How to Bring Players Back & Rejuvenate Pre lvl 70

[Damask_Rose]

Create other activities. Outside of the Knights story there is nothing to do that wasn't here 2+ years ago. Everybody is not going to like the story or any other single item. Many people quit this game during (or directly because of) that story so why would anybody return knowing there is nothing new outside of that and possibly that being the reason they left. The Flashpoints, Operations, PVP, GSF or even the Mini Games would give people something else to do outside of Continuing Zakuul or Grinding. Really to ask for Money/Subscription it takes more then one of the side events but atleast its something Else/More to do.

 

To be fair, they did add Eternal Championship, Star Fortresses, Uprisings & DvL world bosses which added new solo, small group & large group activities, but they weren't the RIGHT solo, small group & large group activities. Teach Bioware to try new things

[Damask_Rose]

The difference is I don't pretend to present fact.. but rather opinion and observation. If I present a fact, I clearly present it and highlight as a fact. Those words you chose to highlight in green ---> actual statements made by players in this very forum... ie: an observation of actual comments made by other players. Ask any veteran player who roles a new character... and I bet you find most say exactly what I stated earlier in my opinion.

 

Note the difference, and learn from it.

 

What I also see is many, many people saying on these forums and on Reddit that they find the vanilla stories to be the best part of the game and they are far more interested in rolling alts for the story than playing endgame. So depending on what quotes you cherry pick you can claim the exact opposite. Since players gravitate towards other players with similar interests, if you ask the veteran players I know they will mostly say they like to leasurly play a large variety of characters for the story and have no reason to rush to 70.

[Joonbeams]

I am not disagreeing with your perspective.. only pointing out that a lot of veterans are not really interested in running old story where they have "been there done that". Clearly, that does not include you.

 

Does nobody remember all the forum discussion and complaints over the years about FP groups getting all medieval on any player that wanted to actually listen to the story and select choices before proceeding onward??

 

I'm what you can call a "veteran" - been here since launch and played every vanilla story numerous, numerous times. I've always enjoyed that part of the game. For me, it's a weird RP thing where every re-roll feels fresh, because I RP the character totally differently. I feel a bond with each character I have - and I'll delete and recreate even a lvl 40ish character if I don't "feel it" anymore. I actually get excited each and every time I complete my jedi trials!

 

I'm assuming I'm far from alone. But just to avoid any dispute, I'll go ahead and grant that my style is totally idiosyncratic, so this doesn't come off as a "well, since I'm a vet and I like vanilla story, that means all vets do" point. Point is, that part of the game is the only part where (for me) there is any real story diversity.

 

Don't get me wrong, I used to be an "endgame" player too (mostly PvP). And prior to 5.0, you could re-roll and not really feel like you were gimping your endgame options because you could stack endgame comms/crystals while leveling. In the good cases, I would level an alt through story and 60/65, then jump right into endgame content without missing a beat, usually with a solid gear set ready to go. And even if one takes long breaks (which I often do), you could pick right back up and still feel like you were making "progress". The game felt fluid and connected - there seemed to be a "purpose" pre-endgame - where now it's awkwardly disjointed.

 

So this current system of gating all the GC stuff behind lvl 70 frustrates my particular idiosyncratic, alt-driven game play (I still do not have a single alt at 70 - never experienced GC, don't know what it looks like -- I know I'm an outlier here...). What's odd is that with level sync and other changes, the idea was to make ALL of the game enjoyable at any level. So I really don't understand (besides the cynical forced slowdown) why there is an arbitrary brick wall at 70 (not to mention that now it makes leveling painfully slow).

 

I've actually made the OPs points months ago with the launch of GC, but OP has a better perspective on it. These are the kinds of "happy" additions that can be done that don't really hurt anyone, don't strain dev resources, and possibly (likely) make a number of players much happier. There isn't a single downside I can think of.

[Foambreaker]

The best way to bring players back is not to keep messing with CXP or having CXP giveaways for doing old content.

 

The best way is just to remove the system, it failed, they need to suck up their pride and fix this before there is no more SWTOR.

[Foambreaker]

What I also see is many, many people saying on these forums and on Reddit that they find the vanilla stories to be the best part of the game and they are far more interested in rolling alts for the story than playing endgame. So depending on what quotes you cherry pick you can claim the exact opposite. Since players gravitate towards other players with similar interests, if you ask the veteran players I know they will mostly say they like to leasurly play a large variety of characters for the story and have no reason to rush to 70.

 

The endless problem is that those players do not generally post on the forums. The are quite literally the silent majority.

 

Unfortunately the vocal elite not only drive game design but also public opinion, which affects sales.

 

The real solution is to add the ability to poll customer opinions at the account level directly to the patch loader.

[jstankaroslo]

I'm what you can call a "veteran" - been here since launch and played every vanilla story numerous, numerous times. I've always enjoyed that part of the game. For me, it's a weird RP thing where every re-roll feels fresh, because I RP the character totally differently. I feel a bond with each character I have - and I'll delete and recreate even a lvl 40ish character if I don't "feel it" anymore. I actually get excited each and every time I complete my jedi trials!

 

I'm assuming I'm far from alone. But just to avoid any dispute, I'll go ahead and grant that my style is totally idiosyncratic, so this doesn't come off as a "well, since I'm a vet and I like vanilla story, that means all vets do" point. Point is, that part of the game is the only part where (for me) there is any real story diversity.

 

Don't get me wrong, I used to be an "endgame" player too (mostly PvP). And prior to 5.0, you could re-roll and not really feel like you were gimping your endgame options because you could stack endgame comms/crystals while leveling. In the good cases, I would level an alt through story and 60/65, then jump right into endgame content without missing a beat, usually with a solid gear set ready to go. And even if one takes long breaks (which I often do), you could pick right back up and still feel like you were making "progress". The game felt fluid and connected - there seemed to be a "purpose" pre-endgame - where now it's awkwardly disjointed.

 

So this current system of gating all the GC stuff behind lvl 70 frustrates my particular idiosyncratic, alt-driven game play (I still do not have a single alt at 70 - never experienced GC, don't know what it looks like -- I know I'm an outlier here...). What's odd is that with level sync and other changes, the idea was to make ALL of the game enjoyable at any level. So I really don't understand (besides the cynical forced slowdown) why there is an arbitrary brick wall at 70 (not to mention that now it makes leveling painfully slow).

 

I've actually made the OPs points months ago with the launch of GC, but OP has a better perspective on it. These are the kinds of "happy" additions that can be done that don't really hurt anyone, don't strain dev resources, and possibly (likely) make a number of players much happier. There isn't a single downside I can think of.

 

heh, we share the same modus operandi. The only difference is I tried GC out of curiosity. Climbed up to level GC level 17 and gave it up

Edited September 15, 2017 by jstankaroslo

[iankalo]

How to Bring Players Back

Bring Revan back = Bring players back!

No Revan = No players!

We want to see Revan as a force ghost in the next expansion!

[giorgo]

The best way to bring players back is not to keep messing with CXP or having CXP giveaways for doing old content.

 

The best way is just to remove the system, it failed, they need to suck up their pride and fix this before there is no more SWTOR.

 

+1

There are no ifs and buts,CXP garbage needs to be removed

Edited September 15, 2017 by giorgo

[arunav]

 

Bioware couldn't keep players with solo-only gameplay, so focusing effort on the leveling process seems a waste. To bring players back they need a full expansion with explorable areas, daily activities once the main story is complete, branching off or main story connected flashpoints and FULL operations, maybe a nice stronghold tied to the new region with a reputation vendor selling locale specific decor (supplemented by cartel stuff), maybe a PVP map recycling old game modes in the new environment, and follow up content delivery at a 2.X pace.

 

Which means this game will never recover, unfortunately. Just take a look at the new content lately - do you really think the budget and personnel devoted to SWTOR could make anything resembling the content cycle in 2.x?

 

The worst part is, if it weren't for CXP, at least the player loss wouldn't have been as bad during 5.x. Perhaps priority Ops were a bit too much, but gearing in 4.x was otherwise fine - it let you play all your characters and stay engaged with the game, even if there wasn't much new for playable content.

[iankalo]

As I said.... You cant bring the players back if you dont bring Revan or his spirit back!

[iankalo]

We need another "Revan" expansion!

[Eli_Porter]

Hi Keith,

I have and idea to help bring players back and get them to play longer.

Obtaining CXP at only lvl 70 is killing all parts of the MMO game below lvl 70. No one want so to do lowbie pvp or flash points because all they want to do is get to 70 as fast as they can to grind CXP.

People are always asking for XP boosted events because they want to speed though the lower lvls to start the grind.

 

So what if accumulating CXP and Unassembled Parts before lvl 70 was possible? The ability to accumulate CXP and Unassembled Parts before lvl 70 in both pvp and FPs would encourage people to play alts because they could have some CXP and Unassembled parts ready to use when they hit lvl 70. The amounts don't need to be as much as lvl 70 pvp or FPs, but enough to make it attractive to make an alt.

 

Flashpoints are already the most accessible form of fast leveling XP there is due to group finder, so lots of lowbies run FP's to level instead of gathering people for heroics. Adding CXP to lowbie flashpoints isn't necessary, though it'd be nice to get CXP packs from bosses.

 

Adding UC's to lowbie PvP I can get behind, since PvP isn't very rewarding XP-wise.

 

As for encouraging people to roll alts in general, BW recently added the "introduction to conquests" mission which gives a nice bonus for rolling alts in a grand chance cube and 20 UC's. Combined with 40 UC's from the PvP alliance alert, that's a total of 60 per alt. When UC becomes a legacy currency, rolling alts would become a nice alternative to ranked PvP for getting UC's.

[Totemdancer]

Flashpoints are already the most accessible form of fast leveling XP there is due to group finder, so lots of lowbies run FP's to level instead of gathering people for heroics. Adding CXP to lowbie flashpoints isn't necessary, though it'd be nice to get CXP packs from bosses.

 

Adding UC's to lowbie PvP I can get behind, since PvP isn't very rewarding XP-wise.

 

As for encouraging people to roll alts in general, BW recently added the "introduction to conquests" mission which gives a nice bonus for rolling alts in a grand chance cube and 20 UC's. Combined with 40 UC's from the PvP alliance alert, that's a total of 60 per alt. When UC becomes a legacy currency, rolling alts would become a nice alternative to ranked PvP for getting UC's.

 

I've not done that mission. I'll have to check it out,

[Andryah]

Adding CXP to lowbie flashpoints isn't necessary, though it'd be nice to get CXP packs from bosses.

 

Adding UC's to lowbie PvP I can get behind, since PvP isn't very rewarding XP-wise.

 

These two suggestions actually make sense, and would be productive for players to some degree. Much more so then the OPs desired approach. So the downside is I expect such additions would be marginal at lower levels.. for the following reason:

 

Players, particularly the OP, need to keep in mind.. anything done by the studio in the form of drops, rewards, faction building, etc at lower levels .... will be scaled to level. Meaning that you won't get much at lower levels and frankly this would be fairly trivial in returns until you break 50 or 60... depending on how the studio decided to set the scaling for level. So drops that directly contribute to the GC effort at level cap will not be that notable until a character is within reach of cap level anyway.

[MingusPho]

Great post! I hope they read it and take it to heart. I do the same as you mentioned---rush the low level content to reach 70 just so I can actually play the game lol. I never even finish the stories and I've been playing since release. All the interesting content is end game.

[Totemdancer]

Great post! I hope they read it and take it to heart. I do the same as you mentioned---rush the low level content to reach 70 just so I can actually play the game lol. I never even finish the stories and I've been playing since release. All the interesting content is end game.

 

If you've never completed all of the class stories and planet arcs, you are missing out because the quality is so much better than the latest end stories.