Clarification on SWTOR's Development

[Traceguy]

On 6/20/2024 at 11:50 AM, AshleyRuhl said:

Our second scene type is "KOTOR" style. These scenes have voiced lines for the NPCs, but player lines are unvoiced and only appear as dialogue choices. The dialogue choices in these scenes are expanded beyond the 3 choices in a Standard scene, giving the player more response options. The staging and cameras are simplified, which puts less pressure on our cinematic team, and means scenes can potentially be longer/more branchy since they reuse much of the staging setup. This means KOTOR scenes can have MORE conversational depth than if they were built as Standard scenes. We use KOTOR scenes when we have conversational interactions, and we leverage this design to include additional player lines specific to the player's class, romance, and previous choices.

That doesn't explain why our characters are unvoiced. You can have more simplified cameras and actions AND keep the player voiced. If the NPCs can be voiced in the "KOTOR" dialogue, then so can our players.

Edited Tuesday at 01:55 PM by Traceguy

[JakRoanin]

On 6/20/2024 at 12:50 PM, AshleyRuhl said:

.The mix of Standard and KOTOR scenes ensures that we can produce enough story content for the scale of each update, while also not overloading our current narrative team. It's extremely important to me, and the rest of the leadership team, that our content plans fit within our team's scope, and maintain a healthy work/life balance. While I know this is a different style than previous game updates, we are still enthusiastic about building a story that feels emotionally impactful, dynamic, and personal to as many player stories as possible.
 

Okay I've said before that the KOTOR scenes don't bother me when they're in stuff like dailies or side quests, but honestly, the team has really fallen down on choosing where to use them. You have a fully voiced scene of Sa'har telling you to hightail it to Mek'sha then PC Doesn't Speak! No, sorry, not cool.

[felleto]

27 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

Okay I've said before that the KOTOR scenes don't bother me when they're in stuff like dailies or side quests, but honestly, the team has really fallen down on choosing where to use them. You have a fully voiced scene of Sa'har telling you to hightail it to Mek'sha then PC Doesn't Speak! No, sorry, not cool.

Didn't you know that Sa'har is the main protagonist of the story?

[JakRoanin]

10 minutes ago, felleto said:

Didn't you know that Sa'har is the main protagonist of the story?

I know that there are people who don't like the story, but I do enjoy not being the center of everything. The pacing is just off and the integration of the KOTOR scenes is just clunky and off putting.

[xxSHOONYxx]

I have no interest on the story since i did the 1-50 leveling once and i have no interest on the game anymore since it just went into a direction i do not like or care for with a disregard for mmo content since 4.0.
For those that play an mmo for the story, well im glad you got the game you want but this is the result. The business model just doesn't work to keep people playing for so long between story drops that are each time smaller and with worse quality (or so i heard, i haven't cared about the story and space bar when i am forced to do it) and the only budget they have left after story and va is spent in some super grindy and boring content like galactic seasons, pvp seasons, ventures with bad rng mechanics or the godawful "weeklies and heroics needed" gearing that came at 7.0 release. 

And leaving greed from the publisher aside, if someone knows a magic way to make money appear out of thin air so the devs can hire more devs and do all the content they want to do instead of the content they can do you should probably tell them the secret so you get all the va you want.

Edited Tuesday at 04:03 PM by xxSHOONYxx

[DAWUSS]

2 hours ago, felleto said:

Didn't you know that Sa'har is the main protagonist of the story?

That explains all those popcorn-length cutscenes that don't involve the PC.

[Ajalkaar]

On 6/20/2024 at 6:48 PM, KeithKanneg said:

And of course, player feedback is another important factor that plays a part in SWTOR’s development and allows us opportunities to reassess plans or make adjustments.

Is this a joke ? What part of feedbacks are you listening ? What adjusments did you make ?

Please at least try not to lie to your community there's entire section of forums full of feedback being ignored for years.

PvP section is an exemple all thread are talking about Premade and how 8 man premade is destroying PvP and it's been like this since 8 man premade was added (more than a year). Your team didn't even talk about it in their livestream.

So please stop lying to us we're not sutpid be transparent and try to regain a bit of trust from us.

Edited Wednesday at 11:25 PM by Ajalkaar

[Shayddow]

Game improvements and Codex fixing is where I'd like to see effort put.

There are things in the codex that have been broken since 2012. Put in fixes that players who have already done the content can click on something, not just new characters.

Things in the graphics that have also been broken since 2012: Looting something and then seeing a straight line that leads infinitely upwards that you can't loot. Or having loot straight up disappear too fast because you "can't loot during combat".

Content that would allow people who play on less populated servers an alternative to forced-group content for some of the older quests: I.e. an alternative Single-player for the Macro-binocular/ Seeker Droid heroics that appear at the end. An alternative to Dread Fortress/Dread Palace Operation that would allow those of us who have completed Oricon to finish the story.

Because playing thru old content is more fun than sweeping floors on Voss.

 

[Shayddow]

Ya, if player feedback were actually LISTENED to we wouldn't be paying for Quicktravel.

I hate having to run back thru mobs I've already defeated because I can't afford to quicktravel (especially large planets like Voss) or I'd be broke in no time flat.

Dontcha hate it when it costs more to get from the Gormak lands to the town than it does to travel to Voss from the fleet?

[Traceguy]

On 6/26/2024 at 4:32 PM, Ajalkaar said:

Please at least try not to lie to your community there's entire section of forums full of feedback being ignored for years.

100%

When was the last time something in suggestions was picked up, and how often does something get picked up? Plus, if feedback was listened to, rep tokens would have been reverted back to their original conquest value.

Edited Thursday at 11:56 PM by Traceguy

[LJ_Gibbs]

I am glad to be back all (from a little vacation wink-wink) and glad to see you all keeping up the good fight.

[SteveTheCynic]

11 hours ago, Traceguy said:

Plus, if feedback was listened to, rep tokens would have been reverted back to their original conquest value.

Not necessarily.  Listening to feedback does not (and should not) mean slavishly implementing everything that's fed back.  It's quite clear that regardless of the feedback ("we don't like this because X Y Z, so we think it should be reverted"), those X Y Z reasons weren't deemed sufficient to outweigh their reasons for changing it.

Where it's harder to see is the 30-day guildbank thing.  Not that it's a thing, but that it's 30 days rather than a week, or maybe even 2-3 days.

And the best way for them to *show* that they listened is to answer the feedback with explanations as to why they didn't just implement what was suggested.  Those explanations are noteworthy principally for their absence.

[omeru]

This posts were pathetic i wish keith had some management and communication skills

[EricMusco]

Hey folks,

First off, as always thank you for the feedback and discourse in the thread. I wanted to pop back in and cover a few different things that I am seeing as I have been following along with the conversation. In order, communication around KOTOR scenes, how we are using them, and your feedback in this thread. Let’s jump in.

Communication

There are a couple of different points related to communication that I have seen in this thread that I wanted to touch on. The first is just a general point around moderation or silencing discussion. This is mostly me relaying from Jackie (but I know I stated this plenty of times in the past as well), the removal of posts in this thread came entirely from one of three places:

1. People being very unconstructive or downright awful towards each other or staff members. Disagreement is fine, personal insults or threats are not.
2. Discussion of moderation – you all know this. If you talk about moderation action being taken, your post gets removed.
3. And mostly as a knock-on effect to the two above, but as a part of cleaning up quoted conversations or references to one of the offending posts from bullet 1 or 2, sometimes numerous posts can be removed even if they themselves don’t have anything wrong in them, but they are referencing ones that do. This is done to keep the conversation cleaner and on topic.

One thing I did see talked about in this thread was a greater desire that we had “told you in advance it was going to work this way” so I wanted to address that a bit more directly. The reason we didn’t is that it has worked this way in some fashion for a number of game updates now. We have especially used this variety of tools throughout the 7.0 era. Let me be a bit more on the nose with it if I can.

When we go into crit path planning we take a look at the story we want to tell and our capacity to tell it across our disciplines. Note that this in no way just means cinematics. We take everything into account across writing, cinematics, VO budget, world and encounter design, environment and character art, and more. Quite literally every game update has an entirely different balance of well… everything. From KOTOR scenes (the topic of this thread) to how many bosses appear, the rewards you can earn, etc. And as I will cover in the last section of this post, I am not saying this to invalidate any of the feedback you are sharing on KOTOR scenes, that’s all valid! 

All that said I totally understand there was concern about KOTOR scenes used specifically in 7.5 and you feel we were slow to respond.

How and Where - KOTOR Scenes

If you've read the thread, you can see that there are a lot of different (and sometimes opposing) takes on when and if KOTOR scenes make sense, from “never use a KOTOR scene in crit path” to “what was in 7.5 is fine” to “the scenes are fine but only use them this way” or “the scenes are fine but only use them that way”.

That’s where things get tricky. What we are going to do, always, is try to tell the best story possible with all of our tools and resources. This includes everything I listed above, even KOTOR scenes. Sometimes you might disagree with how we use them, and that’s okay, and you can and should voice that (respectfully and constructively) so that we can continue to improve. Which segues nicely into…

Your Feedback and What’s Next

Alright so with some additional context in place (beyond what Keith and Ashley already stated in the beginning), the part that becomes most important to you is what we can do with all of this. Right now, I am going to take all of the feedback we’ve been collecting from this thread and take it back to the team to see what, if anything, we might be able to adjust. Just to hit some of the high nails of things I have seen (not comprehensive) with some general thoughts.

• My character isn’t voiced in KOTOR scenes - Understood on this feedback but this also isn’t a simple change as this is fundamentally how these scenes were designed (without the PC speaking). Still, feedback heard.
• The UI pulls me out of the experience/immersion - This is another one that we’ll discuss as it was definitely a prominent feedback point, but I want to offer a couple of discussion points.
  • The initial inspiration for these (as they were named) was obviously KOTOR and so it goes without saying, but I will point it out anyway. If we change these, there will inevitably be some folks who get upset that it no longer looks that way.
  • Some of that “pulls me out” is a little intentional. Since the experience of KOTOR scenes is different (more dialog, no PC voice, etc) we want it to be pretty clear when you enter one of those scenes that something is different so you aren’t expecting it to be the same. But as your feedback has noted, maybe it’s too strong, or it goes back to the “how and when” of above.

Ok, I know I typed a lot of words as I tend to do in these posts so thank you if you made it this far and as always thank you for your feedback – so keep it coming. I wanted you to know that we’ve already been reading through this thread and having discussions internally, and there are more to come. As always, as soon as we have more info to share on this front we will.

-eric
 

[meddani]

too little too late , also deleting posts that are legit criticism doesn't make you look any better 

[JakRoanin]

My main issue with the KOTOR scenes, is that it's odd that even in the quest giving scenes, the NPC's are fully voiced and it throws me. II don't need movie cutscenes, I would just like to hear my PC. Thank you for your post, @EricMusco.

[VilianSW]

Thank you for popping in, Eric, but it is too little, too late. Wasn't it you who promised us a better communication? Your post should appear here couple of days after 7.5 release at most, not when people were providing feedback - constructive or not - for whole whopping four weeks. This isn't the kind of communication any players deserve, and its quality added to things escalating.

Edited Friday at 04:18 PM by VilianSW

[Crystal_Mind]

11 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

The UI pulls me out of the experience/immersion - This is another one that we’ll discuss as it was definitely a prominent feedback point, but I want to offer a couple of discussion points.[...]

• Some of that “pulls me out” is a little intentional. Since the experience of KOTOR scenes is different (more dialog, no PC voice, etc) we want it to be pretty clear when you enter one of those scenes that something is different so you aren’t expecting it to be the same. But as your feedback has noted, maybe it’s too strong, or it goes back to the “how and when” of above.

 

I feel like (at best) this response indicates a misreading of the feedback. When a player says something "pulls them out of the experience," what is generally indicated is something that is jarring, something that breaks the flow in a noticeable and negative way.

I noticed this strongly when I was playing the main story path for the last patch (Kessan's Landing). I'd play through this wonderful cinematic scene, and then 2 minutes later be confronted by a letterboxed wall of text options... but still in the critical story path! As a playing experience, it was about as pleasant and subtle as tripping over a misaligned flagstone and landing on my face.

And maybe the narrative team has flagged those scenes as 'less important' so they don't need the full cinematic treatment, but shoving that in my face is counterproductive. What's the takeaway supposed to be for me as a player? That the scene is irrelevant (then why is it there)?

[whereisezra]

"One thing I did see talked about in this thread was a greater desire that we had “told you in advance it was going to work this way” so I wanted to address that a bit more directly. The reason we didn’t is that it has worked this way in some fashion for a number of game updates now." What? The reason you didn't address this until now was... because you haven't been addressing it for multiple patches?

[ccooknineofive]

Thanks for giving an update! 

[DAWUSS]

31 minutes ago, VilianSW said:

Thank you for popping in, Eric, but it is too little, too late. Wasn't it you who promised us a better communication? Your post should appear here couple of days after 7.5 release at most, not when people were providing feedback - constructive or not - for whole whopping four weeks. This isn't the kind of communication any players deserve.

Bonus points if he responded to posts every couple of days.

[jaingskiratanuul]

1 hour ago, EricMusco said:

The initial inspiration for these (as they were named) was obviously KOTOR and so it goes without saying, but I will point it out anyway. If we change these, there will inevitably be some folks who get upset that it no longer looks that way.

We have a settings menu and interface editor for Exactly this problem. I'll be honest, you guys are (overall) pretty good about making settings for things. Add one for this. Have it remove the black bars and fill in the missing space behind them. There, everyone wins. You don't have to pay the player VAs more, you don't have to make big cinematic shots, and we get to immerse ourselves a little bit more, should we so choose.

[BulbulusTheGreat]

On 6/20/2024 at 8:26 PM, Xerekfell said:

Why is the dev team's primary focus on story content and not bringing actual content that keep people engaged in your game longer? SWTOR has always had a very strong and unique combat system that imo is far superior than many mmos out there.  Why have you guys not capitalized on that? You've neglected pvp for at least 8 years and never really gave it content other than cheap dollar store reskins of items and mounts.  Let's face the facts here, SWTOR story content has dramatically decreased in value and creativity since KOTFE. In KOTFE, the story team was so lazy and didn't even make different story arcs for non-Force Sensitives.  Keith, you still have a sizable hardcore fanbase that wants this game to be good, please stop focusing on story and give us actual content. We don't care about Lane Vizla or the "Inspired Section" on the CM. All we want is content, just give us it lmao.  

saying KOTFE and anything after is bad is an opinion not a fact, they're not going to shift everything just based on some peoples opinions i for once LOVED the DLC's, and only thing im sad about is that we don't get KOTFE/ET quality stories anymore, they're not as quality or as long as before and thats the issue here, i couldn't care less about pvp, so i don't see how that keeps us all engaged? if they did what you want i'd simply leave forever and i know at least half (if not more) of the players would do exactly the same, SWTOR was always a story focused MMO and thats its main strenght, pvp is fine but its not games bread and butter and never will be.

Don't get me wrong, game has A LOOOOOOOOT of issues, some i covered some i didn't, its full of bugs and so on, but to say that making pvp games main focus will engage people is just wrong, we're talking about SWTOR not league of legends here.

Edited Friday at 05:13 PM by BulbulusTheGreat

[Enomars]

1 hour ago, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

First off, as always thank you for the feedback and discourse in the thread. ...........

Ok, I know I typed a lot of words as I tend to do in these posts so thank you if you made it this far and as always thank you for your feedback – so keep it coming. I wanted you to know that we’ve already been reading through this thread and having discussions internally, and there are more to come. As always, as soon as we have more info to share on this front we will.

-eric
 

Thank you all so much for maintaining and developing a Star Wars game. And in my opinion the best Star Wars game available! @EricMusco

You said to keep the feedback coming.  While this has nothing to do with the story's release it pertains to developmental challenges.

My absolute favorite character I play as a sage and I picked Shadow as my second. I gave this a lot of meditation and thought. I wanted Stealth, Tank, Healing, Melee, Ranged all on one toon. This is the only way to achieve this combination. I have loved using this for a long time.  I can also volunteer for any role on any content. 

The absolute best thing you all have added to this game in recent years is the loadout system. Whoever came up with this needs a raise seriously! 

I need a respec token. NAME YOUR PRICE and we will pay it. Because this is so valuable,  make it twice the price of a Master Datacron. Seriously, even if players whine… they will buy it. I love having all these options but just like any Star Wars fan, I want more.  I wanted to swap over to Guardian for a bit and I did this. So I pulled a character out from years ago and started playing her.  I want to swap over to Watchman for a bit.  So I bought a token and started using Watchman in operations.  Now I am dabbling in Combat for PVP and having so much fun… but he is not my main character.  I need to be able to swap, and possibly more than once: among Sentinel, Sage, Guardian and Shadow (and/or the dark side variants.)  and the tech classes too of course.


If people want to change to the “meta” or “the flavor of the week” or for a bad choice or for just trying new things out; we need a respect token.  Something to remove any and all references to choices we made the first time we had the “Training and Skills” or “Training in the Force”.  Even if it means we MUST keep our first spec no matter what. ( I mean, of course, my main will always and forever be a Telekinetic Sage no matter how hard we are nerfed.)

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. I was going to go on about how I almost quit the game when I first started the game on sentinel but I will just stop here.

May the Force be with you.

-Eno

[phalczen]

1 hour ago, EricMusco said:

• The UI pulls me out of the experience/immersion - This is another one that we’ll discuss as it was definitely a prominent feedback point, but I want to offer a couple of discussion points.
  • The initial inspiration for these (as they were named) was obviously KOTOR and so it goes without saying, but I will point it out anyway. If we change these, there will inevitably be some folks who get upset that it no longer looks that way.
  • Some of that “pulls me out” is a little intentional. Since the experience of KOTOR scenes is different (more dialog, no PC voice, etc) we want it to be pretty clear when you enter one of those scenes that something is different so you aren’t expecting it to be the same. But as your feedback has noted, maybe it’s too strong, or it goes back to the “how and when” of above.

-eric
 

I have many thoughts, but I did want to address these two points.

First, I don't think anyone chooses to stick with this game primarily because those style cutscenes evokes nostalgia of KOTOR.  Logically, if the vast majority of players would, in a resource-rich scenario, prefer fully voiced cutscenes over those style cutscenes, the number of folks angry and upset that they have more scenes fully voiced, or even just a more immersive UI, seems like an awfully small minority.  There may be a much larger percentage of people who like having more choice in possible responses, or want more content if it comes at the expense of full voice acting.  However, using KOTOR-nostalgia as an excuse for not making any improvements to the KOTOR-inspired cutscene system seems ill-advised.

Second, I do not recall any 7.5-related KOTOR-style cutscenes that had more than 5 options.  How feasible would it be to have those scenes unvoiced by player character VAs, but full screen (no blackbars) and the requisite number of options on the conversation wheel as in traditional/OG cutscenes?  Is it even possible to add more choices on those wheels?  My guess is that its not possible to have more than 3 answers per wheel, but perhaps I'm wrong.