Little things SWTOR needs for that last 0.5 star

[Klingers]

SWTOR is giving me the most pure enjoyment of any game I've played since early 2005. I'm sure you know what other game I'm talking about, but I digress.

There's a few things I think need just a bit of work:

- Talent trees
- Spam reporting
- Ranked abilities

Greg Street of Ghostcrawler fame might not always be right, but he's made some very astute observations about talent points. SWTOR's talent point system is kind of like WoW vanilla's talent points; It's only giving you an illusion of choice. There's going to be "a" DPS spec and "a" tanking spec for Jedi Guardians for example. Having three trees also seems kind of pointless and a little confusing as they don't have the same clearly defined functional and thematic difference that Wow class trees have.

Reporting spam is good, it's there, but it needs work. I don't want to submit a ticket per se, I want to right-click the name, ignore all future messages from that character and have it dealth with silently like in WoW. Not much more to say on this point.

Ranked abilities are really just a gold (erm... credit) sink. The problem though is more that they're not an exciting element of character development. Blizzard wisely took this concept out into the back paddock and shot it once they realised it was superfluous, boring and not very fun.

Anyway I refuse to to a TL;DR because a) people that are so impatient and/or illiterate that they can't read 4 short paragraphs of text don't belong on an internet forum, and b) It's summed up in dot points right at the start.

Anyway, this was really only about a little constructive criticism on a couple of relatively minor, non-game breaking features. SWTOR gets a solid 4.5 from me for its awesome fully-voiced storylines, fun PVP, great graphics, snappy controls and for the most part finding a balance between copying the best parts of WoW's interface and introducing their own fantastic new ideas. I haven't had this much fun in years but I'd love to see it go just that extra little bit if it can.

[Khanjin]

I agree that the talent system is dated and needs work. It's something they can look at for a future expansion. Right now it serves its purpose I think.

[Deleted]

The talent trees are fine. Although the tertiary tree sucks. WoW has rarely if ever had balanced DPS trees.

Yes the report spam function needs to put the player on ignore.

Ranked abilities I feel indifferent on. At least there is no weapon skills.

[turand]

The GTN (Auction House) interface really needs a global text search function without first going through half dozen filters.

[Vervacious]

-Flexible UI
-Pvp ranking system (like DAoC/WAR)
-Customizable space ships

That's what I think the game needs.
And as for Wow and talent trees, I think they made a mistake in simplifying it. I think they should have given MORE choices, not fewer, so that people have real choices and not just some spoonfed junk. I'm fine w/ swtor talent system for now, and look forward to seeing how they update it in the future. I'd be really upset if they made it like MoP though. That's just dumbing it down.

[Klingers]

Yeah, that's another good point about the auction house.

Oh well, I suppose it's a very good sign that the only things we can find to complain about is niggling small stuff. Not many MMOs are in that state on launch day.

[Shamburger]

The GTN (Auction House) interface really needs a global text search function without first going through half dozen filters.

I couldn't agree more. I HATE the GTN interface, It's frickin retarded.

[mistuhbull]

AH needs a better interface
Own server LFD. I don't want to be stuck on the Fleet whenever I want to do an Instance
Neutral rewards, and/or equivalent rewards to the LS/DS choices that don't require the rankings. LS/DS don't make sense for some characters (BH, Smuggler can EASILY end up neutral) or just don't make sense in their choices (Sith Warrior quest with the prisoners for example)
Balance the crew skills, certain ones are insanely better than others
macro support

[Twiddly]

Five stars is a flawed ranking system anyway!

[Klingers]

I think they should have given MORE choices, not fewer, so that people have real choices and not just some spoonfed junk. I'm fine w/ swtor talent system for now, and look forward to seeing how they update it in the future. I'd be really upset if they made it like MoP though. That's just dumbing it down.

See I'm of a very different opinion to you here. You call it dumbing down, I call it trimming the fat. In these type of games there is always "a" spec per tree/specialisation that developers will tune content around. It might be "dumbing down", but to be honest any removal of arbitrary percentage-increasing talents is a good thing to me. I like to see clearly defined active abilities as what I have to make a hard choice about.

Right now SWTOR's trees just kind of have these mooshed in with all the "2/4/5% ranked increase" talents. Not fun.

[Deleted]

See I'm of a very different opinion to you here. You call it dumbing down, I call it trimming the fat. In these type of games there is always "a" spec per tree/specialisation that developers will tune content around. It might be "dumbing down", but to be honest any removal of arbitrary percentage-increasing talents is a good thing to me. I like to see clearly defined active abilities as what I have to make a hard choice about.

Right now SWTOR's trees just kind of have these mooshed in with all the "2/4/5% ranked increase" talents. Not fun.

What is the arguement supporting sub standard DPS trees in WoW then?

All the talents I have chosen so far have been decent, with the exception of PVP type talents which I have skipped.

[Deleted]

Targeting needs work. i often find myself targeting another mob after i killed a mob i actually wanted to kill
then i go pulling another pack =/

also target of target, really a must for an mmo. also the ( raid) frames i find the colors red and yellow on top of a blue shade to be hard to see.

User Interface scaling is needed too i kind of find it too big

And the auction house, i think it should be advertised more ( somehow) its quite empty and people spamming what theyre selling daily. i think most people don't know there is one

But all in all the game is too good to QQ about such flaws

[Rawt]

May i add my own? I, too, am loving this game more than any other game played. I played wow for almost 6 years, and i just felt like my time with it is done. I was worried i wouldnt be able to find something that captivated and kept me hooked like wow did so many years ago, but this is it.

Anyways, onto my must fix list:

1. Vendor/Mission/trainer pricing. The token vendors are spot on as far as costs for items. The vendors that sell things for credits are way too high, as is the cost of crew skill missions. Im 210 armstech/investigation/scavenging and im spending about 2k per mission (which equates to roughly 1-2 skill points). Class trainer pricing is also way over inflated. Having to spend 10k per new ability rank each level is rough.

2. Quick travel. I love the idea of having multiple 'bind points' throughout a map, and being able to transport to each one quickly. However, there needs to be a transport to your ship option, or something similar. It drains me to have to travel all the way back through a planet, through the spacedocks, up into my ship each time.

3.Speeder dismounts. Its pretty awful in its current state. For those who dont know, if a mob aggros on you while youre mounted, and gets an attack off (including long range abilities), your speeder blows up, youre in an 'animation stun' for 3 seconds, while those mobs you aggrod are beating you down. If they want to do one shot = dismount, im cool with that, but the penalty stun thing is caused purely by the animation aesthetics, and needs to be changed.

4. Galactic Trade Network. Its clunky, and completely 'un-fun' to use. Not sure why all the extra fields are mandatory, or why you cant click an item to have its name inputted,etc - but it needs to be changed. its a very outdated and hard to use system, for a game so new.

5. Macros, enough said. There's currently no macro support, but with so many abilities, and a limited real estate/binds to be able to use them, we need macros.

Other than that, im friggin loving the game. i havent had this much fun playing an mmo in, well, forever.

[Rebirth1108]

-Pvp ranking system (like DAoC/WAR)

That right there, Loved DAOC, and the ranking system was the BEST! still play my RR12 NS...

[nnelson54]

It is absolutely inexcusable to not have a Target of Target option.

[Enhanced]

Personally the improvements i would make:
> Adjustable UI
> Allow Dmg / Healing meters (or logs) to go on as i enjoy theorycrafting what is the best rotation and this is a huge key feature of that.

---
As a note i am really enjoying this game although only level 30 atm :S i enjoy the gameplay, the lore, the quest style and levelling as a whole

[Guillotine811]

I like the talent trees, remind me of pre-cata WoW. I just want UI customization (or add ons) and dual spec.

[Rebirth1108]

May i add my own? I, too, am loving this game more than any other game played. I played wow for almost 6 years, and i just felt like my time with it is done. I was worried i wouldnt be able to find something that captivated and kept me hooked like wow did so many years ago, but this is it.

Anyways, onto my must fix list:

1. Vendor/Mission/trainer pricing. The token vendors are spot on as far as costs for items. The vendors that sell things for credits are way too high, as is the cost of crew skill missions. Im 210 armstech/investigation/scavenging and im spending about 2k per mission (which equates to roughly 1-2 skill points). Class trainer pricing is also way over inflated. Having to spend 10k per new ability rank each level is rough.

2. Quick travel. I love the idea of having multiple 'bind points' throughout a map, and being able to transport to each one quickly. However, there needs to be a transport to your ship option, or something similar. It drains me to have to travel all the way back through a planet, through the spacedocks, up into my ship each time.

3.Speeder dismounts. Its pretty awful in its current state. For those who dont know, if a mob aggros on you while youre mounted, and gets an attack off (including long range abilities), your speeder blows up, youre in an 'animation stun' for 3 seconds, while those mobs you aggrod are beating you down. If they want to do one shot = dismount, im cool with that, but the penalty stun thing is caused purely by the animation aesthetics, and needs to be changed.

4. Galactic Trade Network. Its clunky, and completely 'un-fun' to use. Not sure why all the extra fields are mandatory, or why you cant click an item to have its name inputted,etc - but it needs to be changed. its a very outdated and hard to use system, for a game so new.

5. Macros, enough said. There's currently no macro support, but with so many abilities, and a limited real estate/binds to be able to use them, we need macros.

Other than that, im friggin loving the game. i havent had this much fun playing an mmo in, well, forever.

Im at 310 Armortech and my mission run from 500-1200 not sure where your getting your prices from...

[Xenden]

Target of target frame. Nuff said and it would get that last 1/2 star.

[Rawt]

-Flexible UI
-Pvp ranking system (like DAoC/WAR)
-Customizable space ships

That's what I think the game needs.
And as for Wow and talent trees, I think they made a mistake in simplifying it. I think they should have given MORE choices, not fewer, so that people have real choices and not just some spoonfed junk. I'm fine w/ swtor talent system for now, and look forward to seeing how they update it in the future. I'd be really upset if they made it like MoP though. That's just dumbing it down.

i dont remember warhammer's ranking system, but there is one in swtor. Its based on your valor level. i didnt even notice it myself until i hit valor 20 and got the duelist title.