Gathering Feedback

[Lhancelot]

Please start having a real, non-marketing focused, community management team whose priority is to respond to the players taking their time to write out detailed and well thought out posts.

 

This is what my novel I mean post meant to say in a nutshell. ^

 

 

The pattern of communication on the forums is this:

 

 

1. Game has problem

2. Players write on forums about problem

3. Days, weeks, months go by with no response to players about problem

4. Meltdowns occur, players quit, players become enraged on the forums over the problem

5. A response to concerns is given with a potential time when it maybe addressed

 

 

There should be some sort of recognition on BW's part on the forums between 2 and 3 above, this response should not be the 5th step in the process.

 

Like Snave says, why not have some Community Management members from BW responsible for communicating directly and often with the playerbase?

[Seterade]

I have one piece of advice that will do worlds of good for you... trust me. Start responding directly to suggestions and ideas. Explain your decisions, ask for help with class balance. Because you seem to be of the opinion that you're up in your ivory tower looking down on all your tax payers you seem oblivious to the state of your game... which I promise you, is not in a good place right now. Edited February 22, 2019 by Seterade

[JakRoanin]

How about once a week you guys pick an aspect of the game and have the person in charge open a thread and say "This is a Q&A + Issues you want to talk about thread. Then set a rotation. That way people concerned with Gearing know when that week will come, or PVP, or Story, or SH's, or OPS, etc. etc. BUT the Dev in charge MUST RESPOND.

[Keta]

Failure to communicate with the players in this game is a long time systemic problem at Bioware. It goes back to early beta in fact. It continues today. Are you really trying to change things? Trying to change our perception without changing a thing? Or just trying to gloss over the corporate culture regarding player communication?

[snave]

Failure to communicate with the players in this game is a long time systemic problem at Bioware. It goes back to early beta in fact. It continues today. Are you really trying to change things? Trying to change our perception without changing a thing? Or just trying to gloss over the corporate culture regarding player communication?

 

As Eric repeated ad nauseam during his streams leading up to 5.0 - Perception is reality.

 

It's another marketing approach to a product problem. This video explains this approach and why it results in the situation we're in now quite well - https://youtu.be/xjvgpumG2mg

 

You can see this occurring all over the gaming landscape at the moment. Have a look at what's going on with Blizzard.

[sdom]

Hey folks,

 

I wanted to kick off a thread and add some clarity on influencers plus seek out some feedback on… feedback (the influencer topic came up here). First, the clarity. I think there became a misconception that we are in constant communication about game updates or future content with the influencers that the rest of the players aren’t receiving, this isn’t true. Since they are under NDA there are situations that they may hear info earlier or be a sounding board for ideas, but it is extremely infrequent. A lot of our communications happening with them in their forum is logistical (sharing their content, etc). Second, is the feeling that we weigh their feedback more than other players, which is also not true. The influencers are a great source of a snapshot of their community, so they can give us a feedback from a number of players at once. However, this in no way means that we weigh the feedback that comes from them differently then the feedback we receive here on the forums, on reddit, from PTS, social media, or any other sources.

 

I definitely hear the genuine concern though that we, BioWare, are not gathering your feedback as much as you want us to be. This is something that over the past year or so we have really made a lot of strides to improve and so the question I want to pose is how we can improve further! Let me talk about the various sources that we collect and respond to feedback, and based on that, let’s talk about how we can get better.

• PTS – This is one of the places we have put some of the largest efforts. This started in earnest with 5.9.2. Once an update goes on PTS the team has been fairly ravenous in grabbing any and all feedback we can get. This goes from bugs to general change requests. We can’t always account for all feedback and sometimes it may be at odds with design goals, but the team works to change as much as we can before we launch it. We have similarly moved away from announcing specific launch dates so that we can work with you during PTS to get the update to a good place before going live.
  
• Forum posts – In some cases we either won’t have enough time on PTS to get meaningful feedback or it isn’t something that will go on PTS at all. In these instances we have been trying to make detailed forum posts to highlight exactly what you can expect, so we can gather feedback even without your ability to get hands on (think of the Guild Perks posts).
  
• General feedback – This is a constant stream of feedback coming from you, the players, to us. This comes from a large number of sources but primarily here on the forums, Reddit, and social media.
  
• Planned feedback sessions – These can happen in a few different forms. We used to more prominently use PTS in a closed environment under NDA, although we have moved away from it. We also will host focus testing sessions. Most commonly these are in Austin but we have hosted them all over the world. They are hand-recruited sessions under NDA, typically very early in the process.
  
• Data – This isn’t feedback, but, data is very important in our feedback cycle as we will compare the information we are receiving from any sources to what we are seeing in the behavior of players.

 

With all of that out there… how can we improve? I know our feedback loop is by no means perfect, but being able to gather your feedback consistently for each update on PTS has helped us quite a bit in getting direct feedback from you. Share your thoughts!

 

Thanks all.

 

-eric

 

How's this for "feedback".

 

• It takes your team around an average of a week to respond to most tickets, frequently longer in a lot of cases
  
• On an administration level, even the times that tell you when to contact customer support, at least in the context of the UK, is incorrect, and the thread you link everyone to by default is outdated every time we move in to a cycle where the clocks move forward.
  
• Your terms of service team understand absolutely nothing about the concept of context, and frequently pull players for ridiculous things like chat profanity, when there is a profanity filter
  
• When questioned, your team does not have a process in place for consumer rights which is of course, against trading standards laws
  
• Your customer service team are both rude and robotic. They stick to a set script and have no problems speaking over you on the phone which is extremely ignorant and unprofessional
  
• Your account disputes team have never used one ounce of common sense to convey a judgement on a dispute issue, even once in their lives
  

 

How about see instead of focusing on a game that is largely complained about as being incompetent in a lot of areas, FIX YOUR OWN HOUSE. That way you'll actually have a working hierarchy that can cope with the needs of the product you are trying to build. Your english based customer support team aren't even properly fluent in the language that's allocated to them, and I'm sick of having to foxtrot umbrella charlie kolto indica norway gamma spell it out to them every time i need help with an account issue.

 

Outside of the fact they compromise your entire company's legal standing, it would also be nice to speak to someone capable of giving the customer support. I think you've assessed the major problems in your game as mechanics based, which is incorrect in my books. Your real problem is you're short of the right talent at your back end across the board and you're trying to achieve great results with a less than great workforce.

[Jyroshi]

As others have said - respond on topics, feedback should not be one way. Especially after bigger updates..

 

This does not mean you have to argue in dept about all the details. Just acknowledge you read something and will internally discuss some issue. If possible give us an timeframe when to expect new info for it, or post updates on the topic.

Try to explain your reason / decission why you changed something in the way it is or why you won't change it.

 

Perhaps make a list (like for the known bugs) and let us know on which issues you're working or collect the most urgent problems.

 

TLDR:

Make me feel it's worth my time to write my opinion and give my feedback to you ;-)

[DarthSpuds]

I'd be inclined to give balanced, informed and structured feedback if there was even one iota of evidence that Bioware actually listens to that feedback. Command Crates, Conquest, and Slot Locked Mods is all indicative that they don't.

 

I predict this is a "make them think we care by asking for feedback, it worked last time" type of thread.

 

Here's the ONLY bit of Feedback Bioware needs to be able to understand that they are repeatedly, and serially wrong in the decisions they make.

 

We used to have over 200 Servers, now we have 6.

 

Until Bioware is honest enough to shoulder the blame for that more feedback will be as pointless as all previous feedback.

 

 

All The Best

[Paulsutherland]

Why don't you do what Star Trek Online does? Whenever new content is released, start a thread here asking for peoples opinions on whatever said content is?

[Lhancelot]

As Eric repeated ad nauseam during his streams leading up to 5.0 - Perception is reality.

 

It's another marketing approach to a product problem. This video explains this approach and why it results in the situation we're in now quite well - https://youtu.be/xjvgpumG2mg

 

You can see this occurring all over the gaming landscape at the moment. Have a look at what's going on with Blizzard.

 

Hopefully that's not a representation of what is going on here.

 

If that is what is going on here, well I am sad. If that's the case, I guess we have to hope a new gaming company rises up with a new product, a new game that isn't being created by a marketing department.

 

Basically an outlier that isn't one of the main monopolies controlling the gaming market would have to put a new game out for things to be different I guess?

[TheAresian]

One incident above all others for me tells me how BioWare feels about its players. It's one I've brought up many times and one I'll keep bringing up. Back when the CXP system first started there was a massive nerf to CXP as a result of some eager beaver supposedly powering up to level 100 in a day or two. During the stream, a member of the streaming panel who shall not be named said that the players weren't playing the game the way BioWare felt it should be played.

 

In other words, what we want means nothing to them. Our feedback is meaningless because they already have an idea of how things are going to be and that's that. We post because we care about the game, but I haven't seen anything from BioWare that's lead me to believe that anything has changed since then.

[snave]

Hopefully that's not a representation of what is going on here.

 

If that is what is going on here, well I am sad. If that's the case, I guess we have to hope a new gaming company rises up with a new product, a new game that isn't being created by a marketing department.

 

Basically an outlier that isn't one of the main monopolies controlling the gaming market would have to put a new game out for things to be different I guess?

 

It's 100% what's happening here.

 

Focus for this game is now virtually all based around marketing, you cannot make the argument they're trying to use a product based solution when the product is receiving small irregular updates that are pushed with as much hype as possible.

 

The CM team is a marketing extension which means they are concerned with the public perception, not the reality. Why do you think we've had little to no community management? Once 6.0 is announced that will change and the CM team will work in conjunction with the assigned influencers to push whatever narrative they feel will sell the game.

 

Ossus is a time-gated mess implemented to keep people busy repeating the same content over and over until they can drop the next hype bomb that will keep you subbed for 3 months more. It's the most obvious use of loss aversion and time gating I've ever seen in any video game that isn't mobile based.

 

BTW I'm not against marketing approaches, but they need to be balanced if you want to succeed in more than just the short term.

 

We have no innovation, we have regression.

[AOrdo]

I've read all the messages here and a conclusion is obvious whoever your influencers are they are not doing their job right of relying the good message to/from the community. Several problems seems to have been adressed to you and neither had been solved. The game still developp away from the players opinion (and as a result less player on the servers).

Simple things could be done and many before have already gave the answers. Listen more , just admit that while you developp the game it have to be made for the players pleasure and not only for business decisions. Balance that as a first. I don't mind paying for stuff but only if it's worth it.

- Blue mandalorian armor NPC-like have been asked since day one and still nothing. Not even a word on it. That clearly speak about your communication methods.

Have fun since you asked our opinion you'll have a direct reality check ^^

[Costello]

I'm going to hold back on my natural cynicism that 7+ years on these forums has breed and hope that this isn't a 'we promise better communication post' and is genuinely a forward looking and positive post. Please don't let me be wrong.

 

First Lets look at what Star Wars The Old Republic does better than any other MMO out there (lets not pretend there aren't other MMO's).

 

Story, Companions, connection to the world/history, dialogue, NPCs with personality. In all of these aspects, there isn't much out there that can compare, sure The Secret World did well on story, but your playing a mute, sure Elder Scrolls online does well on world lore and NPCs with personaility. But here we have characters we are invested in, a world that we helped forge (not literally), companions and romances etc etc. And what feedback do you take on these, None.

 

That maybe a little unfair, as changes were made in the Knights of series, but rather than get feedback you sought of looked like you saw what was happening and reacted, cutting it short. Which is strange because the concept worked, in fact I'd say it was great, what failed miserably was the content of the story. After an Initial 9 chapters some amazing, i.e. fight with Marr on his flagship, escaping from prison, battling an underworld cult etc and some not so good you then had us wait was it months and then get one of the most boring chapters imagined, running round after 'Firebrand' planting bombs etc that seemed to do nothing to advance the story and not even a very interesting companion that many would probably not have recruited. Next after a month was running round after Major paws being dictated to by him accomplishing nothing. We have all the galaxy to explore, a story that could go anywhere, 34 or so companions to pick from and thats the options, maybe some feedback could have given a list of 10 must return characters.

 

Now I'm not saying an Immortal Emperor or Zakuul would necessarily been my first choice of where to take the story but the concept of what you achieved was pretty amazing, sadly the execution didn't really deliver. Now instead of looking at what didn't work, the plot holes, the down right *** moments none of this seems to be tested or feedback sought and you scrapped the concept rushing the story with more plot hokes and *** moments. Now there are so many plot holes that I would love covered, we all know the explanations would be a what if machine of well if this happened, then this could have happened and then this... but just take Vaylins final fight, shes had her chains broken, her own guard has never seen anything like her power before (a guard given his age had seen Valkorian). So someone that you would never stand a chance against at every moment before in the story and needed to use her conditioning to survive. Now when she is more powerful and nothing has changed with you, you can defeat her and push through her bubble. What changed, she was more powerful than the last time when Valky Sue had to time stop to save you...

 

Things that sadly the game doesn't do so well. Well exploration, the graphics were cartoonish at the start 7 years ago, if I want to explore mythical lands I'm better off in Elder Scrolls online. So as much as I want to be on Tatooine etc you have a hurdle to make that come to life. Then most areas are completely filled with enemy mobs making any exploration a chore. PvP its all warzones and Arena's which if your into that great but the engine couldn't cope with open world PvP; so the PvP on offer isn't the epic battles which leads to balancing and gear and win trading and a certain level of elitism. Which is fair you are taking up a slot, so if your letting your team down they have every right to feel your costing them the match. High end group content, now the combat engine isn't the greatest focusing so much on rotations, then there is ability bloat I can't think of many games with so many abilities to rotate through, but the engine aside, the big issue is most high end ops are about learning mechanics. There not often intuitive relying on either a guide or trial and error to get through. I don't know how many people still do progression raiding or even high end raiding; I suspect not as many, its much harder to find guides and if anyone is crazy enough to try VM with a PUG they are likely to regret it. Most the time the screen is filled with stuff, all the while your hoping to look out for a cast bar to interrupt or whatever, while most runs are about wiping until things come together. What also disappointing is that people can't just come across a group fighting a world boss and jump in, its invites only, its balanced for x tanks, x dps, x healer etc there is nothing dynamic or open world jump in and enjoy about it.

 

And what do the things that are often not done so well, due to in most caaes the limitations of the beta hero engine and cool down centric rotation combat, have in common. They are the things that appear on the PTS and you may look to take some feedback on. So you have elite PvPers and Progression Raid teams giving you feedback almost exclusively. On aspects that probably aren't the core identity of the game or what drawn people to a Bioware MMO, I understand Anthem doesn't even have PvP (though could be wrong as that might have been someone ranting), but this would suggest how big a markets it seems to be for Bioware games. While you know how many progression raiders you have and how much revenue they bring to the game. And thats probably accepting that after so little to do for so long people will just try out what content is available just for something to do. How many people rushed to complete the story in the first week vs try out GOTM NIM in the first week?

 

But I think you have to accept that there is going to be a fair level of cynicism given how much time seemed to be devoted to Vet or NIM content. We got told there wasn't going to be a NIM GOTM, the data didn't support it. Keith then came in and said do it, probably based on his progression raid guild and so GOTM got a higher difficulty level. Based on data? Based on feedback that it was what was best for the game? Based on Keith's progression group? And then all that seems to get tested is that, then the next thing to get tested is the Colicode Queen op boss. Where is the feedback coming that these were the best use of what appears to be almost no resources.

[EricMusco]

Hi Eric, thanks for entering the forums to discuss this topic.

 

The biggest complaint I personally have is the slow acknowledgement of people's concerns regarding new game changes that are viewed unfavorably by a lot of players, or the lack of acknowledgement of real gamebreaking issues in the game.

 

I realize that it's impossible for you or your team to directly communicate with every single player who complains or writes something critical of the game, but when a large group of people are making the same complaint a simple acknowledgement on the forums would go a long way.

 

An example of this is how ranked is filled with wintraders, quitters, etc. A very active discussion has been going on in the PVP section for weeks, even months about how the ELO system is manipulated and players are having their games ruined by cheaters who have a real lock down on the ranked matches now.

 

This is just an example of where some very passionate players are expressing their real concerns about how the game is being ruined for them due to the entire system of ranked scoring is not working due to cheaters. I personally don't participate in ranked much, but it's disheartening to see these very passionate players expressing their frustrations with absolutely no acknowledgement from anyone that could help them or at least acknowledge the problem is being looked into.

 

Maybe on your part, you feel it should be understood that of course you guys are trying to work on fixing the issues in ranked. To the players though, by not responding to anything written on that topic in that section it makes it seem like you guys don't care. The joke is that if you want to write something and not have it read by BW, write it in the PVP section because it's like a graveyard there for dead posts and threads. There are never any responses in yellow text there, ever. I just wonder why?

 

My point is, why not drop in to that section and let people know you guys hear them? Just one post letting them know you guys are reading what these players write would go a long way in assuaging their anger and disappointment at the present state of ranked and it's scoring system that is so easily manipulated. I don't think you understand how much a response from you or someone on your team means to the players here in all sections of the forums. (I speak for all the sections, not just the PVP section of course.)

 

By not responding to problems brought up in the forums, the anger of the players only snowballs, and then their anger at the problem initially written about turns to resentment for BW because it appears by not responding at all, you guys don't care. Then as time goes on, some players become apathetic to the problem, and either change activities in the game, or even worse quit. If it seems that the player's concerns are not valued, naturally players stop caring and/or playing.

 

I only use the ranked situation as an example, because there's a lot of discussion there that includes ideas on how to solve the problems of cheaters in ranked, and in my eyes it seems like if you guys are not reading those posts/threads you are missing a lot of potentially useful information and ideas on how to improve that part of the game.

 

I guess my main point is instead of letting resentment and anger build to a crescendo, a simple yellow texted post from you or someone on your team really would alleviate a ton of pressure that only builds as time goes on with no responses from you guys.

 

One reason the forums are not as active as they could be is that it really seems it's just a place where players can chat with one another about the game, but no one takes it seriously as a place where we can have meaningful interaction with you or anyone for that matter from BW.

 

 

My questions are:

 

 

• 
   
  
• Is it possible that you guys can be more active on the forums?
   
   
  
• If it's not possible for you to be more active on the forums, is there a better platform where we can reach you and know that you are reading and taking in what we write?
   
   
  
• If there is another platform for communication between players and BW for SWTOR, where/what is it?
  

 

 

I think what you are going to find is an immense influx of comments and concerns regarding this topic! I also believe initially it might seem overwhelmingly angry and frustrated here however in time if you guys just respond more frequently to the players on the forums you will find that posts will be far less critical and angry over time by simply responding to concerns instead of letting them fester and build over time.

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback feedback so far. I think this is a great framing Lhancelot so I wanted to take your post and hit some of the things you brought up, especially the questions. I have been working on some things to enhance communication and since some of them specifically involve win-traders, I can speak pretty directly to your post.

 

You mention the team being more active on the forums and so let me hit a few places where this can / will occur in the future:

• Some of you may have caught that a few months ago there was a job listing for a Community Coordinator. Dan joined us a few months ago and is the other member of the community team. However, the vast majority of Dan's responsibilities are behind the scenes (social media, blog writing, screenshots, and more). However, we may get to a point of having him step more into the forums especially around things like blog feedback.
  
• Win-traders! With the next Ranked Season starting soon, that means that we have been working on gathering all of the data, player reports, and are taking action against cheaters in Ranked. The person who has been handling that action in this round is a Live Producer that works with Keith and I named Mike. He is actually working on a forum post to talk about win-trading and what is happening. I would expect to see that from him by Monday. Going forward he can then engage with you about win-trading or anything else he is working on that is related to the community.
  
• QA - Our Quality Assurance team actually spends a large amount of time combing the forums for issues. Both bugs and feedback which they help in documenting and passing on to the dev team. We are in process on getting a "general" QA account that they can use to communicate with all of you more regularly, especially about bug status.
  
• Dev team - This is where I know all of you are "most hungry" for information. Getting dev team time to get into the forums can be tricky but we will continue to look for opportunities to do this. I have also been trying to get more in-depth write-ups including things like design goals from the dev team that I can pass on.
  

That is a few instances where I am trying to drive more communication to all of you that isn't just me posting information. Getting more of the team engaging with you will hopefully help in getting more communication going between you and the dev team.

 

Thanks.

 

-eric

[Lhancelot]

It's 100% what's happening here.

 

Focus for this game is now virtually all based around marketing, you cannot make the argument they're trying to use a product based solution when the product is receiving small irregular updates that are pushed with as much hype as possible.

 

The CM team is a marketing extension which means they are concerned with the public perception, not the reality. Why do you think we've had little to no community management? Once 6.0 is announced that will change and the CM team will work in conjunction with the assigned influencers to push whatever narrative they feel will sell the game.

 

Ossus is a time-gated mess implemented to keep people busy repeating the same content over and over until they can drop the next hype bomb that will keep you subbed for 3 months more. It's the most obvious use of loss aversion and time gating I've ever seen in any video game that isn't mobile based.

 

BTW I'm not against marketing approaches, but they need to be balanced if you want to succeed in more than just the short term.

 

We have no innovation, we have regression.

 

I suppose this just adds another layer to the onion really. I just have to wonder how they think this time-gate is a successful way to hold subs. It failed in my case.

 

I don't even bring up the quantity, honestly I don't have giant expectations for older games and i don't expect them to create tons of new adventuring content to go exploring. I will stay as long as the game provides me with the things that I find fun.

 

What I don't understand is this "time-gate" as you call it not only is it meager, but with it they went and tossed in a huge monkey wrench with the addition of not only a new gear grind but a new system too. Which also came with a plethora of bugs due to coding issues from what everyone with knowledge on the matter says.

 

Why do they keep "fixing" things that are not broke, or adding things people overall dislike all the while removing things people do like? Wouldn't the time-gate be more successful if it involved keeping the good things in and changing activities for the players in an already established and successful part of the game?

 

Why gut conquest? Why remove gear systems? Why add new gear systems on top of old gear systems? Why add RNG? Why make gear grinds extraordinarily long making it hard to gear alts? Doesn't it seem counterproductive as a time-gate if it runs people off the game instead of keeping them on it?

Edited February 22, 2019 by Lhancelot

[Sarova]

With all of that out there… how can we improve? I know our feedback loop is by no means perfect, but being able to gather your feedback consistently for each update on PTS has helped us quite a bit in getting direct feedback from you. Share your thoughts!

 

Thanks all.

 

-eric

The biggest improvement you could all make is acknowledgement. For the story players, there have been many issues in the game that have made it very un-enjoyable to play AND/OR prevented players bothering with certain content to the point of unsubbing. Despite feedback via general and bug forums, none of you have acknowledged the issues. This tends to lead to wild theories (some of them of the conspiracy kind) and does nothing for the reputation of the SWTOR Devs. Some things we report as problems may seem minor but for some of us who are immersed in certain aspects of the story your lack of recognition of issues has left me and many others very pissed off. Examples:

• Failure to have Dorne & Quinn returned customised in Iokath (ruined the continuation for many and prevented people making videos of their characters story because their returning companion had changed) first reported/asked about in 2017 & on many occasions since, but NEVER acknowledged.
  
• Breaking cut scenes and not acknowledging that they need fixing (Vector's eye scene is a prominent example, duplicate npc on Empire side in the SoR meeting scene is another)
  
• Reducing many of our favourite class romance companions and Theron to zombies and/or crafter fodder by introducing kill options so now they have no part in recent (and from our experience future story) & refusing to confirm whether this is a deliberate way forward for the game or not.
  
• Not responding to the Aussie & Co players/customers who have been having no end of problems since the massive server merger - many of us are assuming it's a business decision but they deserve an answer. I'm a Brit-based player, however I think it's disrespectful to ignore all of their threads feeding back how bad it is for them
  
• Failing to be honest and upfront and over-exaggerating new story content (JUS can be completed in 15-20 mins). If this game's direction is only going to be Ops, PvP, re-runs of events, gear grinds and the Cartel Market in 2019 say so rather than just string us along in the hope that there will be new immersive story or a new expansion - re-running class stories is not going to hold mine or other story focused players attention for ever no matter how good some of the original stories are.
  
• broken armour and weapons going unfixed resulting in weird effects in cut scenes - CM outfits are not cheap yet none of you have acknowledged the feedback and numerous bug reports about this
  
• constantly breaking things with EVERY update has gotten tedious - test it!!
  

 

Acknowledging our concerns and making an effort to fix the things that are broken before releasing new "mini" story content would be really good.

[Noerra]

First Lets look at what Star Wars The Old Republic does better than any other MMO out there (lets not pretend there aren't other MMO's).

 

Story, Companions, connection to the world/history, dialogue, NPCs with personality. In all of these aspects, there isn't much out there that can compare, sure The Secret World did well on story, but your playing a mute, sure Elder Scrolls online does well on world lore and NPCs with personaility. But here we have characters we are invested in, a world that we helped forge (not literally), companions and romances etc etc. And what feedback do you take on these, None.

 

Just wanted to quote this to lift it out and visible from very long post, because i think this is really the most important thing Bioware should keep in mind about SWTOR. (bolded parts are bolded by me, not op)

[Jdast]

Thanks everyone for the feedback feedback so far. I think this is a great framing Lhancelot so I wanted to take your post and hit some of the things you brought up, especially the questions. I have been working on some things to enhance communication and since some of them specifically involve win-traders, I can speak pretty directly to your post.

 

You mention the team being more active on the forums and so let me hit a few places where this can / will occur in the future:

• Some of you may have caught that a few months ago there was a job listing for a Community Coordinator. Dan joined us a few months ago and is the other member of the community team. However, the vast majority of Dan's responsibilities are behind the scenes (social media, blog writing, screenshots, and more). However, we may get to a point of having him step more into the forums especially around things like blog feedback.
  
• Win-traders! With the next Ranked Season starting soon, that means that we have been working on gathering all of the data, player reports, and are taking action against cheaters in Ranked. The person who has been handling that action in this round is a Live Producer that works with Keith and I named Mike. He is actually working on a forum post to talk about win-trading and what is happening. I would expect to see that from him by Monday. Going forward he can then engage with you about win-trading or anything else he is working on that is related to the community.
  
• QA - Our Quality Assurance team actually spends a large amount of time combing the forums for issues. Both bugs and feedback which they help in documenting and passing on to the dev team. We are in process on getting a "general" QA account that they can use to communicate with all of you more regularly, especially about bug status.
  
• Dev team - This is where I know all of you are "most hungry" for information. Getting dev team time to get into the forums can be tricky but we will continue to look for opportunities to do this. I have also been trying to get more in-depth write-ups including things like design goals from the dev team that I can pass on.
  

That is a few instances where I am trying to drive more communication to all of you that isn't just me posting information. Getting more of the team engaging with you will hopefully help in getting more communication going between you and the dev team.

 

Thanks.

 

-eric

 

How hard would it have been for you to walk down the hall, give Charles a Wedgie and establish it was Darth Undaroos Friday, and ask the devs....

 

Is the mods/ enh slot gearing issue a bug or intended?

 

No offense Eric, but I'm with Casirabit on this one. I'm known to be a snarky queen, she is not. She's just a princess. But when the nicest, most mature individual on the forum is calling you out for the boy who cried wolf....to quote Jar Jar Binks...."youssa gotta problem."

 

I'm not being facetious: After this (the slot gearing issue) happened, my husband (who doesn't post and only plays a little since he is interested in shooters) said...."Does he even read the PTS or play the game?"

 

I didn't have a good answer.

 

Dasty

Edited February 22, 2019 by Jdast

[varietasplus]

I find this developer post utterly unabashed. I am one of many to have posted detailed analytical topics regarding PVP balance and all was in vain.

 

I came back in February after a few months of hiatus but kept track of things happening. After the Ossus grindfest, I found that my imp PVE/PVP guild with 50-60 active members online was simply gone. In the meantime, my republic PVP guild is falling apart, because we are no longer roaming regs or team ranked, since everyone is busy with the stupid Ossus PVE grinding and queue for SR for the reputation. By the time they get their gear, rational players - skipping Ossus gear - will be gone for good. Congratulations on chasing away both PVE and PVP players.

 

I thought you could not make things worse after introducing CXP, but you have proven you have and endless pool of arrogance and undesired creativity regarding grinding to draw from. Instead of investing into the game with content and balance to give real incentive, you are trying to milk out the money for nothing as if this was the last hours of a sinking ship.

 

You never understood it is impossible to balance via discipline for both PVP and PVE. You never bothered to apply rock-paper-scissor for DPS classes, so their viability in regs or ranked have always been uneven. You made PVP gear system worse with every major patch. You have always hit hard with the nerf bat and created FOTM classes, instead of regular and marginal adjustments. You would not care to fix PVP bugs having been present for years like operatards roll on Quesh Pit or Void Star mass stealth bomb plant exploit).

 

You have always been provided with decent information and handful of suggestion, you just did not give a **** about it, because you have always believed you know it better based on raw data or business model. Wake up, you don't. The number of subscriptions says it all.

[GrimTheGlutt]

Thanks everyone for the feedback feedback so far. I think this is a great framing Lhancelot so I wanted to take your post and hit some of the things you brought up, especially the questions. I have been working on some things to enhance communication and since some of them specifically involve win-traders, I can speak pretty directly to your post.

 

You mention the team being more active on the forums and so let me hit a few places where this can / will occur in the future:

• Some of you may have caught that a few months ago there was a job listing for a Community Coordinator. Dan joined us a few months ago and is the other member of the community team. However, the vast majority of Dan's responsibilities are behind the scenes (social media, blog writing, screenshots, and more). However, we may get to a point of having him step more into the forums especially around things like blog feedback.
  
• Win-traders! With the next Ranked Season starting soon, that means that we have been working on gathering all of the data, player reports, and are taking action against cheaters in Ranked. The person who has been handling that action in this round is a Live Producer that works with Keith and I named Mike. He is actually working on a forum post to talk about win-trading and what is happening. I would expect to see that from him by Monday. Going forward he can then engage with you about win-trading or anything else he is working on that is related to the community.
  
• QA - Our Quality Assurance team actually spends a large amount of time combing the forums for issues. Both bugs and feedback which they help in documenting and passing on to the dev team. We are in process on getting a "general" QA account that they can use to communicate with all of you more regularly, especially about bug status.
  
• Dev team - This is where I know all of you are "most hungry" for information. Getting dev team time to get into the forums can be tricky but we will continue to look for opportunities to do this. I have also been trying to get more in-depth write-ups including things like design goals from the dev team that I can pass on.
  

That is a few instances where I am trying to drive more communication to all of you that isn't just me posting information. Getting more of the team engaging with you will hopefully help in getting more communication going between you and the dev team.

 

Thanks.

 

-eric

 

 

The problem is this isn't the first you or Keith or Charles or other named person has said... "we are going to do XYZ in regards to communications". You keep saying these things (usually after a massive post complaining about something), you keep expressing you will communicate more, but you never do.

 

So yep I can go on about this and even highlight exact examples, but whats the point?

 

Just get on with it... Stop saying you will be doing something, and just actually do it!

 

And yep that sounds harsh but in all honesty the state of comms is a joke and has been for a very long time.

Edited February 22, 2019 by GrimTheGlutt

[AureliaSulis]

I'm late to the thread - I'm Aussie so it's morning here - but I'll put my 2c worth in. Hopefully it will be read.

 

My suggestion for the best way to gather player feedback from all players, subscribers and free players is via polling. Poll every and all subject and issue that has arisen.

Poll at the start-up screen.

Have a new poll each week.

 

Here are some suggestions that are close to my own heart.

 

Q. Would you be in favour of the Alliance becoming a third playable faction? Y/N

Q. Would you buy a stronghold on Odessen? Y/N

Q. Would you be in favour of 'vanilla' companions having further content devised for them, even ones who have been 'killed off' by other players? Y/N

Q. Would you like to custom design your own crew from current companions, available or not? Y/N

Q. Would you be in favour of relocating your characters to a West Coast Server? Y/N

 

You get the idea.

Also, one more thing, make a point of regularly reading the Suggestion Box forum because there is a host of really good ideas there.

 

Btw, I've made a personal decision to not activate 5.10 - not only because of the bugs, but also because of the companion losses and because I prefer to play with an intact Alliance. I really do believe that the game would be improved with a third-playable Alliance. Please make this happen in 6.0.

Edited February 22, 2019 by AureliaSulis

[Costello]

Failing to be honest and upfront and over-exaggerating new story content (JUS can be completed in 15-20 mins). If this game's direction is only going to be Ops, PvP, re-runs of events, gear grinds and the Cartel Market in 2019 say so rather than just string us along in the hope that there will be new immersive story or a new expansion - re-running class stories is not going to hold mine or other story focused players attention for ever no matter how good some of the original stories are.

 

 

This.

 

I know everyone is different, but I come here for the Story. Its what Bioware was known for, its what this game was going to bring to the MMO market, it was what was going to set it apart.

 

I remember reading a pre-mortem over at MassivelyOP, saying SWTOR was an MMO that didn't know what it had. Rather than focus on what made it special it tried to ape WOW, post launch and so much in the Keith years. Only producing a fraction of the content.

 

Well here is some feedback, you have story, you have dialogue, you have companions, you have the Star Wars IP. If your going to ignore that in favour of warzone and Arenas and operations just tell us. Don't say this is going to be the best year yet, that we are going back to Imperial vs Republic, that we can experience our own Star Wars Story. Just say we are going to offer a generic experience that could be in any MMO, with a less than perfect game engine and 20 or so abilities that you will be rotating and cast bars to watch so be greatful the graphics aren't that great cause you wont be enjoying them focusing instead on your action bars and target window.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Costello

[KendraP]

Some of you may have caught that a few months ago there was a job listing for a Community Coordinator. Dan joined us a few months ago and is the other member of the community team. However, the vast majority of Dan's responsibilities are behind the scenes (social media, blog writing, screenshots, and more). However, we may get to a point of having him step more into the forums especially around things like blog feedback.

 

Was this supposed to answer Lhance's question on communicating more? If so, you failed miserably.

 

Win-traders! With the next Ranked Season starting soon, that means that we have been working on gathering all of the data, player reports, and are taking action against cheaters in Ranked. The person who has been handling that action in this round is a Live Producer that works with Keith and I named Mike. He is actually working on a forum post to talk about win-trading and what is happening. I would expect to see that from him by Monday. Going forward he can then engage with you about win-trading or anything else he is working on that is related to the community.

 

And you couldn't tell them this in the pvp forum where they've been whining about it for weeks, why? This is the kind of thing Lhance was talking about. Why keep letting them stew, when you already knew the answer?

 

QA - Our Quality Assurance team actually spends a large amount of time combing the forums for issues. Both bugs and feedback which they help in documenting and passing on to the dev team. We are in process on getting a "general" QA account that they can use to communicate with all of you more regularly, especially about bug status.

 

I would say I hate to be a jerk, but I'm pretty much beyond that phase. Every time you guys touch something, you break something totally different, then take months to fix it. To me this is bad QA.

 

Dev team - This is where I know all of you are "most hungry" for information. Getting dev team time to get into the forums can be tricky but we will continue to look for opportunities to do this. I have also been trying to get more in-depth write-ups including things like design goals from the dev team that I can pass on.

 

Musco, sometimes I think you are intentionally dim. What we want is simple, open, honest communication. Your pattern of ninja changes when its obviously something that will piss people off is frustrating.

 

If you really are interested in feedback, reply to that feedback. The mod and enhancement locking for instance, is somethimg you did not tell people about in advance, and that has people very angry, and yet, even here you choose to ignore it. All because you said previously it would not be changing soon.

 

So what we would like answers to is why. Why are obviously stupid decisions made, and why do they continue to be kept?

 

I guess managing the community is below the rank of a community manager, eh? Because to me managing something requires interacting with it. I manage people. I do not just tell them what to do, or what they should do. I encourage them to see the reasons for the seemingly stupid decisions leadership makes. Because sometimes there is a larger picture that the grunts just can't see.

Edited February 22, 2019 by KendraP

[HKtheindomitable]

Clarification: When I say "the devs" I speak of what they receive both directly and through the comm folks.)

 

Recitation: Someone already said it, but responding to threads more regularly. Not every post, just threads.

 

Addendum: Aside from that, my personal gripe would be that there seems to be a disconnect with what players are looking for, and what the devs hear. That I think comes down to a lack of clarity (not getting clarification from players).

 

Aside: The following is acting under the assumption that story setup plans were changed. This is just one example. I tried to make it more pleasing to look at, but ended up making it rather large.

 

Statement: A specific example is the "binge watch" of story that made up KotET. I was fine with the monthly release of chapters. I have many characters, and even if I was able to get through the newest chapter before the next release, I liked it that way.

 

Admission: But I wasn't opposed to the idea of having the whole thing all at once, it just meant we'd have to wait considerably longer or new story (which many wanting it all at once seemed to not grasp).

 

Query: What does this have to do with a disconnect between dev and player?

Answer: Just hold on. I'm getting to that.

 

Observation: The disconnect was what was meant by "we binge watch shows, so do the same with the story". Again this is assuming the current KotET wasn't the original idea. Players wanted the full KotET story, but the devs gave us the full REST of the story.

 

Analysis: This resulted in KotET finishing two expansions of story too quickly. The story has obviously been shortened. Things feel squished together. I can feel that there are things that were skipped over or characters that had more, but it was cut out to mash two expansions together. There was obviously potential for superb story telling with returning companions that was lost because of it. This isn't what players wanted. It's definitely not what I wanted.

 

Conclusion: KotET was hurt more by that, than it would have had it stayed with the regular monthly chapter release.

 

Observation: The change was done over the aggravation of KotET. The problem originally started when Ch10 (Kalyo) was released, it took a long time to complete. Or rather, it felt that way. The biggest gripe wasn't release schedule, or chapter length.

 

Statement: The real gripe was that players were placed into combat by NPCs that were really far away. Melee characters have to run long distances just to get into leap range, and most of the time your companion just stands there doing nothing (much like the current bug that exists). That was the initial problem, but that disconnect between dev and player caused a misunderstanding of the issue.

 

Recollection: I remember reading the changes being made, and the devs were missing the real point. From there the misunderstanding kept building and finally culminated into KotET and expansion 3 being smashed into one. I had to stop keeping up with complaints because it was like being in an echo chamber with 50 different complaints and responses all at once and nobody could understand each other.

 

Statement: I remember this clearly because the whole time I was reading complaint threads and then heard/watched dev responses to it, I was constantly saying "No, that's not what the complaints were about." And it hurt because I could see it was a simple misunderstanding, not deliberate "ignoring the players", and I couldn't really do anything to help.

 

Recitation: Again, I could be entirely wrong about there being a big change with the plans for KotET.

 

Continuation: This disconnect is affecting what the devs see what folks complain about and those of us that are actually enjoying what's put out. Most of what the devs hear are the complainers (legit problems and whiners). This is true of any game, not just SWTOR.

 

Revelation: A lot of my guild enjoyed KotFE and had zero issue with any of it. But they never said anything on any media platform, and they stay away from the official forums. I know many others that do the same. We were eager for KotET and were anticipating all three story expansions (IIRC it was supposed to be a trilogy story).

 

Statement: Even though some of us were put off by what KotET was turned into, we still really enjoy it. We would love for another KotFE style story. I know that if they had a chance to give feedback on a personal/private level, they'd do it.

 

Frustrated Observation: This disconnect also seems to have an impact where the game is shifting story telling types. You had the chapter method, then the SoR style. Then back to chapter. Now back to SoR style again. STICK WITH JUST THE ONE!

 

Observation: I keep seeing that it's based off player feedback. But what I constantly see, is it being based off of the complainers at the time. There's little to no constructive feedback or "I like X and/or Y".

 

Fact: The issue with that is that you only have people that want their version complaining, while the ones that wanted the current one aren't because they're happy.

 

Example: PvP players are angry and loudly complain about nothing with PvP being worked on when PvE content is in production and the PvE players are silent and happy, and vice versa. So it appears that everyone wants PvP, and the dev response says "everyone has been asking for PvP content". That's what it looks like on our end.

 

Statement: This disconnect resides with many aspects, KotET was just an example. There have been many times where there was no miscommunication/misunderstanding between dev and player (Togruta species, flairs, titles, companions, etc). So it's clearly not a constant thing. However when it impacts big things like story....

 

I hope I was clear.