Jump to content

Elyxin

Members
  • Posts

    504
  • Joined

Everything posted by Elyxin

  1. I don't PvP. However, I feel that if a development team puts something into the game, they need to make it work. And the bugs need to be fixed. We could argue the relevance of PvP or PvE all day till were blue in the face. The one thing we can all agree on is that bugs suck, they are in both aspects of play, and Bio needs to get on the ball and fix them. it's as simple as that. Please take the debates about validating your personal playstyle somewhere else, we should stay focused on the topic at hand, that's the respectful and adult thing to do.
  2. Not sure if it's your thing, but Since Sorcs can spec for healing it's something to consider.
  3. So this was one of my favorite sets, honestly I originally started a PT for this set. Can't find it atm, it used to be rewards for heroics on Taris (imperial side) and belsavis (republic side), those just reward XP/Rep now. Commendation vendors are gone, so can't get it there, and doesn't seem to be a set available through crafting. Any ideas as to where to get this set?
  4. Necro for those who run into issues here. I ran into a similar issue on the previous step, killing the guards in the sewers. wouldn't complete for me, even though all the guards were dead. went back to the sewer entrance, relogged, and the gaurds popped back up again. This time it recognized it after killing the guards again, and I was able to progress. So moral is, try a relog as well. go back a ways, perhaps back to the sewers, and relog. it may reset that phase of the operation.
  5. Those define the 3 basic defensive stats: Defense: works similar to other defense ratings in MMO's (WoW as an example). Increased your parry and Deflection rates. Important for a tank to reduce heavy blows. Shield: the chance for your shield (offhand) to proc. Absorb: the amount of damage your shield will absorb when it procs. As to which one is more important for which class, i recently returned so I can't say for sure what the current necessary values are, but Defense is critical to avoid crushing blows, and the others are simply always good to have at high numbers. I'm sure that the individual guides in each class section will list what thresholds you need to meet at end game.
  6. I honestly don't see the difference. Been playing since early release. Honestly, I felt the forums were far nicer before f2p then they are now.
  7. that's a good point, one I forgot. in group situations, you do have that need often for movement, which kills allot of melee potential. I think it's one of the reasons melee tend to have more movement options. Still doesn't completely make up for it tho.
  8. I don't see Melee as being more difficult. What I see is the environment (as stated earlier) as being less friendly to melee. I've played my jugg since early release, and outside of some weird skill choices they've made, I find it very smooth and easy to play. But I also know the skills by heart, I don't even think about what I'm pressing any more. I play all the other classes, a few not recently though, so just using my jugg as an experience example. In the case of melee, they do have to think about more aspects of the environment, even more if they are a tank. But I never saw it as much of a deficit at all. And I certainly do NOT think the difference is something profound that takes skill and/or a natural gift to be able to do. people tho think that are really only trying to buff their ego. EDIT: Something else I just thought of. the "advantage" ranged have pretty much disappears the second their target closes the gap. At that point, any perceived advantage is gone, and in many ways, your at a bigger limitation depending on the ranged class. In spite of many ranged classes getting more movement based skills, the melee that I've played still top ranged in the department of movement and defensive skills. when you add to that the "instant" casts of most melee classes, that ranged advantage disappears fast. the only time its a trustworthy advantage is in PvE group environments where you have a tank that is holding aggro.
  9. Well, I guess I'd classify it as a story driven MMO. Problem is, that is a big range. I think that on release (Vanilla) and up through Revan, it really was a balanced, story driven MMO. It had a primary storyline for each class, main story for each planet, and the VO and character interaction put the story at the front. But it was just one aspect of the game. It still felt in all ways like an MMO. The last 2 releases really pushed it into the extreme story area, with the leftover MMO parts trailing along in the rear so you couldn't say it "wasn't" an MMO...but the last few releases were so much story you'd be hard put to say anything else about it. you can pull out smaller technical aspects to say "nah, it's still an MMO" But it certainly doesn't feel like one. most the MMO part isn't around when you do the last 2 releases...it's all old material. They could have literally pulled KotFE and KotET out of the game, and made a separate game for those...and you would still have the essential MMO left in SWTOR. So While I still say it's an "MMO", it's with a really weak emphasis. and I think that impacts many players. I love the story, but I was fine with how they did the story back in vanilla. I never once felt like i wasn't in an MMO in Vanilla...now I have a hard time believing I'm even online when I'm playing the KotFE/KotET material.
  10. You bring up an interesting concept. To elaborate, I'll start with Grind, because the term tends to be one of thoe evolving, grey area kinds of terms. For most people, grind is a personal threshold, the point in which the content they are doing (or repeating), does not hold the proper motivation for them to continue based on the expected rewards. Since they lose sight of the goal, the motivation drops, and what they are doing feels like a "senseless grind". This is why Grind seems to fluctuate in meaning for every person. I think the Current issue, and I say current meaning that they will change it shortly, but people frustrations right now are based on the system as it is, that issue is that it's completely RNG. the Dev's can say what they want about "averages" in RNG drops, but I can speak from experience when I say that not every has the same luck with RNG. I'm one of those people that simply have horrid luck. I play games with friends, and its a going joke as to see how bad my luck will run with the game that night. I used to pick my classes based on the fact that no one played those classes, so I would have a higher chance of getting gear (less people to lose rolls to). My luck is simply that bad. I'm also the person that will probably never finish full sets in the current GC system. This is why people are frustrated. when you can't see the objective. repetitive play that would be tolerable quickly becomes intolerable, and a "grind". most of the motivation is lost because you can't know if your effort will really reward you. with the older token systems, even if it took awhile, you could see the progression happen. you could see the goal at the other side of the field, even if it too a long time to run there. no matter what you did, at the end of the day, you have X more tokens in your inventory, and you can plan for when you get that new cool "pretty-shiny". The Greeks even had a specific term for this kind of excitement. It was called "eros" and it described the natural inclination we have as people to be excited about things you are expecting to get, and usually soon. RNG kills this kind of good feeling, and replaces it with either disgust, or feeds a destructive bent towards addictive behaviors, Now, this is changing, which means that people will most likely turn around on their feelings of "grindy-ness", especially with the new content coming out roughly at the same time (crossing fingers on that one). They key here is for Bio to recognize the mistake that RNG is, and give us a system that was as rewarding as the old one, but more flexible and easier for them to adjust.
  11. This. If you think back to the old "token" system, you essentially had a subset of token types based on gear tiers, and there were a few different things you could do to go get those tokens. it was more structured and limiting in a sense, but it was also consistent and expected, which was they key to it working. you did the basic solo dailies, and got the lowest tier tokens, small group content got you the next tier, and the highest tier was raid content only. The new system just standardizes collection across multiple play types, giving you rewards for anything you want to do, instead of limiting it to objective from specific dailies. They simply could have expanded on that consistency...but for some reason someone decided that full on RNG was simply cooler. To be honest, that last few MMO's that I've played that had this kind of RNG, it was the most polarized aspect of the game. RNG simply sucks. There's a reason MMO's have spent decades working RNG out of their systems. Adding it back it smacks of ignorance. Those who do not learn from their past are doomed to repeat it. The fact that they are repeating the past designs that didn't mesh out well tells me they aren't paying attention. You don't change your round wheel back to a square wheel just because you haven't had a square wheel in years. I think that offering a structured approach to the tokens is the best bet. accord a way to convert low tier tokens to high tier tokens of something like that. The high tier tokens could drop from raid bosses, shortening the progression curve for those willing to do the raids. those who wish to stick to a more casual approach would eventually work up to the higher tier tokens, just at a slower rate. it gives people access to higher tier gear, but it would take a lot of work playing solo or EZ mode content to get there.
  12. I didn't mind the story that much. Sure, there were inaccuracies, and overall plot gaps and such. But I was pulled into the storline from the start, and it was only till the end that I felt somewhat distant from it. I enjoyed the aspects of the story and where they were going with it. It could have been better, but could have been worse. I think my biggest struggle with the storyline was it was "forced on you" so much. bein pushed from cut scene to cut scene, very little time inbetween to stop and breath. the cutscenes were forced on you far too often...Too many auto-start scenes, instead of actually allowing us to go up to the person and choose to click on them to start it. I wasn't choosing to engage in the story...I was being pulled along by a leash most the time. This really left me feeling like i was in a weird storybook, with no real chance to take a breather and step back from it. and there were far too many isolated instances on various planets with no access to mail, bank, GMT, etc. I'm not sure why they felt like they had to force people away from each other just to tell a "story"...but they did. Vanilla SWtoR wasn't like this...it had plenty of great stories, planet and companion alike, and they were all out there waiting for you...not shoved down your throat. In Vanilla I went to a world and discovered the stories there. There was a sense of adventure in it. Like, "ooh, I wonder what mysteries and new discoveries I'll find on this planet" However, In these last few expansions, the story was plopped into my lap, and i was drug through it, with the worlds themselves being an after-thought, almost as if they got done with the story and then suddenly remembered, "Oh yeah, forgot this is an MMO with classes. They'll probably want to kill a few things. Lets give them a swamp and a robot city park or two to do this in." The combination of the lack of solid breaks, individual choice in engaging story parts, and the forced isolation made it feel far too insistent and pushy for my tastes. The story could have been packaged totally differently, still had the same potential, but not make us feel like we were locked up in our own little psycho-schizoid fantasy worlds.
  13. Launch was sort of sucky. 1.2 made this a good game. I think that list is pretty good, except for a few exceptions that are personal Opinion: I'll list below. 1) New Dev Crew: Not sure about this. Guess I'm neutral. I know allot of people were pissed at the dev team on release, but 1.2 really made me feel they were paying attention, and I enjoyed the game so much from that point on that I didn't worry about it. The things the recent Dev team have done make me wonder though, So I can't say the change was positive. 7) Definitely right about Comp changes debatable. There once was a time where I had wanted more options with my comps. I wasn't too happy about being forced to run Quinn just because I needed a healer on my Jugg. Treek was a very nice solution IMO. But at the same time, their current approach I am totally disgusted with. Now all the Comps are a joke for the most part...no interesting differences, no real reason to play one over the other. they could literally give us an army of treeks instead and it wouldn't matter...they all behave the same way. all robots. I wanted flexibility in my Comps, not homogenized robots with different skins on. Worst part of it IMO is they lost their uniqueness. I remember how I first started a Merc just so I could get Blizz! His rocket launcher and grapple were so cool to watch...i'd send him in first just to watch him pull the bad guys in and pull out a rocket launcher twice his size to blow them away. Now he...well looks like everyone else. I almost forget which Comp I have out now. It's really sad IMO, that the story they developed is so cool, but the comps are lost in it. Comps are actually one of my top 3 gripes with the new expansions. I feel sad for new players that they couldn't experience the old comps like we used to have em. 11) I guess this one flows into the whole "faster smoother leveling experience" thing...But I'm not sure I honestly like their new solution. What was wrong with just boosting experience and letting people choose? I've always been VIP, and I level so fast now that I miss most the side quests. Sure, I could do them, but then the next planet is even easier. I'd love to have the opportunity to change the exp curve and shut it off, or go back to the crawl. I've been starting again in a few MMO's, and even at it's worst SWtOR wasn't bad compared to some still out there. I never saw leveling new toons as a grind in this game. But I also recognize peoples desire to move faster in that process, so having the option IMO would be the best. That and bring back the challenge. I used to have to think about how to use my class, even when I was leveling. a Mob being green vs. yellow vs. Orange made a difference as to how I approached the fight. Now it doesn't matter, I just blow them all away. On that note: getting rid of some side quests was just dumb. It takes dev time to remove that stuff, and there's no need. even a monkey could recognize that you have a CHOICE to skip said quest or not. removing quests, especially fun ones that filled out the story line, seems wasted dev time at best. realistically, it was just dumb. Outside of that, I agree with part or whole of the rest your list. most of those were great QoL improvements, which were much needed in the game even from the very start, So I'm glad they are finally in the game. I just wish that the dev team didn't feel like they had to get rid of many of the things that made the game interesting, solely for the sake of "efficiency" that doesn't really end up being "efficient" when you actually play the game.
  14. It probably differs a bit from person to person. For me it's really just an issue of wanting a changing and interesting experience. Changing what I'm doing regularly is interesting for me, so I'll often get bored with a class after a few hours of play...unless I have a specific goal I'm shooting for (like im lvl 48 and want to make 50, as an example). But outside of that, I'll often play 2-3 classes during a single play session, and that doesn't count the crafting I'll do before hand on my dozen or so alts (making gear for other alts as well as just advancing crew skills). I see my alts breaking GC for me more then GC breaking my alt-itis though. I don't have so strong a desire to push my GC level up that I'd devote all my time to one toon.
  15. This. I haven't had to re-enter a one time passkey for ages. But My ISP (Comcrack) keeps IP's unless you give it a reason to change it (like restarting your gateway). even then, they only run a check once a week. So really your ISP is the cause. If you can't keep your IP static (perhaps theres a setting on your gateway you can change? or call the ISP and ask for one), then a security key or App is your next best bet.
  16. You guys bring up an interesting and I think viable point. In spite of the fact that I Liked the "story" told, I felt far too often like i was reading a story with an occasional "kill 10 droids" intercession. The original class stories and planets never felt that way to me. I would get on a planet, see all the quests available, And I new that there were stories out there for me to discover! Along with a planet to explore. Last 2 expansions were not like that. A story was forced on me...often in irritating ways. I'd get a cut scene, then Id get an open area with a quest. I'd finish the quest, but before I can even explore the area, I get pushed into another cut scene...and then teleported off planet for the next cut scene. There was not real involvement in it at all. And on top of that...they removed allot of the side stories on the older planets. They even killed the main storyline on Taris for Republic...they subbed in side quests for the main storyline instead. Those side stories gave each planet color and feel. It was really strange, As I've played other Bioware products (KotOR, Bioshock, Mass Effect), and none of them did that. they all felt far more like the original planet stories did. I'm not a fan of forced, cut scene driven stories like we've gotten. If I want to read a Star Wars Book...I'll read a BOOK. the last 2 expansions felt more like a book then an MMO.
  17. I second this. I run an i5-4670 and a GeForce 1060 6GB vid card, and I have no issues in game with max settings. Caveat: I do not PvP, so i can't say from experience about large scale PvP battles. But All other game elements smooth play.
  18. I definitely agree that the story based releases, while enjoyable, do not really constitute an MMO experience. I disagree with your math and reasoning, as there were group based things that were available to do, and unlike a complete single player game, you still encountered people that you could interact with (I interact daily with people that wouldn't be in one of my single player games like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls series). But I agree with your point: group content needs to be included. Anytime an MMO tries to cater to a single audience, they lose, as all audiences when seen from a larger perspective become niche audiences individually. And you can't cater to a niche audience. doesn't work. I think they got some new people in with some fresh ideas, so they tried them, and it didn't pan out completely like they expected. Hence why group content is coming this year (2017). Something they should have done alongside the story in the last 2 expansions. I think they would have kept some more people if they had done that (although the RNG junk also had a part to play in the player exodus).
  19. Not sure that's a good example. I'm on fleet right now (early Saturday afternoon), and I have 3 instances, one locked out. not sure what server your playing on...perhaps people just migrated away from your server? dunno, but my fleet is pretty busy all things considered. On the flip side, that last 2 expansions haven't necessarily promoted community gathering, so it's not suprising if fleet is emptier. they've been moving the game away from that unfortunately.
  20. I personally am in the middle. The new storylines (something that I just recently started into after a bit of a break), have been engaging and interesting for me. First time I've really been pulled into the story since vanilla release and the class stories. all the others (save the revan expansion) were meh at best. But new storyline is interesting and engaging IMO. TL DR at the bottom BTW. Crafting hasn't changed much, still working for me. Gear isn't horribly impacting as you level (unfortunately), so I feel like the drive I used to have to max out my gear as I level is wasted far more now then it used to be. challenge as you level is drastically reduced. I understand the need for simplifying the leveling process as the game grows and gets longer/more complex, but at the same time dumbing down mobs isn't necessary. I don't have to think about killing stuff...and I used to. I used to have to think about strategies to clear certain rooms, or certain parts of a class storyline. Now I run around in green gear and stomp everything outside of world bosses. I still enjoy the class stories and the world storylines though. just recently started a few new toons to experience it all again. End game progression isn't a thing for me yet, so right now GC hasn't impacted me too much (just got my first toone to lvl 70 - still working on finishing the last storyline). But I totally get the fristration people have with it just looking at how it's structured (the RNG in WoW was one of the big things that eventually drove me away from the new expansion. It lasted about 2 months for me). I enjoy the ability to run heroics solo. wish there was more group content at max level. and I REALLY wish there was more group content and open world invovlement between 60 and 70. story is great....until you realize that you are playing (or are supposed to be playing) an MMO. even if I don't do group content as I level, I still enjoy being part of a world with other people, running around, talking, queuing for the occasional group...I enjoyed the entire KotFE storyline and then realized that I hadn't spoken to a single person the whole time. one my new inquisitor, I engaged in about a half dozen conversations before I left Korriban. that's how it should be, and that needs changing. I need to feel like I'm in a world with other people. Honestly, I think the Majority are about where I'm at. they like a bunch of stuff, dislike a bunch of stuff, and are neutral about the rest. I miss not being able to just run around Ossus and explore. or having a central hub with other players. I remember the big fiasco that was ESO. I predicted the mass exodus mostly because the overall picture I got as a casual but consistent player was not good. I don't get the same feeling from SWtOR. plenty of things they need to change for sure, but not the same feeling of complete wrongness. take my thoughts for what you like. Been playing since early release, and I still think its worth spending my 15$ on. At least for now. But that's mostly because I see some things on the horizon that could swing the pendulum in a good direction (rumors of group content in 2017, the changes to raid gearing, etc.). TL-DR: I get most the gripes people have at this point. But as a casual yet consistent player (I've raided both hardcore and softcore through my experience in this game, as well as many solo stretches), I feel that the game is worth playing. And I think that in spite of the forum direction, most players are at about the same state I am. Like some, dislike some, the rest I'm neutral on. But don't give up on the feedback, most the stuff brought up is viable concerns and needs to be addressed at some point. But it's not the death knell. EDIT: I think the biggest thing the need to address first is the grind for GC. it's going to eventually kill most peoples motivations. I look at it's base design and the first thing that comes to mind is "Filler". You could generalize and say that all end game amounts to this, but it feels different. I rarely got burnt out on progression raiding unless I severely pushed it. I could see GC grind becoming bad fast.
  21. Yeah I think that during the scaling transition, some things got slightly skewed (the Taris series as an example). I noticed that on most of my lvl 60 toons (level cap when i last played), all the planet storyline quests are available again, even though I know I had comleted them all. I would have thought that the Dev's would have at least included some kind of check to make sure your toon had finished the storylines before opening them all to you again.
  22. Wow, tons of information folks, really appreciate the help! time to dig into story mode. Think I'll at least clear out the story quests in my log book first tho. Thanks for the help!
  23. Merry Christmas to you too my friend! And I do agree...experience and personal playstyle trumps all.
  24. here's a second (or third, fourth) for exploring and enjoying the storylines. with the increased XP of prem/sub you can skip allot of the side quests, but they fill out the story of each planet so much that I have a hard time skipping them even now after dozens of characters played.
  25. Old school NS bonus started at a higher level then the planet did. used to be late 30's for the bonus set, when NS was early 20's for the regular planet storyline. Can't say now...with all the planet story arcs changed (and with level scaling), seems like they are doable at any time you get high enough for them. I'll have to go back to NS and see if it's still there.
×
×
  • Create New...