Why do players like SW:TOR more than WOW:CATA? User score comparisons...

[Faytte]

Weird, the mention of Cataclysm and difficulty level made me fall down laughing, I could sleepwalk 1-endgame in Cata in less than a week, atleast SWTOR doesn't make me sleepy.

 

EDIT: I played cata for 2 weeks before I got bored and let the last ~3 months of my sub run out, didn't touch it once after those 2 weeks.

 

SWTOR is far easier. We cleared out EV in our first night and had all game content done within 4 days of starting it. Nothing is ever more complicated than tank/spank. For trash nothing is ever more complex than CC the distant adds and burn the rest.

 

If Cata raiding is first grade, then SWTOR is pre school.

[PibbyPib]

The numbers here are false. Here are the updated links.

 

Gamespot:

 

SWTOR: 8.0

http://www.gamespot.com/star-wars-the-old-republic/platform/pc/

CATA: 8.5

http://www.gamespot.com/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm/platform/pc/

Rift:

http://www.gamespot.com/rift/platform/pc/

 

The OP was accurate. He cited User Scores, not the reviewers' scores.

[Merwanor]

I don't think you can really compare the two. Cataclysm caused WoW to bleed 2M accounts (so far), because they decided to swing the pendulum away from Wrath. Turns out the people loved the difficulty level in Wrath (see: not much difficulty) because it allowed you to play with whoever you wanted. When they tuned it up with Cata, it was like hitting a brick wall.

 

SWTOR lets people be successful in solo, group, and in some cases pvp. What developers will learn over time is that making things really difficult only caters to the hardcore raider base, which alienates 95% of your customer base. They just want to log on and play with their friends. They don't want to watch videos, read strat sites, min/max abilities, max out rotations, and worry about class balances.

 

This is what made me stop with Cata for the most part. Never had any fun doing dungeons or heroics, was just to difficult for me and my friends. I loved the fact that in Wrath I could just pop in and do a heroic with ease for half an hour and then go do something else.

 

Some people need challenge to have fun, I just want to relax and go about things at my own pace. I can't stand dungeons and raids where you have to know exactly what to do, there is no room for any mistakes or you die a horrible death. And because of this you are forced by other players to learn and read about the tactics for all the bosses before you fight them. What on earth is fun about that, I want to experience the encounters first, not read about them and spoil them before I even see them.

[Faytte]

Cata sucked the life out of small guilds. You kill small guilds, you kill off millions who'd rather be playing with their circle of friends vs in a big homogenous group.

 

In the name of balance, they made EVERY CLASS THE SAME. All the melees were the same, all the casters were the same and hunters were beyond easy mode.

 

I sure hope Bioware doesn't make the same mistake of balancing the game around sand box pvp.

 

Cause really 1 v 1 anyone can beat anyone else, it's all a matter of skill, lag, and even a little luck.

 

Mmo's are a grind and a time sink, raid difficulty is a matter of perception. It's all equal, but if you tell me I can't play with my friends from other guilds because I can't gain "levels" for the guild I'm currently in (and love) then screw the game I'd rather hang with my friends.

 

No offense, but every class in this game has extreamely similar abilities.

 

All tanks have guard, it works the same way.

All tanks have a single and an aoe taunt with the same cd's and effects.

3/4 classes all have a single target ranged 4 second stun that works the same way. Warriors/Knights are screwed that theirs in channeled.

All classes have a high damage ability that can be used on incapacitated mobs.

A number of classes have 'below 30% health' execute abilities which functionally are identical.

Every class has a 1 hour buff that is party wide.

 

There are really only 8 classes in this game (remember knight=warrior) and each class shares 1 of its talent trees and 1/2 of its abilities with another class (the opposite AC). In the end there is very little unique about classes. AC's in some cases do a good job in differentiating, but there is nothing sexy about any of the acs. Few powers in this game bring the same dumb grin to my face as a capstone skill would in WoW. Nothing feels 'awesome'. In WoW if my warrior blade storms or my warlock goes into metamorpasis, those are really COOL abilities.

 

SWTOR classes lack that sense of amazing. A capstone assassin tank gets to throw some smoke on the ground with wither, go deception and you get a different way to spin your saber (which basically just replaced another attack of yours). A number of classes really just gain...stats or passive effects or things that dont really make you feel "awesome, im glad i specced this way".

 

So I would debate heavily that Cata made classes the same. It balanced some stuff sure, but in SWTOR you are starting with this bland tofu class design from the start.

 

Keep this in mind please

 

A) i dont play cata

B) i left cata cause it was easy and i was bored

C) i now play rift. I left swtor cause it was easier than cata and bored me faster. Cata entertained me for 2-3 months before I raged and left. I was 50 one week in SWTOR before I wanted to slit my own throat.

[inseeisyou]

The numbers here are false. Here are the updated links.

 

 

Read my post more carefully. The numbers I posted are correct.

 

This thread is about the average user scores. You are referring to a single reviewer's score. For example, look to the right of the page on Gamespot to see the "User Score".

 

Average user scores are more representative of a game's success because they are the conglomeration of thousands of actual players scores as opposed to a single person's opinion.

[SlickDevlan]

People just like the VO and how easy SWTOR is. People hated Cata because the difficulty level was so much different from that of previous xpacs.

 

From a pure game play stand point you can not argue that SWTOR is better than WoW. WoW's combat engine and customization UI are just vastly superior to that of SWTOR. And before you cry, "zomg it's only been out a month", look at Rift. Rift has a combat engine just as good as WoW's.

 

No, Cata was a return to previous xpacs. WotFailKing was the anomaly.

 

P.S. WoW has no UI customizability, it allows 3rd party mods.

[GavinPatterson]

I love swtor - its new and clean looking for the most part. Its story driven and each class has its own. On top of that the factions stories are different. Two completely different styles to play really. Immersion on this game works and rocks. But I will give wow a few things...

The world of wow is beautiful...sometimes i want to go sit in the hillsbrand foothills and wait for the rain. The regions in wow seem larger and I tend to stay in them longer...plus there are usually a few areas (at least under 60) that I can level in at any time. Also I love how I can see no one in the world for an hour or two, and then go to a capital and know that hundreds are coming and going doing their own thing. But wow is a grind...there is no immersion..no real story which for me, kills it.

All an all, add REAL story to wow and i'd most likely play it again. SWTOR feels small, and there is no end game content - and almost every class says their end game armor looks like crap which I agree with. I hope the updates that come will attempt to fix this.

A side note I wish i could stay on tat and taris all game

[SlickDevlan]

No offense, but every class in this game has extreamely similar abilities.

 

All tanks have guard, it works the same way.

All tanks have a single and an aoe taunt with the same cd's and effects.

3/4 classes all have a single target ranged 4 second stun that works the same way. Warriors/Knights are screwed that theirs in channeled.

All classes have a high damage ability that can be used on incapacitated mobs.

A number of classes have 'below 30% health' execute abilities which functionally are identical.

Every class has a 1 hour buff that is party wide.

 

There are really only 8 classes in this game (remember knight=warrior) and each class shares 1 of its talent trees and 1/2 of its abilities with another class (the opposite AC). In the end there is very little unique about classes. AC's in some cases do a good job in differentiating, but there is nothing sexy about any of the acs. Few powers in this game bring the same dumb grin to my face as a capstone skill would in WoW. Nothing feels 'awesome'. In WoW if my warrior blade storms or my warlock goes into metamorpasis, those are really COOL abilities.

 

SWTOR classes lack that sense of amazing. A capstone assassin tank gets to throw some smoke on the ground with wither, go deception and you get a different way to spin your saber (which basically just replaced another attack of yours). A number of classes really just gain...stats or passive effects or things that dont really make you feel "awesome, im glad i specced this way".

 

So I would debate heavily that Cata made classes the same. It balanced some stuff sure, but in SWTOR you are starting with this bland tofu class design from the start.

 

I don't think you understood what he meant. WoW made every dps spec very similar. You had your dot, your proc, your big hitter, and your filler. Yes this varied a little from class to class and spec to spec, but that general pattern is present in every dps spec.

 

Oh yeah, WoW also took raid buffs and redistributed them across several classes.

Edited January 30, 2012 by SlickDevlan

[trublmaker]

The OP was accurate. He cited User Scores, not the reviewers' scores.

 

Busted!

[Chevalrose]

A) i dont play cata

B) i left cata cause it was easy and i was bored

C) i now play rift. I left swtor cause it was easier than cata and bored me faster. Cata entertained me for 2-3 months before I raged and left. I was 50 one week in SWTOR before I wanted to slit my own throat.

 

Watch out everyone, we've got a hardcore MMO player right HURR.

[grandmthethird]

Watch out everyone, we've got a hardcore MMO player right HURR.

 

i disagree, that sounds like the comments of a pro-gamer

 

[mcfabulous]

Really...? You think the studio that's famous for lifting everyone else's best ideas and wrapping them up in someone else's artwork is more capable of handling a SW IP than the place that did KotOR?

 

 

I'm no Bioware fanboi, and I've enjoyed a lot of Blizzard's output, but c'mon.

 

Yes, I am absolutely positive that they would do better.

 

A) They have MMO Experience (understatement of the year goes to..).

B) They created one of the greatest selling games of all time. (it may not be all awesome and jazz now, but it is incredibly hard to find someone who doesn't know what WoW is, unlike someone knowing what EQ is)

C) Look at their history of games, success story after success story.

D) Thats called a business tactic, they are actually smart enough to steal ideas, unlike Bioware apparently. (Doesn't matter what the business is, you don't have to be the first to create something, you just have to do it better than everyone else)

E) If anything they should be rewarded for doing what they've done with allowing additions to the game. They created the ability to add open mods to the game. I highly doubt they did it without intentions of taking the good ideas from the get go. Not only did they create the ability to make the game your own, they created the ability to profit massively from it.

F) I don't even need a F, lets see what happens with Titan shall we?

[Tekkoclarky]

Cata destroyed WoW for me, well it finished the job WotLK done. Both terrible expansions. The only reason I ended up playing was to raid with friends.

 

SWTOR is new and I currently love it. The crap raids made me end up hating WoW, so far I enjoy SWTOR raids, I hope they keep up the good work in the future.

 

I know with practice making OPs, the future ones will also have less bugs, practice makes perfect, I raided from the very start in WoW and they also had bugs galore with their raids, in each expansion. The main problem is, the whiners on these forums weren't at that lvl to experience them.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Tekkoclarky

[TheSwamper]

I could list many reasons, but I'll just list the main one:

 

BE IN A VERY HIGH END RAID GUILD AND RAID UNTIL YOUR EYES BLEED OR BE FOREVER IN 2ND CLASS GEAR.

 

And then, if you are masochistic enough to do all this, they completely undo your efforts 6 months later by making the next set of gear a half a tier better.

 

I am at a loss to comprehend how people find failing against a boss 10 to 20 times before finally defeating it, and then having less than half the members get any loot at all is fun. How is failing over and over fun? How is that fun? Honestly, I cannot understand.

[Lugosi]

Probably because TOR is a better game and WoW is garbage.

[Holden_Dissent]

I played Wotlk in beta and it convinced me that I didn't need to buy it. Bought Cataclysm about a week after it was out and had cancelled before my first month was up. What a disappointment that was.

[vilkrang]

Because it's a much better game and is much fresher.

 

However, WOW have MUCH better customer service. Bioware's is pathetic, especially if you are from Europe. It's embarassing for such a good game to have such abject customer service.

[Spynnal]

Played WoW since release. Did buy Cata, but finally left the game soon after.

 

I don't know exactly what did it, but end game just kept getting dumbed down imho. Wasn't specifically Cata, just a gradual descent. We loved killing Illidan in a 20 minute encounter, only to watch them gut it down to a 7 minute fight soon after (back in Black Temple). Just seems like all their end-game was going the same way. With Cata, they even did a shared lockout. So, after we ran our 25 man raids, we could no longer run with friends on the weekend through the 10 man version.

 

Too much reduction of end-game ended my time there.

[Tahana]

I could list many reasons, but I'll just list the main one:

 

BE IN A VERY HIGH END RAID GUILD AND RAID UNTIL YOUR EYES BLEED OR BE FOREVER IN 2ND CLASS GEAR.

 

And then, if you are masochistic enough to do all this, they completely undo your efforts 6 months later by making the next set of gear a half a tier better.

 

I am at a loss to comprehend how people find failing against a boss 10 to 20 times before finally defeating it, and then having less than half the members get any loot at all is fun. How is failing over and over fun? How is that fun? Honestly, I cannot understand.

 

That is going to be any MMO.. They are all continuous gear grinds, with constant replacement, upgrades, enchants or whatever makes that world... You'll find that in Rift and you'll eventually find that here.

 

For me with WoW it started with the abortion that they delivered to me and called it a skill tree.. It then continued when they rehashed old content and called it new content.. But my love affair with them had been dwindling over the years because I was paying for a new game every x-pac but in honesty was not getting in a new game in return. I cannot tell you how many mounts I have that are nothing more than reskins of something I had a long time ago. Up until Cata I had almost everyone in the game.

 

It just became old.. The honeymoon ended and I've grown past the relationship that we had.. I'm up for something new, young and exciting that doesn't have all the baggage.

[Faytte]

The OP was accurate. He cited User Scores, not the reviewers' scores.

 

Thats kinda unfair considering most of those sites, like IGN did not have user scores active until mid 2011. Gamespot has had the oldest user score listing, but as with any new feature there is an adoption rate. Why do you think despite its 12 million players there are relatively few reviews of Cata vs the amounts in SWTOR which has sold 2 million units?

 

Social based metrics are flawed when you look at them historically, anyone can vouch for this. Looking at the amount of face book page 'likes' for products that had pages in 2009 will show lesser values than new pages going up simply because users want to give their opinion on new things vs old and established.

 

If you want player reviews, a simple review of the forums here vs the current Cata or Rift forums is a great metric. Take the amount of rage threads (not "please balance this class" or "id like it if.." threads. The threads in the swtor forums are fundamentally "this game sucks") and compare them. Looking at the main 5 pages of cata this morning, i saw 2 (given they have at least 10x the population, thats saying something), a review of the Rift ones shows none, all it is are "I just returned from SWTOR, do not play that game" threads.

[pizznyc]

WoW has been out for 7 years, players get bored. Players move on. SWTOR is 'new'. Players tend to flock to newer games. Star Wars has a higher rating, because the fanboys and fangirls of the Star Wars universe are mindless drones who think whatever is SW is the 'omg the greatest !!!' even though (like this game) is a pile of dung.

[Faytte]

I don't think you understood what he meant. WoW made every dps spec very similar. You had your dot, your proc, your big hitter, and your filler. Yes this varied a little from class to class and spec to spec, but that general pattern is present in every dps spec.

 

Oh yeah, WoW also took raid buffs and redistributed them across several classes.

 

A) this does not differ in SWTOR. Most classes have their raid spec for dps, one of the three trees which is reliant on steady consistant damage. Another tree is bursty with survivability (ergo the pvp tree). Some classes mix this up, but not much, and no more or less than WoW does. I would in fact still say that WoW class design is far more inventive than SWTOR. The tanks more or less function the same with little differences. Assassin self healing is in a raid situation, negligible. The tank tools they use are not very different in the end, mostly just relabels of one anothers powers. Meanwhile a Paladin Tank, Bear Tank and DK tank in WoW are fundamentally very different in what they can do, excell against and provide to their healers in terms of survivability.

 

B) Not all classes in wow have raid buffs, and some bring other things to the table entirely. A rogue for instance can tricks of the trade and boost tank threat while reducing his own. Warriors have shorter lived buffs they maintain through a fight, DK's to my knowledge have no group buffs. Shamans and Paladins provide powerful buffs, while a hunter provides a much smaller group of buffs.

 

The point is some classes are inherently stronger or weaker at buffing. Some classes are strategic in the buffs they hand out, some weave them through their cycles, etc.

 

Group buffing in SWTOR is basically click a button, and everyone gains a buff for an hour. Thats as deep as those buffs tend to go.

[Faytte]

Played WoW since release. Did buy Cata, but finally left the game soon after.

 

I don't know exactly what did it, but end game just kept getting dumbed down imho. Wasn't specifically Cata, just a gradual descent. We loved killing Illidan in a 20 minute encounter, only to watch them gut it down to a 7 minute fight soon after (back in Black Temple). Just seems like all their end-game was going the same way. With Cata, they even did a shared lockout. So, after we ran our 25 man raids, we could no longer run with friends on the weekend through the 10 man version.

 

Too much reduction of end-game ended my time there.

 

I really hope you like SWTOR, I dont wish ill on anyone, but if end game content made you leave Cata, you wont be pleased here unless they somehow pull a rabbit out of a hat in the next month. There is basically nothing now, any end game content can be completed by a guild on their first night of trying (full clears).

[Ghaiana]

Hmm..well, I played my fair share of WoW but eventually every game grows old. Cataclysm I played about 2 days and then I thought..nothing changes really.

[PibbyPib]

Thats kinda unfair considering most of those sites, like IGN did not have user scores active until mid 2011. Gamespot has had the oldest user score listing, but as with any new feature there is an adoption rate. Why do you think despite its 12 million players there are relatively few reviews of Cata vs the amounts in SWTOR which has sold 2 million units?

 

Social based metrics are flawed when you look at them historically, anyone can vouch for this. Looking at the amount of face book page 'likes' for products that had pages in 2009 will show lesser values than new pages going up simply because users want to give their opinion on new things vs old and established.

 

If you want player reviews, a simple review of the forums here vs the current Cata or Rift forums is a great metric. Take the amount of rage threads (not "please balance this class" or "id like it if.." threads. The threads in the swtor forums are fundamentally "this game sucks") and compare them. Looking at the main 5 pages of cata this morning, i saw 2 (given they have at least 10x the population, thats saying something), a review of the Rift ones shows none, all it is are "I just returned from SWTOR, do not play that game" threads.

 

There's nothing unfair about it that I can see. A sampling is a sampling, no matter how long it's been going on, and a flat number like "user score average" seems, to me, a much more quantifiable measure than 'visit the forum and kind of take a general sniff and mix in your own prejudices'.

Edited January 30, 2012 by PibbyPib