7.0 Follow Up

[robwettengel]

Folks,

 

I just want to suggest that, if Keith ever does get back to us on this stuff, that it will take weeks. They likely need to hold many meetings, at the individual team levels and then the Leads with Keith, and there's probably been a lot of back and forth. Depending on how bad the subscriber dip has been, he could also be in meetings with folks up the chain at BW and EA. Depending on how bad the metrics are, these meetings might be quite senior people who he might usually only wave to from a distance.

[JianSarys]

Game time expires on the 20th. No more subs for me, and no more CC either. 10 years for what? To celebrate it's 10th year by destroying the game. You guys are the biggest joke in gaming at this point.

[SteveTheCynic]

We have done explorations of the death volumes, combat triggers, the ballistics on Malgus’s attacks, and none of these appears to be the culprit. The bug remains so our hunt for a fix continues.

I have been a professional developer for more than thirty years, and I can say for sure that there is something deeply wrong with the statement above.

 

If you don't know what causes a bug, you don't hunt for fixes. You hunt for the cause, because otherwise you'll end up going round in circles saying "does this fix it? No. what about this? No. What about this? No." endlessly.

[Ghost_Spectre]

I have been a professional developer for more than thirty years,

 

Really? Can you PM me when you get the chance? Thanks.

[robwettengel]

I have been a professional developer for more than thirty years, and I can say for sure that there is something deeply wrong with the statement above.

 

If you don't know what causes a bug, you don't hunt for fixes. You hunt for the cause, because otherwise you'll end up going round in circles saying "does this fix it? No. what about this? No. What about this? No." endlessly.

 

I wonder if anyone managed to record footage of the Malgus fight during which the bug manifested itself. Visual evidence could be helpful in identifying the ultimate cause.

 

What if the cause is binary meaning that both action A and B have to happen at the proper point for the bug to do its thing? There having been seeking to rectify this for so much time tends to suggest that the bug is not monocausal. Let's just hope it is just something in the FP and not related to something beyond it.

[Minden]

I wonder if anyone managed to record footage of the Malgus fight during which the bug manifested itself. Visual evidence could be helpful in identifying the ultimate cause.

 

What if the cause is binary meaning that both action A and B have to happen at the proper point for the bug to do its thing? There having been seeking to rectify this for so much time tends to suggest that the bug is not monocausal. Let's just hope it is just something in the FP and not related to something beyond it.

 

Don't remember where but someone had a video of the bug happening. My issue with this is, BW admitted that it is not happening on their DEV servers. They are testing it on their own little private servers and unable to recreate the problem.

[Totemdancer]

That does sound like a very good compromise. The raiders get their carrot and everyone gets to have very good gear still.

 

That’s no compromise at all. Many of us like to mod our own gear who don’t play raids. What about PVPers or people who like to solo the hardest group content? We also like to min/max our stats to get the best performance. Plus Raiders are already going to get access to this modded gear in 7.1. The rest of us aren’t.

 

What Bioware need to do is bring that forward and not just give it to Raiders, ALL players should get access to modded gear. It doesn’t even need to be the highest iRated modded gear because pvp now has capped irating and unless you are in a lvl 80 area, all other gear is planet/area capped. So Raiders could still have access to the highest rated gear while still giving everyone access to slightly lower iRated modded gear.

 

As well as doing this. Bioware really should remove secondary stats from the caps they’ve imposed. Alacrity, crit, accuracy, shield, defence and presence should never be capped. The only caps should be on power, mastery and endurance.

 

That is the only fair system I can see the majority of players liking and accepting as fair. It may even bring back a bunch of players who’ve left the game over these changes. Or Bioware and Keith can keep doubling down on a system the majority hates and keep driving more people from the game and keeping other players from coming back.

 

The ball is in Kieths court. He can keep being stubborn about all the stuff players are hating on. Or he can accept they went too far with many of these changes and March some of them back.

 

It’s not like this is rocket science. Keep making your customers unhappy and they’ll continue to complain and leave the game and tell their friends the the whole of social media not to play the game. Or start listening to the actual players wants and needs and they will be happier and tell people they should play. It comes down to wether Keith wants this game to continue past the next 6 months or so.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Totemdancer

[Totemdancer]

Don't remember where but someone had a video of the bug happening. My issue with this is, BW admitted that it is not happening on their DEV servers. They are testing it on their own little private servers and unable to recreate the problem.

 

Yeah, that really is a ridiculous excuse and scenario. Where is their testing logic? They can just as easily login to live servers to test it the same as the rest of us. Logic would dictate that if it’s happening live and not on their private servers, then it’s obviously an issue on the live servers systems. So they need to test on live so they can eliminate the possible causes. That’s troubleshooting 101.

[Wholfe]

Hello SWTOR Community,

 

 

 

Not only does the launch of Legacy of the Sith begin the journey into updating the game, but this update also opens the doors to new players who have never experienced SWTOR before. 7.0 is meant to invite new players to the game while also bringing new experiences to returning and veteran players.

 

SWTOR is a ten year old game that is very dear to all of us, and we look forward to continuing the journey of a series of updates to make the game the best it can be.

 

- Keith

 

 

Why is it when you say invite new players it means you dumb down the game? I enjoyed the availability of choices in customizing my characters.

[Totemdancer]

Why is it when you say invite new players it means you dumb down the game? I enjoyed the availability of choices in customizing my characters.

 

More like, why does invite new players mean telling your loyal subscriber base to find another game to play or go jump in a lava pit of hell.

[teclado]

• Adjusted contrast in inventory screen
  

 

That’s probably the only 7.0.1 item that I’m personally excited about. Bug fixes are good and I get that those take priority, but if I may suggest some other major issues to get a fix very soon:

• bolster and level scaling issues make gearing pointless. Old 306 is better
  
• We need mod vendors. This un-moddable stuff is no bueno.
  
• Similarly and related: weapon outfitter. You could just give us mods though.
  

 

There’s little motivation to get *better gear when it’s actually worse. Without new gear, this expansion is just a regression because we lost abilities, got a worse UI, loads of bugs. Rough times for the players. I’ll keep my sub going because it’s clear that you guys are short-handed and pulling funding will only make things worse. But I’m really not playing the game.

[robwettengel]

QA seems to have been an abysmal failure regarding 7.0 rollout. Having to go to Fleet or a SH to continue the questline on Manaan because the game was dropping players off in incorrect areas is something that should have been caught and quickly remedied before the expansion went live. I am only left to assume that the Team is too small and your ambitions too grandiose to conduct proper internal testing.

 

I strongly advise tempering your ambitions and realize you must work in the realities of budgets and technical limitations of various forms. There is a quote from Otto von Bismarck that is applicable to anything that requires management: "Politics is the art of the possible." Likewise, the management of any kind of project should be geared towards fulfilment of the possible for a customer or policy maker.

 

I can only assume that your ambitions are too grandiose, and the team is not large enough to implement it. You have two options: petition for a larger budget allocation for staff to staff-up in appropriate areas or to downscale your ambitions to the level of the possible.

 

Bolster is totally borked. The reason this wasn't caught in testing is quite obvious. I suspect your QA people were assigned--just like those of us on PTS were asked--to focus on testing the new features and the leveling experience from rolling a new Toon. There was obviously no serious effort made to have level 80s go and run heroic content on Korriban, Balmorra, Coruscant, Tython, KotFEET chapters, or likely any other word beside Onderon. That is the only logical way--to me--that the bolster bug could have been missed. I also find it quite perplexing that progressing through the story on Manaan required players to go to Fleet or a stronghold to then be able to click on Play to be sent to the proper part of the Manaan map to continue the questline. In a decade of playing this game, I have never encountered such sloppiness before.

 

Given how spectacularly awful all your other tinkering has been, I strongly recommend ceasing work on any PVP "revamp" and graphics update until basic gameplay mechanics have been fixed.

Edited March 9, 2022 by robwettengel

[JakRoanin]

I have to say, that although the problems with 7.0 are massive I am enjoying the Combat Styles. I play Focus Guardian on one planet, Infiltration Shadow, etc. the next. But please drop more Aquatic Matrixes You hit the limit for Commendation Medals so fast with Conquest, but the Aquatic Matrixes rate is abysmal. Why do you always have to make things so wonky?

[JattaGin]

Edit: Found the answer on my EA account page. Post can be deleted (if this is a thing here). Edited March 9, 2022 by JattaGin

[robwettengel]

I have to say, that although the problems with 7.0 are massive I am enjoying the Combat Styles. I play Focus Guardian on one planet, Infiltration Shadow, etc. the next. But please drop more Aquatic Matrixes You hit the limit for Commendation Medals so fast with Conquest, but the Aquatic Matrixes rate is abysmal. Why do you always have to make things so wonky?

 

Yes, I too am enjoying combat styles. I detest mDPS so it is nice being able to get everyone to be ranged combatants. Equally nice is for my Jedi to embrace their inner darkness to throw lightning around.

[bubsby]

Please just let us use older versions of the UI as an option in our settings like other MMOs do.

 

The new UI is so difficult to look at and it's just an overall huge downgrade even in layout to the UI it replaced. The new Inventory and Character screen UIs don't even match the rest of the UI in game.

 

Thanks for being so responsive with updates btw.

[casirabit]

Okay question:

 

Who was the stupid ...... that decided to keep Star Fortress Flashpoints at 6 per week but reduced the weekly points you get. Yes, I know how many we got before as I did them. We got over 100k before and now some ...... person decides to keep it at 6 per week but to reduce the points. Oh so smart.......and this was on the list for the week so it was not a side item. I swear sometimes I wonder where you put your brains at.

 

I normally do not like to be so rude but this was a very stupid move. If you had reduce the number of Star Fortress that had to be done that would make sense but no you keep it at 6 so dumb move!

[WYMAS]

please just let us use older versions of the ui as an option in our settings like other mmos do.

 

The new ui is so difficult to look at and it's just an overall huge downgrade even in layout to the ui it replaced. The new inventory and character screen uis don't even match the rest of the ui in game.

 

Thanks for being so responsive with updates btw.

 

Yes, This, somuchly!!!!!!! Please Bring Back The Old UI. !!!!!

[yeldarbnotned]

I never thought that I would miss Ben Irving. But at least he cared, tried, and gave us content.

[robwettengel]

I never thought that I would miss Ben Irving. But at least he cared, tried, and gave us content.

 

Where you have gone, I don't think any of us the rest of us can follow.

[Totemdancer]

Okay question:

 

Who was the stupid ...... that decided to keep Star Fortress Flashpoints at 6 per week but reduced the weekly points you get. Yes, I know how many we got before as I did them. We got over 100k before and now some ...... person decides to keep it at 6 per week but to reduce the points. Oh so smart.......and this was on the list for the week so it was not a side item. I swear sometimes I wonder where you put your brains at.

 

I normally do not like to be so rude but this was a very stupid move. If you had reduce the number of Star Fortress that had to be done that would make sense but no you keep it at 6 so dumb move!

 

Well said Casirabit. Some of the decisions they’ve made with points make no sense.

[Syal]

7.0.1 = 6.0

[Totemdancer]

7.0.1 = 6.0

 

Don’t tease us with hope. That’s cruel because we know they won’t do that.

[KeithKanneg]

Thank you for the additional information. I am glad to see that there are a lot of bug fixes planned. As I've said before, I don't doubt that you'll fix the big ones. What I am worried about is the many smaller ones that aren't as important. For example, my Sage's Force Armor animation applying to my character when it is cast on the Companion, or pets not staying summoned (though that second one might be a bit older than 7.0).

 

And I am disappointed (I find myself posting this phrase a lot lately) that there was no mention of scaling and/or Companion strength. The more I play the more prominent this issue becomes, and it may become a deal breaker for me.

 

 

I love combat styles and loadouts, and more locations and new story sound wonderful (and I'm sure the PvP folks are looking forward to that part too). But if the "visual and modernization improvements" are anything like the new UI, may I suggest that you just save all of us the hassle and leave well enough alone? Please?

 

Some thoughts:

 

About companion strength, we’re investigating why they are underperforming in level-synced content.

 

With respect to modernizing our UI, we know this is an area where opinions are going to vary widely, and we don’t expect that to change. However, these updates are vital to the ongoing success of SWTOR as technology continues to improve far beyond where it was when the game shipped, such as monitor resolutions or GPUs being faster and having more memory. We know UI changes must be evolutionary and we need to ensure consistency, improved experience, and just better overall flow.

 

We are listening and will continue to make adjustments based on your feedback. We are hopeful as we release patches, we’ll find a balance between updated designs, making adjustments, and ensuring your play experience is enjoyable.

 

--Keith-

[BenKatarn]

With respect to modernizing our UI, we know this is an area where opinions are going to vary widely, and we don’t expect that to change. However, these updates are vital to the ongoing success of SWTOR as technology continues to improve far beyond where it was when the game shipped, such as monitor resolutions or GPUs being faster and having more memory. We know UI changes must be evolutionary and we need to ensure consistency, improved experience, and just better overall flow.

 

This is all well and good Keith. However...

 

Why does the new UI have to look so flat and ugly? I know there comes a point when it is simply easier to start over rather than trying to make sense of several year old code, but designwise, pretty much any UI change that has happened since launch has been a visual regression. This is also something that I feel, even more so, with 7.0's character creator. The original character creator in the ship hangar had so much charm and character, and now it's just this black void with some red or black vapor? Come on, I'm sure your art designers can do better than that.