Can SWTOR No Longer Even Afford a New Flashpoint? Just Grind Systems?

[Lenlo]

The game has been profitable for the better part of a decade, and ever since the end of KOTET, more and more resources have been stripped away by either BioWare or EA. I don't see SWTOR recovering unless Broadsword is given a bigger budget.

[Lenlo]

On 5/5/2024 at 12:50 PM, Gamer_Auto said:

The only way that I see them getting more people into Ops is:
1. Do what you suggest and unlock the 1.x - 3.x Operations for f2p users
2. Provide Story Mode versions that are comparable to the Story Mode Flashpoints (cutscenes, not as difficult enemies, NPC allies that can actually help complete the mission)
3. Ensure the mission releases with as few bugs as possible

 

Paragraph 1: MMOs (with the exception of SWTOR and maybe TESO) are traditionally about grouping into guilds. It's as much a social app as it is a game. If aspects of the game aren't immediately accepted wholesale by the entire community, it gets left in the dust. I would know. The other MMO I play, Warframe, has this problem in spades. From what I gather, GSF didn't immediately jive with the entire community (the controls are awkward at first, the progression is completely different, there's zero chance for variety in builds. there's barely any customization compared to Outfitter, it's solely PvP with no PvE elements that would allow players to get used to the controls or provide some other kind of challenge). There'd have to be significant changes and additions to it, and seven years later, I don't think the current devs are willing to go through that trouble; at least not right now.

Paragraph 2: There's zero comparison to be had between SWTOR's GSF and SC. I have no idea why you brought that up.

Paragraph 3: Squadrons failed in the way that most PvP console games fail; it had a lackluster Single Player campaign, it was PvP focused, and it tried to push eSports on it's players when it really should have been an arcade-like PvP akin to CoD, Halo, or Battlefront. It it didn't take itself so seriously, it might still be relevant. Plus, it took what's otherwise a niche and tried to advertise it to the masses. There's a reason flight-sim games aren't mainstream.

Paragraph 4: At this point you may as well be asking for the moon. If the dev team didn't give GSF any attention in seven years and keeps making excuses as to why they can't add it's Galactic Seasons objectives to PvP Seasons, then there's clearly no interest from the dev team. And take it from a Warframe Player: if the devs have no interest in what you're asking for, it'll never happen. This team is half the size they used to be, has no apparent interest in GSF, and is more focused on QoL, asset modernization, and Story updates.

There's a term that we need to bring into this discussion:  Parasitic Design

[Gamer_Auto]

2 hours ago, Lenlo said:

There's a term that we need to bring into this discussion:  Parasitic Design

Okay, so what's your point?

PvP, by it's very nature, is parasitic when introduced to a PvE game. It exists solely for competitive-minded players to compare sizes and rarely if ever provides benefits outside of itself.

Warzones/Arenas require gearing outside PvP first. GSF is mostly self-contained aside from "crew members".

Are you saying we should remove all PvP elements from SWTOR because they do nothing for the core gameplay?

[GuigeekRhadamant]

On 5/4/2024 at 10:15 PM, Guyverarmor said:

For me, the dev team is the epitome of a line from "God of War: Ragnarok"

"If he says 'Snow is white' he's lying." This is just my opinion though. With how much they have dropped the ball on...well, pretty much everything in addition to be silent on multiple areas of the game and just not updating certain things (GSF seven year update drought says hi) I will never believe anything they say. I just can't.

When you say "10 year celebration will be big!" and the only thing big about it is the let down...that's all that needs to be said on their trust level.

I'm still waiting for it. I don't know what was planned but it was certainly cancelled, because calling "big" only having the christmas vendor a whole year is a freakin joke!! and not a funny one

[Stradlin]

9 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

Okay, so what's your point?

PvP, by it's very nature, is parasitic when introduced to a PvE game. It exists solely for competitive-minded players to compare sizes and rarely if ever provides benefits outside of itself.

It is somewhat ...tiresome to see these sweeping objectively inaccurate  absolutist hot takes presented as some undeniable truths, heh. Once you introduce PvP to the """PvE"" game then guess what? It isn't accurate to call it a "PvE game" in some overtly sweeping fashion any longer. SWTOR is certainly a PvE game for you, no doubt. Just like it is a Space Barbie&Barbie Dollhouse  Enjoyment Simulator Supplemented with GTN Schenanigans in  a  200 million Dollar Waiting Lobby Between GSF Matches for me. (or SB&BDESSGTNS200MDWLBGSFM-MMORPG for short!).. But these things are subjective and look bad when presented as some great universal truths.

 

SWTOR has literally never been without PvP being an element among others. Ever since its release,game has offered a PvP element.  Your window for declaring SWTOR a "PvE game" closed somewhere around early  alpha stages of this game, heh.

FWIW GSF can be played completely isolated from every single pve component of this game. Ability to do so is clearly a point of some particular value in these parts. I have plenty of pilot characters who have never killed a single mob. I have a max lvl pilot character who has never left trooper starter walker, but that is another story! Ability to unlock companions as your crew in GSF is largely irrelevant, since majority of the crew you want aren't companions  from your own class story, so you need to buy most of them with requisition anyways.

 

How does pvp not provide benefits? In ground pvp and GSF alike, you complete missions. These missions give you rewards similar to missions in  pve content. (XP, credits,gear. And  currency that buys you gear at max lvl.)

 

Edited May 7 by Stradlin

[GuigeekRhadamant]

On 5/5/2024 at 6:50 PM, Gamer_Auto said:

This team is half the size they used to be, has no apparent interest in GSF, and is more focused on QoL, asset modernization, and Story updates.

Who cares about asset modernization? This always amazes me... People still play Kotor while it's ugly because it is a far greater game, if they want nice graphics, well they better install a more recent game (there are a sh*tton of them)

[GuigeekRhadamant]

13 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

...which are directly from  'Elite Dangerous'  in-game official graphics.   Heck they even use FLIGHT STICK  while navigating on-planet too....

So umm, care to show  me the in-game  mouse&keyboard  versions?   I'll wait.

--------------

*On-topic more:  Imagine if  we had a  STAR WARS version of  'Elite Dangerous' .... /sigh , so much potential  squandered here in SWTOR & GSF yet again.

There's absolutely no relation between lore logic and gameplay, I don't play with a fake lightsaber for PVE content, I play with keyboard and mouse. Why in heaven would I use a joystick that is waaaay less precise than a mouse? The point is not lore accuracy, it's not a flight simulator, no GSF player cares about this kind of games lol. If you want to play a flight simulator, then go for it, there are tons of them on the market (apparently some are really good I've heard)

[Nee-Elder]

22 minutes ago, GuigeekRhadamant said:

There's absolutely no relation between lore logic and gameplay,

In your OPINION.  ( for whatever that's worth )

22 minutes ago, GuigeekRhadamant said:

 I don't play with a fake lightsaber for PVE content, I play with keyboard and mouse.

Strawman attempt x 2

smh

22 minutes ago, GuigeekRhadamant said:

 it's not a flight simulator,

You are correct on that one, Capt. Obvious.

However, our SWG JTL  wasn't  a true hardcore Flight 'sim' either, but we still provided  BOTH  m&k  plus joystick support too.

Same with  SW:Squadrons  btw.

22 minutes ago, GuigeekRhadamant said:

no GSF player cares about this kind of games

First,  your speculatary opinion  doesn't = fact.  ( Unless you've somehow polled  every single GSF player in history of SWTOR? )

Secondly,  i am a GSF player and i "care" about those [ flight sim ] games.   So does  @Stradlin , as far as i can discern.

So thats 2 GSF players already.  Meaning, your presumption is....well....worth about as much as your earlier opinion lol.

22 minutes ago, GuigeekRhadamant said:

 If you want to play a flight simulator, then go for it,

uhh, i already have  and still do.

My only point before was:  GSF would be better if it allowed the  option  for joystick peripherals  and would also be way more fun & immersive  if  it was expanded to incorporate more exploration & customization/crafting/mining  elements  as we had in SWG JTL ( or even as say  'Elite Dangerous' ) .

However, i've been campaigning for such things since ohhhh about 2010 ( directly to Devs in  alpha/beta testing )  and let's just say by now  i've lost any delusions-of-grandeur ( or hope ) for SWTOR to ever satisfy or do justice to the *STAR* in  'Star Wars' .

Game is....to put it nicely....seen it's better days.

Edited May 7 by Nee-Elder
Reason: so funny how much pushback from random forum interjectors against basic honoring of *STAR Wars* . Very odd imo.

[Stradlin]

10 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

 

Secondly,  i am a GSF player and i "care" about those [ flight sim ] games.   So does  @Stradlin , as far as i can discern.

So thats 2 GSF players already. 

My only point before was:  GSF would be better if it allowed the  option  for joystick peripherals  and would also be way more fun & immersive  if  it was expanded to incorporate more exploration & customization/crafting/mining  elements  as we had in SWG JTL ( or even as say  'Elite Dangerous' ) .

However, i've been campaigning for such things since ohhhh about 2010 ( directly to Devs in  alpha/beta testing )  and let's just say by now  i've lost any delusions-of-grandeur ( or hope ) for SWTOR to ever satisfy or do justice to the *STAR* in  'Star Wars' .

Game is....to put it nicely....seen it's better days.

 

Yeah ig I've played ED for almost as long as I've played GSF. Have you ever tried it? Its interesting how one was immediately right at home in ED's kb+mouse thanks to GSF. Obv, Elite is much more complicated. Yet, core of how you fly with m+kb is almost identical in both.  In ED, its always HOTAS for me though..But again, Joystick+Hotas would not not feel natural for me in 3rd person view of GSF. Each their own and all that. Imo immersion works differently in 1st person vs 3rd person.

I assume it is technically possible to use joystick in GSF? Surely there are joysticks that will act as a mouse if you tell them to do so.

 

 

[Nee-Elder]

2 hours ago, Stradlin said:

 Joystick+Hotas would not not feel natural for me in 3rd person view of GSF.

Yeah that's a fair point.

Which is also why, back in beta, we were pleading with BioWare  to create  1st-person cockpits for GSF  ( like we had in SWG JTL ) .

Especially since the  stop-gap filler "space on rails"  mini-game from aboard personal ship was already a 3rd-person  viewpoint;  therefore making GSF strictly 3rd-person too was redundant.

2 hours ago, Stradlin said:

I assume it is technically possible to use joystick in GSF?

Negative.

Although  there was an old forum thread  posting about some *hack* method , but it didn't work for me.

Again, i come from SWG JTL  where  flying with  joystick was  near perfection pilot bliss.

So, admittedly, i'm a bit jaded.

2 hours ago, Stradlin said:

Yeah  I've played ED for almost as long as I've played GSF.

Have you ever tried it?

Well,  ironically , thanks to our  earlier  "argument" , you motivated me to give  'Elite Dangerous'  a try.

Started playing it today. ( only the new 'Odyssey' tutorial  starter mission , onto the 1st newbie space station ... so far )

Ordinarily, i'm really not a big fan of  modding games at all ...but.... hmm, i wonder if anyone from  'Nexus' has created a  STAR WARS  mod yet for it....

Edited May 7 by Nee-Elder
Reason: shame that i have to go elsewhere away from SWTOR just to get *STAR Wars* pilot feels.

[Stradlin]

5 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

 

Started playing it today. ( only the new 'Odyssey' tutorial  starter mission , onto the newb space station ... so far )

Ordinarily, i'm really not a big fan of  modding games at all ...but.... hmm, i wonder if anyone from  'Nexus' has created a  STAR WARS  mod yet for it....

Oo that's unironically nice to hear! It is difficult game to get into but can reward you well if you give it some time and good faith. It is only MMO(..ish)  I've ever known where you can truly be an explorer. ie, literally go to places nobody else has ever seen. That alone I find impressive to this day. Don't be too jaded by the Odyssey bits, space flight itself is very well done there. Walky bits not so much.

 

Sadly I don't think ED supports mods in any relevant way at all, no Stawa stuff to be had. 

Edited May 7 by Stradlin

[Toraak]

5 hours ago, GuigeekRhadamant said:

Who cares about asset modernization? This always amazes me... People still play Kotor while it's ugly because it is a far greater game, if they want nice graphics, well they better install a more recent game (there are a sh*tton of them)

The funny thing to me is whenever they do something to make the graphics better, they in reality make them worse. There are so many places in this game now where the lighting is just horrible. R-4 is one example of this, as in hive queen. It's difficult to see where your even walking in some spots because they decided (poorly) to remove a graphics option that lit everything up so people could see everything easier.

 

Return the Very Low Graphics settings!!!

[orichichan]

We just got a new event. It takes time to make a new one. New flashpoints will come later I think because we don't need to get new events with four events for each year now.

[Gamer_Auto]

10 hours ago, Stradlin said:

How does pvp not provide benefits? In ground pvp and GSF alike, you complete missions. These missions give you rewards similar to missions in  pve content. (XP, credits,gear. And  currency that buys you gear at max lvl.)

XP is irrelevant after lvl80, credits can be gotten from anywhere, that currency is for gear that's specifically balanced for PvP.

On my side of the issue, Warzone/Arena PvP drains Credits away from my PvE gear, and GSF is an island unto itself outside of it's Seasons objective, with it's sole connection to the outside being a drain on Cartel Coins to buy 4 ships or a bunch of limited cosmetics. GSF is even supplemented by PvE Space, as you can trade in that currency for GSF currency!

[Toraak]

23 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

XP is irrelevant after lvl80, credits can be gotten from anywhere, that currency is for gear that's specifically balanced for PvP.

On my side of the issue, Warzone/Arena PvP drains Credits away from my PvE gear, and GSF is an island unto itself outside of it's Seasons objective, with it's sole connection to the outside being a drain on Cartel Coins to buy 4 ships or a bunch of limited cosmetics. GSF is even supplemented by PvE Space, as you can trade in that currency for GSF currency!

The PvE space currency you speak of is ALSO a GSF currency.

 

Truth be told I don't know any GSF player that gets those currencies from the PvE version. Each GSF daily gives us 50, and each Weekly gives 300 fleet comms.

Edited May 8 by Toraak

[septru]

On 5/6/2024 at 5:52 PM, Lenlo said:

There's a term that we need to bring into this discussion:  Parasitic Design

This is a really interesting point about parasitic game design. 

 

I would expand the video's argument even farther though. Parasitic game design is detrimental to the health of the game because it pushes out existing communities of players that were devoted to some feature of the core game. And in so doing, parasitic game design forces developers to cater their resources to the last remaining communities. In this way, the game is forced into an endless cycle of parasitic game design, as the game devotes what little resources it has left to a dwindling population. 

 

This is exactly what we see in SWTOR. As Mark Biggs (ex-BioWare Influencer) explained in a youtube video, this is what the Cartel Market and solo content is to SWTOR. 

[orichichan]

New flashpoints could come back in the 7.6. I think the story isn't ready for now to get a new one. Ord Mantel and Nal Hutta aren't so good to get a flashpoint. But with the 7.5, we will get more information about what Heta Kol really wants. So maybe we will get new flashpoints after the 7.5.

Edited May 8 by orichichan

[Gamer_Auto]

5 hours ago, Toraak said:

The PvE space currency you speak of is ALSO a GSF currency.

 

Truth be told I don't know any GSF player that gets those currencies from the PvE version. Each GSF daily gives us 50, and each Weekly gives 300 fleet comms.

From what I've seen of the GSF menu, you can't even do anything with FleetCom except turn it into the requisition currency at a vendor. And I doubt that's changed in the past couple months.

[LJ_Gibbs]

5 hours ago, orichichan said:

New flashpoints could come back in the 7.6......................... So maybe we will get new flashpoints after the 7.5.

No... we won't.

[JakRoanin]

And you know that because you work there?

[Toraak]

10 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

From what I've seen of the GSF menu, you can't even do anything with FleetCom except turn it into the requisition currency at a vendor. And I doubt that's changed in the past couple months.

It hasn't. It just allows people to turn the fleet comms into a vendor on fleet for Legacy Fleet or legacy ship requisition grants. Where I was going to the original comment was that Fleet comms aren't specific to only the PvE space part, but because they are earned from dailies and weeklies, they are still a GSF currency.

[Guyverarmor]

11 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

And you know that because you work there?

Considering the extremely bad track record of the SWTOR devs and the drip feed content we get now, I'm inclined to believe @LJ_Gibbs over the devs.

[LJ_Gibbs]

11 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

And you know that because you work there?

You do know the definition of insanity right?

 

Or the saying "Fool me once... same on you... fool me twice... shame on me... fool me 100 more times?"

[LJ_Gibbs]

12 minutes ago, Guyverarmor said:

Considering the extremely bad track record of the SWTOR devs and the drip feed content we get now, I'm inclined to believe @LJ_Gibbs over the devs.

Not even a drip feed.

[JakRoanin]

There's also a saying "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" You never have anything, anything, good to say about anything! I'm more than willing to say 7.0 was awful, the gearing system sucks, and they need to fix a lot. But I still see good fun things in this game too. I'm just sick of the "I hate everything, and the Devs are evil" posts.