Well, that pretty much decided it for me.

 

I got 14 days left on my sub and zero reason to log back in.

 

I'll probably be back when the Developers remember that SWTOR is an MMO with group activities.

 

Infernixx nailed it. This is correct.

One sentence from the live stream really stood out, the developer said: 'We have no plans'. I forgot what the question was exactly, but I think it had something to do with Operations. That is not a good sign.

We foolishly believed this because the devs said they hadn't forgotten the mmo bits just that they wouldn't be with kotfe launch. Now we find out they aren't even in the planning stages for a new op (or flashpoint for that matter). Simple question, do you ever intend to make a new op?

 

I have to say, the hope that springs eternal is probably a good thing, but frankly, if 2015 didn't beat it out of you, I don't know what could have.

 

I got the feeling listening today that even as they talk story story story, there doesn't seem to be any overall vision or direction to this game any more. You would think with the amount of time it takes to create content that you would have to have a concrete idea of what your plans were well into the coming year, set your target dates and work to achieve them. Other than the remaining chapters I fear they don't have a clue. Even on the announced content ( wz / eternal championship ) they seemed to be very unsure of themselves.

 

I called it last summer... 4.0 is it, the end... the last of the major content to be made...

 

The example I'll give is SWG. *NO*, I am NOT comparing this game to that, bear with me...

 

SWG came out in 2003, it had an expansion every year until 2005, which was Trials of Obi-Wan. After that? Nothing. The game was open another 6 years, but that was it for the major content expansions.

 

Will we get small content drops for years to come? Yes. Will SWTOR close any time soon? No, the servers are cheap to keep running.

 

But I maintain that the reason you're not hearing about more is that we've gotten almost all we're ever going to get. The game is more than 4 years old now, the income from it just isn't there to keep it front and center in EA's mind. It won't go away, but it is squarely in MX mode now.

Swtor has become a ship without a rudder. I got the feeling listening today that even as they talk story story story, there doesn't seem to be any overall vision or direction to this game any more. You would think with the amount of time it takes to create content that you would have to have a concrete idea of what your plans were well into the coming year, set your target dates and work to achieve them. Other than the remaining chapters I fear they don't have a clue. Even on the announced content ( wz / eternal championship ) they seemed to be very unsure of themselves.

As it stands, providing players with the monthly releases of the ongoing KotFE story is the guiding vision and direction for the game, and if that direction does well throughout the next seven months, then I'm sure it will continue beyond the current 16-chapter KotFE story into ongoing chapter-by-chapter releases for future stories as well.

 

They might continue to sporadically release Warzones and even Operations as time goes on, but like the old space-on-rails minigame or the upcoming Eternal Championship feature those will probably be tangential side-content to the new core of the game: the chapter-by-chapter story updates.

 

It might not be a vision the more MMO-minded fans are fond of, but it is a clear and defined vision. The reason talk about Ops, WZ, Eternal Championship, etc. is less clear is because those are being relegated to a minor role in the grand scheme of things.

Hey folks,

 

Thank you for tuning into our Producer Live Stream with Ben and myself. Here is a recap of the things we talked about, for those of you that couldn't tune in.

 

State of the Galaxy

• Group content - We know that group content is something that is very important to you guys. Although we have no further updates at this time on the PvE side, we did talk a bit about the new Warzone which is coming (more on that shortly). Also, we will have even more detailed information on the new Warzone in next month's Producer Live Stream.
  
• GTN Search - Thank you to all of you who helped us gather information on the issue. With that information in hand we were able to resolve the GTN search issues yesterday afternoon.
  
• Events- As mentioned previously on the forums, due to the issues in December we are re-running all three recurring events in January.
  
• Conquest Rewards - By the end of the day today (Austin time) everyone should be receiving their missing Conquest rewards.
  

Changes Since Last Stream

• The Eternal Championship and Bowdaar Recruitment have been moved to coincide with Chapter XI (Update 4.2)
  
• A Blizz Recruitment Mission has been added into Chapter X (Update 4.1)
  
• Reminder that Chapter X is launching on February 11th. Be a subscriber by February 1 to get the HK-55 Jetpack and 2 days of early access.
  

New Information:

Crafting

• Skill increase to 550
  
• New Materials
  
• New craftable Gear and Mods
  
• Mission re-organization
  
• *more details coming via forum posts towards the end of January
  

New Warzone

• Located on Odessan
  
• New Game Mode - King of the Hill
  
• Multiple Hills
  
• Hills randomly spawn
  
• More details coming in the February Producer Live Stream
  

Eternal Championship

• It is a solo challenge
  
• Contains ten encounters
  
• Weekly Missions reward progress
  
• Rare drops from encounters
  
• Recruitment Mission for Bowdaar
  

 

If you have any questions or comments about the things we talked about, feel free to post them in this thread! Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Does this mean tanks will be getting proper mods and enhancements now?

Cos i'm pretty sure of all people devs should realize how useless defense is to shadows and vanguards;

(if it wasn't clear tanks want absorb mods and shield absorb enhancements)

Personally I am pretty happy with kotfe. I am one of those that wanted more story and am thrilled that we got it. I understand others want more group content, and thats totally understandable, and I have a feeling we will be getting something.

 

But since bioware is refocusing on story, I would really like some CLASS story back. One thing I loved about SWTOR was that I could play over and over again. Swtor is the only game I have multiple max level alts. I typically HATE leveling, but the class stories made it all interesting for me. Now with kotfe though, we only have one story. So I am happy you are giving us story back, but I think you missed the mark a bit. I think this could be fixed by giving us a few class specific quests here and there like you did you Rishi would be ok. Or maybe a full chapter or two for class only?

I have to say, the hope that springs eternal is probably a good thing, but frankly, if 2015 didn't beat it out of you, I don't know what could have.

 

 

Well by the end of 2015 I had already pretty much lost all faith. I watched today's stream to see if they would respond to any of the issues that have been raised by many players these last few months. My 3 month recurring sub ends in few weeks. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with 4.0 because I do enjoy story. But after playing through it, and the disasterous December they had with exploits, bugs and discouraging announcements that was it for me. Sad because this has been by far the game I've invested the most time in and gotten a lot of enjoyment out of. Ah well, was a pretty decent ride while it lasted.

Edited January 15, 2016 by WhiteOsprey

I have to say, the hope that springs eternal is probably a good thing, but frankly, if 2015 didn't beat it out of you, I don't know what could have.

 

 

Well by the end of 2015 I had already pretty much lost all faith. I watched today's stream to see if they would respond to any of the issues that have been raised by many players these last few months. My 3 month recurring sub ends in few weeks. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with 4.0 because I do enjoy story. But after playing thought it, and the disasterous December they had with exploits, bugs and discouraging announcements that was it for me. Sad because this has been by far the game I've invested the most time in and gotten a lot of enjoyment out of. Ah well, was a pretty decent ride while it lasted.

 

why do u bother they ll just delete negative posts anyway. like they did last time...

As it stands, providing players with the monthly releases of the ongoing KotFE story is the guiding vision and direction for the game, and if that direction does well throughout the next seven months, then I'm sure it will continue beyond the current 16-chapter KotFE story into ongoing chapter-by-chapter releases for future stories as well.

 

They might continue to sporadically release Warzones and even Operations as time goes on, but like the old space-on-rails minigame or the upcoming Eternal Championship feature those will probably be tangential side-content to the new core of the game: the chapter-by-chapter story updates.

 

It might not be a vision the more MMO-minded fans are fond of, but it is a clear and defined vision. The reason talk about Ops, WZ, Eternal Championship, etc. is less clear is because those are being relegated to a minor role in the grand scheme of things.

 

 

You would think the developers of an mmo would be interested in making content for the mmo-minded fans. If the kotfe storyline is the ONLY vision they have then they should stop all the nonsense and just straight up admit they no longer have any interest in making an mmo. I'd respect the honesty.

Came by to see if anything new has happened to make me re-sub before my pre-paid time runs out, and see this:

 

"Group content - We know that group content is something that is very important to you guys. Although we have no further updates at this time on the PvE side, we did talk a bit about the new Warzone which is coming (more on that shortly). Also, we will have even more detailed information on the new Warzone in next month's Producer Live Stream."

 

So no nothing.

 

BTW if you know that something is VERY IMPORTANT to your customer base you do not just say that and then nothing, even a its in development would be great.

That statement just shows you have nothing even on the agenda.. and that's disturbing.

You would think the developers of an mmo would be interested in making content for the mmo-minded fans. If the kotfe storyline is the ONLY vision they have then they should stop all the nonsense and just straight up admit they no longer have any interest in making an mmo. I'd respect the honesty.

 

This is basically what I wrote in my cancellation message. Well said.

well i have two ?s that should have been there ...#1 when can we customize lana and theron's gear .and all new companions that can were it .its really getting annoying watching everyone running around looking the same...........................# 2 what about the gravestone any chance it will be ours now that would be a great gift for long time vet founders..im not sure how many other players feel but just a thought i would have rather payed 50 bucks for a full expansion rather then 15 a month for a new chapter thats maybe only 20 mins long.just a reminder we are the customer and yea alot of players feel you lied in your streams.when it came to companions you could confirm lana becomes a full blown companion then you said we would never take anything away from you but you did when you said gear was for looks only and we could still gear our companions then you give us like 20 we cant customize then you want us to spend REAL MONEY on CC to buy more gear well the gear becomes useless if you cant use it so theres no reason to spend money on CC if i could customize my companions like you said then i would spend money on the cartel market ..anyway just my thoughts this should be a easy fix im not worried about more content i know it will be there just some easy fixes would be great ..

This is basically what I wrote in my cancellation message. Well said.

 

if only they would admit to not making any more group content.... at least some of us could be out of the door with a chin up.

As it stands, providing players with the monthly releases of the ongoing KotFE story is the guiding vision and direction for the game, and if that direction does well throughout the next seven months, then I'm sure it will continue beyond the current 16-chapter KotFE story into ongoing chapter-by-chapter releases for future stories as well.

 

They might continue to sporadically release Warzones and even Operations as time goes on, but like the old space-on-rails minigame or the upcoming Eternal Championship feature those will probably be tangential side-content to the new core of the game: the chapter-by-chapter story updates.

 

It might not be a vision the more MMO-minded fans are fond of, but it is a clear and defined vision. The reason talk about Ops, WZ, Eternal Championship, etc. is less clear is because those are being relegated to a minor role in the grand scheme of things.

 

And this is being relegated to a dead game because of this "clear and defined vision" (which I don't agree is clear or well defined at all) as long time players leave in droves. It isn't just a matter of not being "fond". Even so, if they released ENOUGH story to keep us occupied, many of us would continue to pay. But they aren't even doing that...

GTN search is not fixed. Hilts are still being listed as barrels under advanced search for barrels.

Hey folks,

 

Thank you for tuning into our Producer Live Stream with Ben and myself. Here is a recap of the things we talked about, for those of you that couldn't tune in.

 

State of the Galaxy

• Group content - We know that group content is something that is very important to you guys. Although we have no further updates at this time on the PvE side, we did talk a bit about the new Warzone which is coming (more on that shortly). Also, we will have even more detailed information on the new Warzone in next month's Producer Live Stream.
  
• GTN Search - Thank you to all of you who helped us gather information on the issue. With that information in hand we were able to resolve the GTN search issues yesterday afternoon.
  
• Events- As mentioned previously on the forums, due to the issues in December we are re-running all three recurring events in January.
  
• Conquest Rewards - By the end of the day today (Austin time) everyone should be receiving their missing Conquest rewards.
  

Changes Since Last Stream

• The Eternal Championship and Bowdaar Recruitment have been moved to coincide with Chapter XI (Update 4.2)
  
• A Blizz Recruitment Mission has been added into Chapter X (Update 4.1)
  
• Reminder that Chapter X is launching on February 11th. Be a subscriber by February 1 to get the HK-55 Jetpack and 2 days of early access.
  

New Information:

Crafting

• Skill increase to 550
  
• New Materials
  
• New craftable Gear and Mods
  
• Mission re-organization
  
• *more details coming via forum posts towards the end of January
  

New Warzone

• Located on Odessan
  
• New Game Mode - King of the Hill
  
• Multiple Hills
  
• Hills randomly spawn
  
• More details coming in the February Producer Live Stream
  

Eternal Championship

• It is a solo challenge
  
• Contains ten encounters
  
• Weekly Missions reward progress
  
• Rare drops from encounters
  
• Recruitment Mission for Bowdaar
  

 

If you have any questions or comments about the things we talked about, feel free to post them in this thread! Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

So, short version:

-no group content whatsoever in the pipeline.

-We announce that we will announce more info on the pvp warzone that we announced. Look for announcements where we will announce when we will announce more details. Thanks..

 

-Crafting: ****.

4.0 made slicing pretty much needed for all professions, (crafting a lightsaber crystal requires.. slicing components..)

This was, with the whole revamp, a massive chance to *remove* the old green, blue, purple gear, and have professions craft orange schematics, and the mods for them.

Unfortunately, bioware was helming the (star)-ship, this wasn't done, etc.

New gear is pointless with levelsync/bolster. Unless we get to craft operations gear with setbonus.. which makes operations pointless

Also, no thank you for new materials.

 

 

-"Would you like us to make class balance changes? We have no idea".

You had MONTHS to make class balance changes, you had months to look at IO & healer mercenary in pvp, and yes, operations, vs powertech, vs sorc-healer etc; taking tanking stats in pvp (def, shield, absorb) is still mostly pointless with all the tech auto-crits flying around; all hail the dps-tank with endurance, long live the sponge-tank.

Who designed the merc utilities? Who decided that the small heal on knockback was worth a HEROIC utility?

Who decided that for merc, taking less dmg whilst stunned, (class with no stealth, no teleport, no force shroud, no immunity bubble, no entrench, no saber reflect, ..), taking less dmg whilst stunned should be heroic? Or the "build 10 stacks of cell/cilinder during reload. LMAO.. we use the heal-shots for that prior to operation fights/pvp matches. L2P.

Give us statistical data from level 65 players what % takes each utility. If utilities are close to 0% used, then we have a problem: you only offer an illusion of choice. "here, you can take a usefull utility, or you can gimp yourself. See, you have a choice!"

Huttball: man, what a nightmare with rolling resisting damage, and still causing teleporting-warping between levels on quesh...

So much cc flying around, and what do you do? +1s stun duration for the power tech.

 

 

Serious KOTFE companion question:

I'm near level 40 influence with M1-4X.

I've read that when recruiting him through KOTFE, he joins you at level 10 influence.

As a commando, will I keep my influence level with him, or is that just one other thing you people completely overlooked? And when will you fix that? I basically should avoid doing KOTFE on my commando to keep M1-4X doing crew skills or?

 

Do you expect people to subscribe for basically:

-promise of a new warzone, within 6 months of future announcement

-new crafting level, which nobody asked for..

What's the big uproar in the fact there are no ops planned? everybody knew this already as they indicated 4.0 is a story expansion and had also indicated that ops would not be worked on until chapter 16 was finished (around august I think).

 

Do people really expect for them to suddenly find the staff, resources etc to suddenly announce oh there is a new op in march etc, I think you will find that Bioware have already allocated their budget and resources already for the coming months so to expect something to happen suddenly will not happen, they will have to get to the end of the current planning schedule before they can re-alloacte resources.

 

Thats just how it is, even if they change the plan I think you would just have a total mess where nothing will get done at all and that really would be the end of the game.

What's the big uproar in the fact there are no ops planned? everybody knew this already as they indicated 4.0 is a story expansion and had also indicated that ops would not be worked on until chapter 16 was finished (around august I think).

 

Th Problem ist, SWTOR is a MMO and MMOs need grp content. They focus on new players, thats ok. New players experience tons of content, a lot of ops, easy to gear out. but new players leave fast again, when game starts feeling boring.

they dont care fr the old, loyal subbers. these ppl who stayed here, when game was tumbling down. a lot of raiding guilds lost many of their players, and to be honest, i will leave too. i wont add more gametime to my account, and when they reall bring a nw op in oct or nov, i wont beh ere to play it.

im not interested paying 13 bucks for ~1 hour of weak story content, i want to raid. and in autumn 2016 there will be a new wow addon with a ******** of ne grp content to experience.

 

eaware is milking this game, but they dont really develop it. as mentioned before, mmos need grp content and a good balance between solo content like dailies and grp content like ops or pvp.

Th Problem ist, SWTOR is a MMO and MMOs need grp content. They focus on new players, thats ok. New players experience tons of content, a lot of ops, easy to gear out. but new players leave fast again, when game starts feeling boring.

they dont care fr the old, loyal subbers. these ppl who stayed here, when game was tumbling down. a lot of raiding guilds lost many of their players, and to be honest, i will leave too. i wont add more gametime to my account, and when they reall bring a nw op in oct or nov, i wont beh ere to play it.

im not interested paying 13 bucks for ~1 hour of weak story content, i want to raid. and in autumn 2016 there will be a new wow addon with a ******** of ne grp content to experience.

 

eaware is milking this game, but they dont really develop it. as mentioned before, mmos need grp content and a good balance between solo content like dailies and grp content like ops or pvp.

 

Like I said in another thread it would not surprise me if they simply just do not have the resources to develop raiding/end-game content and the KotFE storyline simultaneously. Of course it's just a guess. I doubt they are just OK with alienating their end-game players though. It just seems too insane to be the case.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the game is honestly quite underfunded and understaffed. The game, in many ways, reminds me of The Secret World. When they get a new update a group of their players is invariably disappointed because the update will cater to one thing, but not to another. The thing is, The Secret World devs simply do not have the funds or the manpower to develop huge, broad updates, so they have to update things on a priority basis, and as they can.

 

It seems absurd that a game run by EA and Bioware would have the same issue as a niche game run by Fun Com, but it really seems that way to me. If they aren't hurting for cash, then it would seem they are perhaps hurting for manpower.

 

Compare them to the WoW team, which is by contrast absolutely massive. A 12 year old game with a bigger development team than some games that haven't even been released yet. Bringing up World of Warcraft in comparison to Old Republic doesn't even seem fair anymore. I mean, SW:TOR might be a mainstream game for all intents and purposes, but how many people do you honestly know who still play it? The game feels like it has a very small, dedicated base of players, and that's it.

If you are updating crafting remove the intermediate step

Add another tab or 10 to the legacy bank

Ask us what we want - do not ask the person that you outsourced this to, as s/he obviously does not play the game and never has

 

 

And listen to your QA

What is the eternal championship?

they dont care fr the old, loyal subbers.

 

Chances are Bioware believe that the influx of new players coming in from TFA will far outweigh those people leaving, while its a game to us, to EA and Bioware its a business and if they feel that its better financially to them cater for this then there is nothing anybody can really say that can change that, unfortunately there can be no place for loyalty in business.

 

Like I said in another thread it would not surprise me if they simply just do not have the resources to develop raiding/end-game content and the KotFE storyline simultaneously. Of course it's just a guess. I doubt they are just OK with alienating their end-game players though. It just seems too insane to be the case.

 

 

As I said earlier, it would not surprise me if they have already allocated all budget and staffing already until Chapter 16 is completed, this cannot change overnight as trying to half/half resources could prove even more disastrous to the game.

 

I mean to alter that it would require more staff and a higher budget, can people honestly say that the sub money from the people who are leaving would cover the increase in staff and money? at $10+ per month I doubt people would work for that.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Jedi_riches

Well, if I ever looked for a definite reason to quit, this was it...

I'm sorry, but current operations are NOT enough content for serious PvE guilds.

We had the HM OPs beat in the first week (except for Rav), and with Nightmare Operations it's basically just waiting until the DPS deal enough damage to beat the challenge on any given boss.

We KNOW those Operations, we beat them before, there's nothing to learn, nothing to give us a challenge, nothing to work on in there!

 

Yea, guess it's time to go, peace out... after 4 years.

So does this mean the game is basically in maintenance mode now?

Please BW finally puts the power classes in PVP weaker balance looks different !