Hi,

How can I reach someone who can help me with an issue with my character? CS basically states hands are tied because the problem was not actually a bug, that it was "working as intended" due to "choices the player made earlier". I tried PM'ing Keith and Eric but only to find out earlier today that PM'ing is useless.

Balmorra Bonus Series 2 is broken, I am unable to continue the quest chain with my ONE character, my very first character that I created, and it has really ruined my experience with this game for me.

Please see: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=889046 and http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=852039 for reference. In Thread #889046 user perfect square describes how to recreate the issue

a) I want to know if this will ever end up being looked at? Will this ever be fixed? Is it even on the radar of future issues/fixes? honestly even a "no, this is not even on the table of things we're looking at right now", would be helpful [more important question]

b) [less important issue - but without a fix to this issue in some way, I still may end up not renewing my subscription come the end of the month as this has really ruined the game for me] - I just want help recreating my character because I can't afford to do it on my own (since she's essentially stuck forever and unable to progress through the quest chain) - and the cause of needing to recreate this character, and changing my original character (in an effort to pretend she isn't who she is) was not my fault!

Please, someone help?

I didn't want to post this publicly especially in regards to question b... but I don't know what to do.

PS: To be fair, CS did say they were sorry that they couldn't help, and they offered me some XP boosts for my character version 2 -- but honestly I wasn't asking for much; it came to a point where I said if they could at least help me recreate my character with items that were currently available in the CM I would appreciate it. Which at this point was basically just Thexan's robe. I didn't ask for a free unlock, or cartel coins, because I hadn't paid for those. I asked that if I recreated an identical character if I could at least have a free rename change and a copy of thexan's robe - they could even bind it to her - it's not like i was trying to scam something and put it on the gtn ... I was saving my free rename change and currently possessed cartel coins for other CM items - I'd appreciate it. I was going to delete my original character after newcharacter2.0 was created. I said this issue was so upsetting that I was thinking of unsubscribing (and still am, since all this is unfixed) they basically said we'll be sorry to see you go. like. okay.

PPS: I asked a much shorter question here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=9340603&postcount=796 - and left the question only directly related to the OP topic

I wonder how much of that is because it was so rushed though? If Charles actually had to cut 2/3 of his story, it seems like much more could have been done to bring the story better closure. I obviously can't speak for Charles, but I have to assume that he's not entirely pleased with the story as it is either. I actually feel sorry for him, as a writer, having your work judged based on a 1/3 completed story isn't exactly fair to him.

On the one hand, I get it. But on the other hand, if you look at what Charles said, they also cut the story because the pacing wasn't working out (too boring for the players - what is it about story pacing that vexes bioware devs so much?), and if you consider player feedback, more of the story would not address the 2 major concerns - 1 being that it disregarded, else only paid lip service to all of your character's story prior to KOTFE, and 2, it didn't feel like Star Wars. Hate to say it, but more of "not Star Wars" isn't going to suddenly make it feel like Star Wars - because if they had to rush it, that means they kept only the crucial story beats, and if the crucial story beats didn't feel like Star Wars, then why expect less crucial beats to make it feel more like Star Wars? Doesn't connect.

The point is, if everyone is being honest, the KotFE and KotET stories were intentionally written as a "reboot" to ignore all the story that came before and start over. And based on the feedback and the problems the developers encountered, one could strongly argue that this was a bad creative decision - I could almost justify it if people hated the original story and wanted a new direction, but the opposite was true, which is why KotFE and KotET felt like a giant F.U. by the team to those asking for some form of continuation of their current, beloved class stories, even if it was handled in the manner of Shadow of Revan.

Now they have a new Producer. And many of us are hoping that now they've finished that story, they don't double down on bad, but go back to making stories the majority of players wanted - and then hopefully also begin to court them back, which isn't as impossible as it may seem - I've tried finding another MMO to play in the year I was off, and nothing out there comes close to SWTOR - give players the stories they WANT and allow them to feel listened to, and I think many will come back to the game. SWTOR lost its way a bit creatively in terms of story, but many people would be very happy if it could find itself again.

through the whole story I am constantly told I am THE leader, though i can't decide anything concerning tactic or plans.

Totally felt I had none saying and was just Lana and else pet.

I wonder how much of that is because it was so rushed though? If Charles actually had to cut 2/3 of his story, it seems like much more could have been done to bring the story better closure. I obviously can't speak for Charles, but I have to assume that he's not entirely pleased with the story as it is either. I actually feel sorry for him, as a writer, having your work judged based on a 1/3 completed story isn't exactly fair to him.

I too feel sorry for him not being able to finish his writing like he wanted. I understand that much as I have written some stories and then with our forum roleplay writing is necessary so it is sad to see something you start not finished. We had started another forum roleplay but due to one of our members having to have surgery (due to an bad accident) we had to stop and that can be very disappointing, even when you have a good reason.

I've seen more than a few people say they liked how companions were returned via chapters. I actually don't like getting them back that way. Because it creates a roadblock in the story if you don't want that companion back. I would rather alerts that I can ignore or bypass.

A better way of handling that in the story sense is give you an opportunity to reject the companion instead of just alerts. The story for a lot of us is better, if they give an indepth story for that companion but there needs to be a way to reject a companion instead of accepting them.

I wonder how much of that is because it was so rushed though? If Charles actually had to cut 2/3 of his story, it seems like much more could have been done to bring the story better closure. I obviously can't speak for Charles, but I have to assume that he's not entirely pleased with the story as it is either. I actually feel sorry for him, as a writer, having your work judged based on a 1/3 completed story isn't exactly fair to him.

It is what it is though. But to be fair I highly doubt that even with the full trilogy they planned they could have explained Vitiate being main antagonist to the jedi knight, being trapped! in Voss because of Baras (which is why the hand sends you there), also requiring a ritual to bring a new voice into existence when in 3.0 it showed that Vitiate can just casually control anyone he wants, AND at all the same time being Valkorion and a family father and ruler to Zakuul?

I am sure Charles tried and all and I understand that they had to change their plans with the story because class stories got scrapped but there is no way he could have explained that plothole.

It is what it is though. But to be fair I highly doubt that even with the full trilogy they planned they could have explained Vitiate being main antagonist to the jedi knight, being trapped! in Voss because of Baras (which is why the hand sends you there), also requiring a ritual to bring a new voice into existence when in 3.0 it showed that Vitiate can just casually control anyone he wants, AND at all the same time being Valkorion and a family father and ruler to Zakuul?

 

I am sure Charles tried and all and I understand that they had to change their plans with the story because class stories got scrapped but there is no way he could have explained that plothole.

Well, on Voss, Vitiate's Voice was trapped by Sel Makor, who's as much of an Eldritch Abomination as he is, so he probably had to concentrate most of his power in that Voice, not on his Dromund Kaas Voice, or on Valkorion. And thanks to that, he was weakened enough for the Jedi Knight to strike down, which could very easily explain away him not being able to puppeteer an army to stop the JK, and the JK and T7 were both immune to his puppeteering anyways. As for Valkorion on Zakuul, it's been stated that he would go kinda "comatose" ish for months at a time, implying he had a finite amount of attention to divide amongst his Voices, with Valkorion being no exception.

Well, on Voss, Vitiate's Voice was trapped by Sel Makor, who's as much of an Eldritch Abomination as he is, so he probably had to concentrate most of his power in that Voice, not on his Dromund Kaas Voice, or on Valkorion. And thanks to that, he was weakened enough for the Jedi Knight to strike down, which could very easily explain away him not being able to puppeteer an army to stop the JK, and the JK and T7 were both immune to his puppeteering anyways. As for Valkorion on Zakuul, it's been stated that he would go kinda "comatose" ish for months at a time, implying he had a finite amount of attention to divide amongst his Voices, with Valkorion being no exception.

That's all assumptions on your part because guess what, the plot itself doesn't tell us anything. But here is a question to you: Why did the sith warrior have to kill the voice on Voss? It was in order for the emperor to get a new voice. But here is the plothole: If the emperor can have multiple voices at once then why did the sith warrior need to go kill the voice on Voss?

Also implying isn't enough. The story itself should explain or give enough clues and hints for explanation.

That's all assumptions on your part because guess what, the plot itself doesn't tell us anything. But here is a question to you: Why did the sith warrior have to kill the voice on Voss? It was in order for the emperor to get a new voice. But here is the plothole: If the emperor can have multiple voices at once then why did the sith warrior need to go kill the voice on Voss?

 

Also implying isn't enough. The story itself should explain or give enough clues and hints for explanation.

Exactly. If the story needs players to come up with pretzel logic to explain its inconsistencies, then the story itself failed. And there is no way to spin that.

Exactly. If the story needs players to come up with pretzel logic to explain its inconsistencies, then the story itself failed. And there is no way to spin that.

Agreed.

But I do appreciate Charles coming out and saying their original plans. He didn't have to do that and it's really that they are so open but I do think they have to think of a new strategy regarding the story. The story is definitely a very hard aspect since there can go so much wrong and we are all only human so we can only try.

But bringing back companions like Elara and Dorne will be a mistake too. You can have companion-centric "chapters" without another plot distracting.

As someone who went from committed player to occasional dabbler because of KOTFE, I wanted to re-address the points brought up here.

B) The most common issues that we saw from the community feedback after KOTFE and the first few monthly chapters were:

1. The story felt dragged out (monthly chapters in particular)
   
2. At least partly due to #1, the companion-focused chapters were not as well-received as the KOTFE ones (although desire to get companions back remained high).
   
3. Many players felt that there weren't enough choices in the storyline with big enough impacts/consequences, or that those impacts/consequences were delayed so far that they didn't feel meaningful or connected.
   
4. Some folks simply didn't like the core premise. Introducing a new empire, expanding on Vitiate/Valkorion, players frozen in carbonite for five years, missing companions, etc.
   

 

1) Personally, this had no effect on my viewpoint.

2) It depended. Kaleo's was long and tedious, while Gault and Vette's was fun.

3) Somewhat, see below.

4) I was hesitant, but open-minded.

Choices mattering is actually a subset of the larger issue which led me to despise KOTFE, which is that "choices matter" means "wrong choices are punished." The close of the final chapter is the most glaring, the game actively seeks to humiliate the player whenever they don't follow the "pure light side Jedi" path. You already begin with a scripted step into a trap, then every time the player tries to do anything they want to (that isn't what a Jedi Knight would do) they fail at it. And THEN Koth uses his own personal matter transporter to get on board your most important war asset in the middle of a battle and steals it, just in case you didn't already feel like a failure and an idiot already. THEN adds literal insult to this injury by getting yelled at by Shan for trying to shoot down your mortal enemy.

The problem with KOTFE was failure at the most fundamental level, it - was - not - fun. "Choices mattered" only meant you got to choose how you hated yourself while you played. Did you break character just to not have to deal with BS, or did you play as your character would and watch them get humiliated and fail? This is antithetic to the entire purpose of a game, your crowning moment when you rolled credits was the closest I ever got to permanently quitting the game. The point which ultimately stopped me was that I have the Sith Inquisitor story to analyze, which convinced me to stay.

Let me repeat that: The only thing that stopped me from quitting was that someone paid me not to.

To give an example of what I'm referring to with "pure light side Jedi," the bombing of Zakuul had a choice matters of either a) nothing changes, or b) you lose Koth and he magically sneaks in and steals your ship. That's not "choice matters," that's "WRONG choices matter, and are punished." What (a) should have been was that Arkhan had more resources to throw at you because they were not diverted towards dealing with the fallout of your attack, allowing, say, Lana to be kidnapped at the climax, and the future chapter is now saving Lana or recovering the Gravestone (this could be easily implemented as identical chapters save for the climax). That says that choices matter, that you were now choosing either to limit your warfare (but learn that someone you care about will suffer terribly because of it) or be prepared to wage absolute war (but alienate your allies). That, at least, says that your role as leader comes with burdens, that you will have to make personal sacrifices depending on how you choose to wage war. As presented, it says "tow the line, or be humiliated."

What I have seen since has been a step in the right direction, but the bitter taste KOTFE has left in my mouth has yet to be washed out completely. And when I do give my look at Sith Inquisitor, I will express at length the level of my disappointment with that story.

Not because it had monthly chapters

Not because of companion chapters

Not because of the core premise

And not even, specifically, about choices mattering

But because KOTFE forgot that Star Wars: The Old Republic, is supposed to be fun.

So as you can all see from reading this thread, opinions tend to vary, which makes assessing story feedback very difficult

 

Story is a personal and emotional experience by design, so feelings about it run high and can be polarizing. It is impossible to change an experience like that retroactively through arguments or debates, so I would urge everyone to be respectful, share your thoughts, and not make it about being "right" or "wrong".

 

As a point of clarification, when I mentioned that we condensed the story based on feedback, it was not that we felt the overall story of KOTFE/monthly chapters were received poorly at large (quite the opposite, really) it was that the pacing of the story was widely seen as too slow/drawn out. We took that feedback, assessed our plans, ultimately agreed, and made a change.

 

One last note about numbers: it's commonly asked how we balance feedback against data and metrics, so this is a great place to use as an example. Numerically speaking, KOTFE and KOTET were our most successful expansions by a very significant margin. We didn't change anything in the story based on numbers (the numbers would've said to keep doing exactly what we were doing), we changed them based on the passionate feedback we received from y'all.

 

So keep it up! But, y'know, be cool to each other in the process

Very interesting.

Thank you for your output on this topic!

Exactly. If the story needs players to come up with pretzel logic to explain its inconsistencies, then the story itself failed. And there is no way to spin that.

Logic, I think we passed that point a long time ago

Exactly. If the story needs players to come up with pretzel logic to explain its inconsistencies, then the story itself failed. And there is no way to spin that.

Not for me. I am a roleplayer and do not use all the story for my roleplay. I use bits and pieces for my roleplay so it would depend on the person. For us it worked perfectly since we wanted to only use bits and pieces of the story. So again it goes back to the person depending on what they are using the story for.

I.E.

My sorceress never sat on the sith council. (For one thing there was way tooooooooooooooo many doing that and for another I already had a story started for her before I even started playing TOR )

So as you can all see from reading this thread, opinions tend to vary, which makes assessing story feedback very difficult

 

Story is a personal and emotional experience by design, so feelings about it run high and can be polarizing. It is impossible to change an experience like that retroactively through arguments or debates, so I would urge everyone to be respectful, share your thoughts, and not make it about being "right" or "wrong".

 

As a point of clarification, when I mentioned that we condensed the story based on feedback, it was not that we felt the overall story of KOTFE/monthly chapters were received poorly at large (quite the opposite, really) it was that the pacing of the story was widely seen as too slow/drawn out. We took that feedback, assessed our plans, ultimately agreed, and made a change.

 

One last note about numbers: it's commonly asked how we balance feedback against data and metrics, so this is a great place to use as an example. Numerically speaking, KOTFE and KOTET were our most successful expansions by a very significant margin. We didn't change anything in the story based on numbers (the numbers would've said to keep doing exactly what we were doing), we changed them based on the passionate feedback we received from y'all.

So keep it up! But, y'know, be cool to each other in the process

It took me one search query and about ten minutes of copy/pasting to come up with 50 unique examples of players who like the story. There are a significant amount of people who liked it.

This is directed at both of you. You guys can try to blur the lines, but it seems obvious that you both completely ignore the fact that those people praising KOTFE (including me to an extent), later got wise. Not because we read the forums and were swayed by negative opinions, but because we played the story and we thought, "Oh, I bet this is going to have the most epic ending! "MY CHOICES DO MATTER!" But they didn't, did they? You tried to fool us in KOTET, but it became immediately obvious after playing for 20 mins where this XP was headed..

How many people have posted positively for KOTET? Don't worry, I'll wait. And if KOTET was somehow "numerically successful" that's because we thought you were going to fix what was wrong with KOTFE, and provide meaningful group content.

So kudos to the marketing and strategy teams. You had us on the hook, and were thus able to fluff the numbers in December well enough for KOTET to be seen as a "numerical success."

As a point of clarification, when I mentioned that we condensed the story based on feedback, it was not that we felt the overall story of KOTFE/monthly chapters were received poorly at large (quite the opposite, really) it was that the pacing of the story was widely seen as too slow/drawn out. We took that feedback, assessed our plans, ultimately agreed, and made a change.

I assume that's due to all the design work that needs to be done, not the writing or approval of the actual story? I imagine all the programming for that type of a pace had to be prohibitive.

One last note about numbers: it's commonly asked how we balance feedback against data and metrics, so this is a great place to use as an example. Numerically speaking, KOTFE and KOTET were our most successful expansions by a very significant margin. We didn't change anything in the story based on numbers (the numbers would've said to keep doing exactly what we were doing), we changed them based on the passionate feedback we received from y'all.

I assume that's due to all the design work that needs to be done, not the writing or approval of the actual story? I imagine all the programming for that type of a pace had to be prohibitive.

 

Really?? You're telling us that, numerically, which I assume means subscribers, KOTET was a hit? I believe it with KOTFE, there was an initial surge and many players 'hung on' for the monthly updates, but not KOTET...I saw 100% the opposite in-game with KOTET Charles. I saw guilds decimated, multiple day-1 players quit, entire raid teams leave...perhaps there was a flood of old blood for the 1st month vs the previous month(s), and statistically, that showed as am increase, but after release, there is no way you can convince me KOTET was a "success".

Tux, the main reason people left is there was no group content, which had nothing to do with the story. It had to do with no group content. It was all story, nothing for groups to do. That is why my friend left. She left as there was nothing for her to do with her boyfriend. she enjoyed the story but she didn't want to play by herself.

Tux, the main reason people left is there was no group content, which had nothing to do with the story. It had to do with no group content. It was all story, nothing for groups to do. That is why my friend left. She left as there was nothing for her to do with her boyfriend. she enjoyed the story but she didn't want to play by herself.

Agreed!!! The choice to abandon group content is exactly what hurt this game so damn much, and it's why I don't believe for even a moment that what Charles said is accurate from the numerical standpoint of actual subs. I have to assume he was using percentages, not raw numbers.

So as you can all see from reading this thread, opinions tend to vary, which makes assessing story feedback very difficult

 

Story is a personal and emotional experience by design, so feelings about it run high and can be polarizing. It is impossible to change an experience like that retroactively through arguments or debates, so I would urge everyone to be respectful, share your thoughts, and not make it about being "right" or "wrong".

 

As a point of clarification, when I mentioned that we condensed the story based on feedback, it was not that we felt the overall story of KOTFE/monthly chapters were received poorly at large (quite the opposite, really) it was that the pacing of the story was widely seen as too slow/drawn out. We took that feedback, assessed our plans, ultimately agreed, and made a change.

 

One last note about numbers: it's commonly asked how we balance feedback against data and metrics, so this is a great place to use as an example. Numerically speaking, KOTFE and KOTET were our most successful expansions by a very significant margin. We didn't change anything in the story based on numbers (the numbers would've said to keep doing exactly what we were doing), we changed them based on the passionate feedback we received from y'all.

 

So keep it up! But, y'know, be cool to each other in the process

That's good to hear, with this we at least have concrete examples of you guys listening to our feedback over your own metrics. Even though KotFE and KotET are considered to be your most successful expansions, you are making sure to introduce varied content based on our feedback, instead of continuing to focus on pure story/solo content. Thank you!

Is it possible we can get a clarification on what TUX said though? I personally have played through all major expansion releases since 2.0 (except for joining the KotET party pretty late), and I can assure you that the number of active players I have seen for any of the expansions was RotHC > KotFE > SoR > GSF > GSH > KotET. And in terms of longevity, GSF, KotFE and KotET were both at the bottom of the ranking (the former two I noticed a surge in activity at release followed by a massive drop in a month, for KotET I joined too late to judge a drop-off at any point).

Why do many players have experiences that vastly differ from Bioware's metrics for expansion success? Is this being measured it by subscriber numbers, active player count, number of expansion purchases or CC revenue? I doubt it's subscriber count because KotFE release hit a 3-year peak in subscribers, while the earnings call following KotET mentioned a significant drop in sub count. And I sure hope you're not measuring it by the number of expansion purchases upon release, because that'd kinda be "cheating" for KotFE/ET, since those are purchased by simply subscribing, and even players who don't play either of two would be forced to get them if they were subscribed during release. Some clarification on the metric would be nice, because the players' experiences don't match up with what's being told to us.

Finally, I had an additional question. Is there a metric for how many players replay KotFE/ET? Due to them being a one-size-fits-all story, a lot of players made very vocal complaints about how it has no replay value and they will never subject more than 2 characters to that expansion, and so on, and I am curious to see if this matches up with what Bioware sees in the actual gameplay metrics.

Agreed!!! The choice to abandon group content is exactly what hurt this game so damn much, and it's why I don't believe for even a moment that what Charles said is accurate from the numerical standpoint of actual subs. I have to assume he was using percentages, not raw numbers.

I have a stinking feeling they have a metric like "number of copies of expansion that got purchased in the first six months of release" or something like that, hence why KotFE/ET are the two most successful (because nearly every active player "purchased" them).

Hopefully Charles will clarify if that's the case.

A better way of handling that in the story sense is give you an opportunity to reject the companion instead of just alerts. The story for a lot of us is better, if they give an indepth story for that companion but there needs to be a way to reject a companion instead of accepting them.

See I want to reject the idea of even going to recruit a terrorist. Which is why I don't want them to be reintroduced via chapters at all. Alerts are skippable, chapters not so much so.

The idea that they can just go back and rewrite the entire two past expansions is unrealistic. I do agree that it's important to add more connections to the original class storylines. I also agree that companion stories and interaction need to be enhanced dramatically! Not just in story, but in combat. For Example, a mission needing Aric as a Sniper, Senya, Arcann, other original companions etc.

The most important thing to remember is that nobody can reasonably expect everything to be exactly as they want.

So as you can all see from reading this thread, opinions tend to vary, which makes assessing story feedback very difficult

 

Story is a personal and emotional experience by design, so feelings about it run high and can be polarizing. It is impossible to change an experience like that retroactively through arguments or debates, so I would urge everyone to be respectful, share your thoughts, and not make it about being "right" or "wrong".

 

As a point of clarification, when I mentioned that we condensed the story based on feedback, it was not that we felt the overall story of KOTFE/monthly chapters were received poorly at large (quite the opposite, really) it was that the pacing of the story was widely seen as too slow/drawn out. We took that feedback, assessed our plans, ultimately agreed, and made a change.

Thank you for commenting on this again, Charles! In the context of your remark on the pacing changing, I am again considering what you've said about companion returns. Now that the main Zakuul story arc has been handled via you condensing it, do the remaining companion returns need to receive the same treatment? Do their returns have to be as condensed as they were on Iokath?

Some people suggest that a brief, one-size-fits-all story is the best way to handle remaining companion returns, since it is the most expedient. I and many others disagree. If expedience is highly valued by a player, the companion return terminal is right there. It seems to me that those who have been willing to wait - those who are still willing to wait - value something else more highly, and that's a return strong in story richness that focuses on the companion(s) involved. I really hope that's what we get from you, whether it's what you're already working on or maybe if you decide to change in that direction based on player feedback.

In regards to returning companions. All that you needed to do was return them when we got our ships back, and then provide optional side missions for us to do if we wanted to in order to get companions that were not part of our original crew. It really could have been that simple, but you chose to make I harder than it needed to be and left many of us feeling disappointed as a result.

Yeah.

How many Comps has Consular got back so far.

Yeah, that's right - LESS than everyone else, heck some classes (Trooper / Bounty Hunter) have FOUR back already, and all Consular gets is Qyzen-Fess.

Kotet and Kotfe will have gotten an better reception if you brought back our favorite companions. I mean come on most of the force user ones are not back. The smuggler got the worse of all with an total of 2 companion back.

 

2 are you kidding me that ruins the fun for smugglers.

Nope, Consular has only got one back so far.

All The Best