Clarification on SWTOR's Development

[OldVengeance]

OK, so I obviously can't really blame the team for reacting the way they did to changing circumstances. If they simply do not have the manpower and the resources to do updates any differently, then it's unreasonable to put the devs through unhealthy crunches to make up for it.

But I'd be lying if I said this wasn't very disheartening to hear. The ratio of "silent protagonist" to "voiced protagonist" in update 7.5 was not appealing. I do not enjoy the kotor style conversations. I feel like it disconnected me from my character and my experience. I also hate that the player character's dialogue does not appear in the chat box, so I can't look back on our conversation. It absolutely makes the game LESS emotionally engaging.

Transitioning to a mostly silent protagonist is going to be a very painful one for the game, because a voiced protagonist was once the major draws of the game. And so far, the Kotor style dialogue have not felt especially unique to my character yet. Hopefully that can change in the future.

I've played all the latest updates with my Consular, but I don't remember any lines that felt like they made my experience more accurate or specific. There were no unique references to my place on the Jedi Council or my romance or my previous decisions, or my history with the Children of the Emperor. At least none that took advantage of having more possible dialogue choices. It also doesn't help that the game doesn't let you know which dialogue options advance the conversations and which ones are just asking for extra information.

Edited June 22 by OldVengeance

[supertimtaf]

7 hours ago, Vorn said:

I am finding it difficult to get excited about a dev post that is mostly about styles of cinematics that I maybe go through once and then space bar the rest of the time, at least since SoR when the story stopped being class specific.  I would much more like to hear from the people developing flashpoints and operations who are aligning their work with the ongoing story.  What is the plan for more engaging group content?

Sadly I don't think that these people made the move to Broadsword, or if they did, they probably did not stick around 😕 The timing sadly fits with that result.

[supertimtaf]

2 hours ago, Jdast said:

We already see SWTOR doing that with a lot of NPCs not speaking Basic, which I presume is even cheaper than AI

The "alien voicelines" have been already prerecorded in a batch since the game's release. They have a massive stock of these, and as such do not need to record anything, just go in the dialogue editor, and link the already existing audio asset to the text line. This is beyond "cheaper", this is "no cost at all". The fact that this is becoming a norm that even I couldn't help but notice also says a lot on the team's budget, which is probably much lower than one could imagine.

 

Right now, I am working on a game that needs to be fully voice-acted, and while the cost of French VA isn't cheap, it's definitely not something that is a bigger strain on our finances than everything else. Marketing is still the biggest culprit in our lowering budget :')

Idk how much you guys are paying Troy Baker for six lines in a patch but I doubt that he ,or famous others that we haven't heard in a bit, are the ones ruining the studio. 

My overall guess is that swtor is down to a indie game budget, which is still good enough when you have the will of an indie team but probably not here when the people seem to still have outdated work mentality from their time at EA. One way to start to change that would be to do what any other indie game does : talk to the community, expose the challenges ahead, talk about the upcoming focus on some pieces of content, on how to help the team, and basically develop alongside the players rather than pushing against them with all your strength, which is mentally exhausting and completely not what any successfull MMO right now is doing.

[Wriwnas]

I am more than willing to (pre)pay for an expansion that offers a new well designed ops.

This is an MMO! In case you forgot, the second letter stands for Multiplayer!

You keep loosing raiders because pvp is stale and pve content is old and done a trillion times.

I've stuck around since launch but I'm just too old for this Sith. 

I appreciate the effort, I LOVE this game and it is thanks to you all, but yea... 

We need a well designed new ops in SM, VM, MM at least for 8 player groups (16 are unplayble...).

There is a big player fanbase of pvers and pvpers that just come and go, or left forever because there is no real MMO content. The rest is nice and all but it is not the main course.  

 

[Trlance]

10 hours ago, OldVengeance said:

I also hate that the player character's dialogue does not appear in the chat box, so I can't look back on our conversation. It absolutely makes the game LESS emotionally engaging.

Because there is bug what is already for 3 or more weeks. Now when i play ANY cutscene at any time there is no dialogue on any chat (general and other). I reported this as a bug twice already, i got two responses from devs too. They said this will take time and it will be fixed don't know when ..

For 10 years i had all conversations from cutscenes on chat. I never used subtitutes before.

~ Tsukito, Alliance Commander

Edited June 22 by Trlance

[Cawyden]

Adding my view as well...

 

Kotor conversation

I don't like them but I will say if we can't have full voiced quests anymore than at least keep our character and recurring characters voiced. I don't need any side quest or any NPC that only appears once (or in one story update) voiced. But please get rid of these black bars - do something else please. And interactions with recurring characters shouldn't be in this style.

Of course it would be easier for you if the player character was not voiced anymore. And there are games that do this. But right from the start not in the middle. I am attached to my characters - not just the look but also the voice. And I don't think I am the only one who feels this way.

 

Cutscenes

If these are so expensive, try to keep them more simple? I don't think we need fancy cutscenes for everything but isn't there a middle ground between awesome cinematic and just our character standing frozen like in the kotor conversation style? 

Story

I keep replaying the class stories because to me they are superior to anything that follows. But that gets repetitive too at some point. If there is nothing in the later story that catches my attention there is no incentive to play the story further. The later story certainly isn't - my only reason to play further currently are for companion reunions and LIs that aren't available before (like Theron, Arcann, hopefully Rass/Arn etc.). That being said - I rather have you focussing on the existing companions/LIs than introducing completely new ones. I am always for new options but with this lack of resources I rather have them spent to evolve what we currently have. 

The current storyline needs to end or at least to get some more interesting and meaningful developments. I rather have an expansion once a year with a story (ideally with start - finish) that I would also pay for compared to the mostly meaningless story crumbs we have been given the past years. And please put a stop to Malgus - let us join him for once or let us put him to final rest but this chase and catch is tiresome.

 

Communication

Please improve this - like changing something so major as the Imperial Agent male VA and not announcing it before is really unprofessional in my opinion. Did you think no one would notice? It just looks bad. Whatever led to this - why not announce the new VA and thank the old VA for his incredible work? 

[hajobavaria]

If the story includes some missions that are not important to the main story arc at all, I would agree that the KOTOR style is a good solution to save resources. However like in the recent game update 7.5 its just TOO much KOTOR style and it also includes scenes that should be voiced because its related to the main storyline. I know its very expensive to build normal cinematic scenes and pay 48 voiceactors for every single character, but its starting to have a negative impact on the story. 

This should be the solution:

1. Make people pay for new story again OR release a full expansion after like 2 years where players have to pay for it anyway. making people pay for the story in order for you guys to bring us more cinematic scenes/longer story then thats a fully acceptable price we are willing to pay. 

2. Cut the blaster classes from the new story. 90% of the players are playing the enw story with force chars anyway because its better anyway. And since force classes are better for story anyway thats a acceptable price too in order for us to get longer cinematic scenes/story. 

Anyway, I think using KOTOR style in some scenes is ok, but its getting too much. Please make the move, make people pay for new story again and/or cut half of the classes so you can safe 50% of voice actors, which is a lot of money. Thats two things and players are ok with to get longer story. 

- Sincerely, hajobavaria

[Jdast]

6 hours ago, hajobavaria said:

1. Make people pay for new story again OR release a full expansion after like 2 years where players have to pay for it anyway. making people pay for the story in order for you guys to bring us more cinematic scenes/longer story then thats a fully acceptable price we are willing to pay. 

2. Cut the blaster classes from the new story. 90% of the players are playing the enw story with force chars anyway because its better anyway. And since force classes are better for story anyway thats a acceptable price too in order for us to get longer cinematic scenes/story. 

So strongly disagree.

With respect to Point #1: I'm not going to pay more than my subscription fee for a 2 hour story (assuming I don't space bar and play both Imp / Rep and both Dark vs Light) update.

With respect to an expansion, if other players are like me and take breaks subscribing during content droughts, I highly doubt SWTOR can survive 2 years to produce such an expansion without a more consistent revenue stream.

With respect to Point #2: Saying that 90% of players are Force users is a very, very bold assumption -- one that I see no anecdotal, much less empirical data driven evidence for. If anything, since the release of The Mandalorian, I have seen a proliferation of Non-Force users.

And saying that the new story is better for Force users is entirely a subjective opinion, one with which I disagree.

I would hate to be Jackie and have to announce to the SWTOR community that Broadsword was casting aside 50% of the classes.

Dasty

Edited June 22 by Jdast
Stupid typos!

[fatsi]

Well at least get rid of those black bars, and make cover the options in that blue outline. 

Also, no one asked for remaking of all those origin planet scenes, but you all did that anyway.

We don't need a "novel cinematic experience". Why don't you just make those scenes the good old way before you updated them.

KOTOR style cutscenes in the middle of a cinematically delivered experience just ruins it. It's breaking story immersion. It is better if you don't do that whole sequence to begin with. Shorter, but better quality story...

[supertimtaf]

1 hour ago, Jdast said:

With respect to Point #1: I'm not going to pay more than my subscription fee for a 2 hour story (assuming I don't space bar and play both Imp / Rep and both Dark vs Light) update.

With respect to an expansion, if other players are like me and take breaks subscribing during content droughts, I highly doubt SWTOR can survive 2 years to produce such an expansion without a more consistent revenue stream.

This is the issue yeah, we're at that point where we know that the story will not get better unless we pay for it, but we also know that we will not wait a year without content.

If swtor doesn't manage to get more fundings from their current publisher (or from a new one ), there is no way for them to get out of that situation.

(Also wow you're back too ! Been a while buddy)

Edited June 22 by supertimtaf

[DAWUSS]

2 hours ago, Jdast said:

With respect to Point #2: Saying that 90% of players are Force users is a very, very bold assumption -- one that I see no anecdotal, much less emprical data driven evidence for. If anything, since the release of The Mandalorian, I have seen a proliferation of Non-Force users.

And saying that the new story is better for Force users is entirely a subjective opinion, one with which I disagree.

I would hate to be Jackie and have to announce to the SWTOR community that Broadsword was casting aside 50% of the classes.

Pretty much everything past Makeb is just one storyline and it's more or less tailored to 1 character class, maybe 2. They were heavily Force-centric (Dread Masters, Revan, Zakuul, Malgus...), too.

[supertimtaf]

1 minute ago, DAWUSS said:

Pretty much everything past Makeb is just one storyline and it's more or less tailored to 1 character class, maybe 2. They were heavily Force-centric (Dread Masters, Revan, Zakuul, Malgus...), too.

Agreed. Makeb felt very imperial agent focused, shadow of revan did mostly fit with anything, but Zakuul and everything Alliance is 100% force-centric.

But the storyline being Force-Centric doesn't mean that the playerbase is mostly jedis or sith. Even from a meta point of view atm, half of the force user class are garbage and see less play than the rest. Story being ForceUser centric doesn't mean that the playerbase is playing only this. Else we wouldn't have had that many complaints about 4.0 being unfit for bounty hunters, smugglers and the likes.

[LtGeneralGezlin]

7 hours ago, hajobavaria said:

2. Cut the blaster classes from the new story. 90% of the players are playing the enw story with force chars anyway because its better anyway. And since force classes are better for story anyway thats a acceptable price too in order for us to get longer cinematic scenes/story.

You were making a good point... until this.

There is no way that they'd just cut half the classes, just because "the story is better for force classes". I take my Smuggler through all the new story content, and it works for me (Apart from the KotOR Style dialogue stuff). Pretty sure Broadsword would lose a good chunk of the playerbase if this happened.

Saying that the new content only works with Force Classes, or that the story is better for Force Classes is something I've been hearing for years, and just don't get.

[cannibithobbal]

1 hour ago, LtGeneralGezlin said:

You were making a good point... until this.

There is no way that they'd just cut half the classes, just because "the story is better for force classes". I take my Smuggler through all the new story content, and it works for me (Apart from the KotOR Style dialogue stuff). Pretty sure Broadsword would lose a good chunk of the playerbase if this happened.

Saying that the new content only works with Force Classes, or that the story is better for Force Classes is something I've been hearing for years, and just don't get.

Totally agreed.  I think KotFE/KotET specifically definitely had an air of "tailored to force users", especially with a couple moments that were downright cringe on gun users, but even in spite of that playing through was 95% totally fine on a gun user, I played my agent all the way through and (other than the aforementioned cringe moments 😅) loved it as much as I did on my knight and consular.

Everything pre and post KotFE/KotET is entirely playable by literally any class, and people DO play it on literally all classes, the majority of the playerbase are not playing force users haha

Thankfully, I think it's fair to say the devs know this and will never cut half the classes, it's just not going to happen. 😅

[supertimtaf]

33 minutes ago, cannibithobbal said:

Thankfully, I think it's fair to say the devs know this and will never cut half the classes, it's just not going to happen. 😅

Nah, if that happens they'll just cut content as a whole because at the moment content is made for all classes. As good or bad as it is, the Heta/Malgus story fits with all classes fairly well.

[DanteYoda]

When will they make the Jawa class?

 

At least these devs are trying.. Lucky they aren't Redfalls devs to be honest..

Edited June 23 by DanteYoda

[hajobavaria]

10 hours ago, LtGeneralGezlin said:

You were making a good point... until this.

There is no way that they'd just cut half the classes, just because "the story is better for force classes". I take my Smuggler through all the new story content, and it works for me (Apart from the KotOR Style dialogue stuff). Pretty sure Broadsword would lose a good chunk of the playerbase if this happened.

Saying that the new content only works with Force Classes, or that the story is better for Force Classes is something I've been hearing for years, and just don't get.

Thats a fair point, but to actually release longer/better story and more cinematic scenes, they have to fix the issue they have with voicing 48 different characters. Thats extremely expensive. 

Another possible way could be to keep all the classes but cut half of the voice actors. Either have 2 male persons voing all male classes rep/imp and 2 female persons voicing all classes imp/rep OR just use 1 voice actor for two similar classes like warrior and inquisitor instead of two. Cutting voice actors could save TONS of money in order for us to get longer/better storylines. 

But is that an acceptable price? 

[Cawyden]

1 hour ago, hajobavaria said:

Thats a fair point, but to actually release longer/better story and more cinematic scenes, they have to fix the issue they have with voicing 48 different characters. Thats extremely expensive. 

Another possible way could be to keep all the classes but cut half of the voice actors. Either have 2 male persons voing all male classes rep/imp and 2 female persons voicing all classes imp/rep OR just use 1 voice actor for two similar classes like warrior and inquisitor instead of two. Cutting voice actors could save TONS of money in order for us to get longer/better storylines. 

But is that an acceptable price? 

I can only speak for myself of course - but if they would do that I would stop playing. 

I only play for the story - yes, I know it is a MMORPG - but right from the start they had the class storys that can be played solo, this was never a pre-requisite for most of the story content (aside the stuff inside flashpoints and Operations of course). 

I am currently replaying Makeb - not because I like the story that much (although it isn't bad) but just because I do hear at least some snippets of voice acting from my otherwise very silent companion and LI there. So basically I am forcing myself through story parts to finally reach the next segment with a nice story or voiced content for characters that I like. 

For me voice acting in this game - especially for my player characters and the NPCs I care about (like companions and LI but other recurring NPCs as well), is very important.

As I said before - if that is too expensive then they could reduce it for side content/quests without too much impact I think. But not like you suggested and what would that help? You think if 1 person speaks two classes it is less expensive than 2 persons speaking one class? I can imagine that some VAs might have higher rates but isn't there some kind of union/standard price? Of course, we don't know details or their contracts with EA but I would assume that wouldn't help that much. 

Of course it is possible that VAs aren't available anymore - but in this case I would hope/expect an explanation/statement and then I can see myself accepting a new VA (although I suppose it depends on the voice). But not for the sake of "we need to save money and cut most of the known voice actors or voiced lines". This game has a subscription going and cartel market sales and this is still not enough? Of course they want to milk this product and get as much as money from it as possible but sorry, some investment is required to keep a game going. They do have the big advantage because it is Star Wars. And still I would even pay for an expansion - if it is something worthwile at least (-> for me personally and I know this would be different for others it is a nice story update with meaningful development and with companion / LI interaction and with some specific lines for classes/companions as this would add the most replayability for me). 

I would really like to know if voice over is that expensive. Yes - there are lot of voice actors that would be required for new content. But how many lines and hours are we really talking about? Is that really going to take most of the budget? 

[supertimtaf]

I like that people are saying to reduce voice acting on side content but we didn't even got voice acting on whatever little side content we got this time. It's been happening for a while.

 

I don't think they can cut down on costs anymore than that because there's not much side content in the first place. :')

[eabevella]

On 6/22/2024 at 11:22 PM, hajobavaria said:

2. Cut the blaster classes from the new story. 90% of the players are playing the enw story with force chars anyway because its better anyway. And since force classes are better for story anyway thats a acceptable price too in order for us to get longer cinematic scenes/story.

How much did you pay the devs to get the statistic data? 90% is a bit specific lol

[meddani]

On 6/21/2024 at 2:02 PM, toomanyluigis said:

....

dude look up the date of the posts and when they actually implemented this stuff lol

[meddani]

On 6/22/2024 at 12:50 AM, varietasplus said:

Finally, upon 7.0, gradual class balance was promised, not once have we seen anything remotely reminescent of a class balance.

you didn't like how the castrated 2 out of 3 mara speccs? there's a reason you don't see them in pvp (or barely) anymore. or you don't like how snipers can root/slow you forever while having the option to delete 50%+ of your health with one GCD? blasphemy! 😃

[Rekar]

My only advice is do better. I understand the way of doing business has changed. DO NOT take a page from the house of mouse book and blame the fans. It will only end badly for you.  

[TalLura]

As a particly deaf player I don't mind the kotor dialogue. But that's only Beacuse i play game with voice set to max volume and all other sounds in game off, so I'm used to the quiet. And it took somone pointing out our chsr not being voice acted in newest expansion for me to register it. 

 

What I don't get is why can't they just do more kotor style fixed camera but voice act it with the normal 3 choices etc. I get fancy cinematic is great and all but if it's too resource heavy just simply do the voice acting but at static or slow pan camera like base game had in some the early planet mission 

 

 

[wwefarming]

Il y a 1 heure, eabevella a dit :

You raised a good point. Now that "combat styles" are not restricted to "origin stories" other than Force vs Tech, why can't we have new combat styles? It would certainly bring a new air and something people would love if done right.

IIRC when they announced 7.0, Charles Boyd implied if not straight up said that the fact combat styles weren't tied to class/origin stories anymore would allow them to possibly add new CS in the future. But since he doesn't work there anymore, we'll never know if he had an idea of new CS already or not.

But anyway yeah I agree this would be a breath of fresh air for the game if done right. Plus with some marketing (But that's on EA for this part I assume?) it could bring a good hype for current players while also bringing former and new players who are curious to see what's this new combat style(s) is all about.