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Expanding Endgame Content


Tenacity

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For the TLDR crowd, skip the first few paragraphs

 

Anyone who's gotten to level 50, and especially anyone who is part of a successful endgame raiding guild, knows how horribly lacking endgame content is in SW:TOR. When you hit 50, you really have two options: grind pvp, or grind operations. Outside of that, you're stuck levelling alts because there's nothing else to do.

 

While Bioware may be adding new operations or flashpoints or warzones with updates, let's face it - they wont last long. I can almost guarantee that within a month (or less) after 1.2 is released, the new operation will be fully cleared by a dozen or more guilds across just as many servers, and the new flashpoint and warzone will be old and dull just like the ones we have now.

 

Instanced theme park content just doesnt work - unless you're releasing new content at an equal or faster rate to how quickly the players are clearing that content, you're going to continually get complaints about the game getting boring. Honestly, this game has held my attention for less time than any other MMORPG I've ever played - I was bored within the first two months, which is absolutely pathetic considering the amount of time that Bioware spent developing this game.

 

If you want to keep subscriptions, you need endgame content (for both pvp and pve) that will keep players entertained for long periods of time without predictable or consistent outcomes. Fighting the same operations boss twice a week every week gets old fast - you need more randomized content that allows for something interesting to happen that the players arent always expecting or prepared for.

 

Now that all of that is out of the way, on to the suggestions part of this thread...

 

 

 

1. Expanded Tattooine

 

One thing that always amazed me about Starwars: Galaxies was simply how big the planets were, but Tattooine always held something interesting about it over the others despite the scale - it was a dangerous planet with a lot of open expanses full of everything from deadly creatures to enemy players waiting to ambush you.

 

One thing that really bugs me about Tattooine in SW:TOR is the lack of krayt dragons. Everyone knows about them, they're one of the most 'famous' (or infamous, maybe) creatures in star wars lore after rancors. They're big, they're mean, they guard treasure like the mythical dragons of old - yet this game doesnt even show the slightest traces of krayt dragons existing other than a few bones.

 

Backstory:

 

The Hutt Cartels are representing expeditions into the deepest, most inhospitable deserts of Tattooine to uncover the ancient treasures rumored to be guarded by the planet's most dangerous creatures: Krayt Dragons - for a cut of the profits, of course. Join the republic or imperial expedition teams and venture into the boneyard and nesting grounds and bring back vast treasures, or die trying.

 

New Zone #1: The Boneyard

 

This zone would be accessible from the far side of the dune sea, with a speeder/flight path linking to it from the opposite side of the dune sea. This zone, and all following new zones for Tattooine, would be level 50 non-instanced areas, but more than that they would be auto pvp flagging areas regardless of your server type. This is important, as even on PvE servers, the strongest NPC enemies never really put up a challenge once you learn the strategy to beat them - adding the element of open world pvp, even for hardcore pve'ers, makes things dangerous, and the more dangerous it is the more exciting it is.

 

The boneyard, as it's name implies, would be a large graveyard consisting primarily of ancient Krayt Dragon skeletons. The terrain should include crevases, cave networks, and krags that create ideal ambush locations for both npcs and players. The boneyard would have numerous tusken raider and 'young' krayt dragon spawns for players to encounter.

 

New Zone #2: The Nesting Grounds

 

Only accessible by moving through the boneyard on foot (i.e. no flight paths exist to the nesting grounds, making them difficult to get to), the Krayt Dragon nesting grounds are a network of caves seperated by vast expanses of open desert.

 

The idea here is to have several caves - half a dozen to a dozen - spread out over an open area roughly equivalent in size to the dune sea. The open desert area would be patrolled by tusken raider clans and the occasional jawa sandcrawler (which could be classified as a world boss type enemy, even - imagine taking a guild into the desert to attack a sandcrawler!), and a few smaller krayt dragons.

 

The main attraction, of course, is the caves. Each cave would have a few smaller groups of krayt dragons spread throughout, but would feature a large rear cavern with an ancient krayt dragon. Each of the 6-12 caves would have a different type of ancient krayt dragon, with unique abilities and fight mechanics - and here's the kicker: they would randomly respawn, meaning you never know which dragon you're going to fight until you get to it. Each of these ancient krayt dragons guards a treasure stockpile.

 

Rewards:

 

Obviously loot is a huge factor in whether or not a player or guild even attempts to take on difficult content. Each of the ancient krayt dragons, as well as the world boss sandcrawler, would drop raid-quality loot, but the treasure stockpiles would offer up a new type of commendation to everyone in the group, which could be turned in for unique looking raid-quality gear with either (or maybe both) pvp and pve stats, due to the nature of the area.

 

 

 

2. New World: Dathomir

 

The dark home of the force witches known as the nightsisters, and a planet full of wild rancors. This was one of the most dangerous planets in Starwars: Galaxies, requiring a decent group just to venture out into. Like the suggested expansion zones for tattooine above, the entire planet of dathomir would be an open pvp zone regardless of your server type.

 

Dathomir would be split up into 4 sections: Nightsister Territory, Empire Territory, Republic Territory, and the Rancor Breeding Grounds. Republic and Empire Territory zones would have a main base (where you land from the orbital station shuttle), as well as half a dozen or so border outposts.

 

Border Outposts:

 

Each border outpost would be a small, walled-in compound with several turbolaser turrets along the barricades. Players would be able to mount these turrets to fire at NPC or player enemy targets - but the turrets would only be capable of firing outwards, not into the base interior. At the center of each border outpost would be a console that could be used by enemy players to either capture or destroy the outpost.

 

Destroying an outpost would leave it unusable until the daily reset (the same time daily missions reset). Capturing an outpost would leave it in the enemy's possession and control until the daily reset. Destroying an outpost would reward more commendations and valor to the attacking players, but at the cost of not being able to use it against the enemy. Capturing or destroying all of the enemy faction's outposts would yield a massive amount of bonus commendations and valor.

 

The border outposts would be regularly attacked by both nightsisters and wild rancors, depending on which area of the zone the outpost is in. Players would be responsible for defending the outposts against these non-player threats - if they fail to do so, the outpost is damaged, preventing it's turrets from being used and creating gaps in the outpost walls (to make it easier for the enemy faction to attack it) - additionally, enemy NPCs of the appropriate type would start spawning in and around the outpost, creating an extra level of difficulty for both attackers and defenders.

 

Essentially the idea is to create an entire planet like the ilum pvp zone, but add the danger of raid-level non-player enemies to the battlefield.

 

Rancor matriarchs/patriarchs would be present in the rancor breeding grounds and classified as world bosses with exceptional loot drops, and the nightsister matriarch would be in the nightsister stronghold as a world boss with exceptional loot drops.

 

 

 

3. Blockade Runner

 

This would be a new space mission that up to 16 players in an operations group could queue for on either the republic or imperial fleets.

 

Backstory:

 

Your faction's ship - either a republic battlecruiser or an imperial dreadnaught - is tasked with bypassing an enemy blockade in order to deliver supplies to the blockaded world.

 

Mechanics:

 

When the mission begins, players will find themselves in the interior of their dreadnaught or battlecruiser. Numerous interactable objects are located around the ship's interior, and there are three decks total, linked by an elevator:

 

Deck 1: Command Deck

-Contains 6 Defense Consoles that players can use to enter a 'turret view' for a specific defense turret on the ship's hull. Using these defense consoles, a player can shoot down incoming enemy fighters, bombers, shuttles, and attack ships.

-Contains 2 Attack Consoles that players can use to enter a 'turret view' for larger, more powerful weapons batteries near the front of the ship. These weapons are able to damage the turrets, shield generators, and other systems on enemy warships. They are also able to destroy any defense platforms, asteroids, or debris that the dreadnaught or battlecruiser may collide with.

-Contains 1 Pilot Console that a player can interact with to control the movement of the ship. Using this console enters a third person view similar to what you see during normal space combat missions. The pilot must keep the dreadnaught or battlecruiser from running into enemy warships, asteroids, defense platforms, and debris which will damage it.

 

Deck 2: Flight Deck

The flight deck contains 4 vehicles that players can pilot. Entering a vehicle renders it unavailable for other players in the group to use (it disappears from the flight deck when in use). Entering a vehicle will cause you to fly a defensive pattern around your dreadnaught or battlecruiser.

Ships:

-2x Imperial or Republic Fighters: Can shoot down enemy fighters, bombers, shuttles, or attack ships.

-2x Imperial or Republic Bombers: Can damage and destroy weapon, shield, and system hardpoints on enemy warships. Can also destroy defense platforms, asteroids, and debris that the dreadnaught or battlecruiser may collide with.

 

Deck 3: Engineering Deck

The engineering deck contains minigame-style puzzles (like the lucas tower from the fabricator fight in karagga's palace, or something similar to the pylons in eternity vault) that players can solve to boost the dreadnaught or battlecruiser's shield or weapon systems. Only one boost can be in effect at a time.

 

 

In addition, any enemy shuttlecraft that are not shot down will board the dreadnaught or battlecruiser, unloading attack troops into the flight deck that the team must deal with.

Edited by Tenacity
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yay, another lets add galaxies to swtor post!

 

no really. there are a ton of very basic problem with your ideas. just randomly throwing world pvp and calling it an answer is foolish. many games have many different kinds (rift for one is entirely like this) and world pvp is dead there. this is before even looking at the very basic problem of faction imbalance. there is a reason illum is being scrapped until such a time as bioware can actively get the problem fixed.

 

besides that, krayt dragons are coming. go look up some info on queen of the sands. they stated before launch that their content updates for atleast the first year were mostly done story wise. beyond that i personally would be very surprised if they didnt have some plan

(even if its not a plan at all) as to what they want to do with different planets, and how they are going to include and address them. bioware is fairly good about giving a good mix and new and old, with new being a specialty because of the sheer amount of freedom they get for development.

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Uh....... The Nightsisters were created around 500 BBY, so that would be quite impossible. But around 40,000 BBY, or before, there was an reptillian species on the planet, and they created some snot er kind of space travel (I think).
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