I haven't logged in for almost a week. Thoughts on why.

[Kyromoo]

Edit: Since I seem to have given the wrong impression, I would like to state for the record that my subscription is active, and I intend to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

 

 

I want to like this game. I really do. It's Star Wars, it lets me be a Jedi (Sentinel!), and it's made by Bioware.

 

 

But the end game feels like there's something missing.

 

 

When I look at another Sentinel in the game, they never look very different from me. I'm not especially wowed or impressed by the way their gear looks, or the items they have.

 

When someone looks at my pvp gear? They laugh and then they realise it really is Tier 1.2 pvp gear. It looks that bad. I look at it and wonder if I'm supposed to be a Jedi or C-3PO.

 

When I look at the PvE tier gear? I see a re-skin of the exact same robes many of us have been wearing for thirty levels with some bigger shoulders.

 

My character doesn't look awesome. To be effective, I have to wear something that makes my character look...not awesome. A fix for this is coming, sure, but it's not here yet, and the line-up for Jedi gear, especially hood-less Jedi gear that lets us SEE the character we have created, is especially underwhelming.

 

But that's okay, right? The rest of the end-game surely makes up for it.

 

Well, let's take a look at my experience with the Eternity Vault. My guild did it for the first time recently.

 

Our main tank was someone who had hit 50 that very same day. No flashpoint gear.

Our off tank was a dps player who had respecced to tank, and was in all dps gear.

Half our players hadn't even read the fights.

 

 

The only challenge we encountered throughout the night?

 

Our patience with the bugs. Bugs are the only thing that slowed us down. Not wiping to boss mechanics, not working out strategies, just bugs. WOTLK Naxxramas was harder than this, mechanically.

 

Finishing the Eternity Vault did not feel like an accomplishment. It felt like a milk run where you got stopped by a jarring pain in your leg every once in a while.

 

Sure, I haven't done the hard modes yet. The reports I'm seeing are the same, though. Bugs are the number one mitigating factor to current progression.

 

But surely there's innovation within this PvE system? What about the ever-touted Loot Bags that I got so excited about during release? How are the boss mechanics?

 

 

Loot Bags as they were envisioned did not happen. What we got was random loot assignment with crafting materials and schematics rolled on. Players who already have gear have no recourse to pass the gear to another player under this system. Even the ability to pass Class-Specific loot to another player on a per-boss basis would have resolved this issue. Instead, I got Tier 1.2 Gloves that I already had while my fellow Sentinel went without. Even the commendations are not worth the time, since they are always one tier below the actual desired drop.

 

All we got is a wasted opportunity for ending loot drama across hundreds of guilds.

 

How about that normally used Loot system? Master Looter? Sure. It's in.

 

Without a /roll command.

 

 

 

Boss mechanics? I haven't seen anything this melee unfriendly since the start of Burning Crusade. Sure, this content wasn't difficult, but being forced into such large stretches of dps downtime from boss mechanics where ranged classes have no such issue is not proper game balance.

 

 

 

So PvE was kind of disappointing. Surely we can make up for this in PvP!

 

 

 

Loot Bags. Again. Let's discuss probabilities for a moment, friends.

 

Work off of the assumption that a bag has a 15% chance to grant you an item. At the current rate of dailies/weeklies, you can get 20 champion bags or 16 battlemaster bags. For the sake of simplicity, we'll use 20 bags/week.

 

 

The probability of receiving at least ONE item in twenty bags is (1- (.85^20))%.

 

That's 96.125%.

 

A 3.875% chance of not receiving any loot drops in one week of effort.

 

Now apply that to a sample of players of 50 people. The chance that at least ONE person among these fifty people will not receive any reward outside of the Tier 1.1 (nigh useless) commendations for their week of work is: (1- (.96125^50))%. 13.86%.

 

For 100 people? (1- (.96125^100))%. 98.07%.

 

 

Now tack on to this the fact that it's not only possible, but LIKELY to get duplicate drops. You can get the bracers you already have three times more before getting anything else, and you might not have anything worthwhile to do with them, and vendoring them doesn't even net you some pity credits. Pity the man who has all his champion gear but one slot, because the odds are far and away against him getting that last one any time soon.

 

 

 

But that's not so bad, right? Sure, some people are getting utterly screwed over by the RNG with no recourse to stop it in their favor, but surely the PvP content is good and effective?

 

 

Which brings me to the PvP dailies and weeklies.

 

Let's say you're a battlemaster. What you want is battlemaster gear. Valor doesn't do anything more for you but titles anymore. What's your pvp day like?

 

Log in. Grab a few battlemaster friends. Queue and win three warzones. Go to ilum. Get thirty kills/armaments. Turn in your dailies. Weeklies too, if they're finished yet. Open your bags.

 

You have now completed all possible progression for your character in pvp today. There is no gear reward for continuing to queue in warzones or participating in the Ilum pvp battle beyond these two quests. Many of the battlemasters I know log out as soon as they finish these two quests.

 

Let me make this clear: There is no reason for a battlemaster to compete in pvp beyond that which it takes to complete their dailies.

 

 

But what about Ilum? Surely it's got some good open world pvp going on on it now?

 

No. Not really. We have some zergs rolling over unorganized players, we have kill trading, and in the wee early and late night hours, we have the occasional small group pvp.

 

Notice what's missing there? CAPTURING THE OBJECTIVES.

 

Here's why.

 

Capturing an objective on Ilum unopposed takes at most 30-35 seconds, if you're alone. When done, your reward is.....increased valor on kills. If you're a battlemaster, this is essentially useless to you. Battlemasters have no reason to capture the Ilum objectives. For those who aren't battlemasters, sure, bonus valor. But here's the problem:

 

It is not possible to react to a message indicating an enemy player is approaching an area in time to come defend it when at an ADJACENT area. I've tested this. The other player can capture the objective and leave before any opposition can arrive. It boils down to a tedious game of whackamole that ultimately reduces the valor you get from not participating in getting kills.

 

 

Here's how to fix this.

 

 

Step one: Choose a design strategy from these two:

 

1. An objective may only be captured if your side owns an adjacent objective. This means that without their Base, Republic cannot take the Southern assault, and without the SA, the republic cannot take the center, and so on.

 

2. Each objective may only be captured during a specific time of the day. (As seen in: World of Warcraft's Wintergrasp, Aion's Abyss Sieges.)

 

 

Step two: Provide substantial rewards for capturing AND defending the objective. Scale the rewards accordingly to whether you chose design strategy #1 (less reward) or #2 (more reward). Substantial rewards means gear. If it has to be Loot Bags, so be it, but you're not going to entice players out with just valor once more players reach Battlemaster.

 

 

These two steps will cause players to fight to WIN the objectives on Ilum, because the rewards actually matter to them, rather than just doing their daily and leaving.

 

When it comes to faction imbalances, we're past the point of no return. There is no third faction to function as a balance of power. There is no crowd of NPCs to turn the tide in the favor of the underdog. As such, the only way to make an even fight out of Ilum is to force it. Either only so many can enter, or only so many can queue. Without addressing this, the entire area becomes a pointless zerg rolling over the underpopulated side on each server.

 

 

 

(TL;DR?)

 

And there we have it, folks. This is SWTOR's end game content. Broken, unchallenging PvE content, and randomized, short, and unrewarding PvP content. If you've done your leveling quests, gotten your holocrons, and aren't leveling an alt?

 

This is all you've got.

 

 

 

 

And I don't think it's enough.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Kyromoo

[Mephismo]

Goodbye:)

[Frammshamm]

^^ tldr version: Game =/= mmo = terrible

[Qoojo]

I'm not done leveling yet, so not an issue for me. Thanks for hitting it first and bringing it up. Edited February 1, 2012 by Qoojo

[Kyromoo]

Goodbye:)

 

You seem to have mistaken this for a unsubscribe post.

 

 

I can assure you that my subscription is still active. I plan on keeping an eye on the game.

[Shortwave]

I want to like this game. I really do. It's Star Wars, it lets me be a Jedi (Sentinel!), and it's made by Bioware.

 

If you have to want to like something, or in some way you try to like something then you probably should just save the time and stress and simply not give a [expletive deleted].

 

On one level I went through this for years with my in laws. I had to struggle to like them, I wanted to, but I just couldn't. One day I had an epiphany: piss on 'em, if liking them is a struggle it's not meant to be.

[seallone]

At least you have not got s skirt.

[MikeMonger]

If you were expecting well developed end game content this soon after launch, OF COURSE you were going to be disappointed.

 

It takes months or years for MMOs to flesh out their end game. The priority at launch is the leveling experience...the low and mid-range content.

 

And I'm not just thinking of WoW. I'm thinking of the entire slew of MMO's. Heck, SWG hadn't developed compelling end game content as of the time I quit 3 YEARS after its release.

 

Quit, then come back in six months, and you'll be a whole lot happier. There's no point in forcing yourself to hang around if you're not enjoying yourself. But also learn from the experience for your next MMO....you don't want to start playing one close to launch.

[SWGVet]

Lol all you fan boys make me laugh. I choked on my soda and hot chips!.

 

 

OP I agree with most of what you said as well.

[seallone]

If you were expecting well developed end game content this soon after launch, OF COURSE you were going to be disappointed.

 

It takes months or years for MMOs to flesh out their end game. The priority at launch is the leveling experience...the low and mid-range content.

 

And I'm not just thinking of WoW. I'm thinking of the entire slew of MMO's. Heck, SWG hadn't developed compelling end game content as of the time I quit 3 YEARS after its release.

 

Quit, then come back in six months, and you'll be a whole lot happier. There's no point in forcing yourself to hang around if you're not enjoying yourself. But also learn from the experience for your next MMO....you don't want to start playing one close to launch.

 

So why make leveling so fast. ?

[Shortwave]

choked on my soda and hot chips!.

 

 

 

That's ghetto food. What else you planning on eating, hot sausages and fries with mumbo sauce and a peach soda?

[zrinking]

fan boys make me choke on my hot OP.

 

[SWGVet]

That's ghetto food. What else you planning on eating, hot sausages and fries with mumbo sauce and a peach soda?

 

Chips and soda is ghetto?. Um okay. lol

[Shortwave]

Chips and soda is ghetto?. Um okay. lol

 

So is putting periods after your exclamation points and question marks. You from SE, ain't you?

[SkateOnTrees]

read OP

 

completely agree

[Darcedge]

I read your entire post (not sure why) and I must admit, you have some valid arguments.

 

The main thing they need to do is to make Ilum an instanced battle for objectives, kind of like Wintergrasp for those who are familiar with it. It would be every hour on the hour or something in that regards. It will be a 1:1 ratio with republic to empire. Now if an Imperial player didn't get in the first time, they would be put in a que for the next battle the following hour and so on and so forth. The way Ilum is now I will not even step foot in that entire area. I do the dailies for comms..if that, and move on to something else.

 

As far as your concerns with PVE I disagree. I like the fact that on regular mode a group of level 50s from different guilds can complete it without vent even and obtain some loot, but more importantly, complete it and see all content for the dungeon. Hard mode is there for the people who like more challenge and it rewards much, much better loot than regular. Please keep it this way, I like the fact I can see the normal version of every raid you release in this game from here on out and don't have to be in a raiding guild to do so.

 

Other than that, I agree with a lot you have said.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Darcedge

[MikeMonger]

So why make leveling so fast. ?

 

Because it's a game that caters to more casual players, who don't want to spend months going from level 1 to level 10.

[Tynie]

This is an extremely accurate, responsible and rational assessment and I could not agree more with the OP. I gave up on pve a few weeks ago for the exact reasons mentioned above... so I started to pvp and after several weeks of "luck" champion bag mechanics (I wouldn't even call it RNG because RNG seems to offer a glimmer of hope) I have quit trying. Having a pvp system set up that relies solely on gear is really irresponsible. Anyway, there's absolutely no reason to log on anymore. I might come back at a later date but done with this game for now. Edited February 1, 2012 by Tynie

[MikeMonger]

This is an extremely accurate, responsible and rational assessment and I could not agree more with the OP. I gave up on pve a few weeks ago for the exact reasons mentioned above... so I started to pvp and after several weeks of "luck" champion bag mechanics (I wouldn't even call it RNG because RNG seems to offer a glimmer of hope) I have quit trying. There's absolutely no reason to log on anymore.

 

Then it's time for you to move on and find a new game, and maybe consider checking this one out again 6 months or a year from now.

 

Always remember that the only thing keeping you here...is you.

[Roodys]

Because it's a game that caters to more casual players, who don't want to spend months going from level 1 to level 10.

 

good

 

Less xp = less grinding = less repetitiveness = more room for content = more subs = profit =

[Tynie]

Then it's time for you to move on and find a new game, and maybe consider checking this one out again 6 months or a year from now.

 

Always remember that the only thing keeping you here...is you.

 

You're exactly right and you replied before I could finish my edit. Fast response time

[Bupar]

OP, Read your post and agree with everything you said except for the PVE i would agree with the post slightly above mine relating too the importance of being able to complete regular dungeons with random thrown together groups. As for Hard modes i haven't experienced yet but i do feel there should be multiple stages requiring better gear and coordination to complete.

 

My main complain is that all i care about at the end of the day is PVP, and the rewards for it simply are not there. The only game i have seen to show significant rewards for PVP is Dark Age of Camelot. Back before all the easy mode patches with bounty points. Implementing Valor rank attribute bonuses, and Special abilities gained through PVP levels only would be great, Personally a PVP Skill tree should implemented in my opinion, Hell if your a serious gamer New pvp gear comes out and you have it within a month? then your stuck waiting on another patch. In DAOC you could have over 1,000,000 PVP kills and still not obtain the highest PVP Rank. Not to mention your pvp rank was listed above your head and was feared.. Because it ment that you actually had more Stats, Abilities, Gear and over all skill than lower ranks.

 

 

End of my rant! lol

[Brickabrack]

You seem to have mistaken this for a unsubscribe post.

 

 

I can assure you that my subscription is still active. I plan on keeping an eye on the game.

 

I checked out your history of threads (I sometimes do that when I see what looks like a potential qq post.) You seem like you're a fairly reasonable community member. This means that instead of flamming you, I congratulate you on a well written post. It seems well thought out, although I will point out that you haven't played the hard/nightmare modes yet, so you might want to reconsider your stance on difficulty until after you have tried them.

 

My hope is that BioWare recognizes this as helpful feedback and not a QQ thread like the title implies. You articulate some problems endgame has that could use attention.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Brickabrack

[MaroBaro]

You've got some good points. I do enjoy PvP for PvP's sake especially with my premade. I enjoy leveling my alts... I have another 5 advanced classes to level

 

Things with PvP will pick up once rated arenas and such come in. And arenas will probably provide more substantion rewards. Also a new warzone is coming in the next couple of months so that is going to be fun.

 

Anyway, sad to see u go... kbye

[Gungan]

This was a surprisingly well written and insightful post with clearly defined points. Well done.

 

I'd like to add that I think levelling was way too slow as well. I hit 50 halfway through Belsavis; that's the fourth last planet in the game.

 

Quite frankly, any levelling curve should require you to be under cap when arriving at the frontier of endgame content so you still have some work to do to at cap.

 

In SWTOR, since I capped on a level 42-45 planet, all subsequent planets became tedious chores because I didn't have anything to look forward to except more missions. I wasn't going to get new skills, and I wasn't going to get new gear (because I had already doen the dailies on Belsavies and gotten all level 50 mods). Every item I received between Voss and Ilum was vendored. That's not fun.

 

As much as people hate "grinding" or long levelling curves, they need to come back. The caveat here being that there ought to be enough content to get you 98% of the way without literally spawn camping to grind XP. The last 2% can be earned in endgame PVP, dungeons, whatever.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Gungan