Please stop insulting the devs

[TrixxieTriss]

I care more than you do. And %99 of your ideas are just biased, not data-driven, wrong and just plain bad.

 

Just because you and 10 other loud people think is dumb, doesn't mean is dumb. After so many years the game is going to a good direction and most of the folk are happy with the changes/direction the game is headed. Even in your own Reddit pool which contains mostly casuals participating at least not unhappy with the changes.

 

Right, you care so much that you unsub as soon you do the story 🙄

[The-Kaitou-Kid]

I care more than you do. And %99 of your ideas are just biased, not data-driven, wrong and just plain bad.

 

Just because you and 10 other loud people think is dumb, doesn't mean is dumb. After so many years the game is going to a good direction and most of the folk are happy with the changes/direction the game is headed. Even in your own Reddit pool which contains mostly casuals participating at least not unhappy with the changes.

 

Players don't have data by design. Only the devs have data. That doesn't make player feedback worthless and the fact that you and Riku think so, and that opinion seems to be shared by the devs that interact with the Discord, really frustrates me. Players are the ones that are actually playing the game and while we don't have access to the numbers and can't tell the devs "This will 100% work" or "This is 100% the problem", a wide variety of opinions can form a recurring theme in feedback.

 

Player feedback brought 6.0's gearing system into a much better place than it was when it was first revealed, because the devs were actually open to listening to that feedback in the first place. They didn't take this opinion you and Riku seem to hold that players on the forums are just overly negative and shouldn't be listened to.

 

I want to love this update. There's a lot of good stuff in it, truly, but I genuinely don't believe this new gearing system is a good idea, nor do I think this outlook they've taken recently of just completely ignoring the forums, including their own PTS forums, is a smart direction to take either. But as you've pointed out, they have the metrics so they'll see whether this was a good idea or not.

 

Also, as a side note, gonna need a source on you caring more than Trixxie does. Not that I think she cares more than you do, but we're all hopefully wanting the best for this game. That's another problem with that "forum criticism is overly negative!" attitude, is that you tend to get this impression that people criticizing the game just hate it. We don't. This is my favorite Star Wars game and I want it to continue, I wouldn't be here giving feedback if I didn't. I'm sad that the feedback I've been giving lately has been so negative, but I don't think the game is going in a great direction and I want to see it do better. I'm glad you like the direction things are going in, but that doesn't mean you care more.

Edited November 9, 2021 by The-Kaitou-Kid

[Dyne-]

https://imgur.com/a/E2AtWij

Once again, it has been proven that forums a verry loud minority and not a good source of feedback. Goodjob trix 😂👍

 

It's funny that people keep saying the negative feedback on the forums is a loud minority. There has been well over 100,000 views across multiple threads with thousands of replies. The overwhelming majority of the feedback has been negative.

 

Your counter to that feedback is to post a reddit poll that barely has more votes than the guardian thread has replies, and that's supposed to prove that the forums is a "minority" of players?

 

Stop it lol 😂

[TrixxieTriss]

It's funny that people keep saying the negative feedback on the forums is a loud minority. There has been well over 100,000 views across multiple threads with thousands of replies. The overwhelming majority of the feedback has been negative.

 

Your counter to that feedback is to post a reddit poll that barely has more votes than the guardian thread has replies, and that's supposed to prove that the forums is a "minority" of players?

 

Stop it lol 😂

 

With the amount of views we actually get here, wouldn’t you love BioWare to do an official survey (we can see) here on the forums asking similar questions?

Edited November 9, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[MystyqeofXev]

1 - Most of successful MMO's does follow this pattern. WoW, FFIV, ESO, and such. Sure they success doesn't depend on gearing via ops, but it's the part of it. Players will consume content faster than any game company can put out. So of course a game company wants you to do grinding, repetitive content and insensitive such as gear and swag. This is backed by data and it's a fact whatever you like it or not.

 

Wrong. Up until Cata, WoW always had more to do than you could handle. Sure they had dailies for Rep, but there were a ton of zones, a ton of quest, OLD world quests et al.

 

Everquest ALWAYS had something going on. As somebody wiser than me once said, "There's always something to do in Everquest". This was not dailies or game-events, this was dungeons, or crafting, or camping for items.

 

2 - This game by design failures and choice can not produce content like any other MMO. The engine is terrible, the code is spaghetti, there is voice acting in every quest and people are used to it so it should stay which takes time, the budget is low so on and on.

 

That's an EA problem. When WoW had terrain issues (stuck) like SWTOR does, do you know what they did? They went back and HAND-CODED every one to avoid that problem.

 

Don't even get me started on the gawd-awful jump-coding in this game. (See GW2 for JC done RIGHT)

 

3 - What is profitable to any gaming company is not a story, or levelling or anything. It's the end game content. It can be dailies, it can be pvp, it can be events, and it can be ops. Higher the difficulty, the higher the rewards.

 

You just chastised somebody for not having the data, and now you're covering ALL gaming companies with a wide brush? Furthermore if you think catering to a VERY niche crowd is "profitable" then I have to ask for details and spreadsheets.

 

4 - Swtor has wrongly put the story players at first at 4.0, tried the single-player game with MMO elements and it failed miserably. People either logged in played and log out for the month or they just waited for 3-4 chapters then sub. That is damaged the game, couldn't even catch the hype train around new movies. What you need to understand here swtor devs saw that and begin to change that. If you think that model was successful why did they give up on that? Because it didn't bring money. Simple as that. If it brought money, they would have continued. No more raids, monthly chapters so on and on.

 

First off, the last three movies were absolute dreck. Second, how do you know what brought in money and what didn't? Are you privy to their inner workings and financials?

 

5 - Now they trying is going back to the roots. Trying the current population try end game content, and trying to catch players from other games as well as new players. What trixxiespam said is true: You do the story once, and you unsub. That's it. Those who do it for story and space barbie will continue to play because those changes won't affect them one bit. You have multiple gear trees which can clear any content. If you want to absolute BiS you do the end game. And multiple ilvl gears will come out so everyone will have a chance to catch up or min/max.

 

Have you played any other game, for any amount of time? If you think gating BiS gear behind Nim OPs, or siloing gear to activity is going to increase time-played metrics, I can tell you, unequivocally, that is not the case.

 

The only thing I would have done differently was brought back expertise and that's about it. (Assuming I don't have any budget to separate pvp or pve output. ) But Chris said it won't align with their goals at the moment after they have a hard look at expertise. I disagree with that but I don't have any data to say it would be more good/bad.

 

Because designing gear for PvP is "hard". WoW did it right for a brief time. (It was called 'resilience'). But the casuals, and raiders went into PvP arena and Warzones (WZ's) and got ROFL-stomped, so, Activision did away with that stat.

 

Other than that game is going to the better direction and I like it. Instead of trying to be a single-player game (which why this game is failed at lunch, no end game play whatsoever), it tries to be an actual MMO which is good.

 

I doubt you have any idea what a "actual" MMO is. Your counter argument is nothing but opinion.

 

EA wants to go down this path? Well, the secondary and tertiary effects are going to be horrific. So be it.

 

Some lessons must be learned in blood.

[lord-angelus]

Players don't have data by design. Only the devs have data. That doesn't make player feedback worthless and the fact that you and Riku think so, and that opinion seems to be shared by the devs that interact with the Discord, really frustrates me.

Btw don't want to shatter your world but it's actually (again a data shared by devs) forums are not a great way to get

feedback because the same people repeat the same things.

[xXSchmedlyXx]

They aren't stupid, They know what they are doing and they know the risks associated with them.

 

The lead game designer has immense knowledge of game systems, other MMOs, what works and what doesn't. These changes are not being made without knowing the intended results and consequences.

 

For players who are unhappy (like me) we just need to understand that our investment of time and money are not important, making a game that makes as much money as possible into the future is.

 

It's just business after all.

You know I'd agree with you, but BioWare's changes to Juggernauts in 7.0 would suggest otherwise as to "they aren't stupid."

 

Also Moophy still isn't banned so....they clearly don't know what they are doing, at least as far as pvp is concerned.

[Schlumpfine]

More to the point, that's not really relevant to 6.0's gearing system vs 7.0 anyway. 6.0 didn't focus on solo play or story either, nor did its gearing system. They were just included. As I've said, there was a way to make MMO style content more rewarding in 7.0 while keeping solo content relevant and rewarding as well. To include all playstyles, like 6.0 did, but fix the flaws with 6.0's systems to make sure endgame and group content is rewarded commensurately with its skill requirements.

 

 

 

And this is where I think 7.0's gearing system fails. You think that players that wouldn't have tried endgame content before will now be enticed to do so because they don't have access to decent gear otherwise. I think the opposite, because of my own experience playing. 6.0 was the time where I felt most enticed to do group content, because I didn't feel like my gear would be the thing holding me back. With 7.0's system and what I've seen it, I'll just play less overall, because the gear grind for solo won't be worth it over the 306 gear I already have and I won't feel comfortable venturing into group content as a result. This is how I felt in the older expansions before they moved away from that style of gearing system. 7.0 is even worse for solo players in that regard, to the point that I currently don't plan to bother with it at all.

 

 

I agree with that. With 6.0 i have done the Story and then i stayed subbed to gear up all my 27 alts with 306 Setgear.

I done this by donig Weeklies, Planetary Missions, Veteran FPs and MM FPs.

 

I will defintly not doing this with the 7.0 Gearing System. I have a Fulltime Job and a private life and can´t play all day to get better gear.

And the worst is that with the kind of content i play i will never get the Best gear anyway.

So i thing i will stick with my 306 Gear and will quit my sub after i finished the Story.

[Sarova]

Because as a Story player with Cerebral Palsy, Chronic Fatigue, and Chronic Pain, the highest rated gear "cushions" me during play, allowing me to play with less pain and fatigue. I also pay the same 15$ a month and work as hard as any MM player. So that's why!

 

Some people will unfortunately never see your point (though I do). Whilst I agree that those able to succeed at the hardest content should get the highest rewards, it makes life much easier for the rest of us to be able to get decent rated gear through our chosen game play. I don't like the idea that because of the content I play, I will most likely only ever be able to get the lowest rated gear. Those with the highest gear from content I can't/don't do being able to pulverise me in PvP as a result is a bit of a downer. I've not seen anything about adjusting down gear ratings so we're more evenly matched in unranked in 7.0.

 

The person you engaged with has been on my ignore list for a very, very long time and my forum experience has been a thousand times better for it. It's a pity I could see what was quoted even though I tried to scroll past it. It would be great if stuff quoted by people on our ignore lists remained unreadable.

 

[Anishor]

I'm of the opinion that gear should not be gated behind the hardest content. This game has tons of ways of rewarding the harder content - Titles, Flair, Mounts, custom variants of armor, ect.

 

Also from a pvper's perspective, I think most of us are just taking issue the gear no longer being moldable at launch of 7.0. I believe it will eventually change post launch, or at least I think I read that somewhere, but it's hard to know without an official roadmap or more dev posts on the reasoning.

[Ulrah]

First, sampling is a standard practice in analyzing feedback. You can't get everyone to respond, so you will always be looking at a subset of the population. It could be argued that the forum population is not representative of the whole, but how "vocal" we are is not relevant evidence for such (at least in terms of unique feedback).

 

If there are raiders who support this, I think we are barely hearing from them because it's an embarrassing argument to make. "You don't need gear as good as I need, you wouldn't even know what to do with it. Take these scraps and shut up...". Any raider defending this new system is admitting they need an unfair advantage over others. Doesn't sound very elite to me... I thought they liked challenges?

 

I've played a lot of MMOs and seen a lot of threadnaughts. Aside from some bad scandals in EVE, this is the most one sided (negative) sentiment I have seen - for what it's worth. I'm also seeing similar ratios of resentment in game.

 

------------------------

 

On the data analysis side, correlations can be found in data to back up practically any argument. Further, It's very problematic to use data to make predictions beyond the range of the data. Often, the only way to find out if there is a causal relationship is to conduct experiments. For example, I suspect their data is showing lower participation in raids than they would prefer. A correlation to this is a lack of superior gear rewards from raids. This new gearing system will basically be an experiment to see if this is a causal relationship, or simply a correlation. It's ignorant to claim that they already know the result of this experiment due to their current data.

 

Another takeaway here is that these changes are almost certainly designed to CHANGE the data they see. "Play your way" is being replaced by "Play our way".

Edited November 9, 2021 by Ulrah

[arunav]

They aren't stupid, They know what they are doing and they know the risks associated with them.

 

The lead game designer has immense knowledge of game systems, other MMOs, what works and what doesn't. These changes are not being made without knowing the intended results and consequences.

 

For players who are unhappy (like me) we just need to understand that our investment of time and money are not important, making a game that makes as much money as possible into the future is.

 

It's just business after all.

 

What does that mean though? Is SWTOR being prepared for some kind of console, tablet, or other non-PC port?

 

I've been around since launch, and I don't understand why so many of the upcoming changes are being made now, and the nature of the changes themselves. That's one of few things that might make sense of it to me, and why BW would be silent on the feedback front.

Edited November 9, 2021 by arunav

[Ulrah]

Btw don't want to shatter your world but it's actually (again a data shared by devs) forums are not a great way to get

feedback because the same people repeat the same things.

If they were interested in feedback at all, we would have heard about these changes more than about a month before release (with holiday season looming/starting).

[Pirana]

If you can be BiS in maximum of 6 hours, 6.0 is done in a day since there are 2 hours of story.

At least by grinding gear you give people something to play. Let's say 7.0 is the same hour of story content so by giving a gear grind you give people something to play with. So you should be happy with the changes, because no matter what the gear is coming from, original content will be same amount. This gives replayability to the content we have, the incentive for endgame-group content since GEAR IS NUMBER ONE FACTOR to do anything IN ANY GAME.

 

I do agree the frag system was far too easy, other than the credit sink when trying to get the best amps for gear, but that's easy to see from their point of view, it was a credit sink, akin to their questionable decision to introduce augs with a 300 item rating. The amp credit sink had very little effect on my overall revenue, but others that don't have the capital that I do, I'm sure that credit sink affected them. Regarding your statement about "you should be happy with the changes", if I were, I wouldn't be against it, that should be easy enough to understand. And it's not just me, it's people in this thread along with quite a few people in the PTS section of the forums, go peruse that and you will see the mass amount of disdain.

 

Don't get a gear grind confused with a gear change, that's what I've been adamantly against. If you've been here since the beginning, you would know this isn't the first time the gearing process, as in how gear is acquired, not the actual gear grind, has been altered. That is the issue. Assuming this game survives another year or two, I can guarantee you, this will not be the last time how gear is acquired, again, not the actual gear grind, that is to be expected in most MMO's. And when that happens, they will again mention, that they've listened to player feedback and made adjustments, this is their modus operandi.

 

One last thing regarding your replay-ability statement, tell that to all the people that have left the game over the years due to poor decisions by this company. They, like me, have decided with their wallets.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Pirana

[Lyriel]

Btw don't want to shatter your world but it's actually (again a data shared by devs) forums are not a great way to get

feedback because the same people repeat the same things.

 

Gonna need a link to that 'data shared by devs.' A complete one.

[SaerethDL]

Come on be honest, if the results were your way, you would have published in every forum in every post. That was the point of this.

 

And the thing is %22 of saying they would unsub, which they won't. Now they are angry, later they will adapt to the changes. For example, this is your 12398712381728301th^2 unsubbing post over the years, and yet here you are.

 

Devs have the actual data, they make assumptions according to that data. Can be wrong, can be right the time will tell but as you look at the other MMO's which they follow similar gearing patterns, it is safe to safe this won't have major negative impact on subs, can they are betting it will have positive one which I and many players agree upon.

 

Got eeeem

[MystyqeofXev]

it is safe to safe this won't have major negative impact on subs

 

ha

 

ha ha

 

HAHA

 

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAHAA

[Ulrah]

Another point on the data analysis...

 

We are almost certainly talking about non-linear systems here. In other words, if we adjust a correlated variable as an experiment - the results are only valid for the given levels of other relevant variables during the experiment. And when you change multiple of these at once, as part of the same experiment, then your results are rather meaningless - certainly so in terms of declaring individual causal relationships.

 

They are, at the same time, adding exclusive gearing advantages to raids and trying to use weeklies to force us into specific content. Regardless of the result, we will not be able to identify the effects separately. No change? Maybe itemization changes helped but weeklies hurt. More participation? Maybe itemization changes hurt but weeklies helped more. etc.

 

In this situation, feedback should definitely be used to help interpret the data (past and future).

Edited November 9, 2021 by Ulrah

[Sarova]

If they were interested in feedback at all, we would have heard about these changes more than about a month before release (with holiday season looming/starting).

Has an actual release date been announced?

 

I think they are interested in constructive feedback, do make changes when possible (Rishi stronghold always comes to me as the best example) and lately some things have been improved on the PTS. I can no longer moan about the inventory because they've sorted that too. And they do read what we have to say (based on a recent PM I've had from a Dev). I expect with a deadline for 7.0, it's hard for them to keep up with us on every platform they monitor.

 

Plus some people fail to understand how to give constructive feedback and their posts read like insults, personal affronts and/or general moaning. Not helpful. They are like many of the complaints I used to get at work; a lot of general moaning about nothing. When you follow them up, the complainant didn't actually have anything to complain about; they just wanted to moan

Edited November 9, 2021 by Sarova

[MystyqeofXev]

I think they are interested in constructive feedback,

 

IOW "constructive feedback" is telling the Devs that everything is sunshine and rainbows, and anything else is not?

 

That's not feedback, far from it.

 

I gave the best feedback I could - when I unsubscribed.

[kage_goomba]

Has an actual release date been announced?

 

I think they are interested in constructive feedback, do make changes when possible (Rishi stronghold always comes to me as the best example) and lately some things have been improved on the PTS. I can no longer moan about the inventory because they've sorted that too. And they do read what we have to say (based on a recent PM I've had from a Dev). I expect with a deadline for 7.0, it's hard for them to keep up with us on every platform they monitor.

 

Plus some people fail to understand how to give constructive feedback and their posts read like insults, personal affronts and/or general moaning. Not helpful. They are like many of the complaints I used to get at work; a lot of general moaning about nothing. When you follow them up, the complainant didn't actually have anything to complain about; they just wanted to moan

 

Are you one of those people who thinks "You're Wrong" is "not constructive"?

Because that's what I've seen thus far....people saying "you're wrong to do this"

 

Lets leave the political correctness baggage where it belongs....in the dumpster.

The truth hurts....but at least they get the respect of facts and not "lipstick on a pig"

 

This isn't moaning.....its a cry for help.

 

And before you ask - I've done customer service work on both sides - I'd love nothing more to have the guy who said "The customer is always right" shot in the you know what repeatedly.

 

But this is not that case. This situation is a major exception.

 

I won't deny some features are nice - but they are vastly overshadowed by the negative feedback.

Edited November 10, 2021 by kage_goomba

[Sarova]

I think they are interested in constructive feedback,

 

IOW "constructive feedback" is telling the Devs that everything is sunshine and rainbows, and anything else is not?

 

That's not feedback, far from it.

 

I gave the best feedback I could - when I unsubscribed.

Made my point for me (and you've not read my feedback I'm guessing; I've not been happy about a lot of things I experienced on the PTS. NO idea where you're getting "sunshine & rainbows" from). Lots of people who've been on the PTS have left some really good constructive feedback. A lot of people who have not are leaving general moaning because they don't like what they think is going to happen. That's not being constructive. If you don't like what you've seen so far then unsubbing is the best thing you can do [obligatory "can we have your stuff" when your sub ends?].

As for the other person, they were so off key with their failure to understand my post, rather than get into a lengthy and irritating posting war with them, they've been ignore listed. I'm too old for some people's crap.