So Much Negative Feedback

[myrrhbear]

I just want to say I'm quite concerned with the how the changes towards 7.0 are being handled. In nearly two decades of being an avid MMO gamer, I have never seen this much negative feedback prior to a game update before. There's always some negative feedback, as you can't please everyone all the time, but this genuinely stands out. Normally before big changes, if one starts talking about what they are upset about, immediately there will be other players disagreeing with them about their complaints. This time it seems that isn't happening, but instead the strong majority seem to be in agreement about their bewilderment and dismay with the upcoming changes. That is a VERY bad sign.

 

And possibly worse than the widespread deeply negative feelings about the upcoming changes, is the responses we're getting from our developers, or lack thereof. The silence feels markedly dismissive. I happen to be in a guild with a fellow member who is personal friends with one of our developers, and he relayed to me that the attitude internally was one of callous mockery of the players being cry-babies basically. I was shocked. I don't want to believe that, and I would urge anyone reading this to assume that was a misrepresentation by my guild mate, but the lack of willingness to adjust course by the developers seems to corroborate it.

 

This all reminds me of the deeply damaging mistakes made with the ending of Mass Effect 3, also a game by EA.

 

Ignoring that such a large proportion of your players, including the most moderate and level headed among them, and even those who professionally share SWTOR content via guides and community updates etc... ignoring that even they are in agreement that the proposed changes are quite negative, and ignoring their suggestions for alternative approaches ... seems like a very dangerous course for this game to take.

 

I will be interested to see how many players altogether quit SWTOR over the next period of time.

 

Just because time has been invested in the current planned direction for the changes, and just because some key voices internally probably threw their voices behind this and might feel awkward to back-peddle, doesn't mean you should fall prey to the fallacy of sunk costs. You could still take some polls, and start showing that you're listening to the community feedback. There might be some suggestions among the community for alternative changes that would be much more agreeable to the players, and ultimately, isn't the primary thing that the players enjoy this game and want to keep playing?

 

Please understand, I'm saying this from a desire to see SWTOR succeed and continue being a fun and engaging experience, as it has been, which I've been enjoying since I subscribed on the day it first launched. I hope for good things.

Edited November 5, 2021 by myrrhbear

[The-Kaitou-Kid]

Yeah, honestly, the refusal to respond to feedback is what's putting me off the most at this point. It is a refusal, to be clear, because it's been noticed, repeatedly mentioned and called out, and yet still continues. That's not a "We're too busy and didn't notice you actually wanted updates from us on these issues", that's a "We're not responding to these growing concerns". I mentioned it yesterday, but I genuinely don't know if this is because Bioware can't handle criticism or if they just don't care, but at this point it doesn't matter which one it is. The effect on me is the same, which is that I'm genuinely frustrated with this whole update to the point where even if the story ends up being amazing, I'll never be able to divorce it from the awful handling of the changes that came with it. Just utter disdain for the players and their feedback. They can't even be bothered to tell us what's in the PTS patches anymore. That's what they've decided to put forward for the 10 year anniversary.

[Baletraeger]

I happen to be in a guild with a fellow member who is personal friends with one of our developers, and he relayed to me that the attitude internally was one of callous mockery of the players being cry-babies basically. I was shocked. I don't want to believe that, and I would urge anyone reading this to assume that was a misrepresentation by my guild mate, but the lack of willingness to adjust course by the developers seems to corroborate it.

 

I'm not at all surprised by this. The BW team has a long history of dismissing player concern, never admitting they are wrong, and sticking with their decisions even if it hurts the game.

 

The current game design director is clear on the vision to transform SWTOR into a mobile lobby game, seeing that as the future. CM shop cosmetics, quarterly story updates, daily/weekly mission table. The only outlier to the 7.0 changes is the exclusive gearing path for NiM raiders, which shows that there is still at least one group of players that the devs listen to.

 

If you only care about story, space barbie, rp, or are a nim raider, you probably will be fine with 7.0.

If you like mobile lobby games, you might like SWTOR even more than you do now.

If you like player agency, open world / sandbox elements, etc, SWTOR is not going to have anything to offer you going forward.

[Strathkin]

As the person ABOVE commented, it really demonstrates a immature attitude, as they demand players Adapt, Change, Evolve, yet they themselves are unwilling or incapable of it? Most concerns legitimate, at least with Armor Set Bonus it changed / evolved, yet may still despite offering 2 instead of 3 offer just as much choice! Yet the vast majority, it's offering far less! 95% of Players would prefer to be happy or excited, than concerned and worried!

 

I included a Summary of my thoughts about 7.0 in the Sage thread, yet thought I'd share there here as well. I was 5-7x more excited about 6.0 updates, despite doing far less. Mostly just greatly disappointed with whoever is leading the 7.0 TEAM.

 

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

I think if they give 2 of the 3 former abilities back based on Discipline, many WARM UP a lot.

╘ perhaps we will with one as well in time... ...I think that will sting a very long time!

 

Don't like they took Combat Proficiency choice out, far less customization; now all same based on Discipline.

And far fewer (CP) buff's as passive based on discipline, than the 9 (CP) Buff's we had before.

╘ it offered far more choice to vary toons a lot more, now it's easier; yet also far less fun to play several!

 

▪ While Combat Style while sounds interesting, it also really differentiated each class far more!

 

▪ Once or if they let, any Force user also change to 12 Disciplines... or Tech User do the Same why?

╘ so we only need to play 1 Force / 1 Tech user for each Faction? Hopefully they aren't doing that!

 

Also Legendary Buff's used to give 4, now we only get 1 of the former 4; fine if they removed group/party BUFF.

╘ if this has been corrected, it's a NICE development! I still like 6.0 Upgrade more than the 7.0 Downgrade!

 

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=998316

Not a fan of UI trying to show everything ALL at once, as the window just far too large. I far more liked the separate, more FOCUSED approach in 6.0!

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

 

I honestly WISHED had a lot more positive things to say, many characters with far less options to customize each class; many feel slower, or my options to customize greatly reduced with each class eliminated! Loadout's are a good thing, allowing you to swap Gear, or change Combat Proficiencies (if they remained) / Disciplines etc...

 

Just far too much has been removed, and very little if anything offered in it's place as a choice! It's eliminates differences from the Class with Combat Style, and doing it again allowing you to choose any Discipline of a Force User too.

 

Many are going to remove Several Character's in 7.0 perhaps, there's no reason to have them any longer!

Edited November 6, 2021 by Strathkin

[Baletraeger]

snip

 

I at first liked that they were going to do a class rebalance. Fixing and changing abilities, removing redundant or underused abilities, bringing back uniqueness to not only each class but also to each spec.

 

That isn't what we are getting in 7.0. The work on ability trees is half hearted. They only looked to cut TTK and punish players with difficult choices. They missed a huge opportunity to rework the classes and create a new tree system with interesting and dynamic choices. And yes, that might mean that some abilities would be left on the cutting room floor, but at least we would have classes that were still fun, and varied.

 

Instead we are largely going to end up with classes that are mechanically identical but cosmetically different. This makes it easy to manage from a dev perspective, easy to copy rotations for parsing, and easy to play alts for casuals. For anyone else looking for nuanced gameplay, find another game.

[Strathkin]

I at first liked that they were going to do a class rebalance. Fixing and changing abilities, removing redundant or underused abilities, bringing back uniqueness to not only each class but also to each spec...

 

Cause I don't think they are encouraging more to try SWTOR, while discouraging more from staying; some have been around since launch and any loss will sting them... ...people want to be excited, as that encourages more to try it.

 

I would have been excited by class rebalance, fixing, or adapting abilities... ...far more than I am by this! Removing Combat Proficiencies wasn't good idea.

 

There just moving to make every class identical to everything else, depending on which LOADOUT they choose at the time. What they should have done with Loadouts, was allow you to choose a Combat Proficiency, swap Gear, Armor, Tactical, or other things and left 6.0 method of variation between the Class.

 

Not change your Combat Style, or Discipline offered to another Class that made them more unique.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Strathkin

[Ramalina]

attitude internally was one of callous mockery of the players being cry-babies basically. I was shocked.

 

Why, have you never read the forums? We ARE cry-babies. Prone to tantrums and "sky is falling," hyperbole too.

 

In case you haven't noticed though, it's mutual. Players callously mock the devs for being tone deaf in communications and incompetent in game design.

 

There's a large slice of truth on both sides. It would probably be better if both sides were more polite, and more willing to listen. There's a long, long list of instances where players told the devs that a particular design change was ill conceived and would lose them players if implemented, and were absolutely right. There's also a long list of dev changes where things that were obviously broken and needed to be fixed were being exploited by players or where a new aspect of the game turned out to be quite popular despite initial player sentiments along the lines of, "We just hate all changes, period."

 

It doesn't help that both sides have a poor record when it comes figuring out which changes will go well and which ones will bomb and cause a hemorrhage of players.

 

Also keep in mind that the devs are creators, and fairly motivated ones to make it to a major game studio. There's an urge to experiment, to make things better, and yes to make quarterly reports that make the big bosses happy, or at least less inclined to be grumpy. This leads, far too often IMO, to them taking game systems that basically work, and remaking them over from scratch. It's sort of understandable though. Given the amount of existing content and code in the game, and the age and type of engine, there's a limited scope for what they can play with in terms of development while still keeping it a live income earning game. Retreads of parts that are "done" may be inevitable.

 

I think that for a variety of reasons the team at Bioware is really trying, within the scope they have, to swing for the fences on 7.0. So they're deliberately trying to create profound effects on the game. Which would be great if they always got everything right, but they don't. Honestly, overall, I think 7.0 will only be modestly worse as a player experience than live is now, and by sometime between March and July of next year they'll have patched enough things to be a razor's edge better than live is now. They've got a bunch of things that may be QoL home runs for players (the faction and world boss looting changes look promising and are roughly 9 years overdue for solving a rotten and pervasive user experience problem), a bunch of QoL improvements for themselves on maintainability, and of course the QoL DISimprovements that they're swinging for just as hard as for the improvements (for example, in a very loot centric game they're effectively taking user custom databases of stored loot, and erasing them every time the container/list/array is accessed, which is just a tiny bit frustrating for the user).

 

It is their game, and they have the right to do as they see fit with it. If what they see fit is unappealing to players, then players have the right to spend their money elsewhere. Actually, with the existence of Preferred status, it favors the players a bit. They can still personally gauge the "flavor" of the live game as post 7.0 patches land without having to actually pay for the samples. The devs have a lot more to lose if they make too many mistakes on 7.0 than any players do.

[Strathkin]

I'm very polite, even though I don't like much of the changes with 7.0 in fact.

 

Mostly because it's just far less FUN to greatly limit my choices how to play a Class, even if you allow me to change Combat Styles, or potentially change Discipline to any other Force User. Or for Tech Class it be the same there too, now every Class can be the same, and with greatly reduced options to customize your play style! Cause their will only be a DEFAULT choice in future.

 

It will be why, did I then bother creating 8 or more different Classes then?

Edited November 6, 2021 by Strathkin

[Marqhill]

Hey there,

 

So yeah, about all the negative feedback and the lack of positive feedback. So part of the reason that you're probably seeing a lack of positive feedback is that people who want to give positive feedback are sick to death of people doing all the negative feedback. I posted the other day about how I'm actually a pretty big fan of some of the Juggernaut/Guardian changes for all skill trees and that I like the direction the changes are going in and then got absolutely dogpiled about how I shouldn't say anything positive. There's enough going on in my life that I don't feel like arguing with random people on the internet. For the 3 classes that I've tried out I like the direction the game is going. I tried saying that and it immediately turned into mud slinging. I'm not engaging in that kind of nonsense and I feel like there's a lot of other people who feel the same. So all you're going to see is negative comments because the toxicity of the community.

[Strathkin]

I like seeing positive feedback, I just wish I had far more to offer up--I just really don't.

 

I'm concerned the removal of Combat Proficiencies, really greatly limits you ability to choose how you want to play each Class. Also many of those buff's made that class FUN. Now many classes are a bit slower, and offer no variation in how you play them.

 

While at the same time, by allowing Combat Style, or potentially choosing other Disciplines from other Force user's; all so any class is identica; based on Combat Style or Discipline with no ability to change them. Won't even need as many characters either, for the same reasons...

 

Most will require 1 Force / 1 Tech user per Faction possibly, not like today where you have 4-8 (some have far more like 20-30+) split between Factions. I see several likely be deleted, except perhaps the 8 Legendary class, and then people only may require to play 1-2 at best.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Strathkin

[Estelindis]

Unfortunately, I am not surprised. Playtesters gave extensive feedback on the 6.0 crafting, offering many criticisms but constructively phrased. And very little was changed pre-release. More was changed post-release, but still not addressing all the points we made.

 

My feeling at the time - rightly or wrongly - was that BW had put so much work into changing crafting that they could not justify scrapping the changes without giving them a chance to sink or swim live. But, in the event, what people said about the live version was largely the same as the criticism we playtesters had been offering.

 

Aggravating as this experience is, I do feel empathy for the devs. I think most people want to feel like the work they do makes a positive difference. We don't want to labour hard on something and then just see it get thrown out. That being the case... something about this design and testing approach needs to change. There should be more opportunity for constructive criticism to be given at a point where the design can be improved without a massive loss of work.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Estelindis

[WaywardOne]

Personally, I want this game to succeed probably as much as most devs. I want it to have 10 million subscribers, filthy rich producers and 750 programmers and artists driving to work in Austin in Tesla Roadster prototypes and Ducatis and starting or ending their days with a bungee jump off the side of their custom office building (more like Google's than something designed by Munger). I'd love it if this game was running its own movie franchise and a TV series or three. I want SWTOR to have its episodic class-specific stories back, far more story based flashpoints like Esseles/BT that I don't even want to spacebar through, epic raids that make Blur's Coruscant invasion look like a picnic, a space game that makes Star Citizen look small in scope, World PVP that did what Warhammer tried to do and ranked pvp for cash rewards showcased on esports.com. I fully believe a SW MMO could have all of that (but doubt that execs would share their profits much with programmers and artists, oh well).

 

While the chances of that level of success happening with SWTOR are negligible at this point, it's not a FFXIV killer because top level execs/producers are determined not to make it one (they'd rather cram their money into Anthem fails), BW could certainly improve their numbers, profits, reputation and their game without pissing off current players, even with very limited resources. In this case I fully believe the steps they're taking with 7.0, based on what I've seen, read about and played in other MMOs since the 90s as well as this one for the last ~10 years, are all but guaranteeing the opposite. I'd love to know what makes them suppose otherwise.

[Verfluchte]

I also don't know if I still want to continue playing alone if everything comes out like that, the new gear system you play what you want and if your gear is in 7.0 you will be forced to raid again and honestly my NIM times are over the costs use factor is personally no longer given to me with the disciplines I had come to terms but for years we had this system with the gear and now oh we're doing everything new instead of optimizing the existing system that's why i played swtor because it contrasts with it WoW was in the gear system

 

and i'm not alone with this opinion everywhere i'm less negative 1 month before the start, these are not good signs

[velvet_illusionZ]

Hey there,

 

So yeah, about all the negative feedback and the lack of positive feedback. So part of the reason that you're probably seeing a lack of positive feedback is that people who want to give positive feedback are sick to death of people doing all the negative feedback. I posted the other day about how I'm actually a pretty big fan of some of the Juggernaut/Guardian changes for all skill trees and that I like the direction the changes are going in and then got absolutely dogpiled about how I shouldn't say anything positive. There's enough going on in my life that I don't feel like arguing with random people on the internet. For the 3 classes that I've tried out I like the direction the game is going. I tried saying that and it immediately turned into mud slinging. I'm not engaging in that kind of nonsense and I feel like there's a lot of other people who feel the same. So all you're going to see is negative comments because the toxicity of the community.

 

You didn't get no positive feedback to your feedback cause it was positive about the changes. You did get negative feedback cause you demonstrated with your feedback you clearly don't understand how the class works. If you can't live with negative feedback, maybe invest the time to learn the class before you post. giving bioware positive feedback ain't unwelcomed IF they deserve it cause of their work which they very clearly don't do with 7.0. Thats why giving postive feedback on negative changes does more harm than anything else....

[ExarSun]

I sure hope for BW's sake those private discord players, they keep catering to, can keep the game afloat, because it is doubtful others will after those laughable decisions about combat styles and gear grinding. Oh and ruining conquest for solo players yet again. Edited November 6, 2021 by ExarSun

[Cedia]

I sure hope for BW's sake those private discord players, they keep catering to, can keep the game afloat, because it is doubtful others will after those laughable decisions about combat styles and gear grinding. Oh and ruining conquest for solo players yet again.

 

This. They are making WoW's mistake and catering to the fickle few.

[GeneralGyro]

it's like they're trying to make a reason for closing the game down. they want people to leave.

[TrixxieTriss]

it's like they're trying to make a reason for closing the game down. they want people to leave.

 

That’s how it’s feeling to a lot of veteran players. Just about all the old names you see on the forums and in game are expressing this view and many of us have canceled our subs in protest.

[Ner_idia]

While I don't do play-testing in any form, I'm just as concerned as most of the people who are posting here. I get the feeling that we're going to end up with a repeat of 5.0 all over again. But EA can make whatever changes they want without concern about their bottom line because there are enough people who: are willing to keep paying for "any" Star Wars game and express the sentiment that "bad content is better than no content".

 

I'm also realist enough to know that what we're seeing on PTS is probably what we're going to see when 7.0 drops. But the lack of even acknowledgement of player feedback is far more disturbing, and I really wish someone else would make a non-action MMO that as easy to play (and level) as this one is.