This should have been KOTOR3

[Amikae]

I don't want to hate on SWTOR. I like it very much, but it's not a good RPG because of the MMO part, and it's not a good MMO because of the RPG part.

 

My guild is leaving the game. We really have nothing to do. The Operations are not hard, gearing up is not thought out at all. It's too easy, there's nothing we can do, besides log for 3 hours few nights of the week to clear the ops. It's not the lack of content, it's the content itself. The MMO part of the game is bugged to hell. Doing HM Flashpoints is a chore. Hell, doing HM IS NOT REQUIRED! You can get geared up in 2-3 runs of Normal mode EV, then the Hard mode EV is not hard by itself and it drops Rakata gear. I haven't done 3/4 of the HM Flashpoints. Soa is crippled by bugs month and a half after the launch. In operations we spend more time fighting bugs and reseting the instance, than fighting bosses.

 

Then there's alts. God I love the classes in this game. They really are great. I've made quite a few already. JK, Sniper, Sage etc... My main is a Powertech tank, love it too. But it really kills the fun for me, when I know, that I will hit 50 and I've seen how bad things are. What kind of motivation can I have? I don't want to do the bugtastic Ops. They barely work, they don't feel polished and rewarding. And what we were talking about with my guildies last night. There is no adrenaline rush doing ops. Like when you're trying hard to kill a boss and it's almost dead, and your heart is about to explode with excitement. I haven't had that feeling here. And how could I? I hit 50 and I became fully epic without any effort. I was geared for the END GAME Hard modes without putting in any kind of effort.

 

I just feel sad, that they didn't do another KOTOR. It would have been a legendary game, just like the previous 2. And look at Skyrim making huge profits, proving to BioWare, that you don't need a MMO to milk your fans. I have just started a playthrough of ME1 to prepare a save for ME3, and the game is light years ahead of SWTOR in RPG terms. It was made and released by BioWare years ago, yet it's the better RPG.

 

So what now BioWare? What have you accomplished with SWTOR? You didn't make a good RPG and you didn't make a good MMO. There's basically no other game studio, that can compare to you in the RPG department, yet you went out of your way to create this huge mess of a game.

 

Make up your mind, you either transition to a fully fledged MMO, or try to make the game a better RPG. Because go to X place and kill X mobs, with a few dialogues in between, does not cut it.

[Miotoss]

This is entirely your opinion and IMO not true. I loved the story, and like the game. The game needs to add some things to be a better MMO, but overall its pretty good.

[angrYdog]

adios than...noone cares..

[Jswizzle]

I'll take all your epics. I have none. For putting in no effort you are doing better than I

[Githadys]

I don't want to hate on SWTOR. I like it very much, but it's not a good RPG because of the MMO part, and it's not a good MMO because of the RPG part.

 

My guild is leaving the game. We really have nothing to do. The Operations are not hard, gearing up is not thought out at all. It's too easy, there's nothing we can do, besides log for 3 hours few nights of the week to clear the ops. It's not the lack of content, it's the content itself. The MMO part of the game is bugged to hell. Doing HM Flashpoints is a chore. Hell, doing HM IS NOT REQUIRED! You can get geared up in 2-3 runs of Normal mode EV, then the Hard mode EV is not hard by itself and it drops Rakata gear. I haven't done 3/4 of the HM Flashpoints. Soa is crippled by bugs month and a half after the launch. In operations we spend more time fighting bugs and reseting the instance, than fighting bosses.

 

Then there's alts. God I love the classes in this game. They really are great. I've made quite a few already. JK, Sniper, Sage etc... My main is a Powertech tank, love it too. But it really kills the fun for me, when I know, that I will hit 50 and I've seen how bad things are. What kind of motivation can I have? I don't want to do the bugtastic Ops. They barely work, they don't feel polished and rewarding. And what we were talking about with my guildies last night. There is no adrenaline rush doing ops. Like when you're trying hard to kill a boss and it's almost dead, and your heart is about to explode with excitement. I haven't had that feeling here. And how could I? I hit 50 and I became fully epic without any effort. I was geared for the END GAME Hard modes without putting in any kind of effort.

 

I just feel sad, that they didn't do another KOTOR. It would have been a legendary game, just like the previous 2. And look at Skyrim making huge profits, proving to BioWare, that you don't need a MMO to milk your fans. I have just started a playthrough of ME1 to prepare a save for ME3, and the game is light years ahead of SWTOR in RPG terms. It was made and released by BioWare years ago, yet it's the better RPG.

 

So what now BioWare? What have you accomplished with SWTOR? You didn't make a good RPG and you didn't make a good MMO. There's basically no other game studio, that can compare to you in the RPG department, yet you went out of your way to create this huge mess of a game.

 

Make up your mind, you either transition to a fully fledged MMO, or try to make the game a better RPG. Because go to X place and kill X mobs, with a few dialogues in between, does not cut it.

 

 

If you have any suggestions, I would post something in the Suggestion forums so that your thoughts and concerns can be considered by the Dev team.

[Sprigum]

Basically normal modes need to be tuned in such a way that they are at least as hard as 4 man Hard Mode content. As it stands, it really is easier than 4 man content, which is just ridiculous.

 

The gear grind should take longer on both the PvE and PvP side of things. I have 2 sets of full champion gear and at least 4 different suits of 126 or better PvE stuff. I shouldn't have this much gear a month into release.

 

I'm really not happy with the way Bioware defines Hard/Nightmare either.

 

You know what the difference is?

 

Enrage Timers.

 

That's pretty much it.

 

There has to be a way to make a fight more challenging by doing something other than increasing the DMG output of the boss and increasing the DMG needed to kill him before enrage.

 

I want challenging mechanics.

 

Once combat logs come out and we have parsing, then we're going to see Hard/Nightmare modes get cleared much faster. Why? because once we realize that there are 2-3 AC's that are just way way more valuable to have in an operation then it'll be easy to stack an 8 man OP and cleave through it.

[urborror]

Well you're right about Skyrim. Sold like 6 million copies or more.

 

But Bioware didn't want to develop another game with Lucas where Lucas gets half the money. The "Mass Effect" series was Bioware's way of saying "it's our brand that made KOTOR." And "Mass Effect" wasn't as good, story-wise, as KOTOR, but it was good.

 

MMOs have the *potential* for 10X the money of a 2 million seller, so the potential money is all that got Bioware and Lucas together again. Every retail sale on KOTOR made Bioware $15-20, I believe, is how the economics work out.

 

Every month of subscription on an MMO is $15 straight to the developer. Why do you think they're developing them? One month of paid subscription + retail sale is 2X the money to the developer. 2 months of paid subscription is 3X the money to the developer, etc.

Edited January 25, 2012 by urborror

[Amikae]

I could give out a few suggestions. Most of them are no brainers, but still...

 

1. Remove the Normal Difficulty in Operations - It's a complete cake and makes gearing up easy and boring. Buff up Hard mode and make it normal mode.

2. Fix all your flashpoints and ops - Don't work on additional content, make it a priority to fix your current content. They need to be flawless, this is what people will do after they finish up with their story arcs.

3. Remove the epic loot from HM Flashpoints up to the last boss - Only the last boss should drop epic gear. It would go a long way to improving itemization.

4. Remove the epic loot containers for commendations and nerf the epic drops across the board.

5. Make the epic BoE crafted gear BoP. The GTN is flooded with cheap high quality epics. These should be BoP and also much harder to craft.

6. Make the crew skill more exciting. Like going on missions with your companions for resources. This leads to the next.

7. Make crafting Crew skills much harder to max out and make the reward for maxing it bigger, but still BoP. Crafted BoE schemes should only drop in Ops.

 

These changes are just off the top of my head and they will make the game better.

[Mr_Jonse]

Fair enough. For me these games go KOTOR > SWTOR > KOTOR 2. It feels to me very much like KOTOR 3, but a much more complex offering due to multiple perpectives from all the classes, and the added joy of grouping from time to time. TBH this is exactly what I wanted.

 

And add to this the best thing: once I've completed the story (lvl27 atm) the game itself is going to keep growing and evolving (new content, swoops? pazaak!? ), rather than sit on the shelf in the way that a non-MMO KOTOR 3 would have. If the price for that is the occasional bugs that come with the MMO territory, honestly, I couldn't be happier.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Mr_Jonse

[LogicalPremise]

This is entirely your opinion and IMO not true. I loved the story, and like the game. The game needs to add some things to be a better MMO, but overall its pretty good.

 

It's his opinion and he clearly doesn't value the same things you do.

 

It's overall "pretty good" only if you aren't into raiding, PvP, guild activies or crafting. If you play 2 hours a night and 3 on the weekend, I suspect it's great. If you work from home like me and have lots of free time, it's very difficult to not run out of things to do.

 

Don't talk to me about alts. I have 13, and I'm beginning to run into lock where they are all getting boring.

[Amikae]

First of all, this could not compare to KOTOR 1 nor 2, at least not as a RPG. All we do here is fighting. Go somewhere, kill x mobs and defuse a bomb. Go somewhere else, defeat a sith lord, be a hero. Everything is centered around our characters. We just kill our way through the chapters and the conversations tell us the story. That is not a proper RPG.

[azmundai]

yea its pretty obvious how non-mmo this game is when you realize the only thing that separates regular and hard mode is another 100k health and an enrage timer. freakin pathetic. but hey, keep telling us how great level 40 is.

[Liathan]

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying TOR, but I really wish they had done KOTOR 3-10 instead of TOR. TOR has the best story telling of any MMO, but it's limited by the fact that it's a MMO and thus can't force any hard permanent decisions and can't have true consequences for the choices you made. Edited January 25, 2012 by Liathan

[Mr_Jonse]

>"First of all, this could not compare to KOTOR 1 nor 2, at least not as a RPG. All we do here is fighting. Go somewhere, kill x mobs and defuse a bomb. Go somewhere else, defeat a sith lord, be a hero. Everything is centered around our characters. We just kill our way through the chapters and the conversations tell us the story. That is not a proper RPG."

 

First up nothing compares to the original KOTOR in terms of story! THE TWIST is unrivaled for me in terms of gaming storytelling (Zelda aside). KOTOR 2, honestly I was disappointed. It felt like an undercooked, unfinished rehash of the first game; enjoyed it, played it to the end, but wasn't blown away.

 

When they announced SWTOR my heart sank because to me MMO meant 'read endless panes of text if you want the lore, but mainly just go and kill 30 Knolls'. But I'm honestly stoked with how it worked out. You can say it's not an RPG but that's how it plays for me. I'm engaged in my character's story, and I know who he is. To be honest I know this character better than I knew the ones I played in KOTOR 1 and 2.

 

I dunno, it's different expectations I suppose. I hate to see people just saying 'bye' when people have legitimate negative things they want to say about the game but, honestly, if the bugs are making you want to leave the game, it seems likely that you won't love the game when they're fixed, so maybe moving on is the right thing.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Mr_Jonse

[doublehelix]

One of the many dead horse of the day.

 

How many times are we going to see the variant of this topic ?

[Mr_Jonse]

Incidentally, has anyone ever had a quest in this game that was "kill x mobs"? I hear this criticism all the time but I've never had a quest like this (apart from in-quest bonuses, which you can skip and still be over-levelled by the time you leave a planet).

[Eldren]

Make up your mind, you either transition to a fully fledged MMO, or try to make the game a better RPG. Because go to X place and kill X mobs, with a few dialogues in between, does not cut it.

 

Actually, it's cut it for over 10 years now... coming closer to 20 to be honest if you date all the way back to Meridian 59 and Ultima Online...

 

This game has kinks to work out, to be sure, and BioWare's being aggressive in working them out. I think the game is doing fine, and I'm still excited to get home from work each day to play it. That spells "success" to me.

[Liathan]

First up nothing compares to the original KOTOR in terms of story! THE TWIST is unrivaled for me in terms of gaming storytelling (Zelda aside). KOTOR 2, honestly I was disappointed. It felt like an undercooked, unfinished rehash of the first game; enjoyed it, played it to the end, but wasn't blown away.

 

I blame lucasarts for forcing obsidian to push the game out before it was finished.

[Lucpol]

OP-can I haz your guild's stuffz?

[Mr_Jonse]

Oh yeah, absolutely. A definite missed opportunity.

[Amikae]

I am not leaving the game. I am playing the game, but I will eventually run out of story lines to go through.

 

But really, think about it. How is this a RPG? It has good story telling, it does, but that does not make it a RPG. Killing mobs is all we do. While in a true RPG the conversations and interaction with the NPC's are just as big a part of the gameplay, as the fighting itself.

 

Here we are passive observers of the story. They really do a good job of telling the story, but still there's nothing more around it. While in KOTOR1-2 or ME1-2, the story revolves around us and our decisions. Everything we say and do has consequences. We interact and get to know, and care about NPC's. In SWTOR each class story line has a few npcs, that barely matter. Honestly I cannot remember the name of a single NPC from the Bounty Hunter story, or any other for that matter. This is how detached our heroes are from everyone else.

[Liathan]

Incidentally, has anyone ever had a quest in this game that was "kill x mobs"? I hear this criticism all the time but I've never had a quest like this (apart from in-quest bonuses, which you can skip and still be over-levelled by the time you leave a planet).

 

I don't know if I've had kill 10 of a mob, but I've certainly had go pick 10 of one item.

[vvp_pe]

>"First of all, this could not compare to KOTOR 1 nor 2, at least not as a RPG. All we do here is fighting. Go somewhere, kill x mobs and defuse a bomb. Go somewhere else, defeat a sith lord, be a hero. Everything is centered around our characters. We just kill our way through the chapters and the conversations tell us the story. That is not a proper RPG."

 

First up nothing compares to the original KOTOR in terms of story! THE TWIST is unrivaled for me in terms of gaming storytelling (Zelda aside). KOTOR 2, honestly I was disappointed. It felt like an undercooked, unfinished rehash of the first game; enjoyed it, played it to the end, but wasn't blown away.

 

When they announced SWTOR my heart sank because to me MMO meant 'read endless panes of text if you want the lore, but mainly just go and kill 30 Knolls'. But I'm honestly stoked with how it worked out. You can say it's not an RPG but that's how it plays for me. I'm engaged in my character's story, and I know who he is. To be honest I know this character better than I knew the ones I played in KOTOR 1 and 2.

 

I dunno, it's different expectations I suppose. I hate to see people just saying 'bye' when people have legitimate negative things they want to say about the game but, honestly, if the bugs are making you want to leave the game, it seems likely that you won't love the game when they're fixed, so maybe moving on is the right thing.

 

the best story is in Baldur's Gate or Planescape. All other RPGs have failed to match it.

[Iusedtoplaywow]

adios than...noone cares..

 

Pretty sure you care.

[Screaming_Ziva]

I could give out a few suggestions. Most of them are no brainers, but still...

 

1. Remove the Normal Difficulty in Operations - It's a complete cake and makes gearing up easy and boring. Buff up Hard mode and make it normal mode.

According to you, "gearing up is easy and boring" so your suggestion is to make it impossible for the ungeared to get gear by creating a harder hard mode and making it normal mode?