Why is this Game not Seeing the Same Growth as ESO?

[psytic]

I'm curious people's thoughts on this game. To me it parallels Elder Scrolls Online. Both big IPs, both hotly anticipated and both kind of flopped. Now where ESO and FFXIV to an extent differ is both companies kept pumping money and updates into their games until they became good games. They see player growth month over month and are now considered some of the best games in the genre.

As buggy and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as Bethesda seems to release their games, they keep plugging away at it until their games eventually get good. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fallout 76 ends up this way in a year or two more either. I feel like SWTOR could / should have a similar ark to ESO, Crap to Gold. It's more of a story driven game like ESO and that seems to work for those players. they both use modified version of the same HERO game engine.

My question is why is this game not more successful? Is it a lack of content updates? Game Performance? ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Business model? What turns you away from the game? What needs to happen to keep you interested?

*Edit*
I suspect there is a lot of players. FFXIV has a site that tracks active users. They currently have 690,692 active users on NA servers. FFXIV 30 day concurrent users is a shade under 15,000. So we do dirty math and take it with a grain of salt but the concurrent active users on SWTOR is half that so we take half the active users of FFXIV.....so its around 345,000 active users on Steam for SWTOR NOT including EU. Which is pretty darn good. Thats like Guild Wars 2 numbers and higher than Ever Quest's peak back in the day. Now if they could ride the wave with an announcement that they are working on an expac and engine optimization to keep it going.

*Edit, Edit*

Apparently in 2019 they announced they had made 1 billion in revenue off the initial investment of 200 million soooo its not like the game isnt at least moderately successful either.

[Teaspoon]

Rager původně napsal:

And they would make it back easily if they do it right. It is star wars, players eat it up and MMO players always to give things a second chance. Just look at TSW. It did a overhaul, sure it was not great. But it had TONS of people come back to give it another shot.

There's a better chance that they would end up just satisfying the audience that's already there and not make back the expensive cost. Also how would or could you convince them to do that for SWTOR instead of spending that 50 to 100 million on a new SW game that has the potential to make even more money?

TSW's overhaul didn't cost 50 to 100 million. I don't think you understand or realize the amount of money SWTOR needs to spend to overhaul itself is drastically higher than it would be for basically every other MMO out due to it's complicated engine & the fact that it has a cinematic story on the level that other MMOs don't as well as a host of other issues.

With the mess that SWTOR is it would make more sense to dump the existing completed work (art assets, VO, etc) into a new engine & basically remake the game from the ground up. What currently exists is a mess & isn't easy to work with. For example overhauling the game doesn't mean SWTOR could or would have an entirely new combat system. The engine has limitations that no matter how much money you throw at it won't change, for instance the engine can't support more than 16 players in a combat instance thus there will never be Operations or PVP with more than 16 players because the engine can't handle it.

[Teaspoon]

PIT_DEFENDER původně napsal:

But we can agree that it worked on opposite expenses model, SWTOR beffey game from start. ESO (yes expensive but not so in comparsion to SWTOR) rather an unteresting skeleton that leater on started to be developed with DLC;s ?

Right all those other games expanded outwards which is what MMOs should do or that is what is expected of MMOs.

As it stands right now SWTOR basically did itself a disservice by starting so big because the game was never able to continue on the way it was designed/planned to once it wasn't the WoW like success EA planned for.

[Teaspoon]

Pasta La Vista původně napsal:

With all due respect, we absolutely don't give a s**t about EA. We play their games for lore, theme etc. Not for the brand's name or logo. If any publisher resists to invest into their games, then it simply means they didn't care about it's loyal players and only chase after nothing else, but pure money in the first place. I respect BioWare for actually bringing something, even if it's tiny, but unique and original stuff, because the devs love their work, unlike shareholders and publishers whom seek just revenue and probably have never played a video game in their life. But you're right, as much as players keep spending and spending on cosmetics and sub, the less publisher will care about QoL changes and eventually close when they can no longer milk the cash cow.

I'm just explaining to you why things are they way they are. I'm not defending EA, I just simply understand what happened with the game and what isn't likely to happen with the game at this point based on existing history.

It's also clear that EA doesn't care & hasn't for some time now. Again, this is a 9 year old game. None of the post release content has been close to what the vanilla game offers. At a certain point the responsibility falls on the player to realize/understand that instead continuing to play or sub to the game in the "hopes" that it will get better because once again it's been NINE years. Not a year or two or three but nine. It should be abundantly clear at this point what SWTOR is, how frequently it updates, the scope/scale/size/quality of their updates.

SWTOR isn't suddenly skyrocket in quality just because people keep playing or complaining about it. It might have at one point but that time has passed SWTOR by it seems. Look at the amount of time between when FF14 or ESO or No Mans Sky got overhauled &/or got better. It's usually 2 to 3 years, not 9.

We play their games for lore, theme etc. Not for the brand's name or logo

Except in the case of SWTOR the Star Wars & Bioware brands were why a lot of people played the game or were excited about it in the first place.

[Mr. Californication]

psytic původně napsal:

I'll put my personal reasoning in since i never did in my original post. For me it was performance related. I had an I7 2600k when this came out and a **60 GTX level card and for whatever reason the game stuttered like crazy when anyone else was around to the point the game was almost unplayable. The skills felt laggy and unresponsive as well.

Funny enough now that I have a pretty decent system I can run the game at 144 fps 1440p, 10 bit color max setting with shadows off and it looks really really good with very little stuttering. So I wonder if they improved the performance for the average user (I think the most common still is 1060 with an I5 or Ryzen) and committed to regular story content expansion upgrades would this game be as successful as ESO?

I got the stutter to completely dissapear by playing in fullscreen windowed. No performance loss either at ultra graphics

[McGillicutti]

Veeshan původně napsal:

McGillicutti původně napsal:

snip

You are of course entirely correct that people enjoy games for different reasons, and my pet preference for challenging combat in the moment-to-moment play is just that. It's just... hard to accept sometimes.

I understand at a visceral level that some prefer fantasy and some sci-fi. That some prefer action and some tactics. But to prefer no challenge at all? That confuses me and I can't empathize. And then to add insult to injury they turn out to be the more popular contingent, or close. It's all just too much.

For me SWTOR is challenging.

However I do contribute that to my willingness to PUG.

You know what it's like to do Blood Hunt or Kuat Drive Yard bosses with a level 15 and 20 who didn't know there is a repair button at the vendors? That's just one example but I find if one really wants to find challenge they can, but if you follow the guides and every gameplay expert for SWTOR or pretty much any game, the game is boring. Everything is easy by spoiling yourself to knowing every build and stat etc. from a view that always works. These players essentially hacked the game mechanics into cookie cutter certainties by builds where, even in ops, 16 players can know exactly every aspect of their role or be couched into it by the other players who do. Now to me that's boring.

I am not a big fan of ops, for instance, as "end game." The reason is that I am a DPS smuggler, run the flyby, do the aoe sweeping gunfire, no healing, penetrating rounds, sniper (described because I can't remember the subclass name right now hahaha), and I am just told "Stand here and shoot."

If the ops fails, when I was under 306 gear, it's my fault. Once I had 306 gear, never have I been blamed (as I didn't naturally go out of sequence, like I know I don't want to be the tank so wait until that role has taken on its purpose). So you see how the structured roles lead to structured design of these maps more than merely a PUG could accomplish in the time people alot for playing a game. That last bit is a big part of the reason for popularity of the kind you find insulting.

The game stories help summarize the gameplay. A familiar story like Star Wars, makes those summaries easier to understand and digest using the outline of the known of the overall story, light sabers, the force, etc. Other games that aren't as well known are less able to convey so easily the mechanics so that player comfort level with being able to understand the game will be a negative to you since it's too easy, but is the difference in this game being something many players can pick up easily and not be challenged, which appears to me to be a very intentional act by EA/Bioware and rightfully so.

Rage quitting is generally avoided by this model which is a wise decision for a game brand to make. There are numerous developers who are on my ignore list for their overly structured design that causes the player to only be able to do things one way, the way some guide says somewhere of course, but in such a patterned set of keystrokes to kill the boss or whatever else, and that, for me, is insulting. I've raged out after trying in "story mode" to kill the boss or whatever else, only to find some guide or someone (if its an mmo) pulling the "git gud" dialog. They see you're upset, they know they know the game well and are not, so they poke you until you either quit or become a expert zombie like them for that game. Their point to me is "yeah get scripted and mentally programmed like me to follow the steps some guide said and don't try to be creative with your build" is what "git gud" means generally. Amazingly I found quite often it's that I am colorblind and designers didn't realize that some colors make depth perception impossible so we can't play until they fix the color scheme, but the "git gud" player didn't even care.

And of these Elitist/Uber/Gosu types, so few will explain this or that mechanic with specificity, as though they're holding a trade secret or the world will end if they tell you. Of course some send you a link to some article(s) loaded with acronyms and incomprehensible to the average or less player. Many many ways people are turned off to a game and chased away from it that a few base steps like EA has done in SWTOR result in almost nullifying those extreme negative incidences. It's important to do so to not destroy player growth (i.e. new player interest in SWTOR and the EA brand).

Complaints that it's too easy may not be heard over positive branding design, or at least a design intended to minimize negative in-game play experiences for most players, to which "gameplay is boring" will have a very minimal weight.

There are many games and game companies that have these problems. Going from ME 1 to ME 2, where you suddenly need ammo clips versus the ME 1 method of weapons overheating that stopped a gun from working, an entirely different demonstration of damage to you that is more dramatic, all reasons I uninstalled ME 2 even though I had completed it. It just wasn't the game ME 1 is. Story players take this stuff as seriously as you do because we want to see and enjoy the story, the graphics, the world and all its pieces. Difficult gameplay, level lockouts and other pathing issues, especially when you combine these, turn a game into a job. Turn a mission into reading a manual (guide) somewhere to get through something, or watching videos to learn how to do something, no less than a job where someone is paying you money to do so. Game Developers build in ways to track what players do and what a Dev does with this information is often what determines a game's success, and, more importantly, duration of existence when it comes to MMOs.

Just mentioning a small part of what to consider in what seems inexplicable to you.

[sevalaricgirl]

Reply from a veteran. Been in the game since January 2011. First let me address the voice acting fopaux. You can't go back to silent protagonist when you already set the standard for voice acted protagonist. That is why people complained. It was a stupid decision on the dev's part which they would not have tried if EA was investing money in the game. They are not and I doubt they will ever do it again. EA wants cash cows. As long as a game makes them money, they are going to do the least they can do. When it no longer makes money, they will shut it down.

Next, the game is too damned easy. When we started back in 2011, you had to work together, do all the content and flashpoints to level up. You had to level up your companions so they could work with you. Now you don't even have to do the planetary quests to level up. You get to max level so damned fast that there is nothing left. New operations and flash points are very rare.

What they need to do: 1) EA needs to invest in the game so better content can come out. EA has the money but that is not how they operate. 2) BW needs to make the content harder. When it takes no time to get to max level, and there is nothing to do at max level, people will leave the game and go find something else to do. There were a lot of vets who were completely pissed off when BW made leveling way too easy. 3) They need to invest in PvP. We used to have so much fun in PvP. Sure there were trolls but give it back and they will back down. We used to look forward to earning all the cool armor sets for PvP and it took time.

I honestly don't know what BW was thinking when they made all the changes. It was not the right thing to do. Every so often, I check out message boards to see if there is anything new. There usually isn't.

[McGillicutti]

sevalaricgirl původně napsal:

Reply from a veteran. Been in the game since January 2011. First let me address the voice acting fopaux. You can't go back to silent protagonist when you already set the standard for voice acted protagonist. That is why people complained. It was a stupid decision on the dev's part which they would not have tried if EA was investing money in the game. They are not and I doubt they will ever do it again. EA wants cash cows. As long as a game makes them money, they are going to do the least they can do. When it no longer makes money, they will shut it down.

Next, the game is too damned easy. When we started back in 2011, you had to work together, do all the content and flashpoints to level up. You had to level up your companions so they could work with you. Now you don't even have to do the planetary quests to level up. You get to max level so damned fast that there is nothing left. New operations and flash points are very rare.

What they need to do: 1) EA needs to invest in the game so better content can come out. EA has the money but that is not how they operate. 2) BW needs to make the content harder. When it takes no time to get to max level, and there is nothing to do at max level, people will leave the game and go find something else to do. There were a lot of vets who were completely pissed off when BW made leveling way too easy. 3) They need to invest in PvP. We used to have so much fun in PvP. Sure there were trolls but give it back and they will back down. We used to look forward to earning all the cool armor sets for PvP and it took time.

I honestly don't know what BW was thinking when they made all the changes. It was not the right thing to do. Every so often, I check out message boards to see if there is anything new. There usually isn't.

Nah.

First off, NEWSFLASH: Everything that's been changed cost money to change.

If the game had been so great out of the box, the game would never have been f2p, and changes that were made wouldn't have been. That the game is a cash cow isn't because EA hasn't spent money but is instead because they have.

The "Trolls" are a toxic environment. Game after game, PVP after PVP, and no they don't back off. Sure there's some good PK games out there where it's not a grey zone, it's not a group of story players who are regularly messed with by PVP players. I mean, there's an event running and the maps are crowded, all but the PVP zone. Of course the moment people start going to the PVP zone cause it's empty, well here come the gankers.

I don't PVP and was with a group just doing the event missions. Not even a shred of care for that though by the PVP players, some of which knew people in our team and they pretended, "PVP?" got a "no just doing missions" when one of them was there. 5 minutes later 5 people show up, most of my team is familiar with this part of game, the map on Dantooine, etc., and gets away. Me, however, they just all came after me. I was there for missions. You want the game to just be open world PVP, just your way. You don't care about the other markets for the game for the story, for Star Wars, and you want what it once was, nostalgia that wasn't a cash cow, and therefore was subject to closure.

I'll tell ya what. You want a compromise? Open World PVP SWTOR, where every single player can check one box in preferences, that automatically denies them from duels or any other PVP activity, that they can go anywhere, do anything in the game and won't be able to be attacked. This way you PVP player can attack each other, while the rest of us can play whatever other game we want to play for the money we're spending, for the story we want to play. And, if you try to attack us. Also anyone who harasses someone who doesn't PVP their account is terminated upon the first offense.

Why it is that there is this group of people who have to have this battling with other players and griefing/razzing to get all that going, as far as they are concerned in every single game, and always with the "well it's an MMO" justification, as though that tech only exist to PVP, and that other reasons for it are to be ignored, I have no idea at all. But consideration for others has been on a decline for a long time and the result has been, in the last 10 years, more PVE games, more games moving away from the PVP model.

The assumption of PVP being less costly than story has been buried by the constant "I have the most uber build' never ending "change the balance" demands over someone who makes a build and it loses in a match, their "perfect build" that wasn't. But instead of accept that they want the game changed, and if a clan, they get the clan to post to the forums, get the game changed. And those changes cost money, often more money, too, especially when a whole new group of PVP players whose builds are destroyed begin lobbying to have what they want. It never ends either until fewer and fewer PVP and eventually the Dev develops the game in a different direction. Thus the nostalgia phase you've laid out that only indicates the game was flawed from the beginning and thankfully the Devs and EA took the time to make it a better game as far as appealing to a market that would afford the game and help it become a cash cow for EA and Bioware.

I am thankful EA changed the game so Star Wars immersion isn't locked behind a wall of uber leetist dfficulty that denies enjoying the stories and world that give the name Star Wars any value, that EA and Bioware made sure the Star Wars world is available to as many as possible.

[LordUnborn]

Hyelander původně napsal:

It has a pretty crappy free to play model.

ESOs free to play lacks a crafting bag and costume dyeing?
Now compare it to SWTORS limited character slot use, money cap, very low count of PVP matches per week, loot quality limitation in PVE and bunch of other things locked behind a sub or a paywall.

I know there are workarounds to get some of the things in SWTOR without subscribing, but ESO doesn't require a workaround to enjoy a more open world experience.

This is how I see it also. The FTP model at ESO is much more forgiving than SW:TOR. Although the expansions are unlocked once you subscribe for a month on SW:TOR I read but that is 100% not the case on ESO. The sheer amount of items and stuff locked behind paywalls here in TOR is just insane.

But that's just my thoughts.