Galactic Season does not spark joy

[casirabit]

The only thing about GS that is annoying me is the starfighter and forced pvp stuff. I don't pvp. I really don't know how to pvp (if I'm being honest there) and I don't think it's fair to those who enjoy it to deal with me joining in to fulfill a seasons objective. Galactic Starfighter would be interesting if it didn't make me seasick when I try it!

 

What I would like to see is some additional solo choices added to the list. Or the ability to choose between "solo" vs "pvp" and then get a list of options. I also don't do operations. First, I don't have a lot of time to do them and we're a really small guild of friends so not enough people to do them. Having been playing this game since 2011, I know that there are more weekly options out there than pvp, operations, or hard mode flashpoints. What about adding "complete the weekly for such and such planet"... those take forever to do sometimes depending on how much time you have... I'm getting in some of what I can but really, the system is starting to become boring with the same objectives popping up daily.

 

This is what a lot of us would like, a choice not to have to do the things we like. I hate pvp and GSF (pvp as well). I have tried both, didn't like it and there is nothing in the rewards that will get me to do it no matter how hard they try. I do the weeklies every week so why couldn't they add those for the weekly, which is something that was suggested when this was on the PTS and for some reason they have decided to ignore those type of suggestions.

[FlameYOL]

I disagree, been having a lot of fun farming my dailies and it doesn't take too long. Around 40 minutes top to get both of them done, the weeklies can take a little longer but I never took more than an hour or more to get each one done, unless they involved an operation and the team took longer, which is fine. I'd probably have taken another hiatus from the game if it wasn't for galactic seasons to be honest. Got nothing to grind besides credits. Edited May 17, 2021 by FlameYOL

[TrixxieTriss]

I must confess I feel a bit grumpy right now as well. That disturbance is unquestionably coming from knowing the abilities of those who are doing the work and what they are fully capable of seen in the light of the yet untapped potential of this game !!

 

WOW !!! Oh the possibilities !! MAN !! What can STILL be (and should) ... that just blows me away !

 

Then I see the reality of where we are at !!

 

(Ol Buzzards tail feathers just drops with sadness)

:(

 

Feels like the EA overlords have pulled half the creative team and coders for another project again and mostly left the Cartel market team (monetisation team) to run swtor.

Or they’ve had there content production budget pulled even more until they can find some way to make more profit from monetising the game.

It just feels like something has fundamentally changed and I can’t put my finger on what exactly. Something tells me we won’t like it when we find out.

Edited May 17, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[casirabit]

I must confess I feel a bit grumpy right now as well. That disturbance is unquestionably coming from knowing the abilities of those who are doing the work and what they are fully capable of seen in the light of the yet untapped potential of this game !!

 

WOW !!! Oh the possibilities !! MAN !! What can STILL be (and should) ... that just blows me away !

 

Then I see the reality of where we are at !!

 

(Ol Buzzards tail feathers just drops with sadness)

:(

 

I feel like something changed but can't put my finger on it. The sad part is normally by now I would have taken all my 14-16 characters through the story by now and I only have 3 that have done it and that is something different for me. We were also working on conquest to get our guild ships unlock and it just doesn't seem to matter anymore. Not even really interested anymore for the apartment and I love to decorate.

 

I keep thinking why do I still have a sub to this game?

Edited May 17, 2021 by casirabit

[Stradlin]

Feels like the EA overlords have pulled half the creative team and coders for another project again and mostly left the Cartel market team (monetisation team) to run swtor.

Or they’ve had there content production budget pulled even more until they can find some way to make more profit from monetising the game.

It just feels like something has fundamentally changed and I can’t put my finger on what exactly. Something tells me we won’t like it when we find out.

 

Most people want new story content. Having Player Character speak a single sentence of brand new dialogue involves hiring 16 voice actors for the job. -> It is extremely impractical and costly to cake up new story driven content.

 

If and when people do get brand new story content they been waiting for on Monday, it has been experienced and played through for the most part by the Monday of next week. Dropping VA from player characters would make things so much easier/cheaper.. but that's prolly not an option.

 

Majority of TOR players want content that is extremely impractical and costly to create for a small team that prolly doesn't have too much of a budget. Once content of that nature does get made, it has pretty modest logevity by default. It is a tough situation. In this regard, those who enjoy hard mode Ops or GSF or PvP etc a great deal are lucky.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Stradlin

[Rion_Starkiller]

Yeah, I can only guess, but I imagine dev team members have been working on the ME remaster and DA4. All while BWA is trying to run a studio during COVID. As someone who worked in an office in Manhattan, I can tell you entire office buildings were shut down and vacant. Who knows what BW had to do keep everything going. Edited May 17, 2021 by Rion_Starkiller

[SteveTheCynic]

Most people want new story content. Having Player Character speak a single sentence of brand new dialogue involves hiring 16 voice actors for the job. -> It is extremely impractical and costly to cake up new story driven content.

Er, no. It requires 48 voice actors. 16 who do English, 16 who do French, and 16 who do German.

If and when people do get brand new story content they been waiting for on Monday, it has been experienced and played through for the most part by the Monday of next week. Dropping VA from player character would make things so much easier.. but that's prolly not an option.

It's *totally* not an option for SWTOR. Think back to when KotFE released and there were people who tried to claim, because of the introduction of KOTOR style conversations for the first set of alerts, that there was no more voicing *anywhere* in KotFE. Now imagine that kind of person in a situation where *none* of the conversations are voiced...

[Stradlin]

Er, no. It requires 48 voice actors. 16 who do English, 16 who do French, and 16 who do German.

Uuf, you are right! I didn't think of localization. Even more harsh a situation. I bet German and French VA talent comes quite a bit cheaper than English, but still.

 

 

It's *totally* not an option for SWTOR. Think back to when KotFE released and there were people who tried to claim, because of the introduction of KOTOR style conversations for the first set of alerts, that there was no more voicing *anywhere* in KotFE. Now imagine that kind of person in a situation where *none* of the conversations are voiced...

 

Yeah I remember how furious people were about that.

 

Dropping PC VA would make new story content of significant scale so much easier to pull off. Written options would allow more entirelty different answers and more roleplaying. People would hate it though I think, I'm sure we'llm never see that happen.

 

From purely personal pov, I'd like it well. Fully voiced VA always feels like it kinda belongs to the voice actor, not to the player. Feeling or illusion that character and his story is mine happens more readily if PC lacks voice and has kinda..abstract responses. DA:O comes to mind as a great example here. I was extremely immersed through it all, playerchar felt very personal. Mostly because dialogue and exact flavor of responses relied so much on players own feeling or headcannon about the situation. Meanwhile, DA:I has fully voiced PC saying blandest things possible. Imo that makes a worse option by far. In general I think fully voiced PC is massively overappreciated in a situation where the said PC just asks questions or servers as equivalent of *turns the page* as the NPC focuses on saying the new, important or interesting things. Class stories, from time to time, have some measure of organic back and forth. Expansions and Post- KOTET in particular? Eh..

Edited May 17, 2021 by Stradlin

[phalczen]

Where? Who? Most the threads seem to be its bad and I hate PvP/GSF and I was forced to do it?

 

But I don't see how you are being forced to do it. I mean, people made that argument about the Ossus [WEEKLY]s for masterwork data crystals and, eventually, monumental data crystals. They made the same arguments before Ossus about the highlighted galactic command activity (now the highlighted renown activity). More recently the comments have been about the forced nightmare ops and forced ranked pvp for rating 300 augment materials. But all those things have something important in common ... they all involved the pathway to acquiring gear, and everyone needs gear (to varying extents.)

 

Galactic Seasons isn't about gear, at least not functional gear. I mean, from a certain point of view, its no different than saying you need to pvp on Oricon to get the "Scare Bear" legacy title and achivement or deliver the killing blow to however many thousands of players for the "Manhunter" title. So, the argument that you are being forced to pvp or forced to do anything is on even shakier ground than the Ossus arguments. Galactic Seasons doesn't even prevent you from earning renown or conquest, and in some cases even promotes those systems.

 

I guess I could understand or appreciate some of the arguments saying, "the development time could have been better spent doing ____ which would benefit everyone, instead of Galactic Seasons," but I can't see how this system is forcing anybody to do anything ... if one playing a video game can be even "forced" to do anything at all.

[Christie_Swift]

I hope this gets improved sooner rather than later. IMO the grind is boring and you can only re-roll once for each daily and only once per weekly missions. Rather than rewarding useless crap, can we have re-roll tokens as rewards or even sell those in the Cartel market.

Would be ideal to have many more choices than the copy paste job from conquests. It does not take much to expand a few more alternatives . I dislike OPS, Galactic fighter, and Veteran FPs in that order. Please give us more choices and more ways to re-roll missions.

 

Thanks!

Edited May 17, 2021 by Christie_Swift

[TrixxieTriss]

I hope this gets improved sooner rather than later. IMO the grind is boring and you can only re-roll once for each daily and only once per weekly missions. Rather than rewarding useless crap, can we have re-roll tokens as rewards or even sell those in the Cartel market.

Would be ideal to have many more choices than the copy paste job from conquests. It does not take much to expand a few more alternatives . I dislike OPS, Galactic fighter, and Veteran FPs in that order. Please give us more choices and more ways to re-roll missions.

 

Thanks!

 

And also loosen the restrictions on those options. Ie, I don’t need to queue up for master mode flash points normally because I can do them solo or with my wife. So why should I have to queue for veteran flash points with some pugs who are abusive or time wasters just to do old content I’ve done a million times before.

 

Of course there are some activities that require a group, like ops, pvp, gsf and world bosses (which should be added to GS). But other things like Uprisings (that should be added too) and veteran/master mode flash points don’t require groups as the can be done solo or with one other friend.

Edited May 17, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[OlBuzzard]

I disagree, been having a lot of fun farming my dailies and it doesn't take too long. Around 40 minutes top to get both of them done, the weeklies can take a little longer but I never took more than an hour or more to get each one done, unless they involved an operation and the team took longer, which is fine. I'd probably have taken another hiatus from the game if it wasn't for galactic seasons to be honest. Got nothing to grind besides credits.

 

You're much faster at the weekly stuff than I am !! WOW !! (usually takes me about 3 times that ... but I expect that !! Good grief I'm a lot slower !!)

 

The biggest issue is that there are a lot of folks that only want PvP (regardless of GSF or other areas) and some folks don't want ANY PvP (I'm one of those). Frankly I don't even mess with any of the weekly stuff because of that categories that are available (or a lack there of) . BUT HEY ... that's my choice !

 

Where many of us are concerned is where so much of this has been going steadily for several months now. YES COVID affected everyone. I get that! I feel for the (literally) thousands of people who have been displaced or seen other drastic changes in employment and or job changes / status. However, it seems more and more apparent that there is something else going on that has very negatively impacted the game.

 

Me (personally) I will continue to try to wait patiently to see what develops in the next few weeks / months. But even for me there are limitations. Many of us are looking for something in game to help heal matters right now ! I think we could all use some encouragement from the right people inside of SWTOR !

[OlBuzzard]

Feels like the EA overlords have pulled half the creative team and coders for another project again and mostly left the Cartel market team (monetisation team) to run swtor.

Or they’ve had there content production budget pulled even more until they can find some way to make more profit from monetising the game.

It just feels like something has fundamentally changed and I can’t put my finger on what exactly. Something tells me we won’t like it when we find out.

 

I dunno !! That just doesn't feel right !! ( I doubt that makes sense ... but for now just go with it )

Edited May 18, 2021 by OlBuzzard

[phalczen]

Let me ask this. Let's say I have a time limited event during the summer, let's call it, the Dark vs Light Event. There are some cool rewards, like a companion, weapon tunings, titles, mounts, free cartel packs, and even an armor set that, when complete, boosts experience. There isn't any new content though ... it requires you to create new toons to do old content. It's all sorts of content types: some solo, some group, some pve, some pvp. But to get all the rewards, you are going to have complete all the specified content, even if its not something you normally do. Ostensibly its filler for the summer, because we've been told a very big story driven expansion is coming after it.

 

How is Galactic Seasons any different, fundamentally I mean? You don't even need to create new toons (plural) to do it. And it is a system that is designed to repeat from now on, as opposed to being time limited. Now, we don't have KOTFE waiting in the wings ... but we've been told there is something big planned for the tenth anniversary later this year.

 

There are many things to be angry about with regards to SWTOR, but I'm not sure this is one of them.

[ceryxp]

There are many things to be angry about with regards to SWTOR, but I'm not sure this is one of them.

 

Agreed. Could they make some tweeks? Sure. I certainly hope that they afford a bit more care and attention to the appointed target for any future kill PO's (I am looking at you Voss insectoid PO), but the system as it is is very forgiving and gives more than enough opportunity to receive all of the rewards. Of course, there will always be someone who is not happy with the rewards, but that is just a fact of life.

[OlBuzzard]

Agreed. Could they make some tweeks? Sure. I certainly hope that they afford a bit more care and attention to the appointed target for any future kill PO's (I am looking at you Voss insectoid PO), but the system as it is is very forgiving and gives more than enough opportunity to receive all of the rewards. Of course, there will always be someone who is not happy with the rewards, but that is just a fact of life.

 

I could agree with this ... No need to do away with GS ... simply make some other stuff available for weekly PO's etc.

 

That still does not answer some other stuff ... but we'll leave the details for that in another thread at another time and try to stay on topic better !

[TrixxieTriss]

I dunno !! That just doesn't feel right !! ( I doubt that makes sense ... but for now just go with it )

 

Reading the latest EA financial report indicates they aren’t doing as well as the other gaming studios have during covid. Compared to the others, EA are only scrapping by to stay in the black. Where as Activision Blizzard have smashed all expectations and are looking to expand again.

Edited May 18, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[eabevella]

Let me ask this. Let's say I have a time limited event during the summer, let's call it, the Dark vs Light Event. There are some cool rewards, like a companion, weapon tunings, titles, mounts, free cartel packs, and even an armor set that, when complete, boosts experience. There isn't any new content though ... it requires you to create new toons to do old content. It's all sorts of content types: some solo, some group, some pve, some pvp. But to get all the rewards, you are going to have complete all the specified content, even if its not something you normally do. Ostensibly its filler for the summer, because we've been told a very big story driven expansion is coming after it.

 

How is Galactic Seasons any different, fundamentally I mean? You don't even need to create new toons (plural) to do it. And it is a system that is designed to repeat from now on, as opposed to being time limited. Now, we don't have KOTFE waiting in the wings ... but we've been told there is something big planned for the tenth anniversary later this year.

 

There are many things to be angry about with regards to SWTOR, but I'm not sure this is one of them.

 

Because Galactic Season last FIVE MONTHS where as the other events last a month at most.

 

GS will be there for five months. And all this time you will get the shiny notification to make you open and look at the progress window to remind you that your progress is dragging behind because your lack of participation.

 

All the events that require you to do missions last a bout a week, even if you hate it, it goes away after a week and there is no notification to bother you about it.

 

That's the main difference. GS forces people to notice it but the other events don't. GS is like those people outside of the subway station to shove flyers into your hand and force you to listen to and buy their stuff. But the other events are like street performers, they do their things, and if you think it's stupid, you can simply pass by.

[DeannaVoyager]

Where many of us are concerned is where so much of this has been going steadily for several months now. YES COVID affected everyone. I get that! I feel for the (literally) thousands of people who have been displaced or seen other drastic changes in employment and or job changes / status. However, it seems more and more apparent that there is something else going on that has very negatively impacted the game.

 

 

Who knows, maybe they are actively trying to get rid of the old, loyal players who keep asking for new content, and replace us with the new, toxic generation who will grind whatever treadmill of old content they can think of, and buy cc while doing so. The new players are not asking for new content, because they haven't played all of it yet and that's very convenient to BW. And most importantly they don't know that the game, gearing, loot etc used to be so much better, so they are not complaining when pieces of the game gradually gets destroyed.

Edited May 18, 2021 by DeannaVoyager

[ceryxp]

Because Galactic Season last FIVE MONTHS where as the other events last a month at most.

 

And the 2016 Dark vs Light event ran for approximately four months and was much less forgiving. For example, that event required one to do the Gree event, which only ran for three weeks during the time of the DvL event, so if you missed your opportunity you were SOL. Unlike Galactic Seasons which is, albeit repetitive, much more forgiving in that one is not required to do everything every single week in order to receive all of the rewards. Skip what you do not like because there are more than enough points available over the course of the season to reach level 100.

[Xina_LA]

I'm not enjoying Galactic Season for four main reasons --

 

#1) I don't have the same missions as my friends, so we can't adventure together, especially on the dailies. We end up with different goals, even if some of us re-roll. Group play is less frequent.

 

#2) When I earn the tokens for something, it's gone from the vendor. Nobody knows if or when it will come back. Also, if you don't get to the higher levels before the reset, will it be impossible to get the decos (and other unique items) available at those levels? I feel like I'm going to lose my progress as soon as the season resets and all this grind will be for nothing.

 

#3) Due to bugs, I've made very little progress for a lot of effort. Maybe it's just my bad luck, but about 25% of the work I've done didn't give me credit for whatever reason. I didn't know it wouldn't count until I finished the FP (etc), so it was a giant waste of time. In one case, I had to do 8 Heroics to complete a single GS mission, and it didn't break until the last one.

 

#4) If you want to buy one of the new strongholds, you can't buy anything else, not even the decorations at the vendor. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Xina_LA

[Stradlin]

I'm not enjoying Galactic Season for four main reasons --

 

#1) I don't have the same missions as my friends, so we can't adventure together, especially on the dailies. We end up with different goals, even if some of us re-roll. Group play is less frequent.

 

If POs were shareable, people would hunt all same optimized fastest easiest missions on fleet or gchat, then pile up doing brand new Bug Hunt on Balmorra erry day, or something.

 

Alternatively, if everybody got the same POs every day, it'd lead to ridiculous locust swarms on same tiny areas, day after another.

 

I think it was a great idea to make sure people are scattered arund the galaxy.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Stradlin

[SteveTheCynic]

#4) If you want to buy one of the new strongholds, you can't buy anything else, not even the decorations at the vendor. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Um? Is the vendor broken? The season gives 15 tokens, and the stronghold costs 8. Does buying the SH really break the vendor, so you can't spend the other seven tokens?

[casirabit]

I'm not enjoying Galactic Season for four main reasons --

 

#1) I don't have the same missions as my friends, so we can't adventure together, especially on the dailies. We end up with different goals, even if some of us re-roll. Group play is less frequent..

 

This is a major complaint that I have heard and even though some may think it good, I don't because some of us like to play with our guild and and our friends.

 

The only thing I have seen that is "group" play is the operations and certain flashpoints but unfortunely not everyone likes to do that so that doesn't seem to work for those that like to play with their guilds and friends. It would not surprise me if the way they are doing this will cost them more people but then again maybe they just want them to leave.

[ceryxp]

This is a major complaint that I have heard and even though some may think it good, I don't because some of us like to play with our guild and and our friends.

 

The only thing I have seen that is "group" play is the operations and certain flashpoints but unfortunely not everyone likes to do that so that doesn't seem to work for those that like to play with their guilds and friends. It would not surprise me if the way they are doing this will cost them more people but then again maybe they just want them to leave.

 

Wait, so what you are saying is that if you are not getting something out of it you will not help? For example, if you have the PO for Hutt Space heroics and your guildie has the PO for Hutt Space Dailies you would not group up and help each other? You two could get on one character and do Ossus dailies together, which would get them done faster, get you both to Conquest, and complete one PO, and then swap to different characters, group up and do Hutt Space heroics together, which, again, would make them faster, get you both to Conquest, and complete the other person's PO.

 

Your complaint sounds like the problem lies elsewhere than with the GS system.