Is it Time for a Big New Story Drop?

[Nee-Elder]

1 minute ago, TrixxieTriss said:

 they could spend a year doing story or making Ops or story flashpoints, etc.

Or they could spend 3 months re-coding existing Dev Tools into public functionality for my concept-->  https://forums.swtor.com/topic/931976-is-it-time-for-a-big-new-story-drop/?do=findComment&comment=9785504   and allow us the PLAYERS  to take  greater creative control  of our own content  (PVP & PVE) for the Community to enjoy within already established SWTOR realm.

While we all wait for  whatever  paltry breadcrumbs of  "updates"  Broadsword  skeleton crew is able to release from time to time.

Heck even ESO  at least has a modding avenue to keep players  satisfied within the voids.

[OlBuzzard]

IMO ... folks it's like this.  IF the new owners are really wanting to know how us old folks feel about SWTOR ... this is a PRIME thread to read.

There are a lot of areas that people passionately want to enjoy in this game:  PvE / PvP :  both story related / GSF /... etc.  Just take your pick.  

There are a LOT of people who would DEARLY LOVE to see this break loose and go crazy wild with growth.

I get where @DWho was coming from!  It affects the entire community.  I personally applaud his attempt to fire things up!  The foundation on which we build the rest of the game:
** New PvE areas (Hopefully with some open area major bosses with some really cool drops that people can ACTUALLY USE.
** PvP revamped  
** GSF ... (wouldn't it be really cool if we had the option to use some really cool controllers.)
** Flying over the maps.  (I can't tell you how much fun I have with this in WoW.  It is a blast).

Seriously ... take a pick on the subject of SWTOR and how much many of us LOVE to play that particular part of the game.  

If the ANY part of the development team wants to feel the pulse (heartbeat) of those of us who are still around they should ready this thread and take it to heart !!!

(OK .... I'll get off my soapbox now) 

Edited November 14, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[OlBuzzard]

17 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

This so much this! By all means have OPS and PvP and whatnot but give us Star Wars The Old Republic! Give us the universe and let us explore, quest, and make our Sagas!

Well how can they get resources without getting people to play and stick with it. For that they need to give people STORY and let them be SW's characters. That's what makes this game sell.

To be perfectly honest ... It has been suggested that Broadsword is really interested in how the community feels about SWTOR:  Past/Present/Future.

Here's a good example.  That being said:  how they approach this and what they actually do with valuable open discussions (which so far have been really excellent I might add) ... that is now up to them.

IMO ... there's a lot more folks paying attention to what is unfolding that some other people might think! But... heck what do I know?

[DragoslavRadanov]

Okay I'm not going to get too into the story vs pvp vs ops debate, but I think this is important for people to see, and was brought up by someone else, money. This is EA's Consolidated Statement of Earnings, I can link the full 10-K as well if people would like. The main thing I want to get across is how tight profit margins are, so unless the devs can assure EA all that work, which means expenses and paying a lot of money to a lot of people, will bring in tons of money as a return on investment then it's unlikely to happen at the scale so many of us would want and wish for.

*Edit to add, this is for ALL of EA's properties, hence "consolidated", not just swtor, but regardless I imagine the shareholders would like swtor to at least be equal or more than the average when it comes to profit margin. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by DragoslavRadanov

[severe-trauma]

First post on the forum lol. Pvp and gsf players here in EU is a lot of loyal players to Biosword and they took away our ranked and ruined pvp with nothing to replace it. The story content suck recently. The story of ruhnuk was good, only for someone not a Jedi or Sith. A sound machine making my Jedi master character almost die was bull. I hope they will improve

[JakRoanin]

I agree the sonic weapons were lame, but everything else was great.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, JakRoanin said:

Well how can they get resources without getting people to play and stick with it. For that they need to give people STORY and let them be SW's characters. That's what makes this game sell.

We’re going round in circles here. They aren’t going to get the resources because of how the business model has been structured. I don’t know how else to explain it.

I’m not against story. I just want them to complete a project properly first, wether it’s PvP, ops, GTN, gearing, gui interface, Stronghold or even more story with no bugs breaking it, before moving onto a new project or content drop in swtor.

Because the moment they decide to move onto something else, they nearly always completely neglect any issues that they hadn’t resolved on the current project. So we end up with broken game systems, bugs or unenjoyable content. And around we go again where they didn’t finish the project enough to satisfy the majority of people who use or play through it. 

Surely, you’d feel the same if they dropped some new story content that didn’t provide proper rewards or didn’t make sense. And instead of fixing that story project, they decided to move onto make a new Op or PvP map & you had to wait 1-3 years for them to maybe fix it. 

Sadly, this has been BioWares MO for many years, especially with PvP or Ops type content. And with resources even more sparse now at Broadsword, we are rightly concerned that things will get worse & never be fixed. So many of us are trying to get Broadsword to at least fix what they did to the PvP ecosystem in 7.3 before moving onto too much that it’s never fixed & it ends up killing that part of the game. 

[OlBuzzard]

1 hour ago, Nee-Elder said:

Or they could spend 3 months re-coding existing Dev Tools into public functionality for my concept-->  https://forums.swtor.com/topic/931976-is-it-time-for-a-big-new-story-drop/?do=findComment&comment=9785504   and allow us the PLAYERS  to take  greater creative control  of our own content  (PVP & PVE) for the Community to enjoy within already established SWTOR realm.

While we all wait for  whatever  paltry breadcrumbs of  "updates"  Broadsword  skeleton crew is able to release from time to time.

Heck even ESO  at least has a modding avenue to keep players  satisfied within the voids.

Agreed...

What we have unfolding is a passionate desire of the consumers ... vs ... the cold harsh reality of $$$.  Still just the same in the end no one will be able to justifiably suggest that there wasn't the willingness and support from the player base.   Even if that meant having to pay for the next expansion IF we got an ACTUAL XP!

And when it gets right down to it ... I don't think any of us believed that it was ever cheap.  MMO's are very expensive to develop AND maintain as well.  This is also the nature of the beast! 

I can't help but to wonder...  Are things pretty much done.  Is this all?  OR .. perhaps maybe, just maybe is there something better in the future?   We obviously know what people are hoping for.  I know it's also been stated in the past:  Time for someone to step up to the plate and start moving this game forward.  NOW!  Otherwise there really won't be but a handful of customers left.  So few in fact that the mighty CM WON'T be enough to keep things going!

BTW.. I still agree with the attempt of OP.  It's time to move things forward.  The Malgus story should pretty much dead shortly (at lest I hope so).  Time to move forward.  A new crisis ... villain ... etc.

It is ultimately the responsibility of the developer to produce a quality product or not.  After that ... it's up to us to either continue to accept what we are getting or to move on!

[severe-trauma]

1 minute ago, OlBuzzard said:

Agreed...

What we have unfolding is a passionate desire of the consumers ... vs ... the cold harsh reality of $$$.  Still just the same in the end no one will be able to justifiably suggest that there wasn't the willingness and support from the player base.   Even if that meant having to pay for the next expansion IF we got an ACTUAL XP!

And when it gets right down to it ... I don't think any of us believed that it was ever cheap.  MMO's are very expensive to develop AND maintain as well.  This is also the nature of the beast! 

I can't help but to wonder...  Are things pretty much done.  Is this all?  OR .. perhaps maybe, just maybe is there something better in the future?   We obviously know what people are hoping for.  I know it's also been stated in the past:  Time for someone to step up to the plate and start moving this game forward.  NOW!  Otherwise there really won't be but a handful of customers left.  So few in fact that the mighty CM WON'T be enough to keep things going!

BTW.. I still agree with the attempt of OP.  It's time to move things forward.  The Malgus story should pretty much dead shortly (at lest I hope so).  Time to move forward.  A new crisis ... villain ... etc.

It is ultimately the responsibility of the developer to produce a quality product or not.  After that ... it's up to us to either continue to accept what we are getting or to move on!

The coldest reality of the $$$ is they won't get any $$$ if they keep making a bad product. 

[Toraak]

7 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

First, I wish people would stop implying that Story players don't want them to have PvP or OPS. That is NOT what we're saying at all. If anything the Story Group supplies the cash to give it to them!

Second, we've all agreed that the Format of the Zakuul Expansion is not good so why keep hammering that the STORY was to blame?

Third. I repeat what did all these MMO focused players do before they finished their class stories? Nobody answered that question.

Fourth, when has this game ever branded itself as anything but an immersive RPG for a Star Wars experience with MMO elements? When? Really, this game was created so the players can be people in the Star Wars galaxy. It's the whole point!

Your assumption that Story players are the ones supplying the cash is coming from a false narrative. Remember my comments about 4.0 when People waited until all chapters were out to sub for 1 month, then cancel their subs? this was a very large opinion back then. I know lots of story players that sub only when Story content comes out and cancels. 

 

While many Story players do stay subbed so do Operation players as well as PvP'ers, and GSF'ers. So your claim that Story players pay for other content is flat out WRONG!! We all pay for content for this game that subs, not one subset over another.

[JakRoanin]

But you miss my point, or you just don't like it. People who have 100's of alts (not me only have 10) have them for Story, and stay subbed to play them all because you can't have access to them all for F2P! Don't believe me ask my guilds! We are not the only one who pay but we are a majority.

[ThanderSnB]

I wonder if they could do some sort of crowdfunding for future expansions? The bare minimum content would be funded solely by subscriptions and cartel market just how things are now, but there could be funds for extra content like $50,000 adds a new PvP map, $50,000 for an extra Operation, etc. This would give players a way to increase the features an expansion offered and also vote for the content they want. Also, they could give players fancy titles or flairs for giving a lot, maybe a title or different color name on the forums as well. These would just be cosmetic, but I think other players would appreciate the players that are contributing to the extra content they get to play. 

[severe-trauma]

15 minutes ago, ThanderSnB said:

I wonder if they could do some sort of crowdfunding for future expansions? The bare minimum content would be funded solely by subscriptions and cartel market just how things are now, but there could be funds for extra content like $50,000 adds a new PvP map, $50,000 for an extra Operation, etc. This would give players a way to increase the features an expansion offered and also vote for the content they want. Also, they could give players fancy titles or flairs for giving a lot, maybe a title or different color name on the forums as well. These would just be cosmetic, but I think other players would appreciate the players that are contributing to the extra content they get to play. 

Omg, imagine an EA published game is crowd funded. I am better off putting my money through the toilet if that happens.

[xxSHOONYxx]

14 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

But you miss my point, or you just don't like it. People who have 100's of alts (not me only have 10) have them for Story, and stay subbed to play them all because you can't have access to them all for F2P! Don't believe me ask my guilds! We are not the only one who pay but we are a majority.

With all due respect, the more you write the more it shows you don't know about the game and live on a bubble of delusion about how everything we have in the game is thanks to the kindhearted people that play for story. Or simply you try to defend story and backfires

If you wanted to pvp you had to be subscribed, it was just recently changed. if you want to do ops you have to be subscribed and there are this things called lockouts, roles, groups and pugs, and you need way more alts that the average story player. I have around 80 across all servers and there are others i know that have 2 or 3 times the alts. Why does it even matter?

Last thing i will say to you, if a mmo with emphasis on story could be successful, people would refer to swtor as the most successful mmo ever. Yet everyone in the world knows it doesn't hold a candle next to wow.
What made this mmo stand out on release compared to others was the downfall as well, the emphasis on story. HUGE production cost with no return and no player retention, and putting off mmo players that just want to play and are forced to sit through conversations/unskipable cutscenes they have seen for the millionth time in fps.  

And once again, story people are not paying for anything, is the whales that do and this game has been turned for them for the past years. With little sprinkles of content that has player retention because no whale will spend money if they only see 10 people on fleet.
They even leave cartel market to the end/close to the end of the livestreams for god's sake. Something that shouldn't even be part of a content live stream.  

Edited November 14, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

But you miss my point, or you just don't like it. People who have 100's of alts (not me only have 10) have them for Story, and stay subbed to play them all because you can't have access to them all for F2P! Don't believe me ask my guilds! We are not the only one who pay but we are a majority.

No, but you can play quite a few. I know when I went to preferred, that I had access to 30+ of my Alts. 

[Stradlin]

4 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

But you miss my point, or you just don't like it. People who have 100's of alts (not me only have 10) have them for Story, and stay subbed to play them all because you can't have access to them all for F2P! Don't believe me ask my guilds! We are not the only one who pay but we are a majority.

We all have our own bubbles, which distort the picture accordingly. I have 100+ characters. Eight of those were once rolled for story. I've played maybe 100 different characters within last few years, two of them I ever play  for story. Notion I'd ever play any more of them for story feels utterly alien to me. Bothering to somehow drag myself through enough of story content to unlock the player ship is a major undertaking that maybe 30% of my otherwise actice characters have done. Around half of my characters at level cap have never done even the starter planet.  I play them for GSF, conquest,ground pvp, space barbie and RPs.

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Stradlin

[JakRoanin]

There was one time my payments stopped and I became preferred for a couple of weeks I could only access 4. 🤔 

[Toraak]

8 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

But you miss my point, or you just don't like it. People who have 100's of alts (not me only have 10) have them for Story, and stay subbed to play them all because you can't have access to them all for F2P! Don't believe me ask my guilds! We are not the only one who pay but we are a majority.

And there are other players that have no interest in Story that also have that many characters for whatever reason that continue to sub. So assuming they are story players based on the # of characters is irrelevant. Your just putting all of it on the story players which is only part of it. PvP'ers, GSF'ers, FP'ers, and Operation players then in your same notion pay for your story content.

 

Everyone that subs or buys from the CM pay for ALL content in the game. Story players no more then anyone else.

 

Edit: Those people spending mass money on the CM are paying for all our content as well. Possibly far more the people just subscribing.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Toraak

[Toraak]

4 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

There was one time my payments stopped and I became preferred for a couple of weeks I could only access 4. 🤔 

They changed the number of character preferred players can have at one point. The number also changes depending on how many Server Character Slots you have used over the years. When you use one and go preferred those get added on top of whatever the current Preferred character limit is.

 

[OlBuzzard]

To actually answer OP ...

Hmmm..  a couple of thoughts / questions:
** Would it be a common enemy shared by both the Republic and the Empire (so as to save $$$ in story development)?  If so I would strongly suggest that both sides would also be looking for a means of using the new crisis to gain an advantage over the other (unlike forming another temporary alliance).  That might actually be fun from time to time by setting up or framing the opposition with fake "evidence" in order to gain favor with the new aggressor....  ???  Maybe??? 

** I can definitely see the need for a fresh new story:  One with repeatable chapters as we had in KotFE/ET.  Some of the chapters were ones that I went back and took on at a higher level of difficulty.  Frankly not every casual player is looking for a face roll and being able to pick and choose which chapters we like the best and take another go at them.

** Would it be a good idea to look at ties to a distant galaxy as did Ahsoka?  Both the Empire and the Republic might be looking for answers and find it necessary to travel to this place.  Would it be a one-way ticket?  The conflict between the two powers once they arrive and the impending consequences for failure of their mission.   I realize that this answers OP question with more questions.  But perhaps this might add to his intent and desire to open a successful dialogue.  

Just some thoughts on answering the question that was asked!  BTW... if I have contributed to derailing the thread earlier ... my apologies.  

Edited November 14, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[DWho]

1 hour ago, OlBuzzard said:

** Would it be a common enemy shared by both the Republic and the Empire (so as to save $$$ in story development)?  If so I would strongly suggest that both sides would also be looking for a means of using the new crisis to gain an advantage over the other (unlike forming another temporary alliance).  That might actually be fun from time to time by setting up or framing the opposition with fake "evidence" in order to gain favor with the new aggressor....  ???  Maybe??? 

If I was writing it, I'd start with this new enemy attacking both sides. The invaders care little for politics, they are bent on conquest and domination (perhaps their victims themselves are a resource to exploit in some way). An interesting way to go about it could be to have it split up into 3 "sections" as you progress. The first section is just fending off the attacks and figuring out who/what this new enemy is with both sides defending their own planets (existing planets). Stage two could be working "together" to turn back the invasion (perhaps striking at the invaders command structure). This would be a good place to add in a new planet. The final part being taking the fight to the enemy to make sure Republic and Empire borders are secure (could be a new planet or just a new section of the planet from the second phase). At this point the Imperials could be looking to capitalize on the strengths of the invaders (essentially making them thralls or the Empire) while the Republic is looking to make sure they don't pose a future threat (Maybe imprison them on Belsavis like the Rakata did the Esh-Ka). You could incorporate dark and light side choices pretty easily here (maybe even make some Light and Dark tokens available based on choices).

As far as the enemy goes, I think it would be neat for them to have powers that affect Force Users and Tech Users differently. Perhaps they are telepathic and can control minds. Force Users are resistant to this effect while Tech users are not. You could then make them resistant to the Force (perhaps they are so alien that they are somewhat "dead" to the Force). This would reduce the effectiveness of Force based attacks. On the other side, with the Tech users susceptible to their mind control powers, they face a constant struggle to control their actions reducing the rate at which they can take actions (reduced alacrity for example) sort of like a "Slow" spell in TTRPGs. This allows you to balance the effectiveness of the two combat types while still having some flavor. It also allows you to have a reason for the reduced effectiveness of attacks without having to resort to straight up nerfs to keep the power level under control.

The whole thing is a way of reusing existing resources (planets, meshes, etc) while giving it a new twist. For the group play side of things, you could have an operation (or two) that takes the final "conquest" of this new threat to a higher level (2-3 difficulty levels). Flashpoints could be major battles in the war. And PVP could have two new warzones. One representing the early part of the invasion where Imperial and Republic forces are attacked by rampaging (randomly spawned hostile NPCs) invaders in the warzone while they are trying to accomplish some other goal. A second warzone could represent the Republic trying to prevent the Empire from utilizing the "conquered" invaders as a tool in their quest for galactic domination. This might be another place to drop in Light and Dark tokens. If the IMPs win they all get a Dark token, If the Republic wins they all get a Light token (makes winning important without a gearing implication).

[JakRoanin]

Honestly, I'd love an expansion where both the Empire and Republic are developing and rebuilding. 

[OlBuzzard]

8 minutes ago, DWho said:

If I was writing it, I'd start with this new enemy attacking both sides. The invaders care little for politics, they are bent on conquest and domination (perhaps their victims themselves are a resource to exploit in some way). An interesting way to go about it could be to have it split up into 3 "sections" as you progress. The first section is just fending off the attacks and figuring out who/what this new enemy is with both sides defending their own planets (existing planets). Stage two could be working "together" to turn back the invasion (perhaps striking at the invaders command structure). This would be a good place to add in a new planet. The final part being taking the fight to the enemy to make sure Republic and Empire borders are secure (could be a new planet or just a new section of the planet from the second phase). At this point the Imperials could be looking to capitalize on the strengths of the invaders (essentially making them thralls or the Empire) while the Republic is looking to make sure they don't pose a future threat (Maybe imprison them on Belsavis like the Rakata did the Esh-Ka). You could incorporate dark and light side choices pretty easily here (maybe even make some Light and Dark tokens available based on choices).

As far as the enemy goes, I think it would be neat for them to have powers that affect Force Users and Tech Users differently. Perhaps they are telepathic and can control minds. Force Users are resistant to this effect while Tech users are not. You could then make them resistant to the Force (perhaps they are so alien that they are somewhat "dead" to the Force). This would reduce the effectiveness of Force based attacks. On the other side, with the Tech users susceptible to their mind control powers, they face a constant struggle to control their actions reducing the rate at which they can take actions (reduced alacrity for example) sort of like a "Slow" spell in TTRPGs. This allows you to balance the effectiveness of the two combat types while still having some flavor. It also allows you to have a reason for the reduced effectiveness of attacks without having to resort to straight up nerfs to keep the power level under control.

The whole thing is a way of reusing existing resources (planets, meshes, etc) while giving it a new twist. For the group play side of things, you could have an operation (or two) that takes the final "conquest" of this new threat to a higher level (2-3 difficulty levels). Flashpoints could be major battles in the war. And PVP could have two new warzones. One representing the early part of the invasion where Imperial and Republic forces are attacked by rampaging (randomly spawned hostile NPCs) invaders in the warzone while they are trying to accomplish some other goal. A second warzone could represent the Republic trying to prevent the Empire from utilizing the "conquered" invaders as a tool in their quest for galactic domination. This might be another place to drop in Light and Dark tokens. If the IMPs win they all get a Dark token, If the Republic wins they all get a Light token (makes winning important without a gearing implication).

I LOVE the idea of messing with the heads of the Jedi and the Sith both.  Seems like they just assume that they are the top dog in the galaxy!  (OK ... maybe that's a tad over the top ... but not by much).

😉

BTW... the rest of the idea aint half bad either!!  

👍👍

Edited November 14, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[DWho]

51 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

Honestly, I'd love an expansion where both the Empire and Republic are developing and rebuilding. 

This could be interesting too if it included a revamp of Crafting, a sort of new resource rush. I suppose you could base it on "discovering" new hyperspace routes to resource rich worlds with Empire and Republic racing each other to exploit them. Maybe even sort of an Outbound Flight kind of storyline that occurred during the early times of the Republic.

[OlBuzzard]

27 minutes ago, DWho said:

This could be interesting too if it included a revamp of Crafting, a sort of new resource rush. I suppose you could base it on "discovering" new hyperspace routes to resource rich worlds with Empire and Republic racing each other to exploit them. Maybe even sort of an Outbound Flight kind of storyline that occurred during the early times of the Republic.

Hmmm

Ya know ... you could EASILY write that story in such a way that it would set up a really good GSF aspect of that too!

That could set up a win-win for a lot of other folks too!

Edited November 14, 2023 by OlBuzzard
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