Story diversity is a lie

[Bopper]

If you have 4 50's and you are not a space bar player which as was said before, since you are complaining of the story plots you must not be. There can not be much wrong with the game in your eyes and maybe you need to find a fault to give you an out? My suggestion is to stop and smell the roses and maybe realise you are playing outside the parameters of a normal player.

 

Hell i play too much and i only have one lvl 50......

[Harower]

If you have 4 50's and you are not a space bar player which as was said before, since you are complaining of the story plots you must not be. There can not be much wrong with the game in your eyes and maybe you need to find a fault to give you an out? My suggestion is to stop and smell the roses and maybe realise you are playing outside the parameters of a normal player.

 

Hell i play too much and i only have one lvl 50......

 

What are the paramaters of a normal player?

 

I don't play much, well 2-3 hours a day in my book isn't much. I used to play other games a lot more.

 

I don't skip dialogue except when they start to annoy me, which is very very rare.

 

I hit 50 very fast just cruising along. Just because you don't is a pretty lame reason to start judging others, I wont judge you. It has nothing to do with with my assessment of class quests being so very much the same, just with a different reason for why you are doing it, across the classes I have levelled?

 

I would be more interested in the opinion of the quests themselves. (wait, is this what they mean by fanboy attack?)

 

 

 

I dont think the answer "well you should expect that" is good because some of the class quests are unique but some really arn't. I think that at least class quests should be unique all the way to 50. Not world quests, just class ones Is that too much?

Edited January 23, 2012 by Harower

[Terko_Koslah]

There should be more action inside spaceships! There is some and those are fun but the major grind always happens on a planet. Well...

[Kyus]

I enjoy the game, I like warzones (call me a masochist but I really do) and its generally fun to play with friends.

 

OP is however completely correct, the main feature was story, story, story. followed this game since 09 and that was it all the time. When someone questions combat, we got story story story story.

 

Some of the writing is ok the voice acting is farely good for the class content, a bit wasted on some of the run of the mill stuff.

 

The big issue is that Biowares storytelling mechanic is now getting very very dated. The turn up line up with your companion and speak to npc lined up with his people, and pick options like a Jrpg is static lifeless and dull, even the action segments aren't that well captured.

 

Story can be told in the action and through the action of a game. Voice overs from a com link during missions would be a great first step. why not have a dual of words whilst fighting in game. since the large part of missions are instanced to individual areas this would have been a much better way of engaging the player.

[Harower]

There should be more action inside spaceships! There is some and those are fun but the major grind always happens on a planet. Well...

 

This is true, even though the format goes

 

2 worlds, spaceship quest

2 worlds, go back to a low level world kill "master/arch nemesis x"

 

 

The spaceship fights are usually really unique quests. I would love to all see the class quests be unique like these are.

 

That way even though you are doing the same quests on each planet, you can rely on the class quests to be a unique experience all the way through.

 

This isn't true though, im doing a lot of the same things on the same worlds no matter what class I am playing. IN CLASS QUESTS.

 

It is the fact I can go "hey I did this on my Bounty hunters class quest" while on another class that bothers me.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Harower

[Rayvonuk]

4 level 50s already with only 2-3 hours played per day and no pressing spacebar ?

no way

[Harower]

4 level 50s already with only 2-3 hours played per day and no pressing spacebar ?

no way

 

Started on pre release.

 

The first one was rushed, then realised the game was the leveling. So rerolled to play what the game offered.

 

Then another 3 since that first over the weeks since pre release which is what... 5 weeks now?

 

 

Honestly... that's not hardcore at all you level so fast in this game. Some worlds level you fast too!

 

Like lvl 40-46 is prettly slow, then BAM suddenly you are 50!

 

Its wierd like that.

[Mitheril]

Why people keep going on and on about 2-3 hours a night and 4 chars not being possible instead of actually discussing the issue he tried to bring up is kind of hilarious.

[Harower]

Why people keep going on and on about 2-3 hours a night and 4 chars not being possible instead of actually discussing the issue he tried to bring up is kind of hilarious.

 

Cause I'm not really good at making threads

 

 

sorry ^^*

[Bopper]

You are outside the parameters of a normal player by having 4 lvl 50's alrdy. It is not judging you and i agree with your statement but i disagree that it is an issue.

 

Having a different story but similar quest for each class is no different than the MMO's that preceded it, except in most cases Bioware have done the story better.

 

I am not really a fanboi but if you want to call me that, all good as there are the Swtor forums. Mind you by implying such you basically throw the "not judging you thing" out the window.

[Thaed]

What are the paramaters of a normal player?

 

I don't play much, well 2-3 hours a day in my book isn't much. I used to play other games a lot more.

 

I don't skip dialogue except when they start to annoy me, which is very very rare.

 

I hit 50 very fast just cruising along. Just because you don't is a pretty lame reason to start judging others, I wont judge you. It has nothing to do with with my assessment of class quests being so very much the same, just with a different reason for why you are doing it, across the classes I have levelled?

 

I would be more interested in the opinion of the quests themselves. (wait, is this what they mean by fanboy attack?)

 

 

 

I dont think the answer "well you should expect that" is good because some of the class quests are unique but some really arn't. I think that at least class quests should be unique all the way to 50. Not world quests, just class ones Is that too much?

 

I think it's safe to say that the average person takes 100 hours to hit 50. That you have four level 50's indicates at least 400 hours game time. That's 16 days of non-stop playing, or 32 days of playing 12 hours per day. Assuming you started on December 13, that's, what, at least 8 hours per day of game time?

 

The only way it would be feasable that you're telling the truth (re: 3-4 hours a night without playing at all some nights) is if you spacebarred through every quest.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Thaed

[syntxerr]

I agree on the fact, that replay value is quite low for some people, because of the way the game is designed.

 

For me, this is not essentially due to the content of the quests, though. Sure, it is standard MMO kill this, collect this and yes, there are certain phases in the game where the voice over or story behind a quest is simply annoying. You certainly can't compare those random quests with the quality of the class quests.

 

One big facter runing it for me is simply, that I often can't just explore the world the way I want to. At least speaking of the Rebublic side, leveling an alt up to Tatooine is extremely dragging because all planets until there are basically a maze of very narrow tunnels. You can't just take a shortcut somewhere, take quests somewhere else then before and skip areas you already know, on Nar Shaddaa and Coruscant, you often can't even skip mobs, because of how narrow the tunnels are and you certainly can't try to approach a quest goal from a different side, etc.

 

So, aye, The way the quests, hubs and certain planets are designed is very, very dull. Before I decided on my main, I have tried every class until about the 20s. After two of them I realised how the design works and from there on, I was just spacebarring my way through the planets except for the (very few) class quests. And the sad thing is, not only did I know all the conversations, but I ran exactly the same routes to complete those quests, because I had next to no choice how to approach them because of restricting world design. And yes, it's true spacebarring made me probably miss out some dialogue choices or funny NPC reactions... but hey.

Edited January 23, 2012 by syntxerr

[failr]

What they should ve done is make twice more planets, make no voice overs for planet quests, except may be the main planet chain, if that.

 

Then have 2 planets per lvl range and have dark/light side choices in the story line decide to which planet your class quest sends you. That way you could make plenty of alts and have plenty of replay value.

 

Instead they dumped all the money into 1000 voice actors that voice over generic side quests that bring no value to the game.

 

But what's done is done, nothing they or us can do about it at this point.

[DirtyDiggler]

the problem in my mind is the fact they tried to make different storys for every class. There is not anuff convo options and cutscenes to make the majority of the quests interesting.

 

THe kill X amount of mob objectives needs to go. It should be about completely the main objective period just like a single player RPG. If i can do it faster by not killing reward me, don't make me waste my time killing x amount of mobs for every class and still have to waste all my time traveling to get there.

 

Add to the fact that most of the side quests are not interesting. I would be lot more interested if I had some sort of evil choice I can do every quest, but no they are rare.

 

I'll give examples of some quests i thought bioware did well.

 

Sith warrior - you get a side quest for an NPC mob that his wife is a traitor you get to escort his wife to point X and kill her was interesting.

 

Some of the go to the cantina and meet this guy quests were cool, but the go to bonus objective quests are just lame.

[Thaed]

Someone didn't read OP.

 

He is TALKING about CLASS QUESTS.

 

 

 

Bio-drone in denial.

 

 

 

Another bio-drone in denial, who has apparently never played a decent single player RPG.

 

The problem with swtor's quests, is that they all follow a 100% identical template.

 

Quest giver: blablabla problem blabla for the empire! Go kill problem.

 

Player: 5-10 minutes of travel times - 1-2 minutes of actually completing the "kill x amounts of copy paste mobs (who have two lines of scripting AI) in location y" objective.

 

Quest giver: blablabla, well done! Here is your reward!

 

By the time I was on hoth, I started thinkihng please st*u and just give me the quests. VO adds nothing, because the content itself is garbage.

 

 

 

Now go play a game like Deus Ex (1), System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2... and come back, so we might continue this discussion.

 

Even amateur mod makers make better quests than the ones you find in swtor.

 

 

Don't even bother trying to use other MMOs as example (how their quests are similar), because this "difference" was the only thing swtor had going for it to separate it from other MMOs, and was one of the biggest marketing ploys.

 

SWTOR fails vs. practically every other MMO in every other department.

 

How about instead of just telling us to go play those games, you provide examples from them to support your argument?

[likta]

Why people keep going on and on about 2-3 hours a night and 4 chars not being possible instead of actually discussing the issue he tried to bring up is kind of hilarious.

 

Because: we know he is bs-ing here, why would we know that what he brings up is the case? How could he know that the 4 class storylines are sooo similar when he did not play them?

[Vordy]

How the hell can you have 4 already? Go to sleep for 2-3 weeks man, you need it, plaing 24/7 is not healthy.

[tmpearson]

1. Accept or refuse quest

2. click on blue flashies/kill/loot/use item

3. choose light or dark

4. repeat

[Harower]

I think it's safe to say that the average person takes 100 hours to hit 50. That you have four level 50's indicates at least 400 hours game time. That's 16 days of non-stop playing, or 32 days of playing 12 hours per day. Assuming you started on December 13, that's, what, at least 8 hours per day of game time?

 

The only way it would be feasable that you're telling the truth (re: 3-4 hours a night without playing at all some nights) is if you spacebarred through every quest.

 

Games been out 40-41 days.

 

I hit 50 on my first in 2 days straight like an idiot expecting to be tearing up what endgame had to offer. It was about 45 hours. A day later I was leveling alts

 

Thats 78-117 hours. In that time I have leveld 3 to 50 hardly spacebaring. We level fast cause we are efficient at it now because it isn't new now, we know what to do and when to do it and solo everything ourselves so easily. We dont waste time on proffesions. We dont get confused by the map and we ignore pointless crap and don't get OCD on worlds.

 

Ill be honest we do play longer on weekends but who doesn't /shrug.

 

So yeah factor in some longer weekends, it is doable. Not even rushed : /

 

/shrug.

 

I know what hardcore is, I was hardcore not anymore

 

EDIT: Funny fact, If I could spacebar I would but my wife refuses too.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Harower

[failr]

How about instead of just telling us to go play those games, you provide examples from them to support your argument?

 

I can think of plenty of examples that do not involve killing or right clicking on something. It all boils down to ingame mechanics, which swtor is very limited in.

 

Lets see what I can come up with:

 

1) A quest where you need to set an ambush on a cliff for a speeder that is suppossed to fly by in a few minutes and a jump on it while it is flying by in order to capture it, then bring the speeder back to the quest giver. Would require a dynamic world events, such as npc speeders flying around which we do not have right now. Lets just label this platforming.

 

2) A quest where you are to capture an enemy base, you are given a number of troops for your assault that have different strengths, lets say 3 rocket troopers, 2 machine gunners and a jedi, your goal is to take over 3 objectives inside the base but you yourself can only go to one so you need to decide which combinations of troops will attack from each side. Lets label this strategy element quests.

 

3) Multiplayer oriented quests? Why not this is an MMO after all right? Why not have a quest where you need to lure another player into an ambush and he suffers from it, while you get a reward? Exploitable through friendlies, yes. Still interesting variation tho. Make the ambush spot random so people don't learn to avoid coming to it as well. Or a quest where you are given something that looks like a blue weapon for example, but has some defect in it, so your goal is to sell it to another player and rip em off essentially, without using auction house? Something requiring interaction with other players one way or another.

 

4) Puzzle based quests? A lot of rpgs have those, why not here?

 

5) Escort, defend a base type of quests? Most other MMOs have those, I ve seen one very short escort quest and no defense quests through lvling 1-50 on an operative.

 

I can keep going, do you want me to?

Edited January 23, 2012 by failr

[dyves]

EDIT: Due to some people still missing the point of what I am saying, I am referring to class quests not being sufficiently unique. Which has surprised me as it is the one area I expected a completely new "ride" in this theme park game. I would also like to state I play 2-3 hours a day, this is not a lot to me and I wouldn't call that hardcore. It also has not much to do with the topic

 

I'm kind of dubious of your claim of 4 L50's having reached with only 2-3 hours a day play, unless you can provide screenshots of your 4 chars with the time /played. I know grouping can provide an XP bonus but not that much.

 

Because let's be honest, 2-3 hrs a day since launch is like 30*3=90 hours, is less than 25 hours per character that you required to reach L50.

L50 in 20-25 hours, per character.

 

Scrap what I said before, such a statement is completely ridiculous and sounds like you're bull********, making the rest suspicious too.

 

As for the class quest diversity, from what I've seen and experienced so far, the class stories are distinctive from eachother in flavor and atmosphere, but of course the same sort of quest mechanics will be used among them (kill that person, go there and fetch that, go there and talk to this person etc).

[Kellogg]

Zero questing variation between levels and factions is Bioware's fault. There's a reason why people have 5 level 85's in WOW and this game will shut down with most people have 1 (or less) level 50.

 

 

Are you being serious?

[Anelitt]

How about instead of just telling us to go play those games, you provide examples from them to support your argument?

 

Here you go:

 

 

 

 

Some nice fun quests to break the lethargic leveling experience, why can there not be a single one like that in ToR?

 

Seriously once you leveled to level 2 you have seen every single qzest this game has to offer up to level 50: Kill XXX, rightclick XXX, Bonus! Kill XXX.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Anelitt

[Spartanik]

So get me this straight i have a bounty hunter and Imperial agent and a sith inquisitor, and a jedi consular... all class stories seem pretty diferent to me... You must be joking. I think you mean the planet quests? off course those are the same. Anyway if you dont see the beneficts of re roll, then dont, i think ppl who are most used to bioware games, or rpgs, would have more satisfaction on re roll then those that arent used to. I replayed mass effect 1/2 several times as well dragon age origins. The Kotors i replay them alot of times too. for me i dont find a issue replay with other characters, and on top of that each of them having a diferent story. yes they are diferent maybe you dont pay attention to it, taht is your fault.

 

what the imperial agent story have to do with sith inquisitor? nothing.

[gaalon]

I couldn't decide what class to play so I rolled a Sorc, Merc and Op and played all three to level 30 before deciding. That means I played the first 30 levels on three characters with a fairly small amount of time between them.

 

What I can say is this:

 

- The (non-class) quests for all three characters were virtually identical. Only the conversations were slightly different here and there ("My Lord" instead of "Sir" etc.)

 

- If there are any differences what so ever then they are so small that it doesn't make re-playing the game any less boring then re-rolling in any other MMO.

 

- The class quests are virtually identical just with a slightly different story-background. Each of my characters had to travel to planet X and infiltrate base Y to perform mission Z.

 

- All characters had to visit every single planet. There is no variation what so ever. If you've been to Tatooine once then you've been there a hundred times - nothing changes what so ever.

 

So after noticing this I thought "well, that's disappointing, guess the only reason to re-play the quests is so I can make different choices when it comes to karma - perhaps this will change the following quests". Sadly it turned out that all these "decisions" are totally irrelevant in every way. None of your actions have ANY consequences what so ever. So if I choose to betray my quest giver on my first character then I did not betray him on my second play-through. Sadly this made NO difference at all. Two lines of voice acting are slightly different but that's it. The following quests are not changed in any way, shape or form.

 

Any kind of "story diversity" (being good, being evil, selecting to betray this person or not) have no influence what so ever.

 

This is not only true for non-class quests. Even the "key" events in your class quest have absolutely NO influence on the rest of the quest. You can be a total bastard and betray everyone or be the kindest person ever - the next quest will be exactly the same.

 

So basically the only change between play-throughs are very very minor and in no way motivate you to continue listening to all the voice acting. You end up simply space-barring because it gets so *********** boring after the second play-through.

 

For a "story based MMO" that's supposedly oh so innovative this is a huge HUGE let-down.

 

The WOW storyline has 10 times more diversity because you can choose which regions to quest in and are not forced to head from one planet to the next without variation. Sure, there's no voice acting but what's the point if it's so *********** boring after a single play-through?

 

I'd give this game a replay-value of 1 out of 10.

 

Anyone who claims that the story is so diverse is either lying to you (BW employee in disguise) or never re-rolled a character before (or simply can't remember their previous play-through).

 

Really, really low BW.