SWTOR: State of the game at this point

[kraizee]

90% of the negative bashers here , have either
a) never played SWTOR
b) never actually max'ed any toon
c) stopped playing 30days after they subbed

Neither of these 3 cases make them eligible to actually comment in a thread named " CURRENT state of swtor " . My guesses is their 'game' is not proviiding them with the fun they want so they try to troll to pass their time .

I hit level 50 on my Shadow Consular. I killed all of the bosses pre-1.2 on insane difficulty.

I left the game because of how many bugs our raid needed to deal with to kill a boss. And the bugs I needed to deal with during normal gameplay.

Add to this the kind of farming you need to do to get maxed out in pvp gear, and there you have it.

Also.. I dropped synthweaving (which was maxed out) in order to get Biotech, which I maxed out... two weeks before they nerfed it. Instead of buffing the other proffessions.

I dunno, the raids were mostly fun. Pretty easy. The mounts though... just not pretty imo.

[Toroc]

I don't even like nor care for Star wars, however, I will say it is a great RPG just a really shitty MMO.

[woodydave44]

I am playing it over WoW, so BioWare is doing something right. Plus I love the cross faction talking. Blizz would never let us do that. I also like how BioWare give me everything they said they would.

Ilum wants a word with you.

Awww you lost a few games and felt the need to cry on the forums about it.

thats clearly what he said.....


OT: The game just doesnt have enough to do....I dont enjoy leveling alts, but that seems to be what the devs are pushing you to do.

[Cakka]

There is a bigger majority arguing against LFG. I believe it destroys the community because, in my mind, its just a tool for lazy people. You say nothing stops them from getting 4 friends and doing it... but if this is your first mmo? What if you came to TOR without your friends? How will you meet people without actually having to find people?

Would really love to know how you have measured the amount of people for and against LFD, especially since your measurements seem to go against what the developers of most western MMOs seem to think. At least EQ2, LotRO and Rift have added LFD system following the success it has had in WoW, also Trion said that during Rifts beta LFD system was by far the most requested feature.

[Odegon]

I hit level 50 on my Shadow Consular. I killed all of the bosses pre-1.2 on insane difficulty.

I left the game because of how many bugs our raid needed to deal with to kill a boss. And the bugs I needed to deal with during normal gameplay.

Add to this the kind of farming you need to do to get maxed out in pvp gear, and there you have it.

Also.. I dropped synthweaving (which was maxed out) in order to get Biotech, which I maxed out... two weeks before they nerfed it. Instead of buffing the other proffessions.

I dunno, the raids were mostly fun. Pretty easy. The mounts though... just not pretty imo.

Sorry, but You are not bashing the game. It is okay to show the negative parts of the game, especially when it is backed up with solid data . There are posters who ONLY writes like this:
"Bioware is the shittiest company. Everything they do is wrong. I hate star wars. Sticks with light, so childish. I am granted to everthing ever done by any other game and it does not matter even is SWTOR did some things for the first time in a mmo, thats just a bonus."
or like this:
"This game is dying because they dont change their population measuring stick ten times in a day or hiding their server populations as good as wow. Obviously Bioware is lying about their subsricption numbers. There is no way this game(which is based on a well known intellectual property and is around for 40 years) could be attracting older people who has real jobs and play a lot less."

[Deleted]

Sadly, I think the final verdict from the "MMO gaming-community" is already in regarding SWToR, and it's not a good one. It's damaged goods and not many people will touch it in the near future. You know things aren't going well when you watch several MMO Streams during the GW2 beta weekend with several 1000's viewers and as always, people begin to compare games and the usual silly "will this game kill x, y or z" discussion breaks out and SW isn't even in the conversation anymore. And then there is this one guy asking "what about sw" and he's just getting laughed at.

This games gets so much catastrophic negative pr from gamers that I don't see a way how they can recover from that no matter what they do. It has come to a point where people actually feel the need to defend themselves why they are liking SW. Really sad. I wish those who genuinely like this game will get the chance to actually play it's whole content in the near future when they finally begin to allow for server transfers or merge servers. I have this one friend left playing Sw and he can't do anything at all besides rerolling. No raids going, no fp's or operations. No chance to build his own guild cause recruiting is a nightmare. He canceled last week. And I feel really sorry for him.

[Tarien]

Once again, them implementing something in the game does not mean MORE people want it. It means ENOUGH people want it. That's the only point I am trying to make. Personally, I don't care one way or another if it is in. However, for every person I see wanting it, I see another not wanting it, and you can not merely dismiss either argument just because you don't want to listen to it, and them adding or not adding does not mean there is more on one side or the other. It merely means there are enough who want it that they are justifying adding it. That is all, no more, no less.

So what you're saying then is that BioWare would implement features that the majority of people don't want? Interesting... Maybe this is why so many servers are empty?

The difference is you are forcing yourself and causing them to change to accommodate you. They are not forcing you to change, however you can easily change yourself if you are so devoted as it is slightly harder on you, but far easier on everyone else. I am not forcing my beliefs on you, I am offering suggestions that would solve your problem, and showing that they do not NEED to add a LFG, you simply WANT them to add an LFG. And on that note, as I pointed out previously, let's think about it for a second. If there is no incentive, i.e. reward "forcing" you to use LFG over not using it, people will not use it. If they are not using it, instead of you complaining about sitting on fleet you will complain about how you have 2 hour queues and that is all your play time and that they should offer a reward to people for using LFG so that you do not need to wait as long, thus forcing people to use the LFG because if there is a reward for using it than people will feel the need to use it.

Pretty sure that people would still use it even if there wasn't a daily reward, just because it is easier to find a group and be transported to an instance. Even so, why wouldn't you want a system that offers daily rewards for participating in content? There are so many advantages to the system which you seem happy to overlook to suit your own needs that really at this point I am fairly sure you're just being obstinate, deliberately closing your eyes because you just don't want to admit that you are wrong.

Sure it has it's downsides, but if you don't like the system, no one is forcing you to use it. You're free to take friends, guildies, spam local channels, walk to an instance of your choice, and complete it. Just like old times

[Armourboy]

Because they're not rushing to meet the standard, they're rushing to improve their game based on the input of the player base. If it was the standard for launch, than everyone would be putting it in at launch.

---------- Post added 2012-05-05 at 04:13 PM ----------



Except, a lot of these games aren't not doing well, they're just not doing 10mil subs. Rift is doing fine, despite not launching with these "launch standards." Swtor is doing fine, the biggest issue right now is just people are spread over too many servers. Consolidation would fix that. I hear from fans of Lotro that it's still a fun game to play.

Notice what I said, I said " as well as they could". I'll say it now, it will be a very long time before any new MMO has the numbers that WoW has, it is a huge outlier. However we know SWTOR is supposedly sitting around 1.7 million players and not really moving ( I kinda think BioWare is fudging on that but thats a different topic). Now had BioWare/EA waited, pushed the game out in the 1.2 stage, and then we would of been looking at 1-2 months for a LFD tool this game would have been done much better. Thats not saying its doing poorly its just saying longterm they tossed some subs away to push the game out early.

Had they waited, launched the game with what it has now and added the LFD tool quickly, I think its very plausable that the game would definately be over 2 million subs at this point, maybe even somewhere in the realm of 3-4.

As far the arguments back and forth about majorities on the LFD tool, I think its pretty obvious by looking across several different forums ( this one, WoW, SWTOR, and others) that a large group of people are ok with at least a same server LFD tool. That in and of its self to me says the problem isn't the tool itself, but how it is implemented.

WoW has opted to keep cross server because it keeps them from needing to merge servers, I don't agree with them but hey its their business. If SWTOR is going to implement a same server one that means they need to be prepped to have some form of transfer/merger available. Right now servers having low pops is probably running more people away than the LFD tool, and tbh I think at this point a rather large group are simply tired of rerolling servers to try and catch the right one.

TLDR - SWTOR is not a bad game, and it is not failing. My stance is however, they have lost several hundred thousand players simply due to systems not existing, and that just seems foolish from a business stand point.

[Reignfire]

But they did exactly like that. I preordered and got early access so i could see exactly what was going on, and they did exactly like that. Servers were full, ppl whinned on the forums, they opened more servers, they also got full, then a few more.

It's a fact that the release was a very sucessfull one for Bioware, lots of ppl trying out the game. The alternative was to not open servers and leave ppl pulling their hairs just because they couldnt stand 3h long queues.

And i'll say it again, their only mistake was not to forsee or prepare correctly with a server transfer system. Either they were blinded with optimist by the way release went or they just did a piss poor job at preparing for how the situation is atm.

Alyssa hited it on the spot, low pop servers are in fact the reason for the vast majority of the issues with the game. Content wise, gameplay wise, visualy wise its very, very good and just needs to have a few more ppl online

Ok I keep seeing this. While yes it is generally agreed that server transfers would have been preferable in early game. I do have a hard time believing though that this many people have such a narrow sight. We aren't talking about taking one digital entity with side items and said currency and just moving that marker to another server in games such as Rift, or WoW. Bioware has to decide are you going to move one toon? The entire legacy? and if we just do move one toon you run into conflicts of is the legacy name taken, if we force a new legacy name is that going to reset some internal set of parameters and although you are level 50 and have completed your entire class quest line you load everyday with ACT II dialogue showing. Not game breaking I know and most of you will probably be like 'yar yar hit new name done herpa derp', but I'm just afraid it's not that easy and we can't sit and look at the code.

Regardless of this small thing yes the game has many pro's and con's.

*PROs
-Evolution of the game has been extensive. While EV and KP were mindless encounters with nearly no game mechanics...EC on only hardmode was far more challenging and introduced more complex encounter phasing and mechanics. Many more experienced raiders obviously still adapted quickly and killed the content but most first week kills had time put in the PTS.
-Customization of gear is unique. No longer do I have to wear terrible tier gear if I so desire, and min/maxing would actually encourage that I don't. Small QoL but refreshing.
-Regardless of most responses on replay-ability...It's fantastic. While many planets have the same fetch quests or kill this there are enough changes to make a decent bit entertaining again.
-Legacy: The greatest time/credit dump for the single-player and can be easily expanded.

*Cons
-The number one issue and I agree is server population- Until server transfers I know this will snipe players everyday. I'm on a dying server where the peak on the fleet is about 40 people. I thankfully have an active raiding guild that sort of makes up for this. There is also, despite what many say, many servers Standard with a few Heavy out there. Once some of the trash servers are dumped almost all servers can be Standard or greater at a minimum at peak times. This increased player interaction will definitely boost the game.
-PVP: Honestly I don't do it often sitting at a measly Valor Rank of 40, however from what I've see and heard most people deem it severely imbalanced. Not a focal point of mine personally but definitely important in any MMO, and sometimes hard to work out, and even sometimes never worked out.
-Combat logging - You put it in and even said you expect players to use outside sources (MOX, etc.) to parse it for you....just build one in game frame and let us truck with the rest of the frames to help remove flaws and inaccuracies.
-Bioware - Develop your own staff and eradicate out-sourcing. People who have no idea what they're talking about should never be on a customer support staff.
-EA - Burn...in...hell, or at least lube up BW the next time you decide to give them surprise butt sex.

That's my small take on everything. I play and enjoy the game, because well I enjoy the theme. Not really star wars fan, just enjoy the space/blaster theme. No particular set of QoL issues or any other thing is going to change that. I hope everyone plays the game that best fits the theme they like regardless of the issues involved.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 10:47 AM ----------

Also.. I dropped synthweaving (which was maxed out) in order to get Biotech, which I maxed out... two weeks before they nerfed it. Instead of buffing the other proffessions.

Ahhhhhh....Blizzard has said it, Turbine has said it, Trion has said it, and I'm pretty sure the pope has said it: It is far less risky to simply nerf a class or professions or well...anything, then it is to buff all it's counterparts. When you start buffing 10 things to match one overpowered thing you multiply the chance there will be other imbalances coming out.

[Shadowzmoon]

I have been watching this topic and reading it since the first page. I play SWTOR, i am enjoying it. I would love a LFD tool but i disagree with everyone saying it is a standard, in my opinion it is not a standard, it is something that can be added in after some patches go by, leave it out and see how things go. Plus this is Bioware, not blizzard, not every other MMO company is up to Blizzard standards. Everyone on these 12 pages that have brought up Wow, it just sounds like you are making the game into the holy grail or the god of MMOs. Wow has been doing there thing for years. Sorry to say but other MMOs do need time to catch up. The other thing i have noticed from reading this post, LFD not being in the game isnt what is making people quit, it is the fact that there are way to many servers and not enough people to fill up these servers. Hopefully Bioware is smart and when they add in LFD its cross server, another good thing for them to do is just merge servers together and create a few more when they are needed. It will keep people playing because then they wont be stuck on servers with few to no people and then they will actually be able to build groups through trade chat.

[Dilbon]

Those "standards" would not be needed if the game design was perfect. WoW is far from perfect, so it had to add stuff to consolidate that and now that stuff is considered "standard".

[Tarien]

Those "standards" would not be needed if the game design was perfect. WoW is far from perfect, so it had to add stuff to consolidate that and now that stuff is considered "standard".

No game is ever perfect, but WoW at launch did more right and included more features that were working in other MMOs at the time of launch than any other launch title since. With a combo of BioWare and Star Wars SWTOR could have been a much bigger success had it spend another 6-12months implementing features that players have come to expect (whether you agree with those expectations or not, looking at you, LFD haters).

Standards constantly change and are raised, I doubt anyone questions whether WoW raised the bar for MMOs, yet in defence of their favourite MMO they will insist that the standard is what WoW launched to more than seven years ago. Crazy talk.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 06:46 PM ----------

TLDR - SWTOR is not a bad game, and it is not failing. My stance is however, they have lost several hundred thousand players simply due to systems not existing, and that just seems foolish from a business stand point.

This is a pretty good conclusion that reflects much of my own thoughts on SWTOR. It's not a bad game, but it's not a great game, and that is largely down to their rush to launch, leaving out vital systems because they can be added later. They failed to grasp that first impressions in an MMO are pretty much the only impression players will ever get, and that it would be better to hold off a while and really polish their game.

[voidillusion]

No game is ever perfect, but WoW at launch did more right and included more features that were working in other MMOs at the time of launch than any other launch title since. With a combo of BioWare and Star Wars SWTOR could have been a much bigger success had it spend another 6-12months implementing features that players have come to expect (whether you agree with those expectations or not, looking at you, LFD haters).

Tell me wich, seriously please do! Cause from what i remember at launch it was a damn raw game by today's standards like you so much like to say.

[Tarien]

Tell me wich, seriously please do! Cause from what i remember at launch it was a damn raw game by today's standards like you so much like to say.

Sorry you'll have to be a little more clear. Tell you what about what? Try not to let your outrage cloud your clarity.

[voidillusion]

Sorry you'll have to be a little more clear. Tell you what about what? Try not to let your outrage cloud your clarity.

You said:

WoW at launch did more right and included more features that were working in other MMOs at the time of launch than any other launch title since

And from what i remeber it just had nothing by your "standards".

[Deleted]

Before I cancelled, and got my refund in January, the State of the Game was: Dying

From what I've read on the Forums here, and the SWTOR Official site, most Servers are very low population, so I can't imagine it being any better off now

Had two friends playing but the both quit simply because they were bored and felt the game was dying.

[Tarien]

And from what i remeber it just had nothing by your "standards".

The standard seven years ago was very different to what it is now. Back then we expected instanced dungeons, open worlds, clean intuitive UIs, questing that flowed, great graphics/art style, and WoW delivered all this and much much more.

Now we expect combat logs, customisable UIs, LFD tools, addon support and a host of other things that we have grown accustomed to.

[Koalachan]

So what you're saying then is that BioWare would implement features that the majority of people don't want? Interesting... Maybe this is why so many servers are empty?

No, what I am saying is that there is no majority wanting it, and there is no majority not wanting it. Indeed, the majority most likely don't care one way or another. However, enough people want it, that BW, and other companies, feel they would gain more than they lose by adding it. As someone else said, if 25% of people don't want it, and 5% of those say they will leave if it comes in, and 25% do want it, and 10% of those say they will leave if it doesn't come in, there is no majority either way, but they would lose more by not adding it. I'm just failing to understand how you fail to understand it has nothing to do with majority. The majority don't even post on forums to say what they want. Hence, the "vocal minority."

Pretty sure that people would still use it even if there wasn't a daily reward, just because it is easier to find a group and be transported to an instance. Even so, why wouldn't you want a system that offers daily rewards for participating in content? There are so many advantages to the system which you seem happy to overlook to suit your own needs that really at this point I am fairly sure you're just being obstinate, deliberately closing your eyes because you just don't want to admit that you are wrong.

Sure it has it's downsides, but if you don't like the system, no one is forcing you to use it. You're free to take friends, guildies, spam local channels, walk to an instance of your choice, and complete it. Just like old times

Again, I don't care either way if it is in or not, however, if it is in, people won't use it unless there is a reward. Do you know why it's so hard to build a group? Yes, it is in part because lack of players, declining pops, etc etc... but look how many post on forums to not even do them because you can get geared faster just doing Ops. Most people, if they don't get something, they won't do it. If they don't need gear from FPs, they won't do FPs. So there needs to be a reward, or people will complain, and if there is a reward in doing something, people will feel forced to do it because they want the reward. Also, who would do more work for something if there is a lazy setting? I'm sure all those people who group with friends for dungeons all actually fly to the dungeon. Wait, no, they just form the group and use the lfg. You know what happens in WoW when you try to spam for a group? People just tell you to use LFG. Yup, sounds like you're not being forced at all.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 12:43 PM ----------

Notice what I said, I said " as well as they could". I'll say it now, it will be a very long time before any new MMO has the numbers that WoW has, it is a huge outlier. However we know SWTOR is supposedly sitting around 1.7 million players and not really moving ( I kinda think BioWare is fudging on that but thats a different topic). Now had BioWare/EA waited, pushed the game out in the 1.2 stage, and then we would of been looking at 1-2 months for a LFD tool this game would have been done much better. Thats not saying its doing poorly its just saying longterm they tossed some subs away to push the game out early.

Had they waited, launched the game with what it has now and added the LFD tool quickly, I think its very plausable that the game would definately be over 2 million subs at this point, maybe even somewhere in the realm of 3-4.

As far the arguments back and forth about majorities on the LFD tool, I think its pretty obvious by looking across several different forums ( this one, WoW, SWTOR, and others) that a large group of people are ok with at least a same server LFD tool. That in and of its self to me says the problem isn't the tool itself, but how it is implemented.

WoW has opted to keep cross server because it keeps them from needing to merge servers, I don't agree with them but hey its their business. If SWTOR is going to implement a same server one that means they need to be prepped to have some form of transfer/merger available. Right now servers having low pops is probably running more people away than the LFD tool, and tbh I think at this point a rather large group are simply tired of rerolling servers to try and catch the right one.

TLDR - SWTOR is not a bad game, and it is not failing. My stance is however, they have lost several hundred thousand players simply due to systems not existing, and that just seems foolish from a business stand point.

Honestly, I don't think they pushed it out "early." Not in the sense people keep saying it. In the business world, there are deadlines. The December deadline was probably set some time ago, and the simple fact is BW had to skimp on some things to make it. Basically, they were failing at the deadline.

[Forsedar]

Dude, you really have to stop reading in to much to what I say and draw some conclusions ending up putting words in my mouth, my comment was based on their discussion and had nothing to do with the OP nor do I disagree with Koala's position.

If it has nothing to do with the OP, then there is no point in posting something that has nothing to do with the thread.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 07:48 PM ----------

No game is ever perfect, but WoW at launch did more right and included more features that were working in other MMOs at the time of launch than any other launch title since. With a combo of BioWare and Star Wars SWTOR could have been a much bigger success had it spend another 6-12months implementing features that players have come to expect (whether you agree with those expectations or not, looking at you, LFD haters).

What did WoW have at launch? All they had were quests that got you to level 55 and you had to basically grind to 60 from there.

They didn't have a basic queuing system for PvP. You had to GO to the location of the instance for that specific battleground, and queue there. They only had Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin for the first couple months.

They had one raid instance for the first couple months.

They had an auction house that broke half the time.

They had servers that crashed every other day.

Maintenance Tuesday lasted until midday Thursday.

You could randomly fall through the ground while walking through door ways.

You could randomly fall through the ground while walking up hills.

Flight Paths weren't connected and were far and few in between.

Mobs randomly reset mid fight.

Shall I go on? I don't want to derail the thread but I just couldn't see such nonsense stated.

[Krysia]

The seamless open world bit was one of the great selling points of wow back in the day, no more loading screens.

Tbh I can see bw not wanting addons and combat logs cause it did ruin wow in a way and there's just no way they can control it the same way blizz does.
However LFG tools have become such a big part of games nowadays that there's no real way of leaving them out. Rift tried but had to cave quite early on but I guess bw didn't play rift :P

Things like latency, artwork, animations, bugs, content and so on will evolve. This is something they can and will fix during the course of the game and is to be expected.
However missing features such as a working LFG system (if they can come up with something of their own that's fine), combat logs, a working armor system and so on are not things you can leave out and blame on the fact that some other game had longer time to develop them.

Rift managed to do everything wow did from the get go, and so did most other games released post-wow plus add a few twists of their own.
The only reason tor didn't was cause they were "forced" to release early and they are now suffering for it, simple as that.