This game lacks epeen

[archifikoss]

E-peen... Meh.

 

I don't care what skills you have. Nor do I care about your spreadsheets, how many hours a day you play, the gear, titles and achievements you've acquired. It's nice that you're dedicated to your hobby, but it's not indicative of a player I'd necessarily respect.

 

Are you a decent person? Are you willing to help out others in need? Are you humble enough to admit your mistakes and not show off? Are you willing to show patience for less advanced players? Are you willing to treat people with courtesy and respect?

 

If you answer yes to those above questions, that's what the community needs. Good, ethical, respectful, decent people - irrespective of how "hardcore" they are. It's all that matters.

[Eileithia]

Adding something like a new speeder, or pet, or title for the hardcore player to work for is fine. Hardcore players should have something to work for, if that's what they want. But what happens when they've got it all again? What then?

Anything that affects your stats, like armour, should not, IMO, be part of it though, if raiding is the only way to get it. So yeah, give the hardcores more trinkets to hang around for, as long as it's just fluff. I remember the amount of people raging about the ce vendor, and how it should just sell cosmetic items. If that's the case, then the raiders should get the same.

 

The difference between the CE vendor and Raiding is the CE vendor can be PURCHASED. The reason the CE vendor should only have fluff is because they shouldn't force you to PAY MORE for exclusive game-changing items.

 

What they very much SHOULD do is force you to PLAY more for those game-changing exclusive items. The only way to do that is give them stats and armor that casual players cannot get (and don't need to play casually).

 

Yes, if players want full Rakata (or whatever top-end gear) they very much should be forced to group up and take on the content that drops it.

[GOYAFIDO]

So the hardcore minority is not playing anymore while the casual majority is enjoying the game?

 

The forums clearly support this position.

 

No wait, they don't. Even people who prefer participation trophies over first, second and third place trophies are complaining that there isn't enough to do.

[Wewa]

This game is mindless grind for what - set of armor?

If set of armor is endgame content and whole point of PvP and raids than think twice what is this game offering?

[Saurakk]

I used to be a full-time raider, and part time altitus sufferer in EQ1 and especially in EQ2.

 

The gear debate always came up in eq2 especially with the mythicals.

 

EVERYONE wanted their classes mythical but hated having to raid difficult content for them.

 

The bottom line fact was that these items were not really needed for normal play and mainly assisted raiders. Were they helpful for non-raiding? Of course, were they needed...not at all.

 

I have no problem with them putting in high end raids with extreme difficulty. I mean, wiping 100x before figuring out the encounter....that is hard core raiding and not many people have the simple patience to do it.

 

Make the items worthwhile for the raiders but not something that is "needed" by non raiders. Have it be PvE only gear with minimal effect on balance in PvP if this is possible.

 

I do not have the time to raid any more...but do not see the problem with adding in normal raid content that takes some serious coordination, gearing, stim use, strategizing, etc. to defeat.

[Matte_Black]

The difference between the CE vendor and Raiding is the CE vendor can be PURCHASED. The reason the CE vendor should only have fluff is because they shouldn't force you to PAY MORE for exclusive game-changing items.

 

What they very much SHOULD do is force you to PLAY more for those game-changing exclusive items. The only way to do that is give them stats and armor that casual players cannot get (and don't need to play casually).

 

Yes, if players want full Rakata (or whatever top-end gear) they very much should be forced to group up and take on the content that drops it.

 

Why?

 

As a devil's advocate, if the player pays as much for the better gear as they would subscribing to get it and it makes their play experience more enjoyable, where's the harm. A small mark or designation on the "earned" armor would allow the epeen/bragging rights factor to exist. If you think about, all giving the more skilled player the edge does is make PvP less competitive.

 

I often am fine with motivators that many misrepresent as being "forced" to do one thing or another. The general consensus is that being forced to do anything as a terrible hardship that should be avoided so, why should forcing players to kill what drops the gear instead of paying it be acceptable in this case.

 

I am not even sure if I disagree with quoted post but, it is supported by little beyond what the poster thinks should be.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Matte_Black

[Vyvian]

So the hardcore minority is not playing anymore while the casual majority is enjoying the game?

 

Hey, it's the hardcore players who provide all those videos for others to watch, they are the ones making websites to answer questions other players have. Hardcore players are the one who talk about the game outside of it, they tell others to try it, they also tell others when to stay away from a game...

 

So many players in this game that only picked it up because it was called Star Wars. I've met plenty of them. They have no clue about other MMOs, to them, this is it. And for those players, the game will suffice. They are also the ones that will make the company a crud ton of money when they go F2P and cash shop everything.

 

Casuals, you wont have those pointers being posted anymore to help you on encounters that beat you. You wont have positive feedback drawing more players to the game. You'll simply notice a decline in population to the point that the game wont cut it even for you.

[Uruare]

IMO there's 3 things that BW should have done slightly differently that would have fixed a lot of the end-game issue (Not including bugs).

 

1 - Leveling. Currently if you do all the class quests, all the side quests and all the bonus quests you out-level the content. And that's not including PVP, Space Missions, Flashpoints etc. The XP gain should have been reduced so that if you did ALL the quests AND one of the above (PVP, Space, FP) while leveling you would not out-level content before even getting to a planet.

 

2 - Gear (PVE). Gear should not be gained from "Commendations". End game gear shouldn't be purchased from a vendor period. As a Raider, it gives you nothing to look forward to. YAY a TOKEN dropped.. Yipady-Crap.. End game gear should drop from the mobs, and you should have to kill the stuff before you ever see it. It leaves you wondering if there's some Rare uber drop in that loot table that nobody's ever seen.

 

3 - Gear Tiers / Raids - The current set-up is fundamentally flawed for raiding guilds. It encourages smaller groups, and fragments the community. As to the "I want to solo for epics" crap, that doesn't work in MMOs long-term. WoW is a EXCEPTION to the rule, not a standard to strive to. The reason so many of the recent games have flopped a few months after release is there's nothing to keep people long term as you see all the content and have all your gear before the developers could possibly push more content out.

 

T1 (Tionese) should be Level 50 / HM Flashpoints, and Normal Ops ONLY

 

T2 (Columi) Should be very Rare Drops in HM Flashpoints, Semi-Rare (every other boss) in 8-man HM Ops, and Standard loot (every boss) in 16 man HM Ops

 

T3 (Rakata) should be very Rare Drops in 8-man HM Ops, Semi-Rare in 16-man HM Ops, and Standard drops in Nightmare.

 

Currently there is no incentive to run anything over 8-man hard-mode Ops other than saying you've done it. And you can't run anything over 8/16 hard-mode unless a sizeable chunk of your raid is already in full Rakata/Battlemaster and they get nothing for it other than a title.

 

And again, to the people who want to solo for epics. YOU DON'T NEED EPIC GEAR TO SOLO!. It should be exclusive gear for the people who have cleared the hardest content in the game AS A TEAM. Not something you can gain from commendations, tokens, and dailies. If you only have a few hours of playtime a week, you don't need this gear to do anything you'd be doing in the game.

 

 

I respectfully disagree with almost everything you said and most of the premise in which almost all of it was said.

 

On XP: I do not, myself, perceive a problem with this. If you do most of the content available to you while leveling, you'll overlevel. I cannot see that as a poor thing, as it, by definitions, means that you do not have to do everything on every single character in a game that strongly encourages you to alt every single time.

 

You've got some options. Not many yet, but some, and hopefully many, many more with time.

 

 

On Gear: Deterministic methods of acquisition lend a sense of control to the playing experience, and whether or not that appeals to you personally, it's definitively and absolutely appealing to the majorities of human consumers (globally) as that existed in 2011.

 

People like to feel like they have some control, even if they, in fact, have none.

 

With this system, the illusion of determinism exists for the most part (you don't get to choose altogether what you can turn a token in for), but there's some actual control there on many gear pieces as well (you can usually select from several differently statted versions of a gear piece).

 

It's a good balance between the time dillation and prolongment of content lifespan brought on by randomization and appealing to the very human desire to feel like we have some degree of choice.

 

 

 

On Gear Stratification: Is the heightened challenge of more advanced content insufficient as its own reward? I will by no means stick words in your mouth on the matter, but I so often see people declare that they love the challenge out of one side of their mouth when pressing for harder content and then turn around with this exact position when it comes to gear parities and stratifications.

 

It leads me to wonder why they don't just come out and say "We want to be able to get better gear than people that can't run this content, and before people that can't run it as often as we can", as that would, I think, be the stunningly plain truth of the matter.

 

And so I ask, as I do not know; is that the root of your position, and if not, what is?

[jontyld]

I'm at the point in my life where I appreciate that games are giving up "light" versions of content thats achievable to everyone. The days where certain items are restricted to the top few people per server are over, that works when you had a 1 million customer base, not so much when its up to 15-20 million or more potential customers. Theres no reason to bell curve your content and alienate customers by only letting a few people feel cool.

 

To people who want challenges, get used to titles and achievements etc rather than things like the black-red sabers.

[Xzenorath]

Without something to work towards, there is no purpose to playing.

 

I believe the word you're looking for is "fun".

 

You know, what people used to play MMO's for prior to the WoW era?

 

 

Why does everything within an MMO have to revolve around getting gear or titles or achievements or pets or mounts? Why is it that people can't enjoy playing a game because it's fun?

 

I mean seriously, what happened to you people?

[Vyvian]

Why?

 

As a devil's advocate, if the player pays as much for the better gear as they would subscribing to get it and it makes their play experience more enjoyable, where's the harm. A small mark or designation on the "earned" armor would allow the epeen/bragging rights factor to exist. If you think about, all giving the more skilled player the edge does is make PvP less competitive.

 

I often am fine with motivators that many misrepresent as being "forced" to do one thing or another. The general consensus is that being forced to do anything as a terrible hardship that should be avoided so, why should forcing players to kill what drops the gear instead of paying it be acceptable in this case.

 

I am not even sure if I disagree with quoted post but, it is supported by little beyond what the poster thinks should be.

 

I don't PvP much at all. I personally just don't enjoy it. That said...

 

From your post, I should be able to just go and buy the best PvP gear there is so I'm on par with the PvP playerbase, even though I did nothing to earn it?

 

 

You want the end game gear, you should do the end game content. Not harvest and sell mats on the GTN to make a bunch of credits and then go buy the best gear you can afford.

[Vyvian]

I believe the word you're looking for is "fun".

 

You know, what people used to play MMO's for prior to the WoW era?

 

 

Why does everything within an MMO have to revolve around getting gear or titles or achievements or pets or mounts? Why is it that people can't enjoy playing a game because it's fun?

 

I mean seriously, what happened to you people?

 

I'll tell you what "fun" is for me in an MMO: Beating a real challenge.

 

Gear will come, too fast for my taste in this game, but it's the lack of challenge to receive a reward that ruins it for me. The most challenging part of this game is killing Soa with all of the bugs.

[archifikoss]

I don't PvP much at all. I personally just don't enjoy it. That said...

 

From your post, I should be able to just go and buy the best PvP gear there is so I'm on par with the PvP playerbase, even though I did nothing to earn it?

 

 

You want the end game gear, you should do the end game content. Not harvest and sell mats on the GTN to make a bunch of credits and then go buy the best gear you can afford.

 

And why do you care how people acquired their gear? It's their own business as long as it's "legit" (i.e. not buying from gold (ehm, credit) sellers). If they're decent people, I couldn't care less if their avatars had to work in a coal mine dressed in a tutu, or simply inherited it from uncle Malgus' grandma's third cousin once removed. It's not like they took my job or something (dey took our durrrrbs!).

[utio]

The difference between the CE vendor and Raiding is the CE vendor can be PURCHASED. The reason the CE vendor should only have fluff is because they shouldn't force you to PAY MORE for exclusive game-changing items.

 

What they very much SHOULD do is force you to PLAY more for those game-changing exclusive items. The only way to do that is give them stats and armor that casual players cannot get (and don't need to play casually).

 

Yes, if players want full Rakata (or whatever top-end gear) they very much should be forced to group up and take on the content that drops it.

 

I disagree. To say a casual player doesn't need best in game gear is a null argument. Everyone doesn't need the best gear if that's the case, if you get through a raid in less than best gear, clearly you don't need better gear.

I have no issue with giving fluff to hardcores to show off. But stuff like armour, weapons should be available to all, be it raiding, having devoted weeks into crafting it, or maybe finishing all prof stories, whatever the devs come up with.

[Vyvian]

I'm at the point in my life where I appreciate that games are giving up "light" versions of content thats achievable to everyone. The days where certain items are restricted to the top few people per server are over, that works when you had a 1 million customer base, not so much when its up to 15-20 million or more potential customers. Theres no reason to bell curve your content and alienate customers by only letting a few people feel cool.

 

To people who want challenges, get used to titles and achievements etc rather than things like the black-red sabers.

 

I already have my black-red saber.

 

What were you saying? Oh, you're a casual player now who doesn't have time to invest in a game. No problem, the gear drops so readily in this game, just one or two nights a week and you'll have everything you need.

 

What makes your way of playing the only viable one? You don't have to do the harder content, obviously BW gives the same gear in easy-mode as they do the harder ones.

 

No reason to come here and bash the players who are just asking for some better development that encourages longevity.

[VarnieTsk]

..................................................There seems to be an increasingly popular sentiment in this thread by casual players lashing out in anger at the hardcore players who simply want difficult, high level game content to work towards. This stance is no less intolerant than the ideas they are bashing........................................

 

 

Actually, I'd say the popular sentiment of a lot of people, myself included, is that we really don't give a flying flip how big their e-peens are. We just don't want them in our face.

 

People "who simply want difficult, high level game content to work towards" are not the problem.

 

It's the obnoxious, testosterone overdosed, perma-puberty e-peeners who have to make sure you see all their e-peenery by shoving it in your face constantly and blocking your screen that are the problem.

[Matte_Black]

Hey, it's the hardcore players who provide all those videos for others to watch, they are the ones making websites to answer questions other players have. Hardcore players are the one who talk about the game outside of it, they tell others to try it, they also tell others when to stay away from a game....

 

So many players in this game that only picked it up because it was called Star Wars. I've met plenty of them. They have no clue about other MMOs, to them, this is it. And for those players, the game will suffice. They are also the ones that will make the company a crud ton of money when they go F2P and cash shop everything.

 

Casuals, you wont have those pointers being posted anymore to help you on encounters that beat you. You wont have positive feedback drawing more players to the game. You'll simply notice a decline in population to the point that the game wont cut it even for you.

 

As much of those tips and videos areattention seeking or goes ignored by your casuals. Still more of it requires little skill and and a touch of OCD that casuals may well have. You will also still have media-minded casuals that will have the skill and inclination to serve the casual community and the questions they want answered. Even if boring to them, there will even be some harder-core players who would continue such activity because it benefits them in some way whether by building their self esteem or draws people to their websites.

 

I think you overestimate the need for interested hard-core players in the game's success. Alot of their contributions are unwanted or irrelevent to more casual playstyles. For every tip to overcome a difficult challenge, there is one trivializing what the casual player enjoying the game views as an accomplishment. Not to mention, the reduction of those telling you how you "have to" play. Alot of your casual players simply are not looking to play the game like or to the intensity of hard-core players. Don't assume they want the tip to do so.

[archifikoss]

Actually, I'd say the popular sentiment of a lot of people, myself included, is that we really don't give a flying flip how big their e-peens are. We just don't want them in our face.

 

People "who simply want difficult, high level game content to work towards" are not the problem.

 

It's the obnoxious, testosterone overdosed, perma-puberty e-peeners who have to make sure you see all their e-peenery by shoving it in your face constantly and blocking your screen that are the problem.

 

So say we all

 

It's the attitude that matters!

[MMornard]

Its less than 10 % actually. Community drives MMOs - Hardcore players create the communities.

 

edit: If you are a casual player, what are you going to do once you are fully raid/pvp geared ? Because even casuals can do that in a week or two here....

 

Hmmmm... been playing since launch and still don't have a character at maximum...

 

been playing WoW since 2007 and STILL don't have a character at maximum....

 

90% casual gamers... spend 90% of your effort on them, they're where your money is. It's called the "Pareto Principle" as applied to marketing.

[Vyvian]

As much of those tips and videos areattention seeking or goes ignored by your casuals. Still more of it requires little skill and and a touch of OCD that casuals may well have. You will also still have media-minded casuals that will have the skill and inclination to serve the casual community and the questions they want answered. Even if boring to them, there will even be some harder-core players who would continue such activity because it benefits them in some way whether by building their self esteem or draws people to their websites.

 

I think you overestimate the need for interested hard-core players in the game's success. Alot of their contributions are unwanted or irrelevent to more casual playstyles. For every tip to overcome a difficult challenge, there is one trivializing what the casual player enjoying the game views as an accomplishment. Not to mention, the reduction of those telling you how you "have to" play. Alot of your casual players simply are not looking to play the game like or to the intensity of hard-core players. Don't assume they want the tip to do so.

 

Alright, I'll accept your response to my specific post. However, why are casuals complaining about players who want something a little bit more challenging? What's the deal with that? Same gear in Normal as in Hard & Nightmare. Why are they so vocal to stop some challenging content?

[va_wanderer]

I've always said it- hardcore players are a symptom of a successful game, not the reason it's successful.

 

That is, if you systematically killed off every "hardcore", you'd still have a huge population base on a good MMORPG regardless. Yes, they'll find your problems and exploits faster...but cater to them too much and you render the game unpalatable to most of your playerbase.

[MMornard]

So, you must also be a welfare person. I mean, obviously you don't think anyone should have to earn anything. You just sit there collecting money from the government that the rest of us working people pay taxes for?

 

Fine, it's not fair. That work for you? I'll start to whine that it isn't fair that I learned strategies and had repair bills to get my gear.

 

You want free gear, maybe we should ask BW/EA for special servers just for you special people.

 

There is much anger in this one.

 

But yeah, I'd LOVE special "casual only" servers. I've gone on ONE raid in WoW in five years, and I never intend to raid in SWTOR. It bores me.

[va_wanderer]

There is much anger in this one.

 

But yeah, I'd LOVE special "casual only" servers. I've gone on ONE raid in WoW in five years, and I never intend to raid in SWTOR. It bores me.

 

If they never put in a single raid instance and devoted the same energy to Heroic range stuff instead, it'd probably get a few orders of magnitude higher use out of the same dev cycles.

 

I wouldn't cry, either. Just leave world bosses wandering around for the DKP crowd to play with.

[Matte_Black]

Alright, I'll accept your response to my specific post. However, why are casuals complaining about players who want something a little bit more challenging? What's the deal with that? Same gear in Normal as in Hard & Nightmare. Why are they so vocal to stop some challenging content?

 

Simple, they largely have no need for more difficult content. They'd rather see new content, bug fixes, new features that enhance their play over harder playthroughs and add-on style features that help boil a good story-based game down to numbers they aren't all that interested in having quantified.

[Sithgrayjedi]

I can agree with the OP's post. there is more than 3% who are affected by the end game content that hardcores regularly trivialize. The harder content that so few have access to becomes the goals of the masses of more casual players. this means people need to work together to obtain the goals, large group operation require coordination, drive, and unique and saught after rewards. i haven't personally reached the endgame content so i will not judge this game's endgame but i will say that without the element that something needs to be attained through mass coordination then the game will eventially fail.

 

sorry for the grammar, sent from a phone.