An honest conversation: Future Operation development is not feasible.

[ExarSun]

I think it would be very interesting to see what would happen if BW announced a return to the monthly chapters, with increasing subscriber perks the longer you're subbed (to deter people from subbing for a month). I personally think that if that sort of information had been in the road map, there would have been a massive surge in subscriptions.

 

The current format of Ops bosses and flashpoints really isn't bringing people back. Subs probably will be up for the last quarter of 2017, simply because people want to keep their names. I would be interested in seeing how many of those subs cancel on November 29 if nothing new is announced, though.

Spot on!

I have a 6 month reccuring sub for 2 years and a half already and i will let it end when my current sub time ends. There is really nothing to log in for..not content, not story no nothing. Some FPS and some OPS bosses for a whole year is a joke....a total joke. What am I suipposed to do all year - grind those???? Bring back KOTFE style or Paid Expansions like SOR....what we have now is nothing...it cant attract new players and certainly cant keep old ones....the horrific decline of ppl in after KOTET proves it.

Edited October 17, 2017 by ExarSun

[Eli_Porter]

A lot of raiders are waiting for the new operation to complete before coming back. That said some prominent raiding teams did come back for Tyth, not sure if they stuck around though.

 

As for the people claiming the new operation bosses are bad, I disagree. They all have fun, unique mechanics that feel brand new and not copy+pasted. We will see how the content pace picks up once the merges are done and GC reaches the sweet spot where it doesn't need many tweaks.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Eli_Porter

[supertimtaf]

As for the people claiming the new operation bosses are bad, I disagree. They all have fun, unique mechanics that feel brand new and not copy+pasted. We will see how the content pace picks up once the merges are done and GC reaches the sweet spot where it doesn't need many tweaks.

 

The problem is not the op boss by itself, the problem is about the correct balance. Tyth sm is just a piece of cake, so does A&E sm.

Still Tyth HM is one heck of a fight, one of the hardest I've seen until now. Mainly because of it RnG mechanics (with which I disagree on concept but that's just me). A lot of guild I know, who usually run NiM and HM frequently are stuck on this boss because the random aspect of the fight makes it really hard (inversion mechanic is badly implemented too for some class).

 

In comparison, A&E HM are a breeze in terms of difficulty.

Peoples aren't complaining about story mode, its just hard mode who isn't done well (can't wait for the imbalanced NiM though )

[Costello]

Our story begins, as these stories often do, with an MMO. The company behind the MMO no longer wish to invest in it and instead sought to squeeze everything they can out of the player base. A good man might object to this and find himself transfer to another 'project.' It is at this point in our story that along comes a spider. He is a man seemingly without a conscience; for whom the ends always justify the means and it is he who suggests that if they keep the Galactic Command Grind and constantly extend it with minimal new content, the players will think that this grind is content and this will become habit forming and lead them to keep playing as if the game was still being supported and their subscription fees going to make the game better. Grinding old content as if it were new becomes the plan of this development team, careful to nerf any method of increased gain for fear people will get to the end of the grind and find it hollow.

 

Where in the past we had content and monthly chapters now we have replaying 6 year old heroic missions and sitting afk in pvp maps, while updates include one new piece of content or possibly none at all. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, but in truth if your looking for the guilty, you need only look in your post history. The overwhelming response to the Dark vs Light event where grinding old content for rng lock boxes being met with applaud. I know why people did it, they liked the idea of getting free stuff from the CM. Greed got the best of people and so the devs took from this that people would replay old content as long as they got some boxes of random junk from it. Why waste time coming up with new events if you could rehash old content in a list and call it an end game gearing system.

 

Now I get the point of the galactic command, there has to be an end game grind in an MMO, it should be possible to participate in it by solo, group and pvp content. I even agree with using old assets to save in development cost. Where this is broken that after 4.0 where heroics where the alliance supply crate grind and rehashed ops were the gear grind and then 5.0 where all old content was the gear grind, it seems minimal new content was in the works. It wasn't as if dusting off old content as a new grind was to allow for the development team to work on new content, it seems as if was to masquerade as new content while nothing was being developed for tor.

[merovejec]

This is a great post, and one worth highlighting. If raids were so crucial to this game's existence, it wouldn't have survived for two years just fine without them. It took two years of begging from the raiding community to get this one raid that's still not done.

 

The game has "survived" but what is the current state? I think the main reason the game survived was the influx on new players, who seem to have stayed. Sure there are those swtor diehards like me who simply love the game too much to leave and will go down with the ship, but in general you can see that many left and luckyli some just arrived.

 

Its visible everywhere, reddit, swtor forums, in game, in flashpoints, low/midbie pvp, groupfinder operations, there are simply a lot of ppl that dunno how to play the game. Its good, its new players, they need to be helped so they stay and enjoy the game. However the game needs much more than just "surviving".

[merovejec]

I've got to be honest with you. I really don't understand it either. Why is this operation taking so long? No, I don't need to hear that lame excuse that "GC changes" or "server merges" are the reason for this. Gear progression and server merges have happened before. There is something horribly flawed regarding BioWare's development pipeline. I don't know what it is, but it's absolutely killing this game.

 

In order to understand that you would have to know details on such a development (not saying you dont, just theorizing). I am not such a programer either, but it was explained to me.

 

First of all, its mainly the work of the Designer, Art Team, the envirenment and textures are the key in this, they take the most time and are the most complex. You have to create the whole instace, area, walls, every single detail. The same goes for NPCs or even bosses. You need to see the design, their dimensions.

 

Second you get the mechanics, you think up what the boss will be doing, what the abilities will be, how they will look etc. This part is not that complex to do, as you can let your imagination run wild, but you need to stay in certain limits.

 

Third, it has to come together, the Graphics and Mechanics need to be put in place. This is where the fun starts. This is the longest part of the development process as you have to code the designed Boss to use the created abilities in the created environment. Now you have to imagine that this is a lot of work with the game engine etc. You have to do a lot of testing on boss movement, ability animation etc.

 

Lastly, you have to adapt the whole thing to the current setup. Gear, level etc. Also you need to consider they are making a SM and Veteran, maybe even preparing NiM, so they have to already setup everything so that they are not surprised a year later that the NiM mechanic interfieres with some graphic component. The whole development process depends vastly on the team that is doing it and if the team is also bothering with other work, like bug fixes etc. Also people come and go, you can have an designer working and then he quits and suddenly you have unfinished work and have to find a new person who has to first of all familirize himself with the already done work and so on.

 

IN THEORY if a good and stable team is working on the bosses they should be able to produce one boss in 3 months work. That is like a good estimate so it was obvious that the 5 bosses in a real would not be doable anyway.

[merovejec]

Here's what I want, in some ideal realm that doesn't exist: I want the game to be what it was back during the Oricon days of 2.0. That's when I was happiest.

 

I think that goes for most.

 

At those times people were doing everything, lvl 55 Hardmode FPS, PVP, NiMs, old NiMs, there was the PVP season, ranked awards, GSF came out soon after, ALL servers were full and alive....... was a good time.

[supertimtaf]

 

IN THEORY if a good and stable team is working on the bosses they should be able to produce one boss in 3 months work. That is like a good estimate so it was obvious that the 5 bosses in a real would not be doable anyway.

 

Yep, it's why on BW official site they are still recruiting graphic designer/environment designer...

They also don't have a «class balance team», more like one person when we refer to Musco's post.

And I think it's safe to assume that they only have one or two peoples in their combat team (one probably working on the gsf as well).

#understaffed

Edited October 17, 2017 by supertimtaf

[TUXs]

again, if the monthly plan was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for a new plan.

So obvious that it's painful to see people struggle with it.

[Eshvara]

again, if the monthly plan was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for a new plan.

 

Agreed, though I did personally like it.🤔 It was probably difficult to get more content out than just story with the monthly chapters!

Edited October 17, 2017 by Eshvara

[DarthDymond]

again, if the monthly plan was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for a new plan.

True, but if the RotHC / SoR approach was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for the KotFE approach.

 

Now that it seems like they have even less overall capacity for putting out content, I'm somewhat skeptical that going back to a mix that includes resource-intensive Ops is a viable solution.

Edited October 17, 2017 by DarthDymond

[Eshvara]

True, but if the RotHC / SoR approach was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for the KotFE approach.

 

Now that it seems like they have even less overall capacity for putting out content, I'm somewhat skeptical that going back to a mix that includes resource-intensive Ops is a viable solution.

I don't think that was the case. I think they didn't really have a direction or plan what to do so they were testing things out. KoTFE/kotet didn't really seem to work out in the end, even though based on their metrics, they had a major sub boost.

 

I wasn't here when kotfe released, I did notice less and less people around during the time of kotfe and kotet. But that's just me and my anecdotal evidence.🎅

[TUXs]

True, but if the RotHC / SoR approach was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for the KotFE approach.

Or...did they misinterpret the results of those expansions? SoR was a cluster **** for Ops players because the Ops were so far overtunned that MANY players couldn't do them, even on SM. So Ops participation fell off.

 

I believe they have the wrong people reading their trends and metrics...they see things, but fail to understand them.

[DanNV]

Or...did they misinterpret the results of those expansions? SoR was a cluster **** for Ops players because the Ops were so far overtunned that MANY players couldn't do them, even on SM. So Ops participation fell off.

 

I believe they have the wrong people reading their trends and metrics...they see things, but fail to understand them.

 

The other problem is they set up an event (like DVL) that gets players to do a certain type of content (story) and then gather metrics that show players are doing story. For some reason they've never figured out that doing things in that order won't ever get them real data, but it makes someone look good at the EA board meeting, I guess.

[merovejec]

Yep, it's why on BW official site they are still recruiting graphic designer/environment designer...

They also don't have a «class balance team», more like one person when we refer to Musco's post.

And I think it's safe to assume that they only have one or two peoples in their combat team (one probably working on the gsf as well).

#understaffed

 

Yup, as I mentioned the Graphic Design is basically key to it all. The mechanics and other stuff is basically done for you by the game engine. It mostly comes down to the Designer.

[TUXs]

The other problem is they set up an event (like DVL) that gets players to do a certain type of content (story) and then gather metrics that show players are doing story. For some reason they've never figured out that doing things in that order won't ever get them real data, but it makes someone look good at the EA board meeting, I guess.

I'll never forget a post WAAAAY back, soon after the game launched...it was a post about their metrics and such and it perfectly demonstrated how incompetently they were reading their data. The Dev said something about "We noticed players weren't doing Ops's as much as other activities, so...we released an update with a new Op and now they are". That's not a quote, I'm paraphrasing, but the actual quote was along those lines of ignorance.

 

I believe it is clear, and has been for years, that they have no idea what their numbers actually represent.

 

edit: I actually found his post.

Edited October 17, 2017 by TUXs

[GalacticKegger]

True, but if the RotHC / SoR approach was working, it wouldn't have been scrapped for the KotFE approach.

 

Now that it seems like they have even less overall capacity for putting out content, I'm somewhat skeptical that going back to a mix that includes resource-intensive Ops is a viable solution.

Dallas Dickinson, Daniel Erickson and their original Wall of Crazy teams being shown the door right after SoR went to closed beta is when the RotHC / SoR approach died. It was working until full blown P2P content creation was scrapped in lieu of single-player RPG game play and raking in F2P cash shop margins ... which is the disagreement on game direction that sent the original teams packing.

 

You are spot on in noting that their overall capacity for putting out content has diminished. At this point viability is limited to us settling for what we get.

[Tsillah]

I'll never forget a post WAAAAY back, soon after the game launched...it was a post about their metrics and such and it perfectly demonstrated how incompetently they were reading their data. The Dev said something about "We noticed players weren't doing FP's as much as other activities, so...we released an update with a FP and now they are". That's not a quote, I'm paraphrasing, but the actual quote was along those lines of ignorance.

 

I believe it is clear, and has been for years, that they have no idea what their numbers actually represent.

Metrics won't tell you why people do something. So you may see that people do a certain activity and how often and when but not why and also not whether they actually like it or not.

 

People may do FP's but generally it's with another goal in mind. This is why we get threads about people wanting to skip through conversations and all that. People just want the gear or the xp or cxp nowadays. I'm sure people may enjoy gearing up as I do myself but it doesn't mean that everything I do to get this gear is enjoyable per se.

 

So, I don't know how BW use their metrics but somehow I've never really felt like they put them in the right context. Why do I think that? Well simply because too many things have backfired on them.

 

I really would like this game to be a great success and it should've been, but somehow they make a lot of decisions that I can't see having a positive things. Sometimes things have surprised me but mostly I'm not surprised about how many things turned out. GC being the biggest one that is relevant today. How they ever thought this would go over well, I have no idea. I just don't know how they could get to that conclusion, but ok.

 

The new FP that's coming looks kinda cool, but really...I'd love for it to be a dailies area as well where we can just go and hang out and do those dailies. The place looks great but as with many things these days you only get to go there as part of a story mission or an FP.

 

Perhaps their metrics show now that a daily area is bad because of Iokath, but is that because a daily area is not interesting or because this particular one is not a success? For me it seems obvious that the quest design is the biggest problem.

 

So yeah, I think it's not easy to figure out what is going to be successful but at the same time, I think there are some things that you can know aren't going to work. Perhaps there are people who voice this and they are not being listened to. Wouldn't be the first company where management doesn't listen to the people actually doing the work.

 

It's all guess work really but I am just really still baffled by some of the monumental mistakes that have been made.

[Aowin]

I know a lot love to be nostalgic for the "good old days" and believe ROTHC and SOR were so wonderful, but ultimately this comes down to numbers and player retention. BioWare tried for two years to do the traditional MMO-style expansion. It did not work. Whatever revisionist history you want to use or explanation you try to create to explain why it would have worked, it did not.

 

KOTFE only happened because ROTHC and SOR did not work. It was meant as a soft reboot for a game that had been losing subscribers consistently for years. As far as how successful (or not) the monthly chapters were, we don't know. What was abundantly clear is that a very vocal minority, especially in the developer live streams, would consistently spam Ben, Eric, and Charles with messages to bring back group content and get rid of story.

 

Just to placate these players, I think that's why KOTET was ultimately created. The story folks got their nine chapters at the beginning, just like KOTFE. The group content folks got their content for the rest of the year, which was not the case in KOTFE.

 

It was an attempt at appeasing two different demographics, and it failed miserably. Story folks got bored because there was nothing to look forward to, and group content folks got bored because they are receiving scraps and those scraps aren't even that great.

 

Where should BioWare go from here? Considering how successful KOTFE was initially (far more successful than any of the other expansions), I think that would be a good place to start. As far as what they try to accomplish for the rest of the following year (monthly chapters or otherwise), they need to figure out a way to incentive players sticking around.

 

This "group content" pivot in KOTET did not work. The game is far more dead now than it has ever been before. It's a serious problem that I hope BioWare addresses with the rumored "6.0," but it's difficult to determine what they'll do given how they tend to have commitment issues.

[Jamtas]

I know a lot love to be nostalgic for the "good old days" and believe ROTHC and SOR were so wonderful, but ultimately this comes down to numbers and player retention. BioWare tried for two years to do the traditional MMO-style expansion. It did not work. Whatever revisionist history you want to use or explanation you try to create to explain why it would have worked, it did not.

 

KOTFE only happened because ROTHC and SOR did not work. It was meant as a soft reboot for a game that had been losing subscribers consistently for years. As far as how successful (or not) the monthly chapters were, we don't know. What was abundantly clear is that a very vocal minority, especially in the developer live streams, would consistently spam Ben, Eric, and Charles with messages to bring back group content and get rid of story.

 

Just to placate these players, I think that's why KOTET was ultimately created. The story folks got their nine chapters at the beginning, just like KOTFE. The group content folks got their content for the rest of the year, which was not the case in KOTFE.

 

It was an attempt at appeasing two different demographics, and it failed miserably. Story folks got bored because there was nothing to look forward to, and group content folks got bored because they are receiving scraps and those scraps aren't even that great.

 

Where should BioWare go from here? Considering how successful KOTFE was initially (far more successful than any of the other expansions), I think that would be a good place to start. As far as what they try to accomplish for the rest of the following year (monthly chapters or otherwise), they need to figure out a way to incentive players sticking around.

 

This "group content" pivot in KOTET did not work. The game is far more dead now than it has ever been before. It's a serious problem that I hope BioWare addresses with the rumored "6.0," but it's difficult to determine what they'll do given how they tend to have commitment issues.

 

GK had it right:

 

Dallas Dickinson, Daniel Erickson and their original Wall of Crazy teams being shown the door right after SoR went to closed beta is when the RotHC / SoR approach died. It was working until full blown P2P content creation was scrapped in lieu of single-player RPG game play and raking in F2P cash shop margins ... which is the disagreement on game direction that sent the original teams packing.

 

You are spot on in noting that their overall capacity for putting out content has diminished. At this point viability is limited to us settling for what we get.

 

its not that ROTHC/SOR didn't work or did work - it is the heads decided to focus more on cash shop and it led to people leaving and posting on twitter their disagreement with leadership.

 

Now, I'm not saying the ROTHC/SOR are the savior - this game has a "doomed" aspect regardless due to the initial error in engine selection/modification that severely limits it. many of the things players and the devs want aren't possible due to that major error.

Those expansions, did have more content for more people than either KOTFE/KOTET did , and it didn't take things away from the game which both of those expansions did.

 

Level sync also added a bunch of pro/con to the game as well. A huge con is due to the low rate of new content, when they do gear/level boosts, you are primarily gearing/leveling to be able to be back where you were before the update to do the same content.

[Aowin]

GK had it right:

 

its not that ROTHC/SOR didn't work or did work - it is the heads decided to focus more on cash shop and it led to people leaving and posting on twitter their disagreement with leadership.

 

Now, I'm not saying the ROTHC/SOR are the savior - this game has a "doomed" aspect regardless due to the initial error in engine selection/modification that severely limits it. many of the things players and the devs want aren't possible due to that major error.

Those expansions, did have more content for more people than either KOTFE/KOTET did , and it didn't take things away from the game which both of those expansions did.

 

Level sync also added a bunch of pro/con to the game as well. A huge con is due to the low rate of new content, when they do gear/level boosts, you are primarily gearing/leveling to be able to be back where you were before the update to do the same content.

 

No. He's wrong. If ROTHC and SOR were the huge financial successes some are claiming they were, the pivot to a focus on cash shop would never have been needed. That approach to expansions wasn't working, which is why EA forced BioWare's hand. The folks that left due to outrage had no one to blame but themselves. They did not deliver. EA took matters into their own hands. That's business. Again, enough with the revisionist history.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Aowin

[GalacticKegger]

I know a lot love to be nostalgic for the "good old days" and believe ROTHC and SOR were so wonderful, but ultimately this comes down to numbers and player retention. BioWare tried for two years to do the traditional MMO-style expansion. It did not work. Whatever revisionist history you want to use or explanation you try to create to explain why it would have worked, it did not.

 

KOTFE only happened because ROTHC and SOR did not work. It was meant as a soft reboot for a game that had been losing subscribers consistently for years. As far as how successful (or not) the monthly chapters were, we don't know. What was abundantly clear is that a very vocal minority, especially in the developer live streams, would consistently spam Ben, Eric, and Charles with messages to bring back group content and get rid of story.

 

Just to placate these players, I think that's why KOTET was ultimately created. The story folks got their nine chapters at the beginning, just like KOTFE. The group content folks got their content for the rest of the year, which was not the case in KOTFE.

 

It was an attempt at appeasing two different demographics, and it failed miserably. Story folks got bored because there was nothing to look forward to, and group content folks got bored because they are receiving scraps and those scraps aren't even that great.

 

Where should BioWare go from here? Considering how successful KOTFE was initially (far more successful than any of the other expansions), I think that would be a good place to start. As far as what they try to accomplish for the rest of the following year (monthly chapters or otherwise), they need to figure out a way to incentive players sticking around.

 

This "group content" pivot in KOTET did not work. The game is far more dead now than it has ever been before. It's a serious problem that I hope BioWare addresses with the rumored "6.0," but it's difficult to determine what they'll do given how they tend to have commitment issues.

The only proof that RotHC and SoR did or did not work is comparing how populated the game was then versus now. By comparison to what we are experiencing now ... they worked - no revisionist history required.

 

Open world exploration and progression through group content (PvE planet FPs → HMs → Ops and PvP WZ careers) was working as intended. Progression through story on the other hand was another matter. RotHC's moving away from individual class stories to two faction-centric main story lines is why that expansion got bashed. So with SoR they tried to bring back the flavor of the vanilla class stories by isolating the dialogues to make it feel more personal. But SoR's unifying the Rep and Imp factions didn't go over well with the masses; and it limiting NPC dialogues to solo-only play was the proverbial writing on the wall.

 

KotFE wasn't a soft reboot at all ... it was a complete hard reset. Group leveling FPs, HMs and Ops ... gone and replaced with one size fits all recycles of existing content that was bolstered and repackaged as new Alliance elder & end game content. Group story (other than what came before) ... gone and replaced with solo-exclusive chapters. Years worth of companion progression ... gone; the players who want to keep their companions (i.e. not have them taken away) have to avoid the KotFE storyline altogether. (Though they can complete the first 9 chapters of the solo story then retrieve them from a kiosk in Odessen.) Open world exploration (other than what came before) ... gone. Loot tables ... gone and replaced with Alliance crates. Planet level-appropriate progression ... gone and replaced with level sync to facilitate the entire game (other than the starter planets) being recycled into the new Alliance elder game. We got blindsided and there was nothing soft about it.

 

And I agree with you that the "group content" pivot in KotET did not work. But that is superficial when compared to how 5.0 poisoned the game with GC. Adding back components (tier piece tokens) and unassembled components (comms) told me that GC as the game's progression focus was a mistake to begin with.

Edited October 17, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[Aowin]

The only proof that RotHC and SoR did or did not work is comparing how populated the game was then versus now. By comparison to what we are experiencing now ... they worked - no revisionist history required.

 

Open world exploration and progression through group content (PvE planet FPs → HMs → Ops and PvP WZ careers) was working as intended. Progression through story on the other hand was another matter. RotHC's moving away from individual class stories to two faction-centric main story lines is why that expansion got bashed. So with SoR they tried to bring back the flavor of the vanilla class stories by isolating the dialogues to make it feel more personal. But SoR's unifying the Rep and Imp factions didn't go over well with the masses; and it limiting NPC dialogues to solo-only play was the proverbial writing on the wall.

 

KotFE wasn't a soft reboot at all ... it was a complete hard reset. Group leveling FPs, HMs and Ops ... gone and replaced with one size fits all recycles of existing content that was bolstered and repackaged as new Alliance elder & end game content. Group story (other than what came before) ... gone and replaced with solo-exclusive chapters. Years worth of companion progression ... gone; the players who want to keep their companions (i.e. not have them taken away) have to avoid the KotFE storyline altogether. (Though they can complete the first 9 chapters of the solo story then retrieve them from a kiosk in Odessen.) Open world exploration (other than what came before) ... gone. Loot tables ... gone and replaced with Alliance crates. Planet level-appropriate progression ... gone and replaced with level sync to facilitate the entire game (other than the starter planets) game being recycled into the new Alliance elder game. We got blindsided and there was nothing soft about it.

 

And I agree with you that the "group content" pivot in KotET did not work. But that is superficial when compared to how 5.0 poisoned the game with GC. Adding back components (tier piece tokens) and unassembled components (comms) told me that GC as the game's progression focus was a mistake to begin with.

 

Perhaps you don't remember how dead half the servers were prior to KOTFE, but it was really bad. I've had characters on every single North American server. POT5 was dead long before KOTFE even launched. That was also the case for various other servers. KOTFE actually revived some of these servers for a time, but those numbers quickly dropped back to pre-KOTFE numbers after players exhausted the story content. Again, enough with the revisionist history.

 

ROTHC and SOR were both jumbled messes. Sure, they added plenty of new group content. Most of it wasn't memorable and often times BioWare just further simplified and streamlined a game that did not need it. I didn't like ROTHC at all and SOR completely butchered my favorite Star Wars character. Not to mention, the fps, operations, and dailies were all bad. I prefer quality over quantity any day of the week, and quality was lacking in those two expansions.

 

KOTFE was a soft reboot for the SWTOR brand. It was a way of enticing old players to return and tell them "we stopped with that group content nonsense and made story like you've wanted for years." It was incredibly successful for its first month or so. It led to the highest concurrent subscribers in any of the expansions. Unfortunately, BioWare did not thoroughly plan how the expansion would play out for the proceeding year.

 

As with all expansions, there will be an inevitable drop off. Bad pacing in the monthly chapters, and not the structure itself, led to some folks losing interest. Not to mention, the fact that one could just wait for all the chapters to release and sub at the end also harmed subscription numbers. The subscriber rewards weren't enticing enough, although the HK Bonus Chapter was excellent.

 

I don't disagree that GC certainly is not helping things. However, the focus on group content has amounted to nothing and this game is far more dead than it's ever been before. No, you can't blame story as the cause for this. It's clear story was the only thing keeping this game active since KOTFE.

[DanNV]

And I agree with you that the "group content" pivot in KotET did not work. But that is superficial when compared to how 5.0 poisoned the game with GC. Adding back components (tier piece tokens) and unassembled components (comms) told me that GC as the game's progression focus was a mistake to begin with.

 

The problem is, people left because of GC, specifically. They didn't leave due to story or no story. (Some did leave due to know new group content at release of 5.0.) People left the game and came onto the forums, onto reddit and twitter, etc. and said "I'm leaving because of GC. The cancellations and sub bleed was obvious and instant. We got 4 emergency damage control streams at a time when the studio usually vacates Texas, all because people were leaving in large numbers. GC is still here, end game is still grinding t get back to where you were before (and now do it again because they nerfed most of the classes) and 2 so-so ops bosses it's taken months and months to get out.

 

Now, two years after BW started chasing off the end game community, we get server merges (that aren't going to leave most of the servers with a healthy population at this point) and a population that is continuing to decline. The only thing that will solve it is end-game content and the removal of GC as a gearing mechanism. As it stands now, it's just a matter of time before EA gets tired of lower margins than they want and pulls the plug. (Remember, GC was put in with the promise to EA shareholders it would keep people subbed longer and playing more and it has failed miserably at that.) <unfounded specualtion> EA is keeping SWTOR going because they want to say they have a SW MMO. If the game wasn't SW< it would have been gone a long time ago. </unfounded speculation>

[olagatonjedi]

Metrics won't tell you why people do something. So you may see that people do a certain activity and how often and when but not why and also not whether they actually like it or not.

 

People may do FP's but generally it's with another goal in mind. This is why we get threads about people wanting to skip through conversations and all that. People just want the gear or the xp or cxp nowadays. I'm sure people may enjoy gearing up as I do myself but it doesn't mean that everything I do to get this gear is enjoyable per se.

 

So, I don't know how BW use their metrics but somehow I've never really felt like they put them in the right context. Why do I think that? Well simply because too many things have backfired on them. [/Quote]

Do you truly believe BW needs to measure "likeability" of content? If its engaging, and the rewards merit participation, then the metrics will show that. Not everyone likes their job, but they still go to work. People decide for themselves what they will spend their time doing, based on whats available, and there will always be fluctuating trends. If people dont feel dont like the content, they have the option to weigh performing something they dont enjoy vs acquiring whatever it is they are going after in the first place. If they participate, metrics will show it. If they dont participate, metrics will show it amd adjustments may be made. If they quit altogether, metrics will show it. But metrics arent the only things they look at either, and that is when they start asking other questions, but "likeability" is too subjective and unmeasurable on a large scale, so your fooling yoirself if you believe that should be criteria. What you like, I may not. And vice versa. For example, I enjoy the CXP/CR system, so when I see people post that it is the worst addition to the game, it makes me laugh inside because that person is exaggerating the true effect that it had on swtor because it carries essentially the same weight as 1 person who logs in and plays without saying anything positive/negative about it. And the game goes on....