilds a deal on moving but don't remove the other servers as players still want them.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Jedi_riches

[JediTahiri]

I did correct the second part of the above message while you were obviously replying.

 

My final word on this subject is that you don't know me, you have no idea what will or won't affect or ruin my enjoyment of the game what's insignificant to you is huge to me.

 

If bioware could sort our the movement of guild assets then fine offer guilds a deal on moving but don't remove the other servers as players still want them.

 

You finally mentioned something that does matter when it comes to merges. I have stated before that Bioware does need to fix the issue with guilds and strongholds when it comes to server merges.

We only need one low pop server for people that must have a low pop server for whatever reason.

[casirabit]

This arguing back and forth who is selfish and who isn't helping as both sides are. You want what you want and so does the others. Stop the name calling and behave like adults instead of two year old kids throwing a fit and saying No my way and the other saying No My Way.

 

Keith already has said he doesn't want to force people to move and that until he can figure out how to move guilds intact and the assets he will not do it.

 

So stop with calling the other side selfish, you are just as selfish.

[DarthSpuds]

These are all things that can be solved. Get it now? MAYBE?

 

I disagree; you clearly haven't followed this line of thinking through to its logical conclusion.

 

If these things could be solved - or rather be solved in a cost effective manner - they would already have been done.

 

Because that would then incentivise players to spend CC on voluntary server moves; and Bioware wouldn't catch any flack for forcing server merges (as they have in the past) or doing nothing about low population servers (as they are getting now).

 

If the solution were as simple and accessible as you suggest it would already have been done; it hasn't

 

Ergo all my criticisms of your previous post stand.

 

and don't make me answer to another completely useless reply.

 

Believe me, I know the feeling.

 

All The Best

[robertthebard]

Oh FFS! WHAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND THAT I AM ALREADY ON THE MOST POPULATED SERVER!!!! GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!! There is NOWHERE! to transfer to! Just doing a transfer option is not the solution. Unless people complaining are on the other dead servers. I am a freaking TANK and the queue times for anything is still average 30+ minutes. No there is also no reason for me to be on anyone's ignore list in game. I have NEVER raged at any healer or dps in group content.

 

Really, because the opening statement here really doesn't bear that out. How many minutes per FP do you spend spamming "Spacebar1111!!!!!!"? How's your tanking skills? I mean, you can tell us anything, odds are most of us have never, and will never be in a group with you, but "I'm a tank" doesn't mean "I'm a good tank". Players will block substandard, according to their own set of criteria, players too. What time of day is it for the server? Are you playing an EU schedule on Harbinger?

 

Because here's my thing: I've been watching this discussion unfold for as long as I've been here. I've seen a screenshot showing 3 people on fleet, that was something like 3 years ago, with a claim that the game wouldn't last a year w/out merges. No merges happened, and we're still here. These threads, over the years, have always been blurred with sensationalism, the more radical the claims, the better, because surely the only metric the devs have for how well their game is or isn't doing is the forums, right? So I tend to treat a lot of these claims with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially when it doesn't match my personal experience.

[robertthebard]

Since you seem to have quite some basic intellectual problems with logic and basic reasoning, like the other white knights who mastered ignorance in this thread, I have to correct you here:

 

EVERYBODY got asked about this topic, via this official monitored thread here for instance.

 

Really? So everyone in the game has replied to this thread? The game's deader than you thought then. I do love how you throw out how ignorant we are, and then follow it up with the absolute stupidest thing I've ever read on any forum, ever. That's going back 15 or 16 years, so congratulations for that milestone? It's quite an accomplishment, really. It ranks right up there with "PvPers are the best players in the game, so long as we're bolstered".

 

Let's look at logic and basic reasoning: About 15% of a game's population uses the forums for anything. Basic logic and reasoning tell me that 15% =/= 100%, so this all caps everybody you threw out is really quite illogical, and lacks the basic reasoning skill to know you should have probably left that entire last line out, right? Yet, you have the audacity to claim someone else is deficient? This is fake news. This is "I have to sensationalize my claim as much as possible, because if I can't dazzle them with brilliance, I have to baffle them with ********". When you can point me to an actual survey/poll on the launcher, that you have to do before you can log in, you can talk about everybody seeing it. Until then, "Welcome to CNN, where we spend almost as much time retracting stories as we do putting them out".

[robertthebard]

selfish, selfish selfish. players like you are the selfish ones, not us that want server merges. This was suppose to be an MMO, end of story. If you are going to quit over server merges sorry I don't buy it. Especially if you love star wars and the story content so much. seeing as how playing on a high pop server does not stop you from doing story content in the least. I don't care what you say. It doesn't effect your single-player content. turn off chat, don't do group content, your issues are solved. Before you mention character and legacy names, I DONT CARE! Your character names mean nothing when it comes to solo content which is all you care about. NONE of the npc's ever speak your name or reference it. The actual MMO players should feel like they are playing an MMO, period.

 

People like you are selfish as all hell. You say you are not a founder because held off on playing cause this was an MMO. But you want the rest of us not to be able to enjoy actual MMO content all because you wanted a single-player Star wars game. well GET OVER IT! It's an MMO! I also find it funny that you mention PVP in your forum signature. Why? I thought you didn't want to play an MMO and that you are just about the story. PVP is mmo content.

 

I don't care how long you spend in a queue. I don't care if you unsub because you can't get in one, do you need a link to the management page? IF I were on your server, and IF I were pugging players for groups, YOU wouldn't be in my group after the first time. What makes me say that? Reading your posts. If you're 1/10th as obnoxious in game as you are on the forum, you'd be on my ignore list so fast it might boot you from the current group. I have to wonder, reading through the last couple of pages, how many people that really applies to that are saying "I'm already on a populated server, and I can't get a group". It's too bad that naming/shaming is against the rules, or I'd be putting in a request to BW to release that information, so we could see what's really going on.

[DarthSpuds]

I have to wonder, reading through the last couple of pages, how many people that really applies to that are saying "I'm already on a populated server, and I can't get a group".

 

You see this is my belief as well.

 

If someone says "I'm already on a populated server, and I can't get a group" then the problem is, 99% of the time, the Player, not the server being under populated.

 

 

All The Best

[robertthebard]

One of the ways I was harassed was by having an opposite faction player follow me around on his largest mount and park directly on top of my quest objectives and mobs I was trying to fight. Ignore and turning off chat does nothing to stop that. RPers are having players use the same tactic to disrupt their RP, parking large mounts directly on top of groups trying to RP. Another way I was harassed involved someone using emotes over and over again. I placed them on ignore, but you can still see the emote, it just says "slaps empty space" instead of "slaps (character name." so ignore does not prevent all forms of harassment, and turning off chat would have prevented me from using it for my own purposes. I've also had to deal with ninjas snaking open world quest objectives (not all story objectives are instanced) so just because you haven't, doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

If BW would hand out some bans for this kind of thing, things would improve. I'm not a RPer, but I would never stoop to this sort of childish behavior.

[kodrac]

Unlocked "the correct way?" I try not to do anything with CC that I can do with credits, because I can get ahold of credits a lot easier than I can CC (even as a sub), and have a fair amount of things I want to do that can only be done with credits (such as collections unlock). I've bought possibly 1 outfits slot and 1 personal hold slot with CC, the rest has all been with credits, and those won't transfer.

 

Just because outfits (and other aesthetics) are unimportant to you doesn't mean they are unimportant to others.

 

I transferred two days ago. I did not lose any outfit slots on any of my characters. Some had been bought with CC but most were bought with credits.

[robertthebard]

Well, I can say who is not so extremely intelligent at least. People who have problems understanding the quoted post and who make an unmatched stupid and ignorant reply to it. These are all things that can be solved. Get it now? MAYBE? Pretty please, try to and don't make me answer to another completely useless reply.

 

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize that someone was standing there with a gun to your head, making you spout nonsense about "intelligence", "logic" and "reason". Do you need us to call the cops? It would explain a lot of the nonsense you've been spouting "they made me do it", hmm, I wonder how that compares to "I was just following orders"?

[masterceil]

I transferred two days ago. I did not lose any outfit slots on any of my characters. Some had been bought with CC but most were bought with credits.

 

The slots don't go away, the outfits themselves do. And if you applied a dye to the slot (either a rookie outfit designer error or you wanted to 'unify colours' with a dye but the chest piece can't be directly dyed), you lose that dye, even if you did keep all the constituent pieces of your myriad outfits in your cargo bay or they're available in Collections (not true for everyone, I lost the only hooded piece I liked - a trash drop I figured I wouldn't need again - when I transferred servers).

 

Pardon the run-on. TL;DR: outfits don't currently survive transfers.

[Lyshar]

What I would do would be to link all the servers together into one big megaserver. Of course things are not that easy, there are points to take into account or a lot of people would be upset.

 

Why one server? That's a simple question, at current you can spend hours in the queue with no hope of popping content, and that's true for all content, in different degrees on different servers. And when things pop, especially with PvP & GSF it will be the same people leading to unbalanced matches that scare off people and cause even fewer pops.

 

But there are issues like Latency, for this matchmaking can look at access points players use to connect to the servers. So if you queue for a GSF match for example it would try to make teams of EU players to match against EU players, match US east with US east, and west with west. This would make for more pops while limiting latency. That failing the matchmaking would form groups outside that parameter.

 

But that puts RPers with non-RPers and PvEers with PvPers together I hear people think. That isn't an issue if instances are set up right. There already are PvE and PvP instances, and a PvPer may have times they don't feel like PvPing, as well a PvEer may feel in the mood to take the chance to run into PvP, so people would be able to set a preferred instance for the game to place them in. Same for RP, if you go to a RP flagged instance people can expect you to act in character, I would go as far as adding a RP ban option if anti-RPers go there to ruin it for others, they can then still play, just not in RP instances.

 

That leaves language. For PvP & FPs/ops/etc it could be with a preference setting trying to match with the same language people. For chat it can be a little trickier, at least for RP unless there's an instance per language. For public channels it can be as simple as /1en /1de /1fr which lets you speak in a general chat for a specific language where the existing /1 looks at your preferred (same for /2 and /3). I would say all these channels exist independantly and the players can choose which channels they can see in chat. But allow someone who plays on english but knows german to have the german chat open and switch to it to re[ply to them in that language if they want to.

 

May need some work, but I think going like this would intercept most issues and make the game feel more alive, that in turn may make people return that left because it got too dead.

[kodrac]

The slots don't go away, the outfits themselves do. And if you applied a dye to the slot (either a rookie outfit designer error or you wanted to 'unify colours' with a dye but the chest piece can't be directly dyed), you lose that dye, even if you did keep all the constituent pieces of your myriad outfits in your cargo bay or they're available in Collections (not true for everyone, I lost the only hooded piece I liked - a trash drop I figured I wouldn't need again - when I transferred servers).

 

Pardon the run-on. TL;DR: outfits don't currently survive transfers.

 

Correct, the outfits themselves don't transfer and you'll have to redo them, but you won't lose any slots. I had to buy one dye because I made the rookie mistake of not dying the chest piece and putting it in the bank so on one character I was out 500k, but then I ran a few H2s and broke even.