A List of Ideas Moving Forward

Saerith · April 19, 2012

I've updated this post's introduction since it's now 1.3 and my 1.2 thoughts no longer apply. Anyway, here are my ideas for improving the entire SWTOR experience (warning: I have added a lot over the past few months):

1. Allow us to queue with 8 man premades for warzones. I don't even care about ranked warzones at the moment. Many quality PVPers are just sick and tired of playing with 4 random players. When half your team is an unknown variable, there will be many games when you just can't win because there's only player who just drags your entire team down. *Ranked warzones were added in 1.3

2. Fix Ilum and/or give us a new world PVP zone. Honestly, something as simple as Warhammer: Online's PVP zones would work fantastic. Two big keeps in the zone (they're already there as the Republic and Imperial bases), and a bunch of little objectives strewn throughout. Put some NPC guards at the objectives, a lot more at the keeps, add in some siege weapons, and you have a very basic but still fun PVP zone. Even if it weren't the BEST incarnation of that type of PVP gameplay, a passable zone would be better than nothing, and it'd help us hold out until you design something new and innovative.

3. Make PVP one of SWTOR's focuses. I know it's not what you set out to do, but players really latched onto SWTOR's PVP and made it one of the game's major features. Communicate with players about what they'd most like to see in PVP and then implement those features in future patches. One of GW2's early selling points is its World v World v World PVP. I don't expect anything so extravagant or huge as that, but quite frankly the PVP community needs a lot more than it has with SWTOR right now.

I know I'm on a PVP binge right now, and I'm about done - I promise. Other than that, continue releasing new warzones on a regular basis, and even consider putting them out in between major patches to spike interest during otherwise slow times.

4. Cross-server queues, server merges, and free character transfers. This is pretty self-explanatory. One of the biggest problems with this game right now is how difficult it is for solo players to get into flashpoints, heroic missions, and other content. Also, players on low population servers simply can't get into warzones much of the time. Consolidate the player base, and players will stop quitting the game simply because they can't find anyone to play the game with. This is probably the easiest way to stop bleeding subscriptions.

5. Keep releasing new operations, flashpoints, warzones, and even planets. Don't make us wait until the first paid expansion pack to release new planets. Ideally, we should get a new planet every other major patch (every 4 months), but every 3 patches (6 months) would probably work just as well. Every patch needs a new operation, flashpoint, and warzone, but you can cycle warzones in and out every month or so to keep PVP varied.

6. More events, more lore, and more voice acting. Some players scoff at the amount of voice acting. Some just smash space bar. The fact is that the game's extensive voice acting sold this game to hundreds of thousands of players who would have otherwise continued playing single player RPGs. I'm hardly casual, and I loved the voice acting. Also, explore the rich and wonderful Star Wars galaxy, and learn more of what happened in the centuries between KotOR and TOR.

7. Expand the legacy system. Bind-to-legacy craftable items. Legacy driven storylines. Want to live out Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader? Allow players to confront their parents, children, siblings, allies, and enemies. Let us kill off companions. Implement something like Mass Effect 3's "Promote Character" option in multiplayer. Get a character up to level 50, and allow you to make that character another character's companion.

8. More superweapons. Need I say more? The Star Wars expanded universe is rife with things that can blow up all existence. We kind of maybe perhaps sort of get to see some superweapons in TOR, but most of the time it's "off screen" and doesn't carry a fraction of the weight of, let's say, seeing the Death Star in action for the first time. Remember the JK class story when you have to defuse the Tatooine "superweapon" that causes the ground to rumble? Yawn. Show us the machine in action. Show us something getting blown up. Give us some reason to care other than some character telling us we should worry.

9. Actual customizable ships and better space combat. I'm not talking about adding a better shield generator or armor plating. I'm talking about ship color, shape, size, type of armaments, everything. Think about the possibilities for space combat. A 24v24 PVP scenario with fully controllable fighters as two capital ships face off against one another. Players can land in the opposing ship's docking bay and try to make their way inside, fighting past NPC guards and other players alike to download intel, plant a bomb, rescue a prisoner, etc. The other team tries to complete their own objectives. Teams would have to divide their forces between defending their own ship, achieving space superiority in their fighters, crippling the other ship's defenses, and completing objectives on the enemy ship.

10. Mini-games. Pazaak, dejarik, and swoop/speeder racing to name a few. Give us gambling on Nar Shaddaa.

11. Jar Jar Binks kill simulator for your ship. Play a game on your ship's computer to fantasize about invading Naboo and committing genocide against the gungans. Want 10 million subs for your game, Bioware? That's how you do it.

Other MMOs start from scratch to develop their IP. Even WoW's, LotRO's, and Warhammer's IPs paled in comparison to the wealth of books, movies, shows, comics, and other games existing in the Star Wars extended universe. Star Trek Online was the only other game with a similarly sized IP, but they lacked the raw manpower to get the job done properly. That's a problem you, Bioware, don't have. Pour money, time, and everything else you've got into this game, and you'll turn a pretty good Star Wars game into the best one ever developed.

Added on 4/24:

1. Legacy storage. Give us three additional storage bays shared by all characters at legacy levels 10, 30, and 50, purchasable for 1 million, 3 million, and 10 million credits (or some other amount). There needs to be an easier way to share materials, schematics, and other items than simply mailing items. I don't want to have to log into my main first just so I can pull out archaeology power crystals on an alt.

2. Legacy codex. Yeah, the codex isn't vital by any means, but I just know it's going to frustrate me to have missing entries. Keep the current codex as is as your own personal journal of sorts, and then offer a legacy codex upgrade for 500,000 credits. A computer terminal on your ship will have every codex entry from every character on your server. Lore junkies and completionists unite!

3. Cosmetic mods. Every item (and I mean every item) gets a cosmetic mod compatible with all like pieces of armor or weapons. Like the look from a crappy green chest piece? Just take the cosmetic mod out of it. I'd even expand this system to ignore light, medium, and heavy armor requirements. While my light armor maybe protects me as well as toilet paper, I can at least dress up as a beefy knight.

4. More "popular" planets from the Star Wars expanded universe. Corellia, Taris, Korriban, Hoth, Tatooine, and the others were great to explore, but now it's time for Bothawui, Mon Cala, Kuat, Bespin, etc. What does Manaan look like now? What about Malachor V? Dantooine? All planets we saw in the first two KotORs. I'd really love to revisit them.

5. Player-made cantina band music/groups. This one gets its inspiration from LotRO where you can play music in game and even coordinate music across multiple people. Just create a folder in the SWTOR directory where players can upload their music files (maybe MIDIs - LotRO used the text based .abc format, and some of those player created songs sounded great on a variety of instruments).

Speaking of music...

6. Unlock the complete SWTOR soundtrack for your ship. This one would be REALLY easy to implement. The basic ship controls could be another legacy unlock, but you have to play through different parts of the game to unlock different songs. Want to unlock each class's theme? Play through that class's entire storyline.

7. Mounted combat. Not exactly a revolutionary idea, but I still think that mounted combat could be extremely fun in SWTOR. Imagine a two-person speeder: one player drives while the other operates a turret. We could also have a PVP warzone where players zip around in speeders and others operate slower moving but powerful walker vehicles. Other players could operate stationary turrets. This is just a rough idea, but you guys could have a lot of fun designing it given the huge variety of vehicles in the Star Wars universe. Battle of Hoth, anyone?

I'm probably dreaming, but I'll spit out the next idea anyway:

8. Holovid game player on your ship. This is another huge legacy unlock, and it would require a substantial investment on your part, and it's probably not "worth it," but it would be SO AWESOME. Basically, you recreate KotOR and KotOR 2 inside the SWTOR engine. Most of the voice acting is already there (you'd just need somebody to do, spoiler alert, Revan's and the Exile's voice acting). This could be done under the guise of some kind of "historical simulation." I have to admit that it's a bit of a pipe dream to imagine that you'd completely port over those games. However, what's more feasible is taking out select scenes in a 2-3 hour mini-game "documentary" where you can relive major scenes such as abandoning the Endar Spire, rescuing Bastila, piecing together the Star Forge's location, and confronting Darth Malak, and that's just for the first KotOR.

You could even make it a trilogy: KotOR is episode I, KotOR 2 is episode II, and everything that happened in between KotOR 2 and SWTOR is episode III, and I envision each would take no more than a few hours to play through.

9. Less repetitive environments. Ship and cave environments are bland, uninspiring, and sadly forgettable. SWTOR has some really great and unique locations, like Tatooine, Taris, and Quesh. Unfortunately, those planets (which SWTOR does very well) are broken up by "oh, great, another identical space station." Unique environments > copied environments, and that's all I have to say about that.

10. More dynamic environments and encounters. This last one's a bit more difficult to quantify. I've heard from several people that the worlds feel sort of "dead." The NPCs generally just sit around. For starters, every NPC should feel purposeful. I'm not saying it's an easy task, but I'd at least like to see random guards doing something right before I show them the Jedi Way (these guards are standing between me and a data terminal? Death to everyone!). Have them talk to one another, maybe clean their blaster barrels because they're bored. More should be strolling along, making the evening rounds. Shop owners should be eating a sandwich over lunch break or calling out their wares. Don't allow SWTOR to continue to be an MMO populated by mannequin NPCs. Put a bit more attention into the game's tinier details.

11. Quests you can actually fail. I'm not talking about your bread and butter "retrieve this datapad from this bunker" mission. I'm thinking more along the lines of "save these refugees from slavers in a time limit," and if you fail, away they go. Alignment decisions should be based on effort, not results. Right now, you only get a conversation choice to save the refugees, abandon them, or maybe blackmail the slavers for a cut of the profit. I'd like more scenarios where you can actually be fighting your way to the bunker's dungeon, but you run out of time and the refugees are carted away, forever out of your reach. Maybe you didn't solve a puzzle in time. Maybe you skipped a room with an officer in it, an officer who carried a card key required to access the prison. Maybe you kill one too many guards when you were really just trying to sneak around, and the whole base is alerted now. The options are endless, and it would really spice up questing in this game.

Added on 4/25:

1. The ability to interact with your pets. Why can't I pick up my tauntaun and tickle him or play fetch with my rakling? Also, please put in the ability to rename pets. I don't want "Pale Rakling." I want "Sir Charles the Face Eater."

2. Companions who do stuff. This is another no brainer. Every single time I go onto my ship, there's C2-N2, who tells me about putting some nice aroma into the ship's air or changing out the seat cushions. I never see him do any of that. I want C2-N2 to move around and do some of those things. Have the companions move around, play a game of dejarik with one another, watch a holovid, and actually work on maintaining the ship. This is the easiest way to make your ship feel more alive. Right now it feels static and dead.

On that note:

3. Customizable ship interiors. I already made a suggestion about customizable ships, but I was really only talking about exterior options. Since we can theoretically "live" on our ships, we need to see some basic necessities. Right now, my sage's ship doesn't have any cooking area or bathroom that I can see. There are some unmarked doors that I'm guessing lead to those rooms, but I'd like to see what doors lead to when I mouse over them, much like my unused escape pod.

Here's what we should be able to purchase for our ships (warning: this is completely fluff I'm talking about here):

a. Personalized objects for our bedroom. I always envisioned something that looked more like Shephard's quarters on the Normandy. On my Defender, I get an uncomfortable looking bed, a really weird looking dresser / shelving unit, and a little Jedi meditation shrine looking area with empty pots (I couldn't even get live plants in there?). How about a genuine dresser, desk with functional computer (maybe where my legacy codex terminal is?), and some live plants in those empty pots. Also, if I marry somebody, I should get the ability to put their picture on my desk, alt, companion, or other player (if they agree to it). Also, some wall pictures would make my bedroom feel more homely.

b. A med room with more medical equipment than a simple cot. I'm thinking a medical droid and some hospital looking equipment will do the trick.

c. The defender's upper storage room (where the cargo hold is) feels incredibly empty. How about two more containers (legacy cargo hold and guild cargo hold)?

d. Lower storage/crafting room: Right now, there are just a bunch of crates and some weird futuristic loom looking device where your companions craft if they're out on crew missions. I think this room would be perfect for storing a speeder or two.

Disclaimer: I've bought none of the legacy ship upgrades, so I can't say with absolute certitude how they appear on my ship. However, I can guess well enough that they don't take up that much room, and even with all the upgrades, I'm sure my ship would still look pretty empty inside. I guess I really just want the option to make my ship a busier place overall.

4. More companion based content. Why not have 4v4 or 8v8 PVP warzones where you can actually pull out your companion? How about flashpoints or operations where your companions can help out? Also, you could have sets of companion-only gear (which might actually make presence a worthwhile stat in their gear since it would be similar to expertise for players).

5. Spread out CC skills more. This is more of a general complaint many people have about SWTOR PVP, and I can't say that I entirely blame them. The resolve system works as designed, but that doesn't mean it was designed very well. Think about all of the CC in the game right now (knockbacks, stuns, slows, mezzes, roots, pulls, pushes, and I'd even argue interrupts as a sage healer). I think a way to mitigate the overbearing amount of CC in the game would be to make more CC part of your skill tree. Sages, for example, could split up Rescue, Force Wave, and Force Stun into our Seer, Telekinetics, and Balance trees respectively (and that's just one possible scenario of many). Sentinels could split up their slow, force choke, and awe. My sentiment is that less CC provides a more fun and entertaining experience.

6. The greatly desired night-day cycle. This is one I've seen lots of other people post, and I'm stealing it here for my own list. It's not something that really bothered me while leveling up, but the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see it in game. Think about Kaon Under Siege. It was genuinely spooky the first time I played that flashpoint, and half of its atmosphere came from its nighttime setting. A night-day cycle would only enrich the game's setting and atmosphere.

Added on 7/5:

1. Pet Cosmetics. This could be a great way to add atmosphere to the game while providing humorous homages to other IPs - think a fedora and coiled whip for a tauntaun (Indiana Jones), various Halloween outfits, etc. Pets are cosmetic, but that doesn't mean some employee at Bioware can't stay up long into the night designing all manner of silly pet costumes.

2. Multi-use Medpacs and Adrenals. With 1.3, I don't believe there's any reason to stay synthweaving, armormech, or any of the other crafting professions. Nothing is BOP. Nothing requires synthweaving to equip. Biochem, however, still has really nice reusable medpacs, stims, and adrenals, but they're BOP so others can't use them. For the vast majority of players, stims are fine because they last two hours, but medpacs and adrenals are a bit too expensive as we may potentially pop them every few minutes.

Here are a few ways to balance crafting professions:

a. (my preferred solution): multi-use medpacs and adrenals. Greens could provide 5 uses and blues 10 uses or some variation thereof. They could be less powerful than exotech or rakata consumables.

b. (equally viable solution): multiple consumables per crafting mission. Three consumables per crafting mission would allow crafters to pump out reasonably priced medpacs and adrenals, and more players would start using them more often. This would actually be a boon to biochem crafters - lower the price to expand the market.

c. Give other crafting professions BOP and bound-to-profession items. Want the best belt and bracers in the game? Sorry, you have to be a synthweaver. Artificers could make best-in-game and unique lightsaber crystals. If this were the case, there would be a genuine incentive to pick up a crafting profession on your main besides biochem.

3. Random Faction Huttball. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but I'll reiterate this point. The announcer at the beginning of each match says the teams were picked "completely at random." As that stands, I should expect to get thrown into a game playing beside players whom I would normally consider my enemies.

4. Ship Training Room. I like the ship training dummies, but I'd like to one up that idea by implementing ship training rooms. Inside, players could easily test out new specs and skill rotations by changing their skill trees around for free. Once they step outside the ship training room, their specs revert back to whatever they were before they activated the training room.

5. Vehicle Garage/Showcase. Maybe this would only work with guild capital ships due to size constraints, but players (or guilds) should be able to showcase exotic and difficult to earn vehicles. Also, guilds could turn on the shiny by getting custom paint jobs on those same vehicles with an in-game vehicle color scheme editor.

6. Ability to disable XP on equal or lower level quests and mobs. I almost consider this a must have feature, and it's a problem that's bothered me throughout multiple MMOs. If I want to play ALL the content on a character, I inevitably find myself way over-leveled after a few zones or planets. If Bioware could provide us the option to simply disable XP gains for content that's on level or lower, we could continue to enjoy the game at the same difficulty while experience every single planet, mission, conversation, etc. that this game has to offer.

7. Different name change priority during server transfers. Okay, I lost both my two most played characters' names when I transferred servers, and I'm reasonably bummed out about the situation. My main character has, by this point, over 50 days of play time. My second most played character is also level 50. Sadly, their names were taken by a level 37 and a level 1, respectively. Clearly, this is a great injustice because I had the misfortune of rolling on the twentieth (or so) most populated server in North America, which I might add was determined by Bioware during the early guild access back in December.

Yes, this is just a retrospective look back on how I would have handled the situation differently, but here we go. Here are the players I would have given priority during naming disputes (you'll notice being first on the server is not up there):

a. Pre-order players: these players came first, and they're the most loyal players in the game.

b. Playtime: if I have 50 days of playtime, and somebody has 50 minutes of playtime, I think I should get priority for my name.

Added on 7/6:

1. Guild Capital Ships. If player ships are our homes, then capital ships should be our guild homes. They should also serve as a base of operations for the guild, including all of the standard amenities (rest areas, GTN, player & guild cargo holds, repair droids, vendors, PVP mission terminal, etc.). In fact, I'd make all upgrades purchasable. Such upgrades could only be bought through the guild bank (which would promote the guild tithe & tax rates farther down this list). Such upgrades could also require guild legacy ranks, another idea presented below.

However, the idea isn't just to make another Republic or Imperial Fleet for guildies to hang out in. You could do so much more with capital ships. Add in a tiny huttball arena (or similar sport) that guilds could set up and play among themselves, PVP arenas (1v1, 2v2, etc.), more social opportunities (pazaak comes to mind, though I'd also include cantinas for sure). For other cosmetic/social upgrades, I've already come up with the vehicle garage, but I'm sure you guys could come up with so many more.

When a guild is ready, they could customize their capital ship with different turbolasers and shields, fill it with different NPC guards and fighters, and venture into some really sick hybrid space/ground missions (both PVP and PVE). I've already lined out the basics, but picture this scenario for a 16v16 PVP match: in space, 4 players in fighters on each team try to escort their own ships while defending against enemy bombers and transports. 2 bombers get close enough to disable enemy armaments. The transports come in once the shields are temporarily down and unload an 8 man squad into the enemy capital ship to plant bombs or retrieve data. For a PVE operation, I'd bump up the numbers to 24 for an even more intensive experience. There's literally so much you could do with this idea - I'd really just take it and run with it.

2. Guild Bank Tithe/Tax Rates. To build up the guild bank, guild leaders could choose to tax their members to take a small cut of whatever their members earn while looting. For charitable members, they could voluntarily give a cut out of each looted corpse, security chest, etc. It's just a basic feature to enhance the guild experience.

3. Guild Legacy How many times have I watched a video where James Ohlen's telling me that the legacy system is designed so players can live out their individual Star Wars fantasy? Well, what about guilds? Why can't we have whatever we get for players (individualized story lines and legacy perks) but for guilds? It's just a rough idea, but maybe some guild will become the next Havoc Squadron.

4. More Conversation Options & Branching in Operations. Okay, the game's entire philosophy is to allow players to make choices to influence their stories. That is SWTOR's single largest premise as a unique MMO. Once you get to operations, there is absolutely NONE of that. What gives? There's some in flashpoints (there needs to be more, to be honest, but at least there's some), but in operations, it is completely dialogue option free.

5. The ability to mark items as trash in the field. This idea made more sense back before repair droid character perks came out, but it might still have uses, especially for those of us who never seem to have much money. Allow to bind some keys so we can mark non trash items as trash and send our companions off to sell them.

6. Slightly flashier spells. I personally don't care, but I know others do, so I'll just go ahead and speak for them. I mainly play a sage, but I have to say all of my skills appear pretty underwhelming. Disturbance is the least so because it looks like it has some "oomph!" factor to it... but let's look at our other skills. Telekinetic throw looks like I'm shooting ping pong ball sized rocks at somebody (not that threatening). My dots are nothing more than a quick wave of the hand. Even project is pretty lame now. Before, it was all "holy crap, I'm throwing this random toilet at somebody!" With the new animation, it's over before I even realize it.

7. Dual spec with limitations. I'm okay with paying for respecs. However, I'd like to change it so that I can get cheaper respecs, especially if I have two different play styles. On my sage, I enjoy both healing and DPSing, though I was a pure healer for about five and a half months until recently. I'd like for dual spec to cost half the normal price of a respec. It resets each week (sharing a CD with normal respecs) and caps out at 25000 credits a respec, as long as it's one of your two preferred specs.

8. More than 48 quickslots. With all of my basic skills, medpacs, relics, adrenals, and travel abilities, I have no room left for legacy or other PVE specific abilities. There's a reason I never use my heroic moments in PVE - I just can't fit those skills on my quickslots. Also, how about making heroic moments actually useful?

9. Legacy Crafting System. I'm positive I've mentioned this before, but the idea's simple: make bind to legacy item schematics. Your legacy should play an integral part in your SWTOR experience, so why not give us powerful schematics which require synthweaving, biochem, armstech, artifice, armormech, AND cybertech to create and use? For example, only players with numerous crafting alts could create +Forcepower augments or armor sets with unique set bonuses.

10. The Hutt Faction, already! Everyone wants a third faction. I can't see a good reason not to have one. Yes, it would require a great deal of retroactive work (definitely an expansion worthy amount of work), or you could make it so you have to reach the level cap before you receive a mysterious message telling you that the Hutts have become very interested in your accomplishments and would like to hire your services.

11. Crafting Material Specific Cargo Hold Bay. Just like how mission items have their own tab, give us a tab just for crafting materials from bioanalysis, archaeology, etc. It would help many of us organize and keep our bags orderly.

If I conjure up any more ideas, I'll be sure to add them to this list.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Saerith

Narfirill · April 23, 2012

o yea... this should be the future....

Saerith · April 24, 2012

I've had a few more ideas that would work great in this game, at least by my own estimation. Some of them are pretty major, but some are fairly minor (but somebody out there will still make use of them):