What, if anything, went wrong with KotFE/ET and what should come in the future?

[kodrac]

The metric would have been the obvious rise in population when they were released.

 

Because the only way to do any of it was to be subscribed. Once they realized they didn't like it they had reason to let said subscription lapse. Hence where we are now. So, no, that metric is flawed. It wasn't a success at all.

[-IceHawk-]

Because the only way to do any of it was to be subscribed. Once they realized they didn't like it they had reason to let said subscription lapse. Hence where we are now. So, no, that metric is flawed. It wasn't a success at all.

The initial launch of KotFE, like the initial launch of SWTOR, saw a spike in subs.

 

And then the population cratered almost immediately as everyone blew through it, found little to no replay ability and a sparse endgame.

 

I feel like EA/Bioware never learn and just keep going back to the same playbook.

 

I mean, if it brought us from 2.1 million subs down to, what, 250,000?, certainly it will work this time.

 

Right?

Edited November 17, 2017 by -IceHawk-

[LordArtemis]

Because the only way to do any of it was to be subscribed. Once they realized they didn't like it they had reason to let said subscription lapse. Hence where we are now. So, no, that metric is flawed. It wasn't a success at all.

 

LOL. You are contradicting yourself in your very statement IMO. Folks had to subscribe to play....that alone is an indisputable metric that proves the expansions were a success at that time.

 

You can NOT rewrite history. Subscriptions and the number of players both rose substantially when the expansions were released.

 

You guys act as if I am defending the expansions. I am the one that started this thread, and pointed out the expansions FAILED to keep the players they grabbed, obviously.

 

The difference? I can be critical of the expansions and their obvious flaws and STILL accept the truth with respect to the expansions launch. Admitting that truth does not mitigate the likely fact that the expansions failed to hold the players they gained.

 

The expansions can pull in droves of folks and still lose them all. That means they were successful in pulling them in, failed in keeping them.

Edited November 17, 2017 by LordArtemis

[kodrac]

LOL. You are contradicting yourself in your very statement IMO. Folks had to subscribe to play....that alone is an indisputable metric that proves the expansions were a success at that time.

 

Really?

 

Here's our new expansion! It's FREE! But you have to be a sub to access the content.

So people subbed. It sucked and people didn't renew.

It was successful! Irrefutable proof I tells ya!

 

Who's contradicting?

[LordArtemis]

Really?

 

Here's our new expansion! It's FREE! But you have to be a sub to access the content.

So people subbed. It sucked and people didn't renew.

It was successful! Irrefutable proof I tells ya!

 

Who's contradicting?

I think the expansions were a success overall. They increased game visibility, brought in new players, and gave us some great storytelling. But, did they hold those new players, and what flaws existed that prevented the expansions from reaching their full potential?

I would say they had a few serious flaws that hurt their potential to hold players...

 

The third flaw pretty much killed the expansions ability to hold players IMO. They played alone, were thrown into a game with no need to connect with other players, and eventually left out of boredom IMO. There were some other smaller flaws, but they didnt play a part in the expansions failure to hold players from my perspective.

 

You are.

Edited November 17, 2017 by LordArtemis

[kodrac]

You are.

 

Yeah OK. Keep misinterpreting those metrics.

[LordArtemis]

Yeah OK. Keep misinterpreting those metrics.

 

Ok, look...I really can't argue against that point. You certainly have a right to the view that my claim the expansions were successful at launch is subjective. That is fair.

 

I would even go further to point out that my point of success is ENTIRELY subjective considering I have no idea what Biowares metrics for success were at the time.

 

So it really comes down to opinion...and therefore I really can't stand against yours, as you have a right to it, and you have a logical stand for it.

 

Correct me if I am wrong....the expansions failed because they did not hold players in your opinion... Is that correct?

Edited November 17, 2017 by LordArtemis

[DWho]

Because the only way to do any of it was to be subscribed. Once they realized they didn't like it they had reason to let said subscription lapse. Hence where we are now. So, no, that metric is flawed. It wasn't a success at all.

 

It was a huge success in getting new players to try the game. What it failed at was keeping them afterwards. There were a variety of reasons for that. The main one being that since they came for the story they were going to leave after it was finished. It is often stated that they left because there was no "new" end game content for them. But in truth, since they were virtually all new players (that was the demographic that expansion was targeted at), none of the "old" content was old to them. KotFE was too short, too linear, and did not fit in with the rest of SWTOR. It would have been alright as a stand alone game but not as an expansion.

[kodrac]

Correct me if I am wrong....the expansions failed because they did not hold players in your opinion... Is that correct?

 

Correct. It's also why I /rolleyes when BW makes a press release... "Building on the success of KOTET....

Edited November 17, 2017 by kodrac

[arunav]

What matters to me is Charles Boyd doesn't give a crap about any of this feedback, almost all of which is very on point.

 

At least publicly, he comes across as very defiant against any criticism of what many of us consider to be a poor continuation of what was a good and sometimes great story in SWTOR until KOTFE/ET, and it has gotten worse in 2017's updates. I'd argue the writing (whoever is doing it) is just padding a resume for the future. It's terrible compared to the launch story, and even mini-arcs like Oricon that occurred after the original development team was thinned out considerably by EA/BW.

 

At the end of the day, EA really considers this game as a miss from the past, and will keep it on life support budget-wise to sell hypercrates until that isn't profitable any longer. When the entire focus of an MMO becomes the cash shop, obviously the story and every other aspect of it will suffer. SWTOR had a lot of content and story from before the mass layoffs to work with, and it lasted through 3.x (2015). Once that ran out, and in the process, the game lost much of what it had going for it out of the gate, especially for story.

 

KotFE/ET was a radical idea to try and remake the game into something else, and it didn't work financially. Maybe the story would have been better had we seen the planned 3 seasons instead 1.5. I personally still felt even season 1, KOTFE, which was released as planned, felt like a different game and not even like Star Wars, let alone a continuation of SWTOR.

Edited November 17, 2017 by arunav

[KyaniteD]

All of what's been said. Railroading, lack of open worlds, lack of pacing choices, lack of side quests, etc.

 

Plus, the exhaustive use of passive cut scenes that did not involve the player character, that switch in pov that broke immersion - to me, that's lazy writing. I understand why it's been used, but IMO that's not the right writing/story-telling style for this genre. That's the style of an interactive graphic novel, not a role playing game. This is the only game so far where cut scenes were long and frequent enough for me to do things on the side like dry the dishes, do laundry, etc.

[Costello]

Much of the story.

 

Don't put an all powerful force god who devours planets in, it is so beyond anything the audience can relate to you end up asking why is it bothering with the events that are going on its a god. Worst yet don't put it in the players head, as then all the player can do is impotently rage against it saying you want it to f off and can't do anything about it.

 

Next don't make it so the main protagonists constantly considered the player irrelevant because of the thing living in your head. It makes the player once again a meat puppet that is inconsequential and its the battle between the protagonists and the force god that lives in your head all that matters.

 

Don't take away all a players companions and return them with incompetents and traitors. Suddenly you go from companions your attached to, and end up with people your not.

 

If you are going to move the story on 5 years don't have summed up in one line, 'oh five years have passed, all your companions are gone'. Which is then never followed up on. Equally if you don't have the budget to tell a galaxy spanning adventure, don't write a story which involved one and then have the entire war happen on a couple of planets with the main one doesn't have any war going on it. While the player is put in charge of an alliance, and then have to keep have them dictated to by advisers or contrite ways that the army and the fleet can't be used and its just two people you and one companion.

 

And most important of all don't constantly roll out the traitor storyline, again and again and again.

[IoNonSoEVero]

I LOVED the storytelling, the visuals, the large number of cut scenes, and the romances. I love being outside the Empire and Republic and doing my own thing.

 

I like being able to pick up companions from other class stories and work with them. I also really appreciate the instanced areas and the Odessen base.

 

What I don't like:

 

1. Most of the chapters are set up so that you keep hurrying from one thing to the next, and do the chapter in one sitting - no real way to linger and take your time, the way you can in your class story.

 

2. I would have liked side quests and exploration on Odessen and Zakuul.

 

3. I don't like the way the Alliance Alerts don't have your character speaking; just those multiple choice options. I would have preferred it to be fully voiced.

 

4. I would have liked more side quests and interactions with companions and LIs.

 

5. I don't think the story makes sense at all for non-Force users.

 

6. I didn't like the way a lot of the story went in general. it seemed as though a lot of the time the player's character and companions walked into traps that were painfully obvious, for instance.

Edited November 17, 2017 by IoNonSoEVero

[Sargrith]

I want to say there are some nitpicky things in here so sorry....

 

 

Ok that said

 

The way chapters auto loaded into the next one when you completed them, that annoyed the heck out of me and really should have been avoided. Don’t want you players to burn through new content....well don’t make them. Let them end the chapter and be able to think about what happened without auto loading the next one.

 

It is ok we are the center of the story but giving the player the lead spot in the most powerful fraction in the game is a really bad idea for stories and it really stretches the imagination when you have to keep going on every important mission when you have such a large organization that you command. We should have been sought by an alliance as a warrior they needed to lead their forces or rally their forces but not the lead, that ends well as this did poorly.

 

The story was on rails, been said many times, by many people but its true and it detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

 

The lack of other content released along with it. Look they could release this as I said with us leading soldiers/healers/smugglers or whatever of this alliance and then given us an OP and other group content we could have done that would have been a great way to hook everyone into the story.

 

Taking the companions away and not returning them asap. This is an unforgivable sin on the part of the writer/dev team. They needed to have a way to get them all back rather quickly, 6 months a year at max, that they did not is a real indicator that they were planning on basically holding companions hostage to keep people playing instead of keeping people playing by producing good and enough content.

 

In whole it was a huge failure. It killed group play, dead. It drove off way more people that it initially brought in when people hoped this would be something good. It didn’t need to be a failure, poor planning, poor story writing, and a lack of effort made it so. Shame, what this game could be and what it is are so far apart, its just a shame.

[AlienEyeTX]

I LOVED the storytelling, the visuals, the large number of cut scenes, and the romances. I love being outside the Empire and Republic and doing my own thing.

 

I like being able to pick up companions from other class stories and work with them. I also really appreciate the instanced areas and the Odessen base.

 

What I don't like:

 

1. Most of the chapters are set up so that you keep hurrying from one thing to the next, and do the chapter in one sitting - no real way to linger and take your time, the way you can in your class story.

 

2. I would have liked side quests and exploration on Odessen and Zakuul.

 

3. I don't like the way the Alliance Alerts don't have your character speaking; just those multiple choice options. I would have preferred it to be fully voiced.

 

4. I would have liked more side quests and interactions with companions and LIs.

 

5. I don't think the story makes sense at all for non-Force users.

 

6. I didn't like the way a lot of the story went in general. it seemed as though a lot of the time the player's character and companions walked into traps that were painfully obvious, for instance.

 

This is a well-considered response and I agree with everything except the part about being outside of the Republic/Empire.

[ZeroTypeR]

Agree with what Lord Artemis stated, along with:

 

- Not enough side quests, made the expansion very linear (There was a lot of missions that could've been done in

Zakuul)

- Too many cut scenes

- Class stories being made into one-size-fits-all

- A grind for crates that served little purpose (defeated the purpose of grinding heroics)

- Maxing out the alliance levels did absolutely nothing, story wise

- An overabundance of puzzles -mech battles - etc

- A boat load of companions with no story or conversations and only a select few original companions were actually

part of the story in a significant way

- Along with the forced encounters mentioned, enemies hp was crazy high (even the weakest ones)

[Jamtas]

Ok, look...I really can't argue against that point. You certainly have a right to the view that my claim the expansions were successful at launch is subjective. That is fair.

 

I would even go further to point out that my point of success is ENTIRELY subjective considering I have no idea what Biowares metrics for success were at the time.

 

So it really comes down to opinion...and therefore I really can't stand against yours, as you have a right to it, and you have a logical stand for it.

 

Correct me if I am wrong....the expansions failed because they did not hold players in your opinion... Is that correct?

 

Do I think what is causing the disconnect is use of the word success. If we start with a player base before the expansion of say 300,000 (just picking a number) and the expansion takes it to 450,000 initially and then it drops to 200,000 - I wouldn't call that a success.

 

Did it give a short term bump - yes. But did it cause loss of more than it began with? - I'd say yes to that as well.

And by that metric I would call it a failure. You can't say that it was a success but then it didn't hold on. If it couldn't hold on, it wasn't a success.

 

Not to mention the bump in players could have also been attributed to the release of the first star wars movie in a decade for KOTFE. I think the time around an expansion is always met with a rise in population - that's natural as there are some who come back and some who come for first time to join those that were here already.

 

But KOTFE and KOTET left the game with less players than there were before they arrived. They decided to trade in some long term players for short term ones who wanted an easy story game with no challenge. They got them for a bit, but those players are fickle and left. And they drove off a lot of long term veterans at the same time resulting in a net loss. That can't be considered a success. Expansion is judged on it's whole not just a part.

 

In my opinion, the 2 expansion had good things and bad things to them, but overall I'd call them a failure as they left the game in a worse condition than it was before they were introduced.

[cagthehack]

I think the biggest flaw for both KOTFE and KOTET was that they were written with force welding characters in mind. The non force classes felt thrown in just to be covered. The stories are really focus around Sith and Jedi.

 

That alone left out half (if not more) of the games pop. Yes, I know many non-force players have run them. But that doesn't disprove my point.

[cagthehack]

But KOTFE and KOTET left the game with less players than there were before they arrived. They decided to trade in some long term players for short term ones who wanted an easy story game with no challenge. They got them for a bit, but those players are fickle and left. And they drove off a lot of long term veterans at the same time resulting in a net loss. That can't be considered a success. Expansion is judged on it's whole not just a part.

 

The real hit to the player base was the 5.0 gear progression change. The introduction of RNG and CXP. Entire guilds collapsed because of this. Players left in droves. I think the game could've easily bounced back from KOTFE/KOTET but not from Command Crates.

[Korenus]

The real hit to the player base was the 5.0 gear progression change. The introduction of RNG and CXP. Entire guilds collapsed because of this. Players left in droves. I think the game could've easily bounced back from KOTFE/KOTET but not from Command Crates.

 

This. So much this. This is why I'm gonna skip Anthem for a while cause Ben "RNJesus" Irving is supposedly involved, which means lots more "RNG IS FUN! TAKE THE RNG!"

[annabethchase]

The metric would have been the obvious rise in population when they were released.

 

Holding people for a month or so clearly means the content failed to work.

 

I agree the marketing for KOTFE brought a good many people in to try it, they just did not like it.

[DanNV]

EA should do NOTHING to speed up getting through starter planet to Corellia. That is the best part of the game. The worst thing they could do to new players is give them a way to speed through it or totally skip it.

[Tsillah]

EA should do NOTHING to speed up getting through starter planet to Corellia. That is the best part of the game. The worst thing they could do to new players is give them a way to speed through it or totally skip it.

Well, I always hated Corellia. It's my least favourite planet of the vanilla story. So whenever I have a new alt I always go through there as fast as I can and skip as much as I can.

[DanNV]

Well, I always hated Corellia. It's my least favourite planet of the vanilla story. So whenever I have a new alt I always go through there as fast as I can and skip as much as I can.

 

But it's still better than anything after it. (Personally, I speed through Hoth because I don't like it, but it too is better than anything after Corellia.)

[NomadFifteen]

Below are my opinions, not speaking for anyone else. Some minor spoilers below, so if you haven't played KotFE/ET, please read at your own risk.

 

What went wrong with KotFE/ET? Everything.

 

* Lack of Star Wars feel. Dark Side vs Light Side. Empire vs Republic. That is Star Wars. This was Keeping up with the Valkorian's.

* Lack of our character being the main character. We follow other people's 'suggestions', and make no real decisions. We are running the entire resistance, but go on almost every mission rather than assigning it? We go missing for a day before a major mission, and rather than look for you they go off and fail doing it?

* Lack of wanting to rerun it like Vanilla. The agony of doing the story once was bad. Wanting us to do on every toon was cruel and unusual punishment, not fun.

* Lack of meaningful companions. They took away companions we acquired and had a decent (in most cases) story behind them. Instead we get a bunch of companions with little tie in to our characters, most of which are throw away forgettable, and that we can see are going to betray us two chapters away, but we can't do a thing about. Then we get the 30+ cast of extras that have nothing to do with the story, and we really don't need or want.

* Lack of good story. I found this poorly written, with plot holes that you could drive a Death Star thru, and a story shoe horned to cover all classes, so fit only one class (Knight) within reason. The entire Sharknado series had more characters I cared about and a more coherent story.

 

What needs to be done in the future?

They need to realize everything since 4.0 has been twisting the knife and costing them paid subscribers. They are forcing people through Vanilla to quick to enjoy what was a good experience to go into the KotFE/ET story which is a poor experience. I stopped torturing myself after KotFE and have done nothing after the entire 'I crafted an epic weapon to stop the big bad guy, but didn't need it because I found a better weapon laying on the ground' fight. Been starting new toons and running Vanilla, where I have fun.

 

{And before you say 'But KotET was better, you just need to play it", no I don't. I watched most of the cut scenes on YouTube, and with the exception of killing of the star-ship jacker, not much to write home about. And even that was over to quick.}

 

What I am hoping is that at some point the developers and writers will realize how bad the last two years have been and come out with a real expansion.

 

And it needs to start with our character coming out of the refresher as our LI wakes up, and say 'I just had the weirdest dream.'

 

I know that this will only be understood and laughed at by those who are as old as I am, and they will understand that when an entire season causes more pain than entertainment, sometimes you just have to write it off as a dream.