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Quarterly Producer Letter for Q2 2024 ×

Orbital Stations Must Die!


Seabrook

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Agree. If they want to put in an orbital station step when you need "innoculation" or "cold weather gear" or whatever, great. That's fine. But after that, just land on the planet. Or shuttle directly to the ship. Whatever. Just not empty passages of walking boredom.
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I know I am. Just let me land on the planet! Nobody in the movies had to dock at an orbital station and then take a shuttle to the planet.

 

Actually, if you think about it, they couldn't go directly to Endor via their own ships, they had to be stealthy and use a shuttle.

 

Likewise, some of the planets are "hostile" so landing directly on them isn't necessarily possible.

 

 

SIDE NOTE: something that a friend reminded me, is the fact that before launch the ships were shown on actual landing pads (like at the start of Episode 3):

 

http://cdn-www.swtor.com/sites/all/files/en/starships/fury/media/SS_Sith_Ship01_800x450.jpg

 

We never get to land our ships on those.

Edited by Tarka
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Know what is funny, is that people will think that you get to get up and do something afk is being lazy. Like in order to properly play you have to have your butt glued to your chair for hours.

 

I used to do the same thing in Eve. I would go from one region to another that was 45 jumps away, and just sort of keep one eye on the game while I watched TV or something. (You couldn't really go "afk" in unsecured areas or you would likely come back to see your corpse floating in space because of player pirates.) If Eve had forced me to click on each jumpgate in order to advance to the next system, I would have probably quit in 2 weeks.

 

Travel is a time-sink that devs put in to add realism and extend the amount of time you play their game. I'm down with that. In TOR, travel is tedious. No other way to describe it. It doesn't take long enough to qualify as a time-sink, it's too "gamey" with too many loading screens to add realism, it's just tedious.

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Is anybody else put out by these orbital stations we have to go through on each planet? I mean really it's just an extra step that needs to go. I have a ship and I should be able to land on the planet.

 

I could deal with one floor stations but freaking 2 floor and elevator loading...nice fat time sink where it was not needed.

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Actually, if you think about it, they couldn't go directly to Endor via their own ships, they had to be stealthy and use a shuttle.

 

Likewise, some of the planets are "hostile" so landing directly on them isn't necessarily possible.

 

They docked on the planet with a ship. It just happened to be a shuttle because that was the enemy ship they stole. So it's not the same thing. They didn't have to dock at the Death Star and shuttle down.

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Is anybody else put out by these orbital stations we have to go through on each planet? I mean really it's just an extra step that needs to go. I have a ship and I should be able to land on the planet.
I agree. They're cool and all, but the load screens are too much of a gameplay hindrance/immersion killer.
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This is the first MMORPG I've played where I dreaded going to different zones. It's the only reason I don't do things like pop into world PvP spots to check on activity-- it's just too much of a hassle to get there.

 

Even games like LotRO with huge travel distances at least didn't require me to flip a switch every 45 seconds to keep the travel moving.

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They docked on the planet with a ship. It just happened to be a shuttle because that was the enemy ship they stole. So it's not the same thing. They didn't have to dock at the Death Star and shuttle down.

 

Q: What does our ships have, that a shuttle doesn't have though?

 

A: Guns

 

What I'm trying to say is that one fictitional reason for those particular planets is that the shuttles are considered non-threatening and thus allowed to pass. I know it sounds like I'm just making excuses, but for SOME of the worlds, it would probably be excusable to have an orbital station.

 

Now, the airlocks are a different matter in my opinion. They are just largely pointless to me (aside from adding an element of realism and being a stage for a couple of mission endings). There comes a point whereby too much realism can become tedious.

Edited by Tarka
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Agree with op, tired of the shuttle/docking bay/run to end of hangar/board ship/fly somewhere/rinse repeat first few steps.........i'm sure I left out a couple of steps as in running to shuttle and back again.

 

Nice first few days but once you do it a thousand times totally over it. Need a quicker access pls to ship.

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Agree with op, tired of the shuttle/docking bay/run to end of hangar/board ship/fly somewhere/rinse repeat first few steps.........i'm sure I left out a couple of steps as in running to shuttle and back again.

 

Nice first few days but once you do it a thousand times totally over it. Need a quicker access pls to ship.

 

I certainly think that if we were allowed to use our speeders on the orbital stations, spaceports and hangars, this would help immensely. Also they should cut out the airlocks.

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The issue is not necessarily the orbital stations, it is the airlock > hallway > elevator before even being on the stupid station that hurts.

 

Also, the ability to just walk ont ships followed by a galaxy overview with a dotted line or something as you travel rather than a billion loading screens would probably make the whole experience feel a lot smoother. It would also help with the frustration of having to go to my stupid holoterminal for my class quest. I could just walk on, talk to the holoterminal, and walk back off.

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Totally agree with this, it seems dumb not to have ship docks on the planet itself. It's rather annoying honestly. I have to dock to the station, run to an elevator, then run across the entire station and get on a shuttle. I could take it if the stations were different, but like the fleet "cities" they are the exact same layout.

 

It's kind of like noticing that the farther you go into the game, the more you find aliens that don't speak english more and more. Those annoying shortcuts that start to stand out over time.

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It wouldn't be so bad if the orbital stations had trainers, GTN terminals and the like. I can understand why they exist in their present forms as some planets might not have the facilities required to house larger ships, but they do indeed seem to be there just to pad out travel times even more.
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I agree on this. Somehow, they need to change things so that all we see when going from one planet to the next is a single blue load bar.

 

I too, dread helping guildies for this reason. I don't mind a long run as a time-sink. What I do mind is multiple blue bars and the repetition of running through the same station on each planet.

Edited by Zannis
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Agreed, it makes sense to go through an orbital station when you don't have a ship, but when you do you should be able to just land on the planet, LIKE IN THE MOVIES. Getting a ship should feel more rewarding in not having to sit through so many load screens. It makes sense having to dock your ship at a station for quest-related things, but I'd rather to get to the planet faster.
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I just finished doing class quest for Kaliyo, which required some planetary travelling. And by some, I mean I had to go through 21(twenty-frigging-one) loading screens!

 

To be honest though, the quest bugged out at one point, so I had to reset it, but still, I think even the 14 loading screens I would have faced if it hadn't bugged, would have still been a bit too much for one quest.

 

Maybe it could load the planet on background when you are at the orbital station, cause hey, where the else you would be running there, if not to the door that magically teleports you down on the ground.

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