Level 50 character progression in TOR has been done terribly bad and it ruins the feel of end game and shorten the longevity of fun of the game.
The end game was designed so terribly that you would have thought they didn't even have 1 person with MMO experience on the design team.
Beta feedback regarding this issue was of course ignored, probably due to having to ship in a rushed fashion. Heres a little story........
Ry'zen is now level 50!
Awesome, what do I do now?
Got a couple quests that send me to Belsavis and to Ilum, couple of cool chains there that take me around new areas. Oh wait what is this, dailies?
Aww I hate dailies but I guess its not too bad since they are new and a couple H2s and H4s that give some nice purple gear.
What can I get for dailies? Oh shit a vendor, got some nice stuff on it. 120 comms?
WTFBBQ thats insane, thats like 10 days of doing dailies for a piece, grrr, np I have grinded out worse things in a game and if i push it i can get those pieces in under a week.
Dailies are done, what else should I do? Lets go run a hard mode flashpoint with some friends and see how that pans out.
BT, why does it gotta be BT I hate this place,. Oh whatever wont be too bad with spacebarring. We are going to b spacebarring right guys?
"Dude, did you get the daily/weekly?"
Did I get the daily, what do you mean, there are more dailies, bleh, k Ill grab it?
Run was pretty damn easy, trash was a joke, I got 2 purples and some alloy thing from last boss.
No idea what all these different commendations are but I got like 5 different kinds from the run and the daily.
That was pretty cool, kinda boring running a slightly harder version of an old FP with the same cut scenes and all, but whatever I got some shineys.
What now, oh shit I havent PvPd in a while, guess I could go see how that goes.
"Dude, did you get the daily/weekly?"
WTF are you talking about now, there is another set of quests to get for PVP too?
"Yeah dude, you gotta finish them you get purple boxes with gear sometimes"
Purple boxes with gear? Fuck yeah sign my ass up lets do this, queue up.
----14 minutes later Queue pops ------
Huttball, cool I like Huttball, this should be awesome
---- 2 minutes later Match Begins------
"Dude its a full premade from "Sith Happens" in full BM gear, this is gonna suck"
----3 players have left Huttball ----
Nah even if we lose we'll get some comms and valor right? Lets see how this goes
FORCE LEAP BITCHES!!!
*stunned, 4k, 4k, 6k, stunned, 6k - dead
Wow did you see how fast I died? like 3 seconds
"Dude you shoulda trinketed"
Well we lost to that pre-made after they scored 5 times in 5 minutes and then camped us for the remaining 10.
But the good news is I got my daily done after that and it only took 9 matches.
5 wins and 4 losses, it didnt count 2 of the wins for some reason, not sure maybe its a bug or something.
But I got my daily done, and I had enough comms to buy another purple box! I got 2 of these mofos now!
Box 1..........BLAM -Empty WTF, oh shit ANOTHER commendation, wtf do these do anyway?
Box 2......... BLAM -Champions Legs of the fallen badass, FUCK YEAH.
Wait a minute, I got legs earlier in that BT run, bah, ok lets see what these PvP ones are about.
Damn, Im no pro but these PvP legs are BADASS, why would i ever wear those crappy ones from that boring Flashpoint?
Guess ill throw them on a companion
Well PvP was fun, well not really but I did get some purple legs out of it, so thats nice.
What about raiding, how does that work in this game, lets see if I can find a run.
1. General - LF 1 more DPS For Normal EV, vent required, pst"
Going to hop in that shit, sounds fun.
---You have been invited by Herpsandderps ---
Ry'zen (Ops) - Cool so what planets should I head to for this stuff, Ilum?
Coolguy-Solo (Ops) Nah man just fly over to that northern ship its all here.
Hmm, all the raids are on one ship, kinda wierd, but convenient, lets do this.
Coolguy-Solo (Ops) Dude, did you get the weekly?
No shit, there is another quest like this for operations, wtf man my log is almost full due to those 16 grey quests I still cant abandon.
Big Robot boss kinda cool, I got some purple token or somethings one more of those alloy things and some more currency.
WTF is with all this currency, Im gonna have to get one of my nerdier friends to do a spreadsheet for me or something
Gwar or whatever his name was easy, got my weekly done too! Oh yeah and another purple piece, that makes 2 this run, AWESOME.
WTF are these pillars, whats that guy doing at that console
Herpderps (Ops) Loot is in the middle get the box
Hmmm, ok no idea what happened there but whatever Im game. Loot, hmmm another purple, thats 3 for 3? I love this loot system! My lucky day!
Solo council – interesting fight, I pwned my guy
No loot though, WTF, jk Im not greedy.
SOA, cool fight, kinda repetitive with the phases but overall I had fun, seemed kinda easy though overall.
Although this is the normal mode so that makes sense, wonder what loot is like.
…..BLAM Lightsaber, OH SHIT YEA, gimme that.
Lost on the mount roll but that’s cool cause I don’t have the credits for the training, DAMN YOU MISSION BASED GATHERING
Little under 1 hour in that place and I cleaned up, 4 pieces, bunch more currency that I have no idea how it works.
Guess Ill ask the fellas tomorrow, but for now it was a hella good day for a fresh level 50, BOOYA.
- end of story -
This same person from this story went on to run normal Karaggas the next day and was lucky enough to score 2 more pieces of gear and of course some more mysterious currency.
This is just a snapsot of what is wrong with the end game progression in TOR.
The design is fubar on many different levels.
Issues
Dailies/Weeklys – Way too many of them to keep up with, does not add anything fulfilling to the game in any aspect.
PvP gear is easy to acquire and is superior to HM flashpoint gear (outside of final boss Columidrops)
Side note Opinion: Level 50 PvP for a fresh 50 is terrible, RNG loot system is frustrating, and the bugs surrounding wins not counting is a letdown.
Currency system is dreadful, convoluted, and does not give players a sense of accomplishment or working towards a goal.
Saving up currency to buy a piece that drops elsewhere is terrible design, you could potentially save up for weeks (and it will take weeks) and buy a piece and the very next raid day you receive that item as a drop
Operations – Gear drop rates way too high, only running normal mode for 2 weeks, most players will usually have 75% of their gear. I saw most players usually get 12 pieces out of 20 boss kills, this does fluctuate though.
Normal mode operations for the most part are easier than the HM FPs, and sometimes are shorter, which leads to…
HM FPs are not worth running (outside of final boss drops of columi and alloy), currency from bosses and completing is near useless.
After a few weeks you have zero need to run the 4 man content, could possibly have all the daily gear from mission support vendor(or given up because of boredom), and all you can do to progress your character is wait on Hard Mode/Nightmare Raid nights (if youre guild can even do them), or try to grind through PvP ranks and gear disparities to gear for PvP.
I still play TOR on my lower level characters, 10-49 WZ’s are really fun, but have lost all faith in level 50 content and I don’t want to mention Ilum PvP. I think these issues have turned off a lot of players and I am not sure BW even realizes that these issues are apparent.
Looking to have my faith restored in the game, but it has been a roughy first ~ 3 months.