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  1. #981
    The Lightbringer WarpedAcorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hk-51 View Post
    And even the sith guy (forget his name, typing on the go) is like "that wasn't the end of this fight." or something. It's heavily implied, and confirmed in SW line, that the emp is not dead and that you will have to fight him again if sith guy is right.
    Scourge notes that he did not feel the Emperor passing, so he agrees to stay on with the JK just in case Vitiate managed to escape death. SW storyline does confirm that the Vitiate is still out there, but leaves his ultimate plan up in the air. As far as we know, Vitiate's return from self-imposed exile could tie many if not all of the storylines together in a future content/flashpoint/operation release. Vitiate's plan of absorbing the universe is a pretty easy reason to get everyone on board for taking him down, Sith and Republic alike.

    But anyway, back on point, as I said previously, if they were to continue Personal Storylines from where they currently are then would need a crapton of content to be on par with what is already released. This would be the equivalent of a full fledged expansion pack, and I don't think its in their budget right now. Planetary storylines are not bad, and a nice middleground from the silent daily content that has been released. Of course this is all speculation. No one has seen Makeb, so it could suck balls. We'll have to see.

  2. #982
    Quote Originally Posted by WarpedAcorn View Post
    *snip*
    Shouldn't there be some form of "spoiler alert" for this back and forth?

  3. #983
    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    As long as your individual needs are met right? Because that's really what you are saying when you dismiss this issue in favor of what you deem worthy of their time.
    I'm just guessing from their technical forum/ my own experience that a lot more people are concerned about stability than about moving single buffs. Even if I hadn't any issues with it, it still had a higher priority than what you or I want.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mirve View Post
    I agree with Redblade, people need to stop comparing games from 9 / 10 years ago to SWTOR which by all means is a recent-ish game. When i buy a game from 2011/2012/2013 i expect the game to have the improvements made over the years by other games, not make a game that plays like its from a decade ago.
    The same applies to new MMOs. I expect a LFG, Barber shop, Server transfers, UI Customization , Achievement tracking and all the perks other games made over the years.
    Its not too much too ask. SWTOR launched without too many features. Theres some of those i could do without, but theres also people who will think its essencial to them, so expect a MMO to have everything so the game is as good as possible at launch or soon after.
    The only thing I compared was the ability to keep track of your personal things without special windows/ highlighted buffs/ debuffs and therefore it matters little if the game is from yesterday or 19th century.

    We could have the same discussion about wanting a calculator because you don't want to use your head to add 1 to 1.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    Just to warn you, this guy is like a mini BenBos except he tries to pretend like he's not. It's probably easier to use the beautiful ignore feature
    Great contribution.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    Well it's not just content though...it's all these other things we're talking about right now. UI features, all the 'extras' that people seem to think don't warrant leaving a game over.

    Even LotRO has a more progressive default UI and the ability to use addons to make the game a lot more enjoyable...and that game, which has been F2P with a small dev team for years, is still light years ahead of what we get in SWTOR. I don't understand how people can just dismiss it as a non issue or think that because they are woring on content they can't solidly fix other things.
    It's an issue, one of many but not as big as other issues... not sure what is so hard to understand or did 500k people leave because they couldn't adjust their ui properly? Does this make me say "I don't want it/ it's a non-issue?" No.
    Last edited by Psychlon; 2013-02-28 at 06:14 AM.

  4. #984
    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusher View Post

    People have alts because, as with every game, there will never be enough content to keep a single character busy forever. Taht's up to them.

    Sorry, but PvP/Space/FP aren't an "alternate path". Yes, you get experience doing those activities, but they're not a core part of leveling. Your character story isn't involved with any of those, hence them not being core.
    A little late, but had to chime in on this ...

    there are people in WoW who -exclusively- level through pvp and/or dungeons after level 10/15. These are acceptable alternate paths, no matter how efficient or enjoyable you personally think they are.

    I actually enjoy questing more than spamming an LFD in any game; my wife enjoys LFD because she spends time between queues working on keeping her professions leveled ... moreso when we keep trying to go back to WoW 1 month sub at a time.

    I've skipped a planet before because of space missions. I've leveled past a couple planets strictly from pvp. I've made a planet useless just by doing flashpoints.

    In fact, just by completing a planet's full gamut of quests, incl area/group and getting into the flashpoint once a day, you pretty much skip planets anyway, besides stopping in to do class quests.

    I went to Belsavis on one of my 50s, and realized I skipped most of that planet. I hardly ever do any questing in Balmorra besides class quests, as I'm almost always 19-20 by the time I get there anyway. I rarely go to Quesh besides class quests. In fact, I don't even have to finish planets and still get to skip. I'm rarely on Alderaan.

    Point I'm making is ... you can technically skip planets, besides class quests, and make your leveling experience unique AFTER the first two, because unless you pvp, or spam the beginner flashpoint, you are pretty much stuck with DK/Coruscant. but if you've completely cleared the 1st 2 planets, you have some wiggle room.

    I mostly play empire, so I can give my best example from toons I've recently leveled. Korr>DK> Bal>Tat>Taris>Hoth>Corellia OR Korr>DK> Nar Shadaa>Alderaan>Quesh>Belsavis>Voss>Illum ... which can be done, pretty much by questing alone, but throw in a daily FP for the quest/daily comms, and once in a while a space mission (though I haven't touched them in a while). After that, mix and match the ones you enjoyed the best, or hated the least. I've seen a lot of people no like Taris and Quesh, complaining while on it, I don't mind them so much ... I personally don't care for Tat much because of the 'desert' scenery, nor the huge map of Alderaan too much.

    So, basically, there is enough to level at least 2 toons per faction with a damn near mostly unique experience. If you want one of each class each side, then mix in alternative options, or the case of needing a few extra planets in there has more merit imo; I'd suggest 3, that could be used for extended questlines, one that could take you a long way through the 20s, one for the 30s, and ofc, one for the 40s. Make the mobs really tough, give lots of xp; basically tuned for experienced players with mains that can supply them with decent gear, where the player can pretty much power level through the planet and hit 50 after leaving DK/Coru just from these planets. If you don't have the skill nor a main helping you keep your mods up to snuff, you probably should continue the normal leveling paths.


    Still think that if it is 'ok' for other big name MMOs to have 'alternate paths' incl pvp/LFD/IA/professions/exploration/etc as ways to level, then it isn't SWtOR's fault that some don't find it acceptable; because apparently, others do, not just in SWtOR, but in other games in the genre as well.


    Basically, this is how I will read it: Edgecrusher 'feels' that PvP/Space/FP aren't an 'alternate path' option for how they wish to pursue their core leveling experience. It is a valid option for others, but not for this player in particular. You have the right to disagree; and the option is there, though it may not be optimal or desirable for everyone.

  5. #985
    Quote Originally Posted by zeropeorth View Post
    there are people in WoW who -exclusively- level through pvp and/or dungeons after level 10/15. These are acceptable alternate paths, no matter how efficient or enjoyable you personally think they are.

    Basically, this is how I will read it: Edgecrusher 'feels' that PvP/Space/FP aren't an 'alternate path' option for how they wish to pursue their core leveling experience. It is a valid option for others, but not for this player in particular. You have the right to disagree; and the option is there, though it may not be optimal or desirable for everyone.
    *sigh*

    You can level exclusively through grinding mobs without completely a single quest. Does that mean that's an officially supported and intended method of leveling? No, it's just something you can do.

    They write (and in the case of SWTOR, voice and animate) all those quests and intentionally direct you towards them. Questing will always be primary supported system for leveling in a theme park MMO. Thankfully they've broadened out and allowed for experience gains in PvP, and allowed for easier access to dungeons (which allows for the possibility of dungeon farming), but they aren't intended or supported, hence why you don't get the same kind of gear filled out (in general) from either exclusive activity. Heck, up until, 1.4 I think?, you couldn't even level up through FP's exclusively without spending tons of time looking for groups in fleet/whatever zone you were in, which was obscenely inefficient.

    You are talking about what is possible. What is possible is irrelevant in the point I'm discussing. I'm discussing design intent on the part of BioWare, which is for you to level through quest and supplement, if necessary/desired, any missing experience by participating in other activities. The game doesn't actively guide you to chain run flashpoints, or guide you to use other activities like PvP or space combat as a primary method of leveling. The game guides you through the quest content.

  6. #986
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post

    Well it's not just content though...it's all these other things we're talking about right now. UI features, all the 'extras' that people seem to think don't warrant leaving a game over.
    I'm happy enough with the UI as it stands now, pretty damn customizable as it stands, especially compared to launch ...

    I'm more interested in them fixing the CtD/Memory leak issues that have been going on for at least 3 months or so; including the esseles/black talon crash on lightspeed jump at end of run. Some people crash every two hours. Lots of people say it was after an update, they did something, and they haven't communicated for a while on their progress.

    Still prefer this game, and it's community over others.

    My wife is disappointed though, she really wanted to woo her current female companions on her female toons ... she wasn't happy to hear it was just the cat people, or at least that is what someone in our guild claimed which I haven't felt like verifying yet. She wanted her female warrior to marry Jaesa. She wanted a female inquis to hook up with ashara and vette.

    Not 100% happy with them ... but if you look around, no game is perfect, and no game is tailored to any specific person either. There is a lot of gripes I have, but I still enjoy the game more than a few others.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-28 at 12:44 AM ----------

    @edge
    you could level through mob grinding I suppose, but, the tools are there (now) for FPs/PvP. It may not have the same depth, but it certainly has voice acting involved, and quests leading into them. Not just the boxes on the fleet, but npcs/droids that give you the FP quests, your ship with the big triangle and little voice acting cut scene explaining the need for your service in space combat ... it -is- there; it just doesn't thrill you

    I've leveled one toon through PvP. I've leveled one through mostly FPs. Depends on what you feel like at the time. WoW didn't always have LFD either, nor did they give xp for PvP. Once they did though, some people, chose that route for leveling. It wasn't intended by Blizzard either, and in that game, you could technically grind mobs as well. There were no quests that encouraged you to spam LFD. Twinks hated xp from BGs, but a lot of people loved it, especially ones who where PvP focused, and didn't care much for the PvE part of the game.

    What is really comes down to, is what the individual enjoys. If you are a diehard PvPer, then leveling through PvP might be much, much better than through questing, and you can easily go back and clear your class quests at max level if you feel like it, though some wouldn't care about them regardless.

    Some love group content or just getting the gear from dungeons/FPs ... so they spam them to get those moddable pieces, either for looks or to be able to keep the same stuff on and upgrade it.

    To diminish the validity of what others enjoy because you don't like it, doesn't mean it is the same as killing random mobs for hours to ding. I know of people who only PvP, that is the only thing they like, no matter what game they play. I am married to someone, who loves to dungeon grind. These people don't need a carrot to get them to do it, they see the tools and use them to play how they enjoy the most.

    It isn't about what is possible, it is about what individual players who have different desires and goals enjoy, what they take from the game that makes them happy; even if it wasn't the intent of the designers ... including people spamming LFD for Flashpoints or dungeons while leveling, as I've seen people do in both SWtOR and WoW, as well as doing the same with the PvP tools. I had a friend that played that LOVED Huttball. He was mad when he didn't get Huttball. He almost exclusively queued for PvP and on that toon besides a few flashpoints mixed in, really didn't spend much time on planets at all.

    I'm just trying to get people to be less dismissive.


    This game is heavily focused on the leveling experience. The questing I quite enjoy. The voice acting gets you involved, so does the light/dark choices. But I feel the flashpoints have just as much involvement, with voice acting and LS/DS choices, the PvP can be quite fun, especially when you get two good teams against each other, and space combat ... is a special snowflake all of its own. Quest terminals encourage PvP and Flashpoints, Fleet shuttles on the planets have Flashpoint couriers and terminals.

    And if we are talking alts, you KNOW the content is out there already; for you to not take advantage of it is your loss or choice, depending on how you feel about the content.

    They've made changes to encourage using LFD, with the new quest to complete a HM FP through LFD in the mail at 50. They give you pve and pvp gear at 50 to get you started if you hadn't done it already ... so as far as that goes, working on an alt, which was originally part of the discussion, you now know about these alternative avenues ... which will help you have more freedom of choice on which planets you do and which you skip, giving you variety in execution.

    Dunno, but tired as hell and rambling, sorry, and I do respect your point of view, in case that isn't clear.

  7. #987
    Quote Originally Posted by Psychlon View Post
    I'm just guessing from their technical forum/ my own experience that a lot more people are concerned about stability than about moving single buffs. Even if I hadn't any issues with it, it still had a higher priority than what you or I want.
    Perhaps but at the end of the day it's hardly the same people working on the UI as there is working on the stability issues, and especially not for a full year, or at least I hope it isn't although it would explain a fair bit...

    I'm curious as well, why on earth would you still play a game that over a year from launch has such horrible performance issues for you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Psychlon View Post
    The only thing I compared was the ability to keep track of your personal things without special windows/ highlighted buffs/ debuffs and therefore it matters little if the game is from yesterday or 19th century.

    We could have the same discussion about wanting a calculator because you don't want to use your head to add 1 to 1.
    To you it's 1+1, to others it might be 1573*365/3+24, personally I can play with it as is but due to having vital information at the center of my scren for years playing both WoW and later Rift it becomes a huge inconvenience as you by that point are so used to being able to follow what's happening where your character is.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psychlon View Post
    It's an issue, one of many but not as big as other issues... not sure what is so hard to understand or did 500k people leave because they couldn't adjust their ui properly? Does this make me say "I don't want it/ it's a non-issue?" No.
    There you go again deciding what's the bigger issue, others than you might feel it's a perfect game with the exception for the UI, you can't know exactly what pile of issue made people leave, you can at best conclude a few major issues that was the final straw for most people that quit, what lead up to that final straw is guesswork at best.

  8. #988
    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusher View Post
    You are talking about what is possible. What is possible is irrelevant in the point I'm discussing. I'm discussing design intent on the part of BioWare, which is for you to level through quest and supplement, if necessary/desired, any missing experience by participating in other activities. The game doesn't actively guide you to chain run flashpoints, or guide you to use other activities like PvP or space combat as a primary method of leveling. The game guides you through the quest content.
    That's perfectly true for your first character. However you've had a glimps at all the possible content and can decide for yourself which is your prefered way to level up for your next char. Bioware wants you to do your class quests, that's about it. That's what has been advertised over and over again but I'm not sure Bioware wants you to experience each and every planetary quest over and over again. They said from the beginning that they want you to play whatever style you prefer, pvp/ pve/ space pve or just grinding because I don't think you would need to do any quest past your starter planet to get to lvl 50 via pvp/ flashpoints for example?!

    I can tell you from experience, having different ways to level your character via questing doesn't make the quests any better nor does it make the experience much better. What you are asking for could only be really solved if each class had all available quest tailored to them. Planetary quests and random quests would be different for each class etc. . I'm not sure if there is a mmo out there which would offer this as it's 8 times the effort they already put in all the generic questing.

  9. #989
    I don't think it's necessary to have buffs movable. Same goes for the whole UI.

    I do think it's important to have them resizable. Some ppl fancy micro everything. Others like when they don't have to look for tiny images among other tiny images to fight effectively.

    Overall a welcome change I guess, but UI is not where TOR issues lie.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  10. #990
    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    Perhaps but at the end of the day it's hardly the same people working on the UI as there is working on the stability issues, and especially not for a full year, or at least I hope it isn't although it would explain a fair bit...

    I'm curious as well, why on earth would you still play a game that over a year from launch has such horrible performance issues for you...
    It's Star Wars and they did fix it at some point but screwed it up around 1.4 again... and the beauty is, it happens not all the time but randomly and it doesn't happen only to me but a handful of other people in my guild.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    To you it's 1+1, to others it might be 1573*365/3+24, personally I can play with it as is but due to having vital information at the center of my scren for years playing both WoW and later Rift it becomes a huge inconvenience as you by that point are so used to being able to follow what's happening where your character is.

    There you go again deciding what's the bigger issue, others than you might feel it's a perfect game with the exception for the UI, you can't know exactly what pile of issue made people leave, you can at best conclude a few major issues that was the final straw for most people that quit, what lead up to that final straw is guesswork at best.
    Could we agree @having a stable good performance game is more important than individual needs by you and me? I would be glad if I had 40-50 fps in high quality settings 24/7 however, it does drop down to 6-7 randomly which makes it impossible to play and to adjust for that I have to play it on lower settings whcih is a pity because I like the enviromental graphics and my computer got more than enough to verify this quality.

    I'm confident that, if they had the feature you want, the game had have the same transition +/- few thousand people. Hence tons of pvp player quit because they couldn't do mass scale pvp on Illum.
    Last edited by Psychlon; 2013-02-28 at 07:45 AM.

  11. #991
    I think it is good they continue to evolve the UI. I hope they give us some way to make our own buffs/debuffs a different size than other peoples buffs/debuffs. As a sage DPS it would be really good to know which Weaken Mind is mine so I know when by spell expires on the boss.

    I often see the argument "Why are they fixing this (relative unimportant issue to them) when they should fix this (super important issue) instead?" in a lot of MMOs, not only SWTOR. People need to understand that developers have different skill sets and knowledge. You probably can't just take the person working on improving the UI and put in on finding stability bugs in the core engine. That would probably be a waste of resources because he doesn't know the ins and outs of the core engine like he knows the UI code. It is better to let him continue to work on the UI and let the team in charge of the core game engine work on the game stability issues.

    You can't just put all resources on one specific issue with the game and think that since we now have 5 times as many people working on the issue it will now be solved 5 times as fast. It just doesn't work that way.

  12. #992
    Quote Originally Posted by Aroa View Post
    I often see the argument "Why are they fixing this (relative unimportant issue to them) when they should fix this (super important issue) instead?" in a lot of MMOs, not only SWTOR. People need to understand that developers have different skill sets and knowledge. You probably can't just take the person working on improving the UI and put in on finding stability bugs in the core engine. That would probably be a waste of resources because he doesn't know the ins and outs of the core engine like he knows the UI code. It is better to let him continue to work on the UI and let the team in charge of the core game engine work on the game stability issues.

    You can't just put all resources on one specific issue with the game and think that since we now have 5 times as many people working on the issue it will now be solved 5 times as fast. It just doesn't work that way.
    Common knowledge, but this is true only for short term assignments. Long term the UI guy if he is good enough shouldn't have problem with working both on UI and other parts of the engine. If he can't, he is a waste of resource as it is.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  13. #993
    Quote Originally Posted by Psychlon View Post
    Could we agree @having a stable good performance game is more important than individual needs by you and me? I would be glad if I had 40-50 fps in high quality settings 24/7 however, it does drop down to 6-7 randomly which makes it impossible to play and to adjust for that I have to play it on lower settings whcih is a pity because I like the enviromental graphics and my computer got more than enough to verify this quality.

    I'm confident that, if they had the feature you want, the game had have the same transition +/- few thousand people. Hence tons of pvp player quit because they couldn't do mass scale pvp on Illum.
    To you it's more important obviously, to the next guy who has no performance issues it's something else. As I said though, making the desired changes to the UI would not affect your issue in any way shape or form if BW's development teams are setup as the rest of the industry, in most cases you wouldn't want the UI guy(s) anywhere even remotely close to the code affecting your performance.

    And yes about the same amount of people would have left but that's due to the game having deep issues in many places, UI being one of them, if there where no UI issues some might have held on a little longer though, perhaps something else could have got a little more attention making another group less prone to leave and so on.

    If they had done a full overhaul of the UI when they addressed it the first time they wouldn't have to go back now to fix buff size to later down the road change it again so you can track things and so on...it quite simply have a very negative impact to develop the way they do, running around applying band aids here and there but never really fixing things from the ground up.

  14. #994
    Quote Originally Posted by Redblade View Post
    If they had done a full overhaul of the UI when they addressed it the first time they wouldn't have to go back now to fix buff size to later down the road change it again so you can track things and so on...it quite simply have a very negative impact to develop the way they do, running around applying band aids here and there but never really fixing things from the ground up.
    I wouldn't say the UI is broken but underdeveloped. I would gladly get rid of the cartel market sign, would like to get rid of my avatar and make my own healtbar broader like you can do with your group/ raid window. I would like to make windows "click through" as you can make them fading (probably not all) already. There are a lot of things I would like to have but the reason I wouldn't bring it up is that, while it is important for me, it doesn't need to be important to everyone. Game performance/ stability however is affecting everyone, some more, others less. I can be concerned about a broken tail light but I won't care if I have a broken engine.

  15. #995
    Quote Originally Posted by Psychlon View Post
    I wouldn't say the UI is broken but underdeveloped. I would gladly get rid of the cartel market sign, would like to get rid of my avatar and make my own healtbar broader like you can do with your group/ raid window. I would like to make windows "click through" as you can make them fading (probably not all) already. There are a lot of things I would like to have but the reason I wouldn't bring it up is that, while it is important for me, it doesn't need to be important to everyone. Game performance/ stability however is affecting everyone, some more, others less. I can be concerned about a broken tail light but I won't care if I have a broken engine.
    Again, the UI guy(s) is far from likely to be the one(s) fixing your performance issues, if he/they are then we know why you have those issues...

    Would you like to have the new guy with little to no knowledge about engines fixing your engine or your tail light?
    Last edited by Redblade; 2013-02-28 at 12:10 PM.

  16. #996
    We don't really know how many teams are left at Bioware Austin or what are their specialities. I can't believe that there really is a guy only responsible for the UI because then he would have slept for several months and only ever implemented new quickbars, cartel market icon and for the future scaleable buff icons. I'm not saying that the ui guy should fix the engine but more likely whoever is working on the ui is working on other things as well which may/ may not have a higher priority.

  17. #997
    Quote Originally Posted by Psychlon View Post
    We don't really know how many teams are left at Bioware Austin or what are their specialities. I can't believe that there really is a guy only responsible for the UI because then he would have slept for several months and only ever implemented new quickbars, cartel market icon and for the future scaleable buff icons. I'm not saying that the ui guy should fix the engine but more likely whoever is working on the ui is working on other things as well which may/ may not have a higher priority.
    We don't but I'm still fairly certain that he wouldn't be good at fixing your issue, what he works on besides the UI is another matter for sure but I'm thinking it's of about equal importance as the UI hence why doing a proper overhaul once instead of band aiding would be a better solution in the long run, something BW should have done from the start as this game of catchup isn't working out very well for them.

  18. #998
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20110429

    FYI, heres a peek into someone's job who may or may not still work at Bioware. That was 2 years ago. You know what changed since then? The fact that you can edit it yourself (which was like omg amazing, though should have been in at launch) and now increasing buff sizes.

    Really? 2 years and that's all the UI team has done. (maybe they don't exist anymore, which is also a huge problem)
    BAD WOLF

  19. #999
    Here are two posts made the one of their UI programmers, Cory Kolek, made in January regarding these UI improvements.
    http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...70#post5738970
    http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...26#post5739326

    It is on their list of improvements but at the time of his posts there was no ETA (or at least none that we know of).

  20. #1000
    Deleted
    Anybody know if there will be new class specific missions with this expansion?

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