FYI, Target of Target is already in game. Learn 2 find your binds, FFS. + Learn 2 tell your tank to define the focus target. I've barely seen any tank do that yet.

Thanks guys, don't hesitate to bump the thread yourself so Bioware could read that (as we seem to be quite numerous to reject dumbed down content). You're absolutely right in some way, and what you mentions simply adds up to the lack of challenge problem. WoW is old, and that's one of the main reasons people are going away from it. One of. But this is another debate, which could deserve its own thread. Re-using assets, refactoring stuff ad nauseam is another huge problem Bioware doesn't seem to be falling in yet, though. SWTOR planets are pretty varied, and I've barely seen any blatant asset refactoring. I guess we will be able to judge on that point at the first expansion.

"This is SERIOUS THREAD, i'm a PROFESSIONAL MMORPG ANALYST okay ?"

Darthmole ?

So many professional MMO analysts in this thread ! Oh wait ...

+1. +1000000 I'd even say. As a tank, I'm reduced to tabbing frenetically to reach the target I want, or turn the camera 90° to clear the view from that gosh darn huge droid in front of me. Plus, I'm not sure it would be that expensive to turn Box colliders into Mesh colliders ...

*bump*

EXACT same here. The more players know their class, the more they need complicated rotations to keep the boredom away. It was the main reason why I left from WoW, mechanics becoming too streamlined. When you repeat the same rotation 100 times a day, you'd better have it very varied. The problem in Swtor is not the number of spells, it's the number of different combat mechanics per class.

WoW total dumbdown was one of the reasons why I wrote this supplication at Bioware : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=94889

Of course, and it's widely used not only in the videogame industry. The most crippled domain is tourism. Google this to have a sample.

Funny OP, the same happened to me, but backwards, while playing WoW ! I was trying the 4.3 patch in WoW, doing the first of three 5-man dungeons. I was engaging the first pack of mobs, looking at the WotLK background, and it hit me : I was fighting the same knight and elven mage model that I fought back in Vanilla. With the same sound effects, same voices, same "yaaah". WoW is re-using the same old models since 6 years. Same buildings, same architecture, same mechanics, same bosses, same you-must-save-the-world scenario, same combat rotations, and less & less talent choices, less & less server interactivity between players. It hit me right in the face : WoW is dead. 5 minutes after I entered this very dungeon, I presented my apologies to the group, quit, disconnected, and unsubbed WoW for the first time in 5 years.

Holy fracking cow ... I never read so many agreed negative opinion about a MMO feature. If Bioware doesn't react quickly with that, I don't know where their objectives are.

Curious I am on vacation and have head alot of rumors that paid trolls are starting negative subjects on swtor forums. Just wondering since I was really looking forward to reading something valueable on the forums when I get home.

I'm sorry to contradict you on how I should perceive stuff, but bits of text from the human behind the username do matter to me. I belong to the huge lots of people who used to spend hours and hours in IRC chatrooms. It was addicting, because these bits of text you mention were different from person to person, conducting to solid, distinct personalities. Obviously, LFG demanders don't belong to a big guild as they wouldn't need this tool. And obviously, they don't like to chat because they would have no problem making online long-time friends. So obviously, they just don't like to talk online with others. So, it might be a shocker to them, but there are actually thousands of thousands of people who do enjoy exchanging words in a chat. Best proof is IRC. And no, catering me to a 100 people guild will not satisfy this need to meet different people. There are 150 people per instance of each zone. So yeah, it's a much, much wider view than emprisoning my social interests into one guild.

lolwut ? Further my own agenda ? Stop coffee dude. Also, pre-chewing the few social interaction you have to complete in order to find a group does make them care even less. There's no discussion about that. Nobody said spamming chats was socialising either. Socialising we're talking about is the whole part when you actually whisper somebody and engage in a conversation to know : 1) who they are (class etc) 2) if they want to take side with you 3) and all the other bits of conversation that differ between each kind of personality (you know, the part that makes us humans) Sure, for people who really reject this whole part, they would reduce it to "spamming gen chat lolz". Because they don't care, therefore can't see further. So once again, pro-LFD should look further than their own needs. edit : To conclude, the better thing that could happen to please everyone would be not an automated LFD tool, but a : - server-only built in tool like we already have - and add a possibility to sort people by the dungeon they're looking for (like WoW BC)

Yes, internet people of course We all know how people on the internet naturally don't care for each other, so a tool that would make them care even less is not a good idea imho.

Opposite : it's because they have to deal with how majority behave when handled automated tools that they don't want an LFG tool. See my post above. And for the record, pro-LFG are the ones who think about themselves more, as they just don't want to bother talking to people to make a group.

There is a difference between complaining and reporting a bug. But badly educated kids won't see this, unfortunately.

Let's say, an automated, teleporting, grouping tool won't help to socialise either. So chosing the lesser of two evils between that and trying to spark an ounce of dialog with silent people would be no LFG tool. Also, saying "do you find spamming the gen chat is socialising ?" is reducing, and very short sighted. But it's logical that people who don't care about socialisation won't see past this point, in a sense. People have to stop to be dumb and only see the top layer of things. They have to think about every consequence having a LFD tool or not will spark. Deep, bad social behaviours are never born from an immediate feature, whatever environment it is. They're born from a train of consequences. Sociology is a job, actually.

Yes of course, but before WotLK there was still an ounce of that good old Blizzard we all loved in the past. Now it's over, every decision (going as deep as game design decisions) are puppet mastered by Activision. This very Blizzard who put passion in front of profit is now dead.

Can anybody stop calling them Blizzard please ? Blizzard is dead. It's Activision who pulls the triggers from a very long time. From that point, when you look at some business decisions from Kotick/Activision, them having an order to create internet personas to inject negativity inside these forums wouldn't surprise me, tbh.

You might be (yet another) developer, OP, but you certainly not are a producer. SWTOR would never be able to survive in F2P with its current model of ultra-rich content. Investment needed for voicing every quest, continuing to produce such ridiculously huge worlds, it just needs a subscription model. Micro-transactions would never be stable enough to secure such funds. And if this "overly rich" content model is broken, the game will be too far off its initial design to stay appealing at all. Anyone with common sense would know that, unless he's just mindlessly bandwaggoning what he reads in forums trolls. And even though, it's not very hard to guess by seeing how much content F2P games are spitting out, and their tied assets quality, compared to swtor needed pace. So stick to your developer hat, and stop trying to play the weather forecaster.

Bump, so that anyone could voice their opinion about this, may it be pro or anti easiness.

I also see the gamer's average attention span being effectively a huge problem in game design constraints nowadays, yes. This is why I stated in the OP how Bioware is now "partly responsible" about how future MMO gamers will set their expectations, due to swtor popularity. It all comes to education. Blizzard did a very bad job on educating MMO gamers, I think everybody does agree on that. On a sidenote, to use an example, attention span is also a huge problem on forums. For example, this discussion did have many very interesting interventions, but I'm pretty sure 90% of readers will stop reading at the third post of page 1. I'm not even sure if people will read this very post ...

I see what you mean, and you got a very valid point. One way to resolve this would be to put different levels of difficulty in world content too. Should not be very resource consuming for Bioware, as it could just be more HP, or more monsters to kill. Or they could just use their bonus mission mechanics like in space missions, so that only the best geared (therefore the ones who completed stuff on Nightmare) players could be able to complete those bonus missions. It's like that in space, when you got your lvl 1 ship, some bonus missions are nearly uncompleteable, unless you try and try again, putting a lot of dedication and precision into destroying absolutely everything. I felt it very rewarding when I first destroyed the lower base of the Cartel Listening Station while I was with my lvl 1 shots. It took me 6 successive tries, and made me want to go back at it again and again until I'd destroy the thing. It wasn't even specified to be a bonus mission ("Cripple enemy communication" bonus objective), it just pops up as a completed bonus when you happen to destroy it. Was very gratifying So Nightmare doers could benefit of such gratification, secret bonus missions only doable with Nightmare gear. this would also resolve this other problem you mentionned, Nerdwing : Hidden Bonus missions is an incredibly clever mechanic for a MMO. Bioware got something golden to exploit with this.