Jump to content

How does our feedback work


Icykill_

Recommended Posts

Mouse over you forum name. You're # 594466.

 

You know though, I wouldn't play the "forum number" game with Keith - he up till now worked on the server side I believe and had little reason to create an account here - he likely made it once he got the promotion (hell, he is still figuring out the PM situation).

 

While for those of us who have been here a while it may seem bush league, keep in mind that people can read the forums without signing in, and if he never had a need before, he could still browse.

 

He just never had a development reason to create an account before now, and maybe that was even mandated by the previous producer that they go through certain people only and avoid direct contact with us (frankly, I wouldn't be surprised of this given how little bioware communicated prior to Keith getting the job).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 495
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

One thing I will say that sucks though...

 

So far, my questions zeroing in on the story appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

 

I'd be fine with that in a way if I was just a lone voice in the wilderness, but its pretty apparent all over the forum that I am not alone in this, and some sort of official response would be nice, so that we can either be hopeful for the future, or at least know we're gonna have to bite down and grin and bear it for a while...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know though, I wouldn't play the "forum number" game with Keith - he up till now worked on the server side I believe and had little reason to create an account here - he likely made it once he got the promotion (hell, he is still figuring out the PM situation).

 

While for those of us who have been here a while it may seem bush league, keep in mind that people can read the forums without signing in, and if he never had a need before, he could still browse.

 

He just never had a development reason to create an account before now, and maybe that was even mandated by the previous producer that they go through certain people only and avoid direct contact with us (frankly, I wouldn't be surprised of this given how little bioware communicated prior to Keith getting the job).

I just told him where to find the number...that's it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe not directly, but so it's clear:

 

 

Where along the journey is the point of no return. Is it before the bus starts moving, before the bus approaches the corner, before the cliff, as you drive go off the cliff or when you crash?

Timing is everything, but sometimes it will depend on implementation and whether we can truly do an about face or simply have to go forward and plan/prepare for changes along the way. Galactic Command is a perfect example. It was so integral to everything with Knights of the Eternal Throne (KOTET), that we were not in a position to make the changes everyone requested. We had to go forward or delay KOTET an unknown number of months. That wasn't possible, and as a result, we have made GC changes with every patch since that time.

 

Even though it's not perfect, it is no longer the primary means of gearing up, but the changes we implemented allow every level 70 character to obtain BiS gear without doing Operations. I disagree with the notion we should rip it out now, but I do agree we can still improve upon it and will continue to do so.

 

 

---Keith [/color]

 

 

 

For that I thank you and so does some of my guild members. They are not operation players nor pvp players but this lets them get the gear in case they do want to try operations and do the master settings on uprising and story.

 

 

Only thing would be nice is that when you get a piece of gear you could send it to your alt without having to remove the mods and doing so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that's Legacy wide now? So if I claim them all from my main toons stash, every toon I have has access to them in the currency tab?

 

There is a 3,000 limit (legacy-wide) on holding them. You'd want to check how many are in the inventory (every character shows the legacy-wide number) already and leave the remaining (after 3,000) in the Command Stashes of various characters. The Tokens in Command Stashes are independent of each other and have no limit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any of the Devs-

 

Could any of the devs reading this please explain to me why you can't activate superior command boost while in a PvP match. Who does this serve besides the grind and the cartel market? And it wasn't this way at first. So i don't understand the change.

 

-Why-

 

It's kinda frustrating if you figure out how much of your boost is spent in the PvP match vs time spent in the que. Ill tell you who's winning. It's the Cartel Market

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on the comments on how to deliver feedback, I would love to make it easier for me to assemble my raid team and bring my friends into other types of content. As in, I have my groups of friends I like to play with, spread across several guilds and both factions, I would love some type of system that makes it easier for me to find them to invite them to play flashpoints, warzones and everything else with me without having to relog all different characters and scream in discord.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on the comments on how to deliver feedback, I would love to make it easier for me to assemble my raid team and bring my friends into other types of content. As in, I have my groups of friends I like to play with, spread across several guilds and both factions, I would love some type of system that makes it easier for me to find them to invite them to play flashpoints, warzones and everything else with me without having to relog all different characters and scream in discord.

 

I don't particularly care for group content but I will do it when invited. I can see where this suggestion would be helpful. Something like a toggle on the friendlist would be nice. Friends who mutually flip the toggle would be able to invite each other with few restrictions and be able to summon each other to locations, maybe for a small fee. It would be especially nice if it worked in chapters and across faction in KOTFE and KOTET instances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on the comments on how to deliver feedback, I would love to make it easier for me to assemble my raid team and bring my friends into other types of content. As in, I have my groups of friends I like to play with, spread across several guilds and both factions, I would love some type of system that makes it easier for me to find them to invite them to play flashpoints, warzones and everything else with me without having to relog all different characters and scream in discord.

 

Just make your own chat channel bro. That's how people do it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know though, I wouldn't play the "forum number" game with Keith - he up till now worked on the server side I believe and had little reason to create an account here - he likely made it once he got the promotion (hell, he is still figuring out the PM situation).

 

I agree forum number does not matter for a gold poster.... but Keith was I believe director of live services (making him Erics's boss) BEFORE he took the producer role... so he has been around for some time, close to the player facing side of operations. And his forum number is consistent with this. That said... Erics old boss (Grant McDaniel) rarely ever directly posted and interacted with players in the forum or anywhere else that I could see.

 

Note: I'm not saying Keith was in a direct position to force changes players wanted to see from testing..... but he was very definitely present and an influencer behind the scenes during the run-up to 4.x and 5.x.

 

What looks to be different this time around (still need more time to see)... is that the studio appears to have made a conscious effort to turn the page in a number of ways... beginning with more communications and transparency. If they can implement and deploy fairly closely to what they are disclosing... then this game will be fine for most players.

 

KoTFE and KoTET got a lot of hate AND acceptance from the broader player base. I think a lot of the expressed hate was a combination of pent-up frustrations looking for things to discharge on, particularly over the narrow set of content released in the last two expacs which did nothing to satisfy PvPers and OPs raiders. As for story... I expect they will keep taking a different direction in story with each expac (which is really what they have done since launch in one way or the other). Not saying that is the right move.. just observing the nature of the studio to experiment and test new waters in MMO approach... which for classic veteran MMO players probably ruffles a lot of feathers. In the MMO space, Bioware still owns story vs their competitors in my view... though different players have different wants for story... and Biowares curse here is that they laid out an epic multi-class story arc in the vanilla release.... but they also had years and hundreds of millions of dollars to set all that up too... which is not realistic in my view for future expansions... particularly when this studio does yearly expacs.. rather then once every 2 to 3 years.

Edited by Andryah
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wellll...I was just going to sit back and read all the discourse, but both Eric and Charles committed me to posting tonight about feedback, so with it getting late here in Texas, I figured OK, stop reading and start typing.

 

Since Eric already explained where we get feedback and essentially how we use it, let me provide some perspective about what I look for and what's important to me.

 

• Specific ideas about gameplay improvements

• Ideas on how we can enhance existing game features

• Conversations about Gearing, Class Balance

• Details about likes and dislikes about an area or type of content

• How we can improve communication and provide better insight

• Kudos for the team when we do something right

• Constructive criticism when we don't do things right. Note I tend to read everything, while disregarding rants or dumping on the dev team as I don't find it helpful

• Virtually all of the comments in our discussion threads

 

--Keith-

 

Hopefully this is how things will work in the future, this is surely not how things worked in the past. In my experience the only time things change when there is major backlash. Other than that feedback gets ignored. GC is one of these examples. Only after losing major subs and huge backlash anything changed, and it is still messed up (though much better than where we started). I like constructive criticism, but for it to work, there needs to be an open dialogue and changes, and I do not see much of that. The only time this happened was in the end of 2.0 era. Beside that it was ignore, major backlash, cave in.

 

The problem for me is something like class balance, the overwhelming feedback is ignored. You guys mentioned you are focusing on only one facet of one area in damage, while ignoring everything else. You may get around to it eventually, but timing is key. It is not a 6 month exercise. In fact, most other large MMO and action RPGs do a full class balance every 3-4 month, and it is already 8 month late... Even if things will be okay in 6 month, many players (including me) are not going to wait around.

 

The communication is nice, but so far there is no substance. The class balance changes are late and underwhelming. GC is still a mess (especially if you primarily PvP). Content is at a snail pace. Again, there might be a change going forward, but so far the only change is you guys posting more on the forums about things that will happen in month.

 

Good luck. Luck favors those who take action.

Edited by Ottoattack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems to me the main source of contention seems to be a clash of people who like in-depth stories, and people who like to how to put this... "Concentrate on the killing. :p Personally, since this is the first (and likely only MMO I will ever play, I am a story person. That said, is it really so hard to get along? Right now, they want to focus on people who want to concentrate on combat. It's good to take turns. However many thousands of people play this game nobody plays it like anyone else. Frankly, the very idea that the people in charge should even attempt to give everyone exactly what they want is ludicrous!

 

What I love about the game, the freedom to play as I choose to play! What I dislike: Well, the 'two players needed' to get certain datacrons is awful! The CXP being so slow, when you can get to MAX level before chapter 1 is done, is awful too. I'm still on my class stories, so I am new. Personally, I'd like to say how admirable the Staff has been considering the amount of vitriol tossed around on the I-Net so keep up the good work!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem is a desperation that was built up in the last two years. When people feel like they are being heard and their needs met, they will be less likely to instantly jump to do battle with opposing thoughts. Right now some people are caught in the "there can only be one" mentality and if they think that they are going to try their hardest to be the one.

 

Given time, most will likely calm down and the people who are just not mature enough to share will be obvious. Things will likely even out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on the comments on how to deliver feedback, I would love to make it easier for me to assemble my raid team and bring my friends into other types of content. As in, I have my groups of friends I like to play with, spread across several guilds and both factions, I would love some type of system that makes it easier for me to find them to invite them to play flashpoints, warzones and everything else with me without having to relog all different characters and scream in discord.

 

LFG tools are different from GF and can have additional helpful features for grouping with friends and looking for custom group compositions. They also allow you to list your requirements one time like on GTN (but with custom text) instead of spamming Chat channels. Additionally, you can be anywhere in the game doing anything while waiting for the group to form; no need to wait in a specific location like fleet. Guild Wars (from 2006) and Guild Wars 2 have such features.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LFG tools are different from GF and can have additional helpful features for grouping with friends and looking for custom group compositions. They also allow you to list your requirements one time like on GTN (but with custom text) instead of spamming Chat channels. Additionally, you can be anywhere in the game doing anything while waiting for the group to form; no need to wait in a specific location like fleet. Guild Wars (from 2006) and Guild Wars 2 have such features.

 

I have to say regardless of what people think of GW2 as a game, in terms of features and devs commitment, it is great. SWTOR devs could learn a thing or two from GW2.

Edited by Ottoattack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems to me the main source of contention seems to be a clash of people who like in-depth stories, and people who like to how to put this... "Concentrate on the killing. :p Personally, since this is the first (and likely only MMO I will ever play, I am a story person. That said, is it really so hard to get along? Right now, they want to focus on people who want to concentrate on combat. It's good to take turns. However many thousands of people play this game nobody plays it like anyone else. Frankly, the very idea that the people in charge should even attempt to give everyone exactly what they want is ludicrous!

 

Unfortunately, yes, I think it really is hard to get along. Think of developing SWtOR as being like feeding a pack of starving dogs. There is only enough kibble for one dog to get a full belly and the pack knows that. When they see that bowl of kibble coming they will fight to get what they can. The bigger, stronger dogs will get most of the food, but not enough to be satisfied, and the smaller, weaker dogs will be lucky to get any food at all. Now if there was enough kibble for all dogs to get a decent meal, then you could ask for them to sit pretty and wait their turn.

 

One thing I think is important when giving feedback is being clear and concise. I have seen a lot of people giving feedback using very vague terms. Like people saying they want PvE content when what they really mean is group content. Or saying group content when what they really mean is classic operations. KotET provided quite a bit of PvE group content at launch, but it wasn't the right PvE group content. If you ask for PvE content and they give you Uprisings and DvL world bosses, they are giving you what you said you wanted. Don't leave room for misinterpretations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on the comments on how to deliver feedback, I would love to make it easier for me to assemble my raid team and bring my friends into other types of content. As in, I have my groups of friends I like to play with, spread across several guilds and both factions, I would love some type of system that makes it easier for me to find them to invite them to play flashpoints, warzones and everything else with me without having to relog all different characters and scream in discord.

 

Blizzard have this for their games (Warcraft/Overwatch). It's called player ID and you don't even need to be in the same game, in the game or on the same faction.

It's a great system to organise your friends and guilds to do activities when you are all spread out.

Edited by Icykill_
Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...