Can we get free transfers off dead servers please?

[felleto]

10 minutes ago, DWho said:

I think GF toxicity has something to do with it too. When the first experience of a new player in group content is unpleasant, that is what is remembered. When GF first came out I remember using it to queue flashpoints and the first question asked was "who hasn't done this before" and then they would go through the mechanics and other matters before rolling in. Now, if your lucky you get a "go watch YouTube before you come back" or just a straight up kick. I'm sure I have pissed of some group players by dropping from the group after they kick someone I consider to not have deserved it (especially if they are being rude)

PVP is kind of the same. You used to have players chat with you about what you could have done better and how to handle the situation if it comes up again at the end of the match (overall pleasant follow-up experience). Now its a lot of cursing and name calling and other rude behavior. The group community has lost it's friendly nature as completing things as fast as possible became the norm (aka farming rewards).

This probably isn't the place to have a discussion about what is wrong with group play, but it is a discussion that needs to be had somewhere. It is a lot more unpleasant to participate in random group play than it used to be.

And god forbid you don't press space during cutscenes and actually watch them.

[Darkestmonty]

18 minutes ago, felleto said:

And god forbid you don't press space during cutscenes and actually watch them.

Every flashpoint should offer a story mode for just this. So people are not relying on a group to see the actual story.

Back when I played FFXIV people would actively avoid a specific raid because it had too much dialogue. I can't remember if it was one long animation or constant dialogue, but people would see that and hard pass on it.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[denavin]

5 hours ago, DWho said:

Well I guess that is acceptable. You're still trapping players on SF but at least you aren't forcing people to change servers that don't want to.

Your not trapped....

You're just Cheap and want everything for free...😝

[DWho]

7 minutes ago, denavin said:

Your not trapped....

You're just Cheap and want everything for free...😝

as do the players wanting to move from SS to SF (for "group reasons") 😁

[StrikePrice]

1 hour ago, DWho said:

I think GF toxicity has something to do with it too. When the first experience of a new player in group content is unpleasant, that is what is remembered. When GF first came out I remember using it to queue flashpoints and the first question asked was "who hasn't done this before" and then they would go through the mechanics and other matters before rolling in. Now, if your lucky you get a "go watch YouTube before you come back" or just a straight up kick. I'm sure I have pissed of some group players by dropping from the group after they kick someone I consider to not have deserved it (especially if they are being rude)

PVP is kind of the same. You used to have players chat with you about what you could have done better and how to handle the situation if it comes up again at the end of the match (overall pleasant follow-up experience). Now its a lot of cursing and name calling and other rude behavior. The group community has lost it's friendly nature as completing things as fast as possible became the norm (aka farming rewards).

This probably isn't the place to have a discussion about what is wrong with group play, but it is a discussion that needs to be had somewhere. It is a lot more unpleasant to participate in random group play than it used to be.

This is 100% the fault of the dev team.

They have put together a gearing system where you have to grind FPs over and over to get gear. Naturally, the 99% of the game that's done these FPs 100x does not want to sit there and watch the cutscenes again. They want to run it as fast as possible because they have to run it another 20 times to get max gear. The dev team could fix this simply by making Vet/MM FPs one skip all skip. Done. Nobody is worried about carrying a newbie. They just want to do it as fast as possible.

PvP is also the fault of the dev team. Instead of a rational system like segmenting by gear score, they throw new level 80 players with 324 gear in against hardened veterans with 336+gold aug gear. Even worse, they eliminate ranked arenas so now new players come into arenas, get focused, chain stunned and globaled before they even know what's happening. And, of course, they never queue again.

The dev team could do a lot to fight toxicity, but they always wind up making things worse because they don't listen. 

1 hour ago, denavin said:

Your not trapped....

You're just Cheap and want everything for free...😝

I don't think I'm cheap. I've spent thousands of dollars on the game over the years. And even I balk at spending $200 just to move my entire legacy over. 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by StrikePrice

[Toraak]

3 hours ago, StrikePrice said:

This is 100% the fault of the dev team.

They have put together a gearing system where you have to grind FPs over and over to get gear. Naturally, the 99% of the game that's done these FPs 100x does not want to sit there and watch the cutscenes again. They want to run it as fast as possible because they have to run it another 20 times to get max gear. The dev team could fix this simply by making Vet/MM FPs one skip all skip. Done. Nobody is worried about carrying a newbie. They just want to do it as fast as possible.

PvP is also the fault of the dev team. Instead of a rational system like segmenting by gear score, they throw new level 80 players with 324 gear in against hardened veterans with 336+gold aug gear. Even worse, they eliminate ranked arenas so now new players come into arenas, get focused, chain stunned and globaled before they even know what's happening. And, of course, they never queue again.

The dev team could do a lot to fight toxicity, but they always wind up making things worse because they don't listen. 

I don't think I'm cheap. I've spent thousands of dollars on the game over the years. And even I balk at spending $200 just to move my entire legacy over. 

 

 

But there is no need to transfer all of your characters from SS. Transfer 1 character maybe 2 if you want. The rest are easy enough to replace. Only need 1 transfer to get your legacy over there, and leveling is a joke still, so recreating the other characters won't take long.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

8 hours ago, Eckrond said:

And again, you tried to argue your points first, which you failed at and then tried to backpedal as if it didn't matter.  Why should I believe you know what you're talking about when the only thing you've proven is otherwise?

No one cares if you disagree, your perspective is worthless at this point.

Please quote me where I backpedaled and said that everyone who likes the multi-player aspect of MMOs wants a mega server.

I dare you to provide that quote from me.

If you cannot, which, you definitely cannot, you prove you're a liar.

Your point is rubbish and totally unsustainable, you can back it up with absolutely nothing. You have zero evidence.

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[DeannaVoyager]

7 hours ago, DWho said:

That is actually my point. There are still a lot of people playing but the number queuing for group content seems to have declined rather precipitously in the last year or so. It now takes a lot higher base population to get the same number of pops that you could get before. Why are people (particularly new players) not playing group content is the question Bioware/Broadsword needs to answer rather than punishing those who have moved on from it

 

I have stopped doing veteran flashpoints because they are always the same lowbie flashpoints. If/when I sometimes lose my mind and queue, there is always someone who runs ahead of everyone else pulling stuff from left and right, which I wouldn't even mind if I had a chance to hit them too. But people who do this are usually melee players with gap closers, and if I am not in the range to hit them, I'll have to run while in combat to get there first. By the time I get there, they are dead. Running through the flashpoint in combat without being able to hit anything makes veteran flashpoints very boring for me. Sometimes I wonder if those people are doing it on purpose are they just that stupid. I never pull anything if the whole group isn't there yet.

 

I am still queing sometimes for MM FPS, but as a dps it can take an hour or more to pop. I usually give up before it does. I can queue as a healer and it may be a little faster, and I never queue as a tank because no-one let's the tank pull which makes everything die slower than needed. The few times I've managed to get a pop as a healer, I've been grouped up with people with gear rating 324 or lower (no augments), who do less damage than the tank, and a few times I've had a tanks who are totally clueless on what a tank should do and how to use cooldowns. It wouldn't be so bad if we could change roles inside the flashpoint, but if you are stuck with two dps with 4 digits damage output and a bad tank, you can only hope someone rage quits and you get to pull out a companion to be able to finish it. I don't know why gearless people who don't know how to play their class want to queue for MM FPS, but they are practically forcing the competent people to make groups outside of the group finder, and that doesn't help with queue times.

 

Getting a lockout  for leaving a bad or toxic group doesn't make group content more appealing either. 

 

Having PVP seasons on doesn't help either. Most of my friends are grinding that, which means they are not doing ops or MM FPS with me, which means I don't really get to play swtor while pvp seasons is active, because pugging fps has become such a nightmare. 

 

7 hours ago, DWho said:

I think GF toxicity has something to do with it too. When the first experience of a new player in group content is unpleasant, that is what is remembered. When GF first came out I remember using it to queue flashpoints and the first question asked was "who hasn't done this before" and then they would go through the mechanics and other matters before rolling in. Now, if your lucky you get a "go watch YouTube before you come back" or just a straight up kick. I'm sure I have pissed of some group players by dropping from the group after they kick someone I consider to not have deserved it (especially if they are being rude)

PVP is kind of the same. You used to have players chat with you about what you could have done better and how to handle the situation if it comes up again at the end of the match (overall pleasant follow-up experience). Now its a lot of cursing and name calling and other rude behavior. The group community has lost it's friendly nature as completing things as fast as possible became the norm (aka farming rewards).

This probably isn't the place to have a discussion about what is wrong with group play, but it is a discussion that needs to be had somewhere. It is a lot more unpleasant to participate in random group play than it used to be.

 

^^ So much this. ^^

 

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, DWho said:

well, there were 50 on the fleet and another 30 on Hoth when I was on a hour or so ago. That's 80 players total just those two places

That doesn’t mean those people are queuing for group content 🤷🏻‍♀️

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, DWho said:

That is actually my point. There are still a lot of people playing but the number queuing for group content seems to have declined rather precipitously in the last year or so

One minute you’re saying there’s enough people for group content based of planet instant numbers. And the next there has been a significant decline in people playing group content this last year. 

So can you accept then that people who mostly play group content (much more than you admittedly do) are having difficulty playing said content on SS? 

They have first hand experience of the situation. Where you don’t because you’ve admitted you don’t really play much group content. 
Honestly, I don’t even know why you’re trying to argue with them about this topic.

Edited July 25, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, OlBuzzard said:

Reduced costs for transfers would always be preferable to server mergers.  

Oddly enough ... I'm afraid that my own solution is somewhat different.  I would prefer to see more new stuff added to SWTOR (including better PvP stuff) where the servers would begin to repopulate again.  IMO anything else ... is more of sticking a small Band-Aid on a much larger more open wound. 

100% this 👆

New content, fixing developmental mistakes in PvP & other areas, bug squashing, etc is the way to fix the game, which should then build up the population. 

But in the meantime. They need to offer a lifeline to those players who can’t play because of population degradation. As you say, the free transfers are just a band-aid for the underlying issues. 

[DWho]

8 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

One minute you’re saying there’s enough people for group content based of planet instant numbers. And the next there has been a significant decline in people playing group content this last year. 

Trixx, my point all along was there are enough people on the server that group content should pop if players were queuing. They aren't and that is the problem. The question is why. Is it because too few people are interested in playing group content or is it because group players don't queue themselves. I think it is potential new group players are not queuing and blaming the population isn't productive when there are enough players playing for the content to pop.

I have played tons of group content in the past and fully understand why an average player would stop queuing for group content. The degradation in pops has a lot less to do with population and a lot more to do with apathy and toxicity. If you don't fix those all you will end up doing is killing another server for "pops" and the problem starts all over again on the next one and when there is only one left, where will you go.

You are so fixated on group content you don't see the real problem which is that players don't want to play group content anymore. The old guard is still there but new players aren't joining them and the old guard can't understand why (they fall back on its a population problem - lower pop servers than SS have supported group content pretty well in the past, they don't now). Some of it is Bioware's fault and some of it is "group" players themselves.

Edited July 25, 2023 by DWho

[StrikePrice]

13 hours ago, Toraak said:

But there is no need to transfer all of your characters from SS. Transfer 1 character maybe 2 if you want. The rest are easy enough to replace. Only need 1 transfer to get your legacy over there, and leveling is a joke still, so recreating the other characters won't take long.

Yes, you're right. I can stomach moving 3-4 over for the 1000cc/ea. I'd rather pay 100cc/ea, but oh well

[Darkestmonty]

2 hours ago, DWho said:

Trixx, my point all along was there are enough people on the server that group content should pop if players were queuing. They aren't and that is the problem. The question is why. Is it because too few people are interested in playing group content or is it because group players don't queue themselves. I think it is potential new group players are not queuing and blaming the population isn't productive when there are enough players playing for the content to pop.

I have played tons of group content in the past and fully understand why an average player would stop queuing for group content. The degradation in pops has a lot less to do with population and a lot more to do with apathy and toxicity. If you don't fix those all you will end up doing is killing another server for "pops" and the problem starts all over again on the next one and when there is only one left, where will you go.

You are so fixated on group content you don't see the real problem which is that players don't want to play group content anymore. The old guard is still there but new players aren't joining them and the old guard can't understand why (they fall back on its a population problem - lower pop servers than SS have supported group content pretty well in the past, they don't now). Some of it is Bioware's fault and some of it is "group" players themselves.

Because not everyone wants to play the same group content. Some people log on for chatting, some for guild crafting, others to check the GTN, and some to grind rep.

Think of how low the SS population has to be that it can't even get 4 people to queue up for Flashpoints or 16 people to queue up for PvP. The SS population needs help because outside of prime time or holidays, queues take too long if they even pop at all.

You know what doesn't help SS? Free server transfers off the server. That only exasperates the population issue and makes group content even harder find outside peak hours. And as a small bonus a low pop server drives off new players when they notice the game is dead because they picked SS to play on.

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[OlBuzzard]

10 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

100% this 👆

New content, fixing developmental mistakes in PvP & other areas, bug squashing, etc is the way to fix the game, which should then build up the population. 

But in the meantime. They need to offer a lifeline to those players who can’t play because of population degradation. As you say, the free transfers are just a band-aid for the underlying issues. 

No argument here!  

Look at it like this:
** Short term:  Players have the flexibility to move around as needed.  And yes this would probably be at a greatly reduced cost.  IMO ... make an announcement and advertise for 7 to 10 days that the "EVENT IS COMING".  Run said event for 30 days.  Wait another 60 days and repeat process.  That should pretty well settle things down at least for a while.

** Long term:  Longer lasting activities with more of the stories; fixing PvP; BUG squashing, and setting up the next series of stories / GS series (***) other new areas.  BTW... It should be noted that even though we often criticize WoW ... a LOT could be learned from them on how they have set up this last expansion "Dragon Flight".  They really hit a nerve (in a positive way) on open areas (tough mobs and areas that can be reached solo).  I've actually enjoyed playing again.  NO, I don't think SWTOR should copy them.  I DO BELIEVE (unquestionably) that a good team knows how to learn and make applications to the way that works for SWOTOR (in this case).  AND YES, there needs to always be those really tough areas (as in OPS and major raid areas) for those who enjoy that sort of thing.  The more any game has to offer ... the larger their audience will grow.

I hope this makes sense.

OH ... almost forgot (again) ... (***) NOTE to the TEAM:  Please fix the GS series where people can actually make good use of the rewards.  PLEASE review your own thread where you requested feedback and take it to heart!  I know how the demographics thing works.  I'm probably the LAST person you are going to listen to.  BUT there were a LOT of people (of all ages and backgrounds) that took the time to respond to that thread.  As a team you should not be offended and looking for a means of vindication.  While it important that the story move forward ... it is EQUALLY important that this GS series / rewards be genuinely exciting and FUN.

Final note:  this is not meant to be a rant or an attempt to be rude or condescending in my observations.  I hope that this post not only makes sense...  but will be accepted in the light of which I'm trying to present it.

[TrixxieTriss]

57 minutes ago, Darkestmonty said:

Because not everyone wants to play the same group content. Some people log on for chatting, some for guild crafting, others to check the GTN, and some to grind rep.

Think of how low the SS population has to be that it can't even get 4 people to queue up for Flashpoints or 16 people to queue up for PvP. The SS population needs help because outside of prime time or holidays, queues take too long if they even pop at all.

You know what doesn't help SS? Free server transfers off the server. That only exasperates the population issue and makes group content even harder find outside peak hours. And as a small bonus a low pop server drives off new players when they notice the game is dead because they picked SS to play on.

 

So you’re only solution is mergers? Which have traditionally driven off 5-10% off the players forced to do so.

Your merger solution is like triaging viable players. And it’s not viable to keep doing it. What you’re missing is the game can’t keep merging & losing players in the vain hope to stay alive if enough people are together. 

If they offer free transfers off of SS, then anyone who starts new there has the option to move if they want. They could also add a pop up for new players stating that SF is for those wanting group content & SS is not. 

Lastly, if you really want mergers, then start your own thread instead of hijacking Strikes thread asking for free transfers. Then you can debate it with like minded people. 

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Darkestmonty]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

So you’re only solution is mergers? Which have traditionally driven off 5-10% off the players forced to do so.

Your merger solution is like triaging viable players. And it’s not viable to keep doing it. What you’re missing is the game can’t keep merging & losing players in the vain hope to stay alive if enough people are together. 

If they offer free transfers off of SS, then anyone who starts new there has the option to move if they want. They could also add a pop up for new players stating that SF is for those wanting group content & SS is not.

I would love to see where you get 5-10% player loss specifically from server merges.

Here is what I do know, if players can't find group content or have to sit around fleet waiting 30+ minutes for it to pop, if it does at all, they tend to give up and log off. Eventually if this happens enough they quit. The minority are going to transfer which will only result in lowering the population of SS even more which exasperates the issue of queue times for pvp, flashpoints, group oriented content like world bosses and invasions, etc.

What percentage of players do you think exit the game if they can't find group content in the first half hour of sitting in queue?

  

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Lastly, if you really want mergers, then start your own thread instead of hijacking Strikes thread asking for free transfers. Then you can debate it with like minded people.

 

When you become a mod you can tell me what to post and ban me. Until then... you have no room to talk about staying only on the subject of server transfers considering you spent the last few pages talking about the possibility of cross server queues and cloud servers.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[Menaur]

I play on Tulak Hord, on repside this Server is nearly dead - i log in and after a few minutes out, it make no more sense cause it is the last German server.

[Shayddow]

Quote

Again, the only real loss on a server merge would be names

There is one issue which would be my biggest problem, and that of many other people who have characters on both servers. (I have 105 characters altogether - some rarely get played, especially since the doubling of conquest requirements to 100,000).

Namely, the fact that a merger would mean the combination of the Legacy vendor cargo hold. I hardly have enough room in the legacy vaults for what I have in there now. (I have the maximum slots possible as of now). Combining I'd need to have at LEAST 3 more tabs if I combined everything. 

[Shayddow]

Quote

Naturally, the 99% of the game that's done these FPs 100x does not want to sit there and watch the cutscenes again. They want to run it as fast as possible because they have to run it another 20 times to get max gear. The dev team could fix this simply by making Vet/MM FPs one skip all skip. Done. Nobody is worried about carrying a newbie. They just want to do it as fast as possible.

PvP is also the fault of the dev team. Instead of a rational system like segmenting by gear score, they throw new level 80 players with 324 gear in against hardened veterans with 336+gold aug gear. Even worse, they eliminate ranked arenas so now new players come into arenas, get focused, chain stunned and globaled before they even know what's happening. And, of course, they never queue again.

This is a valid point.  For Flashpoints, problem with that in particular is that Esseles and Black Talon are included if you want to get credit for the (weekly) group mission. I don't have objection to having these included for Masters. But as you suggested, I would like the idea of having both Vet/Master on auto-skip, with the exception of the Light/Dark conversation choice conversation.  The other conversations are pretty useless for players who have done this content before - except if you have a companion to gain influence for, which you should be doing in story.

Other (older) FPs they should revert back to offering a "story" mode for.

As for the newer ones - Nathema for one offers a challenge (for the Gemini fight) even in story.

[Darkestmonty]

3 hours ago, Shayddow said:

There is one issue which would be my biggest problem, and that of many other people who have characters on both servers. (I have 105 characters altogether - some rarely get played, especially since the doubling of conquest requirements to 100,000).

Namely, the fact that a merger would mean the combination of the Legacy vendor cargo hold. I hardly have enough room in the legacy vaults for what I have in there now. (I have the maximum slots possible as of now). Combining I'd need to have at LEAST 3 more tabs if I combined everything. 

For people who have more characters total across multiple servers than they have character slots per server there are two choices.

1) fill all the empty character slots before a merger to effectively multiply the characters on the new server for free

2) do not fill the empty character slots before a merger and delete characters until they fall below the  character count if a new character needs to be made.

Plan ahead:

Fill all empty character slots. Use the same names on the different servers so after a merge you get a free name changes. Use the appearance changer if you want to tweak your characters appearance and spread out the combat class you assign each character.

I have over 100 characters spread across all the servers. People like us are a minority. Most people don't play more than one server and of those that do only a small percentage of those players will be pushed past their character limit after a merge. I'm not worried about players like us having to deleting characters to make new ones. We are such a small minority and after a merge will benefit us by bringing all our characters together.

Legacy bank storage:

You are going to have to store items on characters. Each character has the same amount of space in their personal bank that a single legacy bank has. There is no reason, if you have 50-100 characters, that you can't find a place to store items in your legacy bank and personal banks Use a spread sheet to help organize characters and list what items they hold (weapons, armor, jawa junk, log in rewards, etc).

The issues you listed will effect very few players and if you plan ahead and stay organized you can use a merger to your advantage.

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[TziganeNZ]

I can't and won't speak for anyone else but having been through several server merges (both with SWTOR and other games) and lost names, character slots etc, if another server merge were to happen, I would log out, unsub, uninstall the game and never come back. 

[TrixxieTriss]

17 minutes ago, TziganeNZ said:

I can't and won't speak for anyone else but having been through several server merges (both with SWTOR and other games) and lost names, character slots etc, if another server merge were to happen, I would log out, unsub, uninstall the game and never come back. 

This is what I’m talking about. Over the years I’ve seen many people quit over things like this. 

[TziganeNZ]

27 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

This is what I’m talking about. Over the years I’ve seen many people quit over things like this. 

It would be the absolutely last straw for me.

[Darkestmonty]

1 hour ago, TziganeNZ said:

I can't and won't speak for anyone else but having been through several server merges (both with SWTOR and other games) and lost names, character slots etc, if another server merge were to happen, I would log out, unsub, uninstall the game and never come back. 

Names:

I have lost nearly ever character name I had since starting on day one of release. The only character names I retained were idiotic names from the random name generator and I lost quit a few of those.

I don't feel that any of our character names are more important than the over all health of the game. Sure, SWTOR could still have 209 servers, we could all still have our original characters names, but we would also be on servers with an active population so low that group content is impossible. Would you rather log on every day to your character with it's original name on a completely empty server and talk with Frank who is the only other person on fleet because he's a bot selling credits or take the chance at a rename but be on a server where you can take part in group content? Server merges are a must to keep the games population healthy and keep group content viable as populations drop.

Character Slot:

The only people worried about losing character slots are those who play multiple servers. If you are worried about losing character slots, the solution is very simple. Fill those slots before a merger. Complaining about losing character slots on servers you don't play is nonsensical and refusing to take steps to ensure you don't lose precious character slots you want to retain is lazy.

Even after a merge where a player is pushed beyond their normal character count per server, all characters can still played normally. The only issue that has come up is when there are more characters on a server than character slots. Players who have more characters than character slots won't be able to make new character until they fall below there character slot limit for that server. Buy more slots, start deleting, or live with the fact that you now have more characters on a server than you should.

We all have to make choices. I chose to abandon Satele Shan last year to make Star Forge my primary server because I couldn't ignore how low the population was getting. The population on SS isn't improving over previous years. The population on SS will continue to fall every year until a merge is inevitable.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Darkestmonty