An update on the development of SWTOR

[JakRoanin]

I'm not going to argue about this. Like I said we all have different needs and wants. All are equally valid. I want this game to have the amazing stories and characters we have. You don't. I hope the game gives whatever content we all want. But I will say, I pay for story, voice acting and worldbuilding the minute the game stops giving it to me I'm out.

[Venjirai]

Since they are all working from home, the devs probably do what nearly any simple worker without much supervision would do in that case: 10% working, 90% doing private stuff. Can't otherwise explain why simple bug fixes like implants not working at all isn't addressed.

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 minute ago, JakRoanin said:

I'm not going to argue about this. Like I said we all have different needs and wants. All are equally valid. I want this game to have the amazing stories and characters we have. You don't. I hope the game gives whatever content we all want. But I will say, I pay for story, voice acting and worldbuilding the minute the game stops giving it to me I'm out.

I don't know if you don't understand the point or what.
I will explain it simpler then, if the game cared about the mmo aspect of it, you would have had more story content to do because they would have more revenue thus more budget.

Instead of spending their budget across the game they decided to spend most of it on story/solo, making so many people leave and reducing their earnings. Story alone simply can't sustain an mmo

[JakRoanin]

I understand your point, but I'm saying I disagree with it. Does that make me right? No. But I disagree. I'm not saying you should not have MMO content, I'm saying as long as I get what I want I'll keep paying for it. No more, no less.

[xxSHOONYxx]

26 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

I understand your point, but I'm saying I disagree with it. Does that make me right? No. But I disagree. I'm not saying you should not have MMO content, I'm saying as long as I get what I want I'll keep paying for it. No more, no less.

You said that you can't stand when people say the devs waste money on VA and story, when it is in fact true because they take budget from the mmo part of the game to do that. I don't think anyone ever wanted story to be cancelled but as you said they want "their needs and wants met", and we have seen year after year, expansion after expansion how the mmo aspect of the game is reduced or forgotten to support story and VA or even trailers. 
I didn't care about story, i didn't care about pvp, yet i still wanted those two aspects to do good because i knew the more people that play the game the better for the game.

I know the game budget is not a lot didn't care i cleared r4 hm in the first days and then i had to wait, i actually wanted pvp rehaul to happen or even gsf update before more op content (that was promised and canceled) even though i don't play because i already got my "part" while they didn't and had also been waiting. 

I don't think same can be said about story people, some may also have the same mentality as every aspect of he game matters even if they don't play it and deserve equal budget, some don't outright say "cancel pvp and pve" but they want never ending story and complain even when the majority of the developing budget goes there, but others do and many celebrated when ranked was canceled and then r4 nim was canceled. 

Edited June 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[JakRoanin]

I won't claim to know how the Devs allocate the budget for all aspects of the game. Maybe every part has a set amount that doesn't change no matter what. My point is that we all deserve the content we like. What I don't understand is that if you are so dissatisfied why continue to sub at all.

[Balameb]

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

What’s the saying… “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”

What about "fool me for the 27th time"?

Without the hyperbole, did Keith ever managed to deliver in time and form?

20 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

That said ... instead of a continuous focus on playing the blame game ... perhaps we need to mention some stuff that might help heal wounds? 

For some, catharsis is their own healing method. So blaming helps with that. And we only need healing from our side, not theirs. Why not theirs? First because they don't acknowledge their mistakes, second because the dev team will change; even if some coders/artists stay, the next excuse will be "this was donde by the previous team".

If we only had very old mistakes to account for, i might agree with leaving things behind. But the LotS anniversary fiasco still burns. And then this one pointed by Traceguy that was very recent:

3 hours ago, Traceguy said:

After much complaints, Jackie finally address the people on Twitch who got banned for asking about R4. Rather than sincerely apologize, she absolutely lied about the situation and turned it into a narcissistic post about how the majority of people who got banned were justly banned because they were harming the community and spamming, and that by accident, some random people got caught in the cross fire and banned too.

I watched the chat during the stream as it became more interesting. No one spamming or harming the community. Any single mention of R4 (in any capacity) was met with a the mod hammer.

I would like to give Jackie the benefit of the doubt because we know sometimes as CM their hands are tied. But too often we get responses like that one that are reminders of Eric's Community Mismanagement.

The game, and its community, is so much in decline that BW is loosing their white knights. The latest issue with transaction fees, the only people defending the changes (and only partially) were the biggest economy/inflation critics (me included), very very far from the usual defenders.

1 hour ago, OlBuzzard said:

Frankly I'm not so sure but it seems that the only thing some are interested in is grabbing the pitchforks and starting a big fire!

For some it is. People are angry, and the only one posting from time to time trying to calm down with promises is someone who can't keep them. Like a polititian. But what is worst is that some polititians have the excuse that they promise before being elected, then blame the one that came before. Well, Keith has been on top for more than SIX years, there are no excuses left. They can't implement 7.4 overnight, but they need to start showing(not saying) what they are planning; they need to put their sh*t together and fix the bugs tha came with last two patches.

10 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

For whatever reason,  ESO seems to do a much better job of providing satisfaction consistantly & continuously to more various types of players. ( story-seekers , PVP'ers , raiders , crafter/sellers , RP'ers ,  modders, decorators, ALTaholics, cosmetic dreser-uppers, ---Those last 3 types SWTOR does indeed still do a pretty  good job with. )

ESO has expansions, and they also have DLCs. Expansions are paid, DLCs included with Sub (or paid with crowns).

Here you only sub for 1 month and gets to keep access to everything except Operations. I mean, i would not pay for an expansion like 7.X (all of it so far). But i would pay for an expansion + keep the sub for what 2.X was. 3.x was borderline low, and 6.X was 'decent' as expansion (2 planets+FP+OP) but then it did not keep up.

 

 

[xxSHOONYxx]

3 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

I won't claim to know how the Devs allocate the budget for all aspects of the game. Maybe every part has a set amount that doesn't change no matter what. My point is that we all deserve the content we like. What I don't understand is that if you are so dissatisfied why continue to sub at all.

Only devs have the actual numbers, but it's fairly easy to see approximations or a least % of what is spent in what.

Story: Designing the area + special vfx (if even added) + coding + testing and 48 player VAs are used + 3 for each npcs, how much a recording studio is plus sound engineers, the multiple lines each va has to record, writers, approving the writing by disney.

GSF: designing the area + balance + special vfx (if even added) + coding + testing and maybe 10 lines of VA. Has it even gotten an update since released in 2.0 era? So budget non existent.

PvP: designing the area + balance + special vfx (if even added) + coding + testing and maybe 10 lines of VA. the rehaul of pvp removed ranked, and seems everyone is upset with pvp now. Pvp seasons is not content either. So budget only limited to the new armors of said pvp seasons.

Op: designing the area +  balance + boss models and abilities vfx + coding + testing and maybe 10 lines of VA for the whole op. So budget low, or now non existent since r4 nim was canceled.

Other content: what other content? Same events with new lousy cosmetics because all he good ones end up in CM. And outside of events nothing new was added for several years. 

New classes: non existent since release.

Balance: pvp and pve deserved a different balance which never got. So maybe just one guy working on balance.

Crafting: non existent since 6.0 and heavily gutted since CM

Bug fixing: the bugs they can't "reproduce" yet everyone gets or the year old bugs are a testament of the budget this receives. 

My own fault for buying 180 day sub, haven't logged since r4 nim debacle plus devs calling fp aspirational content.

Edited June 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[JakRoanin]

That's terribly non-specific, and I prefer to deal with facts not speculation. We simply don't have the information of what gets spent on what. 

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

7 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Knowing you can't keep a promise... and still promising something... LIES.

Expecting total forthrightness, complete open honesty, non opaqueness, and keeping every promise made from a business that exists to make as much money as possible is sheer folly.

Businesses do whatever the bottom-line tells them to do and Bioware are not the bosses, they're the employees of EA. EA signs their pay checks and tells them how much they are allowed to spend. They do what EA tells them to do.

As far as communication is concerned, I do think they have been a bit better with that of late. But quite honestly, you read these forums, you know how critical of Bioware people are on these forums, would you wanna deal with people here if you were an employee of Bioware?

When Keith made his post about SWTOR going over to Broadsword, after I had read a lot of the posts there, in my first response post I said "I think it's safe to say Keith won't be responding to our posts." Surprisingly he did respond twice after that.

Another problem we sometimes run into here is that people sometimes read into things that weren't actually stated. It's like the people who say Bioware lied about Combat styles and that they said we would be able to 'multi-class', which they didn't say, but that's just how some people interpreted it.

Businesses aren't churches or libraries. They don't exist for the common good of man. They exist to make as much money as possible. If the bottom line tells them not to keep every promise because it will effect the bottom line negatively if they did than they won't.

As far as banning people goes, there is literally no one in this game that has accrued more ban time from Bioware than me. Put together, my ban times amount to years. 3 months here, 6 months there. I even have in-game ban time that amounts to several months. And that's game time I paid for.

I don't like it, but, the reality is that they can ban whomever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. They're not the government. We don't have a right to free speech from any other entity but the government.

Ya know, we're all a little bit of hypocrites here. We may moan about some of the things Bioware does, and dislike some of their choices, but, we keep on paying them. Paying them is approval as far as they are concerned.

I guess it boils down to expectations. When it comes to complete honesty or keeping every promise a business entity makes, I don't expect that.

[xxSHOONYxx]

47 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

That's terribly non-specific, and I prefer to deal with facts not speculation. We simply don't have the information of what gets spent on what. 

Each has some same paths that have to be done like the general coding, designe of the area special vfx balance and testing. So it's not non-specific. Still boggles my mind how on 7.0 story they messed up a door at the beginning of the story and they didn't see it on testing, if they even tested their own story.
And if you don't want to recognize how story is taking most of the budget is on you really.
And if you knew a bit of coding it would make more sense.

A new ability for a boss of a new difficulty can be done with just a few lines of code like the prerequisite of said attack, the priority of the attack that can be inserted on a heap or a priority queue list with other skills, the type of attack it is, the variable of the damage, and what it "hits" and what happens when it "hits" (if insta death you die or if it's damage it takes hp of said attack value or adds a debuf).

Story of course needs coding too, the difference that on the coding instead of making a conal attack show as a visual effect as it would for the previos example, it makes your character and npc reproduce the small audio of the hundreds of dollars spent on that small portion of audio recorded(multiplied by 48 because your main character can have 48 voices), while still not using the other thousand of dollars that were not used because you pressed 1 and not 2-3-4 or 5.

Edited June 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[JakRoanin]

But they were used by OTHER PEOPLE. It's not a waste.

[xxSHOONYxx]

2 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

But they were used by OTHER PEOPLE. It's not a waste.

They were used by others ok, and?
The big difference in budget of story and mmo is still there

[JakRoanin]

Why do we have to keep going back and forth? I've never complained about Raids PvP or any other MMO content. I'm always happy when people get updates, so why keep at me for my choices?

[xxSHOONYxx]

28 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

Why do we have to keep going back and forth? I've never complained about Raids PvP or any other MMO content. I'm always happy when people get updates, so why keep at me for my choices?

Because first you disagreed on how a mmo can survive with just story saying you have 10 alts and have a lot to do. 
Then you said that there is no lack of content, that content is here just that people don't want to do content with people that play for the story. Content that most don't even see as actual content
And then you said you disagreed again when i said that if the game spent their budget more equally between mmo content and story content there would be more people playing and that a mmo doesn't survive with just story. 

You may have never complained about raids, pvp or any other mmo content (other than those who play them saying they were mean to you or something like that), but when those people want their needs met and a more equally distributed budget you don't like it and support your views with how a game with just story is sustainable.

You are entitled to our opinions, but don't be surprised if someone writes back

Edited June 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[JakRoanin]

I never said that the budget shouldn't be equal I said we don't have the numbers to prove it isn't. I never said that the MMO content shouldn't be in the game, I said that because people decided it wasn't what they wanted, (perfectly valid complaint) they don't play what is there. I said that I pay my sub for story and VA and will continue to do so. And aside from my guild, pugging for VET FP's is an exercise in insanity because of rude nasty unhelpful people! That is the truth for me. Your complaints are valid for you. But, I will never say Story is a waste.

[xxSHOONYxx]

23 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

I never said that the budget shouldn't be equal I said we don't have the numbers to prove it isn't. I never said that the MMO content shouldn't be in the game, I said that because people decided it wasn't what they wanted, (perfectly valid complaint) they don't play what is there. I said that I pay my sub for story and VA and will continue to do so. And aside from my guild, pugging for VET FP's is an exercise in insanity because of rude nasty unhelpful people! That is the truth for me. Your complaints are valid for you. But, I will never say Story is a waste.

There is no worse blind man than the one who doesn't want to see.
Even after explaining a little bit of how coding works and how other mmo content hasn't been updated for years like crafting or since the release of it like new classes and gsf, or how op and pvp "updates" are deleting content or taking things away. 

And i never said story is a waste, i said that taking budget away from mmo content to story and va is a waste to the game growth. Anyone that has been here long enough has a memory of what happens when story has the majority of the budget. According to your forum date unless you had a different account back then you were not here to see what happened on vanilla or from 3.0 to 4.0 and 5.0 to see the decline in population those periods had
 

Edited June 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[JakRoanin]

I started playing six years ago just before @KeithKanneg took over. And I told you before, I understand I just disagree. That's not an insult to you, or anyone else. It's my opinion. You don't need to fight it. I'm not silencing you.

[TrixxieTriss]

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the percentage they’ve been allocating for xyz. I think we can all agree the game has been underfunded for a very long time and that most of the income they raise from our subscriptions and the cartel market has been going to BioWares other projects, EA executives & shareholders. In the big picture, what your all arguing over are table scraps funding that BioWare throw to the devs & then tell them to cut costs more while making more money. 

[OlBuzzard]

38 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the percentage they’ve been allocating for xyz. I think we can all agree the game has been underfunded for a very long time and that most of the income they raise from our subscriptions and the cartel market has been going to BioWares other projects, EA executives & shareholders. In the big picture, what your all arguing over are table scraps funding that BioWare throw to the devs & then tell them to cut costs more while making more money. 

Unfortunately, however, there is so much bitterness that some will never see the big picture while others only are concerned about the amount of money spent on their part of SWTOR.  We have seen that sort of attitude reflected in more ways than one.

Something I've said for a long time now:  I would have personally not let SWTOR get to the place where it is now.  (By that I mean) ... it seems as though all to often choices were made as to what area of the game will get a LITTLE TLC.  IMO that is why we see the jumping around to different areas.  And yet almost none of the game as a whole is getting what is needed.  ( I hope this is making sense).

** PvE with more then just one style or level of bosses to engage with.  That includes multiple areas for Dailies / Heroics / Ops / Other areas that are still desperately needed (and should have been added AGES ago).
** PvP  IIRC someone suggested that 4.0 was OK .. but after that total disaster??  And yet no one listens to reason.  Why in the name of common sense drive the game into such a sad state of affairs?  I maybe an old dude but good grief I have enough walking about sense to know better!!
** SWTOR story ...  class story anyone?  Remember those.

All of this comes down to just one thing $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ !!!

The SWTOR piggie bank was robbed and left to survive with only a token of what it actually needed to not just limp along as it has but to grow too ????  (again) I'm not a finical genius but IMO it DOESN'T take one to figure out why things are the way that they are.  Consequently, we frequently find ourselves divided as to how the money should be distributed and spent.  Even worse IMO I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if some fat cat from BW / EA is laughing at all of us because of this very matter.  YES I actually believe this is true.

This adds to my own current state of mind regarding this game.  It's doesn't just need a shot in the arm right now ... it needs a MAJOR TRANSFUSION!  Someone with a ton of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ needs to step in and fix this game!!!  It can be done!  Will it?  Ah ...  hence my skepticism right now!

This game has one of the biggest opportunities in the MMO marketplace and it is being totally squandered!!  This one fact alone just totally blows my mind.  

So why do I care?   I would suppose that there is still that little quiet, small voice in the back of my head that is still pleading to not completely give up just yet.  I'm not sure how much longer I will listen to it!  But there it is just the same!  If things fall apart .. I know that without question I have at least tried to offer what I can (be it good or bad).

Edited June 23, 2023 by OlBuzzard
more than one error !! (oops)

[TrixxieTriss]

35 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

it needs a MAJOR TRANSFUSION!  Someone with a ton of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ needs to step in and fix this game!!!  It can be done!  Will it?  Ah ...  hence my skepticism right now!

I agree with your whole post. But I thought I’d highlight this part. The game is now going on 11 years old. No one is going to inject a large sum of $$$$ to fix the game like it should be & deserves. Not unless they are a major fan & player of the game & have lots of disposable $$$$ to throw at it.

But maybe there will be some extra $$$$ once Broadsword takes over because all that income won’t be going to BioWares other projects anymore. All though I’m sure EA executives will still be taking their cut and Broadsword will probably have to pay back what ever funding they use to have swtor’s “ownership” transferred to them.

For me, the transfer can’t come soon enough. Because I want to see if anything will change for the positive once BioWare head office is removed from the equation. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Nee-Elder]

4 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

As far as communication is concerned, I do think they have been a bit better with that of late. But quite honestly, you read these forums, you know how critical of Bioware people are on these forums,

would you wanna deal with people here if you were an employee of Bioware?

Yes, i would.  Actually, i'd want to communicate even more tbqh.  ( Which is exactly what i did while working as QA/coder on another SW mmo , sometimes even much to the chagrin of my 'bosses'  )

4 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Another problem we sometimes run into here is that people sometimes read into things that weren't actually stated.

It's like the people who say Bioware lied about Combat styles and that they said we would be able to 'multi-class', which they didn't say, but that's just how some people interpreted it.

Recently i vowed to diminish so much constant blah blah  BioWare-bashing on repeat , but just to quickly reply here on this one point ^ ...  Often times, their lack of acknowledgement ( or lack of addressing such "interpretations" until it's too late ) can cause a vacuum/void, which then only serves to perpetuate any conspiracy theories or false narratives.

This is why, in my opinion, the best way to fill such a void is with more factual information ( aka transparency ) .  Not less.

Sure, you might never satisfy the trolls & haters , but everyone else within playerbase sure does appreciate it.

4 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

 there is literally no one in this game that has accrued more ban time from Bioware than me.

i've gotten fairly close myself a couple times,  back when 'skill trees' were taken away ( 4.0 update i think? ) and then later when Crafting was nerfed ( 6.0 maybe? ) , as well as also whenever i start my monthly crusade to get some GSF development.

[OlBuzzard]

40 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Yes, i would.  Actually, i'd want to communicate even more tbqh.  ( Which is exactly what i did while working as QA/coder on another SW mmo , sometimes even much to the chagrin of my 'bosses'  )

Recently i vowed to diminish so much constant blah blah  BioWare-bashing on repeat , but just to quickly reply here on this one point ^ ...  Often times, their lack of acknowledgement ( or lack of addressing such "interpretations" until it's too late ) can cause a vacuum/void, which then only serves to perpetuate any conspiracy theories or false narratives.

This is why, in my opinion, the best way to fill such a void is with more factual information ( aka transparency ) .  Not less.

Sure, you might never satisfy the trolls & haters , but everyone else within playerbase sure does appreciate it.

i've gotten fairly close myself a couple times,  back when 'skill trees' were taken away ( 4.0 update i think? ) and then later when Crafting was nerfed ( 6.0 maybe? ) , as well as also whenever i start my monthly crusade to get some GSF development.

Ah ..OK!  I knew that there was a better than average working knowledge on some subjects.  Nice to know that the old man hasn't lost his ALL of his business senses!

BTW...  You're good bud!  Never loose that sense of direction either!  Sure we disagree at times.  But then again, nothing like a good irritant to keep you on your toes!
[/grins sheepishly]

Let's face it ...  sometimes it's necessary for us to stive against all odds to achieve the seemingly impossible.

I certainly don't despise the team at all.  There are times when I can't seem to understand what in the name of common sense is going on.. BUT I also try to see things from other perspectives as well.  BTW.. it should be noted that I certainly do appreciate as factual information as possible.  It is something that at times can be a somewhat scarce commodity.

Ya know ... if a couple of you keep it up you just might convince the old man to stick around a little while longer!  I'd hate for you to get bored!  

😜

[OlBuzzard]

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I agree with your whole post. But I thought I’d highlight this part. The game is now going on 11 years old. No one is going to inject a large sum of $$$$ to fix the game like it should be & deserves. Not unless they are a major fan & player of the game & have lots of disposable $$$$ to throw at it.

But maybe there will be some extra $$$$ once Broadsword takes over because all that income won’t be going to BioWares other projects anymore. All though I’m sure EA executives will still be taking their cut and Broadsword will probably have to pay back what ever funding they use to have swtor’s “ownership” transferred to them.

For me, the transfer can’t come soon enough. Because I want to see if anything will change for the positive once BioWare head office is removed from the equation. 

At the least I hope that there has been some good old fashion Ferengi bartering in the process to help make the transition a success!  (Yeah ... I know .. wrong genre!  BUT there's something to be said for paying close attention to the opportunity for profit!!)

😉

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

Often times, their lack of acknowledgement ( or lack of addressing such "interpretations" until it's too late ) can cause a vacuum/void, which then only serves to perpetuate any conspiracy theories or false narratives.

This is why, in my opinion, the best way to fill such a void is with more factual information ( aka transparency ) .  Not less.

100% agree with everything in this statement.