Discussion Topic: Game Update 5.4 and the Next Roadmap

[Ottoattack]

Its only three times for master mode, it's not like you'll be spending a week in there.

 

The question though is why? Why do I need to run the same thing 3 times to unlock other form of content completely unrelated? I understand if it is a support system, but it is not. The last thing we want is to lock content behind currency grind. I understand gear grind or a difficulty progression, clearly that is not the case.

 

Currency grind is a no-no. It might be small today, but next time BW may come by and lock some other form of content behind another lame (and probably long) grind. This should not be tolerated.

[Costello]

I get the feeling that when ToR is looked back on the time of Kotfe will be seen as a golden age after the initial launch.

 

If we just look at the design intention, a story chapter every month. I don't think the story fans could ask for more than a chapter a month in all honesty.

 

An Alliance Alert that required some grinding. This made the competitions and traditional MMO player looking for repeatable content happy.

 

Operations and Priority Operations were the primary way of gearing, it even required you to master a variety of ops to fully gear, this can't be a bad thing for a hard core raider.

 

If memory serves correct there weren't as many posts by PvPers on a gear gap so they must have preferred the PvP.

 

Now the actual implementation may have fallen far short of the design goals, the story was fairly dull, one size fits all more interested in tell the tale of the Valkorians than the player. While the alerts and command crate grind sadly didn't have much of a pay of, returning of lost companions who if you were lucky said a few things before disappearing forever. Sadly neither the grind nor the pay off were enough. While the Operations were the same old operations that had been on offer since launch, there was nothing new for the raiding community. While the PvP community were still stuck with instanced mini games.

 

It maybe said that Galactic Command was the NGE of TOR. However what else could they do, have the same Operations as the primary method of gaining gear? You mean to have players run the same operations for another year (what they had been doing for the last year) to regear. At this point you have got to say hang on even the hard core raid guilds will call that a step to far. Or maybe PvP should be the primary source of gearing? Though given how marginalized the PvP in ToR is as almost a separate mini game (which some people support) how can you then say everyone must play this to get gear.

 

So while 4.0 and 5.0 may have many faults the actual idea behind them was good. I have yet to see anything in 5.2 onwards that offers a new or better gearing structure or will encourage players that have left to come back.

[Eshvara]

The question though is why? Why do I need to run the same thing 3 times to unlock other form of content completely unrelated? I understand if it is a support system, but it is not. The last thing we want is to lock content behind currency grind. I understand gear grind or a difficulty progression, clearly that is not the case.

 

Currency grind is a no-no. It might be small today, but next time BW may come by and lock some other form of content behind another lame (and probably long) grind. This should not be tolerated.

 

I suppose they are trying to look for other ways to obtain things. May this be unwanted on a large scale, there's a chance they'll look elsewhere next time.

I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of this idea, I just don't find it complain worthy.

 

What I find more silly is that they removed basically all currencies and now are slowly adding them back to the game. Command tokens, UC, Iokath shards now this. Soon we'll be back at where we were. If anything makes me wonder why it's that.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Eshvara

[MissilyMilcasia]

I get the feeling that when ToR is looked back on the time of Kotfe will be seen as a golden age after the initial launch.

 

If we just look at the design intention, a story chapter every month. I don't think the story fans could ask for more than a chapter a month in all honesty.

 

An Alliance Alert that required some grinding. This made the competitions and traditional MMO player looking for repeatable content happy.

 

Operations and Priority Operations were the primary way of gearing, it even required you to master a variety of ops to fully gear, this can't be a bad thing for a hard core raider.

 

If memory serves correct there weren't as many posts by PvPers on a gear gap so they must have preferred the PvP.

 

Now the actual implementation may have fallen far short of the design goals, the story was fairly dull, one size fits all more interested in tell the tale of the Valkorians than the player. While the alerts and command crate grind sadly didn't have much of a pay of, returning of lost companions who if you were lucky said a few things before disappearing forever. Sadly neither the grind nor the pay off were enough. While the Operations were the same old operations that had been on offer since launch, there was nothing new for the raiding community. While the PvP community were still stuck with instanced mini games.

 

It maybe said that Galactic Command was the NGE of TOR. However what else could they do, have the same Operations as the primary method of gaining gear? You mean to have players run the same operations for another year (what they had been doing for the last year) to regear. At this point you have got to say hang on even the hard core raid guilds will call that a step to far. Or maybe PvP should be the primary source of gearing? Though given how marginalized the PvP in ToR is as almost a separate mini game (which some people support) how can you then say everyone must play this to get gear.

 

So while 4.0 and 5.0 may have many faults the actual idea behind them was good. I have yet to see anything in 5.2 onwards that offers a new or better gearing structure or will encourage players that have left to come back.

 

Nobody will look back on KOTFE as a golden age. Bioware shrugged off actual content, and delivered a mediocre at best story line. It singlehandedly killed the raiding community, and is the very reason this game has a uphill battle to turn it around.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I get the feeling that when ToR is looked back on the time of Kotfe will be seen as a golden age after the initial launch.

 

The golden age was the 2.0 cycle - there was something for everyone and quite a lot of content not to mention quite interesting story (I personally loved the whole dread masters cycle even though it did start in 1.x - some get bitter because it ended with operations but for many of us who had no issue doing operations - it was brilliant.

 

Everything since has slowly and surely been less content than what came before.

 

5.x is by far the smallest cycle we've had to date but there is still time for more I guess.

 

Interesting you can tie the reduced amount of content to the reduced game player base over time - now whether players were leaving before the content was reduced meaning less money to make more content or EA were tightening the straps first meaning less content for players to do so they left ... we may never know.

[Lahandra]

I get the feeling that when ToR is looked back on the time of Kotfe will be seen as a golden age after the initial launch.

 

If we just look at the design intention, a story chapter every month. I don't think the story fans could ask for more than a chapter a month in all honesty.

 

Translated literally..... 20-40 mins of new content followed by a month's wait, or the option to repeat it again, and again, and again on alt's.......

 

Operations and Priority Operations were the primary way of gearing, it even required you to master a variety of ops to fully gear, this can't be a bad thing for a hard core raider.

 

Translated literally..... A chance to re-run the already tired op's the game provided with absolutely no new raid content.

 

If memory serves correct there weren't as many posts by PvPers on a gear gap so they must have preferred the PvP.

 

Even though there was a gear grind......... Shorter, yes, but still a gear grind.

 

So while 4.0 and 5.0 may have many faults the actual idea behind them was good. I have yet to see anything in 5.2 onwards that offers a new or better gearing structure or will encourage players that have left to come back.

 

A return to 3.0 type content release?? New planets, story, 2 full raids, fp's, and gearing??? Almost all at once?? Even a bit of PVP content just a bit later on??? Tell me which sounds better?? What I just listed, released every year, or the hell we have been in since 4.0??

Edited July 31, 2017 by Lahandra

[UlaVii]

Any plans to fix the guild panel bugs in 5.4?

 

 

• Reloading guild panel bug
  
• Guild panel stealing input text focus when it reloads
  
• Unable to whisper guild members with foreign characters in their name from the guild panel
  

[Kaizersan]

Yes, major decisions were made by people above Ben on the ladder.

 

Same as where I work, major decisions are made by people two or three rungs up the ladder from me; but as the customer facing employee when it comes to resolving customer complaints I am the only person the customer has who they can pin a name and face on and apportion blame. Not ideal I grant you, bit IT IS part of my job remit.

 

If Ben wasn't up for that he had no right to take the job in the first place; and if he had reservations about that and still accepted the job he was the wrong person for the job... ...end of.

 

All The Best

 

Not if you have bill to pay and mouths to feed you sometimes do what it takes to keep the job as long as possible.

[Kaizersan]

But Ben didn't need to come out and insinuate people weren't playing the game the way they wanted them to play it... Ben was his own worst enemy because of the way he tried to spin it when everyone was saying they hated it.

 

when you need the money to make the bills you sometimes do things you might not agree with in order to keep the job.

[Kaizersan]

Sorry I forgot you were so sad at Ben's departure, I'm sure you can follow him to whatever game he is working on now though so you don't need to be lonely.

 

As per usual you miss the point Ben isn't part of the team anymore but those guys above him that approved the bad choices are see the problem?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

As per usual you miss the point Ben isn't part of the team anymore but those guys above him that approved the bad choices are see the problem?

 

Hmmm is the answer you?

[dontbeswg]

As per usual you miss the point Ben isn't part of the team anymore but those guys above him that approved the bad choices are see the problem?

 

that's a good point, ultimately EA is the problem. They decided to run this game on a skeleton crew. Go look at the dev tracker at the launch of this game, it was highly staffed... I hated the decisions of Ben but it is guided by EA who has put this game on the backburner since 3.0 launch.

[Kaizersan]

Hmmm is the answer you?

 

Nope wrong as usual it's the guys above Ben who approved the bad choices that are still running the game.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Nope wrong as usual it's the guys above Ben who approved the bad choices that are still running the game.

 

But, but, but those people have always been there haven't they? Yet you support their work by re-subscribing? Seems you are more bluster than action.

[Icykill_]

when you need the money to make the bills you sometimes do things you might not agree with in order to keep the job.

 

There's no problem with doing a job while not being condescending like he was. There was overwhelming hate for the expansion and only blind Freddy would have missed it. I cannot for a minute believe Ben didn't know how players felt about it.

So when he came out like he did and insinuated we weren't playing the game the way they wanted us to play it, all it did was piss people off more because it showed Bioware didn't care about the players and only wanted to shove content down our throats of what they thought we should have, wether we liked it or not. It didnt matter if we all hated it because they are right and we are wrong.

There was nothing stopping Ben from promoting the expansion in a positive way to fulfill his commitment to his position.

The issue is the way he went about it and that is what rubbed people the wrong way. Like I said, he really was his own worst enemy.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Icykill_

[DarthDymond]

There's no problem with doing a job while not being condescending like he was. There was overwhelming hate for the expansion and only blind Freddy would have missed it. I cannot for a minute believe Ben didn't know how players felt about it.

A number of players hated it. A number of other players liked / loved it.

[Icykill_]

A number of players hated it. A number of other players liked / loved it.

 

Well if the feed back and back lash on the forums and in other social media as well as those "third party" people who were involved with the testing was any indication, I would say that there was a lot more hate than love, I think for every person who said they loved it, there were at least 10 people who said they hated it.

I'm not actually talking about the story, I'm talking about CXP and gear grind hell. I'm yet to meet one person who said they absolutely loved the whole expansion, especially the gearing system as it was and is.

[Kaizersan]

There's no problem with doing a job while not being condescending like he was. There was overwhelming hate for the expansion and only blind Freddy would have missed it. I cannot for a minute believe Ben didn't know how players felt about it.

So when he came out like he did and insinuated we weren't playing the game the way they wanted us to play it, all it did was piss people off more because it showed Bioware didn't care about the players and only wanted to shove content down our throats of what they thought we should have, wether we liked it or not. It didnt matter if we all hated it because they are right and we are wrong.

There was nothing stopping Ben from promoting the expansion in a positive way to fulfill his commitment to his position.

The issue is the way he went about it and that is what rubbed people the wrong way. Like I said, he really was his own worst enemy.

 

Yeah but if your bosses tell you to go out on that live stream and sell them on this system or else your fired then he has to do just that.

[Kaizersan]

But, but, but those people have always been there haven't they? Yet you support their work by re-subscribing? Seems you are more bluster than action.

 

You shouldn't assume I am the one paying for the sub others do it to have me as their voice on the forums because they know I tell it like it is.

[Icykill_]

Yeah but if your bosses tell you to go out on that live stream and sell them on this system or else your fired then he has to do just that.

 

Like I've been trying to say, that can be done without doing what he did. Unless his bosses put those words into his mouth or said go out and tell them they aren't playing the game right and they are wrong for not enjoying it, then the way he went about it was all his idea.

I'm sure all of us have been in situations at work where a boss has said to do something we didn't like or we didn't believe in and we do it because we like our jobs. But if you don't do it right, you may as well have not done it at all.

My whole career has had me interacting directly with customers or clients who make decisions based on my interactions with them. It can be a balancing act sometimes to do what your boss wants or expects you to do vs what those customers will accept. If you are good you achieve both and even if you don't, there is a right and wrong way to do it so you don't drive business away.

I would think that someone in Ben's role should have the skill set to deliver bad news and make it look good without pissing off the customer by giving them attitude.

But we all make mistakes sometimes and that's where you have to defuse the situation or be willing to smooth things over by apologising. Ben didn't do that after his first gaffe, he just upped the attitude and made it worse.

The expansion was a hard sell and I don't envy Ben for having to do it. That said, he could have done it differently and that's on him.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Icykill_

[Icykill_]

You shouldn't assume I am the one paying for the sub others do it to have me as their voice on the forums because they know I tell it like it is.

 

Wait, are you saying other people pay for your sub so you can be their mouth on the forums?

If that's the case, do you even play the game or are you only being told what to post based on what others have said to you about different parts of the game?

I do hope it's not Bio paying for it. Although that would explain the white knightism in most of your arguments.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Icykill_

[MeNaCe-NZ]

A number of players hated it. A number of other players liked / loved it.

 

Well other than being an incredibly generic statement serving no purpose ...

 

It depends if we are talking about story/gameplay (where there truly does seem to be mixed opinion) or the likes of GC (which I believe is the angle Icykill_ was coming from) which were almost universally disliked - I say almost because there were actually between here and reddit a single digit figure of players defending and supposedly enjoying the system.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

You shouldn't assume I am the one paying for the sub others do it to have me as their voice on the forums because they know I tell it like it is.

 

Lmao if anything you are always good for a laugh, thanks for that.

 

I guess though if people want to pay for someone to be generally ignored and almost mocked on the forums (reddit too but that's free) well it's their money.

 

In regards to reddit if you are such a champion of the people why are your comments often so heavily down voted? Surely the people champion here would have some actually popular opinions hmm?

Edited August 1, 2017 by MeNaCe-NZ

[Mzuta]

Geez guys way to offer constructive criticism....

 

I know right tooo much negativity in the forums

[Kaizersan]

Lmao if anything you are always good for a laugh, thanks for that.

 

I guess though if people want to pay for someone to be generally ignored and almost mocked on the forums (reddit too but that's free) well it's their money.

 

In regards to reddit if you are such a champion of the people why are your comments often so heavily down voted? Surely the people champion here would have some actually popular opinions hmm?

 

Because there are way more people like you who down vote anything that attacks their view of the game on reddit then people who back mine.