An honest conversation: Future Operation development is not feasible.

[AlrikFassbauer]

Story is definatly not more important than anything else.

 

Blizzard did prove that with a) their really awful stories and b) with their introduction of the Loot System and c) by inventing a whole sub-genre with all of that. The Action-RPG.

 

In Action-RPGs, story doesn't matter at all.

 

And SWTOR is vasically an Action-RPG. You just don't solve quests with dialog option - you exclusively solve quests through combat - which can be seen by the complete lack of ANY social skill a character has. Like in all Action-RPGs.

[kodrac]

I can't say I've missed Aowin's troll-like threads during his absence. If you all aren't aware yet, he's never wrong, even though he'll flip-flop his narratives, and he'll be sure to tell you all about it in as much nauseating detail as possible.

 

TL;DR:

[Eshvara]

I can't say I've missed Aowin's troll-like threads during his absence. If you all aren't aware yet, he's never wrong, even though he'll flip-flop his narratives, and he'll be sure to tell you all about it in as much nauseating detail as possible.

 

TL;DR:

 

I actually thought he/she was someone else, that hasn't been posting for a while. But I don't want to be a tinfoil hatter! Even though it would probably up my overall appearance.

[IoNonSoEVero]

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.

 

 

That's all true - and I don't understand why it has to be an Op, as opposed to a flashpoint with harder bosses in Veteran/Master mode, or new World Bosses. All of those other things can be played with groups, too, and if you're a raider and are just concerned with killing bosses and running in a pack, you can do those things with a flashpoint or World Boss, So I will freely admit that I don't get why the need for Ops is so important to some.

 

In a perfect world, if they were running SWTOR to my personal specs, they'd stop all Op development and concentrate on story, and every single thing in the game would have a solo mode. But in reality, I think the game has to accommodate more than one play style, because raiders, story players, RPGers, solo-only players and PvPers all keep the lights on, and there is a lot of crossover. Since raiders won't be happy if there aren't new Ops, they will have to accommodate that, or add new World Bosses or other things that will satisfy the raiders, even if it's costly.

Edited October 16, 2017 by IoNonSoEVero

[DWho]

Shadow of Revan was a pretty good expansion, some may disagree, because it contained a bit of everything tied together. The was a good bit of story, multiple planets with some side quests, an operation, and several flashpoints all tied together. That is the way expansions need to go. Releasing one piece at a time makes one group of players happy while upsetting the other groups even if there are promises to provide content for their playstyles in the future.

[supertimtaf]

That's all true - and I don't understand why it has to be an Op, as opposed to a flashpoint with harder bosses in Veteran/Master mode, or new World Bosses. All of those other things can be played with groups, too, and if you're a raider and are just concerned with killing bosses and running in a pack, you can do those things with a flashpoint or World Boss, So I will freely admit that I don't get why the need for Ops is so important to some.

 

Why no world boss ? Because, when you look at the last two we got -Revanite Walker & Ancient Threat- both on lvl 60 are really hard to kill with a decent group. Some really good players killed both with four peoples, congrats to them. Still, the actual boss requires 24 players to run smoothly. The issue here being that this game cannot support 16man+ content, otherwise even for the best pc around you literally play a slideshow. WB aren't produced anymore because if they did one for lvl 70, they would need too much player to kill, and the impact to performance would be too big. It's also one of the reason why Umbara failed, because of its poor graphic performance. This won't change until they update the graphic engine (lol, never gonna happen).

 

Flashpoint are for four peoples, not eight. You clearly don't have the same mechanics in a FP with four peoples rather than in an operation with eight peoples. MasterMode FP are really easy when compared to HardMode or MasterMode Operations. And most raiding guild have their own group of peoples, who just so happen to be with eight members. Releasing only FP with four players would only divide this kind of group, which is not good for the overall state of a progression guild.

 

Your questions make sense if you've never done any raid or very few, but for others you would just seem crazy to even suggest this.

[IoNonSoEVero]

Why no world boss ? Because, when you look at the last two we got -Revanite Walker & Ancient Threat- both on lvl 60 are really hard to kill with a decent group. Some really good players killed both with four peoples, congrats to them. Still, the actual boss requires 24 players to run smoothly. The issue here being that this game cannot support 16man+ content, otherwise even for the best pc around you literally play a slideshow. WB aren't produced anymore because if they did one for lvl 70, they would need too much player to kill, and the impact to performance would be too big. It's also one of the reason why Umbara failed, because of its poor graphic performance. This won't change until they update the graphic engine (lol, never gonna happen).

 

Flashpoint are for four peoples, not eight. You clearly don't have the same mechanics in a FP with four peoples rather than in an operation with eight peoples. MasterMode FP are really easy when compared to HardMode or MasterMode Operations. And most raiding guild have their own group of peoples, who just so happen to be with eight members. Releasing only FP with four players would only divide this kind of group, which is not good for the overall state of a progression guild.

 

Your questions make sense if you've never done any raid or very few, but for others you would just seem crazy to even suggest this.

 

I hate group content with the heat of a thousand suns, and would rather quit the game than touch it, if it came to that - so yes, you're talking to someone who does not have a great deal of familiarity with this. To me, it literally is just all "run in a pack and kill stuff."

 

So I very much appreciate the insight.

 

For what it's worth I agree with you on Umbarra. It's the only game part I've ever struggled with, playing solo, because of the lag. By the time the screen stops freezing my character and companion are dead, and the last fight becomes almost totally impossible.

Edited October 16, 2017 by IoNonSoEVero

[Savej]

Didn't Keith post a few months ago that they were hiring new people to work on group content?

[Quraswren]

Didn't Keith post a few months ago that they were hiring new people to work on group content?

 

They did but truthfully it's a bit hard to believe what keith said given that bioware just recently said the last 2 OPS bosses in the machines OPS wont be out till next year. They were incapable of getting 5 bosses out in 12 months as originally said, only 3 in 11 months.

 

We were told way back they were changing direction and this was told to us.

 

"To change our direction, we had to retool, reorganize, hire new talent, and get everyone on board with the changed direction. That takes time, so we made a choice and decided to release the Operation Boss encounters one at a time. This gave us more time to design, polish, test, and get insight directly from players, versus making everyone wait all year before we released 5 new bosses."

 

 

Hard to take that man at his word in light of that. Blame it on server mergers or whatever made up excuse bioware throws out but it's clear, they were incapable of getting the job done even after retooling, reorganizing, hiring new talent and getting everyone on board with the new direction.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Quraswren

[Aowin]

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Considering you think raid content is mandatory, yes, you are asking for a WoW clone. If that's actually true, then you should know that raids are not as essential to an MMO experience as you continue to claim.

 

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. :/

 

While I agree with much of your rationale, this last paragraph can't be allowed to stand. What you are essentially advocating for is development suicide. Something has to change. The reason I pointed out operations is not because of my views on that content, but rather how development-intensive it is.

 

Yes, BioWare improved with raid content over the years. At the same time, you also have to acknowledge that same raid team doesn't exist any longer. Gabe Amatangelo wasn't the only person to leave the studio. He was just the most high profile person for the endgame team.

 

Unfortunately, something has to go, and I do agree that all content has suffered. That is why there needs to be a change. If BioWare cannot manage all these features, then something has to be cut for the rest to live on and survive. Operations being cut are a no-brainer. It's too costly, too difficult, and takes too much time to develop.

 

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.

 

While I think our struggling is somewhat inevitable, I do agree that paid expansions could help alleviate the issue of not receiving a lot of content. We still won't be the major contributors in terms of funds, but it will at least (in theory) provide BioWare with extra funds for development.

 

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.

 

Great post, and I agree. FFXIV is a far better PvE-oriented MMO than this game by miles. If has regular dungeon and raid content added as well. It's also still a subscription-based MMO, so you know Square Enix is doing well with the game. SWTOR just needs to commit to something, rather than this "jack of all trades" approach. It's not working, and all it's doing is turning players away. I want this game to be a success because I like Star Wars and BioWare games, but the lack of direction and constant delays leaves me pessimistic about the future.

[PlagaNerezza]

It's fair to say this may be a relatively heated discussion, but I think it's worth having anyway. I don't believe BioWare Austin is in a financial position, and more specifically a staffing position, to make future operations for SWTOR. Why is that? I'll explain:

 

Gabe Amatangelo was the Lead Endgame Designer on SWTOR from launch to July 2015. He was in charge of all endgame content, whether it was wzs, fps, and ops. Why is his departure relevant? No more operations would be created in SWTOR until two years later.

 

What does this likely mean? Not only did SWTOR lose the guy that was the vision behind future endgame content, but it's also apparent that the endgame team, as a whole, was largely downsized substantially. BioWare invested heavily into raids from launch through SOR, and the results were less than satisfactory financially. This is why we had the pivot back to story in KOTFE in the first place.

 

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

 

This suggests a team that is no longer suited or capable of creating raid content in a reasonable or efficient manner. 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).

 

So, what's the answer? Scrap future operation development. It's too costly. It's too time-consuming. It's not realistic with the current state that BioWare Austin is in. Focus on content that's easier to develop (story, wz, gsf, fps, sh). That obviously won't please the raiders, but it's quite obvious creating new operations is beyond the scope of what BioWare Austin is capable of doing.

 

Development has 3 simple laws. Fast, Good, Cheap. The old adage remains the same today as always. Good and cheap takes time. Fast and cheap isn't good. Fast and good isn't cheap. They don't honor a philosophy on content.

 

The new operation is cheap, slow and crappy. If you are going to take your time do it right. If you aren't get it out fast. How does a boss fight that relies on the same mechanics take so long?

 

They have all the mechanics they need to recycle boss content. They need some art and world developers. What is so hard here? I've yet to see a rationale explanation on development on the current raid that makes me see how this is so expensive?

 

They are so caught up in austin on metric balancing. I have news guys. Your metrics. They stink. I've played this game off and on since beta. You've had maybe 2 months of class balance in this game in the entire lifespan. Every time I play some FOTM exists in pve and pvp. Just release the damn content.

[Aowin]

Development has 3 simple laws. Fast, Good, Cheap. The old adage remains the same today as always. Good and cheap takes time. Fast and cheap isn't good. Fast and good isn't cheap. They don't honor a philosophy on content.

 

The new operation is cheap, slow and crappy. If you are going to take your time do it right. If you aren't get it out fast. How does a boss fight that relies on the same mechanics take so long?

 

They have all the mechanics they need to recycle boss content. They need some art and world developers. What is so hard here? I've yet to see a rationale explanation on development on the current raid that makes me see how this is so expensive?

 

They are so caught up in austin on metric balancing. I have news guys. Your metrics. They stink. I've played this game off and on since beta. You've had maybe 2 months of class balance in this game in the entire lifespan. Every time I play some FOTM exists in pve and pvp. Just release the damn content.

 

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.

 

PVP class balance is a whole different issue. That's never been good, and I never expect it to be good. Usually it's the same handful of classes that are FOTM anyway, typically alternating based on when BioWare feels like changing something.

[Darkbloom]

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.

 

.

 

Hi Aowin,

 

It's because their current team just isn't good at putting raids together.

 

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. But there is a big difference between what I want and what is feasible.

 

All these arguments that people are bringing up against your basic point--I just don't think they matter. My conclusion at this point is that Bioware is not going to succeed in making operations that people will care about.

 

I think they are on the right track with their, "every story update is a flashpoint" idea though. I think that might be the way to get the most content, at the highest quality, with the budget they obviously have.

 

Because it's not just raids. The Iokath update wasn't good either.

[IoNonSoEVero]

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.

[Aowin]

Hi Aowin,

 

It's because their current team just isn't good at putting raids together.

 

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. But there is a big difference between what I want and what is feasible.

 

All these arguments that people are bringing up against your basic point--I just don't think they matter. My conclusion at this point is that Bioware is not going to succeed in making operations that people will care about.

 

I think they are on the right track with their, "every story update is a flashpoint" idea though. I think that might be the way to get the most content, at the highest quality, with the budget they obviously have.

 

Because it's not just raids. The Iokath update wasn't good either.

 

I think you are spot on. No matter what any of us want, the reality is BioWare just can't produce what they were creating years ago. It's not the same studio and they don't have the same budget or manpower. I agree that in general, the quality of all the content has been poor.

 

The story on Iokath was bad. Umbara is a joke. Elara and Quinn's return were literally cameos. The dailies are absolutely horrendous. The brand new raid is a waste of time. To be honest, I'd argue that none of the group content to come out of KOTET has been worth the time or effort. Uprisings were kind of interesting, but what was really the point or target for that feature?

 

I hate to be so critical of BioWare's current development cycle, but there's a lot to be desired. This game is in this situation because of their vision for KOTET. They have a lot of work ahead of themselves if they want to try and steer this sinking ship around.

 

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.

 

If BioWare announced monthly chapters and subscriber rewards that would get better the longer you are subscribed, I'd probably be a permanent subscriber again. I would at least have something to look forward to. As it stands right now, we honestly don't know when we'll get anything. We are given release windows, and half the time those aren't even kept due to "reasons."

 

People can say what they want about KOTFE's monthly chapters, but at least we had consistent content every single month. I loved it. We never had that amount of content delivered on a regular basis in this game before. Sure, those who didn't care about story weren't interested. That being said, we also received a new wz map, TEC, and plenty of companions returning via alliance alerts.

 

After the November content, I'll probably just unsub again. There's really no reason to be subbed, because there's nothing to do. I'll check back in whenever there is new stuff in "early 2018," but I'm hoping BioWare will actually have something to talk about. I know a lot of the optimists want to believe an expansion is coming in Spring 2018, but seeing is believing.

[Jamtas]

You might want to go back and look at the game's history, what has worked and what hasn't. From launch, every time they have failed to produce operations as end game content, the game has lost a substantial number of players. 1.0, 4.x, 5.x are all examples of that and all prove the point. Every time they have relied on story to get the game through, they've lost a large percentage of players. It's easy to see, I'm just surprised BW keeps making the same mistakes over and over.

 

100% this. If the story primary focus worked, then they wouldn't have pivoted away from the KOTFE model. They can say it was their most successful expansion ever until they are blue in the face, but if it truly was, it would not have been scrapped. Again, I do not care what they come and say here on the forums like Charles did when he tlaked about how they had XYZ planned for the story but made changes to get it all out at once. If the monthly chapter was working and story was carrying the game they would not have abandoned it. PERIOD. The only logical reason for making the change was it was NOT working. If something is the most successful model in game's history it makes ZERO sense to stop doing it and do a complete 180.

 

It did not work at all to grow game/keep people subscribed. If it did, it would have stayed.

 

now the elephant in room - did it do too much damage to recover from? Especially considering the current resources.

[IoNonSoEVero]

I always hear this about the story - but the question becomes, did subscriptions drop off because of KOTET, or because there was nothing in terms of story/expansions/the third season announced after KOTET? I would think the latter.

 

By all accounts, AFAIK, the subscriptions were steady during both KOTFE and KOTET. GC didn't make people happy, but it doesn't seem as though the game was considered dying during either of the story-based expacs.

[Suzsi]

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.

 

.

 

It did only come out a year ago but it was a rushed half effort of what was supposed to be another 2 full years of story... and thats why it failed as badly as it did. While I personally still very much enjoy it, a lot didn't. It is very clearly a rushed effort to end a story that was supposed to be a lot longer. If it wasn't... all those players who were enjoying the monthly chapters would still be here. Rushing all that over a couple of months and dumping it into 9 chapters is what was the bad move.. there is still players even now saying go back and redo it properly.... put out the full story in the monthly chapters etc.. and thats just the few of us who are still here hanging on.. hoping for better / more story in the future.

[Jamtas]

After the November content, I'll probably just unsub again. There's really no reason to be subbed, because there's nothing to do. I'll check back in whenever there is new stuff in "early 2018," but I'm hoping BioWare will actually have something to talk about. I know a lot of the optimists want to believe an expansion is coming in Spring 2018, but seeing is believing.

 

I'm now in pretty much same boat. I cancelled my sub last week with at time ~70 days remaining. I am not really logging in anymore as nothing really is putting that desire to do so. New content has little replay value - raid coming out too slowly that my raid group fizzled out again. Not sure anything short of a big expansion with tons of content will bring me back. And a paid expansion might be what is needed to get the funding for that. Which I'm not opposed to at all. You get a free expansion - you get the quality and cadence of a free expansion IMO.

 

I had high hopes for Keith's reign and while his communication and explanations to the players have felt better and less condescending as in the past, the end results still leave much to be desired. And perhaps that is more the fault of someone like James Ohlen or someone else in senior mgmt in what resources they give to the game. But it seems pretty clear to me, that while the game isn't dead - (still receiving updates/content) it just isn't worth a continuous subscription anymore. And like with any lost customer, you may get a % back, but if that cycle keeps going and they still are doing nothing to attract new ones - it will be an ever declining player base.

[Jamtas]

It did only come out a year ago but it was a rushed half effort of what was supposed to be another 2 full years of story... and thats why it failed as badly as it did. While I personally still very much enjoy it, a lot didn't. It is very clearly a rushed effort to end a story that was supposed to be a lot longer. If it wasn't... all those players who were enjoying the monthly chapters would still be here. Rushing all that over a couple of months and dumping it into 9 chapters is what was the bad move.. there is still players even now saying go back and redo it properly.... put out the full story in the monthly chapters etc.. and thats just the few of us who are still here hanging on.. hoping for better / more story in the future.

 

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

[Suzsi]

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

 

It may have felt like that at the time... yet now its also clear that it was working better then anything else they have done since and perhaps they were too quick to dismiss it.

[Costello]

I can understand where group content is seen as end game content. Not because it is good end game content but because it makes waiting for a group part of that content.

 

Anything that is solo content you can log in when you want, do as much or as little as you like and log out when its convenient. So if you have a lot of time to play you might make a dent in the content. Where as with group content you have to get your group together before you can even attempt it so straight away the amount of content you can get through is dependent on others, you might get unlucky and not be able to get full group together for weeks so even before you have even started the content it has provided a time sink.

 

Then should you manage to get a group, you are then at the mercy of others as to if you succeed, so the option to complete that content is dependent on being able to clear it which if it takes a lot of goes means that its providing even more of a time sink. Then in the past it would be random who got what loot, so even once you had got a group, got through the content there was every chance either you wouldn't get the gear you needed or lose the roll to someone else that needed it. Creating a requirement to go through the process all over again.

 

Thereby resulting in group content creating a massive time sink that solo play didn't have, though they have found a way to bring rng into the reward.

 

However people wise up to this approach, I'm spending hours to trial and error through boss encounters for a chance of getting some loot so that when the next expansion or level increase happens I can do it all over again! Maybe I don't have time to invest in this type of end game, maybe I don't want to have to group up with people and just want to enjoy playing the game my way or maybe I don't want others to be reliant on me and me on them to not be wasting peoples time (and being called a noob etc). Sometimes its just a different play style, personally I think wiping sucks and dying is not an occupational hazard this isn't the Vampire Diaries (I don't know much about this show but I think treat being killed like napping). However I know people that will wipe a group cause it was funny, not my idea of fun being stuck with them.

 

So if future operations are not feasible there is nothing wrong with that, moving away from thinking a time sink looking for a group is content is all good. Far better to create a living breathing beautifully rendered world, preferably without levels that its a joy to log in and go do whatever you want and be part of the world. Where doing dailies on Yavin 4 is enjoyable cause you get to experience making your way through the jungle rather than sitting around hoping that group finder is going to pop and the tank knows what they are doing.

[Jamtas]

It may have felt like that at the time... yet now its also clear that it was working better then anything else they have done since and perhaps they were too quick to dismiss it.

 

I'm not sure that KOTET's 9 chapters at once was the culprit behind 5.0 decline as much as the initial state of GC.

 

Again, it isn't clear that it was working better than the past. Working better than 5.0 sure, but I think 4.0 eroded away membership of the game more than you believe it did. 5.0 may be worse, but IMO., both 4.0 and 5.0 are to blame for loss of player base. Choosing between either of them for the model is a bad situation. I think the paid expansions of the past were a better model than either 4.0/5.0.

[GalacticKegger]

I'm not sure that KOTET's 9 chapters at once was the culprit behind 5.0 decline as much as the initial state of GC.

 

Again, it isn't clear that it was working better than the past. Working better than 5.0 sure, but I think 4.0 eroded away membership of the game more than you believe it did. 5.0 may be worse, but IMO., both 4.0 and 5.0 are to blame for loss of player base. Choosing between either of them for the model is a bad situation. I think the paid expansions of the past were a better model than either 4.0/5.0.

+10. Using our now-dormant progression guild (109 individual accounts) as my reference, the vast majority of players who bailed because of 4.0's radical changes to the game and came back for 5.0 were hoping that BW had gotten a clue, listened to what the testers were telling them, and were willing to bring back much of what worked previously. All 5.0 did was essentially tell them to go suck an egg, which caused a community uprising so big that many BW talking heads forfeited Holiday vacation time to perform 2 months worth of triage livestreams just to cover their tracks.

 

Aside from a couple of Ops-level boss instances being released over the last 6 months or so, what came before 4.0 (that has been recycled ad nauseum into one size fits all fertilizer) is all we've had for a fully fleshed out MMO end game in almost 3 years.

 

To the OP's point, full Ops development (full Ops ... not piecemeal boss releases) serves as the culmination of an entire expansion's worth of story and combat progression. That's why it's called end game. In that regard, there is no way future operation development is feasible because they've pretty much disenfranchised that core revenue stream. A reliance on elder game cookie cutter star fortresses (4.x), elder game cookie cutter uprisings (5.x), CM reskins of gear players actually enjoyed farming before, a mandate to sub or lose your character naming rights and a hail mary commitment to GC won't be enough imo.

Edited October 17, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[Thruine]

Just because a large portion of raiders are gone doesn't mean do nothing for raiders ever again. If those players are like me, they revisit past games to see if they catch them again. That's one way EQ has kept me off and on for over 15 years. I check back, remember when and play a few months or more then off again. Granted its the only game I make return visits to but there's something about your first I guess. This is Star Wars and whenever something new happens in that galaxy people remember stuff from their past. I think they should be doing more currently given how popular it is again but I suspect that has more to do with Lucasfilm and the old EU than BioWare not noticing there are new movies out.

 

And one of the first place I hit on EQ is the forums. Last time I played (last year) they were full of "this game is dead" and "let this game die already" but it just keeps going in some fashion. Yearly expansions don't hurt since the entire game focuses on those expansions like nothing else exists in them. I'm sure SWTOR may be like WoW to me. I never have gone back and when I left I stayed gone for good even though I have checked in to see what they were doing now. I don't dislike it like I used to and think its probably the most perfect interpretation of an MMORPG I've seen but there's just something about it that leaves a bitter taste. Its community a major one.

 

But to my point, there's never going to be the chance to recapture raiders or create new raiders if the creation of raids disappears completely. Like I said, a MMO without raiding just doesn't feel like a MMO. No flashpoint or warzone is going to make up for that type of group content so if its not there that signals there probably isn't any.