State of SWTOR Patch 7.4.1+ Thoughts?

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

Change in and of itself is indifferent. It's Binary, a 1 or a 0.

This is objectively false. Change can absolutely be good or bad. Such as a kid being diagnosed with a terminal disease they didn't have before. You gonna tell me that's suddenly a good thing now? Likewise there can be good or bad changes in game. Changes I outlined above were bad. 

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

We attribute the emotion or feeling of good or bad.

Good attempt at a gaslight. Even if it wasn't a gaslight good and bad exist independent of emotion.

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

All I'm saying is that a business has decided to take on the role of managing SWTOR.

Relevance? Point still stands regardless of managing company.

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

If you think that they aren't out to MAXIMIZE profit, then i might have some oceanfront property in AZ to sell ya. Super Cheap!

Show me where I said they weren't trying to maximize profit. Just as they're trying to maximize profit i'm also trying to maximize value for my investment of time and money. Per our business arrangement they're free to say "we want you to grind more". Likewise I'm free to say "give me objectives I want to do or I'm withdrawing my investment of time and money." That's how business works. They make an offer, I make a counter offer. If no deal can be reached we part ways and they don't get my continued investment. Then if enough people withdraw their investment the company suffers and their game tanks. Games like this are a luxury and not required for survival. We can survive without them, they can't survive without us. 

[Darviset]

7 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

It’s well & good to defend the state of the game on BS being a business first & needing money. But I think you forget that we are paying customers & if we all leave or stop paying because we are displeased with their ideas, changes & lack of communication on certain topics, they will make no money, have no game & be out of a job. 

Give me some examples, in your experience, of company's that haven't completely isolated themselves from their customer base? I mean really? How hard is it to reach a company buy phone these days where you actually speak to someone? All the while being told by automated recording how much said company values your business and how sorry they are for the 45 min wait? When was the last company that you tried to call that didn't immediately announce thru automation... "We're experiencing a higher call volume that normal." blah blah blah. Do you really think that companies these days value their customers? Wishful thinking my friend.

 

[Traceguy]

3 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Then they would have had another credit sink

I agree. When they first started making taxation changes, adding the random level gear and the old unobtainable gear to vendors was something I suggested, and still wish they'd do.

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I hope that’s not the case. And if it is, I hope it’s not officially sanctioned & management puts a stop to it & apologies. Because once things like that start to happen, it’s a slippery slope for a dev team to ever earn the trust back of their players. People will abandon a game faster than you can imagine over practices like that. 

If it was a dev then most likely they would leave that person as the proverbial sacrificial lamb so they can pretend they're actually listening. They would publicly sanction them but in reality it was all a ruse. I hate to think that about companies but as dirty as some of them are now it wouldn't surprise me. 

[Darviset]

11 minutes ago, captainbladejk said:

This is objectively false. Change can absolutely be good or bad. Such as a kid being diagnosed with a terminal disease they didn't have before. You gonna tell me that's suddenly a good thing now? Likewise there can be good or bad changes in game. Changes I outlined above were bad. 

Captian... I'm so sorry. But this was possibly the most ignorant response I've ever read. I don't mean to offend. But change isn't sentient.  It just happens or it doesn't. Hence my comment. It either has changed or it hasn't. Sorta like binary... 1 or 0. 

[TrixxieTriss]

21 minutes ago, Darviset said:

Give me some examples, in your experience, of company's that haven't completely isolated themselves from their customer base? I mean really? How hard is it to reach a company buy phone these days where you actually speak to someone? All the while being told by automated recording how much said company values your business and how sorry they are for the 45 min wait? When was the last company that you tried to call that didn't immediately announce thru automation... "We're experiencing a higher call volume that normal." blah blah blah. Do you really think that companies these days value their customers? Wishful thinking my friend.

 

Not sure what that has to do with anything. At the end of the day, this is a consumer product. 

It’s not a vital product or service any of us need to have. At its very core, this is a disposable retail product being sold by a retail company who also happens to make the product too. 

They are selling us a product & if we as paying customers don’t like the changes they make to said product or feel that the value of the product has dropped, then we will simply stop paying for it. Once that happens too much, then they can’t continue making said product because they have no income because we’ve all stopped paying. 

No one wins in that situation. The players lose a game they love & the poor devs end up losing their jobs. And nobody wants either of those things to happen.

You have to realise the devs are humans just like us. They have lives outside of swtor & need to pay bills too. Swtor is a job to them & they deserve job security. Sadly that can’t happen if the decision makers keep making such poor decisions that drive paying customers away.

And part of that problem is a culture that’s been imbedded within the swtor team for years, that communication should be kept at a minimum with players & everything should be done in secret & player feedback should mostly be ignored because they know what players want better than the players themselves. So we continue to see them make the same mistakes over & over through out the years & more players leave. 

The absolute core of the problem is this communication issue. 

Edited March 16 by TrixxieTriss

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

Give me some examples, in your experience, of company's that haven't completely isolated themselves from their customer base? I mean really? How hard is it to reach a company buy phone these days where you actually speak to someone? All the while being told by automated recording how much said company values your business and how sorry they are for the 45 min wait? When was the last company that you tried to call that didn't immediately announce thru automation... "We're experiencing a higher call volume that normal." blah blah blah. Do you really think that companies these days value their customers? Wishful thinking my friend.

 

Ebay, Walmart, Amazon text chat, steam support. That's 4 where I've been able to talk to someone. You want me to keep listing or do you get the point?

 

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

Captian... I'm so sorry. But this was possibly the most ignorant response I've ever read. I don't mean to offend. But change isn't sentient.  It just happens or it doesn't. Hence my comment. It either has changed or it hasn't. Sorta like binary... 1 or 0. 

I see I struck a nerve there. Your post just screams undercover corporate for how much you're trying to bend over backwards to justify their foolishness. Sentience is not required for a change to be good or bad. Convenient how you never tried to explain what you believe to be wrong in what I said but just pulled a "nuh uh because I said so". Now I'm absolutely convinced you're an undercover dev. And if not a dev, the biggest corporate defender I've ever seen. But go ahead, explain to us which companies have survived when their customers pulled out or didn't suffer tremendous financial losses assuming they did survive. You sit here and talk about ignorance, yet are woefully ignorant of how business works. Keep drinking that kool-aid dude and don't change. 

[Darviset]

Just now, TrixxieTriss said:

Not sure what that has to do with anything. At the end of the day, this is a consumer product. 

It’s not a vital product or service any of us need to have. At its very core, this is a disposable retail product being sold by a retail company who also happens to make the product too. 

They are selling us a product & if we as paying customers don’t like the changes they make to said product or feel that the value of the product has dropped, then we will simply stop paying for it. Once that happens too much, then they can’t continue making said product because they have no income because we’ve all stopped paying. 

No one wins in that situation. The players lose a game they love & the poor devs end up losing their jobs. And nobody wants either of those things to happen.

You have to realise the devs are humans just like us. They have lives outside of swtor & need to pay bills too. Swtor is a job to them & they deserve job security. Sadly that can’t happen if the decision makers keep making such poor decisions that drive paying customers away.

And part of that problem is a culture that’s been imbedded within the swtor team for years, that communication should be kept at a minimum with players & everything should be done in secret & player feedback should mostly be ignored because they know what players want better than the players themselves. So we continue to see them make the same mistakes over & over through out the years & more players leave. 

The absolute core of the problem is this communication issue. It always has been since 4.x onwards. 

EVERY single product or service you purchase is a choice... period.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 minute ago, Darviset said:

EVERY single product or service you purchase is a choice... period.

Actually that is not true. 

People need to buy food, clothes & pay rent or mortgages. 

People need electricity, water & internet services these days. 

People don’t need disposable income products like toys, games, movies, Netflix or going out for dinner & buying takeaway coffee.

Why do you think it’s the always the disposable income companies that always feel economic pressures in a down turn before others do? Because they aren’t essential products for living. 

Swtor is a disposable income product. It isn’t essential & would likely be at the top of most people’s cut list if they have to trim their economic expenditure to pay for items they need to live.

Trying to imply that isn’t the case with your response, is just being disingenuous. 

[Darviset]

2 minutes ago, captainbladejk said:

Indeed it is. They have a right to say they want to make changes. Likewise we have a right to say if they make those changes we will withdraw our investment and their company can suffer as a result. So what's the problem?

Relevance? but if you must know I don't care to tell that I'm 32. point still stands. explain why you think i'm wrong or there's no reason to take you seriously. not that there is anyways but still. 

Come on Capitan.... 1st. I've said in MY FIRST post to choose for yourself. To cancel if you can't stomach the changes. Kinda like binary. Go or no go. 2nd. I've 50. I like to speak to someone if i have a problem w/ their product or service. I can tell you that over the years that it has gotten more and more difficult to call and actually speak to someone without what i would describe as an excessive wait time. All the while being assure by automated recording how valued i am as a customer... Show me! Hire more customer service to answer my call and fix my issue w/o waiting 45 mins. So yeah. i have VERY little faith in companies actually valuing their customers.

[Darviset]

2 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Actually that is not true. 

People need to buy food, clothes & pay rent or mortgages. 

People need electricity, water & internet services these days. 

People don’t need disposable income products like toys, games, movies, Netflix or going out for dinner & buying takeaway coffee.

Why do you think it’s the always the disposable income companies that always feel economic pressures in a down turn before others do? Because they aren’t essential products for living. 

Swtor is a disposable income product. It isn’t essential & would likely be at the top of most people’s cut list if they have to trim their economic expenditure to pay for items they need to live.

Trying to imply that isn’t the case with your response, is just being disingenuous. 

Where/who did you buy that Food from? Clothes From? Rent From? these are choices. Sadly you're right on Utilities these days as (at least in my area) they seem to be monopiles.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 minute ago, Darviset said:

50. I like to speak to someone if i have a problem w/ their product or service. I can tell you that over the years that it has gotten more and more difficult to call and actually speak to someone without what i would describe as an excessive wait time. All the while being assure by automated recording how valued i am as a customer... Show me! Hire more customer service to answer my call and fix my issue w/o waiting 45 mins. So yeah. i have VERY little faith in companies actually valuing their customers.

Here’s the issue, you’re conflating needed services with disposable income services. 

Because if you are stuck on a phone like you say, it’s probably a needed service & not a disposable income product like a video game. 

[Darviset]

Just now, TrixxieTriss said:

Here’s the issue, you’re conflating needed services with disposable income services. 

Because if you are stuck on a phone like you say, it’s probably a needed service & not a disposable income product like a video game. 

I like to speak to someone if I have a problem w/ a product or service. Period. I have absolutely spoken to to SWTOR Customer Service.

[TrixxieTriss]

3 minutes ago, Darviset said:

Where/who did you buy that Food from? Clothes From? Rent From? these are choices. Sadly you're right on Utilities these days as (at least in my area) they seem to be monopiles.

You’re missing the point. People don’t need to buy things like games. These things are a disposable income product.

People need to buy clothes or food. Most people will shop around for the best deal or best value. And once that goes, they will look else where.

That is the situation many of swtor’s players are at. They feel the value has gone & the company isn’t listening to their needs. 

You can’t equate clothing & food to video games. They aren’t even in the same ball park. 

[Kazuone]

You're right to point out Broadsword as a company. They have their rules, their employees, their bonuses, profits, expenses, operating costs, and... EA! As players, we tend to forget that behind the games, there are people who work and that they need to continue to work in good conditions that should improve over time with their experience and the company's profits.

There are many things to say about the game, but they have often been said in other topics, so I will focus on 7.4.1.

I'm sorry for the people who work on the game, I don't want to be mean but just share my feelings with my words and without beating around the bush.

The new stronghold is nice, but isn't it the same as multiplying the partners? Maybe players buy cartel coins to decorate them, and in that case, it's a good thing. That being said, I find the content of the strongholds completely useless on a daily basis, I play Star Wars, not the Sims...

The "date nights": The idea is interesting but we get it too easily and it's way too short. It reminds me of a cherry on top of the cake, but the cake is super light and doesn't satisfy the SWTOR greed we have ;).

The old skins: It's a very good thing to have integrated them back into the game. I would like to farm to get some... except that I don't know what they look like in advance so the probability that I will find a complete set is very very low and doesn't encourage me to farm... We need an in-game system that allows us to have a preview of the skins (even if we don't own them) and that tells us how to get them. Even if it takes a lot of farming.

The Galactic Season: It's nice because it's extra gifts and it's done quickly.

One thing that is very important to me about the game: the skins. Am I the only one who doesn't find them beautiful for the most part? I wanted to do the PVP season and the galactic season 6 but the skins as rewards don't appeal to me at all. I don't think I'm the only one. And if in an MMO the skins don't appeal to you, you play a lot less...

The 7.4.1 update is not an interesting update for me that makes me want to play SWTOR. I will have to wait for the 7.5 update which I hope will advance the main storyline a lot... I am also waiting for the announcement of a future 8.0 expansion to silence the rumors that SWTOR is a dead game.

PS: Gemini trad because.. gemini is better than my english. Sry if there is mistake ;)

[TrixxieTriss]

2 minutes ago, Darviset said:

I like to speak to someone if I have a problem w/ a product or service. Period. I have absolutely spoken to to SWTOR Customer Service.

And did you get a resolution? Because posting on the forums is our way of expressing our opinions to the dev team. 

[Darviset]

Just now, TrixxieTriss said:

You’re missing the point. People don’t need to buy things like games. These things are a disposable income product.

People need to buy clothes or food. Most people will shop around for the best deal or best value. And once that goes, they will look else where.

That is the situation many of swtor’s players are at. They feel the value has gone & the company isn’t listening to their needs. 

You can’t equate clothing & food to video games. They aren’t even in the same ball park. 

Not entirely sure i'm the one missing the point. We all have choices. (except as mentioned utilities sadly) If you don't like the service or prices or the look the cashier gave you. You can you go somewhere else. EVERY product or service you buy involves a choice. Period.

[Darviset]

7 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

And did you get a resolution? Because posting on the forums is our way of expressing our opinions to the dev team. 

In the couple of cases I'm referring to, i had an issue that they helped me resolve. It wasn't an opinion based conversation.

Edited March 16 by Darviset

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

Come on Capitan.... 1st. I've said in MY FIRST post to choose for yourself. To cancel if you can't stomach the changes. Kinda like binary. 

See this is your problem. I also have the option to tell them "hey, don't do this if you want to keep my investment." People are giving them a chance first before they quit because they do enjoy the game. 

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

2nd. I've 50. I like to speak to someone if i have a problem w/ their product or service. I can tell you that over the years that it has gotten more and more difficult to call and actually speak to someone without what i would describe as an excessive wait time. All the while being assure by automated recording how valued i am as a customer... Show me! Hire more customer service to answer my call and fix my issue w/o waiting 45 mins. So yeah. i have VERY little faith in companies actually valuing their customers.

I don't believe you when you say you're 50. If by chance you're telling the truth, you're older than me and old enough to know the difference between a necessity and a luxury. Come on dude. Also on this point, if you're only calling by phone, yes some companies have better phone service than others. However if you're able to get into contact with some via email or text chat, you're still talking to them just not over the phone. If you do not have the required technical expertise to navigate a text chat or email chat, that's not the fault of the company. 

1 hour ago, Darviset said:

Where/who did you buy that Food from? Clothes From? Rent From? these are choices. Sadly you're right on Utilities these days as (at least in my area) they seem to be monopiles.

Food, water, clothing, and similar are necessities regardless of whether you buy them from a massive chain store or a small mom and pop local store. The only "choice" in that matter is buying from the mom and pop shop or the chain. Otherwise if I don't eat something, drink something, eventually I'll die. Things like SWTOR exist by the grace of its customers choosing to fund them as a luxury item. We can survive without them. They won't survive without us, which is the difference. 

[septru]

12 hours ago, Darviset said:

What's the other thing Broadsword could change to increase the chances that the company makes money? Time played. What happens if we make the daily grind take longer? Enter the Advancement: Reputation nerf.

 

This is actually a great point that is revealing of a much larger issue... that many people on these forums are not going to like. 

 

The current SWTOR development path is in an endless descent into maintenance mode. The devs need to make content to make money, but they have no money to make content in the first place. And so they make the bare minimum content that will get them the most bang-for-their-buck: content tailored to the solo casual. Cartel Market cosmetics, Galactic Seasons, PvP Seasons, Daily Areas, Date Night.

 

But as they make this content, more players from other parts of the community quit and unsubscribe. PvP Seasons resulted in the death of the PvP community. Daily Areas and no NiM R4 resulted in the death of the PvE community. All of these actions further solidifies the devs dependence on solo casuals and necessity to create content tailored to them. Hence the never ending decline in the game's population, and the slow descent to maintenance mode. BroadSword's reputation nerf is just the latest progression in this inevitable demise, one that solo casuals are themselves feeling because almost all other players of the community have quit, and the devs are still strapped for cash. BroadSword made a calculation that they need more money and the best way to do it is to get the only substantive community that is left, solo casuals, to grind more. 

 

I'm in no way saying all of this to demean solo casual players. But the reality of game is that BroadSword has become indebted to solo casuals by slashing content from every other part of the game and catering content to them. And, unfortunately, solo casuals by themselves, cannot keep this game afloat. The devs are stuck between a rock and a hard place: the former being their lack of resources, and the later being their dependence to the solo casual player.

 

I'm honestly not sure if there is any way out of the situation BroadSword is in now. And it's sad to say. This game could have been great. As I said before, the devs need money to make content, but need content to make money. I would say that maybe BroadSword could risk it all, make content at a loss, and hope that it attracts players back. But even then... I'm not sure players would return. There is just so much bad blood between the devs and players that the devs have alienated.

 

Sure, I say all of this as an aforementioned disgruntled player. But it doesn't change the fact that everything I said was true and the current reality that the game is in. 

Edited March 16 by septru

[TrixxieTriss]

5 minutes ago, Darviset said:

Not entirely sure i'm the one missing the point. We all have choices. (except as mentioned utilities sadly) If you don't like the service or prices or the look the cashier gave you. You can you go somewhere else. EVERY product or service you buy involves a choice. Period.

That’s not the case. But I can see you don’t understand or don’t want to understand, so we’ll leave it at that.

Swtor is a game & because of the poor design & service choices BS have decided to make, they are literally driving paying customers away. That is the core issue with 7.4.1.

Wether it’s the conquest stuff or the gear drops or galactic seasons or my personal gripe, the way APAC subscribers have been badly done by, they are all bad choices that BS made & most could have been avoided if they just communicated properly & then listened to the community. 

[TrixxieTriss]

15 minutes ago, captainbladejk said:

Things like SWTOR exist by the grace of its customers choosing to fund them as a luxury item. We can survive without them. They won't survive without us, which is the difference

This is something that is often overlooked by those selling, making or supporting disposable income products like video games.

Companies that do this part right have a large & loyal customer base, ie, FFXIV. And their employees have real job security because of it.

While others that don’t seem to understand the most basic concept of looking after the paying customers, continue to lose customers. Who start looking else where for value & services to spend their money. 

Basic rule of any customer focused industry. Treat your customers right & look after your customers needs or they’ll find someone else who can. 

Edited March 16 by TrixxieTriss

[casirabit]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

This is something that is often overlooked by those selling, making or supporting disposable income products like video games.

Companies that do this part right have a large & loyal customer base, ie, FFXIV. And their employees have real job security because of it.

While others that don’t seem to understand the most basic concept of looking after the paying customers, continue to lose customers. Who start looking else where for value & services to spend their money. 

Basic rule of any customer focused industry. Treat your customers right & look after your customers needs or they’ll find someone else who can. 

Thanks, for trying to explain that, but somehow I doubt they understand this here or they wouldn't do a 1/4 of the stuff they do.      FFXIV is fun (for the most part), SWTOR used to be but lately it not.

[DeannaVoyager]

10 hours ago, MsViolet said:

Since Tuesday, I have not been playing the game more. I have not been playing it at all.

When progressing through the game becomes slower, more tedious, and more boring ... Why would that make me want to play the game more?

 

Exactly. I had some extra time yesterday so I thought I'd check out the new SH and date nights, maybe even do some flashpoints. The SH is beautiful, but I can't unlock all the rooms so I'm done running around in there pretty soon. Date nights turned out to be a joke I'm going to skip so not much time spent with that either.  Maybe some conquest? Hmm.. no. If I would play something on some alt, I would have to complete the 100k, and I don't want to. Before last patch I could have done a FP or two and finish conquest with rep token and some heroics, but it's not on option anymore, so I'll just log out. A few hours later I log in again and try to start something... but no. I still don't want to start something I may not be able to finish.  I close the client and do something else instead. 

 

4 hours ago, VegaMist said:

Good luck trying to "maximize profits" by alienating your customers. Every company that ever tried that found out the hard way that it doesn't work. But sure, it will be different this one time in your specific case - keep telling yourself that.

 

And this, so much this.

 

If I go and buy myself some chocolate chip icecream, I expect it to taste like chocolate chip icecream. If it does I'm happy and I'll come again to buy some more. I'll recommend the icecream to my friends, and they will also come and buy some. 

The company that makes the icecream decides they are not making enough money so they double the price from 50k to 100k. They lose customers. Some will stay and pay the doubled price because the chocolate chips in it are better than in any other icecream, but they are not happy. In fact they are already looking for other companies, trying to find another company that sells chocolate chip icecream with more reasonable price.

The company doubled the price, but they are making less money than before. Weird, huh? They look at their product and try to find ways to make more money out of it. They reduce the size of the cone, find cheaper ingredients, but they are still losing customers, because customers can easily taste the recipe has been changed and it isn't as delicious as it used to be. With every major patch in the recipe the icecream starts to taste more like soap instead of icecream, no matter how much hype they add into the changes. Their customers are still leaving because the icecream doesn't taste the same it used to. But the chocolate chips are so delicious compared to the options offered by other companies, that some customers still keep coming back. They can live with the taste of soap, as long as they get the chocolate chips with it. 

Someone at the company gets a marvellous idea: they change the recipe and nerf the amount of chocolate chips to 20% of their original value. So now you would have to each 5 icecreams that taste like soap to get the same amount of chocolate chips. The company expects their sales to multiply with x5 and are surprised that their customers are abandoning them.

 

[TrixxieTriss]

16 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

 

If I go and buy myself some chocolate chip icecream, I expect it to taste like chocolate chip icecream. If it does I'm happy and I'll come again to buy some more. I'll recommend the icecream to my friends, and they will also come and buy some. 

The company that makes the icecream decides they are not making enough money so they double the price from 50k to 100k. They lose customers. Some will stay and pay the doubled price because the chocolate chips in it are better than in any other icecream, but they are not happy. In fact they are already looking for other companies, trying to find another company that sells chocolate chip icecream with more reasonable price.

The company doubled the price, but they are making less money than before. Weird, huh? They look at their product and try to find ways to make more money out of it. They reduce the size of the cone, find cheaper ingredients, but they are still losing customers, because customers can easily taste the recipe has been changed and it isn't as delicious as it used to be. With every major patch in the recipe the icecream starts to taste more like soap instead of icecream, no matter how much hype they add into the changes. Their customers are still leaving because the icecream doesn't taste the same it used to. But the chocolate chips are so delicious compared to the options offered by other companies, that some customers still keep coming back. They can live with the taste of soap, as long as they get the chocolate chips with it. 

Someone at the company gets a marvellous idea: they change the recipe and nerf the amount of chocolate chips to 20% of their original value. So now you would have to each 5 icecreams that taste like soap to get the same amount of chocolate chips. The company expects their sales to multiply with x5 and are surprised that their customers are abandoning them.

 

Great analogy that describes exactly what customers are thinking about swtor these days 👍

Edited March 17 by TrixxieTriss