I'm playing DDO more right now over SWTOR. For SWTOR, I do my 3 PvP wins a day and then log, and even that is starting to feel pointless. I love DDO's flexible character advancement, and the random loot is fun, and they have really added some challenging dungeons since last I had played.

I've bought stuff at the AH and mailed it to people randomly.

I filled up my friend's list with all the high level Republic PvPers that I liked playing with, and it's pretty sobering how few people are on any more or are spending any significant amount of time on. I think a lot of people were planning on playing SWTOR as just a transitory title, and it's amazing how that line of thinking makes pushing through some of the end game grind seem so pointless.

People that say that if you don't like SWTOR you simply don't like MMORPGs are so full of it. Probably a lot of people high up on the SWTOR design team that would agree with that line of thought, though.

Sorcerer nerf won't happen because they don't have the burst damage other classes do and the burst they do get is all RNG.

I agree. I think immobilizing effects do need to be revised.

Resilience was added to WoW for two reasons. 1) Whiners on both sides of the aisle who didn't want to play with the others, because they knew that gear > skill. 2) Burst damage was out of control. In response, they did two main things in TBC. They added resilience and lowered the cost "to buy" Endurance for items. Expertise seemed to be added to SWTOR because it added something to do at end game. What is it's intended purpose outside of giving people something to grind out? 1) PvE is so easy, that PvP gear is more than adequate for it. PvE gear is used in PvP for set bonuses and to optimize stats because of diminishing returns on Expertise. 2) Expertise cancels each other out, resulting in unmitigated burst damage. The only slight reduction in offense comes from the item points used to purchase Expertise with. 3) Healing starts out in a ditch, and expertise only does a small amount of good recovering the lost ground. Considering the sheer number of interrupts and crowd control effects, I am surprised that they felt this was necessary. Here are the reasons why I feel that SWTOR PvP is just not that much fun. 1) Crowd Control: There is just flat out too much of it. It makes the game boring. Some Solutions: Needs to be removed, reduced in duration, or talents that enhance crowd control need to be reduced. The range of PBAoE CC needs to be reduced. Have expertise reduce the duration of CC or give Expertise a bonus to Resolve. Have targets being guarded suffer from reduced CC duration or bonus to Resolve. 2) Classes feel too much alike: talent trees don't offer unique DPS options, concepts aren't well defined. Some Solutions: Fire your class designer and hope that you do it right when the expansion comes out. A lot of this is your fault, BioWare, for choosing the Star Wars IP to begin with, THEN mirroring the classes on top of it AND making every class a pet class. *golf claps* 3) Crowd Control Can't Be Cleansed: I'd like to know what this mysterious fourth element is in the Star Wars universe that ISN'T a physical, mental or force effect, because that should seem to cover just about everything. Some Solutions: Make sure every crowd controlling effect is defined as either a physical, mental or force effect. 4) Healers and Tanks feel like half a class each: Playing a healer without a tank is asking to get steamrolled by a constant barrage of glowing red and white enemies. Some Solutions: Personally, I think this is "working as intended" so I'll just leave a big $#%$ you, BioWare right here. 5) Popping Adrenals and Relics: This rewards offensive play too much and creates an environment where burst damage reigns supreme. Some Solutions: Reduce the effectiveness of the Expertise buff and adrenal. Add -Crit% and -Crit Damage% as a function of Expertise. Increase the cooldown on these items, reduce the effect but improve the duration. 6) Healers Can't Have Fun Toys: Where are the fun talents and abilities for the healers? Some Solutions: See #2. 7) Expertise isn't effective at anything other than frustrating the people that don't have it. Some Solutions: Remove the +damage component while preserving the -damage component. Remove or reduce the RNG method of acquisition. I'd also like to add that PvP healing in this game does feel quite a bit, and it has been mentioned before, like Whack-A-Mole. It's far closer to being like PvE raid healing, especially with the full Healer spec (which I try to avoid because it really, truly is boring.) PvP is either a fragfest where you can't keep anyone alive (much less yourself) or a complete snoozefest where nobody seems to be able to kill anyone. I mean, it's impressive that the same game runs to both ends of the gamut, but the middle is where it's supposed to be and it just doesn't hit that spot too often.

The original poster is actually 100% right with the only proven method of balancing out the factions.

Yeah, but guess what? You can actually dispel the CC effects in WoW. The only CC effect I can dispel in this game is Force Lift. My favorite is with how bad the latency is in this game is how that AoE 2 second stun ends up hitting people a good twenty feet away.

It's Gear/Relic/Stim > Skill to be sure.

Do you want to dress like a hobo, and then fight like one throwing rocks and junk at people? Or do you want to look... well, you'll still look dumb, but at least you'll be shooting out lightning at people.

I like how my Sage would take a minute to kill a mob with her lightsaber. YEAH WE GOT A REAL STAR WARS GAME HERE!

I'm really going to be curious to see what the numbers are when Guild Wars 2 gets released. Not many people that I have talked to online seem interested in making SWTOR their long term MMORPG home. And maybe the day and age of "This is the game I play with my guild!" is over with, and maybe we'll see MMO gamers jumping from one new release or expansion pack to the next. The future is hard to predict, except for the part where I know I won't be paying for another month of this game.

This is so true, but I think it should almost subtract points for an MMORPG.

Yes... fight it, and become a part of what you hate!

1,699,996

Why would they reroll when they are being promised more same faction warzones? And up to this point have been able to get high level PvP gear with half the difficulty? R.I.P. SWTOR PvP

They were so worried about people using PvE gear in PvP that they didn't even consider that the PvE in this game is so easy that you can do it with PvP gear.

SWTOR's space combat is like the only thing in the game that actually feels like Star Wars. And that bounty hunter storyline is laughably exciting compared to the 50 levels of Jedi drivel my sage had to endure.

I'm sorry, but anybody support WoW Arena tournaments anymore besides Blizzard? And what OTHER MMORPG became an E-sport? I always thought that the e-sport community response as a whole was more like "Eh, not so impressed."

Lots of MMORPGs are coming out that don't look, play and feel just like WoW/Warhammer Online, so I don't exactly buy this as a reason as to why SWTOR had to.

I wonder who was the genius that thought "Oh, I want more MMORPG with my single player experience!". You know who? No one. Not even the people at BioWare Austin could be so wrong as to think that was a good idea. Nobody plays a single player RPG and thinks to themselves "What this game needs is more hallways filled with static mobs, boring kill quests and no real consequences for my actions!" Anybody who says to themselves "I like this game as a single player RPG!" is just trying to apologize for BioWare's average Star Wars game.

Say what you will about the 0 reviews and the 10 reviews fighting each other, a 5.9 is about what this game deserves. It's a fun but average title and I just haven't met many people, in game and out, that anticipate making this game their long term MMO home.

What surprises me about the Metacritic responses are all the people that give the game a 10.0 because "they like it and are having fun and it's the best MMO ever!".

Design the PvP first, then make the PvE numbers work around it. Adding -30% healing trauma inherent to all PvP AND require such a bad stat like Expertise? Square... peg... not quite... fitting in... circular hole.