Daniel Erickson is gone from Bioware

[vizzle]

THey made smaller operations/ flashpoint groups. I can raid in SWTOR with 1/3 of the people I could in EQ2 which is not only much easier but also more enjoyable because people actually do matter as does their "skill". I like running flashpoints with 4 people instead of 6 like in EQ2. I like having scripts in flashpoints (which EQ2 doesn't have for the most part because it's considered to be "too difficult for random folks"). Even a railshot space is better than no space at all.

I'm not sure why you compared it all to EQ2 instead of the real competition to SWTOR.

[Psychlon]

Mainly because I played EQ2 for a long time? Are we talking about "financial" and "player" competition or are we talking about design competition? In this case you just take EQ2 out... and take the overall message (I prefer smaller raids).

[vizzle]

Mainly because I played EQ2 for a long time? Are we talking about "financial" and "player" competition or are we talking about design competition? In this case you just take EQ2 out... and take the overall message (I prefer smaller raids).

We're talking about competition, as in the other games in the genre players have to choose over. Why compare those things you compared with EQ2, when the big dog is right there?

[Psychlon]

So where are the other "competitiors" in terms of raidsize? Has WoW anything below 10? has Rift etc.?

[Kelimbror]

So where are the other "competitiors" in terms of raidsize? Has WoW anything below 10? has Rift etc.?

I didn't realize that decreasing the players required by 1 for FP and 2 for Ops somehow made their competition magically disappear. I guess if Apple creates an iPad that isn't a mini, but isn't as large as a normal one, they are going to make Samsung, google, acer, amazon, and B&N just cease to be their competitors.

[RoninaThorstone]

I didn't realize that decreasing the players required by 1 for FP and 2 for Ops somehow made their competition magically disappear. I guess if Apple creates an iPad that isn't a mini, but isn't as large as a normal one, they are going to make Samsung, google, acer, amazon, and B&N just cease to be their competitors.

To be fair, if the raids were 4 or 5 man people would call them instances and then say that swtor has no end game and thus doesn't compete with rift/wow in pve. Just like what people are saying about gw2.

Apparently, size does matter.

[notorious98]

So where are the other "competitiors" in terms of raidsize? Has WoW anything below 10? has Rift etc.?

Actually, I find the 4 person FP to be worse than 5 or 6 people in other games for the simple fact that it still requires 1 tank and it still requires 1 healer. Considering the glut at DPS, it creates a logjam, making queue times much faster for tanks and healers and much, much slower for DPS. That was never a huge issue for me because I usually either tanked or healed, but it creates an issue for people who just want to DPS. I feel that the 4 man approach is a step in the wrong direction.

[RoninaThorstone]

Actually, I find the 4 person FP to be worse than 5 or 6 people in other games for the simple fact that it still requires 1 tank and it still requires 1 healer. Considering the glut at DPS, it creates a logjam, making queue times much faster for tanks and healers and much, much slower for DPS. That was never a huge issue for me because I usually either tanked or healed, but it creates an issue for people who just want to DPS. I feel that the 4 man approach is a step in the wrong direction.

Which is why I love being a healer/support/tank in every game I play.

*snip*

People might take those jokes the wrong way now that I think about it.

Got to remember. Think THEN post.

[Kelimbror]

To be fair, if the raids were 4 or 5 man people would call them instances and then say that swtor has no end game and thus doesn't compete with rift/wow in pve. Just like what people are saying about gw2.

Apparently, size does matter.

People want to pretend that they are focusing on size, but in reality it's the fact that they don't like having the gear treadmill taken away. It doesn't matter what size it is, they are unhappy they can't get phat epics. If it was 5 man and you got uber gear, yes they would be called dungeons and not raids...but people would be just as happy with their purps.

Edit: A lot of people would be happy with getting epics for doing things by yourself too. Like LotROs skirmish system. It works really well actually. That is one of the more brilliant designs I've ever seen and I'm surprised it hasn't been copied more extensively.

[RoninaThorstone]

People want to pretend that they are focusing on size, but in reality it's the fact that they don't like having the gear treadmill taken away. It doesn't matter what size it is, they are unhappy they can't get phat epics. If it was 5 man and you got uber gear, yes they would be called dungeons and not raids...but people would be just as happy with their purps.

Edit: A lot of people would be happy with getting epics for doing things by yourself too. Like LotROs skirmish system. It works really well actually. That is one of the more brilliant designs I've ever seen and I'm surprised it hasn't been copied more extensively.

I don't know, man... Really picking up a "if it doesn't have raids its not a "complete" mmo" theme. Gw2 does have a gear grind, a rather long one.

I don't think its entirely the phat loots. I think people are just conditioned to think that raids=end game.

Hell, diablo 3 came out and people were like "wheres my end game raiding?".

I think at this point you could make a Need for Speed MMO and people will be like "This game isn't complete because I can't raid. I'm not even sure how I could raid but... Its not here".

Chess is no longer a complete game because you can't run it as a 10 man. (karalolz)

[Kelimbror]

I don't know, man... Really picking up a "if it doesn't have raids its not a "complete" mmo" theme. Gw2 does have a gear grind, a rather long one.

I don't think its entirely the phat loots. I think people are just conditioned to think that raids=end game.

Hell, diablo 3 came out and people were like "wheres my end game raiding?".

Gear grind to 95% of the population doesn't equate to being cosmetic. They want the numbers or the purples to be ever increasing. While I am satisfied with GW2 variety of the issue, most players are conditioned to Give me a purple, make it look different than the last purple, and it needs to have more numbers on it than ever.

Mass groups of people are definitely conditioned as larger group play defining an 'end game' though, you have me there.

[noahjam326]

Actually, I find the 4 person FP to be worse than 5 or 6 people in other games for the simple fact that it still requires 1 tank and it still requires 1 healer. Considering the glut at DPS, it creates a logjam, making queue times much faster for tanks and healers and much, much slower for DPS. That was never a huge issue for me because I usually either tanked or healed, but it creates an issue for people who just want to DPS. I feel that the 4 man approach is a step in the wrong direction.

My experiences so far is that tanking and healing is more enjoyable in SWTOR than WoW, so I find more tanks and healers in the LFG pool. I've had fairly low DPS queue times since the LFG tool has been released, at least compared to my experiences in WoW.

[Arlee]

My experiences so far is that tanking and healing is more enjoyable in SWTOR than WoW, so I find more tanks and healers in the LFG pool. I've had fairly low DPS queue times since the LFG tool has been released, at least compared to my experiences in WoW.

I have to agree there. I find that my queue times as dps are noticeably shorter than they are in other games. I think there are more tanks and healers (percetagewise in the playing population) queuing in swtor which works to mitigate the fact that there are fewer dps spots in each group.

[Redblade]

I don't know, man... Really picking up a "if it doesn't have raids its not a "complete" mmo" theme. Gw2 does have a gear grind, a rather long one.

I don't think its entirely the phat loots. I think people are just conditioned to think that raids=end game.

Hell, diablo 3 came out and people were like "wheres my end game raiding?".

It's a combination needed, not necessarily raiding though, gear progression in some way and content, if D3 had long ass dungeons with ever increasing difficulty as end game less people would have took issue with it. Same as you can make your traditional EQ clone MMO with no raids as long as you have an end game gear progression tied in to some form of content that isn't to repetitive.

This is why I always say that Blizzard should make more content outside raiding instead of pushing everyone towards raiding at the expense of players who actually want to raid, there are loads of ways to make content for non raiders with gear progression end game tied to it.

For your EQ clone MMO there is the question of feeling of epicness as well, I loved 40man raids in WoW for that and while 25man raid where sufficient as the step down and 10man by far being the most efficient and low maintenance from a management standpoint, neither of them hold a candle to 40mans for that feeling, 10man can't even begin to compete.

[RoninaThorstone]

This is why I always say that Blizzard should make more content outside raiding instead of pushing everyone towards raiding at the expense of players who actually want to raid, there are loads of ways to make content for non raiders with gear progression end game tied to it.

I think this is where EA made its biggest mistake with swtor.

When you hit 50 you have the following things to do:
PVP
PVE
Collect datacrons and codexs

Once you complete the datacrons and codexs those are done.

Theres only one kind of pvp. 8v8. That's it. Don't like it? Too bad.

And pve is really just 8/16 raids. The 4ms are good for dailies I guess.

That's pretty much it. To say that there is "no end game" in swtor is obviously stupid as I just listed 2 types.

However, its very limited. The same could be said of WoW of course, but aren't we suppose to be trying to do better? Isn't the goal to make a better product than your competitors?

If swtor had just added 1 aspect that was different for the "end game"... JUST ONE. I would have been impressed.

And you all know what I am about to say.

If they had made 3d space combat a form of end game, PVP and PVE, they would have set themselves apart from wow in a major way. But instead we got half a SW mmo.

And yes, I know that JTL took swg a year after launch to implement. However, I go back to my point about the goal being to make a better product. If Swtor was suppose to supplant SWG, why would it lack a major feature like that? Why do we have to take a step backward before we go forward? I think in this case its completely unjustified.

Now, there are countless other "end games" they could have added. Pazzak, swoop racing, akk dog fighting rings hosted by professional hutt ball players.

But I really feel like the concept of "end game" needs diversity. And badly.

[Kelimbror]

But I really feel like the concept of "end game" needs diversity. And badly.

Blizzard tried to fake everyone out with Mists that they had it. When people, like me, have brought up that it gives you lots of things to *do*, but only two ways to *progress*....these forums spew vitirol like they were paid to be sheep.

The SWTOR equivalent would be that everything you do rewards a columi tokens, but in order to spend them you had to complete every daily in the game for a month for one piece of gear. Than you had to repeat ad infinitum for each piece of gear. Sure you could raid and get some drops, but what's the point of 'all that other stuff'?

No company is even close to doing it right. GW2 is probably the only game where it at least doesn't really matter what you choose to do...so it's halfway there.

Like Alyssa and I have said before, you should be rewarded for every activity across your account and not one damned character. Playing should never feel pointless. These games don't have enough depth to be rewarding just for the sake of playing them. We could go into one of the schools of thought behind video game design, but the concept of reward driven games has supplanted gaming for the hell of it years ago.

Even games where just playing the game is major focus, like Super Metroid, you get rewards via upgrades to your character as you move along. That game came out almost 19 years ago. People seem to think that asking for rewards is some new concept and is an abberation in gaming. We don't do anything in life without a reward for it. We don't just hammer nails into wood because we feel like it. God I could write a doctoral thesis on reward systems in video games.

[Azuri]

However, its very limited. The same could be said of WoW of course, but aren't we suppose to be trying to do better? Isn't the goal to make a better product than your competitors?

That's a very important statement above. ^ It's clear and obvious that no new MMO will rake in the subs WoW does that's a no brainer but you've got to beat them as far as quality and amount of content goes and go "outside of the box". As an outsider I recently got an e-mail saying come back for patch 1.4. It was so underwhelming as non-player I just facepalmed when I read what they were offering me to come back. I'm sorry it doesn't cut it for me anyways I don't even have to buy the box since I already own it from launch but it's not enough. For reference here's what the e-mail looked like:





This to me isn't impressive enough to lure me back, maybe I'm just spoiled or "entitled" (I should make it clear I don't play WoW and I'm not hating on SWTOR, I just expect more from a sub based game) Other then the new operation the other 3 points don't come across as "exciting".

[SirRobin]

Wasn't the "show your mood" thing a dropped feature from WAR? I wonder if they just ported it over.

[cherb]

If fan criticism is that hard to take, why allow things like the ME3 fiasco to even leave the cutting room floor? I find it incredibly hard to believe that not a single person at BW made it known how shitty the ending to that game was, and that fan backlash was probably going to happen. They also touted SWTOR as the next big thing, it was supposed to be revolutionary, bring something new to the table, and when it didn't, they are upset that fans get pissed off? Sucks to see someone leaving a company when they helped to found it, but for God's sake I can't even feel bad when they slapped every fan of the ME series in the face by making EVERYTHING you've done through two (of the best games ever) mean jack shit.

[Deleted]

Honestly people need to pipe down about these things. They sold out to EA, EA didn't do anything wrong there, it was their decision. And it probably was their plan all along to cash out and work there as long as they were obligated in the contract / as long as it was beneficial and fun.