Looking back at swtor over the last year

[Deleted]

I never could get into RP in SWTOR due to missing basic features. Especially speech bubbles, it's a nightmare trying to RP when you're constantly looking at the chat window and unaware who's talking and where when in a room of multiple players. It had potential unfortunately BW didn't give a shit... I think SWTOR is nothing more than a cash cow to help fund Dragon Age 3

[RoninaThorstone]

Especially speech bubbles, it's a nightmare trying to RP when you're constantly looking at the chat window and unaware who's talking and where when in a room of multiple players. It had potential unfortunately BW didn't give a shit...

Actually, they couldn't add them because when they did, it broke their game by reducing the FPS by 50.

[Deleted]

Actually, they couldn't add them because when they did, it broke their game by reducing the FPS by 50.

That's really a terrible excuse

[RoninaThorstone]

That's really a terrible excuse

I agree.

Just letting you know WHY its not in.
Its not for lack of trying but rather for lack of competence.

[Deleted]

Actually, they couldn't add them because when they did, it broke their game by reducing the FPS by 50.

Does anyone know the advantages that the Hero engine offers? I'd guess it was cheaper than others but after reading so many game design cuts being made due to the engine not being able to cope makes me wonder WTF ('W' being 'why' in this case ) Bioware spent more than any other developer in history on the game only to go cheap on the engine.

A Ferrari with a FIAT engine?.../Shiver.

There must be some redeeming features to the Hero Engine or is it literally just limited when used for an MMO?

[RoninaThorstone]

There must be some redeeming features to the Hero Engine or is it literally just limited when used for an MMO?

The hero engine allows multiple level designers / world builders to work on the same map at the same time. You can develop worlds very quickly.

However, swtor's engine is extremely modified and I am not sure that it works like the real hero engine any more.

[Deleted]

The hero engine allows multiple level designers / world builders to work on the same map at the same time. You can develop worlds very quickly.

However, swtor's engine is extremely modified and I am not sure that it works like the real hero engine any more.

Thank you.

Is changing engine post launch a feasible option for an MMO? /Crossfingers

[Kelimbror]

Thank you.

Is changing engine post launch a feasible option for an MMO? /Crossfingers

Definitely not.

Especially not one that has already had a blown budget like this one. Being impatient and taking the very first, beta version of the Hero Engine and then finishing it with your own shoddy programming was probably one of their largest technical mistakes.

I mean FFXIV is doing this, but they basically redid their game and are now going to charge people a subscription for it. I'm going to go ahead and tell all of those people I told you so right now. How they even got the greenlight and funding to do it is beyond me.

EA would certainly not do that to save a game.

[Deleted]

Definitely not.

Especially not one that has already had a blown budget like this one. Being impatient and taking the very first, beta version of the Hero Engine and then finishing it with your own shoddy programming was probably one of their largest technical mistakes.

I mean FFXIV is doing this, but they basically redid their game and are now going to charge people a subscription for it. I'm going to go ahead and tell all of those people I told you so right now. How they even got the greenlight and funding to do it is beyond me.

EA would certainly not do that to save a game.

...Bugger

[Kelimbror]

...Bugger

I mean John Riticello's frigid heart, if he even has one, might somehow melt as hell freezes over while armies of flying pigs rain winning lottery tickets over the U.N. Headquarters where they are signing a world peace treaty.

Or SWTOR could revamp their engine.

I'm going to bet on door number 1!

[thatguy181]

SWTOR has an amazing leveling experience (Granted, some classes did far better in this department than many others. I’m very thankful my first two chars were my Trooper and my Jedi Knight, if I had done the Consular first, I’d have probably hated the story) and I think it has many great things to be said about it.

I love the crafting process in general. I don’t do anything but send my minions out for me. If I stumble across crap in the world that could be helpful, I’ll pick it up, but ultimately, I can just sit back and have my minions do everything.

Speaking of companions, they are an incredible addition to an MMO. My characters never felt alone, even when nobody else was on. This NPC whom has shared so much of the story with me is always by my side. Whether it be M1-4X keeping all the enemies off me and encouraging me to curb stomp on imperial scum or the at times annoying and slightly holier than though Kira for my Knight. They came with their own story, they were integral to MY story, they could use some of the gear that dropped for me that I personally had no use for, they were strong enough to actually hold their own so I cared about gearing them up, and they were flat out good “friends” to have in the world.

AE looting… I firmly thank SWTOR for finally convincing WoW to adopt AE looting.

Seriously, the game is a good game, I truly think anyone who enjoys MMOs can find some fun to be had in it.

The problem? When you’re charging a subscription for your game, you need a GREAT game, good games don’t cut it.

I personally never felt much of a challenge unless I was soloing content either not designed to be soloed or way above my level. I don’t know, and I can’t explain it, I just never felt “pushed”.

Pointless, pointless, pointless time sinks. I get it, it’s a big galaxy, but why must I go from my nav station to my ship’s exit ramp, walk across a spaceport to a giant door, go through the door and run down a hallway to click on another big door, walk across another giant section of the spaceport, click on yet another door on a shuttle, finally land on the planet I want to go to, but since I’m not actually where I want to go to I’m now running even more to the nearest speeder and finally I can go afk while my speeder takes me to my final destination. That’s all pointless, pointless, trivial time sinks. Does WoW have pointless time sinks? You bet, but I can afk for most of them and my char will be ready to go when I’m back. Hop a bird, go rough house with the dog for a bit in the backyard, come back, BAM, I’m within spitting distance of the quest hub I told the bird to take me to. Hop a bird, visit the bathroom, come back, BAM, I’m at the daily hub. Hop a bird, go kiss the wife and mess up my son’s hair, come back, there you go, character has landed and is waiting on the next command. I can’t do that in SWTOR, first I have to navigate a relatively large space port. God help me if I am leaving a planet to go to another one… Then I’ve got to do everything in reverse, followed by doing it all again when I get to the next planet! I realize shortly after I finally canceled my subscription they did improve the travel time somewhat, but still, it shouldn’t have been that bad from the start.

No dungeon/raid finder… Sorry, I may very well be a spoiled WoW brat, but I’m never, never, NEVER standing around a city again shouting out for a group, finally getting it all together, and running to the dungeon. I expect to enter a queue, and when my name is popped, you can port me to the dungeon entrance.

A lot of the problems for me seemed like SWTOR was built to compete against TBC. To be fair, if SWTOR came out at the same time as TBC, I’d probably still be playing it and not WoW. The biggest problem was WoW had 2 more expansions beyond TBC which SWTOR and Bioware seemed to think it would be ok to ignore or play catch up with later. This is unacceptable for me. Sorry.

Will I come back for the expansion? Almost certainly, I’d love to see where my Trooper and Knight head to next. Will I stick around afterwards? Not so likely, but who knows. I’ve always had two MMO subscriptions going, currently that’s Rift and WoW, will SWTOR take back the spot it lost to Rift? Maybe.

[Kelimbror]

AE looting… I firmly thank SWTOR for finally convincing WoW to adopt AE looting.

You can firmly thank Rift, you know...since they were the first mainstream game to do it. SWTOR took it from them. Additionally, some older games had the capability for it even if they didn't directly add it in.

Additionally, if you think SWTOR would have even held a candle to TBC...I don't think you played TBC. There's still not as many things to do in SWTOR as there were in that version of a game that came out 8 years ago.

[Kagonos]

So, I played this on launch and, like most, had some high expectations. I really liked a few things about the game, but I found there were a few glaring problems. Some of these were fixed, but there was a time in the middle where, even though I was stupidly paying for a subscription to both WoW and SWtoR, I just wasn't even playing SWtoR at all. I played through pretty consistently on my shadow, at first and got him to 50 before I stopped playing. Then I stopped for a good while, but I came back eventually, and got my commando to level 50 (pre-freebie epics.) I played a few hard mode dungeons in crappy gear, but I was confident that I at least knew how to play my class right. It was fun for a while, I was also wrapping up story line stuff and maxxing out companion affection and "quest lines" so I could have the benfits that come along with that for my new characters.

Now I play with some regularity, working through the knight storyline since I had read so many good things about it, but there's just something that bothers the absolute hell out of me. FPs and Ops have WAY too much skippable shit! Why even bother putting crap in there if you will just allow players to go around it? They clearly either didn't care or somehow didn't have the foresight to realize that people will take the path of least resistance every time...

Then there are the bugged out boss fights. How stupid is it that in the False Emperor, Darth Malgus boss fight, you can literally cheese the encounter so that he kills himself roughly 1 minute into the fight?? There are just so many things like this that should have been caught before ever making it to live. Then, even if it DOES make it to live, it should be fixed fairly quickly. This happens in WoW all the frickin' time, but never in SWtoR (and I'm not trying to spark a WoW vs SWtoR debate on this point, but it's a helpful example of how a company can fix things.) That's inexcusable laziness, or a lack of concern. Either way, it's indicative of how they view quality control. This game still needs some serious attention paid to it, but things like the above are par for the course and it needs to change.

[Psychlon]

Now I play with some regularity, working through the knight storyline since I had read so many good things about it, but there's just something that bothers the absolute hell out of me. FPs and Ops have WAY too much skippable shit! Why even bother putting crap in there if you will just allow players to go around it? They clearly either didn't care or somehow didn't have the foresight to realize that people will take the path of least resistance every time...

You are the first person which I hear saying that skipping tons of trash/ bosses, especially if you don't need anything just to complete a daily and finishing a flashpoint in less than half an hour, is a bad thing.

Then there are the bugged out boss fights. How stupid is it that in the False Emperor, Darth Malgus boss fight, you can literally cheese the encounter so that he kills himself roughly 1 minute into the fight?? There are just so many things like this that should have been caught before ever making it to live. Then, even if it DOES make it to live, it should be fixed fairly quickly. This happens in WoW all the frickin' time, but never in SWtoR (and I'm not trying to spark a WoW vs SWtoR debate on this point, but it's a helpful example of how a company can fix things.) That's inexcusable laziness, or a lack of concern. Either way, it's indicative of how they view quality control. This game still needs some serious attention paid to it, but things like the above are par for the course and it needs to change.

So using a Boss Mechanic against him is a "bad thing"?... Seriously... the boss fight which shall/ must be named here is HK in the Foundry (regarding bugged encounter) and not Malgus who can be cheesed out by standing at the right location using his own mechanic against him. That's just..

[BlueBolt]

Looking back over the last year I can't believe I ever thought 8 man HM EC wasn't easy. HM EC may have forced me to actually read a guide (did EV and KP blind) but it was fairly easy once I swallowed my pride and looked at strategy vid. 16 Man NiM EC? The tanks (2nd boss) required near perfect dps prior to nerf (tanks used to enrage at 5%, now they don't so you don't have to push through the last bit as fast ) and even after nerf, it's still not easy. NiM EC 16 man Kephess? Requires near perfect dps, really good heals (my role) and for the tanks to time their taunts to less than half a second, taunt too late or too soon and you wipe.


Still 8 man NiM EC was a bit easy (1st clear - 8 consecutive hours. And took about 5 clears to get "the Warstalker" was a bit close but 1:55 is still <2:00).

At this point the only real challenge in this game is Tier 2 16 man NiM Operations. Everything else is for people with a super small epeen.

[Tekkommo]

The engine ruined the game and the worlds were designed poorly, it felt like a platform game on worlds and felt like you had no real free space, which is a must for MMOs.

I played the game for roughly 6 months before quitting, and it was the sole reason of being star wars that kept me playing.

I also hated the space stations, I would rather spend my free time on nar shadaa or my main city, but they were always empty.

I over hyped this game for a long time as well, least it's taught me a lesson to never look forward to an MMO before testing it. 1-50 was a fun experience though.

One huge mistake they made was making 4 mans pointless. OPs were doable in green gear and gave better rewards.

[ati87]

Wondering something.

If I bought a sub for 1 month and then decided not to sub any longer would I lose all of the account wide Authorization? like Artifact Equipment?

Because frankly the account wide authorization cost way to much (2700 coins) which is close to 20.00 USD.

Of course I know that the stuff you already have equipped is still usable but talking about new things.

[Kelimbror]

Wondering something.

If I bought a sub for 1 month and then decided not to sub any longer would I lose all of the account wide Authorization? like Artifact Equipment?

The design is that once you have an unlock, you have it for as long as it is intended for use. For an authorization, it's supposed to be forever. Right now people are reporting a lot of problems with their unlocks disappearing. Technically the answer is you should be safe, but you never know with how they run things these days.

If you already equipped an unlock, you are probably fine, if you have some you haven't used I would wait it out. (also, you could have gotten the unlock off the GTN for 350k credits instead of $20.00....I would check the GTN out if you sub for any additional unlocks)

[Vankrys]

the engine is not necessarly the cause, the exploitation of the engine could give bad results as well

A parallel can be made with console for exemple, where game become more and more technically enhanced as time goes by though hardware do not change, the programer just lear to better exploit the machine. Maybe bioware can learn to better utilize the hero engine.

Beside, if an engine cannot be changed after release, it can be upgraded. Blizzard upgrade its engine all the time, which allow them to develop new technology such as phasing, DX11 support, 64bit support, cross realm gameplay... They also update character model, because of the improvement of the actual engine, so it's doable.

[ati87]

The design is that once you have an unlock, you have it for as long as it is intended for use. For an authorization, it's supposed to be forever. Right now people are reporting a lot of problems with their unlocks disappearing. Technically the answer is you should be safe, but you never know with how they run things these days.

If you already equipped an unlock, you are probably fine, if you have some you haven't used I would wait it out. (also, you could have gotten the unlock off the GTN for 350k credits instead of $20.00....I would check the GTN out if you sub for any additional unlocks)

Didn't buy because it is expensive

But was wondering if I could just get a 1 month sub and then at least change gear even after I lost my sub.