An honest conversation: Future Operation development is not feasible.

[Jamtas]

Apparently it was not good enough for them to even try to get to it.

 

The real point is that trying to say story was the cause of the number of people leaving the game at any time is absolutely incorrect. This is a false narrative that keeps getting pushed by the portion of the MMO crowd that feels that story has no place in an MMO. They are wrong.

 

Are you misreading story causing people to leave, or ignoring new repeatable end game content to only focus on story causing people to leave?

[DWho]

Are you misreading story causing people to leave, or ignoring new repeatable end game content to only focus on story causing people to leave?

 

The post that was being responded to was about the "drop" in players after launch when there was repeatable end game content and story. The poster stated:

 

Incorrect.

 

It just means story didn't matter as much as some seem to think. End game wasn't in a good place either at that time compared to story (which was in a much better place) and story still didn't keep gamers. Gamers made all kinds of characters but didn't do it for the story.

 

That we know and thats the point.

 

Which is an incorrect statement in that the story had nothing to do with why people left (or weren't kept). The technical issues listed previously were the main cause. People did not get to the end game content because those technical issues made the game unplayable at times.

 

As far as 4.0 is concerned, it saw the largest increase in players since launch (which is what story does). People left because there was nothing else to do whether that be end-game content or repeatable story. The moral of the story is that to concentrate on one aspect of the game, be it story, PVP, or Raiding, is a recipe for disaster.

Edited October 18, 2017 by DWho

[Aowin]

When did this game ever cater or to be honest even care about raiders/ ops players? I literally was GM of SuckaFish when we were US/ World first. I can honestly tell you they never cared. Even when they actually put out operations back then (normally 2 a year). They were handful of bosses with simple strategies. I know we wrote the guides for EC, TFB, SnV, DF, DP. If you ever played a MMO that actually had a raid scene you would know top level bosses normally last a couple weeks before the top guilds take them down. I don't think any bosses lasted longer then a week. Maybe Soa because you had the grind to 50 and he was bugged to hell. Perfect example of how you know they don't care. Explosive Conflict came out for the first time in like May of 2012. The very first boss Toth and Zorn does a scream that does a stun. The stun "debuff" registered on the buff bar, so you could just right click it and continue without worrying about the mechanic. We reported the bug the first week, and they just fixed it in the last patch... I don't know who this Aowin guy is, he has a lot of half truths. But to say this game has no raid community is absolutely spot on. I remember the day we talked about it as a guild, we came to the conclusion they were never gonna do it justice and what ever this game will do; will be a half measure. Which is accurate forever thing in this game with the exception of the Cartel Market.

 

Top guilds in EQ, their GM's were hired by blizzard. Blizzard constantly reaches out to top guilds for thoughts, ideas, or just to congratulate them. Even LoTRO would reach out to their guilds. I couldn't of gotten an audience with anyone at Bioware. Because they don't care. Even PvPers have that silly rank board on their site, raiders never got anything near that. We got a "title." No cool gear, nothing. By the way people left after a month or 2 because there was absolutely nothing to do at end game. No story, half measured buggy pvp, a terrible game engine, and a buggy raid, that really wasn't much harder then a flashpoint.

 

The story they've put out since the original 8 is a funneled, predictable, and vanilla. By the way you're choices didn't really make a difference then either. It's the same complaints I read 5 years ago. I've just recently got caught up because I haven't played in roughly 3 years. It makes me happy I wasn't one of the people that paid a subscription each month for the new chapter. I even took my time and was done with all of SoR- whatever planet they just put out in roughly a weekend. It was worth the 15 bucks, not 15 for however many months waiting.

 

The only thing EA caters to is micro transaction players. That's it I applaud all of you who have been subscribed through out all these years. I mean seriously I need to know where you work because I want to work for you. Because with expectations like that I'll have job security for 40 years.

 

Am sorry if you're a current raider in this game. I know its a hard truth to come to but it's honest. To me nothing has changed in this game except the prices on the GTN. It's still a Star Wars skinned "The Sims." and hey if that's what you like am happy you have a game to play. Am just sorry that EA has an exclusive contract with Star Wars and we have only had 1 new Star Wars title since and outside of the sequel, I see nothing coming down the pipeline. This is what happens when major producers get their hands on things. They only care about matrix's and think that will pay the bills.

 

May the Force be with your free time

 

This is a really good post, and it doesn't just apply to raiders either, but also PvPers. BioWare has never truly cared. Lazy and uninspiring raid design that pales in comparison to other MMOs. Horrible instanced PvP with terrible class balance, not to mention the removal of open world PvP on Ilum and 8v8 ranked. Lets not forget "resolve," the dumbest CC immunity mechanic in an MMO that has never worked well. BioWare attempted to cater to raiders and PvPers because they felt they had to.

 

WoW tried to cater to everybody, so SWTOR had to do the same if it was going to be a "WoW killer." But the truth is, raiding and PvP was never BioWare's concern. In fact, BioWare had nothing to do with either. They brought in the endgame content team from Mythic to handle operations and PvP. BioWare did what they knew: story.

 

In hindsight, it really shouldn't be too surprising why things turned out the way they did. BioWare wanted to make a theme park MMO, but they weren't truly committed to making a good one. They thought they could just focus on story, and the Mythic guys would handle everything else. Too bad Mythic hadn't made a competent MMO since DAoC released in 2001.

 

Now we find ourselves in a situation where barely any content is being added for anyone. Raiders won't be pleased even when this raid is complete. PvPers have been begging for class balancing for over a year... What does BioWare focus on? "Galactic Command" and now server merges, which aren't going to help things anyway (most players transferred off of dead servers years ago).

 

I don't believe BioWare is truly capable of supporting an MMO, because they've never had to actually bother until now. Maybe the illusive "6.0" will just blow us all away, but I doubt it. BioWare is riding this project out until EA shuts it down and replaces it with something else. I won't be surprised if BioWare Austin is shut down in a year or so with EA only keeping BioWare Edmonton afloat for Anthem.

 

If that game tanks, then I think BioWare may be going the way of Visceral, and that will truly be a sad day for all BioWare fans in the world.

[Jamtas]

This is a really good post, and it doesn't just apply to raiders either, but also PvPers. BioWare has never truly cared. Lazy and uninspiring raid design that pales in comparison to other MMOs. Horrible instanced PvP with terrible class balance, not to mention the removal of open world PvP on Ilum and 8v8 ranked. Lets not forget "resolve," the dumbest CC immunity mechanic in an MMO that has never worked well. BioWare attempted to cater to raiders and PvPers because they felt they had to.

 

WoW tried to cater to everybody, so SWTOR had to do the same if it was going to be a "WoW killer." But the truth is, raiding and PvP was never BioWare's concern. In fact, BioWare had nothing to do with either. They brought in the endgame content team from Mythic to handle operations and PvP. BioWare did what they knew: story.

 

In hindsight, it really shouldn't be too surprising why things turned out the way they did. BioWare wanted to make a theme park MMO, but they weren't truly committed to making a good one. They thought they could just focus on story, and the Mythic guys would handle everything else. Too bad Mythic hadn't made a competent MMO since DAoC released in 2001.

 

Now we find ourselves in a situation where barely any content is being added for anyone. Raiders won't be pleased even when this raid is complete. PvPers have been begging for class balancing for over a year... What does BioWare focus on? "Galactic Command" and now server merges, which aren't going to help things anyway (most players transferred off of dead servers years ago).

 

I don't believe BioWare is truly capable of supporting an MMO, because they've never had to actually bother until now. Maybe the illusive "6.0" will just blow us all away, but I doubt it. BioWare is riding this project out until EA shuts it down and replaces it with something else. I won't be surprised if BioWare Austin is shut down in a year or so with EA only keeping BioWare Edmonton afloat for Anthem.

 

If that game tanks, then I think BioWare may be going the way of Visceral, and that will truly be a sad day for all BioWare fans in the world.

 

I can actually agree with you here. Only, I'll state that the story for (most) of the classes 1-50 was where story peaked for classes, oricon where it peaked for game. Since then, story has not been very well done IMO. I suppose much of it likely has to do with the original story plan to continue through expansion for all classes but was scrapped due to the utter launch failure that has since doomed all aspects of the game. I imagine SWTOR from the on paper concept is a much better game vs what was delivered. Wish we could have seen that one.

[Transcendent]

Apparently it was not good enough for them to even try to get to it.

 

The real point is that trying to say story was the cause of the number of people leaving the game at any time is absolutely incorrect.

 

The problem with the idea that players who didn't get their ship didn't participate in endgame content?

 

You didn't need your ship to participate in endgame content, you only needed to get to level 10 to get to fleet. From there you could play PvP / flashpoints / operations, hop on a friends ship, use guild transport (now) or one of the various perks to travel around, or now use heroic travels to get to planets etc.

 

All that information provides is that quite a few players have made characters that they didn't feel the need to run through the class story. That could be for various factors, including already having run a particular class story. What is does show is that it is at least possible for 6.8 million characters to have been through the class story past the first two planets of any given story arc.

 

It doesn't show how many characters have completed the class story, or how many of those characters have subsequently played the expansion story arcs, or how many characters have since then used a level 60/65 token to skip the class story to play the new story.

 

It's ambiguous information dressed up in a pretty graphic. People just tend to see "millions" and think it's a lot, without looking past that information in any meaningful way.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Transcendent

[Thruine]

I think you folks are missing the most obvious reason so many characters never got their ships. The game is boring. There's a great article or video which talks about how all MMOs are really copies of each other game wise. Why would you find fetch quests interesting here if you were tired of them in another game? I'm sure a good portion of those players weren't new to MMOs and even though its got a Star Wars skin there's way too much of the same game play.

 

It doesn't matter what game you play today (or yesterday for that matter) they all play the same basically. We're even talking about raiding which isn't that different. Bunch of people get together and learn some mechanics while avoiding standing in stupid. So that seems more likely to me than there wasn't enough raiding for them or the story didn't matter. If the game felt boring (and just the game part can) then I could see people just returning to whatever game the left. Probably WoW where they killed their six wolves years ago. Where they had an established character.

 

SWTOR and every other game that keeps fetch quests alive do themselves a disservice because for some players that's enough to decide the story isn't that interesting and they don't want to do all that again just to get to the raids. It was Star Wars. Something different than any other game they were playing. Yet played like every game they've played.

 

I'm sure some were new as well. But people seem so entrenched in their idea that operations aren't important or story doesn't matter that you're assigning them as reasons people didn't make it to their ships. That sounds more like the game was boring for them. Plus they may do the whole try a character out the make an alt to try another till they find one they like. Not everyone deletes. I think we can all agree there's not enough of whatever it is we want more of at least

[Tsillah]

This is a really good post, and it doesn't just apply to raiders either, but also PvPers. BioWare has never truly cared. Lazy and uninspiring raid design that pales in comparison to other MMOs. Horrible instanced PvP with terrible class balance, not to mention the removal of open world PvP on Ilum and 8v8 ranked. Lets not forget "resolve," the dumbest CC immunity mechanic in an MMO that has never worked well. BioWare attempted to cater to raiders and PvPers because they felt they had to.

 

-snipped for length -

 

If that game tanks, then I think BioWare may be going the way of Visceral, and that will truly be a sad day for all BioWare fans in the world.

I snipped but I actually agree with your post here from start to finish. I actually made the same point about the Visceral thing in another thread.

[ivanhedgehog]

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.

 

revisionist history from someone that somehow knows what EA does internally and why they do it? Do you get some special bulletin? You have no idea if it was quantity of a content type or quality of a content type that had a greater effect on retention. The fact that 3.0 ops were buggy overtuned mess had a lot to do with it.

[DarthDymond]

revisionist history from someone that somehow knows what EA does internally and why they do it? Do you get some special bulletin? You have no idea if it was quantity of a content type or quality of a content type that had a greater effect on retention. The fact that 3.0 ops were buggy overtuned mess had a lot to do with it.

So, by that logic, would you say the same is true of the current pivot away from the heavy story focus of KotFE to the greater group content focus post-KotET? We don't know that KotFE got the wrong mix of content types, it just might have executed that content wrong?

Edited October 18, 2017 by DarthDymond

[Quraswren]

So, by that logic, would you say the same is true of the current pivot away from the heavy story focus of KotFE to the greater group content focus post-KotET? We don't know that KotFE got the wrong mix of content types, it just might have executed that content wrong?

 

There was no mix to kotfe-kotet.

Kotfe only had one content type and that was story. Sure, there was still the other OLD content but thats just it. It was old and old content is not a player retention device to any great degree.

 

However, we learned new story and a fair amount of it is also not going to retain gamers. Sure, it pulls them try the game but no matter the quality or quantity of story. More will leave than stay in a rather short amount of time as we have seen over the years. An MMO simply cannot rely on one aspect alone like story.

[DarthDymond]

There was no mix to kotfe-kotet.

Kotfe only had one content type and that was story. Sure, there was still the other OLD content but thats just it. It was old and old content is not a player retention device to any great degree.

 

However, we learned new story and a fair amount of it is also not going to retain gamers. Sure, it pulls them try the game but no matter the quality or quantity of story. More will leave than stay in a rather short amount of time as we have seen over the years. An MMO simply cannot rely on one aspect alone like story.

Alright, if "mix" implies more diversity than we got (although given KotFE added Star Fortresses, Rishi Arena, Odessan Proving Grounds, and Eternal Championship, it wasn't 100% story) then:

revisionist history from someone that somehow knows what EA does internally and why they do it? Do you get some special bulletin? You have no idea if it was quantity of a content type or quality of a content type that had a greater effect on retention. The fact that 3.0 ops were buggy overtuned mess had a lot to do with it.

So, by that logic, would you say the same is true of the current pivot away from the heavy story focus of KotFE to the greater group content focus post-KotET? We don't know that KotFE had the wrong "quantity" of content type(s), it might have just executed that content wrong (i.e. failed on the "quality")?

Edited October 18, 2017 by DarthDymond

[merovejec]

I don't think end game content will bring many new players to the game and that is what it needs. The one thing KotFE proved is that new story brings players into the game. It failed at retaining players. The role of end-game content is to keep people around until the next expansion.

 

End game content does not bring new players into the game. For new players the game really has too much to do!! It did get a lot of stuff along the 6 years. A new player actually has it good and should be busy for a long time.

 

Thanks to the movies there are many players coming to the game, its what keeps the game running now.

[TUXs]

It's not a 1:1 ratio. We don't know the ratio. I'm 15 of those 6.8 million, not one.

Right. 15 characters of the 57 million and 15 spaceships of the 6.8 million. It's 100% a 1:1 ratio.

 

It can't exceed that and in order for the lack of story argument to have any validity, players would have to have at least gotten past the second planet to get their damn ship...only 12% did.

 

You're smarter than this...are you trolling me just for laughs?

[IoNonSoEVero]

There was no mix to kotfe-kotet.

Kotfe only had one content type and that was story. Sure, there was still the other OLD content but thats just it. It was old and old content is not a player retention device to any great degree.

 

However, we learned new story and a fair amount of it is also not going to retain gamers. Sure, it pulls them try the game but no matter the quality or quantity of story. More will leave than stay in a rather short amount of time as we have seen over the years. An MMO simply cannot rely on one aspect alone like story.

 

But at the same time a heavy focus on group content will not retain players who prefer story and solo content. The game does need both. As a solo player I feel like the game is not offering me enough to continue subscribing anymore...paying for an hour of non repeatable (as in, you cannot replay the story bits even if you want to) content per year is not enough to justify paying more than USD $100 per year. None of the group or PvP content matters because I don't do that stuff.

 

Which is why I think the monthly or bimonthly chapters PLUS regular group stuff added would be enough to make all play styles feel like they are getting their money's worth. The question becomes if BW will dedicate that level of resources to the game. Sadly I do not think they will.

[TUXs]

But at the same time a heavy focus on group content will not retain players who prefer story and solo content. The game does need both.

And story has NEVER been ignored. It was central in RotHC, central in the Oricon addition, central in SoR, central in Forged Alliances, central in Ziost, central in KOTFE and KOTET...Story is the one aspect that has never suffered from a content drought.

[IoNonSoEVero]

And story has NEVER been ignored. It was central in RotHC, central in the Oricon addition, central in SoR, central in Forged Alliances, central in Ziost, central in KOTFE and KOTET...Story is the one aspect that has never suffered from a content drought.

 

I would agree with you up until now. After KOTET we have received little story. Of course righ now everyone across the board is getting scraps and not substantial content.

[Cruxa]

It can't exceed that and in order for the lack of story argument to have any validity, players would have to have at least gotten past the second planet to get their damn ship...only 12% did.

 

And here I thought it was finally understood by everyone that the fact that 12% of CHARACTERS (and even created, not played ones) that got their ship doesn't mean that only 12% of PLAYERS did.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Cruxa

[Eshvara]

I would agree with you up until now. After KOTET we have received little story. Of course righ now everyone across the board is getting scraps and not substantial content.

 

But nobody really got anything after kotet. If they give the "story only" lovers something "big" as kotet again, when are the others supposed to get substantial content?

Edited October 18, 2017 by Eshvara

[Quraswren]

Alright, if "mix" implies more diversity than we got (although given KotFE added Star Fortresses, Rishi Arena, Odessan Proving Grounds, and Eternal Championship, it wasn't 100% story) then:

 

And the majority of that designed to be solo content and story driven. Even things like SF that could be done with a group was designed to be solo. We didn't get the PVP areas till later and PVP is such a hit and miss you wont ever see that content pushed as hard as story has been.

 

Kotft and kotet was about the story and little else and as we know, story is not enough.

 

As TUX said. Ths game has plenty of story and always has. However, the game also consistently, when they focus so much on story and little else has faltered. Story is great and all but it will never hold gamers. You have to have end game content as well to give gamers something to go for and it cannot rely consistently on extremely old and rehashed end game content as swtor has done as well. That wont hold gamers either.

 

The idea that either alone will do wonders for this game is a mistake but what we do know. Is that no matter how much story they cram into swtor. It will never get the job done in retaining gamers as we have seen since day one.

 

It's high time we try more end game content with a scattering of story in that content but even that wont help if that content isn't worth repeating like unbara and iokath were designed.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Quraswren

[TUXs]

I would agree with you up until now. After KOTET we have received little story. Of course righ now everyone across the board is getting scraps and not substantial content.

What was Iokath? The whole traitor story arc, returning LI's...that was all post KOTET.

 

I agree that it has slowed, but what hasen't?

[Eshvara]

What was Iokath? The whole traitor story arc, returning LI's...that was all post KOTET.

 

I agree that it has slowed, but what hasen't?

 

Indeed. Overall the story players still got most of all. I love story with all my heart, but I love other things too. and we got barely anything worth mentioning.

[DarthDymond]

Right. 15 characters of the 57 million and 15 spaceships of the 6.8 million. It's 100% a 1:1 ratio.

 

It can't exceed that and in order for the lack of story argument to have any validity, players would have to have at least gotten past the second planet to get their damn ship...only 12% did.

 

You're smarter than this...are you trolling me just for laughs?

His/her point is that s/he's 17 characters of the 57 million and 15 of the 6.8 million starships. I'm 8 of the 6.8 million starships, but between scraped alts, bank mules, and name placeholders, I'm about 15-20 of the 57 million characters. Its not a 1:1 ratio.

Edited October 18, 2017 by DarthDymond

[Costello]

When people replay operations multiple times, is it because they find the activity enjoyable or is it for the gear grind.

 

That is if there was no gear or reward to completing operations outside of the gratification of playing through them would people do it. I suspect for people that feel disappointed that they didn't get the gear from it they wanted they would not.

 

Where as the story is meant to be reward enough, I doubt many people do it for a box of green junk that you get at the end of each chapter. So the continuation of the story is enjoyable in its own sake while the operation is enjoyable from what is obtained.

 

Now I am sure there are some people that will site the warm fuzzy feeling being in a group gives them, or the enjoyment they take from over coming some obstacle. Neither of which are exclusive to operations, my first play through of the game was with a friend, did the class and planet quests, were in awful gear and under leveled so fights were a little more challenging than today. But it was the story that kept us pressing on, what happened next, which companion was next, where would the adventure take us.

 

Now there is a school of though Solo should equal low reward, Group should equal high reward. As the very requirement of getting in a group would not be done if people could do it solo for the same reward. While at the same time it is often suggested that you need group grinds to fill the gap between expansions or story updates.

 

But if the primary thing that makes group activities grind worthy is that you do it for gear, could that not be transferred to solo content and create this same 'filler' content that group end game gear grinding has provided in the past. Could it not also be said that if the random factor of Galactic Command was taken out of the lock boxes this is what Galactic Command was.

 

So the theory have Story content - Filler Gear Grind Content - Story Content - Etc. and this is what a diverse MMO community wants. The nature of the Filler Gear Grind Content was in the past doing SOR and Ravengers 3 times a week to get gear or grind out tokens for gear or do the weekly priority op or whatever group content, or pvp for pvp tokens, Long after any of those fights offered anything new. Now in theory it is do whatever content you want, only the rate of the gain from some of those actives is hideously low its become painful. Likewise the option to play as much or as little without the same crieria that operations had with lockouts and finding groups and finding the right make up and the wipes cause your pug is fully of idiots etc meant that people could condense the game play into a shorter time and get burnt out on the gear grind quicker.

 

Ultimately what basic MMO function did getting in a group with 8 people and working through a raid do. In the past we could out level and even now out gear ops to make them easy and offer no more challenge than solo content. We just did it for the loot. Or there is the trial and error method of wiping, try again, wipe, try again better. Ultimately more luck and persistence to completion than jedi like reflexes. Then perhaps there is the perfect storm where you have the right team, the right gear that its challenging enough but your team pulls through and we all should GG! But sadly I'd wager that perfect storm is rare and I'd wager the other times are fairly similar to Story, Veteran and Master Mode when playing the Story. Only for those the rewards kind of suck in comparison, so people don't really bother.

[ivanhedgehog]

Alright, if "mix" implies more diversity than we got (although given KotFE added Star Fortresses, Rishi Arena, Odessan Proving Grounds, and Eternal Championship, it wasn't 100% story) then:

 

So, by that logic, would you say the same is true of the current pivot away from the heavy story focus of KotFE to the greater group content focus post-KotET? We don't know that KotFE had the wrong "quantity" of content type(s), it might have just executed that content wrong (i.e. failed on the "quality")?

 

I am saying that you have no idea WHY EA has made certain personnel changes or financial decisions. You have absolutely no idea how they are looking at the metrics, yet the OP somehow has this amazing insight into their internal decision making and politics. He make huge unfounded assumptions and bases his agenda on those. We do know that SOR had a good mix of content of all kinds. we do know that KTOFE did not. We do know there were significant problems with 3.0 that were not fixed for many weeks/months. The op in a previous post said that we have no real idea of how successful KoTFE actually was, yet in the same post claims that it was a resounding success. Even he is conflicted. Quantity and quality both have an effect on the success of an expansion. the greater the disparity, the greater the effect, so yes, having zero ops in an expansion will have a greater weight than having moderate quality. And Bioware, being story gods, couldnt possibly make bad story.

[ivanhedgehog]

I would agree with you up until now. After KOTET we have received little story. Of course righ now everyone across the board is getting scraps and not substantial content.

 

we did get a heavy supply of nerfs stretched out over the summer. Big supply of nerfs.