Feedback request from James Ohlen - In-game events

[Stenrik]

I have never seen anyone (that wants actualy feedback) ask a question in the form of ''why was it fun''. Clearly, you are only looking for positive feedback and will shut out any negative feedback, so this is probably a waste of time, but...

 

I disliked that the event was mandatory : everyone on the fleet got the disease, coughed and coughed, sometimes logged on while being death and had to fight through 2 NPCs to get tto their ship. Next time, make it non-mandatory.

 

I actually like that it was mandatory. Because real life plagues are mandatory too... I mean, it's a PLAGUE. There should be something negative or inconvenient about it. If everyone was perfectly happy with being infected, it wouldn't feel like a crisis much, would it? As long as the positives outweigh the negatives, it's good in my book.

[DarkwingDK]

Good event. Nice to see something different than just the normal game.

 

Likes:

• No warning. Made it feel like it really was an emergency happening.
  
• The rewards. While I didn't really care to get any of them myself (already have +41 crystals and don't care about pets) it was good rewards.
  

 

Dislikes:

• I got tired of the constant announcements on the fleet pretty quickly. It would have been nice with some sort of "yeah yeah I get it, now turn it off" option, so you didn't have to hear it all the time.
  
• PvP flagging on PvE servers. I found it really annoying that a member of the opposite faction being flagged for PvP could flag you by exploding and infecting you. Fine on a PvP server, not ok on a PvE server.
  
• Vaccine not lasting through death. While I as a level 50 player could easily afford several vaccines it must have been hell for low level players.
  
• Removal of the DNA vendor when the even ended. Should have left the vendor in for a couple of days longer so people had a chance to spend their last samples.
  
• Daily quest chain unlocks. People that got into the event late had little chance to finish it all.
  

 

Future events?:

Anything but rakghouls

Maybe do an event of some sort if you are going to introduce new species? Using the event to introduce them and let people play the species after the event has ended? This could also be used to introduce other things into the game. Events are fun.

Maybe a future event on some space-station/capital ship(s) instead of one of the existing planets/stations? Or on a remote planet other than whats currently in the game? Or a special instance of one of the existing planets (to be able to set up special stuff that wont affect the normal gameplay, like going to one of the opposite factions planets or even fleet)?

[Implord]

I actually like that it was mandatory. Because real life plagues are mandatory too... I mean, it's a PLAGUE. There should be something negative or inconvenient about it. If everyone was perfectly happy with being infected, it wouldn't feel like a crisis much, would it? As long as the positives outweigh the negatives, it's good in my book.

 

In that case, if we're going for realism, the Fleet should have been entirely free of the plague because nobody would ever have been able to dock without getting shot down by NPC troopers and other players. It would also have been nice to allow players to cure other infected players, perhaps? Or would that be griefing in the same manner as forcibly infecting others?

 

My personal good points for this event:

 

• The surprise of it happening, without prior announcement. Excellent.
  
• New stuff to do.
  
• Scalable quests.
  

Bad points:

 

• Reminded me of the zombie plague in WoW. (There are no new ideas in the world...)
  
• Forced PvP flagging by infected flagged players. It's past time we had a proper, permanent no-PvP flag please.
  
• Fleet announcements were too frequent and intrusive.
  
• Vaccine should have been free ideally and persist through death. Republic heroes who have been through the questline on Taris ought to have been immune anyway, surely?
  
• Social Light Armor yet again.
  
• Random companion skins would have made more sense if they took the buyer's class into account maybe, but in general it's probably best to let the player choose.
  
• RP immersion is kind of broken by Rakghoul pets, but so are Rakghoul companion skins and heck, what sane person goes and gets infected on purpose? The entire event requires in-game suspension of disbelief due to the mechanics, really.
  

Edited April 26, 2012 by Implord

[flumpet]

I thought this event was awesome.

 

I really liked the news-terminal format. I felt like that was a cool way of getting news of the event out to the players, and would like to see that used again going forward.

 

I also enjoyed that the event brought us back to a planet those of us at 50 hadn't been to in a while. Additionally, the way the quests/enemies scaled levels to the player was excellent, it didn't feel like a waste for my level 50, yet my level 30 toon could also participate.

 

In future events, I'd like to see:

1.) Less of the "you must complete daily A one day before daily B becomes available". This makes it difficult for folks to get involved if they have a busy schedule and only a little time to devote to SWTOR. Less participation is bad.

2.) The trade-in vendor remaining available after the end of the event. I felt you guys were more than clear in when the event would end, but it apparently came as a surprise to some folks. This is a pretty minor change with a decent positive effect

3.) More planets. I'd like to see an event that crosses multiple planets and feels like a true galaxy-spanning crisis.

4.) More focus on the war. I think it'd be awesome to run an event where the Sith invade planet X, or the Republic rescues planet Y. It'd require different quests for each faction, but I think it'd definitely be worth it, and focus on the core of Star Wars.

5.) Branching dailies. The dailies were cool. They'd be cooler if different decisions led to different dailies with the same rewards, so I could change things up each successive run-through.

[Bazzoong]

Awesome event all in all, especially with the progressing quests.

 

Finding the all the wreckage without help was as hardcore as it gets.

 

Let the plague spread to other planets on a regular basis, please. I humbly suggest Hoth next.

 

 

Only point of critique I can make is: Why did this event not involve Dr. Lokin (he is, arguably, the most important authority on the plague in the galaxy). Not even affection gain by testing the new virus strain on the sand people this seems a bit neglecting the story.

[tkinnunzero]

There was lots of design problems with this event but all in all it was more fun than not and a good first try.

 

Specifically:

• Tying an intrusive gameplay element too tightly to the rest of the event can force you to cut the event short, as I suspect happened in this case, if you haven't planned for the possibility of having misjudged the level of the intrusiveness.
  
• Having new quests open up each day is a good idea, having to log in to unlock quests every day or else falling behind while on a very tight time schedule is a VERY BAD idea. I suspect this is a tech limitation and you can't turn on quests without server downtime, so you should work on that.
  
• Having to follow hints, click random objects and track cryptic buffs just to start a quest is EverQuest 1-era quest design. It has absolutely no place in a modern MMO. Luckily good guides appeared on the web pretty soon, but you should consider every instance of a player looking up something on the web as a failure of game design.
  
• The time for doing the quests on Tatooine was way too short. For the amount of quests to unlock I'd say you need a minimum 2 weeks, preferably 3.
  
• The event wasn't very casual-friendly. You should be able to collect everything that doesn't require luck just by playing on weekends.
  
• I missed one piece of the event gear set even though I played everyday. This left me with a bitter taste of the event.
  

[Rayla_Felana]

A war event, where Open-world PvP is highly encouraged and real prizes just like warzones, are put in to even higher degrees, and ignore the lose/win nothing/reward system as well, as it would be asinine in an Open world scenario.

 

It would be very helpful in determining how open-world PvP could and would run in this if it was viable.

 

It would please those asking for open-world and it would be another beta test for you.

[Undr]

My number one complaint with this event was how the companion customizations were handled. I spent just over 1000 DNA samples and couldn't get my companion's customization. I did, however, get 11 Corso Riggs and 8 Kira Carsen's...please don't use the RNG system for an event like this again...ever.

 

Other than that the event was amazing and I had a lot of fun with its various aspects.

[Lodau]

As a lv 50 Trooper/Commando.

Likes:

 

- Actually seeing and interacting with the opposite faction outside of PVP arenas for a change

- People getting together to figure stuff out.

- Rewards, fun items, not too expensive for casual gamers.

- The ability to collect DNA rewards outside of quests.

- That DNA and some rewards are tradable.

- Travel all over the planet. A planet I hadnt visited in a while.

- Newsitems to build atmosphere.

- Quests in bite-sized chunks.

-Mobs/quests scaled to your level.

-Jawas with unlimited healing power ;-)

 

Improvements:

- Remove the gated quest-unlocks. Let us do them all in 1 day if we have the time. Let them stay repeatable. That was my biggest concern with the event.

- Improve the World-boss's respawn timers (so they spawn faster) or totally not soloable. (Instancing maybe, although that may take away the sense of achievement)

- Have content for the lower level players (My BH missed out)

[ssgrif]

I found that the most important aspect of the rakghoul world event is that it mixed both factions together. apart from this event both factions are almost completely separated geographically due to the questline pathways etc.

 

More events that force the 2 factions to cross paths can only be a good thing, regardless on whether you're on a pvp or pve server.

[Duckfather]

All in all, I enjoyed it. The only major downside as far as I was concerned was the 'enforced' PvP flagging. I play on a PvE server as I don't play and have no interest in PvP. This PvP flagging at the Stardream wreckage made things tantamount to griefing. I was taken out a few times by groups of people just waiting for you to get flagged so they could gank you. There also seemed to be stealthed PvP flagged guys sneaking into your AoE attacks in order to flag you. Not cool

[Kolreth]

Loved the event, loved that it was unannounced. The plague effect was fun, and getting together with randoms to kill the world bosses was mostly fun.

 

The randomness of the comp customisations was not though, they should have been tradeable. The world bosses should have spawned a little faster as well. The next event should be larger, maybe a few weeks long, each week it gets bigger, timed or with different mechanics for triggering the next stage.

[VhaeraunSch]

event was realy perfect

in future maybe you added more event with invasion to outpost, when people need defent those outpost

[ColsonJade]

I liked the concept of the plaque but I found it very annoying.

[Screaming_Ziva]

Hello everyone! James Ohlen, Game Director for Star Wars: The Old Republic, is looking for your feedback on the game's development once again. This week, with the Rakghoul Plague finally contained, he's looking for feedback on in-game events.

The plague is NOT contained. There are still plenty of characters infected that are still infecting other characters.

 

My suggestion would be that when an event ends, actually make it end. Run a script to remove the plague from every character when they log in.

[Screaming_Ziva]

More events that force the 2 factions to cross paths can only be a good thing, regardless on whether you're on a pvp or pve server.

As long as you can't be unintentionally flagged for PvP on PvE server, this would be fine.

[Vorgrumm]

I absolutely loved everything about the event except for one thing: the randomness and binding on companion customizations.

 

I participated every day of the event, and at the end of it had managed to buy 8 boxes for customizations (on a low-pop server, so getting more through infecting people is difficult at best). However, I only had five customizations; three were duplicates of others, and they were all for classes I don't/didn't play (since then I've created a bounty hunter). Since my main toons are a Smuggler and a Sith Warrior (neither of which I got customizations for) I was a little frustrated, and the fact that they're bound only adds to that.

 

I plan on playing each class through, but I'm not going to make multiples of classes, and that means that the duplicate customizations are 100% worthless. Without the ability to trade and/or sell them, or to trade them in for the ones I want, it feels like I spent 60 DNA samples for no gain whatsoever.

 

Of course, with all of that said, I also understand that this was part of the mechanics involved with the event, and so I'm only a little frustrated. I still enjoyed the event, had a blast taking down the three infected bosses (watching a tank get punted into the sarlacc pit was incredibly funny).

 

 

Well, I take that back, there was something else that bothered me: the gear is LIGHT armor. I still don't understand why we haven't seen a single suit of medium or heavy social gear, so that those of us who wear medium and heavy armor can wear something different too. Case in point: the Containment Officer set. It looks like heavy armor, why wasn't it?

 

 

Okay, those two minor things aside, great event, eagerly awaiting the next one.

[FatherGrimm]

All in all, I enjoyed it. The only major downside as far as I was concerned was the 'enforced' PvP flagging. I play on a PvE server as I don't play and have no interest in PvP. This PvP flagging at the Stardream wreckage made things tantamount to griefing. I was taken out a few times by groups of people just waiting for you to get flagged so they could gank you. There also seemed to be stealthed PvP flagged guys sneaking into your AoE attacks in order to flag you. Not cool

 

The fact that it's still working-as-intended, as far as Bioware has let us know, is the reason I cancelled my subscription. You just don't do involuntary PvP flagging to players on PvE servers, and then ignore the issue when you're put on notice.

 

I was fine with the game before the event. The 30 day addition was a nice bonus, but I would have stayed anyway. Then Bioware decided to ignore its own server policy and ignore its customers, all for some stupid 1 week event. Not going to support a company that does that.

Edited April 26, 2012 by FatherGrimm

[Obmel]

Pros:

 

1) The fact that it was unannounced! I loved logging on Sunday afternoon and having my guild mates/friends immediately whisper me, "Get to Tat...World Event", followed by a party invite. I was like wow...no boring dailies today.

 

2) I like that it was not limited to lvl 50. Even though my main is a geared 50 Merc, I enjoyed doing these missions again on my 36 Sorc. I got a lvl or 2 out of it and a +41 crystal to use when i hit 50.

 

3) I absolutely loved figuring things out with the people in my guild/server.

 

4) I enjoyed that a new quest unlocked each day to keep the event feeling somewhat fresh each day.

 

5) Unlike some, I thought the timing of the event was perfect...9 days were plenty to collect the DNA and spend them. Anyone crying about not knowing the vendor was going to disappear should stop. Common sense should have told them that it would end on a Tuesday with the maintenance.

 

Cons:

 

1) Even though the event is over, the plague is still around and I'm still collecting 5 DNA when I explode. They are useless now (I think), so just take the plague out of the game. Release an airborne vaccine into the vent system on the fleet to cleanse everyone.

 

2) Super annoyed with social armor being light armor!! Why? Why? Why? Just give the option of choosing light/medium/heavy when you complete the quest. I have a full set cause I thought it looked cool for my BH and my Sorc. It is useless on the BH, and my Sorc is a Twilek, so I can't even see the helm (this is another issue entirely).

 

3) The companion customizations were a joke. It was a cool idea...but why limit it to the human companions? Lazy artists? A rakghoul khem val or blizz would have been cool. Ok, so you made it human only, fine, but what is the point...since human companions wear helmets and you can't see their faces!! Give them the tentacles or green clouds surrounding them as well. And another thing...WHY WERE THEY RANDOM? It would be fine if I could choose a random imperial or republic box...or it randomly chooses from the list of characters I have made...but why did I need to get 2 out of the first 3 that I bought to be Corso Riggs when I don't even play republic?

 

4) If the disease lasted through death....why didn't the vaccine?

 

In conclusion, I thought the event was awesome. The minor problems were not as big a deal as everyone made it out to be. I would LOVE to see a world event like this AT LEAST once a month.

[Tormm]

The event was pretty darn fun on a PvP server and was nice to see this kinda thing. When we first realized there was a world boss in smuggler's den our guild went crazy and we fought the imps out there for probably 4 hours straight trying to get advantage on killing it first. We were like little kids in vent speculating on what kinda of loot it dropped.

 

Then someone posted the loot table on-line and we left right away and never went back because it had nothing of value. I can tell you if that guy would have dropped war hero or anything of value it would have been the most epic event in swtor to date for PvP fans.

[b-morgan]

Overall an excellent event. Only a few small things I would change.

 

• Vaccine should be level based so that lower levels don't have to spend so much.
  
• Vendor should stick around for a while after the event. Perhaps an after the event conversion to credits.
  
• Future events should be designed (and tested) for all levels. Bugs like PvP flagging need to be addressed.
  

Edited April 26, 2012 by b-morgan

[DeltaEkotte]

The seemly constant spamming in the fleet telling players about the travel bans and what not got really old really fast. Its just my personal preference, I think it would have been nice if you recieved a quest after watching the news terminal that said go to tatooine and talk to someone to help stop the outbreak.

[xorcist]

The event was a lot of fun!

Some changes I would make:

1. Have individual Event vendors for each faction to prevent griefing

2. Rather than a random box for companion customization, lay them out so we can buy the ones we want so we don't constantly get multiples of the same one, or get customizations for companions we will never use

3. Increase security at Outposts closest to the event so individuals don't have to deal with opposite faction raid groups killing single players heading in to that flight path.

4. Keep vendor for a limited time after the event closes so those that have left over Event currency have the chance to get some stuff.

5. Clearly state in whatever fashion, when the end of the Event will be, in game to avoid confusion of times and dates. Suggestion: Have a calendar in game to display when said Event is taking place or when it will end. Use a work around for the time being since there is no calendar

 

It was personally unclear to me for the longest time how the questing worked. How to get the quests that were not available to me at that time, yet available to others.

Other than that, it was one of the best Events that took place in any MMO That I've had the pleasure of being part in. Good work!

[JohnScott]

The only major problem I saw with it was all the people that were standing around on the fleet. This event made it harder to find a group because a large amount of people were on the fleet but they weren't doing anything except dying.

 

I wish the devs would have been trying to be this innovative when they were originally designing the game. Voice over is nice and it was a huge undertaking but I don't feel it's a major inovation (just an obvious improvement).

[anstalt]

What I Liked about the Rakghoul Plague:

 

1) Introduction and initial buzz

 

This was amazing. It was sprung on us so no unneccessary build up. The news desks and news reports were excellent, made it feel like it was actually happening and having an impact on the server, rather than just something shoved away in a corner. The initial infection and blowing up was amazing too, seeing those first few people blowing up on fleet was ace.

 

2) Rewards

 

You gave us quest rewards (crimson rakghoul pet), fluff rewards (companion) and endgame rewards (crystals). Thats excellent! Gave everyone a reason to do the event. Coming from lotro where the had tons of events, none of them offered anything but fluff so after the initial look around, that was it, off we go again.

 

3) Crimson Rakghoul Quest

 

Not only was this a nice puzzle to work out initially, but it led you all around tattooine, forcing you to explore areas you normally wouldn't. I really enjoyed figuring out how to get around the Empire side as a republic.

 

What I didn't like about the event:

 

1) It boiled down to just another quest chain.

 

After the initial run through and excitement, the event was basically just another quest chain to grind. Apart from the crimson rakghoul quest, they were all very standard, nothing particularly interesting or fun. No group content or anything. This is the main reason I hardly did anything: it was boring after the first day!

 

2) No competition

 

Star WARS.....Empire vs Republic.....where was it? Granted, on a pvp server im sure you had some nice fights etc on tat, but on a pve server there was none. I know not everyone wants a pvp event, but there are other ways to make the event competitive! In an event, I really want to see proper pub vs imp mentality going on. Doesn't have to be pvp.

 

3) The infection

 

It became too predictable. Whilst I laughed a lot the first few times it happened (in the middle of quests on corellia), after a while it got tedious. I think the exploding timer should have been much much longer and not guarunteed, i.e. you have 50% chance to explode within the next 12 hours, and 50% chance for your immune system to fight off the disease. That would have made the exploding much more unexpected and amusing!

 

Suggestions for the Future:

 

Let me start by saying this event has beaten almost every event LOTRO ever did, not in scale (lotro's events were pretty big...) but definitely in entertainment and involvement. However, it still wasn't for me!

 

1) Public Quests

 

Public Quests in Warhammer Online were amazing! Yes, they failed over time because you could never get groups for them and rewards were fairly rubbish, but at launch these quests were extremely popular and a lot of fun. I would love to see you add some of these quests in during an event. So, soloers could get their stuff from stage one, but stage two onwards requires larger and larger groups. Put in some uncontested PQs for the more casual players, and then put in a contested PQ or two so that imps and pubs can have some healthy competition. As it would only be available during the event you can pretty much guaruntee decent participation. However, I don't think your looting mechanics and group mechanics particularly support this type of event.

 

2) Epic enemies.

 

I didn't see any during this event. The new world bosses were never up when I went to the event. I want to see some scary stuff, a boss or area that actually makes me think twice about entering unprepared. I want to come away from an event impressed by the content and fights, eagerly awaiting the next one. I didn't get that at all from this event.

 

3) Group content.

 

Apart from the world bosses, there was none. I really hate soloing, I find it incredibly boring so normally do stuff with friends. There was nothing for us, the content was easy solo and plain dull in a group. Don't add a new flashpoint or anything like that, your resources are better spent elsewhere, but a new heroic 4 area would have been nice. Again, something WAR did was rotate different scenarios in for events. Perhaps you could do that for the pvp'ers: add a new wz in just for the event?

 

4) Social hub for the event.

 

There was none for this event. Sure, you had a load of people hanging out next to the jawa trainer but there was no sense of community or team-effort in trying to contain the rakghoul plague. Consider adding something like a mobile-command base just for the event, which acts as the hub for quests but also includes a mailbox, gtn and a small cantina. Turn it in to a mini-hub for the duration of the event, somewhere new to hang out instead of the fleet.

 

5) Something to do after the quests.

 

Whilst the events in lotro were rather dull, occasionally they'd offer a bit of fluff that i'd want. So, I'd go do all the quests, collect my barter items but I could them repeat them as much as I wanted. I'd usually have to wait 5-30minutes between repeat attempts and not all of them were repeatable, but it meant I controlled how fast/slow I collected the items.

 

In the Rakghoul event, I came to tat, did the quests and was then like "Well, what do I do now?". At the very least, you need to put in areas where I can just farm mobs and they have a chance to drop DNA or future equivalent. Have them drop other stuff like rare, event-only schematics etc. Basically, keep people in the event and having fun at their own pace, not a pace determined by you!

 

6) Player-controlled events

 

The best events are ones organised by players. So, give us the tools. For example (from swg...), lets say that in the previous event you'd have allowed us to buy a "base" for 500 DNA samples. Guilds could get together, amass DNA and then buy a base. We can then place that base anywhere, on any map. Doing so provides the guild with 1m credits/hour. However, placing a base signals the other side that the base has been placed. Attacking the base flags you for pvp, defending does likewise. Bases stay up a maximum of 6 hours. Killing a base rewards the attackers with credits (6million - whatever the placing guild has already won).

 

Whilst this is most definitely a pvp event, it encourages guilds to work together and inspires proper realm pride. Pubs can take proper pride in taking down sith bases. Guilds can specifically seek out a rival guilds base to take it down. fun times for all!

 

Another idea for player controlled events is player bounties. Players can allow themselves to be tracked (i.e. volunteering to be hunted). Other players can then pick up their bounties (up to 5 players can get a single persons bounty quest). Flags only those people for pvp against one another. Killing your target gives you rewards. Killing bounty hunters after you gives you rewards (and, the more you kill, the higher your bounty). Would be epic!