So was the point of the 10th anniversary to get us to cancel our subscriptions?

[Raagnarz]

Mission accomplished for me. I preordered the game and have been subbed to it until 7.0. Congrats the current creative director and dev team have done what no other game could, made me cancel my subscription and walk away. How do any of you have jobs after what is possibly the worst expansion release I've played for any game since I started PC gaming 20+ years ago. With the awful state of the game bug wise, with the pathetic and pitiful design decisions, and the utter silence and contempt you show your player base why did you even bother doing anything for 7.0. The game would literally been better off if it never got another expansion or update from you. You would have more subs than you do now I guarantee that. Hopefully whoever they hire next can right the ship and the mess these guys created. Sadly though I doubt this storm is one the game will be able to weather and end times are near.

[Alienserver]

Mission accomplished for me too....

[MaraNebesna]

Me too ...

[BRKMSN]

This is how they'll remove credits from the game to control inflation.

[MaraNebesna]

This is how they'll remove credits from the game to control inflation.

 

This actually made me laugh out loud :D:p

[ikopo]

Also canceled my subscription after many years, I honestly dont want to play the game in this state.

[JediQuaker]

Can I have your stuff? 😂

[ChaosIsGolden]

Since 4.0, I've felt a bit apathetic to the game, and while 6.0 had some moments that made me laugh. I decided to record the class stories for my own enjoyment down the line if I get the itch to enjoy SWTOR, but afterward, I had every intention of canceling my sub. 7.0 really enforced that desire, its a mess, and with how much commentary came from forums and PTS, it shouldn't be, or the "update I mean expansion" should have been delayed.

[Calidge]

Just waiting for the sub to run out...

 

So sad.

[Tintfax]

Seems like, Swtor now has it's own Me-too-moverment.

 

But yeah, this "Expansion" is very disappointing. What i don't get is, why they announce an Expansion, when all we get is this little Content-Patch? No wonder the players are very disappointed. Worse, you feel pretty screwed, even a little betrayed.

[Calidge]

What i don't get is, why they announce an Expansion, when all we get is this little Content-Patch?

 

To sell subs and the CE, of course.

[Raansu]

Since 4.0, I've felt a bit apathetic to the game, and while 6.0 had some moments that made me laugh. I decided to record the class stories for my own enjoyment down the line if I get the itch to enjoy SWTOR, but afterward, I had every intention of canceling my sub. 7.0 really enforced that desire, its a mess, and with how much commentary came from forums and PTS, it shouldn't be, or the "update I mean expansion" should have been delayed.

 

4.0 is definitely when a shift began to happen with the dev team. Prior to that the formula for the games updates were pretty consistent. 4.0 and onwards its like they didn't know what to do and went with the "change for the sake of change" approach.

 

The only upside to 4.0 for me was pvp gear was still a thing and lowbie pvp was still popular so I had some form of enjoyment being mostly a pvper. PvE players were just outright screwed since no new end game was made for nearly 3 years during 4.0.

[Tintfax]

Oh yes, 4.0 was the worst thing that happened to this game so far, in my opinion. We had a community of several 100 players from different guilds who raided and pvp'd together. Within a few weeks almost all players in the community were gone. The server went from healthy to almost dead. But hey... 4.0 was a great success. Some Dev's said.

 

Now, they have to trick people with false announcements into subscripton time.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Tintfax

[Raagnarz]

Since 4.0, I've felt a bit apathetic to the game, and while 6.0 had some moments that made me laugh. I decided to record the class stories for my own enjoyment down the line if I get the itch to enjoy SWTOR, but afterward, I had every intention of canceling my sub. 7.0 really enforced that desire, its a mess, and with how much commentary came from forums and PTS, it shouldn't be, or the "update I mean expansion" should have been delayed.

 

You're not wrong that was the end of the heyday in my mind too but there was still some quality and good story released afterward just way less of it. But nothing, and I mean nothing, they've ever done has been as catastrophic as this. This is seriously what they chose to release as an "expansion" at the same time Lost Ark releases? This bug ridden abomination they're calling an expansion? Like I said it seems they want to destroy their game before they lose their license completely. Its a shame, if they put all their resources into story and only story the majority of people who have been playing over the years would be happy to stay. Instead their expansion is 90% crap no one wanted, cared about, asked for, and in fact hates after seeing. With a whopping 10% what people like...the story and though poorly implemented the idea of combat styles.

[Mongorr]

So why do we only get "this"?

Imho (and that has been stated by others already in some form) two reasons:

 

First (and most importantly): budget

 

This is an old game with a small playerbase. That playerbase and subsequently the revenue will not scale well with the amount of content added.

 

The game is currently making a little bit of money for EA from subs and cartel market. I don't know which constitutes the bigger slice of the cake but I would guess cartel market.

 

Small budget means few resources:

• not enough devs to fix both the huge bug backlog and work on new features -> only the most game-breaking bugs get prio 1 and being worked on. Ok, this is a little simplified - they will probably squeeze in a few minor bugfixes that take little time, to fill up their development sprints.
  
• not enough game designers/artists/etc. for new story dialogues, cutscenes, planets
  
• not enough money for a huge amount of new voice acting
  

 

Second: quality of the team

 

This team has been bled dry of talent. The biggest reason for this has been Anthem. What's left is a skeleton crew. A lot of the old people are gone. This also has an impact on bugs, since new devs are not that familiar with the convoluted mess that is the game engine, which has been adapted over the years. You need someone really knowledgeable with the intricacies of this Frankenstein engine to avoid major bugs.

 

One good indicicator is the promotion of Eric Musco from Community Manager to producer. I have seen this in other companies - resources are withdrawn from a project, a junior crew is maintaining it and minor players in the team are promoted/given more responsibility. I'm not blaming Musco here - he's probably doing what he can with this mess.

 

So imho the process could have been something like this:

Stakeholders: "Do an expansion, that will get subscribers back and spend some money on the cartel market for a while".

Game Lead: "For a real expansion in the quality of earlier ones, we need way more resources".

"Stakeholders: This game is not making enough money to put more resources on it. Make do with what you have. You know, that upping the story content from 2 to 10 hours will not increase the revenue much. Think of something else. Features, new grinds, anything that keeps people busy for a while".

Game Lead: "Ok team, we won't get much done storywise. What else can we do?"

Game Designers: "Let people choose an alternative "class"/combat style. Mix it up a little with the skills. Make a new skill tree. Prune some stuff."

Game Lead: "Ok, anything else that doesn't need a ton of resources?"

Game Designers: "We could also overhaul the UI. Makes it look different and new".

Game Lead: "Ok, let's do that."

 

I know, some of you will say "but they are losing subs with this", but I question how many people really leave for good. Most of us have an emotional investment in the game that is not easily severed (even if there is a point for the final straw to break the camels back). There are of course people re-subbing, but even with 10 or even more hours of story content, those players would be through with it quickly and unsub again.

 

For me personally the most baffling thing about this expansion is the lack of cool new cartel market stuff. I expected the story to be short, the writing of lesser quality and a lot of bugs. I didn't expect such a lackluster performance regarding new cartel market items which I believe is their main source of income (I may be wrong of course).

 

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert. But I am a product manager in a small F2P developer/publisher company and I've been in the industry for a while. I have seen similar things happening, and the reason has always been budget/resources. In the end, what matters is simple economics and the bottom line for the stakeholders. A huge investment in an expansion, that you already know will not have a similar effect on revenue will just not be greenlighted. In projects like this, it's usually "make do with what you have and we will try to squeeze some more money out of it as long as we keep the game alive".

[iankalo]

What i don't get is, why they announce an Expansion, when all we get is this little Content-Patch?

99% of the whiners are so dumb and stupid...

THIS IS THE START OF THE EXPANSION , NOT THE ENTIRE EXPANSION !!!

You get a lil pieces every 2 months or so. Everything is time-gated in MMOs nowadays.

 

Yeah, I prefer a "Makeb" open-world expansion at start too.

[Nilatis]

Can I have your stuff? 😂

 

We can't share any items, remember? Everything is bound, bound, bound, bound, bound, bound, bound.

[Zipacnaa]

I've been unsubscribed once in the past, when burnt out. Back in 2018.

 

Except for that year, I've kept coming back. I got hooked on the game in June 2012. Not now, unsubscribed yesterday.

 

Hope at some point to find joy in the game again. Not sure, it's been intentionally gutted.

[MaraNebesna]

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert. But I am a product manager in a small F2P developer/publisher company and I've been in the industry for a while. I have seen similar things happening, and the reason has always been budget/resources. In the end, what matters is simple economics and the bottom line for the stakeholders. A huge investment in an expansion, that you already know will not have a similar effect on revenue will just not be greenlighted. In projects like this, it's usually "make do with what you have and we will try to squeeze some more money out of it as long as we keep the game alive".

 

I can confirm that this happens in most industries (I've worked in two - IT and food). It's the balance sheet that makes the decisions, not common sense, or even the desire to make something great.

 

We should have had our expectations set by now - 6.0 - 6.2 was also a couple hours of content; 7.0 is couple hours of content (at release), and if there's ever an 8.0, it'd be the same.

 

- I personally don't mind about how much time it takes to clear the new content. I'm happy we got new content.

- I think they've done an amazing job with the Manaan part - everything was beautifully crafted and it gaves me some serious Kamino vibes. Some ppl don't like it, but I do.

- Elom was also beautifully crafted, even though we don't have access to the planet itself, only the FP bit.

- The voice acting was superb as always, my Z0-0M has some new lines, prob other comps have too, not that I had time to check.

- I don't have an opinion yet on the second class stuff. However, I do greatly enjoy loadouts, these are amazing and a huge time saver, and actually gives me the ease of playing my characters in more ways and content than before, without creating a mess.

- The new icons I think were money better spent somewhere else. The Sorc icon legit looks like a squid, and the Assassin's - like a wrench. I've always had the nameplates turned off, even before 7.0, an now I have a whole new learning experience to determine who's what. It's confusing now, but in time we'll get used to it, I guess.

- You have to admit, we already have a ton of content in this game, and are free to play however/whatever we like - Solo, PvE, PvP, RP - you name it, you got it.

What I do mind, is the fact that my eyes get poked out every time I load the game, and up till now, no one on the other side has addressed the issue. It's sadistic, whether intentional or not. This is my deal-breaker and it's already greatly reduced the amount of time I spend in-game. Reading the forum, I'm not the only one...

[CarpeSangrea]

The final straw for me was my leveling character not even being able to run a flashpoint. I had just come back after not playing for the last few years and after just two days of this mess I have had no further desire to even log into the game.

 

Note: The season stuff that wasn't around the last time I played was a huge turnoff as well since it's basically battlepass ********.

Edited February 19, 2022 by CarpeSangrea

[BRKMSN]

Note: The season stuff that wasn't around the last time I played was a huge turnoff as well since it's basically battlepass ********.

 

Galactic Seasons is just the newest reward system. In the past, rewards were given out for subbing at or by certain dates. While I personally don't have a problem with the old system, many players felt it was unfair that certain rewards were no longer available. In the new system, we get a "season" to earn the rewards by simply logging in and also playing the game. You can gain points while unsubbed and then sub later to claim your rewards, so laspses aren't a big deal. They also moved Cartel Coin grants into GS and removed them from the refer-a-friend program. So now, regular players can do GS on each server and earn a substantial amount of CCs without having to purchase them. Also, the GS tokens that you earn can be used to purchase old sub rewards or the latest ones. If you fall behind in GS, there is a credit-sink "catch-up" system in place that will allow you to burn excess credits to get caught up in GS points.

 

All in all, I think GS is one of the best ideas they have implemented in recent years. In GS1, life was pumped into a lot of servers (as players changed servers frequently to multiply their CC acquisition) as well as several activities. We no longer see multiple threads asking for the return of old rewards. The chat spam asking subs to "use their referral..." is gone. Finally, if none of this appeals to you, you can completely ignore it.

[Arictheana]

It's a hard, sad feeling. I load into the game and see those new origin icons and it honestly depresses me. I loved this game. None of these changes were needed or asked for. The only decent addition might have been the choice to that you can switch to one other class or switch to the combat style of your LS/DS equivalent. The new cinematic and loading screen, a lower quality then the ones before. I truly want a revert of the UI. None of it was needed. Edited February 19, 2022 by Arictheana

[Kylanna]

The UI is a failure of epic proportions.

 

The gearing system is a huge middle finger.

 

The talent system is also a huge middle finger.

 

If I wanted to play WoW and get screwed without even so much as dinner first... I'd go play WoW.

 

For me, the old gearing system was great, the utility points were good choices and the amplifiers were fun. The old UI was perfectly fine and didn't take up large portions of my screen, nor was it redundant (I'm looking at you, inventory!)

 

All of the reasons I brought people into this game are now gone and no one wants to play it.

[Telden]

Can I have your stuff? 😂

 

Nope.

[Raagnarz]

It's a hard, sad feeling. I load into the game and see those new origin icons and it honestly depresses me. I loved this game. None of these changes were needed or asked for. The only decent addition might have been the choice to that you can switch to one other class or switch to the combat style of your LS/DS equivalent. The new cinematic and loading screen, a lower quality then the ones before. I truly want a revert of the UI. None of it was needed.

 

The new cinematic was the ONLY thing about this "patch", I refuse to call it an expansion, that I liked. It didn't feel lesser quality to me and in fact it felt right at home with all the others. Everything else though...did they blow the whole patch budget on the CGI cinematic? Sure feels like it. Because whoever coded the UI, and frankly everything else with how buggy it is, can't possibly be a trained and educated programmer can they? I mean really?