So after a month to digest 5.10 I have a few thoughts.

I'm going to skip over the whole "most powerful person in the universe, who defeated the Emperor (who was strong enough to kill all life on planets) having to ally with the Empire/Republic and the related storyline including partnering up with a random nobody to search for a scout/close up tunnels...something a grunt would be better off doing. The story details aren't really as big of a deal to me as quality, such as replay value, end game, bugs, etc.

With that being said, here are some suggestions for 6.0

1. Don't center your end game gear around a single planet and daily system. Seriously, you're excluding all the other daily areas because there is no point in doing them once you are 300. Leveling crates is a waste of time due to the abysmally small chance of getting a piece of 252 gear. Doing 10 daily's, then moving on to the next alt and doing it again, then the next, then the next...it gets reaaaal old reaaaal fast. The whole idea of command is that “you can get your gear by doing activities that you enjoy doing”.

2. Improve the rate of gear acquisition. I know this has been said time and time again...but swtor is a MMO that promotes class story and wants you to level up multiple characters. You cannot simultaneously expect your customers to play lots of classes then make it take half a year to gear one of them. This just frustrates people and turns gearing characters into a job instead of fun

3. Start learning lessons. People left the game in droves in 5.0 and 5.10 repeated a lot of the same mistakes (see #1 & #2). You guys have to start learning some lessons on what keeps people playing and what turns people off. I don’t understand how you reached the decisions to introduce a new gear level the way you did. Populations are not improving. In NA, even after being merged down to just two servers it feels like less people than the Harb had just 2 years ago. 90% of people’s complaints have to do with gear, whether it’s the grind, drops being random, etc. FIX IT!

4. Realize how your PVP customers and PVE Operation customers have completely different outlooks on gearing and enjoyment of the game. I understand that you probably removed expertise because you don’t have the staff to create two different gear systems. That being said, forcing your PVP base to grind through PVE content in order to have the best gear for ranked play has been a failure. (see #3 regarding player population). I’ve had some helpful ideas in the past that you’ve rejected, such as implementing a gear cap in PVP that is below the max gear level. Something that PVP players can reach by putting in the same time as in the 4.0 era, where it was fairly easy to gear up all your alts through pvp and not be at a gear disadvantage. I understand you want there to be an incentive to get gear for people to put some time in. Ok, that is fair…but make it reasonable (again like 4.0). I don’t really care what your solution is as long it is not a grind…failure to do this will mean you did not do #3.

5. Your customers hate bugs and poorly optimized content. I don’t know what else to suggest here…but WB fights on the new planet are like 10 fps even on excellent hardware. Can you imagine if a high profile influencer decided to try out SWTOR and that gameplay was the experience they had? How embarrassing that would be for you. Is it your engine or is it that you just don’t care about quality anymore? Either way, not realizing your limitations and putting that out there is a bad decision. Also, the patch released in early December. So many bugs, including companion influence lost, default progression decisions not being done properly, missions, etc. are bugged and you’re not even going to be able to fix them until February? To me, I think you guys just don’t care anymore about quality. If you’re that short staffed that you can’t even fix important bugs within TWO MONTHS how can we have any confidence of a good product release for 6.0?

It’s a challenging time for MMO’s. Even WOW is bleeding subs. You guys are going to need to really think outside of the box in a way that makes the game fun again. In summary, if you can fix gearing and improve quality that will in and of itself go a long ways. The challenge will be content. Monthly “chapters” didn’t really work…especially since you had to take all your alts through it and it just got boring and tedious after the first couple of times. A simple planet with associated daily’s is not going to meet expectations (see point #1). So here are some ideas:

A. Introduce a whole new character class and 1-50 storyline for pub and imp

B. Have an official EA sponsored PVP tournament (8 v 8 ) with qualifying through ranked pvp or other methods. Stream the tournament…twitch has millions of viewers, what better way to advertise your game.

C. Create a “challenge” system where group members can try to progress each week in a mini- PVE operation. Track the quickest times for each progression level and offer rewards each week. Each week it changes slightly (look at POE’s daily Lab) Market and advertise the winners.

My suggestions are just off the top of my head with ideas that promote your solo playing customers (A), your PVP customers (B), and your PVE customers ©. I’m not saying these are the best ideas in the world, but it is something that gives people incentive to play each week. I think to be successful in 6.0 you are going to have to have a release that hits these areas to keep your current customers and bring back some old ones. Before the white knights come in and try and make excuses for not being able to do something…let me just say it’s not your job to make excuses for them. It’s their job to provide incentive to pay them to play this game. If you haven’t realized it yet…there isn’t much hope for this game beyond a couple more years due to shrinking population base. They have to step it up somehow if they want to keep this game alive.

So after a month to digest 5.10 I have a few thoughts.

 

I'm going to skip over the whole "most powerful person in the universe, who defeated the Emperor (who was strong enough to kill all life on planets) having to ally with the Empire/Republic and the related storyline including partnering up with a random nobody to search for a scout/close up tunnels...something a grunt would be better off doing. The story details aren't really as big of a deal to me as quality, such as replay value, end game, bugs, etc.

 

With that being said, here is some suggestions for 6.0

 

1. Don't center your end game gear around a single planet and daily system. Seriously, you're excluding all the other daily areas because there is no point in doing them once you are 300. Leveling crates is a waste of time due to the abysmally small chance of getting a piece of 252 gear. Doing 10 daily's, then moving on to the next alt and doing it again, then the next, then the next...it gets reaaaal old reaaaal fast. The whole idea of command is that “you can get your gear by doing activities that you enjoy doing”.

 

2. Improve the rate of gear acquisition. I know this has been said time and time again...but swtor is a MMO that promotes class story and wants you to level up multiple characters. You cannot simultaneously expect your customers to play lots of classes then make it take half a year to gear one of them. This just frustrates people and turns gearing characters into a job instead of fun

 

3. Start learning lessons. People left the game in droves in 5.0 and 5.10 repeated a lot of the same mistakes (see #1 & #2). You guys have to start learning some lessons on what keeps people playing and what turns people off. I don’t understand how you reached the decisions to introduce a new gear level the way you did. Populations are not improving. In NA, even after being merged down to just two servers it feels like less people than the Harb had just 2 years ago. 90% of people’s complaints have to do with gear, whether it’s the grind, drops being random, etc. FIX IT!

 

4. Realize how your PVP customers and PVE Operation customers have completely different outlooks on gearing and enjoyment of the game. I understand that you probably removed expertise because you don’t have the staff to create two different gear systems. That being said, forcing your PVP base to grind through PVE content in order to have the best gear for ranked play has been a failure. (see #3 regarding player population). I’ve had some helpful ideas in the past that you’ve rejected, such as implementing a gear cap in PVP that is below the max gear level. Something that PVP players can reach by putting in the same time as in the 4.0 era, where it was fairly easy to gear up all your alts through pvp and not be at a gear disadvantage. I understand you want there to be an incentive to get gear for people to put some time in. Ok, that is fair…but make it reasonable (again like 4.0). I don’t really care what your solution is as long it is not a grind…failure to do this will mean you did not do #3.

 

5. Your customers hate bugs and poorly optimized content. I don’t know what else to suggest here…but WB fights on the new planet are like 10 fps even on excellent hardware. Can you imagine if a high profile influencer decided to try out SWTOR and that gameplay was the experience they had? How embarrassing that would be for you. Is it your engine or is it that you just don’t care about quality anymore? Either way, not realizing your limitations and putting that out there is a bad decision. Also, the patch released in early December. So many bugs, including companion influence lost, default progression decisions not being done properly, missions, etc. are bugged and you’re not even going to be able to fix them until February? To me, I think you guys just don’t care anymore about quality. If you’re that short staffed that you can’t even fix important bugs within TWO MONTHS how can we have any confidence of a good product release for 6.0?

 

It’s a challenging time for MMO’s. Even WOW is bleeding subs. You guys are going to need to really think outside of the box in a way that makes the game fun again. In summary, if you can fix gearing and improve quality that will in and of itself go a long ways. The challenge will be content. Monthly “chapters” didn’t really work…especially since you had to take all your alts through it and it just got boring and tedious after the first couple of times. A simple planet with associated daily’s is not going to meet expectations (see point #1). So here are some ideas:

 

A. Introduce a whole new character class and 1-50 storyline for pub and imp

 

B. Have an official EA sponsored PVP tournament (8 v 8 ) with qualifying through ranked pvp or other methods. Stream the tournament…twitch has millions of viewers, what better way to advertise your game.

 

C. Create a “challenge” system where group members can try to progress each week in a mini- PVE operation. Track the quickest times for each progression level and offer rewards each week. Each week it changes slightly (look at POE’s daily Lab) Market and advertise the winners.

 

My suggestions are just off the top of my head with ideas that promote your solo playing customers (A), your PVP customers (B), and your PVE customers ©. I’m not saying these are the best ideas in the world, but it is something that gives people incentive to play each week. I think to be successful in 6.0 you are going to have to have a release that hits these areas to keep your current customers and bring back some old ones. Before the white knights come in and try and make excuses for not being able to do something…let me just say it’s not your job to make excuses for them. It’s their job to provide incentive to pay them to play this game. If you haven’t realized it yet…there isn’t much hope for this game beyond a couple more years due to shrinking population base. They have to step it up somehow if they want to keep this game alive.

So basically do everything they have not done for the last 3 years is what you are saying?

So after a month to digest 5.10 I have a few thoughts.

 

I'm going to skip over the whole "most powerful person in the universe, who defeated the Emperor (who was strong enough to kill all life on planets) having to ally with the Empire/Republic and the related storyline including partnering up with a random nobody to search for a scout/close up tunnels...something a grunt would be better off doing. The story details aren't really as big of a deal to me as quality, such as replay value, end game, bugs, etc.

 

With that being said, here is some suggestions for 6.0

 

1. Don't center your end game gear around a single planet and daily system. Seriously, you're excluding all the other daily areas because there is no point in doing them once you are 300. Leveling crates is a waste of time due to the abysmally small chance of getting a piece of 252 gear. Doing 10 daily's, then moving on to the next alt and doing it again, then the next, then the next...it gets reaaaal old reaaaal fast. The whole idea of command is that “you can get your gear by doing activities that you enjoy doing”.

This. Although I'd say it's a waste starting at command rank 1 right now. The tier 1 gear has been useless for quite a while now and can be bought cheaply anyway. Even tier 2 gear is mostly left behind as garbage in SM ops runs.

Right now, with everyone doing ossus weeklies, it's unclear why anyone would want those low tier garbage drops from crates at all? Maybe it's time to scrap at least tier 1+2 entirely.

Maybe it's time to scrap CXP entirely. There is already a better currency anyway: unassembled components can buy tier 1-4 gear, and it can buy masterworks cystals (even though only at an abysmal rate). If a few tweaks were made to that system, then unassembled components as direct mission reward would be way way better than random boxes filled with stuff nobody wants. It would allow for better planning, it would be more alt friendly and BiS gear progress can still be gated by exchange limits....

2. Improve the rate of gear acquisition. I know this has been said time and time again...but swtor is a MMO that promotes class story and wants you to level up multiple characters. You cannot simultaneously expect your customers to play lots of classes then make it take half a year to gear one of them. This just frustrates people and turns gearing characters into a job instead of fun

Yet that's exactly what we've all went through with GC. We just complained less because we could do anything we'd do anyway to get there, instead of what you described above. But it was a grindfest nevertheless.

3. Start learning lessons. People left the game in droves in 5.0 and 5.10 repeated a lot of the same mistakes (see #1 & #2). You guys have to start learning some lessons on what keeps people playing and what turns people off. I don’t understand how you reached the decisions to introduce a new gear level the way you did. Populations are not improving. In NA, even after being merged down to just two servers it feels like less people than the Harb had just 2 years ago. 90% of people’s complaints have to do with gear, whether it’s the grind, drops being random, etc. FIX IT!

I've observed a fascinating effect: a huge portion of the population is now on Ossus, grinding crystals on numerous alts. We tried to fill an op group for S&V SM GF the other day and we had serious trouble even getting a few DPS because everyone is so preoccupied with doing those weeklies...

 

I've observed a fascinating effect: a huge portion of the population is now on Ossus, grinding crystals on numerous alts. We tried to fill an op group for S&V SM GF the other day and we had serious trouble even getting a few DPS because everyone is so preoccupied with doing those weeklies...

Yes, but the number has been dropping...WB groups been much slower last week compared to December.

5. Your customers hate bugs and poorly optimized content.

Yeah, this one, big time. The bugs drove off most of my friends. I hope to talk them into coming back, someday.

My suggestions on the stronghold topic would be to...

* Create new stronghold labels. Hopefully this is a simple one. Encourage people to re-decorate with new themes.

* Improve the X/Y movement of stronghold decorations above the +/- 20 limit. Not only would this improve our ability to decorate, it would be a big enough improvement for us to wipe our SHs and start over, for hours more fun.

* Allow us to buy multiple copies of the same stronghold. We know it's possible to own duplicates, thanks to the merge. This would give us new areas to decorate without even developing new strongholds.

* Allow guilds to own multiple strongholds. This would allow groups to get gold keys and decorate different areas. It would also encourage guilds to buy a Rishi stronghold for PvP.

You claimed 90% of people's gripes have to do with gear, but I just...

don't see it?

If our only evidence is anecdotal, that's a really poor basis for this claim. From almost every player I've talked to the gearing is not the significant source of frustration in this game.

Does that mean it isn't for the majority of players?

I have no clue.

And neither do you!

Do not center your argument around anecdotal evidence!

You claimed 90% of people's gripes have to do with gear, but I just...

 

don't see it?

 

If our only evidence is anecdotal, that's a really poor basis for this claim. From almost every player I've talked to the gearing is not the significant source of frustration in this game.

 

Does that mean it isn't for the majority of players?

 

I have no clue.

 

And neither do you!

 

Do not center your argument around anecdotal evidence!

Ok fine, it feels like 90%