Game Update 7.3 Livestream Recap

[supertimtaf]

8 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

Eric Musco addressed this in 2016.  See my signature.  I think you're hoping for a different answer but I expect the answer from 7 years ago hasn't changed.  Would certainly be nice if things can change with the transition to AWS and possibility of RP instances.

Tbh, hoping for RP servers is silly at this point. Apart from WoW who's still outdated on this, no one does this anymore. However, there *should be* some tools to help peoples search for RP indeed. Thinking of another specific MMO that used a specific "RP tag" system, where something was displayed alongside your name (or changing your name color, maybe ?). Furthermore, the ability to do a /who and find said peoples with RP tags would help immensely more rather than having a separate rp server or rp instance, which would just isolate you all even more from the rest of the community.
The goal is to make RP easier to find, not to enclose it off completely into another bubble. We saw how well that worked with the PvP instance system. Let's *not* do that again.

 

5 hours ago, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

Coming off of the stream I wanted to make sure to hit a couple of the questions we didn't get to.

Where is Master Mode R4? 

In short, MM R4 is not on our roadmap.

The priorities for our encounters team right now is focused on making more impactful, engaging bosses in story content, delivering Flashpoints in all modes with modern boss mechanics, and making additional challenging 8-player encounters.

Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is. Whether that is delivered through MM Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses, or even Ops. It is still something we will prioritize as a part of our roadmap going forward.

Any follow-up from the Shae Vizla PTS?
Again, thank you all for your participation and feedback! We have a lot of data and commentary to chew on before making a decision on what comes next for a possible APAC or fresh start server. That said, Shae Vizla was also another scale test for us having our servers "in the cloud" and so this test also helps drive us towards the goal of getting our service and our servers all onto AWS.

Nothing specific to announce on timing or specifics, but know there is a lot happening behind the scenes still on these efforts. We'll communicate more when we can.

Thanks all.

-eric

Hey Eric, been a long time

I get the issue about MM R4, and the resources it takes on development. Maybe you guys should put out a list of "we will do that but not now" ? Something to keep the players' attention. I believe you guys talked at some point about a potential rework of some old/legacy FP (Esseless/BlackTalon comes to mind), also as just some general update to older content on this game, or just a crafting overhaul.

I understand, coming from a game dev perspective, how tough this sort of thing can be (don't want to do empty promises and all that, or hype players for something absolutely not ready) but at least try to keep most of our frail endgame playerbase happy.

 

And a quick question while I'm at it : Any plans regarding the current discrepancies between the three EU server ? Some are just way, way emptier than the rest.

[Char_Ell]

4 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

Tbh, hoping for RP servers is silly at this point. Apart from WoW who's still outdated on this, no one does this anymore. However, there *should be* some tools to help peoples search for RP indeed. Thinking of another specific MMO that used a specific "RP tag" system, where something was displayed alongside your name (or changing your name color, maybe ?). Furthermore, the ability to do a /who and find said peoples with RP tags would help immensely more rather than having a separate rp server or rp instance, which would just isolate you all even more from the rest of the community.
The goal is to make RP easier to find, not to enclose it off completely into another bubble. We saw how well that worked with the PvP instance system. Let's *not* do that again.

I'm honestly not expecting any changes on the RP front.  We disagree on viability of RP instances (I don't think comparison to PvP instances is applicable) and I only brought it up because I think moving the game's servers to AWS opens that up as a possibility again.  I certainly did not say anything about getting an actual RP server again as that was jedimasterjac who wanted a server to be designated for RP.  But as I said, I expect BioWare's view on RP and assigning any resources in support of RP enhancement hasn't changed in 7 years.  RP'ers got two emotes since 2016 and I think that has been it.  I'm not seeing anything that makes me believe BioWare is even thinking about enhancing RP features of SWTOR.  As it is BioWare has enough challenges just trying to add new content to the game.

[septru]

6 hours ago, EricMusco said:

Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is.

As opposed to aspirational endgame PvP content, which you removed from the game.

 

Thank you Eric. 

[SpikesShayGrass]

7 hours ago, EricMusco said:

In short, MM R4 is not on our roadmap.

The priorities for our encounters team right now is focused on making more impactful, engaging bosses in story content, delivering Flashpoints in all modes with modern boss mechanics, and making additional challenging 8-player encounters.

Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is. Whether that is delivered through MM Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses, or even Ops. It is still something we will prioritize as a part of our roadmap going forward.

Thank you for finally saying something.

Still incredibly disappointed. MM/NiM R4 was something that was advertised pre-7.0 (would be arriving a month after SM/HM R4 release in early 2022). It's just frustrating it took this long to tell the community that it isn't coming and that no progress has been made during this time.

On another note, seems disingenuous to me to write off all the 'where is nim r4?' comments as toxic spam. When you promise content and then go silent for a year, people start to ask questions and wonder what is going on. Had this been any other piece of content that was promised -- whether it was a flashpoint, stronghold, etc. -- there would have been questions. I think it just shows how passionate this playerbase, that wants this content, is about SWTOR.

SWTOR has been important to me since launch. Unfortunately, 7.0 really started a downward spiral in the quality of the game's content, gameplay, and -- most importantly -- the way it all has been managed. Ranked PvP is now gone and, as it looks now, no more continued support for serious endgame PvE content. I understand the focus of the development team given the shrinking, more casual player basis; but, I'm still sad to see how things are turning out. Peace.

[ufion]

How this has been handled has been very poor. You really need to evaluate your current communication standards and improve.

 

This is not a situation of being an entitled gamer - I am fully aware of the limitations and restraints of your resources. What is within reasonable expectation to improve is your COMMUNICATION - you say one thing, then a year later without even discussing it say somethign else. How Shae Vizla was explained was extremely vague and caused a lot of customer frustration. The banning of people in the twitch stream was a PR disaster too, a complete fiasco.

 

You promised Nim R4; and then without even an apology reneged on this and state now it's "not on your roadmap". You didn't even say "it's not on our roadmap ANYMORE" - you just flat out refused to acknowledge you failed to deliver a promise. This is really unprofessional.

 

Again, having to cancel projects / out of scope / budget/time restraints are all standard things in this industry, so no one blames you specifically for not being able to deliver this project to us - but what IS fully within your responsibility, and what we can absolutely be angry about and blame you for - is your extremely poor communication and mishandled customer expectations. 

 

Please in future communicate better, Bioware.

[fabsus]

12 hours ago, Argure said:

Why was this question not just addressed in the stream, instead of timing out, or permanently banning players who asked?

one reason could be, that it was not an actual live stream, but a live recorded video. so you couldn't change anything
in the video, like adding a comment on that, or change the graphics. 
of course you could do a statement in the chat an pin the comment. but they don't do twitch on a daily base
and don't know what tools they have. 

another reason could be, that they don't see the chat at all during the stream and they really needed to
use the time between their screentime for something very very important. all of them. and there is nearly nobody
left in the team, able to inform anybody about it. 

otherwise it seems a bit sad.

[supertimtaf]

9 hours ago, Char_Ell said:

I'm honestly not expecting any changes on the RP front.  We disagree on viability of RP instances (I don't think comparison to PvP instances is applicable) and I only brought it up because I think moving the game's servers to AWS opens that up as a possibility again.  I certainly did not say anything about getting an actual RP server again as that was jedimasterjac who wanted a server to be designated for RP.  But as I said, I expect BioWare's view on RP and assigning any resources in support of RP enhancement hasn't changed in 7 years.  RP'ers got two emotes since 2016 and I think that has been it.  I'm not seeing anything that makes me believe BioWare is even thinking about enhancing RP features of SWTOR.  As it is BioWare has enough challenges just trying to add new content to the game.

I think we pretty much agree on the second part. There's no way they have the time with a 25 peoples team to work on rp features.

Though I am indeed curious as to why you'd think the rp instances would work, as they would ultimately just make rp harder to see. (No way of telling who's doing what and where. So kind of... Useless ? Idk :/ )

[Jdast]

18 hours ago, JackieKo said:

I appreciate those who messaged me constructive feedback about the stream, so we can take steps to make the next one even better.

Thank you

I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories (i.e., I don't think Planet Earth is run by a cabal of alien Trandoshans ) -- so I 100% believe Jackie when she said these parts of the stream are live and these other sections / topics were pre-recorded.

I found the stream both interesting and informative. This stems largely from the fact that a clear, organized agenda was presented at the beginning and it was adhered to without deviation. I consider this a good thing. This applies to previous live streams as well.

Frankly, though, I think you are stirring a hornets nest, poking the bear, brewing a tempest in a teapot (okay, I'll stop 🤩) by having a live stream for the following reasons.

At the outset, I start from the following assessment: For the past few livestreams, the distinction between what was live vs. pre-recorded was negligible, dare I say indistinguishable, because there was no interaction, much less meaningful interaction with the comments  / questions being posted on Twitch. Team SWTOR stuck to a pretty rigid script. This creates two problems when the stream is live:

1) For those posting meaningful comments or relevant questions to the agenda item, there is no interaction, discussion or validation. This leads me to wonder what the purpose of posting on a rapid paced live stream accomplishes.

2) You are, by definition, inviting trolls to spam the Twitch stream. 

I think a sensible compromise is have the new content presentations pre-recorded, but a couple of times a year have a live Dev Chat / Q & A starting off with questions that are popular on the various social media sites so you have topics to begin the session with so there isn't downtime / empty space.

Bottom line: If you are not going to engage the comments / questions on Twitch contemporaneously or at the end, then there is no particular reason to do it live. Do what other MMORPGs do and just have a pre-recorded presentation when the overall topic is exclusively about new content / features. What you are doing now is essentially that but at the same time creating unnecessary ill-will in the process because players assume that a live Twitch stream implies there will be some degree of interaction between the Devs and the SWTOR community.

Dasty

Edited May 10, 2023 by Jdast
Clarity

[codydmaan]

On 5/9/2023 at 4:04 PM, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

Coming off of the stream I wanted to make sure to hit a couple of the questions we didn't get to.

Where is Master Mode R4? 

In short, MM R4 is not on our roadmap.

The priorities for our encounters team right now is focused on making more impactful, engaging bosses in story content, delivering Flashpoints in all modes with modern boss mechanics, and making additional challenging 8-player encounters.

Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is. Whether that is delivered through MM Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses, or even Ops. It is still something we will prioritize as a part of our roadmap going forward.

Any follow-up from the Shae Vizla PTS?
Again, thank you all for your participation and feedback! We have a lot of data and commentary to chew on before making a decision on what comes next for a possible APAC or fresh start server. That said, Shae Vizla was also another scale test for us having our servers "in the cloud" and so this test also helps drive us towards the goal of getting our service and our servers all onto AWS.

Nothing specific to announce on timing or specifics, but know there is a lot happening behind the scenes still on these efforts. We'll communicate more when we can.

Thanks all.

-eric

While flashpoints are fine, I've been playing the game for 12 years now and I havnt done one flashpoint ever since set bonus gear stopped dropping. That was like 10 years ago. 

Unfortunately there is 0 incentive to do a flashpoint. 

 

I got my gear in r4 so flashpoints are inferior an offer no rewards to justify the time spent in them.

 

 

[Elvarania]

On 5/9/2023 at 9:04 PM, EricMusco said:

 

Where is Master Mode R4? 

In short, MM R4 is not on our roadmap.

The priorities for our encounters team right now is focused on making more impactful, engaging bosses in story content, delivering Flashpoints in all modes with modern boss mechanics, and making additional challenging 8-player encounters.

Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is. Whether that is delivered through MM Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses, or even Ops. It is still something we will prioritize as a part of our roadmap going forward.

 

I hope my feedback can be valuable to the team going forward.

Firstly, I must say I am pleased to hear this. Since the announcement in the original 7.0 livestream and subsequent radio silence, I have not expected a master mode R-4 at all. This post confirms my suspicions, and I am relieved. Current R-4 is a buggy nightmare with wildly varying difficulty levels, and mechanics which force regular raiding teams into specific compositions. I am all for diversity and expanding gameplay, but when a boss forces your tanks or healers to play DPS to overcome the boss mechanics (and this is on top of the bugs like disappearing bosses or mechanics not even showing as debuffs) then it does not make for a happy raid experience. 

That being said, mechanically, R-4 was interesting and a step in the right direction. The entire operation requests everyone to perform mechanics appropriately to overcome the encounter, especially if they want the mastery achievements. What wasn't great, however, was the bizarre scale in difficulty. IP-CPT is challenging but fair, whilst Watchdog and Kanoth are among some of the easiest operation bosses in the game. Dominique is then 10 minutes of dull add clearing, with 2 minutes of intense burn phase that is heavily RNG dependent (red circles killing adds, Recursive RNG etc). It definitely does encourage smart play, especially with tank swapping to save DCDs, but the bugs make the fight very frustrating. I echo others here when our raid team decided that, after killing Dominique, we only return to farm Kanoth for a chance at the wings. I would welcome the wings being purchasable for say, 1-200 blue tokens, but  I understand that that will likely not happen to encourage re-playability. Dominique is such a frustrating fight that doing her simply for the very small stat boost the purple tokens give is not much incentive at all. I also suspect that the wildly varying difficulty of IP vs Watchdog was to ensure that another 'Nefra situation' didn't occur with R-4 as it did with Dread Fortress. Do I even need to mention the 'Thrallway'?

It is great to hear that the team is prioritising 'additional challenging 8-player encounters'. One takes this inference to mean a new operation, and I would really encourage the team to learn from the errors in R-4. If a new operation is released, please don't force us into group compositions that upset raid teams, but please do continue to implement mechanics that require the whole group to perform, rather than just the tanks. But most importantly, please don't release a bug ridden mess and go radio silent for a year when it cannot be fixed. It was obvious a long time ago that no R-4 master mode was being released, so more transparency with the community would be great. I appreciate there's probably a lot more too it, though. 

Finally, I appreciate the master mode PvE community is probably a very small %age of the player base, but whilst delivering master mode Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses is absolutely fantastic (I love them all, and any content is good content!), please do not be fooled in thinking that these will satiate the raiding community. Oh, and regarding the Flashpoint, all of my comments about bugs apply for Ruins of Nul. As an achievement enjoyer, that FP was a total pain to slog through 25 times. The mountain stairway, urghhh. However, Secrets of the Enclave was a pleasure, mechanically, nostalgically and aesthetically. Would love to see more in the vein of the latter. Hope this feedback helps!

[xxSHOONYxx]

5 hours ago, Elvarania said:

It is great to hear that the team is prioritising 'additional challenging 8-player encounters'.

It's somehow funny to take their word as truth on a post about how they broke their own word and took them a year to come out and say it. Or when they say world bosses or flashpoints are aspirational content. If they consider flashpoints and world bosses aspirational content get ready for "aspirational" story mode difficulty 8 man content

[Keetsune]

On 5/9/2023 at 11:15 PM, AMAirlines said:

Thank you for clarifying this, Eric. This is what should have happened on the livestream. I appreciate the honesty.

Why, just why. You shouldn't be thankful for a half year delayed answer after devs/community managers showed absolutely no respect for albeit small part of player base. This kind of posts makes me more mad than bans of ppl in twitch chat. I can understand devs perspective: why they should respect you when you have no resepct for yourself.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Keetsune

[LEEscoundral]

On 5/10/2023 at 6:04 AM, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

Coming off of the stream I wanted to make sure to hit a couple of the questions we didn't get to.

Where is Master Mode R4? 

In short, MM R4 is not on our roadmap.

The priorities for our encounters team right now is focused on making more impactful, engaging bosses in story content, delivering Flashpoints in all modes with modern boss mechanics, and making additional challenging 8-player encounters.

Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is. Whether that is delivered through MM Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses, or even Ops. It is still something we will prioritize as a part of our roadmap going forward.

Any follow-up from the Shae Vizla PTS?
Again, thank you all for your participation and feedback! We have a lot of data and commentary to chew on before making a decision on what comes next for a possible APAC or fresh start server. That said, Shae Vizla was also another scale test for us having our servers "in the cloud" and so this test also helps drive us towards the goal of getting our service and our servers all onto AWS.

Nothing specific to announce on timing or specifics, but know there is a lot happening behind the scenes still on these efforts. We'll communicate more when we can.

Thanks all.

-eric

 Sounds good, hope new Ops will be the main focus.. No one i know cares about anything but ops. I know many people in US server end game community..  Id like to see new ops..  I think it was 5.0 when everyone i knew quit the game when a whole lot of story came out and drip feed of 1 operation boss (Tyth).. Im pretty Sure that will happen again if theres no new operation in the next year or so. Here's hoping 🙏🤞