If SWTOR is losing players, how can Bioware turn things around?

[Fearchronicle]

Selling the dream doesnt mean anything when players are going to place their own value on the game based on their own perception of how their version of star wars should be.

 

People wanted change because at that time WoW dominated the sector.

 

People put their hope on SWTOR because it was the only game that could bring something new, especially because of the Star Wars universe.

 

 

My point is you cant put all the blame on BW/EA for the reception because they were entering a lions den to start.

 

That said, in my personal opinion, as a hardcore MMO player prior to, and at the beginning of swtor, the content was more than enough to hold the attention of the average MMO fan, and was no different than the level of competiton at that time either. We can debate opinions all we want, but that wont really ever get resolved. Then, and even now with the balance changes and focus on casual content, its clear to see that casual gameplay has been, and atill is their priority focus. Its not a great game for players whose intention is to blitz through content as fast as possible, and you can see that with the frustration created by Command Rank - all that rushing for a disappointing RNG, but for casual players, it fits the mold very effectively.

 

And my point of view is that only BW / EA is responsible for the failure of this game.

 

When doing an MMO you have to take everyone into consideration, harcore / casual player.

 

If they had said from the beginning that it would be a casual player game, people would not have put so much hope in it.

 

So yes for the casual player the game was good, but for a large majority of players this game was not for them. We do not lose 1.4 million players just because the players did not understand who this game was for.

 

If WoW lasts for more than 12 years it's also because Blizzard listens to his community and reacts as quickly as possible when major problems occur.

 

The only thing EA managed to do was kick the team behind the game and we see the consequences today.

 

This game cost 200 Millions dollars, do you think that BW / EA are happy with the result of this investment?

[DWho]

People wanted change because at that time WoW dominated the sector.

 

People put their hope on SWTOR because it was the only game that could bring something new, especially because of the Star Wars universe.

 

 

 

 

And my point of view is that only BW / EA is responsible for the failure of this game.

 

When doing an MMO you have to take everyone into consideration, harcore / casual player.

 

If they had said from the beginning that it would be a casual player game, people would not have put so much hope in it.

 

So yes for the casual player the game was good, but for a large majority of players this game was not for them. We do not lose 1.4 million players just because the players did not understand who this game was for.

 

If WoW lasts for more than 12 years it's also because Blizzard listens to his community and reacts as quickly as possible when major problems occur.

 

The only thing EA managed to do was kick the team behind the game and we see the consequences today.

 

This game cost 200 Millions dollars, do you think that BW / EA are happy with the result of this investment?

 

EA made a lot of money off SWToR (and probably still does). Most estimates placed it 3rd or 4th in revenues in 2016 among MMOs. It still holds a top 10 MMO slot. I'd say its doing pretty well considering the limited amount of investment it has received. If it wasn't still making money it wouldn't be open. EA doesn't hang on to losing products.

 

Thing is, it wasn't a casual friendly game when it launched. It was hard and required a fair amount of skill. A lot of players left because they found progression frustrating (you were constantly well below the level of your opponents as you moved along the storyline path). It evolved over the years to cater to more of a casual crowd because RPGs were Bioware's strength, not MMOs. The people who left the game early on were the ones thinking it would be Star Wars Galaxies II or KoTOR III. The game was neither of those so they left.

[olagatonjedi]

People wanted change because at that time WoW dominated the sector.

 

People put their hope on SWTOR because it was the only game that could bring something new, especially because of the Star Wars universe.

Again, thats not BW/EAs fault. Thats the fault of the consumer for placing their unmatchable expectations on that hope. People are responsible for controlling their own emotions, so you cant put that on BW.

 

And my point of view is that only BW / EA is responsible for the failure of this game.

 

When doing an MMO you have to take everyone into consideration, harcore / casual player.

No you dont. Did Hello Kitty Adventure Island take everyone into consideration when they made their game? There is no magic formula or obligation to any consumer except your target audience, based on their vision.

 

If they had said from the beginning that it would be a casual player game, people would not have put so much hope in it.

I dont recall them claiming to be the best raiding game in the galaxy before launch. Iirc, they advertised as "having" raids. Big dofference that apparently you read too much into.

[Lunablade]

Thing is, it wasn't a casual friendly game when it launched. It was hard and required a fair amount of skill. A lot of players left because they found progression frustrating (you were constantly well below the level of your opponents as you moved along the storyline path). It evolved over the years to cater to more of a casual crowd because RPGs were Bioware's strength, not MMOs. The people who left the game early on were the ones thinking it would be Star Wars Galaxies II or KoTOR III. The game was neither of those so they left.

 

This game was never hard, at least I dont remember that it ever was, was actually very easy right from the start for anyone who had any previous experience with MMOS. I never had problems here with leveling, and the story content was either around my level or slightly sometimes above, leveling was always very linear in this game and each planet had lots of quests and if you have done majority of those you was always at the right level for the next one. PvE content was very easy to , I don't remember not even one hard flashpoint, not even one of them was back than at the level of difficulty for example which WoW TBC heroics had or now mythic dungeons in the Legion, most of them had very simple mechanics. Same thing with the raids, hard modes didn't even had any special mechanics to differ from normal modes , just required mostly better dps and if the group didn't had it the bosses would have enrage. Otherwise most groups as I stated above already cleared them to full on 1 day when they started raiding.

 

And in the end I have to tell you how its just your false assumption here how majority of the MMO players did quit because they expected from this game to be SWG 2.0 ( only few players did come to this game from former SWG ) but because this game lacked on the PvE endgame part of the content once you finished the story for the classes and the one which it had was to easy to keep the players occupied for a long time.

Edited January 11, 2018 by Lunablade

[DWho]

This game was never hard, at least I dont remember that it ever was, was actually very easy right from the start for anyone who had any previous experience with MMOS. I never had problems here with leveling, and the story content was either around my level or slightly sometimes above, leveling was always very linear in this game and each planet had lots of quests and if you have done majority of those you was always at the right level for the next one. PvE content was very easy to , I don't remember not even one hard flashpoint, not even one of them was back than at the level of difficulty for example which WoW TBC heroics had or now mythic dungeons in the Legion, most of them had very simple mechanics. Same thing with the raids, hard modes didn't even had any special mechanics to differ from normal modes , just required mostly better dps and if the group didn't had it the bosses would have enrage. Otherwise most groups as I stated above already cleared them to full on 1 day when they started raiding.

 

And in the end I have to tell you how its just your false assumption here how majority of the MMO players did quit because they expected from this game to be SWG 2.0 ( only few players did come to this game from former SWG ) but because this game lacked on the PvE endgame part of the content once you finished the story for the classes and the one which it had was to easy to keep the players occupied for a long time.

 

Your memory is faulty or you didn't actually play at launch. If you did every mission on Tython, you ended up about level 7 in 1.0. That put you 2-3 levels below the level of the opponents you would face on Coruscant making the first quest yellow. Now a "skilled" MMO player might have found that challenge easy, but most players did not. You are taking your own experience, which at this point I don't even believe is true, and applying it to other players as if everyone should have been an MMO god when they started this game. That is where your error occurs.

Edited January 10, 2018 by DWho

[LordArtemis]

Bioware has publicly stated that they made a mistake with the games design, and that mistake likely resulted in losses after launch.

 

The specific mistake they mentioned was that they had no idea that players would burn through content so quickly, only to arrive at end game and have little to nothing to do.

 

It is likely that inflated expectations (a problem for all games) had an effect on those losses, but that is the public reason given, at least in part, by Bioware for the large exodus after launch.

Edited January 10, 2018 by LordArtemis

[Lunablade]

Your memory is faulty

 

No its not, I played this game from early access and was here for first 6 months of the vanilla content, and cleared all the HM with Terror from Beyond as last raid which I did at that time.

[DWho]

No its not, I played this game from early access and was here for first 6 months of the vanilla content, and cleared all the HM with Terror from Beyond as last raid which I did at that time.

 

I flat out don't believe you based on your comments.

 

Edit: In case you are going to respond with "I don't believe you either", don't bother because I couldn't care less if you do or if you did actually play at launch (which I still doubt)

Edited January 10, 2018 by DWho

[Lunablade]

I flat out don't believe you based on your comments

 

I don't rly care what you believe , I just told you how was my experience with the game and a lot of the players had the same, I figured already earlier that you don't have much experience with the MMOS based on your comments about this game and also based on your earlier post in which you responded to me how I want co-op from this game when I pointed several times how I want it to be what was advertised from the start and that was a themepark MMO ( and those are totally different beasts ), so its not a surprise to me that two of us might have a different views here

 

For the people interested to know in which guilds I was back than - I was in Saga and Pimp on TOFN EU server, both were raiding guilds at that time.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Lunablade

[LordArtemis]

Guys, please.

 

This is a thread where folks provide ideas on how Bioware could turn things around if SWTOR is indeed losing players, not a place to debate the hows and whys on why we got here in the first place.

 

I would request that you take that discussion to another thread.

[DWho]

Guys, please.

 

This is a thread where folks provide ideas on how Bioware could turn things around if SWTOR is indeed losing players, not a place to debate the hows and whys on why we got here in the first place.

 

I would request that you take that discussion to another thread.

 

To that point, it needs lots of story (40-60 hrs playtime at least), preferably with at a minimum a difference between Republic and Empire. It needs to get back to its Jedi and Sith (or Republic and Empire for non-force users) roots. It needs an explorable planet or two along with a flashpoint or two, an operation, and one or more PVP maps (either GSF or warzone).

 

Effectively it needs a big content drop like Shadow of Revan. None of this focus on MMO content or focus on Story content stuff. The focus on each of those in turn has driven away tons of players.

 

Edit: If they really wanted to turn the game around, they need to build on the best part of the game, the class stories. Right now there is no reason for people who play story to sub. They have been told there will be no more class stories and that the best they can hope for going forward is a group flashpoint with 20-30 seconds of cut-scene as story. The game was touted as a story driven MMO, that is where it needs to go.

Edited January 10, 2018 by DWho

[Bejita]

Bioware/EA knew what they were geting into when they made SWTOR, they wanted a MMO with great RPG storyline in them, except 7 years later they are only delivering on the MMO part and not the great storyline part anymore, and the MMO part is weak and stale compared to other MMO's

 

SWTOR is just a incredibly weak version of FFXIV and WoW now, FFXIV having the superior story and great raids, and WoW having the best raids and acceptable story. What does SWTOR have? Cartel packs...

Edited January 10, 2018 by Bejita

[Lunablade]

I stated already what would help this game to turn things around, first thing would be to get better funding without which it will not come far ( because it currently feels with the updates or better to say lack of them coming at a decent rate how this game is on life support and understaffed ) , devs from the BW could still continue working on the story and leveling content and they are doing great job with that, this game has a ton of content for single player gamers, but it needs more focus on multiplayer activities to bring the players back to it and to manage to keep them entertained for a long time - for that players need challenging mp activities. It wouldn't hurt if it would get someone from Blizzard experienced with designing multiplayer content into the leading position for that type of content just like it didn't Blizzard when it hired Jeff Kaplan as designer when it was creating WoW and when its other devs didn't had previous experience with MMO type of the games because he was a former hardcore Everquest raider and because of that had a good knowledge about how endgame content should be designed to keep the players entertained and for them to get hooked on the game. Edited January 11, 2018 by Lunablade

[LordArtemis]

Ok, it is obvious, IMO, that expanding original class stories in some real way would be something that could draw in huge amounts of players.

 

But, here is the rub....the amount of resources available to do so is most likely limited.

 

Assuming that is true, how could they do so and keep it "cheap"?

 

This was my idea that I presented a while back....

 

Create small episode expansions for each class, released one at a time, that would be built using droids, aliens and prior dialog in the game from your characters storyline.

 

It would naturally take time to gather proper sound bites from recorded dialog to provide proper responses, and using droids or aliens as the conversation driver would mean there would be no need for voice over work. You could also mix in text messages (like signs that you read, etc) to avoid voice over.

 

As far as environment, the expansion could be presented on ships that have already been used in the game, with no need to redress. There are likely dozens of ship models that could be used.

 

I would try and find ways to make alterations of past missions to plug them into the storyline, with a few small changes to make them fresh.

 

Finally, i would drop in a few of the PVE starfighter missions, perhaps some walker missions.

 

I believe that most of the work can be pieced together from current content, assembled in such a way to make it fresh and new. It is naturally much more complicated than I am stating here....but believe me when I tell you that coders, animators and graphic artists, as well as writers can accomplish amazing things when they set their minds to it.

Edited January 10, 2018 by LordArtemis

[NogueiraA]

SWTOR 2 where Bioware and DICE will work together using Frostbite 3 engine and making the most perfect MMO ever.

[olagatonjedi]

If you look back at the past 6 years, they have expanded in every area, just not as often as people would like. I hope they continue that trend, as there shouldnt be a rush to get content out fast. I actually like the steady content released like kotet amd kotfe, as i dont really care much for the story tbh.

[Gebrakstkasten]

1st: I really like the idea of more class story so +1 on going back to basic story.

 

2nd: Enhance the companion story lines…+1.

 

3rd: The sale system could use some changing. The overall problem I think is that it is too rigid and doesn’t keep pace with the specific needs of the customers. I offer these three suggestions that I think would both solve a lot of fundamental player issues and generate more income for BW.

 

a. General SWTOR gift cards, make purchasing and gifting simpler. The main site (this one) should have its own credit system similar to what Amazon does when you cash in a gift card. So instead of asking Grandma for a $20 Cartel Coin (CC) card, I could just get a SWTOR gift card that I could use towards additional sub time or CCs. This way I could carry a surplus account and by more of what I needed whenever I needed. This will also make it simpler to purchase gift cards especially if the request has to go through 3 layers of non-gamers when deciding on sub or CCs. I think most of us have been there: If you’re not absolutely clear, then you may not end up with what you want or could end up with Steam or Gold or something else.

 

b. Please make it easy to take my money. Specifically, accept gift cards from Visa, American Express, etc. Some cards work and some don’t. I called the helpdesk on this one and they told me to go to Amazon. It’s a bad business model to not accept a form of payment and overcomplicate the transaction … very bad business.

 

c. Revamp the subscriber tiers by adding a base subscription. There is a pretty big gap between Preferred and Subscriber status. I think they should have a middle tier. Below I propose a reduced cost and no bonus CCs tier of subscription.

 

Full Subscription: No change. $13 a month for 120 days + 600 CCs per month, $14 a month for 90 days + 550 CC per month, and $15 for a single month 500 CC per month (or $30 for two).

 

***New*** Base Subscription: No CCs. $9 per month for 120 days, $10 per month for 90 days, and $11 per month.

No change to preferred and F2P.

 

The intent is that the Full Subscription over the longest time would have the best deal, but still give options. For example, you could purchase a base subscription for 90 days for $30 and spend an extra $20 on 2400 CCs all for $50. Or for $2 more, $52, I could get 90 days of subscription and purchase 1050 CCs for a total of 2850 CCs. This way you would get an additional 450 CCs for $2.

 

I think BW would actually make more money because I think most people would go with the Base Subscription and end up purchasing far more CCs during the course of the subscription.

 

By combining a. “SWTOR Gift Cards” and c. “Base Subscriptions” you get a very easy way to spend money at BW. The customer can either use it for CCs or additional subscription time based on what they need, when they need it. For example, someone gets $100 in SWTOR gift cards during Christmas and already have a sub, they immediately cash it in and retain that $100 in credit.

Anyway, my thoughts…

[Isnogut]

I have a very big issue with your payment sugestions. I for one think not that we have to stick more money in EA's arse, but EA should use our money for BioWare's staff and game developement. BioWare proven themself that they can do great stuff, over and over again, IF THEY HAVE THE MONEY AND RESSOURCES. Evven if only a fraction of the main developing crew is on bord, BioWare could pull it off. The new guys are as competent as the previos crew.

 

I won't get into that discussion of bugs, and stuff. You all know that ANY MMO is actually a released Beta. Changes are normal, bugs are normal.

 

The amount of money is not the issue, but what the publisher gives to the developers. EA is also known for their policy of doing as little as possible to gain the bigges fortune. This is actually what needs to be changed! I'm not accusing the developers of to little contend, but the publisher for their kind of leash they put on BioWare. When SWTOR was released it was unique. By that standard it could have been the WOW killer game back then, IF the devs had thought of more convenient MMO features back then, we have by now. But times changes. For SWTOR to remain healthy it has to focus on what it can do best and is still unique. ...Storydriven MMO. I'm nor saying by that, that every other MMO feature has to be neglected, not at all, bit the main focus should be put on the unique feature.

 

Our money is there, but it does not get to the developers.Thatfore we get just small drops of what would be outstanding in this game. And adding unique features, is what made people log into SWTOR. You want more money, you have to lure more people in that game. You lure more peolpe, yo gain several improvements: first Money, then a healthy community, improved ratings for Flashpoints and PVP, improved social connections, longer subscriptions => more money. You invest that properly and you gain that WOW effect at some degree.

[DarthSpuds]

No you dont. Did Hello Kitty Adventure Island take everyone into consideration when they made their game? There is no magic formula or obligation to any consumer except your target audience, based on their vision..

 

And it clear to all that the "target audience" for this game was originally (and for most of the game's life) class-story led, MMO-Lite, RPG-Heavy, players.

 

If they had stuck to that the game would be in a much better place than it is now.

 

The cardinal sin they committed was thinking that "one (bad) story would fit all".

It clearly was never going to.

The only real question if import is: is the decision-maker who green-lit the "one story fits all" fiasco still involved in key decision making.

 

If Yes then there is, in all honesty, no real hope left for the game because a key decision maker doesn't understand the core values of the Intellectual Property, or the core aspirations of the players.

 

If No, then there is some slim hope, but only if the current key decision makers are prepared to entirely break with the "one story fits all" fiasco.

 

All The Best

[clocknane]

This is naturally hypothetical....not trying to spread gloom and doom here. The reality, however, is the game likely has less players than it had a year ago...or two years ago.

 

If that is actually the case, we could go on and on about what reasons we think those players left, but I think if any question should be asked it should be "can we get the players back?" and How?

 

That is what I would like to discuss here. Assuming the hypothetical is true, what could Bioware do, with the minimum possible effort and investment (time and resource) to return the game to higher player numbers?

 

I have some suggestions naturally. I would like to hear others opinions as well.

 

1) Offer former players 30 days of free play time and a bonus of 500 coins...and an additional bonus of 500 coins if you sub at the end.

 

Not much to explain here....send out an email, put out a public statement to all of the online video game sites. Get the word out...30 days and 500 coins.

 

2) Make the Amazon special.....2400 coins, 90 days, 40 bucks something you can use every 90 days.

 

IMO this is a huge draw item, as it offers a really good deal, one of the best IMO that is offered for sub options. This pack is the very reason I am subbed at the moment, and would likely remain so if they allowed it to be used every 90 days (currently it is 180 days).

 

3) Make a pass on ALL of the expansion content from SoR up through KotFE/ET/FA and make sure all of it can be done as a group, and remove the removal of companions at the beginning of KotFE.

 

Instead, players would be given the option of removal, or they could choose to keep their companions (but would still lose them story wise). I think this is one of the barriers (the lack of group play is another) that keeps folks from participating in the new content.

 

And, the most important change IMO.....

 

4) All high end progression content, like ranked PVP and Operations (hard mode) will now have a guaranteed gear drop...either some kind of token to redeem for a gear piece, or an unassembled item that grants a single piece.

 

I have other suggestions, but I think these changes would be the easiest to implement in the short term, and have the most appeal overall.

 

I would like to add more later, but I will start here.

 

Anyone else have any suggestions?

 

Your ideas have merit, unfortunately, SWTOR's mass exodus came within the first 3 months of the games launch. This was partly due to poorly implemented concepts in the game mixed with other launch issues. I cannot remember them all, but I know the launch of SWTOR was rough, and that is putting it lightly. Because of that, most players won't come back even with CC offerings, game time offerings, content unlocks, etc. If they do, it won't be for a long time. They might sub for a month, and then be gone again.

 

Also, even though it has been 6-6.5 years, the MMO market is overly saturated with games. Not to mention other platforms such as console gaming and mobile gaming growth, players just forget games more easily than they use to, SWTOR being included

[DarkJediMage]

1. loose up the f2p restriction.

 

2. appeal to the mmo community. large number of players means more money.

 

3. make the content enough surprisingly challenging to bring out that epic feeling this game had before 3.0. when you beat the class or flashpoint or heroic or operation bosses or world bosses, you felt great or epic and you wanted play. more.

[Parane]

Not to mention other platforms such as console gaming and mobile gaming growth, players just forget games more easily than they use to, SWTOR being included

It's not about forgetting. People don't just forget games that they connect with. Give players a game they connect with emotionally and they'll be stuck with you forever, regardless what shenanigans you do with it. That's what WoW did.

 

The problem is, like you said, the market is saturated and there are other MMOs that feel like the developers are putting in effort to develop and expand. I don't get that from SWTOR. The only reason I tried the game in beta was because it had the Star Wars tag slapped onto it, and the only reason I return once a year is to see, hope against hope, if there's any new content to try. Not much seems to change apart from such important matters like the loot crate animation.

 

There are options. People don't have to pay for this game when there are other more interesting titles on the market. Unfortunately, there's only one Star Wars MMO and so people need to subscribe to this one if they want some lighsabre action going. I'm fine with that but only for a short time each year to get my annual fix.

[LordArtemis]

Thank you for all the opinions and suggestions, I like the suggestion that more cards need to be honored, there should be NO roadblocks to folks paying for their sub or making purchases, short of security concerns.

 

That is why I advocate the return of all packs permanently. I also think they should have an option for one time payment of single 30 day sub, as I imagine many folks do not like automatic payments, myself included.

 

I am a STRONG advocate for making the 90 day/2400 coin special on Amazon a 90 day availability special instead of the 180 day use restriction....it is the very reason I am subbed at the moment, and I think it has quite a bit of appeal.

[LordArtemis]

It's not about forgetting. People don't just forget games that they connect with. Give players a game they connect with emotionally and they'll be stuck with you forever, regardless what shenanigans you do with it. That's what WoW did.

 

The problem is, like you said, the market is saturated and there are other MMOs that feel like the developers are putting in effort to develop and expand. I don't get that from SWTOR. The only reason I tried the game in beta was because it had the Star Wars tag slapped onto it, and the only reason I return once a year is to see, hope against hope, if there's any new content to try. Not much seems to change apart from such important matters like the loot crate animation.

 

There are options. People don't have to pay for this game when there are other more interesting titles on the market. Unfortunately, there's only one Star Wars MMO and so people need to subscribe to this one if they want some lighsabre action going. I'm fine with that but only for a short time each year to get my annual fix.

 

I think there is also the factor that most F2P that are comparable to SWTOR have much better F2P models. Certainly few if any are perfect, but when you combine this games obvious shortcomings, especially with the F2P model, combined with saturation and better models in the genre it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

[Isnogut]

I think there is also the factor that most F2P that are comparable to SWTOR have much better F2P models. Certainly few if any are perfect, but when you combine this games obvious shortcomings, especially with the F2P model, combined with saturation and better models in the genre it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

Please humor us, ...name one!