7.0.1 Rotation Removal

[juliushorst]

Hi folks,

• In 7.0.1, we will not be making all Veteran Flashpoints available at level 15. Instead, we will retain each Flashpoint’s existing level restrictions, and make all Flashpoints available in Group Finder every week.
  
  • We will also adjust some rewards, reducing slightly the number of materials gained by deconstructing gear earned by running any individual Flashpoint, and boosting materials rewarded in the repeatable weekly Group Finder Missions.
    
  • We are also committed to addressing some long overdue discrepancies in difficulty, length, and time to complete among all of our Flashpoints. That work will not be in 7.0.1, but will be patched into the game over time as we assess each flashpoint individually.
    
    • The first step in this direction can be seen on the latest PTS build that went live today:
      
      • Enemy health in the Spirit of Vengeance Solo-Story Mode has been reduced across the board
        
      • Enemy damage and health have been reduced by 20% in Veteran and Master Modes of Traitor Among the Chiss, Crisis on Umbara, and The Nathema Conspiracy
        
      • Enemy damage and health have been reduced for the Jakir and Selden, and Tau/Malgus encounters in Objective Meridian in Master Mode. Additional adjustments will come in a later patch for other difficulties.
        

  [*]In 7.0.1, we will make all Weekly Missions for dailies and heroics available all the time.

  • To compensate for the addition of all the extra weeklies, they will be repeatable 2 times per week as opposed to 3 as they are currently.
    

 

Legacy Operations and the new weekly Operation Missions will remain in rotation each week, as well as story modes in Group Finder, primarily due to how they tie into specific Conquest objectives in order to make finding a larger group easier.

 

This is the first time since details of 7.0 were given when I see some changes proposed by BW and I don't want to complain about any of them. Good job!

Now if only something is done with level sync and open world scaling I'm off the forum and back in the game.

Edited March 11, 2022 by juliushorst

[lefleaudedieu]

One thing I have to note... mobs dropping ONE tech frag or one of a specific material, was that supposed to be a joke? Like, if it's gonna be one in how many dozens of mobs you kill, better not let it drop at all, because it sure does look like mockery.

 

Columni gear is totally useless because there's no way you can play that many ops without getting locked out completely for upgrading, what, one piece of gear? Gearing through operations is not viable by any means, especially since now people are dying to SM mechanics, which basically bottlenecks everything into Nefra farm and GSF.

 

and SERIOUSLY, what's up with the legendary items???? i know there was more or less a meta for set bonuses in 6.0 but you simplified it and call it "choice"?? shadow tank legendaries are completely useless! just plain DR and deflection buff that you already have in your skill tree lol. vanguards are the only tank class with a meaningful choice for legendaries. i really hope you had some more in mind, because the offer right now is totally disappointing, and tanking as it is harder for every class because you've cut down defensive options with pruning, so at least give some variety with the legendaries (which was the idea in the first place), not just "pick up this 3% DR and you'll be fine".

[Canuckswin]

Well this news just ruined my night. Going back to hammer station spam means doing flashpoints will be ZERO fun for me. I play the game to enjoy a variety of engaging content, not mindlessly spam the easy content over and over again just to make rewards easy to obtain. Beating challenging content for me is the reward worth playing for not easy gearing. Nerfing all the HM flashpoints isn’t a solution either. HM should be hard to complete, let the quick reward types spam hammerstation in Veteren mode, not ruin HM for those who play the content because they like the content itself. These changes will have me not queuing at all Edited March 11, 2022 by Canuckswin

[Loc_n_lol]

Giving something to queue for for lower level characters is of course well and good, but limiting the level range means that low-level flashpoints are going to be overrepresented in group finder for veteran flashpoints. Is it really inconceivable to just have a different queue for levelling and endgame (let's say 2 brackets : lvl1-59 and lvl 60-80) ?

 

Nerfing the more challenging flashpoints so they can be more on the level of the average ones... okay ? What about buffing the easy ones that have no business having a so-called called "master" mode ?

 

I don't want to repeat the same flashpoint over and over, no matter which it is. With a random group finder there's always a chance, and the chance is even greater if I can be grouped up with people who aren't doing it randomly. Couldn't we have flashpoint lockouts for master mode at least ?

 

What if we like the difficult flashpoints as they are now ? Can we get some master mode + down the line ?

[eabevella]

This is a good step to the right direction.

 

You see, weekly communication will take you far. You let people know what and when improvement/fixes will be done, most long term loyal players will wait. You can already tell the vibe in this thread is different from the other threads. Maybe it's late to make the change, but it's better then never.

 

Return all FPs back to the rotation and fixing the broken MM FPs is the correct move.

Putting all Heroics back is also good. When people's options are not limited, they tend to stay longer.

 

Now I'll wait and see what is actually delivered and fix in 7.0.1 to decide when I'll put my sub back.

[arunav]

What is being done to address scaling and new gear in 7.0?

 

Currently, in most of the game, old 306 gear with augments performs as well as or often better than purple 326 gear with augments, due to how planets and other areas are scaled.

 

This makes absolutely no sense. It takes a long time to grind through the levels of attaining new 7.0 gear on multiple classes, or even one, as well as set bonus implants, but scaling makes the gear irrelevant or, bafflingly, sometimes even worse than the 306 gear one started with.

 

This happens even in "level 80" areas in some cases, as has been reported for PVP WZs. I am personally more affected by going back to planetary and daily areas, but have noticed the problem in WZs as well.

 

Maybe someone else can comment if this is a problem in FPs or Ops, as I didn't check stats there yet at level 80.

 

In short, the scaling system that replaced what had been in place for years often makes player gear and efforts in 7.0 largely irrelevent, which is not rewarding gameplay.

 

This also doesn't address concerns that have been voiced regarding something as basic as alacrity levels, which affect the global cooldown on abilities for all player classes. Characters feel frustrating to play when the global cooldown on abilities roams from 1.3 seconds, to 1.4, to 1.5 depending on what planet or area your character is scaled on. Why was scaling implemented like this?

 

The same scaling affects companion performance. Try using a companion in dps stance while in a tank spec - its attacks often miss, and there is little difference between influence 1 and 50 companions.

 

if attempting to replicate difficulty levels from 1.x, or another past era, the new scaling doesn't accomplish it. I and plenty of other folks were there for all of them, before 4.0 changed companions and reduced the game's solo difficulty for the past 6.5 years, the majority of the game's life. What some players were seeking, including me, when asking for a more difficult leveling experience was a change to class story boss encounters, not a scaling system that affected all aspects of the game, particularly at level cap.

 

Almost nobody wants "difficulty", in the form of having very little crit or alacrity or presence, running through 10 year old heroics and daily areas. It's not fun. Difficulty can be sought out in other areas of SWTOR or other games entirely.

 

Lastly, I'll also ask what is being done regarding weapons? Before 7.0 launched, threads were started asking for mods for only weapons, so players could still utilize their CM or in-game moddable weapons. This seemed like a reasonable compromise, and we've seen slot-specific mods before in the Ossus tier of gear in late 5.x, including in weapons.

 

Players are understandably skeptical about weapons in Outfitter ever making into the game or working correctly. Even if somehow it's accomplished after so many years, it's still months off, perhaps much of the rest of this year, until it's available on live servers. Isn't it reasonable to offer weapon mods until then?

 

7.0 has been confusing to many of your players. Onslaught/6.0 and its prelude, Ossus, were generally quality releases. The state 7.0 was released in, clearly unfinished in some places, in others more buggy than any other patch or update since 1.0 started SWTOR, is frankly sad to witness. I'm not sure you can get back some of the players that have given up on the game, but at least you can prevent more from leaving. It's not uncommon to come across players wondering if BW is intentionally trying to kill off the game's population or if developers didn't like the direction the game was headed and sabotaged multiple aspects of the player experience to make them purposefully worse.

 

Edit: I won't address the combat ability redesign, because it seems much more difficult to revise or improve, now that it's gone live. Perhaps players can be given a couple additional choices to regain a utility, movement, or defensive ability, however, to make classes feel less stripped of their iconic Star Wars combat archetypes.

 

It would also likely be welcome by most to gain more of what is in the tree earlier in the leveling process, the combat for which has become nothing short of dull, particularly before level 50-60. Despite the engaging class stories, I don't think I would have ever even gotten past Ch. 1 of an initial character in 1.x had combat been so limited then.

Edited March 11, 2022 by arunav

[Kallist_Rhoka]

This is really exciting to hear. I'm coming back to the game after a year or two away, and seeing that Flashpoints (one of my favorite forms of content in the game) were restricted to just a selection of a few every week was really jarring and disappointing. I'm glad that this won't be the case, going forward, and it's nice to see that the community's feedback is being noticed, acknowledged, and acted upon.

[Inyahin]

We’ve all seen how BioWares “random” works in the pvp queue where it gets stuck on one type of map. Currently the only thing that seems to be popping for people I talk to is Void Star or Hutt Ball and players are sick of it.

 

100% agree with this; last week I had The Essless back to back 4 times in a row when I had selected all of the flashpoints.

 

If i have to run the same flashpoint 4 times in a row it better be hammer station.

Essless? torture!

[PlagaNerezza]

Level Scaling

Pretty much anything level sync'd downward is producing the same thing. Our dps/heals/threat drops. Boss health dmg goes up. This crossed into did you test this territory. Not oh lets up the challenge. This is a basic math check fail.

 

Hard Mode TC: Over tuned due to level scaling. Health is super high compared to enrage timer and dps check as an example. Give it a go and it will show you level sync issues.

 

RNG Looting is not working.

Lowest piece position huh? *BUZZZ* sorry. I'm getting gear in slots with 330 in stead of the slots with 326. Meaning I can either cheese it with 306 and upgrade it or rely on your clearly not tested RNG loot roll. My fix since this has been an issue forever with this system is to bring back the vendor to trade looted duplicates since you haven't worked this out. Since all pieces are "equal" in loot drops it would reason I could trade a 330 whatever for a 330 whatever. As opposed to playing your opps we can't figure it out lotto loot system.

 

QOL Issues:

Remove aquatic from the required mat to upgrade gear. Its completely redundant and it a time sync.

Add RPM's to Solo Ranked PVP. They deserve them.

 

Kudos

Loadouts rock. Tech Fragments to reduce cost of RPM's is great

[Jedi_riches]

A good start, but any thoughts on changing the reset of dailies? It is really annoying to have uncompleted dailies just reset on you and be removed from your quest log, especially annoying since even the bonus series is considered repeatable or at least the quests involved.

 

Or at least reconsider the time that the dailies reset as it happens mid day here in the UK so if I start playing at 10 I only have 2 hours before reset, it would be a hell of a more convenient time if it was midnight rather than in the middle of the day when you are likely to be playing.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Jedi_riches

[Ceinwyn]

We are also committed to addressing some long overdue discrepancies in difficulty, length, and time to complete among all of our Flashpoints.

 

Outstanding.

 

In 7.0.1, we will make all Weekly Missions for dailies and heroics available all the time.

 

Well done correcting this nonsensical decision.

 

What else do you have for us?

[Syal]

What else do you have for us?

 

Hope for :

Conquest 50k.

All operations in mission terminal with weekly rewards.

Operation RDG/story / flashpoint vet each boss drop a piece of green gear. Blue, purple for veteran / master op or master flashpoint.

Operation RDG / story 328 green.

Rewarding RDG / Story operation / vet flashpoint as much as GSF do !

Cap removal.

Remove Medal of commandation, Hazardous Matter Catalyst, Aquatic Resources Matric. But keep Tech Fragments to buy gear from vendor. Only one coin common to all in game activity. Add a Tech Fragments vendor to buy green blue purple gear from 320 to 328.

Fix bugs added with 7.0

Vendor to reset second class.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Syal

[Alithia]

Nothing else matters but Weapon Outfitter! Everything can wait!

 

Maybe implement a new way to buy DS/LD items, but after Weapon Outfitter!

[DeannaVoyager]

Nothing else matters to me but Weapon Outfitter! Everything can wait!

 

Maybe implement a new way to buy DS/LD items, but after Weapon Outfitter!

 

 

Fixed it for you.

 

I'd rather have the game fixed first and couldn't care less about the weapon outiftter. Cosmetics is not a game breaking issue.

[iopseal]

Fixed it for you.

 

I'd rather have the game fixed first and couldn't care less about the weapon outiftter. Cosmetics is not a game breaking issue.

 

IDK, people not being able to use weapons that they spent real world money on, that's a pretty big deal...

[SnEaKyMan]

"Ground Finder"? I think auto-correct betrayed you. It is devious that way. ^_^

 

They need it. They seem to be high in the sky at the moment. Anything that helps them touch grass might mean they end up taking the right decisions....

[DarkMatterSlifus]

Don't pat them on the back for this, it just means they did their job for once in regards to communicating about feedback. We have a long ways to go the UI is still ugly and a thousand other things. Edited March 11, 2022 by DarkMatterSlifus

[Alithia]

IDK, people not being able to use weapons that they spent real world money on, that's a pretty big deal...

 

I'd rather have the game being unplayable as long as I get the weapons outfitter that was promised years ago!

[Exly]

For 7.0, we had a vision for how players could experience repeatable content, and how the game would incentivize and reward content around the galaxy, especially to highlight our new shared tagging feature that we’ve been very excited about.

 

This is the root of the problem with many of the changes made in 7.0. Well, your vision sucks, and shared tagging might have been a cool feature if it didn't result in so many punishing changes to the available incentives for content that I want to experience.

[Syal]

Don't pat them on the back for this, it just means they did their job for once in regards to communicating about feedback. We have a long ways to go the UI is still ugly and a thousand other things.

 

NO. The matter is that game designer and community manager change every 2 years... they come into the game, want to reinvent the wheel... But they don't know the community, the veteran who are in this game since 2011 and their need, how guilds works, how new player are managed by older player, how players play with friend or guild mate rather of pickup... is a vet with more then 1000 game hours need to grin for a new gear ? no, they want new op, flashpoint, warzone, story, cosmetic, stronghold to decor... content... no new grind mechanics. Adding new grind mechanic is the way to add more bug over bug not fixed. And I think that adding new content like op, flashpoints ... etc, is less bug adding.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Syal

[Sarova]

• In 7.0.1, we will make all Weekly Missions for dailies and heroics available all the time.
  
• To compensate for the addition of all the extra weeklies, they will be repeatable 2 times per week as opposed to 3 as they are currently.
  

🥳 an acceptable compromise. Excellent.

[LilyCrow]

hi hi,

Thank goodness for opening up the group finder rotations, and I am sure you are working on the bugs that are on ALL of the flashpoints since 7.0 and I thank you for that. I wasn't a big fan of group finder in general (even in 6.0 or 5.0 when I started playing) because you have to take whatever the draw is which in my experience was not truly random before (I seem to only get a small selection of "random" choices. I've never gotten say, Lost Island or Taral V from a group finder queue.) If I have to do another spammer station from group finder I will scream. Limiting it even more with 7.0 really took away any sense of adventure in it. Playing the same content over and over to get to a level or conquest goal isn't fun to me, it's like taking on a part-time job that doesn't pay you.

 

I'm more curious as to why it appears that all group content has to be skewed towards the higher-level players who have been playing for a long time. Perhaps you would consider opening up story mode operations to players again who are lower level as well. I get that there are a lot of the higher level players who prefer to not have to drag a new player who isn't ready for end game content and that is reasonable. However, a lot of the 7.0 changes seem to favor the higher-level players so much that it's now skewed towards taking away things from lower-level players and it seems to be unbalanced. Why do you have to be level 80 to run an operation that occurs in the early story? Lock out the lower level players from Vet and Master mode ops sure, but taking away story mode Eternity Vault, Kragga's Palace, etc. from people less than top-level just seems to be counter-productive. New players now have to either grind through the entire game with little support from more experienced players who are all queued for the same two ops in group finder or as is the case with now with several players in my guild now, they give up and go play Lost Ark or something more friendly towards beginner players.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the game and there are a lot of things about 7.0 that I really appreciate, I just wish it was more beginner/ new player friendly.

[Rhodaria]

In fact I don't think that the rotational system for the weekly missions is a bad idea. Once back to every content available at any time it may end in Hammer Station and the easiest missions again, just like before 7.0.

But now the Czerka flashpoints are availeble for the third week I think. That's not really rotational. Just change all of the available/ featured content every week. I just ended in a row of Labs-Labs-Meltdown-Labs- runs for my Master Flashpoint Weekly- and not only because most of the others are unplayable with 320. They are atm the shortest flashpoints.

As well as Belsavis heroics- second week now available. Last week and now again. With my assassin I get the weekly done in about 15 minutes. Others like Nar Shaddaa just take more time.

When you want a rotation then do it. There is enough content to "feature" other stuff each week. Some content, especially the low level flashpoints will show up more often then maybe than others, the endgame flashpoints for example. But no content has to be featured each week even if you want to adress the different levels of the players.

[lefleaudedieu]

hi hi,

Thank goodness for opening up the group finder rotations, and I am sure you are working on the bugs that are on ALL of the flashpoints since 7.0 and I thank you for that. I wasn't a big fan of group finder in general (even in 6.0 or 5.0 when I started playing) because you have to take whatever the draw is which in my experience was not truly random before (I seem to only get a small selection of "random" choices. I've never gotten say, Lost Island or Taral V from a group finder queue.) If I have to do another spammer station from group finder I will scream. Limiting it even more with 7.0 really took away any sense of adventure in it. Playing the same content over and over to get to a level or conquest goal isn't fun to me, it's like taking on a part-time job that doesn't pay you.

 

I'm more curious as to why it appears that all group content has to be skewed towards the higher-level players who have been playing for a long time. Perhaps you would consider opening up story mode operations to players again who are lower level as well. I get that there are a lot of the higher level players who prefer to not have to drag a new player who isn't ready for end game content and that is reasonable. However, a lot of the 7.0 changes seem to favor the higher-level players so much that it's now skewed towards taking away things from lower-level players and it seems to be unbalanced. Why do you have to be level 80 to run an operation that occurs in the early story? Lock out the lower level players from Vet and Master mode ops sure, but taking away story mode Eternity Vault, Kragga's Palace, etc. from people less than top-level just seems to be counter-productive. New players now have to either grind through the entire game with little support from more experienced players who are all queued for the same two ops in group finder or as is the case with now with several players in my guild now, they give up and go play Lost Ark or something more friendly towards beginner players.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the game and there are a lot of things about 7.0 that I really appreciate, I just wish it was more beginner/ new player friendly.

 

But the problem with that would be that people would complain about the low-level gear and damage output and wouldn't accept you into the op, and the alternative is to scale down the ops, which is pointless, because the story mode ops are already devoid of mechanics (or they are completely ignorable), which is detrimental to anyone who wants to progress into harder content. plus, it really isn't that hard to get to max level anyways...

[MaraNebesna]

Using our Public Test Server enables us to gather some early feedback, since it’s the closest thing we have to a live game environment, but it’s not a perfect substitute for the live game when it comes to how systems interact at scale and the data that provides.

 

If you find that pool of data to be too limited, perhaps open the PTS to Preferred too, and every once in a while, act on PTS feedback. This will save you time and money, and us players - potential disappointments.

 

As to the changes highlighted in this post, they are a good first step, but also more changes will be needed - FIXING THE CONQUEST, removing the currencies caps, incentivizing playing on multiple alts again and un-nerfing comps are the ones off the top of my head.