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The Travel System Is Severely Hurting The Gameplay!


Landara

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Right, who here has ever done the 10 miles walk in Castle Organa?

 

Frankly, if there were something were travel time could(should?) be cut down it would be these endless trips within certain building to just get to some NPC to report in!

 

So, why are they doing it? Maybe to show off the fantastic design of the location?

 

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've cursed quite a few times because maybe instead of going taxi&speeder&walk to quest location X it be easier to just have a shuttle/dropship get you close via a designated landing zone and then it's just a quick 1 min trip to get into the action...

 

but then again, why waste all of the created environment?

 

In case you haven't noticed but the planets are actually great places for a bit of exploring.

 

How many datacrons have you stumple upon not because you read in some guide where they are supposed to be but just found them by chance?

 

It's the same with all the zones in the cities (again, can be boring to run/hover from the taxi stand to wherever you want to go in the city) and the spaceport: they are keeping options open, maybe a few content updates down the line you will find something else in an 'empty spaceport'.

 

Okay, right, one word on 'I can land my ship anywhere!' - yes, it's called crashing! :p

 

Why do you think is it not an easy task to just land an aircraft on a street somewhere?

 

There may be issues with the environment (lack of stability, trees getting in the way, no guidance system, potentially not really the most friendly place, pilot lacking skill, etc.) and the same is very much true for SWTOR spaceships: unless you are an infiltrator you would probably land your ship in the most normal place i.e. the spaceport.

 

And even an infiltrator will most likely enter a planet thru more conventional means e.g. aboard a normal civilian transport than drop-sneak in on a planet thru their planetary defense grid, hop off into less frequented airspace and then settle down in a remote location hoping that nobody will be curious enough to snoop by.

 

So spaceport it is!

 

Which in turn means that you should be happy that quick travel actually allows you such a vast number of locations to be dropped at. I mean how many times have you ever been picked up by a limo and dropped off actually inside of a restaurant? The repair costs at all those cantinas must be enormous: 'dang, another shuttle just came crashing in!' :p

 

Okay, now let's focus for a sec on interplanetary travel and all that it involves:

 

  • getting to the spaceport - no doubt there that taxi stands are actually badly placed. Or at least there should be one directly attached to the spaceport.

But then again if you've ever used public transport you'll know that designers are never that smart to actually consider interlinking different types of travel, so yeah, having 1 city servered by only one stand sort of covering everything more or less well (or bad)

 

  • getting thru the spaceport - I'm almost doing it blindfolded now so, well, 60 sec tops not really a problem there.

 

But then again if there was more going on I may actually be tempted to stop and smell the roses, or rather watch the thief being taken down, the 'illegal alien' having a huge row with some officier, the drunk staggering all over the place, etc.

 

  • getting into the hangar - right, loadscreen, wait until done and then off you go. Frankly, my loading times aren't that bad! So it's a short sec of a breezer to collect to gather my thoughts and then one goes running onwards.

 

But then again having a seamless transition from spaceport to hangar, well, that would be nice.

 

But let me tell you what would still be much nicer: having free access to all hangars for everybody! Can't you just picture it: a rival smuggler managed to sneak into your hangar and is now waiting to jump you and steal your cargo/ship? Or some trooper doing a bit of enforcing: wait until smuggler X comes in, cuff him, lock him up or take a sweet little bribe... oooh, options... :D

 

  • getting to the ship - well, it's once again a quick sprint.

 

  • getting into the ship - okay, seriously, this is where I have a problem: you go thru the complete scenes of taking off... even if you just want to access your locker because you couldn't find the locker access out in the city! :eek:

 

But of course there's always your friend Spacebar so that is not too bad... though it could obviously be avoided completely by first getting you into the cockpit, selecting where you want to go and then showing liftoff. Though obviously that would mean that you would actually have to instance the ships interior inside the ship instanced in the hangar... hm...

 

  • getting to your destination - okay, we are already off planet, you click on the galactic map once you entered the cockpit, hyperjump, you rush back out to the airlock... and watch the scene of your ship actually approaching the planet? :confused: And there was me thinking I actually have to be at the controls to land my ship...

 

But hey, Spacebar, load screen... and this is where we are waiting... frankly, this is the part where I wish they'd either drop the landing sequence or use it instead to start loading the planet...

 

So, having said all that: this is not an instance travel game. I don't see a reason for it as it is not Star Trek where you are just beamed up. And most of the longer-ish parts where you are not running can be cut by buddy Spacebar.

 

Which means if you really have issues with how long it takes to get from A to B spacetravel-wise, well, maybe you belong to that generation who needs to have everything NOW?

 

Your wrong... fast travel in SW:TOR is just like Star Trek. You can use your fast travel beacon inside buildings, underground and call a shuttle to pick you up indoors and instantaneously travel to where you want to go as long as you have it discovered.

 

So Bioware has a precedent to allow for fast travel do ship and planets, they just dont want to allow it.

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I agree with the travel being a pain, not because of the time it takes but because of all the steps it takes to get there...most of which look the same. Same spaceport, same orbital station. They all have the same layout.

 

I remember what it was like to travel in Everquest 1, so this isn't even close, but it is still annoying because I am spoiled by modern MMO's.

 

 

Aye EQ1 orginally had pretty epic travel.

 

 

SWTOR doesn't, it mostly have annoying loading screen travel, I've never known an MMO with so many loading screens.

 

Frankly the longest automated travel routes in WoW, LOTRO and DAoC were more fun even though they took longer (longest of those 3 is a good 20 mins and shortest at least 10-11 mins).

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This game isn't a virtual world. There's next to no sandbox. It's basically a lifeless corridor from area to area.

 

(In fairness. I've noticed a few NPC's going about their business now, which is nice. It helps a little).

 

 

 

And it wont be if people keep asking devs to remove things that will make it one.

 

The only difference between a MMO and a single player RPG is the time requirement.

 

Take that away and you are paying a monthly sub for a single player RPG with coop mode.

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The system is much better than WoW for example. If only loading screens would be faster, it would be perfect. There are rare oportunities where you have to change worlds like mad (Act 1 finish for example), beside of that, use quick travel, use emergency pass. Its all more than fine.

Leave it as it is.

 

No you're wrong. It's horrible.

 

I can't think of a more boring way to travel than a string of metal corridors and loading screens. It saps all of the fun out of what should be the awesome experience of space travel.

 

I actually log out sometimes before I was planning simply because I don't want to deal with the boredom of traveling to a different planet.

 

I'm "oldschool" and think traveling and exploring should be a major part of any MMORPG, not just a series of load screens with names on them.

Edited by JeremyDale
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And it wont be if people keep asking devs to remove things that will make it one.

 

The only difference between a MMO and a single player RPG is the time requirement.

 

Take that away and you are paying a monthly sub for a single player RPG with coop mode.

Face it, we're not getting a virtual world out of this one without a complete re-design, and not likely to happen anytime soon. It's not the game that Bioware apparently want to build.

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The last thing I want in this game is for the world to be seemingly shrunk because of instant travel. I'm not saying anyone recommended this but it's probably the easiest solution for Bioware to implement. I definitely do think travel needs to become a lot more seamless. I really wish I had a brilliant suggestion to provide but I don't have one. ...yet

 

I have one it wont shrink the World at all and it wont change how the travel System work

 

Here it go is easy to do I know Allot of you Hardcore players want to feal like this is a real World so i wont ask for it to be change cuz i like it to even know i'am Casual

 

Ok back on topic

 

First thing they can do is Put the FLEE PASS on a 30min TIMER and put the QUICK TRAVEL one in a 5min timer Thes all No big change at all all you doing is changing timers on the Ability's

 

No can i add allitle something Can You guys Lower how much it take to train for rank 2 speeder's for a Silly 10% speed is not cool 90% speeders 45k 100% speeders 200k see the big jump Make rank 1 speeders 40k rank 2 80k rank 3 160k

Stop making all this grinds for people to have something to do cuz you afraid they will quit if you cant get them hook to something how about you Do what you do best BIO ware and thes HOOK US UP ON THE STORY not on grinds Ok thank you and bye

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