Wow... I just re-subbed on Saturday. But this system really looks like it will discourage raiding which is what I had decided to push towards... I guess I'll just try to enjoy the rest of the now-paid month and leave at the end.
I would suggest at least sticking around for the nine chapters of Eternal Throne (if you care about story). I only saw a short bit of it, but it looks great so far. Hard to say how the raiding scene will shake out after this. My only hope is that BioWare Austin makes some changes due to the feedback.
I used to be the top raid leader in the largest Empire guild on Bergeren Colony, Sith Praxium. We made it to some NiM tier raids in and before SoR expansion, but then the raiding group fell apart, as completion rates became more and more difficult. I feel most of this is due to NiM raiding content being ridiculously hard to do and you basically need the best players on your server to do it. The time sync to get your skills high enough by running the content consistently enough was very high.
The KotFE came out, and there was no focus on FP's or OPS. Most of the guild had fallen apart, myself included, as I had risen out of my 3+ years of hardcore SWTOR play and replaced it with other games (Heroes of the Storm mainly, with some ESO, WoW, and Overwatch thrown in). It's pretty clear with this announcement that Bioware is pretty much putting the nail into new raiding content. It is no longer a viable progression path, and has been being phased out for years now.
Claiming this system is any more RNG than progression raiding is pretty silly. It might be more guaranteed in SM or HM raids, but NiM? No way. I know for a fact, most raiding guilds still smash their face against HM content without getting completions on certain bosses, so you aren't getting loot if your not killing bosses. Even when you killed those bosses, you still needed to hope they drop the appropriate items, and that you either roll like a god, or are on the right spot in the loot ladder. How is this worse RNG? Loot boxes, usually containing AC specific gear and knick knacks, seems a perfectly reasonable way of opening up the remaining 90% of the player based to better gear tiers. Same thing with bringing crafting in line, now, gear crafters will have a reason to exist and a reason to sell on the GTN. Instead of gear progression being tied to skill, experience, and time in game, now it an be tied to time played, and in any mode of your choosing. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Will the OPS community be affected, maybe, I agree with the alt thing a bit. But even when I was progression raiding, a large majority of my time was taken up in other endeavors, often not contributing to my gear progression. Now it will be.
RNG has proven its the best model for generating cash in a F2P. Its simple to design and simple to understand........ To increase the chance of something good happening..........buy this.
Yes it is a common model in F2P games - make a ridiculous grind for those playing free, then give cash shop items to make the grind more tolerable.
Except...
BW is giving an F2P grind and it is ONLY available to subscribers. This is the worst of both MMO worlds. They are charging you a sub, then slapping an F2P grind to it. I am sure the near term intent is to sell the Command Crates in the CM. In other words, they plan on fleecing their subscribers.
No matter how you slice it, what they are doing is completely taking a dump all over their loyal subscribers. Things must not be going so well from a revenue standpoint, so now they are focusing on how to extract more money from their loyal customers. I think what they are instead going to find, is they lose a lot of those loyal customers instead.
Comments
I used to be the top raid leader in the largest Empire guild on Bergeren Colony, Sith Praxium. We made it to some NiM tier raids in and before SoR expansion, but then the raiding group fell apart, as completion rates became more and more difficult. I feel most of this is due to NiM raiding content being ridiculously hard to do and you basically need the best players on your server to do it. The time sync to get your skills high enough by running the content consistently enough was very high.
The KotFE came out, and there was no focus on FP's or OPS. Most of the guild had fallen apart, myself included, as I had risen out of my 3+ years of hardcore SWTOR play and replaced it with other games (Heroes of the Storm mainly, with some ESO, WoW, and Overwatch thrown in). It's pretty clear with this announcement that Bioware is pretty much putting the nail into new raiding content. It is no longer a viable progression path, and has been being phased out for years now.
Claiming this system is any more RNG than progression raiding is pretty silly. It might be more guaranteed in SM or HM raids, but NiM? No way. I know for a fact, most raiding guilds still smash their face against HM content without getting completions on certain bosses, so you aren't getting loot if your not killing bosses. Even when you killed those bosses, you still needed to hope they drop the appropriate items, and that you either roll like a god, or are on the right spot in the loot ladder. How is this worse RNG? Loot boxes, usually containing AC specific gear and knick knacks, seems a perfectly reasonable way of opening up the remaining 90% of the player based to better gear tiers. Same thing with bringing crafting in line, now, gear crafters will have a reason to exist and a reason to sell on the GTN. Instead of gear progression being tied to skill, experience, and time in game, now it an be tied to time played, and in any mode of your choosing. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Will the OPS community be affected, maybe, I agree with the alt thing a bit. But even when I was progression raiding, a large majority of my time was taken up in other endeavors, often not contributing to my gear progression. Now it will be.
Yes it is a common model in F2P games - make a ridiculous grind for those playing free, then give cash shop items to make the grind more tolerable.
Except...
BW is giving an F2P grind and it is ONLY available to subscribers. This is the worst of both MMO worlds. They are charging you a sub, then slapping an F2P grind to it. I am sure the near term intent is to sell the Command Crates in the CM. In other words, they plan on fleecing their subscribers.
No matter how you slice it, what they are doing is completely taking a dump all over their loyal subscribers. Things must not be going so well from a revenue standpoint, so now they are focusing on how to extract more money from their loyal customers. I think what they are instead going to find, is they lose a lot of those loyal customers instead.