An honest conversation: Future Operation development is not feasible.

[Aowin]

This.

I raid, I decorate strongholds, I'm a Theronite and Arcannite, I run dailies, FPS, craft, and from time to time I pvp. I do it all. That's why the KOTFE-KOTET era was so boring to me. There was nothing else to do, other than story.

Story in itself isn't bad, it's awesome. But we need more than just story.

 

Most of the people I know left during the KOTFE-KOTET years, and when ops passes were removed.

 

 

This is from the roadmap: " we have made a substantial investment in hardware, software, and network infrastructure to dramatically improve our service and make your experience awesome."

There may be different areas and teams, but if they spent the money in the merges, it could explain the delay.

I guess we'll never know.

 

Again, this assumption that I'm suggesting we need "just story." Where have I stated that in this thread? What I have said is story is more important than anything else, but this game still needs variety. What I have further stated is that operations are not worth the investment and resources, but fps, wz maps, gsf maps, and strongholds are fine content to continue to support.

 

I'm not trying to turn this into a "solo single player game" no matter how many times the clear proponents of raiding try to use that Straw Man argument. I am stating that raiding, as a feature, is no longer practical for this game. Future development on it should be axed, as was the case with Ilum World PvP and 8v8 ranked warzones. There are 10 wonderful operations that people can play over and over, since apparently raids have such great "replay value."

 

BioWare can focus their efforts on other aspects of the game that are less costly and easier to develop.

 

when that less than 100% is 100% paying for the game you create product for them. period. it isnt even a question. the freeloaders to play dont help make payroll.

 

And before you reply that they buy cartel coins, they dont. if they did they wouldnt be f2p

 

If that were true, then BioWare would never have removed Ilum World PvP and 8v8 ranked warzones. They did it anyway, even though much of the PvP community was against it. What's your answer for that?

 

Also, you'd be surprised how much money people can spend in the Cartel Market that aren't subscribers. A "F2P" account hasn't spent money, but a "preferred" account has.

 

In most industry cases, "f2p" players spend more than subscription players. That is why the model has grown over the years. The issue with it, development side, is that the money coming in isn't always consistent or predictable.

 

Spot on. MMOs that are F2P and prioritize MTs are, on average, more profitable than MMOs with a traditional subscription model. It only takes a small percentage of the entire player base to invest in MTs for them to be a success. These individuals are known as "whales," who can spend anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars on MTs.

[Transcendent]

I wasn't there when SoR and RotHC were launched so I can't comment on that. But I do know that KOTFE and KOTET were massive failures in player retention.

 

RotHC launched with quite a lot of content, and the whole 2.x cycle just kept giving us more and more. SoR launched with quite a bit of content, and the whole 3.x cycle gave us quite a fair bit of content (story and group), arguably to the same level as 2.x (when you factor in Ziost etc). The only real issue with 3.x was the launch was not even remotely smooth, and problems weren't rectified until the following year.

 

4.x in terms of group content, gave us Star Fortresses as well as a new PvP map (maybe EC if you run Solo+ counts), however lacked in any new operations or story based flash points. It also introduced a massive Alliance grind, along with some other debatable design choices (KOTOR style conversations being one). Added to that the massive overhaul of older content and systems, which rankled quite a few players feathers.

 

5.x so far has given us more group content than 4.x already, we've also had story content as well as story updates.

 

I mean it isn't all as bad as it's made out to be, however I think the 4.x cycle left little to no room for creating much content ahead for the 5.x cycle due to how tight the deadlines were for a monthly cadence. I would imagine it's going to take a while to get the development process right to produce content in the way we've seen, I certainly wouldn't expect to see that pipeline recover before mid-2018 onwards. Content doesn't magically produce itself.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Transcendent

[curulz]

deleted Edited October 15, 2017 by curulz

[mysidehun]

If they can't provide raid content, then they might as well give the rights for a SW game to someone that can provide content to every aspect of the playerbase. Edited October 16, 2017 by mysidehun

[IoNonSoEVero]

We keep coming back to what constitutes replayable content. That's relative.

 

- For someone who is primarily a raider, the Ops and perhaps flashpoints are entirely replayable, and enjoyable. Maybe they have a guild, maybe they PUG, but they enjoy that interaction and mechanics.

- For someone who does only solo content or does not do Ops, they won't touch it once, much less play it again.

 

- For someone who is primarily interested in story, there are players here who not only go through the class stories, but they make clones of their characters and go through again and again, making different choices. There are those who have said they revisit favorite chapters in KOTFE and KOTET and again make different choices or different romance choices. One of the complaints about Iokath was actually that it could not be replayed on the same character, like a KOTFE chapter.

- For someone who is primarily a raider, the story might be something to spacebar through once just in the name of progression, or it might be something they feel no need to revisit.

 

Thus, whether specific content is replayable depends entirely on who you ask. Keeping everyone interested in coming back to the game and repeating whatever *they* feel is their favorite content is important. If BW were able to return to monthly chapters and add other content to appease everyone, it would be a very smart move IMHO. Whether they have the money, interest or resources to do it is another issue.

Edited October 16, 2017 by IoNonSoEVero

[Alssaran]

Again, this assumption that I'm suggesting we need "just story." Where have I stated that in this thread? What I have said is story is more important than anything else, but this game still needs variety. What I have further stated is that operations are not worth the investment and resources, but fps, wz maps, gsf maps, and strongholds are fine content to continue to support.

 

Alright, we can have an honest conversation about this: The basic idea is that you don't see the benefit of operations because you don't run them/like them, and that means you are willing to "sacrifice" them if it brings more content for your enjoyment. You base the idea that operations are not worth the effort on a lot of assumptions which you have no proof of, but you continue to say people who agree with you "know what they are talking about," whereas people who disagree don't.

 

This conversation, in all honesty, is just a continuation of the dozens of other conversations we had all throughout 4.0. People continued to claim that operations aren't necessary, they aren't feasible, they don't keep player retention up and all that other "focus on very little content" nonsense. The end result was that for the second time in this game's life, the clear lack of operations and hard end game content caused the developer plan to fall into a dark abyss.

 

Raids are part of any MMORPG setup out there. Games which contain raids are STO, LOTRO, FFXIV, WoW, BDO (world bosses and castle sieges as large group activities) and GW2. To compete in the MMORPG market, a game needs to have some raids delivered on a semi-regular basis. The same goes for PvP maps and other kinds of content. This doesn't mean that operations should be the sole focus of a game, but they should be included in the release line-up to give every player a small reason to come back once in a while.

 

For an MMORPG, it is most important to keep the sense of "I will eventually get content" up and going. When a game delivers frequent content of each type, then I am lenient if a game update doesn't contain my specific content because I know that the content I will enjoy will eventually receive some love. This is why I think that the new PvP map and the GSF rebalance are a good step into the right direction: They give some attention to players that have sorely lacked it for over a year, or three years in case of GSF.

 

Eventually we'll have to stop this pointless discussion and accept that raids simply belong into an MMORPG together with instances, PvP and roleplay. That means they are always feasible if done correctly.

 

Let's assume Bioware announces that the new digital expansion they are working on, and at this point with both the cantina live stream confirmation and the dev stream FAQ stating they are working on an expansion, has some of each content. A new raid with four or five bosses, a warzone, a GSF map, one or two flashpoints and a new SOR esque story, then it will finally be a step into the right direction for an MMORPG such as SWTOR. And it doesn't matter whether you believe the "Massive" belongs into SWTOR's description. SWTOR is an MMORPG, and thus it has to compete with other MMORPGs.

 

Raids are far from unfeasible because they are a good way to offer content to a large group of the playerbase. You're sorely mistaken if you believe only raiders run content too. Most content is accessible to everyone and can be done casualy by everyone. Most of my guild members ran Tyth and Aviena & Esne in the past because it gives some nice materials, tokens and GCXP points. They don't have to be raiders to appreciate the occasional raid coming out.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Alssaran

[Tsillah]

Now we get to the newest operation in KOTET. What was supposed to be a brand new raid by the end of the year has been delayed into "early 2018." It is taking the current configuration of the studio well over a year to create five raid bosses.

There was a raid to be out by the end of the year. They will manage 3/5 bosses. Therefore the raid has not been delayed into 2018 but 2 of the 5 bosses are. You explain that after but the initial statement is objectively false.

Because of this, next to nothing else is being made and the game has had the worst content drought its ever experienced.

This is a pivotal part to your reasoning and it is also incorrect. Therefore your conclusion is also false.

There are two major issues that you just ignore as if they don't exist and yet, their impact is significant:

GC fixing

Server merges

 

Both of these elements take resources from the team. I put it to you that if these things hadn't been necessary we would've had the full ops out this year.

 

Also they did bring out a FP, dailies area and multiple Uprisings and another FP is coming with an warzone and gsf map and then of course the 3 ops bosses. Oh and two Strongholds. The problem is not so much that there's been "next to no content" but what they brought out was largely unsuccesful. Very few people play uprisings, the dailies area is meh and the SHs need better hook placements and more variety in deco's needs to happen to keep that activity viable. The FP was fun to me but after a few times there's no reason to play it anymore. I agree with the people who asked for a dailies area on Umbara with some basic daily quests and a reason to gain more of that currency.

 

The simple truth is that you are equating unsuccesful content with no content and you are dismissing two of the biggest resource impacts of the year as mentioned above.

 

Singling out Operation development is just you pushing your personal agenda unto a false premise. There is nothing honest to discuss here really. You just make faulty reasonings to push your anti-operations agenda, whereas the ops bosses are probably the best content they brought out this year, delays or not.

[Ruskaeth]

1) the newest ops isn't interesting visually. The latest FP is much more impressive

Except that it's not quite impressive and it's a stutter fest for what should be capable computers. The basic idea behind the "new visuals" is good but it's not "impressive" at all if you go into details. I would be surprised if the production would be slow because of visuals anyway.

[Aowin]

We keep coming back to what constitutes replayable content. That's relative.

 

- For someone who is primarily a raider, the Ops and perhaps flashpoints are entirely replayable, and enjoyable. Maybe they have a guild, maybe they PUG, but they enjoy that interaction and mechanics.

- For someone who does only solo content or does not do Ops, they won't touch it once, much less play it again.

 

- For someone who is primarily interested in story, there are players here who not only go through the class stories, but they make clones of their characters and go through again and again, making different choices. There are those who have said they revisit favorite chapters in KOTFE and KOTET and again make different choices or different romance choices. One of the complaints about Iokath was actually that it could not be replayed on the same character, like a KOTFE chapter.

- For someone who is primarily a raider, the story might be something to spacebar through once just in the name of progression, or it might be something they feel no need to revisit.

 

Thus, whether specific content is replayable depends entirely on who you ask. Keeping everyone interested in coming back to the game and repeating whatever *they* feel is their favorite content is important. If BW were able to return to monthly chapters and add other content to appease everyone, it would be a very smart move IMHO. Whether they have the money, interest or resources to do it is another issue.

 

I agree with your remarks. They are sound and rational. The major difference here, however, is some content is easier to produce than other content. We know for a fact that operations are the hardest content for BioWare to develop. They have stated as such in the past via developer blogs and other avenues of communication. The reality is BioWare cannot provide equal amounts of content for everyone because not all content is equally made.

 

This is why I suggested scrapping future operations development and doubling down on all other sectors of the game. There are still 10 operations in the game. The proponents of raids in this thread continue to claim they have more replay value than everything else, so what's wrong with playing those 10 operations that are hours and hours of content?

 

But of course, you and I both know that content does not have as much replay value as they claim and they want something new. I've gone through the raids. They become stale after their third playthrough. It's not great content for replay value, and it's incredibly costly. It just doesn't make a lot of sense from a financial standpoint if you can't really afford to develop that kind of content.

 

Alright, we can have an honest conversation about this: The basic idea is that you don't see the benefit of operations because you don't run them/like them, and that means you are willing to "sacrifice" them if it brings more content for your enjoyment. You base the idea that operations are not worth the effort on a lot of assumptions which you have no proof of, but you continue to say people who agree with you "know what they are talking about," whereas people who disagree don't.

 

This conversation, in all honesty, is just a continuation of the dozens of other conversations we had all throughout 4.0. People continued to claim that operations aren't necessary, they aren't feasible, they don't keep player retention up and all that other "focus on very little content" nonsense. The end result was that for the second time in this game's life, the clear lack of operations and hard end game content caused the developer plan to fall into a dark abyss.

 

Raids are part of any MMORPG setup out there. Games which contain raids are STO, LOTRO, FFXIV, WoW, BDO (world bosses and castle sieges as large group activities) and GW2. To compete in the MMORPG market, a game needs to have some raids delivered on a semi-regular basis. The same goes for PvP maps and other kinds of content. This doesn't mean that operations should be the sole focus of a game, but they should be included in the release line-up to give every player a small reason to come back once in a while.

 

For an MMORPG, it is most important to keep the sense of "I will eventually get content" up and going. When a game delivers frequent content of each type, then I am lenient if a game update doesn't contain my specific content because I know that the content I will enjoy will eventually receive some love. This is why I think that the new PvP map and the GSF rebalance are a good step into the right direction: They give some attention to players that have sorely lacked it for over a year, or three years in case of GSF.

 

Eventually we'll have to stop this pointless discussion and accept that raids simply belong into an MMORPG together with instances, PvP and roleplay. That means they are always feasible if done correctly.

 

Let's assume Bioware announces that the new digital expansion they are working on, and at this point with both the cantina live stream confirmation and the dev stream FAQ stating they are working on an expansion, has some of each content. A new raid with four or five bosses, a warzone, a GSF map, one or two flashpoints and a new SOR esque story, then it will finally be a step into the right direction for an MMORPG such as SWTOR. And it doesn't matter whether you believe the "Massive" belongs into SWTOR's description. SWTOR is an MMORPG, and thus it has to compete with other MMORPGs.

 

Raids are far from unfeasible because they are a good way to offer content to a large group of the playerbase. You're sorely mistaken if you believe only raiders run content too. Most content is accessible to everyone and can be done casualy by everyone. Most of my guild members ran Tyth and Aviena & Esne in the past because it gives some nice materials, tokens and GCXP points. They don't have to be raiders to appreciate the occasional raid coming out.

 

That is not the "basic idea." I've gone through most of the raids. My raid group was server first on Shien for my faction for NiM EV and NiM KP. The problem is I recognize operations are incredibly hard to develop, and take a lot of resources. I do not believe the limited value they provide outweighs the financial and development burden. It's the hardest content to make, and it arguably has the worst replay value. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if replay value in raids weren't an issue. Raiders are always begging for new raids because the old ones become stale very quickly. Again, costly content that has terrible longevity.

 

There is no standard "setup" for an MMO. An MMO can be anything, ranging from a PVE-oriented theme park, like WoW, or a PvP-oriented sandbox, like EVE. There are hundreds upon hundreds of MMOs that do not have raids. Contrary to what the WoW generation of MMO players believe, raids are not a necessity for an MMO to thrive. Many MMOs tack them on because WoW did it and was a financial success. SWTOR is a perfect example of a PvE-oriented theme park trying to copy WoW, like many other AAA MMOs. If there is anything we are to take away from SWTOR's sucess, it's that copying WoW, and raids, failed.

 

Again, this incessant need for "content" is largely a theme park MMO problem. Prior to WoW ever existing, most MMOs were sandbox. They didn't have a lot of developer content. Most of them didn't have raids or any sort of elaborate quest lines. What did gamers do in these games? The experience was driven by the community. Players organized. Players created events. Players were able to build their own experiences in a game without the need of raids, or any other content with low replay value. SWG went for six years without having any sort of raid. They are not a requirement.

 

I will never "accept" your limited perception of what an MMO is, because that's not what an MMO was 15 years ago or what many are today. MMOs are one of the most diverse genres in the industry, even though it's been overrun by WoW clones trying to get a piece of the pie. There has never been one perfect definition of what an MMO is. The only requirement is a massively multiplayer space that players can interact in. Everything else is entirely discretionary.

 

Considering SOR had some of the worst content this game has ever offered (flashpoints, operations, story, etc.), I hope you are wrong about that entirely. BioWare tried that before and it did not end well. I'd rather they not repeat mistakes they've already tried, just to try and appease your perception of what an "MMO" should be.

 

I never said you only have to be a raider to like raids. My point is they are the largest supporter of new raids, obviously. It's the only content they care about. Unfortunately for them, it's the least practical content in the game as well.

[Eshvara]

We keep coming back to what constitutes replayable content. That's relative.

 

- For someone who is primarily a raider, the Ops and perhaps flashpoints are entirely replayable, and enjoyable. Maybe they have a guild, maybe they PUG, but they enjoy that interaction and mechanics.

- For someone who does only solo content or does not do Ops, they won't touch it once, much less play it again.

 

- For someone who is primarily interested in story, there are players here who not only go through the class stories, but they make clones of their characters and go through again and again, making different choices. There are those who have said they revisit favorite chapters in KOTFE and KOTET and again make different choices or different romance choices. One of the complaints about Iokath was actually that it could not be replayed on the same character, like a KOTFE chapter.

- For someone who is primarily a raider, the story might be something to spacebar through once just in the name of progression, or it might be something they feel no need to revisit.

 

Thus, whether specific content is replayable depends entirely on who you ask. Keeping everyone interested in coming back to the game and repeating whatever *they* feel is their favorite content is important. If BW were able to return to monthly chapters and add other content to appease everyone, it would be a very smart move IMHO. Whether they have the money, interest or resources to do it is another issue.

 

Sounds about right, when I still raided I. WoW I found doing the same raids almost daily fun enough, and doing it on Alts. In swtor I don't mind doing the same maps of wz's as I enjoy doing warzones. I also enjoy story and have done them plenty of times!

It really does depend on who you ask like you said.

 

Good post!

[Eli_Porter]

I will never "accept" your limited perception of what an MMO is, because that's not what an MMO was 15 years ago or what many are today. MMOs are one of the most diverse genres in the industry, even though it's been overrun by WoW clones trying to get a piece of the pie. There has never been one perfect definition of what an MMO is. The only requirement is a massively multiplayer space that players can interact in. Everything else is entirely discretionary.

 

You want challenging 4-man content? Start doing veteran/master uprisings with your friends. Lots of hard and engaging content for you to go through.

 

You want interesting solo content? Try to complete those veteran/master chapters.

 

You want new story? It's still coming out on a regular basis.

 

If you want to compete with the top MMORPG's, you need new raid bosses. Ignoring it is a shot to the foot in the dark, whether or not it fits your narrow and subjective vision of what this game should be. It is an MMORPG, it's advertised as an MMORPG, it's competing with MMORPG's, it needs MMORPG content.

[Suzsi]

Indeed. I unsubbed largely because there were no plans for more monthly chapters or a subscriber reward program. I love PvP, but I can only do the same six wz maps over and over for so long before I get bored. I used to enjoy operations, but you just get tired of going through the paces of tank and spank and memorizing mechanics over and over. Story is a breath of fresh air because it's something different and the narrative and character interactions are always changing.

 

 

As a story player I haven't unsubbed over the past 12 months of almost no story just because there hasn't been 'new' story. I've remained and replayed my favorite class stories, redone KoTFE and KoTET and so forth. A lot of story players are happy to plod along between content drops, repeating to try out different options and what not. There is a limit of course to how long that'll hold ones attention for -- but with a game this size that limit is fairly large. In the past 2 years since being subbed I've repeated the trooper story 3 or 4 times, the agent story twice, BH story twice, JK story three times, Sith Inquis twice, War once, Smug once and so on... .I also like my chars to look good so i tend to plod around doing heroics at times for cash when I can't afford a hypercrate to sell off the stuff I don't want.

 

If anything, story players are probably contented for longer... there is only so fast you can burn through story repeats when listening to all the cut scenes etc.. and we don't complain if it takes too long because the longer it takes the more story is there! There is still a limit to that contentedness without a decent drop of new story content or news of such coming up though but with so many great stories in the game it takes a long while to hit that.

 

Could the game survive with ONLY story being the focus -- I would say yes, for a long while in fact. I think a lot would be surprised to discover that.

[merovejec]

BioWare invested heavily into raids from launch through SOR, and the results were less than satisfactory financially.

 

Yes and that is the main issue here.

 

The team is simply too small and does not have the capacity to give raiders what they want, when many were begging for at least two new raids anyway (not one raid pieced together slowly).

 

You basically answered yourself here. There many things to this discussion. What I think is the issue is that there are simply too many people playing space barbie and doing RP. This game is great for that as it offers a lot of costumes, species, places etc. This is what the people mainly seem to do.

 

Raiders and PVPers on the other hand are a minority. Interesting enough, they are the most loud everywhere. Thats why you see raiders crying for content on forums, Same from PVPers, but if you would actually count the unique accounts you might to around 500 where the game has around 20k-50k players.

 

As you said, they invested and developed raids, but it was financially not efficient. The game lost many subs, EA pulled the financing and now we have what we have. Actually we should give credit to the remaining team for doing what they can with the limited resources they have BUT we are paying customers and should have something like that after all.

[Aowin]

You want challenging 4-man content? Start doing veteran/master uprisings with your friends. Lots of hard and engaging content for you to go through.

 

You want interesting solo content? Try to complete those veteran/master chapters.

 

You want new story? It's still coming out on a regular basis.

 

If you want to compete with the top MMORPG's, you need new raid bosses. Ignoring it is a shot to the foot in the dark, whether or not it fits your narrow and subjective vision of what this game should be. It is an MMORPG, it's advertised as an MMORPG, it's competing with MMORPG's, it needs MMORPG content.

 

That's the problem. My "vision" of what an MMO isn't "narrow or subjective" at all. You are the one claiming all MMOs must be WoW clones. From personal experience, I am telling you this is false. I realize this is a pointless debate, because you will never change your limited perception of what an MMO is. That is fine, but honestly it doesn't matter what your definition of an MMO is. It matters what BioWare's definition of an MMO is. Everything else is immaterial.

 

As a story player I haven't unsubbed over the past 12 months of almost no story just because there hasn't been 'new' story. I've remained and replayed my favorite class stories, redone KoTFE and KoTET and so forth. A lot of story players are happy to plod along between content drops, repeating to try out different options and what not. There is a limit of course to how long that'll hold ones attention for -- but with a game this size that limit is fairly large. In the past 2 years since being subbed I've repeated the trooper story 3 or 4 times, the agent story twice, BH story twice, JK story three times, Sith Inquis twice, War once, Smug once and so on... .I also like my chars to look good so i tend to plod around doing heroics at times for cash when I can't afford a hypercrate to sell off the stuff I don't want.

 

If anything, story players are probably contented for longer... there is only so fast you can burn through story repeats when listening to all the cut scenes etc.. and we don't complain if it takes too long because the longer it takes the more story is there! There is still a limit to that contentedness without a decent drop of new story content or news of such coming up though but with so many great stories in the game it takes a long while to hit that.

 

Could the game survive with ONLY story being the focus -- I would say yes, for a long while in fact. I think a lot would be surprised to discover that.

 

That's a fair point. Personally, after going through virtually all of the content in this game during the DVL event (I got Legendary Victor status), I had my fair share of all the content that has been in this game for years, whether it was story, flashpoints, operations, etc.

 

That being said, I have repeated some of the story content if I really enjoyed it. I do agree with you that story players find that content to have much greater replay value than many realize. It's clear to me that the reception of the story focus for KOTFE and KOTET were overwhelmingly positive, contrary to popular belief.

 

Not everybody may have liked the substance, but everybody appreciated the more personal story, amazing cutscenes, and the epic scale of the experience. I'm hoping that's how the story will continue to be produced going forward, and perhaps we won't see another content drought like this in the future (assuming a new expansion is just around the corner).

 

Yes and that is the main issue here.

 

You basically answered yourself here. There many things to this discussion. What I think is the issue is that there are simply too many people playing space barbie and doing RP. This game is great for that as it offers a lot of costumes, species, places etc. This is what the people mainly seem to do.

 

Raiders and PVPers on the other hand are a minority. Interesting enough, they are the most loud everywhere. Thats why you see raiders crying for content on forums, Same from PVPers, but if you would actually count the unique accounts you might to around 500 where the game has around 20k-50k players.

 

As you said, they invested and developed raids, but it was financially not efficient. The game lost many subs, EA pulled the financing and now we have what we have. Actually we should give credit to the remaining team for doing what they can with the limited resources they have BUT we are paying customers and should have something like that after all.

 

Without a doubt, the Cartel Market has become the premiere feature of this game. It's the most profitable and requires the least amount of development. I don't personally care for it, but enough players obviously do. That's the only thing we can expect to see consistent content from.

 

As a PvPer and a former raider, you are spot on. Even though I hate to admit it as a PvPer, we are the minority. While we might seem to be the most dedicated players, we ultimately aren't going to be the most profitable demographic of the game. The same is true for raiders. The money is in the Cartel Market.

 

I do give BioWare credit for everything they are attempting to do. They want this game to be a success. In many cases, they just don't have the capacity. That being said, we are paying customers and we deserve more than what we are currently getting at $15 a month. There are many other MMOs at that same price that offer more than this game currently.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Aowin

[DeVanagloris]

But if they live in denial they can make any argument real. OP just hate raiding and want it removed. I say we just remove Story and Anything else OP likes. Also I guess they needed another thread after recktoning in the other. :3

Sure. They do that, and the game shuts down in less than a month. And i mean if they were honest about it, because they would never tell 'we are not doing more story for 2 years' with a straight face, no. They gotta keep the carrot there, always, without clearly saying what they will or wont do, so that players can't decide accordingly.

 

They are trying to cater to everyone, which is unrealistic and impossible, given the staff and resources they have. The game survived 2 years without and operation. It can survive another 2 after GotM is finished.

 

It cant survive without regular story though.

Edited October 16, 2017 by DeVanagloris

[Eli_Porter]

That's the problem. My "vision" of what an MMO isn't "narrow or subjective" at all. You are the one claiming all MMOs must be WoW clones. From personal experience, I am telling you this is false. I realize this is a pointless debate, because you will never change your limited perception of what an MMO is. That is fine, but honestly it doesn't matter what your definition of an MMO is. It matters what BioWare's definition of an MMO is. Everything else is immaterial.

 

So now I claim all MMO's must be WoW clones?

 

Well, I guess it's better than claiming 4-man online games labelled as MMORPG's have a bright future.

 

For the record, I've been playing MMO's for 15 years, before WoW. I think I have a solid grasp on what MMORPG's are.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Eli_Porter

[supertimtaf]

I agree with your remarks. They are sound and rational. The major difference here, however, is some content is easier to produce than other content. We know for a fact that operations are the hardest content for BioWare to develop. They have stated as such in the past via developer blogs and other avenues of communication. The reality is BioWare cannot provide equal amounts of content for everyone because not all content is equally made.

 

Your concern might have been true before, when they release EV and KP, because those were the first attempt in terms of Raid. Since then they have improved by a lot, look at Oricon. They released a Daily Area, with story, with PvP, with two raids. Those raids where the most successfull one ever released for this game.

What happenned is that they underestimated at first the amount of work required to make a decent Raid. As such, EV was really bad, filled with bug and else. So was KP. They took the time to sharpen their development tools, the team got some experience for developping this type of content. As such, the other raids released where much better than the first two. With SoR, the problem is that, once again, the team got too ambitious for what they had at their disposal. The result where catastrophic (Remember Underlurker ? :') ) because they got carried away with the success that was Oricon. I completely agree with you that for the first two operation the task had been hard, because they never did this before. However, they were able to release some pretty good Operations after, without any backup team to help them.

 

The problem before isn't the same problem as right now. The main issue with BW those days is that they're understaffed for the ambitious project they have for this game. As such, we get kind of the same result we had with SoR operation. They look great on paper, but the realisation clearly show that they don't have the skill or the ressource to code this content properly. However, what was the problem for two operations now apply to every kind of content in this game. Story, PvP, FP, Ops, Uprising...

 

You would be surprised to see how many peoples leave group finder when they arrive on Umbara. Because this FP is such a mess that nobody wants to do it. The issue you're attributing to Operations could be real. The team don't have what it takes for developping a healthy game.

But this doesn't apply only to operations, the whole game is being updated by an understaffed/underskilled team. Operation is not the only thing that suffers from this, and isn't the cause of this. i think the inversion is from you, who take the consequence and make them an action.

 

The issue is that now swtor is at a point of no return. If you remove one content and lose any more of your playerbase, this game won't survive it. So what's left of the team try its best to appeal to everyone, even if the result are unsatisfying. Because they don't want to kill what's left of this game. I completely agree that whatever is running this game, they don't have what it takes to make it run properly. But sadly, they just cannot make compromise like this one, where they abandon Operations forever, because the result would be worse than the actual system. :/

[merovejec]

Who promptly left. The story quality was so-so at best. The end game content was non-existent. The story players who showed up, played it and left. The end game players mostly left because there was no endgame. (Same mistakes as at launch.) Your premise is flawed and disproved by this game's own history.

 

This was indeed a big mistake. I dont have the numbers, like any of the ppl here, but I knew many ppl that simply left as there was nothing to do and then only subbed once for all 16 chapters and left again.

[merovejec]

The problem lies not exactly what OP says, more so that BWA and EA are not quite sure what they want from this game. One thing that none can't deny is that Star Wars is an endless pit of money. The last 30 years proved that and the next 30 will as well. So having a Star Wars game in hand with subscription model and all that stuff would indicate that the studio have the tools to shovel the money from the pit. Not quite as we can see. Solution? BWA and EA have to decide what to do with this game, plain and simple. If they want to have a space barbie simulator, than they should pull the plug and forget about an online game and subscriptions and all that since it is not worth it. And if they want an MMO, they have to set up the basics, they need to have a viable budget and staff. You cant make money without spending some but more importantly spend it smart. Easyier said than done yes. I for one would happily pay monthly for a good MMO with various content and I'm sure I'm not the only one. All in all a firm stand from the studio could solve a lot of issues and turn almost everything around. The money is there to grab it, just think about it, a Star Wars MMO.

 

This is indeed a good question, we can see EA hurhling out other SW games, which have better graphics etc but they are different game play ofc. This game is becoming old and chose a wrong engine at start.

 

Nevertheless they seem to have invested a lot into the game now with the hardware changes, which again gives hope of a longer game life, so we will see what they make of it.

[merovejec]

The money is in the Cartel Market.

 

I do give BioWare credit for everything they are attempting to do. They want this game to be a success. In many cases, they just don't have the capacity. That being said, we are paying customers and we deserve more than what we are currently getting at $15 a month. There are many other MMOs at that same price that offer more than this game currently.

 

Well again, we dont have the numbers, however there is a lot you can use to get an idea how it works.

 

PVPers and Raiders have no way to contribute more to the earnings of the game than to pay monthly sub. Sure, they can endlessly buy CC but they dont really need it so why bother. They DID need it in the past for ops passes but Bioware relized this work around and thats why there are no more passes. The best you can do is buy the new expansion, like it was before for early access etc. That was a good way and I would like to see that return, where we pay for the coming expansion, I would gladly do it, to support the game.

 

RPers or Barbie players on the other hand are able to contribute all they want as they buy CC in order to buy CM stuff. Also this leads to the economy of the game where players buy CC to buy CM stuff and sell to such players on GTN cause they want in game credits. Its the only legal way to turn real money into credits. So yes, we as PVPers or Raiders actually cant contribute more and if we are the minority, why would Devs even care about us??

 

Its kinda how it is. But as you said, I also love the game and I think im one of the players that spent and keeps spending most on the game, so I hope it will be around for some time.

[Eli_Porter]

PVPers and Raiders have no way to contribute more to the earnings of the game than to pay monthly sub. Sure, they can endlessly buy CC but they dont really need it so why bother. They DID need it in the past for ops passes but Bioware relized this work around and thats why there are no more passes.

 

Raiders can care about playing dress-up too. I can speak for myself, I really enjoy raiding and when Esne and Aivela came out I bought a Hypercrate as a sign of appreciation.

[SolarSaenz]

Honestly, I don't think the SWTOR team has the chops, so to speak, to produce operations (and perhaps repeatable content) like they did in the days of yore.

 

I don't know what is going on internally at BW studio Austin. But, just from doing the content from 4.0 and up, it seems that they just can't recapture their old magic, so to speak, from 1.x-3.x.

 

I would like to believe that after the server merges, content will start coming out in quicker intervals.

But, the message from BW/EA about this game for a long time has been "just hang in there. Things will get better".

I'm kinda tired of hearing that message.

 

I personally though am not a hardcore raider. Actually, I don't remember the last time I did an operation. I personally don't "need" new raids every 6 months or year, but for the health of the game and to keep the players who do progression raiding, I would like to see new operations. That is, if the SWTOR team could create a new, full, decent raid.

 

Though, really, If I wanted a lot of challenging group content, I'd go back to Final Fantasy 14. That game had a lot of dungeons (FPs) that progressively got harder. I never did any raids, but the game did have raids that I assume were not "Waltz through the entire thing in 10 minutes".

Really, if you just need and thrive off challenging group content, FF14 is worth trying,

But, I stay with SWTOR because the story is better, you actually have companions, and it's Star Wars.

 

I wish SWTOR, though, could just make up its mind on who it is trying to appeal to the most.

If they want to appeal to story seekers and solo players, then focus on making a good story, not a Keeping up with the Valkorians semi recton/soft reboot or a " let's have a betrayal just for the shock factor" types of stories.

 

If they are mainly trying to appeal to PVPers, then class balance should have been completed like a long time ago. And, new PVP maps are needed and some open world PVP. I do remember that the Ilum open world PVP from close to launch wasn't exactly all that stellar.

 

If they are trying to appeal to group content seekers (raiders, hardcore progression raiders), then I guess new talent for designing and perhaps implementing raids is needed.

 

It seems obvious from the current state of things that BW/EA is trying to please everyone but really is pleasing hardly anyone.

 

I don't mean to insult anyone on the SWTOR dev team. I don't doubt the staff IS trying. And, I do know that it's disheartening to say the least for you to put your own sweat, blood, and tears into something and then have an outsider who can't see all the hard work and long hours you've spent look at your work and say it's garbage. But, while criticism can be hard to hear, it is necessary so you can see what you're doing wrong and readjust.

But, something is missing, not all the ingredients for success are there, or something isn't right. I don't work at BW/EA nor do I have insight into their internal workings, but just judging from what has come out recently, something is missing that wasn't missing before.

Edited October 16, 2017 by SolarSaenz

[Quraswren]

SNIP...

I already made my points on your previous issues rather clear, so I see no reason to have this cyclical discussion that will never end.

 

You made points but they are so far off target I was wondering if you were even reading the same article. I'k not entirely sure you could have been more wrong they you were.

 

Those aren't Ohlen's words. That's my point. Actually read that article. You are quoting PC Gamer, which brought up DCUO. Ohlen never once mentions DCUO, or needing a wealth of endgame content at launch. You are injecting your own bias in what you wanted Ohlen to say.

 

I guess " According to Ohlen" was missed by you. You would have had to be blind to miss them. Maybe you think ohlen would have let them misinterpret him. bioware thought their massive amount of class story would carry the game. Their reliance on story content to carry the game forgoing end game content was the problem. Thats ohlens words to PC gamer. The result being. Story doesn't and will never carry the game no matter how much is there. It gets consumed and it's done as gamers get on with end game, playing alts as a distance second to end game content and mains.

 

Move that a short easily consumed story with no new end game and this one story for all garbage and not a chance in hell will kotft/kotet/iokath with how poorly that was all designed carry the game for long. As we have clearly seen.

 

The comparison to DCUO is a direct comparison to what SWTOR didn't do. They didn't have enough end game content. It clear from the article ohlen agreed. Again, looking back at relying on story as if that was ever a player retention mechanic for any real length of time is a huge mistake. History proves that.

 

MMOs are like a huge puzzle. You cannot have a nice complete picture without all the pieces. That has been biwoare problems from the start. They are missing so many pieces that the picture here is incomplete and what do people do with a puzzle that is missing pieces. It gets shelved or completely thrown away. Thats what gamers have repeatedly done with bioware and swtor. Trashed it. It doesn't deliver a complete game. You add in the bugs and screwed up pieces we do actually get and things get worse. They picture getting more and more screwed up.

 

I'm not sure you really want a honest conversation here about what this game needs and what needs to happen. It sure isn't tons more story content at the loss of end game content but I also know it's not end game content at the loss of story. Story alone , solo game play will never get this game out of the ditch it's in and we know that as a fact from it's very on history.

 

Story is definatly not more important than anything else.

 

No matter how blind you want to be to that fact. The rest see it. Hell, the bulk left the game because bioware thought story was more important than anything else. Turns out it isn't.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Quraswren

[TUXs]

The problem with catering to story players is they don't stick around.

 

Repeatable end game content (raids, dungeons) and pvp is what keeps MMO's thriving. Story players binge play, then move on to something else. They gripe about end game content being too hard, and strictly stay out of pvp and refuse to participate in any grind for gear. These are not the people you want to cater too if you want a longstanding MMO. But BW gambled with 4.0-5.0 and catered to SM players and the results are what we have now. Content drought and server merges.

 

Story is important. But don't dedicate an ENTIRE expansion to pure story. TWO expansions is a great sin.

 

Add story, I like it here and there....but don't go full story. I think SoR was a good example of a proper xpac - it had decent story and raids along with new fp, planets and daily areas. It advanced the game in many ways. They just needed to keep doing that and game would've been fine.

 

BW went full retard. Neva' go full retard.

Very well said Jay.

 

There is no development team on earth who could satiate players with enough story...story has got to be the most time consuming and lowest return on investment they could have pursued. It's abundantly clear "story" is not enough for an MMO...even with monthly updates.

[Thruine]

I think you would be surprised just how many of the players who left post Kotet did so because there has been no regular story content this past year and just how many would come back if regular story was a thing again. The amount of story players this game has -- has always been grossly under-estimated. Even now there are calls for more class stories, more republic vrs empire stories, added romances and so forth. Everyday these things are requested and yet still the amount of people who play more for story then anything else is massively under estimated.

 

But didn't the expansion just come out last November or December? That's an awfully short time frame to finish all their classes and depart while its been much longer for those that like group content more yet they are still around. I classify myself as a story player currently. I hop in and do some stuff then hop out. I don't do social anything not even the occasional flashpoint. I needed to do 20 warzones that I cranked out over the weekend but that was it for the most part. I like story a whole lot. It was the story in SWTOR that sent me to check out their Dragon Age games which I've played all the way through with all DLC. My new favorite addiction. Still BioWare would make a huge financial mistake to do story for a player like me since I don't technically need a subscription to enjoy the story but I keep one because when I do a flashpoint or warzone I want to be able to earn the rewards I'm entitled to. A subscription model, even a free to play model, doesn't work with a story only player. Wait then pay $15 once and its all yours.

 

To survive the game has to appeal to those who would put down that subscription fee. Certainly they make money from the store. Probably more. But people have to have something to do to stay with a game. You have to have someone around to see your new purchase or new combination of creations. The game is dreadfully dull hanging around your stronghold trying on outfits. At least to me. There are parts of it I spent a long time decorating just so and haven't seen in months. And that's just the one. The rest I haven't even visited. Even if we're story players that doesn't mean we don't want a game for when we want something else to do. Its the same with alts for me. I want to experience a different class for a while and some times I want that experience to include others.

 

I never once stated "solely story" was the answer. I stated cutting operations and developing content for everything else was the answer. Your definition of "elite players" is interesting. From my perspective, the best players were and still are PvPers. There is a certain level of competency and knowledge you need to have to excel in PvP, and that requires knowing the pros and cons of every class and build. Raiding is easy. You memorize mechanics and you build your group based on classes that excel the most in DPS, tanking, and healing.

 

No, I don't believe the "best gear" should only be available to raiders. For one, there are hardly any raiders that actually do progression raiding left. Secondly, it makes more sense for the best gear to be obtainable in PvP over any other feature in this game. Beating other players requires more knowledge and skill than fighting NPCs that always use the same mechanics. This isn't a matter of operations not being fun. This is a matter of them being too costly to be practical for further development.

 

PvP has nothing to do with you versus the game. Its just another person using the tools to fight another person. Its one of the most casual friendly things you can add to a game also. Just as this one bolsters you up to compete others have brackets. But the mechanics of bringing a large group of players together that challenges them and is entertaining enough that they come back even if they have failed three or four times before. That takes skill on both the developers and players part. PvP just like to consider themselves elite but they're so common they are found in every game. Sort of like bugs I PvP more than any other group activity myself. And I suck at it. And every game that has focused solely on PvP has been utter failure. I'm sure there's one left. But its a play style where someone has literally given you a stick and a rock then sent you out to go play with each other. Plus almost every single game has to made some adjustment to the game to allow these "elite" players to have fun. I don't think its a play style they should ignore but no game should ever design around it.

 

Oh the gear thing, that's exactly what I would like to see is some better raiding brought in. Operations bring very little to the gear chase since you can get the same thing through PvP or a crate can drop it into your lap. And it makes absolutely no sense to have gear being only available to PvPers since gear isn't (or isn't supposed to) to be what that's about. I like the idea that gear works completely different in PvP than normally myself but they want to stick with the one size fits all which is fine I guess. But operations would look so much more attractive (speaking personally here) if that's where the best gear was found and the only place it was found. If they introduce a new tier, I really believe that it should only be found there. That change there would be enough to have some reconsider never doing an operation. Just a little RNG to just about piss folks off (almost not completely) and raiding might be a thing in SWTOR.

 

And I really use the term elite to describe players that have beaten the best the game has to offer. They should have the look you can't find anywhere else and the stats you can't get anywhere else. If people are jealous and want that then they'll learn to raid. The game should rethink its current raids and work out a progression with them to help bring players up in the skill needed. Some flashpoints are so scattered in how they present content that I imagine its the same in the raids. Some are stupid easy then others are stupid hard yet you can't go by anything until you're in the fight.