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

[TUXs]

Ebb and flow. The server demand doesnt require that many, likely because their populations at its max doesnt require that many, but by no means does that mean the game is dying or in maintenance mode either. Technology is better than it was 6 years ago too. You are using 1 piece of generalized data to draw a very big conclusion.

It's very specific, verifiable and fact based data...not generalized.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

They need to go back to their MMO roots, and not try and turn the game into an instanced single player game. Story players are not as consistant as the regular MMO people that are in guilds, enjoy the social aspect, and yes OPs players generally stay subbed becauseof their friends.

 

The moment they tried to turn this into a single player RPG, ie: KoTFE and KoTeT was when the nails were going into the coffin.

 

A company cant give the middle finger to 2/3 the players, and expect them to take it for long. The SW fanboy syndrome only covers so much (as in if this wasnt star wars it would be dead already.

[DarthSpuds]

You can compare them as MMOs, but thats about it. Last I checked, SWTOR had netted much more in revenue than ESO.

 

As ESO is fronted by a privately owned company there's absolutely no way at all for you to know that.

 

All The Best

[TUXs]

And your insight is amazing? Please enlighten us all on how you understand the entire player base, Or could it be your talking for yourself and think everyone must agree with you and if they don't they must be wrong. From your perspective how long did it take you to complete the latest Flashpoint?

 

 

 

Care to show where you checked how much revenue SWTOR has made more than ESO? Or is this once again you think SWTOR netted much more in revenue and anyone that disagrees with you must be wrong.

 

You can see the updates that ESO released in the last 2 years here:

 

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/updates

 

Here you can see where they have hit the 10 million player milestone

 

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news/post/26235

 

Remembering that this is a buy to play game so that's 10 million units sold.

 

Where is the comparison, ESO had a rocky start but listened to players and built on that and turned it around. TOR seems content to shrink servers and do nothing but hope to find players that don't want to play the game but do want to defend not playing the game on the forums.

Well done!!!

[Jdast]

And you guys thought I was a White Knight...

 

You do realize you're engaging in Forum PvP with Olag, right? Have you learned nothing?

 

/smack

 

 

Dasty

Edited January 4, 2018 by Jdast

[TUXs]

And you guys thought I was a White Knight...

 

You do realize you're engaging in Forum PvP with Olag, right? Have you learned nothing?

 

/smack

 

 

Dasty

Armature

[RagnarAugustus]

Do you feel that the CXP boosts that currently drop in the reward table for GC would serve that purpose? If not, do you think it would be wise to simply raise up the CXP rate across the board?

 

Also, what other changes do you think they could make to the F2P system to make the game more desirable to former players?

 

Former players would not be F2P, they would be preferred players so your question is operating from a false premise. I don't think there should be any change to the F2P system as it helps keep gold spammers and botters in check and is in my opinion a free test drive of the game before one subs. I wouldn't mind a bit more flexibility for the Preferred players but not to the point where it's so painless that they never sub.

 

Regarding the CXP, I think back when dailies were "bugged" with high CXP that they were at the level that CXP dailies should be for most of the player base. Sure some hard core players could get a toon to 300 command rank in two weeks, but we can't set expectations for the entire player base based on hard core players who are in essence a statistical outlier.

[AshenK]

There is no turning this game around.

 

Two years of ignoring raiders and pvpers. The fact that ea went about making Battlefront 2 p2w much like this game. And add in that TLJ is viewed as one of the worst Star Wars movies of all time.

 

There's no turning this ship around. At this point it would be better to just re-release SWG Pre-CU with a new engine.

[olagatonjedi]

And you guys thought I was a White Knight...

 

You do realize you're engaging in Forum PvP with Olag, right? Have you learned nothing?

 

/smack

 

 

Dasty

I dont give 2 craps about BW or EA, personally. I can switch games at any time and never look back, as I have done with everquest and lotro in the past.

 

What I AM passionate about is educated people who think before they speak (or type, depending on the medium), who can present an opinion without severely overexaggerating or overgeneralizing, who can support their opinion with valid data so it actually validates said opinion, and who dont try to speak as a representative for anyone except themselves. Am I able to follow that path 100% myself? Not necessarily, but at least I can embrace the idea that im not perfect, and will try to correct myself next time.

 

I also understand that nobody is perfect, and nobody knows everything about everything, so when you make a definitive statement about why or how something happens, it should come with the understanding that you truly dont know everything that surrounds that occurence. And in the whole scheme of mistakes, imo a mistake (or multiple) in game is the least of concerns to truly get enraged at.

Edited January 4, 2018 by olagatonjedi

[DWho]

They need to go back to their MMO roots, and not try and turn the game into an instanced single player game. Story players are not as consistant as the regular MMO people that are in guilds, enjoy the social aspect, and yes OPs players generally stay subbed becauseof their friends.

 

The moment they tried to turn this into a single player RPG, ie: KoTFE and KoTeT was when the nails were going into the coffin.

 

A company cant give the middle finger to 2/3 the players, and expect them to take it for long. The SW fanboy syndrome only covers so much (as in if this wasnt star wars it would be dead already.

 

What happened with 4.0 (and 5.0) had nothing to do with it being "story" focused (I personally prefer the term RPG since the game is an MMORPG but 4.0 and 5.0 were very weak on the RPG side as well as the MMO side). The problem was those expansions had story that departed from the Star Wars theme of Republic vs Empire (or good vs evil if you like). Bringing in a third faction to battle Republic and Empire would have been fine if it wasn't the same story no matter which side you were on. The battle for the core worlds would have been an epic RPG storyline instead of the "fast-forward" 5 years approach. The goal should have been defeating the Eternal Empire not taking it over and becoming a god. Now in order to go back there has to be some kind of unrealistic cataclysm. Other MMOs never put you in the position of being all powerful, there is always something more to do.

 

The "MMO" crowd may have been alienated by it but so was the RPG crowd. When you play an RPG you want some sort of "sandbox" environment (something like the vanilla story or the RotHC and SoR expansions is what the RPG people want). It doesn't have to be all out sandbox but there needs to be more than a single path. In reality, KotFE and KotET chapters were more like single player flashpoints than anything RPG related (I understand some people like that but it is not RPG).

 

Turning the game around will take going back to the beginning and doing what was done in the first 50 levels of the game. Lots of space to explore on planets, engaging storylines, repeatable content tied to those storylines, and a comittment to continue on that path even if "expansions" are only once a year. There is good reason to do them once a year anyway instead of trying to do things piecemeal.

[DarthSpuds]

There is no turning this game around.

 

Two years of ignoring raiders and pvpers.

 

So "ignoring" the two groups of people who, collectively, make up less than 30% of the playerbase (based on industry averages) is what kills a game?

 

No, don't be silly.

 

That's not to say I think PvP and Raiding should be ignored, they shouldn't; but in every MMORPG I have ever played the PvP and Raid communities have always wildly exaggerated how important they are to the game. Why?

 

Because Raiders and PvPers are the MOST likely players to jump ship when a new flavour of the month game gets released.

 

All The Best

[olagatonjedi]

If this were a single player game, I'd have access to all that content I had purchased for life, without any recurring fees. I'd have "unlimited access" forever after my one time purchase. Here I need to pay $15 per month to access things I previously purchased.

Its not solely a single player game, its not advertised as such, and the monthly fee is public knowledge before you even buy the game.

 

The F2P system is only meant to encourage subs, nothing more.

How shortsighted of you.

 

If EA or Bioware want to continue supporting this game, I would argue that YES, they are obligated to deliver new content. Your opinion and mine could not be more opposite on what we expect. I expect continued development at a far better pace than we saw in 2017 - you're content with nothing. You're not wrong...you're entitled to your opinion, and God knows Bioware wants a million more customers like you...but you are most certainly a minority. In fact, I don't know anyone that shares your opinion. Bioware may not be "obligated" to do anything, but neither are their customers, and literally millions have quit...I guess there just aren't enough people like you to keep Bioware afloat.

I bet you signed up for a cell phone service (and paid a bulk amount for the phone) and expect the phone service to add new features beyond what you signed up for just because you pay monthly right?

[Suzsi]

Right now im bored due to lack of story. More story means I play more.

 

I loved Kotfe and Kotet monthly chapters but now since there has been very little story. Until recently replaying fav stories has kept me occupied but there is only so many times you can do that with almost nothing new in the mix.

[FlyinSpaghetti]

You can compare them as MMOs, but thats about it. Last I checked, SWTOR had netted much more in revenue than ESO.

 

Source of your fake news?

 

I'm pretty sure Zenimax don't make the exact revenue figures public like EA do however last year they announced they'd sold at least 8.5 million copies of the game and 1.5 million of that between 2016 & 2017. While that doesn't equal logins or ESO plus that does mean a lot of people possibly using the in game crown store on top of the revenue from the game purchase itself.

 

Now I'm not against better F2P experience and the cost of a subscription is nothing. Seriously think about how much it costs it is absolutely nothing, the issue is feeling like a chump if your paying for a sub par experience. So if your paying for something and you don't know why then your likely to stop.

 

Which I think is the bigger issue, it doesn't matter if its free or 30 bucks a month, if the experience is tired, dated and dull then who is going to stick around for it. Now maybe people don't stick around because their initial f2p experience is so bad and that needs work but equally if you put out almost no content for a year, people generally don't stick around for that either.

 

The problem with the sub only model is when you are shopping for a MMO to play long term the issue is this, a six year old MMO with a very uncertain future isn't worth £90 a year they want when you can get very similar 'fresh' MMO's or other massive multiplayer games for much less as a one time purchase & without major limitations.

 

It's kind of like asking for premium price of a game when it should be in the bargain bin, not to say the game shouldn't make money but it needs to go a different way from beating the standard subscription dead horse. It doesn't have to be a full F2P model either how about a F2P premium annual add on that lifts some of the restrictions but at greater value than a sub or even something tied to EA/Origin access?

[Lunablade]

I got one observation since I returned to the game and that is how leveling in vanilla TOR content ( bellow level 50 ) is way to easy. I'm playing on character with like almost full orange gear which is without any mods , I'm not doing any heroic content nor flashpoints and I used White acute module which I got on the fleet to turn off xp weekend for my character just to stay constantly on the level of my class missions or a bit bellow and I'm still able to stomp most mob groups in the game, and when I can pull about 10 mobs of my level ( that would be like 2 groups of them ) without any feeling of danger of dying than that's just to boring.

 

When the game was new leveling wasn't like that at all, I could finish majority of the quests on the planets and still do some heroic ones and I didn't gained because of that to much xp like players do now to outlevel the next leveling zone, leveling was way more challenging back than so I had to be more careful with my pulls and players actually did group up to finish heroic quests and now they can just solo those. And even than without this problem players could blitz through the leveling process. So my suggestion now for Bioware is to tune up leveling content in vanilla game because if it stays like this than that just leaves wrong and unfun experience to the new players. Also BW should look a bit on the companions because they feel atm kinda a bit OP.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Lunablade

[LordArtemis]

I think a difficulty slider would work here, and would provide the best of both worlds....the ability for players to increase difficulty across the board during the leveling process by being pushed down two levels (cap two levels earlier), or they could choose to move the level cap two levels higher for easy mode.

 

That said, there is no need to actually modify companions or the mobs in this game with respect to difficulty or strength. They should remain as they are, and instead Bioware should implement an adjustment to the level sync system.

[TUXs]

I think a difficulty slider would work here, and would provide the best of both worlds....the ability for players to increase difficulty across the board during the leveling process by being pushed down two levels (cap two levels earlier), or they could choose to move the level cap two levels higher for easy mode.

 

That said, there is no need to actually modify companions or the mobs in this game with respect to difficulty or strength. They should remain as they are, and instead Bioware should implement an adjustment to the level sync system.

No need for a slider...just a single button - Standard or Hard. Standard being what we currently have, Hard would drop you 5 levels. Nobody is going to use it, they don't need to invest more than 30 minutes into this. People complain, but they don't even do the things they easily can to increase their own difficulty. Just add the button and be done.

[Transhade]

I think there has been a lot of improvements to the game overall but they should work off of a few fundamental premises that will reduce annoyance from the player base in general. Two come to mind:

 

Flashpoints should not take longer than Operations.

Trying to get PVE's into PVP for faster rewards helps no one.

[olagatonjedi]

Seems like it would be a lot more complicated than just adding a button. Does it affect you only when ungrouped? What happens when you group up? What happens when you raid? What happens if you enter a pvp instance? If everything is automated depending on scenario, I can see people constantly forgetting to unclick it at times. Lots of logistical issues that would need to be hashed out for a part of the game that is pretty much entry-level, because once you hit max level, the button wouldnt be needed.

[Quraswren]

Seems like it would be a lot more complicated than just adding a button. Does it affect you only when ungrouped? What happens when you group up? What happens when you raid?

 

Like most group content. Leader of the group decides if you are in a group. Solo, you get to decide.

 

The old KISS approach. Works for PVE or OWPVP. Group leader makes the decision or you do it yourself when solo.

 

What happens if you enter a pvp instance?

 

disable it in PVP instances. That way it keeps people on the same playing field if they continue to use the bolster system.

 

If everything is automated depending on scenario, I can see people constantly forgetting to unclick it at times. Lots of logistical issues that would need to be hashed out for a part of the game that is pretty much entry-level, because once you hit max level, the button wouldnt be needed.

 

If they forget thats on them especially so for PVE. In PVP instances or queueing. Just disable it and let the PVP system already in place work. It's not the best but a level sync doesn't need to be there from what I can tell anyway given bloster.

[olagatonjedi]

Like most group content. Leader of the group decides if you are in a group. Solo, you get to decide.

 

The old KISS approach. Works for PVE or OWPVP. Group leader makes the decision or you do it yourself when solo.

 

 

 

disable it in PVP instances. That way it keeps people on the same playing field if they continue to use the bolster system.

 

 

 

If they forget thats on them especially so for PVE. In PVP instances or queueing. Just disable it and let the PVP system already in place work. It's not the best but a level sync doesn't need to be there from what I can tell anyway given bloster.

I know there is an answer for these questions. I am more concerned with the difficulty in implementing each of those in addition to how much it would affect server stability due to it being server side (possibility of abuse if done client side), and would experience gain be adjustable if the goal is simply harder content, not the slowing down of content.

[TUXs]

Like most group content. Leader of the group decides if you are in a group. Solo, you get to decide.

 

The old KISS approach. Works for PVE or OWPVP. Group leader makes the decision or you do it yourself when solo.

 

disable it in PVP instances. That way it keeps people on the same playing field if they continue to use the bolster system.

 

If they forget thats on them especially so for PVE. In PVP instances or queueing. Just disable it and let the PVP system already in place work. It's not the best but a level sync doesn't need to be there from what I can tell anyway given bloster.

Screw that...KISS...if it's on, you're 5 levels below, period. It'll impact you in anything open world, grouped or not, PvP or PvE...the only place I wouldn't have it impact you is in group content...not Heroics, I mean FPs and Ops. And even then I wouldn't care unless it was a GF mission...if someone wants to gimp themselves, they can, just don't screw over other players.

 

And lets be honest...the button could be cosmetic for all we know...nobody would use it so nobody would know if it actually worked or not.

Edited January 5, 2018 by TUXs

[Quraswren]

Screw that...KISS...if it's on, you're 5 levels below, period. It'll impact you in anything open world, grouped or not, PvP or PvE...the only place I wouldn't have it impact you is in group content...not Heroics, I mean FPs and Ops. And even then I wouldn't care unless it was a GF mission...if someone wants to gimp themselves, they can, just don't screw over other players.

 

Nothing wrong with that either as it's even simpler.

 

And lets be honest...the button could be cosmetic for all we know...nobody would use it so nobody would know if it actually worked or not.

 

From my experience you are correct. I haven't played with anyone that actually wanted level sync so you have a very solid point there. It's one of those things I don't being there should someone random person use it but overall I don't think it would be used.

 

I know there is an answer for these questions.

 

Then you should know their are answers to all your questions as well as your concerns.

 

I am more concerned with the difficulty in implementing each of those

No harder than implementing the already garbage level sync we have now and since they already have some implementations already there. It would be more tweaking at this point.

 

n addition to how much it would affect server stability due to it being server side (possibility of abuse if done client side),

 

Of course make it server side. The new servers can handle it and you don't have to worry about abuse. As far as server stability it would be no different than what we have no in that when you step off your ship everyone is down leveled. Hell, it would probably help server stability with a button option because few would take it and the server not have to work as hard down leveling everyone. Only a couple if that.

 

and would experience gain be adjustable if the goal is simply harder content, not the slowing down of content.

Adjustable in the sense that if you level down, you get a slight buff to EXP/cxp for the time and slightly increased difficulty.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Quraswren

[DWho]

It is something that could work although I think the people who want the content to be "harder" want it to be harder for everyone else and are not particularly interested in being challenged themselves (hence the unlikelihood the "button" would be used). I have done some experimenting on a new legacy and can tell you for a fact that as long as you keep your level and gear similar to the planet, there is challenge. Someone else in another thread was testing out the no gear and no companion hypothesis and was finding themselves sufficiently challenged (and even dying quite a bit). You're not in danger of dying in every battle (you never were before either) but you do have to stop after a couple of fights and "heal" up. If you set your comp to "heals" there is no danger at all but that is a choice you can make to make the content more difficult. People have stated that they can run around in no gear and no companion and have no challenge at all. What they never say is whether their level is comparable to the content or what the state of their legacy is. Playing a new character on my 6 year old nearly complete legacy is very different from playing one on my 2 week old legacy.

[Savej]

BW has to let people know that good things are coming; their communication is just bad. They say "quarterly updates" but we have to pull teeth to get them to even acknowledge when they are late and they always are. Last year was the only one we didn't get a major xpac and we didn't find out we were getting a merge INSTEAD until basically the end of the year with no official murmur saying 6.0 would ever even happen. That's not how Wow does it. Other than a new flashpoint that might be unplayable by random groups and conquest changes, what is there to stick around for? Edited January 5, 2018 by Savej