Shae Vizla Launch Updates

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, DanteYoda said:

So now they are going to give free transfers but then restrict everything so its pointless to transfer anyway..

It won’t be pointless at all. Especially as we’ll be able to have all our Legacy unlocks & Strong Holds.

They also aren’t restricting everything. As far as we’ve been told, they’ll just be putting a cap on how many credits you can transfer and that’s it. Nothing else will be affected. We also don’t know the cap yet. It could be 100 million or even a billion credits.

You’ll still be able to bring ALL your other stuff too. Mats, non bound CM & crafted items, collected gear & other items will have no restrictions. 

Edited January 28 by TrixxieTriss

[Byakkoya]

I'm a new player on Shae Vizla and SWTOR but not to MMOs in general, so take my opinions with a pinch of salt, but - it's valid that if there was a huge spike in available credits in the economy, I wouldn't be able to compete with the price someone with billions of credits could offer for an item. That being said, I do think the overall goal would be to bring this server to the current standard of the other servers. If there is a hyperinflation problem with the game, that's something should be addressed on all servers. I think we can get from point A to point B without causing too much harm to either new or transferred players - and that would involve making the credit supply availability increase curve in a smoothed manner rather than spike on the availability of transfers. In terms of how that could be implemented, (these are just ideas and I'm not a game dev so I could be talking out of my behind - Jabber from the Butt?)

 

A) for transferring players:

1) Calculate how much, on average, a player spends daily on SV versus on established servers. Find a multiplier of avg. daily spend (eg. established servers spends 20x gold vs. SV*)

2) Let transferring players transfer all their credits, however, implement an escrow-lite system like you already have for f2p players. Allow transferring players to have a more lenient amount of credits than the multiplier established in 1). (eg. they can have 100x or 200x* daily spend in their inventory). Put the rest into escrow

3) As the spending and inflation increases, some of that credit will go to SV players, which will increase the daily SV player spend. Therefore the multiplier decreases. (now an established server may only spend 15x gold vs. SV). As this number decreases, you can reduce the escrow limit. (eg. 250x or 350x* in inventory). This could just be a weekly thing, until you have some parity (doesn't have to be an equal spend on SV as on established servers). eg. once SV is within 3x-5x* avg. daily spend on established servers, you can lift the escrow entirely.

*NOTE: Numbers are COMPLETELY random/made up, just for demonstrative purposes. The devs would have the data to choose the right multipliers/escrow limits

 

B) for SV players:

1) It is important to make items available to SV players to sell to transferring players so that credit can flow between the two, instead of all economic activity happening between transferring players, thereby shutting off SV players.

2) This is where my newness doesn't help - I'm not sure on the best way to achieve this. From watching some videos I can tell that maybe crafting materials like embers or OEM/whatever it's called are in demand at end game. But making these more available through an event or something on SV just means that SV players will use it for their own progression instead of being encouraged to trade them. Maybe something like, if an SV guild controls a planet (I don't know how this works on SWTOR so using my early Tera experience), then a % of repair costs, vendor, taxes, etc goes to the controlling guild instead. 

3) Maybe an event for SV only before transfers are open, where some cartel market items are made available that can be sold on the GTN to transferring players can help with this as well.

 

TL;DR: the idea is to allow transfers with uncapped credits, BUT, make spending limited for a while (maybe through escrow), and encourage trade between transferring and local SV players so that the credit availability equalises between them. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but that's my input!

Edited January 28 by Byakkoya

[Nommaz]

18 hours ago, Byakkoya said:

Put the rest into escrow

I hate the idea of escrow its one of the reasons I am subbed, its also unfair to enforce a credit limit of what we can have/carry, with the exception of the existing limits. 
It feels like a punishment for having them!, true or not, that's how it feels to me, and I don't even have that many,
Either way what happens here need to be for ALL servers, I imagine the outrage for a escrow system would far exceed the flying outrage in WoW when they decided to remove it lol.

This inflation in game only effects the GTN and players trading, so to make your character pretty, unless you are raiding nightmare you do not require gold augments, and the blues on my other servers were affordable enough. 

For a new player instead of complaining (no offense meant) they should learn how to craft their own.
The game is too easy to make credits with and that's the main issue, punishing players for making them is not good gameplay.
Even just playing the game on class quests only and slicing between 60-65 you make 1 million credits, that's not playing the market, not selling anything on the GTN etc, just questing.
Everything people suggest and even put in place is aimed at the players, higher costs for repairs, teleporting, GTN fees, people suggesting escrow etc. None of it is looking at credit generation.

And yes inflation happens because people are greedy, I understand that, but if they are harder to obtain as well as some increased costs (within reason) then it will force players to consider if they need that armour set on the GTN, or would it be better spending cartel coins on, and therefore lower the prices.

For a NEW player there is no effect of the inflation, as proven on this server you can get your professions up just by playing, including all fees, you do not need to buy anything on the GTN, so that argument is null and void, unless you count wanting to look pretty without spending cartel coins.

Its only when people want to play at the highest level in the game that it really matters, unless I am missing something? if so let me know lol
 

[Keegus]

10 minutes ago, Nommaz said:

 

This inflation in game only effects the GTN and players trading, so to make your character pretty, unless you are raiding nightmare you do not require gold augments, and the blues on my other servers were affordable enough. 


 

If such is the case, then restricting the credits transferred to Shae shouldn't be the issue that it's being made out to be.  You can't have it both ways where credits are both meaningless for "casual players who just want to dress up their characters" but also necessary, but only for certain "elite raid loggers".  

 

15 minutes ago, Nommaz said:

For a new player instead of complaining (no offense meant) they should learn how to craft their own.
The game is too easy to make credits with and that's the main issue, punishing players for making them is not good gameplay.
 

And again, this is contradictory to the stance that being able to transfer them for repairs is necessary.  If credits are so easy to accumulate that it's no issue for "casuals" to be able to sink into crafting and acquiring the recipes they desire to get the looks they want, which more often than not requires multiple characters since you can only have one crafting crewskill per toon...then it goes to reason that it's equally easy for those who focus on one or two characters to accumulate the credits for the repair bills for their raiding.

[TrixxieTriss]

36 minutes ago, Keegus said:

And again, this is contradictory to the stance that being able to transfer them for repairs is necessary.  If credits are so easy to accumulate that it's no issue for "casuals" to be able to sink into crafting and acquiring the recipes they desire to get the looks they want, which more often than not requires multiple characters since you can only have one crafting crewskill per toon...then it goes to reason that it's equally easy for those who focus on one or two characters to accumulate the credits for the repair bills for their raiding.

It’s not really contradictory. Not when you consider casual or new players naturally play all the content that generates the most credits. Where as dedicated Raiders & pvpers don’t play as much of that content. Operations & PvP hardly give any credits. But at least pvpers don’t incur the huge repair costs that raiders do. 

As people have demonstrated, a couple of hours raiding can cost millions of credits. They would then need to play an equal or even more amount of casual content just to repair. They would effectively be playing twice as long as casual content players & only have half the amount of credits afterwards. This is a waste of their PAID play time if they’ve already accumulated the credits from years of playing. 

Personally I don’t raid. But I do run 2 small PvP guilds that I’ll have buy 2 Guild bank & the extra tabs, 2 guild ships & all the rooms. Then I also have other expenses, like reconfiguring my outfits for every character because you lose them in a transfer. I have 20 outfit slots open per character. And once those characters are lvl 60+, the cost per outfit is very high. Add that to 50 odd characters I’m hoping to transfers & I’m probably looking at around 500 million credits in costs. Could be more or slightly less. I’ve not been able to check exactly how much yet.

So as a non raider. I’d personally like to transfer around 500 million at a minimum. I’m sure people who raid would like a bigger buffer than that. 
 

[Nommaz]

1 hour ago, Keegus said:

If such is the case, then restricting the credits transferred to Shae shouldn't be the issue that it's being made out to be.  You can't have it both ways where credits are both meaningless for "casual players who just want to dress up their characters" but also necessary, but only for certain "elite raid loggers".  

Check all my previous post you will see I have said I don't have an issue with credit restrictions, I understand there is arguments for and against though.
 

1 hour ago, Keegus said:

And again, this is contradictory to the stance that being able to transfer them for repairs is necessary.  If credits are so easy to accumulate that it's no issue for "casuals" to be able to sink into crafting and acquiring the recipes they desire to get the looks they want, which more often than not requires multiple characters since you can only have one crafting crewskill per toon...then it goes to reason that it's equally easy for those who focus on one or two characters to accumulate the credits for the repair bills for their raiding.

As Trixxie said

 

[eabevella]

Pros for transfer:

I don't want to grind to lv80.

I don't want to grind 344 gears.

I don't want to grind the crafting system.

I don't want to grind the credits necessary for gearing.

From scratch.

You need to grind to a certain level before you don't need to worry about the expanses if your focus is mainly just raiding, especially if you are a prog player like me, where every wipe means a couple dozen k credits down into the drain and you can die a lot when progging.

You need to have multiple lv50 companions on a single toon to make crafting endgame augs/stims viable, and you need to have multiple toons just to craft the most common augments. It takes many millions to set it up. If you don't/can't invest that much time and effort to build up your own crafting toons, it takes even more credits to buy what you need.

Playing solo contents don't need to worry about credits unless you want to play space barbie. But even so, you can already unlock your wardrobe through Collection with a 1 time fee that most space barbie players have probably already paid to dress up all their toons on the same server. I started on brand new servers to reply the class stories with the exact same named toons, re-experience the stories are my objective, I don't need any set up for that, even though it's kinda painful to run the game without mount while moving and rocket boost.

[TrixxieTriss]

@JackieKo just wondering if you have an update on the transfer date yet? Are we talking weeks or months? 

[Aignox]

4 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

@JackieKo just wondering if you have an update on the transfer date yet? Are we talking weeks or months? 

I am finding recently people are losing patience and drawing back from the game, we needed these transfers a month ago, if we can please hurry it along. Understand you are a small team now so trying to be patient but this game feels geared towards rewarding those with alts and I want my alts.

[Chronoire]

Would love to transfer to APAC server

My "normal" connection right now on Star Forge is 400 - 500 (try playing on that), while on Shae it's 150

[Duck_Cider]

On 1/28/2024 at 3:24 PM, Byakkoya said:

2) Let transferring players transfer all their credits, however, implement an escrow-lite system like you already have for f2p players. Allow transferring players to have a more lenient amount of credits than the multiplier established in 1). (eg. they can have 100x or 200x* daily spend in their inventory). Put the rest into escrow

I liked the detail in your post, but that could be achieved more easily with small limits for early/free transfers, and larger limits for later ones - if the devs feel it's warranted at that time. "Credit limit was too small" is easy to fix. "Credit limit was too large and now we have hyper-inflation" isn't.

I think "APAC regional server that just happens to have low inflation" is a perfectly viable model, btw. The devs already said they're learning things from SV - I'd like them to keep having that opportunity, and use it to make improvements across the game.

Your post reminded me about the escrow tokens we already have. 240 cartel coin cost, temporary 600k f2p/pref credit cap increase, so allows one 1.6m credit purchase. Impractical for GTN shopping on most servers, as the fair market value of 240 coins is far above 1.6m, and also above the 1m credit cap - so f2p/pref can't buy the item on GTN that lets them buy an item on GTN. (They could in the past.) That token could have a use on SV. Similarly, the commander's compendium cartel item (levels comp to 50) is much more expensive than the vendor gift path on other servers, but on SV the GTN price is comparable.

 

On 1/29/2024 at 11:19 AM, TrixxieTriss said:

Personally I don’t raid. But I do run 2 small PvP guilds that I’ll have buy 2 Guild bank & the extra tabs, 2 guild ships & all the rooms. Then I also have other expenses, like reconfiguring my outfits for every character because you lose them in a transfer. I have 20 outfit slots open per character. And once those characters are lvl 60+, the cost per outfit is very high. Add that to 50 odd characters I’m hoping to transfers & I’m probably looking at around 500 million credits in costs. Could be more or slightly less. I’ve not been able to check exactly how much yet.

Using the devs' language of character limits, that would require 10m per char. Different without 50 transfers, but I don't think 'single-handedly get two guild ships+banks to max on day 1' is the use case the credit cap should be aimed at. Bearing in mind I agree NiM repair costs should be significantly lowered, 2-5m per char would be enough for things like some (but not all) outfit setups, some contribution to guild upgrade credit costs (people can bring frameworks), and/or some GTN shopping.

Legacy / char unlocks import automatically.
Gear and other personal-use items importable by choice.

People who want early credits for other purchases can:
a) Bring credits up to the per-character limit
b) Bring extra items to sell for early credits

The trick is finding that credit limit sweet spot, where we get more credits hitting GTN (from people more interested in early shopping than anything else), but also more items hitting GTN (from people with high early credit demands, who are prepared to fund them by selling items early).

[edit: also depends on how many free transfers are offered: many free transfers should lead to lower per-char limits, and vice versa]

 

On qualifying for free transfers: "players who have been a Subscriber for at least 90 consecutive days" wasn't what I expected. The devs should honour what they said, but I'd like some additional region-based criteria for free or discount transfers. APAC players are the target market, and it's a good reason to contact lapsed players. "Hey, local server's up, transfers are live, we gave you _ free transfers for [reasons], check it out. (Transfers expire [end date])".

Random spitballing: 

- 1 free for APAC-located ppl with spending history (prefs)
- 2 for APACs with sub history, to try imp + pubside
- _  for APAC players from orig APAC servers
- Discount to transfer chars from orig APAC servers (if data readily available)
- APAC subs get 1 free SV transfer per 30 days subbed between transfer day and [end date]
- Regional-themed bundle, timed to promote transfer day: "_ USD for 30 days sub, _ cartel coins, exclusive Shae Vizla's Tauntaun Space Kangaroo mount, and _ free SV transfers". (Bundle available to all, possible further discount for APAC players. The space kangaroo is negotiable. [edit: Desert Tauntaun would also be acceptable.])

Edited January 31 by Duck_Cider

[DarthNillard]

No new updates on the Server transfers?  How long are they on winter break for, sheesh.

[MadCuzBad]

On 1/29/2024 at 10:03 PM, Aignox said:

I am finding recently people are losing patience and drawing back from the game, we needed these transfers a month ago, if we can please hurry it along. Understand you are a small team now so trying to be patient but this game feels geared towards rewarding those with alts and I want my alts.

I have been playing and subbed since launch and so have a lot of us. I tried Vizla because I like many others am an altaholic. Spent about 6 hours grinding and was totally frustrated and burn out without my legacy and credits. Wanted to buy a flagship to start conquesting with some friends but yeah without credits I am months behind getting that done. 

I think it was a huge mistake capitulating to a very small group of people who want things their way the way they dreamed it could be.  I have not gone back to vizla since I logged out completely uninterested playing the game gimped and broke. 

I can only imagine how bustling and active and thriving Vizla would be had the devs not catered to a tiny group of the player base and just opened Vizla without any restrictions exactly the same as the other 5 servers. I know for 1 I would have defiantly been playing there right along. I just wonder how many 1000s of people have my exact same story.  

For me the damage is done. If they open up unrestricted transfers I am all set at this point. The thrill is gone and it will be more of a headache now because the thrill of a new server is kinda gone for me.

Dumb move on the dev team IMO opening an APAC server restricted. Should have been launched just as all the other servers and all this could have been avoided.

[DarthNillard]

1 hour ago, MadCuzBad said:

I have been playing and subbed since launch and so have a lot of us. I tried Vizla because I like many others am an altaholic. Spent about 6 hours grinding and was totally frustrated and burn out without my legacy and credits. Wanted to buy a flagship to start conquesting with some friends but yeah without credits I am months behind getting that done. 

I think it was a huge mistake capitulating to a very small group of people who want things their way the way they dreamed it could be.  I have not gone back to vizla since I logged out completely uninterested playing the game gimped and broke. 

I can only imagine how bustling and active and thriving Vizla would be had the devs not catered to a tiny group of the player base and just opened Vizla without any restrictions exactly the same as the other 5 servers. I know for 1 I would have defiantly been playing there right along. I just wonder how many 1000s of people have my exact same story.  

For me the damage is done. If they open up unrestricted transfers I am all set at this point. The thrill is gone and it will be more of a headache now because the thrill of a new server is kinda gone for me.

Dumb move on the dev team IMO opening an APAC server restricted. Should have been launched just as all the other servers and all this could have been avoided.

NGL, this is a bad take.  They have plenty of reasons for doing what they did how they did.  It's just a matter of how they decide to allow transfers in the near future that will determine the fate of Vizla.

[MadCuzBad]

17 minutes ago, DarthNillard said:

NGL, this is a bad take.  They have plenty of reasons for doing what they did how they did.  It's just a matter of how they decide to allow transfers in the near future that will determine the fate of Vizla.

I know the reasons. I just completely disagree at this point and at the current condition of this game. APAC was needed for lag issues etc, not for some kinda "new" adventure. It was a mistake in my opinion and I think it is obvious by the condition of the server. It was a horrible launch and is empty and void of players. At least enough players to make it worth playing on.

The "plenty of reasons" has nothing to do with my position. I know very well all the reasons for it. I just think it was a dumb move by the dev team.

[Char_Ell]

2 hours ago, MadCuzBad said:

I think it was a huge mistake capitulating to a very small group of people who want things their way the way they dreamed it could be.

Who asked for a fresh start server?  I don't recall any players asking for that.  I think the first I noticed any mention of a fresh start server for SWTOR was Eric Musco post in 2023 May.  I've seen a few players asking for SWTOR "Classic" but of course that is not what Shae Vizla is since it's not an earlier version of SWTOR like 1.0 or 3.0.  I thought the "fresh start server" idea was what the devs wanted to do, not what players were asking for.  However now that fresh start Shae Vizla happened the idea of a fresh start server that doesn't have any economic baggage clearly has its supporters amongst the SWTOR player base.  Apparently they are not enough to keep Shae Vizla bustling with activity though.

[DarthNillard]

1 hour ago, MadCuzBad said:

I know the reasons. I just completely disagree at this point and at the current condition of this game. APAC was needed for lag issues etc, not for some kinda "new" adventure. It was a mistake in my opinion and I think it is obvious by the condition of the server. It was a horrible launch and is empty and void of players. At least enough players to make it worth playing on.

The "plenty of reasons" has nothing to do with my position. I know very well all the reasons for it. I just think it was a dumb move by the dev team.

If the server opened with anybody able to transfer anything from Day 1, it would have immediately went bad.  The economy would have been ridiculous just like every other server out the gate, big guilds with billions of credits to buy and fully kit out guild ships would have happened immediately so the guild structure would have been wonky, etc.  There's a lot of bad that would have come from this when half the point for making this new server was to hopefully attract non-playing people from the APAC region to join or return.  New APAC players or returning players who wanted to actually start over would have had a terrible experience in what you are suggesting.  Meanwhile, for active players in the APAC region like yourself who have been playing on another server, you were more than able to continue playing on your current server in the meantime. They did say transfers would happen at some point from the beginning. Assuming they happen soon, you will only have to have waited 3-4 or so months to move your stuff.  If you chose to re-roll in the meantime and are angry about it, that was your choice friend.

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, DarthNillard said:

If the server opened with anybody able to transfer anything from Day 1, it would have immediately went bad.  The economy would have been ridiculous just like every other server out the gate, big guilds with billions of credits to buy and fully kit out guild ships would have happened immediately so the guild structure would have been wonky, etc.  There's a lot of bad that would have come from this when half the point for making this new server was to hopefully attract non-playing people from the APAC region to join or return.  New APAC players or returning players who wanted to actually start over would have had a terrible experience in what you are suggesting.  Meanwhile, for active players in the APAC region like yourself who have been playing on another server, you were more than able to continue playing on your current server in the meantime. They did say transfers would happen at some point from the beginning. Assuming they happen soon, you will only have to have waited 3-4 or so months to move your stuff.  If you chose to re-roll in the meantime and are angry about it, that was your choice friend.

If they had opened up on Day 1 to transfer it would have been the best thing for that server. The economy is completely meaningless if the majority of APAC players won't go there because of the restrictions. The entire point of the server was to get the players from that region to play there. 

 

The way you attract the non paying APAC players is to have a thriving server that has plenty of population on it. By delaying the ability to transfer and by now adding whatever restrictions they plan on BS has made it so the servers population won't attract any new paying players. They will see how low the population is and move on to another game.

[DarthNillard]

2 hours ago, Toraak said:

If they had opened up on Day 1 to transfer it would have been the best thing for that server. The economy is completely meaningless if the majority of APAC players won't go there because of the restrictions. The entire point of the server was to get the players from that region to play there. 

There is absolutely no way this is the point of the server my friend.  0% chance. Otherwise it would have been opened from the jump with free transfers.

I can't prove anything, but I feel strongly that Broadsword was using this as a case study to check the viability of bringing people from other Non-US regions back to the game or to it for the firs time. If you are an APAC player still actively playing the game despite losing your region specific servers a long time ago, they already "have you" and most likely aren't going to lose you. 

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, DarthNillard said:

There is absolutely no way this is the point of the server my friend.  0% chance. Otherwise it would have been opened from the jump with free transfers.

I can't prove anything, but I feel strongly that Broadsword was using this as a case study to check the viability of bringing people from other Non-US regions back to the game or to it for the firs time. If you are an APAC player still actively playing the game despite losing your region specific servers a long time ago, they already "have you" and most likely aren't going to lose you. 

If that is the case, then I'd say it failed horribly. They should have focused on getting the APAC players from the US servers over there so any new (or returning) APAC players that would see that the game has a regional server specifically for them was populated and would give them the best opportunities to play all of the content the game has to offer, and with minimal ping.

[Nommaz]

3 hours ago, DarthNillard said:

There is absolutely no way this is the point of the server my friend.  0% chance. Otherwise it would have been opened from the jump with free transfers.

Its listed as APAC region server, they sent out an email saying new APAC server and they said Welcome home APAC players, not sure how you got its not an APAC server out of that, it 100% is.
The issue is they are also using it as an experiment for server economy and possibly as a fresh start server instead of spending a few more $$ and actually opening one, and that is where they went wrong, in trying to please everyone they have pleased no one, and the APAC region feels jilted as they should be.

But I agree with you, they 100% should have allowed transfers for us from day one, 

 

3 hours ago, DarthNillard said:

I can't prove anything, but I feel strongly that Broadsword was using this as a case study to check the viability of bringing people from other Non-US regions back to the game or to it for the firs time

In which case they have failed as they in your words did not open it as a regional server...
You cant have it both ways they either did open it as a guide to testing other regions or they didn't open it as a regional server, which is it? lol
 

[FrontLineFodder]

2 hours ago, Nommaz said:

Its listed as APAC region server, they sent out an email saying new APAC server and they said Welcome home APAC players, not sure how you got its not an APAC server out of that, it 100% is.
 

 

2 hours ago, Nommaz said:

But I agree with you, they 100% should have allowed transfers for us from day one,

The initial announcements were all about Shae Vizla being an APAC server.

there were comments that they wanted to monitor the server to see how the economy changes implemented so far performed, without the large amounts of credits in the economy.

transfers would be opened later. This was accepted and understood within normal transfer rules( open for at least 90 days )

it is only since @JackieKo dropped the bombshell about restrictions on transfers that the population has been decimated, of course you can argue there are multiple causes for this including the end of GS.

personally i have returned the SF to burn credits and grind Tech Frags to buy the items I’ll need on SV that I won’t be able to afford there.

I will not be a permanent subscriber on SV with the restrictions on transfers. I will be Preferred after I get my mains over

[AIRCONGO]

Mate this stuff needs to be sorted.

I have not had Warzone pop in 48hours. The server is bleeeeeeeding. I went to NA off-peak and was 100+ on fleet.

On SV, 35... Lol.

[FrontLineFodder]

Every night I go to sleep hoping there will be an official update

every morning I wake up and there are just more people crying out to let the transfers happen 

[DarthNillard]

4 hours ago, Nommaz said:

Its listed as APAC region server, they sent out an email saying new APAC server and they said Welcome home APAC players, not sure how you got its not an APAC server out of that, it 100% is.
The issue is they are also using it as an experiment for server economy and possibly as a fresh start server instead of spending a few more $$ and actually opening one, and that is where they went wrong, in trying to please everyone they have pleased no one, and the APAC region feels jilted as they should be.

But I agree with you, they 100% should have allowed transfers for us from day one, 

 

In which case they have failed as they in your words did not open it as a regional server...
You cant have it both ways they either did open it as a guide to testing other regions or they didn't open it as a regional server, which is it? lol
 

Yes its an APAC server, but I don't think they want to get all the existing players to just move over here.  If that was the actual goal, transfers would have been up from Day 1. Ain't nobody trying to redo EVERYTHING from scratch if they don't have to....