SWTOR 1 year later, how is it?

[Cooper]

By the way, one thing I want to point out is that space shouldn't be all about combat. Blockade-running is one major thing that could be included, and then maybe smugglers would earn their moniker.

This idea that shooting things is the only way to make a game interesting has really got to go away.

[Clattuc]

They could have released free flight PvP with comparatively little effort, and if they had, it would be wildly popular. But these things get so "religious" within the world of game design. Ideas are ruled off-limits and that's the end of it. BioWare did not and does not believe that the mythical audience in their minds (all 3 million of them) can handle or "should want" free flight space. They like their endless repetitive rails missions. Which reminds me, I skipped Pakuuni Defense

[Deleted]

Or they should just have released all pvp for free, there would be people in warzones on all the levels and all the time

[Argroth]

Since the Rackghoul thing it seems not much has changed.

The invested all thier time into the shitty F2P cartel market.

They make fancy suits and pets to sell and nickel and dime a free to play player if they want ANYTHING.

They are desperately grabbing for money wherever they can and the game is not improving.

It's been a year and there is still gliches at every turn, enemies dieing in air, teammates being knocked down and being seen as moving corpses by other teammates.

They started off with Legacy being account wide unlocks of the few new/changed ones they are only per character now.

Combat is still more rigid then you will find in other games.

Don't bother if you wanna try the F2P model, they give you basically nothing. They give you way less then ANY other F2P game out there.

As a more personal gripe Organic mounts are still nowhere to be seen, excluded from the game for no logical reason. They are all ground mounts so why no varactyl?

[Cooper]

It's been a year and there is still gliches at every turn, enemies dieing in air, teammates being knocked down and being seen as moving corpses by other teammates.

Never mind glitches like that, today I finally (after two days! in group finder) found a group for Colicoid War Games (you know, for the daily), and at the end didn't get credit for completing the flashpoint.

Some people are reverse engineering schematics and finding out they lost the discovered new ones when they log off.

As a more personal gripe Organic mounts are still nowhere to be seen, excluded from the game for no logical reason. They are all ground mounts so why no varactyl?

Yeah, I have no idea why they didn't make a Tauntaun mount for Hoth.

[anyaka21]

Don't bs. Have you tried to level from scratch without spending any rl cash? I have and it was a pain in the ass. You feel so cramped it's not fun in anyway.

In two threads now every other post is a commercial from you about this games

making money in the game really isn't that hard. In fact, I'd assume a f2p player would actually make more cash by leveling than a sub person because it takes longer to level. Add that, all you really need is slicing, or a gathering profession, and then sell it on the GTN and your gold on cash. Besides, I'd venture to guess that a f2p player without purchasing any xp boosts, leveling would be just about right. As it stands as a sub, you level too fast for the planet you are on. Currently, every toon i've started ends up about 3-5 levels too high for the planet they are on, as thus planets are less of a challenge and I just typically end up doing the main planet questline and the story questline for the planet to try and tone this down a little. Add that if you do all the quests and have things like slicing as a skill, then I find it hard to believe that you'd be strapped for cash at all.

After that, buy stuff when it's at a good price on the GTN that you can afford and you're fine.


As for the players selling stuff for more than the 400k f2p limit. That's a personal problem not a GTN problem. The only other reasonable explaination is that they are a sub person planning on going f2p and are putting up a lot of stuff on the GTN for unreasonable prices that will just go into their mailbox when it expires.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 08:20 AM ----------

Much of the same, bugs reported since beta still linger on, "bells and whistles of a modern MMO" still doesn't include dynamic weather or a day/night cycle, or races that aren't humans with a coat of paint. And the now even slower patching still break as much if not more than it fixes most of the time, and the hero engine version they have is still.... lackluster.

As mentioned, it's still the same game, with the same problems that made about 80% of the player base to leave within 6 months, only now they have one of the most restrictive and insulting F2P models there is to date that also gives them an excuse to go for a cash grab from subscribers as well. Though of course there's still the rabid biodrones that claim it's the players fault for expecting a game with the biggest budget to date to produce something relevant to current standards, which other developers have done with smaller budgets, who also produce more new content within similar if not smaller timeframes.

---------- Post added 2012-12-05 at 02:58 PM ----------



You don't know much about EA do you?

all the bells and whistles you mention really aren't gamebreaking issues. Yeah, we wish things were different, that at character creation was more dynamic, day/night I could honestly not care about, weather - I don't even notice.

My biggest issue with your post is that you decided to throw the 80% have unsubbed. Do you realize that even WoW boasts of this. They've stated. and I'm pretty sure it was on the front page of this site as a blue post or something that WoW has had over 40mil subs pass thru their door. Or in your terms 75% of the population that was subbed have unsubbed. In other words 30 million people have unsubbed from WoW compared to only about 1.5mil from SWTOR

What everyone needs to realize is that that's pretty much an industry standard. WoW just happens to have more subs. And to add to that most of those, over half by the last estimation are in China, and China accounts for the massive revenue of 6% of WoW revenue. Yes, that's right, about 60% of WoW's playerbase accounts for 6% of their income.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 08:29 AM ----------

While I agree with you on chat bubbles (though admittedly that's a small problem compared to the other area's of the game they need to work on), these two shouldn't really be "expected".

The game isn't created with macro's in mind, and with the nature of combat, macro's could entirely destroy the flow/feel of it by allowing too many abilities to be macro'd together or "automating" too many player decisions/actions. Macro's aren't a necessity, though they are super nice, so if the game isn't developed with them in mind, they're probably not going to put them in.

The same applies to addons. I love addons, but they don't make sense in every game, and not all developers want to allow for them since they can be so problematic. It's not a requirement, and they've added in the customization (and it's a pretty good customization system too) that have alleviated the UI issues some people have.

while I understand they are nice to have, and I'd like certain customizational options added, macro's and add-ons are not necessary. Many would say, for example, that addons and macro's have completely changed the face of WoW and not in a good way. GearScore, DPS meters, BossMods, etc.. many would argue have turned into the bane of the game where if you don't do the right amount of dps on a heroic, they are going to kick you, or if your GearScore isn't good enough, they'll kick you too. Boss mods that basically tell you where to stand and what's coming, etc... in many's minds have hurt the game, not improved it.

Though, tbh, I would like some form of dps meter so I can get a good grip on what kind of rotation or improvement I can make instead of just hitting whatever button isn't on cooldown. I'd also like some form of dual-spec, or at least to be able to save a spec and be able to load a spec so that it doesn't take forever to swap when you have to change going into a flashpoint or op. Add that, it would be nice to able to do that with gear as well.

But in my mind, these things aren't gamebreaking. I'd venture to say that a lot of people actually like some of those things aren't in the game, and stay subbed because they are not as opposed to those that have unsubbed because those kinds of things aren't in the game.

And space combat? Really? That's your deal breaker? Really? We're talking about playing an online MMO where youre character is supposed to be the main focus of the game. Space becomes about your ship, not your toon.

[deathtakes]

Did you even play it?
You get 2 out of 10 races for your class if you play for free, people who pay it level/get currency faster and have less wait time in between their chat messages.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, there's so much that they did wrong.
This is what people should look to when asking how NOT to make a game (of any genre).

To me it seems the baseline F2P is just to let people give the game a try and many people are completely overreacting at the lack of features. I don't think it's meant to allow you to power level to max and start raiding with your buddies, it's basically a demo, a trail run for people who were wary to buy and subscribe to the game. I'm fine with this, I'm downloading it as we speak actually.

I was like the OP, I was very excited for this game, I watched beta videos constantly and combed through threads for any leaked info and eagerly awaited news. Unfortunately I did not have a computer capable of running it until now. I do have a bit of skepticism towards the game mind you, mostly because of all the negative crap I hear about it, although I sure most of it is just that, crap. If I like the way the game plays I'll go to full subscription, I have no issues paying a monthly fee as long as quality content is assured at whatever intervals Bioware has planned.

[namelessone]

You can buy almost everything with credits.

If you extend that "without buying anything" mentality to credits than you aren't going to buy new skills or abilities from trainers and only have 3 abilities for the whole game. So essentially shooting yourself in the foot.

Also, I like how you think swtor is "my game". Really shows that you aren't from around these parts *places shotgun across legs*

You can't buy the equal experience gain, which is basically a game-killer for free version. Temporary boosts are overpriced and essentially useless because of ridiculous travel times.

[anyaka21]

You can't buy the equal experience gain, which is basically a game-killer for free version. Temporary boosts are overpriced and essentially useless because of ridiculous travel times.

f2p is only about 25% less. Which should allow you to completely level through a planet, doing all quests, exploration, datacrons, etc... and probably end up right around the level cap if not over for most people. It shouldn't hinder you at all. In fact, most subs would probably tell you, they level too fast anyways. This "restriction" should not be a game changer or a deal breaker.

[Zauber]

I don't understand what's so bad about the game. I mean it made me actually like it and play it, considering the fact that WoW login screen music gave me vomit urges 2 years ago. So those 3 features - the setting, dialogues, story/lore - that made someone like me play a wow-clone now should really be good.

[Deleted]

game is good: does not compute: System failure!

[RoninaThorstone]

You can't buy the equal experience gain, which is basically a game-killer for free version. Temporary boosts are overpriced and essentially useless because of ridiculous travel times.

Actually you can.

They are called exp boosts.
They go for about 1-5k on the GTN

Which is not expensive.

edit: Not to mention, you can just run instances as a healer / tank as ftp all day. (pure dps class? you own fault)

[MoonZapdos]

In fact, most subs would probably tell you, they level too fast anyways.

My sides. If there's one thing that ticks me off about this game is how linear the leveling is (you can't choose which planets to level in) and how long it takes to clear said planets. I see myself spending 6 to 7 hours on a planet that nets me 4 levels. The fact Flashpoints award poor XP doesn't really help. I will however agree they've done well with Warzones, as their XP gain makes them a legit alternative to questing.

It still baffles me, however, after 1 year of being released, they still haven't addressed the painstakingly long loading screens. It just seems like they're putting all their effort into minor content and luxuries rather than fixing the bugs and development flaws at the very core of the game.

Some of the F2P restrictions are just silly. I can understand the credit cap, the display of titles, the additional inventory and bank space, the legacy unlocks.. but some of the restrictions really shouldn't be there (namely, Hide Helmet and Unify Colors). In addition, I believe it to be quite a rip-off purchasing those features in an account-wide basis costs you 2.5x as much as buying it for one character. You're looking at wasting about 7 euros just to be able to hide your helmet on all your characters. As for the action bars, it seems they addressed many players' gripe in the recent minor patch.

Nonetheless, I am subbed and will continue to play, but I don't see why so many in this thread must defend EA's decisions around the game. If anything, they are not letting Bioware do their job. Criticism is a good thing, and if you can't play the game without acknowledging where it lacks, you're a fanboy.

[Deleted]

My biggest issue with your post is that you decided to throw the 80% have unsubbed. Do you realize that even WoW boasts of this.

Strange, last time I checked WoW's population has NOT dropped by 80%, way to try and put a positive spin on SWTORs massive loss of players and lying through your teeth in the process.

all the bells and whistles you mention really aren't gamebreaking issues.

So, because they don't break the game they don't count, through magic I assume? I mean the game works, it just lacks many features that most if not all modern MMO's have while at the same time sporting the biggest game budget to date and costing the same as other games. But hey the game "works" so therefore these issues are null and void.

[Shiny212]

Real f2pers are preferred status and buy their unlocks off the GTN or from other players.

Real f2pers shoot themselves after reaching a high enough level to suddenly NOT HAVE ANY MORE ROOM on their measly 2 quick bars.

[RoninaThorstone]

Strange, last time I checked WoW's population has NOT dropped by 80%, way to try and put a positive spin on SWTORs massive loss of players and lying through your teeth in the process.

He isn't lying. He is talking about WoWs retention rate. Not population relative to release.

Its like 50 million people have tried wow at some point but only 8 million people play it.
And 2.4 million people have tried swtor at some point but only 500 thousand people play it.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 01:34 PM ----------

Real f2pers shoot themselves after reaching a high enough level to suddenly NOT HAVE ANY MORE ROOM on their measly 2 quick bars.

You mean 4.

Also, f2pers who choose to not buying action bars of the GTN are shooting themselves in the foot.

[Gilian]

Hard to say. In my opinion, most people that raced to end content, as in any game that has released recently, end up quitting soon after release. If you didn't like it then, not sure how much you'll like it now. Since the beginning I've only had maybe 10-15 hours a week to play. I have loved it since the beginning. Since it's free to play, just try it.

I thought, hmm free to play maybe I will go try it. First thing I see when I go to the SWTOR store is "cartel coins" and "Subscription Plans The fastest way to level up, access more content, and experience fewer restrictions.". F2P is so misleading but it was ofcourse stupid of me to think it was F2P without restrictions.

[Kelimbror]

I thought, hmm free to play maybe I will go try it. First thing I see when I go to the SWTOR store is "cartel coins" and "Subscription Plans The fastest way to level up, access more content, and experience fewer restrictions.". F2P is so misleading but it was ofcourse stupid of me to think it was F2P without restrictions.

Every F2P game has restrictions of some sort. LoL even has minor instances of inhibiting your progress, though they give you the keys to their kingdom in time.

If you actually want to *try* the game as you say, this is perfect for you. You can play the game, see the mechanics, the art, the story without paying anything. Anything that bothers you can be unlocked with in game currency via credits and the GTN. Until you reach end game, there's arguably nothing that isn't easily surmounted by making friends and having credits.

[Aroa]

I can understand the credit cap, the display of titles, the additional inventory and bank space, the legacy unlocks.. but some of the restrictions really shouldn't be there (namely, Hide Helmet and Unify Colors).

I am not too happy about some of the restrictions they have added to SWTOR F2P (UI/bar restrictions, unable to trade etc) but I do not think Hide Helmet and Unify Colors are unfair restrictions. Hide Helmet and Unify Colors only affects appearance and can be called vanity options. Just like other games sell different skins, costumes etc for real money. So those optional features are exactly what should be restricted to F2P players and available as an unlock in the cash shop in my opinion.

[Kelimbror]

I am not too happy about some of the restrictions they have added to SWTOR F2P (UI/bar restrictions, unable to trade etc) but I do not think Hide Helmet and Unify Colors are unfair restrictions. Hide Helmet and Unify Colors are only affect appearance and can be called vanity options. Just like other games sell different skins, costumes etc for real money. So those optional features are exactly what should be restricted to F2P players and available as an unlock in the cash shop in my opinion.

Agree. And it seems they are progressing towards that.

I can understand not allowing free access to new content to an extent. I can also understand having the end game activities be something you need to pay for. I don't agree with the specific durations or prices of these items, but the principle is fine. I think people are just slow to react to old information and once the game is patched up to their recent standards it will feel much better.