Hyperspace Beacon: Five things BioWare needs to do to keep SWTOR players around

I write a lot of words about Star Wars: The Old Republic. And over this last year, the Knights of the Fallen Empire has done some really great things, like adding level-scaling, presenting a compelling story, and making all companions viable again. However, I think it can be agreed that KOTFE also took some steps backward as well.

We are in a content lull right now, so I know that people have been stepping away from the game because of that. However, many of the major players and fan sites started to drop off well before the KOTFE chapters were actually finished, and I’ve really had to take a step back and ponder that. In asking why, I believe that I’ve come up with five things that BioWare can do in the next expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne, that will help bring some of the people back, or at very least, entice players to stick around.

Be warned: There are spoilers ahead!

Closure

If I were to actually calculate the statistics for how many people were satisfied with the ending of Knights of the Fallen Empire, I would likely find a pretty divided group. The way the expansion closed reminded me very much of a television season ending. Personally, I don’t think that it was too bad. There was enough change and enough of a character arc to satisfy me, but then I am a huge fan of television. I understand how a serial works. The season doesn’t always end with the good guy saving the day, and many times the season ends with more questions than it has answers.

Unfortunately, KOTFE isn’t a television series; it’s a video game. At the end of a video game, you square off against the big bad, and save the day, more or less. There is always a sense of accomplishment because you’re now the savior of the universe or mankind’s greatest evil has now been vanquished. There is a strong sense of closure.

Spoilers: At the end of KOTFE, the big bad isn’t dead. Sure, you have to fight him in a battle with new and interesting game mechanics, but he gets away. And the biggest issue is that there appears to be an amazing moral choice at the end that really amounts to nothing at all because it’s a non-choice. It’s like reading a choose my adventure novel and noticing that either choice will lead you to page 78. This leads nicely into my next point.

Stakes

One of my favorite BioWare games of all time is the original Mass Effect. Although all the paths the game leads you on ultimately will take you to same big boss fight. The paths is different, and so are the outcomes based on the choices you made while getting there. Of course, Mass Effect 2 kind of ruined some of those choices, but that doesn’t change the stakes of Mass Effect if you take it by itself.

I didn’t feel those same stakes with KOTFE. I’m sorry if you’ve not played Mass Effect, but the game’s almost a decade old now, and there are spoilers ahead! Besides the literal life-and-death decisions you have to make for some of the other companions, one of the most monumental life-or-death decisions involves a possible love interest. Granted, I always killed off Kaidan because he was such a whiner. However, there was a guaranteed death. And no matter how many times I play it (I’ve played it at least 5 times), I always feel the loss. There is always that sense of failure, which makes the ultimate defeat of Seran feel that much better.

KOTFE doesn’t feel the same. It could be because the BioWare storytelling trope has been done many times over, and I just don’t feel it anymore. But I think it’s because the stakes aren’t that high. It’s not like you were in reach of the throne and it was snatched out of your hands. You didn’t have to truly risk the life of your love interests. The only thing that you could probably lose is the ship, at which I can only shrug. Oh well, I know that I will ultimately get back or it will just be a non-issue when the next expansion comes out.

Group content

All right, enough about the story. I could literally talk about that for days. But there are some many other things that SWTOR needs to do in its next expansion in order to win people over. And topping that list has got to be group content. In just a few weeks, it will literally be a year since BioWare has released any new group content. KOTFE has truly been a solo player’s dream. With heroics being the most lucrative activity next to playing the market, all the new achievements focusing on soloing content, and the Eternal Championship, which was the most difficult content to release in the past year. And no, level-scaling the existing content does not count as new group content because people have actually used that to better solo content not actually group with friends.

We need a raid and at least two new flashpoints. It would be really nice to see something that is very duo-focused as well. And please, please, please, BioWare, fix all the instances so that others can join you in anything we do. Currently, there are many areas that have to been soloed because the other person has already done it or hasn’t reached that level yet

More difficult solo content

I think I’ve said it more than enough times: The content in SWTOR is a cakewalk. Some people have blown my complaints by saying that I’m a highly skilled or a highly geared player, and that is just not the case. Yes, I raid in SWTOR, but I am hardly topping the DPS charts. Yes, I have decent gear, but it’s not BiS, nor do I run most of the solo content in my best gear anyway. And to answer a question before it is asked: No, increasing the health points of mobs does not make things more difficult; it makes things more boring. Add more mechanics, and give me the possibility to fail on bosses.

New planets to explore

Lastly, I believe that we need more places to explore. SWTOR has always felt a bit like a corridor, but even the most open zone in the KOTFE content felt very closed off, as if there was a well-trodden path for us to take. I really like the openness of the Mandalorian chapter, but I would really like to see more. The open zone felt only slightly bigger than the Tatooine player housing.

Those are the things that I think we need to see in the next expansion for SWTOR, but obviously, I’m just one person. What are some items that SWTOR could realistically add that would tempt you into coming back for the next expansion? What seemed to be missing from KOTFE that you believe needs to come back to the game? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll see you next week.