What 10 things would you do if you were put in charge of SWTOR tomorrow?

[Korgoth]

List the 10 things you would do if put in charge. Ill start:
1. Fire the person who decided to put in Orbital Stations. That guy clearly has no business making games as he obviously hates fun.
2. Remove the left click ability from every class and redesign their damage rotations accordingly.
3. Consolidate servers, keeping populations intact but putting 3-5 small pop into one large.
4. End the Sub Fee. Start transitioning to a PAY ONCE with premium services offering cosmetic and convenience upgrades only.
5. End new raid development after completion of current projects. Stop chasing World of Warcraft and focus on SWTOR strengths.
6. Start production on new story. Hire writers. Set goal of paid story updates every 6 months that provide at least 20 hours of new content.
7. Class Overhauls, with huge community feedback push on the forums, and at least 3 long winding posts by myself each week attacking some poor guys deluded request.
8. Animation system overhaul to make sure no player is ever watching animations instead of playing.
9. Completely rip off the Guild Wars 2 fast travel system, letting players be air lifted by their space ship to any point on any map, then rocket pack/force jump out.
10. Start transitioning the Space Combat off rails, and designing a pvp mode for it. X Wing vs Tie Fighter!

Bonus Round:
11. Remove all gear from companions, have their power level based off their level, have the gear slots available, but only for cosmetic purposes.

[Jercard]

So you would make it f2p. Ironically, this is the only thing EA is probably discussing right now,

Warhammer still requires a sub. Almost garantee swtor won't go free to play. Doesn't matter to me though. Still like the game. Though I could get behind some of the OP's listed changes.

[NatePsy]

Only have one and that's to add hooded armor pieces for Marauders during the leveling process because there is absolutely none whereas their Jedi counterpart has tonnes.

[shimargh]

what is the left click ability?
you mean attack (tho is right click)? if that's so, you're wrong this is the thing the keeps swtor away from wow. I'm sure i'm not the only one who hates auto attack.
swtor wont go f2p ever. it's EA who we're talking about here.

1.- make more companions, to chose from. Droids included.
2.-make 2 or 3 more class questlines so you can chose wich one you're doing right now (and when you end the story you can unlock the other paths) trying to connect all the quests making decissions truly important.
3.- get rid of the "esc convo"
4.- space combat off the rails.
5.- make crafting missions hubs, so you can decide if you send your companion or you want to do it yourself, same with the crafting.
6.- minigames for crafting, so you can add your skill to the process and add % succes (like crits)
7.- make sure to stop listening to whiny brats and keep our own choices, not the spoonfeeding from other games.
8.- add weapoon choices to the legacy perks (mantaining some aspects, IE jedis dont use blasters, rifles for BH,) it would be any ranged for ranged classes(scept for snipers), any melee for melee classes, with some exceptions like cannons, or doublelightsabers (IE just assas and maras ), add real functionality to scatters, shotguns and knifes.
9.- cut the casual crap
10.-cut the casual crap

oh my bonus!
11.-get rid of the casual crap.

[VenomousCarnage]

List the 10 things you would do if put in charge. Ill start:
1. Fire the person who decided to put in Orbital Stations. That guy clearly has no business making games as he obviously hates fun.
2. Remove the left click ability from every class and redesign their damage rotations accordingly.
3. Consolidate servers, keeping populations intact but putting 3-5 small pop into one large.

All good up to there then your 4th point is about the worst thing I could ever think can happen to an mmo. When cosmetic things are made for money thats when a company gets lazy with any sort of real conttent. It happened in WoW, they realized they could get a lot of money from people ready to waste money on a spectral kitty beside them and Since the Petstore was added in WotLK I've noticed a great decline in any sort of content quality (quantity=/=quality). Games like MapleStory and Perfect World International are terrible games if you arn't one of those players that drops absurd amounts of money on "Pay to win" crap.
I would certainly keep the monthy fee or even accept Free to play before any buy to play system is introduced

Instead of your number 5 I would lessen the focus on raids not end it completely. There still needs to be options but I agree Bioware sgould play to it's strengths more.

6. I'm not sure why you said #6. Do you mean replace the story they currently have because it's fine as it is by me. And if you mean write additional story I'm sure they are doing that already. They likley havn't mentioned it much because they are working on a lot of preformance flaws they need to smooth out. There's likely going to be expansions with big story boosts and they already have and still plan on story stuff (The rackghoul plague event and the Dread lords stuff coming up)

7. I've never seen too many problems that the classes need complete overhauls. The only problem I see is that MMOs still stick some classes with ONLY the option of DPS therefore basically ensuring thier use is limited and that they will be reguarded as less important then other classes when a group needs to be formed (there is always enough DPS to go around but the other two are typically in demand, If those dps classes had another option they could fill that ongoing demand)

ok,the rest i don't care about so I'll stop picking apart your points.. instead I would rather see

- Have a greater emphasis on companion development. Make it so there are many more quests availiable through companions, it's rediculous that some have no quests at all. ANY future companion personality should have as much work put into it as Janessa, They should be heavily influenced, they should be affected by who you are. Give them an influence and/or alignment bar as previous bioware games have had. Add more personality and depth to some of the most boring characters like Khem and Bowdaar, after you get them they are reduced to being a broken record of a companion that never has anything interesting to say (quests would help a lot with this. Maybe add in some generic branching convos that can be done casually after thier affection is maxxed, it's dumb how they just sit around wth nothing to say ever after they have over 9500 affection. Hell, maybe even make every companion give a daily quest that can give you some secondary reward like more customizations or unique gear specifically for them. And just generally have them pipe up more often in convos.

- Add neutral gear, They said they would and they should be on it. I would smack whoever was in charge of that upside the head and say "Live up to what you claimed now! Get working"

- I also would like space combat to be off rail. It;s annoying when your only task left is to take out an engine but the rail decides to take you on a minute detour through a random asteroid field before you get back to that objective.

[WaitingforMoP]

1.Looking for group system like WoW has
2.Flying mounts added
3.Auto Attacks added
4.Arena added
5.Reduce XP required to level by about 20%
6.Make GTN more user friendly
7.Warzones would give way more commendations
8.Faction changes implemented
9.Server changes implemented
10.Race changes implemented

[Korgoth]

All good up to there then your 4th point is about the worst thing I could ever think can happen to an mmo. When cosmetic things are made for money thats when a company gets lazy with any sort of real conttent. It happened in WoW, they realized they could get a lot of money from people ready to waste money on a spectral kitty beside them and Since the Petstore was added in WotLK I've noticed a great decline in any sort of content quality (quantity=/=quality). Games like MapleStory and Perfect World International are terrible games if you arn't one of those players that drops absurd amounts of money on "Pay to win" crap.
I would certainly keep the monthy fee or even accept Free to play before any buy to play system is introduced

Instead of your number 5 I would lessen the focus on raids not end it completely. There still needs to be options but I agree Bioware sgould play to it's strengths more.

6. I'm not sure why you said #6. Do you mean replace the story they currently have because it's fine as it is by me. And if you mean write additional story I'm sure they are doing that already. They likley havn't mentioned it much because they are working on a lot of preformance flaws they need to smooth out. There's likely going to be expansions with big story boosts and they already have and still plan on story stuff (The rackghoul plague event and the Dread lords stuff coming up)

7. I've never seen too many problems that the classes need complete overhauls. The only problem I see is that MMOs still stick some classes with ONLY the option of DPS therefore basically ensuring thier use is limited and that they will be reguarded as less important then other classes when a group needs to be formed (there is always enough DPS to go around but the other two are typically in demand, If those dps classes had another option they could fill that ongoing demand)

ok,the rest i don't care about so I'll stop picking apart your points.. instead I would rather see

- Have a greater emphasis on companion development. Make it so there are many more quests availiable through companions, it's rediculous that some have no quests at all. ANY future companion personality should have as much work put into it as Janessa, They should be heavily influenced, they should be affected by who you are. Give them an influence and/or alignment bar as previous bioware games have had. Add more personality and depth to some of the most boring characters like Khem and Bowdaar, after you get them they are reduced to being a broken record of a companion that never has anything interesting to say (quests would help a lot with this. Maybe add in some generic branching convos that can be done casually after thier affection is maxxed, it's dumb how they just sit around wth nothing to say ever after they have over 9500 affection. Hell, maybe even make every companion give a daily quest that can give you some secondary reward like more customizations or unique gear specifically for them. And just generally have them pipe up more often in convos.

- Add neutral gear, They said they would and they should be on it. I would smack whoever was in charge of that upside the head and say "Live up to what you claimed now! Get working"

- I also would like space combat to be off rail. It;s annoying when your only task left is to take out an engine but the rail decides to take you on a minute detour through a random asteroid field before you get back to that objective.

About 6. It also ties into 4. So instead of paying a monthly fee, and Bioware doing the WoW raid release schedule, they instead drop the monthly, and do story expansions. The story part is where I See Bioware as having succeeded; and these raid patches dont further that well, and waiting 2 years between an expansion that really does, well sucks. So every 6 months or so they do a new expansion, but really its just continuing each of the class stories. Its like the Guild Wars model, but with much faster content updates, and keeping the story content coming. Even call it seasons like TV. So SWTOR Season 2, each class gets 20+ hours of new story based content, a few new 4 man instances that tie into it, new PVP instance.

It would not be F2P, it would be like the vast majority of games where you pay once and that's it for that content.

you mean attack (tho is right click)? if that's so, you're wrong this is the thing the keeps swtor away from wow. I'm sure i'm not the only one who hates auto attack.

You dont have to have a boring generic attack just because you dont have autoattack. For instance on my Vanguard instead of having to use Hammer Shot so I dont run out of ammo all the time, they could make it so the Ion Pulse attack is the resource builder, and you could always hit it; or they could remove Ion Pulse and make Hammer Shot actually interesting. They did not take out auto attack they only made it manual, I want them to really remove it.

[Fannyd]

1.Looking for group system like WoW has
2.Flying mounts added
3.Auto Attacks added
4.Arena added
5.Reduce XP required to level by about 20%
6.Make GTN more user friendly
7.Warzones would give way more commendations
8.Faction changes implemented
9.Server changes implemented
10.Race changes implemented

aka turn it into WoW?

[Derah]

1: Add more information for the quests. AKA; allow us to see in the quest log how much exp, and credits we'd get by doing it, as well as what items. This would allow us to gauge whether or not its worth the trouble. Specially for heroic quests and bonus series.

2: Redesign Scoundrels/Operatives. Their dependance on Tactical Advantage/Upperhand is nearly crippling. Either remove the dependancy of the buff altogether, or rework how the buff is. By either allow us to have more charges of it, or allow the charges to last longer, or allow us extra ways to gain those charges other than shiv/whip. Seriously, its not fun. I had to reroll to sniper (Even though I hated losing my capacity to heal and my stealth) because of how crippling it is to not have charges of TA/UH. The challenge of this class should be balancing your energy so you don't run out, not watching in agony how long is it before shiv/whip is off cooldown so you can actually DO SOMETHING.

3: Add the Cross-realm zones that wow is implementing. Seriously, its a real innovative feature, and one that would kill population problems for good. Doesn't matter if your server is empty, if there's 9 servers sharing players across their zones, that'd be awesome. This is something they need to work on.

4: Add more weapons for the classes. Its very boring that all the classes use only 1 weapon type and only 1 weapon type. Variety is the spice of life. With so many variations of lightsabers in the expanded universe why settle with 3? add the Guard Shoto for the Sentinels and Marauders, the Lightwhip for the Sages/Sorcerers, Light-Pikes for Assassins/Shadows, and Dual-phase Lightsaber for Guardians/Juggernaughts.

For the non-force classes, allow them to use at least ONE weapon from the other classes. Examples would be: For Commandos, they can use their Assault Canons and Sniper Rifles. For Vanguards, They can use their Blaster Rifles and Scatterguns, for Scoundrels, Scatterguns and Blaster Rifles (:P) for Gunslingers, Dual-guns, and I dunno, :S Sub-Machine guns? (They need to add more ranged weapons too)

For Mercenaries, they can use Dual-guns, or Assault Canons, for Power-techs, single gun, or Blaster Rifle. For Snipers, their snipers, or Blaster Rifle, and for Operatives, Blaster Rifle, or Single Gun.

The point being, MORE WEAPONS. I find the whole notion that every class must stick to 1 weapon type to be nothing short of ridiculus. I love how my DK on wow can use axes, swords, spears, hammers, or how my rogue can use daggers, swords, axes, claws, ect.

Restricting us with 1 weapon type is absurd.

5: Add more options for pvp. Just warzones isn't enough. Arenas are needed, and a more encouraging pvp zone than Ilum. Something akin to Wintergrasp (just not Tol Barad :S that thing was horrible)

6: Integrate the Space Missions with the rest of the game. Nothing would be more awesome than a flashpoint that has us assaulting an enemy space station, and the first stage of the flashpoint consists of all 4 members of the group blasting the shit out of the outer defences on our pimped out ships.

7: Capital Ships for the Guilds. Thought they admitted this is on the "To-Do" list so no biggie.

8: More variety in animations for the races. Its kinda disappointing that all the races have the same animations, hairs, faces, everything. Everyone looks like everyone. The only race with a spec of originality is the Twi'leks, that's not enough. Add more races that are unique (Such as the torguta) and add more diversity to the ones we have already.

9: FIX ASHARA! Its infuriating trying to gain affection with her as a darkside female. Sith are corruptors by nature, it baffles the logic that I can take this jedi under my wing but can't corrupt her to the dark side of the force. If warriors can do it with Jaessa, we deserve to be able to do so with Ashara too.

10: Add the option to unify the color on my companion's gear, as well as hide their helmets, as well as being able to place them in Social Gear and allow it to scale.

11: Bonus Round: More Jawas =D they're adorable (*^_^*)

[VenomousCarnage]

1.Looking for group system like WoW has
2.Flying mounts added
3.Auto Attacks added
4.Arena added
5.Reduce XP required to level by about 20%
6.Make GTN more user friendly
7.Warzones would give way more commendations
8.Faction changes implemented
9.Server changes implemented
10.Race changes implemented

aka turn it into WoW?

Yuck, talk about the worst ideas ever.
Judging by the account picture I assume that is exactly what that person wants. Sad that they go out of thier way like that to add nothing but fanboy junk to another part of the forum. Pretty much sums up why I wouldn't want it to me more like WoW because it would attract people like that...

Anyways I'm still not sure what the OP is trying to say with #4. The more Pay per item/quest/race etc a game becomes the way less exciting/interesting the game becomes overall for the people who don't want to fork over rediculous amounts of money so my character can do something like wear a "cool" pair of sunglasses. The developers then start designing so many of those sunglass like items that any regular content seems to take a big hit in quality/quantity so much so that it cripples anyone who just wants to play regularly.

If you are talking just about story/groups of content then you basically mean you want more expansions or even patches you have to pay for which is slightly more resonable but then it still means people fork out money (likley just as much if not more then a subscription) just to keep up. As is, most people are done with content and have reached a slow down in play by the time an expansion comes around, but if your suggesting content/expansions come out every few months (3-6) then only the most diehard players would keep at it doing all the top content.

Either way I don't see a much better model for payment then what SWTOR and to a lesser extent WoW has. I say lesser for WoW because they are inching closer and closer to a buy to play/win model, nothing crucial yet but introducing an increasing amount more to things like Petstore and less quality on content. The real Money AH in Diablo 3 is also a bad omen for the way Blizzard is taking things, seeing how it will basically be Pay to Win whenever they decide to activate it, they might be so pleased with how much money they skim off of it I wouldn't be surprised if they go back on their word and introduce something like it in WoW.

I could still be reading what the OP is saying wrong but like I said, I like the subscription model best so far. It's not great but I can't think of a more preferable/realistic way.

*Also GIVE ALL COMPANIONS THE OPTIONS OF 2 ROLES instead of arbitrarily limiting some making them less useful while others like Corso and Tuno get 2 options. Many companions just get screwed to being less useful, in a game about story and choices I shouldn't have to juggle companions because companions like Risha wern't allowed a second option while Tuno was.

[Ballfro]

I would hand out cease and desist orders to any and all websites that have a forum that discusses SWTOR. This would alleviate 95% of the problem with this game.

[Perkunas]

1.) Auto-attacks for the non-casters. After 2 weeks playing a Sentinel my fingers were KILLING ME.
2.) Basic Macro functions(not complete SWG automation). Things like gear swaps, cast sequences, trinket uses, mouse-over casting FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS.
3.) Release an API to allow further customization of the UI. Power auras for cooldown tracking, resizing buffs and debuffs on the raid frames, better unit frames, etc.
4.)__________________________________________________LOAD WARS_________________________________________

It is a time of great strife in TOR. Our fate lies in the hands of Bioware finally realizing that they can't expect to have a "seamless world" when there's a million loading screens between almost everything you do. Further, the game runs like balls on even the beefiest systems. Some heads should start rolling.

5.) Seriously guys, LFG... Seriously... Not just on a dead server either. It needs to be game-wide. There aren't many people left playing on the vast majority of servers. Either that or start merging like a mad man.
6.) Get the realistic "Species that can speak Basic" player species out ASAP. Chagrians, Cathar, Togruta, Arkanians, Kel Dor, Nautolan, Voss just for starters.
7.) Fix your bugs faster. The very fact that Soa was so terribly bugged for months was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
8.) Meaningful world PVP. Bonuses for having planets under a faction's control with world PVP objectives. "Alderaan is controlled by the Republic. All Republic crafters gain 10% critical chance for patterns." Give capped players a reason to go back to the other planets.
9.) Kill the stations. Have people want to hang out on other planets by placing everything on the station onto these planets. Also give them some fun things to do while on X planet. "Tatooine has a crazy dueling tournament every day in the special PVP area. If you win you can unlock certain legacy perks without having to grind the credits!" "Did you guys compete in the Wampa hunting contest on Hoth? I hear you get a holocron-esque health bonus if you bag the most Wampas in an hour."
10.) Expand the space game. Being that there's no MSN Gaming Zone anymore I haven't been able to get my X-Wing vs Tie fix in years.

Just a few things I'd do

[Odegon]

I want only 1 fix:

1) Split the defense bonus for pvp between players guarding a node. Give 100 points flat for every defender and split the remaining 400 between players.
1 defender 500 points
2 defenders 300 points each
8 defenders 150 points each

[Deleted]

FastTravel
Shorter loading times
Randomized companions
Global chat, & server wide.
LFG instance queue system 1-4 minutes wait time, x-server (better than wows which takes half an hour)
Be able to choose which bg u want in the "bg" queue.
Better graphics, seriously every1 frikking buy a new PC once in a while please.
Some randomized text quests for alternation with a goal like a rep hunt
Free to play like Guild Wars
Try to make it good on console.

[Alvito]

1. Start working on my resume and looking for a new job.

SWTOR has its share of issues but if for some reason there was a firing or something like that of any of the top ppl the nightmare that would create for the person to jump in next would be insane. There seem to be too many core issues that just aren't addressed or cannot be fixed, greatly limiting the success of the game. Even if the problems they have were fixed I think the flash in the pan for the game has come and gone and it is a huge up hill battle to try to turn things around. I am not saying the game is dead or anything like that. Its more like a 2 year old that just broke its back, it can recover some but its not going to do the things it could have done without that incident.

---------- Post added 2012-05-24 at 03:37 AM ----------

I want only 1 fix:

1) Split the defense bonus for pvp between players guarding a node. Give 100 points flat for every defender and split the remaining 400 between players.
1 defender 500 points
2 defenders 300 points each
8 defenders 150 points each

Great idea this would stop the 5 ppl that quit 30 seconds into Civil War and all stand at a gun together until the match is over.

[inboundpaper]

1. Race changes, everyone gets a free one for any character made before 1.2 came out.
2. Cross server PvP. Fighting the same 20ish Sith got old in a week.
3. Develop a deeps meter for in game use.
4. Up level 3 mount speed to 150%
5. Macro & UI changes
6. LFG, there is a reason I have yet to do any hm flashpoints.
7. Legacy perk to make leveling less of a pain, class quests level you to the end of the planet.

That's all I got.

[Dakia]

1. Server transfers / mergers
2. Cross server PvP
3. Open up macros
4. Add a carrot for raiders to do FPs
5. Summon group feature
6. Guild capital ships
7. Space PvP / Space Ops / Space FPs
8. Unify color on any item slot
9. Make L3 speeder faster
10. Seriously do something to help faction balance

[Heironeous]

So no one flames I have a Vig Guardian and a Kinetic Shadow.

1. Give the Inq/Shadow DPS specs more consistent damage. Less burst, more damage. Make them more OP friendly.
2. More text warnings in OPs even if it's a toggle. We have a tank in our group who is deaf, so audio ques don't work for him.
3. Add more items to crafters to make money with. Especially Cybertech, Artifice and Armstech. They need income from their crafting skills, and honestly a player-created economy starts with them having the ability to create OPs capable items.
4. Add a legacy perk to have 2 companions out. Wanna play a Tank? Bring your healer AND a dps.
5. Companion tank stances give 30-40% armor increase for them. Way too easy to blow down a tank companion even while leveling. They need a solid boost. % would need some metrics, but it's doable without them becoming over powered.
6. All abilities that require a target to be slowed, stunned, upset, bipolar, depressed, or have a hang nail reworked. They take up space, they cost credits and they're useless to a lot of specs.
7. Give Mercs/Commandos an interupt. The need for them in Hard Modes FPs is pretty common. It's a tool they need.
8. Give Sith Warriors more modable hood-up robes. Give Jedi Knights modable hood-down robes. Quality of life at it's finest.
9. Barber Shop. Nuff said.
10. Ilum. It use to be fun. Bring it back, adjust it to only allow X more players on one side than the other, and scatter objectives more. Also add the same sort of mechanic for Outlaw's Den. Outlaw's Den also bolsters and you're golden for all levels to PvP.

And for that little something extra...

11. Code the game so that if auto-attack is ever even thought about too hard the engine explodes. No auto-attack is a good thing.

[Nyaldee]

1. Cut servers off and say: sorry we failed.

Infracted

[Rugdoctor]

About 15% of the collective ideas in this thread are decent.

Some of you need to unplug your computers and go submerge them in your bathtubs, you do not deserve to have it.