Feedback: 7.5 Livestream

[Toraak]

16 minutes ago, ExarSun said:

Shame i can not like your post every day...this is spot on. Storytelling in 7.0 is pathetic, convoluted...has no immersion whatsoever...no character or world building, bland, un-interesting (girl-power yaasss queen) npc's. I dont really care about any of them...its impossible to become vested in any of it/them.

I haven't finished any of the 7.0 storyline on more then 1 character. I haven't even had it in me to check it out on republic side. And of course the 7.5 patch will mean you don't get any access to the new Venture system if your not going through ruhnuk on a character. I figure you'd need to complete the Lane Vizla chain at the very least.

 

Unless Broadsword does a skip to Kessan's landing (which I doubt) I just don't see the big interest in continuing to get my characters much past the Onslaught story (Meaning the end of mek-sha and the Objective Meridian FP).

[Traceguy]

5 hours ago, Toraak said:

And of course the 7.5 patch will mean you don't get any access to the new Venture system if your not going through ruhnuk on a character

That's a big problem I hope they solve for alts. On PTS, we can see Ventures are recorded in the legacy, so all your alts can contribute to it. I don't know yet how that plays out for unlocking B3-S1 on each alt though.

I went through Lane's questline once more just to ensure I have B3-S1 on both factions. It drags on and on. And to make matters worse, it's all KOTOR-style dialogue. Bioware couldn't even bother to get the voice actors to act out such an important storyline.

RIP if you don't have a stealth character, because you will be moving back and forth traversing every corner of Ruhnuk for over an hour, and having to deal with the level 80 sponge mobs.  I also seem to have discovered what could be considered a bug worth mentioning. Because a couple parts of Lane's questline were drip fed, you have to logout and in to trigger the next stages.

Edited May 9 by Traceguy

[DeannaVoyager]

14 hours ago, Toraak said:

I haven't finished any of the 7.0 storyline on more then 1 character. I haven't even had it in me to check it out on republic side. And of course the 7.5 patch will mean you don't get any access to the new Venture system if your not going through ruhnuk on a character. I figure you'd need to complete the Lane Vizla chain at the very least.

 

Unless Broadsword does a skip to Kessan's landing (which I doubt) I just don't see the big interest in continuing to get my characters much past the Onslaught story (Meaning the end of mek-sha and the Objective Meridian FP).

I was gonna argue that there is no storyline in 7.0, then someone mentioned Ruh-Nuk. Yeah. I vaguely remember it now. I would remember it better if I could have done it with more than 2 characters (1 rep 1 imp), but all my alts stopped doing story at Echoes of Oblivion and will remain there until we can skip that piece of .... 

[VegaMist]

On 5/8/2024 at 2:58 PM, Gamer_Auto said:

Tau and Anri haven't been that bad. Tau has her moments of eyeroll, but Anri's sat pretty okay with me so far. Krovos is a bit full of herself, but that's typical for Sith.

Anri is great, Krovos is OK, Tau is pretty bad, and Arn is the worst.

On 5/8/2024 at 10:20 PM, eabevella said:

Anri wins with that "you are the main player, I'm going to surrender" scene. Girl is the very few NPC that has a brain.

Totally!!!

On 5/8/2024 at 10:20 PM, eabevella said:

Tau is too "in your face" at first but she is way better after taking Arn.

I'm guessing, they can now whine to each other and no longer need our ears for their sob stories - what a relief.

On 5/8/2024 at 2:58 PM, Gamer_Auto said:

Heta is 100% girlboss, and in the worst possible way.

On 5/8/2024 at 10:20 PM, eabevella said:

Malgus and Rikan are dumb and bland. The former is back to his old bullsh*t, the latter is the boring "I deserve power because I had it worse than everyone" type.

On 5/8/2024 at 10:20 PM, eabevella said:

Sa'har is even dumber throughout 7.0.

Yes, yes, and yes.

On 5/8/2024 at 10:59 AM, joshuadyal said:

Can you just have a story be about my character again? And not in the "hey, we need to plant some crops, or clean up your room, or make a glorified beer run for some weird alien" kind of way?

100% this ^^^.

[Gamer_Auto]

On 5/9/2024 at 12:20 AM, eabevella said:

Or the writers aren't paid enough or given enough creativity because railroaded is the only story BS is willing/able to do now.

Anri wins with that "you are the main player, I'm going to surrender" scene. Girl is the very few NPC that has a brain.

Tau is too "in your face" at first but she is way better after taking Arn.

I do like the call back of Krovos and Ranken if you did KDY on Imp side before (REMOVE BLACK TALON/ESSELS AND PUT KDY BACK TO THE GROUP FINDER FFS).

All the 7.0 NPCs have more of a central role compared to the ones in 6.0. They steal spot lights from our player character but they don't shine at all, they are all cardboard cut dolls acting a certain cliche way without any emotional input that makes the players want to care for them. The story is also stretched too thin so those characters are even more bland.

Shae acts like a headless chicken most of the time, worse of it is that we can't call her out. She could have a good character arc where she admit her lacking in leadership (even though she did hold the mandalorians together through the KOTxx crisis) and find a proper successor, but I doubt it will be done in any meaningful way or at all.

Heta has a good scene at the meeting table. I like how she will stab you if you look at her wrong and she will blow everyone in the room and herself up just to make a point. But she is only your typical "militant mandalorian" after that.

Malgus and Rikan are dumb and bland. The former is back to his old bullsh*t, the latter is the boring "I deserve power because I had it worse than everyone" type.

Sa'har is even dumber throughout 7.0. You don't know why she did what she did in the Nul flashpoint unless you watch that promotional trailer (which no doubt costed a lot). There's zero emotional/motivational transition from just stood there among the mandalorians like a beaten up slave to suddenly wanted to "help" the player character because the story has to move on.

For being as old as it is, and for not having as much choice as many of us would have liked in it, Vanilla continues to prove itself as peak SWTOR. I never got to KDY, because I can't be bothered to try and group for it when every Flashpoint should have a Solo-friendly mode (seriously, why does Directive 7 of all FPs have a Story mode, but the one where you meet Bey'wan and Krovos doesn't? Mind boggling.).

Skipping past Dread Masters & Shroud Part 1 (I can't get groups together for them), the Makeb story was interesting, but never had much to do with anything afterwards (there are occasionally vague references to Iso-5 technology during the Imp side post-Zakuul, but that's it).
Forged Alliances & Shadow of Revan were cool, and I personally loved how the original writers seemed committed to continuing Revan's story so long as Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorian remained a factor.

The soft reboot of KotFE, KotET, and Fractured Alliances... Like, I appreciate the attempt at telling a new story that focused more on player agency, and I love the Alliance base...but not enough was done with the ideas, and there's no good aftermath to the whole ordeal. You can't decorate the base, you can't have every companion (I swear, the option to choose between Vette and Torian makes me want to say words that would get me banned from the forums), the Fractured Alliances arc has had no ramifications (SCORPIO return when? Retaliation for the death of Acina/Malcom when?), and it really felt like they were stalling for time while they brainstormed how to contrive things back to "Pub vs Imp".

JUS + Onslaught were a lie. This was not the big return to Pub vs Imp they claimed it was. Player agency was taken away from us. Even if you want to remain The Commander, you're forced to pick a side and follow orders, and you're not even the star of the show. Arguably, Tau and Arn are the stars of the Pub story, and Krovos, Rivix, and Anri are the stars of the Imp side. The locations were interesting enough. Ossus was interesting in concept, even if it was executed poorly (that terrain is so mid it's painful). Onderon was nice to see in a game, and Mek-Sha was a cool new location to introduce to the lore (tons of cool fanfic stuff could happen on that planet). But nothing about the story itself stands out as interesting. Echoes of Oblivion, the epilogue to the KotOR/Knight-Warrior/Commander story, was far more interesting. After that, it's just a prologue to 7.0. One made up of Flashpoints.

Finally arriving at Legacy of the Sith....it's obvious that the age of the game combined with the lack of budget, the beginning of the 2020s, and the move to another studio has hit the story hard. The Player Character has been firmly set in the "I'm now part of the supporting cast" role, the actual main characters haven't even been good so far, the return of Malgus instead of making a new Darth working for the Empire has yet to be justified, and the budgetary necessity of drip-feeding us the story has only hurt it more. I'll try and reserve my final judgements for after the story has wrapped and we can see the full picture, but it's not looking good so far. Not to mention that they keep making side content when they really can't afford to (Lane & Bessi, Galactic Seasons, a new seasonal event). If I were the creative lead, I'd halt all production on the side stuff and put all the writers on figuring out how this 7.0 story fits together and how it'll be satisfying to have gone though all of it.

In short: things were amazing at the start, then were kinda okay but not terrible for a couple updates, then the writers started writing themselves into pretty tight corners, and now the time has come for them to reap what they've sown. They went too far down a restrictive narrative alley, and they have to face the incoming train head-on.

[Guyverarmor]

2 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

For being as old as it is, and for not having as much choice as many of us would have liked in it, Vanilla continues to prove itself as peak SWTOR. I never got to KDY, because I can't be bothered to try and group for it when every Flashpoint should have a Solo-friendly mode (seriously, why does Directive 7 of all FPs have a Story mode, but the one where you meet Bey'wan and Krovos doesn't? Mind boggling.).

Skipping past Dread Masters & Shroud Part 1 (I can't get groups together for them), the Makeb story was interesting, but never had much to do with anything afterwards (there are occasionally vague references to Iso-5 technology during the Imp side post-Zakuul, but that's it).
Forged Alliances & Shadow of Revan were cool, and I personally loved how the original writers seemed committed to continuing Revan's story so long as Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorian remained a factor.

The soft reboot of KotFE, KotET, and Fractured Alliances... Like, I appreciate the attempt at telling a new story that focused more on player agency, and I love the Alliance base...but not enough was done with the ideas, and there's no good aftermath to the whole ordeal. You can't decorate the base, you can't have every companion (I swear, the option to choose between Vette and Torian makes me want to say words that would get me banned from the forums), the Fractured Alliances arc has had no ramifications (SCORPIO return when? Retaliation for the death of Acina/Malcom when?), and it really felt like they were stalling for time while they brainstormed how to contrive things back to "Pub vs Imp".

JUS + Onslaught were a lie. This was not the big return to Pub vs Imp they claimed it was. Player agency was taken away from us. Even if you want to remain The Commander, you're forced to pick a side and follow orders, and you're not even the star of the show. Arguably, Tau and Arn are the stars of the Pub story, and Krovos, Rivix, and Anri are the stars of the Imp side. The locations were interesting enough. Ossus was interesting in concept, even if it was executed poorly (that terrain is so mid it's painful). Onderon was nice to see in a game, and Mek-Sha was a cool new location to introduce to the lore (tons of cool fanfic stuff could happen on that planet). But nothing about the story itself stands out as interesting. Echoes of Oblivion, the epilogue to the KotOR/Knight-Warrior/Commander story, was far more interesting. After that, it's just a prologue to 7.0. One made up of Flashpoints.

Finally arriving at Legacy of the Sith....it's obvious that the age of the game combined with the lack of budget, the beginning of the 2020s, and the move to another studio has hit the story hard. The Player Character has been firmly set in the "I'm now part of the supporting cast" role, the actual main characters haven't even been good so far, the return of Malgus instead of making a new Darth working for the Empire has yet to be justified, and the budgetary necessity of drip-feeding us the story has only hurt it more. I'll try and reserve my final judgements for after the story has wrapped and we can see the full picture, but it's not looking good so far. Not to mention that they keep making side content when they really can't afford to (Lane & Bessi, Galactic Seasons, a new seasonal event). If I were the creative lead, I'd halt all production on the side stuff and put all the writers on figuring out how this 7.0 story fits together and how it'll be satisfying to have gone though all of it.

In short: things were amazing at the start, then were kinda okay but not terrible for a couple updates, then the writers started writing themselves into pretty tight corners, and now the time has come for them to reap what they've sown. They went too far down a restrictive narrative alley, and they have to face the incoming train head-on.

I noticed a steep downhill in quality post SoR, which so happens to be around the time BW/EA's other game "Anthem" started kicking into gear. It's been stated and known already that they redirected manpower and funding to that. I assume because they wanted to stop making SWTOR and paying the licensing fee and do their own IP version of a "Destiny"style lite-mmo. SWTOR has never recovered since. I sincerely believe that with that and writing themselves into a corner has more or less killed any possible saving of this game to what it used to be. I'm not asking for WoW/FFXIV style content roll out, I'm not. Would I love it cause I know this game needs and deserves it? For sure! But I know it's not possible, at least do a content pacing that LOTRO does. I know Middle-Earth Enterprises is just as controlling as Disney when it comes to their IP, and they can crank out some good stuff with arguably less resources.

It can be done, I know it. Just have a feeling it's a mix of the devs don't want to and just want to move on...and just not allowed to beyond bare minimum to milk whatever is left.

[supertimtaf]

4 hours ago, Guyverarmor said:

I noticed a steep downhill in quality post SoR, which so happens to be around the time BW/EA's other game "Anthem" started kicking into gear.

Fun thing, the man who was lead producer at the time of Kotet/Kotfe, Ben Irving, got silently "moved onto other projects" (meaning he was so bad at his job they didn't want him anymore on swtor). He got moved onto Anthem. You can see how that turned out.
Insane thing to know that no matter what game you touch, you end up ruining it. That's a superpower for sure. 

Anyway, the fun thing is that there was indeed a massive drop in quality around the Kotet expansion, which were *really bad* for story and simply PvE content as a whole (no new raids, no new flashpoints, nothing interesting at release to be fair, on top of the promised chapters of the expansion being delayed three months...), the game suffered greatly for this budget cut and this attempt to "reduce costs while keeping engagement/profit" (basically finding ways to keep you playing/paying without putting much effort into it). This mentality is still going on currently, but with a team the size of 40 people this is not surprising. This is not FF11 levels of bad when it come to small teams, but the drop in quality has been present ever since KOTET arrived and they completely mismanaged the expansion's budget (who puts that much money into a trailer if you can't have a good game behind it ? Well, Bioware it seems)....

All in all, it's been going downward ever since, and we're reaching levels where swtor is barely above a mobile game when it comes to updates and cash shop pricing ranges. Sucks, but I guess that as long as the dev team doesn't try to argue with their EA overlords for a better future, the current course isn't looking that promising.

Edited May 10 by supertimtaf

[TonyTricicolo]

44 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

Ben Irving

Aka "RNG is fun" guy!

[DuchessKristania]

On 5/8/2024 at 12:59 PM, joshuadyal said:

I feel like the story hasn't been about the character you're playing in a long time. Each new addition has some new obnoxious NPC that we're supposed to care about, but who is a super unlikeable smarmy girlboss stereotype, and your character is just along for the ride, offering support and commentary and watching someone else's poorly thought out and often incoherent story take place. What the heck, BioWare/Broadsword. Can you just have a story be about my character again? And not in the "hey, we need to plant some crops, or clean up your room, or make a glorified beer run for some weird alien" kind of way?

 I don't think Sa'har comes off as a girl boss, more a confused and kind of boring character. She's just not for me. I don't really mind the silly little plant this, or get booze quests, lol. My favorite event quests are the ones that end up making it easy to go for World bosses. I wish there were quests like that for each world boss. I like completing achievements, especially the kind of quirky ones I can just do at a leisurely pace on my own. Admittedly, I'm a very goal-oriented person and stuff like that keeps me occupied for hours when non of my friends are online to play. I don't play with randos much because I'm visually impaired and I need to go at my own pace, my friends know that and know how to accommodate without fuss.

Edited May 10 by DuchessKristania

[JakRoanin]

See I don't like my PC's being the center of the universe, they are not Gods, they are beings in a larger contextual galaxy. I like that they can't control their circumstances. Life happens and they live it, just like the rest of us, or Mando and Grogu.

[TonyTricicolo]

3 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

I don't like my PC's being the center of the universe

Yeah, it's kind of degrading going from defeating a planet destroying Sith emperor to savior of the universe back to a lackey doing fetch quests for people lower than me. If we were never anyone special it would make more sense. 

[JakRoanin]

Yeah but defeating the Emperor was never, ever, an ambition of my PC's. It just happened, they didn't seek out becoming the leader of an intergalactic alliance, they didn't seek out the crazy titles and power they have. So, the fetch and help quests keep them as people doing what they intended to be, doing their part to make the Galaxy better. That's not to say they resent their accomplishments, they just never had the goal of galactic savior/ ruler. Not being that anymore works for them. It doesn't work for everyone, not everyone plays that way, I get it. But it works for me. I wish my BH could hunt more, but for the most part, I feel like my PC's got back to being what they were before the Alliance and for me that's good.

[Gamer_Auto]

6 hours ago, Guyverarmor said:

It can be done, I know it. Just have a feeling it's a mix of the devs don't want to and just want to move on...and just not allowed to beyond bare minimum to milk whatever is left.

Guess it's time for tech-minded fans to start on "SWTOR: Offline Version" or "SWTOR: Peer-to-Peer Version".

 

1 hour ago, supertimtaf said:

Anyway, the fun thing is that there was indeed a massive drop in quality around the Kotet expansion, which were *really bad* for story and simply PvE content as a whole

I personally think KotET itself is fine, minus one huge decision near the end of Chapter 8. It's everything afterwards that I start finding problems with (It really should've been Senya, not Vette or Torian, because now the writers can't use the actually interesting characters that I have an actual connection with; which really shines through in this era where Mandalorians are a huge thing and the two Mando Companions (Akavi & Torian) don't have anything to do with it because a player may not have them by the time they get to Spirit of Vengeance | Also, where's SCORPIO? Will there be any retaliation for the death of Acina/Malcom?).

 

2 hours ago, supertimtaf said:

All in all, it's been going downward ever since, and we're reaching levels where swtor is barely above a mobile game when it comes to updates and cash shop pricing ranges. Sucks, but I guess that as long as the dev team doesn't try to argue with their EA overlords for a better future, the current course isn't looking that promising.

The team doesn't have much of a leg to stand on right now, in terms of negotiation power. The Star Wars fandom is at each other's throat so bad that the shows are barely performing, merch is moving like cold molasses, and games not named "Fortnite" or "Jedi: something" or "Lego" are likely gonna suffer for a while.

[Traceguy]

55 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

See I don't like my PC's being the center of the universe, they are not Gods

The Sith Inquisitor story builds you up to feel like a god. And then you have the fun of actually being a member of the Dark Council as you help out on Oricon, Makeb, Ziost, etc. It all gets erased with KOTFE sadly.

 

Edited May 10 by Traceguy

[JakRoanin]

I've never played SI and never will. <shrug>

[Gamer_Auto]

1 minute ago, JakRoanin said:

I've never played SI and never will. <shrug>

You're missing out. It's a great story, especially if you lean into the idea of playing a Palpatine-style character who just wants more power at any cost; even if it means gaslighting a poor naive Jedi girl into unknowingly becoming your dark disciple.

[Traceguy]

4 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

I've never played SI and never will. <shrug>

It's one of my top 3 favorite stories. And Steve Blum voices Andronikos. I wish they would have got Steve Blum voice the male Bounty Hunter, I really like  his voice.

Edited May 10 by Traceguy

[JakRoanin]

I don't like the Ghost Binding crap. To me that's not SW's I know it is in some EU stuff (which this is) but I really hate it. I also never play DS because the real world is way too DS for me so I'm not entertained by being evil. So SI is just not for me. To each their own.

[Pirana]

9 hours ago, Gamer_Auto said:

For being as old as it is, and for not having as much choice as many of us would have liked in it, Vanilla continues to prove itself as peak SWTOR.

Vanilla is what started this snowball and it hasn't stopped rolling yet. lol Just to give you some insight:

* Level cap was 50, there was almost no end game. One Operation in EV and around seven FP's on both factional sides along with the storylines, there wasn't anything else other than hub quests and a few bonus series, that was it.
* Game launches without a group finder, Had to meet on the fleet for something as simple as Flashpoints
* Another Star Wars MMO launches without space
* Vehicles weren't an option until level 25
* Sprint level 15, yes, you had to run sluggishly around until that level, meaning the starting zones were slow, very slow. lol 
* Anytime you loaded into a planet, you were forced to run through the orbital station prior to landing on the planet, couldn't mount up, run only, and without sprint lol
* No Strongholds and daily heroics menu to short cut quick travel and/or fix their bugs when you got stuck
* Speeders on planets, (the mechanized travel spiel droid) had to be opened up by visiting each area, you couldn't click the speeder near the spaceport and travel anywhere.
* QT terminals, you had to click on the ones you wanted to open, couldn't be in the area and it opens automatically
* The inner ring on the fleet where the ship phase doors are located, classes had to enter their specific doors, Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight etc. If you were a Trooper, you couldn't enter the Smuggler phase door for instance
* Bugs: this game has more bugs than a dog in a flea factory, notably at launch, think it's bad now.... lol 

Some of those are qualities of life, but ultimately what it shows, is that this game wasn't ready for release. SWG's contract ended, easy transition.

As mentioned previously, I would go with SoR expansion as the peak, but it certainly wouldn't be vanilla. Vanilla SWTOR is what led to the mass exodus of players and the game going FTP in under a year.

From an optimistic point of view, this game compared to when it launched is night and day. A new player just starting this game out will be busy for a very long time. I hope along with many others that we're wrong about this game and its future, and that it does indeed persevere and grow again. Realistically, that's what we all want.

[JakRoanin]

I hated the story of SoR because it took everything I adore about OG KOTOR and TSL and just said "Psych, all your precious memories, and Revan and Exile crafting, none of it happened!"

[Gamer_Auto]

1 hour ago, Pirana said:

As mentioned previously, I would go with SoR expansion as the peak, but it certainly wouldn't be vanilla.

Speaking from a story point of view, is what I meant; not necessarily "game as it released on day one".

[Toraak]

2 hours ago, Pirana said:

Vanilla is what started this snowball and it hasn't stopped rolling yet. lol Just to give you some insight:

* Level cap was 50, there was almost no end game. One Operation in EV and around seven FP's on both factional sides along with the storylines, there wasn't anything else other than hub quests and a few bonus series, that was it.
* Game launches without a group finder, Had to meet on the fleet for something as simple as Flashpoints
* Another Star Wars MMO launches without space
* Vehicles weren't an option until level 25
* Sprint level 15, yes, you had to run sluggishly around until that level, meaning the starting zones were slow, very slow. lol 
* Anytime you loaded into a planet, you were forced to run through the orbital station prior to landing on the planet, couldn't mount up, run only, and without sprint lol
* No Strongholds and daily heroics menu to short cut quick travel and/or fix their bugs when you got stuck
* Speeders on planets, (the mechanized travel spiel droid) had to be opened up by visiting each area, you couldn't click the speeder near the spaceport and travel anywhere.
* QT terminals, you had to click on the ones you wanted to open, couldn't be in the area and it opens automatically
* The inner ring on the fleet where the ship phase doors are located, classes had to enter their specific doors, Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight etc. If you were a Trooper, you couldn't enter the Smuggler phase door for instance
* Bugs: this game has more bugs than a dog in a flea factory, notably at launch, think it's bad now.... lol 

Some of those are qualities of life, but ultimately what it shows, is that this game wasn't ready for release. SWG's contract ended, easy transition.

As mentioned previously, I would go with SoR expansion as the peak, but it certainly wouldn't be vanilla. Vanilla SWTOR is what led to the mass exodus of players and the game going FTP in under a year.

From an optimistic point of view, this game compared to when it launched is night and day. A new player just starting this game out will be busy for a very long time. I hope along with many others that we're wrong about this game and its future, and that it does indeed persevere and grow again. Realistically, that's what we all want.

I would say 2.x was peak. Once SoR came out even end game content didn't get a NiM Mode for Rav or ToS, and the story for both republic and imperial were basically the same in SoR.

[Pirana]

1 minute ago, Toraak said:

I would say 2.x was peak. Once SoR came out even end game content didn't get a NiM Mode for Rav or ToS, and the story for both republic and imperial were basically the same in SoR.

Which is fair, all opinions are subjective. 

[Pirana]

37 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

Speaking from a story point of view, is what I meant; not necessarily "game as it released on day one".

I would hope so, given that's where the main story originated from. 

[Guyverarmor]

6 hours ago, supertimtaf said:

Fun thing, the man who was lead producer at the time of Kotet/Kotfe, Ben Irving, got silently "moved onto other projects" (meaning he was so bad at his job they didn't want him anymore on swtor). He got moved onto Anthem. You can see how that turned out.
Insane thing to know that no matter what game you touch, you end up ruining it. That's a superpower for sure. 

Anyway, the fun thing is that there was indeed a massive drop in quality around the Kotet expansion, which were *really bad* for story and simply PvE content as a whole (no new raids, no new flashpoints, nothing interesting at release to be fair, on top of the promised chapters of the expansion being delayed three months...), the game suffered greatly for this budget cut and this attempt to "reduce costs while keeping engagement/profit" (basically finding ways to keep you playing/paying without putting much effort into it). This mentality is still going on currently, but with a team the size of 40 people this is not surprising. This is not FF11 levels of bad when it come to small teams, but the drop in quality has been present ever since KOTET arrived and they completely mismanaged the expansion's budget (who puts that much money into a trailer if you can't have a good game behind it ? Well, Bioware it seems)....

All in all, it's been going downward ever since, and we're reaching levels where swtor is barely above a mobile game when it comes to updates and cash shop pricing ranges. Sucks, but I guess that as long as the dev team doesn't try to argue with their EA overlords for a better future, the current course isn't looking that promising.

Oddly enough, the FFXI team just released a slew of changes to come from Besieged being scaled to 99 and being able to finally race/character barber change. Oh, and more or less did a mini-expac called "The Voracious Resurgence" which oddly enough had a good amount of content. And they are on the PS2 era restrictions on about 50% of the areas! Oh, and new Relic/Artifact weapons along with it. FFXIV will be doing a "Vana'Diel" raid series with Dawtrail (a huge expac, cannot wait) with various bosses from XI, one of which will be Dynamis Lord!