Tsillah Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 So, this is my personal list of suggestions. To make the post easier to read (since I expect it to have quite some length), I have decided to give it a clear structure. Please note that this is based on my experience as an empire player. I am a PvE player in this game (I don’t like imba PvP) by choice and I am somewhere between casual and hardcore PvE because I play too much to be casual but don’t like the repetitiveness of most endgame PvE and not relaxed enough. I just like to enjoy gaming and don’t want or need that constant challenge that others seem to crave. I will group them in the following categories: -Logistics -Companions -Flash Points -Gear Within each category I will do the following: Define a specific element Describe my current experience Describe my idea for improvement Each category will have multiple elements that will all follow this pattern. LOGISTICS This is the category that describes availability and mobility in game. Availability: The availability of in game services like the vendors, skill traders, GTN and such. Current experience: At this moment the availability of these in game services is rather a bit lacking. The GTN on Nar Shaddaa doesn’t show items over level 30 and not every planet has a GTN console. Vendors sell a lot of white gear even at level 50. I don’t understand their reason to exist in game. Also they are often not easy to get to. Using quick travel generally will not put you next to traders, you’ll still have to walk or use a speeder to get there. This touches on the mobility issues. Another issue for me is that commendation vendors for armour mods, do not offer equal opportunities for all classes. Some mods are simply unavailable. Try finding them on the GTN, especially at lower levels. Cybertech, well, I haven’t done that much crafting, so with cybertech on 200 and no blue designs for armour mods, I wonder what the point is. My suggestion: vendors, skill, traders, GTN, your storage, should all be clustered together more closely in each capital of any planet. Crafting needs more blue designs from the vendor at lower levels. Put a taxi point and quick travel point in each of these trade areas and I mean right in the middle. Mobility: This is about how easy it is to get from one place to another. Current experience: Well, we’ve seen plenty of threads about space travel. I feel it too. In fact when I see a group looking for a level 50 healer (my sorc is that) but I am on an alt, I am not even going to get my sorc because it takes too much time to travel to that location because of the air locks and all that. Also on planets like Tatooine there is no taxi point next to the spaceport. A missed opportunity. We have 2 speed boosts. Level 14 gives us sprint. Level 25 gives us the speeder option. In my view this is much too late. This is all I will say on it but believe me, this is a frustrating element in my experience. My suggestions: Going from planet to ship or from ship to planet, should be all done in one, skippable movie sequence, from door to door. I mean the door of your spaceship and the door inside the actual spaceport or base. Sprint should be available at level 10 and the first speeder at level 20. COMPANIONS This category describes companion acquisition, companion story lines and companion gear acquisition. Companion acquisition: This is about when you get your companions and how they link to your class. Current experience: We get one companion at level 8 roughly and then it’s a long wait till the next one and the last one is around level 40+. Basically, by the time I’ve got my companions together I am almost done levelling. Take into account, as described below, that at level 50 your companions become mostly useless because they are not really useful in endgame activities, except daily quests. Also if, for example, I choose to play a melee character, I usually do not get a healer companion before level 20. At this stage solo quests are done by you with a companion. If one isn’t a healer, this is annoying. Certainly not impossible, but let’s be honest. One of you has to tank (take the main damage) and the other has to support. There are only two roles that make sense to me in that set up. The companions we get now seem to be set up for a character with 2 companions. My suggestions: People should get their companions much faster. That way they serve a purpose longer, because they are only really there for levelling to 50. Also you should get a choice of 2 companions by level 10, to satisfy the two roles. A sorcerer healer with a tank is fine, but my assassin would like a healer companion at level 10. Perhaps as part of the specialisation process. Companion story lines: This is about the content of the companion story lines. Current experience: Ok, so you get a quest every so often to talk to them and often this is bugged and they don’t actually want to talk to you. This still happens a lot. But even when a companion wants to take action within their story line, they go off by themselves and report about it. It’s rare you get to do an actual quest for them. I remember doing one for Khem Val. Not much point in these story lines then. I stopped bothering about them too much. I certainly don’t invest in companion gifts anymore. Right now I have a level 50 with Ashara geared up, but no reason to gear any of the others…Simply because companions serve no function in endgame. They are no use in PvP, HM or raiding. They are just there to level. So why get 5 companions, especially at later levels, when you only really need one? They didn’t really add to my story line except Khem Val and Ashara. The rest is a waste of space to me, especially in view of the personal storyline. Talking about Ashara. Her story line as companion for a sith inquisitor makes no sense. The sith warrior doesn’t even have to blink to convert their apprentice to the dark side, the inquisitor, doesn’t even get there at maximum affection. Might be just me, but it seems odd at least. My suggestions: Please create story lines with actual quests to do relating to companions. DA and ME have lots of stuff going on there, so why is it so limited here? BW has experience with this. Also at level 50, create a secondary story line for companions so they actually have a use at end game. Make quest lines to deepen out the companions. Companion gear acquisition: This is about gear rewards for companions. Current experience: Levelling a character is about choices, I get that. But getting 5 companions that are basically too expensive to gear up in comparison to your levelling speed is annoying to me. Especially because, when you get to level 50, there is no reason to gear the rest up anymore. There are gear rewards, but then you have to choose one item for one companion at a time. These rewards tend to be green and are too far and few between to realistically equip multiple companions. My suggestions: I suggest more storyline quests for companions. The rewards for these quests should be better gear for companions. Preferably orange items and mods. For some quests you get mods as a reward for yourself, perhaps more variety can be offered in HEROICS to give mods as an option fitting your companions as well. FLASH POINTS This is the category about accessibility of Flash Points and getting a group to do them. It’s not about their content. The ones I actually did were great as such and the rest I’ve never seen. Accessibility: This is about getting the quest for Flash Points and where to get a group to do them Current experience: I have done Black Talon various times, but that’s really it. The reason I have done it because it is a well-integrated option in your story line. I haven’t done any others because the acquisition of the quests is completely done wrong. Since they are generally linked to level and not the story line, picking them up during the story line is pointless to me. I don’t have time for it at that moment, because I am on my way somewhere and want to finish that part of the story first. Also Flash Points tend to take some time. Especially lower level Flash Points are too long in comparison to the levelling speed at those levels. They therefore give too much experience. Also, the Flash Point quest requires you to go to the Fleet and completely take you out of your story line at that moment. That is an inconsistency to me. When I pick up the quest for a Flash Point I have to take a shuttle to the Fleet and once there, see if I can find a group (which is a waste of time if there isn’t one and this is often the case). Upon completion I have to travel back to the planet I came from via my spaceship. My Suggestions: Flash Point quests should be offered to players when they achieve the appropriate minimum level, no matter where they are. They can then decline or accept. The Fleet should be the starting and ending point. Any Flash Point that can be woven into the story line like the Black Talon should have the start and end point where the quest is picked up. After Black Talon you can still take the shuttle to Dromund Kaas anyways. All Flash Point quests should be available at a single terminal in the Fleet and please indicate their level. A colour grade is not enough. If a Flash Point is level 29 I want to see that before I select it. Flash Points should not count against your maximum number of quests. They should have a separate list or tab (As a side note this should also apply to PvP quests). GEAR This is the category that deals with getting gear for your character. It’s about gear acquisition, availability, gear types and visual aspects. Gear acquisition: This about gear as quest rewards. Current experience: Whenever I get gear from quest rewards, I like it to be a reward. Often I find that the gear rewards are below my current gear. This is partially because it’s easy to be over-levelled and partially because the rewards are sub-par even when on level. It is relatively easy to gear up in this game and quest rewards should be good enough, but often it is not. Orange gear does make a difference because you can mod it but the issue there is getting enough of the right mods. Via commendations you don’t get equal options for all classes. The vendors are missing certain mods depending on the planet and even though you can get a fair amount of commendations, you really need to do a lot of Heroics to get enough commendations to mod the gear and then you out level the area quite easily, making the rewards sub-par again. I like to do my solo quests but I have to do Heroics for better gear, especially for certain bosses in the personal story line. But by doing both, the danger is that I outlevel the area too quickly. My solutions: All commendation vendors should sell the same mods for all classes/abilities. Quest rewards should offer better gear rewards, too many greens especially at higher level. Heroics should give less xp and should be about rewards or solo quests should give better rewards especially the end of chain quests should give better rewards so I don’t need to outlevel the area. An alternative is to give more commendations via solo quests and not for doing Heroics. Availability: This about the availability of orange gear and missing parts for sets. Current Experience: Right, so I have a level 50 that doesn’t have an orange belt. I have every other armour part in orange, including the bracers, but not the belt. Why are belts and bracers so hard to get. They aren’t sold on the GTN. I still wear a level 45 belt that’s not orange because better is not available. Considering that at level 50 orange gear is considered starter gear for the more hardcore players, I just want to know where I need to go to get an orange belt for my character. And then the level 50 set, Anointed silk. I have no idea how to get all pieces together. I’ve gone to the web to find answers, but I am still puzzled, especially because apparently the level 50 set doesn’t have a set bonus and the chest piece has not been found by anyone. So you can grind your uber pvp or HM gear, but it’s virtually impossible to get a nice set as a reward for completing the whole story line. Talk about a letdown. My suggestions: Improve the end of story set with a set bonus and make it clearer what to do to get it together. Belts and bracers: make them more available or at least make it clearer where to get them. Gear types: This is where I talk about the differences between gear types. I distinguish between crafting/orange gear, Flash Point/Raid gear and PvP gear. Current experience: Right, so I am a PvE’er when it comes to MMOs and I never played games with raiding. I have my level 50 with mostly orange gear and doing dailies to get the purple mods. They are ranked as 51 mods. Apparently, from what I can tell HM gear and PvP gear can get up to 58. This is a 7 level difference. Now I look at doing level 50 Flash Points in the near future but then I start to wonder. Why do we have this difference of 7 levels? Is it because of the HM Flash Points? My problem is this. HM Flash Points / Raiding are, I guess the only way to get this gear for PvE. The only reason to get this gear is to do the HM / Raiding stuff. Where the game, levelling to 50, is all about various options, end game suddenly narrows to group content for the sake of itself. Then there is PvP in the mix. Well, there you can get level 58 gear as well AND it gives expertise, which makes you better at PvP without needing skill. I’ve always had an issue with gear rewards for PvP with PvP bonuses; you basically make good PvP’ers better. But I digress. My experience here is that if you PvP you get gear that is good in PvE AND PvE. I don’t get why this is. It just makes it that PvP’ers get the best of both words. Their PvP gear is also top PvE gear without having to do PvE content. Why then can it not be the other way around? Part of it also means that there is a great divide for new or casual players in gear that will cause people to stay away from PvP and HM stuff and that makes endgame even less interesting to them. Also the gear differences are already resulting in LFM, must show gear first messages. It breaks community. I understand the reason for the request, but then I am missing some more opportunities to gear up a bit better. Perhaps I am simply unaware but at this stage getting orange gear modded with the dailies rewards is all there is to prepare for endgame content. Also I am missing lower level gear with set bonuses. My Suggestions: I don’t care if it takes time, but if PvP can get you top PvE gear then PvE should be able to get you top PvP gear. The majority of players are casual players nowadays. I would give more quest content with better rewards for level 50s. It doesn’t have to be dead easy at all, but there should be more options to get maybe level 52 and 53 gear that doesn’t involve Flash Points / Raids, so that more players are geared up a bit better so they are more likely to play Flash Point and Raid content. Visual aspects: This is about the looks of gear. My experience: Gear usually looks pretty poor. I put my bounty hunter (female) in orange gear that is normally meant for Sith warriors. It just looks better. I’ve looked at endgame gear but it all looks pretty horrible. A reason for me not to do endgame. I don’t want to do all this work just for stats. I want to look good too. But generally I find the art of gear lacking. There is very little in gear that gives me any “awesome” feel to it. Some of it’s ok and there a few that look great but those are real exceptions. If this is about epic stories, then people should look the part. HM and PvP gear looks ridiculous mostly. If I were to PvP I would die of laughter rather than the enemies’ attacks. It’s difficult to find good looking gear and matching gear also. A real shame. I can manage, but it could be much better. My suggestions: invest more in the look of gear and being able to match them. Make orange gear look better especially. Endgame gear: it needs an overhaul or the possibility to take out all mods to upgrade it to orange gear. TL;DR: I like the game, but it can use some improvement in various areas. My main points are improvement in logistics (travel, traders, GTN), Companions, Flash Points and Gear. These are my view points as a PvE player who finds himself between casual and hardcore PvE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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