boo.. hisss.. crystal weekly

[olagatonjedi]

The players determine the health of the game, within the given world and ruleset. If all people want to do is Hammer Station, then that's on the players. All of the other FPs give the same completion of the quest, so its not for lack of available variety.

[Khevar]

The players determine the health of the game, within the given world and ruleset. If all people want to do is Hammer Station, then that's on the players. All of the other FPs give the same completion of the quest, so its not for lack of available variety.

That's a pretty glib response.

 

I returned to the game around 5.9.3, and I had plenty of variety in flashpoints that other players were willing to queue for. This was working well for me for about 2 months, actually.

 

Do you suppose the players changed?

Or did the game change, affecting the players' choices?

[olagatonjedi]

That's a pretty glib response.

 

I returned to the game around 5.9.3, and I had plenty of variety in flashpoints that other players were willing to queue for. This was working well for me for about 2 months, actually.

 

Do you suppose the players changed?

Or did the game change, affecting the players' choices?

Its cyclical based on what the population finds to be worth their time. If you watch the FP activity on certain conquest weeks, you will notice specific FPs pop more frequently too. Again, its based on what the playerbase finds important, and changes from week to week, expansion to expansion, update to update. People can run Ilum and get the conquest points or they can run Black Talon and not. People can run hammer station x4 times and get their MW shard, or they can try Crisis of Umbara x4 and walk away empty handed by failing it. Its the players choice.

 

Nobody is telling you to run HS x4 to complete ur quest, but there may not be 3 other people of the proper roles that are in agreement with running the FPs u want instead.

Edited January 8, 2019 by olagatonjedi

[Darevsool]

I find most people take the easiest path.

 

I didn't run 4x Hammer Station because I enjoy it. I did it because that's the fastest/easiest one for non stealthers

[Sareeph]

Its cyclical based on what the population finds to be worth their time. If you watch the FP activity on certain conquest weeks, you will notice specific FPs pop more frequently too. Again, its based on what the playerbase finds important, and changes from week to week, expansion to expansion, update to update. People can run Ilum and get the conquest points or they can run Black Talon and not. People can run hammer station x4 times and get their MW shard, or they can try Crisis of Umbara x4 and walk away empty handed by failing it. Its the players choice.

 

Nobody is telling you to run HS x4 to complete ur quest, but there may not be 3 other people of the proper roles that are in agreement with running the FPs u want instead.

 

Keep in mind that the OP states that the PvP quest is finished with one easy queue but the FP quest requires 4 completions and now... word has it that the GSF quest requires 3 wins. Not really comparable. Intentions to engage people in all aspects of the game aside, why are the parameters so different? 1 Wz, 4MM Fp's, 3 GSF wins. They do not equate.

[Darevsool]

I imagine they wanted to have things that are enjoyable in different areas of the game.

 

If there are players who play for GSF, it gives them a way to earn the crystals, albeit slowly.

 

For those that want to grind it out as fast as possible, it makes them play other parts of the game they wouldn't ordinarily touch...for me, right now, that's pvp/gsf.

[Sareeph]

I imagine they wanted to have things that are enjoyable in different areas of the game.

 

If there are players who play for GSF, it gives them a way to earn the crystals, albeit slowly.

 

For those that want to grind it out as fast as possible, it makes them play other parts of the game they wouldn't ordinarily touch...for me, right now, that's pvp/gsf.

 

Granted. Getting people to engage in other parts of the game isn't a bad idea to my mind. The question still stands though. Why (1) wz match win or lose, (4) fp's completed, (3) gsf wins? Where is the parity?

[Khevar]

Nobody is telling you to run HS x4 to complete ur quest, but there may not be 3 other people of the proper roles that are in agreement with running the FPs u want instead.

Just to be clear, what we have here is other players choosing to focus specifically on Hammer Station x4 (not me).

 

This happened most of this week, and most of last week, coinciding with the time-limited quest of 4 MM flashpoints. The previous 2 weeks there were few few MM pops at all, but that could be chalked up to people focusing on Ossus as new content.

 

I found this unfortunate, as being someone that chose to ignore the new 258 gear grind, doing Hammer Station x4 is not as enjoyable as doing variety of flashpoints. And excluding hammer station from my list of available flashpoints resulted in no pops at all during the time I had available to play.

 

It appears to me, that the current state of the game is such that I'm not finding other players who are interested in queueing for a variety of flashpoints, but are instead focusing almost exclusively on those that can be completed the quickest and least amount of effort, for the express purpose of grinding out the MWC rewards.

 

This is a change from what I experienced in the 2 months leading up to patch 5.10.

 

Therefore, seeing as this isn't my cup if tea, it's possible I'll have to take another extended break from this game until things change again.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Khevar

[olagatonjedi]

Keep in mind that the OP states that the PvP quest is finished with one easy queue but the FP quest requires 4 completions and now... word has it that the GSF quest requires 3 wins. Not really comparable. Intentions to engage people in all aspects of the game aside, why are the parameters so different? 1 Wz, 4MM Fp's, 3 GSF wins. They do not equate.

The difference in requirements leads me to believe they want certain areas of the game need more participation. Again, im not talking about alt participation, per se, but at least 75% of the player population that completes the quest at lesst once would incresse the overall participation significantly enough to show its active.

[olagatonjedi]

Just to be clear, what we have here is other players choosing to focus specifically on Hammer Station x4 (not me).

 

This happened most of this week, and most of last week, coinciding with the time-limited quest of 4 MM flashpoints. The previous 2 weeks there were few few MM pops at all, but that could be chalked up to people focusing on Ossus as new content.

 

I found this unfortunate, as being someone that chose to ignore the new 258 gear grind, doing Hammer Station x4 is not as enjoyable as doing variety of flashpoints. And excluding hammer station from my list of available flashpoints resulted in no pops at all during the time I had available to play.

 

It appears to me, that the current state of the game is such that I'm not finding other players who are interested in queueing for a variety of flashpoints, but are instead focusing almost exclusively on those that can be completed the quickest and least amount of effort, for the express purpose of grinding out the MWC rewards.

 

This is a change from what I experienced in the 2 months leading up to patch 5.10.

 

Therefore, seeing as this isn't my cup if tea, it's possible I'll have to take another extended break from this game until things change again.

That is a reasonable assessment, conclusion, and decision, imo.

[Kytsukie]

Too lazy to qoute others but to be clear, Im not complaining about the idea of doing 4 MMs. Im more than willing to work for my progress. Im pointing out that it is nearly impossible to get groups for it for some people (due to playtime/server/the moon hates you.)

 

Anyone want to sit thru 2hr 45min of fraps I shot today sitting in que and not getting a single pop?

 

As to the suggestion that the pvp weekly makes it too easy and insinuation alt friendly... I understand what you mean but also think about the game in its current state. By design SWTOR was made for having multiple alts. There is no denying that. Guaranteed that there is my altaholics in the game than endgame raiders or hardcore pvpers. To alienate players just because they prefer to develop multiple chars....

 

How many MMO have to repeat the same mistake of catering to the 1% of players till the industry stops to question how healthy the practice is. Especially when consider a game that survives off a cash shop. You want a player that is totally devoted to one or two chars.. or the altaholic thats buying outfits for 10 chars?

[aeterno]

Keep in mind that the OP states that the PvP quest is finished with one easy queue but the FP quest requires 4 completions and now... word has it that the GSF quest requires 3 wins. Not really comparable. Intentions to engage people in all aspects of the game aside, why are the parameters so different? 1 Wz, 4MM Fp's, 3 GSF wins. They do not equate.

 

I'm willing to wager the 8 medals PvP quest will never be returning with it's replacement being X WZ wins. Which will even the field.

[Kytsukie]

The difference in requirements leads me to believe they want certain areas of the game need more participation. Again, im not talking about alt participation, per se, but at least 75% of the player population that completes the quest at lesst once would incresse the overall participation significantly enough to show its active.

 

Something else youd think game devs would of learned over the years. If you have to try and induce (read force) players to participate in a given activity... it probably was not fun in the first place.

[Lhancelot]

Something else youd think game devs would of learned over the years. If you have to try and induce (read force) players to participate in a given activity... it probably was not fun in the first place.

 

Right. The smart thing to do, is to take notice what the players are enjoying most, and build on that, not require them to do parts of the game that seem to be the least played or least enjoyable to the players.

 

Either they are lazy and want to force you to do "content" that is old that you never did before because it was found to be bad, or they lack the funds to create more content so are forced to try to find new hoops and ladders for the players to work through.

 

The added insult to injury though is they actually alter and remove facets of the game that many people seem to enjoy and participate in, all the while then trying to force the players to do parts of the game they never did much of or disliked doing. It's idiotic tbh.

 

Quick history lesson for SWTOR: They gutted and removed a gearing system that was enjoyable and fun, they made the gearing system less customizable with every patch after 4.0, they gutted and destroyed conquest making it an abomination of what it once was pushing players off the game, and they just continue going this route with locked in mods making the gears even more cookie cutter than ever with stats that eliminate the ability to actually min/max. It's as if the devs don't even know proper stat allocation for their own classes in the game.

 

Oh well. It's so far past the point of return now I think most vets who value gameplay above all else have grown weary and fed up.

 

Too bad, was once a great game, now has become a shell of itself. Luckily, the original dev work will carry this game for a long time still, the original chapters and artwork within the game are beautifully done and any new person will find it engaging, until they begin creating alts and start focusing on gearing up, or decide to get into conquest. These important areas are badly developed and to be honest simply not enjoyable facets of the game.

[Seterade]

Im boycotting this new one.

 

I have never played gsf in 5 years of playing and Im not starting now. no.

[Lhancelot]

Im boycotting this new one.

 

I have never played gsf in 5 years of playing and Im not starting now. no.

 

I tried it ages ago, but only versus the game, never against other players. It didn't engage me solo, so never felt like trying it against others.

[DawnAskham]

Right. The smart thing to do, is to take notice what the players are enjoying most, and build on that, not require them to do parts of the game that seem to be the least played or least enjoyable to the players.

 

Either they are lazy and want to force you to do "content" that is old that you never did before because it was found to be bad, or they lack the funds to create more content so are forced to try to find new hoops and ladders for the players to work through.

 

The added insult to injury though is they actually alter and remove facets of the game that many people seem to enjoy and participate in, all the while then trying to force the players to do parts of the game they never did much of or disliked doing. It's idiotic tbh.

 

Quick history lesson for SWTOR: They gutted and removed a gearing system that was enjoyable and fun, they made the gearing system less customizable with every patch after 4.0, they gutted and destroyed conquest making it an abomination of what it once was pushing players off the game, and they just continue going this route with locked in mods making the gears even more cookie cutter than ever with stats that eliminate the ability to actually min/max. It's as if the devs don't even know proper stat allocation for their own classes in the game.

 

Oh well. It's so far past the point of return now I think most vets who value gameplay above all else have grown weary and fed up.

 

Too bad, was once a great game, now has become a shell of itself. Luckily, the original dev work will carry this game for a long time still, the original chapters and artwork within the game are beautifully done and any new person will find it engaging, until they begin creating alts and start focusing on gearing up, or decide to get into conquest. These important areas are badly developed and to be honest simply not enjoyable facets of the game.

 

I came back to check out the new content - was enjoyable though short and shallow.

 

Sadly as I've completed all the legacy content multiple times (played every class story multiple times over the years, completed every FP and Op, completed the newer stuff), there is little for me besides new content and repeatable activities.

 

When the new content takes only a couple hours max to play through on both sides, and the repeatable activities have been padded out with increased RNG, boring repetitive activities, time sinks, annoyances, and filler I do not enjoy, there is little reason to stick around.

 

I do encourage and suggest others to give the game a try, and realize if someone enjoys the game and hasn't played for years, there is enough content to keep occupied for quite a few months.

 

But that just isn't enough for me as the only content I haven't complete is the high difficulty version of gods, which since no one I know will return to play might as well not exist - not to mention the progression thread shows like 10 groups across all servers (8 player mode so 80 players - seems pretty stupid to create content for 80 people), with most only having a boss or two down.

 

I'll check back if and when more content is launched.

 

NOTE: the one boss instance on the PTS which is easy for SM (with useless rewards) and most likely over-tuned for HM (relative to the current average player base) is not enough for me to stick around / return.

 

I would, however, pay for a full expansion with new story, new planet(s), new FPs, and at least one new Op.

Edited January 8, 2019 by DawnAskham

[olagatonjedi]

Something else youd think game devs would of learned over the years. If you have to try and induce (read force) players to participate in a given activity... it probably was not fun in the first place.

The suspected problems of todays game were inherited by these devs, so its not fair to put the failures of the old content on them. They have to try different things to bring people back to them, while still maintaining balance and integrity within the game. By all means they could neglect old content, but thats just a poor decision because you already have it, so why waste whats already been made and inherited? Thats why more and more companies are level syncing, and re-using starter areas that are generally forgotten and wasted after initial development and release. That leads to loot systens like command crates that can be acquired through all content.

 

So yeah, there may be problems with old content that never got fixed, but at least they are trying to put it to use.

[Dweessies]

Im boycotting this new one.

 

I have never played gsf in 5 years of playing and Im not starting now. no.

 

I tried playing it once. That was more than enough. It's becoming more and more apparent that the dev. team has no idea what the heck they're doing. The time needed to get 3 GSF pops is ridiculous, let alone 3 wins against people who've figured out how GSF works. Not to mention the insanity of trying to get 4 MM flashpoint pops for the last one.

 

Are they randomly generating both the activities and the number of them required? I thought Ben and his love for RNG had moved on.

[Kytsukie]

The suspected problems of todays game were inherited by these devs, so its not fair to put the failures of the old content on them. They have to try different things to bring people back to them, while still maintaining balance and integrity within the game. By all means they could neglect old content, but thats just a poor decision because you already have it, so why waste whats already been made and inherited? Thats why more and more companies are level syncing, and re-using starter areas that are generally forgotten and wasted after initial development and release. That leads to loot systens like command crates that can be acquired through all content.

 

So yeah, there may be problems with old content that never got fixed, but at least they are trying to put it to use.

 

One thing has nothing to do with the other. We are not talking about making planets re-playable. They are trying to force people to get into GSF which is pretty much a failure. Pushing people to get into it wont work, only going to cause a backlash. I watch chat and see soooo much hate and refusal to even do it.

[olagatonjedi]

One thing has nothing to do with the other. We are not talking about making planets re-playable. They are trying to force people to get into GSF which is pretty much a failure. Pushing people to get into it wont work, only going to cause a backlash. I watch chat and see soooo much hate and refusal to even do it.

Honestly the only negatives ive seen in general chat today have been about it not counting the wins, not about having to participate in the GSF.

[TrixxieTriss]

He's in a large progression guild. Catered to PvP is a good laugh, though.

 

Ive got it on good authority (not going to name names) from someone in his guild that they are hardcore progressive ops guys and “some” will casually pvp on the side.

It’s why Keith dropped the MM ops with no warning onto the operations designer in 5.10 with zero planning for it. They even said in the past there would never be a MM for that particular OP. During the live stream the dev said Keith just wanted it so they had to do it (nepotism much?)

This leads me to believe that most of 5.10 gearing changes were to accomodate Keith’s guild and others like them and the excessive grind was an excuse given to upper management to hide that fact. Maybe the grind part is partially true and fits their silly philosophy that grind makes people play more. But is obviousness the idea was rushed and poorly thought out. The bugs in it and quick changes from the pts or not on the pts show how piece meal the process was.

Blaming pvpers this time around is so far from reality that it’s sad to think pvp haters will try and stretch their arguments everytime to put the blame squarely on pvp. Next thing theyll start blaming pvpers for bad story or art bugs.

Edited January 9, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

The suspected problems of todays game were inherited by these devs, so its not fair to put the failures of the old content on them. They have to try different things to bring people back to them, while still maintaining balance and integrity within the game. By all means they could neglect old content, but thats just a poor decision because you already have it, so why waste whats already been made and inherited? Thats why more and more companies are level syncing, and re-using starter areas that are generally forgotten and wasted after initial development and release. That leads to loot systens like command crates that can be acquired through all content.

 

So yeah, there may be problems with old content that never got fixed, but at least they are trying to put it to use.

 

While that maybe true, building on a faulty system that makes it worse everytime they release new content is a recipe for disaster or atleast more bugs and desync.

I understand they need to keep developing to keep the game active, but breaking one thing (that was fine) to make another thing or change work (that may not have been needed) is the wrong way to do it. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it or change it.

 

I actually agree with you for once (shocked), thats probably why they try not to touch older content, but that doesn’t mean they don’t accidentally break it when adding new content. That is where they should draw the line. If it breaks old content, they should remove or back up on what they are trying to implement.

 

I obviously believe they don’t intend to cause bugs to older systems or legacy parts of the game, but when they create new stuff and discover bugs, I do believe they weigh up leaving the old bugs in favour of trying to debug their newer content. This is why older parts that were previously stable or mostly bug free have now gotten worse with bugs. In this case I’m referring to pvp and the continued escalation of bugs and dysnc everytime they add any new content and not just pvp changes or content. When they changed conquest in March last year it added a bunch more dysnc to the pvp game.

 

I know the early Devs made a Frankenstein monster with the alpha hero engine and the Devs can’t even get the Hero guys to help because it’s so different that it’s basically it’s own engine now.

The only way they can decipher it all would be to get some of those early guys back to try and explain it properly and unravel it. But even that would be a long shot because the Devs since then have been making their own changes ontop of already unstable changes. The whole system is a house of cards just waiting for one over balanced expansion or patch to make it tumble down and permanently break it.

 

Currently the game doesn’t even have the money to hire those early guys back (on a consultant role), that’s if they’d come back after getting burned by EA and shoved out the door months after the game was released.

The only way to make this game stable again would be a total rebuild on a new engine. Which I think we all know will never happen. The best thing would be for them to use a clean slate and just make swtor 2, but once again we know that won’t happen.

 

So the best thing we can hope for is they take more care, have more extensive testing over longer periods, include more content on the pts to test (even if it means people signing NDAs), and most importantly they need to listen to those testers and feed back from the players taking the time to test.

If your testers tell you a system is borked or will have a massive negative affect on player enjoyment and retention, they need to listen and make appropriate changes to fix that. Even if it means a longer development cycle because they need to back track on bad ideas or implementation.

 

I think the majority would prefer them to test more instead of releasing live content with lots of bugs so the whole game’s population can beta test for them. That’s obviously my opinion, but I don’t think you’ll get much argument from anyone contradicting that specific point of view.

 

It’s also illogical to keep making the same mistake every year and think they will get a different result. End of year content for the holiday period should never be dropped in December if they are then going to go on holidays and not fix it. The development cycle needs to be changed so that the content is released in Early/mid Novemeber and then they have 6-7 weeks to fix anything that needs fixing. And if they do the pre-testing for longer and more in-depth before they released and listened to feed back, there would be less bugs and design problems to start with.

 

More proper consultation with parts of the community is how you stop making content and design mistakes. Listening to the influencers who are mostly “yes” men, is the worst possible way to get real feed back. “Yes men” think Bioware can do no wrong and tell them they are right most of the time. They are the ones who white knight the forums (such as yourself) and defend Bioware in the face of overwhelming dissatisfaction at Bioware. And that is why we have so many problems. Bioware only listen to people who tell them they are right all the time through hero worship or who are too scared to criticise Bioware because they may lose their influencer status (like happened in the past to some who told Bioware some hard truths they didn’t want to hear).

 

The other problem are the forums trolls who defend Bioware just to upset people. Bioware can’t tell the difference between these guys and the white knights and so think they must be doing a good job. These trolls do just as much harm to the game as the white knights bowing to their Bioware heroes. If they loved the game as much as the rest of us they would stop trolling ledgitmate player concerns (and threads) and leave their deviate behaviour for threads that aren’t ones that are trying to tell Bioware they ****ed up and they need to make changes.

It’s counter productive to constantly argue with the overwhelming majority’s displease at Bioware through out a whole thread just to troll the majority of the population. If trolls really loved the game like they say they do, they would understand all of this and leave well enough along.

 

There are also plenty of people in the game that know how to play it better than Bioware. They know what’s fun and they are usually publicly involved with the community and have their finger on the pulse (so to speak). These are the real influencers and constructive critics of the game. These are the people that Bioware should have been approaching to float ideas with or to do testing. But I know they aren’t, atleast not with the pvp community. Im sure Keith can use his guild to do the MM Operations testing.

[TrixxieTriss]

Honestly the only negatives ive seen in general chat today have been about it not counting the wins, not about having to participate in the GSF.

 

That’s cause people have moved on from GSF and only those small dedicated GSF players discuss much in gen chat.

So trying to get people to play it by strong arming them isn’t doing Bioware any favours. People don’t play it because they hate it. It was poorly designed and not at all what a bunch of people wanted. It doesn’t even have joystick support.

I had lots of friends who didn’t need play swtor who were ready to when they heard about the GSF expansion coming. We all expected some sort of clone or remake of the old Xwing vs Tie Fighter series. When that didn’t happen they didn’t even bother trying the game. Bioware missed a massive opportunity with GSF and it’s probably the worst expansion they’ve added to the game that could have brought in a lot of new players.

[olagatonjedi]

While that maybe true, building on a faulty system that makes it worse everytime they release new content is a recipe for disaster or atleast more bugs and desync.

I understand they need to keep developing to keep the game active, but breaking one thing (that was fine) to make another thing or change work (that may not have been needed) is the wrong way to do it. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it or change it.

 

I actually agree with you for once (shocked), thats probably why they try not to touch older content, but that doesn’t mean they don’t accidentally break it when adding new content. That is where they should draw the line. If it breaks old content, they should remove or back up on what they are trying to implement.

 

I obviously believe they don’t intend to cause bugs to older systems or legacy parts of the game, but when they create new stuff and discover bugs, I do believe they weigh up leaving the old bugs in favour of trying to debug their newer content. This is why older parts that were previously stable or mostly bug free have now gotten worse with bugs. In this case I’m referring to pvp and the continued escalation of bugs and dysnc everytime they add any new content and not just pvp changes or content. When they changed conquest in March last year it added a bunch more dysnc to the pvp game.

 

I know the early Devs made a Frankenstein monster with the alpha hero engine and the Devs can’t even get the Hero guys to help because it’s so different that it’s basically it’s own engine now.

The only way they can decipher it all would be to get some of those early guys back to try and explain it properly and unravel it. But even that would be a long shot because the Devs since then have been making their own changes ontop of already unstable changes. The whole system is a house of cards just waiting for one over balanced expansion or patch to make it tumble down and permanently break it.

 

Currently the game doesn’t even have the money to hire those early guys back (on a consultant role), that’s if they’d come back after getting burned by EA and shoved out the door months after the game was released.

The only way to make this game stable again would be a total rebuild on a new engine. Which I think we all know will never happen. The best thing would be for them to use a clean slate and just make swtor 2, but once again we know that won’t happen.

 

So the best thing we can hope for is they take more care, have more extensive testing over longer periods, include more content on the pts to test (even if it means people signing NDAs), and most importantly they need to listen to those testers and feed back from the players taking the time to test.

If your testers tell you a system is borked or will have a massive negative affect on player enjoyment and retention, they need to listen and make appropriate changes to fix that. Even if it means a longer development cycle because they need to back track on bad ideas or implementation.

 

I think the majority would prefer them to test more instead of releasing live content with lots of bugs so the whole game’s population can beta test for them. That’s obviously my opinion, but I don’t think you’ll get much argument from anyone contradicting that specific point of view.

 

It’s also illogical to keep making the same mistake every year and think they will get a different result. End of year content for the holiday period should never be dropped in December if they are then going to go on holidays and not fix it. The development cycle needs to be changed so that the content is released in Early/mid Novemeber and then they have 6-7 weeks to fix anything that needs fixing. And if they do the pre-testing for longer and more in-depth before they released and listened to feed back, there would be less bugs and design problems to start with.

 

More proper consultation with parts of the community is how you stop making content and design mistakes. Listening to the influencers who are mostly “yes” men, is the worst possible way to get real feed back. “Yes men” think Bioware can do no wrong and tell them they are right most of the time. They are the ones who white knight the forums (such as yourself) and defend Bioware in the face of overwhelming dissatisfaction at Bioware. And that is why we have so many problems. Bioware only listen to people who tell them they are right all the time through hero worship or who are too scared to criticise Bioware because they may lose their influencer status (like happened in the past to some who told Bioware some hard truths they didn’t want to hear).

 

The other problem are the forums trolls who defend Bioware just to upset people. Bioware can’t tell the difference between these guys and the white knights and so think they must be doing a good job. These trolls do just as much harm to the game as the white knights bowing to their Bioware heroes. If they loved the game as much as the rest of us they would stop trolling ledgitmate player concerns (and threads) and leave their deviate behaviour for threads that aren’t ones that are trying to tell Bioware they ****ed up and they need to make changes.

It’s counter productive to constantly argue with the overwhelming majority’s displease at Bioware through out a whole thread just to troll the majority of the population. If trolls really loved the game like they say they do, they would understand all of this and leave well enough along.

 

There are also plenty of people in the game that know how to play it better than Bioware. They know what’s fun and they are usually publicly involved with the community and have their finger on the pulse (so to speak). These are the real influencers and constructive critics of the game. These are the people that Bioware should have been approaching to float ideas with or to do testing. But I know they aren’t, atleast not with the pvp community. Im sure Keith can use his guild to do the MM Operations testing.

I see every patch, every update, every expansion as a way for the new dev team to learn more and more about the Hero engine, and have the intention to eventually fix what is wrong. Its an ongoing process, just as anything related to development.

 

Bugs happen, and it may be caused by any number of reasons related to sloppy programming to testing for a fix to unintended outcomes - you name it. Something that is often overlooked in the grand scheme is that many older bugs have been getting fixed pretty frequently by the current dev team. The focus, however, is always on new bugs that arise. New bugs are frustrating, but again, they are still learning the engine.

And the fact that they are addressing many old bugs gives me confidence that they are working to truly make the game more stable over the long haul. It is delusional to think it will happen overnight, or that new bugs will never be introduced, but at least the sign of progress is still there. The thing about mistakes is that they are learning opportunities. Mistakes arent always a bad thing, again a matter of perspective. I guess im a glass half full kind of person.

 

The game is dynamic, and imperfect, which means that getting content out at a relatively reasonable pace, even with new bugs, is a top priority. The dynamic nature of MMOs designed to appeal to a variety of player interests indicates that fixes will happen at different intervals and focii, and changes that may not be popular by a certain portion of the population may happen too. Nothing that was in the original packaging of the game told its players that the game would always be fun for you, that the game would promise you anything specific, or that the game would provide instant gratification. They advertised an MMO that was set in the star wars theme - thats about all they have to live up to. Everything else they have provided over the years is bonus content, tbh. For that reason, its evident, even in its current form, and with all the naysayers (not the majority of players) that swtor is a success.

 

MMO companies dont grade themselves every day or every week. They understand that business success is longevity. One change might lose thousands of players, but the game will still be up and running later that year when something else is introduced in game and draws either new players or those old players back. People, in this era, tend to overreact and have a hot take on everything THIS moment, rather than seeing the big picture and looking at longevity. The news media and social media is filled with this behavior, and it doesnt make it accurate. If you have ever watch/listen to sports, and sports talk shows, you may realize this. Every day, every week, some analyst has a brand new pick for who will win the world championship at the end of the year. If you go back and check who picked who during the entire year, you will find that maybe 5% of PROFESSIONAL analysts are actually right with their "informed and educated" hot take. Too many people speaking about something without true knowledge about of it, and most times without looking at any big picture, just the here and now. Thats a problem i see a lot on these forums, and in RL conversations, social media.