Unsubscriber's Thread: Tell us a few things

[Ippotamus]

My second and final subscription is up.

 

I played a Gunslinger Smuggler to the end.

 

1.2 cut this game off at the knees for me. After that patch, PVP became nothing more than feeding the Imps. The weeklies turned into monthlies. The armor I had worked months on getting was worthless. The server turned into a ghost town and what once was fun was fun no more. Since then I've been waiting, hoping that one of these updates would return us to some sense of balance. No dice. Heck, we didn't even get an update last week.

 

Anyways, I'm done waiting, wishing and paying. A ludicrous combination if there ever was one.

 

Tally

Ho.

[_Zhatan_]

I cant agree with you about the AC switching.

 

This is not a respec of talents. its a completely different class really. If you could just change from a Juggernaut to a Mara at will it would be crazy. You could go from tanking to being the best burst dps and pvp mechanics in the game at a click of a mouse.

 

Could you change from a Troll warrior to a troll rogue in wow? This is effectively what you are asking for.

 

You could do it at SWG... just because you can't at WOW, is why is not in this game. 2006 wow is what this dudes are copying.

Freedom of play is something we are loosing. Re-especs must be in everygam , at a cost of course, credits and need to grind new gear.

[MisaMaher]

Stopped playing back in February, canceled already paid for 6M subscription. Being 40yrs old i have played few games before, and i can tell when a game isn't going in right direction. This one clearly isn't worth my time, because:

 

1) Bad overall gaming design: the sheer number of planets. Too many planets without incentive for player to come back. So many beautiful art (EA money) wasted because no one comes to visit it again.

 

2) Bad BAD B A D coding: the loading times, the response, graphics performance, combat fluidity...

 

3) Over killing: Georg Z: "...we have significant data based on player behavior that tells us that people like this and not that...". This kind of science based game design makes the playing it taste like cheap plastic.

 

4) Phasing entire planets (zones) after hundred players have moved in (was like that in January). Doing this in 2012 means VERY bad server design.

 

I can name a lot of other bad things in swtor, but these look irreparable to me and will lead to dead servers. No amount of LFG tools and new shinny content will repopulate servers again. So i will be very surprised if this game stands on its feet again.

 

If i was EA executive in charge, i'd scrap this game now, and reuse its art in creating proper MMO. Keep the writers, art designers and lose coders. And especially lose scientists that collect characters data and analyze it. Hire new coders and make the server engine that works at least like Vanilla WoW (you know with continents of zones like Kalimdor). Make 3 or 4 planets max.

 

Cheers,

Misa

[TheAincient]

Stopped playing back in February, canceled already paid for 6M subscription. Being 40yrs old i have played few games before, and i can tell when a game isn't going in right direction. This one clearly isn't worth my time, because:

 

1) Bad overall gaming design: the sheer number of planets. Too many planets without incentive for player to come back. So many beautiful art (EA money) wasted because no one comes to visit it again.

 

2) Bad BAD B A D coding: the loading times, the response, graphics performance, combat fluidity...

 

3) Over killing: Georg Z: "...we have significant data based on player behavior that tells us that people like this and not that...". This kind of science based game design makes the playing it taste like cheap plastic.

 

4) Phasing entire planets (zones) after hundred players have moved in (was like that in January). Doing this in 2012 means VERY bad server design.

 

I can name a lot of other bad things in swtor, but these look irreparable to me and will lead to dead servers. No amount of LFG tools and new shinny content will repopulate servers again. So i will be very surprised if this game stands on its feet again.

 

If i was EA executive in charge, i'd scrap this game now, and reuse its art in creating proper MMO. Keep the writers, art designers and lose coders. And especially lose scientists that collect characters data and analyze it. Hire new coders and make the server engine that works at least like Vanilla WoW (you know with continents of zones like Kalimdor). Make 3 or 4 planets max.

 

Cheers,

Misa

 

I agree with a lot of that, except I would not keep the artists, this game does not have great art especially the planets, if you want to see great landscapes go check out LOTRO

[erictlewis]

I agree with a lot of that, except I would not keep the artists, this game does not have great art especially the planets, if you want to see great landscapes go check out LOTRO

 

You mean pre-SOM shaddows or murk-wood. The original areas were really great. Something happened during Moria and they must have replaced the entire art team. After Moria it was just felt like plastic cut and paste.

I gave up on that game after it went free to play and they put that big turbine store on everything including the loading screens, despite the fact I had a lifetime sub.

 

I like some of the art with this game. However a lot of it is also cut and paste. Notice how they reused the interior of evry house, evry cave, every spaceport, all of that looks the same. Places like nar shada, coruscant are just so poorly designed it makes you never want to go back there to do anything.

[Eviceus]

1) inability to address low-pop server problem in anything resembling timely fashion

 

2) no server-wide chat channel only aggravating point 1.

 

3) no LFG tool only aggravating point 1.

 

Most of us not lucky to end up on high-pop servers ended up with single player game (with monthly payments) - courtesy of fearful synergy of points 1. 2. and 3.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Eviceus

[Irenicus_Jon]

I had never thought of server-wide chat before, now that you mention it, feels like another glaring flaw in the game.

[uncommonsavior]

Cancelled sub because i'm tired of looking at a dead auction house, planets with no population, long waits for pvp.

 

I love this game but I'll just play Diablo 3 until they begin server transfers/merges as I play MMO's to be part of a community not sit in the Imperial Fleet for 45 minutes waiting for a warzone

 

Unsub Date 05/22/2012

[MisaMaher]

1) ...

Most of us not lucky to end up on high-pop servers ended up with single player game (with monthly payments) ...

It felt like single player game from the day one, and yes, lack of server-wide chat wasn't helping at all. It was so because of the combination of having huge planets and phasing at 100 players. It's like bad game design meets poor server coding.

 

Cheers,

Misa

[Photoshop]

Cancelled sub because i'm tired of looking at a dead auction house, planets with no population, long waits for pvp.

 

I love this game but I'll just play Diablo 3 until they begin server transfers/merges as I play MMO's to be part of a community not sit in the Imperial Fleet for 45 minutes waiting for a warzone

 

Unsub Date 05/22/2012

 

This is the number 1 reason most people left.

 

[BurningChick]

The game's far too linear and scripted to feel alive and vibrant to me. Example: my trooper pisses off Garza in one cutscene for flagrantly violating direct orders. A few minutes later, he's the hero of the galaxy getting a medal. Ditto with his ex, the one he watched getting blowed up real good, showing up in a recent mini-quest talking about old times. Really? Really?

 

The story is like space combat: it's on a rail; nothing you do will alter it.

 

I expected something better, deeper from BioWare.

 

But, no. You can't play a tormented trooper who switches to the Empire because he's become frustrated with the bureaucracy and corruption of the Republic.

 

It's Star Wars: where's the space-based PvP?

 

It's an MMO: why does everything but the fleet seem empty?

 

The game IS good, but it doesn't seem to have anything particularly unique going for it that makes it seem worth my $15 / month.

[Bordeguy]

I really loved this game while it lasted and will remain on my list of greatest mmos I've played.

Things that are killing it for me;

1. SEVERS SERVER SERVERS- Devs listened to all the complainers at release and made a TON of new servers rather than doing their research and realizing man people would leave resulting in health server population. Now they are trying to fix it with transfers that are taking too long and won't solve the issue. By the time they come around my server which rarely sees over 70 people online (BOTH FACTIONS) at peak times. THAT IS NOT AN MMO.

 

2. LACK OF CUSTOMER SERVICE- I get the whole customer service droid thing, It's cute and RP and some people like it, but I feel like I'm actually talking to a droid! That is not the experience I want as a customer. The forums are even worse! It's all copy paste with no real responses or feedback. This is just as bad as the server issue in my book. You can't run a successful game if you ignore the community that pays your developers (who are being laid off) salary. I once reported one of the many Voidstar bugs and when I got a response I had to actually ARGUE with someone from CS about how the mechanics of the warzone function! They knew nothing about it, took stopped responding for several minutes to confirm what I was saying and still ended up telling me I was wrong. At that point i just logged out for the night out of frustration.

 

3. BUGS- Bugs made fun and challenging PvE encounters into bug fighting encounters, and in fact still are. With the current graphics bug in certain encounters that has been known about for MONTHS now (Since PTS even) still not being fixed I'm wondering if it will just be ignored for ever. Not seeing fire in the Karagga fight or all of the missles/lightning in the Firebrand and Stormcaller fight caused many issues and still does. We all know about the Soa issues that were fortunately addressed after a very long wait.

 

4. OVER PROMISING AND NOT DELIVERING- I watched an interview shortly before patch 1.2 went live stating that content was going to be pushed out every month. I expected 1.3 to take 6 weeks at the latest because of this and was met with disappointment when I heard no news of it going up on the PTS until just recently. Also the ranked warzones fiasco that can never be truly healed.

 

5. PvP- The pvp was fun while leveling up, however once the cap was reached so many things went wrong. For instance the game was not released with set brackets, huge mistake. They changed chances of getting gear from champ bags meaning the people who got there first had A HUGE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE. BIG MISTAKE. When it was taking me a whole week to get a single piece of decent pvp gear I completely gave up on the PvP grind. I'm not even going to discuss the non-existent world PvP.

 

Wow this turned in to less of a review and more of an angry rant. I'm just so frustrated with the huge amount of potential this game had that was ruined when EA forced an early release and disregarded the community.

[Plautus]

I just unsubbed, for no reasons you haven't already heard. Operative nerfs, lack of customer service, low server populations without access to remedy (merge/transfer/LFG), and just a general sense that the game developers have no vision. Ilum was like a really concentrated version of the entire game...some terrible flaws on release, followed by kneejerk "fixes" that were poorly thought out, and finally they just gave up. I think EA/BW are going to cut costs but still try to string out subscriptions long enough to recoup their investment, but thats about it. I dont see a grand vison, amd my experiences in-game (including Ilum) suggest that this is par for the course. They tried to ride IP and VO to fame and glory, without much attention to the whole MMO part. Don't get me wrong, I really liked some aspects...companions, basic PVP design (viable tanks, dps capable healers) and WZ maps. It's just not enough to carry all the flaws and short-sightedness. Holding out hope for TSW or GW2.

[-Sev]

UNSUBSCRIBE!!! Rawr!!! HULK SMASH!!!

[Ejied]

One reason why I left was because this game has a very WoW mentality. Light gear for healers, Med for non tanks, and heavy for tanks. I'd like to be able to wear whatever I pick up, and customize it how I'd like it to be.

 

Second, I don't like the fact that for alot of Heroics and raids, you have to have a well balanced group or you fail (1 healer, 1 tank, 2 DPS). If I have 3 helaers and two tanks on at level 50, they can't complete things because they are not DPS heavy. MMOs continue to try to have things balanced. Well guess what, in the real world, especially in combat, you don't always get balance.

[theskurGe]

Supposedly there's a rumor going around that Bioware might implement 'mega servers'. If they can actually bring the massively multiplayer part back to this game, I will reconsider re-subbing.

[Baptes]

Unsubbed they day after they canned their employees. I logged on to Fleet, waited over three hours (during primetime) for PvP queue to pop, started looking at who was online, noticed there weren't even enough 50s to make half a warzone, tried a couple other servers, found the exact same situation, and promptly joined every other living soul that I knew who played the game in unsubbing.

 

Will I be back? Possibly, though I kind of doubt it. I don't see why everyone is reading that one sentence as saying "****!!! SUPER SERVERS ARE COMING!!!!!1111". To me it just reads that they are going to increase capacity on the few "healthy" servers left and still pull the same crap WoW used to with their "Free Transfer". They encourage people on high pop servers to transfer off to servers they want to add to. Very few people are dumb enough to try this more than once because the server they want you on is dying. People abandon (or do as BW hopes and pay them $$ to go somewhere alive) their max level characters that are stuck on those dying servers. Server dies anyway, but BW can claim they tried to fix it.

 

BW, you may not realize this but some of us are MMO veterans who have been playing for close to a decade here. We've seen all the little underhanded tricks you companies like to pull for PR (Or just to be *****. I swear I've played some MMOs where that is the driving force. See just how much you can torment the players until they leave.).

 

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. You're not going to use semantics, PR, or whatever uninventive BS you come up with to solve the huge number of problems you have with your game that drove people away. You actually have to get off your collective asses and do something about those holes in the ship. It's the cumulative effect of so many that are causing people to abandon ship while you stand there in the control room wondering why your unsinkable ship is being left in droves. Must be their hardware. Man those midrange gaming systems just won't handle those old game engines worth a crap anymore, eh?

[bootsakah]

-Too many voice overs and cut scenes (I dont need a cut scene when you're asking me to kill 10 rats).

-Linear quest lines. Pretty much one path thru the game with only some variation (bonus series).

-Load screens, and lots of them. Orbital stations, really?

-Static boring worlds / environments.

-No weather, no day/night cycle. Which lead to boring environments.

-Worlds are just really forgettable, nothing that really stood out and made me go wow, that is beautiful.

-Fleet ship is possibly the worst place to hang out in the game.

-Fact I felt like I was paying to play a beta, especially how so many things were brought up in beta and were put in the game much later or never put in the game at all.

-No end game fun casual things to do, such as achievements.

-Bugs, bugs, bugs, I can't count how many times our Operation group wiped due to some random bug.

-Sound issues created at 1.2 patch, still not acknowledged or fixed.

-No group finder. Which was fine for the first few weeks while lots of people leveled up, after that it was terrible trying to find a group. Also the fact that they are only doing server side only on future group finder.

-Dual spec. How simple would it have been to put dual spec in the game so I can play as a healer and not be gimped while leveling up?

[Obie_Wan]

At this point, even free-form space flight would be a big bleh.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the "super secret" space combat revamp is going to be free-form space flight. Albeit a poorly built one.

 

Do you know how ironic it'll be if they ended up doing the same thing that hack Gordon Walton came to? I'm going to laugh so hard if they lay out the new space combat update and it only slows down the hemorrhaging of players because they didn't bother to fix the rest of the game and then blame the failure of the entire game on that update alone when in actuality it kept niche gamers that would have otherwise unsubbed as well.

 

 

 

I'll also give a reason that other people haven't covered yet.

 

Empire bias. My goodness. Bad enough that Empire side got the best storyline and romance options, but they also have pretty awesome aesthetic designs, take a look at the fleet stations, the difference in atmosphere was startling at release, or the costumes before everyone got a turn being whacked by the ugly stick at end game gear.

 

The PR marketing made the Empire look absolutely bad *** while the Republic got socked like helpless muppets.

 

What's unacceptable is that even the game mechanics ended up favoring the Empire. Bounty Hunter heat system being better than the ammo system. Smuggler's stun used to root the user in order to activate the animation while the IA version didn't, that was at least changed. Inquisitor's shock was instant while the Consular version wasn't made for less viable options that hurt the casual, newbie player the most. Sith Warrior's area mez used to cause people to bend over in pain, but the animation got changed into causing people to fall down on their backs, flailing around like helpless infants. Was such a graphical change even needed when the Empire was already overwhelming popular?

 

SWTOR developers allowed their love for the Empire go wild and it hurt the balance of the game. Any sane person would realize that if you need two to tango, and if you've allowed balance against the Republic to go too far people will leave and then you have nothing to play against which then cause even the Empire players to leave. Any professional developer would've kept their passion for one side off the table and promote both sides equally, but apparently BioWare Austin developers can't keep their love for angst and all that junk in check and devote honest fair effort to make both sides appealing.

 

 

--EDIT: Just one last thing. What happened to strategic PVP? Wasn't one of the things that was going to stand SWTOR PVP apart from WoW to be how fights can be slower so more thought and strategy can be used? Nowadays people are getting gibbed nearly just as fast as in WoW.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Obie_Wan

[Carylethis]

I'll also give a reason that other people haven't covered yet.

 

Empire bias. My goodness. Bad enough that Empire side got the best storyline and romance options, but they also have pretty awesome aesthetic designs, take a look at the fleet stations, the difference in atmosphere was startling at release, or the costumes before everyone got a turn being whacked by the ugly stick at end game gear.

 

You missed a few bias ones... not least that 2, maybe 3 of the earlier space missions have bonuses that are completable for Empire, but not Republic. XP-wise it isn't too imba, 500-1500 extra per day, but having the ability to get 5k+ credits per day from lvl 20 on makes life a whole lot easier as a baby Imp.

[Wayshuba]

The game may had potential and still has some but the problem is that whoever is in charge at BW/EA is either blind or ignorant of the biggest problems the game currently has.

 

They praise and promise ohhh so great features but when they deploy the content its more than disapointing with issues players had reported already during tests on the Testservers.. which is offline anyway most of the time.

 

What we get most of the time is something commonly known as ********-bingo. Marketing catchwords without meanings.

 

 

 

For me it appeared the leveling of the character was to fast till hitting 50. I call myself casual and may only be playing on weekends and maybe some times under the week.

 

Travel to planet X grab a few quest ..complete them head to next questhub do the same again rinse repeat 3xtimes and the planet is done. Where are the questgivers you need to search the place and that gives you some awesome quest/story

all in all mostly planets are netting like 20 to 30 quests per planet.. this is just lame for a universe like Star Wars.

 

Some planets had been even rather pointless at all. Just look at Quesh or Ilum

 

Once you finish a planet you dont need to get back there unless your Alt is reaching the level for that planet.

Or doing the same old dailies over and over again

 

 

The legacy system..where did it really provided some uniqueness to your characters or family tree. Yeah i get the class buff when finishing chapter two...wow...

Afterall it was just a Credit Sink

 

Spacefights consists of recycled missions where only the oponents had been changed you fly them once and get bored.

 

Itemization through Questrewards. Completely a waste of time since you gear up in Orange Stuff and just replace the mods.

 

Armor and Weapons Crafting....apart from orange gear its not usefull afterall. You better got with artifice, cybertech or biochem

 

Speaking of armor..again we see the recycling of designs all over the place. Not to mention the uglyness of many items ... just look at the Columni Headgear for Sith Assasins for example.

 

The game is a resource hog. Running with 4GB of Ram the game sucked up 3.5GB. At least 8GB are required to have some decend performance here. If you are not owner of an SSD or a SATA-Raid system it takes ages for the client to load up the maps.

 

Loading times are so oldschool after all and just make the game less appaling with every travel from one planet to another.

 

I am not going to much into PvP here as i dont played PvP that much after all. I starte to just hate Huttball and Baron Deathmarks announcement after a while. it really gets annoying after the 5th to 6 time

 

 

And then there are the much missed features like:

LFG Tool

Rated WZ

 

most importanlty now

Server Transfers

Server mergers

 

Looking at the server pop right now we had an average of over 100-150 players on fleet but are now down to like 50 and maybe 70 during prime time. Looking at Torstatus it is noticable that the problem gets worse by every week and my guild is dead from formerly 20-30 online . Many of them are personal friends and most of them stopped because the game lacks content.

 

 

 

I'll keep an eye on the game for sure but for now i wait till this game is finaly what had been promised

 

I am probably going to regret saying this, but i am going to. After reading the interview with James Ohlen I can now clearly see the issue.

 

When it is mentioned how the players felt the nerfs hurt their classes to the point of unplayability and his response is along the lines of 'we don't buy it. It is not something we feel is a problem and hasn't been proven to us.' I know where the core issues are coming from and why this game is ultimately doomed. There are too many egos at stake that think they know better than their customers (which for many have more years experience with MMOs than they do). Like it or not, this is what speaks VOLUMES for why this game is clearly going down the tubes.

 

So, they know better than us, and it is the players fault they are leaving the game not ours. Boy haven't we all seen this type of sinking ship before...

[DarthVindictus]

I am probably going to regret saying this, but i am going to. After reading the interview with James Ohlen I can now clearly see the issue.

 

When it is mentioned how the players felt the nerfs hurt their classes to the point of unplayability and his response is along the lines of 'we don't buy it. It is not something we feel is a problem and hasn't been proven to us.' I know where the core issues are coming from and why this game is ultimately doomed. There are too many egos at stake that think they know better than their customers (which for many have more years experience with MMOs than they do). Like it or not, this is what speaks VOLUMES for why this game is clearly going down the tubes.

 

So, they know better than us, and it is the players fault they are leaving the game not ours. Boy haven't we all seen this type of sinking ship before...

 

The nerfs to merc/comm were probably the straws that broke the camel's back for me, as I'd originally leveled a juggernaut but wanted nothing to do with tanking on one after I saw how good powertechs were as tanks comparatively, felt the melee hate at end game, so I rolled ranged class, started a merc, then a good chunk through (level 42), got convinced to go commando on a different server to raid. Just got 50 before the changes went in that nerfed the class. Felt like I'd wasted all of that time and should have made a different class instead, but now I couldn't stomach 90% the same quests I've already done.

[Esquire]

I am probably going to regret saying this, but i am going to. After reading the interview with James Ohlen I can now clearly see the issue.

 

When it is mentioned how the players felt the nerfs hurt their classes to the point of unplayability and his response is along the lines of 'we don't buy it. It is not something we feel is a problem and hasn't been proven to us.' I know where the core issues are coming from and why this game is ultimately doomed. There are too many egos at stake that think they know better than their customers (which for many have more years experience with MMOs than they do). Like it or not, this is what speaks VOLUMES for why this game is clearly going down the tubes.

 

So, they know better than us, and it is the players fault they are leaving the game not ours. Boy haven't we all seen this type of sinking ship before...

 

/cheer

 

I believe you've hit the entire problem with SW:TOR. It's the basic design mentality and/or mindset of the lead developers/producers that is 100% of the problem with subs, the game, what is being added, and what is being taken away (NERFed/CHANGED).

 

Some of these guys had this EXACT SAME mindset over at SWG with the CU and NGE. No need for a roll-back. They were totally right, just ask them, they'll tell you. Instead of protecting the playerbase(s) they had, they were willing to sacrifice each and every one of them to get an elusive playerbase that never showed. And when it cratered? It was marketing's fault. Couldn't be theirs. (Source - Rubenfield blog) And it would seem they're still looking for that elusive playerbase that still hasn't shown up even with a completly new game. They brought this mentality with them from SOE, learned it over there, and never stuck around long enough for even Smedley having to admit and apoligise for his and their mistakes.

 

BioWare/EA let the wrong people go. Instead of the worker bees that were just following orders and doing what they were told, these guys who made the wrong decisions in the 1st place needed to reap the rewards of their so-called sucesses and/or the lack of it. And TOR will suffer further until some1 at the head of BioWare gets smart and does exactly that. Until then? It will just be more of the same. Spin, such as "hey we're going to give you super-servers" as a way of explaining how the server counts go from 200 to 20 or 10. Just like "the NGE is the best thing since sliced bread".

Edited May 25, 2012 by Esquire

[wolverstreets]

Bioware:

 

Encourage People to Level Alts

 

 

 

Make Them Do The Same Quests Over and Over

[-Sev]

UNSUBSCRIBE!!! Rawr!!! HULK SMASH!!!