What drove away the initial playerbase?

[demotivator]

Those flashpoints where not there at launch - i remember us doing esseles when it first came out. Heroics yes, and you needed groups for them. Flashpoints, no. They started some months later. After launch but before the oceanic servers first opened.

 

Then how was our group in low blue gear getting wrecked by HK in False Emperor if it was not in the game?

Edited April 25, 2021 by demotivator

[Ranadiel_Marius]

Did they not give any kind of end game gear at launch?

Level scaling wasn't a thing back then. The FPs were all level locked to their initial levels and their drops were level appropriate for the levels that they were designed for. So the only FP that might have been vaguely relevant to endgame gearing is False Emperor since it was the highest level FP.

[Char_Ell]

Did they not give any kind of end game gear at launch? Because yeah, I really don't remeber them being there. I remember doing class stories, planet stories, side quests, and heorics being group content. Then at some point Belsavis dailies which where quite tough to solo, really better grouped, especially on my sentinel which was literally one of the hardest classes to play at the time. Maybe our guild just wasn't organised, most didn't stick around long. They were a full 40 man WoW raiding guild but never really took off in SWTOR.

 

I remember huttball launching and something that was end game group instanced content sometime after launch. But I had a baby then, so no real surprise here of details being fuzzy lol - not much sleep was had.

 

I think Battle of Ilum and False Emperor were the only ones that did along with the ones that had a hard mode which wasn't all of them. Each flashpoint was designed for specific character level.

Level 11 gear - Black Talon and Esseles

Level 17 gear - Hammer Station

Level 21 gear - Athiss

Level 25 gear - Mandalorian Raiders

Level 29 gear - Cademimu

Level 33 gear - Taral V and Boarding Party

Level 37 gear - Maelstrom Prison and The Foundry

Level 41 gear - Colicoid War Games

Level 45 gear - Red Reaper

Level 48 gear - Directive 7

Level 50 gear - Battle of Ilum and False Emperor

 

My memory isn't so clear on the flashpoints that had a hard mode for level 50 characters but I think they were

Black Talon, Boarding Party, The Foundry (Imperial only)

Esseles, Taral V, and Maelstrom Prison (Republic only)

Directive 7

Battle of Ilum

False Emperor

These dropped Tionese gear which was tier 1 end game gear for PvE. Patch 1.1 added Kaon Under Siege and Patch 1.2 added Lost Island.

[Vandicus]

2/3rds attrition from launch numbers is pretty normal for MMOs in the first year. For the timeframe in which we were able to get or estimate numbers, SWTOR has had a pretty typical life cycle for an MMO.

 

Coming on 10 years it's funny that no one talks about it dying anymore even as the game is plausibly much closer to the end of its lifespan, largely because of license considerations and that it's legends content(aimed at a dwindling fanbase that was rejected in favor of trying to build a new market). Otherwise EA just tends to keep MMOs running forever.

 

Probably what keeps SWTOR from developing more is the lack of major expansions to keep buzz and draw old and new players. The game has never done a major $40+ expansion, and content pacing in some areas dropped off a lot after the first 3 years or so.

[foxmob]

Level scaling wasn't a thing back then. The FPs were all level locked to their initial levels and their drops were level appropriate for the levels that they were designed for. So the only FP that might have been vaguely relevant to endgame gearing is False Emperor since it was the highest level FP.

iirc, the best way to gear involved using pvp sets as a bridge to entry level operation gear(?) or maybe it was to gear drops from the Ilum FPs. but I vaguely remember pvp sets being the best thing to put on when one initially hit 50.

[Darkbloom]

 

I'm curious, because this game is as good as wow in many areas, and also better in a lot, while worse in a few. They have some rather big issues, but in the large scheme of things even those are minor and don't quite warrant the down turn we observed.

 

.

 

WoW is what it is because of its legacy. SWTOR never was "WoW only better". The Final Fantasy MMO is WoW, only better. And yet, it's less popular than WoW.

 

I am more optimistic about the game now than I have been at any time since before Beta. Yes, before Beta. The moment I logged into Beta I knew this game was going to have big problems.

 

Here's the list of the 18 biggest problems at launch:

 

1. They made a horrific programming decision to force the effect of skills to happen only after the animation finished. The game played like crap at first.

 

2. At the time the game was too graphically demanding for many computers. And open-world pvp was too demanding for the engine itself no matter what computer you played it on.

 

3. There was not enough for ANYONE to do once reaching level 50, regardless of what you enjoyed doing in game.

 

4. The game was rushed out before it was finished and that was obvious.

 

5. They had no idea how popular pvp would be and were totally unprepared.

 

6. No group finder.

 

7. A lot of people wanted WoW part 2, or the WoW-killer, and they didn't get it.

 

8. Other people wanted KOTOR 3, and they didn't get it.

 

9. Still others wanted Star Wars Galaxies part 2, and they didn't get it.

 

10. People played through the leveling content much quicker than expected but then didn't get excited about leveling new classes.

 

11. Quality of life improvements hadn't happened yet. The cd on quick travel was too long. It took too long to get a speeder. No strongholds. Too much walking, too many side-quests required that seemed to just be time-wasters.

 

12. No level sync, making nearly all content worthless once you hit 50. They had created massive amounts of voice-acted content that almost no one ever saw, because it was only useful at level.

 

13. Bugs. Millions of bugs.

 

14. Poor communication. Developers seemed arrogant and remote.

 

15. Too many servers that turned into ghost towns, encouraging people to leave. No server transfers at first.

 

16. They waited way too long to merge servers and go free to play.

 

17. They underestimated how popular Empire would be compared to Republic, which was a big problem back then because of the way grouping worked.

 

18. Because of all the above, problems with the class stories that shouldn't have been a big deal became a big deal due to the fact that a lot of people felt the class stories were pretty much all they were getting.

 

I think there's just no way to overstate how different it is now with massive quality of life upgrades and conquest giving everyone something to do at max level. Yes, they've made a few things worse. Oddly, I'd actually say the game is more fun now at max level than it is while leveling, which is a total reversal from the situation at launch.

 

But for the most part this game is so much more fun now than it was originally that it's hard to even remember how much of a slog the game used to be. SWTOR hasn't undergone the total overhaul that FFIV experienced, but it has been greatly improved. Meanwhile, WoW is still mostly just WoW. But you have to understand, it wasn't that way at launch.

[DarkestMicheal]

 

13. Bugs. Millions of bugs.

 

14. Poor communication. Developers seemed arrogant and remote.

 

.

 

Some things haven't changed...lol

Edited April 25, 2021 by DarkestMicheal

[Fdzzaigl]

I can talk a bit about why I left after beta and launch and most of my guildies left:

 

I think I stayed on for about 6-7 months initially. We saw population steadily decline on the then Legions of Lettow PvP server.

There were various factors at play imo.

 

1) Lack of rewarding content and generally being unpolished.

 

As a launching MMO lack of content was to be expected and not so special. But the game did not do a very good job of rewarding you in a meaningful way. A lot of the rewards for PvP and flashpoints were completely and utterly RNG based. I remember opening hundreds of champion rank pvp reward boxes and then after that battlemaster boxes before I actually got the gear I wanted.

 

There weren't so many different options to get "the good stuff" either. Itemization sucked hard.

 

People not so invested in the game just went back to other MMO's instead of putting up with that.

 

The unpolishedness also shone through in many areas. At the start the search function on the auction house was even case sensitive and you couldn't link an item into it. Stuff people came to expect from other games.

 

And then there was of course the horrible optimization. Which meant some things that people were looking forward to, such as world PvP on Ilum, quickly became a pipedream.

 

2) Mass Effect 3

 

Many people in my guild at the time who were playing mostly for the storyline actually left for Mass Effect 3 when that came out a few months after SWTOR. Most did not come back.

 

It's weird but the baseline fans of Bioware at the time got taken up by their own game in my opinion. Some were disappointed in the company after that due to whole ending deal as well.

3) The great MMO battle

 

At the time there were many other major releases close to the release of SWTOR which siphoned off players. For my guild most notably GW2 as that game did turn out to have more of the PvP experience we were looking for.

 

In general a lot of games were competing which eachother and the MMO market was more volatile. Now it seems like only a handful of frequently updated games remain.

 

4) Dwindling population begets more people leaving

 

I remember being one of the few people left on my original server to organise raids and events. Over time it became extremely difficult. Which let to more people leaving as they couldn't do the content they wanted to do (in that case: Explosive Conflict)

 

So generally I think a number of factors (more than I listed) made people leave. Then more people left because of people leaving in a circular motion.

 

I'm happy however to see the game has a healthy pop right now.

[kurzis]

the problem was the dev team have always been so slow to fix problems in game, it took them far too long to fix sith purebloods being able to wear headgear without just appearing bald, they were incredibly slow with releasing new content and now it seems they haven't learned anything because over 2 years later nautilan dark side corruption still isn't fixed, the only way to get it working and not to toggle off is to buy cartel coins to spend and the appearance designer.

 

its an amazing game with so much current and future potential, the problem is it just doesn't have any real support, considering star wars is a multi-billion dollar franchise this game seems to be running off scraps

 

also in the early days it was literally a copy and paste WOW clone with a USP of bioware style class stories, unfortunately this wasn't enough to appease the fans of star wars galaxies which was infamously shut down to make room for this game.

[battycoda]

One acronym: FTP. The group I started with all left. But EA/Bioware more than made up for the people who left because of it with the people who joined because of it.

[xdjinn]

SWTOR, was extremely well loved, anticipated and and the launch had the numbers to prove - but then it all went to downhill after a a month or 2 .. why was that?

 

I'm curious, because this game is as good as wow in many areas, and also better in a lot, while worse in a few. They have some rather big issues, but in the large scheme of things even those are minor and don't quite warrant the down turn we observed.

 

It's also clear that many who played the beta, and the great crowd influx at launch, meant that they enjoyed the game, even with the flaws.. why did after a month..all of a sudden the flaws dominated the player boards, and a rather unwarranted and undeserved negative stigma arose around SWTOr.

 

Even to this day, in some quarters, you suggest SWTOR, and some old people will respond to you telling you it's a bad game, and you ask them why, they mention stuff that may have been true 10 years ago, but is not the case now .

 

 

 

It's the players what were bad mouthing the game, , and i don't see how it was so loved then all of a sudden not.. so it can't really be the engine - even though that annoyed a lot of people, and still does somewhat.. how did they get the bad rep, why ? and i wonder if it would change.

 

 

Face it, SWTOR is basically the great evolution of KOTOR , no one shoudl say they love KoToR and sneer at SWTOR, it is vastly superior game, much bigger and basically the adventure continues.. and yet, people praise KotoR often, but don't mention SWTOR.

 

KotFE, with it's flashy trailer, and dynamic new story, art etc, brought back a lot of players... but not all stayed.. I'm willing to bet this was for different reasons. I know many who came back, now complained about the ENGINE.. that was the bigggest issue in KotFE, meanwhile about a month or 2 after launch, it was end-game content.

 

 

SWTOR has theier 10 year anniversary, I wonder how much of htis game can really be restored if they make the right decisions.. and what it would take.

 

For me:

 

1. Major graphical update: especially player models, bestiary, and vehicles, also planet models and a revamp to all the fly in/out scenes

2. Engine update: The things that turned people away have to go, fix this and player will happily migrate from wow.

3. Great new chapter: You need to repeat the wonder of KotFE - that was an amazing relaunch, it stunned E3 with its trailer, and caught a lot of our attentions back

4. Ops/FP serious development, once the engine issues are resolved, you need to make this serious again. Even with half the volume of wow's raids/dungeons, I reckon this game can capture people back.

5. Cash shop needs to be more generous, when F2Ps come, and they will, they need greater incentives to sub, but not feel like they're being exploited. This can turn people off and it won't matter how great your game is. no one likes abusive or near criminal exploitation of their fanb ase. It's the wrong message. You can do better

 

 

but the guilds dwindled because the raid scene was too slow and not competitive enough. That must fix.

 

I was driven away multiple times, and this time almost was again. So I'll cite my reasons:

1st time - Biased spec nerfs

2nd time - KotFE (awful story, full of bugs, biased loss of companions, boring gameplay)

3rd time - Inflation and lack of sources for farming credits + Awful pvp and toxicity in Ranked (during KotFE)

4th time - Too much "carroting" with CM and extortioning prices on CC/Real money ratio (ending of KotFE)

 

This last one was due to both RPvP again + KotET deaths + Iokath deaths (basically bad writing and yet another biased loss of companions for no logical reason, worse was how badly written those deaths were). Mind you I had never played KotET or Iokath before, so to me it was all surprise surprise, also I find that everything after Iokath (at least so far) was lazily written and done in almost all aspects, short "expansions" with dull lore and dull story.

 

Now, this last time RPvP frustration to me lasted a few days, and now I don't really care all that much, although I wanted to get into it for some minor vendor items that I wanted for Head RPing reasons, now I kind of given up on getting those items because RPvP is barren, hard to get into, and hard to endure the amount of toxicity and elitism in it. Sure I'll keep trying, but it's not an activity that I can look forward too much due to those reasons plus how it is badly balanced (problem for me because I like certain class playstyles, and strongly dislike other classes playstyles).

I will eventually pull the plug and end my sub, I just don't know how long it'll take me because the only thing that can really keep me into SWTOR is RPing, and I am not in a RP guild nor am I finding any that appeal to me out of the ones that exist in my server, so I've been playing space barby with my male toons (never like playing female characters) and doing story trying builds and finally trying OPS, but I don't really believe the game will keep me entertained much longer.

Edited April 27, 2021 by xdjinn

[Reiisha]

I'm curious, because this game is as good as wow in many areas, and also better in a lot, while worse in a few.

 

This is the core of the issue. SWTOR is, mechanically, a 1:1 copy of WoW as it was circa 2010. Combat and crafting are largely identical. There was a huge stink over the Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight classes as they weren't just similar to WoW's warrior, they were identical - The same skills, the same gameplay, even the same talent tree. It was as blatant a copy as you could make.

 

The stories were, and still are great. It's one of two things which SWTOR objectively gets right (the other being the consistent art and environment design), but it's a one-and-done deal. Mechanically it simply can't hold a candle to WoW as it is basically just a copy, so people who want to do dungeons and raid go there instead. I know people will get angry over this, but the truth is the truth. Between WoW and FFXIV (the 'other' main tab target game) there is simply no long-term gameplay SWTOR offers which would keep all but the most diehard expanded universe fans in this game over the others.

 

This issue is made worse by the fact that SWTOR has gone F2P.

 

Hear me out: This is not a shill for subcription-only games, but a simple reality of marketing and confusing messages.

 

SWTOR is F2P, but there's zero point to trying to play high end dungeons with just an F2P account due to the artifact restrictions. Guilds basically require players to sub or buy an unlock in order for someone to raid with them. This causes a segregation of the community, for obvious reasons. This issue is compounded by the players luring new people in by saying that it's F2P ('to save their game', or a subconscious effort to recruit people for endgame pve activities), but those same players expect those new ones to also subscribe so they can play together in the most optimal way which is exactly what they have been sold on to *not* have to do.

 

EA's marketing does the same thing.

 

The F2P implementation is simply beyond horrible. You want to get people into the game, so you present it as 'being free', but you also want people to stick around and keep playing the game, however that all but *requires* a subscription due to how many parts of permanent progression are locked behind paywalls. The mixed messaging is a massive subconscious turnoff, so most new players interested in SWTOR nowadays stay for the class stories and then move on.

 

This entire situation isn't helped by Bioware/EA basically "giving up" on the game. They approach it as a constant revenue stream which only requires just enough investment to keep it profitable, but are not prepared to invest in the changes necessary to make it grow again. All their data shows that the game is far past its prime, so "it's not worth spending more money on it than strictly necessary".

 

The problem with the game has nothing to do with raids or dungeons, balance this or pvp that. Those kind of gripes usually come from players who have, to be brutally honest, blinders on and only consider exactly the areas of the game which don't really matter, people need to zoom out and look at the big picture. SWTOR will never compete with WoW or FFXIV as far as 'grinding dungeons/raids for gear' goes. That kind of hyperfocus on vertical gear progression is simply done better elsewhere. The better investment would be to focus on the narrative component of the game, offering more storylines, offering shared storylines (something SWTOR is in a prime position to greatly innovate in) and making player choice matter more narratively rather than mechanically. But that's just my opinion, i guess.

 

Bioware and EA originally wanted "the next WoW", and thus made the mistake of trying to *be* the current WoW "with a twist", which as anyone can see from the many, MANY failed MMO's which tried to do *exactly the same* over the past 15 years was a horribad idea. The developer, publisher and the playerbase need to be ready to move away from the WoW-model of gameplay and progression if they want SWTOR to grow again, aside from fixing the balance between F2P and subscription players.

 

Sorry if i'm using too many words for what is probably a very simple thing, i'm bad at explaining things.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Reiisha
Clarification

[Lupodellanotte]

I was a launch player. Overall the game felt kinda clunky and I can't remember if that had more to do with lag and bugs or if it was just growing pains with the engine. I was put off by how many quests required you to group up with people and the number of elite mobs limited your ability to explore. The mob density was crazy compared to today. PvP was literally unplayable and was so frustrating and laggy that the hardcore PvP crowd practically left immediately. Strong mobs were cumbersome to solo and Elite mobs were impossible except maybe if you were a tank class, which I was not, and they were EVERYWHERE. I remember being on Dromund Kass for the first time and being vexed that they thought it was a good idea to put so many of those mobs in a low level zone.

 

2011 was relatively late in the lifespan of the MMO genre and mechanics like group dependency across such a large swath of the game were considered obsolete and detrimental to the player base. By then it was basically raiding and dungeons that were expected to require groups with the exception of maybe an end-of-zone denouement quest. I'm not just referencing WoW either. Many MMOs reduced this requirement because it was getting harder to secure a massive player base and subscriber retention was suffering across the genre. A lot of players get annoyed by this but many people love the open world MMO experience and playing by themselves. If they feel they are missing too much of the content then they will feel alienated and go elsewhere.

 

I was super hyped for the game too, so don't think I'm being especially picky. When this game launched, WoW was in the middle of the Cataclysm expansion, which introduced a lot of stuff that upset that community (PvPers remember this xpac fondly but it was horrible for PvE with the lore and story getting crapped on beyond repair). At this point people were desperate for a WoW killer and this had all the right ingredients. Unfortunately it botched the most important one, which is a strong launch. What SWTOR has going for it is the story, but bugs in the game mechanics made it a struggle. There was also the endgame void which was put in the spotlight immediately by speed levelers and basically chased off any possibility of a hardcore raiding scene that we've come to see in WoW.

[foxmob]

I was driven away multiple times, and this time almost was again. So I'll cite my reasons:

1st time - Biased spec nerfs

2nd time - KotFE (awful story, full of bugs, biased loss of companions, boring gameplay)

3rd time - Inflation and lack of sources for farming credits + Awful pvp and toxicity in Ranked (during KotFE)

4th time - Too much "carroting" with CM and extortioning prices on CC/Real money ratio (ending of KotFE)

.

 

that's so weird. I thought the STORY of KotFE (or w/e covers all of the Valkoriyan stuff after Revan) was the best writing of any expack. the production values were similarly well above any other xpack.

 

that said, the game play was quite bad. very streamlined no matter your class. the same story progress (basically like Shadowlands Maw quests but longer). it's cool that you can change the difficulty level from story to vet to master, but...this is an MMORPG. as much as I enjoy questing by myself, every OW and story quest in this game is a complete joke, and the xp you gain from quests is so stupid that I went from 70-75 from turning like 2 quests and doing 1 or 2 WZs. that's pretty pathetic. The same experience applied to KotFE stuff except I was already max level, so the only point of that was the same. single. story. every. time.

Edited April 27, 2021 by foxmob

[Suzsi]

I was a launch player. Overall the game felt kinda clunky and I can't remember if that had more to do with lag and bugs or if it was just growing pains with the engine. I was put off by how many quests required you to group up with people and the number of elite mobs limited your ability to explore. The mob density was crazy compared to today. PvP was literally unplayable and was so frustrating and laggy that the hardcore PvP crowd practically left immediately. Strong mobs were cumbersome to solo and Elite mobs were impossible except maybe if you were a tank class, which I was not, and they were EVERYWHERE. I remember being on Dromund Kass for the first time and being vexed that they thought it was a good idea to put so many of those mobs in a low level zone.

 

2011 was relatively late in the lifespan of the MMO genre and mechanics like group dependency across such a large swath of the game were considered obsolete and detrimental to the player base. By then it was basically raiding and dungeons that were expected to require groups with the exception of maybe an end-of-zone denouement quest. I'm not just referencing WoW either. Many MMOs reduced this requirement because it was getting harder to secure a massive player base and subscriber retention was suffering across the genre. A lot of players get annoyed by this but many people love the open world MMO experience and playing by themselves. If they feel they are missing too much of the content then they will feel alienated and go elsewhere.

 

I was super hyped for the game too, so don't think I'm being especially picky. When this game launched, WoW was in the middle of the Cataclysm expansion, which introduced a lot of stuff that upset that community (PvPers remember this xpac fondly but it was horrible for PvE with the lore and story getting crapped on beyond repair). At this point people were desperate for a WoW killer and this had all the right ingredients. Unfortunately it botched the most important one, which is a strong launch. What SWTOR has going for it is the story, but bugs in the game mechanics made it a struggle. There was also the endgame void which was put in the spotlight immediately by speed levelers and basically chased off any possibility of a hardcore raiding scene that we've come to see in WoW.

 

It felt clunky at first because there was a lot of class balancing issues.

 

Some classes like Sentinel were outright hard to play because their skill sets were bad / under powered. Other classes were hard because their healer was one of the last companions to be recruited and all combat was harder back then. It wasn't the smartest set-up to use in a game.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Suzsi

[Damask_Rose]

that's so weird. I thought the STORY of KotFE (or w/e covers all of the Valkoriyan stuff after Revan) was the best writing of any expack. the production values were similarly well above any other xpack.

 

Player opinion is very split on KotFE. Some people love it, some people hate it. Personally, I think that while it has some bright spots, it is over all poorly conceived, inconsistent and at times down right bad. Fancier cinematics didn't make up for a weak story and non-existent character development by a long shot.