Does BioWare hate the casual player?

[ralphieceaser]

I think BW is cratering for groups a bit more. Simply because most players are in guilds. An old argument that I hate repeating - MMO: Massive Multiplayer Online.

 

That is the thing, more and more people play mmorpgs in a solo fashion, and by solo I include qued group content since you treat the other players as NPCs that help you get the reward you want from the group content, no need for interaction which is what many mmorpg players avoid no matter how many some might repeat "mmo means massilvely MULTIPLAYER online".

 

Something that many dying mmorpgs have trouble accepting, because it is an mmo doesnt mean people like interacting with other players in a meaningful way, hence why qued solo content is always more popular than group finders that require you to actually interact with others.

[Lord_Thorne]

"Does Bioware hate the casual player?"

 

Maybe, maybe not. If these forums and genchat are any indication, a significant portion of the player base does.

[turbomagnus]

You know... this topic reminds me of a scene from an old series about World War II. The soldiers are doing a night march in the rain wearing full combat gear as part of their training and they get to complaining; finally, the officer that is escorting them on the march asks one of the loudest complainers why he thinks they're doing this kind of march.

 

The soldier's answer: "Because our commanding officer hates this unit, sir."

 

The officer's reply? "Your commanding officer doesn't hate your unit, soldier. He just hates you."

 

The solder just said "Thank you, sir" and they all kept on marching...

[jedimasterjac]

When you consider the glacial pace of new content, extremely lax requirements to participate in basically every aspect of the game, the ease of gameplay, and the fact that there's basically nothing about this MMO requiring any sort of real commitment, I'm struggling to see how BioWare hates the "casual player." This is the most casual MMO there is.

[oslek]

GW2 is not full free to pay. You have to pay for the game and expansions. The difference is they don’t have a subscription model attached as well.

And that is called a B2P game.

 

Swtor would be better off if it had a paid expansion model + subscription (like Wow and FFXIV).They could still have free 2 play. But only for old expansion content. All new content would be locked behind an expansion pay wall.

Then BioWare would have the funds to develop proper expansions with substance.

Sorry, but WOW's slow drizzle of new content proves that theory wrong. Even after an expansion releases they slow drip the story to make you log in every week. So charging a sub fee along with game and cash shop doesn't guarantee a substantial expansion(or low level employees keeping their jobs for that matter). It just means more money going into the execs pockets.

 

I'd prefer it to be B2P like GW2 or New World: Buy the game and play it when you want to. I think one of the reasons for the decline of the MMO genre is the custom of paying money every month just to play a game you have already purchased. If this led to newer content on a monthly basis it might be worth it. But a two or three year drought between new content, AND a slow drip of content after release? Not really worth the sub fee.

Edited December 12, 2021 by oslek

[Pricia]

Well obviously they dont hate casuals but if they make decisions that hurt casuals and only benefit hardore raiders, is there a relevant difference?

 

I would say no.

 

Question is WHY ARE THEY DOING THAT?

 

-Swtor wont attract tryhard raiders from wow or ff14 due to lack of frequent raid updates

-High end raiding in any game has ALWAYS BEEN TOUCHED by only a minority so why ever focus on that?

 

Exactly. That's why I really don't get their strategy here.

 

Casuals in 6.0 were able to log in, do whatever they wanted, and get some rewards. It's going away. That's not a good strategy.

A lot of people played for the story too. That seems to be going away too. Again, what reason does it give people to play if they get maybe 2 hours of content?

 

Frankly, if you aren't supporting the game they I don't give a sh*t about you. I don't care what you think or complain about. Sub and I'll care. Just that simple.

 

The game isn't here for f2p to play. Its here for subscribers to play. You're along for the ride. And hopefully, you'll dig the game and sub.

 

That said, there is tons of content for the casual player. And by the way, casual does not mean solo. There are many casual players who are guild'ed. I think BW is cratering for groups a bit more. Simply because most players are in guilds. An old argument that I hate repeating - MMO: Massive Multiplayer Online.

 

Gentle reminder that only people who are subbed can post on the forums and that the ONLY thing the devs have actually cared about is feedback that the release wasn't ready. I've seen absolutely no reply about the hundreds of negative posts about 7.0 changes.

 

Also yeah - you can be guilded and be casual. And be a solo player. Also, a reminder that this game is very much a story-driven game and that the story overall is NOT group friendly. So of course that will attract people who want to just play for the story too. Those are shafted too.

 

As someone who isn't a casual but plays casually every character, the changes stink. Period. Solo or not solo, a casual will NEVER be able to complete the warzones/flashpoints weeklies.

 

Actually, I've actually got to the point where I'm a bit past caring. I'm probably not even going to bother with the gear grind AT ALL because it seems like an impossible task when you have a bunch of characters. Definitely switching my subscription to a one month basis after that so I can cancel at any time when I get sick of the grind and I'm done with GS.

 

And frankly.. I don't care if some random person on the internet thinks that "it's not the way I should play." It's the way I've been playing for 1.5 year. It's how I like to play - doing my own thing, what I WANT to do. I don't want to be forced into content I don't care about and having to compete with 20 other people for spawns that might die too fast for me to tag, or clickies that takes too long to respawn (I STILL haven't seen the devs address that one). I don't want to be forced to do missions that are long and boring just to finish a daily in one day.

 

Bottom line is the reward system was working just fine in 6.0 and there was NO REASON to change it.

[divinecynic]

Hate is perhaps a strong word. Better to say they want to tighter control over how they play the game. They are obviously trying to funnel as many players as they can to the new OP in harder modes. This is over all other activities in the game.

 

However, they do feel that playing a lot of alts is not ok. "Interruptive play" is something they are actively trying to discouraged. So logging in an alt getting conquest and moving on to another character is not something they like.

[Pricia]

Hate is perhaps a strong word. Better to say they want to tighter control over how they play the game. They are obviously trying to funnel as many players as they can to the new OP in harder modes. This is over all other activities in the game.

 

However, they do feel that playing a lot of alts is not ok. "Interruptive play" is something they are actively trying to discouraged. So logging in an alt getting conquest and moving on to another character is not something they like.

 

Yet they're not adding any reward for people who DON'T switch characters. Gosh, they're the ones who designed the system in the first place... what did they expect?

[Gilrenna]

I don't understand why they have this weird fixation on "interruptive play." Why is that bad? Why is playing a lot of alts bad? SWTOR is usually considered a good game for altoholics because of all the different story and romance options. To experience more of this, we make alts. And we want to play our alts and gear them up, etc, etc.

 

Plus, playing alts keeps us busy in a game that has few and positively glacial content updates. If I only play one or two characters, what am I going to do once I burn through their tiny amounts of new content? Why am I going to sub for more than 1 or 2 months out of a year?

 

There are only so many repeat FPs, WZs, dailies, and ops I can stand to do.

[oslek]

I don't play TOR for the gear grind, I play it for story. The game was marketed as KOTOR 3,4,5,6,7 back when it was released and that is how I've always treated it. Trying to copy whatever WOW is doing at the moment has always been this game's biggest mistakes along with the crappy engine they built it on.

 

I'm pretty sure when Star Wars Eclipse comes out this game will cease to exist because it's basically taking the KOTOR concept to the next level, which is what many of us were expecting this game to do.

Edited December 12, 2021 by oslek

[divinecynic]

I don't understand why they have this weird fixation on "interruptive play." Why is that bad? Why is playing a lot of alts bad? SWTOR is usually considered a good game for altoholics because of all the different story and romance options. To experience more of this, we make alts. And we want to play our alts and gear them up, etc, etc.

 

Plus, playing alts keeps us busy in a game that has few and positively glacial content updates. If I only play one or two characters, what am I going to do once I burn through their tiny amounts of new content? Why am I going to sub for more than 1 or 2 months out of a year?

 

There are only so many repeat FPs, WZs, dailies, and ops I can stand to do.

 

Here's what gets me about the anti-alt attitude. More alts means we need more cosmetics which in turn mean more spent on the cartel market. Bioware should be encouraging alt play. There is more money in it.

[Frostpyro]

The whole game even after the 7.0 changes is still VERY casual in the mmorpg space.

 

Don't look at it as Bioware hating the Casual player, but maybe they are finally throwing some bones to the hardcore player?

[MishaCantu]

I don’t think that’s particularly true. BioWare don’t discriminate, they hate everyone that doesn’t agree with their vision (at this or that particular time of development). They’ve demonstrated that over the years with their erratic swerves in game development (like a drunk drive trying to follow an upside down map). BioWares development since Revan comes across as institutionally Schizophrenic.

 

I have to agree with this. Just because Keith (I blame all this on him) thinks that OPS and PVP are the ONLY way to play the game, doesn't mean it's the right way to go. People tend to play the way they like to play, and trying to force everyone into little boxes isn't going to work no matter how pretty Bioware tries to make the wrapping.

 

It becomes annoying when I'm given something and then it's taken away on a whim. And you don't give to one group by taking away from another. My sub spends the same as someone who raids or does PVP. I don't mind giving more to OPS or PVP players, just don't take away from me in order to do it.

[Sarova]

 

Bioware hates the NON-SPENDING player.

When did casual equate to non-spending? I'm a casual player and I spend a ridiculous amount of money (including a regular sub) on this game.

I don't think they "hate" casual players. I think they just don't value us much and take us for granted. No matter how many bad decisions they make, no matter how little and how low quality the new content is, too many of us just plug along re-playing the same old decade old stories and forking over our cash to look good while doing so.

I'm in this post and I don't like it!

If they ever change or remove class stories, that's when I'm out.

Then don't repeat that old saw. It does not mean MMOs = group content. It simply means a lot of people playing in one online space at the same time. People can be grouping, or solo grinding, or shopping, or hanging out chatting, just as long as there are a lot of them.

Agreed. When will people learn this? It's not rocket science. MMO does NOT equal must play in a group and do group stuff. Never has for me and never will.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Sarova

[TrixxieTriss]

I have to agree with this. Just because Keith (I blame all this on him) thinks that OPS and PVP are the ONLY way to play the game, doesn't mean it's the right way to go. People tend to play the way they like to play, and trying to force everyone into little boxes isn't going to work no matter how pretty Bioware tries to make the wrapping.

 

It becomes annoying when I'm given something and then it's taken away on a whim. And you don't give to one group by taking away from another. My sub spends the same as someone who raids or does PVP. I don't mind giving more to OPS or PVP players, just don't take away from me in order to do it.

 

It actually all started with Ben Irving. Keith came along and tried to fix the damage he’d done, but has since gone back too far the other way and is making a similar mistake in reverse.

You don’t need to alienate parts of the player base to attract other players to the game. You can have the best of both worlds, sadly, BioWare don’t seem to get that.

[eabevella]

It actually all started with Ben Irving. Keith came along and tried to fix the damage he’d done, but has since gone back too far the other way and is making a similar mistake in reverse.

You don’t need to alienate parts of the player base to attract other players to the game. You can have the best of both worlds, sadly, BioWare don’t seem to get that.

 

Exactly. And SWTOR is a special case of MMO+RPG, not just a MMO with rpg feature.

 

"Casuals" define by some people in this thread are actually players who are dedicated to the story (I doubt a lot of people would even try this game without the story), their toons, and spend a large amount of time and real life money to make their toons look right and grow with them for years. Those players shouldn't be dismissed just because they don't play *your* so called hardcore contents.

 

If Keith or whoever has their own private raid group wants to favor the raiders, fine, even though this kind of favoritism is always bad in decision making. They can make raiding and pvp more appealing without sidelining those paying customers they deem "casual".

[Aghasett]

There is a refrain I've heard a lot this past week in relation to Star Wars: "They don't listen to the fans."

 

Hasbro's Haslab crowdfunding project of a large-scale Rancor action figure failed in spectacular fashion a few days ago, sending shockwaves though the Star Wars collecting community, toy suppliers and vendors alike.

 

The current Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser themed hotel rollout is, as we speak, on the precipice of being the biggest embarrassment-slash-write-off in Disney World's long history; a shockingly high profile and expensive failure for the brand.

 

Almost all but a select few subs I know consider ops boring, tedious and dreary. Without an easy activity finder-like feature to jump into one, most folks just can't be bothered. Mystifying why the devs think this is the winning formula. It's not. But then again, neither was the Rancor, and neither was Galactic Starcruiser.

[mike_carton]

Almost all but a select few subs I know consider ops boring, tedious and dreary.

 

This is like saying "Nobody I know voted for Nixon." The above quoted statement reflects the limited circle of subscribers you know; it does not reflect a true cross-section of subscribers.

 

My characters are in multiple guilds each of which runs multiple scheduled (*) and ad hoc Ops throughout the week and most scheduled, recurring Ops have excess sign-ups with multiple standby players each week. These Ops run the gamut from training Story Mode Ops to quick fun runs (20-25 minutes for Veteran Mode Dread Fortress, for example) to "can folks help me get MM Apex lockout for my other team." The last two types come together in Discord and are often cross-guild.

 

Then there are the actual progression raiding teams; I don't have enough time in the week to be part of enough of them.

 

How popular and varied are the Ops runs and motivations? Example: This past weekend, on the Satele Shan server, the guild leader of "You Can't Take the Sky from Me" organized a server-wide Operations Race to benefit the World Wildlife Fund (WWF.) Multiple teams - complete with judges/monitors, streaming video and so on - raced through 3 operations in 2 hours with the winning teams receiving several billions in credits from the guild funds; participants voluntarily contributed money to the WWF. The goal was $200.

 

Final contribution total was $2,176.

This is the second server-wide Ops Race she organized this year.

 

Ops are popular. They vary in difficulty and attract a wide variety of players for varying reasons.

 

(*) Recurring Ops that are on a published event calendar

Without an easy activity finder-like feature to jump into one, most folks just can't be bothered.

 

You might be able to do SM Ops with the GF as it exists today; even there I'm not sure of Ravagers and ToS. You certainly don't want to have VM or MM Ops in the GF as it exists today. For that to happen, GF needs to enforce Set Bonus, near BiS gear (with amplifiers, augments, right stat distribution, right trinity split) and have a means to check some uploaded parses to allow grouping. Otherwise it'd just be a massive source of frustration initially, and a massive failure in a week or two.

Edited December 14, 2021 by mike_carton

[mike_carton]

I do like the 6.x gearing where every player has a decent opportunity of getting the best gear. i don't like the "Fast Forward to the Past" idea of hiding the best gear in the Operations. Edited December 14, 2021 by mike_carton

[omaan]

The way I look at it, it's all about the money. They can't afford to be a fully free-to-play game like GW2 because the game's not designed for that style. Free-to-play was never intended; it was added in a desperate move to keep the game viable and recoup the money they spent in voice acting before launch. They designed the game to be a sub game, so that's what it is. And since you have to be subbed to play ops, they're hoping, by gating good gear behind ops, that will bring in more subs. Which means more money.

 

The game is still casual friendly. I can solo most everything even now, and the story is why I'm still playing despite the fact that they've done tons of things over the years that I don't like. My gaming partner left the game years ago when he found out that a lot of the KOTFE/KOTET content forced us to play individually. So I've been soloing the story ever since. As long as the story stays good, I'll probably keep playing, but I don't sub 12 months out of the year anymore. I spend time on other games when I get to the point there's nothing here for me to do.

 

Ranked also requires sub to be queued. Yet they spitted on it too which means that current situation isn't tied only to sub matter. I think besides sub it has something to do with the fact that ops is the only content that receives attention and development from devs. Just look, we had few new operations during last years yet there was no new maps for ranked. I bet devs just pushing ops in 7.0. because ops is the type of content they like and capable of developing considering their skeleton crew and the fact that ranked pvp isn't that popular among players (and they can't work for minority of players due to their limited resources, they can spend resources on things which are big, notable and popular). Their lack of resources results into inability to develop and focus on different types of content at the same time, and we see that they made the choice which content will receive their "love".

 

A pity but they will definitely pay for this by losing subscribers which preferring playing ranked, unranked, crafting and other types of content since these players will feel abandoned and ignored.....

Edited December 14, 2021 by omaan

[OlBuzzard]

I do like the 6.x gearing where every player has a decent opportunity of getting the best gear. i don't like the "Fast Forward to the Past" idea of hiding the best gear in the Operations.

 

Without getting into a lot of "us vs them" debates and discussions .. IMO this sums up the entire matter !!

 

Me personally:

I DON'T care for endless debates on philosophy of differing opinions of how people prefer to play the game. I like EVEN LESS attitudes which tend to usurp an authoritative position based on what might appear to be "superiority" over others thus giving that "skill" or "ability" precedence in matters of opinion of game goals, strengths, weaknesses, or achievements.

 

Having multiple levels of difficulty in playing the game coupled with an exciting story to drive the game (remember SWTOR's actual roots) would seem to optimize the overall potential of success.

 

The rest belongs in the hands of the development team. Hopefully some of the key elements of what has fallen by the wayside over the last few years will eventually be restored.

 

(It should be noted that these statements should reflect my posts in the past which have been scattered over several different threads).

 

I wish I had time for more but I'm currently dealing with some very somber and difficult RL matters which is requiring a great deal of my time.

 

Best of luck to all of us ( and particularly the team as well) .

 

Best Regards

Ol Buzzard

[Mallagant]

As a casual player myself, I have never felt that way. I started playing in beta, and have loved it since. I play multiple games and work full time, so my play time is limited. No matter how often or how long I take breaks from this game for, whenever I come back I am able to just pick right up where I left off.

Maybe I'm just such a casual player that the things you are upset about don't affect me, but the ease and slow pace I can play at when I do find time to actually play is the main thing that keeps me coming back to this game.

[Hadsil]

As a casual player myself, I have never felt that way. I started playing in beta, and have loved it since. I play multiple games and work full time, so my play time is limited. No matter how often or how long I take breaks from this game for, whenever I come back I am able to just pick right up where I left off.

Maybe I'm just such a casual player that the things you are upset about don't affect me, but the ease and slow pace I can play at when I do find time to actually play is the main thing that keeps me coming back to this game.

 

Same.

 

As I've said in different threads about the topic, I don't care about having the best gear. Let it always be green. As long as I can play the story in Story Mode I'm happy. No more Spirit of Vengeance fiascos. Those who enjoy the operations are welcome to do so.

[TrixxieTriss]

Same.

 

As I've said in different threads about the topic, I don't care about having the best gear. Let it always be green. As long as I can play the story in Story Mode I'm happy. No more Spirit of Vengeance fiascos. Those who enjoy the operations are welcome to do so.

 

And just give us the option to mod our gear the way we want it. It shouldn’t be limited to Ops players only.

[DWho]

And just give us the option to mod our gear the way we want it. It shouldn’t be limited to Ops players only.

 

This is the simplest gearing option to put in this late in the development process. The code should already be in place for it to be done with raids (heck it exists in the current version of the game), so just extend it to everyone. I agree, if I could fine tune my characters to maximum performance with less than the highest iRating gear that would be fine. The generic gear that drops is poorly optimized for some classes (perhaps even deliberately so) and that is where the main gearing problem lies.