What's Killing SWTOR?

[Rouge]

the lack of open world. All we do is just hang out on fleet all day.

 

The mentality of a gamer can be fascinating, consctructing barriers even on planets where few exist and then staying on one isolated location instead of going on to those almost totally open worlds.

[Rouge]

1. Why is it ridiculous? Ridiculous is, that you are thinking from your subjective point of view.

Because, there are many people, who burned through the"endgame"-content and stated, that the difficulty level is way to low and is only unwillingly hightened by the plethora of bugs.

2. Normal OPs > Vanilla WoW Raids? Were you even thinking, before you typed this text?

 

Vocal self-described elite raiders whining that they can't experience enough frustration and failure in the end-game doesn't make the end-game easy on any objective standard.

 

Comparing what are raids in SWTOR to raids in it's main competition at the same stage of the competitor's development is quite the right thing to do. Especially as SWTOR was intended to bring a lot of new players to the MMO genre.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Rouge

[Gimixes]

Some of us would rather get bored by playing the game than being bored looking for groups

 

Yeah yeah...till you got all your shiny purple pixels...then what? that what peeps do...queing 24/7.

they got bored when they are fully geared and then say "I'm bored, there is nothing to do"

[Oldgrimm]

Vocal self-described elite raiders whining that they can't experience enough frustration and failure in the end-game doesn't make the end-game easy on any objective standard.

 

I dont consider myself a hardcore gamer and I experienced this myself.

Comparing what are raids in SWTOR to raids in it's main competition at the same stage of the competitor's development is quite the right thing to do. Especially as SWTOR was intended to bring a lot of new players to MMO genre.

 

Dont wiggle around. You stated, that the OPs in SWTOR in normal mode, are more difficult, than the Vanilla WoW Raids.

Please, after this adventurous claim, I have to ask you to elaborate.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Oldgrimm

[Locklynne]

The lack of sufficient and skilled Customer Service is killing this game, Live Agents are needed on servers with skill and the tools to act directly on problems

 

Lack of proper testing of patches is killing this game, I like my friends too much to recommend them from trying this game out at its current state.

 

Lack of players on servers is killing this game, merge the servers now or lose even more players, nothing more depressing than being on IF on a saturday night and see 25-35 players online

 

my 2CW

[Haeso]

...who will play an outdated game?

...WAR? Seriously? This is your argumentation?

 

Using WAR as an argument for anything but what not to do when making an MMO is silly.

 

Why doesn't he compare DAoC and SWG? Or perhaps Vanguard: Saga of Bugs.

 

Because anyone can make deluded comparisons that seem to reaffirm their point while meaning nothing.

 

DAoC was a successful MMO in the pre WoW era, it's number of subscribers is small only compared to recent changes in the genre - if DAoC was released where WAR was, with the core gameplay untouched and graphics/budget considerations added - it would most assuredly be beating SWTOR right now.

 

 

Does the poster you refer to know what league of legends is? Or perhaps understand that at it's heart an FPS is indeed PvP? Competitive gamers aren't some small minority - we're not a little niche. We simply haven't had a proper game made for us in the MMO genre since the upheaval of the genre that came with WoW, the two PvP focused games that have come out in this genre that weren't low budget disasters like Fury or Darkfall are:

 

Warhammer and Guild Wars. Warhammer failed so badly at PvP that for the vast majority of it's existence (A few months after release) the majority of development was invested into PvE and PvP was largely abandoned. It had not taken important lessons from it's fore-father DAoC, it was a debacle. Two factions, RvR lakes that failed to do anything borderlands did right while having all of it's flaws - utter failure.

 

Guild Wars on the other hand was successful, but it did not aim very high and set itself up for a niche success with a limited scope, it did little more than a simple deathmatch and queuing system. And while it did them well for the genre - an MMO simply doesn't compare favorably to an FPS or MOBA for such a simple system, only when it comes to world PvP does an MMO have any real advantages.

 

 

GW2 is more successor to DAoC than WAR was. I don't care for GW2 for various reasons, chiefly among them the resetting WvWvW every two weeks. But they did get the three factions, solid combat and fun sieges down quite well. The resetting however ruins the persistence which is the element I'm most interested in for many reasons. But their world PvP will change this industry for the better once they see how well it works out, the game itself might bomb or not for various reasons, but the WvWvW aside from forgetting persistence is king is fantastic.

Edited May 18, 2012 by LexiCazam
Inappropriate content

[demotivator]

I know variance on opinions on this are extreme, and even agreement whether SW is suffering from subscriptions or not. This is what I have observed: When I'm on various planets like Tatooine or Hoth, there is only 10 people online. In starter areas like DK, the population is 40-60. This is during this week. When I started, I recall 3 instances of the world like DK, with about 100 or so per instance. What is scary is that those I played with got bored, dropped guild, or dropped the game altogether, and these were die hard and totally into the game.

 

The biggest thing that has killed the game for them is the bugs in the end game operations. I'm a casual player, but I recognize the obvious need for fun stuff to do once you hit 50, and if this content has show stopping bugs, then this sort of kills the energy out of the game.

 

What's killing this game is the blatant lies from the dev team over several years.

 

For instance, remember when we were told a couple of years ago how our decision mattered, like how companions could betray you, leave you and so on... in the end these were empty promises. Then you have the system specs which were just a way to get more box sales, the minimum specs are actually way higher than what they announced and there's no way to play this game with such a machine.

 

In the end when you have no respect for your player base, when you don't even try to at least show you care, no wonder that people are leaving.

[Skirata_Kal]

Yeah yeah...till you got all your shiny purple pixels...then what? that what peeps do...queing 24/7.

they got bored when they are fully geared and then say "I'm bored, there is nothing to do"

 

Ever heard of alts? And I can only speak for myself (though I suspect I'm not alone), but I don't play this game 24x7 so I won't be in the queues that long. maybe a couple of hours per night, with an occasional day or week off from work increasing that temporarily...personally, I hope they never concern themselves with someone who plays 24x7. They'll never come up with enough to keep those people happy for long.

[Rouge]

Haeso, you could bother to look my post up, instead of throwing questions to that guy. Edited May 18, 2012 by LexiCazam
IC - reply

[Rouge]

I dont consider myself a hardcore gamer and I experienced this myself.

 

I wonder have you even played the game?

 

Dont wiggle around. You stated, that the OPs in SWTOR in normal mode, are more difficult, than the Vanilla WoW Raids.

Please, after this adventurous claim, I have to ask you to elaborate.

 

Elaborate yourself why SWTOR Operations would not be harder than Vanilla WoW Raids. Personally I can compare my current experiences my experiences in the latter and in those - and up to TBC's raids - my guilds were very succesful. Disappointments, nights that no bosses went down, were rare. In SWTOR I haven't been able to finish either Operation in normal mode. Operation teams from my guild have done so, but none in which I have been, and it hasn't even been close. The one time I took part in a HM Operation was pure slaughter.

[Oldgrimm]

Haeso, you could bother to look my post up, instead of throwing questions to that guy.

 

You make adventurous claims, and dont even bother to defend yourself. I find this lack of proper argumentation, mildly amusing.

It is hard to compress the failure of WAR into several sentences.

But, a PvP player is not satisfied only with a "PvP friendly" labeled MMO.

It has to be "PvP friendly" within, in combination with a finished MMO-base and all the little features all of us are accustomed to.

Regarding WAR, yes there was "PvP friendly" within at first. But, the whole MMO-base was missing. Beginning with the outdated (but very hardware needy) graphics, over the plethora of bad design / balance and development decisions and ending with the destruction of the working PvP system.

And because of these wrong decisions WAR failed.

 

As a dedicated PvP player myself, I can only say, that we very well know, what we want to see in a MMO.

Up until now, the PvP players were treated like the ginger haired stepchild by the MMO-developers and that it the wrong way.

A PvP player wants more, than 3 WZs and a unfinished and uninspired OpenPvP planet and I am glad, that the PvP base at whole shows signs, that we arent that easily satisfied as the developers thought we would.

 

GW2 will be a next good shot (after I played the Beta weekend) and it will draw the PvP base in.

Edited May 18, 2012 by LexiCazam
IC - reply/quote

[Oldgrimm]

I wonder have you even played the game?

 

No, I am paying 15$ / month to post in these forums.

 

Elaborate yourself why SWTOR Operations would not be harder than Vanilla WoW Raids. Personally I can compare my current experiences my experiences in the latter and in those - and up to TBC's raids - my guilds were very succesful. Disappointments, nights that no bosses went down, were rare. In SWTOR I haven't been able to finish either Operation in normal mode. Operation teams from my guild have done so, but none in which I have been, and it hasn't even been close. The one time I took part in a HM Operation was pure slaughter.

 

 

So you cleared Naxx40 in vanilla WoW? And you are really holding on to your claim, that normal SWTOR OPs > Vanilla WoW?

Really? Please, because I was in one of the very very few guilds, which cleared Naxx40 (after statistics only 4% of the guilds in WOW cleared the Naxx content in Vanilla) back then and I have to say, that this was the hardest PvE experience I had so far. (And I played WoW in the endgame PvE up until the T11 content)

And the difficulty jump in the SWTOR OPs from normal to HM was not even recognizeable. Only nightmare was slightly harder.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Oldgrimm

[Haeso]

Haeso, you could bother to look my post up, instead of throwing questions to that guy.

 

I did look your post up, it was completely insubstantial just like this one was, what a surprise!

 

You can go "affront" yourself for all I care if your idea of debate is to simply ignore it. If you cannot figure out that the questions were not aimed at him I'm not sure what to say, I think I'd rather assume you're simply ignoring the argument rather than incapable of figuring that one out.

 

The absurdity of dismissing an entire playerbase because of two failed games is a joke, almost as much of a joke as you. Those games didn't fail because of the playerbase they attempted to engage - they failed because they were bad games.

 

Lemme throw a few examples that mimic your own logical fallacy and lets see if you can figure out why. How about I say nobody should make a fantasy MMO because WAR failed. Or nobody should make a Super Hero MMO because DCUO failed. Or nobody should make a STAR WARS MMO BECAUSE SWG FAILED.

 

Your entire argument is but words in the wind, it is nothing.

Edited May 18, 2012 by LexiCazam
IC - reply/quote

[Nyoro]

I can think of a few things that are killing SWTOR.

 

1-Story: The main selling point of the game, few people are willing to deny that this mmo has a stellar story compared to the rest of them. The main problem is that SWTOR forces the story on the player while making every thing else a nightmare. Not all mmo players care for story believe it or not, some just want to do some quests on tatooine, do some open world PvP and then do a flashpoint and this game makes it very difficult to do the latter. It takes far too long to get about on the planets as well, most players don't like having to run back and forth the quest hubs to get their rewards.

 

2-PvP: I doubt this game was ever marketed as a PvP game but the simple fact is there are alot of players that enjoy some competitive PvP along with their PvE side. I'm not going to sugar coat it, PvP is in a very dire state at the moment. You can spend hours playing it and lose every match to premades thanks to the lack of ranking or a system to separate the pugs from the premades. Most people won't stand for it, they should not be forced to join a premade just to have a chance. World PvP is all but dead aswell which is just plain bizarre considering Mythic have been working on this game.

 

3-Group Content: The biggest peeve for me is this games group content. It's such a pain in the *** doing quests with other people on this because of the structure of the planets. Would it hurt to implement a system that allows players to quickly travel to the same location as each other with out running for ages and having to witness 3-4loading screens?? I for one am going to be seriously disappointed if group finder doesn't transport the users to the location of the quests. I'm not sure why open parties and public quests are missing from a 2011 mmo either

 

 

 

 

I'm sure there's plenty of other reasons.

[Pompeia]

There are several things that dont kill it but dont add to the overall fun. I'll name a few that make me frawn:

 

3 or more npcs that look exactly the same placed on the same group, to populate the area. Followed by another 2 or 3 that look exactly the same, on the group next to this one. It looks slopy. We see them in areas like drumond kas or coruscant, wich doesnt leave a very positive first impression.

 

Mobs that go anti exploit mode and evade all our attacks, even though we are in front of them. We see plenty of those on Balmorra, specialy near the factory (if i'm not mistaken) and on the Taz on Hoth, to name a few.

 

Class quests that force players to get help from a friend. The elites are often too strong, thus we dont feel any sense of achievement after we defeat them because we lose our braging rights. One fine example of this is the last boss of the class quest (at least for the sith). If it takes 2 people to get it down, the braging lines of our char afterwords completely lose its meaning.

 

Lack of side track nice stuff to do. I often lose time in other games getting fluff stuff like furniture for my house or new mounts. Here I would work on getting orange gear, but since it would not have an augment slot, I dont feel motivated.

 

Disorientation regarding Legacy. On a early stage, my friends and I decided to make Empire in one server, Republic in the other, so we could try the classes we wanted and have all crafts. For example, Powertech and Mercenary, because they are both atractive, or Marauder Juggernaut. With the launch of 1.2, I feel i'm losing the buffs and racial options (zabrak empire options that i would prefer to use on my jedi). Since I dont know if we are getting more slots or if will ever become cross server, I dont know if i will erase 4 of my empire characters. I dont feel like playing the Republic because I dont know if I will play there or not, if I will erase what I would be playing atm or not.

 

Lvl 50 content. I would like to do normal mode flashpoints, but there are not groups for it. I would like to do HM but even though I have all purple mods from dailies, I dont have the Matrix Cube (mine would require tatooine baloon jump and so far I could not be bothered getting it). So I dont have base minimum of 1200 strengh, I only do buffed. Since this isnt my first mmo I know in advance people will moan about my DPS, so I have absolutly nothing to do on that char anymore. I also dont have pvp gear, parcialy because I dont fancy pvp, parcialy because when I do have the mats, I spend my hard earned credits raising my crew skills. Wich leaves me close to broke.

 

The maintenance times. Regardless of how less impact they may think the chosen hours are, it does impact my play time and my mood.

 

Nice events that reward stuff we cant use. In my guild none finished the plague, not because it wasnt interesting but because grinding for social light gear was less fun then login off and going out in real life. A BH in my guild was starting it, moved all is purples to the boots before i told him it was social gear. He was bored because he didnt realise before and wasted hes money removing the purples, wich he had to do all over again at great cost.

 

There are plenty of positive things about this game too, but those are some of the things that are killing swtor for me.

[Goretzu]

Then why does DaoC have an estimated 25 000 subscribers, if it's the paradise of PvPers? Why not 250 000? Why isn't Bioware-Mythic doing DaoC 2? Why is WAR almost dead with it's world RvR?

 

Because PvPers speak one thing and do another.

 

Because it is ancient.

 

When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not.

 

Will SWTOR have 25,000+ subs in 11 years time? Plus Mythic did a lot right with vannilla DAoC, but they certainly made their mistakes with some expansions.

 

Warhammer Online actually has the best PvP mechanics around these days (both in balance and in scale - it can handle 400 vs 400 before the servers crash), but it doesn't have DAoCs 3 factions which is a huge flaw.

[TheRealBowser]

Here's my bottom line before I leave this hive of scum and villainy.....

 

If you had any common sense,all the games in the pipe even GW2 and a game thats not even a MMO D3 will have a vast list of angry barbarians claiming it sucks and they hyped it to much. TOR was not so much hyped by BW but by people who assumed it would be just like Wow content wise in size and lazy features to ease grind. the fact remains now that those common features Wow has are still not in, people think the game is fail.

 

All the players leaving are mainly comprised of people who think BW should add all the nice little features Wow has. it's easy for me to say..."let them go good riddens" But in truth the money they pay each moth helps support the game.

 

Now sad part is like my days in SWG..When enough leave,the developers will start adding those features like Wow.

 

When they start doing this they start to loose the support of the main player base who support them and in turn, they alienate those subscribers.

 

I love the game. But I also won't make the mistake i did when i rallied in hate against sony becuase of the NGE. if we had stayed and made intelligent post, instead of threating to murder the devs and smed's family like a bunch of idiots. they might have not been so stubborn and contiued with the greatest gutting in MMO history.

 

So my bottom line is to stick it out. Sure BW needs to add/fix many thing's. But man I'll be damed if I will ever go to a MMO that doesn't have fully voiced quest and no cinematics.

 

Star Wars Galaxies was an entirely different game, and it was completely butchered to try and steal WoW players.

 

This game is extremely similar to World of Warcraft, all it is missing are quality of life changes and convenience additions. Some of them would be too much and dumb down the game, most of them would drastically improve the game.

 

LFG interface, for instance, would make worlds of difference. At this point, I am fully convinced cross-realm LFG would benefit this game more than it would drag it down -- there are no server communities to speak of, the only bad thing that can come of it are silent groups and ninja looting. Bad things, for sure, but for a game that has its population dwindling, the benefits would far outweigh what little bad things could come of it.

 

Dual specs would make life so much easier. Just yesterday, I was in a group with 1 tank and 3 healers because we couldn't find any DPS. There have been plenty of time where we spent 30 minutes looking for the elusive tank or healer, too. Dual specs would all but eliminate that problem, and help players have PVE and PVP specs as well, among so many other advantages. Improving companions to be able to assume player roles a little more closely would also help similarly.

 

There is a lack of content besides "grind missions/flashpoints/operations/warzones". Legacy was a massive step in the right direction, but it was just one step. Bioware will need to do more than that. Sabacc, pazaak, achievements, there are so many things they could add to make things more fun. Unique rewards to work closer towards each day (besides boring, generic upgrades).

 

Really, in my biased opinion, the single biggest thing that's dragging SW:TOR down is that Bioware is not providing enough quality of life features that the mast majority of MMO players have grown accustomed to, and that there is not enough to do besides basic gameplay grinding.

 

SW:TOR is an amazing game. This game has all the basic content it needs. Here are some basic ideas that would help this game regain its edge (in no particular order):

 

1. LFG interface for flashpoints and operations.

2. Dual specs.

3. Stronger companions (to help with lack of players).

4. Tuning all heroics to be 2 or 2+, so that they can be completed in small groups. (If #3 is done, this might not be completely necessary)

5. Cross-server content. (it has drawbacks to be certain, but now that servers are losing players, this becomes more and more of a necessity each passing day to maintain enjoyable content)

6. More content to do that isn't basic gameplay. Improved space content, 'hobby' professions/crew skills, improved legacy, Star Wars card games like Sabaac or Pazaak, and so on.

 

These are just a few basic ideas that would improve this game. The thing dragging this game above all else, ironically, is Bioware's fear of making this game too much like WoW. This has already been done. What little things they are against right now are dragging down the game. They need to make decisions before this game is too wounded to recover. Just like people have been saying, when someone quits, more people follow. The lack of players is largely effecting the quality of the game.

 

SW:TOR is an amazing game. It would be a shame if it died. I decided to play 1.2 for their 2 month offer. If Bioware decides to make intelligent changes for the betterment of this game, if I see this game's future become brighter and more hopeful, I will gladly stick around to help Bioware in their goals (even if they don't meet them as quickly as I would hope).

 

For now, I am largely playing SW:TOR as a single player game with an ingame chat room, and I am okay with this. It's a good, enjoyable game, but I will eventually get bored again and move on. I will not be upset if nothing changes, or if I quit permanently -- I definitely, absolutely got my money's worth from this game. Though, based on the other half of Bioware's existence (Mass Effect & Dragon Age), if I quit on SW:TOR, I will likely give up on the company entirely.

 

Again, it would be a shame if a game this polished, this immersive, would die because of a simple lack of basic functionality and features.

[rjkishida]

the dev team is killing swtor. their idiot decisions are killing the game. their failed code is killing the game. their poor QA is killing the game. EVERYTHING leads back to the dev team.

[Skirata_Kal]

No, I am paying 15$ / month to post in these forums.

 

 

 

 

So you cleared Naxx40 in vanilla WoW? And you are really holding on to your claim, that normal SWTOR OPs > Vanilla WoW?

Really? Please, because I was in one of the very very few guilds, which cleared Naxx40 (after statistics only 4% of the guilds in WOW cleared the Naxx content in Vanilla) back then and I have to say, that this was the hardest PvE experience I had so far. (And I played WoW in the endgame PvE up until the T11 content)

And the difficulty jump in the SWTOR OPs from normal to HM was not even recognizeable. Only nightmare was slightly harder.

 

Though I'm satisfied with the difficulty in TOR and always roll my eyes at those who said "Wrath is to easy" (while posting on toons with no heroic achieves), I have to agree with you about Naxx40. I didn't get to do Naxx40 during Vanilla, but my horde guild during BC went in there as 70's with T5 and up gear just for something different. Let me say, any group of 60's that took that down has my respect! The problem of course, is that it doesn't make good business sense for devs to put alot of work into something that such a small percentage of the population experiences. I don't think TOR Ops are a cakewalk for the average player like some would imply, but If someone is saying TOR Ops are harder than Vanilla WoW's raids...nope, not true by a long shot. Then again, I consider it a good thing that they are not.

[Oldgrimm]

Though I'm satisfied with the difficulty in TOR and always roll my eyes at those who said "Wrath is to easy" (while posting on toons with no heroic achieves), I have to agree with you about Naxx40. I didn't get to do Naxx40 during Vanilla, but my horde guild during BC went in there as 70's with T5 and up gear just for something different. Let me say, any group of 60's that took that down has my respect! The problem of course, is that it doesn't make good business sense for devs to put alot of work into something that such a small percentage of the population experiences. I don't think TOR Ops are a cakewalk for the average player like some would imply, but If someone is saying TOR Ops are harder than Vanilla WoW's raids...nope, not true by a long shot. Then again, I consider it a good thing that they are not.

 

True, but I have another theory.

A MMO needs the hardcore fraction. They are the theory-crafters the math crunchers and they give us a good competition.

The hardcore player gives a purpose for the average player. If you cant keep the hardcore player, because your content gets cleared too easy, they get bored and leave.

If a game has no hardcore player, the average player has therefore no competition to beat and gets bored too.

Life is about competition in every way.

 

Never asked yourself, why the Blizzard games are so successful? They are very easy to learn and everybody can step in fast. But, they also give a hardcore player a good challenge.

Diablo 3 will be a good example for this. (and WoW is too)

 

 

SWTOR is too easy, because a dedicated guild of average players can clear the SWTOR nightmare OPs. (And Soa is only a challenge, because this encounter is heavily bugged)

So there was no challenge for the hardcore player in SWTOR. (Yes, I know, that this game was never intended for the hardcore player, but this was the biggest fault in SWTOR made by the developers)

 

People are constantly looking for a challenge and I dont see this in SWTOR.

[patjd]

Nothing.

 

The game isn't dying.

 

Every MMO has fluctuations in subscriptions.

 

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Move along.

[Uthinkle]

Ok after reading most of the stuff here i can say that most of the comments are valid and i have to say my view.

 

Game as a MMO is at best OK. But there are things that are missing.

For one thing that i as a player miss the most is a SENSE of achievement. Yes and in all games i played so far that is a major problem in this game. The only game so far that i had and (you might laugh) still have overwhelming sense of achievment is EQ1. Yes its an old game, yes the graphics are lightyears behind compared to swtor but it has something that no other game has. Not even wow, eq2, Aion, Rift has and that is epic encounters that give such rewards that only few can obtain. And speaking of encounters yes they are well thought off hard and exeptionally long to bring down. Raids of 70 people fighting one encounter for an hour if no wipes is an exhausting and very interesting and if u bring it down it just rewards u in best possible way, unique items sense of accomplishment and above all bragging rights.

 

Here there is no such thing. High end content cleared in 4 months after release is a joke. Of course u will have people bored because mmo is supposed to keep u pushing yourself towards getting something few have. And here we have all raiding guild members wearig same stuff looking the same if u dont count in faces and races.

 

Another thing is the world. Why create a wordls that u run through while lvling and never go back again??? There are no noticable contested mobs that would give a challenge to well organized guilds. In the end u get to 50, you make a run through instanced raids you get gear u can get in few weeks and then your life turns into the sitting in fleet, roaming around braindead while waiting for WZ pop.

 

Why not have open area mobs where u draw a croud while pulling the boss just so they check out your pulls or have open contested areas for factions where u secure your right to kill a mob. The factions play on same server and only interactions between us are warzones. Give me a break, it is like we live in BUBBLES each faction for itself

 

These are just few points.

[Kendaric]

What will eventually kill the game for me are the rigid classes with their weapon limitations (a bounty hunter can't shoot a blaster rifle/carbine? Why exactly?) and the utter lack of non-combat activities and sandbox features.

[Gargion]

So... random comment. Heard that Zenimax is making an Elder Scrolls MMO...

[HellbirdIV]

I get the impression people are spoiled by World of WarCraft and expecting TOR to be now at the same tier that WoW is now... 8 years into its run.

 

I guess the lack of interesting 50+ content is a big minus as well, but they've been trying to remedy that in the most recent patches so I don't see why people complain :/